ok so this is my first attempt at building a couple ships, i'm pretty slow at it but it is going good so far
now i need to order some internals and do the bottom of the ships. i will also probably be ordering a carrier kit this weekend. i just wanted to try and build some easier stuff before i got into cutting on a expensive combat fiberglsss hull. but so far all is going good
As a battleship operator, I approve of this logic and officially endorse the mass production of these ships. And in other all seriousness, these look great! Ribs look good, build quality looks good... nice and rigid. Looking forward to seeing them sheeted and painted!
i will hopefully be able to go and get more material this weekend and order the internal components i need
As a builder who has built two different ships in sets of four (a set of smaller transports and the VUs) I can say that it has a lot going for it. It is very easy to glue two pieces together and produce two parts for a single cut. Once you have the cut made, it's not hard to go back and do it a second time. It gives you a bit of room to play with slight variations. If you didn't like the planking the first time around and have a different idea, try it and see, then use the better idea on the last two. When I built my sets of ships, I was working with a garage of people, and the three of us split the work up and contributed ideas, resulting in better brainstorming sessions and more available labor that produced a better boat faster. We then sold the fourth boat (actually, someone bought into each project while under construction) to help defray the costs of tooling. Once completed, we were able to compare performance between the boats and make key refits to improve reliability and reduce maintenance. It really takes me back, seeing the Mehoshi Maru being built again. Carl designed it as an extra project back in 2005 at UC Davis, and was our first attempt at designing a boat from scratch (we'd refit used ships, but never built a new one). Some of the major design elements were key damage control improvements based on observations of the Mehoshi Maru in the WWCC. We never built one though. We had enough wood for two 36" Mehoshi Marus, or for four 24" tramp steamers. We chose to do the tramp steamers as our first project., which worked out better with the materials we had. I'm glad to see the design being used, and especially four at once. I heartily approve!
i am really enjoying this build so far. i used the plans i got to cut out the templates for the first Maru then used those templates to make the parts for the other 3, it went really fast this way i probably only have 4 hours into all 4 ships at this time and so far they look to be going together well. i just put in a decent size order to battlers connection for a lot of the components i will need to finish these boats. i also just bought a Bogue class carrier kit which will be my only allied ship, as i'm going all axis
