jaerschen

Before I begin fairing the hull, I like to have a few bent planks available to check the flow of the planks.  To do this, I make up a quick bending jig (Chuck depicts this in the practicum).
 
I first trace an outline of the hull curvature from the plans.  I also prepare about a dozen screws:
 

 
The screws are wrapped in heat shrink electrical insulation.  As they will be holding wet planks to dry, if you don't do this the planks may discolor.
 
I then slightly exaggerate the traced curve (to allow for 'spring back') and transfer it to an old cutting board.  Holes are drilled and the screws firmly fixed in place.  Here's a soaked plank drying in the jig:
 

 
After a few hours, the desired curve has been 'set' in the wood.  This photo shows a second wet plank now drying while the first sits outside the jig now permanently curved:
 

 
The jig will hold up to 4 planks set vertically on edge all at the same time.  This is more then enough once planking begins.  It's easy, cheap and ......... it works!
 
I'll review this when actual planking begins.......in 2014    
 
 

Edge-bending
 

 
VS.   Regular bending as shown by Augie
 

Deadeyes for foremast...

Thanks Grant and Mark.
 
Sort of got tired of working on the cannons so decided to work on something different and this time the rudder. I built a rudder earlier from a plan I got from the NMM and unlike the TFFM rudder this one is a little different. I sort of built two of them and this is the second one. The first one I ended up having a knot in, which the main piece is made of boxwood and figure that the knot would end up in the waste, at least that's what I thought. ( O well, it was fun making another one. Have finally got a chance to really use my little smith torch and it's a blessing to have it. Don,t believe that soft solder would have stood up to the abuse of all the cutting, filing and twisting that it took to finally come out with the finally braces. Still have some clean up to do, due to the metal work. Funny how even small metal work makes a mess. Any way hope you enjoy the photo's. I didn't add any small planks under neith the braces and to me it doesn't look to bad.
 
Gary


 
 
 
 
 
 

Hi Guys and thank you.
Guy,your very welcome sir and glad that you are enjoying the photo's hopfully more will come.
 
Thank you Chuck,the hooks and blocks are a nice addition to the gun's. Thank you for them and should be ordering some more in the next couple of weeks or so.. Am sure you told me this but can you remind me of what type of metal you used? They seems to have a lot of strength.
 
YaRus, According to the contracts I have, it gives the height of the orlop deck to the gun deck as being 6 foot 6 inches from the beam of the orlop deck to the bottom of the gun deck planks. The gun deck from the upper deck as 7 feet, which was from the top of the plank of the gundeck to the top of the upper deck plank. The upper deck height was at the quarter deck as 6 foot 9 and at the forecastle as 6 foot 6 1/2 inches which was taken from the upper part of the deck planking to the top of the quarter deck and forecastle deck beams.
 
Remco your cannon's was a big help sir in the way that you rigged them. Your's gave me some thing to shoot for.
 
Thanks Brian, do hope she is of some help to you as you build yours. I take it that you are following the practicum by Romero. It does give one good ideal's but I sort of went down a different path of building Montagu. For me I wanted a more accurate Montagu then what you would get using Harold's and Romero to build one. If you have any question along the way let me know sir. I do take it you will be framing it using Harold's type of framing and jig? Good luck and look forward to your build log.
 
Well folks here is another update on Montagu and this time it's in making rope for the cannons. I have had a rope walk which was built by a good friend, of mine, Tom Nance, and purchased it from his wife after he passed away. It sort of been stowed away until I have had a need for some rope and after spending some time expertmenting I manage to make some rope for the cannons along with the messenger that you saw in the last post. It is based on the same rope walk that Frolick used in his book The art of shipbuilding. Another one of the photo's shows the pile of parts and pieces setting on the work bench waiting to be installed on the gun carriages, that is as soon as I have a little time to work on them. As you can see in another photo, my rope walk can be any length which at the moment is about ten feet long. .
Gary

B.E. thanks for stopping by.
 
It interesting working on each aspect separately as the need to operate the rigging and sails dictates what I have to make next. each task seems to require more research into how things are done.
 
Last evening I was able to make the rail for the bottom of the mast the posts knees and rail are all from different colours of maple they are not glued yet. The posts are set through the deck and abut the beam in front of them.
 

 

 
The belaying pin is a placeholder to see what they would look like the final ones will be from Lignum Vitae.
 
Michael

Had an almost disaster.  Broke the lady's back while working on the planking.  I ignored my first rule.. don't work on her when upset or stressed.  We were loosing our dog of 16 years last Sunday and to cope I tried to plank.     Snapped the front of the keel loose and wrecked the first 1" (25.4 mm). 
 
Anyway, it took the better part of a week before I noticed it and then had to decide... repair, replace the whole keel, or salvage what I could and start over.  Luckily the Admiral's cooler head prevailed in this matter.   I attempted a repair.  The pictures tell the story.  I think it'll be ok once the old girl is right-side up and on a stand.  A little sanding and some cherry sawdust will go a long way to hiding it as will the garboard plank.
 
 



 
Now that the shock is over, I hope to spend more time in the shipyard and hanging out at MSW.  I'm way behind on reading logs.  Oh.. I moved retirement up...  it's currently now at 61 days and wake-up.

Hello people,

and once again a story of small things with great effect.
The eye and ring bolts on the gun carriages have brought me to the brink of power capacity.
But now it's done. The fasteners on the gun carriages are ready, now only missing the trunnion straps and rigging

But see for yourself
 
 
The eyebolts
 
 
   
 
 
The Rings
 
 
   
 
 
The Ringbolts
 
 
 
Final assembly
 
 
 

 
 
 
   
 
 
 
 
 
Have fun
 

Hi mates,

while our decryption department at full speed working to decipher the huge, submitted by Agent "P" amount of data, here's a little intermezzo from the nailers.

