Wintergreen

Hi there,
Just found this log and since both volumes of Euryalus sits on my shelf I thought it useful to bring a chair and a bowl of popcorn to follow along here.
Looks like you off to a good start Ron. Nice and neat work this far.
 
Keep it up!

Thanks JJ,
 
Going off course a little bit, I worked on making some closed hearts for the bowsprit stays and shrouds--

 
I need two different sizes--4 for the stays, and 4 slightly smaller for the shrouds.  After doing a few after cutting them off, I realized it would be much easier to shape them before cutting them off--


 
Now I need to make a bunch of deadeyes for the topmast shrouds, as well as the backstays.
 
All for now,
Ron

I made 4 card templates, and sanded the area of the deadwood below the bearding line.   In between sessions of doing that, I beveled the aft side of the sternpost-

 
After this was done, I glued the sternpost to the keel, and went back to sanding the deadwood.
 
When I was satisfied that I had done enough there, I cut two shallow mortices into the bottom of the deadwood assembly, and then glued in two small tenons.  These weren't meant to be historically accurate, but would add some strength, and help in keeping the piece aligned when gluing the deadwood to the keel and sternpost--

 
The tenons were filed down until they extended only about 1/32nd of an inch.  I then cut two shallow mortices in the keel and glued the deadwood to the keel and sternpost.   I had also morticed and tenoned the sternpost to the keel when I glued it to the keel earlier.   I did not tenon into the sternpost from the deadwood.
 
Here is the sternpost and deadwood glued to the keel.  You can see 4 pencil lines on the upper part of the deadwood (the fourth is barely visible) that had marked the locations for using the card templates--
  
 
Next will be work on the transoms, and fashion timbers.
 
All for now,
Ron
 
 

HI everyone,
 
I have not posted in many months, and want to catch up now.
 
In anticipation of carving the figurehead, I attended the excellent workshop on carving run by David Antscherl and Greg Herbert in Annapolis in early October. Fired up with my newly acquired skills, I flew back home to Montana ready to carve, only to discover that I had pinched the sciatica nerve in my leg on the flight. I was unable to sit at all for several months, taking me entirely out of the workshop. After several months of physical therapy, I am finally able to get into the shop again in small bursts of activity.
 
During that down time, I put my computer on a stool at my desk so I could work on CAD drawings standing up. I was able to draw many more of the details still to come. I will show some of those in some following posts. Here is a taste:

 
 
The unexpected and enforced downtime due to medical issues caused me to realize that I have to get my skates on and work more aggressively towards completion. I may not have the luxury of working for many more years at the same leisurely pace. At the Annapolis workshop, Chuck Passaro discussed with me a number of ideas for tackling the most challenging pieces that were putting me into a tizzy,  like the frieze paintings and the fretwork stern decoration, and I am beginning to pursue some of these ideas with him further. Thanks, Chuck, huge help! I am starting with the stern, and here is a sample of what I will discuss in a later posting.
 

 
The time off from cutting wood also gave me time to think more carefully about the decorative scheme I will want to follow as I get to this level of detail. I decided at the very beginning that I wanted to show the Bellona as originally designed and built, based on the original Admiralty drawings and on the first Bellona model of 1760 that shows her mainly in frame with little decorative detail other than the taffrail down to the floor of the stern balcony, with no quarter galleries. I did NOT want to portray her as she looked after a major refit 20 years later and shown in the second, fully detailed and colored Bellona model with the coppered bottom. Not only did the latter model show the later structural changes like the changed balcony geometry and the railings along the roundhouse that I do not like, but its overall decorative scheme felt like it was more extravagantly Rococo and showy than the real ship would have looked several decades earlier (like ivory details sprinkled around, and exuberant carvings).
 
So I have been looking at other models contemporaneous with the first Bellona, like the Princess Royal and the first Victory, both designed by the Bellona's shipwright, Sir Thomas Slade. In some later postings, I will explore this further, as it might be of interest for others who are attempting to reconstruct a decorative scheme from indirect sources.
 
So anyway, back into the land of the living!
 
More posts to follow as I am able to put them together.
 
Best wishes,
 
Mark
 
 

Finally, the end is near!
 
For the planking, that is. I am not a doomesday vigilante...
The wisky plank will soon go in. Yay! 🙂 
Port side is sanded, which the sharp eyed viewer can see. I thought that by painting the hull prior to sanding it would be easy to see the progress.
That turned out to be true. However, I did not dilute the acrylic paint very much and used it quite generously. Bad choice.
It led to clogging up the sandpaper. Of course; I probably could have thought that out before hand. But I didn't. So, when sanding the starboard side, I will not paint until the very end. With diluted paint. 

