toms10

Fore Shrouds completed with battens. Well worth the effort to tie them rather than simply glue them on. 
 

 
Magnification Required... Trimmed up nicely. Tip be sure the fabric glue is dry on the knots before cutting. 
 

 
Onward...😎

Greetings!
 
Gunports (and corresponding ropes to open them) and deadeye channels have been placed.  All pretty straightforward.  The channels each have 2 pins that go into the hull to help secure them.

 

 

 
Next the curved beams on the port and starboard balcony were placed.  Instructions call for a pin to be put on the end of the beam that goes against the hull.  To me this presented a possible problem with final placement as the hole in the hull would have to be perfect the first time - no second chances given that these beams are glued against the decorative paper.  If they are misaligned, removing them may cause damage to the paper that would be impossible to fix.  I modified this  by drilling a small hole through the top of the beam and out the end.  when the beam is properly positioned and glued, this hole acts as a guide to drill a hole in the hull and then a small wood dowel (0.67 mm) is used to anchor the beam.  photos below show this.

 

 
All in place ...
 

 

 
And with this the hull is pretty much complete.  It will be put aside while I work on the masts and yards.
 
Jeff

Thanks for the like!!
 
Front deck ready for pins ..
 

 

 

 

 

 
 

Nice job John.  I just finished tying 2100 clove hitches on my lower and futtock shrouds for my Leopard.  With the Morgan being my next build, those battens are looking pretty good.
Tom

Thanks Glenn,
Gave my equipment away, sold our house, and moved cross-country to Phoenix.   Enjoying retirement. 

Reconstructed the Gallis Framing on the Aft Roofing. Looking much better...
 

 
Added battens to the Fore Mast Shrouds still need to lash them. Painful detail, but it’s what I live for... 
 

 
Onward and forward, it’s how we progress. 😎

Hi Jack,
Just catching up on your build.  It's coming along great.  Sorry to hear about your helper.
Tom

Hi Jack,
Just catching up on your build.  It's coming along great.  Sorry to hear about your helper.
Tom

Thanks Tom, Michael and Havelock for the comments, and the others for the likes and visits.
 
"Diversion update."  As I said, I've left the hold for the present and decided to have a go at the wales.  The wales could pretty much be done at almost any time in the build but because they're the tricky hook and butt planks I wanted to see how I would get on with them.  In my other build the wales were hook and butt, but at about half of the scale of this one, I found them very difficult back then and eventually opted for the easier top and but planks like these >

. . . and when on the ship, looked like this >

What I was hoping for (on this build) was for the wales to look like this >

 
On lots of build logs I've seen the use of metal templates to obtain the shape of wales planks.  I did consider this method, but in the lack of suitable metal, and the thought that if the templates weren't completely accurate, then neither would be the wooden wales.  So I opted to cut each one individually on the bandsaw.  I reckoned I would need 24 planks so I made 28 "just in case".  I hoped I wouldn't have to make any more than that.
Here are 16 of the blanks.
24 of them after they had been to the bandsaw > 

And looking a little more orderly.

 
I painted the planks before fitting them.  Here, the first 3 "starter" planks in position >

 
Port side >


 
Starboard side >

 
Now I can get back to something a little less tricky.
 
 

Havelock,
It is Jim (Bluto 1790) that is doing the jaw dropping work.  I am just as blown away as you.!
Tom

Jim,
I am just catching up on your build log and it is really coming out nice.  It is amazing how many miscellaneous things aside from the normal model build stuff that needs to be considered when doing a cross section build at the scale you are doing.  Excellent job, thought and research on your part.
Tom

The brackets are made and installed.  All gaps are filled and the Hannah is ready for touch ups.

The channels are on.  I still need to make some brackets, but that will happen in the near future.  I did not go crazy with steel pins, like if this were a wood model.  This is card, so there won’t be any crazy tension on the shrouds anyway.

The reinforcing pieces for the hawse holes are on. 

Thank you very much!

All knightheads, and timberheads are done and installed:

Here are the catheads:

 
Now, she just needs some hawse holes, a couple of sheaves and some channels, and that’ll be it for the outer hull fittings.
 
Soon, I’ll have to decide what to do with the stern.

I use either an #11 exacting or more often just a paint scraper that fits a razor blade. Chop it with the razor blade close then use a sanding stick to bring it to size and the correct shape. 
Tom

Havelock,
It is Jim (Bluto 1790) that is doing the jaw dropping work.  I am just as blown away as you.!
Tom

Jim,
I am just catching up on your build log and it is really coming out nice.  It is amazing how many miscellaneous things aside from the normal model build stuff that needs to be considered when doing a cross section build at the scale you are doing.  Excellent job, thought and research on your part.
Tom

Hi Jim,
Okay, who am I kidding.  I am an engineer... I have to count them.  I am just wired that way. 
Tom

Thanks Tom for confirming my thoughts. I think you have summed it up perfectly.👍

Nice recovery John. If you don’t fix (redo) things along the way it can only be for two reasons. 
 
