Building a model from scratch will be cheaper. Even if you buy the cannons or other parts from others, it still works out cheaper. Incidentally, people usually only buy the cannon barrels and threaded parts; a beginner can easily make the rest.
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HMS Agamemnon by Caldercraft
- Thread starter HMSFly
- Start date
- Watchers 38
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- Tags
- agamemnon caldercraft
Thank you for the compliment. This information is readily available but sometimes takes a little hunting, I just happen to love research as much as the build so have collected a list of websites and books over the years. The Steel scantlings are in his book The Elements and Practice of Naval Architecture, (pricey and hard to find at times) W.E. May's book The Boats of Men of War, and Scantlings of Royal Navy Ships by yours truly, the latter of which has scantlings for all sizes of British ships, not just boats, from the Establishments, The Shipbuilder's Repository 1788 and Steel's The Elements and Practice of Naval Architecture,
I downloaded the 800 high resolution RMG drawings from the Wikicommons site and categorized them in folders by number of guns, and of course there are many thousands in low resolution on the RMG site itself that are to scale. Even the low res plans are often good enough to use to measure things like the thwarts.
I also started collecting contracts of ships, some of which I have transcribed, many more that are still in their original form. There are a lot of contracts on the RMG site and I was VERY fortunate to receive others from a fellow research enthusiast from other sources. If I had enough years I would love to finish all the transcriptions and do a book of contracts.
After market items can be expensive but the producer needs to make a profit or there would be none for us to use. There are alternatives at times. For example, if you want highly detailed accurate cannon of the right size and appropriate pattern, and are OK with printed versus metal, they can be found for a low price. I have never paid over US$1 each, including domestic shipping for 1:64 scale guns.
Allan
Assuming you have the tools, based on my experience I totally agree with Igor that it will cost less and that includes using high quality materials such as Castello (Calycophyllum multiflorumor) or other good close-grained hardwoods instead of the awful open grained and brittle woods like sapele. If you do not have the tools needed, a high quality kit like MD is a good alternative or kit bashing a lower quality kit can work.
Allan
some pictures of the building proces : 32 ft pinnace 
Love the pinnace. I am guessing the tholes in the photo above are not yet fixed in place. That being the case, keep in mind that 18th century pinnaces were mostly (all) single banked. The photo above has half the thwarts with no thole and the others with two tholes, one port and one starboard like she was partially double banked.
Allan
32 foot pinnace
Allan
32 foot pinnace
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I based myself on the following plan. But I didn't understand what that plank there meant. And now I get it... I will place that plank and see how I can adjust the seats.
Stupid I am!
Not stupid at all. The drawing you show is a common style, showing only one side of the boat and the tholes only for the port side. The draftsmen assumed the boat yards knew there was a thole for every thwart. You are not alone. All the pinnace model kits from Vanguard, which is one of the better quality manufacturers, are wrong. I am sure it is due to not understanding the original drawings like the first one below. The second one is more clear in its presentation.
Allan
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