Erik W

Thanks for all the likes on my last post.  For this week I finished the bow cannons, made the 12 quoin handles, and drilled and added the extra bolts on the gun carriages.  Since these will all be painted I went ahead and used .020" styrene rod.  It's easier to work with and cut than wire.  The bolts stand proud of the surface by .010", which looks good to my eye.  I made a quick jig out of .010" thick styrene, and then cut the bolt heads flush with my superb PBL flush cutters (one of the highest quality, best tools I own, and sadly long discontinued - the cutting surface edges are very precise and produce an absolutely perfect flush cut).  The last step before the carriages will be painted is to drill the eye bolt holes (with the eye bolts to be added at a later time) and do a bit of clean up and filling where needed.
 
This will probably be my last update for some time.  I have family coming into town next week, and then I head off to Hokkaido, Japan to explore for a while.
 
Erik

Next up was fitting the platform into the hull. Hahn jig makes a very nice stand for dust-free sanding and fitting, would come in handy  

When fitted into the hull - the platform looks quite off-center due to the one-sided planking. Carlings would be centered around the keel line, making them shifted from the platform center.
Looks strange when taking a straight up photo, but it should be better once more layers are done, so it is viewed at an angle. I think it is a better alternative than adding spacers on the non-planked side or shaving off some meat from the knees on the planked side.
The offset would get smaller the higher up you go, this platform is the deepest structure in the hold where the ceiling planking has a significant angle.

Cutting notches for carlings was a blast! An incredible set of carving chisels came in handy, this is not even the smallest size! The smallest Veritas chisel for comparison. 

Incredible feeling when a piece perfectly fits into these notches when dry, nice and tight!


Video 2024-07-29 22 01 07.mov    
 

Thanks for all the likes on my last post.  For this week I finished the bow cannons, made the 12 quoin handles, and drilled and added the extra bolts on the gun carriages.  Since these will all be painted I went ahead and used .020" styrene rod.  It's easier to work with and cut than wire.  The bolts stand proud of the surface by .010", which looks good to my eye.  I made a quick jig out of .010" thick styrene, and then cut the bolt heads flush with my superb PBL flush cutters (one of the highest quality, best tools I own, and sadly long discontinued - the cutting surface edges are very precise and produce an absolutely perfect flush cut).  The last step before the carriages will be painted is to drill the eye bolt holes (with the eye bolts to be added at a later time) and do a bit of clean up and filling where needed.
 
This will probably be my last update for some time.  I have family coming into town next week, and then I head off to Hokkaido, Japan to explore for a while.
 
Erik

Thanks for all the likes on my last post.  For this week I finished the bow cannons, made the 12 quoin handles, and drilled and added the extra bolts on the gun carriages.  Since these will all be painted I went ahead and used .020" styrene rod.  It's easier to work with and cut than wire.  The bolts stand proud of the surface by .010", which looks good to my eye.  I made a quick jig out of .010" thick styrene, and then cut the bolt heads flush with my superb PBL flush cutters (one of the highest quality, best tools I own, and sadly long discontinued - the cutting surface edges are very precise and produce an absolutely perfect flush cut).  The last step before the carriages will be painted is to drill the eye bolt holes (with the eye bolts to be added at a later time) and do a bit of clean up and filling where needed.
 
This will probably be my last update for some time.  I have family coming into town next week, and then I head off to Hokkaido, Japan to explore for a while.
 
Erik

Was postponing the next big phase of the build - platforms & decks. 
It should be a very enjoyable part, one of the main reasons to start the fully framed model in a first place.
But the learning curve is steep, primarily the planning part. Previously I relied on Hahn drawings to locate the parts, and the rest was rather repetitive. 
Now I need to sail uncharted waters - Hahn only provides locations of top deck beams and that's about it.

So I relied on TFFM to understand the inner workings - these books are worth their weight in gold, I am immensely grateful to authors for simplifying a lot of research in an easy to understand form.
And, of course, old Admiralty drawings from May 1778 done by George White.
So I spent some evenings trying to wrap my head around and map the location and dimensions of the aft platform.

Brain went into an overthinking mode and too many decisions should have been done too late in the evening.
"What should I take as a reference point vertically? What about the horizontal reference?  How to ensure a fair line? What method to pick to compensate for a lack of planking on one side? How to avoid a cumulative measurement error creep?" 
 
