HMS Atalanta by tlevine - FINISHED - 1775 - 1:48 scale - from TFFM plans

[tlevine]

Not too much to show for this weekend's work  The weather has been so bad for the last several weeks that the garden called to me louder than the workshop.

 

 

 

I had just enough time to make the trail boards.  These are located between the upper and lower cheeks.  There is a hole through it for the gammoning.  On Atalanta there is a frieze painted onto it.   This show's two of Atalanta's apples.  On the Fly, the only other Swan class whose plans I have, there are two dragons on the trail board and the cheeks are decorated as well.  I left the starboard side unadorned and put the frieze on the port side.  The gap between the starboard trail board and the hull represents the thickness of the planking.  The frieze was made the same way the rest of the friezes were made, painted onto paper and then applied to the wood with a thin layer of glue.

 

 

[MEDDO]

 Wonderful garden and the frieze work looks great 

[Greg the peg leg sailor]

G'day Toni 

Great work on the freeze!

Your garden is absolutely beautiful! Is that statue of Our Lady of Fatima?

Havagoodone both in the shipyard and garden.

Greg 

[TomShipModel]

Toni,

 

 

Beautiful work.  The paintwork is very well done.

 

Tom

[tlevine]

Thanks, everyone.  Greg, the statue is a Chinese woman.  I know nothing about it other than one of our neighbors was throwing it out and I took it.

[MEDDO]

The best way to acquire stuff!

[Jeronimo]

Hello Toni,

good work.

Karl

[Charlie1805]

Hallo Toni

 

great ! Worldclass !

[tlevine]

I has been forever since my last post but I have two excuses.  The first (painful) reason I back in December I agreed to restore a clipper ship model for a friend.  Yes, I know..."just say no".  But I was suckered into it, not realizing that every stick needed work and every piece of rigging needed replacing.  Two hundred plus hours later I am done and can concentrate on Atalanta again.  

 

The second excuse is that the next items to make are the main rails of the head.  This has been the hardest part to fabricate, bar none.  They are not finished yet and they are far from perfect but so far I have put in over 40 hours over the last month trying to get them as close to OK as I can.  The first step is to develop the shape for the main rail.  TFFM describes how to make a projection drawing from the plans.  Once the shape of the rail had been roughly determined, I made a template and fit this to the model.  I used cardstock which, in retrospect, was not stiff enough.  After the final shape is determined, the individual pieces must be cut out.  The main rail is comprised of five scarfed pieces.  There is a lining to the main rail which is made of three scarfed pieces.  First I made the main rail and then the lining was made by gluing the pieces directly onto the main rail.  This is the easiest part of the whole process. 

 

Now comes the real fun.  There is a reasonably complex molding cut into the main rail.  In addition, the rail tapers in width and thickness so the molding changes continuously along the rail. Finally, scrapers work best on a straight line, not on a curved object.  I made two scrapers, one for the aft third and one for the middle third of the rail.  The fore end of the rail was cut in with micro-chisels and needle files.  I spoiled a few rails before I finished two that look reasonable.  Since the port and starboard rails are mirror images, the whole scraping motion is different on the two sides.   There are two step-downs on the aft part of the rail.  The first one goes down to the level of the rail without the planksheer and the second is where the molding starts.

 

 

 

The ascending (aft) portion of the main rail is supposed to be perpendicular to the water line and the fore end blends into the top of the hair bracket.  You notice that I say "supposed to".  This is where I have gotten into a little trouble.  I believe my template was not stiff enough and the angle of rise of the tapering end was not great enough.  Consequently, my ascending portion is not quite perpendicular.  After so many hours of work, the thought of redoing them was more than I could handle.  The aft end of the rail has a score in it for the cathead.  Two drill holes are placed after temporarily gluing the pieces in place.  Later these holes will accept wire bolts for security.

 

 

 

 

 

The next step is to make the timberhead, now that I have the height correct.

[druxey]

Each time you re-make a part, it gets quicker.... Just sayin'.

[TomShipModel]

Hi Toni,

The rails look fine.  I can appreciate your frustration.  I've made rails a number of times.  I appreciate that you followed the prototypical methods.  However, I found a method that worked well for me.   After making a template using card, I make a mold.  I then laminate thin strips over the mold.  The strips are the width of the widest section of the rail.  The thin strips take the bend very easily and the wood glue between them, once cured, holds the curve.  Then, I shape and scrape the piece to get the decoration etc.  If you use boxwood cut from the same stock piece, and get the glue joint tight,  you will not be able to pick up that it was laminated unless you view it under very high power magnification.  I came to this method after I observed casing for a curved top window that was intended to be stained.  You really had to look very closely to see that it was laminated from several strips.   

 

I'm sure that you don't want to redo these again, but there are two more thinner rails that you need to do.  In any case, you're doing masterful work.

 

Best Regards,

 

Tom

[ChrisLBren]

Looking good Toni !  I just got thru this on Confederacy and was dreading it - after completion I have to say - most satisfying part of my build.  Im sure your headrails will be as beautiful as the rest of your ship in the end.  

