SJSoane

Hi Alan, It is fascinating to see your figurehead evolve. To my mind, that is the most daunting part of the entire build. I will watch with great interest! Mark

Beautiful work, Doris. I apologize if I missed it earlier in your post, but are you making negative moulds into which you press the clay? If so, are you carving those from wood? Mark

Just catching up. It looks lovely, Gaetan. Exquisite craftsmanship, as usual. Mark

Greg, Grant and druxey, thanks for the comments about clamping. I don't know why I could not come up with such a simple idea the first time around. It seemed obvious after getting away from the problem for six months. Mark, I did not think to photograph the LCVP build, probably should have. It was a nice break to have the parts already made, just needing assembly and painting. Hubac's Historian, I looked at the split more closely after your comment, and as you can see below, it did not split along the grain which is running mostly parallel to the piece. It split on a diagonal across the grain, which perhaps makes sense because I understand a failure in bending wood will always result from the fibers in tension on the outside of the curve letting go. Some steaming techniques at full scale have a compression strap on the outside to prevent this. Also, I notice that it broke at the point of the hooked scarph shoulder (see unbroken one beside it). I vaguely remember an architectural structures class that said failures will tend to occur at the points of discontinuity in the material, and this seems to confirm it. I may have this wrong, if any engineers want to correct me. I also noticed that this particular piece is the longest in the wales, at 37' by 6" by 1'-9" at its widest. Can you imagine how they hoisted the real thing out of a steaming box and clamped it onto the hull before the plasticity disappeared? Working at scale continues to make me appreciate the complexity and craftsmanship of the real things. Druxey and Alan, thanks for the comments about my father. He was only 21 at the time, and three quarters of a century later he could still recall vivid details of his service in the LCVPs, some prompted by looking at the model! Mark

Hi everyone, It has been a long time since the last post. We had 11 groups of friends and family come to visit us in our retirement this spring and summer, and however nice it was to see them all, it sure killed any momentum I had going on the Bellona. No work at all this summer. I also took some time away from the Bellona to build a plastic model of an LCVP (Landing Craft Vehicle Personnel) for my father's 95th birthday. He is seen with the sidearm in the first photo, with an LCVP in the background. Back to the Bellona, I picked up where I left off, finishing the lower two strakes of the port wale. Too clever for my own good, I steamed the foremost two strakes together, thinking I could clamp them into the fixture at the same time. I pulled the long one out, and then discovered the shorter one had slid back in the steamer. By the time I fished it out, the first one had cooled to the point that when I tightened up the clamps on the fixture, I heard a loud crack. Missed my window of plasticity in the steamed wood, and had to make the two strakes all over. One always learns from mistakes; now I know how long that window is... I did finally figure out how to clamp these lower strakes, which had given me so much trouble on the starboard side because I could not get a fore-aft clamp to them (the gundeck behind is in the way of a clamp). This time, I fastened a batten across the building board, and used this to restrain the feet of several vertical boards. When the tops were clamped against the hull, their middles pulled the wales snug against the hull. I hope to make more progress this fall, now the snows are threatening. Best wishes, Mark

Hi Alan, thank you so much for following up on the rigging warrant. £420 for the 6 pages exceeds my retirement discretionary income, so I will have to wait until a hopefully cheaper digital copy comes out in the next year or so. I have a way to go before rigging seriously comes into my project, so the timing might work out OK. Do you know how I would find out if and when it is digitized? druxey, that is fascinating to see, thank you. I had read about girdling (mostly in Patrick O'Brian books), but this is the first I have seen what that looks like. Presumably, this simply increases the girth of the hull, providing more lateral stability and less roll. It doesn't seem like a few inches would do much, but multiplied by the length, that is probably a lot of additional bouyancy at midships. I wish I understood more about the science of hull shapes. Mark

Hi Mike, I look forward to hearing how things change for you at the larger scale. More opportunity for details, etc. Mark

Hello Amalio, Can you tell me the scale of your ship model? Mark

Thanks, druxey. By the way, do I see a thickened plank under the Resolution's wale that does not extend all the way to the aft end of the wale? And does the wale thin down at the point the lower plank terminates? I have never seen that before, if am seeing it correctly. Mark

