dvm27

Hello Ferit,
thank you for your nice comment.

So it goes on:

 

 

 

Hi mates,

while our decryption department at full speed working to decipher the huge, submitted by Agent "P" amount of data, here's a little intermezzo from the nailers.

A hook is created
 
  
 
 
 
  
 
 
 
   
 
 
 
   
 
 
 
   
 
have fun

I have constructed all of the upper deck beams and glued them temporarily in place.  Most of the deck beams are directly above the lower deck beams.  Six of the beams are offset either fore or aft, some for obvious reasons (like a mast being in the way) and others for reasons I am sure I will figure out later.  Once I mark the centerline and carling locations, I will remove the beams so I can finish the lower deck.
 

 
The Swan class had one set of sleepers.  These are large knees that attach to the aft cant frames and filling transoms with 1" bolts.  These are made by cutting out templates to the rough shape and then sanding them to the correct shape.  As they are set at an angle, the two faces are not perpendicular to the sides.
 

 

The carriages


The guns of the  Caroline where same as on the Bounty ex. Bethia.
This has reinforced my decision at the gun carriages to not change anything and  they are  placed on the ship.


But now I get a folder from the decryption department placed on the table. Many thanks to the team, keep it up, you do excellent work.
On the cover    "Top Secret, only for official use"

After evaluating the documents and photos, with super secret camera photographed
 

 

May I present to you, worth audience, more secret weapons production practices of smithy of his Majesty of England.

The carriages are in the style of Engl. Cannon built.

The sides of the carriage consist of two parts, which are bolted together.

In the lower part are the cutouts for the axles, at the top are the cutouts for the trunnion.
 
 
 
The axis sections of the lower bars are sawn on the circular saw
 
 


The semicircle is pre-cut to the circular saw and then filed
 
   

The upper parts are adapted and shaped
 
 
 
   
 

Now for the axles and wheels
 
 
 
 

All parts of the carriages without wheels and axles
 



The carriages are being built together
 
 


Ready gun carriages with guns
 
 

Guns on board
 
 
 


The next report on the arming of Caroline is in work and follows soon
 
 
 
Have Fun

Congratulations on a beautiful model Chris. While there are many lovely features, I don't believe I've seen a better job coppering the hull. The copper belts, finish and scale  look just right.

I realize it is boring and goes kinda slowly but I hope to have - again- angles right and "by the book". Columns are- obviously- not vertical and of course having them angled in one direction would be just too simple... To make things more interesting I gotta keep in mind 3d printing requirements (otherwise all the work would've been "just for show" and of no use to scratchbuilder)
 

 

Hi all -
 
Thanks, as always, for the compliments.  It is coming along slowly but well, I think.  The past several weeks have included the July 4th long holiday and the move of my son and his family from Brooklyn to Michigan, which took me away for some time from the construction yard. 
 
Mostly I worked on the railing fixtures at the bow and stern.  These are not only complicated three dimensional metal pieces, but require detail soldering and electroplating.  Many almost completed, or even fully completed iterations were discarded before acceptable ones were fashioned.  Without dwelling too much on past mistakes, here is how it went -
 
The fixture at the bow consists of a top bar that bends around the bow and then bends down to becomes the aft two of the four angled legs that support it.  The pair of legs on each side is connected by a low bar as well.  Here is what it looks like on the boat.
 

 
The plans provided gave only a profile view, but I found a detailed deck fitting drawing which shows the plan view. 
 


 
Similarly, the stern fitting has a top bar that bends at almost a right angle around the corner of the transom and becomes a short foreleg and a much longer transom leg, with a vertical piece and horizontal pieces connecting everything together.  Here it is on a boat
 

 
And here from the plans and drawing
 


 
To match the dimensions, I used brass tubing of 1mm o.d. and internal diameter of 0.020".  I could have used solid bar stock, but using tubing provided a lot of advantages during construction.  Here is the setup for the bow fixture, surrounded by my soldering tools and supplies.
 

 
I do most of my soldering with this inexpensive "Cold Heat" device that I heard about through an infomercial on TV several years ago.  This is the first time that I am using it for a commissioned model.  It is a battery powered resistance soldering unit made for the miniatures or jewelry market.  It works by passing an electric current between two carbide electrodes set in a "cloven hoof" configuration with a small gap between the electrodes.  When both tips contact metal the current flows between them, heating the metal by induction, or resistance in the metal.
 
