gjdale

She sure is looking nice John. Can't wait to see her dressed up in Poly.

Looks like you'll be kept off the streets for a while with this one Danny! I'm sure you'll turn this into a very nice finished model too.

Looking very nice indeed Richard.

Gun Port Adjustments At this point, I would like to acknowledge the advice/assistance of master modeller Dan Pariser. After posting my previous progress report, Dan very kindly sent me a PM noting the discrepancies in the heights of the gunport openings. These are quite obvious in the last two photos of my previous update. The ports had been constructed according to the drawings, with only the aft port closed on all four sides, and the middle and forward ports being open to the sheer rail. There may also have been some accumulated error at play here as well. I had been feeling uneasy about this aspect myself, so when it was noted by Dan I just knew I couldn’t leave it as it was. First of all, I made up a rough dummy canon block from some scrap MDF to check the height of the lower edges of the ports: This showed that the aft port on the starboard side was considerably lower than the others on that side, so I had to extend the height of this port before adding a larger fillet to the bottom of it. Next, I made up some fillet stock by laminating some scraps of Pear, Yellow Heart and Red Heart: Then I cut some fillets roughly to length and then individually sized them to suit each gunport using the Byrnes disc sander: The fillets were then glued in place in their respective gunport. The surrounding area was given a light sand and a coat of Wipe-On Poly to blend with the surrounding area. Although there remain some visible joints, I think this looks better than the odd sized ports. With the 20/20 vision of hindsight, these fixes would have been better done prior to the addition of internal and external planking. Had I done this, the fix would have remained invisible. Lesson learned. Thanks again Dan for bringing this to my attention.

Glad to hear your glue swelling issue sorted itself out Nils. Mighty fine progress there.

Just stumbled across your log Ben. Sounds like a fascinating project, so I'm pulling up a chair too.

Congratulations Danny. A truly magnificent build and an exceptional build log as well. Thanks for all you have shown so many of us.

Nice to see you back at the work bench Charlene. Progress looks good.

Thanks Carl - and yes, partly to avoid splintering and partly to ensure that the hole started/finished in the right place as it would have been very difficult to judge the correct angle for the drill to do it in one go. As it is, the alignment is close enough to not notice any small discrepancies.

Thanks Mobbsie, For the scuppers, I drilled from both sides, starting with a quite small drill and gradually working up to the full size. The holes aligned pretty closely in the end. And you can relax, I'm unlikely to get any time in the shipyard this weekend, so you've got a week or two to catch up. Edit: just noticed the extremely "helpful" predictive text correction.......and corrected it!

Looks like a great mini project Richard, and these Woody Joe kits do look nicely done. Think I'll pull up a chair and follow along.

Thanks again everyone for the encouraging comments and the "likes". Sheer Rails (Continued) Here are the Sheer Rails with locating pins ready for installation: The Sheer Rails were then dry fitted and cut to final length before being glued in place using 5 minute Epoxy glue. The scuppers were then added by drilling a 1/8” (3.2mm) diameter hole in the waterway immediately below the second sweep port from forward, with a corresponding exit in the external planking in the Upper Main Wale. 1/8" diameter brass tubing was then cut to length, chemically blackened, and epoxied into place in each of the holes. All of the new additions were then given a coat of Wipe-On Poly. In the following photos, the scuppers can be seen in both the waterways and the Upper Main Wale. That completes this section of the build. Next up will be construction of the Mortar Bed. And yes, we’re getting close to the “elephant in the room” – turning of the Mortar barrel itself, along with canons and swivel guns………….

