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

[Jim Lad]

I agree with Maury! 

 

John

[druxey]

For a 'non-carver', those tafferel figures are really very respectable! I wish my first carving efforts had looked anywhere as good as those!

[Maury S]

Quote

For example, Atalanta's calf is not shapely and her right forearm is too cylindrical, rather than tapering below the biceps.

 

If I said that around the house I would loose so many "points".

Maury

 

[tlevine]

As well you should, Maury!

[tlevine]

I am in a bit of a quandary.  The plans show a taffarel fife rail, an extra rail above the taffarel rail.  However, the contemporary model in the RMG does not have this rail.  The photo is from the RMG website.  Suggestions, anyone?  If I build the taffarel fife rail, is the area above the carvings solid or open, showing the counter timbers?

 

 

[druxey]

The drawing implies a planked area between tafferel and fife rail above. Usually you can see counter timberheads extending up if that area were open. The draught is 'as launched', so I would take that as the way she actually was.

[tlevine]

Thanks, Druxey. 

[archjofo]

Hello Toni,

 

beautiful carvings and an admirably clean work.

 

[tlevine]

It has been another long time since posting but I have two excuses.  First, I went on an extended vacation and started Echo because of ease of transport.  Second...  The second reason is a combination of funny and terrifying.  I had Atalanta sitting on the floor in preparation for taking some photos.  I then tripped on willow-the-wisp and fell into the model inflicting a significant amount of damage to Atalanta.  This included resetting every cannon, installing a new quarter deck rail, new side moldings and several other minor repairs.  Three weeks later I am able to post the photos that I hoped to take on that fateful day.

 

The tafarel carvings have been installed and the assembly has been glued and pinned to the stern timbers.  The rail was fabricated from five pieces of wood.  The relationship between the caprail and the quarter deck rail was difficult to see on the plans.  I hope I built it correctly because I am not doing it again!

 

 

 

 

 

 

[druxey]

Sorry to read of your collision with Atalanta. I hope that you were personally undamaged. The model seems to have recovered well!

[ChrisLBren]

Looks terrific Toni !!!

[mtaylor]

I hope the only thing you hurt in your fall was your dignity.  Atalanta doesn't look any worse for the battle damage.  If you hadn't told us, we never would have known.  

[Maury S]

Toni, Glad to see you back.  I have enough trouble bumping into the rigging while working.  I can't imagine the frustration of actually falling on the model.  Considering mass and velocity at scale, she held up remarkably well.

Best.

Maury

[tlevine]

Maury, I guess it is a good thing that I don't have too much mass!  Thanks everyone for looking in.  Now back to carving.

[tlevine]

The munions between the stern lights are covered with carved pilasters.  Some of the Swan Class ships had simple reed decorations but not this one.  I will need to make a total of 10 of them.  I considered making a master from clay and casting them but that would require painting them.  I will try carving first.  Please remember that the full size of the carved garland is 10 mm.  Therefore I have decided to take an impressionist approach to their carving.  If they are all similar it will give a good impression of garlands.

 

 

 

 

As yet another break from carving I make the quarter rail.  Because of its length I made a simple joint at the support piece above the gun port and a scarfed joint at the center swivel gun mount.  It is bolted to the swivel gun mount, leaving an airspace between the rail and gun mount.  The scroll was carved using the plan as a template.  The distance between the planksheer and the quarter rail diminishes as one goes aft.  Back to the carving!

 

 

 

[mtaylor]

Inspirational work, Toni.  

[archjofo]

Very very nice details.

 

[Mike Y]

The model is even better than she was before (at least for a casual observer ), and there is something improved in the way you make the photos - it is lighter and clearer now!

[Martin W]

Toni -- Your carving skills are growing by leaps and bounds!!  The impressionistic munions will look fine, casting leafy shadows -- wow!

 

cheers,

 

Martin

[dvm27]

Your carvings make a very nice overall impression, Toni.  Atalanta seems fully recovered from your broadside. I guess the prior damage to the counter timbers with your elbow was a warning shot!

[michael mott]

Good to hear that the encounter resolved without serious long term issues. the model is looking superb.

 

Michael

[tlevine]

Thanks, guys.  I am still finding little things that need fixing.  Overall, I probably spent 30 hours on the repair.  Mike, I think I just got lucky with the lighting that day. Almost all my pictures are taken using ambient lighting, occasionally with supplemental flash.  That day was bright but overcast so there was little shadowing.  Greg, thanks for reminding me of my last close encounter of the klutzy kind.  The ridiculous thing is that she travels with me on the back seat of the car every other week back and forth from where I work.  No problem.  Two rambunctious dogs...no problem.  Myself, alone at home, nothing annoying me...problem!

