Erik W

Learned something new the last days and made my first gun port hinges, eyelids and split rings ever! Thanks for all support and info!
Happy Holidays!
Frank.

Thanks for all the likes folks.  I wasn't planning on posting an update today, but I think the display turned out well, so here are some photos.  I had no idea what I wanted to do for a display base.  After browsing through what other folks have done, I settled on brass pedestals on a solid wood base.  I liked the look of Glenn's (glbarlow) base for his Cheerful build.  So as they say, with imitation being the sincerest form of flattery, I pretty much duplicated what he had done.  The pedestals are from Model Expo and the wood base is made by Amati (which I ordered from Ages of Sail).  When the pedestals arrived I was disappointed that not only did they appear different colors, but the profiles were actually different.  I purposefully ordered them different heights since the Cheerful's keel rides deeper at the stern.  The photos on the Model Expo site are just generic and aren't of the actual pedestals.  The profile of the lower pedestal is fatter at the bottom of the shaft and flares out more gradually.  I could have lived with the different profiles I guess, but I figured out a way to chuck the pedestal into my power drill.  Using a couple of sharp files and my calipers to measure, I turned the pedestal to better match the profile of the taller pedestal.  Once I had this done I began the slow process of filing the notches in the pedestals to exactly match the keel of the ship.  This took days, but I'm happy with the results.  The keel fits in snuggly enough to have no room to move or wiggle, but still not be tight enough to damage the wood.  To finish the pedestals off, I dry sanded them with 400 grit sandpaper.  This made the finish look the same between the two, and gave them the brushed brass look I wanted. 
 
The hardwood base from Amati is great.  It's a rare piece of wood these days that is level and square with no warping (if you've shopped for wood at your local hardware store, you know what I mean).  I thought I had ordered the bare wood version, so was surprised when I opened the box that it was stained.  Since I like the color though, it saves me from picking a stain and doing it myself.  The base has a satin finish, which I like, not too mat and not too glossy.
 
Erik

Today I made a start with the hinges for the gun hatches.
With a strip of wood under a 20x40cm 0.4mm thick piece of brass it can be cut in strips of 1.6mm wide. Without the wood the brass slams hard under the saw and bends in an ugly way…the scratch piece of wood underneath it prevents that. After that cut the strips in the length of the hinges as found on the plans and reserve 4mm for the curled hinge piece.
More tomorrow…
Frank.

Beam arms
Beautiful piece of the deck structure, was waiting for this moment for a while!
Tried to use my fancy Vallorbe files, but the easiest way to shape these was a coarse sanding stick followed by a quick pass with finer grit. Then scraping to flatten the edge - and you get a fine finish with very little effort. Just need to be mindful of grain direction to not scrape against the grain  

Joints are milled, of course. That kind of precision work is where a mill really shines!

Speaking of milling - I added a crudely made light into my Proxxon MF70. It is based on strange 3d model that I found online, trimmed off all the strange bits and glued in a cheap USB-powered LED strip, cut into short pieces and soldered with dodgy cuts of solid wire. It works, excellent value for money!
Can definitely recommend to spend time on making your own, one of these "I should have done that sooner" moments. There is nothing off the shelf that you can buy for MF70, only some dim LED ring on ebay for way too much money.

In other LED updates - got a lamp similar to the one recommended by Chuck (amazon/aliexpress, 50 USD, likely same manufacturer, but smaller size). It is awesome! Angled "ears" allow you to illuminate the piece from multiple angles, which is very handy when carving notches. The light quality (colours, flickering) is very good in my unscientific tests, and makes for a good photo light. The adjustable arm is solid (joints not too tight, not too loose, very elegant), and it is not an eyesore. A lot of adjustability and tilting angles. More than enough brightness, and the adjustable colour temperature is handy. The only downside is that the touch controls are facing forward, so I touch them by accident way too often  

The arms are slightly curved to follow the deck shape. I over-curved them at first, but luckily had enough margin to smoothen them with some battens. The resulting curve is very gentle:

And here they finally glued in. Actually the first part of the deck that is now permanently glued in place! I am avoiding the final glueup as much as possible, feels much better when everything is dry fit  

Now I have a pile of carlings ready for installation

And here they are all in place!
Notches on the exposed side are left empty to avoid obstructing the view. I might put some carlings into them later.
They needed more care than the non-empty notches, since you want all notch surfaces to look smooth and pretty, no chance to cover them with a carling later on. So I was cutting a smaller notch and then make a few final cuts once it is done, cutting off any tear-out.

