Doreltomin

In spite of a week's travel for business, I managed to get done a part:
 
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The Main Hatch
 
The main hatch will be shown closed, so I could revert to my usual technique of milling it from a solid piece of acrylic glass. In fact, the piece forms a core and as sharp corners for the recess into which the hatch covers fit is needed, around it strips of 1 mm acrylic glass were cemented. This arrangement was milled to size and shape as shown previously. To make it visually more interesting a quarter-round cove was milled into the outer edge with a 0.5 mm ball-burr. In real life, this would also prevent the wood from splintering, when hit by something during loading.

Milling a quarter-round cove into the coaming of the main-hatch
 
The cover was assumed to be in three parts, each planked with short lengths of plank. The cover is made from a tight-fitting piece of bakelite paper into which the planks were engraved, as was done for the deck-planks. Making hatch and cover in separate pieces allows to paint it with sharp edges. The cover will be simulated to be natural wood.

The main-hatch with the cover inserted
 
Eventually, the hatch will be fitted with clamps for the battens to tie-down the canvas cover. That will be done at a later stage to avoid damage during fitting the part into the deck.
 
To be continued …

Thank you for the photo of your Frankenmill, Eberhard! You made me smile.

Well, it's a vintage milling machine that never was: https://www.maritima-et-mechanika.org/tools/micromill/micromill.html. The key mechanical parts came from antique watchmaking lathes.

https://www.maritima-et-mechanika.org/tools/micromill/MF-V1.mp4
 
The miniature vice is shop-made: https://www.maritima-et-mechanika.org/tools/attachments/attachments.html#Micro_vice

That is a fascinating looking vintage milling machine!

To end this thread here Emiel's display of 'an English seascape'

Thank you for your attention.

Cabin companionway and binnacle
 
The layout of the access to the stern cabin is somewhat puzzling, even taking into consideration that accommodation in this kind of vessel was spartanic and cramped. There seems to be a skylight over the cabin that was most probably protected by a grille. However, it is just in the area over which the business end of tiller sweeps. The helmsman would have to pay attention, where he puts his feet. Rather close in front of it seems to be the companionway that leads down into the cabin. Unlike for the other deck openings no coamings are drawn. Normally, there would have been a movable binnacle behind the companionway, so that the helmsman has a good view. The binnacle at that time was constructed like a cabinet and would be lashed down to the deck. However, the space between the skylight and the companionway seems to be too narrow to accommodate this kind of cabinet.

Details of the stern arrangements, original drawing by Möller (1846)
 
By looking through contemporary paintings and drawings of similar vessels, I chanced upon a somewhat naïve watercolour of a local painter from Trondheim, that shows a combination of binnacle and companionway. It also opens in a somewhat unusual fashion, where a segment of the roof is hinged to flip backward – rather than the usual sliding cover. Not sure how this would behave in any kind of stronger wind. Not all the details and the perspective in the watercolour seem to be right, but overall, it looks credible.
 
The whole arrangement is actually quite similar to that of the original drawing, also with the skylight right under the tiller, which actually is worked quite casually with ropes by the gentleman with straw(?)-hat sitting on the port stern rail.
 
Anyway, I opted for this solution as it is unusual and solves the space problem. As a bonus I don’t need to worry about rendering the lashings of the binnacle.

The Norwegian jægt HAABET (1849). Source: Town archives of Trondheim - https://www.flickr.com/photos/trondheim_byarkiv/3539132719.
 
The companionway-binnacle combination was again built from laminations of laser-cut pieces. The main objective was to show the panelling. So, each side was built up from three layers, the outer ones simulating the frames with the cut-outs for the panels. The profiled coamings were simulated by adding two further layers.
 
 
 

 
The collection of parts for laser-cutting
 
Assembly of all those parts was a bit of fiddling and I prefer my usual method of assembling companionways etc. around a solid core milled from a piece of acrylic glass, but this obviously only works, when they are shown closed.
 
To be continued …

The chainwales:
No details are discernible in the Brueghel painting. Chainwales aren't even visible for the fore-shrouds.
 
My interpretation:
The main shrouds are attached to chainwales, while the fore-shrouds simply have their wales reinforced at the lower edges of the forecastle. Its bent side makes wide chainwales unnecessary. The shrouds still run freely from the side.

 

I finished the yacht last month. Here is the result:
 

The model is exhibited below the drawing hanging on the wall in my living room:

Emiel tried to match the pictures he took with the drawing. It looks as if I was not far off:

Once he is finished with his photoshop painting I will present the result.
 
