davyboy

Another update. The 'Duchess' continues to grow sails. First two on the mizzen mast. The cro'jack is rigged, the lower topsail merely crossed at this stage, but at least she looks a little more balanced with sails on all three of the forward masts.
 
John
 

Hello,
today I started building the oars. First I saw them 4X3 mm and then turned the handle at the lathe. The secnd step is, grinding the rest till nothing is left 😏 , see the one below

Then I saw out the outlines and shape the rest with files and sandpaper. Now only 31 are left.

 

Several more frame pairs added, moving at a good pace now I’m in the groove.
 

 

Finally back to work on the model, I finished the last remaining Hawes pieces and now I’m moving onto finishing up the gunports and fairing caps. Chapter one is almost finished and then I can move on to fairing the hull.
 

Hello,
because I was not really happy with the tiller, I build today a new one.

 
 
At that picture you see on top the drawing Dammann did, with a too short plug. The black thing in the middle is the original tiller, or what is left of it, and my calculations for 1:10. Below that in 1:50 and the new tiller.

And here is he installed. I think it looks much better

 
 
 

Post 96
Completing the Fore shrouds.
Shrouds are a very fiddly business, and applying the throat seizings is a tedious thing.

4915a
I find that using a fine needle helps with the threading of the line  between the shroud and its return.

4924a

4921a

4922a
The Fore shrouds  gave me more trouble than the Mains;
I seemed to spend an inordinate amount of time tweaking the  shroud length before the Lanyards are eventually tied off.
This involved unpicking previously seized upper deadeyes and re-setting.
On a model a sloppy line of deadeyes is not a pretty thing.

4930a
The next step is the application of the futtock staves.
According to Steel these are set as far below the trestletrees as the mast cap rises above.

4931a
In reality the staves were of 4” circ served line, but it makes sense to use something more solid for model purposes.
I used 0.7mm ø Brass rod served with 0.1mm line.

4932a
‘Quad hands’ are a useful tool for this job, holding the bar steady whilst the outer lashings are applied.

4936a
The Futtock staves are a great device for evening out the shrouds, as well as providing the anchor point for the Futtocks and Catharpins.
 
The Fore stays beckon….
 
B.E.
02/07/2025
 
 

Aft deadwood piece was cleaned of char and adjusted so it was a nice tight fit in its position, it’s not been glued in as its shape needs to be sanded closer to what it will finally look like.



 

Here are the first few Starboard side frames installed, we will begin to get a proper feel for what the model is going to look like now.
The designer has left lots of “meat on the bones” for later fairing of the hull when framing is complete.
 

I am still basking in the warm sunshine and spending much of my time in the garden and very little time in the shipyard. 
 
I have been able to add the main and foremast stays and preventor stays. I am reasonably happy with how they look.
 

I opted to make my own mouse parts rather than using the kit supplied parts.

The lanyards have not been tied off as yet.

Thank you all for your feedback and likes!  
And I have a small continuation of brass soldering.  These are the upper tiers of the bow superstructure.

Hi all
 
Back from our lovely holiday and straight back onto Le Rochefort
 
I'm now working on the crews quarters below the quarter deck and have started with the bulkhead which has a double entry door.  This is quite a feature on this ship so I want to get it as good as possible.  I started by making the shiplap planks that form the walls which I then glued together to make the actual walls.


Next was to look at the doors themselves - I usually just get a solid piece of wood and then mill out the features to make them look like doors.  In this instance I thought that I would try a new exercise for me and make them from individual parts and include all of the relevant joints as they possibly would have been made originally.    Each frame is made of 5 pieces which then require 4 inserts in each door.

Milling out the rebates to fit the 0.7mm inserts

Sorry I should have taken more pictures but here are how the doors turned out.  Assembling the parts actually proved to be one of the hardest parts.

Next I needed to make the door frame uprights which have 2 rebates cut into them and also the base rebate that the walls slot into.


It all took a little bit of fettling to get all of the parts to fit correctly but I'm just about there now.



I did have one issue and that was with the door frame uprights which stopped the whole assembly from sitting flush with the beam.  This maybe because I miss read the drawings but to get around this issue I cut some rebates into the beam which actually makes the whole thing stronger and more stable
 

It's all still a work in progress but I'm getting there with this particular part of the build.
 
