dafi

Here some pictures from the Invincible Wreck Site on Facebook.
The only original stay and preventer with their mouses that I know, only 50 years before Big V.
 
Interesting is, that they are completely served only in the area of the mouse, the rest of the mainstay is only wormed, the preventer apparently not ...
 

 
 

 
 

 
 

 

 

 
 
XXXDAn
 
source: https://www.facebook.com/InvincibleWreckSite
 
 
 

First chapter: the rope walk
 

 
... simple wooden box, some cogwheel from Fischertechnik out of my dark juvenile past, 4 mm aluminum wire bent to hooks...
 

 
... the movable counter part and the runner ...
 

 
... some screws as guides for a 2,5 meter curtain rail ...
 

 
... and getting a range of crochet thread from the grandma shop in the city.
 

 
And these are the results - the three brown ones (nr 2, 5 and 8 from the bottom) are the reference from Krick 0,3, 0,5 and 0,7 mm:
 

 
Holy impatience, they are not yet dyed but I could not resist putting them in place to see how they react and look in place ...
 

 
... and, does not look too bad :-)
 

 

 
The build was rather easy and simple. But now it will get tricky: Finding the right materials and the right way of using it concerning the right amount of twisting and tension.
 
cogwheel - old stuff
Curtain rail - old stuff
Wood - 1,58 Euro
Aluminum - 1,50 Euro 
Feeling - priceless ;-)
 
All the best, Daniel

Congratulations and thank you for sharing your voyage with us!
 
It was always a great pleasure,
 
XXXDAn

Always a treat to see! Wonderful work, DAniel

I got the carronades finally installed.  I don't know why I was putting them off but for some reason I was not excited to do them.  
 
The work on the jib and jibboom continues.  I've got a question.  Where do the jib guys belay to above the round houses?  I was thinking on the front of the fore castle but longridge doesn't back that up.  Do they just frap around the block and tackle?
 
I've got to get a bit more delicate working around all of the lines.  Sometimes I feel like I'm wearing boxing gloves and I'm sick of having to fix stuff I keep snagging and breaking off.  

I knocked out a jib traveler.  I managed to make a reasonable copy on my second attempt after I remembered the importance of Flux when soldering.  

This is how heller shows it on the new plans.  

Thank you for your quick response. So if I'm reading it correctly then, and comparing it with the drawings from McGowan's book, the stays would go through the blocks that are shown in front of the bobstays correct? And the inner martingale would wrap around the bottom thimble of the jib traveler? 
 

I did some light weathering with some salt stains and a few rust streaks. I tried to follow some pictures from the real ship to replicate it.  After weathering I coated with Alclad matte lacquer. Doing the weathering I realized I should have sanded off the wood grain as others have recommended.  The salt stains highlighted the grain more than i would have liked so i had to really thin it down.
 
It was a snowy day here so I was also able to get the hammock cranes and netting finished. Now on to the masts. 

Wonderfully done! Thanx for showing.
 
All the ebst, DAniel

Very tidy paintwork, you’re making me itchy to get back to the Victory. Yours is the first time I’ve really noticed the front two gunports left closed, I like that. I don’t think I’ve yet opened them on my second hull, might keep it that way. And those chains do look good, don’t they.

Wonderfully done! Thanx for showing.
 
All the ebst, DAniel

Got the Dafi's etched chains installed and sprayed the boat with Alclad aqua clear in preparation for weathering.  The chains were a lot of work but they look incredible.  

Finally a bit of an update. Bulk of scroll saw work completed on the frames. What's left to cut are the half-lap joints on the hanging knees for the deck beams. Decided to cut and mill all the deck beams from solid timber. Presently building a pivoting table for the scroll saw which will allow me to cut the beams to a consistent radius and depth. Radius of the beams does increase slightly as you move up through the decks, but at 1:98 scale, the change is so small it would be unnoticeable, so all beams will be cut to the same radius. Once the curved beams are cut, I'll mill the grooves for deck stringers and the half-lap joints on the beams, then cut the half-lap joints on the frames to fit the beams. After that, the frames can be permanently installed to the keel and stringer, then beam and decking installation can begin from the lowest deck and progress up through the five decks... a ways to go before that can happen.

Small update on the Victory build. The scratchbuilt solid timber keel pieces are now complete. Time now to finish milling the original Mantua plywood keel structure, remove the sections being replaced with solid timber pieces, then assemble the new keel structure. You may notice I added additional pieces (stemson and apron) to the bow portion in order to replace the entire plywood bow section, and make a stronger assembly. The original plywood keel is warped in that area and thus unusable.

