Martin W

The spritsail yard was made with some changes to the kits plan. The centre part is only 8- instead of 16-sided. in Lees I found no information which showed  it 16-sided - the crossjack seems to be the only one with this feature.


Also the holes in the yardarm of the spritsail yard - supposed to take the sprit topsail sheet - were replaced by blocks at the yardarms. Lees doesn't mention any sheaves in those yards but leads the sheet through blocks.


 
The boomkins were also made but only provisionally fixed. Putting them in too early would be just another disaster waiting to happen. They are a bit sturdier than the kits sketch. Again I tried to follow Lees.


 
While working on this I thought about how to fix the boats on the beams. As I know Murphy, he would like to have all kind of things falling into to waist, out of reach as soon as the boats were fixed. So the lashing of the boats will have to be easily releasable. The first solution was to splice a line to an eyebolt on one side and the lead the line alternately over a boat and trough an eyebolt on the beam until fixing it to the eyebolt on the other side.

While working on the rigging I may come up with a better solution. I think the boats were lashed individually and I should try to imitate this better.


 
 


Spritsail yard and sprit topsail yard


 



boomkins


 



boats lashed on the beams


 
false splice
Somewhere in those pages I found a 'false splice' which I would like to share here. I use it often, find it helpful and it's easily done. The example is the lashing line for the boats, spliced to the first eye bolt.





1: thread the line through itself


 



2: ...and back again, marking the length of the splice.


 

 



3. pull taught and fix with diluted glue


 



4. cut the free end to length. Voila!

 
 

And here I am 8 months later.  There was an unbelievable amount of work involved simply in getting the new house organized, and the pandemic hasn't helped.  After I got to a point where I could begin to think about modelling again, I had to set up a shop/boatyard somewhere.  This house has a large basement and a very large garage, but neither has adequate power.  The garage is heated and insulated, it has better light, and in the warm weather I can open the door and let my dog (a rescue who is still afraid of just about everyone) hang out.  That became my choice:
 

 
The workbench I made in the autumn, it's just construction grade lumber but will do the trick for a while at least.  I hope that over the next several months you'll see the overall area improve as I paint the walls and figure out something to lay over that hard tool-damaging cement floor.
 
One setback came when I unpacked the Fly.  Both it and the Rattlesnake made the trip just fine, but the Fly stayed in its shipping container until just about a month ago.  I kept it in the basement thinking that it would be safe from all the jostling and re-arranging we'd been doing.  My guess is that the crew who installed the central air system might have bumped into the crate, and the result was that when I carried the crate upstairs I heard a sickening rattling inside.  Here's what I saw when I took the top board off:
 

 
That's a serious list.  Luckily, none of the delicate details were damaged -- it was only the keel that snapped off, and I can easily glue that back on, though I doubt I'll be able to use the mounting posts again to display it.
 

 
Now to work:
 
A few pieces of deck furniture remain to be constructed, but I think it's time to start on the masting and rigging.  I have a bag of birch dowels, but they are all too short to serve as masts.  So I got some birch from the Lumberyard which I can cut down to narrow square stock for the masts and spars.  I've got the foremast shaped, and am now working on the mainmast.  Here I'm cutting the area for the cheeks:
 

 
I'd like to use my Proxxon lathe for these, but I don't have the extension bed, and the main mast anyway is too long for the regular bed.  Once I finish the basic shaping of this mast, I'll move on the the mizzen, and then upward.
 
Cheers to all,
 
Martin

The late 1700's saw a lot of changes, like the woolding ropes/hoops being replaced with iron hoops, various developments in the dolphin striker.
 
Your rudder bolt heads look wonderful... thanks go to John Cairns of our local club for having shared this method with us.  Those plastic build guys can do amazing things!

Rudder improvement

AON showed in his wonderful Bellerophon build, how to improve the look of pintles and gudgeons on the rudder. They are etched brass with a row of holes. Using those holes to nail the parts on would have given a too coarse impression. I just glued all on and left the holes open. Now using a drop of glue, applied twice into the hole and painted black or copper simulates an acceptable bolt head.



