EdT

1:60 HMS Naiad 1797
Part 2 –Basic Drafts
 
I hope the next two parts, which are text heavy, will not be a turn-off to those not too interested in drafting. For me drawing is intertwined with the actual modeling, and so, I wanted to give it proportionate coverage. I will also add that the drafting process helped me tremendously in understanding the construction of the ship and in giving insights valuable later in construction. For those less interested in this, it may be heavy going, but fear not, by part 4 we will be into construction – and more pictures.
 
In this first part I will cover the steps I went through to reproduce a 2D CAD version of the original Admiralty lines draft. This is the basic drawing and the starting point for everything else. Many additional drawings have been made or will be made and will be discussed later.
 
For those unfamiliar with the terminology, the lines drawing includes a sheer plan, which is actually not a plan by modern definition, but a side elevation of the external features of the ship and several important longitudinal lines. I will usually refer to this direction of view as the “sheer plane.”
 
The lines draft also includes a plan view (from above) of key longitudinal lines called the half-breadth plan, which in addition, shows locations of cant frames and hawse timbers.
 
The body plan to the left is a split elevation view, the left side a view from aft and the right side from forward. The body plan shows the shapes of the hull at each joint line (sometimes called frame lines or stations), plus a number of important reference lines. Joint lines represent vertical planes, perpendicular to the keel at the joint line of the two frames that are fastened together to make up a main frame bend. I will use the term “joint lines” to refer to the main frame joint lines shown on the original draft, and the term “frame lines” to refer to all the frame lines, including the ones in between not shown on the original drawings.
 
A scan of the original Naiad lines draft is shown below.
 

 
After completion of the lines draft, other basic drawings were made by the surveyors.
 
The profile drawing is a view of the sheer plane (side elevation) along the middle line of the ship, showing internal structure, the keel assembly and internal deck details.
 
The framing drawing, or “disposition of frames” is a view of the sheer plane showing all the frames and each of their timber parts, called floors, futtocks and toptimbers.
 
Below are the actual profile and framing drafts on my real (non-computerized) drafting board.
 
 

 
These original drafts could be used for model making, but there are some issues to be considered – one specific to my model and at least a few that are more general. The scale of these drafts is 1:48. My model is 1:60 - an obvious issue. Another issue is that if the basic drawings are used, then lofting will be done manually, or at least semi-manually. With the original drawings it is less easy to make the drawing fit the construction process needs. I will discuss this more later. The last relates to potential for distortion or other inaccuracies in these very old drawings, which I will discuss below.
 
I made the Naiad drawings using 2D CAD, with an old Windows application, Visio Tech 4.1, which I have used for many years. It is dated, lacks some features, but was quite adequate.
 
There are many advantages to CAD: It can be very fast for some tasks. It produces very high quality drawings with lines down to 1 pixel wide. It is easy to move views and objects around for different purposes. It excels at quickly expanding canted surfaces to their true view for lofting. It is easy to print off copies and make revisions. Multiple copies of patterns are easily printed to paste to wood blanks, use as assembly patterns, or to make alignment gauges. It’s easy to add a lot of legible text to drawings and color can be used and printed. All the work is done in actual measurements so conversion is minimized and prints for different scales can be made quite easily.
 
I am not going to go through this drafting, step by step, but only highlight some areas. I may go deeper on some of the lofting, but will save that until discussing its use in actual construction.
 
The Lines Draft
 
The first steps in making the CAD lines draft are quite easy. The top of keel is drawn first and it’s pretty hard to miss with a straight horizontal line. Perpendicular vertical lines at each end of the gun deck, known as the aft perpendicular (AP) and fore perpendicular (FP), are easy because the length of the deck is stated in feet and inches on the draft. The next step, location of the midship perpendicular or dead flat (DF) requires the first real measurement to be taken from the draft.
 
