SJSoane

I had to put the wales on hold for a while, waiting for the delivery of replacement thrust bearings for my bandsaw (shame on me, I discovered while tuning my bandsaw after my move that the bearings had completely frozen up). Keeping busy, I continued with the conversion of my drawings from hand-drafted to CAD, working on the upper deck plan. I came across an unusual arrangement, which raises a question. The Bellona has two curved beams in the bows, one fore and one aft of the foremast partners. These form unusual spaces that need to be filled with ledges no closer than 9" or greater than 12" apart. As I have drawn this below, just aft of beam 1, one ledge is landing on the head of the hanging knee, which I have not seen in any contemporary drawings. Has anyone seen this, or is there another arrangement for this? Also notice the space fore of beam 1 , with a lodging knee at an acute angle. I am thinking this knee would have to be scarphed together from two pieces, but I have not seen this in a contemporary drawing either. And a ledge is likely to land on the two arms of the knee. No problem with that as I can think, but very unusual. Thrust bearings arrived yesterday, hope to be making sawdust again soon. Best wishes, Mark

Gaetan, Since your model looks like full scale, it particularly makes one think about how the shipwrights managed to hoist, install and fair up those very large, complex stern timbers. It looks great. Mark

thank you, Gaetan and druxey. There is no end of subtlety and variety in this ship construction tradition. Mark

Ed, that is really impressive metalwork, particularly at that scale.

I started looking more carefully at the upper deck framing and the knees we just discussed. In the continuing spirit of noticing things I did not notice before, I see in the Dorsetshire (1757) upper deck plan some very curious deck beams, where the three part scarphed beam has the center piece on the opposite side from the two other pieces, forming a wavy beam. Has anyone come across this, or have an idea why this might be? The full print can be seen at: http://prints.rmg.co.uk/art/492743/dorsetshire-1757 Mark

Those trees come from a mysterious place. A nice by product of expanding the wales in CAD is that I was able to create a very efficient template for cutting out both port and starboard pieces. These are laid out on the actual size of my blank, and the green line below shows where I have to cut down the middle to fit my thickness sander. Mark

So those could be compass wood knees. Some of those are from very twisted trees! Gary, I can't remember, did you get as far as installing those knees? Mark

Beautiful work!

Gary and Mark, very nice! It also shows druxey's idea for the aft strake, but with a little scarph to cut down the length. Also interesting are what appear to be iron hanging knees inboard, or are these compass wood? they look thin for wood. I don't think the Bellona would have had iron in 1760, but maybe? Mark

Mark, Gary, druxey, it makes all the sense in the world that the individual planks would vary in length to suit the wood available, and to ensure landing on a frame. Andy by extension, ideal proportions of 1/3 to 2/3 on top-and-butt, and 50/50 on anchor, could be adjusted by a foot or two to suit similar real circumstances in actual construction. So perhaps the Bellona model is showing reality more than an idealized model. I keep thinking that the starboard side of the model is demonstrating an unusual framing idea, compared to the conventional system on the port side. Perhaps the wales (which are only on the port side) are showing a conventional, practical system as well. druxey, I like your simplification of the upper strake. My drawing shows perhaps too large a piece for too little additional strength. Mark

Well spotted, Mark, I never noticed the backwards hook! The lesson I will take from this is to draw each piece ahead of time, so I don't get distracted and cut one of mine backwards. I am wondering about my apprentice theory... I printed out the wales from the CAD drawing and taped it to the hull. I was off in length by 1/8th of an inch (too short in the drawing), so I adjusted by marking the actual station lines on the paper and readjusting the station lines back in CAD. All is now good to go, except for wondering if the aft-most gunport would be allowed to cut into the second strake down as shown in the second image without adjustment. Best wishes, Mark

Gary, great to hear from you. Hope things work out for you to pick up the Alfred again. And you have a wealth of information for us all. And thanks, Greg, I will check out the Pandora model. Mark, could you point out for me where the hook is backwards? I confess that I looked at the model for the locations of planks, but drew my own hooks in without reference back to the model. So I missed seeing the mistake in the model. I became fixated on creating the wales on the Bellona exactly as they were done on the first model, using the various photos of that model to match joints to framing and gunport locations. The pattern that emerged from this exercise was surprisingly messy. The pieces "anchor" fashion were sometimes, but not always, equal length arms; sometimes one arm was 12-16 inches longer than another. The "top-and-butt" arms were sometimes a proportion of 1/3 to 2/3, but not always. The top two strakes were a more regular pattern of similar sized top-and-butt, but the bottom two strakes were a mish-mash of different sizes top-and-butt and some anchor thrown in. Was this real practice, or a quirky model builder? Some contemporary drawings of planking show a little more regularity. The butt ends of four planks coming together in one place on the Bellona wale seems structurally weak, and Mark discovered a backwards hook on that model. Maybe the apprentice did the wales on this model, and I am trying to reproduce a novice's first efforts at wales 250 years ago! Oh, well, it will be what it will be, as best as I can build it. Thanks, everyone, for your help with this.

