JerseyCity Frankie

Painting sceme. The choice of colors was conservative. A lot of back and forth with the filler on the deck, even at this late stage. I also built custom gratings as the ones on the kit were rather poor. I wanted the ship done with launching flag poles and all, but this was not desired by my friend. 

Here, most modifications are complete: Decks widened, side ladder and gunports modified, shroud planks remodeled with added knees, most open gunports closed off with a screen behind them as per request of my friend. A lot of filler used everywhere to correct mistakes. 

The bow gave me much grief, as not only I had to reduce it in height and length, adjust the beak for the new figurehead, but all this while manipulating the bow rails as well.  The cheeks knees of the bow aparently differ much in their position between a first and third rate,  as I found out.

Rezzing the side was no problem. The bow needed some steps in the cuts.  

There we go... 10 months or so.
The kit turned out to be unusable, so the build is about 90% scratch. 







 

Certainly brown wrapping paper is non-archival due to its acidic nature, as is any paper that contains wood pulp. Newspaper, paper bags, gift wrapping paper, butcher paper,and likely any colored paper marketed towards children or school use will contain too much wood pulp to be considered as an archival material. Fortunately there’s a WORLD of paper available that IS archival and acid-free available at art supply stores.
its my view that laminating non-archival paper would greatly extend its useful life so probably the Mast Hoops built as described above could have a very long life, but still not as long a life as any acid-free paper would.

Its not every day on the internet that you see the CEO of a company step in personally and address the complaint of one of the companies customers! And even on the rare occasion we see this happen, seldom do you hear more than some platitudes and vague generalities.
Its refreshing to see this kind of response, an actual precise explanation from a person that could have very easily pretended not to know about a problem.
Model Expo has been an important part of this hobby and I wonder how many of us would be making models today if the company had not been there over the years offering tools and kits? I wish all hobby companies were as attentive to their customers.

I'm using the 1794 edition Dirk, the base source of almost every modern writer you can think of.
He's writing some 17 years after the Alert time, and we all know how exceeding slow the Admiralty was to effect  any significant changes, at least until the end of the Napoleonic Wars.
If anything the scantlings of timbers and spars and rope work tended to decrease slightly over the 18th c, as evidenced by the various tables included in Lees but none of that is likely to affect my scale arrangements on Alert and I doubt that the quarter proportions  given in Steel varied much over the period.
In dealing with a kit like this it just needs to look right to the eye, and getting to that point given the constrictions of the provided parts is my main concern at present..🙂
 
Cheers,
 
B.E.
 

Just letting you guys know that I have been steadily making progress.  Planking is not something that can be rushed.   No matter how well you make all of the other fittings and parts on a model, if your planking is bad that is all anyone will ever notice.   So go slow and keep it clean and neat with tight joints.   

If you see yourself going off your lining off tick marks with a  strake, no need to worry.  Then you should correct it with the next strake or two in order to get back on your marks.  Keep flipping the hull "right-side-up".....as you should check your run of planks every strake or two and make adjustments when needed.   Below you can see the tapered planks along the tuck and the transition of the planks onto the stern post rabbet.  Note the plank in the corner where the ends transition from the counter to along the rabbet strip.  The cedar is working out nicely and I think the color looks good on a model this size.  You guys can of course judge for yourselves but if you are building a frigate or other larger subject, this is a good choice.  Its a bit soft bu once you get accustomed to using it,  it really looks good.   I have only used a bit of wipe on poly on the planking.

I have completed two belts on the port side and am finishing of the second belt on the starboard.  Once completed I will reverse direction and start planking from the keel ....upward in order to finish up the hull planking.  You can see my planks entering the stem rabbet below.

 
Questions and comments are always welcome from the group.
 
Chuck

Evening, 
Chores are done, nothing on TV, time for an update. 
 
I've installed all of the hardware for the Main and Fore Course Yards. 
These received a good sanding.  As of tonight, they have a coat of primer. Eventually they will be all black. 

A little bit of a milestone for me.
Shrouds have appeared! I've never been this far with a build before!
 
Granted, there not the real shrouds that will eventually be strung, but it looks cool!
 
I used kit supplied rope for the fake shrouds. It's approximate to the same size Syren rope that will be used in the end. 
These can be re-used for all the Channels. 

Below shows, what should be, good clearance on the inside of the Shrouds. 
I cant remember off the top of my head, as I'm writing this, if the Hammock rails go under the Shrouds. 

They were anchored down with Tamiya masking tape. 
Worked as well as one would expect. 

Then lined up in there sensible locations. 
Keeping in mind spacing, not blocking portals, and the like. 

Small nick marks were made where the Deadeyes will be installed. 
A keeper strip will cover this eventually. 

