egkb

More progress on the eight fishing dories, using swiss pear which is very nice to work with, planks are .018" thick easily bendable with fingers.
Had a clamp which I glued bits of wood to, so that sanding to shape was easier. 

 
First planking done now have to work out shape for the second plank.
 

 
Until next time,
Regards
Richard
 
 

This week I decided to mix things up a bit, taking a break between making the backstay plates and the chain plates.  I made the 22 eye bolts for the hull exterior and cap rail top.  While I have every manner of small diameter wire -  lead, brass, copper, phosphor bronze, steel - down to .002" diameter, I didn't have the type of wire best used by ship modelers for these types of things.  So after some research on this forum I ordered both 24 and 22 gauge Hillman Group dark annealed wire.  I must say, trying to make 22 identical eye bolts was more of a challenge than I thought it would be!  I never did get to a point where they were consistent.  That said, I selected groups that were close to identical to one another to fasten in the same area.  I figure if the port side eye bolts are slightly different than the starboard, a viewer would never know since you only see one side of the ship at a time.  I followed what Mike (Stuntflyer) had done in his Cheerful build log, and filed a little channel around the holes so the eye bolts snug down a bit.
 
I also drilled the scupper holes in the outside of the hull.  This was pretty straight forward, other than when I went to photograph the model I could see the bright wood on the inside of the bulwark.  I wound up taking a fine brush and painting the interior black, followed by running a pencil around the plank edge of the hole.
 
My next step will be to drill the scupper holes on the interior bulwark/deck area.  Does anyone have any advice or wisdom on that?  Am I drilling all the way through the interior planking?  I know I need to make the holes so they notch into the lip of the waterway at deck level.
 
Erik

Hi, Thomas. I hope life has allowed you some time to get back to this beautiful project?

A little bit of progress this week.  I'm new at metal working, so it took some trial and error to figure out how I am going to make the backstay plates and chain plates.  One of the main issues to getting the ball rolling was figuring out how I was going to make these without the availability of 1/64" x 3/32" brass strip.  It would appear that K & S has discontinued nearly its entire line of brass strip, and I couldn't locate any of the size I needed in my internet search.  Many years ago I had bought a package of various sizes of 6" x 12" brass shim stock (used to shim the plates when molding parts in plastic injection molding machines so that they align correctly) just in case I ever needed sheet brass.  These sheets came in thickness of .001", .0015", .002", .003", .004", .005", .006", .007", .008", .010", .012", and .015".  The .015" thickness is the decimal measurement of 1/64".  So I have my material.  I used a pair of ancient tin snips I have in my toolbox to cut 3/32" wide strips off the sheet.  I then had to flatten the strips since they curled both along the face and the edge.  Next I filed the sharp edges flat.  Then used flat pliers to eliminate the lengthwise cupping caused in cutting the strips off the sheet.  Now that I had my self-made strips ready, I then shaped the backstay plates following Chuck's instructions in his monograph.  Since the strips I created were rough and with blemishes, I polished the finished backstay plates with a fine file after shaping was complete, just because I'm a perfectionist, and that's how I roll!  Yes, I know they'll be painted black.  Haha.
 
Erik

Not a ton of progress this week.  I did finish fashioning and installing the boarding ladders and channels though.  I must say ripping the boards by hand out of sheet stock to make these parts is a bit of a pain in the rear.  lol.  Also, it was tough getting the pattern cut into the scraper to make the boarding ladder profile.  I think my limitation there was my lack of precise small files.  I deliberately made the filed notches in the channels that will house the chainplates narrower than they'll be.  I just wanted to get the notches placed correctly and the angles in, according to the plans.  I'll finish the notches up when I fit and attach the chainplates.
 
And lastly, I'm patting myself on the back.  My third photo below manages to capture the elusive and hard to photograph lower step of the Cheerful's boarding ladder (located on the wale and painted black).  Haha!
 
