Charter33

Good evening to everyone after a long time, Ruby & Arthur Reed's epic does not end here, I recently attended the world shipmodels  championship of class C  in Galati 1-9 September   Romania where this model was judged by an international judging committee with a score of 87.66 for class C2. This contest took place 20 kilometers from my home. Some pictures on the jury table below.
All the best and a nice evening still.
 
Adrian.

Thanks for the 'likes'. 
Kevin - appearances are very deceptive. The secret is to use the camera 'creatively'. Get in close, tight focus and the mess is out of the picture. Most of the time the room I use is controlled chaos, not helped by the admiral considering the man cave as an ideal dumping ground for some of her bits and pieces. 😏

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

well as stated above i have gone back to the Victory, i quess i am a person with ideas way above my skill sets and dreams way above storage  arrangements, and that is partly the reason for this build being laid up for two years, perhaps some one will remember i was looking at a diorama, well like this one
but had the ships launch pulling her to find a light wind
well 7 years down the line reality has kicked in and i am just unable to complete that task, so i looks like, well a build without sails,

having accepted that fact i have spent the last day cleaning her off, repairing a little damage on the bowspit again (always getting in the way) and now setting the two yards fitted to it


   

its just over 2 years since i did any work on the Victory, so as of today she is back on the work bench, new mancave and my fav build, what more could a 60 year old ask for

Hi,
 
I managed to find a local supplier of 0.5 mm brass wire and my first attempt at a frame now has the pins I mentioned earlier.
 

 
I decided to focus on the stern and to this end I've worked on the transom pieces. I made the lowest filling transom first and to be honest it was a bit of a disaster.  Subsequent attempts were more successful. 
 

 

 

 
 The filling, deck and wing transoms have been cut to profile and the joints adjusted to ensure a good fit with the inner post.  They have not yet been glued into place.  Inner surfaces have been given an initial fairing but I'm thinking of leaving the outside faces and the ends until the appropriate frames are ready.  This way I can refine the fit to the frames and they will be better supported and stronger to withstand shaping.
 
Next task will be the bow - once I've worked out which version of the Hawse to use. There seem to be two versions: 'Hawse, 1 - 5' and 'Hawsetimbers 1 - 6'. I think it's the latter .....
 
Cheers,
 
Graham.
 

A quick update, more work on the cannons.  No wonder Robert22564 in his build log once referred to them as the frigging carriages, there is so much work on them.
 
Prepared the breaching ropes with an eyelet and passed through the eyelet at the back of the cannon.

 

 

 

 
 
 
 
Fitted trunnion brackets to carriages.  Marked pilot holes for each individual bracket.
 

 
 
Drilled holes for pins on drill stand.

 
 
Fitted brackets with pins.

 
 
All 30 cannons (one missing , it is rigged on deck to check the lengths for the breaching ropes) ready with breaching ropes passed through rings of carriages.  The eye pins were small enough to pass through the rings. You have to be careful when rigging the eyelets to  the breaching rope to have a neat knot that passes through the ring as well.

 

 
 
Next step are the tackles.  Have to experiment a bit with the size of the hooks.  

 
 
Robert

Two Brigs and a Chebec off the North African Coast.
w/c 14" X 10"
jim

Hi all,
 
After finishing HMS Hood I've decided to do something a bit different this time. A change is as good as a holiday, as they say .
 
This is a free download of a Card model - a vintage Yamahe YA-1, the first bike that Yamaha made. This won't be a comprehensive Build Log, but I'll post pics as I complete certain significant sub-assemblies.
 
The kit is not particularly good (different to what I'm used to might be more appropriate), as they would have you use Tabs throughout the build. I'm cutting them off and edge-gluing instead. The instructions are VERY good for a card model, every step is highly detailed.
 
First thing (and I'm following the instructions with this one ) is the Headlight :



 
No clear lacquer has been applied yet. It will "hide" the unsightly excess glue marks when it's on. Next things are the front shock absorbers. The "rubber" boots took a while to make :



 
The Headstock comes next. Some of these parts are a bit tricky to work out how they fold at first, but I'm quickly getting used to it :




 
Updates will follow when I have something substantial to show.
 
Danny

Hi,
Finally managed to get the all clear to get back to the workshop after five months of convalescence. My Triton build is now in the process of being resurrected - just breaking myself in with some more of the more straight forward frames from mid-ship while I try to get my head around the convolutions and challenges of the hawse and bollard components ..........
 

