dunnock

Carronades Continued Following on from Thukydides advice, I made up a set of port tackles using 3mm single and double blocks with 0.35mm RoS natural rope. It’s still quite fiddly, especially rigging the single block with 3mm hook (not 2mm as I said previously) and the tackle rope itself. The first carronade is completed and looks a lot more in proportion. I’m continuing to make up the blocks and tackle but it is a long and somewhat tedious job so I may do other bits and pieces in between. I need to rework the frapping but compared to the 2mm rig... it looks a lot neater. Thanks again for looking in and the helpful posts. David

Thanks Daniel. I missed your post on the Perseus draft, I will go back to take a look David

Thanks Daniel that's very helpful. I've been looking for exactly that information but I'm not familiar with the source reference. I'll try single and double 3mm blocks as well. If they don't look too big, it will make things much easier. Thanks Andrew. Yes I I use an Optivisor with 5x magnifying lenses. I'd be hopeless without it

Carronade Rigging I used 0.6mm RoS rope for the breeching. This is a little undersized but even so, I still needed to ream out the breech ring and to go further would risk breakages. I have seen a number of methods in books for attaching the breeching to ring bolts. I used a thumb knot with the tail siezed back on itself, one of the simpler options, as illustrated on p116 of “Irene” by Petrejus. I set up one carronade on the model to determine the length of rope required to provide some slack when the gun is run out and would come taught when recoiled. For my set up this is 70mm from ring to ring. I’m now considering the tackles. A 32lb carronade should probably be rigged with double and single blocks on the model and this is the set up shown as an option on the plans. I only have 2mm single or 3mm doubles in my box so I have made up one tackle with the 2mm blocks to see how it looks. In the end, I will frap the falls around the tackle so the single rigging will be less noticeable. These are really small blocks and with 2mm hooks from HiS Model, the whole set up is a recipe for eye-strain and frustration but I think larger blocks would look overcrowded. I’ll make up the other side and see how it looks on deck. David

Carronades Still some of the deck fittings to completed but I thought that it was time I made some armaments for Harpy. There are 16 carronades to make up and Chris provides sufficient wooden and PE parts for 17. I start by making up the slide and bed and then painting them red ochre. For the ‘ironwork’ I used the kit breaching bolts with Amati 2mm rings. All other ringbolts and eyebolts are Amati 2mm. There are two ringbolts on the slide for the port tackles and two on the bed for the training tackle. The trucks are 3D printed and are painted black before gluing into the bed. When fitted, the tops of the trucks stand proud of the bed so need sanding back and retouching with red ochre. The barrels are also 3D printed and again painted matt black. I snapped one of the elevating screws but it was easily replaced with a length of 0.8mm brass rod. I finished the barrels off with some rust red and dark brown weathering powder and glued them into the slide. Slide and bed can now be glued together but first I asked the boss whether run-in or run-out: so run-out it is then. I will be adding breeching ropes, which will be done off model, but I’m still thinking about whether to add port tackles. David

Deck Fittings As an antidote to headworks, I have begun to make up some of the deck fittings or to be more accurate; to pick them up again. I made a start a few months back while waiting for some wood and fittings to arrive but had put them away to continue with the hull. Many of these fittings are like little mini kits and are fun to make. I started with the bow platform. Made from four parts: two front panel pieces, grating support and grating. I needed to shape the front panel to fit around the waterway and chamfer the edges slightly to obtain a reasonably tight fit. I painted the panel red ochre and left the grating natural. Next up the rudder housing. Again some sanding and shaping was required to fit the planked deck. I will add a spray cover once the housing is glued in place and the tiller arm fitted. The bread hatch is a simple one-piece item. I used Syren hinges and kit brass eyebolts for the handle. The companion hatch cover has some scope for some tweaks. I decided to leave the doors and hatch in the open position and used the kit PE brass parts for hinges and handles. The lid needs a ledge on which to rest when in the closed position made from 1mm square strip. Support brackets are needed to keep the lid in the open position and these were made from some brass fret bent into a curve and CA’d in place Finally the skylight. The kit version with its four glazed panels looks quite chunky. I cut out the centre bar from the lids and replaced it with three bars of 1mm square strip. They are glazed with pieces of clear PES. Syren hinges complete the covers. All these pieces are placed in position but I will leave fixing them until the carronades and guns are in place. Thanks for looking in David

Head Works All of the parts involved in making up the head are very delicate as I found out. The hair brackets are first to be fitted after painting them yellow ochre. Don’t try to remove the char from the edges, they only break in two. The PE etch decoration is next also painted yellow ochre. The cheeks only needed a little sanding off the top edge but I found that the bolsters required a couple of mm removing from the bottom edge. Too late I realised that the bolsters are handed because the hawse holes are at different levels. The head timbers and knee caused me the most headaches. Minimum sanding to remove char is best because the slots for the head timbers are weak spots. I ended up with several more parts than I when I started. The knee was glued back together with thin CA which also hardened the whole piece. Eventually I was able to glue in the head timbers (after using the spares provided) but then I found that quite bit of gentle fiddling about and fettling was needed to make the assembly fit the prow. When it was finally in place, the main rails were added after a bit of sanding but without more drama. Finally the cathead brackets are added. The outer edge is given a slight curve to blend with the main rail. I was tempted to follow BE’s lead and add a third pair of head timbers but maybe after I have recovered from the headache of the head works. As a bit of light relief, I have added the boat davits; pinned and glued for extra strength. Thanks for looking in David

