Captain Poison

Hi everyone
First things first...Chuck, thank you for the very speedy delivery of my Chapter 4 parts and especially for the replacements you sent. When I messed up the first time I was heart broken. Well, second time around worked out OK I think. Between daily radiation and a dose of chemo, I finally got the keel together and the bulkheads glued in place. As per your suggestion I used a couple coats of satin wipe-on poly and it really makes the cedar pop. It's a beautiful color. Got a few bits of ply left to glue and then I get to fair the beast! Btw...anyone think we can stitch sail like this in 1/4 scale? (just kidding, thought this was amazing though)
 
 

*MAJOR UPDATE*
 
I've gotten a lot done since the last update, but as usual have been remiss with the uploading. Some of the deck details such as windlass, fife rails and fore companionway finished awhile ago, and I've just gotten around to installing them. I've also built the box for the anchor chain, and installed the anchor cable which is made with Syren rope. 
 
Masts were turned in an electric drill to taper and the details were added with brass and stripwood. The bands are actually painted paper, which was easier consdiering the taper in that area. The spreader lifts were made form boxwood, as they will take some strain during rigging and I was not going to trust basswood with that task. 
 
The plans are just fantastic with regard to the mast fitting details, and there are still some things to add. 
 

Anthony (and everyone else); SeaWatch is a small 'mom and pop' show. They have punched way over their weight for many years. The owner has had serious health problems, however everyone gets their books eventually. Please have some understanding and patience with them.
 
Also the USPS has, as you may know, some issues lately as well!

Received a package today from Chuck and got a few things assembled. Parts fit very well, I'm impressed with the accuracy of the laser cut parts and I"m even more impressed with the quality of the wood! Fantastic stuff!!

Very wise advice JJ.  I finished up the first run for all the gunports. It took a couple hours of walking away and coming back before I was happy and didn't have to touch anything up before installing the final planks.  Looking back, not sure why I found it so stressful.
 
Everything got a good sanding in preparation for the short runs between the ports, which should be pretty straightforward.  The Chop-It has been working great for the ones I've done so far.
 

 

 
As an aside, I don't know if it's the smell of the wood, but my cat is absolutely infatuated with the Winnie. 

 

To achieve milling and precision grinding.
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
 

So I pretty much finished up the port side tonight aside from a few minor details. Scraped and fit the lower moldings and Added some WOP, that stuff really brings out a pretty color on the boxwood that looks great with the cedar.
 
 I’ve had constant anxiety for the last week thinking about how to get these mouldings on perfectly parallel and keeping with the sheer line and it just dawned on me about two hours ago to just clamp on a plank that perfectly follows the middle moulding and simply glue on from there. Seemed to work pretty well. Hope someone else can find it useful when they arrive at this stage.
JJ
 

Thank you Michael
 
 
 
But my photos are real stairs... In fact, one of the  the predefined goals for this build, is to be able to see inside the model ship. The first thing to get there; no deck planking; that is the easy part. trying to capture some photographs showing this, is a different approach. I am exploring 3 ways to look inside: from the top  at an angle between 30 and 45 degrees to try to see  multi level decks. Finding the perfect angle is not easy. Lastly photos inside the model with a small camera.
 
In fact, the inspiration probably came a long time ago, when I saw the 3D drawings of Boudriot in the 74 guns books which have many of these kinds of drawings which are "spectacular " to see.

Thank you or your comments but taking photos inside the model is very difficult to get the perfect LIGHTING. This morning, I tried another set of photos, still with different settings and still the results are not there... I am sorry I cannot get the correct lighting. The photos are done with a small camera action, half the cost of the Go pro. Does this camera would be better? I do not know. In this set, I tried to have less "orange color" in the photos and this is the results.

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.

The futtock shrouds were meanwhile attached to the shrouds of the mizzen mast.
I have already started with the fixing of the ratlines.

 

At the moment I am dealing with the ratlines of the foremast. The first picture shows a section of the shrouds of the main mast.

