TJM

They are soooo small! Looking great!

Thank you Matthias, that is very kind of you indeed! However, I am not sure this would meet a proper 'kit standard', and quite a few tweaks would be needed - besides I don't really have any ambitions in that direction (and my skills are not good enough in my own opinion!). But I do really enjoy the design process and will be doing more of that! And when this model at some point gets finished (it is still early days on this build!), if anyone is interested in the plans you can reach out and I will be happy to share. But let's see how it goes first 😉.

Fantastic result, really striking colour palette! I have enjoyed following along very much 😁.

Ah, those will be covered by a raised deck right in front of the wheel. It will hide the rudder cables etc. You can see the construction on these plans: I just haven't gotten around to making that part yet 😁. So those exposed mdf pieces are there for a structural purpose on my build and does not reflect how the original would have been made!

Log entry 7 - modified deck, re-printing cannon, fixing mistakes and inner bulwarks This turned into a long post - quite a few things have happened in the past few days. New engraved deck As mentioned in the previous post, I needed a new deck with a better fit. I decided to keep the engraving and only change the outer shape to fit. This is because I actually drew the deck planking based on the original plans, so changing the engraving would be moving away from the historical sources. I took the advice I received a few posts back and made the nail engravings less deep - I like the new look. Here it is compared to the first version: Cannon in the right size I scaled down my 18 pdrs to 12 pdrs and re-printed them. Here they are curing: And here's a comparison to the 18 pdrs: Even though they are only 13% smaller, they look significantly smaller side by side. Problems... This is where the trouble began. I naturally put the cannons on the deck and quickly realized I had an issue: the barrels were not at all in the middle of the gun ports. I did a bunch of measurements on the model, on my CAD designs and on the original plans and I cane to the conclusion that two things had happened; I had used the wrong thickness of the two layer deck and therefore had the deck a bit too high, by about 0.8 mm and when applying the plywood bulwark patterns, the fit was good at the ends, but due to the curvature of the hull and less than perfect taper of the parts, they were sitting to low at the middle of the hull, by about 1.2-1.5 mm. A total of 2.0-2.2 mm. A quick decision was made to build up the bulwarks to make up for the difference. This will only be adding the 0.8 mm that the deck sits too high at the middle, the rest is just compensating for the bad fit of the plywood bulwark. It is not so pretty right now, but that fortunately does not matter, as the wales will entirely cover the repairs - it sits right under the gun ports. Inner bulwark patterns But as I now had the repair sitting on top of the bulwark, I decided to add the inner bulwarks to strengthen them, and therefore I needed to glue in the deck first! I made a paper template on the model, scanned it (with a ruler...), drew it in CAD and laser cut it - it was quick work and only took around an hour total. I made it in two parts to not waste the 0.5 mm material. Here the last part being glue in with almost enough clamps... And this is now the state of things: I like the small, fat cannons and the carriages with no visible wheels (they do have two small wheels on the inside at the front). Now, I can continue with the planking. I will protect the engraved deck with a cardboard cover while I work on the outside of the hull. BR TJM

I am just happy I could help! And I hope you enjoy your trip up here in summer!

Magnificent! 😲 I am very impressed - the end result is so smooth and the colour contrast between the painted and natural wood looks stunning!

Log entry 6 - sanding, keel and start of second planking Sanding the hull went quickly and there were no weird areas that needed filler, which I was happy about, especially as I designed the frames myself. There are a few hairline cracks between a few of the planks, but nothing that will be an issue when adding the second layer I deem. Here is the state after sanding and gluing in the keel: I went on and added the three first planks of the second layer and removed the upper parts of the bulkheads and the temporary braces. I also tested the fit of the engraved deck, but as expected it needs a bit of tailoring both at the stern and the prow. I guess it was very optimistic to cut this to begin with with everything being modelled only in 2D CAD! However, these images still give a good impression of what it will look like when a slightly better fitting version is added (which won't be until the second planking is completed). I just need to redesign the deck - making the engraving fit will be a bit tedious, but a few hours should see it done and cut. I can do it while I re-print my canon in the correct size... 🤣. The worst will be that I will need to re-design and re-cut the 2 mm pear edge and due to the shape it takes a whole 500x80 mm sheet so that was a bit of a waste. Anyways, that will teach me to be over confident and cut everything from the start just to have it all like a kit... 😅 On with the planking! BR TJM