For the solder I use Tix brand high-silver content solder along with Tix brand flux.  Both can be bought at Micro-Mark and other suppliers.  The solder comes in sticks, which is easily cut in pieces about 1/16" long.  Although it is easy to cut, once melted and cooled it is quite hard and strong.  Also, since it has a lot of silver it electroplates much like the brass tubing.
 

 
The dimensions of the fixture was figured out from the plans, opened up as if lying flat, and drawn onto a piece of scrap basswood.  Pieces of tubing were cut to length and bent to shape.  At the appropriate spots I drilled angled  holes through the top bar and the forward legs.  0.020" brass rod was fed through the holes, the tubing pieces strung in place, and the entire assembly was secured in place with thumb tacks.
 

 
In this closeup you can see that at the joint on the left there is a piece of the solder resting on the joint.  Actually, the joint was painted with flux, which gets tacky and holds the solder in place till it is heated.
 

 
Now the Cool Heat tool is turned on and the tips straddle the bar next to the joint.  In a few moments the flux sizzles, then the solder softens and sags.  Do not remove the heat, but wait until the solder melts completely and forms a shiny dome over the joint.  Remove the heat and the solder will flow into the joint, filling and securing it.  There is a soldered joint at the right edge of the photo.
 

 
Once all of the joints have been soldered the extra connecting pieces of the rod were clipped off and the joints were filed to remove any excess solder.  Taking a deep breath I folded the piece around a suitably sized dowel to form the rounded 'pulpit' that goes around the bow.  Fortunately, all of the joints held.  Now the legs were trimmed to final size so the fixture sat level and in the right position.  With a wire wheel every bit of the fixture was polished in preparation for chrome electroplating.  As with painting or other finishing, the surface preparation is key.
 

 
The electroplating kit was set up as I described before when making the handrails, and the piece was dipped for only 15 seconds, which gave it a very nice silvery finish after rinsing and polishing with a cloth wheel.
 

 
And here it is installed on the model.  Using tubing also allowed me to insert brass rod into the lower ends of the supporting legs which were bent to drop into holes drilled into the deck.  This creates a 4-point mechanical attachment for the piece, which should be enough, even at the vulnerable spot at the extreme bow. 
 

 
The stern fixtures were build up in much the same way.  After the design was calculated and drawn, brass tubing was bent to the shape of the top bar and legs.  Holes were drilled for the 0.020" rod which was used as an armature to hold the tubing pieces in place.
 

 
And here are all of the joints soldered.  Most are good, but you can see that the joints at the central crossing are a little starved for solder.  Flux and another piece of solder were used and heated, and the joint was filled quite easily.  The loops for the wire railings are made of the same brass rod as the armature and soldered in place.
 

 
Now the fixture was bent to its final angle.  This is where a number of fully soldered fittings died.  The bend of the lower bar is just too close to the central joint, which fails time and again.  I finally resorted to leaving off that piece of tubing and bending the top bar alone.  Since it is a continuous piece of metal there was no failure.  Now the lower bar piece had to be pre-bent, trimmed to size, and set in place with the internal rods.   These last joints were soldered to complete the construction.  Here are the mirror image fittings, the one on the right has the attachment pins installed. 
 

 
As with the bow fixture, these were cleaned up with a file and then polished with a wheel before electroplating.  And here they are set in place.  I just have to add some feet to the legs, which will be small pieces of chrome foil and they will be complete.
 


 
Next I will make up the individual railing posts before turning to the mast and rigging.  But I have to do some work on another project the rest of the month, so I will post again in August, when I should be almost done.
 
Until then, be well.
 
Dan
 
 
 

More progress over the weekend.   I applied some colored wood putty to the seams in the planks where light showed through.  The cap rails were marked-out, cut and trimmed and installed.  The sophistocated clamping system was used to keep the rails even and in contact with the tops of the frames.  Both the sides and transom friezes were sprayed with a dull-coat lacquer before cutting.  To install the frieze, I masked off the sides of the cap rails and everything below the first plank, applied some spray-on contact cement (also on the fireze itself) and stuck it on.  Pretty easy since my top strake shape was taken from a frieze.  The lower rub-rail was tough.  I could not get my box wood cut to the 1/32 dimension so I used the kit-provided bass strips.  It gets painted and is softer, so nothing lost here.  Mircowaving and bending got them into shape.  The transom frieze was pretty straight forward.  Plenty of size choices provided.  Floor boards cut and installed.  The same spacers were used between each board, yet the spaces seem to be different in the picture.  Camera angle?  Finally, the platforms were made (cardboard pattern cut first but some tweeking was still necessary.  I'm shaping the risers (Cleats?) but the red paint needs to be applied to the cap and inner planks before the risers are installed.  Waiting on delivery of more paint since my supply of red hardened in the jar.
Maury

