TJM

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

@Thukydides, I just went through the drawings I have of Najaden and it's sister Diana, and the vertical pin rack at the mizzen does not seem to appear on the drawings. There are two more copies like these, but they show the same. But then again, the skylight above the cabin (cahytten) depicted in Eckersbergs paintings are also not in these drawings. These features were likely added between the 1820 launch of the ship and 1833 when the pictures were painted.

It is from 1833, https://open.smk.dk/artwork/image/KMS2060 . Eckersberg had full access to the wharfs at Holmen and often sailed with the navy to paint various scenes. His painting are likely very accurate, as he was very interested in the ins and outs of the sailing ships of the time and spend considerable time studying them here are a few more paintings from this trip aboard Najaden, of the ship itself: He would take a ship boat and sketch the ship from that.

Oh, and I just remembered: I believe the canon had an 'eye' for the breach rope not shown on the drawings above! Here are a drawing and a painting by the famous marine painter C. W. Eckersberg, showing (likely) this pattern of short 18 pounder canon on the deck of the corvette Najaden: BR TJM

Wow, thank you Ron! That is very kind of you! I am afraid it does not get much better than that, but the full version has a scale that will be useful. This is an image of a short 18 pounder from the Lougen-class brigs, and I will simply scale that down to a 12 pounder for Elben. This is the full image: The original file is here: https://api.rigsarkivet.dk/ao/v1/images/31915669 There is also this one with a top view: https://api.rigsarkivet.dk/ao/v1/images/31915695 And this one with higher resolution but it has the standard and the short 18 pounders on top of each other: https://api.rigsarkivet.dk/ao/v1/images/31915697 Will these together do? Please note that a Danish foot ('fod') is 0.3139 m! Again, thank you so much for offering to make 3D drawing of this! BR Thorbjørn

Hehe, I mean, the laser is a bit expensive, but the small 3D printer really isn't! It is just a bit of a learning curve to get it working and cleanup, safe disposal of everything that has been in contact with the resin is a bit of a hassle...

Log entry 3 - learning 3D printing! I got a small resin 3D printer for Christmas and have been spending the past month getting all the accessories needed and for moving both it and the laser into a new place. Most the setup concerns making sure there is adequate ventilation in place. This the setup now and it seems to be working well! The small very short 12 pounder canon needed for Elben was the first real test apart from a calibration print, mainly because it does not take too long to print. I am a total novice when it comes to 3D modeling, so I had to find a base to start from. Luckily @thibaultron has made a masterclass in printing canon here: https://modelshipworld.com/topic/34442-3d-printing-cannons-in-resin and he has also published a very comprehensive set of stl files of different patters and sizes of canon. I have modified his Bloomfield design to match the dimentions of the short 12 pdrs I need. In the first batch I printed, 2/3 came off their supports and I had to do a full vat clean - and messed up the pour, so I had a lot of cleaning to do! The rest 1/3 came out mostly ok, but with a bit of the knob at the end missing. I diagnosed the problem to be due to too little support area from the light supports I had used and therefore went with medium supports and more of them for my second try. I was happy to see 30 out of 32 canon sitting on the build plate after 2.5 hours! The last two probably got ripped off their supports due to a slight tilt on the build plate. But lots of supports are definitely needed! I am using water water washable resin, so the initial wash is in water (all gathered in bottles for later safe disposal) and the a quick ethanol/isopropyl alcohol wash. Then a final 3 min alkohol wash in an ultrasound bath and drying. Here are 30 canon being cured for a total of 5 min (probably too much, but I am being cautious here) And the final result: Here is the reference drawing of the short 18 pounder I used as a basis: Now I just need to design the carriage... I am very happy with how these came out! And a great success for my first efforts in the 3D printing department. I am looking forward to trying out different things. BR TJM

