Dan Vadas

That looks a bit better I think. Thinned down Baltic Pine wood stain applied with a brush :
 

 

 

 
  Danny

Thank you Tony, Brian, Toni, Grant and Alistair.
 
Brian, the stain was spirit based Wattyl. I've thinned it down even more on the rest of the breech ropes (about 60% turps). The first one can go right down the back under the quarterdeck.
 
Hi Alistair, good to see you back again. Enjoy the ride .
 
Here's a couple of pics of a completed gun. I'm going to show them all as "run out" except for Number 3 which will be at full recoil with a train tackle :
 

 

 

 
  Danny

Thank you Tony, Brian, Toni, Grant and Alistair.
 
Brian, the stain was spirit based Wattyl. I've thinned it down even more on the rest of the breech ropes (about 60% turps). The first one can go right down the back under the quarterdeck.
 
Hi Alistair, good to see you back again. Enjoy the ride .
 
Here's a couple of pics of a completed gun. I'm going to show them all as "run out" except for Number 3 which will be at full recoil with a train tackle :
 

 

 

 
  Danny

Stanislav Yudin, Heavy Lift Crane Ship.
 
LINK
 
  Danny

Thank you Tony, Brian, Toni, Grant and Alistair.
 
Brian, the stain was spirit based Wattyl. I've thinned it down even more on the rest of the breech ropes (about 60% turps). The first one can go right down the back under the quarterdeck.
 
Hi Alistair, good to see you back again. Enjoy the ride .
 
Here's a couple of pics of a completed gun. I'm going to show them all as "run out" except for Number 3 which will be at full recoil with a train tackle :
 

 

 

 
  Danny

Hi Tom,
 
 
Oh yeah, it sure is - but even the Caldercraft kit is wrong if you take a look at a few more of George Raper's "real life" paintings. Here's one showing the stern (Supply is on the left) which clearly shows she had Stern Lights (windows) :
 

 
And some larger pictures of the one Jim Lad posted earlier. Note the three semi-circular gunports in the waist (same as Caldercraft's kit) :
 
Neither kit has the extended quarterdeck/bulwark shown in this enlargement :
 



 
Finally, a pic of the stern on my interpretation of Supply :
 

 
  Danny

Hi Danny,
 
And when this one is named, you can move her to the 'ugliest ship' thread....
 
Jan

Lefkas?
 
  Danny

Side Tackles
 
The Side Tackles were used to run out the guns. Each side has two single 6" blocks which have a hook stropped to them. One block also has a becket to take the end of the line, which is eye-spliced to it.
 
I've made up one of these tackles so far to see how it looks, and also to give me the method for doing all sixteen of them. In the pics below you can see the attachments to the carriage and spirketting - the line will be tidied up when the guns are installed permanently :
 

 

 

 
  Danny

Holding a square workpiece in a three jaw chuck is a good way to drive yourself crazy. If you don't have a four-jaw chuck (and most of us don't), try making the chuck end of the workpiece octagonal and then rounding it off. Now chuck it - rather than after turning it! You might improve your success rate this way.

Mark, I have owned the duplicator for several years but because I don't need to use it very often it is always a challenge to set up.  The total set-up time, including making the pattern was about an hour.  Getting a decent pillar...another hour.  After that, at my 2:1 throw-out to keep ratio, each good pillar took another half hour.  The biggest problem for me was holding the pillar square in the chuck.  My two choices are the standard three-point lathe chuck and a Jacob's chuck.  With either one, the blank tended to be just slightly off center, resulting in incomplete cutting of the spindles on one side of the piece.  With the next batch I plan on using an oversize blank to compensate for this and then trimming down the square ends to the correct size after it has been turned.

HMS Vulture - some History of the ship
 
HMS Vulture was a 16 gun sloop of the Swan class, launched on 18 March 1776. She served during both the American Revolutionary War and the French Revolutionary War before being sold for disposal in 1802. The Vulture is perhaps best known for being the warship to which Benedict Arnold fled on the Hudson River in 1780 after unsuccessfully trying to betray the Continental Army's fortress at West Point, New York to the British.
 
HMS Vulture had several areas of difference to previous ships of the class - she may have been used as an "experimental platform" for a few innovations. Whether these changes were later implemented on other ships is unknown.
 
Length of Upper Deck : 96’7”
Breadth : 26’ 4”
Depth of Hold : 12’ 10”
Burthen : 300 Tons
Armament : 16 x 6 Pound Guns , 16 x ½ Pound Swivel Guns
 
 
There were 24 ships of the Swan Class built between 1767 and 1780. Here is the complete list :
 
Swan (1767)    Kingfisher (1770)    Cygnet (1776)    Atalanta (1775)    Pegasus (1776)    Fly (1776)    Swift (1777)
Dispatch (1777)   Fortune (1777)  Hound (1776)    Hornet (1776)    Vulture (1776)    Spy (1776)    Cormorant (1776)
Zebra (1777)    Chameleon (1777)    Fairy (1778)    Nymph (1778)    Savage (1778)    Fury (1779)    Delight (1778)
Thorn (1779)    Bonetta (1779)    Shark (1779)    Alligator (1780)
 
Some of these ships are being built by other members on MSW. Here are the Links to them :
 
HMS Kingfisher :   Remco      Erik    Bob    Jeff
 
HMS Atalanta :   Toni
 
HMS Pegasus :   Ray     Andy     flyer     Bummer!    Maurice     Aldo     Spyglass     Caroline    daveor   Nils
 
HMS Fly :   Christian     Chris     DiKri     Vitus    Adeline
 
More Build Logs will be added to this list as they are submitted.

