AnobiumPunctatum

Thanks Everyone,
 
Work on the upper deck aft framing is almost complete and I just have to tie it in with the Wing Transom now.
Then there are the five trickier mid sections to complete the upper deck.

@KrisWood if you haven't seen this, check it out: https://my.matterport.com/show/?m=x4xgpD8hUBj
 
The Oslo Museum of Cultural history has a 360 degree walk around of the Osberg ship exhibition space (Looks like the pictures were taken while they were scanning it a few years back). The pictures are very high resolution and you can see a lot of detail.

Hi Tony,
 
a really wonderful buildlog and a beautyful model. It was a pleasure to read through your log. The fashion piece is really tricky. It took me also a litttle time and some hints from druxey, until I understand how it works.

Hi Tony,
 
a really wonderful buildlog and a beautyful model. It was a pleasure to read through your log. The fashion piece is really tricky. It took me also a litttle time and some hints from druxey, until I understand how it works.

Hi Tony,
 
a really wonderful buildlog and a beautyful model. It was a pleasure to read through your log. The fashion piece is really tricky. It took me also a litttle time and some hints from druxey, until I understand how it works.

The fashion pieces are next.  As mentioned in a previous post, I did not realize that the model would require them.  I did not see any indication for them on the plan and the museum model was built without them.  Having been shown the error of my reasoning...  My construction technique would have been different.  At a minimum, I would have made the aft bulhead double to allow for the cutback of the hull planking. 
 
The fashion piece is very difficult to fabricate because of the compound curves.  Bending the wood with heat (both dry and wet) was unsuccessful.  They were carved from a solid blank of pear.  I drew the fore edge of the fashion piece onto the hull planking and using a chisel, removed the aft end of the planks.  As alluded to above, the width of the fashion piece was limited by the need to provide support for the hull planking. In the pictures, you can see the amount of planking which was removed on the starboard side.  Also visible are pencil lines indicating the hull frames and the #77 holes for the bolts.


The transom planking was removed and new planks were installed after the fashion piece was in place.

After I was satisfied with the appearance, I made the one for the port side.  This entire process took approximately 20 hours.  The final tapering of the hull planks into the fashion pieces will be done along the the final hull sanding after all the bolt holes have been drilled.

Roger, that is why I was hoping the adhesive-backed copper would have worked out.  And it did until I applied the finish.  
 
As I mentioned yesterday, I have finished the hull planking.  It still needs final sanding; that will occur after I have all the holes for the bolts drilled.  The wale become rather the worse for wear over the last several months so I sanded it down and applied a veneer of holly.  It will be painted with black artist acrylics after I have finished installing the bolts to prevent any further damage.  I will also be replacing the decorative strip for the same reason.  The pencil line at the stern represents the future location of the fashion piece, my next project.






I have drawn up the locations of the bolts and secured it to the building board.  These rows will be transferred to the hull and then the drilling will commence.

 
 
 
 

Planking has commenced.  Thanks to everyone who responded to my request for more information on clinker planking.  Before any planking could be cut, the planking belts needed to be laid out.  This was done with chart tape.  The lowest rows of tape represent the garboard and broad strakes.

The garboard was made up of four planks.  It feathers into the sternpost and keel at the deadwood and ends on the stem just above the boxing joint.  On the upper part of all the planks is a rabbet to accommodate the overlapping plank.  After some experimentation and based on the diagram from Goodwin's book on Alert, I decided to make the rabbet approximately one-third the width of the plank and at a 10 degree angle.  The prototype had a narrower rabbet but this gave me a wider gluing surface.  The rabbet was formed on the mill and cut to a depth of 2/3 the thickness of the plank at the widest part.  The broad strake was made up of three planks.  At the stern and stem posts the clinkering gradually tapers to a smooth surface.

The overlap of the planks is easily seen in the next pictures.  The easiest place to see the planking rabbet is on the broad strake at frame "H".


These pictures illustrate the tapering of the garboard and broad strakes into the keel and stern post, and each other.

 

Having learned my sequencing lesson, I decided to make the rudder while I would still have access to the area under where the platform will be built.  The shape of the rudder was taken off the plans except that it was shortened to just below the platform planking.
 
The rudder is made from three pieces: the main piece, the blade and the backing piece.  The plans did not show a sole piece.  The main and backing pieces were made with a simplified table joint and black paper was used to represent the felt between the two pieces.  The width of the main piece mirrored the width of the sternpost; the blade tapered to 3" aft.  The joints were initially all cut with a chisel but after making a mess of two blade blanks, I made the blade cuts on the mill.