Log entry 2 - bulwark patterns Things are progressing quite fast at this point, at least faster than I thought! I cut out the bulkhead braces mentioned in the previous posts: These were then glued to their respective bulkheads: I also added a strip of wood down the middle to give some more lateral strength. After this, fairing was done quickly; the hull only really tapers at the prow and stern and very little material actually needed to be removed. Using the initial cardboard bulwark templates, I made some modifications at the prow to the patterns, cut another cardboard template and made the last small modification to the cut file. Here are the final 1 mm ply sheet: It includes the 4 small cabin frames as well. Instead of soaking in hot water and forming directly against the (braced) bulkheads, I just wetted the patterns an used a hot iron at the highest setting to shape the patterns off model. The fit came quite close and I could glue the patterns to at the bottom and then make final adjustments to their shape with the iron on the model. In this way, I don't have a lot of clamping force needed to shape the patterns, which is good, as the frame is a bit too fragile. You may notice two small notches in the patterns. These fit with registering 'pins' cut into two of the bulkheads. As no fairing is needed on these flat parts of the hull, it is a good way to ensure that the patters sit at the same height on both sides. I also added the first two inner planking strips and to my relief, the hull frame is just strong enough to take the abuse of pinning, handling, etc. But I will use sturdier frame for future projects! Lastly, I added the stern pattern. It looks askew in the stern photo, but it really isn't. I like to get this on to protect the stern frames from damage during planking. Planking the first layer should be relatively straight forward from this point! BR TJM

Thank you all for your interest, likes and comments! @Dr PR, that is more or less what I have been doing. Since I will be cutting off the top part of the bulkheads anyway, I dont need them in 'good shape', I just need their outer curvature to be precise while i form the plywood. I have therefore just made some braces with the correct length and inner curvature that I glue in and everything becomes stable. With regards to material choice, MDF does cut a little easier, but that is not the main reason for choosing it. There are no warping on the MDF sheets and it sands very much easier than ply when fairing the hull - those are my main reasons for going with MDF.

Log entry 1 - building the skeleton I am following roughly the same approach as I have experienced in the few Vanguard kits I have been working on. So I start with attaching the bulkheads to the keel and adding the braces. So far, so good. When using the 4 mm MDF from Amati, I get a very nice tight fit, but with this 3 mm, it is a little on the loose side. I think the material may be a little under 3 mm thick, and I should account for that when designing i CAD, but I have not done so here. It will work ok for this small projet and once the glue was dry, everything was set firmly, but care is needed to not have anything set in a slightly skewed position. I then added the laser engraved lower deck parts and the first pear gratings, also laser cut and engraved. I am very happy with how this looks! It will be almost entirely covered by the upper deck - you may be able to catch a tiny glimpse through the upper deck gratings and the ladder hatch, but it is more about figuring out how to do these things for future projects. I then added the beams to all the bulkheads: I used pear, as I was not sure 3 mm MDF would not just snap when I glue on the upper deck. It looks very nice in pear at this point, but it will all be covered up immediately, as the next (and final for this post) step was to glue in the upper deck base pattern: I had not accounted for the prow pieces, so I had to trim off a few mm at the front of the pattern, but no issues otherwise. So far things are working out. But I can see that the top parts of the bulkheads are indeed too thin. They will not take the load of forming a 1 mm ply bulwark pattern, even if there are many of them! My solution will be to cut out braces for the correct distance for all of them and glue these in. After fairing, I will then form and attach the plywood bulwark (that I first need to tailor) and then remove the upper part of the bulkheads as planned all along. BR TJM

