shipmodel

Thanks, Dan!  You know me - fortification is never too far from my fingertips 😀
 
I decided to play around with thin metallic wash coats of gold and silver for the continental figure of Europe.  As the wealthiest region of the world, I wanted her to have a shimmery, almost etherial quality.

The basecoats for the lower garb of both Europe and Asia are the same ModelMaster Random Tan.  For Asia, I went over this color with a brown enamel wash.  For Europe, I used a thinned application of Citadel red wash, followed by several applications of a very thin wash of bright gold.  The gold collects in the recesses in a very satisfying way.
 
Initially, I wasn’t happy that the folds of Europe’s blouse did not really show through the Ultra Marine.  That was why I decided to try a silver wash.  The pictures don’t really do these girls justice.
 
For the backsides, I was kind of forced to end the naturalistic painting of the figures along the original part line, where I filled-in with new styrene.  I wanted to follow the cyma-curves of the tafferal, but that just wasn’t feasible:

The black will fade into the black of the tafferal.
 
Well, that’s it for now.  I’ll be on and off vacation for the next several weeks.  I’m touch-up painting, and getting all of these elements ready for assembly.
 
I’ll post glamour shots of the whole ship, in a few weeks, when it’s all together.
 

Sorry.  My old eyes missed the open seats of ease.  Just a senior moment.
 
Dan

Hi Marc - 
 
Beautiful work on the gratings.  I bet there was a large dram of something fortifying when you finally breathed a sigh of relief at completion.
Will there be open seats of ease for the crew or just enclosed ones for the officers?
 
Dan

Hi Marc - 
 
Beautiful work on the gratings.  I bet there was a large dram of something fortifying when you finally breathed a sigh of relief at completion.
Will there be open seats of ease for the crew or just enclosed ones for the officers?
 
Dan

Tedious work? Yes, but the result is very satisfying, is it not?
 
Memo: let pointy things fall unimpeded by attempts to field them! hope you heal quickly, Marc.

The head grating was remarkably tedious to make, and I can honestly say that I did not enjoy any aspect of this process.
 
I began by making a series of styrene strips for the slat stock that followed the curvature of the headrails.  Each segment had to be cut to fit and placed by hand:

I used a drafting compass to get approximate measurements at each location, and then it was a lot of filing and test-fitting until each slat bridged the span perfectly.

After all slats were initially cemented with styrene glue, I brushed the whole assembly with thin CA - the Crazy Glue variety.  I like this stuff for certain applications.  It dries with some body to it, so it is good for something like this where it “keys” into the spaces between slats, and locks them firmly in-place.  This is important for the sanding/leveling process.
 
I made a semi-soft sanding block from sanding foam, and double-stuck a piece of 100 grit paper to its face:


Then I’d manipulate this sanding block with a pair of tweezers and a finger from my off-hand.  It took a bit of effort, but I faired out the surface without dislodging any slats:

In the white, the following angles show the ‘thwartship camber of the grating pretty well:

Finally, I could fix the new seats of ease in-place:

In an episode of “you couldn’t do it again if you tried,” I impaled my left hand with a pair of pointy tweezers that I dropped and tried to catch, as I was attempting to place these seats.  One tine went pretty deep!  Fortunately, my tetanus booster is up to date.

Now all I have to do is prime and re-paint.
 
Thank you all for stopping by!  More to follow..

Hi to everyone who is following this log, and thanks for your interest.
 
Druxey - I believe in catch and release.  She will come back, I'm sure.
 
Now that the hull structure was fully shaped, smoothed and primed, I turned to the main wales.  French practice, as derived from some of the contemporary models, was to have two strakes of dark, heavy planks run the length of the ship, separated by a strake of slightly thinner planking that was not as dark.
 
I selected cherry for the outer strakes and birch for the inner one, to match the woods used on the rest of the model.  The upper cherry strake was laid in sections along the line of the hull paint and glued down.  It will be pinned for security later.  A good deal of care was taken with this first strake as every following strake takes its curve from this one. 
 
Once I was happy with the first wale strake, the middle strake of birch was laid against it, then the lower strake of cherry.  Because of the curvature of the hull, the edges of the planks all had to be undercut so they could lay tightly against each other. 
 

 
The curvature of the hull also made clamping difficult.  The lower strake is substantially under the curve, especially at the bow and stern.  Since the bulwarks do not go down to the level of the wales, I could not get any direct clamping access.  I came up with a system of cantilevered scraps of wood to do the job.  Here at the bow the problem was not that acute, and you can see how the force from the spring clamp is exerted between the upper fulcrum and the load at the lower edge, even though it is around the curve.  It’s crude, but it worked.
 

 
At the stern the more extreme curve required raising the fulcrum and, at the aft end, even adding an angled caul to hold down the wood.
 

 
Each section of the wale was joined to its neighbor with a long scarf joint.  These were all marked out with a pattern cut into a plastic strip so they were consistent, cut on the band saw, and cleaned up by hand.  The forward end of the middle strake was as thick as the outer strakes, probably to reduce the chance of the anchor fluke catching an edge, much like the billboard did in later ships.  It was finished off with a decorative scallop, a detail again taken from another contemporary model.
 

 
Now that the wales had been set, the planking began.  I used birch veneer with a thickness of 0.025” – about ¾” in scale.  This had some good attributes, but required some new techniques.  Doing it this way owes more to the art of marquetry than the engineering of a ship.  The thinness of the planks means that they can be cut easily from a veneer sheet with the Preac using a fine toothed blade, and even shaped with scissors.  But they are somewhat delicate until they are glued to the hull.
 
They are also quite prone to warping if they come in contact with any moisture, including water based glues.  So to secure the planks I used contact cement.  I had used it before for the copper plates on models of later ships, but never on wood.  First I had to clear its use with the museum.  I found a study online from the Minnesota Historical Society which approved its use in conservation applications, so I was given the go-ahead.   
 
I thinned the glue with mineral spirits and painted a coat onto the hull and the backs of the planks.  When it was dry I colored the edges of the planks with an indelible marker.  The hull got a second coat of glue.  You can see it as the shiny area above the planking on the primed hull and the yellowish area below the wales.  When this second coat was almost dry, the plank was seated in place.  This gave me just a little wiggle room to adjust the fit of the plank yet still gave lots of adhesion.
 

 
Once the concept had been proved out, I planked the stern and counter so that the hull planks could run past their ends before being trimmed to fit. 
 

 
Below the wales the planking was carried down about an inch below the final location of the waterline.  The ends of the planks will be feathered into the solid hull and covered by the “white stuff” of the lower hull.
 

 
At the bow the planks do not all run into the stem, as in English practice.  Following the lead of Budriot, Petrejuus, and Frolich, the last five planks have hook scarfs and run up to the lower edge of the lower wale.   
 

 
Once these shapes had been resolved for the port side by trial and lots of error, I transferred the shapes to the starboard side.  A piece of translucent tape was laid over the planks and the outline of each plank was drawn on it.  Here I am doing plank #2.
 

 
Once the shape was drawn, the tape was removed and laid on a sheet of veneer.  This was done for all five planks.  It did not matter that the tape overlapped since all the tape would ultimately be removed.  I packed them against each other so there would be little wasted wood.
 

 
They were cut out with a new blade in the knife and fit together quite well.
 

 
With a little fine tuning they laid quite well against the starboard hull and match the lines of the port side planks.
 

 
The planks were continued up the hull, cutting out the openings for the gunports as I went. 
 