 

Well, I probably have to eat my hat for being so bold to state that the ice age soon would be over. I don't know if our weather news makes out of Sweden, anyway, the current state is that there is about 20cm/8" of snow in my garden. Temperatures has been in the -5 to -15 ballpark for the last weeks. There was quite a hola balo in the southern part of my country a couple of weeks ago when about 100 cars and lorries got stuck on a highway. They had to send in the forces with band wagons and stuff to evaquate people, leaving the vehicles for later. Just sayin.
 
Despite that, there has been progress on the planking saga!


Port side fully planked bar the bulwarks.

And some closeups before sanding and making it all pretty.


I've continued with treenailing port side and will soon be over and done with that too. Then there are three strakes on startboard before the sanding can begin.
That is for another day.
Pax et bonum!

Well thank you Gary @FriedClams 🙂 
I totally agree that it is not possible to follow everything here on MSW, there are just too many excellent builds going on all the time.
And yes, cancer can really give you mental ghosts to follow you along. But, being in my mid 50's I am focusing on living many years still! Cheers to you too and all the best!

Tool rants and sailing discussions aside, I said I was about to do the rudder.
Did I?
Erhm, no.
After painting the hull a couple of times it didn't appeal to me to do the rudder (too simple). Instead I've opted for somethinge inherently much harder and more complicated - the coamings for all the deck openings! Truth be told, I have never done a fish tail corner in full size and now I attempt them in 1:30.. sane? No, not really. Buth then, amongst the kids I'm not known for being sane all the time 😄 
So far, so good I must say. Only about 19 or 23 more corners to do 🙂 


And here is my setup with tools to accomplish to work.

Now a brake to watch some cross country skiing.
Cheers!

@Mark Pearse, yes, Sweden and the Baltic region is totally shattered with islands and skerries like no other part on the entire globe actually. It makes for quite stunning trips in the archipelago. The Admiral has a sailing friend in Florida, where they only have shallow sand beaches everywhere. To his complete horror we send him films when we sail only meters away from solid rock islands on both sides 😄 
My avatar picture is of a ship that sails in the Baltic sea, owned and maintained by a Christian organization. It has been a couple of years now since I last enlisted as first mate on it, but further back I was a regular for about 7 years. Fatigue through work and cancer did its best to take the fun of it for a while. As a first mate on it I was part in everything from sailing to finding the nearest power outlet and so on.
Primarily though it is my own sailboat I commandeer. Picture below. It is called OE36 after its constructor, Olle Enderlein. He studied at Sparksman&Stephens in NY and the OE36 is very similar to the more known Swan 36. The Swan is a bit more slender around the waist compared to the OE36. 36 is the length in feet. The first OE36 is from 1969 and mine is from 1980. The Swan predates that with a handful of years if my memory is somewhat accurate.

Which just brings us further down the rabbit hole... there is a healthy restriction to fabrication with a limited set of tools, power or not. Of course there is a monetary side to it also. It's a matter of prioritization... I will not reveal how much I've spent on my sailing vessel, but it could have with easy bought me the entire Proxxon Micromot line of tools. And I mean the Entire product catalog. 
But then I wouldn't be able to go sailing, which I love...

Well thank you Gary @FriedClams 🙂 
I totally agree that it is not possible to follow everything here on MSW, there are just too many excellent builds going on all the time.
And yes, cancer can really give you mental ghosts to follow you along. But, being in my mid 50's I am focusing on living many years still! Cheers to you too and all the best!

Post One Hundred and Forty-five
 
Stern Lanterns
A pair of Resin lanterns are provided in the kit with Brass etch brackets. Pre-cut acetate glazing that only requires folding to shape, completes the package.
Beautifully crafted, but my initial impression was that they looked a tad on the small size, but I needed to see them on the model.

3685
The plan is used to get the line of the crank.

3686
Assembly is simple, the tricky part if it can be called that, is fitting the ironwork to the stern gallery, particularly when you have lost track of the fixing holes.🙄

3688
I found it easier to use longer lengths of 0.8mm brass wire to form and fit the cranks.

3690
The only addition I made are fixing plates to the stern.
Apart from that I had to file the bottom of the clear glazing a tad to allow the lantern tops to sit down on the framing.

