AnobiumPunctatum

It's looking really fantastic, Chuck.

It's looking really fantastic, Chuck.

Internal Bulwark planking completed, now to pack her up and get ready for the move.
 
 

Progress is being made, and confidence is growing  I'm pleased to see that the flow seems to be good between each frame... Next is some work on the transom...
 

I will follow your log with great interest.

This will be my last physical model update for a bit as I’ve returned to work which means I’m away from my laser. Before I left I just wanted a nice mock up of the basic Skelton so I cut the outer aft transom frames just to give an idea of the overall length and height of the hull.

For the next couple months I will be “assembling” Part1 of the kit on my computer to make sure everything required to make the hull is included and fits correctly.  This will also yield all my cut files for that part of the model.
 
Stay tuned for updates.

Hi Guys, 
So I’ve been developing HMS Portland for about two years now and I plan to offer it as a kit, it will be sold in parts or sections so you can build at whatever speed you wish or only purchase what you want and scratch build the rest. The project will
be in 1:48 scale and will be offered mainly in Alaskan yellow cedar and other various woods including boxwood for select parts and I’m leaning towards MDF structure but I will have to see how the initial prototype builds.
As a Winnie builder, I was inspired and blown away by Chucks incredible design work and flawless representation of the Winchelsea, so much that I purchased a laser machine and started designing. My aim is to offer a model as detailed and accurate as possible.
The model is designed to represent the dockyard style model of Portland as depicted in the Joseph Marshal paintings of 1774, as seen below. 
There are enough early drawings of Portland available to accurately represent her as initially designed, these drawings also match up well with the paintings of the contemporary model, she does differ from her closest sister, Bristol but the model could be modified to represent Bristol if desired. 

It will have all decks built and exposed down to the main gun deck showing all frames, guns and fittings.



currently the model is in its final stages of design/development, I will begin assembling the hull and proving the design as I go, I don’t plan to offer parts of the kit until I’m very very far into the build. Currently the sculptures are being finalized with the figurehead of Artemis, the Greek goddess of hunting already being produced, I should be able to post updates on the stern carvings in a couple months.


I am going to try and offer both resin and boxwood sculptures for this project, I haven’t been able to determine the cost of the full set yet but it shouldn’t be outrageous.
 
At 1:48 the model comes in just under 43” long and about 10.5” in beam. So it’s not unmanageable,
unless of course you decide to rig it.



The design prototype shows half the model with exposed frames, as the contemporary model was built, I may offer a version like this but it will be very expensive and tricky to build, it will be a hybrid POF/POB if released. I will likely start a test portion of this alongside the prototype build.
 
Currently I have set up my new laser machine and I’m cutting some parts just for testing purposes, I took some photos next to my Winnie to give an idea of scale. I think the two will look great sitting next to eachother.
 
 

Planking continues.
 
I have been busy carefully cutting the planks so they fit around the sweep ports and gun ports.   Its really important to go slow.  The last thing I want to have happen is me cutting all of these opening perfectly after about 30 minutes only to screw up on the last one.   That would mean tossing in the scrap bin and starting over.  Here a look at one of the longer planks that need to be made.  I am just using a sharp #11 blade and a small file to neaten up my openings.
 

I have managed to get the starboard side done up to a 3/32" strake.  This is actually the first layer of fancy molding that will be added much later.   I will pause here on the starboard side and not go any higher for the moment.  Above this molding the outboard planking is covered with a frieze or painted.   There will not be any treenails visible above this point.  So this is the optimal time to pause and add treenails to all the planking I have done so far.  This is optimal now for two reasons.
 
- First, I can still see where the hull framing is above and below this planked area.  This will make it super easy to run some tape down the hull to define exactly where the treenails should go.  I will post an update on that soon.
 

 
- In addition,  the second layer of wales has not been added yet.  On the Speedwell, there is an upper and lower wale strake.  These stand proud of a planking strake between them and it will be so much easier to treenail that strake without worrying I would damage the edges of the wales above it and below it.
 
 
I also want to point out that for the quarter badge window,  a laser etched square is on the framing piece.  You must trim each plank around this so you can insert the laser cut window later.  Here is a picture of that opening with the laser cut window inserted.  There will be acetate placed in the opening first and then this window.
 

 
 
Then the quarter bade will be added over this making for a very neat and tidy presentation.  This will be done later and these are only temporarily positioned.
 

 
I will complete the planking to this point on the port side next and begin treenailing the hull.
 
 

I have finalized my decision to build the French four-masted privateer L'Invention based on the recent ANCRE monograph authored by Gerard Delacroix. 

The ship was built 1799 - 1800 and sailed its first campaign in 1801; unfortunately just 9 days later L 'Invention was captured by a pair of English frigates. It was soon sold, reconfigured with three masts and put into use as a trader. Later it was captured again, resold, and was lost in 1810. When initially captured by the English (in 1801) and evaluated by the Royal Navy, L' Invention was highly regarded for its construction and sailing qualities.
 
