JerseyCity Frankie

-fail-fail-fail-
 
Was waiting already but nobody mentioned so far the missing side tackles on the guns ;-)
 
But lazy dafi was trying to avoid work and was looking for easy-easy-easy way of cheating: casting he believed would be the easy option, making two halves and glueing them together in the required length ...
 
... 30 times lashed and 6 times in position ...
 
... lazy bastard ...
 
So made very fastily blocks out of Evergreen rods ...
 

 
... went fast, drilled with 0,5 mm after setting a centre punch, fastily drilled  ...
 

 
... and cut to length on a double sided tape.
 
 
Small tail in the end ...
 

 
... some wire rope into the blocks ...
 

 
... and we got some cute sado-maso-killer-sperms :-)
 
Happily made some wire lashings around ...
 

 
... did the castings ...
 
... and cried my eyes out as the resin needed for those tiny bits was pure waste ...
 
... and the parts too small and flimsy for mass production ...
 
... and on top of it the cleaning of the parts ...
 
... then realised that I need to paint them ... 
 
... and the looks were not what i had in mind ...
 
... so got out the big chopper and reduced some parts ...
 

 
... to fit a nice fresh meal for the poor little sailors, sittings for weeks already in front of their empty plates ...
 

 
... and the rest ...
 

 
... went into Tar Jack´s box of the dead hallows, where all discarded parts end up.
 
And so much for the wasted brainwaves, material and time to make it easy and fast ?!?
 
And then I realised, how easy it could have been ...
 
... more soon.
 
XXXDAn

So, finally some more easy tinkering was done.
 
Anchors and hammock crane interaction :-).
 

 

 
XXXDAn

Hello.
My name is Jarek. A few months ago I’ve started building my own HMS Victory, as everybody should have this beautiful ship  . I’ve been making Victory based on the Shipyard’s card model. I hope that the memberships of this forum help me to finish the project, giving me advice, supporting when doubts appear, criticizing when necessary.
Sorry for any mistakes appear in my English
 

 
All the bulkheads are made from 1 mm cardboard, except the bottom of hull (beneath the waterline), where the bulkheads are 3 mm thick. To increase the thickness I glued additional strips of paper on each bulkhead side. I made this because I wanted to have a wider surface to glue the first layer of “plank”.
 

 
All sticking out parts of bulkheads I soaked using CA glue. It helps strengthen them to avoid accidentally damage. Also, I’ve made a jig, which helps me to work with a model upside down and not to be afraid of breaking down those sticking out parts. 
 

 
I glued two pine slats, one on each side, following almost from bow to stern, to keep the straight line of the paper “keel”. 
 

 
Every bulkhead was initially “sanded”, but without using sandpaper. I made this by using the colourless water glue, putting it on each bulkhead edge, to soften this element. Then, with a wooden spatula I smoothed the bulkheads edges. 
 

 
Between the bulkheads I glued cardboard pieces (2 mm thick). It helps to avoid “falling” the paper planks between the bulkheads, because they are not as stiff and hard as wooden. It’s hard to believe, but there are about 500 pieces. 
 

 
Finally, the view of the first "planking".
 

 
 
On the lower decks, which are not visible, there are “not fully equipped” gun carriages.  The small holes in the carriages were drilled. Before drilling I soaked the element using CA glue in order to have a hard surface for the drill. Firstly, all carriages had been varnished (2 layers), then slightly sanded and finally painted yellow ochre (Talens, Van Gogh). I’ve also made a small jig to build them properly.
 

 
 
I’ve also made a “trial version” of the gun, needed temporary for marking the right position of the gun in gunports. In the future the gun will be a little modified, to achieve much better “product”, more resembling the original  . It is of course made from paper, except trunnion and knob which are wooden. 
 

 
 
Before rolling the paper I put on it a thin layer of water glue (on the inside). When the paper is wet it’s easy to roll it and make a pipe, even a small diameter. After drying the glue, paper keeps the proper shape. 
 

 
 
Making the gun, the paper should be cut off with knife holding slightly in angle. Due to it, the edge joint is proper all along the gun, almost invincible. When you cut the paper holding knife perpendicularly, it is hard to join the edges without leaving a slot.  
 

