egkb

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...






 

Pop the champagne, I'm finished with the deck planking!  While a challenging and rewarding experience, I'm happy to be finished with planking.  Like everything else with this build, planking the deck didn't quite go as planned, even with the tick marks and planks drawn out beforehand.  And as you other perfectionists out there can sympathize with, there are a bunch of things that didn't turn out the way I would have liked.  That said, I'm happy with the results, and the quality of the deck planking is in line with the rest of the build.  Which is all I can really ask for as someone being new to this wooden ship building thing.
 
After thoroughly cleaning my hobby area of sawdust, which is also my home office, I'm happy to be moving on to less dusty parts of the build!  I plan on starting Chuck's mini-kit of the windlass this weekend.
 
Erik

Ok last one from me!  I couldn't resist making the lever for the windlass just to see how it looked.  I haven't got a lathe so I winged it a bit but overall I'm happy with the result. I also like the way I can put it in any of the holes on the windlass.



Sorry for the poor picture quality - Mark
 

Some more work done on the windlass and this time I've made the Carrick piece (the larger part) and the cheek.  But before I made them I wanted to make the big locking bolts that run completely through them.  To do this I first had to drill a 0.68mm hole (the smallest end mill that I have) through a 1.5mm diameter brass rod.  Here's a close up of the drilling which makes it look like I'm running a 6mm drill through a 10mm bar 😜

A bit of perspective

These were the beginning of the bolts which were then cut to size and a tapered 0.8mm pin put through and soldered in place.  I then chemically blacked them and here's the result.

I haven't taken any pictures of the making of the Carrick piece or the cheek as it's very straight forward.  I did however take one of the drilling of the holes for the bolts.  I temporarily glued the two halves together and ran the drill straight through.  This worked great and was very easy to do and once again a little IPA separated the parts.

The finished parts with the bolts in place.


Finally here are parts all dry fitted into the hull.  Nothing is glued in at the minute including the beams but it all fits quite nicely.



So thats it for a couple of weeks as I'm in for a quick surgery (nothing major) which they have told me will restrict my lifting and moving.  As soon as I'm fit I'll be back on it.
 
Cheers Mark

Getting into a discussion on guns for another member's model of the Harriett Lane, got me thinking about Constellation's armament, and how it changed over her life.
I thought it would be nice to model a sample of all the guns the ship carried over the span of her career. to sit with her when-ever she's on static display.
Modeling 9 inch Dahlgren tubes in 1:96 for the Lane got me thinking of this.

So, the ship was armed as below at various point over time.
At Commissioning
16 x 8-inch shell guns on 4-truck carriages 4 x 32-pounder guns on 4-truck carriages 2 x 10-inch pivot mounted shell guns (removed July 15 1859) 1 12pdr Dahlgren boat howitzer (in launch) During the Civil War
16 x 8-inch shell guns on 4-truck carriages 4 x 32-pounder guns on 4-truck carriages 1 x 30-pounder pivot mounted Parrot Rifle (bow) iron carriage? 1 x 20-pounder pivot mounted Parrot Rifle (stern) iron carriage? 1870's
8 x 9-inch Dahlgren guns on Marsilly carriages? 1 x 100-pounder Parrot Rifle on wood carriage (gundeck starboard #6 port enlarged to 10ft) 1 x 11-inch Dahlgren on iron carriage (gundeck portside #6 port enlarged to 10ft) 1914
20 x 24-pounder guns borrowed from Constitution for Celebration of War of 1812 in Baltimore 1956+
24 x 24-pounder guns Making one of every gun she's carried will require modeling and printing the following list:
8-inch shell gun on 4-truck carriage 32-pounder gun on 4-truck carriage 10-inch pivot mounted shell gun 12pdr Dahlgren boat howitzer 20-pounder Parrot Rifle on iron pivot carriage 30-pounder Parrot Rifle on iron pivot carriage 9-inch Dahlgren on Marsilly carriage 100-pounder Parrot Rifle on wood shifting carriage 11-inch Dahlgren on iron shifting carriage 24-pounder gun (early 1800's vintage)  This was because of her mistaken identity as the frigate, but she carried them just the same. I'll built these so they'll be scalable from 1:96, up to 1:36, and most likely I'll make the STLs available separately on Thingiverse.
 

