AnobiumPunctatum

I was really suprised that I did not find a build log about the Naval Cutter Alert on MSW 2.0. I know that there exist some pictures of a model on the old MSW
 
The first source for building a model of this small vessel are Peter Goodwins book "The Naval Cutter Alert, 1777", published by PhoenixPublications Inc. 1991 and the two original drawing of her sister Rattlesnake (1776) which you will find on the homepage of the NMM.
There also exist two paintings of Joseph Marshall of the ship, which are exhibited in the Science Museum, London.
I found also an Sheer and Profile drawing of Alert which was published by the NRG.
 
The sheer and profile of the NRG and Goodwin differ from the original drawing. They show the maximum width of the ship not at frame 0. Perhaps my Engish is to bad, but I could not find any reason for this. So I decide to draw my own lines. which were based on Goodwin and the original drawing.

 
The drawing is not finished, because I decided only to draw what I need for my build.
 
Next step was the keel. Goodwin shows for the pass between keel and lower apron a solution which I could not find on any original cutter drawings.

 
For the after deadwood he does not offer any possible solution

 
I decide to follow the original drawing of Cheerful 1806 for the pass between keel and lower apron. The flat joint at the foremost keel part is shown on original drawings of this period (for example on HMS Triton). For the after deadwood I decided to use a bearing line. I am not sure if this is common for ships of this period.
The next picture shows my completed keel drawing:

 
Goodwin uses for his design the common frameing pattern of double and single frames. I am not sure that this design was used for the original ship. For the Swan class sloops only single frames were used. This you will also find on the drawing of Cheerful and other cutters. Also the wide of the frame parts are not clear. In his drawing he uses much smaller futtocks than he descibed in the text part of the book. In his "Construction and Fitting of Sailing Man of War" he gives a third solution.
What now? Alert is a practice model for me to get the experience to continue my HMS Fly build. Marshall shows on his paintings an simplified frameing design, so I decided to use this. Every frame is 8'' width followed by 8'' space. For the port side I like to show the clinker planking.
On my drawing the final design for the last frame and the hawse pieces is missing in the moment.

 
The drawings for every 31frames and 21cant frames are finished.

 
I am not sure in the moment if I will use the original practice with chocks or the simplified method of Harold Hahn for my build.
 
It will be very nice if you have further information about the cutters of this time. I found the Marmaduke Stalkartt on Google-books, but they didn't scan the plates. Perhaps one of the MSW user can help me to confirm my decisions.

I was really suprised that I did not find a build log about the Naval Cutter Alert on MSW 2.0. I know that there exist some pictures of a model on the old MSW
 
The first source for building a model of this small vessel are Peter Goodwins book "The Naval Cutter Alert, 1777", published by PhoenixPublications Inc. 1991 and the two original drawing of her sister Rattlesnake (1776) which you will find on the homepage of the NMM.
There also exist two paintings of Joseph Marshall of the ship, which are exhibited in the Science Museum, London.
I found also an Sheer and Profile drawing of Alert which was published by the NRG.
 
The sheer and profile of the NRG and Goodwin differ from the original drawing. They show the maximum width of the ship not at frame 0. Perhaps my Engish is to bad, but I could not find any reason for this. So I decide to draw my own lines. which were based on Goodwin and the original drawing.

 
The drawing is not finished, because I decided only to draw what I need for my build.
 
Next step was the keel. Goodwin shows for the pass between keel and lower apron a solution which I could not find on any original cutter drawings.

 
For the after deadwood he does not offer any possible solution

 
I decide to follow the original drawing of Cheerful 1806 for the pass between keel and lower apron. The flat joint at the foremost keel part is shown on original drawings of this period (for example on HMS Triton). For the after deadwood I decided to use a bearing line. I am not sure if this is common for ships of this period.
The next picture shows my completed keel drawing:

 
Goodwin uses for his design the common frameing pattern of double and single frames. I am not sure that this design was used for the original ship. For the Swan class sloops only single frames were used. This you will also find on the drawing of Cheerful and other cutters. Also the wide of the frame parts are not clear. In his drawing he uses much smaller futtocks than he descibed in the text part of the book. In his "Construction and Fitting of Sailing Man of War" he gives a third solution.
What now? Alert is a practice model for me to get the experience to continue my HMS Fly build. Marshall shows on his paintings an simplified frameing design, so I decided to use this. Every frame is 8'' width followed by 8'' space. For the port side I like to show the clinker planking.
On my drawing the final design for the last frame and the hawse pieces is missing in the moment.

 
The drawings for every 31frames and 21cant frames are finished.

 
I am not sure in the moment if I will use the original practice with chocks or the simplified method of Harold Hahn for my build.
 
It will be very nice if you have further information about the cutters of this time. I found the Marmaduke Stalkartt on Google-books, but they didn't scan the plates. Perhaps one of the MSW user can help me to confirm my decisions.

Randall,
 
these differences are quite normal. If you print out the parts on your deskjet, you will see that it makes a difference if you use landscape or portrait format.
They are very small (0.1) and are up to the manufacturing process of the paper. Another source of the porblem is the thikness of the line. If I remember right they are about 0.25mm. If you saw out a part and sand to the correct size, you see normally more than the half of the line.
 
0.25mm in sum are very small but if you glue more than one part together your get very quick a difference of 1 mm and more. I didn't count how many deadwoods I have casted off until I understand how to work with these problems:
 
Try to use allways the same paper and paper direction and sand your parts until the whole line is nearly invisble. And the rest is handcraft - so small differences are totally normal.