 

the rudder before reworking with holes instead of bolts


 



glue drops applied


 



reworked rudder hanged again


 

 
Bowsprit and jib boom

The bowsprit was quite an interesting spar to build. To facilitate the adjustments according to the angle of bowsprit, I set my vice to the same angle for most of the construction.

While handling the jib boom I decided not to fix neither jib boom nor the dolphin striker yet (more to that part later) but wait until the rigging process would need it. This will reduce the risk of damage especially while frequently turning Bellerophon.

Below the bees I fixed some simplified bee blocks and the allocation of the caps eye bolts differs slightly from the instructions to leave room for manropes and jib boom horses. Not all went smoothly: The end of the bowsprit is round instead of square due me to overlooking wrong kit instructions - but that mistake should be covered by the cap. And the making of the stay collars was such a delightful task that I made 5 of them: no serving, wrong rope strength, wrong method of attachment. But for now I'm happy with the result and  working on the yards.



 

bowsprit end with simplified bee blocks

 


 


bee blocks and cap lavishly glued on (to cover the snags)


 



collars in place but main fore stay collar not served and the bobstay deadeyes collars wrongly spliced


 



approximately 4th attempt for stay collar


 



final arrangement of collars with jib boom provisionally in place


 



bees and cap


 



now only the two spritsail yards remain and then finally I may start rigging - yay!


 

 

 
Dolphin striker and martingale stay

The 1786 Belerophon most probably didn't have a dolphin striker. According to Lees they were first introduced in 1794. However I think it possible that one was added later on, to support the jib boom. The piece provided with the kit resembles a dolphin striker of the very first generation, nailed onto the front of the cap, with just a score cut into its end for the martingale stay. This striker was in use up to 1800 - still according to Lees. Up to about 1805 martingale stay and martingale back stay were combined and led from the end of the jib boom to the notch in the end of the striker (this part was the martingale stay) and then further on to an eyebolt in the head (martingale back stay) to be set up with a fall.

Now the kits plans had me pondering. It showed such an early variant however with the backstay part set up with a fall just behind the bees. Nowhere in all my books I could confirm such an arrangement. Finally I found in Zu Mondfeld's book a sketch where the backstay part is led through a block near the collar of the fore preventer stay towards the head. Assuming that the designer of the kits rigging perhaps took a kind of a shortcut, but was close to the correct appearance, I  think that this version would be a valuable solution. Where in the head the eyebolt for the fall should be placed, I wouldn't know. Lees states that it was set up on the bow, port side of the bowsprit. So, I think the lower part of the port knighthead might be a suitable place to put that eye bolt.


 

 

Hey Jeff, I’m working on getting custom decals made for the Morgan.  I can pass along the gentleman’s name if that would help.  He’s been sending me proofs to get the size, letter orientation/stern curvature and we are just about there.  I’ve never used decals on wood before so I’m curious how that will work out.
 
I didn’t want to use the printed paper approach (black ink background probably won’t match the ebony black) or try dry transfer letters (too many letters in the name to get them all aligned correctly).  Fingers crossed that decals are the solution.

The bollard timber heads have been remade.  As I was making version one, I knew there was something wrong but could not figure it out.  As druxey stated, the inner and outer (athwartship) faces of the bollard head runs parallel to the keel. I have made an opening in the sheer rail for the timber rather than gluing it on top, as I did in version one.  A thin piece of boxwood was bent around a dowel and used to fill simulate the bollard timbers alongside and below the bowsprit.



Treenails in the grating were simulated with a punch.  A pencil was twisted in the depression to represent the treenail.  Bolts made of blackened brass wire have been added to the bowsprit step, bitts and anchor lining.  Mast wedges for the fore and main masts were made up from four smaller pieces of castelo, glued together.  These were turned on the lathe.  The opening was made using a mill with a rotary table since I did not have bits the correct diameter.  The multiple wedges were simulated with an 11 blade.  The skylight was glazed with sheet mica.