The next pieces I cut were the sternpost and inner post. Rabbets were cut in the sternpost on the Preac to match those on the keel. Photo below shows the glue-up assembly joining the sternpost, inner post, and keel. I used setup blocks on a surface plate to ensure proper alignment in all planes. These joints will be reinforced with treenails as end grain (sternpost and inner post) has no glue strength.

 
While the glue was going off I made a small drawplate to make the Boxwood Treenails. I used a small piece of Titanium, salvaged from an old, dead MAC Titanium Powerbook that I scrapped. Titanium was drilled with a series of diminishing dia. holes from .050" to .024", then laminated between to pieces of thin plywood to add rigidity. I cut small Boxwood square strips on the Preac from leftover Boxwood scraps and offcuts to make the treenails.

With the keel, sternpost, and inner post cured, I set the assembly up in the mill to drill holes for the treenails. It was setup at the angle so that the holes would be vertically aligned with the sternpost.

Once drilled, the treenails were glued and tapped into place. Using a hypodermic needle I injected a small amount of glue into the bottom of each hole, then tapped in the treenail. In this manner, tapping the treenail in forced the glue up around the treenail ensuring a solid bond.

Once glue had gone off, I cleaned up the assembly.

The small aluminum block in the background is a sanding block which I used to cleanup the rabbets. I lapped one surface flat, then glued on a piece of sandpaper. It's excellent for getting into small areas and angles, and being absolutely flat, it functions much like a jointer plane in truing surfaces.

Good one and wonderful! In our german site the question about the "vent trunks" came up too. Those are shown in the Vic today and are also displayed in the AOTS by McKay and this where the name was taken from. That´s why me too I incorporated them in my build, long before going to deeper resaerch and questioning sources like the modern authorities 🙂
 
My believe is that the principal source of the video is AOTS as other small bits fit in there too.
 
All the best and enjoy the show, DAniel
 

This is the main topmast staysail, quite common at the end of the 18th century.
More visible here:

GD

And now on to new adventures. After I was once again amazed by the print results of the iron swivel gun, I wanted to try out something I had been thinking about for a while.

One of the most time-consuming parts of the gun deck is the gun rigging, especially the side tackles. And you don't see much of it. Why not try something new there? A quick test shot ...



... which showed that in principle it fits http://www.shipmodels.info/mws_forum/images/smilies/icon_smile.gif

So I made it a bit more precise and quickly installed it.











Still a bit much spiral spring, but I think something is possible.


As a next step I made the ropes of the rigging a bit thinner, 0.3 mm instead of 0.4 mm diameter. I also broke up the uniformity a bit and added minimal variances. Old on the right, new on the left.



Then I swung the brush, added shading to each colour as usual, and added some ink to the whole thing.



This was the time for a little setting test. The inner planks were marked with a pencil, the knees were glued on and I noticed that the holes for the bolts were still missing...



... so I got out the shish kebab skewers with the incorporated drills and ...



... drilled all the way through the ship http://www.shipmodels.info/mws_forum/images/smilies/icon_smile.gif

Attached the side rigging to the gun and tested the position.



Fits, only the breech rope is missing.



The length is determined, all fittings are attached and ...



... wrapped the rope around the grape as in the Constitution.



Since the breech rope is longer than the rest, this could be glued in place without any finger knotting ...



... and then the gun is pushed towards the ship's side, the guide rails are guided into the glued holes and the gun is placed, a little glue with the toothpick under the wheels and done http://www.shipmodels.info/mws_forum/images/smilies/icon_smile.gif







XXXDAn

In order to get a little more structure into the few possible views into the lower deck, I have printed the characteristic triple knees of today's Constitution. Whether these were already in place in earlier eras of the ship or if they were only installed during later conversions is beyond my knowledge. I would have instinctively guessed the classic use of 3 separate knees for the early phase of the ship. I would be happy to take any hints on this.



Due to the kit, I can't work with deck beams because the ship has to be pressed into shape by the upper deck. Therefore, I have to skip the upper part of the knees too.









Placement check with guns.



And in the end it's all about such a view anyway http://www.shipmodels.info/mws_forum/images/smilies/icon_smile.gif



XXXDAn

After all the battens were mounted, the cleaning up really started. Rough overhang was minimized with the scalpel, then the top and bottom were filed with the sandpaper battens as already described.



I also made a small tool for the inner surfaces.



For the bow area there was something more shorter and rounded.



