cog

Whatever shade it is, the paint looks good.😁

Odd, it looks like you have to set it "colder" when your red is going towards orange. Maybe play with it a bit. Or just leave it at it, and don't be bothered by Ken nattering about orange

Ken is right, it tends to go to orange, hardly fire engine red, Jack (I have just recalibrated my monitor - 4K) Nice build by the way. Something not so violent ...! It could be the setting of your camera ... white balance ...

Ken is right, it tends to go to orange, hardly fire engine red, Jack (I have just recalibrated my monitor - 4K) Nice build by the way. Something not so violent ...! It could be the setting of your camera ... white balance ...

Ken is right, it tends to go to orange, hardly fire engine red, Jack (I have just recalibrated my monitor - 4K) Nice build by the way. Something not so violent ...! It could be the setting of your camera ... white balance ...

Ken is right, it tends to go to orange, hardly fire engine red, Jack (I have just recalibrated my monitor - 4K) Nice build by the way. Something not so violent ...! It could be the setting of your camera ... white balance ...

Moving right along here at the incarceration center. I've completed the cockpit module, painted the exterior surfaces of the body, using ModelMaster Chevy Engine Red enamel to give me a glossy finish.  Figured I would paint the hull first then install the clear plastic windows - save some grueling masking.  I'm hand brushing the paint on with no thinner.  I have an airbrush but have not had much success with ModelMaster paints.  Haven't tried the newer brands yet. Some paint touch up will be done before I seal everything inside the hull.
 
Photos follow:
 

CHEAPLY !?!?!?!?!?!?
 
That looks real nice

CHEAPLY !?!?!?!?!?!?
 
That looks real nice

Well, after getting sidetracked by the helicopter build and fiddling with air cleaners... I've been sanding and shaping the port side of the hull.  I will need some touch up on both sides before planking, maybe a bit of filler here and there and final sanding.  However, I still need to shape and smooth both sides of the bow.  I saved this part for last thinking everything before leads to here.  Hopefully, I'll get it sanded  by next week.   I'm going slow and cautiously.  I'm also using templates to check that both sides are the same.  Tedious, but must be done.
 
Here's the proof of life photos of the port side.

Many thanks to all for your likes and comments. Like many we are not allowed to leave the house so plenty of time to work on the boat!
 
I ve made lots of blocks, many more than these in the picture. I hope they will be enough, making blocks is very complex and time consuming and I would not want to go back to it.

I also made two hearts for tensioning the stay sail. I had to make them 4 times before I was finally happy.

I then made some belaying pins. I do not want to buy wood at this time so I used whatever I had. I found a 3 mm dowel in my stash, I think it is Birch and used also toothpicks. It was a bit tricky to drill and then shape it but I used a wooden peg which worked very well.


I then made the reefing comb, again fully functional with brass sheaves.


I then finished and install the spreaders

and then attached the 3 pairs of shrouds with shackles



I then polished all my shackles. I think they will not be enough but making more is easy and relatively fast. In the end I used CA glue to secure the pin

Now, to attach the shrouds and define their length, the mast needs to be up and somehow secure in place. I used scrap wood to secure it in place.


I then made some templates from scrap plywood to hold the eyes in a fixed position

The (dreadful) figure is 1.75 cm in height. It looks a bit out of scale, I think I ll need to recheck things. On the other hand the Deben is about 7 m long so it is not a big boat. There will be pin rails on the shrouds and I roughly checked the height the need to be placed at for a comfortable reach


I will use black shrink tube as Michael suggested earlier in the log, I think it is a very elegant solution. I also got some fishing crimps which I cut to size and should give a very tidy result. However I need a heat gun which I ordered. So waiting for the gun to arrive, I started work on the rails.
These proved very fiddly. I need 8 and after I had spent hours making them, I managed to ruin them all by carelessly drilling at random places for the second rope to go through and not parallel to the first rope




I realised my mistake after I had marked or drilled all 8 pieces and run out of brass rod. Next day however, I thought of just soldering a piece over and re-drilling. There will be more pieces soldered to the base so I think in the end it will look fine

This was good progress and I think I should be able to do a bit more work this week

Yards


 
After fashioning the yards, I cut grooves for the cleats, added a strip of wood and then filed the strip to mimic two cleats.