1) Your perfect. 
2) You just don’t care. 
 
if your human like me number one just plain doesn’t apply. Again if your anything like me, number two is not an option either. If we didn’t care about doing things right (otherwise known as OCD which all modelers need and have) we would not last very long in this hobby.  Enjoy the journey. 😁
Keep up the nice work. It is a beautiful model. When I get started on mine I hope I can make it as good as yours. 
 
Tom

Hi Shortgrass,
I am starting to plan my next build which will be a scratch built Morgan.  Fortunately for me I only live about an hour away from Mystic, CT where she is docked so I can take a lot of pictures for reference to augment the plans.  If you do a search on this forum you will find some nice build logs of the Morgan.  Looking forward to seeing your build.
Tom
 

Jim,
I am just catching up on your build log and it is really coming out nice.  It is amazing how many miscellaneous things aside from the normal model build stuff that needs to be considered when doing a cross section build at the scale you are doing.  Excellent job, thought and research on your part.
Tom

Thanks for the likes and for the visits.
 
Not a lot to show in an update, but that doesn't mean that there hasn't been a lot of time spent preparing all these little things.
 
Finished adding barrels to the fore end of the section, added more ballast, the anchor is now lashed on to the pillar and a few lengths of rope added.  I didn't want to 'overcook' it with so many barrels that the view to the inside would be obscured.


 
At this point the aft end of the section was still empty except for some ballast.
I made an open-topped crate in which to put some blocks and dead eyes that I had left-over from the previous build.


 
Most of these blocks and dead eyes were rejects from earlier as most of them looked awful with their holes all in the wrong places so I had to spend some time with them trying to get them to look a bit more 'real -- even if they're not really going to be seen when they're tucked away under the orlop deck.
Right now, all I have in  the aft end is that crate and an assortment of ropes of various gauges, some just on the deck and a few hanging on the pillars.


 
Taking a break from the hold for a week or two to find a different project on or around the orlop. (I've put the hold "on hold".)  The space in that aft part of the hold is roomy enough to come back to later when I've decided what to do with it.
 
 

Looking around for ideas for things to put in the hold I spotted one build with an anchor lashed to one of the pillars.
First attempt at making an anchor as for my other build I had just bought and assembled the anchors.
Didn't have any suitable brass so, wood it would be.  A lamination of about 7 layers of 0.6mm veneer gave me a 'chunk' of wood from which to cut a blank for an anchor.
The blank, with flukes just made from 3 layers of card glued together and cut to shape.

 
With the flukes glued on.   

 
Only metal part is the ring made from 1mm brass wire.   

 
and some black acrylic paint made it look a little more like an anchor.

 
In post #17 above I mentioned a future grating.  Along with the removable planking on the orlop deck I plan to include 2 gratings which will occupy the spaces outlined in red in the following >   

 
That milling machine was in use again cutting the 'grooves' in the 'teeth' of the 2mm strips.  A 2mm cutter was used along with strips of 2mm and the 'holes' are also 2mm, which, at this scale equates to just over 3 inches (C.80mm) which I believe was close to the Navy Board's 'establishment'.   

 
While the 'teeth' will maintain a regular spacing, that would only be in one direction, so I had to create a jig to keep the spacing correct in the other direction.   Another call for the milling machine with its 2mm cutter.  This is just a scrap piece of wood and the large hole and groove were already there.






 
 
 

Pressed on and got the carlings and ledges finished.  I cheated a little with the ledges in the two aft sections and just made them full width. As the deck will be planked none of what lies beneath will be visible
Previously, in post #16 above, I stated that I would have to wait until the inside hull planking is done on orlop deck before I could make the (upper) breadth rider sections.  I changed my mind -- I reckoned it would be quite tricky getting the exact profile on the riders to match the inner planking especially with all those carlings and ledges in the way.  So I went ahead and fitted the final upper sections of the riders first.

As far as I can see, there are no hanging knees for the orlop deck beams, only lodging knees.  It didn't look possible to fit knees to the far side of that third beam (as seen from the view in the photo above) as the mid riders are adjacent to that face of the beam, so I had a try at opposing knees for that beam and the one nearer.

By the time I had done the carlings and ledges, and also before I had fitted the upper breadth riders, I wanted to get the 4 hold lanterns fitted.  That job was very tricky as it was, and I expect it would have been virtually impossible with the orlop deck planking in place.
I used the milling machine to run grooves in four of the carlings as shown circled in the following photo.  These grooves were for the wiring of the two aft hold lanterns.

I hope to have around 18 lanterns eventually with 4 on most levels.  So far, only made 4 lanterns.  Made from 3mm O/D clear tubing with a Pico LED light held inside with a spot of glue, black paper strips glued on to simulate the frame.  The wires on these lights aren't much thicker than a human hair and are very difficult to work with.  It's not possible to strip the insulating cover from the wire -- it has to be burned off.

I checked and double checked that each light was working before fitting them as once they're fitted, that's it - no going back.  If they ever need replacing I'll have to recruit some of the 'little people'!
 
The aft lanterns.

The fore lanterns.

. . . and the "four" lanterns.