Blue Ensign

The completed hull

building the roof structure

Harpoons under the roof...in special racks

prior to putting on the roof  .... mounting the Tryworks, workbench, chicken coop, scrap hopper and cooling tank permanently to the deck

OK, well actually a milestone has been reached today.  With the exception of the Davits, cranes, and Boat Slides that will attach to the outside of the hull and a couple of very small details yet to be done, the deck structures/furniture is complete.  I'm including quite a few pictures for documentation to show the hull structure complete.  I have not decided on the order of adding the Davits and other components yet, and contemplating starting the masts.  Geez I hate saying that...... you guys are relentless.....

Planking the cutter
 
I finally was able to spend some time working on the cutter, and it is slow progress indeed.  With clinker planking, there are more steps in the process, and less room for error, because the whole thing can't be sanded smooth afterwards.
 
First I bend a strip of planking--
 

 
 
Then work with flat sandpaper as well as a sanding block and files to adjust the shape of the plank--
 

 
Many dry fit tests.  This plank is fitting okay, but still has some fine tuning needed at the stem.   I have drawn the approximate lay of each planking strake on one side of the plug--
 

 
When the piece gets filed and sanded to acceptable shape (I am incapable of perfection!), it's glued to the keel--
 

 
 
Repeat for three more planks, and the garboard, port and starboard, is complete--
 

 

 
 
In the fitting of the next strake, the garboard strakes are cut back in places, filed, and adjusted to help the fitting of the next strake-
 

 

 
I'm very curious to see how this will turn out!
 
 
Ron

Keith,
I can now say from experience, clinker planking is not easier.
 
 
Dan,
Thank you for the advice.  So far, the shapes are not too wacky or weird.  I do start by laying a piece of card at the next plank location, and they have looked simple enough--not too much curvature--so I've just gone ahead and directly shaped the wood piece. 
 
 
It is slow going.   Shaping and fitting the planks takes a while.  Keeping the glue mess to a minimum is also much more important here than with carvel planking.  I've been striving to keep the exterior free of errant patches of glue.  The interior is not as clean, and will need some clean-up work; fortunately most of it will be covered over by various details.
 
Three strakes out of eight done.  This third strake is the only one that will contain three planks, and the middle plank here ended up being a problem.  It isn't quite "full" enough after gluing (it sits a little too flat on the plug), but I think I can compensate for this on the next planking.  Here's the current status--
 

 

 
 
And that's it until after Christmas.   I wish everyone happy holidays, wherever you are.  I'll be checking in, but no new modeling for a few days.
 
 
Ron

First update in a bit over a month - I'm apparently getting lazy. Lots of small and uninteresting work getting done on the model. Figured I had about 1/4 the amount of hull joints I should be having, so I took a while to scratch some new ones. Not very interesting in terms of pictures. 
 
Also did some painting. Feels good to actually get started there, and it's a bit more.. visual - photo worthy. Still a lot of work left, especially in detailing and highlights. That said, I'm somewhat happy with the wood thus far. Will be interesting to see how it turns out with the gunports and cannon in place. 
 

Matti: Them lions were a bit of a drag, yes. Got sort of meditative after a little while, which helped. Well worth the time in the end, methinks.

Ulises: Thanks. Yeah, part count is pushing 3x the original count now. I'm glad I'm not on a deadline or this would suck.. ;-)
 
Spent some more time over the weekend gluing the gratings in place proper, making sure they're level with the deck. Figured it'd make sense to add a little extra detail to bring it a bit more in line with other models (the 1:10 museum model, the Clayton Johnson model). 
 

 
Also started working on the aft castle structure. Lots of woodwork with very poor definition that needs some additional Xacto lovin'. The doors as cast don't look good, so I'll have to redo those too - thankfully not an overly tricky job. Need to figure out if the big doors at the bottom should have three wider planks or four narrower ones. If anyone has authoritative info here, I'm all ears.
 
Additionally, I need to figure out whether the iron bars on the door exteriors should be very plain or somewhat ornate. All the models I've seen sport plain bars (or no bars), but it seems strange that they'd make the whole bloody ship into a gaudy floating pimp palace, while leaving some of the iron detailing plain. It was certainly possible to make more ornate bars back in the 1600's - whether they ever did for ships, no idea. Research time...
 

Impressive Mark, a good point to finish the year on, look forward to your progress in 2014.
 
Best wishes for Christmas and the New Year, we three are also having a quiet Christmas, and I suspect I will be sneaking off to my office at times for a bit more fiddling with Pegasus.
 
 
B.E.

