Dimitris71

Hey Dimitris that looks great, you are really moving along. The pictures are so mush better, you can really see the details now.

And some more photos... (Better quality)
 
Cheers
Dimitris
 
 

Thank you very much mate!!! Really really appreciate it!!
 
Cheers
Dimitris

I have never used that brand how is it to work with?
David B

Hi Simon
 
Makes perfect sense,  I've just had one of those 'why didn't I think of that' moments, so simple when you think about it!  That's going to come in handy for my next intended build, scratch model of Marie Sophie from the Underhill plans, got to finish 'Revenge' first though. Many thanks.
 
Cheers
 
Martin

Dimitris, thank you for nice words and welcome aboard  .
 
Martin, I will try to explain my set up for stem rabbet.
First I made exact copy of stem from scrap piece of wood (in my example 5mm MDF plate). On that “copy” cutout is made on place where rabbet should be. Width of  cutout must be the same as pin guide on milling machine. After that is complete, template is attached on “real” stem. Alignment is easy, because shape of template is exact same as stem. Now I put this assembly on milling machine facing template upside down. Everything is now formerly laying on guide pin and piece of wood which serves as baseplate (pin should not be longer than depth of cutout in template). Feed rate is controlled by hand. I hope that helps.
 
Hamilton, deck has laser engraved lines . Actually it looks very authentic and with staining  with proper color will look good.
My plan is to use deck as sub-deck on which individual planks will be laid. Where I see real challenge is that planks on this model are not straight, but laid in curvature shape like on real ship. I already get some ideas from  Dr. Mike DVD Model Ship Building Secrets.
 
Thanks again to all of you for stopping by and comments .

Hi Dimitris
 
Darn, she's looking absolutely brilliant! Heaps of details. Lots to look at.
 
Nicely done!
 
Cheers
 
Patrick

Hello Nils, thank you for your so many visits and likes to my build log.. Greatly appreciated!!
 
Regards
Dimitris

Hello Frank, nice to hear from you again. I do thank you for the kind words and for stopping by. As I said before your Alert is beautiful.
 
Kind Regards
Dimitris

Hello shipmates, the work on the shipyard continues....I do thank you all for your likes and comments..Really appreciate it!!!
Here are some photos...
 
Kind Regards
Dimitris

Hello David, for the gold ? Or the brand ? The brand is Vallejo model air for the airbrush and Vallejo model color for the brushes.If you need anything else let me know!!
 
Regards
Dimitris

Hello Dan, I agree with the gentlemens above. Go for it !!  It's the journey that matters not the destination...
 
Kind Regards
Dimitris

TERROR MODIFIED: THE HISTORIC PLANS (Part 1)
  As outlined in a previous post, HMS Terror, originally designed as a bomb ship, was extensively modified three times for separate polar expeditions. Like all bomb vessels, she was already  highly specialized, with an exceptionally strong frame built to withstand the punishing recoil of her two massive mortars, and a spacious hold for storing munitions (for an excellent discussion of the Terror’s original configuration, please consult Ware [1991]). To build an accurate model of the Terror as fitted for the 1845 expedition requires concatenating design information from all of the plans as well as data from other historical sources. The plans discussed here are preserved at the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich, and copies are available for purchase from their online image library. Detailed images of the plans are also presented in Ware (1991).
  1812 Sheets A full set of plans “as designed” and dated March 30th, 1812, exist for HMS Terror; these are shared with her identical sister ship HMS Beelzebub. It is important to note that HMS Vesuvius plans are virtually indistinguishable and the two sets only differ in minor details (for example the scarph joints on the keel are not depicted in the Vesuvius plans). HMS Terror was so extensively modified that its final 1845 form bore little outward resemblance to her original design. The 1812 plans are critical, however, as they are the only drawings that depict her sheer, half breadth, and body plans, lines, framing configuration, keel and keelson construction, and stem and stern architecture.
  1836 Sheets HMS Terror’s first extensive modification began in 1835 and is outlined in a series of plans dated March 1836 (and later December 1837) which depict the inboard profile and all decks. The plans are extremely important because they illustrate the fundamental refit of the Terror - and thus represent her final overall size and shape of as she appeared in 1845. The plans also document some important innovations for polar exploration that would be adopted by all subsequent polar expeditions (for an excellent overview see Battersby and Carney 2011).

Perhaps the most extensive modification depicted in these documents was the creation a flush deck with two layers of thee inch planking to increase strength. Though not depicted on the plans, contemporary images by Owen Stanley reveal that the copper sheathing on the Terror’s hull below the waterline was removed as protection from shipworm was not needed in the freezing waters of the Arctic. In its place, a cross-shaped series of thick copper reinforcement plates were riveted to the bow to protect against ice damage.