That concludes the carling phase, next in line are the lodging/hanging knees and ledges!

I forgot to add the photo showing what the unweathered 3D printed wheel that is Boxwood color will look like (on the right).   This is how it will look when you get it and you can see how easy it is to just kick it up a notch.    You guys should give it a try.  Just a wet on wet wash of brown or burnt umber changes the appearance quite a bit.  With my rigging blocks I do this for you in mass  (not with acrylic paint).  But because of the complex shape of a ship's wheel I cant really do that....it would just take too long.   So its up to you.
 

Getting near the end of installing the main wales.
I'll be away from the shop for a few days.
When I get back I'll install the last 2 sets and then work on planking the lower transom and sanding the wales to the planking.

Finally found time to finish designing internally Stropped Blocks that will be 3d printed.
 
I am not the best at CAD and as a few you know about me...I literally design most of my stuff using Tinkercad.   I outsource the complex stuff but anything that can be done with this free program meant for kids 8 to 12 years old....I am there.
 
I am doing a test printing today.  Many of my parts are made using TinkerCad and one of these days I will do a tutorial.   If you want to make parts for 3D printing and dont know real CAD like me....give it a try.  You can do about 80% of everything in this program.  You can add as much detail as you have patience for.  You will of course have to paint the metal parts black...or not.  Its up to you but its still a lot easier than building my other internally stropped blocks.

 



And below is another project I have been playing with.  No limited edition for this but it will be a nice group project for my club.  We have since completed the battlestation project and so I am now working on our next project.  Working pawl mechanism and all.  All of these parts also made using just tinkercad.  All of the hard parts are no designed and completed.  

Below deck completed, all lower decks are glued in place.

Thank you all for the kind words, these are really appreciated and inspiring!
 
I’ve been busy making my stand fit to the hull and put some WOP on it. The lowest edge had some ugly spots so I decided to paint it very dark brown, almost black to cover that up. With a last layer of WOP this will look very natural I hope.
Also I finally put the glass behind the windows on the sides of the quarter galleries.
The rudder section is not yet finished  as you can see ofcourse.
 
Frank.

No Christian. I have shelved the project in order to pursue, once again, a hobby which I was actively involved in from 1973 to 2006. Control line precision aerobatics. All the ships are being well preserved should I decide to start building again.
 
Mike

Almost back to where I was before I tore out the orlop and gun deck.
 
Gun deck beams cut, edges softened (sanded), tacked in place, marked for carlings.
Centre alignment double checked with some square stock set in the three mast steps. This was eye balled from the transom to the bow. Looks acceptable.
I also double checked the deck height with a 32 Pdr and my 4" thick deck planks will need to be slightly thicker... which is better than thinner I suppose.
 
The height between decks looks good with 3D figures. I plan to have at least this fiddler (me) on the orlop with his seaman's chest.

I also have my wales traced onto the black walnut ready to be cut out. I numbered the pieces so hopefully I don't get mixed up.

I continue with the blocks:
 








 
 

*************** Chapter 5 ***************
First step is glueing the rudder together…
Little parts are only test fitted, not glued on yet ofcourse.
Frank.

And finally the deck planking has finished this weekend.
Now first some heavier and lighter sanding and some WOP on the deck…
And then up to chapter 5!!!
Frank.

A few small accessories:
 

I completed my rebuild of the orlop deck… or so I thought.

The grating runs along both sides and at the bow. The lodging or (horizontal) deck beam knees are installed as are the standard (vertically upwards) knees.
I decided to add the top end of the futtock riders… faux riders. To hide the missing detail I installed the flush orlop deck planking over the area. Planking either rested in a notch cut into the beams or on a separate support ledge. I decided on the latter as it was easier then cutting more notches.

I was able to re-use the three stairs I had built, two at the bow and one at the stern.

The one detail I need to remake is the very last aft grating on both sides. I had decided to keep the support ledgers fore and aft and the battens port/starboard… but for some unknown reason I skewed the last aft set. These will be torn out and made over.
 