Finally the markup was done

And a transparent template was born

 
Transfer paper allows to copy the shape easily to cut off the wood patterns, but of course it leads to a creeping inaccuracy.

Shaping 12 symmetrical parts that form 6 knees was not easy, but at least it did not require any thinking - just a pure relaxing process of small wood parts fabrication. Was missing a nano-sized flush trim router to make an exact mirror copy of each part Ideal usecase for CNC! Though where is the fun in that...
Even forgot to take any pictures, the only one is the final edge polishing. 

The final assembly was tricky. I was planning to fine tune the knee angles, but trying to assemble a trapezoid when all its sides are sliding around is a very annoying process.
If only I could somehow clamp all these pieces 🙄 Oh, wait, the past me thought about this and made some clamps. Six years ago. 😳  How very nice of me! 
Time to dust them off and use them first time for their intended purpose!
They worked excellently, providing a gentle clamping force to get all pieces under control. Still took a while to fine tune the angles (adjusting one angle immediately affects the rest, what a mess).

Here is the assembled platform, just need to fit it to the hull, add carlings and ledges and sand everything nice and smooth.
Before adding ledges one is supposed to make sure they do not interfere with the lower deck pillars, but it's too much effort for now (requiting to mark the locations of all lower deck beams), creating a risk for another half-a-year modelling block.
Will sort that out afterwards, moving the beams a little bit and even notching some ledges into the pillars.
After all, the ship I am modelling is not famous for the build quality. The whole story around it smells "Friday night shift, shoddy engineering", so a few internal structural members overlapping each other are rather on brand  

Glad it would be hidden deep in the hold, a practice piece that still gets to be on the model
Also I saw a number of build logs using pins to dry fit in place, but that implies drilling a tiny hole in the part. Do you just leave a hole there? Or plug the hole with glue and sawdust and do one more round of sanding before the final glue-up?

Would be very happy to hear advices, suggestions and ideas to improve that process. 
I made it work, but surely it can be made easier and faster (and, frankly, more accurate). 
 
 

Thanks for all the likes on my last post.  For this week I finished the bow cannons, made the 12 quoin handles, and drilled and added the extra bolts on the gun carriages.  Since these will all be painted I went ahead and used .020" styrene rod.  It's easier to work with and cut than wire.  The bolts stand proud of the surface by .010", which looks good to my eye.  I made a quick jig out of .010" thick styrene, and then cut the bolt heads flush with my superb PBL flush cutters (one of the highest quality, best tools I own, and sadly long discontinued - the cutting surface edges are very precise and produce an absolutely perfect flush cut).  The last step before the carriages will be painted is to drill the eye bolt holes (with the eye bolts to be added at a later time) and do a bit of clean up and filling where needed.
 
This will probably be my last update for some time.  I have family coming into town next week, and then I head off to Hokkaido, Japan to explore for a while.
 
Erik

Thanks for all the likes on my last post.  For this week I finished the bow cannons, made the 12 quoin handles, and drilled and added the extra bolts on the gun carriages.  Since these will all be painted I went ahead and used .020" styrene rod.  It's easier to work with and cut than wire.  The bolts stand proud of the surface by .010", which looks good to my eye.  I made a quick jig out of .010" thick styrene, and then cut the bolt heads flush with my superb PBL flush cutters (one of the highest quality, best tools I own, and sadly long discontinued - the cutting surface edges are very precise and produce an absolutely perfect flush cut).  The last step before the carriages will be painted is to drill the eye bolt holes (with the eye bolts to be added at a later time) and do a bit of clean up and filling where needed.
 
This will probably be my last update for some time.  I have family coming into town next week, and then I head off to Hokkaido, Japan to explore for a while.
 
Erik

Thanks for all the likes on my last post.  For this week I finished the bow cannons, made the 12 quoin handles, and drilled and added the extra bolts on the gun carriages.  Since these will all be painted I went ahead and used .020" styrene rod.  It's easier to work with and cut than wire.  The bolts stand proud of the surface by .010", which looks good to my eye.  I made a quick jig out of .010" thick styrene, and then cut the bolt heads flush with my superb PBL flush cutters (one of the highest quality, best tools I own, and sadly long discontinued - the cutting surface edges are very precise and produce an absolutely perfect flush cut).  The last step before the carriages will be painted is to drill the eye bolt holes (with the eye bolts to be added at a later time) and do a bit of clean up and filling where needed.
 
