Gabek

Thanks, Edward! The nice thing about small pieces is that you have very little material to remove. The bad thing is you have very little material left behind! 😆 NOT looking forward to the hanging knees. Too much shaping, too little space. Any advice would be welcome! Regards, Gabe

Weak/Week in the Knees After too much research (I'm cursed by this habit/addiction! 😩) and a week of dithering I decided to alter the arrangement of knees from the simpler, yet elegant, plans. In the AoTS books Diana and Pandora, the lodging knees forward of frame 0 abut to the aft side of the beams, there are knees between the beam arms and there is a transition where there are two overlapping lodging knees or a scarphed pair. Mess deck of HMS Pandora (Anatomy of the Ship, McKay) Mess deck of HMS Diana (AoTS, White) [aside: this content editor is giving me grief on my iPad 😡] I couldn’t visualize the "transition" knees but, lo' and behold, there was a picture in HMS Trincomalee by Davies: I took ideas from all of these plans. First, I notched the deck clamp for the beams. In an attempt to be consistent I resorted to scribing the depth of these notches by using dividers from a drafting set my father gave me when I was 12! Dry-fitting the beams Now on to the lodging knees. I drew up the additional knees and my rearrangement. At this time I decided to incorporate a hatchway to the hold and...(gulp)...I'm debating about putting in the well and shot locker 😫😭. I decided a while ago not to do this because it will obstruct the view into this tiny model, but after recently looking at Ainar's wonderful work I may just have to add these. (Sigh) I cut some birch stock and glued on templates. Shaping these pieces challenged me and it took me a while to work out exactly how I could do this and maintain consistency. Just holding them was troublesome! I was most worried that the knees needed to look identical from port to starboard. So, I roughly shaped each knee and then clamped together opposites and fine-shaped them as one piece. I had to use several tools to accomplish this but needle files, diamond files and small rifflers did not work well and I ended up attaching sandpaper to chopsticks for the final shaping. Once I had the work flow figured out I could shape a pair in about 10-15 minutes. Now my headaches will be what do I do next?! Once this deck is in place I won’t have easy access to the hold...so I'm going to sit down with a bottle if aspirin and do some more careful planning! Clear skies! Gabe

Beautiful work, Ainars!

Oh! I thought it was the PLANS that were out, Mark! 😂🤣 Attesting to the nature of wood, I noticed a significant difference in the width between the frames after I varethaned the outside faces. The beams fit very well beforehand but are now too long for the space. The "spring" in the frames is also much reduced, making me wince when I try to dry fit the beams. I'll be following your and Edward's advice and move ahead with building the deck in place. I’m going to have to carefully plan the painting and realistic touches I intend to add. Warm regards (it was -34C in Winnipeg today, btw, so I really mean it!🥶) - Gabe

Thanks Mark! The beam arms were a real test and I think I'll grade this effort at a “C”. Decent enough job but some mistakes. Hopefully I’ll bring that up to at least a “B" on the gun deck! On another note... Reading other logs I'm torn between several paths. I would like to assemble the deck right on the plans and install the entire assembly. I plan to make one end of my model realistic which means painting. Assembling the entire deck off this small model would help in that regard. But, I have already discovered: 1) that the beam templates I used from the frame planes are larger than on the deck plan! 2) the frames on my model aren’t EXACTLY spaced like the plans. My worry is that I will build a deck off the model that will not fit well when I go to install it. Again, fractions of a millimetre are noticeable and troublesome. The other choice is to build the deck in place like the shipbuilders would have. I can correct and shape as I go. I also think that installing the lodging knees next would also help keep the deck all square. But, this is a small model and fitting pieces would be difficult. A third option would be to follow some kind of combination of the above. Any and all advice is welcome and appreciated! Clear skies, Gabe

Welcome aboard! This is a great place to learn this hobby. In particular, read over the logs of the same model as yours. Great insights to be had. From Canada 🇨🇦 Clear skies! -Gabe

Thanks for the compliment, Edward! And please join in! Great work on your Triton(s) 😃by the way. I'm really enjoying your log(s)! Clear skies, Gabe

To arms! I had a clear idea of how I was going to fit the beam arms to the beam. I would need to concentrate on creating notches that lined up, were square and had tight junctions. Well, easier said than done! I first trimmed all the planking and sanded the ends on a flat surface. A single coat of varethane was applied to the outer frames to keep dirt off and minimize damage. I dry fit the beam to determine the proper placement of the beam arms. Once laid out I used an exacto knife to mark where the notches would need to be made, maintaining a correct alignment of opposite beams arms. The microsaw allowed me to create the stop cuts. I needed to use the very tip of the xacto blade to carefully chisel out the notches. A slip here and I might have knocked out a giant chip, wrecking all the work...but what’s new?! All of us are in this boat (🤪) together! It took a lot of trimming, scraping and cursing to fit the beam arms and, in the end, I had a few unsightly gaps and mistakes. I then reminded myself that this work will likely never be seen. Besides, I collected dust from sanding the frames and will be adding it to the glue when the time comes to fill in the voids!😳🤣 Clear skies! Gabe