Thanks, druxey and Mark P, I think we have resolved how this complex junction is managed. The Bellona sheer drawing shows a larger radius curve at the lower, aft corner of the wale, and from the way things are lining up on the hull, I think it is because of the natural curve of the plank immediately below the wale. At least that is how it seems to be emerging as I try to fair these pieces. druxey, I see your wale does tuck under at the lowest, aft corner; this is reassuring, because mine really looks like it wants to tuck under. Mark P's image shows a wale more straight up and down. I am sure this has entirely to do with the particular geometries of the under body for each ship. The famous architect Lou Kahn once asked, "what do you want, brick?", to determine how to use it according to its own inherent nature. I would apply this to wales at this point: "wale, how do you want to follow the natural lines of your hull?" Apologies for weird thinking... And by the way, beautiful model of the Resolution, druxey! Mark

Thanks, Mark, this is a very helpful view. I think it confirms where my hull seems to be taking me. The wale is revealed at full thickness at the aftmost end where it is vertical and hits the lower counter, but shows only 3-4" along its lower edge where the lower planking is parallel to the wale and abutting against it. The triangular plank we have been discussing looks like a transition piece, itself standing at right angles to the wale at the top, but allowing the lower planking to come from parallel to right angles to the wale as it bends around the corner. The attached drawing shows how perhaps a rabbet would provide a landing for the small triangular piece, where the rabbet would be narrow at the top and increasingly wide at the bottom. This is a difficult drawing to visualize; it tries to line up with the perspective of Mark P's image above. This would be a fairly elegant solution to reconciling all of these at this corner, as best as one might expect given the complexities. Mark

hi druxey, Well spotted, I never noticed that. Could it be the little corner of planking just above the chain circled in red below? If so, the wale in the first model has wrapped much further around the corner than in the second model. In the second model below, the triangular plank hits the inner side of a much thicker wale at an obtuse angle, and could not be confused for a smooth continuation of the wale plank as in the first model. Mark

Just for fun, I looked again at the photos I took of the 1st Bellona model. It shows the lowest, aftmost plank of the wales curving around under the stern, like the planking presumably would do below it. This is not consistent with the original Admiralty sheer plan, nor with the 2nd Bellona model with the copper sheathing. I will have to assume that this was a modeler's convenience, dealing with the reality of skeletal planking in this portrayal of the ship. Unless anyone has seen a wale curve under the counter like this. Mark

Amalio, Outstanding project, some of the very best craftsmanship I have seen. You are a source of inspiration! Mark

Thanks, druxey, that confirms for me that I am on the right track. This is definitely a spot that is less than gracefully worked out, in the big scheme of design. I think a lot of fiddling had to go into reconciling the various parts that intersect here. I have noticed that on some other ships, the lower edge of the wales align exactly with the trim across the lower end of the counter, making the junctions below this easier to reconcile. Look at Siggi's nice junction at this spot, for example, on the 1745 Establishment ship. But for some reason, the Bellona drops the wales partly below this, causing them to run partly into the counter, and partly into the very complex compound curves below. This has to be the point where the construction crew asks "what the [insert favorite explicative here] was the shipwright thinking here?" Mark

I spent a happy day carving the last plank. However, in trying to make everything fair together, I noticed that a gap appeared to be forming between the curved end of the wale (see the curve in the drawing below), and the hull framing itself. I thought I had messed up my framing somehow. But then I looked at the photo of the second Bellona model below, and noticed that the wale shows its full thickness along the counter and along that lower curve, but not on the lower edge. The planks are clearly coming around that curve, and then tucking in behind the wale at the curve itself. If this were not the case, the short little planks at the curve would be covering up 4 inches of the wale, which it does not appear to do. So, I am assuming for now, until someone tells me otherwise, the wale does indeed stand away from the hull at that curve, enough for the lower hull planking to die into it. I have had a devil of a time visualizing what is going on at this junction... Mark