The backing piece with its felt were added and the mortises for the pintles were made.  A line was drawn on the fore end of the rudder, through the back of the pintle mortises; this is the bearding line.  The for end of the rudder was then tapered from the bearding line to the midline of the fore rudder.  This allowed the rudder to rotate freely with minimal gap between it and the sternpost.  Finally, a coat of finish was applied.


An egg-shaped opening was made in the counter to accommodate the rudder head through its arc of rotation.  I have also replaced some of the planks on the stern, eliminating the previous gap next to the sternpost.
 


 

Time to direct attention to the counter and transom.  Swallow has a square stern.  The model shows these planks installed on the bias.  I used pear for these planks as that is what the hull will be planked with.  I left them long to allow for notching for the hull's clinker planking.  The counter and the transom are planked with costello.  Each plank is cut to shape, not edge bent.  In the third picture the length of the counter is best appreciated.  The transom will have a decorative treatment applied later.  It looks different because I chose not to apply a finish to it.  The gap between the transom and counter will be covered with a decorative molding.  The gap between the sternpost and the stern planking will need to be addressed.



This takes me to the sternpost.  As I was planking the stern it suddenly occurred to me that I had not installed the sternpost.  This is 13" wide at the top, tapering to 10" at the keel.  The aft edge is rounded over and the rebates for the gudgeons are cut in.  Since I did not want to remove the aft segment of keel, this was incredibly difficult to maneuver into place.  To my horror, the keel was 1/4" too short.  My only option was to remove the aft section of the keel and two sections of keelson and replace it with a longer piece.  I had not been pleased with the appearance of that section of the keel so this problem was a blessing in disguise.  The photo shows the old and new sections for comparison.




The shim under the keelson is to keep the ship level in the building board as there is a curve in the bow fore and aft.  The color difference will decrease after another coat of finish is applied.  The bulwarks are still a little high to prevent damage prior to installing the cap rail.  My biggest hope is that all of the serious problems are behind me!

It has been a long time since posting any real progress.  Sorry, but I would rather be in the garden than in a work room.
                                       
Over the last few months I have found myself replacing most of the inner and outer planking and a portion of the deck.  After the outer and inner bulwark planking was finished I realized that the bottom of the oar ports should run in the same line as the bottom of the gun ports.  As you can see from the following picture, they did not.  So the planking was removed where necessary and the oar ports were framed in the proper location, as seen in the second picture.  The paint on the decorative strip looks the worse for wear but this will be touched up towards the end of the build.
 

I had originally made the thicker part of the inner bulwark planking one row.  Further research told me that this should be made two rows wide and therefore, after the inner bulwark planking was rebuilt after repositioning the oar ports, it was necessary to remove it all again to replace the lower row with two rows of planking.  

At this point I decided to construct the beams for the aft platform.  I discovered that I had misinterpreted the plans.  The model shows an aft platform with the tiller coming out from under the platform.  The plans, in retrospect, do not show a platform at all and the fore end of the tiller is shown to be almost four feet above the deck.  The lines which I thought represented the fore and top of the platform were in fact a decorative molding line and a station line.  I will simply say that when I discovered this situation I walked out of the work room and poured myself a stiff drink (maybe two).  I had to decide between the model and the plans.  So far, whenever there has been a conflict, I have gone with the plans.  This time I decided to use the model as my guide.  I had planked the deck "knowing" that the platform would extend almost to the last gun port.  In examining the model, the platform only extends to a few feet aft of the gun port.  Therefore it was necessary to remove and replace all of the decking aft of the capstan platform to compensate for the too-short deck.  (Back to that bottle, I'm afraid.)  I installed two beams to support the platform planking and planked the transom bulwark.  I was very lucky to match the color of the old and new decking.  The first picture shows the end of the planking initially.  The others are after the deck was elongated.  The notch on the bottom of the front beam is for the sweep of the tiller.

I have finished planking the inner bulwarks.  The lower two rows (spirketting) are 3" thick and the three upper rows (quickwork) are 2" thick.  Referring to TFFM, the Swan class spirketting was installed top and butt.  As Swallow was a purchased ship and not necessarily made to RN establishments, I chose simple butt planking instead.  The port openings still need a little work in these photos.  At this point I am torn between finishing the bulwarks with a clear matte finish or paint them.  The model from the RMG shows a clear finish except on the transom, which is red.  However, it also shows gold leaf on the outer edge of the channels!  If I decide to paint the bulwarks, I will not bother with treenails.
 
I will be taking a week off for some real life issues; this will give me time to think about the options.  

