egkb

Hi all
 
Sorry for the lack of updates I've been busy doing other things so the build is taking a bit of a back seat just for the moment.
 
I have to admit I really have had problems getting my head around the drawings for the hawse timbers.  I've been looking at Adrian Sorolla's book and it seemed to me that his pictures really didn't quite match the plans by Gerard.  So I've been going around in circles trying to get a working understanding.
 
My conclusion is that Adrian very cleverly simplified the design slightly for ease of build.  The first hawse timber is very slender and requires a very accurate taper of 16.9 degrees to set the rest of the timbers up.  I think that Adrian left this first timber fairly flat and then sanded the shape both inside and out once built.
 
So what with me being one for a bit of self punishment I decided to follow the plans to the letter.  This obviously meant that I had to cut this taper into hawse timber one.  At first I tried sanding this taper but failed as the timber becomes so thin that the end kept on breaking off.  So I knew that it had to be machined and I eventually solved this problem.
 
I purchased a cheap angle meter for £12 which has proven invaluable for this job.  I also made a very simple jig for the mill vice which to my surprise actually worked with a bit of double sided tape.
 
Anyway I now have 3 of the 5 hawse timbers lined up on the starboard side.  I have held the timbers temporarily together with some 1mm brass rod which I will swap out for wood when it comes to gluing the whole assembly together.  I want to glue it together but not to the hull so that I can sand it into shape off of the ship.
 
Some pictures below which probably explain it all better than my words.  I'm glad that I'm moving forward again and I'm much better now at interpreting drawings now - well until the next problem!
 
Mark
 

Bit more progress with coppering a lady's bottom. I have fitted the plates which are mostly whole (apart from a little trimming) which leaves the complicated and difficult plates around the edges. It was quite straight forward to fit most of these plates in strips of various lengths. The marks on the photo below are where I scraped away excess CA adhesive.
 

 
I have completed one difficult bit which is to infill the 'stealer' between rows two and three at the stern. This was time consuming and included holding plates with tweezers so I could cut back an edge with a sanding stick, all under an illuminated magnifier so I could see what I was doing. Differences of 0.1mm are visible so there was a lot of cutting and test fitting before I was satisfied with the result. 
 

 
George

Slowly making more progress.  I thought once I painted the details that it would be a day or two more of work and then I could get to clear coating and weathering.  Has been a little bit more involved.  I think I'm just about at the point where a few more final details and paint touchups and I can start finalizing the build.  It's amazing how many details there are on destroyers.
 

 

 

 
 
 
I ended up buying a hot wire foam cutter (Proxxon) to be able to cleanly cut foam to make the diorama base.  I need to look into what type of foam board to buy.  I think some use standard styrofoam, while you can also use stuff like expanded foam, builder foam (might be the same as expanded foam), etc.   Not exactly sure what all those are, so need to educate myself.  The great thing about the hot wire cutter is that you end up with clean cuts and don't have bits and pieces of foam all over the place with that nasty electrostatic cling if you use a saw or knife to cut it.  Well worth the money in my opinion, as I hate trying to clean up foam particles that stick to everything but inside the garbage bin.

Jim gave me a couple of pics of the new kit production prototype models, Erycina and Nisha.
 
I am aiming to have these released before Christmas. However, this all depends on whether the boxes will be delivered on time. I am having these made in the Czech Republic, so the box tops are full colour printed.
 
Nisha, the small Brixham Mumble Bee will have a 4 pre made sail option and Erycina, the Plymouth ketch, will have 5.
 
I live the lines of Erycina so much that my pre-prototype hull now sits on out mantlepiece!  (Nisha has the white lower rail and black upper bulwarks, and Erycina has the green, with both awaiting their lower hulls painted)

Another three rows of copper plates are now fitted to the hull, mostly in strips. At the bow they curve upwards and leave triangular spaces against the blue tape that marks the top row. At the stern there is a stealer gap that cannot be hidden and I placed it between rows two and three. The strips of plates for rows three, four and five follow their natural lines on the hull. 
 