Axminster is a UK based company, and we don't suffer quite the extremes of temperatures experienced in the Colonies
 
Even so I doubt I would leave such valuable kit in a shed.
 
B.E.

So I'm skipping out from work today, supposedly to get ready for our house guests who'll be here through the Thanksgiving week (this is the week every year when I become an utterly unabashed American, since we have this holiday devoted to eating large amounts of food and drinking even larger amounts of wine).  Right now, though, I'm going to add just a bit to the narrative of my latest travails in rigging.  Here goes.
 
The most consistent problem I've had has come with the deadeyes along the tops.  As I tighten the shroud and the lanyard, the bottom deadeye creeps up from where I'd positioned it.  The bottom deadeyes are all connected by chain plates to the lower shrouds with futtocks that I fashioned from metal wire served with brown rigging line.  I tried tying a loop around the top of the chain plates, but only with slight success.  That's a problem that awaits a solution, so if anybody has a suggestion I'd be happy to hear it.
 
Here's the procedure I've worked out (largely from reading multiple times through Antscherl's account and then trying to translate that into the reality of fat fingers, slippery tweezers, and bifocals that insist on slipping down my nose):  I stretch the shroud to its taut length, holding it in a big loop with tweezers at the bottom where the deadeye will go.  When I have the bottom at the right distance from the bottom deadeye (but see the account of the problem above), I put an alligator clamp higher up the shroud to hold the loop in place.  Then I seize the bottom of the loop, insert the deadeye (3/32" deadeyes at the tops), and thread the lanyards as shown on the MS plans.  A good strategy here is to harden the tip of the lanyard with some super glue so it can serve as a needle to pass through the deadeye holes.  The important part here is to keep the alligator clamp in place so that the shroud will stay taut and the deadeye won't slip in its seizing until everything is tied off and glued.    Sorry I don't have photos of this, but it's very straightforward.
 
Now to the main forestays, all of which belay onto the bowsprit.
 
First I had to attach the bowsprit, which I'd delayed doing from fear of breaking it when I moved the model back and forth tying the shrouds on alternating sides.  Once attached, I put the gammoning on the bowsprit.  For this I used some brown .5mm nylon thread that Keith Jewell sent me as a sample in my last order. It doesn't quite match the color of the other standing rigging, but it's nice and smooth looking, especially for something like gammoning where all the threads are lined up.
 
Basically I just followed Antscherl's account in FFM vol 4, which starts by attaching a long length of line (he says 56", I started with about 48", since I'm working at a smaller scale; I found that that was well beyond what I needed; for the Ratt, at 1:64, I would recommend something like 30", which will be more than ample).  This is connected to the port side of the bowsprit with an eyesplice.  I hadn't seen Blue Ensign's stategy for faking one yet, so I just seized a loop in a way that the seizing won't show.  The line then passes straight down through the foreward end of the gammoning slot, then up from the starboard side, passing behind the thread to the port side of the bowsprit, then over the bowsprit in front of the splice, down the starboard side of the bowsprit, to the port side of the slot and behind the line that's in it, and so on.   This photo sort of shows the process about 3/4 done:
 

 
 
And this one shows it complete:
 

 
Next came the forestay and the preventer stay.   These are belayed to the hearts seized on the bowsprit, with corresponding hearts.  To carve the hearts, I uses 5/32" thick boxwood 1/4" wide, and roughly traced the outline of a heart that I cut out with my jeweller's saw (it just seemed simpler with such a small piece than going outside to the still-in-process workshop to use my scroll saw).  Then I filed off the rough edges.  I opened a hole slightly below center with the Dremel, and then widened and shaped the hole, eventually finishing off with a needle file.  When I had the shape  -- inside & out -- that seemed as right as I could get -- a flattened round wide top and squared narrow bottom -- I cut a groove on the outer edge with an exacto knife.
 
I might add that the little bugger leapt from my fingers countless time, but without ever finding its way into oblivion.
 
After eyeballing the heart from as many angles as I could imagine, to check for appearance, I sanded it, starting with 180 and ending with 400 grit paper, and rubbed some lemon oil on it to smooth out the scars.  Here are the hearts in place -- the one in the forestay twists in defiance of my best effort, but the one in the preventer is visible.
 

 
As always, comments are more than welcome.
 
Cheers,
 
Martin
 
 
 
 
 
 

Just had a catch up Augie, and I like what I see, class work you've done there on the hull planking.
 
Season's greetings to you, look forward to your progress next year.
 
B.E.

