Timmo

It's been some time since the last post but with other large projects like the dinghy finished here's an update.
After the frames sitting around for about a year as I dithered over how to fit internal components that were a long way down the track it was a case of just doing something rather than overthinking the project and suffering decision paralysis.
So, the frames were cut and assembled with the keel on the building jig. 
 
Below is a test fit before glue with the frame interiors still solid. These were hollowed out before assembly.

 
The stern gallery frame has been assembled. This involved a lot of thought and trial and error due to the vagaries of transferring a 2D plan into a three dimensional shape.  I worked on the theory that as long as I had fixed and known points at the taffrail (The building board base) and accurate gallery window voids (created with temporary spacer blocks) the rest should follow.  
 
 

Fairing of the hull framing followed, with some blocks at bow and stern the help with the plank fit. 
 

After adding upper and lower gunport sills planking is now underway. I'll double plank the hull to give a solid base for the more tidy second planking. 
I'm using Douglas Fir left over from the mast build on my sailing dinghy and will use matai for the visible portions of the second planking to take advantage of the nice honey tone and hardness. The bottom will likely be coppered anyway. 
I'll add a layer of wales as I get closer to them and the upper bulwarks will likely had a 1.5mm ply first layer rather than planking, allowing gunports to be cut and lined easily. 

The lines are starting to appear. 

Like Harrier, Enterprise will be built on the cheap to a certain degree, using largely the same materials.
 
Most timber, and certainly the visible bits will be matai.
This is a moderately hard new Zealand native that was once abundant and used for everything from framing to floorboards up until the about the 70s. With most stands of native trees now protected this isn't milled on any commercial scale that I'm aware of but there's plenty of it available as old floorboards at the demo yarn. 
Some of it is even already dressed, which will be good for planking but for the larger pieces like masts etc, I'm milling down floorboards with my full sized table saw before using the Byrnes table saw to finish them. Even with the tongue and groove and nail holes you can still get reasonable sized pieces from a board.  Most pieces I'm using are about NZ$6-8 a metre - that's about US$3-4.
 

 
If I can do a clean enough build the idea is to leave the ship with plenty of 'bright work' or natural timber hull and other details above the waterline as per contemporary models and the  Marshall paintings.
Matai is a striking timber that alternates between a gentle honey colour remiscient of aged boxwood and a deep brown. Here's an example on some flooring in my friend's 60s era home.

 
It's easy enough to pick out the boards with more blond wood than not. 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Great, I could use some motivation 

It's been some time since the last post but with other large projects like the dinghy finished here's an update.
After the frames sitting around for about a year as I dithered over how to fit internal components that were a long way down the track it was a case of just doing something rather than overthinking the project and suffering decision paralysis.
So, the frames were cut and assembled with the keel on the building jig. 
 
Below is a test fit before glue with the frame interiors still solid. These were hollowed out before assembly.

 
The stern gallery frame has been assembled. This involved a lot of thought and trial and error due to the vagaries of transferring a 2D plan into a three dimensional shape.  I worked on the theory that as long as I had fixed and known points at the taffrail (The building board base) and accurate gallery window voids (created with temporary spacer blocks) the rest should follow.  
 
 

Fairing of the hull framing followed, with some blocks at bow and stern the help with the plank fit. 
 

After adding upper and lower gunport sills planking is now underway. I'll double plank the hull to give a solid base for the more tidy second planking. 
I'm using Douglas Fir left over from the mast build on my sailing dinghy and will use matai for the visible portions of the second planking to take advantage of the nice honey tone and hardness. The bottom will likely be coppered anyway. 
I'll add a layer of wales as I get closer to them and the upper bulwarks will likely had a 1.5mm ply first layer rather than planking, allowing gunports to be cut and lined easily. 

The lines are starting to appear. 

It's been some time since the last post but with other large projects like the dinghy finished here's an update.
After the frames sitting around for about a year as I dithered over how to fit internal components that were a long way down the track it was a case of just doing something rather than overthinking the project and suffering decision paralysis.
So, the frames were cut and assembled with the keel on the building jig. 
 
Below is a test fit before glue with the frame interiors still solid. These were hollowed out before assembly.

