Seventynet

I've continued to work on the keel. I pulled the parts from the billets and prepped them. Chuck has mentioned that the wood is so thick it's pushing the laser cutting to the extreme. You can see the wedges and how the laser cut tapers. It doesn't cause any issues though. The wedges were assembled, cut to match the plans and added to the lower apron. Next I will be adding the rising wood and working on the deadwood and wedges that go on the deadwood.
 
 

Here’s last night’s effort, the stem. It took a fair amount of time to get the parts to fit well, the angle cut of the laser is a bugger and careful sanding is required to get gap free joints. I mostly used a file and sanding sticks, I also used with excellent results my Byrnes 4” sander (RIP Jim, we miss you) for trimming down the joints that Chuck points out is his build. Overall it was a pleasant experience. Now to start the taper...
 
 Best Regards …. Rick

This marks the start of my Syren POF Speedwell! I’ve been dealing with some medical issues and am now close to being 100%, so here we go! A POF has been a bucket list build for a long time as I’ve admired this style of model. Most of the offerings out there just didn’t appeal to me with the scaffold type of construction. Enter Chuck with his Speedwell, Bingo! I’m a huge fan of Chuck’s designs and all the help he (and the other MSW modelers) provides, it gives guys like me a lot of hope. I’ve built Chuck’s Medway (my first wood build) and it came out awesome. Thanks Chuck! I’ve started Cheerful but a POF build has extreme attraction for me. I’ll probably work on Cheerful when a break is needed. Last month at the New London Conference I got to meet Chuck (and Rusty, Ryland and Olha and several others! Awesome to meet you guys!). Had some great conversations and it was nice putting a face to the name. Also, I got to eyeball Chuck’s Speedwell, pictures in the build thread don’t do it justice. A real beauty! Anyway, here we go! When Chuck said there was a lot of wood in the 1st 2 chapters, he wasn’t kidding! The laser cutting is the best I’ve ever seen in a model. A lot of the parts had fallen out of the billets, so I took some time to place them in their proper place and used some blue painters tape to hold them in place. Because the thickness of the wood, I see a lot of billet sanding to remove surface char in my future. Here’s a picture of the wood. Stem will be started tonight.
 
Best Regards …. Rick

Lower/Upper Apron
 
The pre-cut curved rabbet is a nice feature which avoid the headache of bending and adjusting a straight strip and gluing it to the stem. I had to tweak the curvature at the stem to get a tight fit between the lower and upper apron.  I found it tricky to  optimize the seam on both sides at once. A lot of back and forth was required here.  The final result is shown below. 
 
The Rising Wood
 
Before gluing the rising wood sections, I realized that the strip supplied for the rabbet was a touch thicker than the curved section.  I fixed this easily using my Varitas mini-plane. The rising wood then went on with no particular issues. Care should be taken to insure that the position of the rising wood is not shifted with respect to the plan. For this I used a plan that I had printed at my local printer. 
 
The Deadwood
 
I followed the instructions with no particular issues here. Gluing the angled wedges is easier than at the bow.  The completed assembly is shown below. 
 
 

CHAPTER 1
 
Here we go.  I started ship modeling about 15 years ago.  I completed all Chuck's projects plus a few others (including Model Shipways Syren). I recently completed the Winchelsea and posted a few pictures on the gallery. Except for Chucks Medway, all my projects had been POBs.  I was therefore quite excited when the Speedwell kit was released. This offers me a great opportunity to work for the first time on a POF kit without having to scratch my own frames. Except for ripping planks on my Byrnes saw (yes I am among the lucky ones), I essentially work with hand tools.  In this blog I will report on my progress. All the Speedwell builders are well experienced, and I am hoping you guys can provide advices when I have questions or encounter difficulties.  Thanks in advance. (This will also free Chuck from answering my numerous emails). On occasion, I hope I can contribute some ideas and tips to those who will undertake this project. 
 
Parts for Chapter 1 are shown below.  Contrary to others, my kit survived posting very well.  Only one small part (5F) in the top center board seems to be missing.  It is easy to scratch build, so no big deal.
Assembling the stem is straightforward. Tweaking the edges as suggested improves the fit.  I had to tweak a few more edges than those indicated to get the tightest fit. 

