Mike Y

Tops
The construction of platforms fitted on mast tops were changed during the centuries from „baskets” or round platforms with high guard rails up
to the end of 17th century. 
In 19th century tops was made as flat platforms supported on crosstrees.
Tops was used as access to topmast sails as also battle station for archers,
gun shooters or even small cannons.
 
Tadeusz
 

Lisa von Lubeck (15th century)

Neff Victoria (beginning of16th century)


Golden Hind (end of 16th century)

Halve Maen  (beginning of 17th century)

Vasa (beginning of 17th century)

Spirit mast top Batavia

Batavia  (17th century)

Shtandard (beginning of 18th century)

Amsterdam (18th century)

La Grace (18th century)

Gotheborg (18th century)


Victory ( 18th century)

Bounty ( end of 18th century)



Warrior (19th  century)

Jylland (end of 19th century)



 
Passat (beginning of 20th century)

Thanks again for all the kind comments and the "likes". I can't believe it has been almost six weeks since I last posted some progress!  I finally managed to get some time in the shipyard on Sunday - but only a little, so this will be only a minor update.  As an aside, when I tried to post this update on Sunday, I ran into the "Sucuri" issue that many have experienced previously.  A quick PM to Jim Hatch with my IP address and he fixed it in no time - thanks Jim  
 
Mortar Cap Squares
 
The Mortar Cap Squares were made from strips of 0.01” thick brass sheet. The sheet was attached to a carrier of scrap timber using double sided tape and then cut, with the brass facing down, on the Byrnes saw to the desired width – in this case 3/32”. One end of each strip was then bent around a 1/32” thick brass rod to form the hinge end. The middle was then formed around a 5/32” rod to fit around the trunnion, and then finessed into final shape in situ. A 0.8mm hole was then drilled to take the retaining eyebolt. The retaining eyebolt was shaped by squeezing a regular eyebolt into a sort of triangular shape, and then flattening with a hammer.  Finally, a short section of 1/32” brass tubing was cut to insert into the hinge end, to represent the inner part of the hinge.  Here is a shot of the component parts before blackening and final assembly.
 

 
All parts were then cleaned using a wire brush in a rotary tool, soaked in vinegar and then blackened with Birchwood Casey Brass Black prior to installing.  Here is the completed Mortar assembly:
 

 

 
4lb Gun Carriages
 
The carriages for the 4lb guns are made from Redheart.  Two guns will be displayed on the model, and a further two may be incorporated into the display stand.  Therefore, a total of four gun carriages will be made. The sides of the carriages are made from one piece each and are a fairly straight forward operation.  A set of ten blanks (allowing for two ‘spares’) were spot glued together to enable all sides to be cut in the same operation, to produce identical parts.  Once the gang was glued up, a pattern piece was applied using sticky label paper and the process of shaping was commenced. The ‘stepped’ sides and the dados for the axles were cut first using the Sherline mill.  Then curvature between the axles was incorporated by using the spindle sander. Finally, the groove for the trunnion bars was cut using a ball end cutter in the Proxxon drill press (only because I didn’t have a collet small enough to fit the ball end cutter in the mill.  The ends were then trimmed to length on the Byrnes disc sander and the completed part soaked in isopropyl alcohol to debond the spot-glue and separate the individual pieces.  After some final cleaning up, here’s what they look like:
 

 
That's as far as I managed to get on Sunday. Hopefully, next weekend I'll manage to finish the gun carriages and maybe even have a crack at turning the guns themselves.

la vela de estay estay segundo acabado

further progress January 2015

some carving work

a few shots of the interior work, showing marquetry flooring in great cabin

The framing started and progressed as shown, using a jig to hold the frames in position unitl I was able to add some internal planking for support and stability

Hi all I started this model early in 2010, and wiil herein post some photos of her construction along the way.  Having perviously finished my first scratch built model of Confederacy, I decided that I wanted to further improve my carving skills and felt that RYC would be the perfect way to challenge myself. After drawing in Autocad the interpolated frames and keel from Chapman's drafts, I started construction of the half frame blanks as per the attached photos.

Hi Mark
 
Now that's some pretty speccie work, you've done there! Can't wait to see your next update.
 
Cheers
 
Patrick

Just wow!
Are you using different kinds of pear, or you have one batch of pear that you sort according to the color?

Finished the transom wings. It is an interesting area of the hull, a lot of fine tuning and shaping
Left the wings slightly oversized and with rough corners (too square), will properly shape them while fairing the hull. 
As usual, ignore the right side of the photo - it will be fully planked, so it is less accurate
 

 

 
Now starting the gunports.