 
The stern gallery frame has been assembled. This involved a lot of thought and trial and error due to the vagaries of transferring a 2D plan into a three dimensional shape.  I worked on the theory that as long as I had fixed and known points at the taffrail (The building board base) and accurate gallery window voids (created with temporary spacer blocks) the rest should follow.  
 
 

Fairing of the hull framing followed, with some blocks at bow and stern the help with the plank fit. 
 

After adding upper and lower gunport sills planking is now underway. I'll double plank the hull to give a solid base for the more tidy second planking. 
I'm using Douglas Fir left over from the mast build on my sailing dinghy and will use matai for the visible portions of the second planking to take advantage of the nice honey tone and hardness. The bottom will likely be coppered anyway. 
I'll add a layer of wales as I get closer to them and the upper bulwarks will likely had a 1.5mm ply first layer rather than planking, allowing gunports to be cut and lined easily. 

The lines are starting to appear. 

It's been some time since the last post but with other large projects like the dinghy finished here's an update.
After the frames sitting around for about a year as I dithered over how to fit internal components that were a long way down the track it was a case of just doing something rather than overthinking the project and suffering decision paralysis.
So, the frames were cut and assembled with the keel on the building jig. 
 
Below is a test fit before glue with the frame interiors still solid. These were hollowed out before assembly.

 
The stern gallery frame has been assembled. This involved a lot of thought and trial and error due to the vagaries of transferring a 2D plan into a three dimensional shape.  I worked on the theory that as long as I had fixed and known points at the taffrail (The building board base) and accurate gallery window voids (created with temporary spacer blocks) the rest should follow.  
 
 

Fairing of the hull framing followed, with some blocks at bow and stern the help with the plank fit. 
 

After adding upper and lower gunport sills planking is now underway. I'll double plank the hull to give a solid base for the more tidy second planking. 
I'm using Douglas Fir left over from the mast build on my sailing dinghy and will use matai for the visible portions of the second planking to take advantage of the nice honey tone and hardness. The bottom will likely be coppered anyway. 
I'll add a layer of wales as I get closer to them and the upper bulwarks will likely had a 1.5mm ply first layer rather than planking, allowing gunports to be cut and lined easily. 

The lines are starting to appear. 

Stern seat and thwart now finished and installed.  Now time to drill some tiny screw holes in the 1/16” wide patinaed brass rubbing strip for the stems/keel.
 

 

 

Log #24: Structural Supports & Fixing Mistakes
Thanks to everyone who has stopped by to take a look at the log. I do find your comments and likes motivate me to keep pushing forward.
 
Since my last log entry I have continued to work on the structure of the model. I will discuss that in more detail below, but I have also in the background been continuing my work on research. My current focus is on the coppering of Perseus. She was one of the first ships in the RN to be coppered and though I am not planning on coppering her, I am planning some aesthetic choices which will allude to the coppering.
 
The handwriting of the documents I am currently looking at is not as good as some of the stuff I have previously looked at so it is slow going with the transcriptions at the moment. But I thought I would share an interesting tidbit I found.
It is interesting to see how quickly the RN went from very few ships coppered to coppering  a huge share of the fleet. You can see in the above transcription that from 1779 to 1781, 313 vessels were coppered.
 
On the model itself, I have now got all the bulkheads in place. You will notice that the front two and stern two bulkheads do not have any bracing pieces as they are closer together.

The reason for the omission is that I am planning on filling in these sections fully with filler blocks. First I cut the bow filler pieces and glued them in place.

Then once that was dry I slid pieces of basswood which I had thinned to the appropriate thickness into the gaps between the bulkheads and marked off with pencil the approximate size they needed to be before cutting them out on the scroll saw. There is no need to be particularly accurate here so I have erred on making them oversized as this will all be sanded in the faring process. The most important part of this was making sure the bulkheads remained square through this process.

However, it was around this point that I realized I had made a mistake with one of the bulkheads. Essentially the slot was not deep enough and so it was not far down enough on the center bulkhead. It was only off by about a mm, but this is enough to throw off the lines of the ship. So I had to break out the isopropyl and slowly work it free with a knives and solvent. It was particularly unfortunate that the offending bulkhead was at just about the worst possible location (the stern platform also had to be removed). However after a few hours of working slowly and carefully on it, I managed to get it out.

