Elia

Thanks, druxey, you were right, the point at the stem had crept up. Here is the batten with the corrected curve.
Gary's recommendation of a batten against which to set the wales is really proving to be a great idea. I was able to use it to accurately spile the topmost, foremost plank, and this showed me that there was greater curve on the upper surface than I had previously drawn (my CAD drawing had assumed, I realize in hindsight, that the surface was completely vertical, and this is not the case). The last photo shows how much the upper plank curves.
 
It just goes to show that there is no shortcut to reliable techniques. Set a batten, and spile the planks, set a batten and spile the planks, repeat until this lesson is never forgotten! 
 
Mark

Here is a different angle view...

Thank you, aviaamator, the opinions of all of you really help keep me focused.
 
Following the good advice of Gary on his Alfred build, I am installing a temporary batten at the top of the wale, against which I can fit the upper strakes for a smooth curve.
 
Not quite sure yet if the pre-cut and then bent strake is going to fit tightly here. It needs some "encouragement" to lie flat against the compound curving surface, and I can't see yet if this will cause unreasonable stress. I am learning much at this critical place in the build; critical because it is so obvious if the wale lies correctly or not, and at the head where the viewer's attention will naturally be drawn when the ship is completed.
 
 

I pulled the pre-cut pieces off the formers this morning, and they bent very nicely to the hull. After pondering the not insignificant program of shaping a curved blank, I think I will have more success with the original plan of bending pre-cut pieces. This allows me to shape tight fitting joinery while pieces are still flat, then bend.
 
There was a little more spring-back on the these pieces that I had previously boiled, compared to the blank I bent the other day that had not been steamed or boiled before. So the boiling did seem to affect the wood before the steaming. Only steaming from now on..
 
Mark

Thanks, Michael. I always appreciate your keen eye and ideas for tooling.
 
Now I have successfully bent a piece, I need to think how I am going to shape it. I am thinking about attaching it to a backing piece that would allow me to clamp it in a vise, as shown in the drawing. Unless someone has a simpler idea.
 
Just for fun, I steamed the original pre-cut pieces that I previously boiled and could not get to the right curvature. They appear to have bent to the former after steaming, as seen in the last photo, and we will see how much spring-back I get tomorrow morning.
 
This is an impromptu experiment in the advantages and disadvantages of cutting and then bending, or vise versa...
 
Mark

Santa did not bring a soldering iron or heat gun for me this year, so I turned again to the steam box parts that I had purchased a few years ago. I built a new box out of PVC pipe, scaled down to the sizes of wood I need to bend. I tried one former that was not sharp enough bend to allow for the springback, and then modified the bend more sharply to compensate (see sketch below). The final bend came out just right. I am in business!
 
Mark

Hmm, my nemesis, bending 9/64" thick wood...
I cut the former with a greater curve to accommodate spring-back, boiled the pieces for 1 ½ hours, and then clamped them overnight. But as the first photo shows, the spring-back was much more significant than I had planned.
So there are three variables here: 1) the curvature of the former; 2) the time boiling; and 3) the time clamped in the former. 
Before I start experimenting with different curvatures of the former, does my boiling time and bending time seem about right?
 
The good news is that the two strakes I bent at the same time came out with the same curvature, even though one was much longer than the other, and the joints fit well.
 
Best wishes,
 
Mark
 

Mark when I did mine at the bow I fitted the first top one pinned  in place with out any glue. As you said I made up a piece of wood the had the curve of the bow and after soaking the piece, it was clamp up in the form and left over night  and fitted the next day.  You might also want to put just a little bit more of a curve in the form making sure you have enough curve in the piece. After that make up a file template of the next one using the shape of the first one on the ship it self. Cut out the template, lay on the wood you making the pieces out of, cut to  shape, soak, steam and after a little be of dry fitting pin it to the hull, replace the pins with trunnels/treenails and your done. As far as putting glue on the plank, I just put glue on the trunnel and after you have 75% of the tunnels in place that plank isn't going any where. I don't like gluing the plank to the frames because if you make a boo boo then its a lot harder to get the plank off. With just the trunnel  glued its just a matter of prying up the plank fix the mistake and keep going. Had to replace a few planks on account of mistake, which am sure most of us have a box full. Then you do the next set and then the next set untill you have you wale the length of the hull. I did enjoy putting Alfred's on  and was like putting a jig saw puzzle together.  Of course am not worth a hoot when it comes to putting them together. Gary

John, Greg, thanks for the comments. It is great to be going again.
 
I planned to bend wood today, but it took most of the day to refine the joints and plank widths and thicknesses at the bow.
 
Dumb question; if I glued together the two planks shown, would they separate after boiling them for bending? I can see some value in bending these together, to keep the joint tight. I may also try making a caul shaped to the bow, and use this to ensure uniform bending if I have to do these separately.
 
