Excellent build there john, you have done a really good job on her.
Keep up the good work.

Thanks, I bought flickering yellow candle LED's so they all flicker independently. Then I ground them down and made them look like little lanterns. The wiring runs to two all thread rod posts through the bottom of the keel, so one post carries positive and the other negative. I drilled out the base posts, so not only is the ship powered through the posts but I now have totally hidden wiring and a very strong way to mount the ship to the eventual case. I'll post some pictures later.

Guys, the craziest thing ever happened to me. My wife took me on a mystery trip for our anniversary. She took me to the US Naval Academy Model Ship Museum.

http://www.usna.edu/Museum/rogers.htm

She thought they had "some model ships". As it turns out they have the second largest period ship collection after the Royal Navy museum in England. I saw over 50 of the best model ships that were ever built. Most built within 2-3 years of the actual ships. It was crazy!

Now here's the best part. I was going down to the gift shop in the basement of the museum and noticed a window to their model building / restoring department. I was telling my wife how absolutely cool it looked, and this guy hanging around in the hall says to me " do you want to go in and have a look around"? I almost crapped my pants. The guy "Jack" heads up the restoration and building dept. He gave me a tour of their shop and personally talked to me for well over an hour. I told him I was building the Surprise and asked him all about rigging since I want to do it perfectly.

He showed me a HENRY CULVER model they were restoring and showed me all the tricks and tips of how he rigged it. In his opinion, no one has ever had a better technique and method..... and now I know how he did it. I am definitely going to make my own ropes, etc now. I couldn't possibly do less.

What was really encouraging to me is that after looking at all the ships there I determined this:

1. The vast majority of the ships that are there are way better than I could ever hope to build.

2. My build is no better than any of the ones at the museum.

3. There are a few ships there that are no better than mine in terms of quality or detail. That final point made me feel super happy since it is the second most world famous display of period ships out there. My perseverance is paying off slowly but surely.

Jack asked for my e-mail and is going to send me some additional tips and info to do this right. If I have a guy that restores and works on ships valued at up to 2 million dollars helping me out, how can you go wrong. To actually touch a HENRY CARVER model is beyond my wildest dream. To touch a piece of history like that is just amazing.

Jack also told me that with the limited records and blueprints available on a lot of these builds that they do (as well as restorations), that a lot of poetic license is used since there basically is no choice. They do massive amounts of research, but at the end of the day when you've exhausted every avenue of research, you have to make some educated guesses. So don't worry, your guess could be just as good as anybody's on the Surprise.

I am super excited now to build the crap out of this thing as perfectly as possible even more so than before. Also, some of these restorations take years, so don't get discouraged or rush anything. Only work at the speed to do it right! My head's still spinning.... WOW!

From what I can see it looks very good,but could you possibly edit them down in size to around 600x450 please so thatwe don't have to scroll for hours,,,quite easy to do in photobucket just save over original & you dont even have to change the links.Thanks

Thanks for the resize.
Looks really good from where i'm sitting

Fantastic looking build Johncal

Nice work John and keep the photos coming

A really good build, nice detail Kind regards Mike

Supberb work on the hull, Quite impressive, very good indeed

a lovely ship and very useful tip,thanks.