 

Thanks to all the people who liked the model and especially of course to @flying_dutchman2,  @Michael Mash, @dvm27 and @druxey for their comforting words. Much appreciated.
Druxey: The funny thing about the rigging is that Charles II was transported from Breda to Scheveningen in a group of several yachts with spritsail rigging. The Mary, which that was sent to him as a present from the Dutch however sported a standing gaff rigging. From what I saw on pictures the English type of this rig differed from the Dutch in for instance the topsail, having no braces and lifts. It was just a flying sail, only having blocks at the lower tips, through which ropes from the lower yard were led and sometimes, but not always bowlines leading to end of the bowsprit. The sail was stored on deck until it was needed and hoisted with a halliard that ran through a sheave in the top of the mast and through a loose 8-shaped shackle around the top. The lower yard was stowed upright against the mast if not in use. In that case it hangs on a long pendant. The fact that this square rigged sail was handled on deck was the reason why Dutch yachts did not have ratlines on the shrouds.
There were more differences about which perhaps another time...

A lot of time passed since my last posting. Most of it was caused by people, family and friends, who start to die all over the place. In a very short period I lost six relatives and close friends. That takes away a lot of one's motivation and working power.
Anyway, the model approaches its finishing stage, after which I will come up with better pictures than these.  
There is a lot to say about some choices I made, but as a whole I think I am reasonably satisfied with the result. For a ship with a totally different background the result could have been worse (and better for that matter).
In a later stage I will give my remarks about the rigging, which on this model is mainly done after Dutch sources, quite different in details from the only rigged dockyard model I have found so far.
 
Back to flags, anchors, lanterns and sailors.

Thanks for your comments @mcb!
 
It is actually the 'old' duroplastic material invented by Baekelundt. It is essentially one or more layers of paper soaked in phenolic resin and cured between steel plates to ensure uniform thickness and a mirror-like surface.
 
It is still used for electrical insulation and certain types of PCBs, a class called FR-2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FR-2.
 
It is available from thicknesses from 0.1 mm up to 6 mm or even in blocks and rods (usually with cotton-fabric, rather than paper). I got a life-time supply about 30 years ago from a specialised dealer in Berlin, who sold it by the meter.
 
You can find suppliers on the Internet (including on ebay). Most of the material seems to be produced in India and China these days.
 
It glues very well with CA - some 25 years ago a made little clinkered boat with bakelite-paper planks glued with CA and it still looks pristine. For larger flat pieces I also used zapon-varnish, which adheres well.
 
The edges of the bakelite-paper are quite brittle, so care and sharp tools are needed, when cutting it. It sands well with fine diamond nail-files.

Thanks, gentlemen, for your continuing encouragement and the many 'likes'
 
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Fitting the deck
 
The deck is made from 0.4 mm thick Bakelite-paper. I find it easier to engrave the deck-seams consistently into this harder material with my tools, then into the softer styrene sheet. Perhaps I should get some day one of those hooked engraving tools the plastic modellers use (I have the suspicion these are the same tools as dentists use to scrape of ‘plaque’ – I have one of those and perhaps should have tried).
 
I first printed out the deck-drawing, cut out the shape and fitted it to the ship. Using the paper template, the shape was cut from the Bakelite with a small margin. This then was fitted very carefully in an evening’s session. Fitting started from the stern working forward, taking off material with a diamond nail-file while checking the fit after a couple of strokes.
 
A tight fit is important, as the whole idea is to paint the deck off-ship to avoid a complex masking exercise. Also, the painting process (as described in the build-log for SMS WESPE) would be difficult to exercise within the constraints of the bulwark.
Tools used for engraving the deck seams
 
The fitted deck was taped to a printout of the deck with the planks marked as guidance for engraving. A heavy steel ruler ensured straight lines. First, the plank seam was marked with a scalpel to provide some ‘tooth’ for the graver. Then a narrow engraver’s graver was run twice along the ‘seam’ to clean out the shallow groove. Once the engraving was completed, the whole deck was thoroughly brushed with a rotary bristle-brush to remove burrs.
 
I ended up doing this three times, as in the first two attempts I lost count and cut a skewed seam. This is unrepairable, so I had to start all over again. However, the first fitted deck provided a good template, speeding up the fitting process: after scoring the material with a scalpel around the edges of the template, one can break the new deck out of the bakelite sheet. Only comparatively little fitting was required then.
 
