SJSoane

Ben, I just looked in. Very nice work! Mark

Beautiful oven, Gaetan. So the brick was laid up within a wooden box? Very interesting detail. Mark

Hi Ed, I just noticed the pattern of framing a deck here is different from the Naiad and other 18th C ships of war, in that there are fewer banks of carlings transversally, and therefore longer ledges. And there appears to be only one ledge between beams. I assume this is all because the clipper carried no heavy ordnance, and is narrower? how do the Young America and the Naiad compare in length and width? Best wishes, Mark

Hi Remco, I am just catching up after a long absence. The draught marks are terrific, both stem and stern. You have an exceptional hand with a chisel. Mark

Hi everyone, I have been away, and just got back to the website. Greg, Michael, druxey and Ed, I hoped I wouldn't actually have to build it, once I drew it....;-) All kidding aside, it is interesting how precise one has to be with CAD, or it doesn't get drawn at all. When I first drew it freehand in my original hand drafted drawings, I now realize I was able to fudge exactly where things began and ended, and I am sure my curves were not sections of accurate circles. Freehand has its virtues. And yet, when it is actually built at my small scale of 1:64, the subtleties of where exactly the scroll begins hardly matter. It is a lesson in understanding appropriate tolerances at different scales. Wayne, I hope I didn't lead you down a rabbit-hole with this exercise. But it sounds like you learned as much as I did about interesting geometrical constructions from the 18th century and before (the volute in Classical architecture goes back to 500 BC or earlier). It is very satisfying to puzzle through a geometrical construction, and then when you draw for the final time, everything just falls into place. Obsession has its rewards! This construction is also a reminder for me that our predecessors relied much more on relative proportions and geometrical constructions for forming complex shapes including an entire ship design. We don't tend to think as much today of objects in terms of their proportional relations to other objects when designing and drawing. Perhaps we lost some important ways of looking at the world. And Ben, I am glad solving my puzzle helped solve yours regarding the dotted lines in the stem construction. Further evidence of why this website is so valuable to us all. Best wishes, Mark

Any thickness sander will do this, if the cupping is across the short width of the board, and you put the concave surface down. But is if it is badly twisted down its length, it will just thin the board and leave the twist. In this case, you need first to plane one surface flat.

Michael, I somehow missed that you were back working on this again, and you continue to astound. I love the framing jig, the plan to build a working engine... amazing. I need to pay closer attention! Mark

Ed, I am just catching up with your build log. You continue to offer an invaluable manual for model ship construction with every post! Mark

Alexandru, I have not been able to look in for a time. Now I am catching up, that is indeed a beautiful anchor. Perfect craftsmanship! Mark

Remco, it is looking very good indeed! And your clamps are terrific. did you do the knurling with a Shoreline knurling attachment? Mark

Hi everyone, I am slowly working up some CAD drawings of the Bellona, to consolidate all of the changes I made over the years to the original hand drafted drawings. I thought some of the more obsessive of us out there might enjoy seeing how I finally figured out the geometry of the scrolls or volutes at the fore edge of the quarterdeck. My architecture background came in handy, because I believe the geometry in the Bellona's volute is the same construction as that used to make an Ionic volute capital in Classical architecture. I hope the enlarged geometry is self explanatory, but just in case, a square on a 45 degree angle is inscribed within a circle. The mid points of each side of the square are projected out as shown. The compass point is first placed on upper end of the 6 o-clock line, and the pencil end goes down to the end of that line. A compass arc is then drawn to the 9 o'clock position, and the compass point is then placed in inner end of the 9 o'clock line. A compass arc is then drawn to the 12 o'clock position, and so on. You will notice that the square inscribed within the circle is not the same diameter as the final central circle that shows in the volute. It took me a long time to realize that these did not have to be the same size, and indeed cannot be if the scroll is to take its final shape. I had to experiment with how big the construction circle needed to be, to make the volute fit in its proscribed space. Finally, the circle at the fore edge of this construction does not have the same center as the volute; its center can be seen at the lower end of the vertical line which intersects the topmost line to the upper left, and the beginning of the outer circle. Many wasted--I mean happy--hours were spent figuring out where the centers are for all of these constructions, to match the appearance of the scrolls in the Admiralty drawings. At this point, is anyone wondering if I am procrastinating about starting working on the model itself again? Best wishes, Mark

Michael, I didn't know you were a watercolor painter. Your exceptional talents run deep, and I would see the unexpected gift as a reflection of good karma! Mark

