Erik W

In the last couple of weeks I've finished the gun tackles on 9 of the 10 carronades.  It took some trial and error to get these the way I wanted them.  My first attempt at seizing both blocks might have been more prototypical, based on the photos I was looking at, with a noticeable small gap between the block and the rear of the attached rigging hook, with the seizing in between.  This though made the two blocks on the sides of the carronades closer to one another, which to my eye, looked less visually appealing than having the blocks spaced further apart.  So, I settled on rigging the blocks with the back of the hooks nearly touching the blocks and with the seizing done using 72 denier 8/0 W fly tying thread (see bottom photo), rather than small sewing thread.   This also kept the seizings from looking too bulky, which I've noticed from looking at photos of other builds, can tend to happen when rigging smaller blocks. 
 
One accidental challenge I made for myself is not paying attention to Chuck's instructions for using 28 gauge wire to make the eye bolts on the carronades.  I inadvertently used 24 gauge wire, but formed to the correct outside diameter as shown on the plans.  When I realized this, I thought it would be no big deal.  The problem is that it left a hole that Chuck's 3mm black plastic rigging hooks barely fit into.  Some eye bolts wouldn't take the hooks at all, or the hooks broke while trying to attach.  So . . . . I had a sheet of the old brass 3mm hooks.  I super glued two of those together so they're the same .020" thickness as the black plastic hooks, and then was able to bend them as required.  I only used these on the rear blocks where the hook is vertical, so intermixing the black plastic hooks with the brass hooks wouldn't be noticeable.  And I figure accidentally using the thicker 24 gauge wire for the eye bolts vs. the correct 28 gauge wire isn't noticeable since the outside diameter of the loop is the same as it would be with the smaller diameter wire.  Anyway, that's my cautionary tale of why reading comprehension is important in model building.  Haha!
 
Also, between the making the breech rope and the gun tackles, I'm feeling much more self-assured as I approach the rigging phase of the build.  I'm more confident that the outcome of the rigging will be of the same standard I've achieved for this build thus far.
 
Erik

Thank you everyone for your nice comments and likes! They really help give me confidence in this build!
 
Sorry for the delay. Between Halloween, working on my USF Confederacy, and work,  I wanted to take a small break since I finished the framing.
 
First off is a little painting.
 
I used a normal brush i picked up at the local hobby store along with basic red paint.  The color was called Pyrrole Red.  I wanted to know what pyrrole meant so I looked it up. Of course it means a toxic chemical right? Haha!  That freaked me out at first until i searched "Pyrrole Red" which is apparently an actual color.  Whew!
 
Anyway,  I tried to paint each gunport in a thinner first layer.  I had to thin it down with water since it's an acrylic paint, but I thought it came out pretty well.
 

It might be hard to see, but after the first layer,  there obviously are some spots that need to be gone over again.  But with patience and some more watered down paint, I added 2 more layers and spot checked the painting work.
 




 
 
 
With the painting out of the way, its time to mark where the wales will be located.
 
I know i need to use a batten, but i usually use small tape strip to help line off the planks for gunports, wales, etc.  You can see this in my above posts and in my Confederacy build log.  (By the way, planking the gun ports on that ship sure takes a while!)
 
Anyway, here are a few pics of me lining off the wales.  I acutally do run a wood strip across the tape too, to gadge the curvature.  But I can't really get pics of that since I only have 2 hands!
 





 
When I first place the tape on each bulkhead, I try to line the tape up to each bulkhead line first.  I don't care if it's the correct curve or not.  I use that as the starting point to look at the tape curve in as many angles I can, like in the pics above.  When looking closely at the curve, especially at an angle, it's really easy to spot any dips or bumps that need to be corrected.  This can take a little bit of time.  Once I make a correction to one bulkhead former tape position, I step back and look at the curve from multiple angles again.  I continue this until I am satisfied with the curve.
 
I always try and only focus on one side at first, then once I feel satisfied with its position, I move onto the other side so I can match the wale placement markings at the bow.
 