 
Graham.

Hi,
The workshop is a school workshop. On a typical day I can share it with approximately a hundred students, in groups of about twenty, ranging in age from 11 - 18. This particular corner I claim as my own, the bench is mine and will be leaving the school with me when I eventually retire, as will my Poolewood wood turning lathe which also graces the room. I will, however, need to sort out a workshop of my own, when that day comes, that will be big enough to accommodate this equipment and all the other bits and pieces that have accumulated over the years! 
My other project, HMS Victory, is being constructed in the 'spare' bedroom at home, much smaller and 'cosy', to put it politely. 
I get to work very early to avoid travel congestion - the workshop is quiet, there are no students around, for almost an hour my time is my own ........... is there a better way to start a working day?
.... and at the other end of the day, when they've gone home, planning and marking is up to date and any meetings are finished ........... 
 
Thanks for the comments and 'likes', the feedback is much appreciated.
 
Cheers,
 
Graham
 

A quick up-date........
 
After a bit or re-organisation the workshop now has an area dedicated to the Triton build.
 

 
The first frame has now been completed. I'm thinking about adding some pegs (tree nails?) Assuming that these would have been about an inch in diameter on the original my calculations come out at a gnats whisker over 0.5 mm diameter. I'll try and source some brass wire and see how it goes.
 

 

 
I played safe and worked on a frame from the centre of the hull (0). It currently has excess material at the top which will be trimmed later, but in the meantime this provides support for the acrylic brace that I hope will prevent any movement in the wood.
 
I've also had a go at making a height gauge for transferring vertical measurements from the plan to the model.
 

 

 
 
Cheers for now,
 
Graham.

Hi,
Now that the dust has settled on the start of a new school year I've managed devote a bit of time again to this project and have made some more progress ......
 
Shaping the fore and aft deadwoods was holding me up a bit as I tried to make sense of the various sectional profile drawings. My inexperience was evident as I tried to juggle the various profiles and much time was spent working through the other build logs in this section. They certainly helped, and then I came across and followed the link that Dan Vad mentioned in a post referring to his HMS Vulture build. This proved to be a great help and I can see myself visiting this regularly as my build continues - thank's Dan!
 
In the end you just have to dive in and have a go...
 

 
Using a combination of thin brass sheet and acrylic templates pinned to the aft deadwood the sides were reduced to the required shape.
 

 
My first attempt at tapering the lower end of the inner post was not as successful as I had hoped so a second had to be made.
 
The rebates were then cut in the stern post with a scalpel and lower area worked to match the ajoining components prior to being glued together.
 
A carving knife proved an effective way to cut the curving rebate in the stem and subsequent shaping of the fore deadwood. I expect there will be a bit more work ahead on these later.
 

 

 
At last we have a keel!
 

 

 

 
... and work begins on the frames ......
 

 
Cheers,
 
Graham.

Hi,
Bill – thanks for dropping in.  I’m building to a scale of 1:48 as per the plans. I forgot to put this in the original thread title and was unable to find a way to edit it. I’ve now resorted to adding it as a tag label.
 
A quick up-date:-
The great news of the re-opening of the Triton build topic and the changes in how to now access the plans arrived while I was way on a family holiday. Dealing with this was the first job I did upon my return!
The plans are superb – some sheets are genuine works of art. Thank you if you were involved in their production. So much time, care and effort has clearly gone into them. Very much appreciated. Today I invested in having all the AO and A1 sheets printed as I cannot do this for myself unlike the A4 sheets. I have found much information to assist with the task of shaping deadwoods, stern and inner posts etc. Looking at the grooving in the keel sides I decided to spend a bit of preparation time making a basic scratch stock to add this detail.


 
The stock is beech and the blade was fashioned from a heavy duty craft knife blade. Three different ‘spurs’, to deal with the variations in angles shown on the plan, were initially ground to shape with a Dremel and then honed on a water-cooled grindstone. A quick trial on an offcut of cherry proved successful.
 
