Just ran accross this site. Looks to be very comprehensive. http://koti.mbnet.fi/felipe/England/england.html
Moderator powers, ACTIVATE! The comment Greg made here was about legal solid area, moved to thread on rules discussion. Love and kisses, Moderator Tugboat
I have found www.all-model.com to be a good source of plans. They require scaling, but well usable and free.
A couple resources I've found so far ... www.kitebuilder.com is a good (and one of the few) kite building material places on the internet. Why kites? The cloth is ultralightweight and perfect for sails. They have ripstop nylon, but for the ultimate light weight no-stretch sail material look in the mylar section for Norlam PX0.75 (ripstop polyester). Heavier weight Norlam stuff is used in full size sailboat sails. www.bestshipmodels.com has a modest selection of ship plans. This is where I picked up a set of plans for a Spanish Xebec. Once paid for, the plans are downloadable. Doublecheck ship names ... Mike B got a set of plans of the Carolina that turned out to be the HMAS Carolina ... still a nice ship though. Heh.
Bestshipmodels.com is where I got my USS Constitution plans. They are incredible. Two complete, separate sets of plans, depicting the ship in two different time periods, for the price of one. And both sets are amazing. I've only printed off a few of the sheets in 1:48 scale, but there must be 15 different sheets included.
I got my russian 66 ship plans from them as well. Their site is a little flakey though. I knew they had the plans, but couldn't find them listed amywhere until I did a search for the word russian. But the plans are fantastic. Now I just need to find a printer big enough to print them out at 1:48 so I can just trace things.... The site works fine with the home computer, but on my blackberry not so much. Not the first time its not been so well.
Two more sources of information: Frigates of the Napoleonic Wars (by Gardiner, Naval Institute Press) - LOTS of historical info and drawings, including some plans with frames drawings. Not ready-to-go plans, but I know they'd be easily enough made to work. Eagle Seamanship, 4th Ed. (also Naval Institute Press) - Beyond a lot of specifics on handling the Barque Eagle, it has essentials for our nascent hobby: (Squarerigger)Sailing Theory, and Working the Ship (how to accomplish tacks, wears, boxhauls, and recovery). If you don't know what those mean (I learned new words!), it has a really good concise sailor's dictionary in the back. For $9 used on Amazon, it's hard to beat this one for increasing your combat power. What you could call a force multiplier. Best of all, it's written for new cadets at the USCG Academy, so it's not too bad to digest. This thread will continue to expand; This weekend I will be stickying a topic with the compiled list, organized for topic (plans, study, etc) and minus commentary, for ease of use.
A couple more ... Nice hull plans (free) at www.sjohistoriska.se/en/Collections.../Drawings/. I downloaded a french/english frigate plus two sets of plans for privateer frigates. If I can somehow figure out how to switch the privateer frigate plans to CAD for laser cutting, it would result in a generic hull that anyone can build. A searchable online plan database at www.orlogsbasen.dk/base.htm. I haven't been there yet (work blocks it), but the description is: "The subjects are original plans in the archives from the age of sail of Danish, Swedish, English and French ships - mostly from the 17th through 19th century."
Wealth of plans and info here: www.pyratesahoy.com/potc/Capt%20Armstrong/ Go up one directory and there's tons more stuff I haven't been able to peruse yet. Somebody should be downloading these plans as we find them for an AOS plans archive. Steve
It appears that just about every British ship plan can be found here: collections.rmg.co.uk/collections.h...ject-90660
Found this site on putting camber in your homemade sails. Valuable for me at any rate, I suspect for others as well. home.mindspring.com/~pmyc100/Sailmaking.htm
Here's a couple of incredible sets of plans, already in 1:48 scale: http://www.admiraltymodels.com/Plans.html Not cheap, and for small ships, but if you want a good set of plans...
A neat source of information on sailing warships. I found a very cool diagram of a Royal Navy chain pump (properly the envy of the world's navies at the time). http://www.sailingwarship.com/
http://www.ctbasses.com/misc/BruceTrinque/aubrey4.html This one has plans, but I find the size comparison to be the most fascinating. It's a pictoral listing of all the ships Jack Aubrey commanded, in scale. Really gives you a feel for the size of different ships and how they compared. Really shows how small HMS Surprise was compared to many other frigates.
Anyone ever have any issues with best scale models? I ordered a set of plans 6 weeks ago and I got the download version right away, but haven't seen the hard copies yet. According to the website, they say they ship hard copies within 10 days of the order. Am I reading it wrong? Anyone bought from them in the past and gotten or not gotten hard copies? I emailed them and asked, but haven't heard anything in a week. I just didn't want to pay to have them printed out if they were still coming. Thanks!
The spanish cebek plans I bought from them haven't arrived since they were ordered mid-December. I kinda figured they do download only now and don't ship paperplans. I never got around to asking them. Heh. Not a bad thing really, since most likely the plans will need resizing into the scale you want to build at.
Taubman Plans had many sailing ship plans. I sees he sold out to Loyalhanna, but they still market under www.taubmansonline.com The best book for construction is Introduction to Radio Controlled Scale Sailing Models by Phillip Vaughan Williams (Author).
I have some non-copyrighted ones. They are not very big tonnage wise. I think about 500t or so is the largest. Das Butts