Finished the transom wings. It is an interesting area of the hull, a lot of fine tuning and shaping
Left the wings slightly oversized and with rough corners (too square), will properly shape them while fairing the hull. 
As usual, ignore the right side of the photo - it will be fully planked, so it is less accurate
 

 

 
Now starting the gunports.

Finished the transom wings. It is an interesting area of the hull, a lot of fine tuning and shaping
Left the wings slightly oversized and with rough corners (too square), will properly shape them while fairing the hull. 
As usual, ignore the right side of the photo - it will be fully planked, so it is less accurate
 

 

 
Now starting the gunports.

gracias.
poner estay definitiva

Work has finally let me get back to my build,  (hopefully it will last).  After cleaning up my workspace, you could not get in the door from the stuff piled in the way, and doing some major cleaning I was able to work on my cross section some.
 
I finnised the treenailing for what I had installed so far. 

 
Making treenails seems to be a good way to get back into things after being gone so long.
 
After reviewing by prints I am printing out another set. These have layed around so long and been abused the scale was off and stains all over them.
Will also be starting the deck beams over again. The ones I had cut were in the way when a drink was overturned that know one had told me about.
 
So here is where I am now. Hope to get more done this week and to start posting progress again
 

 
 
 

In wood working, hand-made joints, such as dovetail joints, are always done by making one side of the joint first, then using that part to scribe the other part.  There is no way to get a tight joint by making the two pieces independently.  Since the devil in in the details, they are:
 
1.  Whatever the profile of the joint, scarf, dovetail, miter, or a simple butt-joint, the surfaces of the joint must be exactly square to the surface of the profile. Otherwise, you may be tight on one side and have gaps on the other.  Using a file to finish joint by hand will  always end up with a convex surface and gaps on the edges.  So, have a good small square, with a light behind so you can see gaps.  For small parts there may not be a good surface to place the square, place both the piece and the square on a flat surface.  
 
2.  To help make a square cut, place the piece on a cutting board, then cut straight down, at 90 degrees to the board, with a sharp chisel.  You can use a block of wood to keep the chisel at 90 deg.  Cabinet makes us what is called a "paring chisel" for this which sharpened to 15 degree angle instead of the usual 25 degrees used on general purpose chisels.  An X-Acto chisel (#17, #18) is a good choice for model work.  The tool needs to be razor sharp, and do not take off too much in one cut - just take off shavings.  Use other tools to get the rough shape.
 
3.  With one piece made, the shape is copied to the other piece with a scribing knife, which has been sharpened on only one side of the blade so the cutting point is tight against the part you are tracing.  There is no way a pencil tracing is accurate enough.  You could use a #11 blade, but since it is sharpened on both sides there is a good chance that the scribed line will be 1/2 the blade thickness away from traced part.   A razor blade may work, but you may want to break if off to look more like a #11 so you can scribe in to corners.  Commercial scribing knives can be expensive, but Lee Valley Tools sells a reasonably priced one.  There's no reason you couldn't make your own by re-grinding a dull #11.  I've tried using scratch awls and needles for scribing, but I found they tend to follow the wood grain.   I would only use a point scriber for tracing concave curves that a flat knife couldn't follow: however, I can't think of any ship joints like this (unless you change you hobby to making jig-saw puzzles.)
 
4.   After you have roughed out the shape of the second piece to close to the line, the benefit of the scribed line comes into play.  Just hook the edge of the chisel in to the scribed line and cut straight down.  Even if your eyes can't see the line, you can feel when the chisel hooks.  In some cases, you could scribe both sides of the joint and cut from both sides.  One trick when cutting from both sides is to make the surfaces slightly hollow (concave) to ensure the edgers are tight.  Some people consider this a bit of a cheat, but it does ensure the joint line has no gap, which easily happens if the joint surfaces are evenly slightly convex.
 
After a test-fit of the joint, some paring cuts or scraping may be needed, but you will be very close to a perfect joint.  If a joint surface is convex, you can scrape it in the middle with the edge of a knife with a round profile (#10 knife).
 
If my description of the process is not clear enough, there are lots of places on the web that have good pictures.  Start at www.finewoodworking.com.   
 