Positioning the stem (long curved part to which the rabbet is glued) on the rest of the stem assembly can be tricky. It is important to follow the plan closely to avoid problems when making the boxing joint at the keel and to ensure a tight fit between the apron and the rabbet.  I think I glued mine a hair too low and had to make adjustments (to be discussed below).  Note that I postponed the gluing of the thinner knee of the head for the time being. To prevent knocking it off, it will be glued on only when the whole stem/keel/stern assembly is completed. 

Man thats beautiful!

steps.....
 






 

Love your approach to the swivel hardware.
 
I hope your model ends up in one of the prestigious European competitions. It has Gold Medal written all over it.

more....

Step J and K shared page 13 of the instructions as shown here.

 
    Step J covered the remaining deck fittings and the bowsprit. While setting the remaining ten canons on the main deck I found one thing a bit odd about them. If you look close to the photo below, you can see that their carriages were apparently made from bricks!

 
    Next, two large anchors constructed from four parts each were shown in a pair of subsets. Both port and starboard anchors were the same except for their stocks which had their ropes on opposite sides. Each one was only supported with a single tab in a slot on the forecastle deck. Apparently, they intended to just let the other end hang loose, but I added a dab of glue where they touched the side of the hull rather than risk a mishap.
    Then the combination bowsprit/sprit topmast (part #119) was assembled by folding it in half, with the printed paper flag (#249) sandwiched between the layers at the flag staff and held in place with a piece of the double faced tape. Passing through a gap in the upper stem, the heel of the bowsprit was set into a slot in the face of the forecastle.
    And lastly, the bobstay (part#196) was secured with one tab stuck in a slot at the end of the bowsprit, passed between the arms and legs of the figurehead and into another slot in the stem by his foot which completed step J.
This kit employed a rather unique mounting system for the ships sails. The sails had a folded over portion that included two or three tabs with integral slots at the top, while the bottom had a single tab with an integral slot in the center. The upper portion of the corresponding yards also had matching tabs with integral slots that were passed through both the slot in the sail and the slot in the lower portion of the yard. All of those tabs had locking clips to tie them together.
    Since there was the bare minimum of running rigging on this ship model, the bottoms of the sails required a similar approach. The tab/slot at the bottom of the sail was aligned with a matching slot at their mast top. Another tab/slot key was passed through both the slot in the sail and the slot in their mast top. All of those tabs had an additional locking clip to tie them together.
    So section K began with the assembly of the top spritsail. Taking the first printed paper sail (#248) in hand, a tab/slot key (#97) was passed through both the sail slot and the slot in the bowsprit top (#94). Then a locking clip (#95) was used to tie it together. The upper portion of the spritsail yard (#98) needed to have a slight bend where the yard lifts joined with it. Once done with that, the two tab/slots were passed through both the sail slots and the lower portion of the spritsail yard/shrouds (#80). Locking clips (#79 & #90) secured the joint. The shroud portion of (#80) was then bent down and clipped to the tabs on the sides of the bowsprit top (#94). To finish step K, the assembly was mounted with two slots slipping into corresponding slots on the mast and a pin at the top of the flagstaff.
    Here’s the bowsprit and spritsail shown completed below from these two steps.

 

 

Those look terrific, Chuck.
 
I'm sorry to read that Troll City over at SOS is still alive and bitching.... I suppose that trolls have to live somewhere.

Square frames (pt. 2)
Hi guys,
 
Moving ahead I decided to cut out the remaining square frames from sheet and mill all 140 scarph joints. A real exercise in patience, like doing guns.

Mike

This was emailed to the SW Florida ship modeler membership and I found it interesting.  Hopefully others here will, as well.
Allan
 

I am just about to post an update with those...LOL
 
The gratings for Speedwell are different but the same basic concept.  They are a different scale to reflect the larger size needed.  They will have 1/16" square openings which at 3/8" scale would be a 2" hole.  Just right and exactly the same number of holes as the contemporary model.
 
These will all be included in the chapter along with the jig needed.
 
I will have construction pics really soon.
 
I have been distracted lately with the topic on the SOS where the staff and admin are trashing this project relentlessly....but its a lot fun to watch.   Many of you guys have sent me messages alerting me about it.
 
