garyshipwright

Hi Siggi. Mark is right the wales are more complex then one thinks in their layout and construction. Look forward to seeing what you come up with sir. Gary

1 hour ago, Siggi52 said:

Hello Mark,

 

I hope so, at least when I'm ready with the gun ports. May be next week. But before, there is something not clear with the wales.  

Hi Siggi52. Is it the curve at the bow sir? Gary

Hi Sigi.    Nice job on the ports sir and seeing your work am sure they will come out just as good as the ones in the photo. As far as gun ports I just finished up the ones on Alfred which has taken me a while to do. Hum come to think of it 17 years. ;o). Look forward to seeing your next update. Gary

Hi Allan.  Thought I would give you my way of how I did the gun ports on Alfred, which may help you and give you some ideally's that might help when it comes to getting your ports right. What I did with Alfred is completed all of her framing and sanded the hull to shape and made sure every thing was right with her framing. I just could not see cutting  out the gun ports as the framing was being put together. To me there is just to many varables to contend with in getting the ports just right from the stern to the stem. Once I was happy with her hull and she had the gun deck and main wales in place for strength, figure it was time to work on the ports and was worried about not getting them right. After marking off the upper  and lower  cills along the hull, I took a batten and pin it in place on those marks along the hull giving me the lay out of the cill's. You can also use the gun deck clamps to help in laying them out height was, but found that using the base board a better place to measure from. What I also did was put those battens lower by the thickness of the cill and then made up some planks to fit the spacing of the frames,and went from side to side that was the height of the port from the bottom cill to the top of the upper cill. You can also make the planks the size of the cills them self and use that to set on the battens to mark out you cills. Then one can mark the inside of the frame with a level line on both sides showing were the cills will lay. If this doesn't make sense let me know and I see what I can do to make is make sense. Hope this helps. Added a photo sir, hope it makes sense and forgive me for being long winded. Gary 

Well hello Siggi. About time you get back to work and I do believe you have another master piece in the works sir. I still look at your Dragon just to help on the stern of Alfred. Love the figure head and hope I can do Alfred's carving as well as you have done you Lion. Will be watching sir. Gary

2 minutes ago, druxey said:

Earlier ships had beveled steps as shown, later ships (after about the 1830's) had a smooth surface where strakes tapered into one another. The main wale was then not stepped at all.

Hi druxey. You are correct sir. If one looks at the photo from Finchams book you can see that the planking from the main wale down is blending with the bottom strakes with no step in between.  Gary

Hi Mark. You could be right sir but if you look at the photos of the model of the Bellona her self in the Gallery  you will see that the planking between the first black strake and the rest of the planking up to the channel is different. Being that the short planks between the gun ports all look the same. They could have taken off the upper edge's of the two in the photo but could this have been done to do away with the sharp edge of the strakes them self. Not to be nit picke, seems that Brain drawing is missing a strake in the main wale. Could of swore there is four. Thing is if you taper the black strake in to the other upper planks are you not doing away with a detail of her? On a different noteI have added a photo of the contract that am using to help me build Montagu and a plate from Fincham's Ship Building, reprinted by the Ship Model Society of Rhode Island, 1933, that show the step down from the black strake up to the channel wale. Either way sir Bellona will still be one outstanding model's no matter how you do this. Gary

Hi Mark. Your wale sir is looking outstanding. Love looking at her  and how she is growing in leaps and bounds. Look forward to the next update. Gary

Hi druxey and Pat. Druxey you are probably right and no argument form me sir.  Thanks Pat still a long way to go. Gary 

Hi Mark. I do believe he is right about there being two but I only read or heard that the one on top of the main wale was refered to as the black strake. Any way I have the contract of the  Marlborough of 1763 and says that the black strake was 13 inches wide and 6 1/2 inches thick and the one that was on top of that was 5 1/2 inches thick. From what I understand and reason that one might think there is only one black strak is due to the second one being blend in with the other planks that sat on top of it that ran up to the channel wale, which was reduced down to 4 inches. Also just a word of advice, once you get your main wale done install your channel wale or at least ran a batten for the bottom of the first strake of the channel. It will help you out in getting the planking from the main wale up to the channel right and looking good. Wished I had down this before installing any planks above my main wale. For me a lesson well learned. The measurement of the channel is 2 foot 9 inches board by 5 1/4 inches made up of 3 strakes, unless your plan shows it being wider. You should have 5 strakes between the main wale and the channel wale which includes the black strake. 

Gary

Hi aviaamator and thank you. No sir not gold, maybe a little copper.:o) I do believe that the misses got the gold. Gary

Hi Mark. Thank you very much sir and all the like's. I am glad that the batten is working good for you. It really helps installing the major planking and not quite sure how I would do it other wise. As far as the cheeks sir, seems that I worked on them for about 3 days, to get them just right, and am not sure they will be the ones I use.  I still have to add the carving to them which should be a lot of fun. As far as making the upper one in two parts, I believe that they made it out of two parts. When you think about their purpose, they were just knee's to strengthen the head. Could be wrong but  making them full size would have taken a really large slab of wood. Gary

