NMBROOK

Fabulous attention to detail and accuracy Jason   You are quite obviously raising your benchmark even further with the experience gained from your previous builds.The 'stepped' rabbet to accommodate the double planking is a first as far as I know,but makes perfect sense .
 
Kind Regards
 
Nigel

Hey all, I'm renovating an old cabbin so there's only a small update. I finished the deadeyes for the mainmast:
 
 

 
/Matti

Thanks so much Nigel and the "likes". I really appreciate your comments Nigel because no one does more with a kit than you.
 
Bob

Congratulations on the bending Bob    ,I admit I thought you wouldn't get that,I shall view you as the Uri Geller of wood bending from now on     Your model is looking fabulous,it serves as a testimony as to what can be achieved from a kit .
 
Kind Regards
 
Nigel

Fabulous attention to detail and accuracy Jason   You are quite obviously raising your benchmark even further with the experience gained from your previous builds.The 'stepped' rabbet to accommodate the double planking is a first as far as I know,but makes perfect sense .
 
Kind Regards
 
Nigel

Fabulous attention to detail and accuracy Jason   You are quite obviously raising your benchmark even further with the experience gained from your previous builds.The 'stepped' rabbet to accommodate the double planking is a first as far as I know,but makes perfect sense .
 
Kind Regards
 
Nigel

Fabulous attention to detail and accuracy Jason   You are quite obviously raising your benchmark even further with the experience gained from your previous builds.The 'stepped' rabbet to accommodate the double planking is a first as far as I know,but makes perfect sense .
 
Kind Regards
 
Nigel

Rabbet at the Bow
 
I really want to make sure that the lines will be as accurate as the kit will allow. Because the keel comes in piece, it was a little challenging to visualize how this would come together.  You will also notice that I have taken a rather drastic step of cutting off the stem - this will eventually be replaced with boxwood.  There are some shaper pieces that will be added in due course.
 
Drafted 3 lines onto the keel to allow any preliminary rabbets and shaping to be done before bulkheads are installed.  
Outside line represents the outside shape of the hull, I took this shape from the rabbet profile in the AOTS book  by copying and enlarging to scale. This is not wildly different from the plans but it was important to me to get lines as accurate as possible recognizing the plans don't reconcile 100% to the pre-cut keel.  This also needed to tie in with the rabbet already established in the bottom of the keel. Inside line reflect my best estimate of the inside edge of the necessary rabbet based on the shape of the bulkheads (using the rear edge of the bulkhead as the guide) The middle dotted line is the best approximation I could determine on where the outside edge of the rabbet needed for the first planking should be.  Given the first planking is 1.5mm limewood, and the second planking 1mm thick, the dotted line represents the curve 2/5ths horizontally from and the outside rabbet edge and 3/5ths from the intererior rabbet line.  Its an approximation but hopefully close enough to make the planking gosmoothly and replicate the true hull shape as best I can.
 
Keel shaped based on previously drafted lines, relationship to the bulkheads can be seen.  These have not yet been shaped, but the forward edge will match the inner faring line.  This will all the fine tuned once bulkheads are installed.

 

I have to agree with shihawk,but if you are new to the hobby,I would recommend one of the smaller vessels from Caldercraft or Victory models.For the best materials and plans,you are hard to beat Euromodel,however you really need to have built a few other kits beforehand before I would recommend tackling one of those.
At the end of the day,it is down to what kit is best for you?You can't really generalise and have a universal 'best kit manufacturer'.
 
Kind Regards
 
Nigel

Work on the forecastle is now complete. I have made and added the roughtree rail. This was a straightforward task, but still fussy, mostly because of my desire to strengthen it by pinning all of the pieces.
 
The first job was to make the stanchions from boxwood strip, paint them black and then pin and glue them to the cap rail. I then made the rails themselves. Initially, I had thought that I would cut them from boxwood sheet, but decided to try bending them to shape from boxwood strip. Somewhat surprisingly, I found that I could edge bend 1/16" x 5/32" strip using boiling water and my old electric plank bender. I added the pin rail portion with additional pieces of bent strip. After rounding the edges, I prepainted the rails, drilled the holes for the belaying pins, added pins for the attachment to the knight heads and then glued the rails to the stanchions and the knight heads. Once the glue had set, I drilled through the rails and into the stanchions and used brass wire pushed into the holes with a drop of CA to pin them. After cutting off the wire and filing it smooth, I then did the final painting and added the belaying pins.
 
The result is a fragile looking structure that should be strong enough to withstand rigging stress. I'm pleased. My avoidance of the headwork will continue for a while as I do the channels and the remainder of the port lids.
 
Bob

A relatively simple, but tedious, job underway. I am making and installing the remaining gunport lids (earlier, I had done a few just to see how they would look and fit). As can be seen from the photos, I added the PE brass hinges and eyebolts only  to the lids that won't be covered by the channels. For whatever reason, the tight tolerances under the channels wouldn't allow for them (they will be completely covered and invisible in any event).
 
