Blue Ensign

Anyone got a good Mouser No not you Tommy.. Tommy was a good mouser, but not the sort I’m after. Before I can do the Forestay a mouse has to be made. Mouses are easy enough to make, it’s the finish that matters. In reality they were ‘raised’ on the stay itself and have a distinctive woven appearance, this is the tricky bit to replicate, particularly at small scale, and even at 1:64 the Pickle Mouse is still only 6x3mm. I have made my mouses using styrene tubing shaped on a length of 1mm brass wire. So far so good. But how to replicate that woven look in a scale pattern. A rummage thro’ Mrs W’s tights (panti hose to our American cousins) drawer, to find a pair past their best. This is the most dangerous part of the build so far. I would have asked but she’s gone to the Golf Club, and well needs must.... A piece of the material is stretched around the mouse which has been coated in ca, when dry it is trimmed and painted. The completed article. The Forestay collar is served from the eye to the mouse, for this I used super fine silk thread. This was done by hand but if I had to do much of it I think a small serving device would need to be cobbled together. The served collar before staining and on completion with the mouse fitted. I will not seize off the lanyard until later in the build, minor adjustments may be required when the other tackle is installed. I include this pic to show the effect of stretching and waxing the stay. It hangs loose in a natural curve without any tendency to kink. The completed stay with deadeyes and lanyard fitted, the same procedure will be followed for the other fore and aft stays. B.E.

Standing Rigging – Mast Pendants and shrouds. The first item over the mast head are the Mast Pendants, of the same size line as the shrouds. Jotika suggest that a 3mm block is seized into the ends of the pendants but I prefer to fit a thimble into which a tackle may be hooked. (Both arrangements are acceptable) Having seized the first pendant the second thimble is inserted at the correct length before seizing. One of the reasons why I tend not to glue the mastheads in place at the outset is so that the pendants and shrouds can be made off the model and then be slipped over the masthead for final settling. It is less tiring and easier to do the seizing than if the shrouds were fitted insitu. A piece of square section stuff is used as a former around which the shrouds are made. A cobbled together jig for setting up the shroud seizings. As with the blocks I have opted to use JB Pearwood 4mm deadeyes, these were lightly stained in mellow pine to darken them a little. Here a piece of bent wire is used to gauge the distance between the deadeyes. The shrouds are of 0.75mm line and the lanyards 0.25mm. Seizings were of 0.1mm line. The seizings once secured were painted with diluted pva to secure the knots. The beauty of pva is that once dried it does not show unlike ca which dries shiny. Once fitted the lanyards are tightened progressively and the excess fed thro’ the shroud bight, back around the shroud, under itself, pulled taut, and then wound around the shroud above the deadeye before being seized. This is not a particularly tidy arrangement as can be seen on Victory, something I have tried to replicate on Pickle. (well that’s my excuse anyway) Starting to look quite schoonerish I think. Compared to shrouding a big square rigger with its 28 pairs, fitting eight pairs on a fore and aft schooner is something of a doddle. Before I go .... .........pan outwards - this is the reality of the chaos I actually work in. Moving swiftly onto the stays I think. B.E.

The Yards Fortunately there are only two of these to make, both from dowel with the ends tapered. (Jotika) The centre section of yards on British vessels were generally octagonal in shape so rather than use the provided dowel, I turned the yards from square section walnut strip, forming the octagonal first and then rounding the arms on the lathe. There are only short octagonal centre sections for the yards so having marked the lines in pencil, I used flat needle files to form the octagon, not even enough room for my miniature bull nose. The completed Topsail yard fitted with sling cleats and stop cleats. Rigging the yards. Footropes are shown fitted to the lower (Spread) yard, but none on the Topsail yard. Jotika suggest using brass wire for the stirrups, fixed into holes drilled in the underside of the yard, and having eyes formed in the end to carry the horses. This is a method I have used on small scales, but at 1:64 a more realistic representation can be made. The stirrups should hang down the back of a yard with sufficient line to be wrapped three times around the yard and then nailed. Each stirrup having a thimble turned into the end thro’ which the footropes can pass. The thimbles, of necessity very small, were cut from 0.9mm brass micro tubing in 0.75mm slices. The stirrup was seized around the thimble and secured with a spot of ca. Fortunately there are only four to make. They should hang around 36” below the yard - 14mm at scale - but see below:- I brought my Heath Robinson patent yard dressing jig into use to fit the stirrups. Once fitted the stirrup is painted with dilute pva to stiffen it up, and weights are attached until dry. The Footropes(Horses) can then be threaded thro' and each seized on opposite sides of the slings. Also attached are the thimbles for the yard sling and truss pendant, and a 5mm block to take the Topsail sheets. This is one of the JB blocks, much improved over the boxy kit ones, having the correct shape and including sheaves. Given the size of the yard the footropes looked to hang too low given Jotika’s suggested 15mm, even tho’ that equates to only 36” if it don’t look right it won’t do. I had to conjure up a 1:64 scale top-man to verify the accuracy. Tom is a scale 5’6” tall, and the footropes actually hang 12mm below the yard, a scale 30”. They are I think low enough, but with a 15mm drop poor Tom would be hard pressed to have a foothold when leaning over the yard to gather in the sail. The yards will be put aside now until the shrouds are fitted, the next major operation. B.E.