This will probably be my last update for some time.  I have family coming into town next week, and then I head off to Hokkaido, Japan to explore for a while.
 
Erik

Thanks for all the likes on my last post.  For this week I finished the bow cannons, made the 12 quoin handles, and drilled and added the extra bolts on the gun carriages.  Since these will all be painted I went ahead and used .020" styrene rod.  It's easier to work with and cut than wire.  The bolts stand proud of the surface by .010", which looks good to my eye.  I made a quick jig out of .010" thick styrene, and then cut the bolt heads flush with my superb PBL flush cutters (one of the highest quality, best tools I own, and sadly long discontinued - the cutting surface edges are very precise and produce an absolutely perfect flush cut).  The last step before the carriages will be painted is to drill the eye bolt holes (with the eye bolts to be added at a later time) and do a bit of clean up and filling where needed.
 
This will probably be my last update for some time.  I have family coming into town next week, and then I head off to Hokkaido, Japan to explore for a while.
 
Erik

Thanks for all the likes on my last post.  For this week I finished the bow cannons, made the 12 quoin handles, and drilled and added the extra bolts on the gun carriages.  Since these will all be painted I went ahead and used .020" styrene rod.  It's easier to work with and cut than wire.  The bolts stand proud of the surface by .010", which looks good to my eye.  I made a quick jig out of .010" thick styrene, and then cut the bolt heads flush with my superb PBL flush cutters (one of the highest quality, best tools I own, and sadly long discontinued - the cutting surface edges are very precise and produce an absolutely perfect flush cut).  The last step before the carriages will be painted is to drill the eye bolt holes (with the eye bolts to be added at a later time) and do a bit of clean up and filling where needed.
 
This will probably be my last update for some time.  I have family coming into town next week, and then I head off to Hokkaido, Japan to explore for a while.
 
Erik

Thanks for all the likes on my last post.  For this week I finished the bow cannons, made the 12 quoin handles, and drilled and added the extra bolts on the gun carriages.  Since these will all be painted I went ahead and used .020" styrene rod.  It's easier to work with and cut than wire.  The bolts stand proud of the surface by .010", which looks good to my eye.  I made a quick jig out of .010" thick styrene, and then cut the bolt heads flush with my superb PBL flush cutters (one of the highest quality, best tools I own, and sadly long discontinued - the cutting surface edges are very precise and produce an absolutely perfect flush cut).  The last step before the carriages will be painted is to drill the eye bolt holes (with the eye bolts to be added at a later time) and do a bit of clean up and filling where needed.
 
This will probably be my last update for some time.  I have family coming into town next week, and then I head off to Hokkaido, Japan to explore for a while.
 
Erik

Thanks for all the likes on my last post.  For this week I finished the bow cannons, made the 12 quoin handles, and drilled and added the extra bolts on the gun carriages.  Since these will all be painted I went ahead and used .020" styrene rod.  It's easier to work with and cut than wire.  The bolts stand proud of the surface by .010", which looks good to my eye.  I made a quick jig out of .010" thick styrene, and then cut the bolt heads flush with my superb PBL flush cutters (one of the highest quality, best tools I own, and sadly long discontinued - the cutting surface edges are very precise and produce an absolutely perfect flush cut).  The last step before the carriages will be painted is to drill the eye bolt holes (with the eye bolts to be added at a later time) and do a bit of clean up and filling where needed.
 
This will probably be my last update for some time.  I have family coming into town next week, and then I head off to Hokkaido, Japan to explore for a while.
 
Erik

Thanks for all the likes on my last post.  For this week I finished the bow cannons, made the 12 quoin handles, and drilled and added the extra bolts on the gun carriages.  Since these will all be painted I went ahead and used .020" styrene rod.  It's easier to work with and cut than wire.  The bolts stand proud of the surface by .010", which looks good to my eye.  I made a quick jig out of .010" thick styrene, and then cut the bolt heads flush with my superb PBL flush cutters (one of the highest quality, best tools I own, and sadly long discontinued - the cutting surface edges are very precise and produce an absolutely perfect flush cut).  The last step before the carriages will be painted is to drill the eye bolt holes (with the eye bolts to be added at a later time) and do a bit of clean up and filling where needed.
 
