Stephen. It doesn’t have to be difficult with a bit of lateral thinking.

Depends if you are a man who can do his own plan or a man who just builds to someone else’s?

Someone once said there are more HMS Victories sold/started/half finished than actually finished.

I have a Mantua Victory (the 500mm long one) in a box (well meaning gift) which I shall probably never even look at let alone fiddle with.

Ashley. Snap…easy ship-of-the-line

Hi Stephen,

If I understand your post correctly, you want to scratch build a static model of a sailing man-o'war of the larger sort, i.e. a ship of the line from the 1700's (which, given your mention of the Victory, I suppose might inlcude the Napoleonic Wars era).

This would of course a pretty ambititious build, and I sincerely hope that lockdown will be but a long-past memory by the time you finish it, but there's nothing inherently impossible about it; where there's a will, there's a way.

Firstly, as most of the people (active) on this forum tend to be more interested in (a) more recent prototypes, and (b) the r/c side of the hobby, I suspect it might be worth your while for you to check out an American forum, called Model Ship World (see **LINK**) which, I believe, has a centre of interests much more in the direction you are looking at.

Then a quick search of the list of plans published by Brown, Son & Ferguson in Glasgow threw up a set of Harold A. Underhill plans for a c. 1813 74-gun two-decker (see **LINK**). Please note that the link is only to the first of a total of seven plans, so at £10 per plan, it is not exactly inexpensive stuff. On the other hand, it is a set of Underhill plans, and there were few better than Harold A. Underhill when it comes to plans (and he was a top-notch model builder, too), so likely to be worth the money if you want an ambitious build.

For even more money, there are also a number of publications available from SeaWatch Books in the US, that provide not only plans but also very detailed build descriptions by contemporary masters of this type of build, see **LINK**.

Finally, another possible source of plans is the Brunel Institute at the S/S Great Britain Museum in Bristol. They hold the David McGregor collection of more than 7,000 plans, a list of which is available on their website (see **LINK**). For a fee, they are happy and willing to provide scanned copies of most of those plans (exceptions may apply for very fragile material).

Good luck with your build,

Mattias

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Without wishing to pour cold water on your intentions, it is rarely a good idea to dive in at the deep end before you have learned to swim. It almost always ends in frustration.

Plans in themselves are not enough, to build successfully at tis level you need a good understanding of the techniques as well, plus practice to put them into effect.

On the reading side, Keith Julier's book is a good starting point.

**LINK**

You say you don't want a kit but actually kits are a good way to get to grips with the building techniques and kits of period ships are certainly not just a matter of sticking parts together, you need to learn to plank, carve and rig as well.

There are a number of ships in Jotika's 'Nelsons Navy' range and the smaller ones such as the brig Sherbourne are a good introduction before tackling something more ambitious.

**LINK**

**LINK**

Colin