Hey Steve,
>I know there are copies of Russell's Opus in various places on this
>planet. I hope some day that someone will copy them and reproduce those
>BEAUTIFUL plates for all to see again.
I located a copy at Cushing Memorial Library, College Station in Texas. They can not take any copies and photographs are not allowed to be taken inside the Library. A friend of mine might be able to try something but this is a vague chance and anything he will do is a huge favor anyway.
I once talked to a person who told me he owns the three volume book but he doesn't plan on taking photos of the plans. His reaction was rather rude when I asked very carefully if he could do some photographs for me, even if not 100% professionally and I'll even pay good money for them. Can you believe that?
I even heard about a well kept set of GE plans from I.K. Brunel himself - nobody knows where. But this might have been a myth.
The plans appearing in the book "Brunel's ships" have the Spar (main) deck too fat in relation to the lines and frames plan. It might be a problem of distortion that occured during copies/photographic reproduction. Be careful NOT to use the Spar plan but the lines plan when scratchbuilding the hull. It even contains the planned steam launches that never came to being. I do my scratchbuilt hull-in-progress from the lines/frames plan and it looks very convincing so far. Most GE plans (most likely) from the JSR book are available at the NMM, Greenwich.
Best
Christian