 
Just above the gunports is the line for the channel wale.  This is a wide and thick molding made from 1/16” thick cherry.  There also needs to be a lot of thinner decorative molding.  The moldings were made in the usual way.  I ground the profiles into a used hobby blade with a thin cutoff wheel in the Dremel.  Others use old hacksaw blades for this, but I have a lot of old knife blades and it lets me use a handle, which is easier to hold and helps with my trigger finger issues.  
 

 
After the profile was scraped into the stock the pieces were stained and set aside.  At the bow there is a significant curvature, so the sections of the moldings were soaked in hot water for about an hour then clamped to a handy form – a roll of masking tape.  When dry there was some springback, which left the piece matching the shape of the hull.
 

 
The curved pieces were soaked again briefly to soften them, then attached with neutral pH white glue and lots of clamps.   These clamps are some of my favorites.  They are plastic coated and have a firm but not hard grip, so they do not mark up the wood.  I used to find them in the paper clip section at Staples, but they have all but disappeared.  I found the last set in the kitchen section at Target, marketed as chip bag clips.
 

 
So here is the port side of the hull fully planked, but before establishing the waterline or installing all the treenails and metal spike fastenings for the planks.
 

 
The plans indicated a ¾” drop at the keel from the gripe at the bow to the sternpost.  The model was blocked and leveled and the waterline penciled in with a height gauge in the usual manner.  Below it the planks were feathered, filled, sanded, hardened, sanded some more, etc., etc., until they disappeared into the surface of the hull.  The line was masked with tape and several coats of off-white enamel sprayed on.
 
At this point the museum decided that the wales and moldings up to the channel wale should be painted black and the planking, but not the moldings, above the channel wale should be French blue.  This meant some tricky edge painting, and it covered up all the work I had done on the scarf joints in the wales.  Oh well . . . The silver lining was that I did not have to show plank fastenings under the paint, although the thinner moldings were pinned for security and strength. 
 
Here is how it looks today, with a paper pattern for the future quarter badge.
 

 

 
More soon.
 
Dan
 
 
 
 

Hi all.  Thanks for the likes and the compliments.  They helped me weather the weather this snowy winter.
 
The last time I showed the hull was at the end of January, and it looked like this.
 

 
Here is how it looked five weeks later, including getting snowed in for a week with the model in the shipyard.  This is how it got there.
 

 
After the bulwark pieces were cut, fitted and bent to shape, they were left to dry completely, then removed from the hull so the deck structure could be addressed.  After carefully levelling and squaring the building board and the model on it, the level was placed across the deck.   The symmetry and camber of the deck was read under the straight lower edge of the level.
 

 
To insure that the readings were accurate I drew the centerline and a series of perpendicular lines athwartships.  The level was placed on each line and high spots were identified then sanded down.  Using the lines and the edges of the basswood lifts as guides, the deck surface was smoothed and given the proper camber and sheer.
 

 
Now I prepared the model for its ultimate mounting.  It was flipped over and I drilled two ¾” holes into the centerline and about 2 inches deep, spaced well apart.  Into them I glued 1 inch long pieces of dowel that had been drilled out to accept 3/16” T-nuts on their upper end.  They were mounted so they came just proud of the surface of the hull.  Once the glue was dry they were sanded flush. 
 
The stem, keel and sternpost were cut and fitted.  They are 3/8” maple and secured with bamboo pegs into the hull.  No attempt to make scarf joints was made since the lower hull below the waterline will be shown with a coating of “white stuff” as teredo protection. Matching holes were drilled in the keel to allow 3/16” bolts or threaded rod to screw into the T-nuts to hold the model down to its ultimate cradle. 
 
Unfortunately I did not pause to record this work.  I was distracted by a very pretty assistant, a friend of my granddaughters, who showed some real interest in what I was doing.  To her I am Poppy Dan the Boat Man.  She was that third hand that comes in so handy from time to time.  Maybe she will keep at it.
 

 
She has just helped me install the aft bulwark pieces into their final homes.  They are glued into the rabbets in the lower hull and pinned with bamboo dowels.   Temporary internal supports are screwed to the deck to maintain the 13 degree tumblehome.
 
Next I turned to the gunports.  On my gun station practice piece I cut out the opening cleanly on the band saw.  This was impossible with the bulwarks, so the openings were roughed out with a zip-bit in a Dremel.  It made quick work of cutting the openings, but was prone to wandering, especially when it crossed one of the slots for the kerf bending of the bulwarks.  These  were squared up with a rasp and various files.
 
Unfortunately, my skills were not adequate to squaring and locating the openings precisely, nor smoothing them well enough to fit the inner lining tube.  I reasoned that if the lining tube would give me a square opening, then a larger tube would give me a square frame for the lining.  I put together a tube for the frames from 1/8” basswood which was sized so the lining tube slid neatly inside it.
 

 
Now a larger opening could be cut in the bulwarks and the frame located inside it.  The frame could be adjusted within the opening with shims before being glued in place. The inner lining tube was slipped through to insure that the frame was set vertically and at the correct height.
 

 
All of the port side gunports were done in this way.  The lining tube was used again for the starboard ports to make sure that they matched the port side in location and height.
 

 
Not only were the ports matched using the lining tube, but with the cannon that will ultimately be installed through them.
 

 
At the forward end of the bulwark pieces a slot was cut up its edge before it was installed.  A matching slot was cut in the aft edge of the forward bulwark pieces and a hardwood spline inserted across the joint to align the pieces and prevent future movement under the planking. 
 

 

 
The forward pieces were installed and pinned in place, the spline glued between the pieces.  The two forward gunport frames were cut, dressed and installed as before.  At the stern the transom piece was installed and blocks for the counter were cut, installed, and smoothed, ready to be covered by planking.
 
The upper two inches of the bulwarks all around were sanded to narrow the top edge to scale 9” and a hollow was sanded into the exterior of the aft bulwark at about the level of the gunports.  The effect is subtle, but the combination of the two operations created the shallow “S” curve and tapered top timber shape seen in the plans.
 
The entire exterior of the hull was filled with Durham’s Rock Hard Water Putty as were the kerf slots on the inside of the bulwarks in all areas that will be visible in the finished model.  Several rounds of sanding, filling, and more sanding were necessary to get the lower hull to a proper smoothness. 
 

 
When it was done the filled areas were hardened with Minwax Wood Hardener for strength and longevity.  When it was dry there was a final sanding and a first priming.  This revealed some more spots that needed to be filled, sanded and hardened.  After a few more rounds the hull was given a final priming ready for painting.
 

 
Looking at the plans it is clear that the lines of planking all take their curves from the line of the main wale.  I decided to define this with the top edge of the hull paint as a test of the location and sweep of the curve.  It was plotted from the plans and masked off above the line.  Several coats of off-white enamel were sprayed on, giving the lower hull a hard finish that will support the final color coats.   The demarcation line for the wale looked good .
 

 

 

 
Finally, the fun of planking and detailing the hull can begin.
 
Dan

Hi Michael -
 
Yes, another good idea.  I will play with them all the next time around. 
 
Moving ahead, I have been thinking about the methods and materials that I will have to use when it comes time to mount and rig the cannon.    Once the bulwarks are in place on the hull the tumblehome is going to make rigging the cannon difficult.    Then there are the deck and hull plank details that have to be worked out. . . . etc. . . etc.   I decided that making a mock-up of a gun station would help me work out some of the kinks.
 
The first issue was how to cut the gunports through the bulwarks and create the rebate for the lid.   I wanted them all to be the same size and square.  The method that worked for me was to create a square tube of 1/32” wood glued at the corners.   Here you can see it slid through a hole cut in the bulwark.  With a small piece of bulwark like this, I could cut it on the band saw before attaching it to the base plate.  On the model I will have to pierce each gunport and use a coping saw to cut the square hole.
 