3694
Is my initial impression that they may be a little undersized borne out?
Perhaps not when compared to the contemporary model of Amazon below.

Amazon Stern
I could not find original records relating the ships lantern sizes by rate, and of course I’m not privy to the information used as a basis for the ‘Indy’ Lanterns.
 
I did check out relative sizes from my available sources, and for what it’s worth this is what I gleaned.
 
Victory - side lantern 57½” o/a height (22.8mm at 1:64 scale)
 
Bellona – 62½” o/a height (24.8mm at 1:64) scale drawing AotS book.
 
Pandora – 40¼” o/a height (16.0mm at 1:64) scale drawing AotS book.
 
Leopard  (50 gun ship 1790) - 53” o/a height (21mm at 1:64) Scale drawing John McKay from The 50-Gun Ship.
 
Sixth rate sloop– 51” o/a height (20.25mm at 1:64) scale drawing FFM Sixth rate book from a reconstruction.
 
Indefatigable – 44” o/a height (17.5mm at 1:64 scale) - actual kit fitting.
 
Another option is the exquisite Boxwood lantern 3/16th (1:64) scale from Syren.
This measures 7/8th" (22.25mm) which equates to a 56” o/a height.

1827
I used this on my Pegasus build, and I think it is a viable option for ‘Indy’.
 

3704
On balance I think I will stick with the kit version.

3702

3697
Onwards,
 
B.E.
16/02/2024
 

Well thank you Gary @FriedClams 🙂 
I totally agree that it is not possible to follow everything here on MSW, there are just too many excellent builds going on all the time.
And yes, cancer can really give you mental ghosts to follow you along. But, being in my mid 50's I am focusing on living many years still! Cheers to you too and all the best!

Well thank you Gary @FriedClams 🙂 
I totally agree that it is not possible to follow everything here on MSW, there are just too many excellent builds going on all the time.
And yes, cancer can really give you mental ghosts to follow you along. But, being in my mid 50's I am focusing on living many years still! Cheers to you too and all the best!

Good morning,
thank you for all the likes. 
 
JJ, yes there is a contemporary floor from that time. The Centurion. The only difference is, they painted obviously there wood! But that did you see at all models. I don't know if that was also the practise, of that time, in real shipbuilding. 
Amalio and Håkan, thank you for your nice comments. Håkan, that would't happen. 

Wow, that is next level stuff right there. Next up we will se frames with intarsia on the walls depicting some well known battle 😄 
 
Keep it up!

Well thank you Gary @FriedClams 🙂 
I totally agree that it is not possible to follow everything here on MSW, there are just too many excellent builds going on all the time.
And yes, cancer can really give you mental ghosts to follow you along. But, being in my mid 50's I am focusing on living many years still! Cheers to you too and all the best!

I've always thought there are 3 tests: 10 foot test, 3 foot test, 3 inch test. It looks to me as though you've passed all of them. Good at the math; sharp tools; steady hands. Where are your weaknesses?
Tom

slow going but I marked all the beams, removed them and am cutting and installing them one at a time to assure all the notches align properly.
slowly getting used to making shallower notches
getting used to it all
by the time I get to the gun deck I'll be... not quite a master at it but much better!
 

Hello,
the carpenters started with planking the QD. Here first the balcony and the parquet in the great cabin for the captain. At that time only the great cabin had a parquet. 





And here the painter has oiled the floor

Very nice planking indeed.
And I'm with John and Andy about the stern planking. Flush with the timber. On my build the stern bulges around the prop shaft also. Flush planking gives hydrodynamically benefits of less drag due to the turbulence that step creates.
 
Keep it up!

That's excellent Tim!
What RPM do you get? I found out that higher RPM gives smother work. I have a similar contraption on my wood lathe, probably around the 3000rpm mark with a drum that is about 4" in diameter.

Very nice planking indeed.
And I'm with John and Andy about the stern planking. Flush with the timber. On my build the stern bulges around the prop shaft also. Flush planking gives hydrodynamically benefits of less drag due to the turbulence that step creates.
 
Keep it up!

Very nice planking indeed.
And I'm with John and Andy about the stern planking. Flush with the timber. On my build the stern bulges around the prop shaft also. Flush planking gives hydrodynamically benefits of less drag due to the turbulence that step creates.
 
Keep it up!

Very nice planking indeed.
And I'm with John and Andy about the stern planking. Flush with the timber. On my build the stern bulges around the prop shaft also. Flush planking gives hydrodynamically benefits of less drag due to the turbulence that step creates.
 
Keep it up!