SHIP PLANS!!!

[Bruce Foxworthy]

I would so like to build ships of scale and detail but for whatever reasons, I'll be frosted scuppers, trying to find really thorough plans on the internet? I think I'm doomed to just build generic because I have to guess so much about the ships I'd like to historically model. If you guys have a "GO TO", reference, then I'd like to be clued in. I bought the book, The Story of Sail and it's really just a teaser in a way not very many real plans. Anyway I'm just bitching here cause I'm so frustrated with it all. Like for example try and find the build plans for Henry Hudson's "Half Moon".?? so I'm thinking I'll buy plasic models of ships and use those for details?? How do you guys do this stuff anyway??

Regards Bruce

[DSiemens]

Bruce,

  Depends on how deep you want to go.  I like Story of sail cause it gives good hull lines and rigging lines.  When it comes to deck furniture there's not a lot of information.  So I place it where I think things would be and from comparison with other models.  It at least gives the hatch layout so you know where not to put things.  

 The best place for true historical plans is probably the Greenwich Museum website.  Most of those plans are late 1700's frigates.  It would be an intensive build but the plans are original.  Now some of the plans aren't complete.  Like there maybe hull plans but not rigging plans.  Thing about rigging is it was done pretty much the same and my understanding is captains would decide do what they wanted with rigging so it may have varied slightly captain to captain. So I don't sorry to much on the rigging end.  Mast and yard arm lengths followed formulas based on the hull of the ship.  The Rigging of Ships: in the Days of the Spritsail Topmast, 1600-1720 by R.C. Anderson has the formulas for the time periods it covers.  That's what makes the book so technical.  Once you figure out what is where in the book it becomes a great reference guide.  It doesn't quite help you with the later time period generally found on Greenwhich though.  

Probably your best bet if you want all the details is the anatomy of a ship series.  Now I'm not overly familiar with it but from what I've seen they have done the historical research to prove out the whats what of the ship they discuss.  I think they include plans.  You may have to take the dimensions and draw your own though.  Or take a picture and resize it.  That's what I usually do.      

[MickyK]

Hi Bruce, 

I recently bought the plans for HMB Endeavour from this site. They look detailed enough for a small model.

http://www.bestshipmodels.com/

Or you could have a look at,

john-tom.com

Cheers

Mick

 

[Onni]

Quite a few historical ship plans/drawings here Bruce

http://www.shipmodell.com

[IgorSky]

13 hours ago, Bruce Foxworthy said:

 Like for example try and find the build plans for Henry Hudson's "Half Moon".

Hi Bruce!
Please, write to me your email - I wiil send to you plans of Half Moon.

[exwafoo]

Hi Bruce, All

Finding plans can be a pain. I've built up a small library over the years of books that have plans in them. I've obtained most of these books from second hand bookshops on line at a reasonable cost. I've enclosed a list of some to look out for.  If you cannot find any second hand copies, then check out https://www.skipper.co.uk/ (Brown, Son & Ferguson) where reprints of the H Underhill books are available, as well as most of his plans (fill size), and his plans are very detailed indeed.

Brown, Son & Ferguson also publish 'Ship Models in Glass'

Beware of some reprints advertised on a large multinational on line site named after a very large South American river. My wife bought me some reprints from here last Christmas. The 'plans' had been reduced to the size of one page and were for the most part illegible. Returned and refunded.

Also beware some of the 'free' plans sites. A lot of these are rip offs of other people's plans and require a sign up for a 'free trial'.

The enclosed list does not give ISBN for all of them. I don't think it was used on the copies I have when they were printed. Hope its of some use to you.

Regards

Alan

Book list.doc

Edited October 29, 2019 by exwafoo
text addition

[Bruce Foxworthy]

Thanks so much guys for the leads and such. Onni I did buy and download the plans for Endeavour. I don't like the fact that the transaction of my credit card info was not secured. So I won't be using that site again. Aside from that the plans that are in my book "the story of sail" are almost the same if not a little better, but thanks all the same. Exwafoo, I'll be checking out your info and thanks for providing it to me to look at. Igor, Thanks for the Half Moon plans.

Regards all.

Bruce

[Jim Goodwin]

Like Alan,  most of the plans I use come from books.  I typically photocopy them to the scale I want to build.  Howard Chapelle books are good and can be found on ebay and often used book stores.  

Cheers

Jim

[Tubjugger]

  I've bought plans and scaled them with proportional dividers, but prefer to scale them from books using a printer. To keep things looking right, I cut out a scale sailor, measuring a fathom with out-stretched arms, and perch him at various locations as i go.

TJ