dunnock

I have the half-hull on order so I'm following with interest. Looks like your making good progress and resolving the problems that crop up. David

Thanks to all for the likes and comments. The replacement anchors have arrived – thanks Chris- snugly packaged in bubble wrap in a box. Knowing how fragile they are and how clumsy I am, I will leave them in the box and not make them up until it’s time to put them on the ship. Lower Mast I’ve been studying the plans, Lees, and Steel trying to make sense of it all. Lees hasn’t much, if anything to say about the masting of cutters. Steel seems to suggest that cutters and other small vessels have lower masts and topmasts in one but was that always the case? The rigging plan in the kit and the RMG’s photos show that Trial’s lower mast is rigged conventionally with shrouds coming from the head. Steel says that masts made of a single tree (as I presume cutters' masts were) are tapered as per made masts, between the partner and the head. He also says ‘Masts made of single trees and cheeked...tapered at the upper part as made masts, with the same number of hoops on the head. The cheeks below the hounds are either woolded or hooped…’. From this I take it that not all single-tree masts had cheeks fitted and being made from a single tree, would not require hoops or wooldings. Later on in a section on cutters, Steel says that bolsters are only fastened to the mast if the lower and topmast are made in one piece. There also appear to be no battens or hoops on the head of Trial's lower mast. Trial as a cutter seems not to fit with any of these definitions but since it was an experimental ship, perhaps that is to be expected and maybe I'm over-thinking it anyway. Comparing the kit plans and Steel based on his formula for cutters of deck length + beam + depth in hold multiplied by 3/4 Kit Steel Length 275mm 295mm Diam 8mm 9mm I will use the kit dimensions, they being close enough and the lower height will make it easier for display. The kit plan shows no taper on the lower mast, it being 8mm all the way up to the lower head but I will taper according to Steel: Q1 Q2 Q3 Head 7.9mm 7.5 6.8 6.0 The square section of the head is marked up made and filed to size. The cap tenon should be square rather than round as shown in the plan. It is an easy matter to square off the round hole in the cap. The mast is next put in the lathe to develop the taper. Very little sanding is required to reduce the 8mm dowel to size. I jumped the gun in adding the eyebolts aft of the head thinking that it would be easier now than later, forgetting that they wouldn’t allow the crosstrees to pass so had to be removed. The area below the head is flattened at the sides to take the bibs which are sanded thinner on the inside face towards the lower end and rounded on the edges. The trestle trees fit together nicely and are more robust than in previous kits that I have made. Despite Steel’s description, I think that bolsters would protect both ropes and trestle trees from wear and I will be adding adding them. Trestle trees and cap sit at an angle fore and aft to allow for the rake of the mast Now there will probably be a similar process of naval navel-gazing for the topmast! David

Looking forward to seeing you mods to the kit. Your skills have shown that you will be more than up to it. A(nother) thing that puzzles me is that there is no binnacle shown. Were they not present on cutters? David

Many thanks Andrew. I'm looking forward to seeing how you progress and your interpretation of the deck and fittings. Too late for me to steal your ideas unfortunately! David

Thanks Thukydides. If you take it slowly you can feel the drill as it begins to come through to the inside bulwark. If it's not in the right position retract and drill from the inside out. David

Thanks all for the likes. I’ve been wondering about drainage. I can’t imagine that water would be allowed to slosh around on the open deck, the only escape being through sweep or gun ports. There is no provision for scuppers in the kit and they don’t show on the RMG plan ZAZ6418 but there are three visible on the contemporary RMG model SLR0150. I have decided to fit scuppers according to the model. I use the same cut down 2mm electrical connectors that I have used before on Diana and Fly. The flanges are bent back further to lie flush with the sides of the hull and then cut to length. I carefully drill holes in the sides of the hull at an angle to intersect the deck at the bulwarks and slide in the ‘scupper’. The scupper nearest the bow exits on the top edge of the wale which requires extra care. With the sheave added at the bow and the main sheet bar to the fife rail, this completes work on the hull

I have painted and installed the catheads. The placement was lined up using a copy of the deck plan laid across the deck and the position marked on the plansheer. The cleats were made from 1mm section boxwood shaved and shaped using a scalpel. The flat brass PE stanchions for the rail around the companionway didn’t look the part to me so I’ve replaced them with some I had from CMB – I think they are AL parts. Wide angle distortion has made them look out of alignment in this shot. I moved onto the anchors. The anchors are 3D printed and come with the pearwood stocks in two halves. The slots need some filing out for the shaft to fit comfortably into the stocks and I also spent some time tapering the face of the stocks to give an overall width at the ends of 3mm. Tree nail and bolt positions were marked on the stocks and touched in with soft pencil and given a coat of matt varnish to seal. It was putting on the hoops, cut from black card that led to disaster. I held the anchor stock gently in a vice but caught it as I was preparing another hoop and snapped the shaft. A small piece flew off and there was nothing left to glue back to. I also damaged the second anchor trying to insert the ring into the eye despite having carefully drilled the hole to take the 0.8mm wire ring I made to replace the PE ones. As I have found out these 3D printed anchors are extremely brittle. Chris is kindly sending me some replacements but I shall have to be very careful with these and possibly rethink the sequence in which they are assembled. Thanks again for looking in and for the likes and encouraging comments David

Thanks very much Andrew. I really liked your idea of shading some of the planking before final painting off-white. It looks really effective. David

Thanks Kevin. I'm happy with the final boxwood scratch catheads which are now painted and installed - pictures to follow in next log entry.