Bruce

Finished the transom wings. It is an interesting area of the hull, a lot of fine tuning and shaping
Left the wings slightly oversized and with rough corners (too square), will properly shape them while fairing the hull. 
As usual, ignore the right side of the photo - it will be fully planked, so it is less accurate
 

 

 
Now starting the gunports.

Thanks for the comments so far. The boat was only held in the vise for picture taking. First, let me apologize for not keeping a more in depth build log. I get wrapped up in the building and forget to actually take pictures. I have made some progress and the boat is planked. I made a few mistakes, such as not beveling all of the planks, and it shows. That's why i picked this kit first. Also, one other more serious problem was that I had a couple of planks near the bow come out really thin after sanding. Chuck's instructions said the planking on this kit was tricky, and it is. More so than I would have thought. Other than that, i think it is coming along pretty good.
 
 

Looks sweet, Mike. 

Finished the transom wings. It is an interesting area of the hull, a lot of fine tuning and shaping
Left the wings slightly oversized and with rough corners (too square), will properly shape them while fairing the hull. 
As usual, ignore the right side of the photo - it will be fully planked, so it is less accurate
 

 

 
Now starting the gunports.

Don
 
Inventor allows you to project 3D geometry from two 2D views.  I didn't see this option in my version of SolidWorks I was borrowing from the office.
 
I was able to project the 3D curvature of the waterline cutting down line, top of the floor timber and top timber lines by drawing them in the Breadth and Sheer views (plans).
I then created a end view (Body plan) plane on the station lines and at the locations in which the top timber line changes elevation.
I inserted points at the intersection of these lines with the plane, projected these points onto a sketch at the station line (at the plane) and then drew in the frame.
 
I did however come to the conclusion that I needed to simplify the dimensions. (something I believe Druxey was trying to make me aware of)
The end of the timber at the top of the rail is 5-1/2" moulded depth (athwartships).
at 1:64 this is 0.086" thick or just over 1/16" (about 2mm)
I don't think I can make these at this thickness so I increased it to 8" (1/8" or 3mm)
Still a challenge but a wee bit better to manage.
I also massaged the thickness at the breadth of the beam from 11.8" to 12"
 
I gave up on tweaking all the polylines with setting the 3 handles at every point once I realized there is a traditional autocad polyline option.
The task is difficult enough without creating extra challenges.
 
The first, second and third futtock moulded thickness are unchanged... but I believe they will be when I have wood to sand!
I'm an old draughtsman (draughtsperson to be politically correct) and it is taking me awhile to adjust and accept what I can and cannot do at 1:64 scale.
.... and I am still learning.
 
I am now learning to adjust my thinking of the timber spacing due to the gun port locations. (something else Druxey gentle nudged at)
When I project the cuts from below they are straight and play havoc with the templates at the gun ports.
I realise the timbers shift.
This means cutting from the side (sheer plan) which is tons more work to draw
I am not sure the effort is needed so long as I refer to the actual timber plan I have to do the shifts.
 
I've modelled stations 2 through G and started the template drawing for these today.
I had planed on cutting all the scarf joints in the timbers but now realising the scale, moulded thickness, my level of talent, who will see it... I'm moving towards simple butt end joints.  I may attempt scarf joints where I have break away views through the hull into the interior as you will see these joints.
I've also toyed with the idea of plexiglas timbers in these areas.
 
Alan

Finished the transom wings. It is an interesting area of the hull, a lot of fine tuning and shaping
Left the wings slightly oversized and with rough corners (too square), will properly shape them while fairing the hull. 
As usual, ignore the right side of the photo - it will be fully planked, so it is less accurate
 

 

 
Now starting the gunports.

Per
 
Pages 228-229 of Lavery's Arming and Fitting give a good synopsis of the windlass.  As written by Lavery,launches, which pretty much replaced longboats on ships of 20 guns or more by 1780, had windlasses.   In addition to the windlass would often be found a davit.   Prior to the davit there would have been a lignum vitae sheave over which line would run out.   The davit and windlass combination was necessary when lifting the buoy rope in order to lift  the crown of a 3 ton anchor that had become embedded in the bottom.  No boat crew could do this without the aid of the windlass.   The davit rested on a pivot pin as shown on the photo.  Hope this helps.
 
Allan

Finished the transom wings. It is an interesting area of the hull, a lot of fine tuning and shaping
Left the wings slightly oversized and with rough corners (too square), will properly shape them while fairing the hull. 
As usual, ignore the right side of the photo - it will be fully planked, so it is less accurate
 

 

 
Now starting the gunports.

Hi Mike beautiful work.