Rudolf

Thank you everybody for your kind words and encouragements. You know, I really hate to be an unreliable man, and I feel unconfortable with saying I will post pics and I can't. But everytime I think I will have some time to go back to the workshop the amount of work (my real work I mean) increases and I'm away from home much more than I would like to... And as you can imagine with the Covid-19, things are not going to be better anyway soon. But that's my job and of course it is the priority.
Anyway, I have at last some real improvement to show so here are the pics !
At first I had to make some shaped pieces of wood (lisses de rabattues, don't know the english word, wich are molded) with a tarabiscot. Then I can plank the rest of the ship. I had to correct my drawings concerning the sheer cap railing (rabattues) and make them more parallel to the other "préceintes". (I don't find the english word, but I suppose it makes sense anyway). It came from an advice Marc gave me a few years ago. I did not make them more curve, in fact I even made them more straight, but I gave them less a "fan" shape. 
So at last it goes forward. The left side is a little late but will be done in a few days. 
Thank you for your interest, regards,
Marc

 
 

Basic structure has been out together, boxwood keel and stem
Counter planking complete, Black paper between each plank 

The full plan, as you can see a large windlass at the front but no davit??? The captains cabin is also under the fore deck with not a lot of room because if the state room I guess, which also isn't exactly large either but heated

I'd forgotten how easy it was to single plank on bulkheads, not!!! Finally managed to get some work in with slightly warmer weather although very wet
Hull planking complete except for the garboard which I've left off for now so the dust can drop out the bottom, Wales and faux frames, also painted inside the cockpit and transom in readiness for the cockpit planking

 
I was originally going to trim out the bulkheads but have mow decided against that as most of the inside wont be viewable, I am going to make the fancy stairs down into the bedspace and state room
 

I have added deck and state room beams and carlings for the deck fittings, capstan, gratings etc, now cutting some cherry planks and lining with Black paper for the state room roof


 

Cherry roof completed and has had three coats of sealer, sanded inbetween with 400 grit, plansheer added around three sides so far, I also lined the front of the cabin with mahogany

I also gave the inside of the cox's cockpit a freshen up after planking the floor, bases for the fireplace chimney and capstan also added
 


The front edge of the roof still needs trimming but im happy with the colour that has come out after sealing, polishing with wire wool should bring out the sheen.
 

And finally for this week, back to work tomorrow, I started imagining the capstan

Thanks 
Paul

Hi Keith
Thanks, I doubt its any warmer I have only been able to get out an hour at a time and extra jackets required, small boat and bigger scale 😁😁

Bit more done over the weekend, deck planking and some deck furniture while waiting for planks to dry, there's quite a sheer up to the forecastle

Thank you !
*************
 
Doors in the foredeck and the decks house
 
Foredeck and decks-house were accessible through various doors. These were cut from 0.1 mm bakelite paper with the laser-cutter. The hinges were laser-cut from thin paper. In both cases various tries were needed with different cutting parameters and slightly altered drawings in order to arrive at the correct size. Die parts were assembled using zapon-lacquer. Zapon-lacquer was also used to glue the door into place.
 

Laser-cut doors from bakelite paper before clean-up 
 
On historical photographs I noticed that each door had a narrow step. These were represented by shaped and laser-cut tiny strips of paper.
 

View of deck-house and back of the fore-deck with the doors installed
 
Once the door were in place the hole for the bullseyes were drilled out. The laser-cut hole served as a guide. Once the boat is painted, the glazing will be installed in form of short lengths of 1 mm Plexiglas rods. The front of the rods will be faced and polished carefully on the lathe.
At a later moment also the door-knobs will be turned from brass and installed.
P.S. Apologies for the somewhat poor quality of the photographs, but I have been too lazy to take out the SLR camera and took them with the telephone.
 
To be continued ...
 

Hello,
after a longer brake in building, I started now again. The new crew is complete. We have a new painter and two carpenters. 



But first they have to make them self familiar with there new working place.

I started turning the cannons. Because I have opened a can of heat resisted silicon rubber for these little guy's, I think it's better to use it before it's getting hard. 

So, as I try to close this chapter of the build, I got busy tying up a few if the loose ends.
 
In preparation for securing the window plate, I thought it would be helpful to do a few things, in advance.
 
Rather than attempt to paint the inner lip of the window frames with the glass in place, I pre-painted this inner reveal.
 
I have come to realize that the artists’ acrylics I used for the deadworks are exceedingly fragile, and so - going forward, I will use purpose-made model acrylics wherever possible.
 