A small diversion – prepping the rigging line It won’t be too long before I need the first items of standing rigging, pendants, shrouds and stays. I have written about my method of preparing rigging line in relation to my other builds, but for completeness of this build log I summarise it again here. The suggested line sizes were checked against other sources, and generally Jotika seem to have it right. I don’t intend to use the Jotika provided thread, the running rigging line is too pale for my taste, and I don’t like commercial black line for the standing rigging. My favourite commercial line by Amati will be used. I prefer to dye my own standing rigging using Dark oak wood stain, following which the line is bees-waxed and then stretched on a rack for several days or in the case of the stays hung by weights. This has the advantage of making the setting up of the rigging easier, there is less tendency to pull the rigging too tight, and gentle curves fall naturally when required to give an impression of weight. In my builds I prefer a combination of taut and slack lines which I think add realism to the rigging. Whilst I am waiting for the lines to ‘mature’ there are the masts to step and the yards to rig. I must now also decide the sequence of rigging. Reading the Jotika blurb, fixing the Gaffs and boom comes some way after rigging the shrouds /stays etc. To me this would serve to make attaching these spars to the mast more difficult in the sense of fixing the parrel beads around the masts, so I decided to fix them as the first items of main rigging, but leaving sufficient line for any later adjustment. It is far easier to attach the parrels to the gaff jaws first and then feed them over the mastheads into position. I discarded the black and shiny kit supplied beads in favour of other seed beads I have, they will be coated in flat varnish to take the shine off them. Jotika also suggest that the booms and yards be pinned into position, I prefer to have them free running and use the rigging lines to hold them in position, although with pinned spars setting up the lines is easier in the sense of having something fixed to pull against. Well the masts are stepped; Hopefully in line. The bowsprit fixed, the gammoning applied. and the booms in place. Back to the yards, but these will be fitted once the standing rigging is in place.

Work on the masts has now largely been completed. Top rope Sheaves are drilled. Mainmast head assembled. Foremast head and hounds. The Gaffs were also completed in the same manner as the Driver Boom. MAST HOOPS This is something not included by Jotika, but applicable to the Main Mast. These wooden rings were used where a driver boom was used in conjunction with the Gaff to provide ease of movement up the mast. I had to remove the boom saddle in order to get them over the mast. There are nine in total, made with a strip cut from a brown envelope and rolled around a piece of dowel several times, coating the paper with diluted PVA as I went along, and then finished with shellac in the guise of Knotting. The dowel was sprayed with silicone polish to deter adhesion from the white glue. The hoops are then cut from the now stiffened paper tube using a scalpel. Further coated with knotting, they are then sanded to the required thickness According to Marquardt the internal diameter of the rings should be 11/2” – 2” larger than the diameter of the mast which in the case of Pickle meant a 7.5mm dia rod as a former. One other feature is required around the area of the gaff and Driver jaws, that is copper sheathing to protect the masts. Copper tape impressed with a riveter was used for this. The Mast hoops sit atop the Driver jaws. Just the yards to finish off and it’s onto final assembly. B.E.

Cheers Mike, it was my first attempt at coppering, and Pickle ain't a bad kit to start it on, not too much of it. I think we have seen logs we wished we had seen before we did something, I know I have. Gaffs and Booms One of the things I noticed quite early on when perusing the kit parts was the horrid lumpy clumpy Gaff and Driver boom jaws. I suppose I shouldn’t get onto Jotika too much as this is an entry level kit, and I understand that they perhaps don’t want to present the modeller with too much shaping of parts, but they do state that; Pickle is an exact scale model designed using original Admiralty plans (what of Pickle?) All fittings, masts and rigging have been researched using contemporary sources and the most up to date reference material available. Although Jotika indicate tapering of the booms the said jaws are to be simply joined to the inner end using a piece of brass wire. For me this simply will not do. Unfortunately the provided lengths of dowel are too short to other than follow the intended method, so an additional length of dowel had to be found. After turning the boom to the correct taper, the first job to add a little more realism is to put a flat taper on the inboard end to take the jaws. For this job the little Silverline miniature planes come in very handy, but I must admit it is the very devil to keep an edge on the blades, and I seem to spend as much time with the oilstone as I do planing. Once satisfied with the taper the angles can be drawn onto the provided walnut lump. (the jaws) which can then be split into two sections, but before that is done the piece requires reducing in thickness by around 1.5mm. Here the pared down and split jaws have been attached to the boom ready for final shaping, at this stage they don’t look much better than the lumpy clumpy whole piece. Finally shaped and a dry fit on Pickle, The iron bands have been fitted. The waste brass etch framing comes in very useful for ‘iron’ bands And finally the completed Driver Boom. I think this fairly straightforward modification greatly improves the look of the model over the Jotika simplified arrangement.... The boom jaws as kit supplied. A similar conversion will be made on the Fore and Main Gaffs, which if anything look even worse without modification as the booms are much finer in relation to the jaws. B.E.