I’ve been checking the list of plan files in the ‘Complete Model’ download section against the list provided further up in the download area and have found a bit of discrepancy. On the plus side there are many additional files covering areas such as Great Cabin sash lights, Hawse, Hawse and Bollard timbers. Although most of the files I initially thought were missing were actually available by looking in the 'Cross-section' build version download area, I have not yet been able to locate the following:
Belfry layout
Binnacle
Capstan details
Capstan Layout
Triton stove
Wheel
Stem
Tapered keel
Starboard Stern Timbers (1-3)
Tafferel Rev 1 (????)
Rudder
Rudder iron work
 
Are they ‘hiding’ on other sheets perhaps? My inexperience could well have led to me overlooking them of course. Is there any way to obtain them? Any advice gratefully received.
 
Cheers for now.
 
Graham.

Thanks for the ‘likes’, comments and input.  Always welcome and appreciated.
 
Michael (MEDDO) – the equipment is not exactly mine,  but having access to it is the next best thing. The planner / thicknesser and I go back 40 years – and I believe it was almost 20 years old when I first used it!  I must have fed the equivalent of a small forest through it over that time …..
Christian – I agree that the black and the brown pens that I used on the aft deadwood are too dark.  I have found a set of ‘Furniture Touch up scratch repair’ marker pens that contain lighter browns and plan to experiment with these when they arrive next week.
 
In the mean-time the components for the bow structure are ready to be cut out.

I’ve been working on the false keel and keel parts this week.  All the scarf joints have been marked out and cut.


 
I have also made a temporary filler piece for the space between the fore and aft deadwoods, where the frames will go later,  to help with shaping the bottom edges of the keelson components and to aid with the alinement  of the various sub-assemblies when they are glued together.


I’ll be adding the tapers to the ends later.  They are ready for gluing now and once dry I plan to add the treenails to the joints.  Showing my inexperience here,  but should these be wooden pegs or copper wire? – I’ve seen both methods used …..
 
Cheers for now,
 
Graham.

Blackened the upper gun deck 30 cannons with Birchwood Casey Black Brass.  Found very good blackening hints on Graham's (Charter33) build log. 
 
Cannons cleaned in acetone

 
 
Drying after blackened in Birchwood Casey Brass Black and rinsed in water. The three cannons on the left are already wiped with a cloth to remove the black dusty residue left on the cannons after drying.  

 
 
All 30 cannons wiped clean and polished with Carnauba Car Wax.

 
 
For the carriages that are going to be under the skid beam assembly I added some more detail to carriage wheel shafts.  I didn't like the squarish shaft protruding from the wheels. Bought some eyelets (C83506) from CMB,  widened the hole to fit the shaft and cut off the eyelet leg leaving just a short piece. Blackened them, glued over the shaft and painted end of shaft black.

 
 
Fitted eyelets to carriages, except for the once with the ring to take the breaching rope on the side of the carriages. In the image they are only dry fitted.  These will be fitted later on when fitting the cannons to the carriages.
 



 
 
 Cannons will be fitted to carriage with the brackets, with the breaching rope already fitted with the eyelets and passed through the breaching ring at the back of the cannon. 
 
Robert
 
 

To finish, the cross section is mounted on a pedestal made of dark hardwood.

Hi Graham, great idea for using eyelets 480 for the hooks.  Tried one and they are the perfect size.  Very kind of you to offer to send the jig, but don't worry I'll hammer a few pins in a piece of wood.  If I run in any problem I'll let you know.  I've already used quite a few of the eyelets for the rings to take the breech rope at the side of the carriage, but as you said if we run short of them we can always order from CBM. 
 
Robert

Hi,
Thank you for your kind comments and 'likes'.
 
David - Good to see you back.  I'd seen that you had resumed building your HMS Diana and have been looking out for your updates. I particularly like the way you dealt with the deck planking. I'm sure it was your advice I followed about threading all the eyelets onto the breech rope before fitting it to the gun carriage. It worked a treat.
 
Robert - Yes, the hooks were made from eyelets supplied with the kit. They are the 480 eyelets, the same as you show after 'blacking' on your build log. I'm not sure how generous the manufacturers are in the quantity of these they provide but if I run short of them later I know that they are easily obtainable from either them or CMB. To shape them I made a jig that used dress making pins liberated from the Admirals sewing box to secure and then provide support as the eyelets were bent using a combination of cocktail sticks and a home made bradawl to push them into shape. If it would help you I could send you a basic jig like the 'MK 2' (white acrylic) one which enables 10 hooks to be done at a time. Speeds things up a bit when you need to do 180! PM me your address if you're interested.
 
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.

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.