For some reason, I was very surprised by this, I only had to modify 1-2 bulkhead former lines on each side.  This is very unusual as for the Confederacy, I had to modify many bulkhead former line segments!
 
 
After I was content with the curves on both sides, I would hold the tape on each bulkhead former when I marked the lines on the top of the tape.
 
This will be a 2 post entry since they are different parts of the build I'm posting about. Next will be milling the first layer of the wales!
 
Thanks all!
 
Jeff
 

Thanks. It’s true building Cheerful taught me lessons I carried over to Winchelsea, modelling is definitely a progressive skill set. 

Hey Glenn,
 
I thought I'd chime in too.  Your Winnie is a superb work of art.  I reference your Cheerful build regularly as I progress with my own Cheerful.  One thing I have noticed as I've also been following this build log is you've managed to really raise your own bar with the quality, precision, and finish of this model when compared to your Cheerful.  Don't get me wrong, your Cheerful is amazing, which is why it's one of the builds I regularly reference.  But your Winnie is simply superb.  I can't wait to see what you tackle next.
 
Erik

Hey Glenn,
 
I thought I'd chime in too.  Your Winnie is a superb work of art.  I reference your Cheerful build regularly as I progress with my own Cheerful.  One thing I have noticed as I've also been following this build log is you've managed to really raise your own bar with the quality, precision, and finish of this model when compared to your Cheerful.  Don't get me wrong, your Cheerful is amazing, which is why it's one of the builds I regularly reference.  But your Winnie is simply superb.  I can't wait to see what you tackle next.
 
Erik

Thank you all. This was my corner, basically my first proper exhibition. And the gold medal, honorary, since we didnt organize a competition, but the three best models were given some recognition regardless. The small 1/350 paddlesteamer Karteria, which I havent made a thread, and the bigger 1/144 frigate Hellas, u/c, also needing a thread. 

Some more details on the rigging 

More deck details 

Sails are A4 paper, used pencil, acrylics and an enamel coat on top. Re-did them a couple of times, very tiring process indeed.. 

The tiny carving of Ares came out quite well 

Ares is ready! Actually she is ready for quite some time, I participated to our local modeling exhibition here in Chania last week. Unfortunatelly I had to work on her with a tight schedule to have her completed in time, and therefore took almost next to no photos of the rest of the rigging process. Needless to say it drove me mad, but I learned quite a lot, to say the least. 
 

Thank you Glenn and Al for your kind remarks and thank you to all the 'Likes'.
 
The tiller
Not being confident in my ability to make the end of the tiller with a perfect sphere, I decided to compose my tiller by assembling several elements. It consists of three distinct parts, each made from a different material: the main body of the tiller will be carved from a 1/8” thick piece of cherry wood, the sphere at the end of the tiller comes from a glass-headed pin and the fine connections (mouldings) between the various elements are sculpted using two-component resin.
So I start by cutting the main body from a 1/8” cherry board.

I sculpt it to its proper shape using files and a #11 blade

After piercing the end of the piece, I insert the pin shaft of the glass-headed pin (cut to a length of a few millimeters).

I then mask the wooden body of the tiller and spray the pinhead with primer (Revell basic spray) to facilitate final coloring.
I could have used brass wire to make the connectors (mouldings), but I preferred to use two-component putty because it's so much simpler: there's no need to glue, as the putty sticks to the wood and pinhead all by itself, and it's also very easy to make a thin 'wire' of the right cross-section by simply rolling a small ball of putty with a finger. What's more, once the putty 'wire' has been wrapped around the tiller, the joint is smoothed with a moistened brush and is perfectly invisible...

The tiller is then painted red using my airbrush.


A final check on the plan and the tiller is ready to be installed.

I can move on to building the pumps.
 

Finished
 
With this my 66th post and three years since I began I have finished my HMS Winchelsea. I’ve included a few final photos, in each I am reminded of the time and effort I put into that section of the model. It was important for me to get it right, I was never reluctant, or better said even if I was reluctant, I’d take it apart, tear it off and do it again, often multiple times. I like to think my hull has three sides worth of planking.
 