In fact, scoring the bakelite-paper with a scalpel twice and then breaking along the line is a quick and clean way of getting straight cuts that just require a bit of sanding with a diamond file.
 
The next step would be to cut out the openings for the companionways and hatches. However, these have to be tight fits to them and it will be easier to first build those and then file out the openings – back to the drawing-board for some time.
 
To be continued …

A really interesting project! Unfortunately much of this rich heritage of the Baltic trade is almost lost so you surely will do them some justice by drawing attention to these ship types. Also I must add a special mention to these wonderful pictures which you amassed here to illustrate the ships. A big thank you for the thread, will surely follow with much interest!

Thanks for the 'likes' !
 
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Fitting the rails
 
The rails are 0.75 mm x 1.50 mm styrene strips on top of the bulwark and a 0.75 mm x 2.00 mm strip over the stern. The edges of the strips are rounded.
 
To this end I cut a scraper from a piece of razor-blade which is held in a short pin-vice. The strip is held in a simple jig made from cardboard. Strips of cardboard were cut with clean and vertical edges and glued to a cardboard-base so that styrene strips of 0.25 mm, 0.50, and 0.75 mm thickness can be wedged into the resulting notch, holding it straight and vertical.
 
In this way a clean and uniform profile of the styrene strip can be achieved quickly.
 
The styrene strips then were pre-bend, holding them lightly in round-nosed pliers and by ‘massaging’ them around my thumb to make them conform to the sheer-line as closely as possible. They then were glued onto the stanchions and the top bulwark strake using styrene-cement.
 
As can be seen from the cross-section shown in the previous post, the profile of the rail may be even more sophisticated with some cornice planed in. I simulated this my lacquering a 0.1 mm copper wire into the outboard corner under the rail.
 
The next step will be puttying up any small gaps that have developed during the planking process.
 
As one can see on the pictures, I also started to work on the deck by making a paper template for it.
 
To be continued …  

After a few attempts, I think that the deck planking was not so horrible...
 


 
The hole you guys see in the middle section was the fruit of my illusion to add some real miniature grating      ... All the gunports were also painted red. Due to the small size, I think I'll have to use CA glue to secure the bow planks in place, so instead of wood, I carved/sanded a plastic piece (to make it easier, I think...).
 
The same was done with the other decks...
 

 
With a bit of improvised weathering (yeah everything's improvised!!!      )
 

 
 

To fix the 'flexibility' problem, I also added some wood (balsa - I know it's not the best, but it was easy to find, easy to glue, and really easy to sand) between the bulkheads.
 

 

 

 
This made all the fairing thing much easier... (improvised sand block in the lastpicture...     )
 
The problem with the wood-covered styrene deck is that it's really flat. I could sand it to give it a more natural curve, but instead I thought of something else...
 
I had some thick card paper lying around so I improvised some deck planking on top of it... Also, it's not the standard deck planking pattern (I only found a tutorial on deck planking a long way after I had done it).
 
It's a bit out of scale but whatever, it's already pretty small for me      ... 
 
 
 

Before anything, English is not my mother language so please be kind to my mistakes (there will be too many I'm afraid) and lack of nautical jargon.
 
Well, this is my first build. You may think it's a pretty bold move for a beginner to model such an intricate ship as the Royal Louis but I fell in love at first sight with the model at the Musée National de la Marine in Paris a couple years ago. At the time, I had no interest whatsoever in ship modeling, which is a pity, and missed the opportunity of taking hundreds of pictures at the museum. Either way, that's the one...
 

 
The model at the museum is huge - I think it's larger than 2.5 meters (8.2 feet?). I wanted to build a model ship like everyone in the forum but I live in a small appartment in Sao Paulo Brazil so I had to settle for something smaller. I also didn't want to buy a kit (another risky choice for a rookie) so I got both model ship makers and historical plans to plan my build. In the end, I planned my little Royal Louis to have a 25 cm hull (9.8 inches?) and sit comfortably on a very small shelf when done. Another reason for the small size is that I don't have much time so, a larger model would take too much time preparing the wood, etc etc.
 
I'm no Lloyd Mccafery so my model will be full of flaws and probably horrible in the end, but I guess it's a nice experience and you can only learn stuff by doing it. I really hope I can learn something from it. Lots of stuff will be out of scale or I'll end up using inadequate materials/techniques, but in the end I'll have fun.
 
I used POB as a start as you can see in the next pic...
 