Thank you Vladimir 👍
Hi Dave thanks for your nice comments.  I work to the dimensions on Gerards drawings as best I can - so if I measure a piece to be 5.8mm I try and make it that size rather than rounding up to 6mm.  I have found that I get very little cumulative error by doing this   BTW have a really great holiday you lucky fella 👍
 
Okay - the windlass 😍 what a lovely piece this is to make on this ship.  Although I've not strictly adhered to Gerards drawings as it should be slightly barrel shaped I have enjoyed making this.
 
So first of all I had a bit of play to work out the indexing on my rotary table which you can see standing on the mill slide.  Once sorted I shaped a hexagonal piece which was again made by gluing two bits together.  Its dimensions are just over 18mm wide it's quite a chuck of wood.

Looking at the drawings there is a 3 degree angle to be cut on the length of the windlass and also the pawl cut outs are set 12 degrees back from the hexagonal facets.


So I set the 3 degree angle and cut the taper and also rough cut the pawl locations.


Once that was done I revised the pawl cuts and milled them to their final size.  This is easy to do as long as you do not accidentally reset your mill dials.

Then I drilled out the holes for the windlass lever which are set a 90 degrees to each other and go all of the way through too.  I also cut the windlass bearings.
So now I've ended up with a piece looking like this - Now anyone that does machining knows that my biggest problem is turning the windlass around in the chuck.  I cannot grip on the tapered surface with the 4 jaw chuck.

So to solve this problem I made some tapered inserts that I glued on using PVA knowing that I can remove them later using IPA.

I then turned the windlass around in the chuck and repeated the same processes to the other end.


Now the chances of me hitting exactly the same angle with such a Heath Robinson solution was slim.  The windlass did not come out entirely symmetrical but it looks ok to me.  If I made it again I expect that I would get the same result so upwards and forwards.  
 
The next stage was to make the round holes square for the lever which I intend to make later.  I'm sorry but I forgot to take any pictures of this process - Its time consuming to get the square hole completely through but the end result is well worth it.
 
Finally there are 2 iron bands that fit around each end of the windlass.  These are hard to make and get a correct fit being hexagonal  - my advice is just keep at it until you get it right.  Due to my taper/angle discrepancy the ends of my windlass differ by 1mm so each one had to be custom made.

So here's the final result all cleaned up with blackened iron bands - I've never used brass black before but its very easy to use and the results are lovely.



So next I need to make the windlass supports - Thanks everyone for the likes and support with my build
 
Mark
 

OK, this is the 16th kit and will be released in concert with Adder (both developed together), and it is a revisit, as I felt I wanted to do it a little more justice.
 
Here is the new design for HM armed cutter Sherbourne, 1763, designed by Sir Thomas Slade and using all of the reasearch I could lay my hands on to develop an accurate representation of this cute little cutter. This will be the last for my range of naval cutters, being content with a small (Sherbourne), medium (Trial) and large (Alert) cutter.
 
I have added 8x3 pounders, but in reality, she was armed with 6, and she is shown with 12 swivel cannon, but only allocated 8 for the real version - but some moan if they cannot fill gun port slots or populate all of the swivel posts...
 
As with Trial and Adder, all detail at main wale level and above is all pre cut with laser engraved plank lines and treenails. I decided not to paint the inner bulwarks red so the detail could be more easily seen.
 
Hull just needs a final spray varnish, then it's ready for the masts and rig, which I shall do together with Adder.
 