 
 
To make a specific shape of muzzle, I also used water glue to soften the paper. When the paper was still wet, I’d formed the muzzle on rubber, pressing paper with wire rounded ending.
 

 
 
 
The hole for trunnion was bored using 3 drills, firstly 0,3 mm, then 0,7 mm finally 1 mm, in order to avoid fraying the edges. Before drilling I soaked the paper with CA glue.
 
 
 
 
I’m working on gunports now.
Firstly, using a masking tape, I made fast to the skeleton the first layer of planks. This has been done temporarily for marking the position of gunports opening, on the red “battens”. After that, I cut the battens on smaller sections, so that they fit between each of the bulkheads. Every piece was glued from below, because this way is easier to achieve the good looking gunports.
A little defect has brought to light. One of the bulkheads is visible in the gunport opening, which of course shouldn’t be. It will have to be cut down which is now not as easy, as before gluing all together.
 

 
To be continued…
 
 

You can never have enough thread string twine or line and there never seems to be the EXACT thing you want for the line you are making. I have had a lot of success stopping at every garage sale, lawn sale, stoop sale and gate sale I pass. Apparently everyone has a collection of sewing stuff sitting around and a certain percentage of these people are trying to get rid of it and I am usually happy to oblige them. I have found some amazing stuff that is not available at fabric stores. Also while I think of it, a well stocked shoe repair place usually will have some very heavy thread for the shoe repair business.

Thanks guys ~ Kay, Sinan and JerseyCityFrankie.
 
 
 
So Frankie ~ which one in that cartoon do you think resembles me ???  
 
Wheee ! ~ primary planking almost finished (after several months) > > >

 
. . . . . then all I had to do was start hull planking all over again!  

Thanks Mark and Juergen.
 
With the lower deck partially planked, I decided to instal the upper deck beams before proceeding with any hull planking. (I think I may have been delaying the hour at which the hull planking would commence  )
I'm struggling to remember the exact sequence in which I carried out the various build stages in the early part of the build and am relying on the dates of the photos to help me here.
The deck beams I installed bear little or no resemblance to the way in which they would have been configured, nor to the way I see so many intricate and complicated beams in so many buildlogs here on the forum . . . . . and that's for more than a couple of reasons:-  My skill level (and possibly my patience) is not up to that task; I intend for the finished build to be "closed" and only that which appears on the outside of the ship, or above decks to be visible; and what's more, the plans include no details of the deck beam's configuration.
 
O.K. ~ got that out of the way ~~ a couple of pics now:
 

 
"The Hour" arrived . . . let the hull planking begin . . . . .
 

 
Early on I decided to double plank the hull, and the planking seen in the pic is 5mm X 0.7mm Mahogany. The final planking will be 3mm X 0.7mm, bringing the total thickness to around 1.5mm . . . but that would be a long way down the line.
 
At some point between the top photo and the bottom one I had a little accident and the top of the foremost frame was damaged, so it required a repair and while I was at it I reinforced the tops of all of the frames.
 

Thanks Tim.
 
Some time later, lower gun deck partly planked >
 

 
At the outset I had determined that the ship would be "closed" ~ by which I mean that nothing below the upper gun deck would visible as, for the sake of making this a simpler build, all gunports (with lids) would be closed and only 14 guns on the upper deck, 2 on the quarter deck and the 2 bow chaser guns would be visible. Accordingly the lower deck was only partially planked as only a tiny part of that planking would be visible by peering down a couple of companionways.
 
In my opening post I neglected to say that the build is being done (as close as is possible for me) according to the plans and drawings by John McKay in Rif Winfield's "The Fifty Gun Ship". Anyone familiar with the book will be aware that the accompanying plans are at a scale of 1:96. I felt that scale was a little too small for me to work with, and while I would have been happier with a scale of 1:64 (or bigger), because of display space constraints I decided on a compromise scale of 1:80 so had the plans expanded to equate to that scale.

Tedium delirium ~ ~ ~ By the time I had done the planking shown in the last photo of my previous post I had also done around the same amount on the port side of the hull and I was beginning to get somewhat weary of that task, so I diverted my efforts to another part of the build. I played around making a grating and a capstan and laid around half of the decking on the upper deck. The photo below shows that part of the decking that had been done, but the grating and the capstan were just dry fitted so that I could get an idea of what it may look like later.  
 