Mark

Thanks, druxey, Michael and Albert. I am constantly fighting my natural tendency to "bodge" through things, rather than being more methodical. Methodical is more satisfying for me.
After playing around with various ways of cutting the hooked scarphs, I settled for now on using the Sherline mill to trim the inner flats, the disk sander to trim the outer flats, and the curved sanding blocks for the outer edges. I decided to keep the outer edges a little fat so I can trim these once on the hull.
 
three parts fitted, 53 to go...
 
Mark

Yesterday I managed to cut out all of the wales parts. To refine the curved edges, I cut a sanding template to the radius of the wales in sheer in the center, and I am using this with my shooting board. The shooting board has a sloped ramp for the sanding template, which means a wider surface of sanding paper is presented to the piece as it slides back and forth, using the sandpaper more efficiently and avoiding grooves in the piece.
 
Mark

I had to put the wales on hold for a while, waiting for the delivery of replacement thrust bearings for my bandsaw (shame on me, I discovered while tuning my bandsaw after my move that the bearings had completely frozen up). Keeping busy, I continued with the conversion of my drawings from hand-drafted to CAD, working on the upper deck plan. I came across an unusual arrangement, which raises a question. The Bellona has two curved beams in the bows, one fore and one aft of the foremast partners. These form unusual spaces that need to be filled with ledges no closer than 9" or greater than 12" apart. As I have drawn this below, just aft of beam 1, one ledge is landing on the head of the hanging knee, which I have not seen in any contemporary drawings. Has anyone seen this, or is there another arrangement for this? Also notice the space fore of beam 1 , with a lodging knee at an acute angle. I am thinking this knee would have to be scarphed together from two pieces, but I have not seen this in a contemporary drawing either. And a ledge is likely to land on the two arms of the knee. No problem with that as I can think, but very unusual.
 
Thrust bearings arrived yesterday, hope to be making sawdust again soon.
 
Best wishes,
 
Mark

Those trees come from a mysterious place.
 
A nice by product of expanding the wales in CAD is that I was able to create a very efficient template for cutting out both port and starboard pieces. These are laid out on the actual size of my blank, and the green line below shows where I have to cut down the middle to fit my thickness sander.
 
Mark

Mark, Gary, druxey, it makes all the sense in the world that the individual planks would vary in length to suit the wood available, and to ensure landing on a frame. Andy by extension, ideal proportions of 1/3 to 2/3 on top-and-butt, and 50/50 on anchor, could be adjusted by a foot or two to suit similar real circumstances in actual construction. So perhaps the Bellona model is showing reality more than an idealized model. I keep thinking that the starboard side of the model is demonstrating an unusual framing idea, compared to the conventional system on the port side. Perhaps the wales (which are only on the port side) are showing a conventional, practical system as well.
 
druxey, I like your simplification of the upper strake. My drawing shows perhaps too large a piece for too little additional strength.
 
Mark

Well spotted, Mark, I never noticed the backwards hook! The lesson I will take from this is to draw each piece ahead of time, so I don't get distracted and cut one of mine backwards. I am wondering about my apprentice theory...
 
I printed out the wales from the CAD drawing and taped it to the hull. I was off in length by 1/8th of an inch (too short in the drawing), so I adjusted by marking the actual station lines on the paper and readjusting the station lines back in CAD. All is now good to go, except for wondering if the aft-most gunport would be allowed to cut into the second strake down as shown in the second image without adjustment.
 
Best wishes,
 
Mark

Hi Mark and thanks for asking. Seems that life has been keeping me busy, some times good sometimes not so good. I am keeping a eye on you and the other good folks here and must say you are doing a outstanding job. At the moment am building a hobby bench to replace what I am using at the moment which is a make shift desk. If you get the magazine Woodsmith, on the cover, it shows the hobby bench, vol 37/ no 219. Should look real nice when I get it finshed. On a different not, on the wale there is a plan that shows the wale on, I believe a 74 and gives the shape and size of the wale pieces. I have to find the plan and get you a number for it and I will see if I can at least post up one of the photos of it. Hope it helps you. Excuse the plan of the Lyon can't seem to get rid of it.  Gary

Thanks, Ed, druxey, Alan and Mark, for the ideas and comments. We had visitors today, and spent most of the day driving to Glacier National Park in northern Montana. But in the early morning and late afternoon, I managed to finish up the drawing.
 
Using a combination of CAD and a version of druxey's shuffle around the corner, I think I got a fairly accurate expansion.
 
Mark, thanks for the note on the hooked joints. I have guessed from proportionally measuring the photos of the Bellona model that the hooks are 2 1/2" long, and incline 30 degrees to the line drawn between the two ends. Let me know if you have a different understanding. This should be very interesting to construct!
 
