Charter33

Dear all
 
I will need many shackles for my 1:10 boat but at £1.5 each, they are incredibly expensive. I would very much like to make them myself.
 
Michael Mott has posted a very elegant way of making shackles in this scale. Today I experimented in my garage and tried to standardised a much simpler version, using tools that I (and probably most modellers) own. So here it goes.
 
Very very important: There will be clouds of flying debris and brass dust so do not attempt unless you have goggles that completely seal the eyes (they cost £1). A few more tools will be needed.
 

 
Start with 2 mm brass rod, cut to lengths a bit over 2 cm. 
 

 
Mark the edges that will later be hammered flat with permanent marker.
 

 
Then, secure the rods to a drill, just at the marked edge. Do not worry, it will be adequately rigid and secure. Set both the drill and the dremel spinning and with a high grit sanding drum, thin the middle of the rod. Then use 240 grit sanding paper to smooth the marks left on the rod.
 

 
It should now look something like this.
 

 
Now anneal the metal. This needs to be done regularly otherwise the rod will break.
 

 
On a flat surface, hammer the edges.
 

 
Anneal and hammer again. Use a sanding disk or files to shape and round the flat edges of the rods.
 

 
Then bend around an appropriate steel rod/pin secured in a vice, carefully so that this is done symmetrically. (One rod broke in the middle). Half bend initially, anneal and then bend all the way, otherwise the rod will break. Do not do any minor adjustments without annealing again, the rods will break very easily, bending puts huge stress on the metal. It should now look like this:
 

 

 
Drill the flat parts, no need to align the holes.
 

 
Then take a length of 0.8 mm brass wire, pass through the holes, then with pliers crush the ends flat and trim the excess. Polish with a steel wire brush.  Shackles are ready. 
 

 

 
They can actually be made reasonably fast, best to do many at a time. They are not very uniform but I think with practice they should improve.
 
Vaddoc
 
 
 
 

Hi,
Fitting the upper deck screen bulkhead proved a little more challenging than the simple instruction in the manual. To get it to fit accurately around the beam shelves, stringers and waterways numerous card templates were made before finally trimming and adjusting the screen.
 

 
To square off the ends of the support pillars and staircase balusters I designed and made these.....
 

 
... a pair of sanding aids for each. The '2nd' of each pair has the depth of the recess reduced by 0.4 mm to compensate for the initial reduction in thickness.
 

 
All done .....
 

 
... and taken back to the original colour with walnut wood stain.
 

 
Bases of supports and balusters were drilled and fitted with thin brass rod, CA glued in place, before being finally located into matching sized holes drilled into the coamings or deck as required.
 

 

 
The elm tree pump was fitted in a similar way.
 

 
Cheers,
 
Graham.
 
 

Hi,
Made a bit more progress, slower than hoped for admittedly, but things should speed up in the new year!
Production of the tackles begins..........
 

 
I gave up with the modified wooden pegs to hold the blocks while the hooks and ropes were being attached. Instead I made use of the left-over brass frames that held the eyelets (480).  Pressed into a block of hard foam half a dozen blocks could be mounted with the hooks supported with lace making brass pins. A slit made in the edge of the foam with a scalpel secured the rope until the knot was tied and then given a coat of clear matt lacquer. The thin aluminium tube has the head of a pin crimped in one end - an inexpensive but effective tool to get small drops of glue into awkward places.
 

 
The final batch of tackles gets assembled............
 

 
I'm guessing that time spent practicing tying tiny knots with tweezers is going to be a useful skill when I eventually get to the rigging........
 
After several sessions the gun carriages have now all been mounted.
 

 

 

 
A Merry Christmas to one and all!
 
Cheers,
 
Graham

Work continues with the upper gun deck cannons ........
 
I've decided to replace the breech rope eyelets on the carriages with larger ones as I hope to increase the diameter of this rope to 1 mm rather than the recommended size that seems a bit small when compared with images I found on the web. These are Mantua Models eyelets but while the rings are okay, the second piece of each fitting needed to have the 'loop' tightened up a bit. This was achieved by pulling them part way through an improvised draw plate.

 

 

 
After fitting the breech rope and it's eyelets to the barrel it was mounted on the carriage.  A short length of brass rod with a small dimple added to one end was used as a simple drift to push the round headed pins into their pre-drilled holes.

 

 
Trying to get the breech ropes to hang appropriately..........

 
Rigging hooks attached to 2mm blocks ...

 
...strung ....
 

 
.... and attached

 
And finally my first attempt to install one ......

 
One down, 29 to go ......
 
Cheers,
 
Graham.

