egkb

Good to see you back!
 
Tony

Hi everyone. It was long time ago since i post anything here about my Sherbourne. The reason is that I didn't had the time to put focus on my models. However, now i feel that the time have come again to take up the hobby. It has not been totally down, I have manage to build some 1:48 airplanes during the time. But now have i started both my Vasa build and my Sherbourne build again. So here is a what I have done.  
My shape of the Sherbournes hull is not exactly the same as in the kit so I had to do new ones with the correct form. Also the supplied parts are of laminated wood and as stated before, I don't like it at all.
 
So here are I drawing the the exact shape on a sheet of better wood.

 
Here is the shape missmatch between my Sherbourne and the kit part. This is most probably because of lack of experience from my side during the planking work.

 
Then I cut it out and copied it to get two exactly same parts.

 
I formed the edges of the handrails with the tool suppled in the Vasa kit.

 
It was not easy to attach the handrails to the kit. So i drilled holes and pined them down with brass rods. It will be ok later because i will add filler and sand it all down. The rails will be painted black later.


 
Then i formed the stern part of the handrail. This part had to be bended to fit.

 
All rails glued in place.

Now I must do sanding work before I start to do the timberheads and swivel gun pedestals. When these are finished then will I paint and oil everything to get it in right finish.
 

Kevin, Hamilton, Mort - thanks for overly kind words and the likes.  Hopefully have another progress update soon.
 
Dave - all the moldings are made from wood strip of various dimensions.  I had ordered a long time ago some of the brass strips you reference but never used them, the brass just seemed very hard to work with, so I made the decision to make my own because it was a technique I wanted to get to grips with given the large number of molded profiles that may be needed.  There are more professional techniques involving heating and cooling to harden, soften and harden again which probably allow a little more control, but I unashamedly just use razor blades and a cutting disc on my dremel.  For me its a bit more art than science, and many reworks are sometimes needed because until you see the profile cut onto the wood, you don't know if it looks right or not.  Getting comfortable with the result on a spare or offcut first is recommended!

Hi guys,
 
Long time no see. My professional time was to demanding, so I have been for a long time away. Still I found from time to time some spare hours to keep the shipyard of RC open.
 
So here are the results, could have been better, but still I am happy with my self, am not a 1st class ship modelist but I feel (after 7 model ships) I came a long way through (considering where I started  some years ago) and thats a nice feeling
 
all the best to all of you
Christos

Well at last I've finally had some time to do a little on my ship.  So I've started making the rest of the main beams and this is another very wood hungry job.  In fact I was really surprised just how much wood these parts use.  Firstly I cut them out and sanded them all to their curved shape.

I have decided to do the stern beams first and this is where I found a bit of a discrepancy in my build.  The wing transom also acts as the last beam and I found that it sits 1mm too high.  I'm not surprised to be honest as this was one of the first jobs I did when starting this build.  I didn't realise at the time how much photocopies of plans can be out and also looking back I didn't check my measurements often enough........so I'll take the 1mm as a bit of a win.  What it did mean though was I had to gently increase the hight of the beams towards the stern.  Not a problem to do so thats what I did.
 
I also had to cut out the dovetails for the waterway and spirketting into each beam which is a job that I was unsure of how to do accurately.  I considered using the mill but in the end I decided to cut them by hand as this is a skill that do need to improve.  So here's how I did it.
 
Firstly I glued the templated onto the top of the beams and then marked the depth of the dovetails which in my case is 2mm

Next using a blade I cut the square ends of each joint to the required depth

Then I cut the deepest point of the dovetail which is basically stabbing the blade in and then scored the 2mm depth line along its full length.

It was only after doing these cuts that I attempted the diagonal cuts.  I found that I had to be very delicate with this cut as its so easy to split the wood.

Then I cleaned the joint up by using a chisel

And the final result looked like this - I was quite surprised just how nicely they turned out.  Its one of those jobs where its just better not to think about it too much and just get on with it.

So I'm halfway there now and these beams seem to make the hull look much more solid.



And yep it all lines up with the wing transom.......it's just a little high 🤣

So I'll now make a start on the forward beams 👍  I've not yet cut any of the rebates for the hatches and carlings because I want to fire a line straight down the middle using thread once all of the beams are in.  That will give me a really good datum to keep things nice and straight.
 