The ship’s profile was modified significantly as well. The stern galleries were removed (to eliminate any projection that would catch the ice), and the stern, at the position of the upper and lower decks, was both lengthened and widened, presumably to provide more space on these decks. The bow was altered as well, with the keel simplified and the ship lengthened overall. It is uncertain if the cant frames were altered or if the bow was simply bolstered behind the new copper reinforcing plates (a strong likelihood), but the plans clearly depict a forward change in the overall frame position.

On the interior, the Terror’s bow was reinforced with solid oak chocks bolted to the stemson, forming a solid mass of wood ranging between 4 and 8 feet thick from the wale down to the keelson. In an effort to strengthen and streamline her contours against the grasping ice, each of her chock channels were individually filled in and planked over.  Thick iron plates were added to their upper surface, and the chains were replaced with solid iron plates bolted to the planked chocks. A spare rudder was suspended in a special well just behind the mainmast which penetrated from the upper deck down to the hold.

According to the inboard profile, the Terror’s mast positions were moved forward slightly and the rake of her masts, particularly the mizzenmast, appear to have been altered. It is uncertain when these modifications occurred, but they were probably done to improve the sailing qualities of the vessel (see previous post). In fact, they might have been undertaken during extensive repairs after the Terror was nearly wrecked in Portugal in 1828.

A cistern for melting ice was added to the ship’s stove, and 47 large iron storage tanks were added to the hold for water and other provisions. A novel addition was a hot water heating system fueled by a massive furnace in the orlop deck. The system functioned by pumping warm water through a complex series of pipes into the crew’s quarters on the lower deck. The furnace was an abject failure; it never worked as designed and George Back (1838) reported that it constantly had to be dismantled and repaired:
 

 
Perhaps the most overlooked innovation instituted during the 1835 refit was a system of watertight bulkheads designed to make the ship unsinkable. The concept of airtight chambers appears to have been the invention of Sir Robert Seppings and was first implemented by Sir Edward Belcher on HMS Aetna (Belcher 1870: 156).  As Belcher described, “the Terror was the model ship” for an entirely new coal-based bulkhead system and it was to be used by him in the abortive rescue of the stranded whalers in 1835 (see previous post). He describes the system thusly (Belcher 1870:156):
 


 
Though Back (1838) gave them no credit, the bulkheads undoubtedly helped keep the Terror afloat during her harrowing return journey across the Atlantic. As Belcher (1870:156) described:  
  The Naval authority must have agreed with Belcher, as the 1839 midships section and hold plan (see below) display that the bulkhead system was incorporated into the Erebus with little apparent modification. The 1839 midships section shows that the bulkheads were constructed contiguous with the frames in the hold and orlop decks and were lined with “two thickness of 1 ½ inch African [board] wrought diagonally across each other”. 

 References:

Back, George R.
1838    Narrative of an Expedition in H.M.S. Terror, Undertaken with a View to Geographical Discovery on the Arctic Shores in the Year 1836-7. John Murray, London. 

Battersby, William, and Carney, Peter
2011    Equipping HM Ships Erebus and Terror, 1845. International Journal for the History of Engineering & Technology 81(2):192-211.

Belcher, Sir Edward
1870     Admiral Belcher’s Remarks on Bulkheads. Transactions of the Institution of Naval Architects 11:155-156.

Ware, Chris.
1991     The Bomb Vessel: Shore Bombardment Ships of the Age of Sail. Naval Institute Press, Annapolis.

HMS TERROR, 1845, LINES AND OUTBOARD PROFILE  (AS FITTED)
 
The plans I have created for HMS Terror incorporate data from all of the existing historic plans of HMS Terror (see my blog for details). Creating new plans started by tracing the 1812 profile and lines, which included details on keel, keelson, stem and stern architecture, as well as the half breadth, body plan, and sheer plans. However, the most critical data on the ship’s architecture were derived from the 1836 Terror plans, against which the half body and sheer plans had to be compared and modified. The 1845 annotations (in green ink) on the 1836 plans were also incorporated into my plans of the Terror.
 
As described above, the 1839 plans, despite their labels, depict HMS Erebus. However, the deck furniture, fittings, planking arrangement, and other details are critical because Sir Edward Parry’s system of identically outfitting fleets (see previous post) meant that the furniture and fittings depicted on Erebus were also used on the Terror. In my plans of the Terror the fittings and furniture are as depicted in the 1839 plans, but their relative position is based on the 1836 plans.
 
In my next post, when I reveal the inboard profile and deck plan, I will outline my rationale for the precise locations and configurations for most aspects of the ship’s architecture and fittings (including the locomotive engine).  
 