The Rudder The rudder is a three part piece with a 2mm core sandwiched between two 1mm facing pieces. The pintles are integrated into the core piece and three lugs plug into the stern post. This makes for easier fitting but as has been noted elsewhere, loses something of the look. I rounded off the forward edge of the rudder but in doing so, knocked off two of the locating lugs. After a couple of failed attempts at glueing them back, I eventually drilled and pinned the rudder in place. The copper plates come as three complete sheets: one for each side and a strip for the rear edge. I also applied some copper tape to the forward edge. The straps are black laser-cut board. There are small holes in the copper plates as a guide to the position of the pintle straps. When the rudder was pinned in place, I used masking tape along the hull to align the gudgeon straps. The bands are cut from heat-shrink tubing. I like the contrast of the black straps against the copper plates but for authenticity, decided to paint the straps copper. The spectacle plate is a one-piece brass photo-etch piece that fits into a slot on the rudder above the hance. In my continuing clumsiness, I dropped it down the sink while I was rinsing it off after cleaning it ready for blackening. I made a new piece from two eyebolts. The final addition is the rudder coat. I made an initial paper pattern using the fret to draw around, cut it roughly to shape and then cut a piece of fabric from that. Three iterations later I had got it about right and painted it with brown mix of acrylic paints. The ‘iron’ plate is cut from some black card overpainted with iron grey. Once in place, some final trimming was needed. Cotton wool stuffed in from the top keeps the coat filled out. Finally I have added the horseshoe plates at the bow and the butterfly plates at the stern post and painted them all copper. Thanks for the likes and kind comments; they're all very encouraging. David

Outer Hull Fittings Before moving on, I wasn’t happy with the look and position of the stern and my gun port sills. With the help of some IPA and a #18 chisel blade, the stern pattern popped off without a problem. I did some further sanding of the counter and glued the stern board back in place. I’d used some spare 4x1 box strip for the gun port sills but it looked to thick and too yellow. It has been replaced by some 0.6mm pear fret. With the stern replaced I added the quarter pieces and the capping rail. The quarter pieces are in two parts. One piece to go between wale and upper sheer rail and a covering piece. A little bit of wetting out and bending with finger pressure helped shape the latter to the wale. The stern capping rail, which had first been painted black, was soaked and bent to shape before glueing in place. The mid sheer rails are in two pieces: one at the bow and another runs the length of the ship. They are nicely curved and aligned with the gun ports, making fitting very straightforward. Next the fenders and chesstrees. These are square and chunky looking pieces when first removed from the fret and benefit from a bit of sanding and shaping before fitting to the hull. Finally the steps. Each step is made of two pieces of 0.6mm pear, which are glued together before fitting to the marked positions on the hull. The Lowest step is fitted to the top edge of the wale and I’m worried that it looks vulnerable while there is still some manhandling of the hull needed. There are some spares should it come to that. Now that most of the fittings have been added to the exterior of the hull, I will clean it up and apply some matt varnish as a finish. Thanks to everyone for the likes and for following David

Gunwales and Rails I’m back from a very nice two weeks in Scotland so not much progress made until yesterday, when rain provided a good reason to stay in and resume work on Harpy. I’d missed out the stage in the instructions that said fit the outer sheer rails. They were painted matt black while still in the fret and then dry fitted and left clamped to the hull overnight before gluing them up. I painted the gunwales before cutting them out and touched up the edges with a black Pigma pen. The hole for the bowsprit was enlarged and a piece of 6mm dowel lined up with the bowsprit stop. The presence of the bowsprit gives the correct positioning of the forward pieces of gunwale which are now glued in place. The stern cabin roof, stern davit and cathead all need to be considered together to ensure that each fit correctly. @ECK and @Blue Ensign’s logs are both helpful in describing this. The top edge of my stern cabins were only marginally lower than the bulwark sides and needed to be sanded back and shaped so that the roofline met the gunwale. I also needed a little filler piece on the starboard cabin. The basic arms of the catheads are made up to give the correct forward position of the gunwales. The gunwales were clamped and glued in sections to give time for correct alignment. The cabin roofs were trimmed to reduce the overhang and then soaked and shaped around a jam jar to make fitting and glueing simpler. I cleaned up the excess gunwale and outer sheer rail at the stern and fitted the assembled taffarel and it’s frame. This piece was also soaked and clamped to give the required curve to make fitting and clamping a bit easier. Here it is all masked up ready to paint the ports and also the stern cabin sides. Originally I was going to leave the cabin walls natural but now think that I prefer them to be painted red ochre. It's a pity I didn't do this before because I think it's going to be an awkward paint job. Thanks for looking in, the likes and kind comments David