Cheers Mark
 

Working on the mainsail braces. I already had three eyebolts I'd made earlier. I needed two for the braces and another two for the sheets. So just one more to make.
 

Eyebolts in place, starboard and port sides. I drilled holes in the bulwarks for the standing and free ends, glued the free end through one hole and the eyebolt through the other.
  
I came up against problems caused by an earlier decision I'd made. When I put on the lower stays for the mizzen and bonaventure masts, each was to be tensioned with a pair of deadeyes. I thought at the time I was being clever by leaving them a bit loose (to allow for things moving), but when it came to tightening them they wouldn't tighten. In each case I couldn't get the lanyards to move through the holes in the deadeyes, so I ended up with loose loops of lanyard.
 
Mizzen stay
 
Bonaventure stay
 
To fix the mizzen stay I had to cut the lanyards and completely remove the lower end of the stay and its deadeye. Turns out even when the deadeye was available I couldn't get the lanyard out of it - it was stuck fast - perhaps glued into position. Having a good look at the deadeye I realised why. It was one of my earlier attempts, made of pear wood. It had split (as most of them did) and I'd glued it back together. The lanyards passing through the holes got stuck by contact with the (supposedly dried) glue, so of course I couldn't tighten them. Here is the deadeye (both sides) after I'd re-drilled the holes. It was obviously beyond redemption.
   
However, I was fortunate enough to have made quite a few second generation deadeyes out of card, which I'd never used. I grabbed one of these, made a new lower end for the stay and added the lanyards, this time tightening them to the length I wanted. Because cotton thread is springy, I made them straight by soaking them with a weak solution of  PVA (white) glue and putting the whole assembly under tension.
  
I hadn't been all that thrilled with the lower end of the stay anyway - I'd had it go around the mast on an angle, which I wasn't sure was correct (I'm still not sure). But this time I put a "collar" on the mast, merged with one of the wooldings, but with a tiny loop in it, just big enough for the end of the stay to pass through. Then I pulled the free end off to one side and temporarily clamped the end to the shrouds to make the whole assembly tight, and glued the halyard into place in its loop on the collar.

When the glue was dry I ran the free end around the mast over the top of the woolding (to make it more secure), glued it in place and trimmed it to length.
 
The next project was another repair, also of a lanyard, but this one had come adrift. It was on the halyard for the mainsail. I think I'd trimmed it to length and the glue must have come unstuck so the end of the lanyard came back out of the hole in the knight. You can see it in the photo below - with the red circle around it.

A much harder proposition. I agonised over how I was going to fix it. I didn't have enough free end to thread it back through the hole, and it probably wouldn't have gone through anyway. Add to that the springy nature of the cotton thread, it really didn't want to co-operate at all.
 
I thought of several possible solutions, none of which I was happy with - and they probably wouldn't have worked anyway. Finally I did something simple - it's cheating but it worked well enough for me to be happy with it. I soaked the free end of the lanyard with water so it wasn't springy any more, then clamped the bottom down with a tiny peg so it was running down the face of the knight, just where it would have been if it was doing its duty properly. (Keep in mind that I was having to put my hand in this tiny space past a multitude of ropes, none of which I wanted to disturb). I put glue on the lanyard to fix it to the face of the knight, then washed most of it off with a wet watercolour paintbrush.

      
I haven't yet sorted out the bonaventure stay. That has to wait till next time.
 
In the meantime, here she is in her current state.
 
Steven
 


 
 
 
 

 
 

Hello everybody,
Thank you all for the comments and likes.
Work continued with some deck details, I finally finished the breastrail and the gangways. 

 

 

 

 

 

Matthias
 

I got sneaky - put all the rigging on the mizzen lateen sail and yard before putting it in place. It took a lot of preparatory reading and working out what to put where, but it was worth it. 
Martnets. I hadn't realised I was going to have to do more of these rotten things, but I'm actually starting to get pretty good at it. Oh, and note to Druxey - it is easier to have fore and aft martnets right from the start after all - you just have to have your head around the process. Here are the martnets for the two sides of the sail.


Brails (only one side shown, but they're on both sides of the sail)

Two-sheaved block for the downhauls of the martnets.

The tackle for the lifts under way. (I later found out I'd misread Anderson and added an extra unnecessary rope to this assembly and had to take it off again).