Haven't managed a lot of time in the shipyard lately, but the block party continues and the yards are slowly taking shape.  I completed belaying the Truss Pendants, Jeers, and Lifts on the Fore Lower Yard, and have just completed attaching the blocks for the Fore Topsail Yard.  I've decided to attach each yard to this (or relevant similar) stage before proceeding with sheets and braces etc.
 
The Topsail Yard is attached to the Mast via a Parral instead of Trusses.  The Parrals are made up of a series of "Trucks" (essentially egg-shaped wooden beads) separated by vertical "Ribs".  The kit does not provide for the Ribs, so consulting once more with Longridge, I decided to make my own.  Longridge provides a good diagram (with dimensions) and description on pg 213 (and Figure 139).
 
To make the Parral Ribs I first cut a strip of 1/32" x 3/32" Swiss Pear into pieces approximately 6mm long and then spot-glued these together in gangs of three and the ends tidied up on the Byrnes disc sander.  They were then roughly marked (by eye) to find the approximate locations for the holes which were then drilled with a 0.5mm bit.
 

 
The "B" shape was then drawn (again by eye) onto the gang, and filed to shape with a triangular needle file, finishing with a flat needle file.
 

 
The gangs were then given a 15 minute soak in bath of Isopropyl alcohol to soften the glue before carefully separating them again.
 

 
The results are quite pleasing - and of course I made about double the number needed to ensure the God of the Space-Time continuum gap is fed appropriately!
 
I was also a little side-tracked lately by completing this little model of Leonardo da Vinci's Aerial Screw that was given to me for my birthday recently (I beg the Mod's tolerance for this one off-topic pic):
 

Thanks Marc - you are too kind!    
 
I decided to install the Fore Lower Yard before moving on to the next yard - figured it was probably going to be safer on the model than sculling around the shipyard!
 
I had previously decided that I was not going to serve any of the lines on this model, but I made an exception when it came to the yard slings.  I wanted to have a play with my serving machine (Alexy's product) and I'm quite pleased with the result.  The sling has an eye in one end, and a thimble seized into a bight.  It then wraps around the mast with the "tail" end passing through the eye and then being stopped back to its standing part with three round seizings.  Here is the result:
 

 
The yard was then attached by lashing the thimbles in the sling and the sling collar (on the yard) together.  The truss pendants are then fitted to hold the yard against the mast, and the Jeers were then reeved.  Here is a few shots showing the yard in place.  You can see a mixture of kit-supplied blocks and my own blocks in these photos.  The kit blocks were fitted to the masts and tops before I decided to start making my own.
 

 

 

 
Blocks have been seized in the lower end of the Truss Pendant falls, but these have not yet been reeved and belayed.  Likewise, the Jeer falls have not yet been belayed.
 
I was about to rig the lifts, when I realised that the previously installed lift blocks on the mast were incorrect.  So I took them off, spent an hour or so stropping some new ones, and then while attempting to fit these, managed to drop them into the space-time continuum void between the model and the desk.     
 
I decided that was probably a good time to stop for the day!
 
 

Time for an update.  Not that I've achieved a major milestone but I need to take a break to handle some 'real life'.
 
Most of the planking above the wales has been completed P/S.  The gun ports on the gun and quarter decks are completed.  I've touched up the gun port red and done the first coarse sanding. 
 
There are still about 4 rows of planks to finish up the main wale.  Then I'll be able to final sand and begin finishing on this section.  The sweep ports will be installed, the double planking on the wales put on and I need to decide what will be painted and what will be stained.  Treenailing is also on the docket.
 

 

 

 

 

 

 
Sounds like a plan ---- right into 2014!
 
Stay well, mates.

Another small update.  The additional planks for the first layer of the main wales have been added.  In addition, the sweep ports have been made and installed.  I used some boxwood I had for these that I got from Jeff @ HobbyMill.  Really nice stuff.  Holds a good edge.
 

 
Also fabricated the ballast ports, this time using basswood.  It's the larger port in the center.
 

 
Sanded her down pretty smooth and will now add the 2nd layer of the channel wales after which I will be ready to apply the first coat of stain.  The 2nd layer of the main wales will be added after that as those are to be painted.
 
 

Thanks all for the compliments - and thanks Collingwood and Harlequin for the holiday wishes - back to you and all!!
 
Harlequin - it's good to hear from you! I hope to see some progress on the Bellona soon! Mine is still a very long way down the road - initially there was only one model between the Blandford and the Bellona, now there are four!! Anyway, I need to hone my skills a bit more before diving in - and I'll no doubt be stealing a lot of your ideas once I come to it!
 