This will probably be my last update for some time.  I have family coming into town next week, and then I head off to Hokkaido, Japan to explore for a while.
 
Erik

I had to add the two outer stern lights before doing anymore work on the upper bulwark strakes. They are much stronger than the laser cut wooden ones that were on the Winnie. Before installing them I wanted to remove the char color from the inside edges of transom template. Sanding was not an option, so I mixed up some paint with what seemed to be a reasonable color. Notice the reflection off the build board on the center light.

I have the upper port side strakes completed. Cut from a long 3/64" sheet, I was able to combine strakes #3 and #5 together which made things easier for me when adding it to the hull. I was happy to see that the strake edge ran smoothly along the gun ports. It's hard to see, but there is a 1/64" space between the shear and the top of the transom. This allows for the cap rail to sit even with or slightly below the top of the transom, rather than above it. I planned for this in advance which might be something that you would consider doing. I sandwiched Three of those laser cut scroll pieces together rather than two which gives me more leeway as I add them to the hull.

Mike

Thank You...
 
And by the way guys.   These 3D printed blocks are pre-dyed and with a matte finish raw when you get them.   They are great right out of the bag.   BUT...if you really want to make them pop...and give them an even richer color and real wood finish/appearance...apply a coat of Minwax wipe-on-poly or sanding sealer.   You will truly be amazed at how incredible they look.  Use a satin finish or Matte finish.   That is the real secret!!!  Shhh!!!  don't tell anyone.
 
Treat them like wood and you will be a believer and convert.
 

 
As I make each batch of these I apply some WOP to a small number of them and put them in these clear plastic bags.  I then toss them on the model and do this as my QC color/texture test to see how well they look like wood and if I can even tell the difference.   You guys can be the judge....try it.
 
 

This is a beautiful model.  I've been following your build closely.  I didn't realize until the very end that this was your first wooden ship build.  As I am approaching the rigging phase of my Cheerful (also my first wooden ship build), I plan on referencing all your posts on rigging.  That's probably the part of my build that I'm most nervous about.  I don't want to screw things up this far into the project!  At any rate, your inspiring Alert shows whats possible to achieve as a beginner.
 
Erik

I've been working on the cannonades the last few weeks.  This type of purely repetitive part of modeling is definitely not one of my favorites.  Cleaning the char off the first one, and then assembling it was interesting.  The other 9, not so much.  Haha.  It gives me new found respect for you folks building large ships of the line!  The objective at this point was to get these as near identical to one another as possible.  They need post-assembly clean up after I also build the 2 bow cannons.  I'm planning on air brushing the carriages.  This will be much less time consuming than hand painting them.
 
Erik

This is a beautiful model.  I've been following your build closely.  I didn't realize until the very end that this was your first wooden ship build.  As I am approaching the rigging phase of my Cheerful (also my first wooden ship build), I plan on referencing all your posts on rigging.  That's probably the part of my build that I'm most nervous about.  I don't want to screw things up this far into the project!  At any rate, your inspiring Alert shows whats possible to achieve as a beginner.
 
Erik

Good mrning all and thabk you for your kind words.
 
The head rails and the whole head assembly are a miracle of design and engineering. The top rails fit together perfectly straight out of the box without even showing them a piece of sandpaper. The head timbers I found less easy. I quickly realised that filing out the mortices for the lower rails was likely to confound me. I adopted a different approach: I did not cut mortices at all but rather cut the lower rail in to four sections and carefully fitted the pieces between the head timbers. I used a 5 minute epoxy for that on the footing it has some gap filling properties which I would need. It actually worked out reasonably well. There is a bit of "swelling" around some of the joints resulting from the generous application of the epoxy but nothing noticeable without making a point of looking and I would rather have that than an unsightly gap.
 
To paint or not to paint is a connundrum we have all resolved in our different ways. I elected to paint because I thought the black paint added some theatre - a bit of drama to what is after all a warship. 
 

The gratings again fit perfectly straight out of the box. Fitting requires patience but little skill - Chuck has done the tricky bits for us.
 