To that end, I mixed a Tamiya primary yellow with a medium brown Tamiya shade until I was satisfied with my resulting yellow ocher color.  I mixed brown, drop by drop, into the yellow bottle, so that I will have enough ocher to paint everything on the model, without having to re-mix and try and match shades.
 
Following Druxey’s advice, acetate sheet was scribed with a sharp knife and medium-grey acrylic was wiped into the lines.  This was all reasonably straight-forward, and produced excellent results.
 
My initial plan was to glue-in L-angle styrene strip, to the vertical bulkheads, and a ledge strip to the inner bottom edge of the window plate, so that the individual panes would be housed and well supported, but floating.
 
I quickly realized, though, that the positioning of the mullions, relative to the window opening will not always be ideal, if the loose pane shifts from side to side.
 
With that in mind, I took a spare test pane (one of the QG side lights that I botched during the engraving process), and test-tacked it to styrene strip, with medium viscosity CA.  It did not result in the dreaded cyano blush.
 
With the success of that experiment, I decided to apply CA along the inner crease of the bottom ledge and one small tack dot of CA in the top center of each pane (behind what is the ornamental cartouche, on the exterior).  This all worked out neatly enough:



In hindsight, because the vertical bulkheads are relatively deep, it would have been beneficial if I had painted their sides flat black before fitting them to the model.  Unfortunately, I did not do so, and the perfectionist in me refuses to make a gloppy mess of black paint work, after the bulkheads were fixed in place; access, here, is severely limited.
 
In compromise, I decided to blacken the visible surfaces of the L-Angle, since there would not be any glue applied there.  In the following picture, I have blacked-in half of the supports:

On the other hand, I refused to compromise on simulating with paint, the impression of hull depth for the stern chase ports.  Access, here, is limited, but a little better.
 
After brush priming this area, as well as the port linings with ModelMaster flat white - which laid-down beautifully, BTW, and allayed my concerns about brush-priming the stern - I blacked-in the inner bulkhead surfaces, but not completely.  I left most of what I wanted to show as red-ocher, in primer white.  The blacking was merely approximate and done by eye.

Knowing that I would be doing this, I had saved the bulkhead pattern and now used it to cut four sets of opposed masks that created a parallel line with the profile of the transom.
 
This was very fiddly and could only be accomplished with tweezers and a palate knife to finesse  the tape into position.  Once satisfied and the tape edges burnished, I applied some clear dull-coat to the seam, in order to prevent any annoying bleed into the black.
 
In hindsight, I could have made these reveals a little thinner, but the impression is still good, and at least the depth is consistent from one port to the next:


I scraped away any ugly black paint over-brushing, just to quiet the voices in my head.
 
And, finally, I glued in the window plate, the top transom moulding and the side pilasters:



I discovered, after doing so, that I had made a mistake in trimming the pilaster tops flush with the window plate; the mistake is that I had failed to accommodate the raking angle of the stern, so I will eventually have to fill a gap between each of the pilaster tops and the wrapping stern balcony above them.  This, of course, is the beauty of plastic - I can make this edit fairly easily by splicing-in plastic shims.
 
One last shot of the transom interior, showing all of the interior structure:

I gave the model a good dusting, as I will bring it to our club meeting tonight; I was astonished at how much plastic dust had accumulated, so far.  I’ll have to be more mindful of that, now, as these windows will soon be completely inaccessible.
 
As ever, thank you for looking in, your likes and your comments.  It is all very much appreciated.

In designing the upper counter moulding/shelf, I began by scribing a piece of styrene to neatly fit the round-up, against the window plate, and I then traced the outline of the counter onto the bottom of this blank.
 
Ultimately, I settled on an overhang of a light 3/32”, all around.  At first, I thought the outline of the shelf should follow the ins and outs of the pilaster bases:

But this seemed rather busy, the negative spaces between projections too small, and the overall design seemed to betray Berain’s intent.  So, for the outline, I settled upon this:

After trimming to my lines, I made sure to make a duplicate tracing - just in case I screwed up the moulding process:

I made a pair of hacksaw profile scrapers; one for the shelf, and one for the secondary lamination, beneath the shelf:

My first attempt for the shelf scraper produced a profile that was too deep and too flat looking, as seen on this piece of scrap:

So, I reground the profile, and ended up with this:

The scraper gets pretty close into the corners, but you still need to define them with a chisel, afterwards.
 
The under-moulding is very narrow, so I first scraped the cove into the straight edge of a larger sheet, and then I “ripped” off the 1/16” that I needed.
 
Just as I would with full-scale trim, everything is mitered.  When dealing with parts so small, I find it easier to tack in the short pieces, over-long, and then fit the long pieces to them.
 