Then I sanded and dry fitted it back in place, making extra sure of the positioning this time :).
 
Finally, I have also been starting the outer structural supports.  This is a line of bracing pieces which run along the upper deck line. These serve three purposes:
To allow me to correct for any warped bulkheads which might be square at the base, but are not square at the upper deck bulwarks. To strengthen the overall structure. To allow me to better see the line of the main deck to determine if I need to make any adjustments. These pieces are inserted square to the bulkheads, but at an angle such that they follow the sheer of the deck. I will then use a combination of planes and sanding to trim them back in line with the frames.

Getting the sheer of the main deck right is crucial as it will determine the height of the gun ports.
 
It feels like this structural work is taking a really long time, but I am trying to avoid future problems by making sure I am constantly checking to make sure everything looks good now while it is easier to fix.

HI everyone,
A long time since my last post. I realized that I was getting to far ahead of myself, building up the stern with everything just pinned. I needed first to paint the lower and upper counters before I could actually start assembling things.
 
And learning how to paint the friezes was a major learning curve!
 
I greatly followed David Antscherl's advice on painting in the Fully Frame Model, vol. II section 7.26. It was exceptionally helpful for everything from paint and brushes to technique.
 
Alas, I discovered after a great deal of experimentation that hand painting alone did not work well for me. Particularly for the background Prussian blue and the letters "Bellona" on the stern, I needed a way to get things sharper and more even in tone. So, I turned to my airbrush. I masked everything but the counter and sprayed away.
 
 

I glued artist's frisk onto a print of the upper counter letters and frieze elements (a woman riding a sea monster, a man riding a galloping horse). I could then turn the frisk/print every which way on my light table, and very carefully cut the frisk with a scalpel. I then attached the frisk and sprayed everything that would be the yellow ochre base for all of the frieze work:
 

I then used white graphite transfer paper to trace the rest of the pattern onto the surfaces:
 

Then following David's advice of painting highlights and shadows on the basic forms, I eventually got to an imperfect copy of the original Bellona model:
 

I learned to admire those original model builders for their painting skill. Try as I might, I just could not get to the same level of skill. But as good as I can do! So, moving on to actually gluing together the stern!
 
I did learn a few good things that I will pass on for anyone else attempting these kinds of friezes.
 
First, after trying a number of airbrush and hand paint brands, I settled on Golden. They have the same colors in different densities, for airbrushing and hand painting; the colors match the historic colors I was looking for; they come in plastic bottles with ball bearing inside, for mixing. They spray without problems through my airbrush. And they are highly regarded in the artist community.
 
Second, I struggled with the acrylic paint drying too quickly on the palette when I was trying to mix colors. My son introduced me to the model gamers' favorite tool, the Army Painter Wet Palette. This tray holds a water saturated pad, upon which is placed a parchment sheet. Paint mixed on top of the parchment can stay wet and mixable for as long as 48 hours. A huge help!
 
A glass of wine tonight in celebration, and on to assembling the stern!
 
Mark
 
 

 
 
 

Next was the fitting the lower deck beams.
Fairly straightforward and the alignment "jig" helped, though awkward to use (need to clamp its parts in a specific sequence, I dropped parts of the contraption into the hull many times, etc).

Of course my deck clamps were not perfectly level to begin with, so some notches needed to be cut deeper than necessary to ensure a level deck.
A curved Vallorbe file came in really handy to tune the depth of some notches!

Once all beams were horizontal - the run of the deck was already quite fair, with only a minor adjustments to be done for a couple of beams.

I was worried it would be a never ending process of alignment (fixing one dimension just to re-align the other), but it was not that bad.
End result. Note the tiny gaps on the right side, I do not want beams to push into the frames on both ends to prevent any buckling or tilting due to the seasonal wood movement. The gap would be hidden by the inner planking on the right side, while allowing the hull to "breathe" a bit. 

My mind got carried away with plans for the deck structure, all the carlings and ledges, thinking how I would approach the construction. Marking up in situ? Making some paper template? Add temporary spacers to lift the deck in one "piece"? Use some rubber bands to firmly fix beams in position without drilling pin holes? 
Oh, right, that comes much later, I only did them to install pillars...  
I then remarked the true centerline using a string and placed these two test pillars under a beam.
To my horror the beams standing on the keelson looked clearly off-center! The centerline string was already removed by that point, so I pulled two strings for a quick illustration.