This first measurement introduces the issue of drawing error and measurement error. Error in these old drafts can result from measurement error when they were made, distortion of the originals over time, line blurring, reprographic error and the practice of using wider pen width for some lines.
 
To determine the accuracy of the lines draft – the most important drawing - I first checked the accuracy of the scale at the bottom of the drawing at the right, center and left of the sheet, then checked horizontal measurements on the drawing against dimensions stated on the drawing. This was done for example, by measuring a length on the bottom scale in mm, converting it, then comparing. The results indicated an error range of from .16 % to .4% depending on where dimensions were taken. For all but the largest dimensions I concluded this level of error was inconsequential for modeling purposes.
 
Accuracy of the draft vertically could not be easily checked, so I decided to ignore it given the small horizontal error.
 
So, the dead flat was able to be located reasonably well. The next critical dimension to be measured was room and space.
 
Room and space is the distance between each frame line (including intermediate frames) or one-half the distance between (most of) the joint lines – the lines at the center of the main frame bends. Used in conjunction with the specified fore and aft sidings of the timbers it assured a defined ventilation space between frames – critical in these rot-prone ships – and critical in the model for proper location of frames and frame lines. I measured this a number of ways before fixing the value at 29 inches.
 
Once all these basic construction lines were drawn, I essentially followed the process described in The Shipbuilders Repository 1788 for constructing the sheer draft. Although the language is ancient and sometimes difficult, this book lays down how designers actually constructed these drafts, in detail – the section on the sheer plan alone is 26 pages. The book was an instructional text for aspiring surveyors and shipwrights – and unknowingly, for at least one 21st century model draftsman/builder.
 
Below is a very reduced image of the resulting Naiad CAD Sheer Draft.
 
 

 
The Body Plan
 
The original body plan shows the shape of the hull at each joint line, and is therefore a critical design drawing. All the lines are “moulded” breadths, that is, they are to the outside of the frames, not the outside of the planking. To produce an accurate model, the body plan needs to be reproduced as accurately as possible.
 
Historically, after the body plan was drafted, it was used to produce the waterlines, ribband lines and some other key longitudinal curves that make up the half breadth plan. These curves were then checked for fairness and, if necessary, the body plan was adjusted to yield fair longitudinal curves. Even though the original draft body plan was checked and adjusted by the designer, this process was followed for the CAD plans.
 
Original body plans were drafted using circular arc segments, called sweeps. By varying the diameter and center of these arcs along the length of the ship, the final hull profile was developed. The resulting underwater shape determined key qualities of the ship – sailing characteristics, hold capacity, stability, etc.
 
During the 18th Century, the underwater bodies of this type of ship were drawn with three sweeps, which are pointed out below on the original Naiad body plan, along with some other information, in red
 
 

 
For those not familiar with this construction, I will try to describe it.
 
First, British ships had a straight vertical section at the extreme breadth of the hull which ran between two dotted lines called the “heights of breadth. This straight section was larger at midship and decreased toward the ends. It is described by dotted curved lines in the sheer plan and on the body plan.
 
The lower breadth sweep for each joint line started at the bottom of this section and swung down, with its center at points on a horizontal line through the bottom height of breadth. This formed the hull shape just below the height of breadth. The designer set the diameters of these sweeps.
 
Starting at a horizontal line a short distance above the top of keel, the floor sweeps were swung upward with their centers on a rising line shown in the above drawing. This rising line was based on curves drawn by the designer on the sheer plan. On the sheer plan the vertical rising line is the wide u-shaped curve in the center of the lower hull. Its horizontal counterpart is an inverted u at the bottom of the half breadth plan. These curves and the diameters of the floor sweeps were also designer decisions.
 
A third sweep, called the reconciling sweep connected these two tangentially. Its curvature was set by the designer, often by setting a point on the 4th diagonal, through which the arc would be drawn.
 
Finally, a concave curve from the lower end of the floor sweep to the rabbet of the keel would complete the underwater body.
 