Hi,
Fitting the upper deck screen bulkhead proved a little more challenging than the simple instruction in the manual. To get it to fit accurately around the beam shelves, stringers and waterways numerous card templates were made before finally trimming and adjusting the screen.
 

 
To square off the ends of the support pillars and staircase balusters I designed and made these.....
 

 
... a pair of sanding aids for each. The '2nd' of each pair has the depth of the recess reduced by 0.4 mm to compensate for the initial reduction in thickness.
 

 
All done .....
 

 
... and taken back to the original colour with walnut wood stain.
 

 
Bases of supports and balusters were drilled and fitted with thin brass rod, CA glued in place, before being finally located into matching sized holes drilled into the coamings or deck as required.
 

 

 
The elm tree pump was fitted in a similar way.
 

 
Cheers,
 
Graham.
 
 

Hi,
Made a bit more progress, slower than hoped for admittedly, but things should speed up in the new year!
Production of the tackles begins..........
 

 
I gave up with the modified wooden pegs to hold the blocks while the hooks and ropes were being attached. Instead I made use of the left-over brass frames that held the eyelets (480).  Pressed into a block of hard foam half a dozen blocks could be mounted with the hooks supported with lace making brass pins. A slit made in the edge of the foam with a scalpel secured the rope until the knot was tied and then given a coat of clear matt lacquer. The thin aluminium tube has the head of a pin crimped in one end - an inexpensive but effective tool to get small drops of glue into awkward places.
 

 
The final batch of tackles gets assembled............
 

 
I'm guessing that time spent practicing tying tiny knots with tweezers is going to be a useful skill when I eventually get to the rigging........
 
After several sessions the gun carriages have now all been mounted.
 

 

 

 
A Merry Christmas to one and all!
 
Cheers,
 
Graham

I needed a bit of a break from rigging up guns and carriages.........
 

 
so I decided to mark out and drill the holes for their eyelets and rings ......
 

 
The holes for the 'trial' gun carriage shown previously were made by hand with the drill bits held in a pin vice. To make the process easier and quicker I invested in a flexible drive for the dremel I 'won' from my youngest son after he had moved on from a jewelry making 'phase'. There was a slight problem initially when the drill chuck was transferred to the end of the new drive. It is able to hold drills down to 0.4 mm, and probably smaller, when fitted directly to the hand set but the mounting thread of the new drive is shorter. This meant that although it could hold the shaft of the cutting and sanding mandrels small drill bits where far too small for the chuck jaws to grip. I managed to overcome this by turning and inserting a small brass extension bush in the back of the chuck and normal service was resumed .
 

 

 
Looking at the deck plan in my copy of Longridge's 'The Anatomy of Nelson's Ships' I thought that the skid beams supplied with the kit lacked a bit of detail and decided to try and replace the originals with ones that have the distinctive scarf joint. Using cherry from my HMS Triton build I came up with these ......
 

 
Spot the mistake I made with the first two?
 

 
These were replaced with a couple more, with the scarf the right way round. These next two pictures show the first dry assembly
 

 

 
.....and now back to the gun carriage production line - 'only' 20 more barrels to mount, then 90 sets of blocks and tackles to assemble and fit..........
 
Cheers for now,
 
Graham.

Work continues with the upper gun deck cannons ........
 
I've decided to replace the breech rope eyelets on the carriages with larger ones as I hope to increase the diameter of this rope to 1 mm rather than the recommended size that seems a bit small when compared with images I found on the web. These are Mantua Models eyelets but while the rings are okay, the second piece of each fitting needed to have the 'loop' tightened up a bit. This was achieved by pulling them part way through an improvised draw plate.

 

 

 
After fitting the breech rope and it's eyelets to the barrel it was mounted on the carriage.  A short length of brass rod with a small dimple added to one end was used as a simple drift to push the round headed pins into their pre-drilled holes.

 

 
Trying to get the breech ropes to hang appropriately..........

 
Rigging hooks attached to 2mm blocks ...

 
...strung ....
 

 
.... and attached

 
And finally my first attempt to install one ......

 
One down, 29 to go ......
 
Cheers,
 
Graham.

After a bit of practice marking out and cutting the joints .........

 
......... the gratings have been fitted with coamings.
 

 

 
Cocktail sticks covered with double sided tape held the shot garlands off the surface but firmly enough for varnishing.

 
Cannonballs were placed on each one as soon as the varnish had been applied. A second coat was enough to fully bond these in place.
 

 

 
 
Construction of the ladders was straight forward. The stanchions were coloured with Birchwood Casey Brass Black. Handrail ropes were added before these were glued to the front of the ladders.