The lids are made from boxwood strip matching the hull planking with an inner piece painted red. The PE hinges are from the kit. The lids are pinned as well as glued for strength.
 
Next will be the channels.
 
Bob

I have to agree with shihawk,but if you are new to the hobby,I would recommend one of the smaller vessels from Caldercraft or Victory models.For the best materials and plans,you are hard to beat Euromodel,however you really need to have built a few other kits beforehand before I would recommend tackling one of those.
At the end of the day,it is down to what kit is best for you?You can't really generalise and have a universal 'best kit manufacturer'.
 
Kind Regards
 
Nigel

Your model is developing a wonderful aura of 'life' about her as you add layer upon layer of detail to her decks Wonderful work Nils!
 
Kind Regards
 
Nigel

I have to agree with shihawk,but if you are new to the hobby,I would recommend one of the smaller vessels from Caldercraft or Victory models.For the best materials and plans,you are hard to beat Euromodel,however you really need to have built a few other kits beforehand before I would recommend tackling one of those.
At the end of the day,it is down to what kit is best for you?You can't really generalise and have a universal 'best kit manufacturer'.
 
Kind Regards
 
Nigel

I have just looked at the drawings and  the carriages supplied. Unless the carriages are individually crafted, the obvious choice is to use the ones supplied as they are. On a larger scale, there is more latitude to taper and to thin the carriages but on this scale, I have now decided to make all those gun assemblies after all. The following photo illustrates how difficult it would be to create any modifications to the supplied carriages. Not suggesting that it is impossible - just difficult. Soi there is another point in this build where the individual can exercise their patience and do some detailed work. Out of interest, there is a photo of a 17C cannon/ carriage assembly I had stored in my files from MSW but did not record the author/source. My apologies to whoever.

So it is back to the workbench to make those carriage assemblies.
Pete

Gun Carriage Dilemma Resolved
 
The fluyt was principally a cargo vessel with minimum or no armament so I resolved to also minimize my build in this area. After some thought, I settled on three different approaches to the gun carriages …
 
Only 2 gun assemblies are openly visible on the whole ship and they are on the open portion of the Quarter Deck. Some rationalization was called for after my earlier indecision and so just these two would be constructed with some modification, especially to produce the tapered appearance of the carriage. N.B. Quarter Deck carriages only have 4 mm. trucks supplied due to the fragile nature of the drawing-indicated 3 mm. trucks on the carriage rear. To add variation, 4 gun assemblies would be non-existent behind closed gunport hatches [ 2 on the Gun Battery Deck and the 2 towards the stern on the Quarter Deck]. So no construction here at all 10 gun assemblies (on Main Deck) would be constructed using the supplied carriages without modification.  
Two initial steps on the carriage whether modified or not:
axle tree holes (axle holes) through the 5 mm.trucks (wheels) I enlarged by drilling; the 4 mm. truck holes could not be readily enlarged without breaking the soft timber so I reduced the actual axle trees (axles) by careful sanding. recessed slots underneath the carriage designed to hold the wooden axle were too narrow and had to be enlarged by filing. a bed was constructed from some first planking. It was only after this addition that I realized that there was no height left for a quoin !!  
When modifying the visible carriages on the Quarter Deck:
carriage split down the centre, sanded on a taper and rejoined producing a taper difference of 1.5 mm. from forward to rear front of the cheeks (sides) bevelled backwards Painting was a final but significant step with a dull, dark red for the carriage itself and black for the trucks.
 
The brass cannons were supported on a wire after washing in warm water and detergent and allowed to dry. They were then painted with a matt black acrylic paint.

Trunnions were cut from the brass wire supplied and then glued in place in the cannons.
Shown here are two different examples of gun carriage assemblies - the upper one is visible (and tapered) on the Quarter Deck and the lower one is typical of those non-tapered on the Main Deck that cannot be seen.

 
That completes the initial carriage construction and now I must turn my attention to adding the first planking - some of the strips have been in ammonia solution for the last 7 days !

Plank Fixing, Part 1
 
The planks in many cases needed softening by soaking in household form of ammonia first (e.g. ‘cloudy ammonia’) - I usually leave them for approx. 5 days. With the fairly severe bending at the stern end, the softening for many planks proved essential.
 
As a reference, the initial strip of the first planking was positioned 78.0 mm. from the top of Frame 11 and 31.0 mm. from the top of Frame 6. Six planks were fixed above taking the planking to just below the curvature of the transom supports and a further four below. The bending around the stern was extreme but occurred quite readily after the prolonged soaking in dilute ammonia. The photo below shows some very moist planks in position.

 
Temporarily fixing the moist planks using a myriad of nails produced the desired shape after drying for 24 hours for the timber to dry; there were significant gaps between the planks but these would prove to be of no consequence when refixing. The planks were numbered and then removed.