 

The ratelines for the futtock shrouds of the mizzen mast are completed.
 
Furthermore I mounted a single block next to each trestle tree. These are used for the topping lifts of the mizzen boom. 
Soon I will continue with the ratlines of the foremast.

Michael - looking forward to seeing Cheerful develop, but I'm a little disappointed.  Was hoping there might be another Echo cross section in the works.
 
I've added the deck beams and ripped and sanded the scale 4" (1/16"x1/4" actual) deck planks.  I got a 6" wahuda jointer, and this was the first trial.  Took a few nights to get it dialed in, but it made cutting the planks a lot easier.  In the past I haven't had an easy way to get a completely flat side on the billet prior to thickness sanding.  With the jointer I was able to have two completely flat, perpendicular sides to my billet, and it took under a minute.  I only had to thickness sand one side to get the billet to 1/4". Made ripping the planks much easier, and had straighter planks with less blade marks to sand.  
 
 
 

Almost a week without a blog but very eventful.(as you can see by end of saga)
Reread opening chapters of B.Frohlich’s “Art of ship modelling” with a bit more understanding.
He mentions the change of weather opening gap of 5mm over 100cm model because of change in weather.
Well, we had the first rain after 6 months.Its a humid area anyway (coastal) but this cannot explain the accumulated error after fitting the first 6 cants. I hadn’t forgotten the foot bevel. I think the main culprit was an overly tight hawse filling piece.I also think I should have made a couple of the cants better.
Unstuck cant and filler pieces ans while waiting to dry,gave thought to alternative ways of aligning and holding the cant pieces while glue dries.
 I’ve used building jigs but here, the alignment is by the timberline which is sloping.So I took heights from plans for the sides, cut both floor and “roof” together so as to set on board plans, and will be able to turn over and use for other side. Held in place by weight,removable for visualization and access.
Shaved down filler piece, remade some cants and cleaned up others and started to place them. Seems better and jig works
A friend sourced a supply of PEAR trees that a fruit farmer was selling as kindling!!
So with a patient and long-suffering wife for company, drove to the north of the country -couple of hours each way.
The trees had been cut to logs and branches last year, to lengths suitable for wood stoves i.e. about 40cms. The thicker logs were mainly split from drying out.
Selected half a boot load (it was free) and drove home.(Had said to wife maybe see some local sites or have a meal out, but still semi lockdown precluded this).
Drove home and while my wife was making supper, thought I’d see if and how much of the wood was usable.
Prepared a couple of pieces with my 10in table saw and with last pass, lost concentration for a second and felt a bag to my thumb. HIT by the saw teeth. A bloody mess, that I couldn’t treat by myself with superglue. Off to local casualty(emergency room) some stitches where possible and bandaging.Declined overnight stay.
Will be ok but feeling terribly stupid. Every instruction, Utube etc emphasises safety. I did for most part use sticks, But familiarity and tiredness caused that stupid lapse.
I said, in my first blog, that you could learn from my mistakes- this accident is the most important of lessons.
PLEASE BE SAFE

Continuing to work on hawse  #4 last week, the port side seemed fair but left a peculiar space for the filler. The starboard wouldn’t fit at all. Rechecked the 1st cant against the breadth plan and found that somehow the angle and therefore the distance between timberheads had narrowed considerably. I think this may have been due to the use of spring clamps that exerted too much pressure.I unglued and separated all the hawse pieces and cants.
(A BLUNT blade is better for this.)
Having separated the cant several times they look a bit worse for ware- so remade them.
The hawse pieces needed cleaning up and fortunately able to separate and reuse both bollard timbers and their bridging chock.
Used my jig to hang the relevant part of the body and align the timberline of the cants while using set squares to check against the breadth plan. 
As Richard Feliciano mentions, the relation to the step is secondary.
Remade starboard hawse#2 as old was damaged when removed.
Wore out 3 small files (and hurting shoulders) making grooves so thought there must be a way to machine these.
** Angle marked as before, held vertically in vice with so direction becomes 90deg, using 3mm milling bit much like a drill press, but incrementally moved until depth required. Quicker and cleaner groove.
Hawse#3 both OK
At last back to hawse #4 (taken me 4 days to get here).
Blanks of 7.16mm
Even with the tramlines as advised (to ensure vertical angle of short bevel) not easy.The starboard worked first time, but the port was more difficult as use same side as disk sander but at opposite angle. Took 3 attempts. After that it's the same principle bevels, but leaving the weird shape. Who cares-it fits!!
Tomorrow the filler pieces.