Thanks, Gary, for the comments. It is kind of hard to realize now, but I learned to draw before CAD was invented or at least used in architecture offices. I am a dinosaur! Gaetan, I haven't checked my family tree lately....🙂 It took pretty much all day, but I got the second to last plank in on the wales. It has a very sharp twist athwartships, and a good bend aft. I could not get a clamp on the end for love or money to steam it to shape. And I could not imagine a former that would deal with the springback accurately. So I fayed a double wedge shaped piece onto the inner surface, fitted it to the hull surface, and sanded down the outer surface to parallel. The join is on the under surface of the wale, where hopefully no one will ever look and the black stain will cover it (as long as none of you give away the secret). The final piece is even worse, and I can't visualize yet exactly how it lands and what its aft edge looks like. The second Bellona model shows a sharp corner at the lower, aftmost edge (see photo), but the sheer drawing shows it gracefully rounded. I will put a big block against the location tomorrow and start carving until it looks right. Mark

I will add to the other comments the same compliment: those sculptures are beautifully done! Mark

Hi Gaetan, I see online that the $180,000 for the Canon 1200mm lens is for a used lens. I wonder what kind of a sailboat we could get for $180,000... I agree on the exceptional value of a batten for aligning planking. I got the idea from Gary shipwright after looking at his successful wales installation. And I can see now from him and from you the value of the batten for important pieces like the mouldings and the channel wales. Mark

Thank you, Amalio, for your kind thoughts. I have mostly learned from books and especially from the great modellers on this site. And a lot of mistakes! I am having to carve/shape the last two planks, and while taking a break from this, I looked more carefully at where paint/stain will meet edges and surfaces around the gunports. I have drawn a little sketch to think this through. I was surprised to see that the red paint comes over the top of the spirketting, meeting the black of the spirketting on a scribed line; and where the wales cross the last two gunports, I will have the black of the wales meeting the red of the gunport on the edge between the two, on the same piece of wood. And, the edges of the clear outboard planking will meet red paint on their outside corners at the edge of the port. These are the real test points of whether stain will work, or whether I need to edge these points with paint matched to the red stain elsewhere. Now I know what my test pieces need to look like. Mark

Hi Gaetan, That is quite impressive a range. It is hard to see if the extenders degraded the image in comparison to the lens by itself, or compared to a greater telephoto lens. Do you have a recommendation on the best quality? Mark

Hi druxey, Yes, that is my anxiety about the ports. I have really liked the red dye on already installed parts (like in my member picture), and I wonder if I can color match an acrylic paint just for the gun ports? I will track down Humbrol matt 25, and also pick up a few samples of red paint to see how they might match to my existing red dye. I long ago bought a range of Floquil reds and blues, but alas not enough of any one to complete the project. That is what I get for taking so long on this project! Mark

Ed, what an incredible essay into masting and rigging. The craftsmanship could not be better. Small question, the lashing for the studdingsail booms seems quite fiddly when one thinks of someone up there trying to unfasten the knot at short notice. I would have thought they would have developed a quick release device, or a cleat allowing an easier tying or untying process. I am sure you have done your historical research, so this is just an idle reflection on their design thinking. Mark

Work proceeds on the starboard wales, with only three planks--the most twisty of all--to go. While the uppermost one is steamed and clamped against the hull waiting to dry, here is an update. I have decided to mock up a single gunport and adjacent wales, to see how I am going to manage controlling the red stain around the port, against the plain external planking and the black wales. Like the black wales, I am concerned about the red stain around the gunports running into the grain of the adjacent planks, and only a test will tell me. I did have a little more success using the Transtint black dye mixed into the urethane clear finish. Rather than dealing with a watery liquid like shoe dye or ink, this allows me to pad on a tinted gel. And it has the same level of matt as the uncolored finish. I will also experiment with airbrushing the blue acrylic paint onto the stem, and also onto the upper works where the friezes will go. That should help me keep a clean line. I am thinking about ordering the Caldercraft Admiralty paint "French Blue", unless someone has had a bad experience with this paint, or thinks it is not the right color. They are supposed to match the colors around Nelson's time, which is almost a half century after the Bellona; I can only assume the blue color would not have changed, for lack of any further evidence. I have only the second Bellona model to go on, for a match. Mark

Thanks, Joe, for your kind thoughts. Having just recently retired, I am enthusiastic about having more time in the shop, and yet I have an increasing awareness of more years behind me than in front of me. It helps keep me focused on making stuff as long as I can! Mark