While not having an exceptionally long life, L 'Invention appears to be unique in design having 4 masts and a very streamlined hull shape. The ratio of length to breadth was 5.28 - typically frigates of the time had ratio s between 3.7 and 4. Importantly, Delacroix notes that the hull shape and masting foreshadowed clipper ship design that would appear 50 years later in the U.S.
 
 
Over the past couple of weeks I have immersed myself in the monograph and the included 34 plans in order to visualize the order of construction that I will follow. I have decided to begin with frame construction. In particular I will first  concentrate on the frames from 13 to 37. These should be the simplest to construct. I will then move fore and aft was the frame construction becomes more complicated. Once that is done, I hope to have become familiar with the qualities of the Swiss pear wood that has been chosen for the model. I will then move to, what I expect to be much more challenging, the axial framework; i.e., the stem-keel-sternpost structure. This order of construction should also keep my work area more open for quite awhile as the big building board will not be needed initially! 
 
I am currently milling sheets of pear that will be used to create the frames. Pictures of progress should appear soon!

Yea there will be a second layer for the wales.  I just prefer to build that way.  But it would be easy enough to make them thicker from the start.    But it does look a bit odd at this stage.  Adding them in a second layer has some distinct advantages. 
 

 
I will also be treenailing before I add that second layer of wales.  
 
Thank you all for the kind words.
 
Chuck

Hello Chuck,
on the last pictures it seems that the planks and the wales have the same thickness. Do you put a second layer on the wales or have I missunderstood something in your description?
 
I love how accurate you do the planking job.
 

Continuation with planking above the wales.  I am trying to complete the five 7/32" wide strakes above the wales.   I had two of them completed,  but before I move further up towards the shear,  I needed to add the sweep port lids and fixed block shells on the outboard side.
 
This is just like on the Winnie and all other projects I build.  These must be added so we can plank around them neatly.  Use the template to find there locations.  Below you can see how the plank directly below the sweep ports needed to be cut around each and every port.  I basically followed the template.  This does take some time to do but if you just go slow it will all turn out fine.  I made sure I had a very sharp blade as I was cutting the plank around the sweep ports and gunports.  One wrong move or if impatient and you can remove too much from the plank and you will have to start over.  Thank goodness there are only six gunports but there are plenty of sweep ports to carefully cut around.  I have one more 7/32" strake to go which will need to be cut around the tops of the sweep orts next.
 
You may notice that I am also leaving a 1/64 to 1/32" rabbet around the bottom and sides of each gun port.   Even though this sloop didnt have gun port lids, they may have used bucklers during heavy seas and bad weather.  Its just a guess but it seemed like the way to go.  You could omit this and simply cut to the edge of your port openings if you like.  Its hard to tell on the contemporary model if they have this rabbet.


 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Fantastic results of a very unorthodox method.
Isn't there a big risc to damage the planking during the demolitian of the internal structure.
 
It would be very interesting if you could give us more information about your method.

I now have five frames completed along with scratch built sweep ports.
 
I added Yellow Cedar above the ports as filler pieces which extend to the sheer. To save some milling operations, that will be hidden later, I used Chuck's 5/32" laser cut top timbers. This nonuniform area will be covered up later with the upper hull planking. The five frames are mostly faired and the outer faces sanded close to the half breadth. Of course, there will be more work needed for final fairing which includes getting the sheer to a width of 5/32”.

The height gauge makes it much easier to find the proper height of the sweep port. Measurements for this are taken directly from the plan. The 4.66" height is well within my .005" margin of error.

I still need to reverse the tilt table on the mill in order to make it possible to do a scarph joint on one side of those long one piece floors. The setup doesn't take all that long to do, though I wouldn't want to make the change for every frame. With that in mind, I'm going to work the frames in larger groups rather than individually.
 
Mike

Debating what to do about the colour scheme.
 
The exterior I will probably paint white or white below the waterline, the interior I'm going to leave 'natural' but the wood seemed a bit too light (see first pic in the post above) so I took some shellac and added a touch of spirit based stain and brushed it on. Seems to have done the trick nicely. The stain bled through the plank joins in some places, but only enough to darken the seams a little. I could leave the hull with the current shellac finish without anyone noticing.
 

I added the keelson today.  This is made up from 4 laser cut lengths.   There are probably many ways to attack this.  But I decided to assemble all 4 pieces first.  There are scarph joints between each length.   Then I sanded it clean of laser char.   It may be hard to see below but I also drew a reference line down the center of the keelson.   This is where the bolts will go.  It was easier to mark the center of this 3/8" wide keelson now instead of when its on the model.  I used a compass opened to 3/16" with a pencil on one side.  I handy tool to have around.
 


I test fit it on the model.  The shape is so specific to each model after inboard that yes I had to tweak the bottom of the keelson and the bottom of the hull inboard to get a good fit in places.  I used various riflers and sanding sticks to match the curve and shape of the keelson as closely as possible.  Then the bolts were added.  I used 30 pound black fishing line.   One bolt goes every other frame.  This is except for the scarph joints which get two bolts.  Now the inboard side of the hull is completed for now.  Its nice and clean.   I can now return to planking the outboard side of the hull.
 