After everything was smooth enough we went to the spirketing. A 1 mm thick polysterol strip at the bottom, 0.5 mm Polsterol between the ports, and another 1 mm above that.





And the fit sample.



Fits http://www.shipmodels.info/mws_forum/images/smilies/icon_smile.gif

To fit the lower strip, press it well inside ...



... on the outside, score the lower edge of the port with a scalpel ...



... make the scribe visible with paint, i.e. color it and wipe away the paint on the outside so that only the depth of the scribe remains colored ...



... and cut off the overhang based on these marks and glue this adap´ted stripe in. Between the ports, orient the 0.5mm strip to the height of the ports. If you have worked evenly when filing the ports should be always the same height.



And the one side is ready.







Now the other side and then the head area and the side galleries areas.

XXXDAn

I'll come back to the Battle Station later to still add some life. But it was time to do some stretching.

First off, built a sturdy stand.



Then came bondage. The hull is unfortunately so warped, that here rougher force in the form of tight lacing had been necessary.



The lacing allowed me to spread the load better. Still, later the hull partially burst open again, so the rougher tools came into play. Result was that it finally lasted ...



... but as collateral damage the hull had become quite wavy. Later on, the insertion of the upper deck will be a even-ing challenge http://www.shipmodels.info/mws_forum/images/smilies/icon_wink.gif (Mark the bun!)




The next step was to double up the ship's side. This makes the difference between the appearance as a classic plastic kit and upscale modeling appearance. Built up a small stop to do the doubling.



Then glued inside 4 mm battens against the stop.





Then inserted the sills at the top and bottom, making sure that there is enough overhang in each case. The space between these port frames was also filled with battens.



If there is too much protrusion of the sills, this is first minimized them with a sharp tool.



Then cut a flat batten to sand down the remaining overhang at the top/bottom, with minimal undersize in the sanding area and slightly more on the opposite side port. Taped 240 grit sandpaper to it with double sided tape, that fits well with my rather soft battens.



The strip is passed through the port on the opposite side, this gives an even horizontal angle.



Then sanded the sill on top ...



... turned the batten over and sanded the bottom sill.



Prepared another sanding strip for the sides ...



... especially in the bow area at the idle ports, some rework is needed because of the strong bend.



And this you get as comparison: original version Revell ...



... and the revised version http://www.shipmodels.info/mws_forum/images/smilies/icon_smile.gif



XXXDAn  

The dimensions of the hammocks are well known. The diameter of the rolled sausage also can be seen in contemporary drawings. Even if they were sometimes thicker, because blankets were still rolled in, I choose the thinner version without additional content. Contemporary sources show 7 to 9 laces. Some say like the 7 oceans, on Bray's sketches you can see the variant with 9.

The mats were rolled of Fimo, the laces rolled in by means of a special comb. Since the holders are very low, I first tried the straight variant.



I found the bent variant better, as it is also historically documented in many cases.



After that, a bit of 50 shades of beige , plus some ink for shadows and depth and the lacing in the visible area represented with thin yarn and it all fits so far for me.







XXXDAn

Then attached the hammock cranes with the netting.



Mounted the white net in the cardboard frame and first primed it with white and then colored it slightly brown.



Then inserted two strips of paper as a convenient insertion aid and inserted the net with a wooden core.



Then on the outside, fixed the net with super glue at points, widened the core so that the net fits well on the inside of the holders, and also fixed the back side of the net at points. Then removed the core, glued the net well to the top rope and trimmed everything well with the pointed scissors.



After that, some more trimming was done and next comes the hammocks.





XXXDAn

In addition to the figurehead of the Victory, I also made some progress with the battle station of the Constitution. First attached the eyebolts for the carronade's gun rig.





To determine the length of the tackles I again documented the different positions.













In the last two pictures, it can be seen that the hooks for the tackles are too close to each other to work effectively because the angle is too tight. That's why two more eyebolts are needed further out.



While this position is technically possible, I think it is a special case that can be well achieved with handspikes if needed.

To tie the breechline, I built a small rigging aid. Hammered in two nails spaced at width of the eyebolts and fixed the carronade in maximum aft position. Then tied the two rope eyes, nice and tight around the nails.



After tying the eye, just pulled them out over the top of the nail, bent the rings up from the eyebolts on the bulwark, removed them, slid them through the eye of the rope, bent them closed again a bit, and reattached them to the bulwark in the eyebolt.



Looks like this then http://www.shipmodels.info/mws_forum/images/smilies/icon_smile.gif







XXXDAn