Erik

Coming back to a build table near me, my Enterprize will be continued as soon as Indy is completed, provided i can remember where i put her

As the weather has been nice over the last two weeks, I've swapped my little shipyard for my bike. As a result, I haven't got as far as I had planned.

As I wrote in the last part, I want to try a different technique for the after deadwood, especially to avoid milling on both sides. Firstly, the individual components of the deadwood are milled once with the correct side and once mirrored. In order to be able to glue the two sides together later, recesses are milled into which fitting pieces are glued before gluing them together.

The next picture shows the components removed from the board and trimmed.

Before gluing them together, a few small curves that inevitably result from the milling cutter must be removed. I do this with my little Proxxon.

The last picture shows the individual components after gluing them together.

A weak point became apparent when machining the parts. The direction of the wood grain of the tabs, which are used to position the finished component on the keel, follows the overall part. It would have been better to mill the tabs separately and rotate the grain by 90°. This would have made the components much less susceptible to breakage.

In the next part of the report, both sides of the deadwood parts will be milled and the deadwood glued together.

To those who have bought a Sherbourne kit, I have just noticed an issue with one in every eight laser etched decks.
 
If you have the deck on the left of the picture, with the bitt square hole not aligned like it is on the right of the picture, please contact me so that I can arrange a replacement deck.
 
 

Just an update on what I am doing right now, and what is planned for the next year.

I did mean to have a couple of weeks off after Sherbourne and Adder, but cannot help myself, so started designs for the 17th kit. The next two kits will be medium size. The one I am working on now, once designed and plans drawn, will be built by Jim, along photos and text for manual. This then frees me up to concentrate on the 18th medium kit – so after a very large kit like Indy, there will have been 3 mediums and 3 smaller kits done. After this, the 19th kit will be large, and hopefully, we will have moved to larger premises by then, as space is a major issue now – so another very large kit like Indy is out of the question until we have more space.
 
Also slowly building back up my stock of materials, pear sheet especially, and photo etched sheets for each of the kits.

Finally, I already mentioned this, I would like to commission someone to produce more 3-d printed boat files for me – if you feel you can/want do this, let me know.
 

I had a question in "Discussion for a ships deck furniture, Guns, Boats and other fittings" regarding where do they take the dimension of 15'-0" fishing dory, and the answer was from the bottom.
So now I have started to scratch build eight of these as per the plans 3/16"=1'-0" this would be 2.8125" or 71.43mm long on the bottom, they do have plywood laser cut pieces to make the shape but I want to have overlapped planks showing.
 
Started by printing out the plans so that I could make a plug, but before that I made eight bottoms from three planks glued together.
 

On the drawing they only had three lines of outside of planking, I needed six, so made some more copies and proceeded to work out the other three. 
 

Taking a piece of wood I laid out the station, machined a 1/32" slot in five of the stations, cut out the five inside planking shapes, then proceeded to glue shapes into slots.
shaped the bottom planks then checked the bottom planking to jig, also made the stem/false stem together 
 
I found the stations not stable enough, I could have put a piece of 1/32 plywood in between but decided to fill with solid wood, carving the shape.
 

 

To help laying the planks I made the jig so that I could turn either way so I could lay the planks easier, and at the same time drilled holes in bottom so that it would nold to plug. 

I have cut the first planking for both sides, started to file them to the shape then proceed to glue the first planks bottom, stem and stern.
Took it out of the jig/plug and so far its working as I intended, have a few guys thinking what's next.

Will make all eight to this stage before making the next row of planking, here is number 2 ready for first planks.
 

Until next time,
Regards
Richard
 
 
 
 
 

Hi John,
You could ask Chris at VM and see if he will sell the fishing figures again?
Regarding the question on magnification I have a prescription glasses so that I can see clearly 6" away from my face  also I like light, last year I got a examination light for veterinarian clinic from a Canadian company which really helps and also have a good table light.
 