I have been finishing off and fitting all the deck fittings, including the mast partner and the rings at the base of the elmtree pumps that I had missed. All pretty straightforward. I have been looking at the catheads and was never happy with the way they had turned out. It is a simplified construction made from two pieces of 1.5mm laser-cut pear. The sheaves are added in two parts, upper and lower and finally an engraved cap is glued to the end. I wasn’t as careful as I should have been in removing the char from the sheaves which left them with a taper and the pre-cut sheave holes were made perpendicular to the cathead arm rather than at an angle to allow the anchor cables to fall vertically. I had several attempts at remaking them from pearwood strip and boxwood sheet. The pearwood strip versions didn’t work out. My first try with boxwood ended in pieces because I had cut them with the grain but orienting the cuts cross grain gave a piece less prone to breaking. After cleaning them up with a flat file, I was happier with the result. Pearwood and first boxwood attempt on the top row. The original version and final boxwood version are left and right on the bottom row. I need to finish them off with final sanding and paint them in some suitable colours. I am assuming the catheads on cutters have similar cleats and eyebolts fitted to other larger ships of the period but I need to check before fitting them. Thanks again for the likes and comments and for looking in David

Sizzolo I think that you do yourself a disservice. That 'lived-in' look takes a lot of skill to get right and your launch looks perfect.

Thanks Dave B and No Idea for your kind comments and encouragement David

Thanks for kind comment Andrew. I noticed that extra forward hatch but thought it would look very cluttered at the front to add it and as you say, it's not shown on the model. I also noticed the skylight on the draft plan and did think about adding it but it doesn't appear on the RMG model either so stuck with the kit arrangement.

Thanks Thukydides, I thought it was just me. I'll check after the first gun next time!

Dave, the jig makes sure that the sides taper in at the correct angle and it's easier to fit the axles and sides together. However in this case only a simplified jig is possible because the barrel is fitted during the make up of the carriage rather than as an addition. Also Dave, beware the rule of 3x barrel length for breechings. Perhaps I've interpreted the rule wrongly but it hasn't worked for me in this case. The guns and carronades have all been fitted, however when I offered up the first gun, I realised that the breechings on both guns and carronades were too long. I set them at 3 times the length of the barrel but at this length, they would all have been falling into the hatches when fired. (DaveB please note) I spent an unhappy few hours yesterday shortening and re-seizing them to the eyebolts. A slight flat was sanded on the trucks of the guns to provide a bigger surface for the pva. When making up the carronades, I used a blackened pin to connect the base to the truck and left it protruding by 2mm rather than cut it flush as directed. The pin is located into the deck and holds the carronade firmly in place. The ropes require some further manipulation to make them lie more naturally. I have also been making up most of the deck fittings over the last couple of weeks. Mostly they are made up as per the instructions but I have scratched the main and forward hatches using cut down 6x3mm pear strip. I prefer the look of hatches with a curved surface even if the plans and model of Trial in the RMG show them as flat. The laser-cut gratings make a curve easy to achieve wit ha short soak and drying around a suitable curved surface. Thanks for looking in and for the likes and comments. David

I made most of the headworks from scratch. It took me a long time and several attempts but it's worth keeping at it. David

Lovely planking job Andrew. All that planning and marking has certainly paid dividends David

Guns and Carronades.. These 3 pounder guns and 18 pounder carronades are very small. I was thinking to partially rig them with breech rope and side tackles. Based on references in Lavery, the breech line is no more than 0.4mm and the tackles 0.25mm. I made a small jig to make up the gun carriages and keep them square. The guns are not mounted separately but fit in holes in the carriage sides. There is no hole for the breech line ringbolt in the carriage side so I made another jig as drill guide. I used the kit eyebolts which I had previously blackened. Ringbolts for breeching ropes were made up from the kit eyebolts and 2mm brass rings. I sanded the quoins to a wedge and added a handle made from a belay pin filed to a more appropriate dimension. The breechings were made using 0.5mm thread. The standard length for a breeching rope was 3 times the length of the barrel so 75mm at scale with a ringbolt seized to each end - remembering to thread the rope through the ringbolts on the carriage before adding the second one. I haven’t found any information on the sizes of blocks for these small guns but I’m assuming 2mm would be about right. If this is correct, my eyes and fingers are not capable of making up 16 sets of tackles without my going completely insane so I think I’ll leave well alone. Finally the trucks are added and the guns are complete. The carronades are made up according to the manual but 0.5mm breeching lines have again been added. Thanks for looking in and for all your likes and comments David