Like those before me I commend, thank, and appreciate Chuck for his outstanding design and quality parts from beginning to end. I appreciate his patience in answering my questions and his unfailingly providing replacement parts when I exhausted the included spares. Thanks Chuck for giving me the experience of building this amazing model.
 
While many smaller parts were provided in boxwood, the majority of the model is Alaskan Yellow Cedar. It is beautiful wood, my Cheerful completed 4 years ago continues to age into a pleasant golden tone. The AYC is just right for its color and woodworking properties, it and the boxwood blend well together.
 
In the end I decided not to include the lantern, sorry. I built it and it’s fine, my “candle” even turned out great. However, the stern with all its intricate figures, friezes, and combination of small parts is likely my favorite part of the model. I just couldn’t bring myself to deflect any part of that view, let along drill into the boxwood crest. So historical accuracy is set aside this one time, I built a little stand for it to sit on a shelf and there it will stay.
 
So here are the photos without further commentary:









My thanks and appreciation to those that have followed my log these past three years, I hope it was helpful or at least entertaining. I’m not sure what’s next, I’ll take some time to think about it. If on the other hand you’re wondering what your next project will be, Winchelsea is a great challenge to take on. It sure was for me.
 

I reached a milestone this week.  I finished the carronades.  I spent the last week making rope coils and gluing them in place.  I used Glenn's (glbarlow) method, described in his Cheerful build log, of wrapping the rope around dowels glued into a piece of wood strip and securing the ends to the edge of the wood strip while the glue dried.  For glue I used diluted mat medium with a small amount of rubbing alcohol mixed in (this reduces surface tension).  I like mat medium for applications like this since it doesn't dry glossy, and in this case also doesn't darken the rope's color.  Once the coils were dry, I trimmed the ends of the gun tackle rope, and glued those to the deck using wood glue.  I then glued the coils down with Elmer's white glue.  I haven't used any kind of finish/sealer on this build so wood glue/white glue binds to the bare wood easily enough.  The last two photos below are brutally enlarged close ups, showing the gun rigging, warts and all as they say.  I'm actually quite happy with the way the carronades turned out.  This finished Chapter 10 of Chuck's monograph.  I looked back at my older posts, and it took me 6 months of daily progress to work through Chapter 10.  Luckily I'm not in any kind of hurry! 
 
And a quick funny story:  I had a random ship building dream (my first model building dream ever) where I dreamt that my arm hit one of the boom crutches and it broke off.  I woke up, and had the thought, "OK, I need to watch my arms and hands around the boom crutches".  That day, while working on the Cheerful, I was conscious of watching myself around the stern of the ship.  While finishing up, I partially moved a magnifying light I build under out of the way.  A few minuted later I moved the Cheerful, sitting on it's build board, toward me.  I then heard an audible snap as the boom crutch hit the edge of the magnifying light.  I turned my head in time to see the starboard boom crutch sailing through the air, on a beautiful arc, like an Olympic downhill ski jumper.  It seemed I had time to go through the entire 5 stages of grief before the part landed on the rug.  So . . . I spent part of the last week reattaching the boom crutch and touching up the surrounding paint.  I'm sure anyone reading this can relate to this story.  Haha.
 
Erik

Yep.  Not sure what I’ll do with myself…

I reached a milestone this week.  I finished the carronades.  I spent the last week making rope coils and gluing them in place.  I used Glenn's (glbarlow) method, described in his Cheerful build log, of wrapping the rope around dowels glued into a piece of wood strip and securing the ends to the edge of the wood strip while the glue dried.  For glue I used diluted mat medium with a small amount of rubbing alcohol mixed in (this reduces surface tension).  I like mat medium for applications like this since it doesn't dry glossy, and in this case also doesn't darken the rope's color.  Once the coils were dry, I trimmed the ends of the gun tackle rope, and glued those to the deck using wood glue.  I then glued the coils down with Elmer's white glue.  I haven't used any kind of finish/sealer on this build so wood glue/white glue binds to the bare wood easily enough.  The last two photos below are brutally enlarged close ups, showing the gun rigging, warts and all as they say.  I'm actually quite happy with the way the carronades turned out.  This finished Chapter 10 of Chuck's monograph.  I looked back at my older posts, and it took me 6 months of daily progress to work through Chapter 10.  Luckily I'm not in any kind of hurry! 
 
