SJSoane

Gaetan, your shop should be on a Nautical Research Guild tour some day! Mark

NIce, Alan! Mark

Hi Alan, Doing more drawing is how I procrastinate on actually cutting wood! It is becoming a bad habit...🙃 Mark

Gary, Nice to be reminded of your outstanding framing. It is fun to start covering all of this up with planking, etc., but it sure is nice every once in a while to see a hull in full frame in the earlier stages of a build! Mark

A couple more sheets. These are not yet really finished or laid out as final drawings, but they do help pull together a lot of work I have done on more detail. Just in case the electronic world fails, I will have hard copies of the basic information!

Hi druxey, I so wish I could take a jewelry class somewhere. I seen now how exceedingly helpful that would be. Silver soldering still eludes me... Other things in life have taken me away from the shop. But while distracted by other things, it helped clarify my next steps, resolving the numerous chicken and egg issues of what has to come before what. I have concluded that I cannot install the barrels of the guns on the gundeck afterwards. The stool bed and wedged quoin are way too delicate; several have broken off just picking up the carriages. I will need to epoxy the barrels both at the capsquares and at the quoin, possibly pinning somehow at the stool and quoin. So all of this has to happen before I start closing in the gundeck with the upper deck over it. And once the cannon are sticking out (druxey, is that the official naval description?), I need to avoid putting the hull on its side or perhaps even upside down. So everything requiring turning the hull upside down or sideways needs to be completed before the cannon go in and I can start on the upper decks. So, I first need to finish as much carpentry work as possible that will create shavings inboard, so I can tip the hull over and clean it out before proceeding. This means cutting all of the mortises for the beams on the upper deck, quarterdeck and forecastle, and roundhouse. Also, drilling the hawse holes. Then I need to finish up the outboard work including planking as much as possible, so I can turn the hull on its sides for painting the wales and the cutwater at the stem. I also need to consider finishing more of the stern works, which will also require turning the hull upside down--particularly for the frieze painting on the lower counter. Next step, then, cutting the beam mortises. Last time, I laboriously measured each beam location from the drawing, then measured from a station line on the hull. I had to square every beam up, to ensure they were parallel. This was complicated by the fact that many beams were asymmetrical due to the halved joint between the two parts. Each side was offset a little from the other side. Now many years later, with CAD drawings available, I am planning to print the upper deck, glue it to some stiff card, and lay it on the beam shelves. Then I can simply mark the location of each beam for the mortise. For the first time, I took electronic copies of my CAD drawings to the local UPS store, where they printed out very accurately dimensioned sheets on 30 X 42 inch paper. Doesn't look too bad, hate to cut up the sheet. But it was only $3 US per sheet, so I will go back for more. Mark

Michael, Lovely, lovely work. This truly is a work of art. And when did Angus start hanging around the shop? Mark

druxey, a workshop on jewelry making, or miniature metal smithing for ship models, would be a welcome break right now. If only.... Guy, happy to help out. I have learned so much from others on this website, I am glad I can contribute some myself. I am at a crossroads on the Bellona right now. I am trying to think ahead to the order in which things must be done so I don't tangle myself up. I was headed towards installing all of the standards, gun carriages and ironwork, but then thought that cutting the mortises for the decks above would be spraying wood shavings all over the delicate gun hardware, impossible to clean away without potentially breaking things. Also, I still have to turn the hull upside down to mask and paint the wales, which probably should be done before all of the delicate stuff is installed on the gun deck. And as long as I am painting the wales, I might as well do the paint on the stem, which first needs the cheeks and hawse holes pushed along. Long story short, I think I need to move onto more external work and painting, and then cut mortises and fit beams for upper decks. Only then should I finish up the work on the gundeck, when it is a little less vulnerable to this other work. It will be a bear to fix anything down there once the upper decks start to go in. At least this is my story today.....🙂 Mark

Gary, I linked all of my dust collection hoses to one dust collector by putting gates at the back of my workbench, all connected together by PVC pipe underneath the fir covering board. The PVC then hooks up the dust collector. It has an on-off switch powered by the tool turning on, so all of the tools are plugged into a power strip, which is then plugged into the dust collector. That means any tool turning on will turn on the dust collector. Sometimes I forget to open and close the right gates, but I find out soon enough when the dust starts swirling up. When I install your solution to the Mill and Lathe hose, I will make a junction box like yours and the hook it up to the gate at the back of the workbench, I am thinking.... Mark