Just a quick update.  The deck has been trunneled and sanded.  The trunnels were made from bamboo obtained from barbecue skewers.  They were drawn down to #75 drill bit (0.21") or 1" in full size.  Bamboo was selected because of its subtle effect with the holly decking.  I would have preferred a slightly smaller trunnel, #76 or #77, but my bamboo was too brittle to draw that thin.  And with COVID-19, I simply was not in the mood to shop for another package.  I would be hard pressed to call that an "essential" purchase.  Trunnels are secured to the beams and the ledges.  I went back to the plan and marked the beam locations on the deck.  Then I drew in the presumed locations of the ledges, typically two ledges between each beam.  The picture shows the deck with the trunnels drawn in and dimpled with a fine awl (aft), with the holes bored (between the ladder way and the main hatch), trunnels inserted but not sanded (starboard bow) and finally, sanded down (port side between the two hatches).  The effect is subtle but will be a little more prominent once a finish has been applied.  I still have not decided whether to simply apply a sanding sealer which will help maintain the white color or tung oil which will yellow the planking.  
I use a needle holder to grasp the trunnel as I insert it.  I do not use any glue.  There is a tight friction fit and the finish will secure them.  The inner bulwark planking is next.

The next step was to plank the upper hull with costello boxwood.  This was straight forward and required minimal tapering of planks.  At this point I made my final decision regarding the frieze above the gun ports.  I decided to model the plan and not the model.  The rail will form the top of the gunports but I have not trimmed the excess bulkhead material yet to prevent damage to the planking.



After finish sanding the planking, the paint on the wale was touched up.  There is still a little more to do but this will wait until after the lower hull is planked.


As you can see in the pictures above, the deck beams are now installed.  They are a combination of plywood where they will not be seen and boxwood where they support the hatch and ladderway coamings.  Carlings were placed between the beams that support the hatches.  The stove has been temporarily removed.

All of the coamings are made of swiss pear.  The large coamings are 4 1/2" wide at the beam and taper to 4" at the top.  They are 13" tall.  The curve of the deck was sanded into top and bottom of the athwartship faces of the coamings.  The small coamings for the stove chimney, steam pipe and light are 3 1/2" wide and 8" tall.



The capstan base abuts the ladderway.  It is parallel to the waterline.  The difference in angle can be seen in the next picture.  A skylight will be located behind the capstan.  I painted the bulkhead and spine black where it will be installed.

The lower deck planking is 2" x 10" with an average length of 15 feet.  I used a four-step butt shift.  As this deck will barely be seen, I did not treenail the deck.


At this point I had an oh-s*** moment.  I inadvertently placed the main hatch too far aft, a distance of one bulkhead.  So all of the involved planking and the main hatch were removed.  Surprisingly, I did not damage the hatch in the process.  The hatch was then installed in its correct location.  The hole is the location of the main mast.

The holes for the mast and the pumps have been enlarged to their final size and the pad for the base of the capstan is installed in front of the bulkhead leading to the captain's quarters.

It has been a while since I posted an update but not for inactivity in the workshop.  Once the hull was faired, I installed the upper deck clamps.  These were made from beech because of its flexibility.  This was also a good time to make the upper deck beams.  They have a 6" roundup.  Only the beams under the deck openings will be visible so these were made from costello; the rest were make from ply.  Two of the beams were temporarily installed to prevent rotation of the hull.


As mentioned previously, I plan on having the gratings for the hatches removable.  The lower deck waterway was installed next.  Although the ability so see details on the lower deck diminishes the further you get from the midline, I decided to install waterways and ceiling timbers.  All of these were made in costello.  However, because the inner hull will barely be seen, these planks were edge-bent rather than spiled.  The apparent irregularity in the waterway of the first photo is an optical illusion, as it is not seen in the second photo.  


I was preparing to install the transom and the counter timbers when nothing started to make sense.  I double checked all of my measurements, both against the CAD drawing and the original plans and discovered that although I had done a beautiful job of fairing the outside of the hull, the tumblehome was too great by approximately 4".  This left me two options: keep going and simply build a slightly inaccurate hull or laminate extra wood onto the bulkheads and start the fairing process again.  The first option was unacceptable to me and so I spent another week undoing my error.  The transom/counter timber assembly is next.  The transom took only three attempts to get right.  My initial attempt was the alarm bell informing me that the fairing was incorrect.  My second attempt utilized a transom configuration from my CAD drawing; this was too small.  Finally, I took an over-sized piece of basswood, installed it and shaped it based on the curvature of the hull.  What I discovered was that the shape of the aft surface of the transom was almost identical to the shape from the CAD drawing.  Two brass pins secure it to the backbone.
 