Masting and Rigging – the final stage Various sizes of Birch dowel are supplied to make the masts, the mast fittings are cnc walnut shaped parts which need some fettlin’ to get them to scale. First up are the Bowsprit and Jib, for which my somewhat temperamental Mantua spar lathe with its very erratic toggle switch, is brought into use. To taper the spars I just used sanding sticks with a range of grit papers glued to them rather than cut the taper in with a blade. With this size of stuff it is less risky than the blade. In fixing the bowsprit and jib there are several things that have to be considered at the same time, the bowsprit has to sit squarely between the standards of the Pawl bitts, and has to run parallel with the stem and with the right degree of stive. The angle of the mast cap has to be determined, so that it is vertical to the waterline, and the jibboom which passes thro’ it, sits parallel to the bowsprit. The Bowsprit cap was a tricky little beggar to make, I scrapped three before success. Jotika provided two cnc walnut caps(one spare) into which angled holes for the bowsprit tenon and the jibboom had to be drilled. Problem is that no matter how carefully I drilled the holes the wood split away from the walnut faces. It was not until I drilled the holes in a piece of scrap and then cut the profile that I got the result. Initially I thought that the cap looked a liitle bulky but when I checked the scale dimensions against the jibboom diameter it was spot on. I modified the cap by cutting a groove on the aft side to take the jack staff, and drilled holes in the jibboom for the heel lashing and a sheave for the outhauler. I also formed a necking at the jibboom end, something omitted by Jotika. I also needed to decide at this stage how to colour the masts, Jotika suggest staining them walnut, rather unappealing in my view, I will not be staining them walnut. A little bit of trialling with various mediums, and I finally settled on a light oak satin varnish, enhanced with a touch of natural wood finish. Now onto the mast assemblies. Fore (or schooner Mast) and Main Masts Jotika have these at 6mm diameter for their full length to the head which is formed by a separate square section of 4x4mm. The head section and mast have to be drilled and joined by a piece of brass wire and Jotika provide a centre finding template for the round section dowel, to assist the process. This simplification (also used by Longridge in his Victory build) saves the modeller the task of squaring the mast head, but does not allow for those who may wish to do so, as the provided dowel lengths are too short. The straight 6mm dowel just doesn’t look right to my eye, using Steel’s Fraction tables for masts I calculate that there should be a taper from 6mm at the partners to 5mm to the start of the head. With the Jotika method the top of the round section outside of the masthead has to be angled so that the cross trees when fitted run parallel to the waterline, not to the rake of the masts. The Trestletree/crosstree parts are cnc cut walnut, ok, but some adjustment was required to fit around the mast head. Double sided tape and a piece of the masthead timber were needed to set the piece out before gluing. At this point I departed from the Jotika build instructions, as I fitted cheeks to the masts, the top angle of which created the parallel line for the Trestletrees. A simple enough modification, and a feature that my research tells me was appropriate to schooner masts as well as larger vessels. Main Topmast This again is constructed from two sections, the lower section being fashioned from 4mm walnut square section, shaped to an octagon above the topmast sheaves. As with the lower mast, it is connected by brass rod to tapered dowel for the upper part of the mast. Jotika didn’t suggest it but at 1:64 scale I think a topmast sheave would be appropriate, so one will be cut into the heel of the topmasts above the fid. Fore topmast This differed from the Main Topmast in that it is supposed to be constructed from three sections, the first square stock shaped to an octagon, the second up to and incorporating the hounds (not present on the MainTopmast) and thirdly the pole head of the mast. I decided to turn the mast above the square section as one, incorporating the hounds; this also gave me a little more lathe practice. Finally a truck was formed at the mast head. I am a little puzzled why Jotika didn’t fit hounds to the Main Mast, perhaps because no stays were secured at that point. Dry fitting the topmasts before any finishing work can be done, the cheeks which show up white here support the trestletrees and give the correct angle. As can be seen she has quite a lofty rig, note the downward slope of the trestletrees which are parallel to the waterline, whereas the mast caps follow the mast rake. Once I am completely satisfied with the fit I can fine tune the trestletrees and fix them in place. The topmasts will not be glued, both they and the mast caps are a snug fit. I think I will however add a truck to the Main Topmast head. B.E.