Oh, 64th scale, if anyone asks...and I haven't skimped on the bulkhead spacing....(17 bulkheads)
 
ETA - the skeletal hull was a pre prototype, and the first time I fitted the parts together from my initial designs.

I got all the chain plates pined to the hull now using .013" brass rod.
 
 
 
I think they look a lot better.
 

 

 
Made the woodern box which covered the friction clutch while I was doing this I broke the hinges so will have to make again.
Then made a small step which went in front of the winch gears, saw this in the LB Jenson book.
Also another small item I had not made was the chain box so that is now made.
 

 
 

 
Finaly got a coat of Danish oil on the decking, its been quite a few years.
 

Was just checking the the fit of the Jumbo Jib Stay Bail which I had made a couple of years ago, was trying to get the eye bolts to go in holes I had drilled in deck when the soldered joint gave way.
So thought I should make a different way, started by drilled two .032" holes into a piece of .062" brass rod, then rebent bail legs, made a small drawing so that I could make the couplings to fit the eyebolts better, and so that they would be able to solder to the .032" legs, used 1/16" square brass, machined one side down to .048" the other side machined to .055" thk, then drilled the .020" & .032"holes, the slot was made with a .020" slitting saw, after doing all that it was all soldered together.
 

Then blacken it.
Small thing but made better second time around.

 
Thanks to all who look in, and make a comment, and I appricate the likes as well.
 
Regards
Richard
 
 

Thanks for the likes and the encouraging comments.  I finished more of the deck planking this week.  I did my first scarph joints on the deck.  The remaining planking will be more time consuming since it involves cutting the planks out of wood sheet.  One note on planking color.  Since I have 2 different batches of 3/16" wide wood for the main planking I used, which are both different from 7/32" wide planking I used, which is different again from the wood sheet, I decided to deliberately mix up the planks of different shades from the beginning.  The plank color would vary anyway, and this kept it varied throughout the deck, rather than having bands of different shades as I transitioned from the planking stock to sheet stock.  The photos were taken after a quick first sanding.
 
Erik
 

It's been a couple of weeks since my last post.  I'm taking my time planking the deck.  Like everything on this build, it's more complicated and challenging than I had initially thought it would be.  Haha.  I've managed to get eight more rows of planks down since my last post.  I only did a rough sanding, which is why it still looks a bit crude.  I'll do a final sanding once the entire deck is planked.  Even though I have tick marks on the deck and the planks drawn in, it still takes some effort to get the planks a uniform width, and the run of each plank to flow smoothly when viewed down the length of the hull.   At any rate, for a first deck planking job, I'm happy with the results so far. 
 
Erik
 

And here are some pics of the 'pre-prototype', the hull I used to getconfirmation (or not) of the main parts fit. The channels were changed, as the original plans had them located in different positions, and the main channels needed changing due to the forward most 'stool' being just a little too forward of the main mast..
 
This hull served its purpose and is now in the bin.

OK, just a little update.
 
I have been very busy, if not producing stuff, then trying to carry on with my next two smaller developments.
 
Today I finally completed the hull detail for kit number 15, the gun brig Adder of 14 guns (1797 - Acute Class). 12 x 18 Pounder carronades and 2x24 Pounder carriage guns. I think this has taken three weeks in total to get this far, perhaps two weeks for masts and rig.
 
Size wise this fits neatly in between Alert and Speedy. The designs were a lot more involved than I initially anticipated, with the bluff bow and foredeck drooping down as it goes forward, presumably to help negate the recoil of the large 24 Pounders.
 
As with Trial Cutter, it has drop keels, and all hull detail above main wale is pre cut and engraved, meaning very little planking required, which is also painted (or coppered) anyway.
 
This was meant to be a nice cheap and simple kit, but as usual, I went too far, and ended up with a very detailed little kit with many laser cut and engraved sheets.
 