Then, back to the hull, and many hours later, some more planking had been done. Pretty much the same amount of planking had also been done on the port side of the hull at this stage.
Prior to commencing any of this planking I had taken considerable time to fair the frames and the infilled stiffener pieces, and while I thought I had done the job properly, an un-noticed high spot evidenced itself later when I got to this stage of the primary planking. It can be seen in the photo below, and it shows up like a whitish blotch between the 2nd and 3rd aftmost lower gun ports. As I progressed I would lightly sand the planking after every dozen or so strakes and at that point the high spot was noticed and the sanding completely wore away the planking to reveal part of one of the stiffeners. I'm just glad that I discovered it at this stage and not after the final planking as it wasn't really going to be a problem having found it early enough.
 
 
 
I'm sure that most who have already viewed this topic will have noticed the strange structure at the stern! . . . I know it is most unusual, and the reason for that was my total lack of knowledge as to how to construct that part, and what is seen there was about my third attempt at creating something that may work for the stern quarters and galleries. At this stage of the build I had no idea how I would go about completing that, so I put it out of my mind while I carried on with other parts of the build about which I had a slightly better construction ideas.
The stern area will be mentioned at a much later posting.
 
Jim.

Hello all,
 
Thought it was about time I had a go at this. Not great with this sort of thing so hope this goes ok.
Started my Agamemnon March this year, couldn't believe how big it was when the box arrived.
This is my 3rd build, HMS Snake ( Caldercraft ) and Racehourse being the others.
Followed Mobbsie and Decoymans Aggie builds and they have been a great help.

Alistair, I do hope that some day, you will restart your excellent build.
 
Indeed, the plank nipper is simple as fast to use (no soaking, no drying), it is cheap and you cannot get burnt by using it.  The only issue is convex shapes, as can be seen at the stern, or on the inner bulwark on the fore deck.  Now on this model, I took the risk, and after some careful sanding, filling, varnishing, the grooves of the nipper can hardly be seen, I dare say.
 
I forgot to mention that while doing the upper part of the second planking, I felt iut necessary to do the inner bulwarks.
 
Inner bulwarks
The original vessel was built as cheaply as possible, and therefore were single skinned.  Sergal suggests to make the inner planking with the same planks as the second planking which would have made a triple skinned vessel at that level.  Of course, no one would notice, but the overall thickness of the bulwarks would be too much: indeed, a single skinned vessel would most surely show the ends of frames, and I wanted this feature on my model.  So I used for the inner bulwark layer the battens left over from the deck, and added planks 3x1mm to simulate the ribs.  Everything was painted a nice green colour, but later on, a forum member mentioned that the bulwarks were indeed painted black, or grey, or left dark wood.  So I later repainted the whole area black.
 
Here are the following pics of the second planking:

















 
So that s how the project looks like now.  Present job is to add the garboard strakes or whatever they are named, then a second layer tinting varnish will be applied to the hull, then a layer of matt varnish, as the hull is way too glossy for my taste.
 
And then...Mmmmm: the ornaments, window frames, gunport and rudder hinges.

And it continued with an answer from Jan here in MSW:   You will drive yourself insane! My guess is that your next "problem" will be to get these tiny blocks stropped according the rule book Next you will realize that blocks have sheaves, that sheaves are held into position by iron pins, that these pins have nail like heads, that.... etc.   We will follow your route to insanity with ever increasing admiration!   Jan   OK-OK-OK, Jan´s challenge was accepted :-) The stropping we had already, so the next is ...     ... put a 1 mm poly rod into the machine, drill with 0,4 mm, turning the chuck of the lathe of course by hand ...     ... and cutting it off still on the drill to 0,5 mm slices ...     ... and this is the result of the production.   So what is missing next for some good blocks? The casing:   So milling a double slot and a single slot into a 2,5 mm x 1 mm batten ...     ... doing some carving ...     ... colored the disks with marker for not adding to the thickness ...     ... inserted the disks and the axles  ...     ... and cleared it up.     And here the family shot with the benchmark, the wonderful 2 x 2 x 2 mm block from JB.      While stropping I finally re-remembered the great power-splice, which makes things easier and cleaner, prepared a loop ...     ... and slid the block into it, secured with glue and  ...    *drummrollandsmallfanfare*   ... and the thing on place :-)   Lessons learned:  It is really possible to make blocks of 2,5 x 2,5 x 1 mm with turning sheaves! And by pulling on the loose end, the tackle works much easier than the other ones without :-) :-) :-)   The most difficult? Checking if the sheaves are turning after securing the axles with glue. Managed to do this with the point of a needle. Confirmed positivly!   ;-)   Liebe Grüße Daniel