Historically, French frigates generally seem to have had smaller diameter breadth and floor sweeps and large diameter, long, reconciling sweeps. This made for a sleeker hull, but a smaller hold. British ships generally had larger diameter breadth and floor sweeps, yielding more hull volume.
 
The upper breadth sweeps were generally all the same diameter and were drawn upwards from the top of the height of breadth. A reverse curve would take this to the top of the side.
 
If I were recreating this drawing manually, I would do so with these circular arcs. The Naiad draft has virtually all the information on it to do this. However, Visio does not have good tools for creating tangential reconciling sweeps, so the arcs, plus spline curve functions, were used to make the CAD Body plan. This was then carefully checked against the original by printing the CAD plan at 1:48 on transparency film, laying it over the draft, marking any deviations, then fixing the body plan and repeating this process until both were virtually identical. Also, points along diagonals and waterlines were measured from the original and checked on the CAD version.
 
A version of the CAD Naiad body plan is shown below.
 

 
At this stage, CAD versions of two parts of the lines draft were complete and ready to be used for the next stages of the drafting process, which will be described in the next part.
 
Ed Tosti
 
 
2013 Copyright Edward J Tosti

David and Allan, thanks for the input - and nice to hear from you.
 
Ed

Hello Mr Bean,
 
Thank you for your interest in the model and for purchasing the books.
 
The stem is 20" athwartship (that is breadth perpendicular to the ship centerline) at the top and tapers down to 13.5" to match the width of the keel at the bottom.  The knee of the head is 13.5" at the join with the stem over its entire length.  I would guess that the reason for that is that the knee of the head does not require the 20" thickness to serve its function of supporting the stem in the fore and aft direction.  It also tapers to a narrower breadth going forward.  At the upper end, the stem it will be wider than the knee of the head by about 3" on each side.
 
For convenience. the frame section drawings used a common template that shows the keel widths at both midship (15") and at the ends (13.5",  so the inner vertical lines on the keel represent the breadth at the ends and the outer lines the breadth at the center - on these pattern drawings.  This was a drafting convenience to avoid me having to develop the actual keel width at every frame, which would have been more correct but not really useful, since the keel is not part of the frame. These lines on the frame drawings may be ignored - but do not neglect to taper the breadth of the keel from midship to the ends.
 
Hope this helps.  Thank you for posting your question here on the build log, so others may see it.
 
Ed

David and Allan, thanks for the input - and nice to hear from you.
 
Ed

David and Allan, thanks for the input - and nice to hear from you.
 
Ed

David and Allan, thanks for the input - and nice to hear from you.
 
Ed

Mr Bean,
 
Please see Vol 1, p 46, para 4.  Stopping the keel rabbet well forward of the sternpost seems to have been typical on these ships based on original drafts.  The planking rests on the top of the keel (and bolts to the deadwood) aft of 28.  I do not know the reason for this practice, but speculate that it was to avoid weakening the keel at the stern where the supporting deadwood was very small in cross-section. 
 
Ed

Mr Bean,
 
Please see Vol 1, p 46, para 4.  Stopping the keel rabbet well forward of the sternpost seems to have been typical on these ships based on original drafts.  The planking rests on the top of the keel (and bolts to the deadwood) aft of 28.  I do not know the reason for this practice, but speculate that it was to avoid weakening the keel at the stern where the supporting deadwood was very small in cross-section. 
 
Ed

Mr Bean,
 
Please see Vol 1, p 46, para 4.  Stopping the keel rabbet well forward of the sternpost seems to have been typical on these ships based on original drafts.  The planking rests on the top of the keel (and bolts to the deadwood) aft of 28.  I do not know the reason for this practice, but speculate that it was to avoid weakening the keel at the stern where the supporting deadwood was very small in cross-section. 
 