 
This solution was also used to black the copper eyelets I intend to use to fix the breeching ropes to the inner bulwarks and to take the hooks of the tackle ropes on the gun carriages.

 
The gratings, garlands and ladders are now all fitted in place .......
 

 
.... together with the four large cleats.
 

 
Next task - 30 x 12 Pounder long guns and carriages, plus rigging ....
 
Cheers,
 
Graham.

Hi,
Just finished the copper cladding!
I was struggling to see and apply some of the smaller cut plates needed to fill in gaps along the keel and waterline on the first side of the hull so I decided to invest in an illuminated head loupe.  I wish I'd bought one earlier as using it for the first time resulted in me having to re-work several areas as I was not happy with the gaps between some of the plates already in place.
 

 
Also in this picture is the most useful tool I found to hold plates in position for marking out and then positioning whole and cut plates when gluing - Blue Tack on the end of a short length of brass tube.  Even the tiniest pieces could be located accurately although the tip of a scalpel blade was needed occasionally to apply final pressure until the c.a. glue had dried. 
 

 

 

 

 
I followed the kits instruction's and the guidance in The New Period Ship Handbook for the layout rather than more historically correct patterns. I also went with Keith Julien's advice in this book about getting a cleaner looking edge at the waterline by adding 0.05 x 1.09 mm polystyrene strip pre-painted black.
 
The rudder, made from oak from Victory, was the last piece to be tackled. Rather than paint the top, unclad, section I 'ebonised' it using the wire wool and white vinegar technique I described on another thread. This was followed by a couple of coats of satin varnish. The result is a black finish that still allows the grain of the oak to be seen.
 

 

 

 
The three 'Victory' copper plates on each side, just under the entry ports, can be seen in these two views although they are actually less conspicuous than the pictures suggest. There is a little c.a. residue still to be carefully removed with acetone and cotton buds. Fears that I'd run out of plates proved unfounded - just.  Mistakes, re-worked sections and experiments with forming plates to fit around the keel took their toll. Got to the end with about half a dozen whole plates left!
 
I'm happy to have completed this aspect of this model - but you can have too much of a good thing and at this moment in time I can safely say that any kit I attempt in the future will be copper plate free, probably cannon free too.
 
This site is full of pearls of wisdom and two of them that are lodged in my mind at present are:
'Buy your toys before you retire' and 'it's probably best to seek forgiveness than permission'
... just maybe there's room in the 'stash' for a different type of vessel, possibly one rarely found 'outside the Straights of Otranto' ..... waiting for the day when Victory is finished - no rush!
 
Cheers,
 
Graham.
 

Hi,
While work continues with copper plating the starboard side of the hull I've also turned my attention to the cannons and their carriages. Having found a way to assemble the carriages I started work on researching how to set about applying a painted finish to the cannons. An initial request for advice on spraying led to a whole new approach (see the thread in the 'Painting, finishes and weathering techniques and products' ) and subsequently the finish is now achieved using 'Brass Black'.
 
To reliably form the trunnion clamps I resorted to making a new pair of jaw inserts for my  Mantua plank bending pliers. With this tool I've also been able to replicate the slight left and right hand bias that these clamps need to compensate for the tapering sides of the gun carriages.


Cheers,
 
Graham.

The hottest and longest day of the year.  With the ‘shipyard’ inside the house uncomfortably hot a little ‘Al Fresco’ modelling was called for…….

 
With the scent of jasmine wafting over the improvised work bench, and a cold beer, life’s good …. and this picture was taken just after 8.30pm with the temperature still in the high 20s.
 
I came up with this jig to help me to construct the gun carriages – this is the test of the first of many to be assembled.
 

 
The four elements surrounding the carriage slide up across into place and keep the parts aligned and 'square' while the glue dries. The jig will allow five to be assembled at once.

Reliance on jigs has been made more necessary as recent medical treatment has left my fingers numb to the extent that I know I’m gripping something if I can see that I am. I’ve been assured that this side effect will eventually go but it’s very frustrating at times.
 
Finally a little trick to clean up the carriage wheels – mounted two at a time on the grinding disc mandrel of a Dremel and lightly rubbed on a sheet of glass paper.

 
Cheers for now,
 
Graham.

Thanks for dropping by Marc, here is yet another jig!
 
Decision made – I’m going to stick with the approach given in the manual and work up from the keel – thanks Steve for the ‘nudge’ that finally swayed me.
After several sessions I have now fitted about 10% of the copper plates. It was always going to be a long haul, but so far it’s been fairly straight forward and surprisingly therapeutic!
 