And the lateen in place, with the lift assembly put together. I think that looks pretty cool . . . 

I don't want to put the curse on it, but I'm finally starting to get the idea that the end of the project is coming into (distant) sight. Four more lateen sails, the spritsail and its rigging, flags and a bit of tidy up. Still plenty to do, but it's the first time I've felt that I'm actually going to complete this thing!
 
Steven
 
Steven

Thank you @rwiederrich and @gak1965. 
 
I finally got the model outside as spring is well underway here. Unfortunately in my excitement I hung the main mast sails on the foremast on this photo, but it gives a little idea of how the finished model will look... I haven't finished adding stunsail yards, so the stunsails are missing on the main upper topsail and main top gallant yards, too. 

Happy building to you all
 

Progress on the sails... I've just finished the bolt ropes on the topsail studding sails for the main mast - that's BS22 and BS23, so I'm two thirds of the way through the sails now... Once I've sewed on the bolt ropes, it'll be reefing points next... I have a plan for how to do that...  No photos of this, as it looks almost identical to the many photos I've posted of the sail sewing so far... 
 
What I have also been working on is the detailing of the yards, ready for them to carry the sails. I've completed the bands and the painting on the foremast yards, and now I'm working on the mainmast yards. It makes a huge difference to the look of the model, and when I get a chance, I'll take a photo outside with all the yards squared up.
 
Here's are the bands added to the foremast yards...  They're made of black card... 
 

 
And here they are painted... 
 

 
And finally, the full width of the main mast main yard, and that same yard, with stunsail booms removed again, so that the white sections can be painted...
 

 

Thank you for looking in, and for the likes and comments.
 
Rob
 

Thanks so much, Tom, Kurt, and David!! 
 
I finished up with the windows! A very tedious task... but I did become quicker in assembling them towards the end.
 
I tested the micro crystal clear solution for the windows but I wasn't too big of a fan of the frosted window look. So I opted to use the acetate instead. I placed each window frame on the sheet, ran a #11 blade on the outside edges of the frame, lightly marking the acetate. Then I used a metal ruler as a guide to run the blade multiple times until it went through. Finally, I used the micro clear solution as a glue for the frames on the acetate. Here are some photos with the windows+frame dry-fitted in the openings:

The shipyard is very busy last days…

The joinery and overall precision in your builds yields a true work of art.
Allan

Hi ☺️
 
March 2013
 
 

Hi All ..  Bit of good news to relate ..Many of you may remember Kester from on here (MSW).. aka Stockholm Tar .. building a very smart Sherbourne .. but he seemed to vanish before finishing her .. I was browsing Facebook a short time ago and up pops the name Kester on a Historic Shipping Site, He has written a book which seems to be based around our shipping period...  If I find out anything further I'll pop it on here.
 
Bye For Now
 
Eamonn
 
BTW I haven't vanished myself either.. I pop into your builds and keep up to date at least once a week.. The new venture is going better than we could ever have hoped, but it leaves little time for hobbies as yet .. 
E

Yes, very fond of Telemann. And of course Vivaldi . . . and then there's Bach . . . not quite so light . . .
 
Thanks everybody for the likes and the comments.
 
More progress today. After a lot of preparatory work, I've finally got the main course in place. As it's an early period ship, the mainyard is quite a distance below the top. I held the yard in place temporarily with a big green peg and sewed it loosely to the existing parrel truss (rescued from the original build).

Tyes (the thicker thread) loosely tied (sorry!) until I got everything else lined up.


Overall view.

Tyes finalised and glued in position. The sister block on the left is for the mainsail martnet tackle (there's another one on the other side if you look carefully).

Martnets, sheets and lifts (sorry about the bad definition - it was the best I could get).

Lifts and clewlines, plus martnet tackles partly done

Martnet tackles; larboard: The martnets go through a deadeye on a pendant that goes through a block, which in turn is itself on a pendant that goes through the aforementioned sister block. As there are going to be two sets of martnets for each side of the sail, another deadeye will be at the other end from the first - you can see it just glued to the pendant on one side.
 

and starboard - you can see the second deadeye almost fully glued in place.

More in due course (sorry!) It's been a long journey, and it's very good to see it all coming together at last. 
 