Ed

Mr Bean,
 
Please see Vol 1, p 46, para 4.  Stopping the keel rabbet well forward of the sternpost seems to have been typical on these ships based on original drafts.  The planking rests on the top of the keel (and bolts to the deadwood) aft of 28.  I do not know the reason for this practice, but speculate that it was to avoid weakening the keel at the stern where the supporting deadwood was very small in cross-section. 
 
Ed

Mr Bean,
 
Please see Vol 1, p 46, para 4.  Stopping the keel rabbet well forward of the sternpost seems to have been typical on these ships based on original drafts.  The planking rests on the top of the keel (and bolts to the deadwood) aft of 28.  I do not know the reason for this practice, but speculate that it was to avoid weakening the keel at the stern where the supporting deadwood was very small in cross-section. 
 
Ed

Mr Bean,
 
Please see Vol 1, p 46, para 4.  Stopping the keel rabbet well forward of the sternpost seems to have been typical on these ships based on original drafts.  The planking rests on the top of the keel (and bolts to the deadwood) aft of 28.  I do not know the reason for this practice, but speculate that it was to avoid weakening the keel at the stern where the supporting deadwood was very small in cross-section. 
 
Ed

Mr Bean,
 
Please see Vol 1, p 46, para 4.  Stopping the keel rabbet well forward of the sternpost seems to have been typical on these ships based on original drafts.  The planking rests on the top of the keel (and bolts to the deadwood) aft of 28.  I do not know the reason for this practice, but speculate that it was to avoid weakening the keel at the stern where the supporting deadwood was very small in cross-section. 
 
Ed

Hello Mr Bean,
 
Thank you for your interest in the model and for purchasing the books.
 
The stem is 20" athwartship (that is breadth perpendicular to the ship centerline) at the top and tapers down to 13.5" to match the width of the keel at the bottom.  The knee of the head is 13.5" at the join with the stem over its entire length.  I would guess that the reason for that is that the knee of the head does not require the 20" thickness to serve its function of supporting the stem in the fore and aft direction.  It also tapers to a narrower breadth going forward.  At the upper end, the stem it will be wider than the knee of the head by about 3" on each side.
 
For convenience. the frame section drawings used a common template that shows the keel widths at both midship (15") and at the ends (13.5",  so the inner vertical lines on the keel represent the breadth at the ends and the outer lines the breadth at the center - on these pattern drawings.  This was a drafting convenience to avoid me having to develop the actual keel width at every frame, which would have been more correct but not really useful, since the keel is not part of the frame. These lines on the frame drawings may be ignored - but do not neglect to taper the breadth of the keel from midship to the ends.
 
Hope this helps.  Thank you for posting your question here on the build log, so others may see it.
 
Ed

Well. it would be an understatement to say I am overwhelmed by all these most generous comments.  It is also nice to hear from those who have been regular but silent followers.  I wish I could individually  thank everyone for the more than 35 comments and 50+ likes after the last post.  Every one of them is well appreciated.  Perhaps one more photo would not be amiss.
 

Thanks again, everyone, for all your support throughout the project.
 
Ed
 
 

Young America - extreme clipper 1853
Part 323 – Wrapping Up
 
Finally, 99.999% means complete.  Since the last post it has been a lot of little chores: snipping rope ends, the last few rope coils, touching up with paint, waxing standing rigging lines, clean up, etc.  Some of the "major" chores are described below.
 
The first picture shows the final disposition of the crojack sheets and tacks.  These were simply allowed to hang free from the clue garnet blocks with their full lengths coiled on deck.  They were tied down to one of the beams under the pile of rope coils to keep them vertical and straight..
 

 
The main braces could finally be run, since access was no longer needed to the deck area between the main and mizzen masts.  The next picture shows the starboard brace pendant shackled to the outer boomkin eye.
 

 
The fall of the brace runs from the yard pendant through the lead block on the rail in the center of the picture, then to a deck cleat.  The other blocks on the boomkin are the upper and lower main topsail braces.  Two missing eyebolts still need to be fitted on the rail. The picture also shows the completion of another chore left over from the volume II work, fitting chains to support the boomkins.  The next picture shows both of these.
 