Here are my plans for the lines and outboard profile. These were created in Adobe Illustrator on and off over the past year, with the original plans scanned, layered over each other, traced by hand, and then modified and augmented based on historical research.
 
 
Please note: This plan has been updated - please consult my later posts.
 
 
Please check out my blog for a detailed description of the modifications to the Terror - with loads of images!
 

HISTORY OF TERROR
(Part 2: 1839-1848)
 
1839-1843
Learning critical lessons from the Terror’s first voyage north, the admiralty extensively refitted both her and HMS Erebus for an ambitious four-year expedition to explore the Antarctic. Under the leadership of James Clark Ross, the Erebus was assigned as the command vessel, likely due to her slightly larger size. The well-experienced Francis Rawdon Moira Crozier, who had served under William Parry in three arctic expeditions, was assigned as captain of the Terror.
 

HMS Erebus and Terror under sail with Mount Erebus in the background (Ross 1847a).
 
The expedition was one of the last great voyages of exploration to be undertaken by sail, and was one of the Royal Navy’s greatest achievements in scientific and geographical discovery. The party collected vast data on biology, magnetism, and geology and discovered the Ross Sea, the Victoria Barrier (later renamed the Ross Ice Shelf), and Victoria Land. An active shield volcano on Ross Island was named after HMS Terror, along with a cove on Lord Auckland’s Island and a reef (on which she grounded) near the Kerguelen Islands.
 
Like her mission to the Arctic, the Terror sustained extensive damage during the voyage.  She twice rammed an ice floe in heavy weather and had the shackle of her bobstay sheared off, requiring dangerous repairs. In January 1842, the Erebus and Terror were unexpectedly trapped in ice and the Terror’s rudder was destroyed; Crozier was forced to utilize a spare rudder which was stored amidships. On March 13th the two ships collided in a severe gale; the Terror knocked off the Erebus’s bowsprit and became entangled in her masts and rigging (Ross 1847b:218). The ships repeatedly smashed against each and threatened to capsize until they were finally disentangled, but by this time both ships had lost many spars and the Erebus’ foretop mast had been carried away.
 

HMS Terror and Erebus collide in a gale, March 13th, 1842.
 
Compared to the Erebus, the Terror appears to have been a rather slow sailor, and Ross (1847a; 1847b) consistently described the need to reduce sail and wait for the Terror to catch up. Like the merchant ships they emulated, the Vesuvius class bomb vessels had difficulty carrying sail, probably due to an inability to stow adequate ballast (Ware 1994:67). In contrast, Hecla class bomb ships, like HMS Erebus, were based on a slightly improved design which appears to have (at least marginally) alleviated this problem (Ware 1994:67). Furthermore, the Terror was smaller than the Erebus by almost 50 tons (325 tons for Terror versus 372 for Erebus) but carried the same crew compliment (64) and provisions/stores (Ross 1847a:xix), and therefore may have been comparatively encumbered.
 
1845-1848
Eager to duplicate the success of the Antarctic voyage, the Terror and Erebus were assigned to Sir John Franklin on an expedition to navigate the Northwest Passage. The Erebus was again selected as the flag ship, with James Fitzjames as her captain, while Crozier was second in command of the expedition and captain of the Terror. Outfitting of the vessels began on February 8th, 1845 in Woolwich and after extensive modification and provisioning, the expedition left Greenhithe on May 19th of the same year.
 
The expedition required such a massive quantity of provisions (meant to last three years) that it was unsafe for the vessels to cross the Atlantic fully loaded. Instead, each carried two years provisions while a navy steam tender, the Barretto Junior, was used to ferry the remaining equipment across the ocean. The steam tugs HMS Rattler and HMS Blazer also accompanied the ships to Greenland, alternately towing the Barretto Junior, the Erebus, and the Terror (Cyriax 1997:57).
 

Owen Stanley, 1845, "Parting Company with the North Pole Squadron", National Library of Australia.
 

Owen Stanely, 1845, "Signal to Terror, opportunity for sending letters to England, 4 June 1845", National Library of Australia.
 