Scale - 1:64th (of course..)
Hull Length - 406mm
Overall Length (Rigged) - 606mm
Height Overall - 464mm
 
This class was a Henslow design, and if you don't like the name, there is quite a choice:
Acute
Adder
Asp
Assault
Biter
Blazer
Bouncer
Boxer
Bruiser
Clinker
Contest
Cracker
Crash (!!)
Sparkler
Spiteful
 
All ordered and built in 1797
 
Adder was actually lengthened in 1798 to 97' along the main deck, so I doubt she was ever coppered in the as built guise. Most seem to have been coppered at a much later date after their launch, hence the white bottom.
 
No idea how well this will sell....

I'm contrary and obnoxious, so I'm bound to be around to bother people for a long time.
 
The launch and 1st cutter got gudgeons on their stern posts, and all the boats got lifting-eyes.  Decent paint jobs will have to wait for warmer temps so I can use the air-brush to get into all those nooks-and-crannies.
I guess I'll work on their rigs next.  spars are easy, but I don't think I'll make the sails, but just roll some cloth and bundle it onto the spars.  I have some little cleats left-over from plastic kits, and some tiny brass belaying pins I'll put on to detail them a bit more.

gee, yer gettin more and more refined the older you get.......hope you have a long life 😁

Gave the boats a coat of primer.  After I cleaned up the original boats of shop dust, all but the launch got some white paint inside, and black paint outside.  when it gets warm enough, all the paintwork will be fined up with the air-brush, gratings will get painted, etc.

I still haven't found any sort of "official" pattern boat chock, so I just made some simple ones like we had on a boat I worked on long ago.  If I ever find something more "authentic" for Constellation I'll replace these with those.
 
Then I made rudders for the boats, closely followed by tillers.  I don't intend to leave the rudders hanging on the boats, but rather stowed safely in the stern sheets, though I may hang them on the 1st cutter and/or launch once I install gudgeons on them.  I have some fine copper wire eyes in the parts bins that'll be perfect for this I think. 
   

Making the beams for the forecastle deck - As always I made one extra as I always damage one; and I did!


I then cut them to length and placed them into their correct positions.  What I wanted to check was the crown height of each beam and also how they sat on the bowsprit partners.

I'm happy to say that I'm actually on the money this time!  Each beam sits between 1.7mm and 1.4mm too high and they locate nicely into the partners too.  This now gives me the depth of each dovetail joint into the clamps to bring them down to the correct height.  The actually depth should be 1.3mm so I'm pretty close.


I'm now going to make and fit the deck shelf and cut the dovetails etc so that I have a good dry fit.  They can then be put away until the time is right to install them permanently.
 
Mark

Some more done on these two parts.  I made the final pieces and drilled all of the required holes into them both.  The hawse holes are drilled at about 20 degrees.


Unfortunately I drilled the nail holes around the hawse hole at 90 degrees or if you like straight in.  So in these pictures they look correct but after milling the top to its final thickness it moved them off centre - Oh well these things happen.
 
So I fitted them onto the ship and also finished the scuppers for the manger.  I also thought it best that I protect the ship a bit at this stage so I gave the planking a light coat of shellac sanding sealer.



My next job is going to be making the beams for the forecastle deck.  I need to do this as I think my alignment of the bowsprit is slightly off.  Making the beams above the bowsprit partners will help me to see this.
 
Mark

Hi, oki, its bean some wile since i worked on the syren, maby i will finished it in 2024? 😉
am trying to get all of the bits and peaces glued on and make up all the masts etc so i can 
startthe rigging , so i have some hope this year😉
 
svein.e.
 

It's time to put the dust away. Ten years ago I started with great enthusiasm the build of the small cutter. But to be honest I was not able to reconstruct the framing of the cutter. So I stopped after some time and paused the project. In October of 2022 I started a new try.
I lerned a lot and made a complete rework of my reconstruction. The first two pictures are showing a 3D-model which I used to check my lines.