Intro I decided to do this small schooner for a number of reasons: First, it is small. At 76 feet, it is one of the smallest vessels from the Danish archives (apart from ship boats). It does have a little brother named Delphinen that is only 56 foot long, but I found this one to be a nicer overall project. Secondly, it is from a later period - a period that I have somewhat less of an interest in, but I wanted to try something that has a copper plated hull. Being small, I thought it was a good candidate as it won't be too big of a task to copper it. Thirdly, I wanted to learn resin 3D printing and I will use this project to do that, as the armament will need to be customized (very short 12 pounders). An inspiration was the model by Peter Maack at the Danish War Museum of the aforementioned Delphinen: I will take quite a few visual cues from this model. The following are the original drawings from the National Archive. As you can see, this is a small schooner with 8 guns. The guns are short 12 pounders. These were much the same as carronades, but more often used by the Danish ships than actual carronades of the English model. I don't have any drawings of 12 pounders, but I have a few of short 18 pound guns. They were around 10 calibres long, translating into around 121 cm or 1.9 cm at 1:64 scale. Just like a carronade. I really like the drawings of the details on the deck and bulwarks. It should make it relatively easy to make a lot of nice accurate details. Here is an image of the 18 pounders showing both a long and a short one. I will just scale this down to a 12 pounder. After the loss of almost the entire Danish navy in 1807 and the conclusion of the gun boat wars in 1814, the Danish navy had to be rebuilt almost from scratch. It never again became anything close to as large as before the Second Battle of Copenhagen. Inspiration was drawn from many other navies, as had been customary in the past century, but as a new thing, America was now also in scope for that. From there, the Danish naval architects brought back plans for East Coast schooners and a few ships were made withe these as inspiration. They were used for guard duty in ports or on rivers. This particular one was stationed on the river Elben, then still in Danish territory, and named after that river. Adapting the plans via QCAD was quite easy and quick, but I was pushing the thickness (or rather thinness) of the bulkheads and this will probably cause some issues later. It is a bit silly really, as there is no real need for them to be this thin on this build - it is just roughly the correct thickness of the actual frames, but woking with MDF bullheads, I should have added another mm or 1.5 of thickness. Here are the laser cut sheets, 7 in total. The 2 mm one was cut twice, as I had a mistake in the cut file and had one of the parts cut in two. The bulwark patterns are WIP and will need tweaking on the model. This is why they are just cut out of cardboard for now. Now, I will continue with the initial building of the frame of the ship and see how it goes together! BR TJM

Hello everyone and welcome to this, my first scratch build project! I have been playing around with my laser cutter for a little year and I am slowly getting to know how to adapt original plans from 18th-19th century into something I can cut out with the laser and assemble. I have been documenting my tests so far here: https://modelshipworld.com/topic/37190-historical-plans-via-cad-to-laser-cut-parts-practicum/ Thanks to everyone who stopped by and who commented and liked the posts there, it is much appreciated. I was doing another small ship plan, trying to push a few things (like laser engraving the decks, etc.) and since the project was small, I found myself with a whole mini-kit of designed cut files, including gratings, beams, decks, etc. And then I couldn't help but try to cut it all out... So instead of continuing my previous practicum, I will start and actual build log here, my first scratch built project! My main project is still Christiania, adapted from the fantastic Vanguard Models HMS Sphinx kit, and it is likely ill advised to start on a new (albeit small) side project, but I feel I have exhausted what I can get from just designing and making the frame of ships for 'scratch built training' - I have to actually try to assemble and plank something to continue to the fittings stage of the design process. Especially the plywood bulwark patterns need tweaking that I can't do off model, so I need a faired hull to work out how to best make those parts. Christiania will continue as my main project but while I slowly get the planking finished on that, I will work on this project along side it. The next few posts will be a presentation of the ship in question, a small schooner used as a guard ship on the river Elben - Elben also being the name of the ship itself - and then the initial assembly of the frames. I hope many will stop by and give their input along the way - the conversations on this forum is a large part of the hobby to me, and I really appreciate all the great feedback I get here! BR TJM

The very best of luck with this project, I am sure it will be great! And I will follow your journey with great interest!

Log entry 22 - a bit more planking and painting the inner bulwarks I have added a few more planks and I think it is starting to show how it will look when completer. 10 planks down, 40 to go... And as I had decided to paint the bulwarks red, I masked off everything and did so - no mishaps or paint seeping, so that's nice. Here is how it looks now, with Kaptajn Hornblæser (I guess he got promoted.. ) inspecting the paintwork and how it goes together with the cannon paint sheme: As you may be able to tell, I am rough sanding as I go. I find it easier to control with a few planks at a time and it makes for less sanding at the end and (I hope) less likelihood of sanding through the second planking, as I only take off just what is needed initially. BR TJM

Hi Matthias, Regarding the cabin details, have you seen this drawing from the Danish archives? I believe it shows the three decker Christianus Sextus from 1733 by Barbé's predecessor Benstrup. It gives a good hint of what the decor in the cabins were like at the time! EDIT: I just realised that this was the image you posted part of a few posts ago, sorry! And you are probably right that it is the Sophia Magdalena! BR TJM

Yes indeed! He will look something like this: For now, I just call him Løjtnant Hornblæser - I think you can guess what that translates to 😉.

