It was in summer 2014 when I had the idea to build the French light Schooner “La Jacinthe” after the plans of Jean Boudriot. Together with five sisters she was launched in 1823, and in the following year five more ships were built, among them “La Mutine” (“The Rebel”).
As my cutter HMC Sherbourne she should be in 1:64 scale, so I scanned the plans and traced bulkheads and false keel in a way so I could build everything with plywood of 3mm. For that I used Adobe Illustrator, so I could laser cut the pieces in the FabLab of the local technical university.
“Printed out” in late summer, you can see here the bulkheads, false keel and deck, a few small parts and a piece for a jig that will help me to build a cutter. When I wanted to start building, alas, I saw that the false keel was totally warped. So I had to go to the university again, and cut everything again, but this time in MDF. And while I was at it, I did everything twice.
Just for testing purpose I cut keel, stem etc., I will user these parts as templates when working with pear wood. In the upper left corner you can see a jig that will act as a bulkhead former.
But why do everything twice?
I simply couldn’t decide: build the “Jacinthe” or the “Mutine”? The latter is shown in Boudriot’s book, after a refit in 1835. The main differences are closed and elevated bulkheads, new deck layout, iron pumps and anchor chains, a steering wheel, new chains and a new bowsprit, set in a different angle – in general, the “Mutine” appears much more seaworthy than the very lightly built “Jacinthe”.
So the plan is to build both: a fully rigged “Jacinthe” in natural pear wood, and a hull model of a black-painted, coppered “Mutine”. The twin build should not be boring or repetitive. Well, have to build two identical hulls, but all the other details mentioned promise to be sufficiently different from each other to make this a very interesting project.
Here a look of the two schooners, “La Jacinthe” (1823) ans “La Mutine” (1835):
The foundation is already laid: the two sisters can hardly be told apart yet.
This will be a slow build, and quite an adventure; my only experience in building wooden models is the Sherbourne kit, which I modified to my liking and where I learned the pleasure of working from scratch.
And as I have to do the heavy sanding outside, progress is dependent of the weather (yes, the with stuff is snow, for those having the privilege of living in a moderate climate).
Cheers,
Gregor
My holidays are over so the progress is much slower than before.
I did the keelson before building the frames. So it is in my opinion much easier to adjust it with the fore and after deadwood.
Before glueing the keelson on the backbone It take a long time. All frames have to be installed first.
Today I worked on my first frame. It took quite long to find my way to build the frame. The result is not perfect, but I think doing the next frames will be much easier and faster. If it's interesting for someone I will do a step by step description from building one of the next frames.
Hello,
here I show the continuation of the production of Caronades. The supports for the gun barrels are made of brass precision casting. I have the Carronade only temporarily installed to see whether the parts fit. Later, the brass parts are still blackened.
Hello Dear Friends,
the main armament of the la creole consisted of 20 30-pounder carronades. First I made a prototype, gonna learn how to make all the parts I need. The production of the prototype can be seen in the following images. I hope that you enjoy it. Soon I will show you more pictures of the finished Carronade.