 

 
Regards
Richard
 

Greetings to everyone, despite the many professional obligations the shipyard continues its work all this time, I will be with you soon with several photos from the completion of the ship after a long time, thank you

Hard to believe, but once again it has been ages since I last did anything with this build.  Last time I actively worked on this was 2018. Six years gone.
 
That has not stopped me from thinking ahead and planning the next steps. though.  Part of what I have been planning has been an upgrade to my little shipyard/workspace.
Let me tell you a story.
 
Upgrading the Shipyard
Several years ago, I knocked together a workspace to use for ship modeling as well as home office use.  It consisted of two 2-drawer filing cabinets and a six-foot wood work surface laid over the top. It sufficed for many years, but it had several short-comings. There was a certain lack of stability, no way to level the surface, cable management was a problem, and various pieces of equipment and electronics ended up on the floor of the knee hole or on the floor behind the workstation.  In addition, the computer monitor, printer, and other items took up valuable work area in an already very small workspace. The cheap edge banding I had applied to the original work top had also begun to peel off. I also did not like the way the keyboard tray was mounted. When pushed all the way in the front edge protruded further from the front of the top allowing stuff to fall down from the worktop directly into the keyboard.

A few months ago, a part of my Dremel tool broke. Instead of buying the replacement part I decided to splurge for an upgrade. I purchased a Foredom Tx flexible shaft motor and handpiece.  I took the opportunity, while my Soliel Royal model was entered into this year’s model show, to do the work to upgrade the shipyard.
 
Step one was to connect the two file cabinets into a proper rigid desk base.  This was accomplished by fastening a piece of quarter inch plywood as a back and fitting a shelf between the cabinets to hold all the electronic equipment that used to be on the floor.  Adjustable levelling feet were added to each filing cabinet.  The ¾ inch shelf rests on a cleat attached to the back board and a bracket on each cabinet. The back board was pierced with 2-inch holes for cable management. Notice in the pictures the jury-rigged clamps. There was a slight bow in the plywood backboard which caused the front of the cabinets to splay out wider in the front. I had to draw them back in to fit the shelf properly and I did not have a clamp that was long enough.



Step two dealt with the work surface. The old edge banding was stripped off and a 1 x 3 poplar board was applied to the back edge to act as a back stop preventing stuff from rolling off the back edge of the table into the mysterious parts black hole that seems to form in every modeler’s workspace. The top was also pierced with 2-inch cable management holes and new better quality edge banding was applied to the front and sides.  I had been using a 12 x 12 sample granite tile as a sort of heat shield when I did my soldering.  When not in use the tile lived under the desk.  I decided this upgrade would include insetting the tile into the surface of the work top so that it would be flush with the top.  A cavity was routed into the desktop to take the 3/8 inch tile. I also cut a 2-inch hole up from underneath the desk into this cavity to be able to push the stone up from the bottom for removal when required.  It all seemed to be working out perfectly until the stone cracked while trying to fit it the first time.  So, another trip to the tile store where an identical sized marble tile was found to replace it.  Both tiles only cost some smiles and friendly conversation. You know…schmoozing.
 

Step three consisted of constructing a new printer stand/table to free up valuable worktop real estate. The table is made from poplar. I bought three 6-foot boards; 1 x 3, 1 x 4, and 1 x 10. and a length of 2 x 2 poplar for the legs. The 1 x 10 was rough cut into three parts and edge jointed and glued up for the top. The 1 x 4 was used to make the aprons and the 1 x 3 went into the stretchers for the legs. Construction of the printer table took 2 days: one for the cutting, assembly and rough sanding, and the second for finish sanding, stain, and polyurethane top coats. This is nowhere near fine furniture grade stuff.
 