Log entry 21 - cannon, colours and inorganic chemistry! Hi Everyone, Planking is progressing, albeit quite slowly. I will show that progress after a few more have been added. To break up the quite long and repetitive task of the planking, I have started to look into the cannon - also a long task that I prefer to do a little at a time and not having it as a huge chunk of work when I reach that part! During my research, I have found that Danish cannon carriages were painted in basically the same way for a very long time, and it is a bit different from the British schemes of that time. From at least the 1610's to 1830's, the carriages themselves were red, painted with what is still in Denmark called 'svensk rød' - Swedish red. That is iron oxide - I guess that is likely the same colour as the Royal Navy used? However, all wrought iron parts were painted with lead oxide pigmented paint for corrosion protection. Here are a few reference images: A manuscript illustration - it seems to be earlier than Christianus, as it clearly depicts a bronze cannon, but the yellow wrought iron is clearly evident. An original cannon at the now defunct Orlogsmuesseet. The carriage is probably not original and it has definitely been painted recently, but is shows how the historians believe it would have looked. A commercial replica og a small Danish cannon. An image depicting 'Slaget på Reden' - the First battle of Copenhagen. The toppled cannon in the lower left shows the yellow wrought iron. Apart from these, there are many morder models at the War Museum in Copenhagen showing this paint sheme: The frigate Bornholm (1770's): The Gyldenløve (1670's): The brig Ørnen (1830's) These references all show a bright, yellow colour for the wrought iron parts, but in several sources the pigment is referred to as 'mønje', in English 'minium'. This is where the chemistry comes in: lead oxide appears in many forms with minium being just one of these. In the image below, you can see the comon forms. Black: lead(IV)oxide, PbO2. Yellow: lead(II)oxide, PbO. Orange: lead(II/IV)oxide, PbO•PbO2 The mixed, orange oxide is minium, but it looks way too orange compared to the reference material, even if the word minium is used to describe it. Now, lead(II)oxide (yellow) had two mineral forms called 'litharge' and 'massicot'. Litharge is more orange and massicot is very bright yellow. It is therefore difficult to know exactly what was used, but I will hazard a guess that it may have been a variable mixture of the different minerals minium, litharge and massicot, as chemically pure minerals were rare back then. The colour could therefore range from bright orange to light yellow. I find this kind of thing fascinating. In the end, I decided to go for a warm, but relatively light yellow, as that seems most consistent with the reference material, though for good reasons, none of those are entirely reliable. This will be used for all wrought iron parts. Here is what a canon will look like: It would have been period accurate to also paint the wheels red, but that looks too toy-like for my taste, so I will keep them natural. On a related note, I have come to the conclusion, based on all the image and model material I have found, that the inner bulwark would definitely also have been red on the Christiania. I will therefore mask off the exterior (non-cabin) part of the internal bulwark and paint that red as well. Luckily, it is not too late for that, I just need to be careful with the deck! BR TJM

I am looking forward to following this for sure!

Log entry 20 - planking I started to draw a line parallel to the waterline and immediately realised that that was not going to work. Midships, the planks are vertical, but towards the ends, especially at the stern, the shape would require very broad planks to stay parallel with the waterline all the way. Instead, I took the time to map out even plank runs for the entire rest of the second planking. I measured at various places and printet out measuring templates to use to mark up the hull: This took a few evenings. I have started with the next planks, the first are the most difficult ast they require more shaping and it should then become easier as I get along. Including the first whole maple planks, I now have 3 on one side and 2 on the other. It takes close to an hour per plank right now so this is going to take a while. I have 25 total on either side. 😅 I can see that it wont be totally perfect, but sanding removes most of the imperfections that are there initially and the maple is very even i colour and texture. When the seams are good, they are virtually invisible, which gives a bit of tolerance for the planking job i need to achieve. I will do my best, but it is good to have a bit of wiggle room. BR TJM