Most of the external details (other than the channels and deadeyes) have been finished.  While it was still safe to hold the hull upside down, I installed the horse shoes, ribbons and gudgeons.  The horse shoes and ribbons are left over from the photoetch sheet once sold by Admiralty Models.  Recesses were carved in the stem, sternpost and keel for them.  The pintles and gudgeons were made from brass square stock, strips and wire.  They were silver soldered and blackened.  I used the method shown in TFFM.  The sequence is shown in the diagram.  First the brass rod and strips are cut to length.  Next, slots are filed into the brass rod to accept the strips.  They are soldered and the face of the rod is shaped.  A hole is drilled near the front.  For the pintles, wire is inserted into the hole and soldered in place.  Once I was sure that the rudder could be unshipped, I removed it for safe storage.   Question: would a ship of this size have a spectacle plate or would some other way to secure the rudder been used?  There is no spectacle plate shown on the plan or the model.

Thanks Joe, and everyone for the likes.
 
Thanks, Rick.   I wish you success with your Oneida, and if you have any questions, ask away.   You'll see I deviated from the Lumberyard plans along the way, based on sound historical info sometimes, other times perhaps less so.
 
Ron 

The pedestals ebonized--
 

 
 
And installed--
 

 
 
Now I can retire my not-so-pretty temporary (10 years or so) stand--
 

 

 

 
 
Ron
 
 
 
 
 

Thanks Martin.  I'm glad I stopped to take care of the pedestals.  Even if I had glued the nuts in place earlier, it was much more work, and turning the ship over many times to do it, than I anticipated.
 
Dowmer, I explain the ebonizing in post #51.  
 
Ron

That is some tricky work with lots of problems to solve.  Like you, I wish I had taken care of all that very early on, but there's no way of knowing for sure just how everything will line up.  The shots of your process show a very handsome build, regardless of all the tooth-grinding you probably went through.
 
Cheers,
 
Martin

That is some tricky work with lots of problems to solve.  Like you, I wish I had taken care of all that very early on, but there's no way of knowing for sure just how everything will line up.  The shots of your process show a very handsome build, regardless of all the tooth-grinding you probably went through.
 
Cheers,
 
Martin

I decided that the pedestals are indeed too chunky.  So I sanded them a bit thinner, and also reduced the thickness of the cradle arms.  Satisfied with this, I drilled holes for the bolts.  The aft bolt needed to be trimmed about a quarter of an inch.  The front bolt was fine as is--
 

 
 
And located them on the keel--
 

 
 
Tightened them down--
 

 
 
I discovered that unfortunately, I needed to reshape the cradle arms.  Due to various inaccuracies (the bolt not being precisely in the center of the keel, the hole not being drilled precisely in the center of the pedestal, the holes not being drilled precisely plumb, etc.) I needed to readjust the cradle arms, and the flatness of the bottom of the pedestals.  I had to attach and detach the pedestals numerous times, sanding and adjusting them.    If I improved one characteristic, another suffered.   I got to the point where they were much better, though not perfect.  But enough is enough.  Here they are as I will leave them--
 

 
 
The aft pedestal is very good.  The gap between the pedestal and planking on the forward one bothers me (it is better on the port side), but as I said, enough is enough, and I risk having to start over on them.   With the pedestals blackened , that gap will not be as noticeable (I think).  Now I wait for my blackening solution to "ripen".
 
Ron
 
  
 
 
 
 

Continuing with the pedestals--
 
I now cut two new paper templates using my card mock-ups as a guide, folding the paper in half and cutting them out so they were true mirrors.  Using the new paper templates, I then cut some scrap wood templates-
 

 
 
After cutting the keel slots, I could put these on the hull, and refine the cradle arms--
 

 
 
And importantly, check the keel drag--
 

 
 
Using the wood templates, I could support the hull right side up, and check the drag again, and the general look--
 

 
 
I checked for vertical plumbness.   I needed a shim under the port foot, and adjusted both the cradle arms, and sanded the pedestal bottom to correct this.  The clothes pins are just for some additional stability so the hull doesn't topple forward or aft--
 

 
 
Once satisfied with the scrap wood templates, I used these to cut out the final pedestals.   In adjusting the drag, and the vertical plumbness, the bottoms of the scrap wood no longer were exact matches to each other, and I tried to account for this in cutting out the final pedestals.  It may not be obvious, but looking at the scrap templates you can see the difference in the cradle arms to account for the port side of the hull being unplanked (the right side as we are looking at the templates)--
 