A work of art! Mark

L.H., yes, you guessed it! Marc, here are the cutter and the parallel jaw pliers. The pliers are: https://contenti.com/brass-jaw-flat-nose-parallel-pliers The cutters are Lindstrom 8141, found on this page: https://contenti.com/pliers-cutters-n-shears/jeweler-s-pliers/lindstrom-pliers/lindstrom-80-series-micro-bevel-flush-cutters

Thanks, everyone, for your comments. Marc, the parallel jaw pliers are terrific for flattening a construction without denting the soft metal. And they are not all that expensive, relative to other jeweler's pliers. I found mine at Contenti. Tony, my strainer is plastic, so I hoped that would be OK in the pickle. I did make the mistake at the very end of using the strainer in the baking soda and then putting it back into the pickle without first washing it. So I probably did kill the pickle with that mis-step. I will look into the bar-tender strainers in the future. It would be nice to keep the parts in a strainer all the way through to the JAX solution, instead of picking them out individually with tweezers. But I take your caution, and ideally would use separate strainers for each step of the process. The smallest pieces, the wedges for retaining the carriage trucks, were so small that many actually fell through the strainer mesh. Very bitty process.... Guy, here is a sketch of the measuring device. The horizontal screw locks the pointer in place, after using the fine adjustment screw at the bottom.

I vaguely recall an exhibit of the Sutton Hoo ship in the British museum many decades ago, like part of a cast of the dig? Do I remember this correctly, and if so, is it still in the British Museum public exhibits? Mark

Thanks, druxey. Here is a closer look at the marking jig. The ebony pointer slides up between the two side pieces of the shell, and has a screw on the bottom for fine adjustment. And then a screw at the right tightens it down in place. The top screw tightens the entire sliding mechanism against the bar. The empty screw holes were drilled when I used this for the gun deck. They got in the way when I had to shorten the throw for the upper deck. Should have thought ahead way back then.... Mark

druxey, you are right, those parallel pliers are a god-send. Flattens things out without marring the soft copper. And nice capsquares. The giveaway of built up construction is that the join between the flat and the curve comes to a sharp 90 degree corner. Even the best bending still leaves a small radius at this intersection. I have been busy for the last week constructing all of the metal for the gun deck. Easy with jigs, but many, many pieces to make over and over. I learned from YouTube videos how to make the rings, which are called jump rings in the jewelry world. Clamp a drill bit of the right internal diameter for the ring into a vise. Then tightly wrap copper wire of the correct diameter around the drill bit. Remove from drill bit. Use sharp angle cutters to cut a square end at the beginning of the coil, then reverse the cutter to cut another square end facing the first. A perfect ring drops off the coil. Cut a new square end, reverse the cutters and cut the opposite end square. Repeat. I used two parallel jaw pliers opposing each other to open up the ring enough to drop in an eyebolt, then close up the ring. A trick I learned online was to twist the pliers back and forth a few times, listening for a clicking sound as the two ends of the ring pass by each other. This helps form a ring without a gap. And then there were all of the other metal pieces for the gun carriages, the ends of the bolts, and the wedges for retaining the trucks to the axles. And slowly but surely the metal parts accumulated: I blackened in batches, to keep different types separate (left and right cap squares, rings for carriages vs. rings for deck vs. rings for quickwork). Following Greg's good advise (above), I cleaned in pickle, then neutralized in baking soda and water, then I used 99% isopropyl alcohol). A final soak in diluted Jax blackening for copper. The pieces were so tiny I used the orange filter to put into the pickle and baking soda. But then I had to dump them individually into the alcohol and JAX. It was pretty tedious picking them all up individually with tweezers at this point. The resulting blackened pieces are really quite wonderful in color and luster: While waiting for some of these processes, I started marking out the upper deck height, in anticipation of finally moving on to the next deck in a few weeks. I dug out an old jig I used to mark the height of the gun deck. It has a bar between opposite gun ports, and a device that slides up to the side at the correct distance down from the port. I then run a pencil over the ebony pointer, to get the mark on the side at the correct height. Without this jig, it would be very difficult to measure down accurately with so much tumblehome. This ensures that the final beam height will be exactly parallel to the gun ports. The jig allows the black pointer to slide up and down and lock at the correct height within the larger shell of the device. Best wishes, Mark