 
The next picture shows the starboard swinging boom, the lower studding sail boom,  being lashed to the fore channel brackets. 
 
 
The alternative would be to store these on the skid beams over the cabin, but this seemed more appropriate, since in port these were often used to moor ships' boats.
 
The next picture shows the model with the dust case removed in the relatively cleaned-up workshop.
 

 
Finally, launch.
 

Please excuse the amateur artwork.  Couldn't resist.
 
Ed

Hello Mr Bean,
 
Thank you for your interest in the model and for purchasing the books.
 
The stem is 20" athwartship (that is breadth perpendicular to the ship centerline) at the top and tapers down to 13.5" to match the width of the keel at the bottom.  The knee of the head is 13.5" at the join with the stem over its entire length.  I would guess that the reason for that is that the knee of the head does not require the 20" thickness to serve its function of supporting the stem in the fore and aft direction.  It also tapers to a narrower breadth going forward.  At the upper end, the stem it will be wider than the knee of the head by about 3" on each side.
 
For convenience. the frame section drawings used a common template that shows the keel widths at both midship (15") and at the ends (13.5",  so the inner vertical lines on the keel represent the breadth at the ends and the outer lines the breadth at the center - on these pattern drawings.  This was a drafting convenience to avoid me having to develop the actual keel width at every frame, which would have been more correct but not really useful, since the keel is not part of the frame. These lines on the frame drawings may be ignored - but do not neglect to taper the breadth of the keel from midship to the ends.
 
Hope this helps.  Thank you for posting your question here on the build log, so others may see it.
 
Ed

Hello Mr Bean,
 
Thank you for your interest in the model and for purchasing the books.
 
The stem is 20" athwartship (that is breadth perpendicular to the ship centerline) at the top and tapers down to 13.5" to match the width of the keel at the bottom.  The knee of the head is 13.5" at the join with the stem over its entire length.  I would guess that the reason for that is that the knee of the head does not require the 20" thickness to serve its function of supporting the stem in the fore and aft direction.  It also tapers to a narrower breadth going forward.  At the upper end, the stem it will be wider than the knee of the head by about 3" on each side.
 
For convenience. the frame section drawings used a common template that shows the keel widths at both midship (15") and at the ends (13.5",  so the inner vertical lines on the keel represent the breadth at the ends and the outer lines the breadth at the center - on these pattern drawings.  This was a drafting convenience to avoid me having to develop the actual keel width at every frame, which would have been more correct but not really useful, since the keel is not part of the frame. These lines on the frame drawings may be ignored - but do not neglect to taper the breadth of the keel from midship to the ends.
 
Hope this helps.  Thank you for posting your question here on the build log, so others may see it.
 
Ed

Hello Mr Bean,
 
Thank you for your interest in the model and for purchasing the books.
 
The stem is 20" athwartship (that is breadth perpendicular to the ship centerline) at the top and tapers down to 13.5" to match the width of the keel at the bottom.  The knee of the head is 13.5" at the join with the stem over its entire length.  I would guess that the reason for that is that the knee of the head does not require the 20" thickness to serve its function of supporting the stem in the fore and aft direction.  It also tapers to a narrower breadth going forward.  At the upper end, the stem it will be wider than the knee of the head by about 3" on each side.
 
For convenience. the frame section drawings used a common template that shows the keel widths at both midship (15") and at the ends (13.5",  so the inner vertical lines on the keel represent the breadth at the ends and the outer lines the breadth at the center - on these pattern drawings.  This was a drafting convenience to avoid me having to develop the actual keel width at every frame, which would have been more correct but not really useful, since the keel is not part of the frame. These lines on the frame drawings may be ignored - but do not neglect to taper the breadth of the keel from midship to the ends.
 
Hope this helps.  Thank you for posting your question here on the build log, so others may see it.
 
Ed

Thank you very much no idea and Gary.