The Rudder Usual blocky walnutty sort of thingy. I looked at whether there should be any taper on the rudder both in fore/aft and top/bottom planes but decided that there was evidence that rudders remained the same thickness in many cases. So blocky walnutty sort of thingy it is. I started by fitting the tiller, I wanted to be sure that the angle of the tiller would be correct once the rudder was in place. In considering the rudder, attention has to be paid to where it emerges thro’ the deck at the stern and how this is to be finished off. In reality the rudder stock runs up thro’ the transom encased by a rudder trunk which prevents water ingress into the ship. At the bottom end where the rudder enters the hull a helmport or rudder coat is secured, and at the deck level a further coat is secured around the rudder head to prevent water running down the rudder trunk when the decks are awash. I decided to give the upper end of the rudder stock a degree of round to facilitate turning. The rudder was copper plated and copper tape was used on the inward facing edge of the rudder. Close-up of the plated rudder showing the pintle straps in place, these need to be fixed first to judge the angles of the hull braces. The difference in un weathered copper is clearly apparent. The braces, gudgeons, pintles et al were supplied in etched brass. Jotika state that these should be painted black to represent iron. Hmmmn iron stuff on copper plating in 1805, not sure about that, by that time a cuprous alloy was used for this stuff, whether there were exceptions on small vessels such as Pickle I don’t know, but in any event I ain’t painting mine black. Some little fettlin’was required to get the tiller to sit at the correct angle for a 1:64 helmsman. The trickiest bit is going to be getting the rudder to sit close to the sternpost when I fit the pintles and gudgeons. Pintles, Gudgeons and Braces An afternoons work to secure these, a little fiddly getting the pintles and gudgeons to meet up, and the straps at the right angle stuck to the hull without getting ca on the surface plating. One of the scuppers can also be seen in this shot, four have been fitted along each side of the hull. I have begun the weathering on the rudder but will stop the process a little earlier to give a lighter effect. The tiller stands three scale feet above the deck, and Dick demonstrates the correct angle. The rudder head was fitted with iron bands top and bottom of the tiller as strengthening pieces, as was the practice. Channels or chain wales These are pre-formed in 1.5mm stuff which is pretty bang on for scale. I have added two knees to each channel for additional support. The Deadeye strops are brass etched and quite nicely formed if a little delicate. These fit into the notches on the channel face, and are then secured with a batten fixed across the edge. Jotika suggest a 1.5 mm square piece of walnut for the batten but I went with a thinner piece of ebony stuff as I felt it looked better. For the deadeyes I used a flatter pear wood version supplied by JB models, rather than the standard Jotika stuff. This basically completes the external fittings on the hull; I am toying with the idea of fixing side steps to the hull and short ladders fixed to the inside bulwarks, but there is time to think about this whilst I prepare the masts which is the next build phase. Jotika suggest that building the Pickle should take between four and six months of evening work, hmmn, seems to have been a bit of slippage here, I’ve spent over five months already, and not restricted just to evening work, in fact I don’t do evenings, I prefer to work in natural light as far as possible. B.E.

Whinging about the Windlass The octagonal barrel of the windlass is provided by a number of octagonal discs which when fed onto a central spindle with provided wooden pawl rings make up the barrel. There are 11 of these segments plus spares. Problem is the ones I got were the very devil to get the octagons to line up cleanly and I wasn’t over impressed with the result, partly due to the differing shades of the walnut segments. Jotika intended for the thing to be painted red ochre. The sectional make up of the Jotika barrel just doesn’t look right to my eye and the single diameter along its length gives the impression of a pencil chopped up and glued together again, rather unrealistic, and coupled with the deficiencies in my skill at assembling the thing, I resolved to do better. I wanted a clean bare wood barrel with distinct clearly defined octagonal sections, and with a degree of tapering from the centre section down to the warping heads at either end. Salvation came in the form of some old stock 5mm boxwood square section that just needed converting into an octagon. My little Rosewood mini plane was just right for the job. For style I took the drawings of the windlass given in the AOTS book Alert. Overall it has a more authentic look and will better match the other deck fittings on Pickle. It took me three attempts to get something I could live with but here at last the assembled but unpolished windlass. I see a bit of roughness on the starboard standard that will need attention, and I think I may add metal bands each side of the iron pawl rings. Fixing bits and pieces Three major deck items, the Fore Bitts, Windlass, and Pawl bitts require fixing to the deck by means of pins inserted in the bottom of the standards, and thro’ a corresponding hole in the deck. Tricky business this to get the corresponding holes in the right place so that the items are fixed in the correct positions and square to the central line of the ship. The bitts in particular require firm fixing against the pull of the rigging to come later, and the pawl bitts against which the bowsprit is secured. two minds about those belay pins, they look a little over-scale to my eye. I modified the coamings around the Galley flue, didn’t like the Jotika 1.5mm walnut strip arrangement. In any build there are several critical points that could affect the end result, with Pickle one of them is drilling the hole thro’ the bulwark to take the bowsprit. A bit scary this cutting thro’ the neat planking one has taken so much trouble over – have I got the position dead right, will it line up with the pawl bitts, must avoid splintering the internal planking when drilling. Who said model making was a relaxing activity. This is not the real bowsprit but close enough for fitting purposes, and things seem to have turned out ok. In the Same vein the hawse holes have to cut thro’ the bulwarks, 2mm according to Jotika to take a 1.3mm diameter cable. I was curious to see how this related to given formulas for calculating the cables and hawse sizes. For cable sizes this is ½” of circumference for each foot of breadth of the ship. Given a width of 20’ 7½” this equates to a 10.3” circumference cable, which at scale works out at 1.3mm diameter. Spot on Jotika. The hawse hole formula is diameter of cable x 9/4 = 2.92mm. Nearly a third larger than that suggested by Jotika. I enlarged the hole size to 2.5mm which looked better in relation to the 1.3mm diameter anchor cable. Two more holes to drill in the deck, Jotika calls them Navel pipes, down which the anchor cables pass to the cable tier. Now I’ve not heard this term before in period ship modelling and it doesn’t seem to be mentioned in any of my reference books save the Oxford dictionary of ships and the sea.There is no reference to Navel Pipes in the Global Schooner by Marquardt or the Cutter Alert by Peter Goodwin, two specific references I am using for this build. Still I have gone with the Navel pipes enlarged to just over 3mm to take short lengths of aluminium tubing, chemically blackened, and inserted flush with the deck. Along with various eye bolts and cleats that now finishes the internal fittings on Pickle. Next up the external fittings and making the rudder. B.E.