The “North Pole Squadron” encountered violent weather on the crossing, though the Terror and Erebus reportedly handled well and sustained no damage. The squadron arrived at a staging harbour at Whalefish Islands in Disco Bay, Greenland, on July 4th. Over the next week, stores and equipment were carefully transferred from the Barretto Junior to each vessel. In a melancholy letter to his best friend, James Clark Ross, Crozier described how overburdened the Terror was and his steps to lessen the load (Ross 1994:284):
 
“We got here on the morning of the fourth and have been busily employed ever since clearing and stowing away from transport. ‘Tis very tedious work from the small space we have to stow things. We have now a mean draft of 16 feet and all our provisions not yet on board. I sent home our largest cutter (and fill launch with patent fuel), 2 anchors and cables, iron waist davits and various things of weight as I think it better to have the provisions, come what may afterwards. “
 
Holds and decks crammed with stores, the Erebus and Terror set out from Greenland on July 12. The ships were last spotted moored to an iceberg at the edge of an ice barrier near Lancaster Sound by the British whaler Enterprise.  By the time they were abandoned on April 22nd, 1848, the Erebus and Terror had spent three years in the arctic, 588 days (19 months) of which of which saw the ships entirely beset in multiyear pack ice off the northern coast of King William Island.
 

The "Victory Point Record" tells of the abandonment of the ships (Wikimedia Commons).
 
The story of their abandonment, and the terrible tragedy which followed, remains one of the most compelling, but often inscrutable, historical mysteries of human exploration. I will not recount the final years of the vessels and the fate of their crews - it has been the subject of so much printed literature and digital speculation that my own account would be both insufficient and redundant. My interest with this log is of course with HMS Terror itself, which was the most advanced exploration vessel of her time.
 
Many have suggested the ships were the 19th Century equivalent of space shuttles; however, if one seeks to draw parallels, it is probably more useful to consider instead the entirety of the Royal Navy’s polar exploration program, whose technological advances, scientific achievements, and nationalist underpinnings were analogous to the NASA program of 1960’s and 1970's.
 
References
Cyriax, Richard, J.
 1997   Sir John Franklin's Last Arctic Expedition: The Franklin Expedition, A Chapter in the History of the Royal Navy. The Arctic Press, West Sussex.
 
Ross, Sir James Clark
1847a  A Voyage of Discovery and Research in the Southern and Antarctic Regions, During the Years 1839-1843: Volume I. John Murray, London.
 
1847b  A Voyage of Discovery and Research in the Southern and Antarctic Regions, During the Years 1839-1843: Volume II. John Murray, London.
 
Ross,  Maurice James
1994    Polar Pioneers: A Biography of John and James Clark Ross. McGill-Queen’s University Press, Montreal.
 
Ware, Chris.
1991    The Bomb Vessel: Shore Bombardment Ships of the Age of Sail. Naval Institute Press, Annapolis
 
Also on my blog! Please see: http://buildingterror.blogspot.ca/

HISTORY OF TERROR
(Part 1: 1813-1837)
 
1813
Launched in 1813, HMS Terror was designed by Sir Henry Peake, one of the Royal Navy’s foremost shipwrights and designer of HMS Erebus (1826), with whom the Terror would be forever linked. HMS Terror was one of three Vesuvius Class bomb ships built in 1813 to the same specifications; her sister ships were HMS Vesuvius and HMS Beelzebub (sometimes spelled Belzebub). The Vesuvius Class bomb vessels mimicked the lines and storage capacity of merchant ships, permitting extended cruises without need of tenders to carry extra ordinance. The first plans for the Terror were shared between her and the Beelzebub, but were identical to those used for the Vesuvius.
 
J1426 - Lines and profile plan of 'Belzebub' (1813)
 
 
1814
Under command of Captain John Sheridan, HMS Terror took part in the Battle of Baltimore, where she bombed Fort McHenry over the 13th and 14th of September, 1814. Her actions are immortalized in “The Star-Spangled Banner”; the “bombs bursting in air” actually came from the Terror and other British bomb vessels. 
 

 
An unexploded mortar bomb from Fort McHenry. This may have been one of the bombs lobbed by HMS Terror. Photo by Cowtools (Flickr creative commons)
 
1815
Like all bomb vessels, the Terror spent long periods in “ordinary”, or storage. She was decommissioned from 1815 to 1828 and again from 1828 to 1836.  
 
1828
After an extended period in ordinary, the Terror was recommissioned for service in the Mediterranean. Near Lisbon, Portugal, she was trapped on a lee shore in a violent hurricane and nearly wrecked. The damage she took would have broken up a less sturdy vessel, as a contemporary account indicates (Anonymous 1835:233):
 
“…the carpenter having made a careful examination of the hull,
reported that it was bilged upon both sides; that the fore foot,
keel, and stern post were knocked away, bulwarks leveled, and that
her back was completely broken; but still he thought it was possible
to patch up the damages if once she could be got afloat; and that,
moreover, from the extraordinary strength of the frame, he did not
despair of her standing another bumping…”
 
A testament to her sturdy construction, she survived and was refloated, repaired, and placed in ordinary upon her return to England. James Fitzjames, who perished with Franklin and the Terror many years later, participated in her salvage.
 