I installed the six counter timbers into slots in the aft bulkheads.  Thread is tied between the ribbands to maintain the correct curvature.  This will facilitate fabrication of the filler pieces.




There is still some fairing to do on both sides but I will hold off on that until the lower deck is completed.

 
 
 

It has been a while since I updated the log but installing bulkheads and fairing a hull just is not very exciting.  The fist step in permanently installing the bulkeads is making a building board.  This will secure the keel so that the bulkheads (hopefully) will be installed plumb and square.  I was able to reuse my building board from Atalanta and simply glued Swallow's waterline plan to the board.  I secured two strips of wood on either side of the midline with oversize holes to that they could be snugged against the keel.

The bulkheads were cut from 1/4" basswood plywood.  I plan on constructing the lower deck amidships so the center of bulkheads F through 14 only extend to the level of the lower deck.  The other bulkheads extend to the upper deck.  

The bulkheads were installed using the same technique seen in the half hull project, clamping them to machinist squares.  I also keep a small level on the bulkhead while the glue sets.  This becomes most important with the bulkheads that only extend to the lower deck; there is only a narrow slot so it is easy to get them out of plumb.  Once all the bulkheads were in place, spacers were installed to stiffen the hull in preparation for fairing.


I use a combination of techniques to fair the hull, including sanding discs on the Dremel, sanding blocks and files.  One thing which is very helpful for the concave surfaces in the stern is rolling sandpaper around one of the rubber sleeves from my spindle sander.  Before I owned the spindle sander I would use a shot glass.  The key in fairing a hull is taking a lot of breaks.  It is too easy (for me at least) to remove too much wood otherwise.  On this hull you can see a few places that happened.  Those spots were built back up with strips of walnut from the scrap bin.  One techniqe I use to check for a fair run is to take strips of masking tape and run them along the hull.  Another useful technique is to run a marker along the bulkhead.  As the hull approaches fair, the marker is gradually sanded away. 
 
At this point I am reasonably satisfied with the shape of the hull.  Several of the spacers become loose during the fairing process.  Rather than replacing them, I ran a ribband along the hull, gluing it in place and then securing it more with zip ties.  The red marks represent the wale and the bottom of the rail.  The plans show the gunports extending to the rail but the model shows an additional row of planking above the ports.  I have not decided which direction to go at this point.  Neither the plans nor the model are "as built" and it was common to add the extra row of planking to help protect the crew.  

After having been away from any serious ship modeling for more than a month due to a family illness, I'm back home now and have been missing ship modeling so much, that I'm trying to get back to my many projects to get some things finished up. I'm still having a bit of a difficult time getting my life back to "normal" and I don't know if it's stress about family matters, the time change, the elections, being overly tired, confused about how to reset and regroup after having been away for so long, Covid-19 separation, or what. But, it is affecting me a lot right now, so I'm having to force myself to get restarted on things, and I did make myself sit down and start the next step on the cog model.
 
First thing – I finally worked on finishing and mounting the rudder. First task was to make a couple blocks that will be needed. I went ahead and assembled all the blocks that came with the kit. If you're familiar with Chuck's larger-sized specialty blocks that he sells, these assemble in the same fashion. Sorry for the poor quality photo below. These blocks are very small and I had a hard time getting them into focus.
 
 
 
The rudder came out very nicely. The hardest part was gluing in the ultra tiny doughnut-shaped pieces that are used in the rudder hinges.
 

 
Shipyard gives you only exactly the number of parts you need, so the loss of a single piece will leave you short. And, unfortunately, one of the suckers jumped out of my grip and rolled into the abyss that is my carpeted floor. As you can see, there are three in the bag and I need four...
 

 
Since I don't plan on swinging the rudder around much, I figured I could fake things a bit and get away with having the one missing piece. You can't see it anyway, as it's hidden by the black rudder irons.
 

 
The rudder looks pretty good in place, so I think I'm okay with the shortage. Now, I'm just realizing how much more careful I need to be with the model, so as not to accidentally tear off the rudder. The kit comes with a mounting cradle. I don't know if I will want to use that, but I'm just realizing that it might be time to give some thought to how I'm going to mount this model.
 
My normal "go to" for lighter models like this, is to use brass posts that fit up into the keel a little ways. That will be okay for a final display, but I'm going to need a working stand of some kind. The clinker planking will be a bit of an issue here, since I don't want to damage it in the process.
 