Hi guy's. Here's a update on the build but this time it is more about her building board. I add a way of being able to tilt her from side to side  which helps keep the back in tack and a lot easier getting to thing's.  I worked on a couple of hanging knee's and being tilted made it a lot better.  I can't take the Credit for it which goes to  Alan/AON and the tech info on it. Hope you enjoy the pictures and any question will be more then happy to answer them

Next up are the spiderbands which require lugs to be soldered to some small thin walled tubing.  I made up a jig which I think is self explanatory.  I used aluminium as the solder will not stick.  The jig allows me to keep the lugs square to the tube even though in the photo they don't look it (optical illusion).  These lugs have yet to be drilled, shaped and cleaned up, then I will use a razor saw to part of 1.5mm wide band with the lugs attached.  The real tricky part will come when I have to try and impart a very shallow taper to the ID of the tube; hopefully the solder (silver soldered) will hold.
 
cheers
 
Pat
 

Well, I have finally got myself back into the workshop and started on some of the smaller fittings to be used in rigging the ship.  The first are the fittings for the lower studdingsail/swing booms for which I need to make the ferule with gooseneck, and the spider bands.  Noting the boom diameter is only a few millimetres in diameter, these are quite small.
 
For the ferule I decided PE was the way to go, so drew up the basic stock parts.  After experimenting I found I could not consistently 'round' a non-circular piece to form the concave end, so ended up going with a circular bit.  I formed the concave shape by using a PE bending jig I have that has dimples inset for this purpose, then pressing the shape using a burnishing tool.   I could not use tube for the bands as the diameters differ so I soldered a thin strip.  The following are a couple of photos showing the end result of my first attempt where the alignment leaves a bit to desire, but overall, when viewed at eye distance, they look OK - not so great close up s they have not been cleaned up yet (the ruler is in mm).  I will use some wire inserted in the end (through the preformed hole) as the start of the gooseneck.
 
cheers
 
Pat
 

Thank you, all for these comments. It will take me some time to repost all the parts, so I hope you will be patient.
 
As to the question on the Victory log. Victory was my first model, built between the years of 1976 and 2009, years when there were other priorities in my life - like family and work. I posted the log as a retrospective build when I first joined the forum. Although I took copious pictures at the end, early photos are sparse and the blog has fewer parts than Naiad. However, I will be reposting it, but right now I'm focusing on getting the Naiad log back. I will try to get some of the early posts back up soon.
 
Ed

1:60 HMS Naiad 1797
Part 6 – Stern and Stem Construction
Original post 10/18/10
 
Stern Deadwood
 
After the timbers of the aft deadwood had been fayed and glued together, the next step was to reduce the deadwood above the bearding line to the final width of 14 ½ inches. This width is equal to the full breadth of the deadwood, 18 ½ inches, minus the 4 inches required for the two 2 inch ledges to support the cant frames. These ledges follow a curve on each side of the hull called the bearding line. On Naiad, this was a continuous curve, not stepped.
 
The bearding line needs to be located accurately so that when the hull is faired the feet of the cant frames remain at roughly their 2 inch thickness (.033” at 1:60) and do not get faired down to less or, in the worst case, nothing. The bearding line can be copied from the original draft and put on the CAD version, but I think it is preferable to develop this line directly from the CAD body plan profiles, which are being used for all the other lofting.
 
The bearding line passes through all the points on the hull at which the moulded breadth of the hull is equal to the deadwood thickness - 18 ½ inches. Placing a vertical line on the body plan at half this breadth from the middle line, allows heights to be taken off at each frame line to plot the bearding line in the sheer plane. This was the approach used to plot the forward and aft bearding lines on the Naiad CAD drawings. The bearding line was a bit of a mystery to me until I visualized it in this way.
 
With a pattern for the aft bearding line in hand, the line was then marked out on the stern timber assembly, which was then set up in the milling machine as shown below.
 