 
Here it is from the side.  You can see that it runs parallel to the deck, so the lintel and sill will be level.  With it in this position I marked out the line where the box and the outer bulwark face met.  The box was removed and cut along the line.
 

 
The cut face was sanded, and the box reinstalled in the hole, but slid in just short of the outer face of the hole.
 

 
In the closeup you can see the even and smooth rebate formed this way.  The back side was marked, the box removed and cut down, then reinstalled and glued. 
 

 
When the glue was dry the back side was sanded smooth with the inside of the bulwark.  The rough edges and gaps will be covered by the bulwark planking.  All the gunports  should be identical if I slice similar sections from the same tube.   
 

 
Construction went very quickly.  Too quickly.  I forgot to stop and take photos.  Here is the completed gun station.  It represents one of the midships cannon in the waist with the high bulwark and the gangway overhanging the gun. 
 

 
If you look at the bulwark, you will see that it has been raised about 1/8" from the first few photos.  It reminds me not to take measurements from the plans without checking them against the rest of the details that have to fit.  This would have been a disaster if it happened on the actual bulwark piece. 
 
The deck layout is taken from the plans, with the raised binding strake used by the French set just outside of the grating.   While doing this I discovered that the gratings that I made earlier will have to be modified.   The French did not use the high coamings which the English did, and which I built.  The QAR would have had gratings set into the deck, but crowned even more than the deck camber/round up.  I took an extra piece of grating and sanded it down at the sides and across the back until it fit the curved profile. 
 
The deck is laid in holly, with birch bung covers.  I know that there are good arguments to be made for making them pronounced, and just as many for making them invisible.  I chose to take a middle course and try to make them visible, but not distracting. 
 

 
Here is the cannon rigged with its breeching rope turned into rings in the bulwark.  The rope was laid up from DMC cotton line to a diameter of 0.6” (scale 6 inch rope).  It was stained and sealed with Minwax.  There is still some fuzz, but I am working on a few solutions. 
 

 
The gun tackle are hooked to eyebolts.  The blocks are 4mm singles from Warner Woods West (6” in scale).  The hooks are tied into their strops and the block closest to the bulwark has the running line tied into its becket.  The line is J.B. Coates “Dual Duty Plus” that measures out to 0.015” This is a little thin, but I prefer the look to that of a thicker line. 
 
I could not find acceptable photoetched hooks on the market, so I made them from 0.020” iron wire.   The sequence below shows how I use my orthodontic pliers to bend the wire around to meet itself, then the eye that was formed is bent back to center on the shaft.   To make an eyebolt it is clipped off at this stage.  To make a hook I continue the bend to stage 3.  Moving the pliers out just a bit the wire is bent back toward the eye, then clipped off, opening the hook. 
 

 
The smallest hook I can make this way is just under 5 mm (7” in scale).  This is a bit large, but acceptably small, and the 50 that I needed were done pretty quickly. 
 

 
The outer bulwark planking was cut from birch veneer with the edges colored with indelible marker.  I experimented with contact cement as the adhesive.  I painted a thinned layer on the bulwark substrate and let it dry.  The planks were painted  but installed when the glue was still a bit tacky.  This gave me quick adhesion but just a little ‘wiggle room’ before it set.   The bad news was that the contact cement dissolved the indelible ink and threatened to spread it to the surface of the planking.  I will change to a water based marker in the future. 
 
Treenails were drilled and installed, then the planking was stained.  I used Golden Oak, but did not thin it enough and I think the color is too dark.  Neither the treenails nor the moldings show up to good effect. 
 
The gunport lid was made up as usual from several layers of wood glued with crossed grain.  The hinges are blackened brass strip pegged with iron wire.  The strips were left long beyond the back edge of the lid and were ground down to square cross section.  These pins were inserted and glued into holes drilled into the plank just above the lintel of the gunport.  Hinge barrels were made from short sections of blackened brass rod.
 
Small eyebolts were made and fitted to the outer corners and a bridled lifting rope tied.  The lead is through a hole in the bulwark above the gunport and belays to a cleat above the gun.
 

 
Of course, Pirate Pete had to show up to inspect the work.  He seems to fit well into the scene. 
 



 
 
He even looks the right size for the gangway, although he can use a rope railing on the caprail.
 

 
Overall, I would say that the two days spent on the gun station were well worth it for the time that will be saved over the long run, and the problems that will be avoided.
 
Be well
 
Dan
 

Hi all -
 
David, thanks for the link.  It was an interesting article and fills in some gaps in my knowledge of the history of the ship and Blackbeard.
 
Now it is time to turn to the armaments.  On any pirate ship model the cannon are going to be significant points of visual interest and the QAR is no different.  After Blackbeard’s capture of Le Concord, he took the armaments from his prior ship and added them to those already on his new flagship.  Contemporary accounts put the number of large cannon at 20, with an unknown number of additional smaller ones.  Archaeological evidence from the wreck site confirms this. 
 
Several six-pounder long guns have been recovered and conserved, as well as a few four-pounders, a one pounder and a swivel gun.  It was therefore decided to arm the QAR with 20 six-pounders on the gun deck, with four four-pounders on the quarterdeck and two one-pounders on the forecastle.  Ten swivel guns will be mounted on the rails along the quarterdeck and forecastle.
 

 
The cannon that have been examined turned out to be a mix of English, Swedish, and French manufacture, which is not surprising.  Blackbeard, like all pirates, would have obtained his armaments from whichever ships he had previously captured, which might themselves have had a mixture of cannon.  No carriages were recovered, but the decision was made to mount them on French style carriages since she was originally a French ship and possibly retained most of her larger cannon.  Here are drawings comparing the French and English styles.
 

 
As you can see, the basic differences are that 1) the French style has a solid base plate and bumper, which widens the footprint of the carriage a bit; and 2) the breaching rope runs through large holes in the cheeks rather than looping around the cascabel.   The rounded curve on the bottom of the English cheeks is not unique, and I have seen carriages with them on contemporary French models.
 
With so many cannon to build, I looked to the aftermarket to see if anyone had barrels that would scale out to the 6 ½ to 7 ½ foot length of the six-pounders that were recovered and still be historically accurate in shape and detail.  The length scaled out to between 2.16 and 2.5 inches.  I found that The Lumberyard (www.dlumberyard.com) had cast Brittania barrels that were just the right size.  They are listed as 32-pounders if you are working at 1:48, but the shape is correct for the smaller caliber at my larger scale.
 
I carefully examined enlarged photos of the barrels and was impressed with the detail and accuracy of the reinforcing bands, cascabel shape, and bore.  I ordered 40 of them, as well as 12 others for the smaller cannon.  They did not have acceptable barrels for the swivel guns, and I am still looking for them.
 
The Lumberyard also sells laser cut carriages to fit the barrels.  They were made in the English style, but I thought that I would try to modify them to the French style.  I knew that I could always scratch-build the carriages, but the pre-cut ones would save a lot of effort if they could be made accurate enough and of the right style.  Here is how it went:
 
This is how the barrels and the carriages came.  The carriages come four to a sheet, which worked out perfectly.  The barrels and carriages for the smaller guns are identical in everything but size.  A lot of thought and care went into designing the carriage pieces, including providing two different sizes of wheels/trucks.  A tip of the hat to Dave Stevens.
 

 
And here are the pieces for one cannon after being separated from the laser cut sheet.  They came out easily and a little help with a sharp blade was only needed once or twice for all the pieces.
 

