AnobiumPunctatum

Welcome on the shipyards. It will be nice if you can share some bigger photos.

After building some furniture for the cats in the new apartment I finally have time to build more on this ship. First off I ordered some pear wood from Germany. Now I understand why people said that I shouldn't have use fir in my last build! This wood is just fantastic! Almost no grain and makes really crisp edges.
 
I ordered 2mm sheets for the planking and 12x25mm (1/2×1") for posts etc. It saws really nice with my fine pull saws.
 
The mould for the hull is built and the backbone of the ship - stem and sternpost, hooks and keel plank. They are held to the mould by removable wire with shrink tubing and two screws through the keel plank.
 
I used dry heat to bend the keel plank and will try it on the planks as well.
 



 

I am further busy with sanding the hull. The starbordside is finished. At the port side some further sanding at the stern is necessary. It's a lttle bit difficult to get this really smooth with stem glueded in place.
 

 

 
 

Today I found time to sand the first half of the hull. After removing the adhesive tape at the keel I have to sand a little bit at the stem.
 

 

 
Those who can read have a clear advantage. 😉 If you see, I didn't follow Chucks advise, I simply overread this.  So I copied the marks on the other side of the frames.

In order to be able to securely fasten the model to the stand, two recesses for nuts were milled into the keel board and two holes were drilled for M3 threaded rods.


Today I glued the ribs into the prepared keel board. For the right-angled alignment I built small auxiliary constructions out of Lego bricks.

 

Next step was to form the rabbet. I used therefor a scrap piece from the false keel.
 

 
After drying, the spooning was glued to the false keel. During the drying process the paper clips proved their worth.
 

 
I sanded the taper the stem with sandpaper. Finally, the stem and keel were glued to the ensemble.
As you can see in the photos, the shape of the taper is not perfect, but the planking will cover that later.
 

 

In 2016 I bought Chuck's Starting set from a fellow modeler who became a father. I glued the false keel together and then packed everything in a big box. While preparing the Winchelsea build, the box fell into my hands and I decided to build both models more or less in parallel. I can practise all the building steps on the much smaller Cheerful model before I do them on the Winchelsea.
 
Since the false keel I built at that time was no longer usable and I want to build the model from Yellow Cedar, I asked Chuck for spare parts. These arrived on Saturday morning with a small delivery of wood. Many thanks for the first class service, @Chuck .
 
I will build the model according to the instructions and with the help of the mini-kits. I have only one change planned - I want to copper the underwater hull.
The slipway is a bit big for the small cutter, but as I still had it, it was reactivated.
 
On Saturday evening I glued the false keel together and let it dry overnight. The frames could only be pushed into the recesses with difficulty - the thickness of plywood is always subject to slight fluctuations. I made a small sanding stick out of 180-grit sandpaper and a suitable strip. Then go over the lasered edges two or three times on each side and the frames fit perfectly (the frames are not glued in now).
 
 

Finally, the stem was assembled.
 

 

I am further busy with sanding the hull. The starbordside is finished. At the port side some further sanding at the stern is necessary. It's a lttle bit difficult to get this really smooth with stem glueded in place.
 

 

 
 

Rigging the yards
 
I’m coming closer to the end of my journey.
 

 
It's time to rig the yards. The first step is making the stirrups. In many kits these are removed from sheets of PE brass and drilled into the base, here I get to make them from rope, which is a bit more tricky than it might seem. I started by seizing a tight loop around a #68 bit. After experimentation I chose this bit as the tightest size for the .25 dark brown rope used for the foot rope to fit through. Too big of a loop and I’d not be able to properly position the foot ropes.
 

 
Each stirrup had to be long enough to wrap around the yard three times and be the correct length. To do this I placed a piece of parchment paper over the plans, set the length from the bottom of the yard by taping the rope to the parchment paper, then gluing it to the backside of the yard with a dip of CA applied with a straight pin. With that done I wrapped the the rope three times round using CA then cut the rope off at the bottom of the yard where it wouldn’t be seen. I stiffened the stirrups with watered down white glue. I’m sure there are better ways to do this process, but this way worked for me.
 

 
Once I had that done I seized the foot ropes to the yards. I had seized the blocks the lower and topsail yards earlier. It all worked out but was a bit trying to get the lengths right. You might note the left side of the plans, that’s the result of my knocking over the paint bottle. Fortunately the plans and my work mat were the only victims. I keep a roll of paper towels nearby, it’s not the first time I’ve wasted some paint...or glue...or whatever other liquid was nearby.
 

 

 
I made up the four brace pendants for the lower yard and raised the yard by connecting the mast and yard slings, it’s nice look. Once again I’ll note how much serving rope adds to the model - using the Syren Service-O-Matic makes this very easy to do. I also added the clue lines. These have a 3/16 block that connects to the top mast, then runs through the mast sheave, through the lower yard block and down to the deck.
 
Although I’d installed them a while ago, I did not belay any of the stays. In the photo they are folded over the peak halyard, I need the room to terminate the remaining lines to the mast and pin rail. I could have worked around them, but why. So they’ll remain up out of the way until the last steps of the rigging.
 

 
I loosely ran the lower yard fore and aft braces and lifts following the plans, again keeping the aft braces flipped up out of the way. It’s fun finding the right path for the lines. It’s a string puzzle, I enjoy sorting it all out.
 

 
I make it a point to study the rigging plans early in the build so I know where and how various blocks, eyebolts, and hooks will go and add them early. I missed this one, the bowsprit blocks which I had added a long time ago. The lower yard braces initiate at the bowsprit block, run up to the yard pendant, back trough the block and belay at the bow pin rail.  So I had to cut off and replace the blocks at the end of the bowsprit to add the tackle to the block, not super hard thanks to the Quad Hands, but a pain nonetheless.
 