 
As written in the old posts I was not happy with the frame design in Goodwins AotS Book. In my opinion, it does not fit into the time in which the cutter was built. There are several DoF plans of small ships of this era in the NMM. What almost all of them have in common is that the double frames were dissolved. A space was also left between the first futtock and the floortimber. However, the "double frames" were still connected by chocks.
 
The picture shows my reconstruction. I have it a little bit simplified, because I w like to plank the hull, so the shifted top timbers will not be visible. Many many thanks to @Chuck who gave me the inspiration for the simplification.
 

Since February last year I am working on the model. All parallel frames have been built in the meantime. I am now busy with a second version of the backbone.
The build is more or less a test to learn working with my CNC. In November I have started working on my sloop Fly again. The plan is to build and test the building methods on Alert and use this than for my ship sloop.

The quarter-boat was built a little "heavier," learning from the 2nd cutter.  A lot of parts from the cutter were copied into the QB and adjusted to fit, until it was ready to be mirrored into a whole boat and printed.
       
In the slicer software the blue box outline shows the volume the printer can handle.  There was no trouble printing two copies of the boats at once.
     
Like the cutter, the two halves are bonded together by wetting the seam with resin and zapping it with UV light.  The seam needs some clean-up, just like any plastic model.
 
Here's all three boats on the model where they'll be stationed eventually.

Now it's on to the stern boat...

Hi Everybody,
my display case is still not finished, but I managed to make some progress with the stand. I saw, that many displays have the model parallel to the keel, my model will be sitting parallel to the waterline. There will be two collumns, one at the bow, one at the stern wich have a different length to get the balance.
Here are some pictures:

 
 

 
 

 
 

 
 

 
 
Matthias

I thought drawing in the tick marks and drawing the placement of the hook scarph joints wouldn't take too long.  Well, after about 12 hours over the last week, I'm finally happy with the way everything looks on the deck, and I'm ready to proceed with the deck planking.  Getting the drawn-in planking to look and flow the way I wanted it took so many adjustments and needed to be redone so many times I actually had to go out and buy more erasers!  The last redo was actually after these photos were taken.  I moved the rear of the aft scarph joints back a bit after viewing the photos, in order to have the taper of the outer 4 planks better match the inner 6 planks aft of the skylight.  I also tweaked a couple of other areas after viewing these photos.  Since I've never planked a deck before, my goal was to spend as much time as necessary to get the planking drawn in on the deck.  Sort of the planking version of adding training wheels to a kids bike, or having bumpers in the gutters when kids bowl at a bowling alley.  I'm trying to minimize my chances of screwing the deck planking up since it will be a very visible part of the build.  The saying, proper planning prevents poor performance, comes to mind.  One note when looking at the photos - since the plank lines were drawn in straight lines between the tick marks, it doesn't flow as smoothly visually as the actual curved planks will.
 
Erik

Thanks Tobias but I can assure you that this build is far from perfect mate.  I'm constantly having to make allowances for earlier errors but I guess thats ship building for you.
 
The scuppers - The technique that druxey suggested to me works great for finding the line through the hull.  On this scale though it's a long way through the hull to make each side meet.  I guess you just have to be brave and get cracking with a chisel.  So first of all I cut the holes through as best that I could - I did pick up a little damage but nothing really to worry about.  I've also learnt that these small errors disappear in the long run as you simply stop seeing them.
 

Next I made a rectangular tube out of pewter - easy to make and difficult to fit through the hull - it just takes time.

Then I roughed the tube to the correct dimensions but left some on to sand down later.  Its worth noting that that the tube dimensions are slightly different from the outside to the inside.

Following on from my previous bad experience using cyano I glued these in using 20 minute epoxy resin.  I really like this glue - it gives loads of time to jiggle things around and cleans up easily with IPA.

Next was to make the end plates on the inside and outside.




So thats one side complete and now onto the starboard side - which I still haven't finished nailing yet!
 
Cheers Mark