 
The barrels are excellent castings with no flash and almost no evidence of the mold line.  But whatever blackening method was used did not ‘take’ on the metal.  It was uneven, crusty, and could be rubbed off with a finger.  A bit of work with a dry paper towel took the blackening off down to almost bare metal.
 

 
To re-blacken them, the contract specifications call for chemical blackening of all metals rather than paint.  I first tried a product called Blacken-It, which was a disaster.  The metal took on a grey, chalky surface, while an unidentified tan substance precipitated out of the solution.  I had much more success with Pewter Black.  I experimented and found that I had to use a fairly strong solution, much stronger than the corresponding solution of Brass Black that I use for brass.  The surface that was produced was more uniform, but some of the blackening could still be rubbed off if I put some effort into it.  To seal it several coats of clear matte finish were sprayed on and the end results were acceptable.
 
Here you can see the barrel at the top as it was received.  The next one down has all of the blackening removed with a powered toothbrush.  Below it is the barrel after the trunnions have been cut down and reblackened.  Finally, the finished barrel after clear coating.  Only the vent hole has to be drilled.
 

 
The carriage conversion started with making the base plates and bumpers.  The tapered base plate was cut on the table saw with the miter gauge set to 5 degrees.  The bumper was cut, attached with PVA glue, then crowned using a disc sander.
 

 
The cheek pieces were sanded smooth and the burn marks from the laser were sanded off.  Holes were drilled for the eyebolts and the breaching rope through the side of the cheek, and holes for the bolts holding the cheek pieces together were drilled down on two of the steps of the cheek.  A simple jig was fashioned that held the base plate up so the axle notches would be clear, and located the cheeks against the bumper.  The vertical cross piece at the front held everything square.  A clamp made from a bent hair clip held it all together as the glue dried.
 

 
Axles and wheels were next.  As they came out of the wood sheet, the axles were square.  They needed to be rounded to fit the holes in the trucks.  To do this I found a piece of thick walled brass tube with the correct inside diameter.  Four teeth were cut and filed into one end and a sleeve was put around it as a guide and depth stop.
 


 
This was chucked into the bench top drill press and the ends of the axles were fed into it from underneath.  There was surprisingly little resistance as it cut, and I was able to control the workpiece with just my hand.
 

 
It made short work of the job, and much neater than I could have done by hand.
 

 
The trucks from the laser cut sheet were modified to make them look as if they were made up of four half circles bolted together with six metal bolts.  The effect is subtle, but noticeable if not done.  Next to them are several of the eyebolts located in a store here in NYC.  The eye is 0.095” o.d., which scales up to 3 ½”, which is quite accurate.  I could have wished that the wire was a bit thicker, but the difference is hard to see.  At $2 per hundred it sure beats making them all by hand.
 

 
A test cannon was done to see that everything worked, and a detailed instruction sheet was written up, then all the carriage pieces were packed up and given into the hands of JerseyCityFrankie, who agreed to assemble all the carriages.  He did an excellent job, as you can see from some of his progress photos.
 



 
Frankie also shaped and installed the quoin wedges.  The handles are brass belaying pins treated with Brass Brown solution.  All that was left to do when I got the completed carriages back was to make and install the capsquares and their fittings. 
 

 
I started with a strip of 3/32” x 1/64” brass and developed a jig to shape it.  The strip is held between the guide strips and pushed up to meet the stop on the right.  The die has a short piece of steel rod set into it which matches the groove cut into the base piece and is the same diameter as the trunnions. 
 

 
The steel rod is placed over the groove.  With a few taps of a hammer the curve is bent into the brass.  The first few tries showed me that if the base piece remains flat the short end of the strip does not bend flat but springs back a bit.  To correct this the end of the plate was angled and some finishing strikes with the die held at an angle took care of the problem.
 

 
Two holes for the eyebolts were pre-drilled in the capsquare while it was still on the strip, then it was parted off.  You can see in the inset that the curve is not as rounded as I might have liked, but the difference is not noticeable in the finished piece.
 

 
The capsquares were chemically blackened and tack glued in position.  The pre-drilled holes were extended down into the wood of the cheeks.  Two U-bolts with one very short leg were bent and installed.  In the inset you can see that the one toward the rear of the carriage replicates the visible portion of the eyebolt that hinges the capsquare, while the other replicates the eyebolt for the pin that holds it down.
 

 
The final detail was the pin and chain for each capsquare.  Some very fine brass chain with 36 links per inch was blackened, and bits of thin wire inserted in links about half an inch apart.  The wire was bent back on itself and pinched together to form a cotter-pin shape.  One pin was left long and inserted into a hole just below and behind the trunnion, while the other was cut short and slipped into the eye of the forward bolt.  The gun is now ready to be mounted and rigged.
 

 
And here it is with my scale figure for comparison.  I think it came out quite well and will dress up the waist of the model nicely.
 

 
Actually, there were two types of carriage that were made.  On the finished model only the eight guns in the waist will be visible.  These are the only ones that needed to be fully detailed.  However, just to be safe I detailed the four cannon that might be partially visible under the overhanging quarterdeck and forecastle.  The remaining eight will only have the end of the barrel and the forward face of the carriage visible.  For these no bumper was installed and the capsquares were replaced with simple U bolts.  The trucks were replaced with wooden chocks that raise the cannon to the correct level and will provide enlarged glue surfaces when the cannon are installed.
 

 
So here is a complete set of all the six-pounder cannon for one of the models.    The remaining small cannon will join them shortly.
 

 
This was a longer entry than usual, so feel free to ask if I have not fully explained any of the materials or methods.
 
Be well
 
Dan
 
 
  
 
   
 
 
 
 
 

Hello again –
 
I got some time during the football games to write up the next installment.  I hope you enjoy it.
 
With the grating sheets made, I made the coamings.  My method here also relies on the table saw and uses no measuring with a ruler.  This time it is based on the specific grating to be framed.  I make the coaming to fit the grating rather than the other way around.  I get a much tighter fit that way.  
 
Here is a piece of grating that has been cut from a sheet.  The edges have been sanded flush and it has received a first finish coat to protect it from any glue stains.  It looks square, but it is slightly longer than it is wide.
 

 
As mentioned, the grating material is poplar.  For contrast I selected cherry for the coaming and cut stock 1/8” x ¼”.  Four pieces of coaming stock were cut longer than each side of the grating piece.  They will be joined with half lap joints at the corners.
 

 
The table saw blade height is set so cuts made from the top and bottom of the coaming stock just meet in the middle.
 

 
One end of each piece has a half lap cut into it.  The length does not matter as long as it is longer than the thickness of the coaming stock.  First, the shoulder was cut using the rip fence as a depth stop.
 

 
Then the lap was made by making multiple passes moving away from the fence to nibble away the unwanted wood.
 

 
A spacer strip was located that was wider but shallower than the lap that was cut.
 

 
Using the spacer and the grating piece the fence was set for the shorter sides.
 

 
A sacrificial stick supports the coaming piece as the shoulder for the second half lap is cut.
 

 
The coaming piece was turned around and the unwanted wood from the second lap was nibbled away.
 

 
The matching short piece was done, then the saw was reset and the longer pieces were done in the same manner.
 

 
Using the grating piece itself to hold the pieces square, they were test fit, adjusted as needed, assembled and glued.  When the glue was dry, support pieces were glued to the inside edges.  Doing only two sides is enough.  If you want the grating to be removable just make sure that the supports are glued only to the coaming.  Here I have glued the grating in place permanently. 
 

 
The corners were trimmed, the piece was turned over and sanded smooth, and all edges and corners were eased.  The bottom edges are left raw and will be sanded to the curve of the deck when installed.   The piece was finished with matte varnish.  
 