 
With the eleven strips dried and removed, I decided to add a shaped filler block between Frame 12 and the transom (compare the photo below with the one at the top). This would then allow the curved planking under the transom to be constructed more firmly. It also allowed me to consider the longitudinal contouring for the first planking at this point more carefully.
 

Main Deck Grate
No attempt was made to construct the Main Deck with its large hatchway until the three grate units of which it was composed had been produced. What is important to note is that the overall dimensions of the hatchway underneath in the deck will be slightly smaller than indicated in the drawings - its final dimensions were determined by the final size of the composite grate.

To lightly stain the grate strips for a more weathered look or leave natural timber? Two restored ships presented a distinct contrast - HMS Victory in Portsmouth with gratings painted white and a dark natural brown surround and the HMS Trincomalee in Hartlepool where the entire grate (shown in the following image) including the outer framework having a brown painted/ stained surface. In the end, there will always be a balance between historical accuracy and modellers’ preferences.

I found it is best to be prudent when assembling the grate strips to avoid using more strips than was essential. After assembling to the required size, the grates were immersed in a diluted (1:1) PVA glue, removed and the excess glue blown out by vigorously blowing over the back and front surfaces and allowing to dry. Each grate was then carefully sanded back to the required dimensions and a border surround added. The following images contrast the underside view vs the topside view. Worth remembering.


The basic approach seems to be to form a flat grate but it would be the 3 mm. thickness from the supplied strips. The next alternative would be to reduce the thickness to 2 mm. to match the supplied border material. However, in my build, I went further by producing a slight concave/ convex configuration with the final thickness being 1.8 mm. The convexity of the grate underside surface allowed it to fit better onto the Main Deck camber. My tool for doing this - a narrow vertical belt sander !

The builder

Nice to see an update buddy That's one more than me  
 
Your 'doghouse should look fine and dandy.Only suggestion I would make if you are fitting stairs,is to make the distance down from your combing to the first step the same as the stair pitches You may have thought of this anyway,if so I apologise
 
Kind Regards
 
Nigel
 
P.S.have finished one build,but can't put a log on here  Sorry for being off topic,but explains the reduced modelling hours

Thank you very much indeed Janos,Geoff,Brian and Nils     My apologies,I have done my housekeeping and had an 'inbox' clearout now  
 
Kind Regards
 
Nigel

That does sound better Nigel (and probably easier too)
 
Sounds like you had a great day.. Fillet Steak overload.. Brilliant 
 
Cheers
 
Eamonn

Hi mate
The only thing with a deadbolt on one door and latch on the other,would be it wouldn't tally up with handles on both doors on the outside(at least it looks like two handles on the outside from your pics).You could put handles on both sides and use a length of wire on each side to depict a dropbolt on each side connected to the handle.This wouldn't be too hard,you could just paint and glue the wire directly to the inside of the door.I don't know of any factual reference for what would have been fitted,so I think as long as it is plausible,anything goes..
 
Thank you Kester,I have had a very enjoyable day,just suffering temporary semi-paralysis after consumption of a rather large Fillet Steak  
 
Kind Regards
Nigel

Hi mate
The only thing with a deadbolt on one door and latch on the other,would be it wouldn't tally up with handles on both doors on the outside(at least it looks like two handles on the outside from your pics).You could put handles on both sides and use a length of wire on each side to depict a dropbolt on each side connected to the handle.This wouldn't be too hard,you could just paint and glue the wire directly to the inside of the door.I don't know of any factual reference for what would have been fitted,so I think as long as it is plausible,anything goes..
 
Thank you Kester,I have had a very enjoyable day,just suffering temporary semi-paralysis after consumption of a rather large Fillet Steak  
 
Kind Regards
Nigel

Dear friends,

I appreciate your kind words and praise a lot. Your support means a lot for me and I feel  very honored you like my work on the model. Thank you warmly for all your comments.
Well, I think you overrate my skills. Here at MSW there are a lot of great and professional quality models, and I find here plenty of superb inspiration. This helps me to achieve better results in my work. I am still learning new ways, how to do...., and also try to avoid own mistakes that I did at my previous models.
 
 
Oh yes, a lot of things I cannot do.... For example I am not very handy for cooking, but fortunately I have a tolerant partner who forgive me.
And the ropes/rigging - I think, you make a very good job on it. Do not underestimate yourself, I like your work a lot.
 
 
Hello Johann,
no problem, I use this rope walk from Amati:
http://www.modelylodi.cz/Pripravek-na-vyrobu-lan-d754.htm
 
 
And what´s new on rigging...

Today I finished main and fore stay. As a basis I use ropes mainly from Amati and Corel, the each rope on the pics below is plaited from three springs.
 










 
Please enjoy the pics and have a great time.
Best regards,
Doris