I have to thank Ben however for being a brave soul to have something nice to say about it knowing he will get the wrath for it.   I must be the worst kit designer in the world if you read some of that stuff over there.  But seriously...dont put yourself out there because if you do say anything positive about Syren or any of my projects on SOS they will lambaste you.  So no worries.   Dont put yourself in that position.  Its not worth it.   Most folks know its all nonsense.  And I am well aware.  But thanks for the positive notes of private support.
 
Anyway...back to building gratings.

Mast steps
Over the weekend I completed the two mast steps. The location of these is very important and the plans really helped me out here.
 
Mizzen step: The first thing I did was to tack glue the three sections together with a spot or two of school glue. Then I milled the notch which goes over the keelson. After breaking the pieces apart, I milled the notch into the top of the middle piece and glued the aft and middle sections together permanently. Next, I angled the bottom edge about 5° to account for the upward sweep of the keelson. I worked the two sections until everything was sitting flush with the limber strakes and keelson. The fore section was then positioned over the keelson, against the first two pieces, and shaped accordingly.
 
You might be asking, why didn't I  just glue all three pieces together from the start? It wasn't long before I realized that the shape of the fore and aft pieces were not Identical. The aft piece had a slightly different angle at the foot than the fore piece. This is due to the twist in the limber strake, I think. Doing this in stages allowed me to get each piece angled correctly without the hassle of trying to work the whole piece at once.
 
According to the plan, the center of the mizzen step sits .151" (approx 5/32") in front of the aft edge of frame 11F. I glued the step into position using a cross piece and shim to account for that distance. This also helped to get the step perpendicular to the keel.

Main step: This was made basically the same way as the mizzen step. It sits over frame Ba. Unlike the mizzen step, I didn't need to taper the foot. The distance between the centers of the two steps is approx 9-5/32".

For the pins I turned down a 1/16" dowel using the Dremel tool. They are press fitted without the need for glue.

I've had so much fun making these that I almost forgot that I need to finish up the outer hull planking.😏
 
Mike

I have completed the rabbet strip and the false keel. Looking good so far and goes together easily.
 

After some delays due to Easter I collected my Speedwell kit yesterday and was able to get started today.

New to the forum, I noted that Chuck would like to see buildlogs and figured why not, I can use all the help I can get. This is definitely a deep end type project for me and I expect that I will be building quite slowly. Happily I seem to have gotten a generous amount of spare parts.

Started with the stem, not sure if I did something wrong but I ended up with a bit of a ledge along the curved inboard surface. Attempted to remove the ledge by sanding along the joint marked in red, which seems to have worked out ok.



 

 
This is where I'm at with a loose dry-fit, will sleep on it and try to refine the joint a bit more before glueing.

All keel sections are complete. Moving on to the rabbet. I think I'm not going to try an remove all the laser burn. I just gave it a light sanding to smooth things out nicely. I think most of this will not be visible in the end. Hard to get all of it on a picture as its quite long.
 

 

 

Starting with the stem. I just did a quick dry fit and everything fits together almost perfectly. I haven't touched anything yet and just very minor adjustments needed. Doesn't get any better than this. I won't remove any laser char from the surfaces until they are glued together. Don't want to risk rounding over any edges.
 

I've been making a little progress and got the keel finished up.  Thought I would throw a few pictures of where we stand so far...
I have the build board all set to go.  I pretty much followed Mikes lead - can't go wrong doing that....
 


Next up will be attaching the false keel - seems I forgot that till I seen the pictures...   After that I think I will put on some WOP that to protect what I have done so far. 
Then fixing the plans to the build board.
So far --- so good...    Thanks for looking in.
Steve
 

I got the extra printed plans back and have completed the build board. I got a 3/4" (19mm) thick MDF board for the base. I also put two 1"x2" boards length wise underneath to ensure the board does not go out of shape. It also elevates the base in case I want to use clamps for some insane reason. The plans were attached using a 3M spray mount adhesive. It worked really well.
 
I also put together the keel support jigs. On to the stem next.
 

Started assembling frames next. Some of the lasered identifiers are hard to read for me. Took them off the trees one at a time.  Make SURE you check identifiers and orientation prior to assembly. Check the PLANS, make sure the ARROW in the jig faces forward. I assembled five frames and dry mounted them on the keel. Some are REALLY tight and I was afraid of issues so I sanded the char off. Fit nice after that. The jig is ingenious.