 
And here is the set of three for one of the QAR models.  In the insert the lap joint is clearly visible.  The joints were also treenailed for strength.   Two diagonal corners of each coaming were drilled but not filled.  During assembly longer treenails will go through them and into the deck for security.  A length of treenail stock is packed with the set ready for final assembly.
 

 
As you can tell from the brevity of the text, this all goes quite quickly with a some practice.  All of the work making the six hatches and gratings took only a little more than a day.  Doing the photographing and writing these build log entries took longer.
 
I hope that this was instructive and provides another technique to add to your tool box.
 
Be well
 
Dan
 

Hello and Happy New Year to all -
 
This past month has been full of grandkids and holidays that got in the way of what is the most important thing in life - ship modeling
 
I did manage to complete both sets of the masts, which are packed away until rigging time.  The fore
 

 
The mizzen
 

 
And the Bowsprit and jib boom
 

 
Meanwhile, I have been studying the rigging diagrams and reading Anderson and others.  The first question came when I realized that some of the lines, including the halyards, run from the mastheads to belaying points on deck at the base of the mast.  To do this they have to pass through the platform of the top.  Budriot's plans and the tops that I made from them have no openings aft of the masthead. 
 

 
I figured that I could solve this in one of two ways - I could simply drill some holes for the lead of the lines, or I could take apart the tops and remove some of the planking to make a larger opening, a much more complicated procedure.  I consulted with some knowledgable modelers including Rob Napier, and Bob Giles sent me some photographs of the tops of the St. George (1701) model at Annapolis. 
 

 
I also looked at the photographs of the model of Le Sans-Pareil (1757) in the Musee de la Marine.  All of them agreed that removing the planking was the only way to go.  So, with some anxiety, I pried off the trestletrees and crosstrees from under each of the tops.  Fortunately they came away with only one slight greenstick fracture that was easily repaired.  The cleats were shortened, then I used a razor saw to cut through the plank aft of the lubber hole.  The enlarged opening was cleaned up with a blade and sandpaper before the trestletrees and crosstrees were cleaned up and re-attached.  Here they are.  
 

 
Next, the gratings and coamings.  I have worked out a new way to do them which gives me better results in this larger scale.
 
Be well
 
Dan  

Thanks for all the nice compliments. 
 
Michael -  I will trade some of my carving skills for your metalworking expertise.  I just finished reading your log of the Bristol cutter and was blown away. 
 
Ken -  yes, the jaw is the major problem, but the width of the eye sockets also seemed too broad.  Here is the face after narrowing.  The lion is coming along nicely, but has a ways to go.  If my artistic skills are up to it, I want to get a ferocious expression, but that may be hoping for too much. 
 


 
After putting the lion to bed for a while, the next independent pieces that I turned to were the mast tops.  By 1710 in France they were circular but without the earlier raised rim.  They are built with the usual overlapping plank construction, a flat rim and radial cleats.  Here are Budriot’s plans, which are almost identical to Lees’ and Marquhardt’s.  This is the main top, but the fore is identical, other than being scaled down just a fraction.  The mizzen top is smaller, but the construction method for all three is identical.
 

 
To build them, the first piece to be made was the square filler piece.  It is just a piece of 1/8” thick scrap, sized to the lubber’s hole on the plans.  The cryptic symbol on this one is left over from its use as a jig for a previous model.  I cut this carefully on the Preac, as it will guide the rest of the construction.
 

 
The planks are 1mm thick birch, cut to width and long enough to span the diameter of the top.  On the real ship they would have been cut thick then carved down to make the lap joints, leaving a raised portion in the center.  Instead, I took a piece of the planking and cut sections the length of one side of the filler guide.  These were then glued to the center of the planks with the edges matched up.  When the glue was dry one edge was colored with a black marker.  A completed one is just above the filler guide piece.
 
The cleats in the lower left are mass produced since the fore and main tops take 16 each and the mizzen top takes 12.  I cut a rectangle of 1mm cherry sheet with the grain going in the short dimension.  Then I glued another strip on top of one edge with an overhang equal to the width of the rim with the grain also running in the short direction.  Now I could part off 1/16” wide cleats with a narrow blade in the table saw until I ran out of material. The cleats are left raw at this point and will be shaped and tapered later.
 
To start the platform construction, four of the lap planks are positioned around the filler guide.  Two of them (top/bottom) have the thick section turned up and the other two (left/right) have the section facing down.  They are glued at their overlaps and clamped tightly around the filler guide.
 

 
When they are solid it is easy to lay in the other down facing planks and glue them to the underneath planks and to each other.  After the clamps are removed the platform was flipped over and the remaining planks were glued across the first sets of planks.
 

 
The center of the filler piece was located and the outer perimeter of the top was drawn with a compass.  This was cut close on the band saw and left rough, to be taken down to the line on a disc sander after the rim is installed.
 
With the compass still set for the perimeter size, an arc was drawn on a rectangle of the cherry sheet, this time with the grain running the long way.  The compass was closed the width of the rim and a second curve was drawn inside the first but with the same center.  Three more pieces of cherry were stacked under the first and glued together at the upper corners and lower center only, not where the rim pieces will come from.
 

 
The inside curve was cut on the band saw then smoothed to the line with a sanding drum in the drill press.  The outer curve was cut large, to be sanded down after installation on the platform.  After completing the second cut the pieces separated automatically.  The rim pieces were cut to one quarter of the circumference of the platform using the plans to make the initial cuts, the fine tuning being done during assembly.
 
With the platform, rims and cleats made, I assembled them with neutral pH PVA glue.  Care has to be taken to see that the cleats are equally spaced and the rim pieces match up to each other, but otherwise construction is pretty straightforward.
 
The shafts of the cleats were made overlong so their tails extended into the lubber’s hole.  These tails were clipped off and the shafts tapered from the rim to the hole with a flap-wheel sander.
 
All of the corners and edges were cleaned up and rounded with a sanding stick then the top was given its first coat of finish.
 

 
Here I used Floquil clear flat, but with a few drops of my stain mixture (50% Natural, 25% Cherry, 25% Early American) added.  The finish enhanced the color of the cherry while the light stain brought the tone and hue of the birch into the same color family.  It even slightly enhanced the grain of the birch, as if it were older wood.  This is exactly the effect that I was looking for.  I think that I will be using this color palette a lot as the build continues.
 
The trestletrees and crosstrees were cut to length from 3mm x 6mm pear.  I used the Preac to cut the notches in the trestletrees to accept the crosstrees.  Tapers were sanded on all eight arms as shown on the plans, then they were installed on the underside of the platforms.
 

 
Holes for the crowsfoot lines were drilled through the forward rim.  I spaced them a bit closer together at the center to account for the anticipated narrowing effect as the top curves away from the euphroe.  I’ll see how that works out when it is rigged.
 
The elongated holes for the upper deadeye strops were roughly cut by drilling two holes side by side then using the drill bit to nibble out the wood between them.
 

 
Finally, I indicated the nails that hold the two layers of planking together where they overlap.  As with the boats, these were indicated by drilling shallow holes with a #80 (0.012”) drill.  A wash of stain mix was flooded over the holes and immediately wiped off.  It darkened the holes without changing the color of the planks.  This is a technique that I will use again as well.
 

 
There will be additional holes to mount a number of blocks under the tops, but I have not studied the rigging plan enough yet to locate them.  For now, here are the six tops ready for storage till needed.
 

 
I'm up in the country this weekend, so hopefully I will soon have some progress to share on the hulls.
 