Congratulations for finishing this beautyful model and for reaching the awards. 
I only know the Le Rochefort and the Hayling Hoy, which David Antscherl has reconstructed as other examples of harbour vessels.

Congratulations for finishing this beautyful model and for reaching the awards. 
I only know the Le Rochefort and the Hayling Hoy, which David Antscherl has reconstructed as other examples of harbour vessels.

Congratulations for finishing this beautyful model and for reaching the awards. 
I only know the Le Rochefort and the Hayling Hoy, which David Antscherl has reconstructed as other examples of harbour vessels.

I also completed most of the work for the scoop guides and their associated axles (with washers). The hourglass shaped guides still need to be oiled and the axles need to be shorted to their final length. But all of the turning is done and the axles have already been drilled for fasteners.

This work did get slowed down when the drive belt on my lathe decided it had reached its life expectancy. While I have backup belts for my Byrnes table saw and thickness sander; I found that I had committed an oversight by not having backup belts for my Sherline lathe and mill. The drive belt failure led me to nearly two days of belt searching. After finding out what type of belt it was, I thought this can't be to hard to obtain for less than Sherline charges! They want $9.95 for a belt and for 3-5 day shipping another $10. So, I found the exact belts MB330's on Amazon - 2 for $7.99 with free delivery. At first they were suppose to arrive by 2 May; now maybe by 8 May - who knows as they are being shipped from China. So I ordered a generic 13 in belt for a few dollars and it came a day later. Not a great fit for the lathe, but it is functional with the lathe motor pushed as far from the drive pully as possible. It worked (big axle doubler) but will be replaced with a MB330 when one arrives - maybe tomorrow; yep I sucked up the $10 Sheline delivery fee for an item that weighs an ounce or two. 

Since my last post, I have added all of the superstructure fasteners and metalwork. Here is the last picture I took before oiling the deck and superstructure:

Today I spent nearly 4 hours swabbing linseed oil onto the deck and upper works. I think it is looking pretty nice, and am really looking forward to seeing it with wheels and scoops.


In a few days, when completely dry, I can think about adding 6 ring bolts to the deck. I believe the main purpose of these ring bolts was to attach ropes with hooks that could then secure the wheels during transport / anytime one would not want them free to turn. 
 
Now my attention will turn to finishing the wheels. Simultaneously, I will start working on the scoop mechanisms. I guess it is also time to select a mounting / display mode for the vessel. 

Over the past few days I did make a new set of axles. These will be keepers!
 
Later the big wheel axle will get some doublings to help support the scoop chains.

Above you can also see that I am adding the fasteners to the scoop guide components. I've been doing a lot of fasteners lately - guard rails, cleats, foot boards, ... Still quite a few to go on the superstructure, but progress is being made.
 
Here is the new small wheel axle.

I've been doing other odds and ends as well; for example all of the small wheel steps have been made flush with the rims and some metal work has been done on the davits.

The wheel bearings are complete and firmly attached. Cleats are in place as well - not too easy to see, but they are on the inside of pillars 1,2, 5, and 6.

The two wheel axles in these pics are now classified as 'practice pieces' - they were fails, better ones will be made! However, they are being used to check wheel alignment, etc. Looks like everything is going to be were it belongs.

 
 

Over the weekend, guardrails and foot boards were added to the superstructure pillars. Also, I finished the last two knees - the ones that fit onto the slanted pillars. For some reason, these knees presented a great deal of difficulty for me to get all the angles right. Quite a few attempts were made before I was able to make a pair that I was willing to attach to the model.

Today I began work on the wheel bearings. The big wheel bearings are being done first because they looked to be less complicated than the small wheel bearings. The main challenge being that the bearings have footprints that match the curve in the superstructure carling (i.e., the bases are not rectangular) and the required shape looks to be more pronounced for the small wheel bearings than that for the big wheel bearings. Also, because of the carling / base shape, the recesses in the bearings need to be milled at an angle so that the wheel axles embed properly. 

 
 

On to a better subject!
 
Today I spent time fabricating components that will support the scoop guides. Here are the parts before installation on the dredger. I connected the smaller roller pin supports onto the external guide beam before drilling holes for the pins. I saw no other reasonable way to have half the hole half above (and half below) the joint.
 
The external guides / beams were then installed. This was easy because the notches placed everything into the right place. I then went to install the inside guides. Note that they come in two sizes with the smaller ones forward; also the smaller ones are not symmetrical, there is a front and a back to these. I set these four guides onto the superstructure to check their fit and at first thought I had done something radically wrong as they looked to be sitting way too low. But then I looked through the holes from one side and was pretty sure I could see through all four. To confirm, I grabbed a piece of stiff wire and passed it thru all four - and yes, all was as it should be! I then use the wire to aid in gluing the inner guides in place. I threaded the wire in place, slid an inside guide into the open space between the superstructure and the exterior guide, spun it over to apply glue, spun it back, and set it in place. Repeat 3 more times and all done.

Later, hourglass shaped rollers will be turned to fit between the guides, as well as the pins that keep them in place.