The yards were then fitted with their slings and the grommets for the brails.

Bowsprit & Mizzen boom

The bowsprit was fixed as shown in the pictures:

The components for the holders of the mizzen boom are shown in the following picture:




Masts in place

An initial assembly of the masts and boom:
 



Oars

I’ve just started experimenting with making the oars. My first attempt is using lime wood, making the oar in three sections as follows (I’m happy with the method, but still don’t know whether to dye them or paint them. I also have to add the leather protective sleeve):

The next steps are (1) making the sails; (2) adding extras, such as barrels, portable binnacle and the oars; (3) making a stand.

I'll be working on these over the next week or so and hope to have postings in that time frame!
 
Tony
 

Swivel guns



There were two types of swivel gun used in the period of the Chaloupe. One was the breech-loading type, the other the muzzle-loading type. It is the latter that is shown in the plans, so I built the 4 swivel guns following the plans.
I started by boring the holes for the trunnions. This was done first by pasting the plan to a block of wood, then clamping a brass rod into a vice. The block of wood was then trimmed to fit the remaining opening in the vice by using the non-grooved edge of the vice jaw as a reference point. It was then a simple matter of drilling the hole using the plan. The brass rod could then be turned in the lathe as normal, using the set of gravers that I had made for my previous build (Triton cross-section).




A trick I learned from Herault’s build of the Chaloupe was to use a scribed reference point on the turned bar using the sharp tool. This then allows exact placing for the various steps in diameter of the barrel.

The swivel gun mounts have good detailed plans in the monograph:

Initially I thought I would make the basic barrel holder out of wood, but that proved far too fragile, so I ended up making them out of copper plate. The picture shows the process I used, but on the wood prototypes.

It’s probably easier to show the different components in the following diagram, rather than attempt an explanation.







Next up: Yards. bowsprit, mizzen boom
Tony
 

Bow davit


 
I then went on to make the davit at the bow. First thing was to get the outline right, which I did with a piece of masking tape.
The davit itself was then fairly straightforward to make. You can probably make out the different pieces used in the following photo.

Mast travellers for the yards

Plan 9 shows the travellers as follows:

The following pictures should illustrate the sequence of making these:




Mast sheaves

All the masts and boom have sheaves at their ends. I started the process of making these by milling out spaces for the sheaves using a setup consisting of my modified Proxxon drill stand,  a Proxxon dividing head and a spare Jacob’s chuck from my Proxxon wood lathe.

The dividing head allowed me to rotate the mast by 90 degrees to drill the hole for the sheave spindle.



The sheaves themselves were then turned on a lathe after having their centres drilled through for the spindles.

Next up: Swivel guns
Tony
 

Ironwork

I finished my work on translations in February and took up work on the Chaloupe again. I haven’t been noticing the time fly by since then, so there’s quite a lot to cover.


 
The main decision is, as I had hoped at the start, to build the fully rigged model with sails. This meant that there’ll be no big cannon sitting in the middle of the boat. I’d left the option open of leaving the swivel guns on, and that’s what I decided to do.

 
I’ll start with some of the ironwork. First off are the clamps or holders for the bowsprit and the mizzen boom. The plan for the clamps shows the following:


I don’t have the skills to make them opening, so I went in for a simulation. I soldered 1mm brass tubing to either side for both clamps:



Pintles & Gudgeons


 
Plan 6 shows the rudder as follows:


 
I started work on the pintles by tapering lengths of 1mm rod then fitting them into sections of brass tubing which were soldered to a strap (for the bottom pintle) and a rod (for the top one):



Unfortunately my first attempt at the lower pintle showed that the soldering joint between the strap and the pintle was not strong enough to take the strain when the rudder was fitted, and it snapped off. So I had to strengthen the join by linking the pintle to the strap with a 0.5mm rod as shown in the picture below.
The completed gudgeons and pintles then followed the normal type of construction. You’ll note I still haven’t mastered the art of aligning the bolts in the straps correctly, nor have I mastered the art of blackening. The dark patch around the lower strap is where I tried painting a bit more of the blackening solution on to the strap:




Grapnel anchor

I also started to think about the various accessories that are needed on the boat. Although no plans for an anchor in the book, I found plans in the paper model of the 18th Century French Longboat that I had partially completed (see https://modelshipworld.com/topic/21175-french-longboat-18th-century-by-tkay11-148-card-review-partial-build/). I scaled the plans up to 1:36 and made the paper version. This gave me the experience to do one in copper.