Log entry 5 - first planking layer done! Alright, the first layer is done! Here is the current state, before any sanding: It was a very easy hull to plank, with quite gentle curves and relatively little tapering needed. This is my third time planking a hull, and this was definitely the easiest yet. Also the smallest, which helps. It looks a bit rough now, before any sanding, but looking down the hull, I think it will be easy to sand it and the lines are very nice as you turn the hull in your hand (if that makes sense, hard to explain...). I also dry fitted the keel, made from 3 mm pear, which fit in very nicely: After sanding, I will glue this in, and then it is on to the second planking! BR TJM

Very good looking model, I have enjoyed following along! 👍

Log entry 4 - more canon and carriages It has been a little while and it is time for a few updates. I have almost finished the first planking of the hull, but I am missing the last two planks - I will show some pictures in the next update. In the meantime, I tried to create a carriage as best I could from the drawings and Eckersbergs paintings and drawings. There is a bit of guesswork, but I am quite happy with this look. I considered making it from laser cut wood, but decided to try to 3D print it first. However, in my excitement I forgot that I was actually modelling the short 18 pdr! So I didn't scale it down to 12 pdr size... But I decided to print some barrels at the same time, so I got a bunch of 18 prdr barrels and carriages that fit together: I think it will work nicely with the 3D printed carriage when fitted out with eye bolts and painted, I just need to scale it down to 87 % size for it to be a 12 pdr instead! Here is a comparison of the new 18 pdr and my previously printed 12 pdrs: I will be back with another update on the hull planking soon. BR TJM

I had somehow not noticed you started this project @Thukydides! It is absolutely fantastic! Your micro modelling and painting skills are really superb! 🏆 I found files for these 1/700 ships for 3D printing and was sorely tempted, but I think I will hold off a bit. That is another rabbit hole and I would not do it justice like you. I will just admire your work here for now 😁 BR TJM

That looks really good Walter! I think your yellow is spot on 👍

Also, be sure not to scale the supports, at least if you do resin 3D printing. They will quickly become too small and the print will fail as the (weak) supports are ripped off the piece. A print service should be able to re-scale and add new supports that fits the new scale.

Very interested to follow this build. I have version 2 of this kit for a (far...) future project, and while I understand that there are significant differences between version 2 and 3, especially on the rigging, it will still be a very nice reference to have your log to look into!

Hi B.E. I understand your caution - I am a chemist, so I am biased 😉. I must say I actually like your results, especially the lower square example. But I would much prefer to use a few select chemicals than the all natural route to achieve the result!! But your untreated hull also looks great as is - I am very much enjoying following your build!

Hi B.E. Very interesting tests with the copper patina. I have heard that a water solution of 2% urea with a few drops of ammonia will make a good patina. I guess this will emulate the 'natural' approach , but is perhaps more controlled and can be tuned in terms of strength of the solution and ratio between urea and ammonia. I will try that myself when I get the chance! BR TJM

Fantastic! 👏

Thank you Matthias. I do pre bend every plank in all directions needed, but I often snap one or bend too much, or mess up the bevel at the edge. I did the same on Flirt, but the planks on that ran much more naturally so it was much quicker. It is just my silly idea to use another wood below the waterline and the way I ended up making those planks that is causing me trouble now! I just may not do it this way on future projects 😅.