Pillar production continues.
Tenons are milled on one side first and then hand trimmed in places where keelson is at an angle

Marking up pillar locations on the keelson is a bit tricky. First I tried to make a plumb bob, but it's not easy on that scale, can't make it heavy enough to stretch the line consistently.
So instead I use a carefully aligned gantry to find a vertical line along the side of the beam.
A familiar jig has notches to offset the mortise from the side of the beam, and by flipping the gantry around I make sure it is symmetrical.

As always, it gets tricky around the edges  

Now I can cut pillars to final length. Measuring with a caliper and then subtracting the beam thickness ended up unreliable where the keelson is angled, so I made that jig instead. A groove helps with keeping it straight and adds a bit of necessary friction.
Once positioned in the mortises - gently press on the beam to compress it to fit. Measure it with a caliper and scribe a line on the pillar, easy

 
Trimming each pillar to final size took a while. I did not dare to mill it directly to the line, so every pillar was slightly oversize (0.3-0.5mm), with hand chiseling and a lot of dry fits.
Pink Ivory is very hard to trim with a chisel, takes a lot of force sometimes, and can split on you if you are not careful. Got a pretty deep finger cut when trimming these pillars, luckily avoided getting blood on the model But my chisel safety definitely improved afterwards! 
 
But it is a very satisfying feeling when finally the pillar sits just right - the beam is not rocking side to side, but also has zero vertical bend no matter how much weight you put on it. I was surprised how flexible the beams are, even if made of boxwood 4.2mm thick!
The Admiralty ordered a load test to ensure the correct installation of such a critical element. Test passed with flying colours! 😎 

Final result, all the beams are dry fit in their final positions and dimensions. 
Careful markup and fine tuning paid off - good alignment in both dimensions, no gaps, I am happy!

Now I can take time making them pretty - add chamfers, sand and finish.
It is a bit of a puzzle how to install them later on. I am planning on gluing them only to the keelson, even before the deck is installed.
I hope that pillar tenons would poke right into the beam mortises with ease, I chamfered the edges to simplify it.
Keeping them off the model for too long will be risky, I want to use them as height limits when gluing in the carlings that might affect the deck curvature.
For now I am too scared to glue anything really, the pile of "completed, but not yet installed" parts just keeps growing  
 

The dust that is created during milling can be easily removed with a brush and debonder (CA glue is used to glue the foil).
I continue by installing the front bulkhead and making the front lower deck.

Work continues on the model.  I am working on the hood for the fcastle hatch currently.  But I realized I hadnt yet posted an image of my new workspace for building the actual models.  This is probably the largest work bench I have ever had.  Its actually a ping pong table.  LOL
 
BUT its a pleasure to have such a large uncluttered surface to build on top off.   Speedwell at 3/8” scale is a very big model but it looks puny on my bench.
 

 
Oh and these new and inexpensive LED lights from Amazon are a real treat.  I have them on the forward side of the table and they can be manipulated in so many ways.  Its also very bright (up to 6000 lumens) and can be adjusted in intensity and other colors etc. 
 
In addition I have about 30 green cutting mats many are large and many are small.   I bought these for when my local club members come by for a workshop.  So everyone gets a cutting mat.   But in the meanwhile I can cover the whole front side of the space to keep everything safe and clean.
 
So now I can start being productive on my models again….until I am
compelled to beat my high score in pinball.  Which isnt that high actually.
 
Chuck

Alan, I never had any splits with notches for the aft platform, but it was done in pear, maybe boxwood is more prone to it. But it was just me pushing too much  
I actually enjoy the process of cutting notches! Filing a chamfer sounds more error-prone in some sense, pieces sliding around in a glue instead of being firmly fixed in the notch.
 
Meanwhile I started drafting the lower deck layout. Will build the deck in parallel with the shot locker and other items in the hold.
Am I making some obvious mistake? Please ignore the "fore mast is too far forward", it is intentional and a part of the changes that were done by the British. The plans have not indicated any shift in the beam positions, so I am showing like it was done "cheap and easy" way, by just moving the mast two feet forward until it almost hits the next beam.
 
The locations of hatches/gratings, masts and ladder opening are from the plan. Carling and beam arms locations are improvised based on the TFFM.