Here are the pics

You can't beat drill bit city for selection and price. They all dome on a 1/8" shank which works particularly well on rotary tools.
 
https://www.drillbitcity.com/Default.asp

Juan,
 
    The reason for 2-3-2 or 7-10-7 is geometry, specifically triangles.
 

 
   A squared + B squared = C squared.  In the above diagram you want to shave off the corners (A and so that the remaining side © is equal to D.   (2x2)+(2x2)= 4+4=8
                                                                   D=3 so 3x3=9
                                                                   Close
 
                                                                   (7x7) + (7x7) = 49 + 49 = 98
                                                                   10 x 10 = 100
                                                                   closer
 
Then there are hexes.  :-|

lower deck

On building the items for the gun deck I have uploaded photo's showing how I made my capstan's. Not quite as advance as Ed's, but am sure that several years in to Montagu life she just may of had those types. In ones travel of building and researching a ship of the line, one runs in to some interesting items such as the fore jeer capstain, and it being lower down in to the capstain room on the orlop deck.  Just to give some of you a heads up on this item, while researching this capstan, most of the contracts I have on them state that this capstain was lowered down to the orlop deck to make room for the long boat.  Steel shows this in his plates and talk's about it in his book Steel's Naval Architecture of 1805. After spending time trying to figure out how it worked I built what I thought was a good repersentive of it.  Did they really lower this down, I do believe so, why else would they have built it this way.

Hello dear friends,
Today I will show you the comparison of my model caronade with the photo of an original French Carronade of 1840.
I think that there are many similarities.

After the beams were installed and fitted in place, they were left loose so I could pull them out for cutting the notches for the carlings on the out side of the ship. I also added the hanging and lodging knees to the ends of the beams and seems that it took awhile to get the pieces to a point were they could be glued in place. At the same time the bitt's were added along with the fore mast partner which was sandwich in between the knees of the bitt's. Most probably know that the cross member of the bitts were not nailed in place but held in place by eyebots and hooks which I added  them. Since all the pull was on the bitts them self seems like a good thing to do and did save time if the cross members needed to be changed out.

Thanks, Mark.
 
The next items to make were the hatch coamings.  I chose to model them in cherry for the contrast.  The gratings will be in boxwood.  They are composed of four pieces (two fore and aft coamings and two athwart head ledges).  The coamings have a rabbet to accept the grating.  There was no rabbet on the coaming for the ladderway.  On the real ship they would interlock with a tailed half-lap joint; I made a simpler half-lap joint.  The head ledges curve to match the round-up of the deck.  Rather than making the entire assembly off the ship and then sanding in the curvature, I glued the head ledges directly onto the beams.  There is not that much round-up so pre-bending the wood was not necessary.  Once they were dry I installed the coamings and cleaned up the joints. 
 

 

 
At the corners, the edges are rounded off to the deck level only, leaving a 90 degree corner from the beam to the top of the decking. 
 

 
Each head ledge is secured with three bolts.  I did not have any brass wire with me so I dyed a bamboo treenail black to simulate the bolt.  Treenails secure the coamings.  I spaced them approximately every foot.  The treenails are also made of cherry.
 

The armament of Royal Caroline
 


The armament consisted of various guns.
4 Pdr. Cannons on gun carriages, four per side, plus 4 x ½ Pdr. Swivel guns on the aft deck and on  the Mast tops ¼ Pdr. Swivels

On the plan of Bellabarba are also 2 x ½ Pdr Swivels on the foredeck  to see.
But the arrangement of these guns can not be true!
The guns are mounted too low (knee high),  and the swivel guns can not be fixed there, since a proper attachment of the column is not visible.

