threebs

The latest issue of Ships in Scale published a photo of my Pennsylvania on the inside cover. Pretty cool that they considered it good enough.

I have now started to copper the hull. You can see the rough pattern I have laid out that I will follow. There are about 400 tiles in that pile. Each cut from a 5/16" role of copper adhesive backed tape. There are 44 tiles in a row, about 12 rows. Allowing for shorter rows on the curved sections, there will be about 1200 tiles on the hull when it is done. I am not going to ponce roll the dimples as the 3/4" heads of the copper nails in real life would be so small in 1/72 scale as to be redundant. I have done more tiles since these photos, so, I have done about 300 tiles now. It takes about 10 minutes to lay a row. It will take longer per row as the curved sections need to be cut and laid carefully. I am going to give the copper a couple of coats of dull coat to seal the tape edges, something I did not do on my last model. This will keep the tile edges from curling up as I handle the model to move it about, which will be a lot.

no lathe, I have a small proxxon mini lathe for turning yards. I think I could do it with jewelers files by hand. Thanks for the photo of the various cannon. I have a drawing of a shell gun in Chappelle's book I can go by for the carriage.

I searched for shell guns in 1/72 scale when I did my Pennsylvania. Could not find any. I do not want to start casting my own barrels, but, since there are only six of them maybe I can carve them from boxwood. they are below decks and you will only see abour 3/4 inch of the barrel sticking out of the gun port. would anyone really notice anyway?

This is my second scratch build. The USS Pennsylvania being my first. I thought I had started a build log on this site of this ship, but, I could not find one (it). So here are SEVERAL photos of it's progress. There are subtle differences in some of the photos as I changed things to accommodate future building. Like where I removed a bow support because the bow sprit would pass right through it. I took out the deck supports in the bulkheads because I decided I wanted to put the decks in individually. It would be easier to work on the lower deck without all of the deck ribs in the way. I did not cutout a door in the quarter galleries as the windows would have curtains on them and hide it anyway. The original framing of the quarter galleries was removed and I redid them when the side hulls were planked. It was more accurate and easier to put the windows and stern gun ports in. In the unpainted stern gallery photos, planks cover some of the window openings. In the primed photos you can see where I started the quarter gallery floor and ceiling. The cannon are left over from my Pennsylvania build. This model will have all of the cannon run out. The Pennsylvania only had a few on each side. The armament on the ships was almost identical. Pennsylvania had 18 pounder long guns on the spar deck, the Columbus had 42 pound carronades. The lower deck guns on both ships were mostly 32 pound long guns with 8 6 inch shell guns in the mix. I do not know where the shell guns were mounted, but, I am not putting them on anyway. Instead the lower deck gus will all be 32 pounders.

Now that my Pennsylvania is all but done, I will be working on this ship more and more. Have one side about 2/3rds done now. It is actually going pretty fast. If nothing interferes, I think I could have the entire hull planked by Christmas.

Did anyone notice I had the gudgeons and pintles reversed on my second launch? I just finished fixing it. Started planking the lifeboat.

Here are a few photos of the two boats I have done, and two forms for a second cutter and a second launch. I am going to make a small gig/life boat and a barge yet. That should be enough. I may build a case for it, will see. Only have some misc. repairs to chains, copper plates, and make safety railing/netting on the mast platforms. Then it will be done!!

Are the boats oars and other paraphernalia stored in them or below decks until needed?

As for clinker built boats, I am going to attempt one with one of the gigs or cutters. This ship only had one voyage, and it was across a bay to it's berth. I would imagine it did not carry more than 4 to six boats. So, I do not think so for this ship. However I will be doing one or two for the USS Columbus which I am currently planking.

Thank you for the compliments! I screwed up my first planking attempt on the launch. Forgot to put "ribs" over the frames! got about half way on both sides when it occurred to me, "Wait a minute! How do I get this thing off the frames when it is done?!!" Looked at the builds I had been viewing to get some pointers on how to proceed and noticed the "shims" bent over the frames and held down with rubber bands. Photos of the frames of the cutter I am starting show what I mean as opposed to the previously posted photos of the launch frames WITHOUT the ribs. I go into brain freeze sometimes and simply space out on some things I know I haven't painted the whole boat, but, I bought enamel paints at the hobby store the other day not realizing thry were not the acrylic version of the same color (see previous sentence!), and wanted to see what it looked like. It will be fine. Took me almost an hour to file the knees for the seat braces. Let me know what you think. It looked bad right off the frames, and, I was a little disappointed I had not done a better job. However, I persevered and it doesn't look half bad at all. Once ALL the ribs were in place and the floor in it really looked much better and I was much happier.

Here are some photos of my anchor area. Have the other side and the sheet anchors to do yet. Also, I did find a couple of ship boat sites, I will also try the ones you have mentioned. Any way here is my first attempt.

OK, thanks. But, isn't the "base", octagonal in this case, on the fore mast chain wale up against the hull or, on the hull abutting the chain wale, it appears so in Lee's book on masting and rigging? OH! Am I glad I checked your Constellation build? I was just racking my brain as to how to proceed in building my ship's boats! This is great, everything I need is right there. I book marked the page right away! I am going to search for Glen's Constitution build to see his posts on the boats. I am not so good at searching this sight, seems I get something different from what I want every time I try.