The final act was assembly.  Wooden cleats were fastened under the desktop to position and hold the desktop in place on the file cabinets. Plastic cable management grommets were placed into their holes. A power strip was mounted on to the base back board. The Ethernet hub was mounted on the left file cabinet and a USB hub was mounted on the right file cabinet. The network storage drive and the speaker system were placed on the under-desk shelf.  A new swing arm wall monitor mount was mounted above the left side of the desk.  The stand for the Foredom drill is mounted to the top of the desk.  This stand also includes as an add on feature a light kit that turns on by swinging the light down from vertical to horizontal.  The printer was moved to its new home on the printer stand to complete the project.
 



And there you have it.  I just brought the build back home today from the model show and I am feeling inspired to continue along on this build.
 
Thanks for looking in.
 
Regards,
Henry

Now for some analysis of geometry and construction. 
 
Fifteen years ago, I built the stern frame based on my observation of the first Bellona model, and the Admiralty drawings. I did not understand what I was building at the time, I just followed what I saw. And now I understand as I get into the details.
 
In the model, you can see a couple of strange things. first, the tops of counter timbers with the dovetail joints stand proud of the horizontal transom tying them together. This leaves a gap of about 2". I now realize that these gaps provide a space for the bank of sash windows to slide up into. It means that the windows can be opened at the bottom by about 9"; not a lot, but better than no opening!
 
Second, the side counter timbers, effectively the end of the hull frame, project out from the bottom of the balcony upwards. that is, the bank of windows are recessed back relative to the balcony, creating a shadow line between the upper and lower parts of the stern. There is no functional reason I can see here; it is a visual trick to emphasize the sweeping serpentine curve of the balcony from one side of the composition to the other.

That creates some complication in how this is constructed. The green line shows the aft most edge of the side counter timbers, or hull. There is one moulding along the tops of the window bank, just under the balcony, in red below. Another moulding runs along the base of the balcony, in orange below.
 

 
when the balcony swings out from the stern, the two mouldings split from each other:
 

The next item I did not fully appreciate until I started constructing the stern is how its design needs to reconcile  two geometries working against each other; the upper sweep of the sheer, and the flatter sweep up of the decks (red lines below). The conflict shows a little where the gun ports cut into the sheer in odd places.

But at the stern they really need to be resolved. One of the most important, I discovered, is that the moulding at the tops of the windows must align with the sheer of the deck at its upper edge (orange line below), since it sits flush under the deck itself; but its lower edge must conform to the sheer of the hull (dotted red line below), since it turns the corner and runs along the side of the quarter galleries that align with the hull's sheer.
 

And then one more thing about the stern. In 2014, ten years ago, I posted a question about the stern geometry (posting #173). I noticed a discrepancy in the drawings relative to the roundup of the quarterdeck. If I continued the deck aft with its normal roundup, it was a couple of inches lower than the deck as it was shown coming out into the balcony. There was a lot of discussion around posting 173 as to whether this was a mistake in the drawing, or something else. I finally found in Steel that the quarterdeck does indeed increase its roundup as it approaches the stern balcony, to give a lighter, more springy feeling to the visual lines of the stern. So the drawing is correct, and this needs to be accounted for:
 
 

So, construction next!
 
