LucienL

Hey Henry, I was hoping that would be the case, but wasn't sure if there was something I was missing. Looking at it again, it does seem like they've only included some of the rigging for one side, so you're probably right. That does put me more at ease, thank you.

I don't know what the normal distance is, but AOTS has the same number as the OcCre plans, which would come out to 24 cm in real life and 4 mm on the model. This man is about as tall as 8 ratlines, but it's difficult to tell with the angles and the way he is holding on, but that would be equivalent to 7 x 24 or 168 cm, which is possibly accurate, but there might be more spacing here. If you went with 5 mm, he'd be 210 cm tall, so somewhere in the range of 4-5 mm is probably right. I'd say 4 mm would be decent spacing, but you might want to measure yourself and see how many ratlines you can fit given the length of your shrouds. Also, from when I did ratlines on my last ship, it might help to do the top one and the bottom one first so they end up being the same height on both sides of the mast. I ended up messing up the spacing a bit and one side was slightly higher even though they had the same number of ratlines.

Okay, thanks Allan, that's making a little more sense. In the Monfeld drawing, would there be two sets of tackle, and would this be a similar situation for the Beagle diagram? The reason why I ask, is I'm trying to figure out how many eyebolts I need to have at the base of each mast for each line that is attached to tackle, I know of two for the topgallant and royal yard ties. There are another two for the topsail yard (although they don't tie off at the mast base according to AOTS), one for the flag halyard and then one or two sets of truss tackle. There are also some stays that tie off at the base of the mast (one mizzen at the main mast and two main stays at the foremast)

Ah, I'm thinking now that I may have got the purpose of the truss all wrong. Is it just to let the yard move away from the mast? If so, the dangling pendant still bothers me. If the yard were blown too far with the port side forward, would the pendant be at risk of slipping out of the block? Also, how would you then bring it back if you can only tighten the starboard side?

Looking great. You've got ratlines just ahead of you, one of the most painful and rewarding parts of building the ship.

Hi Allan I think Anatomy of the Ship's plans come from a description of the rigging used for the Beagle by Robert Fitzroy around the time of the second voyage (1831). Admittedly, the quote is a little vague The Beagle was rigged with extra-strong crosstrees and heavier rigging “than is usual in a vessel of her tonnage. Chains were used where found to answer and in no place was a block or sheave allowed which did not admit the proper rope or chain freely.... Our ropes, sails and spars were the best that could be procured.” It may be some speculation on the part of the author (Marquadt) but there is at least some evidence. I can't really think of anywhere else chain would need to pass through a block, but my understanding of rigging is extremely limited and I may not have studied the plans enough. But my understanding of how the pendant actually worked is still unclear. Did the pendant really just hang there? I somehow have an easier time imagining that the Burton and mast tackles would just dangle as they were used to hoist up heavy items (I'm assuming that would be the lower yards?) If my understanding of the truss is correct, tightening the truss tackle would pull the yard one way and giving it some slack would let it fall the other way. This explanation seems unsatisfying to me as if the truss were loosened, wouldn't the yard be free to fall in either direction? Should there be another set of truss tackle on the other pendant? These diagrams were posted in another thread. The one on the right makes more sense to me than the one on the left. I'm imagining that there is a set of tackle for each rope at the deck in the right diagram and they can be loosened or tightened to turn the yards one way or the other. The right one is more similar to AOTS, but makes less sense, it also does not have a dangling truss pendant though...

Hi everyone, I'm working on the HMS Beagle and basing my build off of the Anatomy of the Ship to modify the OcCre kit. Apparently, the Beagle used a significant amount of chain in its rigging, including for the truss around the lower yard. This diagram is included Looking at image I1/3, I'm not sure I'm fully understanding what's going on. The truss pendants are number 4 and the truss tackle is number 6. Would the truss pendant really simply dangle like this? If the truss tackle were to be tightened too much, wouldn't the truss pendant slide out of the iron block and suddenly become useless? How many ropes should be going down to deck regarding the truss, is it just one for the truss tackle or should there be another set of tackle on the other pendant? Also I have similar questions about the mast tackle pendant (is there a difference between mast tackle and burton tackle?) Any help is greatly appreciated.