Tom E 
 
 
 

Work on the model continues and a rather slow pace.  I’ve cut out the bulkheads and keel former. I should point out that I didn’t cut out the notch for the mast at this time.  Also, the bulkheads are over large. The upper portion does not have the space removed down the middle to the deck. I’ll do that once the bulkheads are fitted to the keel former.  I want to see how everything looks before cutting off too much wood. Better to be too big than too small. The pieces look O.K. to me so far.
 

 
I also fitted the fore-most bulkhead to the keel former and it checks out so far.  I made sure the L.W.L. and deck levels line up. Many more bulkheads to go.
 

I’ve been busy with chores around the house, but work on the Providence continues.  I wanted to explain, in more detail, the process of creating the paper bulkheads. The plan comes with a view of the hull that is unusual (at least to me).  The left side of the view shows the hull from the stern, and the right side shows the hull from the bow. There are lines on the plan that shows the outline of each bulkhead.  So I made several copies of this plan. Then I cut out each bulkhead half twice, turn one half over and tape them carefully together.  
 

I know that the quality of this photo isn’t very good, but the plan is clearer in real life.  Next I glue the paper bulkheads and the paper keel former to a sheet of, in this case, basswood.
 

I am making some accessories. (Rudder, windlass etc.) I will continue planking of lower part of the starboard side later.

Go for it! This forum probably contains more nautical trivia, and nautical trivia wonks, than anywhere else on the internet. After all, isn't a ship model nothing more than a collection of nautical trivia when you get right down to it? Where else in the world do so few share so much about so little of interest to most other people!

It’s hard to find good books on the subject of Marlinspike Seamanship but there are two classics and a modern contender:
first and best is The Ashley Book of Knots. By Clifford Ashley and comprehensive on the subject of knots and cordage. Kinda pricy. But worth every penny!
 
then there are Hervey Garrett Smiths two books, which are realy the same book but one has additional material, The Art of the Sailor and The Marlinsspike Sailor. These books have the best illustrations of any knot book and cover several rope related craft projects that are fun and easy to build make or tie. Very inexpensive and if you are stropping blocks for fun, you’re going to LOVE this book. 
 
Finaly Brion Toss’s Complete Riggers Apprentice. Excellent text and illustrations covers every marlinspike concern any yacht owner could need to know about. This book will have sailing related material you won’t NEED to know but I include it because it’s got so much worthwhile info in it and a very good knot tying tutorial for the basic sailors knots.

Here’s Brion Toss taking you through the steps of tying the Round Seizing:
Here’s Clifford Ashley describing how to use a Spanish Windlass to close the neck on a rope strop.
Here’s Garrett Smith describing the use of the Marlinspike as a lever for putting the turns of a Round Seizing on supper tight.

High traffic areas would much more likely be darker than low traffic areas because the high traffic areas would have a lot more tar tracked over them from the sailors' feet.
 
The color of any unfinished wood depends upon the species of the wood and the degree of weathering. There wasn't ever any unfinished wood on ships and boats, save for teak decks, which came on the scene rather late and were, essentially, "sacrificial," in that they were holystoned (sanded) and washed down with saltwater regularly to keep them "bright" and bleached. Wood was always protected with something to preserve it, be that bitumen, pitch, pine tar, vegetable oils, and paints and varnishes. Most of the earlier coatings were dark and tended to result in a blackish color after a short while in service. 

I can’t let this go by without saying that this guys book is FULL of ridiculous rigging innacuracies and this example is probably the worst one. NOBODY is ever going to rig a purchase as this illustration indicates. As in NEVER, it simply doesn’t exist. The second block and tackle hanging under the existing block and tackle is preposterous. I put this very image on a Facebook rigging page , everyone had a laugh, and then Brion Toss weighed in on it, then put it on his own website. Honestly: this guys book is a trainwreck. 
Here’s Brion Toss commenting on it: http://briontoss.com/index.php/2018/03/14/extravagant-purchase/

battery powered Dremel tool

This will be my build of the Corel Resolution kit.  I was attracted to this kit based on a build I saw at  Model Ship Builder This is a Japanese site with many  very nice models represented.  I favor the natural wood/antique look with my models, so the style of this build serves as inspiration for what I hope to accomplish.

I have a rather long winded prologue that follows, so feel free to skip to the actual build description that should show up down there somewhere…
 
There has been some discussion here at MSW about the basis for this kit design.  It is pretty much agreed there was no actual ship of this configuration named HMS Resolution.
Resolution Solved
 
There are some plans from the National Maritime Museum of a sloop named Ferrett ( 1711 ), a 10-gun single-masted, cutter-rigged Sloop.. 