1836-1837
In 1835, the Terror and Erebus were quickly outfitted to resupply eleven whaling ships trapped in ice near Davis Strait, but the whalers escaped before the Terror and Erebus set to sea. In 1836 the Terror was further refitted for extended polar exploration and, under the command of George Back, spent the winter of 1836-1837 in severe ice conditions off Southampton Island. The ship was under such tremendous pressure from the ice that resin (“turpentine”) was squeezed from her timbers and her bolts “wept” (Back 1838:262). She was repeatedly thrown on her beam ends and eventually her sternpost was shattered - damage that would have been fatal in a less sturdy vessel. As Back (1837b:59) described in a letter to the Royal Geographic Society, the ship suffered greatly: 
 
“Feb. 18.-Early in the morning-thermometer at 33° below zero-a
disruption of the ice took place, and waves of ice thirty feet high were
rolled towards the ship, which complained much - the decks were
separated - the beams raised off the shelf-pieces - lashings and shores
used for supporters gave way - iron bolts partially drawn - and the whole
frame of the ship trembled so violently as to throw some of the men down.”
 
In a remarkable display of skill and nerve, Back sailed the Terror across the Atlantic, with as much as five feet of water pouring into her hold every hour. Her crew utterly exhausted from working the pumps, the Terror was beached in Lough Swilly, on the Irish coast. Conveniently, beaching the vessel allowed for full inspection of the damage, as Back described in his book on the voyage (1838:442):
 
“It was found at low water that upwards of twenty feet of the keel,
together with ten feet of the stern-post, were driven over more than three
feet and a half on one side, leaving a frightful opening astern for the free
ingress of water. The forefoot too was entirely gone, besides numerous
bolts either loosened or broken…”
 
 

 
HMS Terror's damaged stern, drawn by Lieutenant Smyth in Lough Swilly, August 1837.
 
 
 
References:
 
Anonymous
1835       Narrative of the Wreck of H.M.S. Terror. United Service Journal and Naval and Military Magazine 1:229-236.
 
Back, George R.
1837       Letter to the Secretary of the Royal Geographical Society. The Metropolitan Magazine 20: 58-60.
 
1838
Narrative of An Expedition in H.M.S. Terror, Undertaken with a View to Geographical Discovery on the Arctic Shores in the Year 1836-7. John Murray, London
 
For better images, please see my blog: http://buildingterror.blogspot.ca/

On this day, two hundred years ago, HMS Terror was launched in Topsham, Devon. The Terror was originally built as a bomb vessel and saw noteworthy action during the War of 1812. However, her destiny lay in exploring the ice pack at both ends of the earth, and she was arguably the most successful polar vessel ever constructed by the Royal Navy.
 
HMS Terror during her passage home, 1837 © National Maritime Museum Collections
 
With their exceptionally strong frames, bluff bows, shallow draft, and spacious holds, bomb ships were ideal vessels for conversion to polar exploration. Nearly wrecked several times, the diminutive, but sturdy, Terror withstood more punishment from the natural environment than any Navy vessel of the era. When she was finally abandoned in 1848, after three years locked in grinding pack ice (during some of the worst Arctic winters on record), evidence suggests she was still afloat. Her wreck, and that of her sister ship, HMS Erebus, has never been found. The story surrounding their abandonment remains one of the world’s great historical mysteries.
 
This log will document my project to scratch build an accurate 1:48th scale plank on bulkhead model of HMS Terror, as fitted for her final 1845 voyage. To my knowledge, no complete models, or plans, exist of the Terror as fitted in 1845; this log will document the process of creating both accurate plans and an accurate scale model. As you will see, both require detailed historical research.
 
Below are some images of a (rather crude) paper and card mock-up of the bulkhead arrangement I’ve created as a proof for an early draft of my plans. I expect it will take at least two years to build the model – maybe more.
 

 

 
http://buildingterror.blogspot.ca/

Hello shipmates, the work on the shipyard continues....I do thank you all for your likes and comments..Really appreciate it!!!
Here are some photos...
 
Kind Regards
Dimitris

Hello shipmates, the work on the shipyard continues....I do thank you all for your likes and comments..Really appreciate it!!!
Here are some photos...
 
Kind Regards
Dimitris

She is looking great Nigel. As always, your work is great !! :)
 
Cheers
Dimitris

Inner and outer planking.

Hi Greg and wyzwyk. Thanks for very nice comments.
I added the upper base for the side windows and mullions.

Little progress.

Slowly moving forward.

Thank you Dirk .
I have started assembling the stern, it will be quite hard work.