amateur

That's what I said, too, once upon a time. Now look at me. 😬

Started work on the forward fuselage. Here are the skin sections with their joiner strips attached.
 

 
Each of these must first be pre-formed as close as possible to the desired finished shape. The largest piece (top) was then closed, gently conformed to the shape of the previous fuselage section, and then allowed to remain dry-fitted for 24 hours to permanently 'fix' its shape. Then the next section was closed, shaped, and glued to the first section. After the glue had set, an internal bulkhead was placed inside the resulting cylinder and glued in place. Here's the work so far -- the two fuselage sections are not yet glued together.
 

 
In the previous photo,you can see the next two rings joined together in the background. The two forward-fuselage assemblies won't be joined together just yet -- both the engine and air intake need to be built first. But, I couldn't resist getting a feel for what the finished nose will eventually look like.
 

 
Yep, it's going to look cool! In the photo, you can also see where I have added the optional recessed exhaust port. On photos of real Hellcats, there is usually a massive, dirty streak that arcs back from the exhaust port along the fuselage and over the wing root, as you can see in the photo below (from Wikimedia Commons):

 
The kit printing doesn't have any weathering, but I am half-tempted to try adding this rather conspicuous detail.
 
Cheers!
 

thanks for the encouragement...pretty lonely, the places i go 😄...always experimenting.....
 
 

I think much more, about 40-50 centimeters?
 
Jan

I think much more, about 40-50 centimeters?
 
Jan

Finished the starboard side. On to the next.
 
I will fit 1 or 2 gun carriages at a later stage. Just to show how they were done/placed. I already said I want to build a kind of Harbour rig although not determined how that will look. So I will develop that as I proceed.

Hi all,
some little work done over the weekend, painted the control surfaces and posed together with the main body to see the effect.

Then a first light coat of Tamiya gloss followed by a light wet sanding. Before a second coat, I masked some details to get a metallic paint on the cannon opening and on the largest dorsal grilles:

I sprayed on these details a coat if Vallejo metallic 'steel' obtaining some points of interest on the large upper surface.

The simplified cannon opening gained a bit of detail:

Meanwhile, waiting for the gloss coat, I started to work on the landing gears.
That's all for now,
kind regards,
Dan

Made quite a bit of progress today -- fuselage and horizontal stabilizers skinned. Here's another shot of everything test-fitted.
 

Not only the printing is clever. The glueing trick also deserves to be remembered
 
Jan

The exhibition will be open till May 8th.
And I think a model can be done from this sketch.
 
Jan

Maritiemdigitaal is next to useless. Even if you succeed in finding what you are looking for the quality of both picture and description is almost always insufficient.
 
Jan

Good evening everyone
thank you for comments and likes
 
Day 76 fwd and midships top deck
 
although only in temporary for now the midships box girders and the upper forepeak are rechecked for final fitting, a few deck plates, lighting and fitting points for cargo to sort out oh and another bulkhead
im quite pleased with the way the build is going
 
forepeak frames

 


 
 
 

To be continued。。。
 

Not only the printing is clever. The glueing trick also deserves to be remembered
 
Jan

Maritiemdigitaal is next to useless. Even if you succeed in finding what you are looking for the quality of both picture and description is almost always insufficient.
 
Jan

Not only the printing is clever. The glueing trick also deserves to be remembered
 
Jan

Not only the printing is clever. The glueing trick also deserves to be remembered
 
Jan

Not only the printing is clever. The glueing trick also deserves to be remembered
 