Log entry 23 - planking continued It has been a while since the last update. Things are moving forward, but it is painfully slow. This is in part because of my HDMS Elben detour, but more due to diving into resin 3D printing which has taken up quite some time lately. But I am getting the hang of that and will probably also be doing some ornaments for the Christiania with the 3D printer. I am playing around with the stern decorations and will show something soonish. In the meantime, more planks have been added, also at the stern. It is very time consuming to cut all the planks to size with none being full with all the length. And I often mess them up and have to re-do a plank. I think that on average I do almost all of them twice. Even then, the fit is not perfect with the strong curves and taper of the planks. But viewing from a few feet away, it looks reasonable to me. Still a ways to go, but we will get there eventually. The carrot is being able to move on with the very interesting steps that follow the planking. I am looking forward to doing the stern and the wales! BR TJM

I have a white window blind I can roll down and use as a background for photos. If you have a fixed spot you can use, that works great. The ship is looking great!

Thanks! That is a great input! I can make two engraving runs, one for the nails at much lower intensity. Or I can of course forego the nails entirely. I will run a few tests 😁

Thanks for looking ito this! I read that as well at some point 🙂. It is just that the text on the drawings usually distinguish between short canon and carronades. There were several foundries in Helsingør and Copenhagen at the tine, so even if they were trying to systematize, I am not sure it is possible to rule out other sizes being produced. I also think that Elben may be a bit too early for the 1833 system. But it is of course possible that the short canon on Elben was actual carronades. Their use and powder charge would have been very similar, it is only a matter of the shape of the barrel and carriage.

I admit that I had never expected anyone else to have heard about this little Schooner, much less considered building it! That is amazing 😃. Indeed, the loss of Schleswig-Holstein is probably the biggest trauma in recent history for Denmark. The effect cannot be overestimated. Every Dane hears about this period multiple times in school, but I think not too many appreciate the importance for the forming of the current nation. Denmark's power had been declining for 2 centuries at this point, first with the loss of the southern Swedish provinces and then with the almost complete loss of the Navy in the Napoleonic wars which also led to the loss of Norway. Denmark was already at this point a small country with just a few oversees possessions. The loss of all of southern Jutland in 1864 was a massive blow to the national pride. Denmark lost 40 % of its land (non-overseas) and 38.5% of its population, going from 2.6 mio to 1.6 mio people. It is also interesting that all of southern Jutland below Kongeåen was lost, as the northern part of Schleswig was a de jure part of the kingdom, unlike the southern part and Holstein, which were not part of the Kingdom proper, but owned by the king (it is a strange and complicated setup that went back many centuries). Denmark became in effect one of Europe's smallest nation states after this, and we were close to bankruptcy too. It informed the neutrality policies of Denmark during the Great War and the 'acceptance' policy during the occupation of WWII. In fact, Denmark did not engage in any active wars again until 1999. I had not considered that the ship Elben would have been transferred to the SH navy after 1864, but that makes total sense. Regarding armament, I only know that it was designed for 8 short 12 pounders - whether it was ever armed with that is not certain. I have not been able to find any drawings of these guns in the archive - many others, but not these. That is not to say that they are not there! I just haven't found them 😃. However, their length in calibres seem to be the same as for the short 18 pounders above, which were widely used on many different kind of ships, so I am quite confident that it is just a question of scaling them down to 12 pounders.

Thank you for the feedback - I have tried to do the planks as realistic as I can with the information I have. Apart from glancing at the Vanguard Models kits I have (Flirt and Sphinx) I have these contemporary drawings of deck planking, although for much larger ships than Elben: They are from the frigate Rota 1822 and the 3rd rate Dronning Marie 1824. I have used the drawing of Elben which shows the outer plank and one along the gratings: And i have placed the plank ends above where the beams are shown on the plans. The inaccuracy I know for sure I have in the current top deck is that I have not included the nails that are not at the plank ends. There should be two nails on all planks at all beam positions. I actually made the drawing like that, but found it became to busy/crowded. The Vanguard Models laser etched decks are correct in that way, but they have a more subdued brown tone. Mine get very dark, almost black and I was afraid it would distract too much. But I could just add those nails again and do another top deck. Perhaps I should try and then decide when I can make a direct comparison. If there are any other obvious inaccuracies that could be addressed, please ket me know. BR TJM