egkb

Thank you to all the guys who hit the "Like" button for my last post .
 
Forecastle Timberheads
 
I've marked and drilled the slots for the Timberheads, and also made and dry-fitted 8 more of them to check if the angles were going to need changing yet. Fortunately all the Forecastle ones are straight, so I can make 8 more before I have to adjust my jig. The bad news is that all the quarterdeck ones will need to be cut on at least four different angles - it could have been worse .
 

 

 

 
  Danny

Thanks guys, this makes perfect sense to me, the plans said to do it afterwards and i was scratching my head.. I can see that experienced builders, pretty much throw the plans in the bin.. I'm not knocking the kit at all, just has some vague moments and I am so glad to have this forum to steer me in the right direction.. I could have bought the in depth dvd but i'm a glutton for punishment... And i like the way you guys roll.
 
About ten hours since last mention.. I have almost finished the first planking and i have probably made some errors in the way i did stealers I have learned heaps and am thinking the second planking should be easier in some ways. It bends and twists quite easily obviously.. Putting faith in myself
 
I'm keen, i'm excited, learning and happy to get onto the next stages by the weekend. My extra lot of deck planks arrived today so things are rolling in the shipyard... Ollie

No worries Elmer - plenty more where that came from .
 
I've finished fitting all the Planksheers. The port quarterdeck one is completely finished, others are in various stages.
 

 

 
You can clearly see the two-piece construction on the forecastle ones. This is necessary (even on the real ship) as it is impossible to fit the planksheer over the timberheads owing to the changing angles of the latter.
 
Don't forget, I'm "cheating" here - I'm not making the timberheads as part of the top timbers. I find it much easier to cut the moldings into their tops on the bench rather than on the ship   .
 

 

 

 
  Danny

Made it home this evening..... Back to the shipyard tomorrow......

Another photos...
 

         

Faired the bulkheads today. Took quite a bit of tweaking to get them to settle into the center keel slots. Below is my first initial dry fit. I took some close ups, you can see there is little space for the bearding line across the mid keel length. My first thought is to buildup the top of the center keel and raise the bulkheads up to meet it flush. I'm thinking 3/32". This seems easier than altering the shape of the bulkheads and thus the shape of the hull is preserved..
 
Your thoughts are welcomed as always !
 
 

 

 

 

 

 
 
Again, thanks to all of you!
 
Bill

Hi fellas, I'll get a pic up this coming evening!
 
Cheers,
Jay

Brilliant little tutorial there Bill re Scoring & Gluing to remove a 'Bow' ... thanks again for taking the time out to explain! had never heard of that method
 
Best of Luck with the build, am watching and learning over here!
 
Eamonn

Jeeez guys.. I close my eyes for a few minutes and TWO go past at once... Huh!      just like busses.
 
 
Will work on the Waverleys friend shortly.
 
Eamonn

Thank you, and you're most welcome Mark, Remco, Christian, Grant, Jeff, Maury and Neal .
 
Forecastle Planksheers
 
The Planksheers for the Forecastle and Quarterdeck need to be fitted before I can continue with the Timberheads.
 
For the quarterdeck I could soak and laterally bend the four required as they only have a shallow bend. Here's the first one fitted - there is a smaller piece still to be fitted on the inboard side :
 

 
The four on the forecastle are a bit trickier. I cut these from wide stock. Fitting the forward one around the Knightheads was quite a task - I had one reject, and used at least 30 "dry fits" on each before I was happy with the result :
 

 

 

 
  Danny

Eamonn,
 
Definitely! Scoring is basically etching a line in wood. Often used in mortise and tenon work to create a stopping point when trimming out with a chisel so the cut does not peel out past the intended area.
Scoring can also be repeated cuts across grain to relieve stress in the wood and relax a bow in a board. My center keel had a significant bow in it's length. After scoring the keel in several spots along it's length, I then applied glue brushed deep into the scoring lines followed by clamping/pressing. The glue was to protect the joints from chipping out.
I cut approx. 1/2 the thickness of the center keel lumber. I'm delighted to say my center keel came out flat  See example below:
 