Thanks for the comments Rob and Don. So for the forecastle details the first step was to blacken the chain. I have outlined how I made my home-made blackening solution in my bounty’s launch build log but it basically involves using copper sulfate and bicarb soda to make copper carbonate which can then be added to ammonia to give the blackening solution. I was still using the same batch from my Bounty’s launch, and I think it is much weaker now as some of the ammonia has evaporated. It took over 5 hours to produce the colour seen here where it was achieving the same results in 10 minutes a year ago. I guess the container must not be particularly airtight. Also, on a few other Beagle threads, it's been mentioned how crowded the belaying pins at the foremast are. Anatomy of the Ship indicates that there should be some eyebolts around the base of the foremast to possibly ease this. It's pretty clear why OcCre has not suggested this, as it is going to be a pain in the **** to tie off ropes here once the mast is in, but why are we here if not to suffer? I'll probably tie off the threads to these eyebolts before adding the mast, which might make things a bit easier. Painting the windlass was fun. The beige I used for the pins didn’t look quite right on the windlass as a whole, so I added a tiny bit of brown. Painting in the lines was a challenge that took a few goes to get right. I also made the carronade. The top ring in my kit was very poorly cut and one edge was thinner than the other side and it broke as soon as I cut it out. I had to bend some 1 x 3 strips to give two half rings to make up a new one. I did also add some gun tackle using 2 mm blocks. The hatchway was also fun to make. I added some hinges to the hatches with some off cuts from the eyebolts. I also made up some chain stoppers. I’m not really sure if they’re quite right but I think they get the idea across. And finally, the two binnacles have been added. There’s a bit of a story as to why I have two. From anatomy of the ship, it’s clear that two binnacles were onboard, while the kit only has one. I noticed this months ago and emailed OcCre asking to pay for an additional binnacle as well as shipping. They may have misunderstood me as they assumed I had a missing part. They sent over a bunch, so I have way too many now, but I could at least install the correct amount. But as many other people have mentioned, OcCre definitely has top notch customer service, which I guess is something to keep in mind for any of their kits. Anyway, I'm having a lot of fun with the little details, it's definitely one of the most rewarding parts of the build. The thought of building the boats is a bit daunting as I think I've set myself a few challenges there and I'm not really sure how it's going to turn out. The next few updates shouldn't be too far off though.

Okay, so went a bit dark there. I finally have a couple of weeks to give the boat some undivided attention. I was really struggling a bit to motivate myself to the deadeyes again, but I got through it. They are now wooden and appropriately sized. I also finished the new belaying pins with the new pin rails. They are 9 mm brass pins painted a beige colour and I think they look right now. It seems like it is pretty difficult to get correctly scaled wooden belaying pins that won't be extremely fragile, so the painted brass ones will have to do. And then onto new and exciting things. So first up is the poop side rails, which are extremely delicate and a bit tricky as the eyebolts provided are a little short and had to be reinforced with a lot of epoxy to make somewhat stable. I also finished the azimuthal compass and the other poop details. I did print out a little compass rose to glue on the compass, but it was too small to print properly. I touched it up with a pen, but it looks okay, I think. I’m not going to add the stowage blocks yet as I’m not really sure how the whaleboats will be placed yet. I think once I’ve made those and get a better sense of the size, I can add them. Anyway, working on the carronade and windlass now, good to be back.

Thanks Techtonic! The Pegasus is a very nice ship that I'm sure you will do a great job with. The untarnished copper will look great on that one.

Hey everyone, sorry for the delay between posts. A bit slammed right now. I'm still working on re-doing a few things. I did get to the wheel, which I made way more complicated than I needed to. I ended up drilling holes into the the area behind the wheel and feeding the thread through there. it was very fiddly and probably not worth it, but I've done it now. More recently, I went back to the copper to give it a proper finish. The matt effect from the wood varnish still wasn't quite right as it was so thin and couldn't be sanded without losing the patina. I decided to lay a lot of the copper protector over it to give a very thick coat that could be sanded. Then I sanded it smooth and used a light dusting from far away of a matt spray sealant. This gave the desired effect and I am now pretty happy with it The deadeyes and belaying pins have arrived so I will get onto that soon. I ended up going with 3 mm deadeyes for the mizzen masts and tops and 4 mm deadeyes for the main and fore masts. The belaying pins are small 9 mm brass pins that are actually shaped correctly and I will probably paint a beige colour to try to match the boxwood ones. I will need to cut a new fore pin rail however as the holes are way too big for the tiny belaying pins (they're only around 0.5 mm thick)

Thanks Allan, it almost looks like you wouldn't be able to tell that those pins weren't black from a distance. I have a blackening solution that I might use, but thanks for the tip on Birchwood technologies.

Alternatively, I could blacken them. How realistic would black belaying pins be?