Miters are first cut into the long pieces and then traced directly onto the shorts for perfectly mating joints:




Here is how that looks on the model, from a variety of angles:





To answer EJ’s question from an earlier post, I can now see that there will be ample air space behind even the side figures, so I will definitely be including the pilasters.
 
At the moment, I am working out the fixation of the window panes, so that I can paint the window openings yellow ocher, and then secure the window plate and upper transom moulding in place.
 
Thank you all for your interest!

You Eastern European guys are so extremely neat in your work, which almost makes me jealous. You are years ahead of here in Western Europe.

Tops and stays fixed. Now I can continue to build the next level of masts.
 
Jan

Thank you for your attention upstairs. I'll finish it as soon as I can!

When considering something as complicated as Soleil Royal’s stern; that is, while trying to figure out how, exactly, to get from here (sheet plastic) to there, I have found it useful to consider the ensemble as a series of layers.  There is a base layer of detail, a middle layer of detail, and a final fine layer of detail. And, in certain instances, there may even be a few additional, even finer layers.
 
In order to illustrate this build-up of layers, here is a more or less sequential montage of the process as it relates to the stern counter:

After each layer is set, be it planking or paneling, the surface is sanded fair and smooth, in order to eliminate any surface irregularities.  Here and there a touch of squadron white was necessary to level surfaces - particularly, on the side sections where any unevenness in the ground would be glaring, as seen through the panel reveals.  The edges of all the panel reveals are micro-beveled, in order to give them a more finished appearance.


I mentioned before that I would wait to define the concave bevel around the crown of the rudder head ornament.  I was waiting until after this bottom moulding of the central panel was installed.
 
Making this moulding, as well as the blank for the lambrequin carving, was accomplished by pressing blue tape across the span and into the joints of the central pedestals so that I could highlight these parameters with graphite.
 
This process doesn’t always produce absolutely perfect patterns - it is sometimes difficult to tell whether the tape is absolutely all the way into the crease - but they are close enough, so that you can fine-tune the fit of parts, after leaving yourself a little margin around your pencil lines - say the additional thickness of a pencil line.
 
In the end, I am very satisfied with the impression that the crown is recessed into the counter.  When I started this whole process, I really wasn’t sure how it was going to come out. This gives me renewed hope that the surgery I will attempt on the Four Seasons figures will work.  Despite the challenges these plastic surgeries present, they are still an enormous time-savings, over making the carvings from scratch.



Hopefully, these pictures provide a sense of the many layers involved in constructing this stern counter area.  There is a lot going on, here, in a very limited space. In recognition of that fact, one must consider just how nitty into the gritty they are willing, or is even sensible for them to delve.  At some point, there is an intersection of will and reason, and that is the place you are aiming for.
 
Take, for instance, the lambrequin carving, as it was drawn by Berain.  He shows 15 full “petals” with half-petals at the ends. Each petal is adorned with a fleur-de-lis, and three pendant tassels hanging from their bottom edge.
 
Thinking back to my experience of carving mould-masters for the frieze fleurs, I estimate that it would be damn-near impossible to carve lambrequin fleurs in this scale.  Theoretically, I could use something like Liquitex gel medium to paint on the fleurs, thus producing a light relief. I am not yet confident, though, that I could do this with any semblance of consistency.  I will try to incorporate this technique a little later, when I represent the tasseling.
 
There is, on the other hand, at least one ready-made source of fleurs that would be perfect for this application; the stock fleurs that are moulded into the kit upper bulwarks!  With these ornaments in mind, the lambrequin petals were scaled, accordingly, and I ended up with 10 full petals, bookended by half-petals.
 
Here is a brief montage showing the steps for creating the lambrequin carving:



Using two-part latex mould medium, I made moulds directly from my spare upper bulwark pieces, and then cast the blanks in white resin.  As opposed to the larger ornaments, for which you must laboriously grind away the excess backing material, these fleurs are so shallow that I could simply shave them off with a honed single edge razor.  With just a little extra cleanup, using a #11 blade, they were ready for mounting.

Once tacked in place with liquid cyano, I brushed the whole lambrequin carving with liquid cyano to ensure total adhesion and to smooth over any surface irregularities of the carving.  The back of the lambrequin carving had to be coved with a rubber profile sanding block so that it would cup neatly to the counter.  I think the scale and overall aspect of the carving harmonizes nicely with the rest of the counter.


Now that I know the full projection of all of these layers, I could begin to make the bottom and top mouldings that frame-in the counter.
 
I had great success with constructing a stacked moulding for the transom moulding, so I decided to take the same approach for the bottom counter moulding.
 