You are a fine artist Doris and a true inspiration to all model makers. I am pleased to see your work once again. B.E.

Skylights and companions All the deck fittings etc; provided are in walnut. Jotika intended them to be painted red ochre, or left natural. This presented me with a problem as I wanted the deck fittings to be yellow ochre, represented by boxwood. Some of the fittings have been completely replaced but others such as the carronade beds and bitt standards I did not want to go to the trouble of replicating. I spent some little time concocting a mix of Ronseal light oak varnish with the merest touch of Admiralty yellow ochre water based paint to create a matching boxwood finish. I am quite pleased with the result. The Skylights and Companionway are supposed to be assembled from the ubiquitous walnut sheet and then be painted red ochre, but I replaced mine using boxwood strip to create a boarded effect. The brass etched window frames I left unpainted as I rather liked them, and I expect them to tarnish over time. The iron protective grills were chemically blackened. Rather than use the provided acetate for glazing the windows, I opted for Humbrol clear fix as the panes are very small. The companionway was also boarded, with the interior boarding whitewashed to provide a contrast. The kit over-scale walnut doors were replaced with boxwood versions. The completed items were then varnished with my ochre/varnish mix. Elmtree pumps So often these items provided in kits are somewhat clumsy and overscale but Jotika have provided quite fine pump handles in etched brass to complete the ensemble. The pumps do not stand vertically on the deck but are canted slightly and would in reality converge towards the centre line of the bottom of the ship. To this end I inserted lengths of brass tubing thro’ the deck into which micro brass tubing forming the plungers fit. I fashioned the pump bodies from a bit of round stuff, but tarted them up with iron bands formed from the brass fret surrounding the 0.3mm eyelets, and a bit of brass tubing. The galley chimney. I replaced the suggested 4x4mm walnut strip with a piece of square section brass tubing, chemically blackened. I had toyed with the idea of providing a more fancy flue, but decided on a small vessel such as Pickle, plain and simple would be appropriate. I still have to make coamings to go around the flue but I can’t make my mind up at present as to the section I prefer. Here’s where I am now up to, the hatches/grating, and main deck furniture have been fixed, I will not permanently fix the pumps until later in the build, they are quite delicate and experience tells me they are perfect snag magnets. To be cont'd B.E.

Now the tricky bit – the side tackles I was in two minds about the side tackle rigging, Jotika show them with the loose ends coiled on the deck. This is a traditional way of displaying the falls of the tackles on models, but I somehow doubt that this is how it was done in practice in a working boat situation, particularly a hard worked vessel such as Pickle. The provided blocks look too clumpy for my taste , and I have replaced them with 2mm Pear wood blocks supplied by JB models. The Jotika 0.1mm line for the tackles also looks over scale compared to the breeching rope, but in any case I’m not a fan of Jotika line and it has been replaced. I stropped the blocks with 34 gauge wire, the tails of which formed the fastenings either end. I finally decide to seize up the side tackles, much in the way of this shot of the 68 pounder on Victory. Given the scale I think the tackles look neater, I didn’t want the tackles to dominate the carronade, as they appear to in the Jotika photo. To make the side tackles a little jig was required to hold the blocks the correct distance apart whilst the lanyard is fitted. Using 0.1mm diameter Amati line, the lanyards are working versions. Rigging the tackles I am pleased with the result compared to the Jotika suggested arrangement, and once completed I can get onto attaching the other deck fittings which I have mostly already prepared.

Introducing ‘Dick’ Aka John Richard Lapenotiere, of Pickle fame. I needed a mini Pickle Captain and here he is. Someone to give scale to the model and assist in assessing the scale validity of the fittings. Looks a little older than his thirty five years but then he’s had a hard life, tossing about in smallish boats, constantly wet, ’tween decks height of only 4’ 6” when he’s 5’8” Not much influence, not many mates by all accounts, but now a life chance with the prospect of carrying the news of Trafalgar back to England, the lure of promotion and the £500 quid he will receive if only he can keep ahead of that b*****d Sykes of the Nautilus who is determined to get there first. Hand over those dispatches says Sykes, no way says brave Dick I’m under direct orders of Admiral Collingwood to deliver my dispatches by hand so I respectfully suggest that you do one. Not to be put off the dastardly Sykes races our hero all the way to England but fails by minutes to beat him to the Admiralty. The rest as they say is history, so my mini Dick will stand proudly on the Pickle’s deck casting (no pun intended) a critical eye over progress. He has the look of a rather a severe critic about him to me. Dick is an Amati 25mm cast metal figure, looks a bit scary under the digital eye but is ok at normal viewing perspective. I think they modelled him on Arthur Wellesley ,a rather arrogant look and he does have that fine hooked nose. Dick will continue to make guest appearances in various progress shots to give a human scale to proceedings. Rigging a Carronade – thoughts on the Pickle kit Been in the back of my mind for a while, I wasn’t over impressed by the Jotika arrangement as shown in their build photos. Breeching rope lead ring is I think too far forward, a consequence perhaps of the over scale blocks to the side tackles. The breeching rope has an unnatural lie and seems merely to be pushed under the bulwark ring. To assist in the tackle forming I rigged up a spare carronade in a mock gunport, to see how things fared. With the rigging tackle so small I find it easier to work out a gun rigging strategy with a mock-up rather than go straight in on the model. The breeching ropes of 0.5mm Ø line are simply knotted to the bulwark rings and are sealed with dilute pva before trimming. A small paper clip gives scale to this ‘toy’ carronade. Here a couple of shots of the carronades in-situ and the Breechings fitted. I can now proceed with the somewhat testy rigging of the side tackles. B.E.