 
The next picture shows a closer view of this setup.
 

 
I will not walk through all the steps of this milling process, but only touch on a few points. First, the work, of course, must be horizontal when milling both faces, so the assembly, which when finished will be narrower at the bottom, was not tapered until after this process was complete. Second, the machining was only carried up to within, say 1/16 inch of the bearding line, leaving the final cutting to be done with hand chisels. Finally, with the top deadwood machined to its final width, the centerline of the assembly was then determined from this and marked on all edges of the piece.
 
After this machining, the sternpost and inner post assembly was attached and the whole fastened to the keel. In the following picture this assembly is shown shored up by one of the clamped squares discussed in Part 4.
 

 
Again, at this stage I was taking few pictures. Cutting out and shaping the sternpost assembly was fairly straightforward. Heights and sizes of the mortises for the transoms were taken from the large Centerline Structures drawing.
 
 
The stem, apron and forward deadwood assembly was made and attached to the keel in much the same way as its aft counterpart. Here is an image of the pattern sheet for the forward structure.
 
 

 
There are more complicated components here, but the process is essentially the same. A separate pattern sheet was made for the knee-of- the-head parts. When all these parts were assembled and attached to the keel, the entire assembly was set up as shown below.
 

 
Permanent supports for the beakhead and sternpost were added later to replace the temporary clamped squares shown in this picture holding the ends vertical. The keel was maintained on center with the small wood blocks screwed into the base with another placed just behind the sternpost.
 

 
In the above closer side view, the bearding line still needs a little trimming and the stem rabbet has only been cut at the top, leaving the section down to the keel rabbet still to be done. The “rising wood,” that is, the deadwood in the center section of the hull is also visible in these pictures.
 

 
This picture shows the details of the beakhead assembly with the gammoning knee in place and also the initial fitting up of the bollard timbers. The picture below shows another view of this.
 

 
In the following picture the bollard timbers have been installed, the knightheads shaped and the bowsprit chock installed. Also the first forward cant frames on the port side are being positioned, but I will save the cant frame discussion for later.
 

 
The bollard timbers have a complex shape. The inside faces are curved to match the curvature of the sides of the stem, which expands in breadth as it rises from the keel. The fore surface matches up to the curved rabbet of the stem, then curves aft matching the hull profile. The aft (inside) surfaces are curved to maintain the correct molded breadth at each height. The aft foot is beveled 34.5 degrees vertically with its edge fitting into a relief cut at the same angle in the apron piece above the bearding line. The outside edge, which is thankfully flat, is cut back about 1 inch over most of its length to give an air space when the first hawse timber gets butted up against it. Finally, there is a complicated bit of fancy joinery needed to get the bowsprit retaining chock to fit neatly between the upper parts, called the knightheads, which get their own little bit of shaping. The next picture is a closer view of all this.
 

 
These bollard timbers turned out to be simple forerunners of what was to come with the modeling of their neighbors, the hawse timbers, which will be covered in the next part.
 
Hold Down Bolts
 
At this stage it was necessary to bolt the keel down securely to the building board, and it was a relief to turn to some work I could get my mind around. For the hold down bolts, special threaded studs were machined in brass as shown below.
 

 
Three of these were made and were spaced out on the keel. Eventually they will be the permanent mounting bolts for the model. The idea behind this design is that the smaller diameter threaded part of this (4-40) will come up through the keel. The shoulder of the larger diameter will be stopped at the bottom of the false keel. Three small (4-40) nuts from above and three larger nuts from below will hold the keel down, initially. Eventually a small nut will be embedded just below the keelson. With the shoulder screwed up against the keel bottom, the top of the small section will be cut off flush with the top of the nut. This will prevent the keelson from being popped off by over-tightening this bolt from below later. The larger size nut under the building board or the base of the case will then hold the model down.
 
All this work was completed by the end of February 2010.
 
Ed Tosti
 
 
]2013 Copyright Edward J Tosti