 
George

Before fixing the copper plates I marked the waterline in the time-honoured way with the hull upside down and a pencil taped to a block of wood. I then pressed on some 6mm wide masking tape with its upper edge (lower edge on the photo...) aligned with the water line. The top row of the copper plates will run along here and the tape will show me when I need to cut the main plates to fit. 
 

Marking the waterline
 
The tape wrinkles around the bow and stern where it curves across its width. The plates here will need careful trimming when I get to them. 

Masking tape to show the position of the top row of copper plates
 
And the coppering begins. 
The Amati plates come in two small sheets (port and starboard) and I scored along one of the lines then bent the plate to separate one of the rows. The plates have a fake overlap and do not need a real, physical one on the model, which means that you can apply a strip rather than individual plates. That said, the longest strip that I could fit by the keel was four plates long. 
Learning points for me:
Start at the bow and work towards the stern for any one row. The plates have to be trimmed to fit and it is better to cut back the 'underlap' edge rather than the 'overlap' edge which has extra nail detail on it Make sure that a plate or strip fits by cutting back the 'underlap' edges. I found filing with a sanding stick worked, as did running a knife along the edge to remove fine slivers. Cutting with scissors is good when removing larger areas but cutting with a knife against a ruler, as for wood, distorts the copper To fix a strip, apply cyano acrylate (CA) superglue to the back of the second plate and angle it up slightly from the first plate. Now position the first (dry) plate, hold it down, then fold down the second plate and let the glue grab. Then lift the first plate, apply CA and press it down. The CA grabs quickly and I had to lift a few plates and try again because there were gaps where I did not want them To fix a single plate apply a small drop of CA near one end then position the other end against the adjoining plates. Hold down the end then let the other make contact and press down. If the gaps are too big then the plate is easily  pinged off by sliding a knife point under it The glue bond will not always be sound and a lifted edge can be repaired by applying a small drop of CA and then pressing down the plate with a cocktail stick. Wipe away the glue that is squeezed out Fitting planks is easier than fitting copper plates!
The three plates further from the keel were applied in one strip. The cut-back plate was then fitted into the gap
 

Plates near the stern were applied in strips or individually. With this magnification the etched joins look different from cut, butt joints. The folded parts on the stern post will be trimmed off later
 
Those two rows of copper plates are about five hours work, but the second side was quicker than the first. It will be a lot more than a couple of evenings to fit them all. 
 
George
 
 

Nearly done; Zulu needs a single Pom Pom 

good evening everyone
 
looking through all my old builds, the one thing i have learnt, if you don't like it, dont hide it, just re-do
the lower deck beams i now believe to be in the correct position
looking through the AOTS Pandora book i need to move the bulkheads to the sailroom and others to match the beams, so as they were fixed to the deck i ripped it out cleaned it all up, which gave me the opportunity to put a  bulkhead in under the 1/4 platform (coal store)
 
now means i am in a good place now to get the passage way doors scuttles and bulkheads in place
 
a test fit of the upper beams show they are in the right place

 
 

Hi Kevin - you say that you are worried about being a ship builder. 
 
Mate you are building a ship so you are  a ship builder 👍. 
 
keep going bud as it looks great and stop beating yourself up!  This is a really good build. 

good evening everyone
 
work continues, but i never thought it would be this difficult, the main deck is fine, but matching the deck below is very slow (i will never make a  model  ship builder)
sail room deck made up and fitted


lower deck in and secure, was also pinned 
getting the lodging knee on the port side the right shape is my biggest concern, but it is in line and the right height  for the hanging knee

lower deck in and secure, was also pinned 

sail room buikhead and pillars in
lining up the rest of the internal bulkeads

 
the upper deck is just for the photo
 

 
 

OCT 31
1762 HMS Panther and HMS Argo, take Galleon Saintissima Trinidada off the Phillipines. 1860 Thomas Cochrane Dies
 
 

Ras is back. With an almost completed Fifie, I took a leave from this build to address my other project Amapá.
I had decided to scratch build Amapá and that, with my now vast experience (???) in planking, it wouldn't take long. I thought that in a couple of weeks I could finish the new hull, take another break and come back to finish Fifie. Was I wrong!
This week I finally decided (or rather my wife asked me when I was going to finish Fifie) to come back and tackle the numerous details that I want to add including fixing some damage to my rigging that occur when I moved Fifie from the shop to the apartment.
Today I started to assemble the skiff and it looks so cute. I expect that the planking will be a cinch(??). Remember that this skiff is barely 6" long.
 

