SJSoane

Hi Hamilton, Just to make life more interesting, the HMS Bellona 1760 has serpentine shaped hatches and gratings, as seen here in the contemporary model. Mark

Thanks, Gary and Mark, I had never noticed that before. Very interesting detail. I looked around some more to remember why I thought the Bellona had angled and hooked spirketting. I found it in Brian Lavery's Anatomy of the Ship for the Bellona, page 46. It is redrawn from a drawing of the Arrogant 1761, just a year after the Bellona, and also designed by Bellona's designer, Thomas Slade. I looked for the original online at the National Maritime Museum site; it lists the drawing, but there does not seem to be a scanned image available. So I guess I will work with Lavery's redrawing. Would have been fun to try something different.... Best wishes, Mark

Thanks, Gary, that look great. I haven't noticed those keyed joints in the spirketting before, as opposed to sloped scarphs like in the beam clamps. I had it in my mind that the Bellona would have sloped scarphs, but for the life of me I don't know where I got that idea since there are no Bellona drawings showing this detail. I have a jig for steam bending the planks outboard at the bow; I'll try it for inboard as well and then adjust accordingly if there is too much springback. Best wishes, Mark

HI Gary, I was looking back in your build to see how you did the spirketting on the gun deck, but I can't seem to find it. I am beginning to think about doing this once I finish the channel wales, and you have always been an exceptionally good guide for me! I am particularly interested in the bow, and how to steam bend those into place. Do you recall what you did there? Mark

Thanks so much, Michael and Greg. I am sure I would have been fired many years ago if I was an apprentice to an 18th century ship model builder. Can't earn my keep! I had to spend a night in a hotel earlier this week, and took the opportunity to try making a maquette of the sculptures on the stern of the Bellona. Even though I made this at twice the scale of the model itself (3/8" = 1'-0" instead of 3/16" = 1'-0"), I still did not have clay modeling tools small enough; and the clay was too soft and deflecting. So another round needed with better tools and clay. But this did give me a sense of what it is like to shape in 3 dimensions, and to see the figure itself in 3 dimensions. An entirely different world for me! Best wishes, Mark

Hi Gary, Happy birthday! Your arrangement for the transom at the stern looks very convincing. Well done. I will not complain any more about how tedious is is to plank, when I see those crooked hanging knees! Beautiful craftsmanship, as usual. Best wishes, Mark

Thanks, druxey, I am going to break out the clay today and see what is what with this maquette process! I forgot to attach the following image yesterday, showing the first strake of the channel wale complete on the starboard side. Work progresses on the second strake on the port side. Mark

Gaetan, Beautiful, finely crafted, a work of art! You are an inspiration. Mark

Some other life activities got in the way of the model for a while. I am grabbing a few moments in the shop from time to time, and here is an update. Planking continues, and I am refining how to do this as efficiently as possible both for time and for materials consumed. I started ripping planks off a blank wide enough for later spiling of the individual planks. But this turned out to waste a lot of wood that was initially cut too wide for the final plank. So I then made manila file templates for each plank in the second strake of the channel wales: Then I laid these out on the blank port and starboard of each piece next to each other to avoid different curves wasting more wood (I will flip the starboard ones when fitting): These are now cut out on a scroll saw, and ready for sanding to size and fitting: Meanwhile, I have been thinking about the carvings on the head and stern, since I took the time to draw them out earlier. They are going to be small, particularly on the stern, as seen by the mechanical pencil on the drawings: Will I be able to make them look anything like the original? Daunting! All for now, Mark

shipman, was that the large hall of models in the National Maritime Museum before the awful renovation? And was the Longridge model in that hall? That NMM hall was one the greatest places I ever remember experiencing; you needed days to look at it all. What a tragedy for all of us it is gone. Here is a photo of the first strake of the channel wale complete, on the port side. You can see how much the tumblehome straightens up towards the stern (compare the angle of the ports to the angle of the door to the quarter gallery) and the strake reverses its curve compared to the main wale below, causing the notable variation in plank widths. Mark

Wow, thanks, Mark. At least temporarily, my planking is staying in place better than that. Only time will tell, of course! Longridge was always my gold standard, sobering to see how time might treat our efforts. The surface also looks somewhat rough in the photo, and I recall him writing about polishing the finish. druxey, any idea what kind of glue Longridge had available to him at the time? Mark

Thanks, Gary, your Alfred project has always inspired me to keep going and do it well; I will work on regaining my patience! Greg and druxey, very interesting observation on Longridge's plank separation. If he really did use constant width blanks, he must have really cranked some of those into place. And even then, I would assume that he would have faired the upper edge after installation of each strake, just to get them down to the right width at various places on the hull. druxey, did Longridge's Victory move from place to place with lack of environmental control? I recall him writing about storing it in a seaside fortification during the war to avoid bombs, and finding a fine mould on the surface when he recovered it after the war. That could not have been good for it, to start! Mark

There was a time I thought I should have done a three decker, and now grateful I did not. I increasingly look wistfully at the frigates, sloops, etc. with one deck. I might have had a better chance of finishing one of those in my lifetime! I did not appreciate how dreary the planking becomes after a while. I recall reading Longridge's book on the Victory many years ago, which seemed to suggest that you just rip out planks of the correct thickness and width, and then bend them into place. I don't see how he did that. My hull requires spiling every single plank and custom fitting it. Because of the varying tumblehome, the planks vary in width along the total length of a strake; no way a single width blank could ever work. Oh, well, plug along--or maybe plank along.... Mark

Thanks, druxey and Gary. I was having so much fun planking without dealing with gunports, and now here they are back again!🙂 Mark

With the head drawing now behind me, I am carrying on with planking the channel wales. I just hit my first gunport for the upper deck, and realized I don't know if the stop or rebate for the upper gun ports are the same as for the gundeck ports--i.e., 3". Has anyone seen a specification for the rebates reducing in width as we progress up from the gundeck through the upper deck to the quarterdeck? Mark