One aspect that has been giving me food for thought was how to deal with the keel. I wanted to cover the bottom of it with plates folded evenly over the edges. With the keel 5 mm thick and the plates 6 mm wide this means a ‘return’ of 0.5 mm on the side of each plate. Early attempts with flat pliers and then brass soft jaws in a bench vice failed miserably ……
With approximately 60 plates needing to be shaped some kind of simple former was going to be required. This is what I came up with:
 

 
The main body consists of two 60 mm lengths of 5 mm square mild steel bar. The lower part has a shallow recess equal to the length of a copper plate filed into it while the upper bar has two grooves filed in with a ‘three square’ needle file to provide clearance for the raised rivet heads that run across the ends of the plates.  I couldn’t find any small diameter socket headed machine screws to apply the clamping pressure in the workshop so resorted to cutting M3 x .5 threads on the pins of a couple of  plated brass ‘push buttons’ from old 1970’s telephones that were rattling around at the back of a cupboard – knew they’d come in useful one day ….. Clearance holes in the top bar and suitably threaded holes in the lower bar finish the former.
 
The plate is put in place, but first checked to ensure that the rows of ‘rivets’ on the side are equally spaced from the edges – this sometimes varies considerably.
 

 
After clamping the protruding edges are pushed by thumb in the right direction and then a piece of softwood dowel is rolled along the edge to complete the bend.
 


 


... and the job's a goodun...
 
I hope this will be of some use to other builders.
 
Cheers,
 
Graham.
 

Hi,
It’s been a little while since my last post – life can get a bit complicated at times!
Thanks’ for all the ‘likes’, they are much appreciated and a source of motivation when tackling those more challenging tasks.
 
Before starting to apply the paint I did a bit of improvising with the tools to hand and marked on the waterline.

 
Two coats of yellow ocher where brushed on and once dry, after several attempts to get the lines right, the edges of the black strips were masked off using Tamiya’s fine masking tape.
 


Two coats of black paint later the tape was removed and the gun port linings were then neatened up with red ocher and a very fine brush. My concerns that I might lose the definition of the different plank patterns on the wales proved unfounded.
 

 
Finally I masked along the waterline and applied some copper paint.
 


Next task is to mark out the additional gun ports on the bow and come up with some kind of drilling guide for the dummy guns on the lower and middle decks.
 
Cheers,
 
Graham.

Hi All
I thought about whether I could sail with the model and whether remote control is an option. I know that "someone" before me has tried to sail with it. and therefore has changed the keel - first by drilling holes in the lead keel - as this was too heavy obviously and then made the keel deeper - for the sake of stability. I never tried to launch the model before I changed the keel back to the original.
In other words, I try to launch the model in a small tub to see its buoyancy and stability. I think the model is waterproof enough to do the experiment.

as I was well aware, it is too heavy on the water because tin is heavier than iron.
I have to give up the idea of sailing with it. I still want to build sails and rich as if I could sail with it - mostly the idea that I can hoist and lower sails if I want or take the mast off and on again if I want to. It also means that it must be a little ruby and not exactly perfect. a precursor to a next model that can then be remotely controlled

 
 
Jens.
 
 

Preparing fittings to go on the quarter deck. 
 
Waist ladders ready with stanchions.

 
Quarter Barricade Assembly also ready to be fitted. Instead of assembling it directly on deck as per instructions, I thought it would be easier to assemble it as a whole piece on workbench and fit it on deck as a complete assembly. The middle rails and the upper rail were bent with the same curvature of the deck before assembled so it will fit perfectly when fitted on deck.



 
Belfry for the forecastle breast beam assembly ready as well.  


 
Supports and rails ready to be assembled on deck together with the belfry.

 
Robert

Superb work, Robert. Your accuracy and attention to detail is an inspiration - as ever!
 
Cheers,
 
Graham

Hi all . thought i would make another post about my painfully slow progress .I did remake quite a few  of the aft cant frames, and the aft deadwood ,and the stern post but have i think finished up with something i can work with . I finally glued all the aft cant frames in place and then discovered that the transoms where to short so had to remake them all and also the sternpost as i had faired it incorrectly to the rabit line . I made them way to big as u will see in the pics but will fair them to size when in place , Problem is i may have to remove the end cant frames to install the aft section properly , not a big problem as at least i know now every thing should fit . I put a couple of pins in the sternpost to make sure i was fitting correctly . Nothing glued yet except the cant frames so still able to make small adjustments before final fitting  did some fairing just to check that everything lines up but still a lot to do 

Good afternoon everyone
 
i hope to have the foremast completed today, but each time i put a line in the Longbridge book shows another, 





 

Thanks Carl, and to all of the "likes".
 