First, I pared away enough of the pedestals, at their base, so that I could pass the first layer of the moulding behind them.  This layer has a tiny coved reveal, and it’s primary purpose is to conceal the inletting of the acanthus bases of the jaumier ornament:

The overhang, at the ship’s sides is exaggerated, for now, but it will soon be backed with a thicker piece of styrene sheet (for a better sense of depth), and then trimmed to the pencil line.  This way, the outboard profile of the counter won’t interfere with the paneling of the quarter gallery, but will instead, help to define it.

The next layer of moulding is a heavier piece with a more pronounced cove moulding.  This is fitted between the pedestals:

The trick, with the above layer of moulding was to fair back it’s bottom edge, in order to create an even reveal for the final component of this triple-stack moulding.  I was hoping to preserve the tiny cove reveal at the bottom of this assembly; as you will see, the results aren’t absolutely perfect, but it still looks good, IMO.
 
So, finally, pre-shaped ¼-round Evergreen moulding runs straight across all of the pedestal base bottoms, leaving just enough space for the scrolled foot appliques that are shaped from half-round Evergreen moulding:

Now that the pedestals are located and the bottom counter moulding is in place, I could finally place the caryatid carvings, which I had previously separated from their base:

Next, I will lay out and fabricate the top counter moulding.  You can see that the projection of the counter/false gallery is quite significant.  This is actually a good thing, as it creates a deep enough shelf for the four seasons figures to sit upon:


Lastly, early in my conversations with various scholars of the epoch, almost all of them commented on the apparent exaggerated projection of the pedestal that supports the figure of Autumn:

Now, granted, as it’s drawn the pedestal only appears to be supporting Autumn, without any indication that you might also be seeing a portion of the inner pedestal that supports Summer.
 
Nevertheless, an interesting thing happened, once all pedestals were in place, at their full projection:

While I’m more or less eyeballing all of this, in terms of how thick the layers should be and how that might impact the final depth of the counter, I do think it is reasonable to say that the central projection of the counter would likely produce a similar side view, in full-scale practice.  I’m not positive whether this is architecturally right or wrong, but it is interesting, nonetheless.
 
In closing, just a few perspective shots showing all of the work on the stern, to date:


This is not a perfect, or exact recreation.  The execution is not flawless. Overall, though, the impression and resemblance is quite good.  That is what all of these successive layers of detail make possible, and there remain a few small details (rudder hinges, lambrequin tassels, etc), before this section of the model is complete.
 
More to come…. Thank you for your likes, your comments and for looking in!

The first question is, what are you planning to do with this CNC machine, and then how much will you be pleased to pay for the conversion.
 
In my opinion, 4 axis engraving is utterly useful in ship making, so adding a forth axle is highly recommended. It wont cost you much if you dont ask for too much accuracy and robustness, I think ive seen kits down to 60 dollars on taobao. If you are not currently planning for using the 4th axle, at least buy a controller that supports it, so later you wont have to change the whole set when you need it.
 
The controlling system I personally prefer PC-MACH3 system, using USB control board or serial port. But be ware, serial port is hard to find on current PCs. Industrial-level CNC systems are way too strong for personal usage, and it consumes so much budget that you can use that money to upgrade all your steppers to servo motors. SCP based systems, like Arduino systems, are too cheap for a decent milling machine, it lacks a lot of functions, and not accurate on circles.
 
Are steppers good enough for normal CNCs? Yes. But if you have the budget to use servo motors, please do, it is so much human-friendlier than steppers, make your working place a better place for human beings, and provide better accuracy for the machine.  "Close circut steppers" are simply junk, they work as loud and vibrate as steppers, but even more fragile than a servo motor.
 
You may want to change all the screw bars to ball-screw shaft for less friction and less backlash. The latter is very important in transforming machinetools.
 
The rails, if you were using dovetail guide or other means of heavy guides like normal milling machines, you can try "Plastic-adapting"the rails(Im not quite sure on how this spells in english). By sticking a PTFE "tape" kind of thing to the rail, it can highly reduce the friction and thus the driving power, so as to make the machine faster, more stable, quieter, and accurater.
 
Finally, you can consider using a second spindle for engraving. One can get a 30K rpm water cooling engraving spindle for like 200 dollars. If you are more dealing with wood, a faster spindle can offer a much less cut-per-rotate, thus protects the wood structure.
 
 
 
 

thank you, that clears it up. Very ingenious !

Hi Jens, beautiful work,  the bulwarks are  super, how did you adatch the  stanchions to the aluminium bulwarks?
Greetings, Rudolf

Designing of these reverse-curve pedestals and the paneling, in-between, has been giving me fits.  As a reminder of Berain’s layout:

This is a challenging thing to approximate onto the Heller architecture.  My first break in drawing came after much erasing and re-drawing, and I still wasn’t happy with the result:

I liked the in-board pedestal shape, but I didn’t like the relationship of rake, relative to the outboard pedestal.  I also wasn’t quite sure that the circle was the right diameter.
 