Steven
 
 
 
 
 

Thanks to all for the encouraging comments.
Over the last week or so, I've made eight hinges, only 12 more to go, but I've only got enough brass strip for 9. The search is on for some more strip.
4 gun port lids have had their hinges fitted 

I still need to make and fit the pivot for the hinges and remove the molding where the hinge will sit.
An order of .8mm wire has arrived, so I will make the larger ring bolts.
Thank you everyone who has commented, and for the likes, or for looking in.
Cheers 

Here's the mainsail with the bowlines added (I had to pull them out sideways so they'd be visible).

And far too late I realised I needed knights for the mizzen and bonaventure mizzen lateen halyards. I had to somehow drill holes in the deck past all the shrouds and other rigging.

Here are the knights dry fitted. I'll need to run the lanyards through them before I glue them in place. It won't be feasible afterwards.


But I have no idea how I'm going to do the halyards for the  lateen topsails. And Anderson's The Rigging of Ships in the Days of the Spritsail Topmast, for a change, is no help at all. I'm sure I'll figure something out.
 
Steven

Headworks (Part 1):
 
The shipyard has not been very active recently, partly due to lack of time, but also trepidation of the fact that I can no longer delay work on the headworks - something that has caused some anxiety if I'm honest given that this is another aspect of the model that is so important to the overall look of the ship (...and especially considering that the TFFM devotes 17 pages to this!).  I had completed the main rail back in 2018 (Yikes!) which are detailed here (Post #513) for reference. 
I tried to follow the guidance and approach described in the TFFM as this will all need to be scratch to replicate the original plans as closely as possible, but did probably simplify some steps.  With the final profile of the bow having been finalized, the position of these can be determined.  This was done by eye in the absence of any definitive measurement, ensuring that the head of the mainrail is perpendicular to the keel and vertical when viewed from the bow.  These were drilled and pinned to hold in position for now.   Together with the standard, the 4 head timbers were rough cut and sized to their respective position, the outer face being cut to the angle formed by the head rail.  The curvature of the head timbers was estimated from the AOTS diagrams, but left a little oversized at this stage (the interior profile has also been ignored for the present and will be cut to final shape later).  The main consideration was to ensure that the position of the bottom of the main rail was determined, and this was done by multiple fine tunings and a sanding stick.

The position and fitting of the lower rail proved to be the more challenging aspect.  The TFFM indicates that it should be straight when viewed from above, and the plan profiles suggest that it should be position midway between the main rail and the upper cheek..  On top of that, it needs to clear the interior hawse hole, and will also need to taper in profile at the bow.  The seats of ease on the Artois class are outboard, and will also clear the lower rail.  I do not know the thickness of this piece, but estimated it should be 2mm thick which seems consistent with the proportions shown and described in TFFM for the Swan class.
 
I started by drawing my own simple scale mini-plan using the measurements of the hawse hole, position of head timbers and length of the lower rail.  This allowed the depth of the slots to be determined on each head timber, at the point mid way between the bottom of the main rail and top of the upper cheek (This will also determine the required final curvature of the head timbers to ensure that the lower rail sits neatly behind the covering boards which will need to be added in the future,

Once these had been roughly determined and cut into the head timbers, the theory and application was proved using some of the kit supplied white metal decorative strips which are very easily bent.  (The kit indicates that these should actually be used for the lower rail which seems to be a very reasonable compromise, but think Jason deserves to appropriately proportioned and profiled wood rail).  The curvature of this metal rail can then be used to determine the curvature of the top of the lower rail that will be cut from wood.  (Note:  The forward head timber has been ignored for now, I will need to recut this piece so it extends higher over the standard, as it is, its not think enough to accommodate the lower rail).  The white metal strip is also very useful because it allows the length of the lower rail to be determined.

A cut first approximation of the lower rail was then cut from some boxwood sheet and temporarily placed in position to again prove the approach.  This proved to be successful, and I was happy with the general profile that resulted.  This looks overly bulky to my eye even though the dimension are appropriate, but I suspect that this will be corrected once it has been profiled.  The next step will be to cut and profile the actual pieces.  This also shows that I will likely need to adjust the hawse bolster to allow the lower rail, and the yet to be fitted eking rail (see last picture, the lower rail does not clear the top of the bolster. Even though there is still much to do in this area, I'm feeling more optimistic with this complex area.