Gary, nice! Is that little funnel at the end nearest the lathe also part of the Loc Line system? Mark

Spectacular work, Gaetan, both the build and the photographs! Mark

HI Gary, I look forward to seeing it! Mark

HI Gary, I am also looking for a better dust collector idea for the mill and lathe. My current setup doesn't work very well. The nozzle gets in the way, but at the same time doesn't really stay close enough to pick up much. Mark

Gary, do I see correctly that you have mounted your Digital readout right on the face of your Sherline mill (9th photo down)? Interesting! How did you fasten it on? Mark

druxey, could it be the cap square on that carronade was cast, not bent from sheet? I never thought of doing that. A good way to pick up the detail of the hinge and clasp... I spent a good day bending up eye bolts for the gun carriages. I made a jig inspired by Alex M (HMS Sphinx), who got it from a German modeler Günter Bossong http://www.minisail-ev.de/fibel/fib-03-09/fib-03-09.htm. It has a slot just wide enough for the leg of the eyebolt, and a drill the correct size of the inner diameter of the eye. A piece of copper wire of the correct diameter is bent at right angles and put into the jig, then pulled around the drill bit (the hole not being used is for the larger diameter eye bolts for the quickwork, still to come): The wire is wrapped all the way around the drill bit, and pressed down on top of the leg: The loop is then grabbed with pliers and cut with micro angle cutters just where the loop hits the leg: a quick squeeze in parallel jaw pliers to flatten out, and voila, Bob's your uncle: I see that one of the positions with the greatest job security in the 18th century British shipyard would have to be the guys who made the eyebolts and rings. Here are 196 eyebolts, just for the 28 cannon carriages on the gun deck. Add in another 28 for the deck, and 112 in the quickwork, and no rest for the weary... Mark

Thanks, all fellow OCD people out there. druxey, what missing hinge and latch? Like Gary, I was hoping no one would notice. Could it be they were just printers' smudges in the drawings?😉 I have justified this omission to myself with the story that I need to insert these barrels through the gun ports years from now, and these additional bits will break off before I get there. Maybe, maybe, I will see how to do this for the guns on the upper decks. Gary, I can't pronounce complexititus either. And our British friends would probably have a different pronunciation for it anyway... Guy, yes, you have it right. The carriage sides slope 2 degrees inward each side at the forward end. And you are also right, at 3/16" scale the angle is like a rounding error, hardly visible. But given my complexititus syndrome, I just had to see if I could make the angles work. I did indeed drill the holes for the dowels in the jig at 2 degrees left and right, using angle blocks under the piece mounted in the mill vise. Mark

Gaetan, those are beautiful engravings. Were they drawn around the time of the ship 1720, or much later? Mark

Thanks, everyone. Viewer warning: the following is for obsessive/compulsive people only.... This morning I adjusted my jig a little, and it really did make noticeably handed parts, left and right. So I proceeded to crank out cap squares. step 1: cutting to length. A little stop jig made quick work of cutting all of the parts to the same length. step 2: the blank needs some rough bending before putting it in the jig. I measured 7" (real size for the fore end of the cap square) on the end of my pliers, and made a 90 degree bend. This ensures that the part keeps all of the right proportional relationships once it goes into the jig. Step 3: chain nose pliers are used to form a rough curved bend next. I end up with a pile of S curved blanks, ready for the jig: Step 4: into the jig, with the 7" length inboard of the jig, and the 90 degree bend tight up against the dowel. A tight squeeze in a vise, and perfect cap squares form: 28 identical left hand, and 28 identical right hand. In a couple of hours. Way more fun using a jig, even though I did struggle trying to design the jig, as seen in the previous post. The jigs for the 18# and 9# guns should go a lot faster, now I know what I am doing here. Mark

I am going to try to get some help for my debilitating psychological condition, complexititus....🧐