After allowing it to sit for a few days, I came to a realization about Berain’s drawing.  Although he does indicate balcony overhangs with shadowing, the drawing is, otherwise, presented as thoroughly one-dimensional, without any foreshortening of perspective for the rake of the stern.
 
In other words, in order to arrive at a closer impression of what he drew, one must design with the more likely vantage point in mind; as though you were looking at it straight-on, but from a level plane or above.
 
After much re-drawing, here is how the shapes change when viewed from below:

And then, above:

Now, the layout looked right to me, or at least as close to right as the Heller architecture will allow.
 
Once I was sure that I liked my shapes, I double stuck a scrap of vellum to just beneath the crease of the stern counter.  I, then used my finger nail to sharpen that crease into the vellum.
 
Then, very carefully, I mapped the reverse curves and paneling onto the vellum with a series of dots that were close enough to accurately fair them, once the paper was removed.
 
After glue-sticking the paper to a scrap of oaktag, I faired and darkened all of my lines, and finally cut out the three main elements with a sharp matte-knife:

It may appear that the top reveal above the panel is too large, however, there will be a small cove moulding beneath the overhang of the top transitional moulding, and this will balance out the weight of the reveals. As for the bottom reveal, the aforementioned foreshortening of perspective takes care of that issue.

Next, I could use the inner pedestal patterns to demarcate the central raised panel, for planking.  I also traced the outer pedestal profiles, though, to be sure that I liked the layout. I made one last check with old man winter (the widest of the four seasons figures) to make sure that I was happy with this:


As a side note - the transitional top moulding will run between the Four Seasons figures and the pedestal bases.  Both Berain and Tanneron present this as a seamless transition.  I, however, do not have enough space to make wider pedestals AND present the more elaborated lambrequin carving.  Allowing the top moulding to run between them will nullify their difference in width, as the figures will be fully supported by the moulding. Or, so I think...  As I often say, this build is a reconciliation of sources and a compromise in execution.
 
Finally, I got to planking the next layer.  This time, I created a neat radius around the head and crown.  I won’t bevel that radius, though, until the final framing layer of moulding, between the inner pedestals, is applied.  I nipped the outboard profile of this second planking just a little past my lines; that way I can trim everything flush with the pedestal appliques, after they are applied.

One of the trickier things to keep in mind is that the bottom course, of this second layer, has to be beveled so that it does not interfere with the bottom moulding that helps frame the stern counter, and which I will make, once all the layers and pedestals are in place.  The reason for that sequencing is that the top and bottom transitional mouldings have to overhang everything in-between, and I don’t want to guess where all of that may end up. The port side course was beveled flush, after being set in place. The starboard course has only been pre-beveled, so far.
 
One last consideration is that the counter profile actually extends beyond the tumblehome profile of the stern:

I’m not 100% sure how I will resolve this, just yet, but my inclination is to leave an overhang on the outboard paneling layer (with the circle, and to which the outboard pedestals are mounted, and allow the counter level of the quarter gallery to butt up behind it.  This will create the small step that seems to be implied in Berain’s drawing.
 
So, that’s where things stand, so far.  I hope all is well with you all, and thank you for looking in.
 

Believe it or not, aside from heat-bending the bow extension pieces, the aspect of this whole project that has given me the most trepidation is the planking of the stern counter/false balcony.  The reason being that this feature of stern architecture took me the longest time to even understand.
 
Initially, I thought this reverse curve was a seamless transition into the lower tier of lights.  The St. Philippe monograph, on the other hand, illustrated that, no, there needs to be a slight projection away from the plane of lights; a sort of shelf, if you will, that ultimately supports a fairly substantial transitional moulding.  
 
This transitional moulding/shelf supports the four seasons figures that support the walkable balcony above.  Not only that, but the run of the counter must smoothly accommodate the compound curves of camber and round-up, around one particularly tight bulkhead radius.
 
Taking a look back, before paint, and in relation to Mr. Lemineur’s drawing of the stern, you can see that my extension piece is absent of this ledge:

Once I realized this mistake, I grafted a ledge extension into the existing plank rebate of my first extension, and then recut that planking rebate into the shelf extension; all very fiddly business, and in the absence of a comprehensive plan to work from, the shape I patterned for this shelf was something of an aesthetic approximation.  As the build has progressed through the fairing of these bulkheads, these extensions have been pared down to their final shape.