 
The bulkheads are really thin, so wood was not an option (at least for my poor skills). I tried with a couples different types of wood but all of them felt too brittle to my taste, so the internal false keel / bulkheads were all made of styrene. They do have some flexibility but at least I didn't break all of the bulkheads. So far, so good.
 
   

Henry: cumulative error means that the first thing one does is a tiny bit off. The next, measured from the first, is a little more off... and before you know it, everything has become way off. It's the rolling snowball effect. The only way to avoid this problem is by repeatedly re-measuring and checking things, be it a distance or an angle. With a scratch build like yours or Kevin's, it's imperative. One can't be even a bit careless and get away with it. Ask me how I know!

Thanks to all for your continued encouragement ! Slow progress due to business travel-related absence from the workshop ...
 
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Planking the bulwarks
 
The planking of the bulwarks follows the same procedure as that for the hull, but had to be handled much more careful, as the inside will be visible and there will by no adjustments possible by sanding or scraping. The main reason for the latter is, that the planks are of scale thickness (0.25 mm) and profiled.

Section through a bulwark drawn by Friis-Pedersen (1980).
 
As can be seen from the two images above and below, it was not uncommon to give the edges of the planks a decorative profile by using an appropriate profile plane.

Bulwark of a Swedish jagt, photographed in November 2023 in Stockholm
 
I had been exploring various ideas for creating these profiles on tiny 1 mm x 0.25 mm styrene ‘planks’ uniformly and consistently close to the edges. In the end I decided on a simple and rather makeshift solution: a steel ruler was taped to a small cutting-mat to serve as guide for the very flexible strips. The chosen tool is an old-style ruling pen, of which I have several knocking about in my drawer of draughting utensils. This was set so that it creates a groove close to the opposite edge, when run along the edge of the strip. This works only for strips of uniform width.
  
It was important to prevent the styrene strips from softening too much during gluing, therefore only tiny drops of liquid styrene cement were applied to each stanchion. 
 
Somehow the alignment of the bulkheads was not as perfect as I was hoping for, resulting in some bulges. I hope I will be able to correct/hide this somehow.
 
Another problem is that the styrene strips of scale thickness are rather floppy, so that edge-alignment is rather difficult. I hope that I can also sort this out.
 
Once the planks were on, I installed the hawse-timbers between the stem and the cant-frames in the bow.

Next on will be the rails.
 
To be continued …  

Thanks Eberhard, 1/75 is a very difficult scale for this ship.
If it was 1/100, PE would be ok, but not at 1/75. It would look like a bit simple.
On the other side if it was 1/50 it would be much easier to make these parts. I did not realized this in the beginning. So I'am struggling as best as I can.

'Normal' people would use PE, but Ilhan has to do all by hand 😲👍🏻👍🏻

Skylights. 0,3 mm brass sheet and 0,3mm brass rod.







Thickness sanding.


Triple pack.
 




























 

Engine room house and funnel.
Trying to build the funnel I was very lucky to find a plastic tube with exact diameter. 

You can alternatively convert an image in almost any known image format (jpg, png, bmp, tiff, avi, gif, webp etc)  using the "Paint" software which comes as as an accessory with every Windows, so if you have a computer or a laptop with Windows you only need to download the images from your phone. Problem solved!

Very nice modelling with card, Ab! As for the Stuart Royal Yachts, all of them except the smaller ones, namely the Dutch bezan and the Jemmy, were fitted with English three pounders - so not exactly toys, but still big and deadly enough, at least at short range, therefore your gun looks quite right for the scale!
 
Remember the yachts typically had round ports with no port lids as unlike on warships the regular position of the gun was not retracted inside the gundeck, but the gun bore was plugged with a tompion and the gun was extended outside with the port made watertight with an oiled cloth turned around the gun.
 
Also most of the Stuart yachts typically had eight guns (four each side), only the latter ketch rigged yachts had more than eight. So to my eyes the tiller deck of your yacht looks too long, it should have been shorter and the aft deck drawn aft just one meter as to have all the eight guns on the lower deck, as only the Fubbs (which had ketch rigging) had this arrangement with actually two pairs of guns on the aft deck.
 
Also these confusing garlands were either just added decorations but also sometimes hidden ventilation holes for cabins and/or even supplementary gunports for one pair of guns to be added (or moved from the deck) to the aft cabin. So they had either plugs (even decorated to look like guns) or hinged lids which could open to the inside.
 
Hope this helps!