 
 
Any remaining differences I could easily sand away after clamping them together--
 

 
 
After sawing, chiseling, and filing the keel slots, I could then I set the hull on the pedestals, and refine the cradle arms--
 

 
 
Check the drag again--
 

 
 
These are now getting close to the final shape--
 

 
 
Some fine tuning of the cradle arms is still needed, and the pedestals themselves look just a bit chunky to me--not sure whether it's the sided thickness of the pedestals, or the thickness (molded dimension) of the cradle arms.   I will live with them for a while before making any changes, as I don't want to take too much off now and regret it.   Once I'm satisfied, or after another round of adjustments, I'll drill the holes for the mounting bolts, and ebonize the pedestals.
 
Ron 

As I was doing a cleaning and organizing of my workbench in preparation for the next phase.  I discovered the keel pedestal bolts and NUTS (which had been filed thinner to fit within the width of the keel).  I thought I had epoxied the nuts into the keel years ago!    
 
I felt underneath, and the holes were there, but no nuts.
 
Getting near the point of no return for being able to turn the hull upside down, it was clear this needed to be done now.
 
So--
 

 
 
Here are the bolts and their nuts--
 

 
 
I epoxied the nuts in place, taking care to keep epoxy out of the threads.   The bolts are in place, because the holes drilled into the frames and keelson keep the bolts (so also the nuts) in the proper alignment--
 

 

 
 
Since I have the hull upside down, this is also the perfect time to finally make a decision, and start making the base pedestals.  I've been undecided on this for the entire build!    What finally swung my decision was the worry for lateral stability, especially as the bolts are only in the false keel (though the screws do go deeper).   I've opted for some shaped cradle pieces, and started making templates for those--
 
 
 

 
 
These are VERY rough.  The fore pedestal needs to be just a bit taller (but not this much!) than the aft, due to the keel drag.   Many snips and iterations followed, sometimes lengthening the cradle 'arms', sometimes shortening them, adjusting the base curve, and making the two pedestals more consistent--
 

 
 
 

 

 
 
I ended up here, for now--
 

 

 
 
These will be made out of pear, probably about 3/8" wide, and ebonized-- 
 

 
 
Still a good deal of fine tuning to do, but I think these will do to start.
 
Ron
 
 
 
 
 

Version 2 is in the works!  There will be no need for version 3.

Looking lovely, Toni. However, might I point out that the bollard timberheads are extensions of the bollard timbers themselves? This means that their athwartship faces are parallel to the keel, not at right angles to the sheer rail. That way they have a bearing face on each side of the bowsprit.

The plankshear was installed next.  These planks are 2.5" thick, are flush with the inner planking and extend 3" beyond the outer hull planking.  Each plank is approximately 15 feet long and ends in a scarf joint.  A simple double-beaded edge was made with a scraper.  I made them from pear, the same wood the lower hull planking is from, for a slight contrast in color.  The knees at the stern have also been installed.  The capping rail was shaped by wetting it and clamping it in place overnight.  The edges were then shaped, putting the same edge treatment on the stern side.  The  fashion pieces were cut down to their final height and the corners rounded over.


The bollard timbers help secure the bowsprit.  A dowel wrapped in sandpaper (the bowsprit) was temporarily installed and the bollard timbers were sanded against the dowel to get the correct shape.  

I had been trying to decide on how much decoration to show on the model.  The model in the RMG has a lot of fancy work, including gold leaf.  Considering the type of ship, I thought a little bit of painting was appropriate but just at the stern.  I wanted a pop of color and so decided on black edging with a field of red.  The double bead motif was extended onto the aft end of the fashion piece.  The mottled appearance of the red is the wood grain.  I made this from pear.  

The black extends over the capping rail.  The same paint pattern was put on the fashion pieces.  Just for fun, I added red to the depths of the double-beading.




 

Thanks, Dan.  Great.  Now I have to carve Ens. Cooper.
 