 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

that is some very clean tidy work very well done
 

Looking great Jim.. I have some more questions (hope you don't mind)
1.  I see paint pots in the build box, aside from the guns, what parts are to be painted? (she looks 'natural' if you follow)
2.  Do the instructions call for the Rabbet/Bearding lines cut, or are you doing it yourself to make things easier later?
 
BTW reason for all the questions is that you've convinced me to pick up this nice wee kit (will probably do a simultaneous build with Ballier, Sherbourne & Convulsion, as they are similar sizes and build structures)
 
Thanks for all the help
 
Eamonn

Standing rigging is a bit futther and shrouds are ready to climp the masts!

I've made some progress on the standing rigging.  Previously, I've struggled with creating proper attachments of line to spars, eyes, blocks, deadeyes etc. so I wanted to make that a point of emphasis on this build.  The instructions stress seizing lines rather than using knots ("knots are for shoelaces") so a-seizing I will go.  However, I decided to forego serving the lines this time.
 
I started by placing the shrouds and jib stay around the masthead.
 

 
The jib stay should be spliced, but I just seized it.  The supplied line is nylon; white glue won't touch it, so the seizings are secured with CA.
 
I wanted to work on the deadeyes on the bench, rather than dangling in mid-air as I have in the past - much less frustration that way.  I used a simple gauge to measure up to where the top of each deadeye should be on the shroud, and marked it with a tape flag.
 

 
The plans show the shroud being crossed over itself at the top of the deadeye and secured with a seizing, although this is not done on the real ECB.  I did a proof-of-concept using a short length of line and white thread.
 

 
The "seizing" here is a single constrictor knot, but it gets the job done.  (I have a love-hate relationship with knots in general and constrictor knots in particular.  Sometimes I can tie one in seconds, other times it takes me 15 minutes to get it right.  I'm improving ... slowly.)
 
I set up the actual shroud in a hemostat, forming a loop near the flag and slightly larger than the deadeye, then formed the knot in the space between the clamp and the flag.
 

 
(Full disclosure: the knot in the photo turned out to be a failed knot.)   I pulled the knot snug but not tight, then tightened the shroud around the deadeye, keeping the knot as close to the flag as possible.  A final tug on the knot and then on the shroud finished the operation.
 

 
From this point, seizing the shroud to itself in three spots was relatively straightforward, although I did start each one with yet another constrictor knot.
 

 
Thankfully, the deadeyes came out even.
 

 
They will look better when stretched by the lanyards.  However, I'm not ready to commit the mast to the hull yet; I want to do as much rigging as possible first.  I'll work on blocks next.

The QD guns are smaller.
 
I started working on the forecastle area of the ship. The first four beams are in along with lodging knees, hanging knees, carlings, cat tails and the manger. To my count there were 32 individual pieces needed for the work so far.
 
The manger which consists of 12 pieces was assembled as one. A card stock template along with layered blue masking tape was used to establish the location for the boards which will sit on the deck. Btw, those char lines on the bowsprit step are no longer visible. They were blocked out with some boxwood color mix that was applied before painting the manger red. Also, those arrows show where I drilled for the next gun carriage.
 