In the meantime, some progress has been achieved on Blandford - essentially I've constructed and rigged the crossjack yard. It was quite tricky to rig - particularly the sling, which at such a small scale and in such a tight corner was difficult to achieve. But in any case, it is now on and looks not bad...you be the judge!
 
Happy holidays to all, once again!
hamilton
 

 

Very slow progress of late, combination of not much time, waiting for some supplies (cleats and 3mm double blocks for under the tops) and general busyness.  Worked on completing some of the pendants.  Seems these should have been split and then served around the mast, I cheated and simply attached some line on the other side and seized to the main pendant - these are totally cosmetic so should not be an issue.  Given that these will probably be hidden by the shrouds this may have been a waste of time, but I'm finding that practice is not a bad thing to build confidence.  I believe that one of the main purpose for these was to tension the shrouds.
 
Although when served the line tends to be quite stiff, I'm not sure how to keep the pendants hanging realistically, I think the best bet will be to simply wait for the shrouds and these will naturally push these down.  Haven't done any touch up on these.
 

 
The Burton pendant on the mizzen

I just realized it's been quite a long time since this has been updated.   So here goes....
 
Gunports have cut out, final shaped and the cracks between planks filled and sanded. The whole thing has been sanded with 600 grit.  I've cut the wales, shaped the bends and will, I hope, get them on by end of this weekend.  I'm testing some JB Weld "Wood Weld" epoxy to see how it holds.  As a backup, I have regular epoxy just in case.
 
I also found a source locally for MinWax Wipe On Poly which I'll use for a finish instead of the varnish I was planning on using.
 
Here's the pics.. an overall shot and close up just for kicks and grins. (Click the pics to enlarge).
 


 
If I don't get a chance to update this before then, here's wishing everyone a wonderful holiday no matter what you celebrate.  We'll be doing a quiet, low-key Christmas.  Just the three of us... and a fire in the fireplace. 

I have put the camera on different settings to see what happens.
 

 

 

 

 

Hi Robert, as per our recent conversation,  I see that Mars was equipped with 6 pounder guns, as was Pegasus, so I can provide you with some details for those.
 
Fittings on the ship.
 
Breeching ringbolts in bulwark
These are 5”ø overall = to 2mm at scale.
I used Amati 2mm brass rings for this purpose clenched in a modified 2mm eyebolt; the eye reduced in size and squeezed around the ring.
 
Port Tackle eyebolts in Bulwark
2¾” ø overall
I used Amati fine 2mm copper eyebolts, reduced slightly in the size of the eye, and set above the Breeching ringbolt in the bulwark.
 
Training Tackle eyebolts in Bulwark
These were used when traversing the gun left or right
Same size as the Port Tackle eyebolts,
 
Relieving Tackle ringbolts – set in the deck opposite (or nearly) each gunport.
3⅞” overall diameter =1.54mm at scale. I used Amati 2mm brass rings for this purpose clenched in a  modified 2mm eyebolt; the eye reduced in size and squeezed around the ring.
Note: on Pegasus some of the larger stopper bolts do double service also acting as tackle bolts.
 
Fitting on the gun carriages.
 
Breeching ring bolts – 3⅞” overall diameter =1.54mm at scale.
I used Amati 2mm brass rings for this purpose clenched in a  modified 2mm eyebolt; the eye reduced in size and squeezed around the ring.
 
Gun tackle Loops - 2” overall ø = 0.8mm o/a
I used Amati fine 2mm copper eyebolts, reduced slightly in the size of the eye and countersunk a little in the carriage to look like loops rather than eyebolts.
 
Gun breeching rope
4” circumference - scaling to 0.50mm dia line.
This looked a little thin to my eye so I used 0.7mm diameter line.
 
Gun side tackles
The gun tackles were fitted with 1½” circumference rope which scales to 0.19mm ø line. I’ve used Morope 0.15mm ø line which is pretty close and provides a nice size contrast with the breechings.
 
Side tackle blocks
The blocks are around 6” = to 2.38mm. I used 2mm JB Pearwood blocks, but I reckon Chuck’s 3/32nd single blocks would be just about right.  
 
I see from your build log that you are using Chuck’s 12 pounder barrels masquerading for the six pounders. Six pounders did come in different lengths and I used RB 32mm guns for Pegasus.
 
I have examples of Chuck’s six pounder barrels and I also thought they looked a little undersized for Pegasus. The Twelve pounder barrels are very similar to RB’s 32mm in diameter, but are longer by 5mm, equating to a 7’ 9” barrel which is still within the six pounder range.
 