Moving on to the aft section of gratings I found the L shaped piece required a bit of adjustment. I can see where I went wrong. I allowed the head rails to sway outwards a little ( you can see it in the picture below - the starboard timberhead is leaning in a bit as is the port timberhead though the picture does not shoe it) having failed to notch the fancy rail adjacent to the cathead. That's annoying - I just took my eye off the ball in the final minute of the game but it's not the end of the world. It does however throw the laser cut pieces out a little.
 

After that its a home run - just the heads and a tidy up. The bowsprit is not yet set at the finished angle - I don't want/can't secure the inboard end down until it is finally glued in and pegged. The gammoning rope is looking like it amy be a bit of a fiddle when the time comes.
 
 
 
Thank you for looking by.
 
Fred
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Log #96: Concluding Thoughts
After 2 years, 11 months and 20 days, Alert is finally finished.
 
Overall, looking back at the experience I can say that as a beginner I would wholeheartedly recommend the Vanguard Alert kit. It is easy to follow along with and you can build a great model out of the box while also having scope to make small improvements if you desire.
 
The first picture I took of alert back on August 3, 2021

 
As a general rule, I stuck pretty close to the kit with this build making small improvements here and there where I felt comfortable. Most of the changes were made with the repurposing of kit parts or random household items I had on hand and I would say any beginner with a bit of patience should be able to do a similar level of kitbashing. The largest deviations were the replacement of the rope (courtesy of @BenD) and my decision to throw caution to the wind and attempt to replicate the Marshall painting decorations.
 
The Marshall painting of Alert

 
I would say I both overestimated and underestimated how hard building a model ship would be. Some parts turned out better than I had hoped while others fell short. However, as a learning experience I have no complaints. In the end I think it is fair to say that I achieved a unique look that I am proud of and I look forward to doing better on the next model.
 
I want to take a moment to thank some people without whom I would never have been able to reach the finish line.
 
@chris watton - I have long desired to make a ship model, but had no idea how I would even go about learning how to do such a thing. Chris’ excellent model made it possible for me to enter into what is a fairly overwhelming hobby in a way that I was able to slowly build the skills necessary to actually complete it. @Blue Ensign - BE’s Alert log was my second manual. I don’t know how many times I read it through, but it is safe to say that almost all of the changes and additions I made to the build had their inspiration in BE’s log. This model would be significantly worse had his log not been there for me to follow along with. All other Alert Build logs - I have read every word of each of them at least once and have taken lessons and inspiration from all of them. MSW - I couldn’t possibly name all of the people who made critical contributions at one time or another. Your many suggestions made the model better and It is highly likely that without all your encouragement I wouldn’t have made it to the finish line.  
So without further ado, here are some pictures of the finished model:

Log #94: The Ensign
For a while now I have been experimenting in the background on the ensign. Some of you may have spotted a test version in the background of some of my pictures.
 
These early attempts (and there were 4 or 5 of them) were about figuring out the best way forward to make the flag look like it was semi transparent like the real thing. The above example used the method described by BE[link], but I found it looked too solid and dark. I also found that getting crisp lines did not work out as well as I wanted painting by hand. I also struggled to avoid wrinkling the paper as I was continually wetting small parts of it.
 
So after a bunch of experimentation I came up with the following method. Step 1 was to staple the paper (silkspan) to a frame to hold it tight and then coat it in a combination of watered down pva and white acrylic ink. I used a large flat brush and regular strokes to give a slight hint of brush lines. On the reverse I brushed perpendicular to the front so as to give the impression of a weave. You can’t really see much of this, but I found it gave the best looking white base.

This ink, which I also used for the other colours, is essentially just pigment and water (no other additives). It has high pigmentation, but is very translucent so you can get bold colours without making it look like a thick layer of paint has been applied. See below for all the inks used in the flag.

I used the same template as BE used and printed out pictures of the ensign on non-permanent full sheet labels. I then carefully cut out templates for each colour. Unfortunately I didn’t take any pictures of these, but you can see below the results after spraying the red ink with my airbrush. I added a small amount of airbrush medium to the ink to provide a tiny bit of binding agent. The reason I made two of them was that mistakes happen and this process takes a long time so I decided to make two and just take the better one.