A hook is created
 
  
 
 
 
  
 
 
 
   
 
 
 
   
 
 
 
   
 
have fun

This Eyebolt is the first from 140 Bolt´s i need on the ship
And.......... 40 ring bolts ..... 30 double disc Blocks ..... 30 mono-disk blocks
80 hooks .......... and and and...........so there is no end
 
 
 

 
 
 
Have fun

The carriages


The guns of the  Caroline where same as on the Bounty ex. Bethia.
This has reinforced my decision at the gun carriages to not change anything and  they are  placed on the ship.


But now I get a folder from the decryption department placed on the table. Many thanks to the team, keep it up, you do excellent work.
On the cover    "Top Secret, only for official use"

After evaluating the documents and photos, with super secret camera photographed
 

 

May I present to you, worth audience, more secret weapons production practices of smithy of his Majesty of England.

The carriages are in the style of Engl. Cannon built.

The sides of the carriage consist of two parts, which are bolted together.

In the lower part are the cutouts for the axles, at the top are the cutouts for the trunnion.
 
 
 
The axis sections of the lower bars are sawn on the circular saw
 
 


The semicircle is pre-cut to the circular saw and then filed
 
   

The upper parts are adapted and shaped
 
 
 
   
 

Now for the axles and wheels
 
 
 
 

All parts of the carriages without wheels and axles
 



The carriages are being built together
 
 


Ready gun carriages with guns
 
 

Guns on board
 
 
 


The next report on the arming of Caroline is in work and follows soon
 
 
 
Have Fun

Thanks Christian.
 
As I said in my previous post, I have removed the offending parts of these stern window frames and have made a brief start at trying to remedy the problem.
I'm attempting to attach individual horizontal muntins between the verticals and it is proving to be very tricky ~ they are only about 2mm - 2.5mm in length and less than 0.5mm thick so I don't know how successful this will be. Meanwhile, I find it is sometimes better to walk away from a difficult task and to do something else, then return at a later time.
If this doesn't prove to be reasonably satisfactory I will have to re-think another strategy. I'll be looking at some of your suggestions.
 
After I had initially attached these 'not-so-good' stern parts (several weeks ago) I set about making preparations for the poop deck >
 

 

 
 
 
 

Very nice,  looking good...

Wow, I don't know what to say Karl............outstanding

Hi Augie
 
I love this ship and will follow this log with great interest

Made a small scale to measure the required length ...
 

 
... and put the blocks into my serving machine. The compass allows easy reading of the required length.
 

 
Fitted the lanyards, fixed with glue ...
 

 
... and wrapped around.
 

 
Looked strange and impracticable, so decided to consult the literature again. Then tried a final wrap in the middle and ended up with no major wrapping, just a big loop and some minor wrapping in the middle. Looks much more logical.
 

 
The the final assembly on the trucks and it finally worked the way I wanted!
 

 
So after months of no sleep, dafi finally will have a good rest tonight :-)
 
Sleep well all of you and dream of me nicely ...
 
... that is what one could call nightmares ;-)

A departure from tying rigging for the guns to do something a bit more fun- the stern and other carvings. The cast metal has some nice detail that only comes out under paint. The kit provides a colour scheme which is a bit gaudy for my liking:
 
They do suggest bare timber is another option as the historical record is unclear on paintwork.
I tried a bit of simulated timber paint with a light buff colour as a base coat with a mix of 'woody' looking artists oils like raw umber, yellow ochre, some sort of red, burnt umber and white painted over the top.
This was brushed over with a clean brush to removed it from the top surfaces like dry brushing in reverse.
I think the wood effect is a bit much on its own so here's a test with half the background in the blue used on the rest of the ship.
Its very rough and needs a tidy but I like this as it ties in with the blue line on the capping rail so I'll continue in this direction.
 

Some small but noticeable items on the hull exterior ...anchor lining, fenders and steps.

 
 
The kit fenders are ply and have lamination lines down the vertical face which are very noticeable under varnish. New ones were made from walnut stock off one of the kit sheets. Kit part on the right, homemade ones on the left.

 
Likewise the entrance steps have laminations on the top faces. They had a thin veneer of walnut plank added to cover it.

I love your accurate skill Ferit. That's looking very nice

Hi Ray
 
It will be a very fine model your Diana. She's looking great

A decent home for your Syren Augie

The mizzenmast...

Deck fittings
 
Now that all the main deck guns are in place I finished of the rest of the gun deck fittings. The stove looks very good as do the capstan and pumps in some ways its a pity most of these items will be hidden, when the top deck goes on,all the fitting made up well, the only tricky bit is the pump handles which I made up and fitted as the other components were fitted to the deck,these and the other parts had brass pins glued into the bottom of them and a .7mm hole drilled into the deck to receive them,and finally they were fixed in place with cyno.
 
Looking down the deck

 
Looking up the deck

 
 
looking down on the deck


 
view up the deck


 
down on the deck


 
 
 
 

At 1:48 scale, from counter timbers to the knee of the head she's a very sweet 22". Just for laughs, I've attached a rejected Swan bow for comparison. It makes our little sloop of war look huge doesn't it? So far only box has been used but holly wales are next with Fiebings leather dye to blacken.

Speedwell's framing has finally been completed. Note the various shifts and casts of the toptimbers as they frame the ports. There are many more of these on this vessel than on a Swan class ship and they can be challenging at times. My plan is to plank her from the ports up and rig her.