Dan
 
  

Hi all –
 
Thanks for your comments and suggestions.  I plan to incorporate them into the second iteration of the boat which will be built when the hardwood strips arrive from the supplier.
 
When we left the shipyard the hull of the boat had been fully planked with the shutter planks fitted on both sides.  The hull had been marked out in pencil for the rib locations in preparation for the nails which would have fastened the planks to the ribs.  Here you can see the lines for all of the ribs that sit square to the keel as well as for the two cant ribs, drawn on the port side of the hull.
 

 
For the fasteners I had to find a way to make them look right without devoting an excessive amount of time to the task.  Since there are 11 planks on each side, 25 rib or transom/stem lines that the planks cross, and two fasteners per crossing, the math says that there have to be 1100 fasteners for the exterior of each boat.  Add in some more for the interior work and you can see the magnitude of the problem. 
 
The original boat probably had the planks nailed to the ribs, with the ends peened over to clinch them.  I experimented with a plank/rib mockup and could never get the holes in the planks to come through the ribs in the proper places.  Instead, I decided to drill the holes through only the planks and worry about indicating the nails on the inside of the ribs later.
 
I first drilled all the holes.  Here you can see how there are two in each plank in an offset pattern.  I used a 0.012” drill, which scales up to 1/2”, which would be about right.
 

 
At first I tried inserting pieces of annealed iron wire into the holes, clipping them short, painting them with glue, then filing the tops flush with the face of the planks.  This was incredibly time consuming and fiddly.  I then decided to try the technique of leaving the holes empty, sanding the planks to fill the holes with sawdust, then painting on a finish to hold in the sawdust.  This looked good and I don’t believe that anyone can tell the difference with this short cut.
 
  *   *   *
Aarrrgh, scalawag that ye are!  Ye’ll not be taking any modern short cuts with me boats.  I be Dread Pirate Peter, and I’ll have yer guts fer garters if ye dinna do a manly and proper piece of work. 
 

 
No, no, it will be OK.  Really it will.  Here, this is what the nail holes look like after filling and staining.  I have had several critical people, including my wife, compare them to the ones with the iron nails in them and no one could tell the difference.  In fact, the slightly spread discoloration of the wood grain closely mimics the way old wood stains when a nail rusts into it.
 

 
*   *   *
Tis all very well and comely, but rest ye not on yer laurels, lest ye rest on yer ****.  I be watching ye. . .
 
*   *   *
Soooo, with that out of the way, I turned to fitting out the interior.  First the missing ribs were bent and fitted into the interior.  These were the two cant ribs at the bow and the aftmost rib at Station 21 that had been left off to make planking easier. 
 
The first interior piece to be installed was the tapered central plank of the flooring.  It strengthens the keel and is the location for the lifting rings and mast step.
 

 
To each side the rest of the floor planks were installed.  They are not tapered but fit against the tapered center plank due to the curvature of the hull.  They are held in place while the glue dries by inexpensive hair clips from the cosmetics section of the drug store.  They initially look like the one at the lower left, but are easily bent by hand to the shape in the lower right.  This now allows them to reach around the hull to apply pressure at the tips.
 

 
Next to be installed are the sheets, the planked platforms at the bow and stern.  They will appear in later photos, but I did not take pictures as they were being built.  Construction is straightforward.  Planks were glued to a pair of battens underneath to make a flat sheet larger than needed.  A paper pattern is cut to fit the space and the wood sheet is cut to that shape.  The edges are bevelled to match the curve of the hull and it is glued in place to the ribs.
 
Now the thwart stringers are installed.  I first bent one piece of  stripwood to shape and glued it in on the starboard side at the height indicated on the plans.  The matching strip was bent and trimmed for the port side and held in place temporarily while I balanced pieces of stripwood across from side to side and set perpendicular to the keel.  These are known in woodworking as ‘winding sticks’ although I don’t know why.  Looking across their tops you can easily see any variation from side to side and any tipping compared to the centerline and the edge of the sheets.  Once I was satisfied with the levels, the port stringer was glued in place. 
 

 
The plans show square section wood pieces running side to side just under the thwart stringers near the bow and stern.  They have a short section in the center that has a round cross section.  I do not know what they were for, but perhaps the rounded section would have a halyard led around it when the sail was raised, sort of a non-turning sheave.  Whatever they are they were shaped, fitted and glued in.
 
The lifting rings and mast step were located and attached to the central floor plank.  I also drilled the nail holes for the floors and sheets as I did for the hull planks.  My one regret is that I did not do this for the ribs at this point when they were exposed.  It turned out to be too crowded later – a detail that will be corrected on the next boats.
 
The thwarts were cut from 1mm thick stock, with the middle one being wider in the center and having added knees.  It holds and supports the metalwork that acts as the mast partner.  This fitting is made from brass strip which is chemically blackened, then glued and pinned with wire nails to the edge of the thwart.  A decorative beading was scribed into the edges of the thwarts, then they were installed on top of the stringers with spacers between them.
 

 
Unfortunately, once the thwarts were installed it was clear that they were sitting too high in the boat.  No rowers could have sat on them and had their feet reach the floor for leverage.  Here the flexibility of the Lineco glue came to my rescue.  With the tip of a #10 blade I was able to pry up the thwarts from the stringers and then remove the stringers without any damage to the hull or ribs.
 

 
The stringers were lowered 6 scale inches and reinstalled, followed by the thwarts, which looked much better after the adjustment.  I went back to the plans and determined that the problem was there and not in my measuring or building.  Just one of those problems that had to be built to be discovered.
 

 
Fitting out the rest of the interior is self-explanatory.  Working up from the thwarts the stern seats were planked up over battens.  They sit on top of the thwart stringers and the aftmost thwart.  The foremost thwart has a pair of knees set on top.
 
Square section stringers were fitted and glued to the inner sides of the sheer strake so their tops matched, and were strengthened at the bow by a breasthook and at the stern by two transom knees.  Thole blocks were set on top of the sheer strakes and stringers and will be drilled for the thole pins to be added later.  The locations of several of these had to be adjusted from the plans, which did not have them at a consistent distance from the associated thwart.
 

 
The only difficult woodworking came at the bow where the curved and carved fairleads on either side of the stem were joined with a double-dovetailed cross-support.
 


 
With the boat all but complete the rudder was fashioned to match the plans.  Two planks were fitted and tapered, then cut to the proper profile.  The pintle straps were made from brass strip, pinned through with iron wire and chemically blackened.  The tiller is brass bar that was tapered and blackened, with an epoxy bulb at its tip.
 

 
Top and bottom gudgeons were fashioned from blackened brass strip.  The upper one simply slipped into a hole drilled into the aft face of the sternpost, while the lower one had to be bent in several directions before being pinned against the sides of the sternpost.  It only remained for the thole pins to be installed and the boat was complete.
 

 
*    *    *
So ye think ye be quite clever, do ye? Quite the boat builder?  I be the judge of that.  I also bring me great-great-great grandson Peter who says he has worked with ye before.  He be a great galoot of a puppy, but he be useful to judge yer work.  He set up this temporary mast and I grant ye that said boat be mightily even side to side.
 

 
He sits well in the stern and nothing pulls my eye to say that he could not reach and steer the tiller, should he take it into his head to do some work, the lazy lout that he be.
 

 
It shivers me innards to grudge ye my approval, but i’ faith I canna find much to dislike.  But be warned that I will no be put off with such minor success.  Ye must do as well or better, or feel me wrath fall upon ye like to the Trump of Doom.
 