 
 

Thank you so much for the kind words and the 'likes'😄
 
I have been slowly working through the window frames. I finished the portside frames. 
 
For the angles windows, I used the kit supplied ones as a guide. Here, I glued the two outer strips and used the kit frames to get the right angle by letting the glue set as the strips rest on the edges of the kit piece.. After letting the glue set and doing the same on the opposite corner, the 2 'L' shaped pieces were then glued together, followed by all the internal strips:



Here are a few photos of how it looks on the ship (only dry-fitted for now):



I got to say, all this is really really fiddly work. Getting the notches in the correct spots on each strip is very tricky. Had to discard twice as many as those that made the final round!

Making fiddle blocks for the mainsail martnet tackles.
 
Holes drilled in blank

Cut to shape

Glued and clamped after it split  Note the tiny plastic pegs (available from craft shops)

And with tackle going through both holes (temporary - just to demonstrate).


 
Steven

Current state of play:

A new pair of blocks on the stay for the two maintopsail bowlines (the pegs are just weights, to tension it all till the glue dries)

And with the bowlines in place:

And just below the top you can see the two-sheaved block the bowlines run through to the deck.

I realised I'd misinterpreted Anderson's book for the topgallant sheets. In fact, they double as topsail lifts; there are only separate lifts on the topgallant yard. So I had to undo the sheets and add a new pair of blocks just below the topmast top to take the sheets/lifts, and run them through those. 

Unfortunately, I'd made the same mistake on the foretopsail sheets (though I'd added the extra blocks, I hadn't run the sheets/lifts through them).

But it would now be much too difficult to correct, so I'm going to leave it as-is, as a reminder to make sure I've really understood the instructions.
 
Steven
 
 

More rigging; now I've got the main topsail in place. I had quite a bit of trouble getting the original "parrel truck" (really made out of cotton thread) to fit back onto the mast - it got all mutant on me for a while and I had to pretty much force it into the right shape - not really what I wanted to do. But eventually it worked and I was free to start rigging.
 
First, the topgallant sheets now had a spar to hold them (sorry about the photo quality). The sheets run through a block on each topsail yardarm

then along the yard to a block near the mast

And down to the bitts

Then - disaster! I snapped the larboard topsail yard (they're VERY thin!) and at the same time the block for the clewline pulled away from the sail. Then the sheet pulled away from the sail as well. This photo was taken the next day; I'd already mended the yardarm with CA, but still had to fix the clewline block back in place - you can see the dislocated block in the top right of the red rectangle.
 
This took far longer than I'd expected - several failed attempts before I got it right. Here's the repaired assembly, roughed out:

And trimmed:

and I've added brace pendants for the topsails
 

A match to show how very thin the yards are - very easy to snap.

And the brace pendant on the starboard side (a bit blurry, sorry):

And trimmed to length:

And I've now started adding a two-sheaved block to the foremast to take the topsail bowlines. A lot of swearing at this point - I was trying to get the strop around the foremast past all the ropes that were already there. Absolute murder, and I finally gave up and just looped a length of cotton thread around the mast (not very visible I'm afraid - all you can see are the loose ends):

And added the block to the loop (in the centre of the red rectangle, just above the parrel truck)

Adding blocks to the mizzen shrouds to take the main topsail braces:
 
  
And trimmed off.
 

Lots of fiddly stuff. But slowly getting there.
 
Steven
  
 
 
 

Cheers Dave E.
Not wanting to put it off any longer, I sat down with some brass strip and a flat file. The following results may not be perfect, but for a first attempt, well..... blackened makes them look a tad better
 

Need to make some small eyebolts and split rings now.
New skills being learnt, as I would have gone off the peg and purchased them before this build.
To everyone looking in, commenting and giving the thumbs up, many thanks.
Cheers 
 
 
 

With the deck done and finally just going with something approaching a quadrant profile for the waterways, I've moved on to the rudder.
I had a mishap with topmost bracket on the sternpost, as in breaking it getting it from the fret🙄.
With the hole in the counter drilled, I fitted the cabin benches.
Also a start be was made on the gun port lids. Inbetween all this I'm also making up some eyebolts and split rings. I tried Glenn's (glbarlow) method for the eyebolts, not a great success for me, I could not make them consistent, so I went back to the twist method. 
Thanks for all the comments, likes and dropping by. All is greatly appreciated.
Cheers