And some more basic work. To do the side takles of my guns in 1:100 I need small blocks. The smallest commercially available are the 2 mm from JB, great stuff but still a little bit to big for my taste. So I wanted to see what there is still possible :-)
 
Literature shows several ways of doing blocks, most of them done in a similar way, so I am following that, just have to take out most of the machinery because of the size.
 
First I prepared a batten of 1,5 mm high and 1 mm thick, and marked it all 2 mm which gave the basic size of these ambitious project ...
 

 
... each of these marks got a diagonal cut in one direction and after all done, the batten was turned and the other side cut, so the grooves on one side were finished. Repeated on all four sides ...
 

 
... and this was achieved rather fast, some matt varnish to strengthen the edges ...
 

 
... and first drilling tests ...
 

 
... with the 0,5er drill. Result, difficult to get the right place, so more testing until it looked like in a swiss cheese factory ...
 

 
... and finally the enlightenment: 0,5 mm drill fixed in the stand, a stop in 0,5 mm distance is fixed. The stop has the width of 2 mm which facilitates positioning. 
Now hold the batten tight and near at both sides and slide it up the stop until drilled ...
 

 
... move down and turn the batten 180° around the longitudinal axis, slide up and drill the second hole :-) 
(I spared you the fingers on the picture :-)
 
Looks already ok, the four blocks left of my little worker are the single blocks of 1 mm x 1 mm x 2 mm - hihihihihi - ... 
 

 
... a second coat of varnish, the cutter makes the groove on the side for the line - the most difficult part on the whole action - some sanding off of the edges, some more varnish and done. They stay on the batten and will be cut just prior to production for not getting lost - just in time production  :-)
 

 
Just a family picture: the Krick 3 mm, the JB 2 mm and Microline from dafi, and as it looks nice a macro shot.
 

 
So I already see the crowd out there laughing in anticipation of the knots in dafis fingers, while trying to tying some rigging onto these littel bits ...
 

... and this was the result with a descent rope:
 

 
*jumpingofhappiness*
 
Not yet perfect, but the direction is right :-)
 
Lieber Gruß, Daniel

I think those hooks look great. But those coils on that most recent photo of Constitution are a disgrace!

Hi,
 
the time for update here. Further work with chennels and chainplates, completting of them. I hope the images are explanable.
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
The guns are not fixed now.
 
Alex
 

Hi Frankie,
 
Thanks for your input. This was my original thought and it may have been the original modelers intent. I did not want to mention my thought in my previous post so as not to influence any responses.
 
They could very well be the blocks on the halyard falls for the topsail, t'gallant, and royal yards. However, when I look at the plans for the USS COLUMBUS, sister ship of the USS OHIO, the plans call for a PAIR of halyards for the topsail yard, both originating from their respective starboard and port channels up through a series of blocks on the crosstrees and the yard. The running part of the halyards are rove through a block on the deck positioned near the bulwark just below the pinrail and are then belayed to the pinrail. The fore and the main topsail yards both have two halyards while the mizzen topsail yard has one.
 
Another concern is that in my experience the halyards all led down to the deck close to the bulwark not as far inboard as these blocks are positioned.
 
The other peculiarity is that the model was not rigged with any royal yards, unless they were part of the debris or simply lost. The model has had a hard life.
 
By the way, your miniature models are exquisite! I am impressed that you were able to work in such a small scale without compromising detaiI.  I am not sure I could handle features that small.
 
Thanks again,
Frank

For some time now I have been fascinated with this engraving of a French Frigate. Its contemporary I suppose and has a lot of fascinating details. Studdingsails set wing and wing! Until I had seen this image I never would have guessed it was possible to set the main course studding sails WITHOUT setting the main course sail. All that canvas set but no Royals. The main topsail has blanketed  the fore topsail, the main t’galent has been partially lowered- I wonder why? To allow the fore t’galent to draw better? Look how close to the waves the Main course studdingsail is, if it touches it would surly break something. 

