Rating: 
Summary: Perfect it ain't, but very good it is
Review: After years of plastic and wooden airplane modeling, and having taken up sailing a while back, I decided I just HAD to build a wooden sailing ship, complete with planking, masting, rigging, the whole smash. To avoid the frustrating (and expensive) experience of learn-by-doing in a new medium, I decided to seek out and purchase a library of "how to" books on the subject, and managed to drain several "boat bucks" (one boat buck = 100 regular bucks) from my bank account in assembling a library of the most highly recommended tomes on the subjects of construction, detailing, rigging, etc. Each of the construction-related books I bought had something of value, but each was sadly lacking in describing the process clearly, and few had consistently clear photos and easily understood text. Most had slightly different ways of approaching the project, and none made me feel warm and fuzzy about turning an expensive box of wood strips, plans, and other bits and pieces into that masterpiece I still have no room to display (another story). Mastini came the closest, with clear, simple, logical instructions, sharing his experience with loads of useful practical hints and tips along the way. The book is reasonably well organized, has clear photos and drawings that are near the related text (some authors/editors seem to take some perverse delight in describing a very complex procedure and then referring the reader to "figure 4" which is found some six or eight pages from the text.... Argghhh!) The book includes an Italian-English nautical dicationary and English glossary of terms, useful for the Italian kits whose English translation is weak or non existant. Can't comment on its usefulness yet, but it seems like a nice touch. Anyway, to date, I have referred constantly to Mastini while assembling my Artesania Latina Harvey (hull construction, planking, bulwarks, decking, deck furniture). I like his plain, clear writing style, and the book has helped me avoid several major pitfals in the process, and helped me turn out a creditable first try so far. There are only two knocks I can give it (both minor). The first is that in each section, Mastini briefly outlines a series of steps to building the subject part of the boat. Cool! But... the text following the outline develops in a rather haphazard manner, not as an expansion of the outline. This caused me to continuously go back and forth between the text and the outline, trying to tie them together. Maybe I'm just too linear a thinker, but it was unnecessarily confusing, IMHO. The second is not really a knock on the book, and applies to most of the books I purchased. It seems that most of the techniques look so simple on the printed page are much more difficult to accomplish with hands and tools :) Perfect it ain't, but very good it is, and if I were to buy only one book for a project, this would be it.
Rating: 
Summary: excellent for beginners
Review: as im just starting out, about halfway through my first wood model. this was the first book i bought. it was very helpful, but much of what is in it is common sense. i havent gotten to the rigging though, so it may come in a lot more handy. it wont tell you all you need to know...but its a good book to have on hand.
Rating:
Summary: Essential for the beginner.
Review: I could not have completed my Endeavour successfully without this book
Rating: 
Summary: Good model ship building book
Review: Lacks many specifics for the beginner but has a lot of useful tips on construction from kits
Rating: 
Summary: Not worth the money
Review: Remove the Italian / English dictionary, use normal print instead of large print, and the book would be half its size. The hints and tips are somewhat lacking. A very big disappointment.
Rating: 
Summary: Good for new modelers but some methods are wrong.
Review: The book is easy to read and has lots of illustrations.
Good read for beginners. (Someone REALLY new to the hobby.) But, the methods described is not correct to the way real ships were built.
Since how accurately a modeler wants to model his/her ship is a matter of opinion, this book might suite the modeler. For example: planking.
The book describes how to taper a plank to a sharp point to fit all slots.
This was/is NOT the way real ships are built.
On the other hand, I've already built two ships this way before I learned the proper way to plank and the model ships still look very good. Wooden Model ship building is a hobby with vast depth and is very confusing for beginners.
Reference material for this hobby is just as confusing and vast. But their are better beginner books out their with proper methods.
Example: "How to build first-rate ship models from kits" For some reason I remember seeing very poor rating for this book. Maybe because it has lots of endorsement for a particular model maker? But still, I felt it was the best book for a beginner. The fact that you can get it free with a kit from a retailer makes the decision easy to handle. If you buy this book (Ship Modeling Simplified), just remember that the methods described in the book are all suspect.
I wan't very happy that I learned the incorrect method of building model ships from this book and had to re-learn the correct way.
Rating:
Summary: Good for new modelers but some methods are wrong.
Review: The book is easy to read and has lots of illustrations.
Good read for beginners. (Someone REALLY new to the hobby.) But, the methods described is not correct to the way real ships were built.
Since how accurately a modeler wants to model his/her ship is a matter of opinion, this book might suite the modeler. For example: planking.
The book describes how to taper a plank to a sharp point to fit all slots.
This was/is NOT the way real ships are built.
On the other hand, I've already built two ships this way before I learned the proper way to plank and the model ships still look very good. Wooden Model ship building is a hobby with vast depth and is very confusing for beginners.
Reference material for this hobby is just as confusing and vast. But their are better beginner books out their with proper methods.
Example: "How to build first-rate ship models from kits" For some reason I remember seeing very poor rating for this book. Maybe because it has lots of endorsement for a particular model maker? But still, I felt it was the best book for a beginner. The fact that you can get it free with a kit from a retailer makes the decision easy to handle. If you buy this book (Ship Modeling Simplified), just remember that the methods described in the book are all suspect.
I wan't very happy that I learned the incorrect method of building model ships from this book and had to re-learn the correct way.
Rating:
Summary: Simple and very useful
Review: This Book is of practical and direct use. Definitively it would recommend it for those that begin in the hobbie. It is simply a manual guided totally to obtain acceptable results without making the most common errors building a of wooden ship kit. I have bought several books of the topic but I remain with the impression that I should begin with this.
Rating:
Summary: An excellent guide for beginners
Review: This book provides very useful insights into planking a model ship from a kit. The book is better organized than many books on model ship building, but does not cover complete construction from start to finish, instead pinpointing specific areas of difficulty you are likely to encounter with a variety of models and kits. The book has several lists of tools and equipment for establishing beginner, intermediate, and advanced workspaces and also provides directions for designing several specialty tools that are quite useful. The illustrations throughout are very detailed.
Rating:
Summary: An excellent guide for beginners
Review: This book provides very useful insights into planking a model ship from a kit. The book is better organized than many books on model ship building, but does not cover complete construction from start to finish, instead pinpointing specific areas of difficulty you are likely to encounter with a variety of models and kits. The book has several lists of tools and equipment for establishing beginner, intermediate, and advanced workspaces and also provides directions for designing several specialty tools that are quite useful. The illustrations throughout are very detailed.
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