[tlevine]

The pilasters are finished and installed.  Once the middle carved section was completed, the upper and lower parts were made up of various sizes of stripwood.  A coat of finish has been applied to the taffarel and all the parts that needed replacing.  The dreaded quarter pieces are next.

 

 

 

[Dan Vadas]

10 minutes ago, tlevine said:

The dreaded quarter pieces are next.

I found them to be the most fun to build on the whole ship Toni - nuthin' ta worry about here .

 

Here's the LINK to my post(s) on the Badges if you need it.

 

Danny

[tlevine]

Thanks for the link, Danny.  I've already looked at it a few times.  I am jealous about the quarter piece on Vulture...it was a simple piece of molding.  Mine is a carving some type of animal and a few other things thrown in just for fun.  

[druxey]

The overall effect of the gallery is quite charming. Have fun with the quarter pieces!

[tlevine]

I have started the dreaded quarter pieces.  On Atalanta they have an upper 3-D carving of a dog (jackal?) and leaves and flowers in relief on the outer and stern sides of the lower section.  Even though I finished out the gallery on both sides, because there is no planking on the starboard side I am only planning on making the port quarter pieces.  I also made the decision to make this in two pieces.  The upper piece will comprise the dog and the lower piece the relief carvings.  The first step was to use Sculpty clay to form the quarter piece.  I would then use this as a template for the lower piece and a guide for the upper.  Because this is a long, skinny piece it was difficult to remove it from the hull without distortion.  The instructions say to bake for 30 minutes but I removed it after 15 minutes and let it cool on the hull to minimize the distortion.  I have already started to draw the shape of the dog onto the clay.

 

 

 

The next step was to make the lower piece.  This ended just below the window sill decorative molding.  I was able to use the shape of the clay as a template.  The carvings curve inward as one goes inferiorly.  I will probably complete and install this piece before starting to make the upper piece.

 

 

[Maury S]

Toni, So you are just using the Sculpty for a prototype and then replicate it in wood?

Maury

[tlevine]

Sorry for the late reply, Maury.  Yes I am using the Sculpty for a prototype.  It has made getting the correct shape, both exterior and adjacent to the hull, easier.  I initially thought that the upper part of the cornerpiece was a dog.  One of the stories about Atalanta involve her hunting a bear with a group of men.  One of the contemporary carvings shows hounds with the hunting party.  The more I thought about it, I decided that the animal is a lioness.  She and her husband Hippomenes had sex in one of Zeus's temples and were punished by being turned into lions.  At that time it was felt that lions could not mate with each other, only with leopards.  I am in the process of fabricating an oversized sculpture of a lioness and will post that when I am happy with the results.

[tlevine]

While I continue to play with the lioness sculpture for the quarter piece, I have started working on the quarter badge.  I find that a good rule of thumb is that the more extensive the instructions, the more fiddly the structure is to make.  In TFFM, David gives 5+ pages to the quarter badge.  Nuff said...  The first step was to trace the outline of the badge.  There is a slight projection error because of the curvature of the hull aft but I did not worry about it. 

 

 

Lines were extended perpendicular to the lower stool at the corners of the munions and outer edge of the stool and a new baseline was drawn parallel to the stool.  This allowed accurate location of the lights and munions.  A shallow elliptical line was made to outline the edge of the stool.  This depth was determined by eyeballing the extreme width of the quarter piece and making sure the lower stool was a little more shallow.  The piece was then cut out;  I cut it overly wide to prevent tear outs at the ends when using a scraper to cut in the decorative molding.  After the molding was scraped in, I cut it to the correct width and glued it to the hull, parallel to the water line.

 

 

 

 

The upper stool construction is complicated by the bell-top.  The first step is to make the basic upper stool and locate it on the hull.  The angle of the window varies among the ships and the location of the upper sill determines this angle.  Fly, for example, has a steeper angle to the lights than Atalanta.   Use the outline on the plan to make a template for the bell-top.  Cut it out oversized and then finalize its outer curvature.  Then thin it down to the desired thickness and carefully cut the molded decoration into the edge.  The center portion of the upper stool is cut out and the bell-top is glued to the outer portions of the upper stool.

 

 

 

 

 

The munions are glued into place.  I glued a shim on the back of the central munions to act as a glue surface for the lights.  

 

 

 

 

The outer lights are simple to make, as they are simply parallelograms.  The central light has an eyebrow top, matching the bell-top.  I steam bent the wood to the correct shape.  Actually, I did this several times.  Each window was built from the same template and after gluing and drying each window was slightly different...and none of them fit the opening.  Therefore it was on to Plan B.  I made the frame without gluing the bent top piece.  This would be added once the rest of the frame was secured into the opening.  The windows are glazed with mica.