Thank you Mark for ruining my night - so no block-buster TV but reading about potty-stories ;-)
 
Thanks Frankie for your kind words, there still so many exciting corners on those ships waiting to be explored :-)
 
Also Lavery in Arming and Fitting gives nice details about the **** dales and other fittings. 
 
According to that source, Admiral and Captain had each both galleries for their personal use, in the wardroom one side was for the first lieutenant and the other side for the remaining officers.
 
The roundhouse had different assignments. First both sides for the junior officers and the commissioned officers who did not have access to the wardroom. Later about 1815 when the sick berth was already placed behind the beakhead bulkhead, the larbord one was for the mates, midshipmen, and warrent officers and the starbord one for the sickbay.
 
The thesis Mark gave mostly just deals with the construction and the timely introduction. Some interesting features were mentioned.
http://nautarch.tamu...ts/simmons.html
 
The side shelves (small cabins on or under the main channels:
        About the numbers of man compared to the amount of people     The roundhouses       And this one I found the most amusing:     Daniel

So far so good, but the next part was a bit scary ...
 
... you remember, on the heads and in the fighting tops I already tried some netting. But it was quite ridgit and I knew not what would come out now.
 
So put the gaze into a cardboard frame  ...
 

 
... and painted nicely with beige, added some plain white and dirtied it with very diluted black ink.
 

 
Easy to see how the appearance became more homogenous.
 
Then did a test fit and realised how the holes got stuck on the hammock cranes ...
 

 
... but it looked ok so far.
 

 
Some test handling on the outside ...
 

 
... proved that the netting should curl outside instead of inside.
 
Then introduced some papers as introduction help and introducing the netting was no subject of getting stuck any more :-)
 

 
Got the front paper out, adjusted the height towards the rope ...
 

 
... and glued with CA the netting onto the rope .
 
Then used the hammocks to press down the netting ...
 

 
... pulled out the back paper and also the hammocks, used pincers to hold rope and netting together and used CA to fix.
 

 
Then cut the side length ...
 

Black would hide the tar that would certainly be dripping down the shrouds in hot latitudes.

I'm in awe of this project. I think everyone who starts building ship models will, within a year or two of getting into the hobby, consider the notion of building a huge 1/48 scale H.M.S. Victory. Very few people have the determination and will to start and cary through such a project! My hat is off to you. I am jealous on one level but on another level I am glad it is not me! It takes a special kind of person to do what you are doing.

K, I am now deleting any posts which try and change the topic to point towards another author. This thread is for comments concerning Patrick O'Brian only and not any deep abiding loves for the Twilight series or Bolitho or bodice rippers or Janet and John or whatever.
 
Keep on topic please.

Hi Chris,
 
Much thanks, your interest pleases me very well.
 
I used a scroll jigsaw at first that I put in a jig as you can see at the following photos.

On the second photo is the power button that I can press with my foot.
 
After I sanded with a belt sander
 
Oh my english, I hope that was what would you like to know

Hi everyone,
 
And here are the drawings I created from the Admiralty draughts of HMS Dragon, The Bellona's sister ship (the NMM could not find the Bellona drawings when I ordered these back in the 1990s; I don't know if they ever turned up).
 
The xerox copies showed that the original 250 year old drawings were quite distorted and therefore not able to be built from. Also I did not know how I would ever fit a 1/4" scale model of a 74 in my house. So I drew these at 3/16", or 1:64. The Admiralty drawings were very schematic, and so I had to develop all of the details from other standard sources.
 
Mark
 
 

Once again thanks for looking in on my build!
 
We are going away for some sun to escape the long continuing London winter so I shall complete the build when we return
 
Time to review the things I think could be improved
 
I definitely need to improve planning the rigging in advance with more fixings on yards hull and tops
 
I also think that it is possible to get a good approximation of ratlines and deadeyes which I shall try next time
 
I am happy with the materials used but would like to improve the precision of deck fittings
 
The tension in the rigging needs to be managed better and I would like to try getting more realistic sag on the lines
 
There should be less reliance on glue which has built up too much in some places and catches the light.
 
Matt

Getting tangled up in running rigging and experimenting with sails!