Assembling a Carronade. This is one area of the build that seems to present Pickle builders with problems, trying to assemble the trunnions of the Pickle Carronades. The instructions really should carry a mental health warning. These are tiny beasts consisting of two trunnions, a spigot, two bearings, all threaded onto a piece of 0.5mm wire and assembled within a space of 1.5mm between the trunnions. Assembly without devising a mini jig would I think prove very, very, frustrating. A sense of the scale of the things can be gathered from the following photos. The jig to hold the trunnions. The assembled trunnions attached to the slide bed. The assembly completed. I wasn’t too impressed by the use of a length of 0.7mm wire to represent the elevating screw so I added a small refinement in the form of turning bars, and a metal plate to sit the elevating screw on.I also moved the breeching rope lead ring slightly further back than suggested by Jotika, I felt it gave a better lie to the rope. These bijou carronades along with all the other brass etched fittings have been treated with Carr’s Blackening for Brass, having first been dipped in acetone and scrubbed with an old toothbrush, well I think it was an old toothbrush, anways, I know it wasn’t mine. Even so the inevitable handling in assembly results in some loss of black, and paint touch ins are necessary. Assembly of the first carronade took all of this morning including the jig making. Fortunately there are only six carronades supplied with Pickle, although other sources suggest she carried eight. Having assembled one I am sorely tempted to oik four of ‘em overboard as Lapenotiere, did on his voyage. At full scale these twelve pounder carronades are incredibly small when one is used to looking at the sixty eight pounder smashers on Victory. Full size they would be a mere 2’2” compared to over nine feet for a carriage mounted long gun of the same calibre, and only a fraction of the weight. Even so they do look very insignificant on the Pickle. Here’s a shot of ‘Dick’ apparently dwarfing a carronade, but the relative scales are correct. B.E.

Coamings, Carronades, and Companionways.. Now I reach the point where I start to enjoy myself, fiddling with the fittings. First up.... Hatch coamings. One of my pet kit hates. Jotika in common with many other kit manufacturers show these items as boxy surrounds with flat gratings enclosed within. They don’t make reference to the greater depth that should apply to the Head Ledges, or shaping the same to form that gentle arc, with the gratings shaped to follow this line to the coamings. A check of any contemporary ship models of the seventeenth and eighteenth century will show the correct form. On little Pickle however, for the Main Hatch, boards are shown rather than gratings. This is perfectly acceptable and certainly applicable to merchant vessels, but with naval vessels I prefer gratings. Besides it avoids having to make all those irritating little ring bolts for the boards. The Main hatch cover has therefore been modified to reflect my own preferences; the supplied walnut strip suggested for the coamings etc; was discarded in favour of boxwood. (It was in any case of dubious quality) Once assembled and fitted the gratings were gently sanded to conform to the arc of the head ledges. The grating strips provided by Jotika are excellent, accurately cut with no broken teeth, a close fit, and good for scale. Schooners were very wet boats and I fixed my coamings at 4mm height rather than the 3mm suggested; this is equivalent to 10” at full scale. None of the gratings have been fixed in position as yet - this will be done once all the bulwark ring bolts have all been secured. At this point the Carronade pads have been fitted and the deck has been sealed with Caldercraft water based Flat-matt varnish, which does not darken the deck planking; the gratings will be treated the same, but the coamings will be varnished with satin cote varnish.

Looking good Jason, a nice colour contrast with the straps against the copper plates, and a nice tight line between the rudder and sternpost, so easy to get the gap too wide. B.E.

Naming Pickle The kit provides for brass etched lettering to be painted white. I disliked the look of this arrangement, the brass etch letters stand out too much, the font style looks too modern, and I have doubts that the lettering on British naval ships of the period was painted white. I tried different options from vinyl lettering to water slide decals but eventually settled on letraset transfers, Times New Roman, at 5mm in gold. I had initially feared that applying dry rub letters to the stern in situ would present problems of alignment and good adhesion but as it happens they went on a treat and here’s the result. A coat of satin varnish, and the job’s done. The official inspection has reported favourably, so work can now proceed to fitting out the deck. B.E.