 
Thanks for asking, Bill
 

As I have yet to go to Scarborough pleasure beach with my camera,I will have to see what I can find on the net,so no pedalos just yet    
 
Kind Regards Nigel

Bill can I back-track you a bit.. you mentioned 'Scoring and Gluing' earlier to straighten the false keel (sorry to bring you so far back, but a lot of posts happened in the middle there whilst I was away from the computer:) )
Could you describe this technique to me as I haven't heard of it before.
 
Thanks in Advance
 
Eamonn

That's the Bunny !... I thought of her last night when I was joking about Maple, and said to myself that if I win this one she'd be my question.
When I read the posts from Jay and yourself where ye both said Maple I actually laughed out loud! (LOL 'd in fact)
 
Well Done  and over to you (btw there is no Arklow Maple)
 
Eamonn

That's the Bunny !... I thought of her last night when I was joking about Maple, and said to myself that if I win this one she'd be my question.
When I read the posts from Jay and yourself where ye both said Maple I actually laughed out loud! (LOL 'd in fact)
 
Well Done  and over to you (btw there is no Arklow Maple)
 
Eamonn

I should have known better  
Is it the Irish Maple by any chance?
 
Regds N

I did manage to get a little model work in today, every little bit helps.  A few more shots to show how the work on the hull is progressing.  
 
Cheers,
Tim
 

 

 

 

 

Haven't had much time to spare recently.  Masts approaching completion, small strips of paper were used to simulate metal bands above the tops and also added some scratch jeer block strop cleats for bit more interest out of scrap.  Painted up it seems to be coming together and I'm pretty happy.  Rails and the eyebolts will be left off until later, but all holes have been drilled.  Few more deck details to put finishing touches to and glue, and then onto the shrouds and ratlines.
 

Jib sail.
 
The jib sail was simpler in some ways (not requiring the netting/horses or figuring out what kind of stay to use), but requires a special piece of hardware called a "traveler" which is detailed below.
 
Similarly to the staysail, I had to cut down on the size of the jib sail to ensure a tight furl.  Looking at pictures of ships with furled sails, as well as the pictures in the Harland book, it's amazing how tightly these sails were furled.  The jib had more running room, so I went with a larger sail than the staysail - I also wanted to run it up the jib stay a bit higher than the staysail, so I needed more cloth to work with.
 
Construction was very similar to the square sails on the yards - using fabric glue I added bolt ropes and cringles.  As mentioned above, for the hanks I used very thin beading wire which is much more flexible than using brass wire.  The wire was looped around a brass rod in a spiral shape, painted, then cut as needed and shaped into a loop.  Real hanks had a more complicated shape which I couldn't duplicate at this scale, so I just went with simple loops. I also painted them brown because it seems like these tended to be wood.  The pictures below show the sail (with the sheets installed), as well as bent to the jib stay.  The pre-furled shape of the sails is probably a bit different in the angle at the tack is the angle formed by the jibboom and the jib stay.  I figured that this would make furling the sails down to the jibboom a lot easier.
 

 

 
Setting up the jib was a lot easier than the staysail, except to the extent that I needed to built a traveler.  The traveler has three main pieces:  the main loop that goes around the jibboom, the shackle that runs forward to the end the jibboom on which the outhaul is attached, and then a hook to which the jib's tack cringle is attached.  These were created using brass wire and a hook from the kit.   A block is also attached to the traveler for the downhaul.  The traveler itself (minus the shackle) was covered in leather for protection.  I didn't bother to simulate it as such but just left it as blackened brass.
 

 

 
Here is how the rigging proceeds:
 
1.  Jib stay:  The jib stay is attached to the traveler ring, through the hanks on the sail, up through the top sheeve on the cheek block on the starboard side, and down to the aft end of the starboard fore channel.  Given the size of this ship, it seemed correct to tie it off directly, rather than use a block and tackle arrangement as in larger ships.
 