Many thanks Thukydides and BE for your kind comments. I have added a rudder coat now to all three ships that I have built (following your Pegasus log BE) and each time I forget what shape it should be. This time I've made a note for reference - and to help anyone who wants to copy. David

Thanks everyone for the likes and for following the log. As a further feature at the stern, I decided to add a rudder coat. After a lot of trial and error, I made the horseshoe band that holds the coat on the stern counter out of 0.5mm styrene painted iron grey. The coat was cut from an old cotton duvet cover, again getting the shape involved some trial and error but these are what I cam up with. The coat was cut oversized and trimmed to fit when glued to the horseshoe. Sorry the photo is out of focus Painted brown and glued to the counter and rudder I don’t know whether this is correct shape but it seemed sensible to also have a coat for the tiller opening and I cut it to match the hexagonal opening. The tiller is only dry fitted at this stage. The bow knee and stern knees required some shaping and chamfering to fit to the bulwarks. In order to set the height of the bow knee, it is necessary to prepare the cut-out for the bowsprit. Using a piece of scrap 6mm dowel and the brass pe bowsprit ring (PE5), the position is marked. I drilled 0.5mm holes around the circumference and then cut and finally filed the hole to shape. The Bowsprit knee can then be glued into position without fouling the bowsprit. All the eyebolts have been fitted. I used some 0.75mm ones that I had rather than the flat brass pe ones provided. The relieving tackles are made up as ring bolts. I have not added the breeching tackle ring bolts as I plan to partially rig the guns and fitting the breeching tackle ringbolts to the breeching ropes first makes it easier to fix them to the bulwarks. This marks the end of another stage of the build and it’s now time to move on to the guns and deck fittings. Thanks for looking in David

Thanks Andrew. I wish I had thought before I had finished planking and painting the hull though! David

Looking very good Andrew

Thanks very much for all the likes comments and encouragement. I am enjoying building this little model which although quite simple on the face of it is throwing up enough challenges to make it interesting and worthwhile. Continuing with the fitting out of the basic hull adding the side counter timbers, steps and rudder. The side counter timbers require some sanding of the back to make them run smoothly against the main wales. There are four outer steps each side to be fitted. Three are positioned by the engravings on the outer bulwark patterns but the lowest is positioned just below the top of the main wale. I used tape to mark the left hand edge and the bottom edge of the lower part of the step. I also scraped back the paint on the wale to give better adhesion of the pva. Still the top step to add. The rudder is made up of a plain core and two outer engraved patterns which are glued together. I wanted to give a more authentic shape to the rudder which meant tapering it below the hanse to about 2mm on the lower edge. The core was thinned on both sides and the outer patterns on the inside. Bringing the lower edge to 2mm would have meant reducing the core to nearly zero at its lower edge which would have made it too delicate. I compromised on a final overall thickness of 2.3mm The forward edge (against the sternpost) is also chamfered to allow the rudder to move freely. The pintle straps are separate brass PE for each side. The hinge stems and strap above the waterline were blackened rather than painted. Although the hinge stems are flat PE brass, once glued in and the rudder is fixed, I thought they looked OK. Others may wish to scratch them from brass or styrene tube. Of course having shaped the rudder meant that I needed to go back and shape the stern and stern post to give it the same taper as the rudder. A few hours stripping the paint back, sanding the stern, refixing the brass straps and repainting and the job was done. I'm continuing work on the hull having added the swivel gun posts, which will be followed by the timberheads, tiller and catheads. David

Thanks Theodosius but I think there's still some way to go yet David

Thanks all for following and for the likes. The inner bulwark pieces were painted with Admiralty Red Ochre before gluing in position. Likewise with the spirketting. A bit of filing of the gun ports and sweep ports was required to get the edges smooth and level and then they were painted red. The top edges of the bulwarks were also sanded and then checked to make sure that they were level from side to side. The pre-painted spirketting was then fixed in place with pva. The stern panel fitted perfectly but the engraved platform panel needed a fair bit of sanding of the edges to get a snug fit. A couple of coats of dilute matt varnish were then applied. Next up the main wales. These were also painted first with Tamiya XF-1 matt black before fixing with ca gel. The engraved joints and tree nails are barely visible after painting even though I cut the joints a little deeper and wider before painting. But that’s probably as it should be. Next the engraved upper rail area was painted black after masking off the outer bulwark. The stern panels were next. I sanded the face of the transom (part 83) to give it more of a curved appearance and then chamfered the bottom edge to obtain a smooth fit with the edge of the counter. Be careful with the posts on the transom; they are quite delicate as I found out. The ports required only a small amount of work to make the edges flush. They were then painted red ochre. Finally the lower counter rails and transom framing were added. The rails needed some trimming and I also wet them out and curved them at the extreme ends to make a better fit against the hull . Frame and rails were fixed in place with pva. A couple of coats of matt varnish are yet to be added. I had to check but the transom frame is centrally placed even if the angle the photo was taken makes it look otherwise. There is still a lot more detail to be added before the outer hull is completed with the gunwales to be added next. Thanks for looking in David