After careful checks the reason was found - the keelson is not perfectly level and is glued slightly tilted, resulting in a skewed pillar if you just place it on top. No big deal, can be easily compensated for. Luckily there is no issue with an off-center keelson or an incorrect hull shape. Always a bit scared of finding some critical mistake done 10 years ago... 🫣 

Shown on the model....
 




 

I’ve completed the aft frames 44-52, these frames are not perpendicular to the bulkhead former and require tapering at the bottom and a slight angle that progressively increases as the frames get closer to the stern.

First the laser cut deadwood needs to be tapered. this can be achieved by attaching a 1/4” scrap piece to the stern of the bulkhead former 

this will establish where the inner stern post will sit on the deadwood so you know where to sand to.
The same is done where the deadwood meets the keel and frame 43B. Except you will need to sand it slightly below the line at the keel so you have a rabbet for a plank to land on

I sanded it down to shape but left material for final fairing of the hull once completely framed 

once attached you can begin the frames. Two frames will fit on each step and require tapering at the bottom, the taper will be provided in the instructions, try to get the as close as possible 

Begin framing aft at frame 44A, all the full frames are A’s and the short ones B. I installed all the A frames first and then completed the B frames afterward, it’s much easier to correctly fit them in this order.

you can see above, frame 46B going in, once the bottom is correctly tapered it’s just a matter of sanding and test fitting until the B frame fits snug.

Once all the aft frames are complete it’s time to move to the wing transoms. Frames 52 A and B have landings for the wings etched into them

The wing transoms range from 3/16 to 9/32 in thickness and they are all numbered from 7 at the top down to 1 At the lowest .
A quick test fit  of the #6 wing transoms appears to fit well. Keep in mind there will be a ton of sanding in this area once these are all installed, especially around 52B.

Next up is the completing all the wing transoms and the vertical timbers above the deadwood.
Thanks for looking in
JJ

Back to work on Portland prototype 2.0. The framing continues on  the port side. Sand char, glue and repeat. Should have all the perpendicular frames done this evening. More updates to come soon!
 
JJ

After a long (way too long) interruption my Kingfisher is back on the bench. I have still been busy modelling but with other (plastic related) topics not fit to portray here, still it was al lot of fun. But it was time to return and make some wood dust again. So over the past few week I managed to get back into the build, did a lot of head scratching trying to remember where I left of and more important how things were done. Some of the procedures got lost in time and I have to figure out again. 
After taking the model out of storage ( it was stored in a dark place) I noticed a few things, the boxwood turned darker, the holy I used for the lower deck planking turned dark almost to the color of the boxwood. The wale that was stained with Fiebing ink turned much lighter. Overall a few cracks have appeared between the outside planing, but nothing too serious. Not bad after 5 years in storage and moving 3 times to different locations. 
 
So the upper deck spriketting and quick work was finally finished. I did not dare to drill holes for the scuppers as I'm afraid the inside and outside planking is not completely aligned the way it should be and the suppers might hit the wale. 


 
Upper deck planking installed and treenailed. I used thin black paper for caulking.
 
The fixed blocks were remade as the previous ones had fitting issues. I decided to make them from one piece and carve the sheaves in situ.  Unfortunately I discovered too late that the wood I used for the double block was much lighter. Now it looks like it was an off site repair job. 


 
Whilst working with plastic and specifically with Gundam models I picked up there plastic scribers. They also function as great mini chisels for wood. They come in many sizes and are super sharp. Due to the high angle of the blade they cut very aggressive in wood so care must be taken but a great addition to my woodworking toolset.

 
 
 
 
Remco
 

Just found this build Dusan. Stunning work and very inspirational. Well done and thanks for sharing.

A very helpful vid there Gerry. That brace moves very smoothly.
I'm not far off mast installation and having to think about such things so I'd be very keen to think only one active set of braces per mast would do the job rather than having multiple drums etc.
Would I be right in thinking if it'll work for a larger three master vessel like yours it'll work well for the Harrier brig with the same servos?