And a quick funny story:  I had a random ship building dream (my first model building dream ever) where I dreamt that my arm hit one of the boom crutches and it broke off.  I woke up, and had the thought, "OK, I need to watch my arms and hands around the boom crutches".  That day, while working on the Cheerful, I was conscious of watching myself around the stern of the ship.  While finishing up, I partially moved a magnifying light I build under out of the way.  A few minuted later I moved the Cheerful, sitting on it's build board, toward me.  I then heard an audible snap as the boom crutch hit the edge of the magnifying light.  I turned my head in time to see the starboard boom crutch sailing through the air, on a beautiful arc, like an Olympic downhill ski jumper.  It seemed I had time to go through the entire 5 stages of grief before the part landed on the rug.  So . . . I spent part of the last week reattaching the boom crutch and touching up the surrounding paint.  I'm sure anyone reading this can relate to this story.  Haha.
 
Erik

Chuck,
 
Thank you so much!!  I'm glad to see you also posted this tutorial on your Speedwell log.  This needs a wider audience.  This step by step tutorial is exactly what I needed.  I had done my second breech rope yesterday, which turned out well, but I still was fumbling around with how to best hold/secure the breech rope and seizing thread while making the seizings.  So far my outcomes have been fine, but the process of fumbling through it has been super irritating.  So this will help a lot. 
 
Also, I did have the thought that because rigging is new to me, and unlike any other modeling skill I've mastered over the decades, I'm feeling that beginner frustration with how to best approach it.  At least my finished product looks good.  I just now need to develop the skill set to venture forth confidently.
 
Thanks again Chuck.  I really do appreciate it!
Erik

I reached a milestone this week.  I finished the carronades.  I spent the last week making rope coils and gluing them in place.  I used Glenn's (glbarlow) method, described in his Cheerful build log, of wrapping the rope around dowels glued into a piece of wood strip and securing the ends to the edge of the wood strip while the glue dried.  For glue I used diluted mat medium with a small amount of rubbing alcohol mixed in (this reduces surface tension).  I like mat medium for applications like this since it doesn't dry glossy, and in this case also doesn't darken the rope's color.  Once the coils were dry, I trimmed the ends of the gun tackle rope, and glued those to the deck using wood glue.  I then glued the coils down with Elmer's white glue.  I haven't used any kind of finish/sealer on this build so wood glue/white glue binds to the bare wood easily enough.  The last two photos below are brutally enlarged close ups, showing the gun rigging, warts and all as they say.  I'm actually quite happy with the way the carronades turned out.  This finished Chapter 10 of Chuck's monograph.  I looked back at my older posts, and it took me 6 months of daily progress to work through Chapter 10.  Luckily I'm not in any kind of hurry! 
 
And a quick funny story:  I had a random ship building dream (my first model building dream ever) where I dreamt that my arm hit one of the boom crutches and it broke off.  I woke up, and had the thought, "OK, I need to watch my arms and hands around the boom crutches".  That day, while working on the Cheerful, I was conscious of watching myself around the stern of the ship.  While finishing up, I partially moved a magnifying light I build under out of the way.  A few minuted later I moved the Cheerful, sitting on it's build board, toward me.  I then heard an audible snap as the boom crutch hit the edge of the magnifying light.  I turned my head in time to see the starboard boom crutch sailing through the air, on a beautiful arc, like an Olympic downhill ski jumper.  It seemed I had time to go through the entire 5 stages of grief before the part landed on the rug.  So . . . I spent part of the last week reattaching the boom crutch and touching up the surrounding paint.  I'm sure anyone reading this can relate to this story.  Haha.
 