But, in any case, here's my final pic, showing the tiller with the blocks mounted. I need to add some cleats next, but I haven't painted them yet, so I'm now prepping the whole laser-cut card sheet for painting, giving it all an initial coat of the light colored paint number 03 in the kit, before painting the wood color.
 

 
Clare

Congratulations, just a beautyful model.

Hello, thank you very much for your likes, friend Anobio Punctatum  I bought the cannons in a store in my country Chile, they are in 3D resin, it is the only thing that I did not build, I bought all 28, plus 6 bronze but on a larger scale, 1 / 35 for my next project, HMS Winchelsea. A hug and I beg you to sell me the plans of the HMS Triton that you are making.

Wow, that was a lot of progress in the last few month. Your model looks so beautyful. Viewing on the pictures is a big motivation to continue woith my own model.
I have one question: where did you get this beautyful guns?

Wow, that was a lot of progress in the last few month. Your model looks so beautyful. Viewing on the pictures is a big motivation to continue woith my own model.
I have one question: where did you get this beautyful guns?

Thank you, Dan!  What makes it all the more gratifying is how easy it is to do.
 
Well, this has been a banner week in my mobile shipyard.  I’ve made up the false amortisement windows, and I have finished modifying and prepping to paint the beakhead bulkhead.
 




What’s missing is the lyre carving between the windows.  I’ll re-draw that this weekend, and get busy making those next week.
 
Now, these windows would be fine, as is, but they’re a little two-dimensional, IMO.  Adding just a little bit of moulding gives the windows a better sense of dimension:

I will likely just paint them flat black with either white or yellow ocher mullions.  I haven’t yet decided.
 
The Beakhead Bulkhead:


After grafting-on side extension pieces to make up the extra width of the hull, I decided to close what I find to be the exaggerated open timberhead space on the bulkhead.  I will cut-in the cathead timbers, at deck level, when it comes time to install them.

Once painted, this paneled effect will disappear.  I added another band of moulding to delineate the space:


I decided to close the lower chase ports, as they won’t be armed, anyway.  I also filled the concavities that would ordinarily accept the lower footing of the roundhouses; these were no longer necessary, as the bulkhead has been set back, by its thickness, so that the ship sides overlap it, as would be the case in actual practice.
 
As a side note - I have found that I really like the Tamiya white putty; it’s much finer than the squadron white, easier to apply and more durable.
 
I, then, scraped away the raised grain; re-engraved the plank seams so that they extended all the way to the ship sides; sanded for texture with 50 grit paper, and drilled for the nailing.  To finish up my modifications, I decided to add a field of fleurs, as was often done at this time.  I also decided to make use of my foliate diamond ornaments for the band I created when filling-in the timberheads.

Next, I’ll prime, paint and install the bulkhead.
 
As always - thank you for the likes and looking in!
 

I appreciate the compliment, Mark!
 
Well, with the harps made, the windows are now complete, and I’m about 60% of the way, done, with the amortisement.
 
Final assembly will take some finessing, but here is what we have so far:

Next up, I will tackle the semi-structural elements above the windows.
 
Thanks for the likes and for looking in!

The beakhead bulkhead is painted, now, and ready for installation.  Before I do so, though, I will do a little addition to increase the glue surface area, backing the bulkhead.
 
I decided at the last minute to add panel framing around the foliate diamond ornaments.  It echos, if not exactly, panel framing around the lowest tier of fleurs on the upper bulwarks.

I didn’t really have the necessary space to copy this, so I simplified the paneling.  In fact, I originally wanted to use fleurs, but I couldn’t reduce them enough to make it work.  Even the smaller fleurs that I made for the stern counter were too big.
 
So, here’s the paint work bright and clean, as on the first day of her re-launching in 1689/90:

And here is two years of sea grime and paint oxidation, as just before the battle of Barfleur:

The blue, here, is really a cobalt blue, but it deepens to the ultra-marine with a very light wash of walnut ink.
 
The first red acrylic I applied was a proprietary mix for BLICK art supply.  The color was lovely, but I soon discovered that the paint would wash away when wetted.  I’m not sure why that is; perhaps, in thinning the paint with regular tap water, I altered its curing properties.
 
Anyway, I washed away the paint with soap and water and then applied ModelMaster’s Insignia Red acrylic, which is the red I’ve been using everywhere else.  I can successfully thin this formulation with tap water.  It turns into a pleasing red ocher, once the walnut ink is applied.
 
The other decision I had to make was whether to paint the top sheer of drift rails gold or yellow ocher.  I decided, ultimately, to go with the yellow ocher, and to save gold for the ornaments, themselves.

Thanks for the likes, comments and looking in!