2.  Outhaul:  This line is tied to the shackle of the traveler, runs forward along the jibboom through a sheeve, to a timberhead on the starboard side.  This functions similarly to the tack for the staysail in that it establishes a fixed position for the sail along the jibboom.
 
3.  Downhaul:  Similarly to the staysail, it attaches to the peak cringle, runs through a few hanks, down through the block attached to the traveler, and belays to a starboard timberhead.  
 
4.  Haliard:  Similarly to the staysail, the haliard is run from the peak cringle but up through the lower sheeve of the starboard cheek block, and belays to a timberhead opposite by the aft end of fore shrouds, starboard side.  As with the staysail, I ran these without a block and tackle for two reasons.  Historically, it seemed smaller ships did not use a block and tackle.  From a practical standpoint, and probably more importantly, adding a block and tackle would have been very hard to achieve given the scale and general size and busy-ness of the ship.  So, I felt comfortable not using block and tackles.
 
5.  Tack:  The tack is attached to the hook on the traveler.
 
6.  Sheets:  The sheets are run just like for the staysail.
 
Here's the end result (sorry, had the TV on in the second):
 

 

 
Hope all this is helpful (and accurate and correct!).  I found that there was a lot of information online for furling and adding square sails, but not much really on the fore and aft sails.  I spent many hours trying to figure all this out from the resources mentioned above, and at least to my eye, I think they really improve the ship.  So, if I can give back to others for all the help I've received on here in the past five years, I'll feel very happy.
 
Next, I'm going to finish the rigging of the bowspirit, and work my way aft on the model.  I still need to create the spanker, and furling it shouldn't be too difficult, but I'm a bit burned out after furling the square sails and fore sails 

Fore topmast staysail.
 
This sail took a ton of planning as there are a number of ways that these could be installed on a ship - bent to a fore topmast preventer stay, bent to a fore topmast staysail stay, and I think they could also be set flying (no stay at all).  Then there was the question of how to run the haliards - single, double, etc.
 
Based on Lees and TFFM, I decided to add a fore topmast preventer stay and bend the sail to it.   Not sure if this was 100% historically accurate, but this route helped simplify things a bit as the preventer stay would use the existing bee sheaves in the bowspirit, and the running end would end in an eye and mouse around the mast, rather than have a running end that ended in haliards somewhere down the mast.   It also added a sense of symmetry with all the rigging, which is more artistic than anything.  
 
Another reason to go with the preventer stay over a staysail stay was that there was not much room to furl the sail as it was given the proximity of the fore stay and fore preventer stay, but using the bees gave a couple of millimeters of extra space.  As you can see in the picture below, the staysail is probably only 25% of what the full sized staysail would look like.  This was to ensure a tightly furled sail and keep the sail in front of the fore stay and fore preventer stay. 
 

 
Two other things I had to add to the model for the staysail.  First, I needed to add a cheek block on the port side of the fore topmast head (I also added one for the jib sail on the starboard side).  Second, from Lees, Petersson, and TFFM, the staysail was not laid on top of the bowspirit, but instead was laid on top of a netting between the bowspirit horses.  So, I added the horses and a simplified netting run between two staves that the horses went through.  I unfortunately don't have a picture of this, but the staysail covers all of it so I didn't go all out with a very detailed netting.
 
After all that, the rigging of the staysail is fairly simple.  The staysail is triangular in shape with a peak cringle at the top, the tack at the fore bottom corner, and the clue cringle for the sheet pendant at the aft bottom corner.  After threading the fore topmast preventer stay through the hanks on the sail (constructed of beading wire from a local craft store and painted brown):
 
1.  Peak cringle:  The haliard (to pull the sail up the stay) is run from the peak cringle up through the lower sheeve of the port cheek block, and belays either to the foot of the fore mast or to a timberhead opposite the after fore shrouds, port side.  Also attached to the peak cringle is the downhaul (to pull the sail down the stay).  The downhaul is threaded through a few of the hanks, through a block attached to the foot of the stay, and belayed at a port timberhead.
 