Erik

In the last couple of weeks I've finished the gun tackles on 9 of the 10 carronades.  It took some trial and error to get these the way I wanted them.  My first attempt at seizing both blocks might have been more prototypical, based on the photos I was looking at, with a noticeable small gap between the block and the rear of the attached rigging hook, with the seizing in between.  This though made the two blocks on the sides of the carronades closer to one another, which to my eye, looked less visually appealing than having the blocks spaced further apart.  So, I settled on rigging the blocks with the back of the hooks nearly touching the blocks and with the seizing done using 72 denier 8/0 W fly tying thread (see bottom photo), rather than small sewing thread.   This also kept the seizings from looking too bulky, which I've noticed from looking at photos of other builds, can tend to happen when rigging smaller blocks. 
 
One accidental challenge I made for myself is not paying attention to Chuck's instructions for using 28 gauge wire to make the eye bolts on the carronades.  I inadvertently used 24 gauge wire, but formed to the correct outside diameter as shown on the plans.  When I realized this, I thought it would be no big deal.  The problem is that it left a hole that Chuck's 3mm black plastic rigging hooks barely fit into.  Some eye bolts wouldn't take the hooks at all, or the hooks broke while trying to attach.  So . . . . I had a sheet of the old brass 3mm hooks.  I super glued two of those together so they're the same .020" thickness as the black plastic hooks, and then was able to bend them as required.  I only used these on the rear blocks where the hook is vertical, so intermixing the black plastic hooks with the brass hooks wouldn't be noticeable.  And I figure accidentally using the thicker 24 gauge wire for the eye bolts vs. the correct 28 gauge wire isn't noticeable since the outside diameter of the loop is the same as it would be with the smaller diameter wire.  Anyway, that's my cautionary tale of why reading comprehension is important in model building.  Haha!
 
Also, between the making the breech rope and the gun tackles, I'm feeling much more self-assured as I approach the rigging phase of the build.  I'm more confident that the outcome of the rigging will be of the same standard I've achieved for this build thus far.
 
Erik

I reached a milestone this week.  I finished the carronades.  I spent the last week making rope coils and gluing them in place.  I used Glenn's (glbarlow) method, described in his Cheerful build log, of wrapping the rope around dowels glued into a piece of wood strip and securing the ends to the edge of the wood strip while the glue dried.  For glue I used diluted mat medium with a small amount of rubbing alcohol mixed in (this reduces surface tension).  I like mat medium for applications like this since it doesn't dry glossy, and in this case also doesn't darken the rope's color.  Once the coils were dry, I trimmed the ends of the gun tackle rope, and glued those to the deck using wood glue.  I then glued the coils down with Elmer's white glue.  I haven't used any kind of finish/sealer on this build so wood glue/white glue binds to the bare wood easily enough.  The last two photos below are brutally enlarged close ups, showing the gun rigging, warts and all as they say.  I'm actually quite happy with the way the carronades turned out.  This finished Chapter 10 of Chuck's monograph.  I looked back at my older posts, and it took me 6 months of daily progress to work through Chapter 10.  Luckily I'm not in any kind of hurry! 
 
And a quick funny story:  I had a random ship building dream (my first model building dream ever) where I dreamt that my arm hit one of the boom crutches and it broke off.  I woke up, and had the thought, "OK, I need to watch my arms and hands around the boom crutches".  That day, while working on the Cheerful, I was conscious of watching myself around the stern of the ship.  While finishing up, I partially moved a magnifying light I build under out of the way.  A few minuted later I moved the Cheerful, sitting on it's build board, toward me.  I then heard an audible snap as the boom crutch hit the edge of the magnifying light.  I turned my head in time to see the starboard boom crutch sailing through the air, on a beautiful arc, like an Olympic downhill ski jumper.  It seemed I had time to go through the entire 5 stages of grief before the part landed on the rug.  So . . . I spent part of the last week reattaching the boom crutch and touching up the surrounding paint.  I'm sure anyone reading this can relate to this story.  Haha.
 