I started on the Stem assembly next. Everything fit well. Took a LOT of sanding and tapering to get Mercury in proper position.

What a difference some paint makes.   Bulwarks are painted however as usual, I will be applying many more thin coats over the next few weeks as I progress.   
 
Before and after...
 

 

Most kits come with deadeyes and partially completed chains.  Usually, the upper link (the link that goes around the deadeye) is pre-formed, with the bottom cut for insertion of the deadeye.  Wire is provided for the builder to form the other two links but the entire assembly has very little strength and the cut ends of wire are ugly.  The only way to make this assembly stronger and better looking is to solder the links closed.  I prefer silver soldering, even though regular soldering will give sufficient strength.  The benefit of silver soldering is that the metal is fused together rather than connected by a dissimilar metal, tin.  This makes it easier to bend the part without worrying about the solder joint breaking.  The downside is that there is a learning curve and the tools are more expensive.  Silver solder also blackens well.  There are also low melting point silver bearing solders (Tix) which can be blackened. 
 
The measurements for all the parts of a British warship were determined by the Admiralty.  There are reference books that contain this information such as Steel’s Tables.  An easily read version of the tables is sold in the NRG store.  The main mast diameter is given on the plans as 18”.  Using the information from the tables, I determined that the main stay is 9” and the shrouds are 5.5”.   Lines are measured by their circumference. The diameter of the deadeye is 1.5 times the size of the shroud or stay it is attached to, in this case 8 ¼”.  A spreadsheet comes in handy in determining all the measurements.
Let me start by saying that my metal work has a bit to be desired.  The chains are made from 1 ¼” wire, which is 22 gauge.  I temper the wire by drawing it through a gas flame until it glows red.  This makes the wire more malleable and removes any factory applied coating.
 
The deadeye chain is the same length for all the deadeyes.  Make one and use it as a template for the others.  I wrapped wire around the deadeye, leaving long tails, and inserted this into the slot in the channel.  The tails were cut long enough to be able form the loop below the channel.  I removed the deadeye and applied a finish. 

The lower links are all the same length.  From the plans I knew that the toe of the lower link is bolted 5” below the top of the wale and that its overall length was 9”.  Two T-pins were inserted into the soldering board and the wire was wrapped around them, with the cut ends on the side.  The middle link is different for every shroud because each is at a different angle to the mast as seen in the two pictures below.  The link becomes longer with greater angulation of the shroud.  You can see the difference in the shroud angles and how this would affect the length of the middle link.


To determine the angle of the chains, I put masking tape on the hull above and below the channel.  A loop of rope was placed over the mast head and inserted through a slot in the channel.  The angles made by the shroud were transferred to the tape.  I dimpled the wale where the toe of the lower link and the lower preventer chain bolts will be located and removed the tape.

A hole was drilled through the wale where the toe of the lower link would later be bolted.  The lower link and deadeye were temporarily installed. The length of the middle chains was determined by trial and error.  With the deadeye and lower link in place, I formed the middle link from rope the same thickness as the wire and transferred those lengths to wire.  I formed the middle link and soldered it closed, keeping the joint on one of the long sides.  Then I inserted the lower link through the middle link and soldered it. 

A T-pin was pushed into the soldering board and used to form the lower link toe.  The lower link is also bent at the toe, allowing it to lay flat against the wale. 

Finally, the wire for the upper link was passed through the middle link and  soldered.  The deadeye was inserted into the loop and the wire was crimped around it to fit into the channel slot, placing the solder joint in the slot camouflaged it.  

And here are the ten chains, ready for blackening.  The blackening chemical did not damage the wood deadeyes. 

 
After blackening, the chains were installed.  I have a piece of wire temporarily holding the lower link to the wale. 

The preventer plate prevents the bolt securing the lower link from going all the way through the toe. It was made from square bar stock that was forged to the correct shape.  Mine are made from sheet brass, cut and filed to the correct shape.  Just like the middle links, they varied in length. The top of the plate makes a step over the bottom of the lower link toe to cover it. To determine the distance between the bolt holes on the plate, I measured the distance between the toe bolt and the previously marked lower preventer plate bolt and added the diameter of the wire the link was made from.  The sequence is shown in the drawing below. After they were finished, they were blackened and installed.  

To hold the upper links in the channels, a strip of molding was placed over them.  Next up, the rigging begins.