As a side note, it is kind of hilarious to me that I took such pains to cut this plank rebate into the ends of the lower hull and upper bulwarks - both to provide a glue ledge for the plank ends, and also to bring the side plank butt ends down to scale - only to realize that in the end, they will mostly be covered.  Except for the area between the waterline and the transom moulding, everything above gets covered; first by the wrap-around of the quarter gallery lower finishing, and then, by pilaster mouldings, all above. At least the beakhead bulkhead will still show this detail 😕
 
Digressions aside - one must finally add to this equation the fact that I want to seamlessly incorporate Louis’ angelic little head into the run of the counter, and all of that becomes quite challenging to make look right.
 
While laying the lowest, first course of counter planking, I realized that I would be better served by simply butting the planks flush with the edges of the head ornament, and not adding that slight bevel to the plank edges around the head.  The reason for this is that the border that the head creates is kind of irregular and a little jagged.
 
Following all of that closely with a bevel - no matter how carefully done - would look jagged and horrible.  Because there will be at least another two planking layers around the head, I can create a smooth radius around the head, with those layers, and then bevel them, inward toward the head, in order to give it a sense of concavity.
 
With that all settled, the first two courses went down smoothly.  The run, along the bulkheads, there, is fairly flat. I was very careful to let-in as closely as I could around the crown.  For the third, and top-most course, around the tight radius of the bulkhead frames, I discovered that I needed a plank just a little bit wider than the 5/32” that I used for the two coarses above.
 
I was hoping to avoid laying two very narrow planks, so instead I ripped one plank to 3/16”+, and then engraved a line down it’s center, on the plank backside.  This effectively created a bending crease that eased the transition around this tight radius, while eliminating any possibility of plank gaps. So, the rough, before fairing, was looking pretty promising:

After fairing, things were looking a lot better.  I sanded the top edge of the counter planking so that I would have an even 1/16” space, beneath the window frames, for the transitional moulding.  This enabled me to fit and glue-in the pilasters between windows. I will be trimming the tops of these pilasters flush with the window plate, before glueing, and the outer pilasters will be glued in after the plate is installed, because they overlay the ship’s side planking:


I can now go ahead and spray-prime the window plate, so that I can paint-in the inner edges of the window frames with yellow ocher, before installing the glass panes.
 
So, now that we have a good and fair foundation to work from, I can begin playing with the artistic layout of the counter.  Here is what Berain drew:

The layout revolves around this central panel, spanning the middle four windows, which projects further outboard than the paneled sides.  Interspersed along the counter, are the four pedestal bases that visually support the Four Seasons figures. These pedestals will stand proud of their respective backing surfaces, and the central two must project far enough that they are just proud of the lambrequin carving that bridges between them.
 
If I get the proportions of all of this right, and the shape and raking angles of the pedestal bases aesthetically right, then the entire ensemble will convey a similar sense of elegant proportion, even though the profile of my stern is more vertically oriented, and less sloping than what Berain drew.  This is an artistic process that begins, simply by sketching a few primary parameters directly onto the model; in this case, the outside edges of the central panel, as well as the circular framework of the paneled sides:

It is the pilasters between the 1st and 2nd/5th and 6th windows that mark the location for the figures of Spring and Summer, and thus delineate the outside breadth of the central panel.
 
In the Tanneron version, there is no circular paneling to the sides of the  central panel.  He seems, instead, to have created these circular medallions:

To include this detail on my model, I will have to strike a delicate balance between the diameter of those circles, so that there is enough space left over for the paneled sections to either side of the circles.  This may mean reducing the outer breadth of the central section, and simplifying the design to only include the raised cyma projection of the pedestals, themselves.
 
In my rough sketching, above, I’ve drawn two dotted lines.  The outer line represents the raised ground to which the pedestal is mounted, as Berain designed it.  If I eliminate that line, I’ll have a little extra room for the side panels. Tonight, I’ll make better sketches and see where I end up.
 
Once I like the spacing of all the various elements, I’ll make an oak tag tracing pattern for the center pedestals, and a pattern for the outer pedestals, which are raked at a different angle.  I can then use the middle pedestal pattern to draw the outer breadth of the center section, so that I can begin planking that section.
 
The oak tag patterns, together, can then be used to frame-in the side panel shapes onto slightly thinner styrene sheet.  All will become clearer, as I go.
 
As ever, thank you for your likes, comments and looking in.
 
-HH

After finally resolving the fairness of my bulkheads, I made ready to install them.  Taking a lesson from the prior two levels, on this go-round I decided to glue in opposing indexing tabs for each bulkhead, prior to installation.
 