Hey everyone, thanks for all the responses I sent cast your anchor an email about the pins. They responded quite quickly (given that I am on the wrong side of the globe), but it seems like those top pins are indeed a fairy tale. I like your thinking and you are probably right that even 2 mm is out of scale, however I have already drilled 2 mm holes for all of the kit belaying pins and would need to order more material to drill some smaller ones, so I will probably have to live with ‘somewhat close to scale’ rather than completely out of scale. hmm yes, they do say .5mm on the site, but I think they have done the conversion wrong or there is some other mistake. The next size up is 2 mm (for the 11 mm pins) and the inches on the 9 mm pin list 5/64ths of an inch, which I believe comes to around 2 mm as well I think I’ll go with the brass pins this time around, but thank you everyone for your thoughts. With that said, does anyone know anything about the actual use of brass pins during the age of sail? The ship I’m building is from 1820 (HMS Beagle) and there are some photos of actual brass belaying pins in a google image search but they seem more recent. Were brass pins ever used, or should I paint them a brown/beige colour to mimic wood?

Has anyone bought the 8 mm boxwood belaying pins from Cast Your anchor hobbies? This is the image they have on their site I'm somewhat skeptical that they actually look like the pins as pictured, as they have the same image for each size of pin. I'm worried it will turn out to still be the rounded head pins without that shape and will instead look like the image below.

After looking at the belaying pins, I decided that their heads were a bit too round and they looked a bit too crowded on the forecastle so I have ordered some new ones. Turns out I wasn’t okay with the plastic large deadeyes in the kit and also ordered some more of those. Fun times ahead, redoing the deadeyes for the third time. During this waiting period, I took the time to make a few other tweaks that I’d been thinking about. First, I gave the bow another go with diluted paint, which did turn out a bit better, I think it’ll be okay once the figurehead is on, but I might try and sand it back again. at some point I went back to the gunports as well and added small bits of 0.5 mm wire to mimic the actual hinges and some chain links to mimic the loops that would hold the gunports open And finally, after some measurements from anatomy of the ship, it seems like using 6 mm dowels for all of the masts may be a little unrealistic. I've ordered some larger 8 mm dowels for the main and fore masts and some extra 5 mm dowel for the mizzen mast. I've made some appropriate adjustments to the mast steps to accomodate this, but may need to do some filling for the mizzen mast, I'll see how I go, that's a little ways off

Now onto the fun stuff. First up were the flag lockers. I have no idea why the lid on the kit version of these lockers was so comically oversized, so I made it mostly from scratch. I also used some of the gunport hinges that I didn’t use on the aft-most ports to give them some proper hinges. Then I chose to replace the brass ladders with wooden ones. This is something I committed myself to early in the build, but I didn’t quite comprehend how fiddly it would be. I used leftover 5 x 2 mm sapele from the Albatros (cut back to 3 x 2) and some 3 x 1 mm limewood for the rungs. The sapele did not hold the glue very well and it took a few tries, but I’m pretty happy with the result.

Argh, I know your pain. On my first boat I brushed glue all over one of the planks. It was a small launch boat so the internal planks were visible and it was just impossible to stain right. There is no real solution, maybe try scraping it with a sharp blade. More stain is just going to make the contrast more stark. Alternatively you could try mixing some varnish with some stain, thats what I ended up doing and it did hide it a bit.

There's also this

Ah whoops, @Keith Black's response must not have loaded for me

Those are the spreaders I think. They point out from the bowsprit It looks like they should be able to hook on some eyebolts on the bowsprit, it seems like the rigging diagrams are a little tricky to follow though

They look great! The ship is very nice to look at now

The instructions on this one lack a bit of foresight. It would be easier to have cut the planking to leave a hole, which could then be widened to allow the bowsprit to fit in. There is a hole in the false keel where it is supposed to go. They don't really tell you that though. Good luck! The bowsprit on the Beagle is quite impressive and will add a lot

The blocks are fine, they are essentially just like wooden blocks in shape but happen to be plastic. My main concern with them is more the material, I'm worried that it will just cheapen the whole model as they are very obviously plastic. I think the deadeyes are fine, they work similar to the way you are describing. After sleeping on it, I've come to the conclusion that it would always bug me if I did not replace them. It will only get more difficult to make this change as more blocks are added. Thank you for the comments. Looks like it's back to wire bending for me...

Hey there, I'm just wondering what everyone's thoughts on plastic blocks and deadeyes are? I'm currently building the Beagle by OcCre and am debating replacing the plastic blocks and deadeyes with wooden ones. This might be a little pricy and would mean undoing a lot of work as I've already added all the plastic deadeyes to the channels. Is it worth replacing them or should I just live with it? Is there anything that can be done to improve plastic deadeyes? They are quite glossy, could I coat them in some matte coating?