Still working on Cant frames, but only a few left to go.  It's getting there.  No major issues yet, I've been rough fairing as I go and so far no goofs on this version.  Hopefully I'll finish them with no major mistakes.  Lofting these was a real learning experience, my shipwright learning curve was huge AND making mistakes early on, but now finally my dwgs of the cants seem fairly accurate - I just need to make sure and leave a little excess material to fair.
I still have to finish lofting the rear cants and then build them, I hope all the experience I gained on the front ones make the rear ones go smooth.  But I get ahead of myself...
Pics

Well folks, here I am actually installing the cant frames for the last time.  With glue.  For real.  Sorry for the humor, but this has taken so long to get here and so many setbacks - to be actually doing this is a major milestone!  This is version three of the cant's.  One version for issues with my lofting, another version for over aggressive sanding, and now this V.3 which is the final version.  I've also had to remake a frame or 2 here and there for what I'll call *mistakes* and leave it at that. 
 
I'm getting there but still lots to go.  Also framed my first complete gunport!  The sheer looks nice and and the *fake* rabbet is now finally visible.   There's still more fairing to do on the inside of what you see below.   Using battens to fair is absolutely necessary IMO.  All the bumps and dips show up that way.  Anyway, pics.  I'll post more when I have more frames glued in.
PS - forgive the workbench situation -  it's messy but it's mine.😁
Cheers and thanks for following along!




 
 

https://modelshipworld.com/topic/196-hms-bellona-1760-by-sjsoane-scale-164-english-74-gun-as-designed/page/65/
 
We talked about this subject in  Mark logs and I also tried to think about this subject in a previous post.
The French practice was probably similar. The simplest solutions are often the best solutions.
Also, near the capstan, the tenon had a hinge, something like a door hinge of that time at the top of it.
Again, here is the photo of Giorgio who did a nice representation to show how these tenons were lifted.
 
On the previous photos, I did only the mortice in the top deck beam and nothing on the deck. The problem with this representation, it is more difficult to align vertically the tenon. Having a slot in the deck facilitates the positioning of the tenon. Also, the ramped tenon eliminate the need to use a jack.

Ok Mark, I erased them!
 
2020 objectives, first deck completed, and still 1 1/2 month to go.
This model is more oriented on carpentry, so no cannons will be install.
 
Parts for the first deck are glued.
As usual, 1 coat of tung oil us applied. On the previous models, I tried 2 and 3 coats, and I prefer the 1 coat application, just enough to accentuation the wood grain. At the opposite, too much tung oil will create a transparent thickness, a varnish look, and I do not want this effect.
 
Most of the photos are done with small camera Yi  4K.

The casing of Pegasus took place yesterday, one of the most stressful operations since constructing the Headworks.
Slipping the cover over Pegasus with only a few mm clearance each side of the Main Studding Booms ends and Jib boom was scary to say the least.
 
Still all done now, and here she is in her designated place.





 
Moving on now, to what not quite decided.
 
B.E.
 

I have been remiss in updating the blog.  Apologies so here are a few catch up pictures.  I have completed the main deck, securing all the cannons, carronades and deck fittings and am now moving on to the bowsprit and masts...  Ill try to be a little more diligent with my updates.  Peter 

Here is a picture of the model itself.
Matthias

Two of my favorite tools- the equal space divider is perfect for finding an exact center line. 
 
Don