Erik

I reached a milestone this week.  I finished the carronades.  I spent the last week making rope coils and gluing them in place.  I used Glenn's (glbarlow) method, described in his Cheerful build log, of wrapping the rope around dowels glued into a piece of wood strip and securing the ends to the edge of the wood strip while the glue dried.  For glue I used diluted mat medium with a small amount of rubbing alcohol mixed in (this reduces surface tension).  I like mat medium for applications like this since it doesn't dry glossy, and in this case also doesn't darken the rope's color.  Once the coils were dry, I trimmed the ends of the gun tackle rope, and glued those to the deck using wood glue.  I then glued the coils down with Elmer's white glue.  I haven't used any kind of finish/sealer on this build so wood glue/white glue binds to the bare wood easily enough.  The last two photos below are brutally enlarged close ups, showing the gun rigging, warts and all as they say.  I'm actually quite happy with the way the carronades turned out.  This finished Chapter 10 of Chuck's monograph.  I looked back at my older posts, and it took me 6 months of daily progress to work through Chapter 10.  Luckily I'm not in any kind of hurry! 
 
And a quick funny story:  I had a random ship building dream (my first model building dream ever) where I dreamt that my arm hit one of the boom crutches and it broke off.  I woke up, and had the thought, "OK, I need to watch my arms and hands around the boom crutches".  That day, while working on the Cheerful, I was conscious of watching myself around the stern of the ship.  While finishing up, I partially moved a magnifying light I build under out of the way.  A few minuted later I moved the Cheerful, sitting on it's build board, toward me.  I then heard an audible snap as the boom crutch hit the edge of the magnifying light.  I turned my head in time to see the starboard boom crutch sailing through the air, on a beautiful arc, like an Olympic downhill ski jumper.  It seemed I had time to go through the entire 5 stages of grief before the part landed on the rug.  So . . . I spent part of the last week reattaching the boom crutch and touching up the surrounding paint.  I'm sure anyone reading this can relate to this story.  Haha.
 
Erik

I hate it when that happens...
 

How many times have we all "been there, done that"!

I reached a milestone this week.  I finished the carronades.  I spent the last week making rope coils and gluing them in place.  I used Glenn's (glbarlow) method, described in his Cheerful build log, of wrapping the rope around dowels glued into a piece of wood strip and securing the ends to the edge of the wood strip while the glue dried.  For glue I used diluted mat medium with a small amount of rubbing alcohol mixed in (this reduces surface tension).  I like mat medium for applications like this since it doesn't dry glossy, and in this case also doesn't darken the rope's color.  Once the coils were dry, I trimmed the ends of the gun tackle rope, and glued those to the deck using wood glue.  I then glued the coils down with Elmer's white glue.  I haven't used any kind of finish/sealer on this build so wood glue/white glue binds to the bare wood easily enough.  The last two photos below are brutally enlarged close ups, showing the gun rigging, warts and all as they say.  I'm actually quite happy with the way the carronades turned out.  This finished Chapter 10 of Chuck's monograph.  I looked back at my older posts, and it took me 6 months of daily progress to work through Chapter 10.  Luckily I'm not in any kind of hurry! 
 
And a quick funny story:  I had a random ship building dream (my first model building dream ever) where I dreamt that my arm hit one of the boom crutches and it broke off.  I woke up, and had the thought, "OK, I need to watch my arms and hands around the boom crutches".  That day, while working on the Cheerful, I was conscious of watching myself around the stern of the ship.  While finishing up, I partially moved a magnifying light I build under out of the way.  A few minuted later I moved the Cheerful, sitting on it's build board, toward me.  I then heard an audible snap as the boom crutch hit the edge of the magnifying light.  I turned my head in time to see the starboard boom crutch sailing through the air, on a beautiful arc, like an Olympic downhill ski jumper.  It seemed I had time to go through the entire 5 stages of grief before the part landed on the rug.  So . . . I spent part of the last week reattaching the boom crutch and touching up the surrounding paint.  I'm sure anyone reading this can relate to this story.  Haha.
 
Erik