 

Now back to the pillars!
Pink Ivory put my planing jig to the test. It is not easy to work with - burns when sawing, very prone to tearout, one must be very careful with the grain direction at all times. That made it unrealistic to plane multiple blanks in one go without messing up grain the direction.
The other downside of that jig is the requirement to keep the plane straight, without rocking it side-to-side (this photo is exaggerated to illustrate the point).

But in the absence of a proper thickness sander it gets the job done, cheap and silent

I decided to cut real mortise and tenon joints into the pillars, mostly to help myself with the alignment. I doubt I can drill precise holes join them with a pin, and without some mechanical help to ensure alignment - gluing those together without making a crooked mess would be impossible.
Mortise would allow for some adjustments in the very end - if I need to move the end of the pillar a tiny bit - I will just shave off one side of the tenon!
And you can't imagine how satisfying the dry fit is, it is held nice and tight without any glue!

It is hard to make such a tiny mortise deeper than 0.5mm though (due to the angle of the chisel), but it is enough to firmly register the beam in place.

To help mark up the mortises I made a small styrene jig. It has a friction fit to the beam, a bit lower than the beam, and scored marks align with the centerline marked on top of the beam:

On the underside a square opening is centered around these scored marks, and the chisel fits nicely in it. Not much pressure is required to mark it.

But then I overestimated the strength of the beam, cracking it all the way through along the grain imperfection A clumsy builder can break even a boxwood beam!  

Luckily the crack is quite clean, so should be easy to glue back like it never happened.

I was trying to imagine the process of marking up the deck inside the hull. Even with carefully prepared notches in the deck clamps it's not an easy work - the downside of Hahn's method is that working deep inside the hull always feels like a surgery, working through an narrow opening on top.
So I decided to make my life easier and do it off the model instead  Luckily that hull has a very modest tumblehome, so getting it in and out is geometrically possible.
Beams are spot glued to boxwood strips and the entire deck would be assembled on them. Later strips would be removed using some alcohol or water. It would require a bit of a cleanup, but much easier overall.


It fits perfectly into all notches, very satisfying! Now I can work with it

The deck has a very gentle curve along the hull, so I will take care to glue carlings and ledges on the model to avoid loosing that curve.

I am actually in a comfortable position with my inventory so I could start spending time working on the model again.  I cant tell you how good that feels.
 
I am not doing any heavy stuff yet...but its a start.  I had time to finish rigging those last four cannon on the port side.   That alone was a great thing to have completed. That actually finished up chapter 8.
 
Its a good thing because chapter 9 is where the real fun begins.  Its basically all about those fun little deck fittings.  So I started slow..
 

 
There are four ladders to be built.   Two leading to the poop, and two leading to the fcastle deck.  These were made exactly like the others we have made for speedwell.  Everything is laser cut.  I just cleaned the char and assembled them.  One note however...because of the deck roundup, the ladders leading to the poop deck need some tweaking after being built.  The bottom of each side was left a tad longer so you can sand the inboard side shorter.  You will need to do this so your ladder doesnt slant when you place it against the bulkhead.  You want it vertical with the columns of the bulkhead behind them.  So that inboard side will need its bottom edge shortened slightly.
 
Its the little details.
 

Here is the shorter ladder up to the fcastle deck...and you can see the guns that I finally finished rigging.  Those are my Swiss Pear color 3D printed blocks used for the guns this time.  I switched them out to try both colors.  I think I will fully rig her with the Swiss Pear blocks now that I see them on the model.

In addition, I also finished the stack for the fire hearth...I had built this a while back when I made the fire hearth but it must have gotten lost during the move.  So I made a new one...I will also include those parts in chapter 9 in case anyone loses theirs as well.  Nothing difficult here...fake it till you make it.  We wont be using a real coaming here.  Its just a laser cut boxwood square basically.  Sand the char off and apply some WOP.  Then center the hearth stack where the laser etched reference is and you are finished.  I also knocked off the top edge all around this simulated coaming.  No hard edges for me!!
 

Here is what the stack looks like on the model.   
 

And here is an overall shot of the progress to date although I have some paint touch-up to do and some dust clean-up.  But its really nice to making some progress again.  Next up I will be finishing up the fcastle deck fittings.
 

And replanked and first light sanding again…
Let’s see if I can finish this before this Sunday evening, or else end of next week!
Frank.