That looks a bit better I think. Thinned down Baltic Pine wood stain applied with a brush :
 

 

 

 
  Danny

Side Tackles
 
The Side Tackles were used to run out the guns. Each side has two single 6" blocks which have a hook stropped to them. One block also has a becket to take the end of the line, which is eye-spliced to it.
 
I've made up one of these tackles so far to see how it looks, and also to give me the method for doing all sixteen of them. In the pics below you can see the attachments to the carriage and spirketting - the line will be tidied up when the guns are installed permanently :
 

 

 

 
  Danny

Breech Rigging continued
 
Once I had worked out the length of the Breeching on the first gun I made a jig to get them all the same. The pics are self-explanatory on the method I used. The piece that the gun sits on is a nice tight fit inside the carriage to support it up away from the base - this gives me room to wrap the seizing around quite comfortably. The wires used to hold the two rings were spaced apart for length from the ones on the first gun :
 

 

 

 

 
All eight guns with their Breeching :
 

 
  Danny

That looks a bit better I think. Thinned down Baltic Pine wood stain applied with a brush :
 

 

 

 
  Danny

That looks a bit better I think. Thinned down Baltic Pine wood stain applied with a brush :
 

 

 

 
  Danny

Side Tackles
 
The Side Tackles were used to run out the guns. Each side has two single 6" blocks which have a hook stropped to them. One block also has a becket to take the end of the line, which is eye-spliced to it.
 
I've made up one of these tackles so far to see how it looks, and also to give me the method for doing all sixteen of them. In the pics below you can see the attachments to the carriage and spirketting - the line will be tidied up when the guns are installed permanently :
 

 

 

 
  Danny

Breech Rigging continued
 
Once I had worked out the length of the Breeching on the first gun I made a jig to get them all the same. The pics are self-explanatory on the method I used. The piece that the gun sits on is a nice tight fit inside the carriage to support it up away from the base - this gives me room to wrap the seizing around quite comfortably. The wires used to hold the two rings were spaced apart for length from the ones on the first gun :
 

 

 

 

 
All eight guns with their Breeching :
 

 
  Danny

That looks a bit better I think. Thinned down Baltic Pine wood stain applied with a brush :
 

 

 

 
  Danny

Hi Nils,
 
I'm glad you have found my build log useful in your construction of Pegasus. Feel free to ask me for any future advice - happy to help out . I've had a look at your build - a very interesting way you are building her. It's a little bit like the way I built a kit of the Bounty with the more open framing to give a better view of the insides - not "historically accurate" as you mention, but a lot more visible.
 
I too got my inspiration for ship modelling when i first saw a couple of brilliant examples years ago and thought I'd love to build something like that one day - still doing it .
 
Hi Toni,
 
Good to see you back on my build log . "Lead time" for the gun barrels was about 3 months - at one stage I thought they would NEVER get here   .
 
  Danny

Thanks for the input Janos, Michiel, Mark, Brian and Pat.
 
Janos and Mark - quite right. The tackle you are both referring to was called the "Train Tackle". It was used to hold the gun inboard for reloading when the ship was heeling sufficiently to need it.
 
My Breeching may be a fraction long, but as I am going to show the guns as "run out" it won't be at all noticeable. There is actually enough room for the train tackle and eyebolt on the gun I used as a "template" (I actually shortened the breeching by 2mm after taking this pic). You can see the position for the eyebolt in the pic below marked with a red X. The gun isn't quite centred in the port in these pics - when it is correct everything SHOULD line up :
 

 
Pat - yes, I'm using exactly the same method for rigging the breeching as you describe.
 
 
TFFM says that either method would be suitable for the time period.
 
  Danny

Breech Rigging
 
The Breeching is a 4" rope on a 6-pounder. As with all ropes and lines it was measured by it's circumference. The diameter is about 1.25", which is 0.66mm in 1:48 scale. The line I'm using is 0.7mm - as close as I can get.
 
The first thing I had to do was work out exactly how long the Breeching should be. TFFM specifies three times the length of the barrel, but I wasn't sure whether that was the whole rope including the half-hitches and seizing around the ring in the hull and the loop around the cascabel or the overall length without any twists and turns.
 
I've made up an overlength piece which has already been tied and seized around one of the rings. I figured the best one to try out the length on was the port with the most obstructions behind it - any further back and the pumps would be in serious trouble .
 
I used a piece of double-sided tape to temporarily fix the gun to the deck, fitted the eyebolt on the ring into it's hole and looped the rope around the cascabel. This now gives me the measurement I need - I'll undo all but the seizing and make all 8 breechings the same length :
 

 

 
  Danny

Thanks again to Kevin, Sjors, Mark, Janos and Aldo - I'm really pleased with the way the guns have turned out too. It was well worth the effort and expense of buying the barrels and capsquares, there was NO WAY that I could have made them as well as this , although it took quite a bit to "finish" them.
 
Here are a few pics of all the completed carriages. Rigging them up will be the next job :
 

 

 

 

 
  Danny

Having heard Mr. Excitement got his picture posted, Sadie got jealous and tried to give me her best "I'm excited" or is that "Feed me" look.
 

 
I have applied the finish to the deck, hatches/coamings and inner hull up to two (scale) feet above the upper deck clamp.  I am a little disappointed that the holly turned so yellow but there is still a reasonable contrast between it and the boxwood waterway.  On the other hand, the cherry on the hatch coamings really pops.  The last picture shows the change in the color of the boxwood with the finish applied and sanded with 400 grit.