 
We also found some plans drawn by Howard Chapelle, that are clearly based on the NMM plans, embellished somewhat, but matching the basic lines perfectly as far as I can tell.
Corel appears to have used those lines, and embellished the ship even further, which I will discuss more as I go along, because I will not be incorporating some of those embellishments in my build.

There is more.
Chapelle drew another set of lines and wrote:
“ Ferrett and Sharke “ ,with  more detailed information pictured below.  I assume Chapelle had access to some resources I haven’t been able to identify, or he speculated based on convention at the time.
 
There are some plans of “ Shark ( 1732 ) “  from the NMM which say: “ A ketch-rigged 8-gun Sloop. “The lines are very similar to Ferrett, but not a 1 to 1 match.  A major, but not the only difference, being two masts, which fits the “ketch “ designation.
 

 
Corel calls the ship a ‘ cutter ‘ .
 I wondered what makes a sloop a “ sloop “, and found it was very ambiguous..  I settled on this from Wikipedia.
In part:
 “ A sloop is a sailing boat with a single mast typically meaning one headsail in front of the mast, and one mainsail aft of (behind) the mast.”
We also find:
 “ If the vessel has two or more headsails, the term cutter may be used, especially if the mast is stepped further towards the back of the boat.”
On the other hand there are a lot of ships called sloops, that have two or three masts.
I’m not uncomfortable with the designation of a cutter because the sail plan seems very similar to other cutters, as well as the notation on the NMM collection article which says :“ Cutter rigged sloop. “
 
The NMM plans say the length of the gun deck from rabbet to rabbet is 65 feet, while I calculate the scaled length of the Corel model at about 70..  I imagine the other dimensions will not match any better, but not an issue as far as I’m concerned.
 
Chapelle provides some deck details in one of his drawings that differ significantly from what Corel calls for.  Since there are no deck details on the NMM drawings of Ferrett, I would lean toward the Chapelle interpretation, but I may mix and match as I go along, and point it out when I deviate from the Corel plans.

The two large grates do not look typical to me, and I will have to see what I will do with that deck space.
 
 
 
I can’t resist the urge to also note, that in my research, I found a Sterling kit of Ferret on eBay..
 

It looks like it was probably based on the Chapelle drawings, but the deck plan seems a bit absurd with some sort of ship’s boat athwartship with no capstain or windlass.

 
I have also found two Ferret kits from the Ideal Model Co..   One plastic, and the other wood. They both appear to be based on the Chapelle drawings.


Continuing on, here is a brief rundown of the Corel kit contents.  If anyone has any questions, I will do my best to provide an answer.

The box art..
 

The framework is well done, but I have some modifications in mind, which I will document later.
 

There is a generous fittings package.
 

Unfortunately, the provided sailcloth is too heavy, and the flag set is un-usable..  I make my own rope, so the provided stuff is of no use to me.
 
There are eight sheets of well drawn plans.  The strip wood and dowels appear to be of good quality, but I will have to see what is usable as the build progresses.
 
(To be continued.)
 
 

Here’s some photos and my interpretation of what is going on......as you can see there are four elements visible forward of the mast. Your kit diagram shows only two.

That is as one has to think differently. The problem was not water coming over, the issue was to evacuate very fast the water that managed to come over. Big risk of instability and draining inside. 
 
Graham Moore describes in his diary nicely the situation, where the carpenter managed only in last second to knock of the lids of some ports to let all the water out after a big wave came over.
 
XXXDAn

I have been pretty lax with my work on the ship, weather has been pretty good so I have been spending my time outside.  But it has started to turn a little cooler so back to the project.
I built and mounted capstan bars.

 
The Bowsprit bits and Bow Pin rail were also mounted. The ships bell has been assembled but not yet mounted.


 
I have spent a lot of time trying to decide what to do with the breech line and gun tackle. The formal way would be to have a neat flat coil on the deck. When I visited the Niagara this Summer they just piled the extra rope on the deck next to the cannons. I decided to do a semi-formal design, a loose coil on the deck. Mounting the coils after the cannons are installed takes a bit of time getting everything in place without gluing all the lines together. I finished the port side and will be working on the starboard shortly.


 
Ron
 

I started the process by making extra copies of the reduced plans.  The dimension of each bulkhead is located on one plan. So I have to make several copies of that plan and parse out each bulkhead.  I wanted to have as many bulkheads as possible which should make planking easier. Then I matched the size of each bulkhead with the plan showing the boat along its center; this will become the keel former.  Once I was satisfied that the sizes matched, I cut out the keel former and each bulkhead. The first photo shows the paper bulkheads and their plan. The second is the plan of the center and the paper keel former.  Now the next step is to glue each paper part to a sheet of basswood and cut the pieces out. I’m sure there will be some alterations once the pieces are fitted together.