[dvm27]

Headrails are the icing on the cake and yours look very nice, Toni. I've found that any small imperfections I'm stressing over tend to disappear as work on the next section gets underway.

 

For those about to start work on those tricky headrails, please check out our next Admiralty Models workshop in October http://Www.admiraltymodels.com. We will be covering the expansion drawings and construction of this challenging area using laser cut pieces by Chuck to compare to your efforts.

[Mirabell61]

Good work Toni, I love all those outcuts in your decks to enable views to the interior....

 

Nils

[tlevine]

Thanks everyone for your words of encouragement and the likes.  And yes, Druxey, it does get easier.  Before the figurative ink dried on yesterday's post I decided that I could not live with how the upward extension of the rail looked.  I put three very thin layers of lamination on the for end of the rail extension so the angle could be adjusted.  By putting several layers, the eye is tricked into "seeing" the grain of the wood whereas with one layer the added piece would be obvious.  I am much happier.  I also added the bolster for the hawse holes.

 

 

 

The timberhead height was determined from the plan.  The heads were then cut in.

 

 

 

[Dan Vadas]

That looks a whole lot better Toni. I was rather concerned that you were going to leave them the way they were - the angle they were on would have spoilt the whole look of the bow. Neat trick on laminating the extra timber, even the camera doesn't pick it up .

 

  Danny

[tlevine]

Thanks Danny.  I can barely see the laminations, even when I am looking for them.  My thoughts were that even if it looked badly I would have a perfect template to work from for the redo.  Thank god, that was not necessary.

[TomShipModel]

Very well done Toni!

 

Tom

[MEDDO]

Wonderful work Toni.  Definitely worth the wait.

[druxey]

Well done, Toni. I know you would never have been happy with wonky aft ends to those head rails the way they were. Plus, they would always have reproached you every time you looked at the completed model. Great recovery!

[EdT]

Nice work, Toni (understatment!).  Like the garden, too.

 

Ed

[Maury S]

Toni, I had to look at the two versions several times to see the difference, then it really stood out how much better the final one is.  Great job.

Maury

[tlevine]

I have finally had some time to devote to the workshop.  Construction has resumed on the head structures.  There is a grating on top of the main rail.  This is supported posteriorly by the head beam and anteriorly by the cross-piece.  The head beam has two knees on its posterior face, connecting to the main rail.  In front of the head beam, the grating mortices into the lining of the main rain.  Behind the head beam, the grating connects to the hull with the use of a morticed bolster.  There are openings in the grating to accomodate the fore seats of ease.  I forgot to take pictures during the process so what is shown are the deconstructed structures after it had been partially completed.  You can see that everything is pinned together.  If only one thing shifts, the rest of the construction will be wrong.  In the first two pictures the battens, cross-piece and head beam assembly are in place and the carling and liner are marked for the grating.

 

 

 

The next two pictures show the curvature of the carling of the head and how it mortices into the cross-piece.  The third photo shows all of these structures in place.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[tlevine]

Work continues with the fabrication of the lower rail.  Compared to the main rail, this is duck soup.  Only one size of profile cutter is necessary.  The shape is determined by the same expansion drawing that was done with the main rail.  In the pictures you can see pin holes for securing it in place.  The head beam and cross piece were removed to facilitate fitting.

 

 

 

 

 

The first photo shows the mortices marked on the various structures.  I started with the fan-shaped grating behind the head beam.  As Atalanta had four seats of ease, only six ledges were required.  If there were only two seats of ease, then eight ledges were installed.  Each piece was marked since they would be stored away until the entire head was completed (or for photos).  This provides, along with the pins, a lot of structural stability for the head assembly.  At this point, the rest of the ledges and the small carlings for the seats of ease were constructed.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The false rail is a decorative board located on top of the main rail.  It screens the aft seats of ease, so it must have been the preferred location for doing one's duty.  The pictures show it set on top of the mail rail but it has not been finish sanded at this point.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Jim Lad]

Just catching up, Toni.  Superb!!

 

John

[Bill Hime]

Great tutorial! Beautiful work!

 

 

Bill

[dvm27]

Wow, Toni, phenomenal work on this very difficult area!

[Elijah]

Looking great Toni! How do you cut those notches into the wood for the gratings to fit in?

[Maury S]

Really complex work.  I see openings for two seats.  What am I missing? 

Maury

[Dan Vadas]

On 01/07/2017 at 7:09 AM, tlevine said:

The ascending (aft) portion of the main rail is supposed to be perpendicular to the water line and the fore end blends into the top of the hair bracket.  You notice that I say "supposed to".  This is where I have gotten into a little trouble

Don't worry too much about it Toni - the Saddle will cover the whole joint and hide the slight error. The same thing happened on Vulture .

 

7 hours ago, Maurys said:

Really complex work.  I see openings for two seats.  What am I missing? 

Maury

Maury, the other two seats are in the aft corners of the head. See HERE.

 

  Danny