Thanks John for dropping by The stern transom I had been viewing this with a little concern as it presents an excellent opportunity to cock things up big time. There are subtle curves to attend to and the trimming back of the bulwarks to meet the stern piece is critical as far as fit is concerned. In the standard Jotika build the stern facia is un-planked on its outer face, simply being painted black.Their idea is that the stern piece should be sanded back to meet the bulwarks, and the paint scheme carried over the stern piece edges. I was a little unsure about this as most of the small vessels of this type I have seen have the stern piece extending outside of the bulwarks by a small amount. I was also not over impressed with the way the bulwark rails met the stern piece with the basic kit arrangement. The sort of arrangement I feel more appropriate is along the lines of the Royal Naval Museum model of Pickle, as above. So a few modifications were in order...... The outer face has been planked with ‘ebony’ 3.4mm strip and a moulding added around the edge to match and reflect the bulwark capping rails. The inside of the stern piece was planked with boxwood to match the bulwarks. I had been pondering, even before I got the kit, about the absence of port lids on the stern ports. Jotika have not included them, but it just doesn’t seem logical to have two large opening in the stern to allow in sea water from a following sea right where the helmsman is standing. The model in the Royal Naval Museum does not have them either, but Geoff Hunt has shown them in his painting of Pickle. I am not sure, but in case I decide later to fit the lids I have made a pair whilst I had the stern counter off the model, to do the fitting. Capping Rails These are pre-shaped in Walnut but even so need some fettlin’ and trimmin’ to get ‘em to sit right. The critical point is faying the rail at the stern to meet the transom. Pinning first to get the fit and then finally gluing with pva and pinning; rapid work is needed to apply the pva adjust the seating of the rail, and apply pressure to secure. A weighty problem this: Once secured the pins can be removed and final tweaking and sanding of the rail can be done. I had considered dyeing the rail, but decided in the end to paint it with Admiralty ‘dull black’ followed by sanding sealer to give the same finish as the hull. To this point the build has taken about three months of fairly regular working. B.E.

Planking the deck The instructions call for the deck to be fully planked before moving to fitting the hatchway coamings and head ledges which then sit on the deck. I was in two minds whether to fit these first and then run the planking up to them but decided in the end to do the planking first. Again I departed from the Jotika scheme, replacing the supplied 4mm x 1mm Tanganyika strip with boxwood 3.4mm x 0.6mm. Apart from any other consideration I thought the slightly narrower planking was more in scale. I Used a three butt shift pattern ie three plank widths between butts on any joist. The planks are the scale equivalent of 29’ x 8.5” PVA was used to fix the planks which were line edged with a Pilot broad chisel marker pen(instant dry and water resistant) to replicate the caulking. There was no evidence of bleed into the wood. The plank ends were joggled into the Margin plank at the bows. Planking in progress, planking usually starts with the planks either side of the centre line and progresses from the stern forward and outwards. Joggling completed. A little time now will be spent scraping the deck (not sanding) to remove any unevenness, and tidying up the mast and rudder head holes. Next stage will be fitting the stern transom, and assembling one of the carronades to check gun port levels. B.E.

Planking the Bulwarks Jotika supplied 1mm thick walnut planking for both inside and outside the hull, plus the 0.8mm gun port pattern. I have used 0.6mm thick boxwood strip, so to add depth to the bulwarks I have double planked the inside of the bulwark with 6mm wide boxwood strip over-planked with 4.2mm strip. Having un-lined gun-ports results in rather untidy looking planks ends from the four layers that make up the bulwark. These required filling to smooth them out. They were then painted Red ochre, one of the few areas where paint will be used. With the internal planking completed Pickle looks far more solid. I can now progress to the deck planking. B.E.

Installing the deck Before this can take place the bulkhead extensions have to be removed from the inside of the bulwarks. This entails cutting thro’ using a fine bladed saw. A miniature flexible saw blade that fits in an x acto type handle, for those awkward little corners. A recently acquired flexible bladed job, known as a Flush cutting saw, great for getting down to a surface. Without these I think I would have struggled to do the job, a fine bladed razor saw would not have got to all the required angles with its rigid back. This is quite a scary part of the job as without the support of the bulkhead extensions it is easy to imagine the gunport pattern breaking off as it is now only in contact with a fairly small area of bulkhead. Fortunately it seems fairly stable. Once achieved it is necessary to blacken the insides of the hull where it may be seen thro’the various hatches and companionways. The first opportunity to dry fit the deck, and a relief to find that it slips in fairly comfortably. The three shift butt planking pattern has been pencilled in as with the bulkhead deck supports. Here I have cut out paper templates for the deck margin strip, something Jotika have not allowed for, or mentioned in their kit details. The base deck goes in. Before I fitted the deck I noticed that the slot for the Foremast was a little loose and may cause problems later in aligning the mast. A suitable bit of brass tubing was inserted in the slot to firm things up a little. I also inserted some boxwood carlings and false beams around the underside of the Main Hatch and companionway to give additional depth to the deck. No real problem in fitting the deck apart from getting the pva down quick enough across all the bulkheads, even so pinning was required to secure the edges where the camber meets the bulwark. When dry the pins were nipped off flush with the deck. The masts were used to ensure the deck was properly located. Margin for Error? Pondering about the margin strip and poking around in the kit box it suddenly struck me that I could perhaps use the remaining birch sheet that had held the deck former. The inside was already shaped to the deck pattern and it was a simple matter to pva the template to it and cut around. I used PVA to fix the margin plank, but with ca along the edge to grip the bulwark. The question of colour difference between the boxwood planking and the Birch margin plank remains, but I have trialled a little thinned down water based brown paint mixed with Ronseal light oak satin varnish, and I think I can achieve a near enough colour match. Before I start the deck planking I think I will plank the inner bulwarks, not in accordance with Jotika's order of play, but logical now that a Margin Plank has been installed. B.E.