Mark

More beautiful craftsmanship to delight our eyes, Siggi!
 
John

Siggi,
 
In my estimation, you can count yourself among the very best in the ship-modeling community.  There is, simultaneously, precision of craft and the hand of the maker.  Your tiller is a real treat!
 
Best,
 
M

Starboard side gunport framing completed, now to start cleaning the char from the Frame pieces and begin installing them. I intend to frame this side and when done turn her around and frame all the port side.
 

Hance pieces and fairing caps installed and I’ve started framing the starboard side gunports.
 

 


 
 
 

Some more of the stern parts being added to include the aft balcony floor, aft gunport framing and some filler pieces.
 



 

Another small update,
although the manual shows stern framing first,
but since bulkhead extensions are critical
and fragile, I decided to start framing the gun ports first.
The longitudinal pieces are cut full length, which
should make for a nice smooth run, assuming all the bulkheads are properly aligned.
I started at main gundeck level with STBD 1 UP.
Each port also has its own template.
So I'll use them to check the height before gluing the top piece STBD 2.
 
 

Small update 
Planking upper deck "work in progress" .

More deck fittings.
The two pumps were the first to be done. Parts for the pumps are shown below.

The body is hexagonal and made up of three pieces that need to be glued together. The manual says to use a length of dowel to keep the pieces correctly aligned, but also says don't glue these to the dowel, which is to be removed now and replaced later. After thinking about this and looking at the parts and the order in which they were to be assembled, I decided that gluing the three hexagonal pieces to the dowel at this stage was going to work just fine. The length of dowel required (it goes all the way down through the lower deck) was carefully checked first. The top to the body was glued in place and brass pins pushed into the provided holes, representing bolts that hold the body of the pump together. Three brass pieces were glued together with gel CA, with three brass pins providing alignment. The heads of the pins were ground off and the pins trimmed. This stanchion provides the pivot point for the handle, and a pin was pushed through it and the handle. A drop of gel CA was applied at each end of the pin to keep it in place, and it was later trimmed. The pump operating rod was loosely attached to the handle and it extends down into the pump body. As I had the dowel extending right to the top of the pump body, I had to drill a clearance hole to allow the rod to be insered. The pumps almost complete, and completed.


Next the capstan. Parts are shown below.

As with the pumps, some parts need to be assembled using a dowel to ensure alignment, with the manual saying do not glue the parts to the dowel. The capstan partly assembled. 

And completed. A piece of black card was used to represent the iron reinforcing ring on top of the drum.

The wheel was next, nothing difficult to this. Parts are below and I forgot to take a photo of the assembled fitting.

Next the difficult fitting. Not difficult to build, but positioning it is tricky. The binnacle. The parts are below and the finished binnacle below that.


I glazed the opening through which the compass could be seen, with a piece of plastic. But where to put it. The manual has it jammed between the wheel and the skylight and facing forward, a position that means the helmsman cannot possibly see the compass.

Blue Ensign in his build log has  gone into some detail about this. I will probably position the binnacle off to one side and slightly forward of the wheel.

Some photos of Harpy with most deck fittings now in place.




Cheers
 
 
 

Work proceeds. The photo shows several items, some just from the fret, some partly completed, and others ready for installation. Pieces of the winch are in the top left corner, those for the skylight are in the bottom right corner, there are the two gallows (one complete), the fore bitt and the completed bowspit bitt. Paint has only been applied to the above deck portion of each part.

The winch was built partly on the ship, partly off. There are two pices of brass wire required, one 19mm long and the other 32mm long. Both of these are slightly over-long, and if I had simply built the winch off ship, it would not have fitted into the pre-cut slots on the deck. The upper, shorter wire was emplaced in the two side pieces whilst these were fitted into the slots in the deck. These were kept vertical and a small drop of gel CA was applied to the ends of the wire to lock it in place and correctly spaced. This assembly was then removed and the remainder of the parts fitted. Dry fitting of the lower wire was done before final gluing. The ends of the wires were then trimmed. A little bit fiddly, but it turned out quite well.


The skylight was done according to the instructions, with the PE window frames painted and backed by clear plastic. These were then pushed into place finishing flush with the outer surface of the skylight hatch. No glue was needed. The photo shows the skylight just before final assembly (the red colour in the photo is a bit off). Some touch up of the paint on the window frames was needed first.