 
Well, there you have it.  The second boat will be made from hardwoods now that most of the construction problems have been identified, although I am sure that new ones will appear and demand solutions.  Those may be harder to find while looking over my shoulder all the time; Dread Pirate Peter seems to have very high standards, and a very short temper.
 
Till then, be well.
 
Dan

Good day to all -
 
This segment will be a bit of a detour from where I left the hull construction last time.  The sheer size of the model means that I have to work on it in the basement of the family’s weekend house near Albany, NY.  There is no way that I can fit it into the shipyard in the Brooklyn apartment, which is a converted walk-in closet.  I haven’t been up to the house in several weeks, so I am working on smaller pieces here in the city that can be added later.  The first of these are the ship’s boats.  As always, there are half a dozen good ways to get the job done.  Here is mine.  The recitation is quite long, so I have broken it up into two parts.  The first will cover the shaping and planking of the hull, and the second will finish with the fitting out of the interior.
 
The Mercure drawings that I am working from include plans and schematics for two boats, a large launch (boat 7) and a sleek pinnace (boat 6).   Here I will be building the launch.  The drawings had been sent to me as .tif files, so it was easy to drop them into Photoshop and start manipulating them.
 
 
 
First I used the rule stick in the hand of the little gnome dancing on the page to scale the drawing to the size of the model.  I cropped and copied the forward and aft station lines portions of the plans and moved them to a new blank image.  Identical square outlines were superimposed around the two drawings to give them the same registration planes and centerlines. 
 
Once I was happy that everything was square and aligned correctly they were copied repeatedly to fill a page sized image and printed out several times to get one image for each of the 21 stations shown on the profile and cross section plans.  These were cut apart and glued with spray mount to squares of 1/8” wood sheet.
 

 
The outline at each station was cut out with a notch for the keel and shoulders at the sheer.  The three in the upper right are standing up because they have already had spacers glued to their back sides like the one in the upper left.  These are used with the building board, which is marked out for the centerline and each numbered station.
 

 
The station formers are glued to the board and to each other one at a time with a top spacer used to keep them at the proper distance and an engineer’s square to see that they are perfectly vertical.  
 


 
While the glue was drying on the developing stack of formers the two strongbacks (stem-keel-sternpost) were cut out.  It is somewhat weaker to do it this way, as you end up with cross-grain on the stem and sternpost, but it is faster, and this boat is something of a test bed for techniques.  For the same reason, the wood used is almost exclusively basswood.  It is easy to work, glues well, and when stained correctly is almost impossible to distinguish from a close-grained hardwood. 
 
The portion of the plans showing the longitudinal cross section was mounted on an 1/8” wood sheet which was then glued to a second sheet, with the glue placed only where the wood would be chucked.  The outline of the strongback was cut out on the band saw, leaving a glued central piece to be cut last.  This yielded two identical pieces that came apart as soon as the last cut was completed. 
 



 
Here is the completed stack of formers on the building board with one of the strongbacks temporarily set up in the notch for the keel.  It goes without saying that once the stack was fully glued it was shaped and faired with sanding rods to get smooth curves from bow to stern.
The strongback is held vertically with small blocks at the bow and stern that sandwich the tops at the centerline.  Two transom pieces were taken from the plans, laid out and cut as before, and each was test fit into the notch cut for it at the base of the sternpost.  The location of the forward edge of the plank rabbet was determined and marked out on the strongback, then the small extensions that had been left above the stem and sternpost were trimmed until it snuggled down into the keel notch at the proper level. 
 

 
The strongback was removed and the rabbet was carved along the line with rotary bitts, then finished with files and rifflers.   The transom was planked on the outside and glued in place against the sternpost.
 


 
Now I fit the ribs to the station formers.  It was a happy fact that Budriot drew the boat with a rib at each station line and a station line at each rib.  To make room for them I had cut out the station formers a little inside the line, and the sanding and fairing had further reduced the breadth of the stack.  The ribs were fairly thin in any case, made from wood strips milled to 1mm x 2mm (about 1.5” x 3” in scale”).  These were soaked in water to soften, then bent around each former and wired in place.  No glue was used.
 

 
All of the ribs were wired in place except the aftmost one at Station 21.  Leaving it off gave me a little more flexibility in fairing the planks to the transom.  The strongback was replaced in the keel notch of the formers and the initial two planks were shaped.   
 
The first was the sheer strake.  From the plans it measured out to exactly ¼” in width and was left full width its entire length.  A strip of basswood that width and 1/16” thick was soaked for a few minutes, then shaped first at the bow, where the tip was cut and angled to fit into the rabbet.  The forward few inches were steam bent using an Amati plank bender (the one that looks like a soldering iron with a nautiloid shaped head).  It is 25 years old and still works a treat.  Using the shoulders cut into the formers at the sheer the plank was edge bent to match the curve before being clamped and glued to each rib and the transom.
 
The garboard strake against the keel was similarly fitted and glued.  However, when I tried to impose the required twists into a basswood plank it repeatedly splintered.  I therefore used pau marfim, a California hardwood.  It is also ¼” wide for most of its length but flares to about twice that at the sternpost.  To accommodate this, a tapered plank was pieced in from Station 15 to the sternpost.  When I was happy with the look of the shape it was clamped and glued to the ribs.  Here is what they looked like with most of the clamps removed.
 



 
A word here about stains and glues.  Before any piece was installed it was given a staining with a mixture of ½  clear Minwax wood stain which they call Natural, ¼ Early American and ¼ Cherry.  I find this combination the best to reduce any splotchiness in the basswood and makes basswood resemble boxwood or one of the lighter cherry varieties, a look that I like a lot.  However, the stain is a bit oily, so the wood has to be well wiped and has to dry for a while before normal PVA glues will hold well. 
 
As for glue, I use a pH neutral white glue made by Lineco which I used to get from an art conservation supply house.  It sets up fast and holds well, yet is still flexible for an extended time, which will come in handy later.  Now I get it through Amazon where it is competitively priced with carpenters’ wood glues.
 
This process was repeated for the second sheer plank and the first broad strake against the garboard, but these had to be tapered to fit at the bow.  I knew from test fittings with strips of paper that there was almost exactly half the space between the garboard and sheer strake at the bow than there was between these planks amidships.  Therefore the next two planks were tapered for their forward three inches to that dimension.  Holding the plank to the formers and letting it find its own best fit, it was evident that the tapering on the second sheer strake should come off the edge that mated with the sheer strake, while the broad strake should taper on the garboard side. 
 
After the bulk of the wood was removed the edge was sanded to a fair curve.  This spiling was all done by eye, with the curve examined from every angle and refined as needed on this and every successive plank.
 
Once acceptably shaped the planks were stained, then caulking was indicated by coloring the uncut edge of the plank with an indelible black marker.  The planks were bent to final shape, fitted, glued and clamped in place.
 

 
With two strakes at the keel and two at the sheer, the cage of ribs had a good deal of strength and rigidity.  Now all of the wires were pulled out and the developing hull was removed from the formers.  I must have done a clean job with the glue because I didn’t have to pry it loose at any point.
 

 
Subsequent strakes were processed in a similar way.  For clamps I used bulldog clips that had a handle piece from a second clip fitted into the top of the clip.  A modified clip was used on every other former to hold the plank to the ribs as the glue dried. 
 

 
Here is what the hull looked like with 8 of the 11 strakes in place.  At this point the remaining space was divided into thirds as you can see from the pencil marks on the ribs.  This would be filled with two standard width planks and one custom fit ‘shutter plank’ that closed in the hull.
 

 
Here is one completed side.  The shutter plank location was selected to lie just under the curve of the chine of the hull, making it less visible than any other spot.  It is the fourth from the keel.  It is slightly wider than the other planks and flares at the stern to fill the larger space.
 