Best wishes,
 
Mark
 

Ed, that sounds like good advice. I measured the physical length of the wale between two station lines in plan, and plotted this on the true length line. It doesn't measure the true length along the slight curve between the station lines, but probably close enough. I only need this for templates for cutting rough blanks, and the finished parts can be refined on installation.
 
Mark
 

With so many individual wale pieces with many different dimensions, I decided to draw an expanded elevation of the wales, from which I could make accurate cut templates.
 
However, my architectural background did not prepare me for how to do an expansion of a curved surface. In the drawing below, how are the station lines in plan projected to the true length line? Do you draw a perpendicular from the wale in plan at each station line, to the true length line, as I am showing in the circled detail? It seems it would make the wale way too long right at the rabbet in the stem, since a perpendicular there would be almost parallel to the true length line...
 
Best wishes,
 
Mark
 
 

Yes, indeed, I had the marks at the rabbet a smidge too high. I think they are parallel now. Easier to see in a photo than staring at the model itself. ..
Thanks again, Druxey.

After exploring how to shape with machines the hooked scarphs for the wales, I have determined that the geometry changes for each piece, and that it would be more effective to cut them by hand. I then recalled Gary (garyshipwright) installing wales for his beautiful model of HMS Alfred. (I have tried to attach a link to his site, but it appears to go to the end rather than to the relevant pages. It is somewhere around page 4).
 
Gary temporarily attached a batten above the wale, to which he clamped the upper strakes  for a fair run. Subsequent lower strakes were clamped to the upper strake. It seems like a good idea, and I will try it. I also see that Gary laid up the wales in two layers, practicing on the first layer. I will see how well I can cut and bend 8 ½" thick pieces before deciding if I will do this in two layers as well. Getting in some practice on these complex pieces makes it feel less daunting...
 
Gary, I haven't seen a post from you for a while, hope you see this!
 
I tried string on the port side for fairing and decided that the tape gave me something to draw against. Now that I am determined to cut each piece to fit, I will want to draw the individual parts on the model sides to know where I am going. The tape also helped me visualize whether the two sides are the same.
 
Mark
 
 
 

Thanks, Mike, the beauty of that underwater form keeps me going.
 
I reflected on setting up the wales last night, and it bothered me that I could not see the fairness of the wale past the clamps on the batten.
I re-read appropriate portions Ed Tosti's Naiad book, and saw that he used painter's tape. I tried this, and it works much, much better. I can see both top and bottom. And sighting down the length really highlights the low or high spots. In this case, I saw a low spot at the fifth gunport from the bow, and could fair in another piece of tape to get the edge just right. Thanks, Ed, much better process. Now, thinking about how to cut the hooked scarph joints that are so distinctive in the first Bellona model of 1760.
 
Mark
 

Time has begun to work on the wales. I have clamped a batten to prove the upper edge, and will live with it a night to see if it still looks fair in the morning. You can see the snow piling up out the window; good time to work on the ship!
 
Mark
 
 

If I remember the story correctly, it would require a pea green boat, and I am too far along to consider a color change...tough luck for the cat! 
 
I did manage to glue in the waterway on the port side, masking the deck so the glue would not go astray. The ship cat did not help, since she was busy drinking out of the jar of water I was about to use to clean my glue brush. Can't get good help these days.
 
Mark
 
 
 

Thanks for these comments and likes.
 
Mark, the fastening you refer to is the heel lashing.  It was made with a short length of rope between an eye or a hole in the boom to the jackstay or one of its stanchions.  I believe topmen routinely carried a collection of small rope lengths for various uses - as well as the knife mentioned by Wefalck and other items.  The two most obvious temporary lashings on my model are the boom heel lashings and the tied-off reef tackle blocks.  Others were used in the various steps of bending or unbending sail. 
 
To extend the boom, a boom-jigger tackle was attached to the inner end and to a point further out on the yard.  The heel lashing was cut and the boom hauled out with that tackle where the inner end was again lashed down and the jigger removed.  To retract, the process was reversed.  In addition, when bending or unbending the yards' square sail, the studdingsail booms were unlashed at the inner end and that end hoisted up to clear the yard for the work of the yardmen.  These types of temporary lashing were used routinely.
 
Studding sails were used infrequently and eliminated altogether in the later clipper years when speed was less of an issue.  Setting these sails undoubtedly required some acrobatic efforts at the outer ends of the yards, but this work would normally be done in mild conditions.  As modelers, we do not often think much about the order of setting and taking in sail, but a definite order was prescribed.  Studding sails would be the last to be set as the wind died to near calm and the first to come down as it picked up - unlike, for example, reefing topsails - the last step as gale forces developed.  This process also required a lot of knotting of reef points.
 
Iron men in wooden ships.
 
Ed