Well guys I finally got to a point that figure I would do a up date on Montagu. As I had posted some where, may here or on Marks log of the Bellona that I had placed my channels wales to high and had to remove them and lower them  closer to the gun deck ports. Don't ask me how, maybe along the same line as redoing the cant frames more then once but they now reside in the right place. Had to take a few addition planks off of her, guess I just didn't like their look of them. Also been working on the cheeks and the  quarter deck gun ports and happy to report, they are in the right place and one more piece and they will be done. Also installed some battern's to help with the placement of the upper railes, in the near future. That is as soon as I am happy with how they look.   Gary

Hi and thanks Marc. At the moment am working on the quarter deck gun ports and some of the out side planking and maybe by the end of the week I may just have a up date, at least thats the plan. Thank  you again sir. Gary

1 hour ago, SJSoane said:

Hi John, Marc, yes, this model of the Bellona is absolutely captivating. I have studied photos of it for years, had a chance to examine it close up, and it still sings to me after all these years. The the lines of the ship, the exposed methods of construction, the assured craftsmanship of the model and its 250 year old patina, make this a timeless classic.

 

As best I understand from the various Brian Lavery writings about this model, it was likely used as a demonstration or study for some proposed changes in the hull framing system. One side is framed in a conventional way, and the other side proposes a potentially stronger but more expensive way to run frames from keel to top with fewer interruptions. One side is partially planked, the other has no planking.

 

druxey can probably give you a better understanding of the ribbands, the thin bands running longitudinally. They were removed as planking proceeded up the hull, and were initially used to align and fair the frames. Ed Tosti's books on the Naiad frigate illustrate how useful these were for keeping the hull together and aligned before the more permanent longitudinal structural pieces like wales, spirketting, deck clamps, planking, etc., finally locked everything together.

 

It is interesting in the Bellona model that parts of planking are inserted between the ribbands, since these would not have been in the same place at the same time in the actual construction. I supppose they needed the ribbands to hold the model together, but wanted to suggest the actual lines of planking on one side while primarily concentrating on showing the framing system.

 

I did not concern myself with ribbands on my model, because the stylized admiralty or dockyard framing system locks the frames together with no spaces between. This causes expansion and contraction problems with humidity changes, as I discussed earlier, but it does away with the need for ribbands.

 

Best wishes,

 

Mark

Hi Mark. You bring up a very good point on wood movement. You and Greg wrote about the cracks coming and  going in your models but this can also cause one a very big headache when building them, which am sure you know all about that.  Seems that Alfred has moved around a lot and when I measure from point A to point B her parts have either increase or decrease making it just a little harder to build  on to her. Either that or I have forgotten how to read a ruler. :o)  Am sure the builders in the 17th and 18th century, understood this when they let a ship season and dry out, causing their measurment to be spot on or off.  Ok back to work on Alfred. Gary 

Hi Mark. Looking good sir and I like seeing the hi res photos and hope that I never post one. At the moment am working on the  quarter deck gun ports and once they are finished I will be having a party and maybe a update, thank goodness. I also have been installing battens on Alfred for the waist and sheer rails. One good thing about adding them, makes it easy to adjust them if the curve doesn't look right. Good work sir and looking forward to some more hi res photos. Gary

Hi Mark. Shes looking good sir. Was wondering how you was going to clamp the planks in place when you mounted them. Looking good. Gary

Looks real good Mark, great job. Keep it  up and you will have the main wale installed in no time flat. Gary

Hi Paul. As a great leader once said this sucks, much like the weather sir. Figure as long as we have paddles we will be okay. As far as the eyebolts  like your self I have to remove them from the port side, done the stbd side already, because of the same reason, hanging knees, but also remove the cannon's from the deck but that's due to detail that I forgot to put on them. Gary

On 1/14/2018 at 7:39 PM, druxey said:

Sorry to read about your re-do, Gary. Usually the channels rest against the outer planking, and are not inserted into a slot in them.

Hi druxey. Sorry about that sir, I didn't mean the channels that hold the dead eyes but the channel wales them self. Seems that I didn't do a very good job of measuring were they fit along the side.  It did help me make up my mind about a couple of planks that wasn't kind to the eyes.  Gary

Thanks Hakan.  Mark you hit the nail on the head, To many years with out some body to help us become even better ship builders. We do have some good teachers to help us these days. One just has to grab on to their shirt tail and just hang on. Gary

Thanks Mark. I didn't like it anyway and even if it had not been off, I would probably tore it off, and redid it, for a couple of other things. Things in Model ship building allways seem to  come out better when you do it 2 or three times. Of course when you look at some of the other outstanding models on site,  they do set a high bench to live up to. Speaking of one how is yours coming. ;o). Gary

Hi HJX. There seems to be a whole lot less on building 1st and 2nd rates compared to building 74s, but other then size I would think that they were put together much the same way. I do have a  couple of books, some center on the Victory, one writtern by a French spy and another one that coveres French 74 to 120 guns French warship's. One is done by Boudriot and the other by David Roberts produce by Boudriot. On a different not to the rest of the crew here, I messed up on  Montagu channel making it higher then it was post to be so had to rip all of the installed planking down to the main wale off and start over again. I was crying some big tears but one must do what one must do, so the delay may be just a little late in coming but am working on it.  Gary. 

Nice job Ed, very nice. Since we  are on spelling how about Rudder vs Rother. :o) Gary

Thanks Harvey. Does seem to have been awhile since I first started her and thank  you for followering her build.  Still have a lot of work to do on her and who knows maybe I finish her gun deck this year. ;o) Gary