Chuck

Very nice…looking forward to seeing that.

Thanks….I miss your winnie updates. You gonna start up on her again soon.

I dont know...he was commander of the squadron. I am not sure if I will have any figures actually. It costs big bucks to get them made and then cast. It would be nice however. Chuck

I might just take you up on that Greg but I will contact you once I get closer to completion. This is the fella I would need...Capt. Nathaniel Bateman

I couldnt find any. I basically just browsed shapeways for 1:48 figures. I bought a few that were offered in the best material. I am no expert on those. I have not found any English naval 1:48 figures of good quality. Hence the mini me.

The building inspector!!! You know how it goes..I have to slip him a C-note to overlook my shotty workmanship.😁

The gallows are now completed....they are basically the same as the main jeer bitts. The uprights are a little shorter to accommodate the top of the gallows which has that shape you are all familiar with. The height of the gallows is equal to the top of the breast beam. It is also only temporarily in position. I will be starting to build the chain pumps next which will allow me the ability to tweak all of their positions to align the crank handles and permanently install them. You can see I removed that second beam as it will only make tweaking all their positions trickier. That was just resting on the deck clamp as well. Any questions.

Looks great but keep in mind those bolts on your mast partners are way too large. You will probably have a hard time fitting you mast coats. If there is any way you can remove them and go much much much smaller….you will save yourself much trouble later. Keep those bolts small.

Thanks guys. This is where you will start to notice a difference between the contemporary model. The bitts and gallows for example are very different. This is done to accommodate the chain pumps. They will both have their uprights farther apart in order to place the crank handles for the chain pumps. The orientation for the jeer bitts is also changed to make more room for the pumps. It will really start looking interesting once I finish the gallows and chain pumps.

Moving right along.....or forward so to speak You saw me build the capstan and I am using the red one....all I had to do was really make the two pawls. I just used a strip of 3/64 x 3/64 boxwood. I cut them to length.....shaped them as shown. The arse end being rounded off. I drilled a hole through that end so I could insert some black fishing line to simulate the bolt or pin on the pawl. Painted them black with some weathering powder and glued them on. Notice how I sanded the back of each pawl thinner so the part that engages the capstan is thicker. Dont mind all the dust!!! Then I continued forward adding beams ....lodging knees and hanging knees... UNTIL I reached the area you see below. The beam is permanently installed. But the two columns are not. These are just temporarily positioned. Do not glue these two columns in yet. Note how they were morticed into the coaming. These two columns will need to be lined up perfectly with the Main jeer bits......and gallows. The crank handle for the chain pumps will run through all of these elements and the need to be positioned only after the chain pumps are made. That will come soon. So just position them like this without glue. In fact....the next two (the last two) deck beams wont be added permanently yet either. They will not be glued into position until after we have the chain pumps all finished and those crank handles installed. But you will be testing with them while you build those elements... For example....time to make the Main jeer bitts. These actually sit directly under the forward most deck beam or breast beam. They are laser cut and just like the columns, the uprights are etched on both sides for reference. These are boxwood as well. You will notice some heavy char on the sides of these because they are very thick at 3/16" thick. Rather than just sand or file off the char from the sides of these, I scraped the char off first. I used a number 11 blade. That should remove most of it so whatever remains can be cleanly and easily sanded away. Boxwood in this thickness requires much more laser power to cut through and thus more charring. Notice how the front and back of the uprights are flat without any dimension. You have etched reference lines but you must still use some blades, chisels, files or whatever you are comfortable with....to mimic the profile laser cut on both sides. These take some time to shape and do properly but they arent difficult. As you can see they clean up beautifully and make some really nice jeer bits. The two sheaves are all laser cut for you on both sides.....how nice is that??? You could round off the sheaves if you like for extra credit. The jeer bitts were painted red and positioned beneath the Breast beam or that first qdeck beam. Nothing is glued in yet....these are just tests in preparation for completing the chain pumps. It rests right against the coaming behind it. The cross beam is on the aft side. But I will mention.... This is important, the Breast beam is actually wider than all of the other deck beams. Its 3/16" wide. In addition, you must scrape a decorative molding and glue it the fore side of this beam. The molding was scraped from a 3/32" x 1/32" boxwood strip. Deck planking and margin planks will over hang this breast beam and look very nice. I dont know if you can see or make out the molding on the beam. But the jeer bitts are tested under it. It is starting to look good now that more fittings are being added. Next up the gallows which is almost the same as the jeer bitts but has a fancy top. It is positioned just forward of the main mast. Thats next!!! A little farther away to see more of the hull at this stage....remember those two remaining deck beams are NOT glued in yet...... And farther away still as the fittings continue to be added...