Once dry I placed the template for the blue (I used 3 parts of the dark blue ink with 1 part of the lighter blue plus a tiny bit of airbrush medium as before). You can see below the results as with much of my work there was a minor miss alignment, but I decided that one of them was good enough to not do the whole thing over again.

Once everything was dry I cut the ensign off of the frame and proceeded to work on the ropes. I decided on 0.2mm rope so it is visually smaller than the other ropes in the area. For the toggle end I made a eye splice and then looped the rope on itself. I then pulled it tight around a spare off cut from an eyebolt.

The other end of the ensign rope was formed into an eye splice and the edge of the ensign was folder over it.

Next came the shaping of the flag. I experimented a bunch trying to find the best way to do this and in the end I found the following method worked best.
I folded over a piece of tin foil and then cut this double thick piece to approximately the same size as the flag. Using round dowels and brush handles of various sizes I formed this tin foil into the shape I wanted. I placed the flag on the tin foil and blasted it with the hair dryer into the foil. This softened the pva in the flag and the wind blew it into the shape. I then allowed it to cool and it held its shape.
Finally I attached an eye splice to the toggle and ran it through a 2mm block with a hook on it. This then looped around to tie onto the eye splice at the bottom of the ensign. I wasn’t sure of the correct way to secure this so used a single sheet knot which seemed fine.

And here is the ensign on the model. After some thought I have decided I am not going to do the signal flags. I am still undecided on the pennant. I may make one and see how I like the look of it before deciding.

I've been working on the cannonades the last few weeks.  This type of purely repetitive part of modeling is definitely not one of my favorites.  Cleaning the char off the first one, and then assembling it was interesting.  The other 9, not so much.  Haha.  It gives me new found respect for you folks building large ships of the line!  The objective at this point was to get these as near identical to one another as possible.  They need post-assembly clean up after I also build the 2 bow cannons.  I'm planning on air brushing the carriages.  This will be much less time consuming than hand painting them.
 
Erik

I've been working on the cannonades the last few weeks.  This type of purely repetitive part of modeling is definitely not one of my favorites.  Cleaning the char off the first one, and then assembling it was interesting.  The other 9, not so much.  Haha.  It gives me new found respect for you folks building large ships of the line!  The objective at this point was to get these as near identical to one another as possible.  They need post-assembly clean up after I also build the 2 bow cannons.  I'm planning on air brushing the carriages.  This will be much less time consuming than hand painting them.
 
Erik

I spent the week making 17 belaying pins using my Dremel tool.  While it's not too difficult to make one belaying pin, trying to make a bunch that are identical proved to be impossible.  Glad I'm done with that step!  They turned out pretty good anyway.  I remind myself that once all is said and done, there will be rope placed around all of them, so any variations in shape that are visible now, won't be able to be seen then. 
 
Erik

With outdoor temperatures up to 98 degrees (37 Celsius) here this week, it was easy to want to stay indoors and work on my Cheerful.  After procrastinating for a bit, I tackled a couple of things I've been putting off.  I built the ladders.  These were a bit of a challenge as they are not straight, even though they look straight.  They actually lean aft with the sheer of the deck.  It took a while to get all the steps cut to exactly the same length, and the notches filed into the ladder sides, since I did all that by hand.  They wound up turning out the way I had hoped with the right amount of lean and both ladders being symmetrical when compared with one another.  I know the model will rarely be viewed from dead ahead or dead astern, but hey, you have to put your best foot forward.
 
The other thing I had been procrastinating was making the belaying pins.  In my 45 years of model making I've never fashioned a part using a power tool.  So, the photo you see below is my first attempt at making a belaying pin.  I used the Dremel rotary tool my dad gave me as a gift in 1985 when I was fifteen years old.  I followed the dimensions Mike (Stuntflyer) had used for the belaying pins on his Cheerful build.   The pin is .375" long, or 18" in 1/48 scale.  I turned the square stock down to .045" in diameter, then shaped the top.  The bottom shaft was then reduced to .030" in diameter.  It looks rough obviously, but turned out OK for a first attempt.  The little collar between the lower shaft and the handle looks a little clunky, so on the production pins, I'll reduce the width of that a bit.  I still have some playing around to do with which specific files I'll use, but I'm happy I got over the mental hurdle of giving it a try in the first place!
 
Erik