Twelve pounder guns incidentally had a breeching rope of 5½”  circ. (0.7mm) which is what I actually used on Pegasus.
The tackles were of 2½” line (0.3mm at scale) but I only used line half this thickness.
 
I provide the above as a guide, but as with all things items don’t always look right with direct scale reduction so let your eye be the final arbiter.
 
Cheers,
 
B.E.

A few odds and ends
 
Rudder coat and pendants.
 
I usually make rudder coats out of micro-porus tape as it has a sort of canvas finish to it and has the added advantage of a sticky back.
Rudder coats are a sort of bell shape in plan but cutting a pattern for a particular ship is a matter of trial and error.
 
There should be an element of ‘bag’ in the coat to allow free movement of the rudder
 
This is difficult to achieve without padding out the interior, I use a little cotton wool off a cotton bud for this purpose.
After this it is just a matter of teasing it into shape around the transom and rudder.

The canvas was tarred to waterproof it as much as possible and I have represented this with a black grey finish.

 
The Rudder pendants
 
Evidence is that even smallish vessels like Pickle would have had some system for retaining the rudder after all loss of rudder was no small matter.
I could not find any detailed information exactly how the pendants and chains would have been fitted on Pickle; similar smallish vessels are shown with the pendants taken up over the transom and secured to cleats on the inside. This method would foul the stern gunports in the case of Pickle.

I fitted chains to eyebolts secured in the rudder and to eyebolts in the lower transom, and contented myself with this arrangement for the present.
 
Anchor buoys
 
These too are an essential part of a ships equipment, they need to be clearly seen on the water, and the standard size is 54”x 30” with something in excess of 100’ of line.(475mm)
 
Smaller vessels such as Pickle would have had a smaller version and I scaled mine down to 36” x 20”
I made an egg shaped core from the cone shaped tips of two cheap bic prop pencils and planked these with styrene strip.
 
With the addition of eyebolts either end and 0.25mm line to form the slings and hoops and the job’s done.

I don’t normally adhere to scale lengths of line but in this case I have measured out 18 fathoms of line (scale of course) to coil on the shrouds.

 

 

Nearly there
 
 

The final bits of Standing Rigging
 
Now that the stun’sl booms have been sorted I can rig the Topmast Backstays and Main T’gallant stay.
 

Jotika suggest 0.25mm line for the backstays, but I consider they should be the same thickness as the Topmast shrouds, so I have gone with 0.5mm line. The tackle lanyards are of 0.25mm line as suggested.
 
Note:
The kit instructions suggest that the Fore T’gallant stay and Main T’gallant stay be fitted before the Topmast backstays.
If this is done the backstays will have to be fitted insitu, with more difficulty in getting a neat seizing and with attendant tired arms.
 
It’s much easier to form the backstay eye splice off the model and slip it over the masthead before fitting the T’gallant stays.
A bit of work in rigging these backstays, they end with a double block thro’ which a tackle is rove from a single block with hook that is attached to the backstay plate before belaying on bulwark cleats.
 
A lot quicker to write it than do it.
 

Attaching the blocks to the ends of the stays is an exercise in frustration, the same method has to be applied as with deadeyes, but without the nice groove around the block they take every opportunity to escape the noose of the stay.
 

 

Now the backstay tackles and Fore Gaff Vangs are in place there is even less room to swing a 19’ Launch, just about get the Jolly boat over the side without fouling the rigging.
 

All the loose tackles have now been belayed at the foot of the Fore mast.
 

 

The black lines attached to the cleats at the mast foot are temporary, to hold down the Crossjack yard against the pull of the lifts until the Topsail sheets are rigged.
 
One of the penalties of not pinning the yards is that they flop about until stabilised by the opposing forces of the completed rigging.
 

The Crossjack yard lifts are seen here rolled on the yard; I won’t fit them until I have the sheet blocks fitted so that I can balance the two.
 

 
The next phase will see the rigging completed.
 
B.E.

Hi Robert,
 
The Training tackle eyebolts were introduced post 1779 and one was placed centrally between each port on the same line as the Port tackle eyebolts.
 
The diameter of the metal used in the ringbolts/eyebolts ranged between ½”  (loops on carriages)  ⅞" (Ringbolts) and 1" Breeching ringbolts/port tackle eyebolts. 0.2 - 0.4mm at scale.
 
The wire obviously needs to be robust enough not to pull out of shape when tackles are attached, the commercial stuff I used was of the order 0.4/0.5mm in diameter.
 
B.E.