Judging from the drawing, the servants are running the rotary launchers are mounted, merely placed on the deck, and that goes against all the rules of shipbuilding.
Servants are always min. performed two floors and bolted to the bar below or attached.
You have to just let me think what forces caused by fire the cannon.
After the first shot the swivel gun would be along with the shooter and servant across the side of the ship to find if not downright overboard.
And then there is the height of the swivel gun to consider;
In the position as shown, the shooter would sit on the deck!
All in all, the author is obviously a major mistake happened.
In the picture of Cleeverly none of it is visible.
The author will forgive me the criticism, but in such a project as the Caroline, I would avoid technical errors.
Also on the original plan of NMM is nothing to see like the plan from Bellabarba.
Conclusion: I have not mounted on the back deck, the swivel guns.
 
 
 
But now I reached an important message!!

Our special agent "P" 08/15-006 (with license to fly),  
 
Image was modified newsworthy to the mission not to endanger.
 


has managed to penetrate accomplished the feat in the secret armory of Caroline, and could make sensational pictures of the weapons production.
 

Advance an image which has reached us by express mail:
 
 
 

 


At this point, many thanks to the transport department of our news service


As soon as Agent "P" is back, and after reviewing the material, a detailed report will follow.

Good morning all,
 
Hello Popeye and Michael, Many thanks for looking in and for your kind compliments.
 
Today, I am going to post the last pictures related to the construction of the search light installation, as it is now awaiting the right moment for the finishing stages.
 
Here goes:
 
 
An overall view showing the detail and the bolt heads.

 
A front view.

 
A view from the side.

 
A view from the other side.

 
A close up view.

 
An elevational view,  displaying all the other parts, to be fixed in place during the finishing process.

 
Now some pictures related to the last range finder making part of the tower. This is a 2 meter long range finder, and is situated just below the Admiral's bridge.
 
The platform with it's sheet steel parapet wall.

 
A view from the under side showing all support struts.

 
The armoured base housing, on which the range finder sits.

 
Starting off with the housing.

 
Applying filler to create the taper edge..

 
The range finder housing well under way.

 
The assembly ready for the next stage - detailing.

 
A side view.

 
A close up view.

 
 
shall be posting more pictures next week.
 
 

The scuttles in the fore deck are all fitted with covers.  There are sills that run fore and aft on the carlings that form the scuttle framing.  They can be seen in the first picture.  The cover rests on top of them.  These covers could either be fit to lift out (which is what I modeled) or hinged.  I deliberately made the covers slightly undersized so that they would stand out from the deck planking.The ring bolts are used to pull the covers and are 3" internal diameter.  They are made from blackened 24 g brass wire.They measure out correctly but look oversized to my eye.  All of the eyes are oriented fore and aft.  
 

 

Well done, Ben! And don't feel bad - properly done treenails should be almost invisible.

Thanks Robbyn, but I'm not really "thinking" of the actual details, just putting into practice what is in the TFFM books .
 
Transom Iron Knees
 
The corners of the transom are strengthened with Iron Knees. I made these in similar fashion to the other ones described earlier in my build log. They are "cast" (bent) to go under the half-beam. A Filler Piece has been fitted to take the place of a Lodging Knee :
 

 
Here are the aforementioned "half-beams" :
 

 

 
  Danny

Hi Doris. Your R.C. is like a piece of jewelry with more and more diamonds added daily. Beautiful!
 
Greg

Those quarter galleries are difficult to get right with their sweeping curves and angles. Everything from the wooden shingles to window frames fits perfectly together. Just beautiful, Alex!
 
Greg

Thanks every one, hopfully many more in the future. At the moment life has sort of got in the way but hoping for some time to work on her in the near future. Thanks Ed, as soon as I get back to the cannon's I keep those sizes in mind. Daniel the carpenter´s walk did go around the orlop deck but not so much like the one you show above. There was a lot of places that was not walled in and one had a good view, of the outside wall. On 74's of Montagu time there wasn't a wall all the way around the orlop deck. Here is some photo's that show how Montagu looked. In the first picture it shows the stanchion's that separated the cable tier from the carpenter's walk, followed by the fwd store rooms and finally the aft store rooms with the carpenter's walk on the outside. Have also included the plan of her orlop deck so you can compare the two. Sort of wish I had added more of the detail on this deck,like metal work and maybe even some cables, in the tier. Of course it would have been even longer to finish this deck then the couple of years that it took. Gary

.....
 
           rekon54