Thanks Maid of the Mist. Vanguard Model copper plates are of much better scale and thinner than those found in other kits and I found them easier to cut and apply. You can find more information at entries #30 to #33 in this log David

Thanks Chuck, that's very kind David

Inner Bulwarks The doors to the stern cabins are fixed first and the bulwarks fit up to them. I used Syren’s hinges and door handles. The side walls needed some work to make them fit to my planked deck but I was able to use the supplied parts. The ends of the planking at the stern looked a bit unfinished. I used a piece of the ply pattern from the stern panel as a guide to trim the ends and then added a piece of 1mm square boxwood to cover the cut ends and finish it off. The inner bulwarks were dry fitted and left clamped overnight, as suggested in the instructions, to relax any tensions in the wood. I had misaligned the plywood patterns so had to carefully align the inner bulwark with the outer etched pear patterns. This meant sanding and filing about 1mm off the ply at each gun and sweep port. The spirketting, like the bulwarks, are painted in Admiralty Red Ochre and were carefully aligned using the holes for the carronade rigging in the bulwark. The inner sheer rails were painted before removing them from the sheet and again carefully positioned along the upper line on the bulwark. I think I will add gunport sills to cover the edges of the three patterns but first I need to check that it won't affect the position of the carronades. I added a waterway to Speedy and have done the same with Harpy. I used some 3.5x 2mm AYC that I had available and split it in two. A bevel was scraped across the cut side and fitted to the seam between deck and bulwark. The waterway has the added benefit of closing any gaps between spirketting and deck. Although glued, I still have to finish off the scuppers. Still enough deck to support the carronade bed. Thanks for looking in and for all the encouragement, likes and comments. David

Thanks very much Ron and Andrew for your kind comments David

Very impressive. I'm thinking about this as my next project David

Thanks for the likes and generous comments: they're much appreciated Planking Completed Port side planking went a little easier with fewer awkward cuts. The result is port and starboard are slightly different but most will be covered by the carronades. Sanding with 120 grit and a final scraping smoothed the decking which has been finished with a couple of coats of very dilute matt varnish. Past experience has shown that too much varnish or shellac reduces adhesion of pva. Some shots before sanding and finishing ... and after David

Thanks very much Daniel

Many thanks Maurice

Planking Part Three The starboard side is now complete. Like all plans it didn’t quite work out as expected and took quite a bit longer to complete. One plank meets the margin at a joint, which could have been avoided by putting the joint further aft. Too late to change now but something to avoid the next time. There are a couple of places where the joints could have been tighter but even so I’m quite happy with the results. I will now try to repeat the same planking pattern on the port side. David

Another great model and really like the presentation. Thanks too for the clear and very helpful log David

Planking Continued I have completely run out of 4mm strip. Because I didn’t order more supplies in time, I’m running down my limited stock of 5mm and carefully trimming it to width. I used 4mm strip for the bow section and those strips beyond the middle line are joggled into the margin plank. I cut a little more out of the sub-deck at the bow to expose the end walls of the forward cabins. I made up one of the carronade beds and slide and used it to determine where the first continuous run of planks should be. At the stern I ran them inside line of the port and starboard rooms and then worked out the taper required to fill the remaining space. The taper of planks at the bow were worked out in the same way. Instead of my usual haphazard approach, I’ve worked out a layout of the outer planks by drawing them onto the back of a section of the discarded etched deck. So far planking is symmetrical so the same plan should work for both sides Hopefully this will translate into reasonable runs and no surprises with pointy planks like I suffered on Speedy. Thanks for looking in and likes and comments. David

Thanks for the compliment on the deck planking Maurice; much appreciated. And thanks for the warning about the potential for issues of thicker planking. I checked the carronades both for the width of the area to plank and for the height of the gun port sill which look fine but I didn't think to check the spirketting. Having just had a look, I think that I may need to trim 0.5mm off the spirketting which I hope won't be noticeable.

Planking the Gun Deck The tricky centre section between hatches is finished. I’m using mainly 3.5 and 4.0 x 1mm boxwood strip. I’ve already run out of 4mm strip so now I’m cutting down 5 and 6mm strip. I have also had to use some 5mm strip along the edges of the after hatches to make a fair run. The planks are all straight but I have begun to taper the last planks fitted at the stern. I used the etched deck as a pattern to mark the cut-outs and eye-bolt points. There are still some cut-outs to work on but this section is substantially finished. I now move on to the bow and stern sections before finishing with the runs up to the bulwarks, I will leave as much of the lower deck exposed as is feasible.

I've enjoyed following your build Richard and well done on your excellent Harpy From your comments, I hope that you're not closing the shipyard and have a plan for your next model. David

Good to see you again Jason and stunning work David