 
While it was on the formers the location of each rib was penciled onto the planks in preparation for the ‘nails’ holding the planks to the ribs.
 

 
Once the other side was closed up the hull was removed from the formers.  I think the method worked quite well and resulted in a hull that is strong, symmetric, and gives a convincing appearance of an actual boat structure.  The white plastic figure in the corner is useful to judge scale appearance and will appear again.
 

 
Spiling the planking by eye in this way is an acquired skill, but not difficult if each plank is critically examined and adjusted as needed.  The final hull has a nice run of planking that tapers smoothly to the stem and matches, port to starboard, and even has the little variations in width that a real boat does.
 


 
In the next installment I use the penciled lines to drill the nail holes for the more than 1100 fasteners used for the hull planks.  Then I fit out the interior and finish the boat.
 
As always, critical review by the eyes of my peers is requested.  This is even more so in this case since the boat is the first generation attempt and, despite the work and time invested, may not make the final cut.
 
Looking forward to hearing from all.
 
Dan
 

Keith - 
 
I'll be following along for the sheer joy of watching you work and following along your thoughts.
This will be tremendously entertaining and informative, as always.
Thanks for sharing the journey.
 
As for the hailing port - to my eye the name is incised into the transom.
If the hailing port is unknown at this point, or can be changed later, it would make more sense to paint it on just before launching.  Yes?
 
Dan

Fore and main topsail yard, fore and main topgallant yard - this completes the runnig rigging.

Equipment of the fore yard - Blocks for the sheets and clewline - Poulies d'ecoute et Poulies de cargue de point
At the moment I am busy with the equipment of the fore yared. Basically it is the same work as for the main yard, but everything a bit smaller. In order to avoid repetitions of the previous reports, I will try to go into one or the other manufacturing detail in more detail in this section of the work.
I tried to determine the length of the strops for the yard blocks with a thin brass wire, as shown below in the example for the sheet blocks.

 
When making the strops, the areas of the eye splices are served first, and then the entire length is served between them.
The round seizings, as shown in the following illustration, I try to lay the turns as neatly as possible next to each other, and then use two strokes across to form the finish, as was probably done in the original.
 


Analogous to the Großrah, the blockstrops were then attached to the fore yard at the appropriate positions using rose lashing.
 
In the next step I will prepare the truss pendants with ø 34 mm (in model scale ø 0.70 mm) for the fore yard.
To be continued ...
 

Thanks, gentlemen, though a bit belated for your encouraging comments !
 
*******************
 

Foredeck Chain-Rails
 
Progress has been slow over the last few weeks because of various travels in the course of May (Italy, Germany, Spain) and because installing the rails is actually a slow process with breaks in between steps to let glue or paint dry.
 
I was a bit worried about the various corners these chain rails take on the foredeck – not a problem in real life, but the fake chain made from double-twisted turned out to be surprisingly compliant, without getting kinks that could not be straightened out.



 
Also, the ventilators for the crew-quarters beneath the foredeck were installed now.
 
Next thing on the to-do-list will be the anchor-buoys that, according to the photographs usually were tied to the rails near the anchor-davits.
 
Apropos anchor-davits: I realised after taking the above pictures, that I didn’t put them back yet – I had taken them out to facilitate the threading of the chain-rails.
 
 
To be continued ....

"I understand why historians aren’t in love with the idea of these sorts of projects, ..."
 
I gather there are couple of reasons: academic 'historians' these days seem to be more interested in the sociological aspects of history and are not really interested in the material culture as such, only in the sociology of their production. If I was nasty, I could say that in some respect this is a fall back in epistemology into those dark pre-enlightenment times, when all science and research had the main objective to validate a 'god-given' societal order. The historians these days seem to be desperate to prove how bad those old times were for most of the people.
 
Academic historian may also have a valid point in treating 'our' work with some scepticism, as many amateur historians don't keep carefully track of their sources and the conclusions they draw from them. Such building logs are valuable in that sense, because they document the sources and how/why the builder has arrived at a certain interpretation.
 
Another problem is that very few academic historians (which includes today unfortunately often also professional museum staff) have a background or training in maritime matters. There is a gap between understanding the socio-economic context of maritime artefacts and understanding how they were produced and used as objects as such. Because historian typically don't understand the latter, they are not interested in the objects. In the last 40+ years they were simply not taught anymore about material culture.

This has been a satisfying week spent detailing the tafferal plate.  First task was to complete the architectural moulding and to shape the top mouldings and scrolls:

I have taken a somewhat different tack with my adaptation than what Tanneron/Heller show.  I have decided to run this large architectural moulding all the way out to the ship sides.  The reason for this is that I chose to use the between window pilasters to bracket the outermost windows on all three levels.  These window pilasters are notably more narrow than the long rectangular panels on the outside edges of the tafferal plate, so this architectural moulding caps the lower window pilasters and provides a visual transition to what is happening above.  The rectangular panels need to be wider in order to accommodate the long bellflower ornaments.
 
The next step was to skeletonize the extra stock stern plates I have for these decorative elements that would otherwise be extremely difficult to carve or sculpt from scratch, in this scale:

I use the Dremel grinding disc to excise the relevant sections and then sanding drums to waste away material from the backside.  Once I can begin to see light through the plastic, I manually sand the parts with finger pressure against a coarse sanding stick.  I frequently check to see that the light is coming through evenly as a gauge of how evenly I’m removing the ground material.  It doesn’t take long before the desired elements only need the very tip of a sharp EXACTO to separate them from the ground.
 
I was able to extract the Zodiac symbols in this same manner:

But, the shortened height of these recessed panels is such that they no longer will fit in those spaces:

That’s okay - I will simply paint them-in with a very fine brush a little later in the process.  Above, you get a clear sense of how dramatically I’ve reduced the height of the backboard and the shape of the cornice.
 
The lower cornice moulding had to be pieced-in segment by segment.  I think the result is good:

The national coat of arms is still not perfectly centered, but I am happy enough with it’s placement.  To this point, here’s how the plate looks on the model:

Next, was the challenge of adapting the figures of Europe and Asia.  I first had to re-shape the backing to sit snugly on top of the new cornice profile:

The tricky bit is the bevel that must be incised along this mating surface so that it matches the return bevel of the cornice top.  Hopefully, this picture will make what I am trying to say clear:

Next, I had to in-fill the back of these figures where the stock kit would have an interior planking plate above the poop royal deck.  Out of the box, this plate really serves as the glue surface for these figures.

On my version, I want the reverse curves of the cornice moulding to be visible, inboard, so my figures will glue directly to the cornice cap rail.  Here, Asia has been faired and filed smooth:

As I was going through all of this I began to be concerned that the apparent height of the figures was no longer in-scale with my shortened back board.  However, I began to feel better about this after trimming back the lower swag of the figures’ robes, so that the cornice moulding would be visible.  Here is trimmed Asia to compare against un-trimmed Europe:

And, after trimming and final fitting both:

Berain’s drawing does show a little swag dipping below the upper cornice moulding, and I think this is a reasonable facsimile.
 
On the model:

I may yet decapitate and then re-capitate the horse and camel heads in an effort to shorten their necks a little bit.  I have some time to decide on that.
 
In the meantime, I can modify the big carving drawing a bit, so that I can begin making that.  I can also begin painting the backboard. which is obviously much easier to do off the model - particularly those Zodiac symbols.
 
Thank you all for your interest, your comments and for checking-in.  Enjoy the holiday weekend!

Good morning

Good morning.

Good morning.

Good morning.