Randall,
 
these differences are quite normal. If you print out the parts on your deskjet, you will see that it makes a difference if you use landscape or portrait format.
They are very small (0.1) and are up to the manufacturing process of the paper. Another source of the porblem is the thikness of the line. If I remember right they are about 0.25mm. If you saw out a part and sand to the correct size, you see normally more than the half of the line.
 
0.25mm in sum are very small but if you glue more than one part together your get very quick a difference of 1 mm and more. I didn't count how many deadwoods I have casted off until I understand how to work with these problems:
 
Try to use allways the same paper and paper direction and sand your parts until the whole line is nearly invisble. And the rest is handcraft - so small differences are totally normal.

Final Assembly

As anyone can see, this planking job leaves a bit to be desired, but there it is. If I were to do it again hopefully it would be better.
 
Tree Nails
The tree nails are lined up along the bulkheads, two treenails per width of the plank. At the butt joints the tree nails are staggered. 
 
End of Chapter 4
 

the quarter gallery lights were wrong, so I redid them. boarding steps.
 

 

The following shows the steps of the construction of the double wheel. The wood is jarrah.
 
  turning the wheel on the Unimat
 
spokes
 
spokes in place
 
drum being machined
 

 

 
brass facing cut from sheet brass
 

If it's British naval armament history and extreme detail you want, and have deep pockets, the two volumes by Adrian Caruana are the ultimate in this field.

Hi Daniel,
 
everything works well. My drawings for the Alert are nearly finshed and I started the build yesterday. My next drawing project will be HMS Triton with single frames. But now I am happy that I can work with timber again.

Good night!
 
A small update. Just two pics. One about the lower deck clamp and the other about the thick stuff amidship.
 

 

 
Best wishes and happy happy days!
 
 
Daniel.

A few of us have used the tank crew set I think from Tamiya 1/48th.   The poses work well for ships crew.  Only minor modifications.  Should be available on line or most Hobby Shops. Photo shows a couple on my Fair American. Just painted, already in a good pose.  See Helmsman and crew member working on the cannon.
Tom

Thanks John, it would have been a LOT more difficult without the jig   .
 
All the timberheads are finished and installed. The pic below shows how much difference there was in the longitudinal angles, remember that the ones near the waist were straight :
 

 

 

 

 

 
  Danny

Thank you to all the guys who hit the "Like" button for my last post .
 
Forecastle Timberheads
 
I've marked and drilled the slots for the Timberheads, and also made and dry-fitted 8 more of them to check if the angles were going to need changing yet. Fortunately all the Forecastle ones are straight, so I can make 8 more before I have to adjust my jig. The bad news is that all the quarterdeck ones will need to be cut on at least four different angles - it could have been worse .
 

 

 

 
  Danny

Hello Daniel,
 
I have not thought about publishing the Alert drawings. The base of my work are the AotS Book "The naval cutter Alert, 1777" of Peter Goodwin and the NMM drawings of the Rattlesnake. There are some details in the book where in my opinion other solutions are more believable.
I draw with Autocad only in 2D - 3D will be the model of timber in the future.

Hello Daniel,
 
I have not thought about publishing the Alert drawings. The base of my work are the AotS Book "The naval cutter Alert, 1777" of Peter Goodwin and the NMM drawings of the Rattlesnake. There are some details in the book where in my opinion other solutions are more believable.
I draw with Autocad only in 2D - 3D will be the model of timber in the future.

Here's a link to their home page. I have the kit of the cog and must say it's really nice. I wrote a review of the kit for Modellmarine.de. Perhaps you get an impression of what you will get, if you buy a kit.

Daniel,
 
I didn't work on my HMS Fly since February. When I will go back to her, I don't know. It does not make fun to start in autumn and stop the build in spring for job reasons.  In the moment I work on drawings for the Naval Cutter Alert/Rattlesnake. In the summer I got the NMM drawings of HMS Triton. I like to build the model with the frameing of the original ship, so I have to draw the frames by myself.
If I find time to work more continuosly I will reopen my shipyard.

Wow, really great work. I hope that I can see your model in real life.

Thanks for reposting your small diorama. I like it very much.

Very nice progress, Mark

That's a magnificent ship.  Pity the plans can't be sold by Amati even if they don't want to produce the kit....     

Here is an update on the first deck. Many parts are fixed in relation with the beams of the second deck, so they are also needed. Many parts are still not glued yet. Planking is mostly completed. 2 areas are needed, in the middle and on port side but just enough to supports guns. The idea is the more planking is done the less we can see inside and in fact it is just the opposite effect which is wanted.  Animal park can be seen on the last 2 pictures.

Well, a few days has turned into a few weeks.  I received my cup burrs.  They do a nice job of smoothing the ends of brass "bolts".  There are several sizes available, depending on the gauge of the wire.  I purchased my from Widget Supply, a company that sells hobby supplies.  While on the site I found a great sanding devise, a 1/2" disc sander for the Dremel with several grits.  I used to get these from Micromark, but they stopped selling them last year.  The disc sander is perfect for outside tapers and when you want a less aggressive sander than the drum sander.  I have no connection to the company, simply a pleased customer.
 

 
I have installed beam set 4.  Notches have been cut into the bulkhead walls for the carlings and ledges.  I am much happier with the bolt head on the fore mast partner after rounding them up and painting them.  Blackening was not possible in situ and I was pleased with how it turned out.  The hole in the deck aft of beam 5 is for the pin of the bit.
 

 

Thanks for the warm welcome back guys! Really appreciated.
 
I made the carlings and ledges around the mast partner. As two of the carlings are half lapped under the beams and the mast partner itself is let down 1" on the beam this makes for some interesting cutting and fitting....
 

 

 

 

 
The mast wedges will be simulated by scoring the ring with a graphite dipped scalpel blade (actually it's already done but this other ring is fitted to the mast)
 

 
 
Remco