Mark
 

Thanks for the kind words!  Toni, as far as the photos go, your comment is worth an explanation of how I get my photos.  I take the photos on my work space, which is pretty darn small.  Especially for the last year or so since I've been working mostly from home (I'm a remotely working accountant for the National Center for Atmospheric Research). I threw in a photo of my work space too.  Basically my work day, and hobby, all take place on different sides of my L-shaped desk.  It means my commute from work to modeling at the end of my work day takes about one second.  Haha.   I have a large sheet of light blue construction paper for a photo background that I tape down to my work surface.  For lighting, I always take the photos mid day in front of the window, which provides good area lighting, and use a halogen desk lamp with 700 lumen bulb as a spot light aligned with the lens of the camera.  The camera I use is a 7 year old Olympus OM-D mirrorless camera with a 14-22mm lens mounted on my now 30 year old Gitzo tripod.  I use the self timer so I'm not touching the camera when the shot is taken, this aids in crisp photos.  For each shot I take a 3 photo bracket by 1/3 stops using aperture priority with an F stop of F22 (creates the greatest in-focus depth of field).  The aspect ratio I prefer is 16:9 which gives a horizontal rectangle photo, rather than a square, so there is not too much dead space at the top and bottom of my photos.  For size I select 1280 x 720.  This is big enough to see details, but small enough to not use a lot of memory.  Once I have all my photos I upload them into the Olympus photo software on my laptop.  I delete 2 of the 3 photos taken in the bracket, selecting the one that is the best brightness wise.  The only editing I do is making the crispness greater (not sure why the camera doesn't automatically do that itself with in-focus photos), and to get the boxwood to look the actual color/shade it is, I've been color correcting slightly by adding a small bit of blue hue and very slightly removing red hue.  This has been an evolutionary process for me.  I don't have any kind of formal training, and taking photos of something as large as Cheerful, the largest model I've ever built, has had it's own learning curve.  I threw in a photo of my last ship build below, a 1/350 scale tugboat, for a comparison of the "normal" size I'm used to photographing!  For me, presentation is a fun part of participating in forums, so I really strive to have good photo presentation for you wonderful folks!   Hope this is useful for people.  I encourage my fellow modelers here to play around with their photography.  You'd be surprised at what you can come up with.
 
Erik

As always, thanks for the likes folks.  I finished a few different things over the last week.  I spent time shaping the rudder.  Using the plans I drew the lines that I would sand down to on the rudder faces and sides.  Doing this gave me the visual cue to not over or under sand.  Once the rudder was done I cut out the rudder port.  I made a paper template from the plans that I used to get the shape correct.  Next I made the top of the rudder post.  This took way more time than it should have.  I accidentally removed too much material from the laser cut piece.  So I would up gluing on a chunk of scrap wood to that piece and then shaping the whole thing again.  Sometimes it's the one little piece of wood that is the biggest pain!  The last thing I did was shape the 6 timber heads.  This was a bit nerve wracking as a newbie, but they turned out OK.  The photo below shows the tools that wound up working best for me (as well as a rough cut timber head before clean up).  For some reason, on any model I build, I'm most comfortable using either a #17 or #18 X-Acto chisel blade with no handle (rather than a #11 blade w/handle).  I know it's weird, but it gives me more control by holding the blade directly.  The overall height of the timber heads match the plans, but my angled faces are not as tall as the plans.  No big deal really since all 6 look the same.
 
The next thing I'll be working on is the boom crutches.  Wish me luck!  Haha.
 
Erik

Hi All
 
So it's time to put all of these pieces together and just generally catch up with myself.  So firstly I put in all of the nails that I had missed and finished parts for the hatch above the stove.  I also had to make the decorative rail that covers the end of the last beam.
 
Loads of small clamps on the rail to get a nice even curve

Then it was just a case of assembly and clean up.  The results are below.






So thats the forecastle deck and detailed work below pretty much finished.  I'm a little unsure what to do next but I think its probably about time I finished off the planking of the hull.
 
Cheers Mark

Thanks Jeremy 🙂
 
Right I'm back from the hospital and I've been repaired but apparently it's no work for me for a few weeks.  So completely ignoring their requests I decided to get on with a bit of ship building to keep me sane 😜
 
Picking up where I left off my next jobs are to make the ships stove and the small office.  Both of these parts require a bit of deck for a base so I did this first.  I made these parts of the deck as they should be underneath them rather than just placing a bit of wood for them to stand on.  The deck under the stove has a layer of metal on top I guess to keep the heat away from the wood.
 


The stove starts with a pretty simple wooden box with 4 legs that go through the base.

I then lined 3 of sides with bricks that I bought online at 1/24 scale - I never realised that building ships also involves brick laying!  The only tricky part of this job was the small corner 45 degree bricks.  To get the 12 that I needed cost me about 40 bricks!