Jan

Hello amateur,
 
Thanks for your remarks and thanks for the drawings! I will try to give a proper reply to your remarks.
One of the most striking features of the Dutch seventeenth century is that it was a turbulent age with lots of developments who were not recorded as we would do it now or not recorded at all. The way things were done are also often quite different from the way we do things today. So I am very weary of making firm statements or draw conclusions on the basis of information which is almost by definition incomplete.
The books written by Nicolaes Witsen and Cornelis van Yk were the first of their kind in those days. But I think they represent a phase in a more general development. The social structures where knowledge and craft was passed on from generation to generation, the guilds, were lost in the ever growing industrialisation of the Dutch Republic. So the need arose for other ways of transferring knowledge. The invention of the printing press could meet that need. Nicolaes and Cornelis both mention their motivation of writing their book: to record what never has been recorded before (in the Dutch Republic). And that is the crucial understanding I think. Many things are not recorded. And I think this is reflected in the way Nicolaes and Cornelis wrote their respective books. Often you can find statements done by Nicolaes and Cornelis where they say something is done without explaining why. Also definitions or more strict descriptions of certain used understandings often lack. The books of Nicolaes and Cornelis are in that sense representatives of a certain development.
This is in a sense also true for the drawings of Pieter van Zwijndregt. The drawings are there, the manuscripts with the design theory and method of Pieter are there but a connection with the actual practice of building a ship lacks. Only in the so-called ‘provisions’, attached to the specifications for a ship to build, you can find some of this information.
So, I think most of the assets used on a shipyard to be able to build a ship are lost and so is the knowledge. In the former string of posts I tried to give some examples of this. Concerning Cornelis I try an indirect approach in an attempt to retrieve some of the procedures by trying to regard the whole description of Cornelis as a consistent coherent whole.
 
I am not familiair with this article of Ab Hoving about the seventeenth century drawings. In general I am not impressed by the analytical capabilities of Ab. You mention watermarks. I examined the watermarks in many drawings of Pieter van Zwijndregt (1711-1790) and tried to find some information about these watermarks. I am not an expert, far from it, but what I found is that much information about these watermarks lack, especially in the seventeenth century. What makes watermarks extremely difficult to attribute to a certain era or even producer is the fact many of the producers of this upcoming industry of paper making changed their watermarks, used several watermarks at the same time and were often taken over by competitors who in their own way reused the watermarks or introduced new ones. Even older watermarks were reused again. And I don’t regard Ab Hoving to be an expert on paper.
I made a survey on ‘Maritiem Digitaal’ for the seventeenth century drawings but this site functions so badly that its is, for me, often very difficult if not impossible to find what I am looking for, alas. So thanks for the pictures!

Side view and waterlines of a small frigate
 Section drawn by Sturckenburg (I could only find the redrawn version of Otte Blom)

 
Could only find a book-copy of the third drawing
 

 
I never heard of any other drawings at the Maritime miseum, nor did I see any pictures of such drawings. Would be very interesting to know whether there exist any other drawings.
 
Jan

Hi Philemon,
 
what surprises me is that in all the builders-contracts there seems to be no reference to any drawings, nor to the approval of such drawings before the work commences. One of the members here (Werner) has spent literaly weeks in the Dutch archives and nowhere seems to be anything that points at such drawings or the use of them. Only from almost a century later (Pieter Zwijdrecht), there seems to be a number of linedrawings that were used in shipdesign (and I assume, also the building of those ships).
Any thoughts on that?
 
The drawings in the scheepvaartmuseum are three drawings that are available in the web: a longitudinal section of a threedecked ship, attributed to Sturckenburg, and two technical looking drawings of a smallfrigate (most Berlin-reconsteuctions are based on those drawings).
A coupke of years ago Ab Hoving published a review of these drawings, suggesting a more in depth research of these drawings: He notices some problems with the drawings. They are made on paper that has a watermark that is (or seems) newer than the date on the drawing, there are technical terms in the drawings that do not match the terminology in the builders contracts, the construction/frames do not match what we know of building practice in that period, They have no provenance and they came in possession of the museum in a period that there was a huge demand for 'stuff from the golden age'.
 
I will look for a web-link.
 
Jan

Not only the printing is clever. The glueing trick also deserves to be remembered
 
Jan

Not only the printing is clever. The glueing trick also deserves to be remembered
 
Jan

Side view and waterlines of a small frigate
 Section drawn by Sturckenburg (I could only find the redrawn version of Otte Blom)

 
Could only find a book-copy of the third drawing
 

 
I never heard of any other drawings at the Maritime miseum, nor did I see any pictures of such drawings. Would be very interesting to know whether there exist any other drawings.
 
Jan