I set up my little table saw to make carlings. I’m astounded that I had to make over a metre of 2.6mm x 2.6mm stock for this tiny model! (And there will be way more needed for the ledges!) As I was cutting all the carlings I was mulling over the next steps and realized that I need to deal with the beam arms before anything else. The stock material was made by resawing some birch left over from the frames. (Kind of messy job with the spray glue!) My biggest concern in making these beam arms was to make sure I had the spacing and sizes all consistent. At thIs scale, just a fraction of a millimetre would be noticeable. So I devised a plan to mark and shape the pieces so that they all matched. After I glued on templates I sanded each raw blank carefully to where the beam arms needed to be notched. This allowed me to line up those notches when I clamped all four beam arms together. I then made the stop cuts for the notches by cutting across all four beam arms at once. Using a square and knife to mark the notches. Marking all done. Using this microsaw to make the stop cuts I separated the pieces, made several depth cuts in the notched out areas, and used a small chisel to rough cut the material. I concentrated on getting one beam arm completed by filing, sanding, scraping and praying. This first beam arm would become the template for the remaining ones, which were first rough-shaped on the belt sander and then clamped altogether for final shaping. Although not perfect, I'm pleased with the end products. It was good practice for when I will do the same for the gun deck. Depth cuts to assist in making the notches Taking out material using a small chisel. Filing to the lines. First beam arm done. Three more to go! Getting ready for final shaping. Here are all the tools I used to make these! One wrong move and...🤬😢😫 The whole time I worked on these I chuckled at how much anxiety they were able to create and how much they reminded me of the wishbone from the Operation game! And about as big! Clear skies! Gabe

A year! It’s been almost a year since I last worked on this model! Sheesh. One step backwards... I have some advice for other procrastinators: go back and read your build logs before you pick up that forgotten model. It would have saved me half a day of work if I had! When I took my Triton out I was perplexed to find that I had only finished one of the upper deck clamps. So, I began preparing stock and planning to shape pieces when I came across the fully assembled clamp in the bottom of the storage container! Wha'?! Then it all came back to me. I discovered that the frames on one side were not spaced properly and had to painstakingly remove the clamp. I was so disheartened by this backward step that I just boxed up the model in disgust and put it on the shelf! Good news: I didn’t have to fabricate a new deck clamp and, in no time, I had it glued in place with the frames properly spaced. New/used upper deck clamp back in place. Deck Beams After mulling over my options I decided that I should build the decks. This would determine the spacing of spirketting, waterways and interior planking. I was able to prepare some 3.30 mm birch stock, glue on templates for the beams and rough cut them out: As usual, sanding these small pieces to the correct lines presented some headaches. I tried to do it all by hand, but it was taking so long that I resorted to gingerly taking the "bulk" waste off with my 1” belt sander. I forgot how nerve-wracking this is! One tiny misstep and I would have to start over again! A study in concentration. I first tried to do the final sanding with a sanding block but it was taking forever and I was getting frustrated. Birch is beautiful wood to work with but its hardness was working against me. I needed something larger and faster to remove the material before I exploded. Are we there, yet?! In preparation for working on the model I rejuvenated my sanding stick with new 100, 150, 240 and 400 grit sanding paper. With a scrap piece I tried out if I could drag and/or push these small pieces across the wider sanding surfaces. And now birch was my friend! These pieces handled the sanding very nicely and in no time at all I had all 8 deck beams to where I wanted them. Easy-peazy sanding! To eliminate minor differences I clamped the four lower deck beams together and did my final sanding to shape. I’m too excited to get to the rest of the lower deck that I'll finish shaping the gun deck beams later. I dry-fit the lower deck beams and I’m happy!😃 (And now I see how little room I have to work with!😳) Going to have to do some careful planning from here on. Particularly because I intend to show the hold with ballast and stores. Any advice would be welcome and appreciated. Next step: this Canadian goes carling!🇨🇦🥌🤣

Welcome aboard, Marshall! You have picked a great website to learn this hobby. It helped me finish my first model and, coincidentally, I’m Canadian, too!🇨🇦 (Winnipeg) Clear skies! Gabe

Wow...and I mean WOW. This rehabilitation is coming along beautifully. Painting is doing its job...that hull planking was the result of frustration trying to bend veneers to a complex 3d shape, which can't be done. All your colour choices are fine. Black and white are covering up the "booboo's" nicely! The lantern is exquisite! Please tell us how you made it. I never thought of rigging one on the mast. So, I started pouring through all my books and so far I could only find how they rigged a stern lantern on the mizzen top of a British frigate in Petersson's Rigging Period Ships. I think you could try installing yours on the flag mast somehow if you wanted. Keep on trucking! - Gabe

Anytime you need the plans, Keith, just let me know. And thanks for the kind words about my build! 😳 Kind regards, Gabe

Hello Keith, There are a whole lot of Swift logs on this site that can help you. This was my first model and first build log, too. I still have the plans and ‘instructions'(you'll understand why I put the scare quotes when you read the logs 🤣). I could mail them to you if you’re interested. Clear skies and sharp tools! - Gabe