Each tab (excepting the center bulkhead) is beveled to accommodate the angle of the bulkhead.  I took this precaution because the specific placement of the bulkheads is now of critical importance; they must remain as close to center of the pilasters, as possible, so that I will still have room on the interior to glue-in retaining strips for the window glasses.


I could also, now, fix the position of the jaumier ornament.  Before doing so, I glued a backer to the head for the counter plank-ends to land on.  In the picture above, I have glued-in the head to the framing of the stern counter, along the centerline of the ship, and cross-checking to make sure I was centered on my window plate.
 
The starboard side covering board, that abuts this ornament is being fitted.  I’ve deliberately filed a small bevel where the covering board joins the face because every succeeding layer of planking and moulding will be similarly beveled in order to create a sense that the ornament is set into the stern counter.
 
Now, with both covering boards installed, and their edges faired, I could proceed with the risky business of letting the acanthus scrolls into the transom planking.  Again, the reason for doing this - as opposed to simply surface mounting the scrolls - is that I really wanted to reduce (by half) the gap between the scroll volutes and the head.
 
This is a calculated gamble that I will be able to dress the front face of the covering boards sufficiently with moulding, in order to create a seamless transition.  After much checking and re-checking for position, the initial excavation did not look promising:
 
Because of the way that this last transom plank fays into the transverse bulkhead, it was not initially clear to me whether I had broken through the plank to get to the bulkhead.  To be clear - I wanted to break through, because the bulkhead is my mounting surface.
 
I wasn’t sure weather to keep digging, or to stop and fair the bottom of my mortise.  Just a little further, though, and I saw daylight.  With a lot of careful inletting, I eventually arrived at my cleaned-up mortises:

And, here are the scrolls glued-in, from a variety of angles:




In hindsight, I kind of wish that I had glued some material to the backside of the acanthus scrolls, so that I could have created a more rounded relief, but such as it is, the carving will do just fine.
 

A few more details of note.  I have fashioned entry ports, in the lower transom for the rudder chain/rope (nomenclature, Druxey?), from two small discs of styrene.  The backing disc is slightly thinner. These were based directly on Puget’s drawings of the Monarque which - in a rarity of artistic convention for the times - actually shows them:

I also gave flipper his pupils and pectoral fins:


And, I spent a good long time transforming the window frames from flat to softly rounded.  While I did fashion a one-sided moulding scraper from old hacksaw stock, I found this tool exceptionally difficult to control without digging into the frames.  Ultimately, my trusty old Bebe, hooked chip-carving knife was just the thing for creating a series of micro-facets, which were then blended smooth with the well-worn fine-sides of emory sticks that I had cut down to suit my purposes.  The frames look good, and I am happy with them.
 
In the present, I am using Druxey’s method to fashion the glass panes from acetate, and that is all going swimmingly:

I also made the false quarter gallery lights, but screwed up the engraving on the port side, and will have to re-make that one.  In the next few days, I will buy a suitable shade of grey acrylic and fill-in the leaded cames. Hopefully, I didn’t engrave them too deeply, but the paint will reveal all.  
 
On the other hand, what has proved to be much less straight-forward - despite the earlier protocol established with the lower transom - is the framing of this next level of the stern.  I had thought the hardest thing about it would be the planking of the lower false gallery/stern counter. I was so wrong about that!
 
If this post has a title, it would be MODERN PARABOLA’MS, starring ME in the Chevy Chase role, as the utterly baffled modelmaker attempting the unravel the ghostly mysteries of the 17th Century shipwright.
 
There are a number of things about framing the stern, from scratch, that I did not recognize, from the outset, as being problematic.
 
For starters, as mentioned in the prior post, there is a certain degree of asymmetry that Heller built into the standard kit.  To this day, I am still baffled as to why it was necessary for me to shift the starboard rear, upper bulkhead forward 1/16”, so that the waist ladder would align, properly, with its counterpart on the lower hull.  Nevertheless, it was necessary to do so, in order to make the whole thing work.
 
Another thing that I did not realize is just how far out of square the stern skews, as the ship rises above the waterline.  I began my construction by squaring the transom waterline to the ship’s centerline. However, by the time I got to the level of the upper main wale (where the upper bulwarks join the lower hull), the starboard side was projecting a shy ⅛” further aft, than the port side.
 
I discovered this as I was letting-in the latest transverse bulkhead, taking care to stay square with the centerline.  In this picture, you can see that I am flush, to port, but still an ⅛”-, out, to starboard:

So, the first order of business was to fir-out the aft edge of the bulkhead former to make-up this discrepancy.  After gluing on an extension, I faired the edge from zero, on the port side, to an ⅛”-, at starboard. I then beveled the aft edge, downward, to match the rake of the stern.