The two gallows and the two bitts were easily assembled.  All parts now in place on the deck. I have just realised that I have forgotten to add the stove chimney - ah well, a job for tomorrow.




Cheers
 
 

Thanks for all the likes, and to those who have just dropped by.
 
The next job was to add the hatches along the centre of Harpy. The first photo is of the parts for all the hatches plus the completed ladder for the forehatch. The various parts were then painted and assembled. The actual gratings were firstly soaked for a while then bent around a suitably sized cup using masking tape to hold them in place, and left to thoroughly dry. Some of the gratings needed slight, gentle sanding to allow them to fit correctly into the coamings. No issues with that. When dry-fitting the completed hatches into their respective deck cutouts, some slight sanding was required to allow them to seat fully home (and this check should actually have been done before painting the coamings). Again no issue, but as always, dry-fitting before gluing was necessary to check the fitting. Lastly, the ladder for the forehatch was carefully glued in place. A little tricky, but yet again, a couple of dry runs before gluing, sorted out potential problems. The previously completed companionway was also added at this time.





Cheers.
 

ready to continue...

Post 95
Main stay. (Part 2)
The lower end of the stays have hearts turned in.
I am using Syren Resin versions, (6mm) for the Main Stay and (5mm) for the Preventer.
The kit provided deadeyes for this purpose are easier to fit than hearts and lanyards, but were an old fashioned option by the  time of Harpy.

4901a
It is easier to fit the Preventer stay and collar with the Main stay and Fore shrouds out of the way.
I had fitted the Preventer stay at this point but found I had fed it incorrectly through the mast top.
Annoying when you have spent  time doing tiny seizing and fitting of lanyards, but I couldn’t let it stand.

4895a

4897a

4898a
Lashing of the Main stay I used Syren 0.45mm line.
For the collar 0.88 mm line served with 0.1mm line was used. The tricky part of the collar is forming the eye in one short leg.
 
Main Preventer stay

4904a
Stropping the Preventer stay heart.
 
4905a

4908a
0.3mm line used for the Lanyard.

4909a

4910a
I can now attend to the Fore Shrouds.
 
B.E.
27/06/2025
 
 

Thanks once again for the likes and comments.
 
In Preparation for Second Planking
I spent a couple of afternoons sanding the hull. Some filler was necessary at the bow and in odd places along the length but I’m now happy with the look and can move on to second planking.
 

I forgot to take photos at each stage so the pictures that follow show the relevant parts at the end of this stage.

But first some more parts need to be added. I started with the square tuck. According to the instructions, these parts should sit slightly proud of the first planking so a little more sanding at the stern was needed. I liked Maurice's @Blue Ensign treatment of this area with the addition of the framing and have decided to follow suit. I’ve roughly cut the outer edge pieces from some 0.8mm pear using the kit parts as a template and will finish them later.

I'll make the other parts of the frame when I’m ready to fit them all. I plan to glue the frame to the kit parts and then infill.

As with the core pieces of prow and keel, there was a 1mm gap between the two etched pieces which I filled with a scrap piece of pear. A little sanding around the rudder port was needed for the sternpost to fit snugly.

I soaked the counter and clamped it in place to achieve the curve. It was probably unnecessary since the curve is only slight but as I had to soak and leave the outer bulwark patterns to dry overnight, it was no extra hardship.
The port bulwark pattern fitted almost perfectly with only a little bit needing to be taken off at the bow. However the starboard bulwark needed about 1.5mm to be removed before I was satisfied and the gunport jigs fitted. I think this was due to the problems I had getting both of the plywood patterns to fit into the rabbet. They looked to be symmetrical at the time but clearly something was out.




 
I will now apply a thin coat of shellac to the planking as a sanding sealer.
 
I also plan to follow Maurice's @Blue Ensign lead with the pear planking and align it with the wales but I need to decide whether to follow his method or perhaps take the less risky route of Richard @Richard44
 
Something to ponder.
 
David
 

Another day, another joint!
 
This will sit between glass plates through the night to insure it dries flat. I can then remove some of the excess material along the curved contour of 4 and 5. The flat on the top of 4 will be cut a bit later so that it matches the top of the stem. It also looks like I can start working on the joint between what is done and the stem.