 Backstay deadeyes and chains are installed.  They were much easier than the shroud chains--only one bolt to locate and drill--
 

 

 
 
The chains will get some tweaking at some point to make them to present a bit straighter, but I'm very happy to have this behind me.   So, to celebrate, a few overalls of Oneida--
 

 

 

 

 

 
 
Next up, installing the carronades.   For which I need to strop many small blocks.
 
Ron
 

Mike, your cutter looks very nice. 
 
The purpose of the half hull project was to teach beginners how to plank a hull.  Because the planking is a standard thickness, it can be removed and replanked a few times for more practice.  Never say never but at this point I do not have any plans to produce another half hull project.  If I do, the builder could choose between clinker and carvel planking.  Swallow has spent too much time being ignored while developing the capstan project.  She is a bit jealous and demands that I finish her before doing anything else.
 
 

Tony, I've just discovered your build log for the swallow and she looks great!  I built your planking tutorial a year or so ago and it turned out fantastic.  Lat Christmas I built a half hull of a English Cutter, I got the plans on SOS, and built it with a clinker hull.  I used and batten above each to kick out the next plank and it worked well except for some sinking between the bulkheads.  Some filing and sanding fixed that but your method looks a lot better.  I attached a photo of the cutter.  I just down loaded you capstan planks from the NRG store and it looks like it is going to be a lot of fun but I really liked doing the half hulls.  Since you started the Swallow doing a half hull, do you think you might do another half hull kit or develop the plans for sale in the store?  Either way I will be following your progress with the Swallow.  I'm learning a lot from your expertise.  Thanks ctmike 

Good progress there, Toni. It's difficult not to knock a chip or two of paint off during construction, but I'm sure it will clean up nicely in the end!

The anchor lining is a very prominent comma-shape on the model.  The lining is not shown on the plan but I decided to follow the model.  The upper part of the lining extends to the plankshear.  It extends over the wale and continues down almost to the water line.  These boards were added clinker-style but the outboard surface of the lining is smooth.  There is also a smooth transition from the lower hull over the wale.  



Four scuppers are visible on the model but are not shown on the plan.  They were lined with copper tubing blackened in situ with liver of sulfur (LoS).  I have also started work on the fashion piece.  Although the model shows painted scrolls and gold leaf, my model will be much simpler.  I have not decided on its final appearance but most likely will simply paint it black.

I have refined the top of the stem, narrowing it and incorporating the hances into the tip.  As you can see, all the black paint will need touching up.


The hawse holes are 10 inches in diameter.  These were drilled out and then sanded to their final size.  The pipes are copper.  After the outboard shape of the pipe was determined, a piece of copper tube one size larger was shaped and soldered onto the end to simulate the rolled edge of the pipe.  The inboard profile was then shaped.  The hawse pipers were blackened with LoS after all of the excess solder was filed off.  LoS will not blacken silver, only copper.


 

Hi Rob - 
 
Very nice work on the breaching ring irons and the deadeye chains. 
They will show up beautifully as details that will give you a knowing smile when you see them on the completed model.
 
PS - Woolsey was not the only one supervising.  Ensign James Fennimore Cooper was also there and working on the ship.
 
Looking forward to future progress.
 
Dan 

Lieutenant Woolsey continues to supervise the building of Oneida.
 
The missing breech bolt ends have been blackened, and installed with the rest--
 

 
 
The brass wire pieces for the backstay chains have been  cut, bent, assembled, soldered, bent some more, and blackened (in that order!).  Then the deadeyes were bent into their loops, and some general remedial bending done to some links that were still too far out of whack--
 

 
 
These will be installed next.
 
Ron 

Here is the work to make up my lost breech bolt ends.
 
A strip of cut brass sheet, a bit of wire--drill holes in the sheet and insert the wire--
 

 
 
Solder the wire in place, then trim them and cut apart.   I made the mistake of placing the wires too close to each other.  I ended up only getting half of these, fortunately I didn't need all of them.  I think I might even have one or two extra now--
 

 
 
I wasn't as far along as I remembered on the backstay deadeyes and chains.  I just have the deadeye loops.  So I need to make up a bunch more loops and string up 12 'units'--
 

 
 
Good news is that the shroud dead-eyes and chains are all attached!
 

 
 
Ron