SJSoane

Hi druxey, for some reason, maybe having to do with the grain or the stiffness of the wood, or poor hand coordination, I could not keep the cutter at a consistent angle to the table top. So the top edge wavered too much. Mounting the cutter in a handle at least keeps the angle constant for me. Still much to learn! At last, I was able to start putting the waist moulding in place. I tried drilling holes for pins to keep things in place, but it was too sloppy to force the gradual curve and keep it there while the glue dried. So I made some battens that ride on the top of the planking edge underneath the moulding, clamping them to the ship side. Then it was a simple matter of clamping the moulding vertically to the batten. It is making a perfect, sweet, curve.

here is a link to the instructions: https://www.sherline.com/product/3200-indexing-attachment/#instructions Mark

Thanks so much, Marc, it is a good thing I am not doing this for a living! I wish I could think that everything I have learned will be applied to another model, but at the rate I am going, this is pretty much going to be it!

Much fun figuring out how to get decent mouldings! But I finally figured it out. First round: I used an old exacto knife blade, shaped with a grinding wheel in the lathe. At this point, I was still trying to cut the blank at the angle of the tumblehome. I mounted it in a holder: I expected the handle riding against a fence to stop at the right depth: But this failed miserably. For some reason, the depth was not controlled at all, and the top edge waved up and down. And the cutter did not define the outer edges, just the face; so the moulding top curves did not gracefully flow into the sides of the profile; there was always a little ridge or the curve got cut off. Next idea. I made a new cutter, now abandoning the idea of cutting the moulding at the angle of the tumblehome. It was too complicated, and at this scale did not show at all. So now I tried a simpler profile, straight up and down, and I provided sides to the profile that would run against the blank so the curves would flow evenly down into the edge of the blank. The edges of these sides were softened with a file so they would not cut, only guide. I cut the profile in a Lie-Nielsen A2 steel blank (for his moulding plane; https://www.lie-nielsen.com/products/beading-tool-blade-blanks, 5 for $10). This made a fantastic cutter. I was able to shape it partly with ball end mills in the milling machine, and partly with files. And its greater thickness greatly reduced chatter. Lie-Nielsen claims it does not have to be hardened, and I will see if it starts to dull or not before I am done with this shape. At first, I tried just running the cutter along the edge of the blank, counting on a fence to stop the cut at the right depth: This did not work well at all. The upper edge was amazingly wavy. Perhaps the more powerful cutter grabbed at grain more aggressively. So the final idea, which works perfectly, was to build a holder for the cutter, angling the cutter at 15 degrees, and with a fence riding against the side. The workbench top now acts as a stop. I put a number of slips of manila folder and typing paper between the cutter and the workbench top to lift the cutter up so it just takes a whisper of a cut. When it cuts no more, I take away a slip of paper from underneath, dropping the cutter down slightly, and cut again. I do this repeatedly until the full profile is cut. You can see below the sweet curl of a cut coming off the cutter. The exacto blade cutter only shaved off sawdust. I then cut the blank to the right thickness, keeping a piece of typing paper against the fence. In my earlier efforts, the metal of the fence was discoloring the moulding; the paper keeps it clean. And voila, perfect mouldings: This turned out to be much more difficult to control than I had originally expected, but a lot of experimentation and I got there.

Thanks, Ed, it has been a pretty long apprenticeship! I started working on mass producing the waist mouldings. In my first experiments, I scraped the moulding on the edge of a wide blank, then cut off the moulding at its appropriate width. I have to use the angle table on the Byrnes saw, since my moulding is angled for the extreme tumblehome. This turned out to be exceedingly fussy, resetting the fence for each new cutoff, and aiming for a tight tolerance to keep them all the same thickness. I decided to try another idea, which is to cut the blanks to the right thickness, and then use the scraper with a depth stop to avoid cutting beyond the correct thickness of the final moulding. The first step is to produce a number of parallelogram blanks of exactly the same thickness, on the tilting table. So, I built a jig. It lets me slide an auxiliary fence up to the saw blade, with a spacer of the appropriate size to offset the auxiliary fence from the blade: I then slide the blank with its angled edge already cut up to the auxiliary fence. This allows me to slide the tilting table fence down to the blank, thus setting the fence for that particular blank at the exact distance needed beyond the saw blade: And then I remove the auxiliary fence, and cut holding the blank firmly against the tilting table fence: Only a day's worth of thinking and building. This is why this project is taking so long!🙃 Mark

Thanks so much for your comments, druxey and Ed. druxey, good idea about pre-drilling the mouldings. The trunnels will be noticeable when finished, and predrilling can keep them all in a constant position up and down. It is a small target for the drill in the concave part of the moulding, so using a fence on a small drill press can keep me in the safe zone. I have been concerned about how stiff the moulding is, and how it is not easily forming the sheer curve without something to pull it up to. But I discovered last night that my test piece was cut too thick. I am thinning it down today to the correct thickness, and hopefully it will become a little more pliant. Ed, I regularly look to your books on the Naiad for advice on construction methods; you provide a great road map for the these specific kinds of details. Along with David Antscherl's Fully Framed Model books, I have some great published guides in my shipbuilding apprenticeship! Best wishes, Mark