Looks like an interesting build you have coming along here, and I like your willingness to back track and address issues, coupled with a little kit 'bashing' something I'm not averse to myself. Do you intend to keep the pre made cast gunport surrounds and lids as shown on the kit blurb? Regards, B.E.

Coppering the hull. I gave some little thought as to how I was going to do this coppering lark, where to start, how authentic to be, the practicalities of how to apply the bally things, without the plates sticking to me rather than the hull, how to avoid the glue getting all over those nice shiny plates, and lastly how to make those nice shiny plates look less shiny. Authenticity - The first thing to go. Strictly speaking on naval ships the copper plates should overlap the plate above it by some 1½”, and overlap the preceding plate by the same. Merchant ships apparently followed the more easily applied method of overlapping the plate below. This is all of no matter because at smallish scale overlapping plates can look untidy, so on Mr Pickle they will simply be butt jointed, working from the stern forward and the keel up. How to apply I will be using thick ca, less run, so hopefully less overspill onto the surface of the plates. My beautiful assistant Debbie will now demonstrate the procedure. The thin dowel stick with a piece of double sided tape applied is used to pick up the plate. The ca is applied with a cocktail stick and the plate directed into position. An old BiC pencil with a rubber in the end provides a burnishing tool to press the plate against the hull to secure. No fingers, no tweezers, no mess on the plates, and no plates on me. (especially when Mrs W is doing it) The job progresses apace, a bit like brick laying without the pointing up, The tricky bit will come later when small irregular pieces are needed and when I reach the waterline. The tricky part was getting a clean line around the waterline. Not too displeased with my first attempt at sheathing, but despite my best efforts some little amount of ca found its way onto the plate surface. Cotton buds dipped in acetone were used to try and get rid of this excess. The Coppering completed Top marks to Jotika who have not stinted on the supply of plates I have about 110 left over, although I still have the rudder to do. I have some reservations about the domed nail heads apparent on the Jotika plates; I’m thinking that they are too pronounced. On most real plating I have seen the nails are hardly visible and are certainly not domed.* * since this build Amati have come out with a far superior plate at 1:64 and I would certainly have gone with those if I were building Pickle now. During trimming I note that strips of these plates would make very fine pintles and gudgeons for smaller scale models, and particularly the rudder apparatus for ships boats. The coppering has been extended up the stem and just onto the False keel, the keel itself is not coppered. A thin batten has been attached along the top strake of the coppering. Another build milestone is reached. B.E.

Before coppering can begin the waterline has to be marked. A base board is needed to sit the thing upright and held steady. I construct a sort of Heath Robinson affair to support the model. A little jig is provided in the kit to elevate the bows to assist the marking of the line which in the case of Pickle does not run parallel to the keel. An inordinate amount of time is spent trying to ensure that Pickle sit perfectly square. Not prepared to stick my hand in my pocket for a vernier height gauge (why are they so expensive) I consult Mr Robinson and come up with a carpenters pencil pva’d to a block of balsa with the chisel point the critical 50mm above board level. Additional bandings are applied to hold the hull down firmly. Around the hull we go and I am pleased to see that the lines meet at the bow; a little more tricky at the stern as the pencil doesn’t seem to want to go under the transom. The pencil line was very faint so I go over it with a silver gellyroll pen to make it stand out against the black hull. Seems I’m just about mm perfect for where the coppering will reach at the bows, and as for the stern I will continue the lines with a suitable curve. Marking the waterline is one of those critical little jobs that can affect the look of the whole model and fine lined vessels such as schooners with drag at the keel present greater difficulties than larger vessels where the waterline runs more or less parallel with the keel. B.E.

Completion of the second planking Planking of the Port side is now completed and ready for final finishing. Here just a small insert, or Spiling plank to go. Now you see it. Now you don’t. To form these Spiling planks I cover the gap with Tamiya tape, cut around it with a scalpel and stick it on the plank as a template for shaping. Any tiny gaps in the ebony planking will be filled with a mixture of the filler and Admiralty hull black water based paint. The Upper hull in the line of the Ochre stripe has been planked in box. The planking has had an initial sand which tends to lighten it, but will I think take on a more ochrery hue when finished and varnished which tends to darken the effect. I intend to use minimal paint in this build. The particular ebony planking arrangement is to ensure that above the waterline only ebony planking can be seen. I have now applied a coat of sanding sealer and the colour contrast is coming out. Ready now for coppering. B.E.