In the following picture, you can see the corrected bulkhead, but also a pair of parallel lines, an ⅛” apart, with a diagonal line between them. These lines illustrate the degree that the stern becomes skewed:

Now, this creates all sorts of problems for the framing of vertical bulkheads, which I had already patterned.  I was hoping to salvage the bulkheads I had made so, one at a time, I dry-fit them and then marked at the top of each vertical bulkhead, the point at which it extended beyond the transverse bulkhead.
 
I also realized, though, that I had not cut-in deeply enough, the stepped juncture between the window plate and what will be the support for the false balcony ledge.  First I marked back a consistent 1/32”+, on each bulkhead. After connecting the top and bottom points, my bulkheads looked like this:

After trimming, I again offered each bulkhead to its place, to check for fit.  The top juncture was now just slightly proud. This allows for a little final fairing, once all of the bulkheads are glued in place.  I noticed, though, that the aft edges of the vertical bulkheads were not running parallel with the plank rabbets, at the ship’s sides.  This discrepancy, in turn, necessitated an additional 1/32”+ trimming at the false balcony shelf juncture. So, at least now, the window plate is evenly supported across all of the vertical bulkheads without any one of them forcing the plate out of its proper position.
 
This whole exercise in reconciliation has been a domino-fall of discovered mis-calculations and erroneous assumptions.  I next discovered that I had made no allowance for the plank thickness of the stern counter/false balcony, and will next need to cut that back 1/32”, all around.


After all of that, though, the bulkheads should be ready for glue.
 
So, finally, onto the parabola’m that my post title alludes to.  While I make my living working as a carpenter, I have to admit that I am not particularly strong at math.  Wherever possible, I try to take the pencil and paper calculation out of my project work. Occasionally, this short-coming of mine rears up and bites me!
 
I mentioned, in an earlier post, that I thought the previous transverse bulkhead had a somewhat exaggerated camber.  Observe how the middle of the bulkhead appears to rise higher, towards the window plate, than at the sides:

Well, that’s not what is actually happening here.  First, I compared the bottom edge of the window plate with the camber pattern that I made for glueing up the transverse bulkhead laminations.  Good on me - it’s a perfect fit:

The more I thought about it, though, I realized that the camber pattern came directly from the stock Heller stern plate, which is dead flat.  I, on the other hand, have chosen to model the round-up of the stern, as this is an appropriate architectural detail for the time period.
 
So, what happens to that joint, when you rake the plate aft, and induce the round-up curve?  Parabola’ms happen, that’s what:

To say that I am somewhat invested in this window plate would be the understatement of the new year.  While my math may be lacking, I am good in the field, as when the shop, for example, sends a custom-made thing for a space that was poorly measured; I can almost always find a way to make it work.
 
THE WAY, in this case, will be to cover any gaps or discrepancies between the window plate and the stern counter with what will be a fairly generous (3/32”) transitional moulding that wraps to the quarters.
 
The shape of the top edge of the window plate will inform the camber of the walkable main deck stern balcony, that abutts it.  Now, it is true that this middle balcony will have an ever so slightly flatter camber than the false balcony beneath it. It is also true that the bottom edge of the window frames, out toward the ship sides, will not hug the transitional moulding line as closely as intended.  On the plus side, moving up the stern, I should not encounter this problem again, as I will simply allow the round-up curvature to establish the camber. The camber of all three tiers of windows will be consistent.
 
In the grand scheme of things, these are nits that I prefer not to pick.  I’m pretty sure I can live with the results. I hope this cautionary tale will be helpful to anyone else out there who might be planning a similar foray into plastic surgery.

I've tried building boats in the house, but I don't have the room, and the models (and I) just get in the way. So, late last summer, I turned this fairly fresh patch of concrete:

Into this:

...which is becoming an absolute joy. A bit narrow (5') but long enough (14') for anything. LED lighting, tonnes of sockets, a radio: I'm good to go! And, with a love of the works of Arthur Ransome, and a commission for a dinghy, I started using my workshop just before Christmas:

This is the start of a one-eighth scale lugsail dinghy, clinker built, sitting on its molds. Pine and lime wood throughout.

Lands cut on the planks using the specialist tools (!), and geralding commences...

I am in clamp heaven!

One-eighth scale is a great size. RW techniques (well, were it a modern epoxy-glued dinghy!) in miniature.

Storming along, now Winter's almost over and I have double-digit Celsius again!

Lots of work to do, internally - and breaking work on the hull (glue-drying time) to complete some of the other bits and bobs. Rudder...

... yard, boom and mast ...

...More to come!