Thanks so much, Siggi, I have been away from the shop for a long while, and only today saw your posting. I seem to recall that you did put the stools on your model of the Dragon. It looks like it was a detail that changed back and forth, so either way would be correct. I will follow the image you included of the Dragon, showing a stool. It is more consistent with the rest of the ship! I have been taken away from the shop for a good period of time, only able on occasion to install more planking. I have just about finished up to the waist rail, needing only the strakes at the bow which bend outward to support the cathead. It was a fairly simple matter of spiling to the plank below, trimming for ports, and measuring the widths in the normal way using a planking fan. Slow but steady! This then brings me to the fun part, installing the waist moulding. I have taped a sample to the side to see how it will look, and how I will install it. I read in Ed Tosti's Naiad book that the moulding should be installed in long lengths, then cut away for ports later, to ensure a smooth curve along the sheer. This makes sense to me. I am thinking about clamping a former along the upper edge of the planking, then pushing the moulding up to the former and drilling for pins. The pins will later be used to align the moulding as it is glued. I still need to think how I can clamp this against the hull, without damaging the very delicate moulding. In preparation for this, I also had to look again at the sheaves in the sides for the fore sheet and spritsail sheet, the main tack and the main sheet. Brian Lavery's book on the Bellona showed the first three as separate blocks in the sides at the waist. But I was unable to find other examples of that in the period, and Lees' book on Rigging says the fore and spritsail sheets were combined in one block at the middle of the waist during this period. So, I followed this, as seen below. The main sheet is to the far left in the drawing, and the main tack is just under the fore channels to the right of center. I also puzzled over how these blocks fit the sides. Every image I could find of ships in the period show the forward most blocks above the waist moulding, not cutting into it. But when I drew this with the blocks horizontal to the waterline, they cut into the clamps inboard. I did not think this would have been done, given the structural importance of the clamp at the waist. Then I noticed in the John McKay book on the HMS Victory that the blocks were perpendicular to the sides, not horizontal. So I drew it this way, and the blocks clear the inboard clamp very nicely. This is how it looks: All for now! Best wishes, Mark

Marc, Beautiful work. I am super impressed by your piercing work. Much to learn from this for all of us! Mark

HI Siggi, I have been away for a while, just saw your postings on the frieze. Beautiful painting! I am starting to look at the frieze for the Bellona, and they are quite complex paintings. I suppose on the actual hulls they used large house painting brushes! Mark

Marc, I have been out of touch lately, just catching up. Nice line of reasoning on the color question. I look forward to hearing if you find some other hints or leads on this! Mark

Hi Don, Others may know better, but I believe the Bellona model with the canted frames on the starboard side probably was not copied much, or even followed on the Bellona itself, because the crooked wood was becoming increasingly scarce and expensive by the mid 18th century. I know how it is to decide which evidence to follow when trying to reconstruct an old ship. I decided that the port locations, if drawn, as are accurate a bit of information as you going to get, and so other things are going to have to adjust to make this possible. Having said that, my original admiralty drawing of the Bellona shows the upper ports towards the stern with three different locations dotted in; they were clearly trying to reconcile the conflicting needs of the internal arrangements, the desire to avoid cutting frames, and so on. No one perfect solution. One idea I have seen in contemporary models is that the frames get thinner fore and aft, or the upper futtocks or top timbers are offset a little on the lower part of the frame, to avoid ports. Since you already made the decision to keep the frames a constant width fore and aft all the way to the top, this option is not available to you any more. If your framing will be covered by planking, you might just let the cut frames disappear into their plank coverings, and no one will be the wiser! Mark

Hi Allan, Sorry for the delay; just got back from a trip to Denver for a wedding... So it sounds like printing on the permalite 20 pound bond was the best bet. I am guessing you did not stretch it like watercolor paper in the first place, since you were printing on an ink jet printer; did the paper wrinkle when you glued it onto the wood? What kind of glue did you use? I am also impressed with your TurboCad skills in drawing forms like this! Best wishes, Mark

The first model of the Bellona (ca. 1760) shows a proposal on the starboard side to keep the upper frames as continuous as possible to the top. The port side shows the more conventional framing. Mark

Allan, Will you post the outcome of your experiment? I am very interested to see an archival way forward on this fascinating topic! Mark

To add to Allan's question, would it make sense to paste the paper frieze onto the hull BEFORE attaching the mouldings above and below, so there can be a slight overlap of the moulding over the paper, keeping a clean line between the two? Mark