This is my first attempt at building a model sailing ship and if anyone else is out there that's new to the game and wants to share tips and techniques, then let me know.

After doing some research I decided to go with an American company as the instructions are supposedly at lot easier to follow than the Europeans.

I picked the Armed Virginia Sloop from Model Shipways and started the project on Jan 1, 2008.
The kit was described as "entry level" which made me think it was for beginners. On opening the box, I had to wonder about the definition of entry level as there were 7 sheets of detailed plans, and the instruction book seemed to take for granted that I would understand terms like chamfer and bevel. I've never done woodworking or modeling before and this stuff all looked like a foreign language to me.