That looks pretty darn good to me. Well done...

Looks fantastic…really nice. If anything I hope this gives you some confidence to carve more stuff in the future. I really enjoyed it although it does take a lot of time and cant be rushed. But it makes a world of difference on the model.

Ken thats much better and not to tight at all. It looks great. If it untwists a bit when you release it that is fine. But remember only cut one ebe free and let it untwist until it stops. Then it wont kink up. You have to hold it while it untwists until the rope is in balance from the opposing tensions you put on it. that rope looks perfect.

Nice work and progress on the model. Its really coming together.

Really nice Rusty. You are getting to all the fun stuff now.

Yes but depending on how it fits in the coaming you could thin it more. Its up to You. I made mine pretty thin but then I had to increase the height of the rabbet strip it sits on within the coamings. You have to keep that in mind. Thinner is better as that is more accurate but as you show it is still 100% better than the gratings found in most kits. I think mine were around 3/64” thick when done after sanding a little on top and bottom until it looked right to my eye.

That is correct!!!

Looks good Ken but go even tighter. More initial twists and more final twists.....It will make a tighter lay of the rope and look even better.

That looks very good indeed. Good stuff!!!😃

I think I figured out the white background thing..... auto white balance is a wonderful thing...I prefer to do as little editing as possible but that is almost impossible. Thank you for pushing me to keep trying....but yes white like this is very stark.

I actually just had delivery of some led lighting as I too was tired of taking poor pictures. I have little room left in my brain to really learn how to use a camera correctly with with so many settings. I have a pretty good camera that takes some really nice pictures. I also bought a white backdrop 10 x 10 white linen.... but it looks light blue or gray in the pictures afterwards. I dont mind this at all. The cool blue looks really good to my eye against the warm tones of the hull. I try and get the sharpest details and try to make the saturation correct so the yellow cedar looks true to its actual color. If I can get that and the background is not perfectly white I am perfectly fine with it. Here are some test shots from just today as Mike (stuntflyer) was helping me understand the camera setting etc. Just too much info to learn on this stuff.... Luckily I dont have to get it perfect.....just pretty good.....I hope. I also want to try focus stacking. So I downloaded some freeware. I will try that next. But having those new lights made a huge difference. I am pretty happy about the new lights ...backdrop...and the fact that you cant see the crap laying around my shop next to the model in every photo I take. They are cheap ones for sure but work fine.

Here is a carved example with Gold as I know you like that look as well. Something to consider.

That looks very good. I rounded quite a bit as you can see with the resin version. That is a cast from my carved boxwood version. I did more detail carving of the crown as you can see. Keep smoothing .....it will get even better. Chuck

That looks excellent Mike. You will be caught up with me in no time...😁

You are more than welcome to join the latest group build of Winchelsea here on MSW. It is certainly a High end model. It is basically a kit with 95% of all pieces being laser cut but you have to mill your planking strips so you will need a hobby saw. We have over 55 people building it as a group here. It is a 1/4" scale 32 gun English frigate 1764.... I would consider it an intermediate to advanced kit....or somewhere in between. But you can ask the folks currently building it. You wont see detail like this on any other commercial project if you compare the headrails and quarter galleries and transom details and deck fittings etc. Its POB....check out the build logs here https://modelshipworld.com/forum/92-member-build-logs-for-the-hms-winchelsea/