Thank you one and all for your very kind thoughts and words of sympathy and encouragement following the loss of Sam the Shipyard Supervisor. It's been a rough week, but life is starting to return to normal, including re-opening the Shipyard today. I must admit though, it does seem strange to be in there without him. His constant presence was somehow re-assuring. On with the build. External Planking and Sheer Rail External Planking consists of the Lower Main Wale, the Filling Wale, the Upper Main Wale, the Side Planking (above the Wales), and the Sheer Rail. The 3 components of the Wales are all of Ebony with variations in thickness. The Lower and Filling Wales are both 3/32” thick, while the Upper Wale is 1/16” thick. The Side Planking is of Yellow Heart that is 1/32” thick. This means that the Filling Wale and Upper Main Wale had to be reduced in thickness along their upper edges to blend into the next higher strake. Once again I used my miniature Japanese plane to achieve this relatively easily. Despite Ebony’s bad rap as being difficult to work with, I found that the plane took off nice thin curls of wood without too much “black dust”. I did of course vacuum up all of the shavings and dust immediately afterwards. The Yellow Heart was fairly easy to fit, although it does have a tendency to split and splinter fairly easily. I decided not to try and show any joints in the Ebony – figuring it just wouldn’t be seen anyway. I did however, decide to show some plank joints in the Yellow Heart. I also used a pencil along one edge of the Yellow Heart planking to define the caulking line. Here is how it looked once planking had been completed, but before treenailing. Once again, I used the “drill and fill” method for treenailing, using a 0.5mm drill and filling with my favourite water-based filler straight from the jar. Again, I opted not to attempt treenails in the Ebony. After a final light sand and clean-up, the whole of the side planking was given a coat of Wipe-On Poly. Under natural lighting, the Yellow heart does look more “yellow”. The Sheer Rail is made from 1/8” thick x 1/4” wide Ebony and requires a moulding profile to be cut on both inboard and outboard edges. I decided to try to do this using a scraper method. I used my Proxxon drill with a cut-off disc, mounted in a holding clamp, to cut the profile into a single edged razor. The Sheer Rails were cut slightly longer than required and mounted in a vice to have the mouldings cut using the scraper. Once again, despite it’s bad reputation, I found the Ebony quite workable. Even with this rudimentary cutter, the wood came away in nice shavings with just a little dust (again quickly cleaned up on completion). Here’s a picture of the profile being cut – notice the shavings in the background. To assist in locating the Sheer Rails correctly, three 1.5 mm diameter brass pins were epoxied into holes drilled in the underside of the Rails. Corresponding holes were drilled vertically into the frames. These will be fitted to the ship tomorrow - more pics on completion.

Nice to see you making some progress again Sjors.

That is a SERIOUSLY nice planking job Erik!

Boyd, If you're interested in trying your hand at scratch building, I can thoroughly recommend the Bomb Vessel Cross Section (link to my build log below), or you could go for an Echo class or Triton cross section. Noting your aversion to painting, you can "paint with wood" as I am doing. The advantage of a cross section is that it introduces you to all of the skills/techniques of scratch building, without a mammoth undertaking. It's a great way to learn, and you end up with a pretty nice model to boot.

Just fabulous Daniel. Absolutely amazing work. You've really captured the essence of what it must have been like on the gun deck during battle.

The shipyard has been closed for most of the weekend as we mourn the passing of the Shipyard Supervisor, Sam the Chocolate Labrador. After a lengthy battle with pharyngeal paralysis over the last year, Sam was put to sleep by our Vet on Saturday morning. He went peacefully, in his favourite bed in the sun in our family room, with the Admiral and I by his side. We miss him terribly but remember fondly the 13 years of love and devotion he gave us. I thought I would share a few photos of my best mate and shadow for so long. Sam came to us as a one-year-old pup: It didn't take him long to work out that the most comfortable seat in the house was mine. Here he is, a couple of years ago, aged 12: More recently, at the grand old age of 14, he's had a young playmate for company and he's been very tolerant of her: They liked to share the sunshine together: I miss him like crazy, but will always smile when I think of him with those doleful eyes and the tail that never stopped wagging.

The hull is looking just beautiful Nils. Great work!

Just caught up with this log Erik. Beautiful job on the planking!

Just breathtaking Remco!

Serving looks excellent Harvey.

Sorry to hear of the mishap Augie. I'd been wondering how you achieved that nice red colouring on your model - I guess your secret's out now!

Hey Danny, Welcome to the party! Glad to see you made it over. Mark is tending the bar (as usual), and Sjors occasionally drops by with the popcorn, so make yourself comfortable. A cross section of Vulture would be a great project for you. I'll look forward to following your log.

John, It certainly sounds like you're doing everything right. For my own use, I found a 50/50 dilution with distilled water worked best. This may seem a silly question, but are you certain it is "Pewter Black" that you have? I only ask because Jax do a range of patinas, including a brown. Failing all else, you might just have a "bad batch" - can you take it up with the supplier?