 

 
And of course what rigging job would be complete without breaking something, as I did more than once, in this case the main sheet. So it’s a time-out to re-rig it back again.
 

 
I do all the rigging I can off the ship whenever I can. For the topsail yard that included the clue lines and braces. These involve very long rope runs. I somehow mis-managed my .018 light brown line and with no source to replenish it I substituted .012 line for the topsail yard brace. You can see I’ve stripped down my Quad hands into loop tying mode. Loops were seized in this tackle then tightened onto the yard keeping the long coils of line untangled, and not dipped into spilled jars of paint.
 
The topsail yard also has a sling, this one isn’t served. I also included the optional truss from .025 line for additional stability.
 

 

 
With the topsail yard hoisted with its long braces and lifts the deck seemingly is a cluttered mess, but I know each rope, there is organization to the madness. I prefer all the lines be on board at this point so I can carefully find the right and clean route through the blocks, mast and yards before belaying any of them.
 

 
Knowing where things are and where they go comes with a lot of studying and marking up the plans. I’ve completed the standing rigging so that plan is folded and put away. The plans tell you what you need to know but that doesn’t always include the route and it doesn’t resolve conflicts with other lines. It does provide a belay plan, that’s the important piece of information along with line and block placements. (I cut off portions of the plan in this photo, sorry pirates).
 

 
With the yards and their respective lines hoisted and installed its time to start belaying.  As I mentioned I moved everything aft of the mast up and out of the way, they’ll be dropped down and belayed later. The lower yard foot ropes seem short, but they match the plans, they aren’t fully pulled and dressed out in this photo. I tested mini me up there, he seemed ok with it.
 

 
Next I leveled both the lower and the topsail yard using and belaying their respective lifts (one per side of each yard for four total). I want to get that right and the yards steady before anything else, I did careful measurements between yards and use of my bubble level. With that done I next want to finish anything attached to the mast cleats, including rope coils, this includes one end of the clue lines, these can be worked from either end, the other belays to the pin rails.
 

 
With a lot of lines belayed at this point it was time to go into rope coil mode. I ended up spending a full afternoon making and placing coils. Not just because there more than are a few, but each one I made I decided I could make the next one better, probably explains why I ran short of .018 rope. I find watered down clear matte acrylic works better for coils than the watered down white glue I use for finishing belay points and seizing lines.
 

 

 

 
Everything fore of the mast is now rigged, belayed, and have rope coils in place. I like this method of coiling rope I described in an earlier post. I added coils to the unused belaying pins just to fill it up, and because I went a bit crazy making them.
 

 

 
The fore end of a cutter bowsprit is a busy place, lot of ropes descend here from the mast and belay back to the bow pin rail. maybe not frigate like, but kinda fun.
 

 

 
Finally it’s the aft stays and braces turn to be belayed I hadn’t finalized the aft lower yard brace in the photo, it was time for dinner, I went back to it later. Room to work get’s tight, not so much there are so many lines, there just isn’t much space in between them to access the belay points. My eye of a sewing needle on a stick I described a few post ago comes in handy.
 
With that the rigging of my Cheerful is complete. Next up are the anchors.
 
My thanks for the likes and the comments - as always they are very appreciated.

Congrats for finishing this beautyful model. It's looking really wonderful.

Congrats for finishing this beautyful model. It's looking really wonderful.

Congrats for finishing this beautyful model. It's looking really wonderful.

Congrats for finishing this beautyful model. It's looking really wonderful.

Thank you, everyone. So, we come to the end of this particular journey. I appreciate all who have followed along. Happy model-making to you all.
 
BTW, I've no idea what might be next - yet.
 

Thank you, one and all. Almost complete now! The oars have been installed and all that remains are final touch-ups, dusting and adding the case over the model.
 
In the first photo you can see the second bank of oars going in, resting on a block of suitable height and shimmed with card. The retaining pins for the acrylic case are also done and temporarily inserted.
 

Omissions and lack of source citations aside, I think it is still the best handbook on ship modeling for beginning and intermediate ship modelers.
 
Eventually, one may "graduate" to various sources for more specific details. But, if I were to hand a promising ship modeler one book to help him or her out, it would be this one.

I agree with Clare.  The one value of this book is its a pointer.  It may not cover the ship you're working on or the info might not be correct.  But it does make a good starting place for additional research.  And as always, additional research is needed for a given ship/country.

Your planking looks absolut fantastic. I like the color of the cedar. I think it will give a really nice contrast with pear of swiss pear.

The following photo shows a really wonderful modern model of HMS Minerva, which shows the beauty of an fully rigged frigate.
It's my model and motivation for the build of HMS Winchelsea.

Picture from Country-Life, April 2011
 
HMS Winchelsea had a really long career in the Royal Navy and it's possible that the ship is looking similiar to the model of Minerva, after the great repair of 1780-1782. I don't know  if I will copper my model of if I will show an older condition of the ship.
 
@Chuck
You show in your log photos of the origininal model of HMS Winchelsea. I couldn't find a gallery with all photos. Is it possible to make a gallery? This makes it much easier to find this very informative pictures.

Really nice Progress, Chuck.
I like the size of your Version 2, much more possibilitie to play with details.

I've completed all of the stays.  Some nice rigging at the bow.
 
As I noted earlier, the heavier black threads twist when under tension, so the trick with those is to pre-tension them and then rig the blocks to other blocks.  That keeps things straight when under tension.
 
Regards,
David

Looks really nice. For lot's of modelers I think the milled parts are a goed starting point. I don't think that it is necessary to prebuild parts of the model

Wow, that is looking great.

That's a nice idea with the cutter. I will try it.

Looks really nice. For lot's of modelers I think the milled parts are a goed starting point. I don't think that it is necessary to prebuild parts of the model