 

 

 

 
Mike

Good evening everyone
 
after a few good days on the build, yesterday i went backwards, 
 
the fwd mast step went into the wrong position and set before i realised, and then i varnished the internal decking with the wrong varnish, i was gutted, i dont even know how i allowed myself to do it
 
today was much better
the fwd mast step was salvaged, and although it might be a couple mm more fwd than it should be im pleased with it
the two decks line up with it, and i seam to have plenty of room to put the number 1 deck beam in and the breast hook (please correct me if im wrong)
nothing i can do with the varnish, oh hum (another monster)
 
tomorrow i will cleam up all the forward frames so they look better in the photo's

Copper sheathing
 
I have taken a break from model making for a while and am now back and ready for the next stage: copper sheathing of the hull. There is plenty of written evidence which says that the Fish schooners were coppered and it is something that I want to include on Whiting. 
 
There has been plenty of discussion in the past about copper sheathing but a dearth of original, contemporary information. It seems that most of what we now think is based on archaeological finds and current opinions. One paper that I have found most useful is 'Introduction to use of copper sheathing' by Staniforth. This is readily available on the web and I downloaded a copy from Academia.edu.   
Staniforth Introduction_Use_Copper_Sheathing.pdf
Staniforth states his references but they are all secondary sources. 
 
Old photos of USS Constitution show that the copper plates were originally applied in increasingly curved lines and not in 'belts'.  https://ussconstitutionmuseum.org/2016/11/18/new-copper-sheathing-2/. This and the archaeological information in Staniforth's paper convinces me that the sheathing on Whiting does not have 'belts'. The first row of plates was fixed by the keel and the subsequent rows tucked in alongside the one below it. 
 
The 'no belt' method leaves a jagged line of plates at the water line. I will have a single row of plates at the top, parallel to the water line, and trim the others to join them. The alternative of a wooden plank to trim the edge does not look as interesting to me. The copper on my Whiting will rise as far as the water line that is shown on the Admiralty drawing which leaves a small exposed area below the main wale. 
 
The majority of the plates were overlapped with their neighbours and the rows were offset like brickwork. Along a vertical join the fore plate overlaps the rear plate, which seems entirely sensible given the flow of the water. Staniforth states that for horizontal joins in the Royal Navy the lower plate overlaps the upper, which is more complicated for the shipwright since one row cannot be fully nailed in position until the next row is in place. I have not been able to follow the chain of references so this statement might just be an assertion but it is all I have. 
 
The plates around the stem and stern posts have their own complications with joins and I will tackle them later. The plates under the keel must have been applied after the vessel was fixed to her launching sledge and the supports under the keel removed, otherwise the shipwrights would not have room to work. This problem had me trying to guess what they would have done, but in the end I have chosen a solution that is easier to model. On Whiting the keel is 4mm x 4mm and the copper plates are 6.3 mm wide so I will fold two rows of plates over the keel. The sketch below shows a section through the hull and keel with two plates over the keel and regular plates rising up the hull. 
 

 
Materials
I quickly discounted the Caldercraft plates which are severely affected by the pox. The two real options are etched plates from Amati and copper tape. I have doubts about the long term stability of the adhesive on copper tapes and considered bare tape as an alternative which could be glued down with cyanoacrylate (CA) super-glue. I wanted some representation of nail patterns on the plates which adds complication to the use of tape. The Amati plates have restrained detail on the surface and are not pre-glued so I can use CA to fix them. They can also be glued in strips for the the lower rows, and trimmed individually for the upper rows which curve up at the bow and stern. This is what I will use. 
 
I have eased the hull and brass stands off the temporary base and bought some thin cotton gloves, so all ready to start on the copper sheathing.
 
George

Hi 🙂

Thank you, Moonbug 😀
 
Both sides of the hull and now drilled and ready to be treenailed:




And so it begins 😁

So nearly done, just awaiting a 4” gun in the mail and a few Other guns (still in development). 

Railings added. Nearly there 

I haven't given up on this build but coronavirus stepped in and I'm still not quite back to the stage where I can get my work done and have energy for Stefano at the end of the day getting better each day though.
 
More soon hopefully. But first I have a holiday for a few days.

Good evening 
 
today the planking between the two decks was sorted, this should be ready tomorrow, when the excess  fine filler on the simulated fixings has beeb wiped away, then i have to decide whats next