2.  Tack:  The tack is tied to the cringle.  This is the one fixed corner of the sail.
 
3.  Clue cringle:  The sheets are attached to the clue cringle, which in turn split into pairs of whips.  The sheets go to each side, ending in a block.  The standing end of the whips are attached to an eyebolt, run through the block on the sheets, and the running end is belayed to a timberhead (I haven't done this step yet).
 
That's it for the staysail.  Next the jib.

It's been a few weeks but I've been busy in the shipyard.  I managed to get the fore topmast staysail and jib attached and furled.  Before I get too far, let me mention the resources that were of immense help in figuring out what to do:
 
1.  Lennarth Petersson - Rigging Period Ship Models - pictures say a thousand words, and this book really simplifies the mysteries of rigging.  Helpful to see the pictures of how the rigging for these sails works, but I would say that it shows rigging for larger ships so, for example, the haliards would be more simple than the block and tackle arrangements shown in this book.  Still, very highly recommended.
 
2.  The Fully Framed Model (TFFM) Vol. 4 - This Swan series book is an incredible resource for anyone that wants great detail into rigging period ships.  Antscherl compiles a lot of research into this book, with excellent pictures, to help one go step by step.
 
3.  Lees - The Masting and Rigging of English Ships of War - Good detailed historical account and narrative description of these sails and their rigging.  
 
4.  Harland - Seamanship in the Age of Sail - Excellent descriptions of the actual mechanics of bending, raising, furling, etc. sails.  Very helpful discussion of what went into furling sails, particularly how the sails were gathered and then a "skin" was draped over the entire bundle.  The remaining 2/3rds of the book goes into fantastic details on how the sails operated in various conditions, etc.
 
Here are the pictures of where I am now, and I'll set up the next couple of posts to talk about the construction of both sails.  Needless to say, for what ultimately looks like rolled up wet tissues, these things took a while to figure out how to construct and to install.  But, I very much like the end result, which to me anyway looks better than a ship bare of sails.  The staysail needs a bit more positioning, which I will do once the sheet whips are installed.
 

 

 

After a busy week at work, inevitably having to catch from a week away, I have managed to get back to the build this weekend.
 
Finished carving out the three top masts. Nothing more technical than a 15cm steel ruler, a heavy duty scalpel, some sandpaper and a lot of patience!
 
Fitted the top masts in place and have started work on the shrouds. Fore Top Mast shrouds have been fitted and almost finished fixing the lanyards in place. Just when I thought I has finished doing ratlines, I sense some more in my immediate future.......
 
 

Hi all,
 
Safely back from sunny(!) Scotland. It's a long old drive from the Highlands back to Bristol, but helps when split into two days with a stop off in Manchester.
 
Anyway, here are the models we saw in the Eagle Barge Pub on the Caledonian Canal. Great little pub full of different pieces of furniture and decorations with their own stories.
 

Hello Shipmates.
Another update on the Lower gundeck.
Basic assembly done just the Deck carlings to machine and fit into place.
No Gluing done at this stage.. Just good old tight joints.
 
Sides being treenailed.

 
 
And the other side.

 
View from the underside of the deck.

 
View from the Top side.

 
Close up of a joint.

 
No Glue or pins in this yet .

 
Thanks for looking in.
 
Regards Antony.
 

Hello Shipmates.
Thank YOU all for your very kind words ...I really do appreciate all the posts you people have made
I do not think that I would have made it this far without my Proxxon mill and my Bryons saw.
A stride to catch up with the skills that other modellers have on this forum .. A long. .Long way to go yet .
Will post later on today with progress on the lower gun deck.
 
Many thanks for looking in..
 
 
Regards Antony.