Beautiful details. It looks like photos of full size. Mark

I just picked up TurboCAD Deluxe for the Mac, and after an initial crash (before I learned not to type in the "-" between feet and inches; it thinks it is a subtraction operation), it has worked exceptionally well. Well laid out interface, responds well to drafting with bezier curves, etc. I would recommend it, at least for a Mac. I don't know about the Windows version. Mark

Beautiful work, Danny, and I particularly like the fids and topmast crosstrees since I haven't seen these modeled so well. Mark

Gaetan, Beautiful exhibit. It must have stunned the visitors! Are those all your tools in the case? Mark

I spent a day drawing more, and I am now quite sure at this point that Ed, druxey, and Gary figured this out. The dotted line represents the joint between the apron and the stem, and the rabbet starts in this joint lower down, but begins to veer forward into the stem itself starting a little below the gun deck. Siggi, I'll have a go at reading the notes on your drawing when I see it. I will be very interested in comparing the two versions of our plans. What an amazing team of experts on this website. Thanks so much! Mark

HI Gary, Great to hear from you! Yes, I am starting to think this is the joint between apron and stem. I am going to draw a little more this morning and see if this becomes clearer. Best wishes, Mark

Ed, I just saw your note while I was typing mine. I'll also look at the scantlings for the apron and stem while I am sleuthing. Mark

Hi druxey, Siggi and I have different versions of the Bellona sheer; with different notes in the margins. Both show the same dotted line in the stem. Mine contains two notes about alterations. The one I can read is over the quarterdeck, and says: "Bulkhead ticked [or licked] in, are as was altered by the Surveyor directions, went to Deptford and Chatham with the alterations in the Upper and Quarterdeck [plan?] as in red." The other note is further aft, behind the mizen mast, but it is too faint for me to read most of it. The last part says "...Upper and [?] as in red..." There are dotted lines showing different locations of the bulkheads in the captain's cabin, and the gun ports on the quarterdeck and the aft end of the upper deck are picked out in three different locations. I assume this note refers to these details in the after works. So it is showing alterations, presumably before or during construction, with the note about being sent to the dockyards. But there are no notes at the stem referring to the dotted line mystery. Siggi's colored sheer drawing posted above shows extensive notes at the stem. Siggi, are you able to read those notes? And if so, do they say anything about the stem dotted line? I am going to look more carefully at the gun deck and upper deck plans this morning, to see if they correspond in any way to the dotted line. I love the detective work! Mark

Ed, Always a pleasure and education to see your next installments! Mark

Hi Siggi, Your drawing confirms it! The dotted line represents the aft face of the frame timbers at the bow, and the rabbet obviously shows the fore face of the frames. Thanks, everyone. Mark

Ah hah! Ed, thanks for pointing me to the plans. The distance in the sheer from the forward perpendicular to the dotted line at the level of the gun deck is exactly the same as the distance in the gun deck plan, to the aft side of the frames (see below). And the rabbet is therefore forward of the fore perpendicular by the thickness of the frames. The dotted line shows up in both the inboard works and the sheer drawing, and is consistent with the plans, so I am assuming now that this was not a mistake. I am assuming from the responses from Ed and druxey that this is not normal drafting for these ships... Ah, the Bellona, I love her even more the quirkier she becomes... Mark

I might have figured this out, although I haven't seen this elsewhere. It could be that the dotted line shows the inside face of the frames at the bow, with the forward edge of the decks butting against the frames. The rabbet would therefore be at the forward face of the frames. Except the distance between the dotted line and the rabbet increases in length as it goes higher, whereas the frames should be thinning down; and the dotted line continues past the top of the little bulkhead deck which is also to upper limit of the frames in height. Curiouser and curiouser.... Mark

Hi everyone, I am taking a break from the model for while, and putting the Bellona into TurboCad. I have incrementally made adjustments to my original hand drafted drawings over the years, and discrepancies have begun to show up as I move higher up the model. So, I will make a CAD drawing with everything up to date. In redrawing in TurboCad, I discovered something very perplexing about the stem construction that I had never noticed when I originally drafted it. Using TurboCad, I could not make the lines of the rabbet in the stem fair smoothly on the points of the circles that I could pick out in the Admiralty drawing. When I tried to reason this through, I discovered that the original drawings show a dotted line where the rabbet OUGHT to be, i.e., intersecting the fore perpendicular at the fore end of the gun deck. But the rabbet itself has very definitely moved forward of that dotted line. This looks very intentional in the drawing. But it makes no sense. How can the gun deck stop short of the rabbet? There would be a gap between the deck, and the planking housing into the rabbet. Any ideas? Mark