I'm faily jealous of those guns and capstans Jerry. You've come a long way. I must learn some 3D design and get printing if my frigate is to ever get off the stocks.

Just found this build Dusan. Stunning work and very inspirational. Well done and thanks for sharing.

I'm faily jealous of those guns and capstans Jerry. You've come a long way. I must learn some 3D design and get printing if my frigate is to ever get off the stocks.

I'm faily jealous of those guns and capstans Jerry. You've come a long way. I must learn some 3D design and get printing if my frigate is to ever get off the stocks.

Welcome aboard Robert, thanks for the compliments
and I wish you all a Merry Christmas

 
 
 

continued...
I finished the fancy roof rail qgallery and I started to place the carvings
and fittings for the Qdeck…

Hey guys,
Thanks for your kind words and likes.
I'm slowly making progress, finishing things I've been putting off.
I cleaned up the carvings and since I couldn't get the
Old Masters Gel Stain I had to find another solution with Vallejo Wash.
I also had to paint the friezes on the binnacle...
It didn't turn out as I wanted, but I can live with it.
The belfry, belfry rail and other details and the forecastle are almost finished.
The breastrail.... is finished and I just have to install the rest of the parts and finish the quarterdeck.

 

Continuation 
 

 
Pawel

Hi everyone,
 
Thank you, Kevin, for your kind words. It is definitely turning into my life's work after all these years, and many more to go at my current pace. I might as well make it as good as I can!
 
druxey, I agree with your "gazunder" conclusion. Given the geometry of the quarter galleries, the only direct drop from the upper--captain's--seat of ease would discharge directly onto or out of the face of the false window in the quarter gallery below. Not likely. I am sticking with a chamber pot and proceeding accordingly!
 
The stern construction is undoubtedly the most difficult thing I have ever attempted to make. Even planking the upper counter seemed straightforward at first, but the wood is so thin here that I struggled to keep the surface fair while rounding up and aft, and on a curved frame in the vertical direction. I had to redo in order to remove some initial hollow low spots. All is well now, ready for paint. It also strikes me the ridiculous fragility of this entire stern. No wonder captains dreamed of raking their opponents through the stern.
 
Moving to the side lower windows of the quarter gallery,  I had read long ago that the upper and lower boundaries of these windows had to be exactly the same radius, held in the same orientation when the top one is offset to the stern. This is to ensure that the vertical mullions between the three windows are parallel to each other in the x and y axis. If they are twisted, the windows would be twisted and could not be paneled with flat sheets of glass. I thought of it as a cylinder sloped back at the angle of the windows across the stern, and then parallel planes aligned with the sheer of the hull cutting through to define the tops and bottoms. Hopefully this diagram makes this clear. The dotted lines are the lines of the window mullions:
I arranged this by making panels top and bottom to the same template, then ensuring that the curves coming forward made the same angle with the stern moldings top and bottom:
And these resulted in window surfaces that are flat and untwisted. However, the three windows are not geometrically the same, which initially surprised me. Although the length of the sides are the same--since the two planes forming the top and bottom are paralleI--the angles these form with the top and bottom edges of the window are not the same.  The sternmost window has a sharper angle, the middle one somehat less but still sharper than the foremost window.
I eventually realized that this would have to be. The aft most is most parallel to the side of the sloping cylinder, while the foremost is coming around to the fore face of the cylinder, which is less angled relative to the cutting planes. The sides of a window on the front surface would be at right angles to the tops and bottoms.
I also noticed that the changing geometry created an optical illusion. I initially made the three windows the same width fore and aft, then saw that the aft most window looked too skinny relative to the other two. I made a number of paper templates installed in the openings, varying the widths until they "looked" the same width. It turned out that the aft most had to be made wider, then the middle a little less but still wider than the foremost window.
 
Here is the result with the final paper templates:
 

I also discovered the reason for the little scroll work carving at the fore end of the windows, which shows up in every  74 gun ship of this era. It hides the fact that the fore edge of the foremost mullion is not parallel to its aft edge; the upper edge has to be longer than the lower edge in order to fair to the side of the hull. This would have been visually clunky, so they disguised it with a little carving to cover it up.
 

 
Looking forward, here are paper templates of the upper works:

Still a lot to do!
 
Mark