Log entry 19 - upper part of second planking done Hello everyone, and thanks for the likes. I have now planked down to the waterline on both sides, which is a kind of halfway milestone for the second planking. Here's both sides: So far, I am happy with by wood choices and am exited to see the final form of the hull taking shape. I have roughly sanded the starboard side and think it will turn out very nice after a good deal more sanding. Here's a few close-ups (showing all the little imperfections and scratches - many will disappear later with sanding): From the end on shots, it may appear as if the waterlines on either side are not at the same level - that is just a trick of the angles! They are at exactly the same level, I did not modify the height of the waterline marker at all when I drew them on! In real life, it looks fine. The seam between the pear and maple has turned out nice and sharp, which is a relief! After sanding it will look something like this: I will now continue below the waterline and have decided to use 12 cm segments as above. It will be a long frustrating task to use whole length planks with that much curvature on each, so to not run sour of the task, I will use the shorter sections. BR TJM

This looks like a fantastic kit, as always from Chris, and beautiful presentation! The quality of Vanguard Models just keeps rising and rising 👏

Wow, this is amazing!

Log entry 18 - changing plans slightly Having tried a few times without achieving results I was happy with, I decided to change tactics. The waterline kept becoming too wobbly so I decided to lay a full length plank along the waterline. This was fairly easy to do. I used small nails along the waterline to register the plank and formed it in place with a hot iron, keeping it in place with pins: I did this on both sides and this looks much better in terms of straightness. I have then been adding a few more pear planks and this is how it looks now: Now, this changes things quite a bit in terms of planking strategy below the waterline. Obviously, the planks will not follow a realistic planking pattern as originally intended. I will instead view it as an artistic representation of the white painted hull below the waterline where you would not see how the planks run anyway. But since they will be visible in this case (if I make a good enough job and don't paint over it in the end...), I need the planks to have a aesthetically nice run. I think the best is to divide the hull in planks that run parallel to the waterline. I will just use the waterline marker to do this. That will result at quite thin planks at bow and stern, especially at the stern which will be a departure from a normal planked hull. I think it could work. But I have to decide whether to use full length planks or shorter sections like above the waterline. I feel it will now be better with full length planks for this aesthetic, but the planks have much more severe curves compared to a natural run and I am worried that I wont be able to get tight seams with full length planks! I will now plank down to the waterline with pear on both sides and the try to make a decision on the lower part then... If someone has any inputs or other ideas I'd be happy to hear them! BR TJM

Log entry 17 - two steps forward, on step back... I have added another couple of plaks on both sides an am reaching the waterline. So i took the plunge and made a first attempt. It seemed to work fine, but sighting down along the hull, the waterline between the pear and the maple looked a little high in the middle. So i re-drew the waterline on top and sure enough: This looks to be 1 or 2 mm to high 😕. I only looked at this for a few minutes before deciding to rip it off and try again. I marked the planks to remove and went ahead: It came off easily enough with no damage to surroundings. I re drew the waterline: It still looks like I will have to add maple to the middle plank, but that was what turned out wrong the first time. Hmm. Time to think and then try again. I don't want to abandon the idea and paint the hull, as the wooden hull is one of the main appeals to me. I could also run a plank along the waterline and have a simple, non authentic run below the waterline, also using full plank lengths instead of the 12 cm lengths. I think that could look fine and be an aesthetic choice, but it would feel a bit like cheating with the planking! It would be much easier though. I will at least try again with the realistic run of the planks before giving up and trying the other option. BR TJM

You are very welcome! And you are right, I completely forgot to mention that ships of the same construction is also shown - that sometimes adds a lot of relevant drawings to a subject! I just dont understand why, when they went to all of the trouble scanning thousands of drawings and the old analog indexes, they did not make a simple database with a tiny bit of metadata. It would have taken so little effort compared to the work already done to make a searchable database. Instead we have a digital copy of the analog archive, including the analog indexes. And then the system is just not very friendly for browsing! It takes alot of mouse clicks to go through the files! But the index does make all the difference when looking for specific ships. Another 'tool' is this site: https://trap.lex.dk/.taxonomy/4677 It lists many of the ships by class and includes a few low res images of drawings and models of interest. It is a bit inconsistent in the quality of the data, but it is a good way to find interesting ships and then go to the actual archive linked above to find the information 'first hand'.