Scratch building strategy

[socalveteran]

I've completed three 18th century frigates from kits (the US privateer Rattlesnake, HMS Surprise, and USF Essex. I'm currently working on masts and spars of HMS Victory and just in the early stages of doing USS Constitution. I'll be done with Victory relatively soon and am thinking about the next stage in my modeling work. Essex was interesting because I unknowingly bought an admiralty kit, which had no masts and spars. With some research and some arithmetic, I scratch built those and finished a ship that looked like a ship, not a marketing tool to persuade decision-makers to buy the real thing.
For my next project I'd like to try a total scratch build. I'm assuming I can find plans on this site for a 1:78 scale 18th century frigate. I'll have a fair amount of material left over from my five completed ships, plus I thought I'd buy one or two of the most outrageously discounted ships by the companies who send me emails almost every day, just to get a bunch of parts of the right scale. Of course I could use the online plans to compose a parts list, but I kind of like the idea of combing through a couple of kits to find what I need.
Is this a nutty strategy? Comments welcome.

 

[DAWarden-(Jaager)]

Scratch is only expensive if you let it be.
The wise choice is to go in with minimal tool - all hand - and only buy additional tools as needed (PRN)
Power tools are about speed and convenience. It is better for your pocketbook if you earn the need.
The shaping of the parts can be done - were done for more than 200 years by using hand tools.

If the hook gets set and you develop to being scratch addicted:
The one place where power tools have no reasonable or practical hand tool alternative is being your own sawmill.
Initial machine expenses -high - on going saving are in the difference in lumber cost- and being able to get any size stock - when you want it - just by taking the time to do it. A shop with bench and floor space. The wise and lucky have their dust collecting vac in an outside location and use RF on-off.
Rather than let some kit company define your scale and wood species - do actual scratch.
Being US - you can consult with The Lumberyard for a set of milled stock.
Choose the proper species, stick with domestics, and avoid exotics - if you survive your initiation (>90% probably do not) - experience and reading will have you knowing which of the exotic species with undeserved cachet to try in the future.

Plans - For all but the very end of the 18thC. over here - it was the RN. The RN was our navy.
The number of guns does not a frigate make. A frigate has one full gun deck- plus smaller caliber junk on the half decks. They are also long and lean. The English were late to the game.
WIKI has free full size plans for RN frigates - some of them are:
wiki Coventry 28 1757
wiki Enterprise class 28 1774
wiki Flora class 32 1780
wiki Richmond class 32 1756
wiki Venus class 36 1758

For USN - from the S.I. $10 a sheet plus $5 S&H/12 pre- COVID
Just barely 18thC. - actually for all intents already 19thC.
Boston 1799
Chesapeake 1799
Essex 32 1799
Philadelphia 1799
President 1799
Randolph 1775
Virginia 1776
Given your interest - there is not valid excuse for not owning a copy of HASN. But never be so false in trying to save money as to try to use the book illustration direct. The book is a plans catalog for the S.I.
USS in the official name was not instituted until TR about 1900.

I think that a frigate is a very very very unwise choice for a first foray into genuine scratch building - the size and complexity almost guarantees a place in the 90%.

A ship's boat is a wise, low cost, and if it is equipment for a larger ship that you do build - something that you will have to produce anyway,

Then - schooner - or a brig - English: a cutter (carvel).

This whole scratch enterprise is a Dennis Moore situation.

 

[JacquesCousteau]

Scratch building can be very rewarding! A few thoughts:
1) I doubt you'll find many plans in 1:78 scale, but it's very easy to rescale whatever plans you do find to your preferred scale.
2) Is your goal a fully-framed, totally accurate model, or one of several simplifications (framed but with Hahn-style framing, plank-on-bulkhead, solid hull)?
3) There are plenty of sources for plans. There are hundreds of high-quality scans of original plans of Royal Navy vessels on wikimedia, and it's not hard to find similar types of plans for other navies (like Howard Chapelle's reconstructed plans of American ships). However, these plans will require a fair bit of work to turn into a model--especially if you want a framed model, but even if you go with POB or lifts, there are still many fittings and furnishings and other details that are not on the plans, so you'll have to look through books to figure out how to make those. There are also Ancre and Seawatch monographs, which are very useful if you're trying to do a framed model, but are expensive. Finally, there are some sets of detailed plans, for POB (Winchelsea) or POB or POF (Triton) at Dry Dock Modeler that are downloadable once you do enough posts on that forum.
4) I personally think trying to build a model wholly from scrap is going to cause a lot of unnecessary frustrations for very little gain. It's not that expensive to buy a few sheets of basswood or poplar in appropriate thicknesses to make POB framework or lifts, I'm not really sure how the framework could be made solely from scrap. As for sourcing fittings from kits, to some extent it depends on how accurate you want to be. Many kits have really out-of-scale or inaccurate cannons and other parts, up to you how much that matters to you. Not to mention that scavenging parts means that many may not match. I especially wouldn't buy a full kit just to get some parts, not with kit prices skyrocketing (many Model Expo kits now cost way more even with discounts than they did at standard price a few years ago), although I suppose ebay might work.

Edit to note: I now see that Dry Dock Modeler's Triton plans are just for a cross-section build, not the whole ship.

 

[fourseas]

With the experience you have with POB ship kits scratch building one would not be that difficult. The hardest part will be lofting the lines off of a good set of drawings to recreate your required bulk head sections, keel, stem and stern posts to all come together the way you want. Although not as plentiful, there are some plans available specifically for model building which already have a lot of these sections drawn out. All you have to do is transfer the lines to wood and start building. Using left over scraps from other projects might be alright for some areas of construction, but give yourself a fighting chance, purchase the wood you require to do a descent job.
Jim