As I have been working on the anchors and buoys, I have been reading up about the fish davits. Not many photos of ships using them. Is it safe to say the are only used to drop, lift and stow the anchors and are otherwise stowed away themselves? As I am rigging the anchors in a stowed position, do I really need to make them?

Made a mistake about Victory's lower gun deck battery. She has 32 pounder long guns, not 24's. Even so the height difference is only 1-1/2".

yes, I was afraid of that. I did some divider measurements (which I should have done instead of eye balling it) of a buoy in an article in Ships in Scale volume XXI number 3 May/June 2010. I compared the length of the buoy to the height of a gun port. The article is about making anchor's and is where I got the plans for the anchors I made. The HMS Warrior (the ship in the article for which the anchor's were made), carried 24 pounders on her lower gun deck, as did Victory. With a caliber of 5.84 inches, using a formula of 6 times the diameter of the shot, a 24 pound gun port is about 35 inches, just short of 3 feet. Using that measurement, in photo above and the diorama photo in the article. it looks like the buoy is somewhere between 4 to 4-1/2 feet, or 1-1/2 times the height of the port. I placed a 3/4"X1/2" piece of scrape in place of the 1" buoy I made and it looks way better in proportion. I am going to make new buoy's 4-1/2' or just over 3/4". Thank you for your input, it is very helpful to get other views and suggestions!!

OK. I didn't get any suggestions about puddening the anchor ring so,I am going with my hunch that it wasn't done with a chain. HOWEVER, I do need input on if I made the anchor float to big? It looks OK, I guess, needs painting to simulate the tar it would have been coated with, but other wise I think it is fine. What do you think? Oh, it is 1 inch long, so six feet on real ship.

I have some photos of my progress. ALL of the rigging I am going to do is done. The photo of the whole ship does not include the spreaders or it's rigging, nor the bumpkin stays. I need to ask a question here to see if anyone knows weather or not I need to add "pudding" to the anchor rings? As this ship used chain in place of rope, I suspect the chain would wear away the rope wrapping on the anchor ring pretty quickly I would imagine. I suspect the rope wrapping on the ring was needed when a rope was used to reduce wear on the rope where in rubbed on the ring? The measurements on the anchor plans were reduced from 3/16th to 11/32 scale. I made a previous set of anchors that were too small, ah well, I can always use them on my USS United States when I build her. I will start her when I begin rigging my Columbus.

I made the corrections on the studding sail lashings. Figuring half inch diameter rope, I went with six turns to get three inches of lashing. I will post some photos soon as I have now finished all of the running rigging I am going to do. No leech or bunt lines as there will be no sails. just have the spirit yard (if you can call it that, after 1830 US ships of the line had no real spirit sails). Lee's book shows the way the yard was made, but not how it was rigged. I will only rig two standing rigging lines until and if I can find out how it was actually rigged. Working on the anchors and their rig now. I also need the railing and net on the mast platforms. I am not sure if I am going to make all of the 10 or 12 ships boats. In the end I think six is going to be enough?

At 6 foot to the inch, the 1/4" lashing works out to 18". Still too much do you think? I know the angle makes it seem like more than it is.

It is rather embarrassing that it seems I forgot to rig the ratlines on one side for the topgallent to royals. How do you do things like that? In m defense, I was just itching to get the yards up after so long it slipped my mind. Now however it will be more difficult on the main and mizzen as I will have to work around the yards and rigging. You can see from the photos how much easier access is to the fore mast. At least one of the photos shows parts broken away, I did this to make access to the belaying pin rails easier.

Here are some photos of the block process

I hand make my own blocks out of boxwood and cherry. Lots of filing and drilling. I wonder if I should invest in a mini drill press in stead of using the stand for my dremel tool. It is hard to line up the bit just right and keep the holes reasonably straight and in line. The vise made for the dremel tool stand has too much play and it is a chore to get the piece clamped down level.

I have been working pretty consistently on the ship. Since my last post I have been putting in a minimum of an hour everyday. and closer to two most days. Serving every block connection that connects to the yards takes a lot of time. Also, lashing thimbles to every block that hooks to an eye bolt also adds time. I had forgotten how careful you have to be trying to get your paws into the rigging to belay lines and add rope coils. running the lines can be frustrating when you go to tighten up everything and the block twists so you have to re run the whole thing It has been a long road, and it feels good to finally be putting up the yards!

I have been working on the yards a lot lately. There is a lot more to do than I remember from my Victory Model 30 years ago. I am trying to get as many blocks as I can on the yards before installing them. As this ship will not have sails, I do not need the leech or bunt line blocks, so I will be leaving those off. Everything attached to the yards needs to be served, and attached primarily with rose lashings (or a close approximation). I made the slings as you can see, and I am making the trusses now (no photos of those yet). I am also putting on shrouds at the top gallant to royal yards tressel tree. I will post photos of how I attached them later. I also made and sort of installed the spanker and gaff booms. I apologize for the messy deck, I will vacuum it clean when I finish installing the yards. Once the yards are done, I think all that is left is the anchor assemblies, the davits, and the ships boats???