I never really know how much detail people want but next I needed to cut the brass strips for the iron cage that fits inside.  These strips were cut from 0.25mm thick brass and are 1.2mm wide.  To do this I use double sided tape to hold the brass on a sacrificial piece of wood.  It's dead simple but the clean up of the saw takes about 30 minutes as the sawn tape just sticks to everything inside of it.


 I wanted the cage to be half decent so I opted to use a plug to try and get a good fit.  It's a nice snug fit inside which does not allow for the brass cage.

I then marked out and milled the cage to be made - The inside cuts are 0.5mm deep and the outside cuts are 0.25mm deep.  It's not perfect but it's good enough.

Next was to solder the pre-cut brass strips into the plug.

This can then be pushed into place and the brass can be easily folded over the edges of the stove without loosing any of its intended shape.


The result turned out quite nice




Finally the brass was blackened; the bottom bricks installed; the feet cut to a 5 degree angle to suit the deck; lifting eyes made and my favourite - the grill bars were installed.  I've not explained how the grill bars were fitted as this caused me some thinking as they are sunk into the bricks - so how do you think this was done??





I'm very pleased with this little stove which I guess took 10 - 12 hours to make as there are many elements to its construction.  It's a bit glossy on the inside at the moment but I'll sort that out before it's finally installed.  I have 2 more parts to make for it which help firmly fix it to the deck.  Other than that I'll make a start on the small office next.
 
Cheers Mark

The resolution is high enough to get a good finish, but since it prints in layers there's going to be some lines and that butterfly wing texture.
It's as much or more dependent on the 3D model.  The gun tube I made from a 64-sided cylinder then applied a "smooth" feature to it after getting the general shape, which made it 192 sided, I think.  More smaller smaller polygons looks smoother than fewer bigger ones.  The trucks are 32-sided, and you can see the facets on them. 
My models are mostly "low-poly" because it's a habit I got into making 3D models for a flight sim back in the early 90's when too many polygons would stop the sim dead in it's tracks.  It's akin to my programming from back then too when a 30 meg hard drive cast $700.
The pivot gun on the left is the "low-poly" tube I made years before I ever 3D printed anything.  The one on the right got a higher-poly tube which is much better visually.
 
These are 1:36 scale.  Scaling them down to say 1:48 or 1:76 might reduce the visibility of faceting on something like the trucks, but you'd still see it on the gun barrel.  Resin printing is very faithful to the 3D model that way.  

And here are the Adder laser cut and PE parts, not on A3 like Sherbourne, but 50x70cm sheets. Also one of the profile plans, where the 'droop' of the foredeck is clearly visible. 

I will not be able to get Sherbourne as cheap as the other one, as this is very pre fabricated with many more parts, but I do plan to subsidise the first batch so that I retail it for under £150. One of my aims (as well as making a little profit) has always been to encourage new modellers to the hobby, and not put them off with crap.
 
Sherbourne has 19 A3 size plan sheets (as well as a full colour A4 manual), with 10 plan sheets dedicated to the very simple masts and rig, breaking the rigging down into bite size portions. I have included here the plan sheets for the laser cut sheets and PE, so you can see what actually goes into the bulk of this kit, as well as a couple of profile plans.

..And second prototype model done. Well, still have the clear acetate stand to add, but rig completed literally minutes ago...
 
Sherbourne (64th)

Hi all. 
 
Apologies that this build has stalled from my perspective. The post here will explain
 
 
Blessing on you all.
 
Rob

Hi there  all,   I  decided  to  have  another   mess about with  my  photo  files  -  so  in  my Lightroom  I  cropped  a   few  then  lifted  the light  levels  added some   contrast  -  Black  levels  -  Colour  and  reduced  the  High lights   then I sent them into  my  Topaz   de noise   before  saving back into  Lightroom  where they had some  selective  sharpening  and  saved  back into my files.
 
Hope  you  enjoy.
 
OC.

One down, one to go...