Construction of the wings begins by placing the shaped ribs individually over the wing plan and cutting a variety of lengths and shapes. The photo below shows some of these ready for use:

Once all ribs are cut to size/shape, the wings are built up over the wing plan, in alphabetical order. Here is what this phase looks like:

Here is a photo of the wings at this stage, removed from the wing plan:
 
 
 
Two wing struts were then made, fitted with hardware and seized with thread – the plans call for them to be slightly different lengths:

Construction of the tail section begins with creating a curved “shaper” made up by laminating three pieces of 1/8” x 1/32” Cherry around a plywood former created from the supplied template. The “shaper” is then placed over the wing plan and trimmed to final size/shape:

Two of the remaining wing ribs are then glued and seized together such that they curve in three dimensions. Here are all of the tail pieces prior to final assembly:

Tail construction then proceeds with the shaper and two outer ribs glued together over the wing plan:

The two inner ribs are then notched on the underside and placed over the shaper. The blob of “yellow tack” is to provide some weight/balance so that the inner ribs set in the correct position:

The Tail Mounting Bracket is then made by first bending a piece of (very) stiff wire to shape and then adding a leather strap, which was first cut to shape and fitted with a “buckle” as well as two slits for the wire:

The Tail Mounting Bracket is then attached to the Tail Assembly:

Finally, some cable (thick thread) was added in accordance with the Wing Plan. Here is the final Tail Assembly:

The next step will be to cover both wings and tail assembly with mesh, followed by final assembly of all parts to the fuselage. The finish line approaches…

Mast on and thident up with " mast crews " . stil hawe to find a solution for maunting the front sail on weirer.
 

Hi,
Made a bit more progress, slower than hoped for admittedly, but things should speed up in the new year!
Production of the tackles begins..........
 

 
I gave up with the modified wooden pegs to hold the blocks while the hooks and ropes were being attached. Instead I made use of the left-over brass frames that held the eyelets (480).  Pressed into a block of hard foam half a dozen blocks could be mounted with the hooks supported with lace making brass pins. A slit made in the edge of the foam with a scalpel secured the rope until the knot was tied and then given a coat of clear matt lacquer. The thin aluminium tube has the head of a pin crimped in one end - an inexpensive but effective tool to get small drops of glue into awkward places.
 

 
The final batch of tackles gets assembled............
 

 
I'm guessing that time spent practicing tying tiny knots with tweezers is going to be a useful skill when I eventually get to the rigging........
 
After several sessions the gun carriages have now all been mounted.
 

 

 

 
A Merry Christmas to one and all!
 
Cheers,
 
Graham

Hi,
Made a bit more progress, slower than hoped for admittedly, but things should speed up in the new year!
Production of the tackles begins..........
 

 
I gave up with the modified wooden pegs to hold the blocks while the hooks and ropes were being attached. Instead I made use of the left-over brass frames that held the eyelets (480).  Pressed into a block of hard foam half a dozen blocks could be mounted with the hooks supported with lace making brass pins. A slit made in the edge of the foam with a scalpel secured the rope until the knot was tied and then given a coat of clear matt lacquer. The thin aluminium tube has the head of a pin crimped in one end - an inexpensive but effective tool to get small drops of glue into awkward places.
 

 
The final batch of tackles gets assembled............
 

 
I'm guessing that time spent practicing tying tiny knots with tweezers is going to be a useful skill when I eventually get to the rigging........
 
After several sessions the gun carriages have now all been mounted.
 

 

 

 
A Merry Christmas to one and all!
 
Cheers,
 
Graham

Hi,
Made a bit more progress, slower than hoped for admittedly, but things should speed up in the new year!
Production of the tackles begins..........
 

 
I gave up with the modified wooden pegs to hold the blocks while the hooks and ropes were being attached. Instead I made use of the left-over brass frames that held the eyelets (480).  Pressed into a block of hard foam half a dozen blocks could be mounted with the hooks supported with lace making brass pins. A slit made in the edge of the foam with a scalpel secured the rope until the knot was tied and then given a coat of clear matt lacquer. The thin aluminium tube has the head of a pin crimped in one end - an inexpensive but effective tool to get small drops of glue into awkward places.
 

 
The final batch of tackles gets assembled............
 

 
I'm guessing that time spent practicing tying tiny knots with tweezers is going to be a useful skill when I eventually get to the rigging........
 
After several sessions the gun carriages have now all been mounted.
 

 

 

 
A Merry Christmas to one and all!
 
Cheers,
 
Graham