Thanks, Ed, druxey, Alan and Mark, for the ideas and comments. We had visitors today, and spent most of the day driving to Glacier National Park in northern Montana. But in the early morning and late afternoon, I managed to finish up the drawing. Using a combination of CAD and a version of druxey's shuffle around the corner, I think I got a fairly accurate expansion. Mark, thanks for the note on the hooked joints. I have guessed from proportionally measuring the photos of the Bellona model that the hooks are 2 1/2" long, and incline 30 degrees to the line drawn between the two ends. Let me know if you have a different understanding. This should be very interesting to construct! Best wishes, Mark

Ed, that sounds like good advice. I measured the physical length of the wale between two station lines in plan, and plotted this on the true length line. It doesn't measure the true length along the slight curve between the station lines, but probably close enough. I only need this for templates for cutting rough blanks, and the finished parts can be refined on installation. Mark

With so many individual wale pieces with many different dimensions, I decided to draw an expanded elevation of the wales, from which I could make accurate cut templates. However, my architectural background did not prepare me for how to do an expansion of a curved surface. In the drawing below, how are the station lines in plan projected to the true length line? Do you draw a perpendicular from the wale in plan at each station line, to the true length line, as I am showing in the circled detail? It seems it would make the wale way too long right at the rabbet in the stem, since a perpendicular there would be almost parallel to the true length line... Best wishes, Mark

Tiziano, I just came across your project for the first time. Beautiful, crisp work. Mark

Yes, indeed, I had the marks at the rabbet a smidge too high. I think they are parallel now. Easier to see in a photo than staring at the model itself. .. Thanks again, Druxey.

Yes I noticed that as well. The value of photos! I will double check some points off the sheer and see what is going on. Thanks for checking! Mark

Thanks!

Ed, could you elaborate on how the planing device depresses the center of bed? Or did you explain this earlier in your build? Mark

After exploring how to shape with machines the hooked scarphs for the wales, I have determined that the geometry changes for each piece, and that it would be more effective to cut them by hand. I then recalled Gary (garyshipwright) installing wales for his beautiful model of HMS Alfred. (I have tried to attach a link to his site, but it appears to go to the end rather than to the relevant pages. It is somewhere around page 4). Gary temporarily attached a batten above the wale, to which he clamped the upper strakes for a fair run. Subsequent lower strakes were clamped to the upper strake. It seems like a good idea, and I will try it. I also see that Gary laid up the wales in two layers, practicing on the first layer. I will see how well I can cut and bend 8 ½" thick pieces before deciding if I will do this in two layers as well. Getting in some practice on these complex pieces makes it feel less daunting... Gary, I haven't seen a post from you for a while, hope you see this! I tried string on the port side for fairing and decided that the tape gave me something to draw against. Now that I am determined to cut each piece to fit, I will want to draw the individual parts on the model sides to know where I am going. The tape also helped me visualize whether the two sides are the same. Mark

Thanks, Ed and druxey. More work, but I think the circumstances here call for it. Good to know before I cut a bunch of wood too small! Mark

The wales have a distinctive S curve when they are expanded to their actual length and shape (1st image). That means that a number of pieces particularly at the bow have a noticeable curve to their edges (2nd image). I cut a piece of boxwood to the required thickness (8 ½" @ scale 3/16" inch = .039" actual), and this piece does not bend in its longitudinal length. So it looks to me like I need to cut blanks oversize in the transverse direction, so I can shape the required curve to the lower edge. But I have not seen any reference to this need in David Antscherl's books, or in Ed Tosti's. Am I missing something? And whether I shape these to fit, or they bend to fit, I feel I need some physical guide to align the lower edge, rather than just a pencil line. The 17th and early 18th century dockyard framing style I am building shows just a thin line of the bottoms of upper futtocks below the wales (third image). I need to keep the wales very parallel to this line or the differences will be quite noticeable. Perhaps form a temporary aligning batten that can be clamped to the frames below the wales? Or am I overthinking this? Any advice greatly appreciated! Mark

Thanks, druxey, I might try that on the port side and see which one works for me. I like the idea of tracing against the edge of the tape to put pencil on the hull, although the string might give a fairer line. Thanks, albert, I hope I can continue to make it interesting. By way of interesting, I spent the day looking carefully again at the joints on the wales of the 1760 first Bellona model, shown in frame. It is unusual, to say the least. As the sketch below shows, the top two strakes labelled with B are standard top-and-butt, each 33 feet long with 22 feet and 11 feet arms. The lower two strakes, however, are all over the place. Starting at the right side (fore), there are a number of anchor stock pieces labeled A. These are 22 feet long, with equal arms. Aft of these are 2 top-and-butts, the same as the ones in the upper two strakes, labeled B. And then there are two top-and-butts labeled (D) and (E) that are not the same size as any other pieces in the wales, nor are the arms a standard ⅓-⅔ proportion. Strangest of all, the aft end of (D) aligns with the butts of the B pieces above. This would not appear to be a good structural idea. And finally, heading aft, the wales finish with more top-and-butt pieces labeled C, which are 22 feet long, the same as the anchor stock pieces labeled A at the fore end. I have looked at the photos of the model very carefully, and I believe this accurately captures what the model builder actually created. Was it an experiment, or an accurate representation of what was really built in the actual ship? The model hull is framed differently on each side, showing some experimental ideas about framing around gunports. Perhaps this was a proposal for radically shifting butts on the wales. Wales are only shown on the port side of the model. Whatever the reason, I am determined to recreate it on my own Bellona. So now I have to think about how many of these can be cut by a standard template, as shown by Longridge's Victory or Ed Tosti's Naiad.

Thanks, Mike, the beauty of that underwater form keeps me going. I reflected on setting up the wales last night, and it bothered me that I could not see the fairness of the wale past the clamps on the batten. I re-read appropriate portions Ed Tosti's Naiad book, and saw that he used painter's tape. I tried this, and it works much, much better. I can see both top and bottom. And sighting down the length really highlights the low or high spots. In this case, I saw a low spot at the fifth gunport from the bow, and could fair in another piece of tape to get the edge just right. Thanks, Ed, much better process. Now, thinking about how to cut the hooked scarph joints that are so distinctive in the first Bellona model of 1760. Mark