This led to a discussion as to where the anchor will be stowed. Eventually it was decided that it should go over the bulwarks at the bow, and be fastened to the main cross beam there.
Next up: Bow davits, yards and mast sheaves.
Tony

Hello,
and many thanks for your likes and comments
 
The whole winter we had no snow, but now in spring this

I painted some of the cannons just to see how they look. You could't see much of the details without paint, it's all sparkling. 

Hello,
 
and thanks for the likes. It seams that nobody knows more about the number of cannons they really used in those times. All I know is, that they sometimes reduced or increase there number. Ok, it's not now important. 
 
This afternoon we worked at the foundry. That are now nearly half of the cannons I need. So tomorrow we will cast the rest. Not all cannons are first class, but most are better then I first expected. I will cast some more cannons, so I could sort out the not so good.


 

Hello and many, many thanks for all the likes and comments,
 
today I finished the molds for the cannons. Only the vent channels have to be cut. I leave them for the rest of the week seasoning and then I will start casting.

But there is something I did't really know. For the 60 gunner Rif Winfield state: GD 24x24pdrs, UD 26x12pdrs, QD 8x6pdrs and FC 2x6pdrs.
For the 70 gunners: GD 26x32pdrs, UD 28x18pdrs, QD 12x9pdrs and FC 2x9pdrs.
 
But when I count the cannons at the models, I get other numbers.

I counted mostly only the ports, because not all models have cannons installed. What is most unusual, there are no cannons at the fore castle and mostly no ports! At the gun deck (60 Gunner) there are 26 gun ports and I think that the first at each side are chasing ports. But also there have some models cannons. At least most models have more cannons, or the space fore more cannons then Rif Winfield says. The 70 gunners have at least less then 70 cannons! What is now true? 
 
The Tiger has ports for 64 cannons without the fore castle. When I say that the first ports at the gun deck are chasing ports, then 62. The space there is very limited, because of the manger.

 
Here the Centurion, the only one, with chasing ports at the fore castle but no ports to the sides, and no cannons there. And at the gun deck 26 cannons.

and here the other 60 gunner, Warship 2. Also with 26 cannons at the gun deck, but no ports or cannons at the fore castle.

Spent the last two weeks working on various details. The railings on the boiler deck have been giving me nightmares, but I finally figured out a "good-enough" way that works at the level of the rest of the model (representative if not precisely accurate, don't look too close). These were really difficult to bend and shape, especially where they didn't extend between two decks for extra support.
 

I left a gap on either side, forward of the wheels, to allow access to where the boats will be stored. Figured a chain was enough to keep passengers out; this was leftover scrap from a past model:

These stern railings were especially tricky:

Ladders up to the pilot house and various Texas cabins:

A couple broader views:
 


And here's one posed with the painting this model is loosely based on:
 

It's getting ever scarier to handle this model as the fragile details go in. I'm so paranoid about bumping these railings, they were such a pain to do in the first place. And it's just going to get worse...
 

CHEAPLY !?!?!?!?!?!?
 
That looks real nice

So this arrived today
 
apart from a small spelling mistake, it’s almost like a Flyhawk set, very good quality. Wafer thin deck, masking sheet for painting the fore deck. , barrels and 6 sheets of PE. then instructions in a booklet

With this, the klinker is ready.
I didn't show the whole railing, which is ready since months, I will show the making of the railing later on, when it will be installed in place.
 
Drazen

Making klinker on the hull...
For this, I needed to cut different widths of the klinker planking and on some areas - continuously narrow them. So I have the same number of planks at the beginning and the end of one section of the hull. (The part of the hull which I needed to plank with the klinker is higher at the stern.)
 
Drazen

Making planking on the side galleries...
 
Drazen

My protection for the hull - same level as the waterline. One can imagine how the ship looks in the water.
This protective parts can be disassembled easily if needed.
 
Drazen