No Idea

The difference in colour of the wood in the rudder is fantastic 😎

That really is nice work Dave 👍

Cheers mate its starting to come along now! I've made a start on the deck shelves - Its the usual procedure of running some wood through the thicknesser which in this case is 6.9mm and then photocopying the plans for the templates. Then cut them out, sand to size and join using scarf joints The next stage just takes time as the shelves do not sit at 90 degrees to the deck clamps. The best description I can give is that the point slightly upwards as if to follow the curvature of the beams. So a bevel needs to be cut the entire length of them and then they also need to be let into the deck clamps for a good tight fit. This isn't actually hard to achieve it just takes time and a little patience. Once done I clamped them in place to mark out the recesses for each beam. I thought that the best way to achieve this accurately would be to use the beams themselves so thats what I did. This seems to have worked well so now that I have the locations I can cut them out. I also need to bevel the front of the shelves and round the underside which will be my next jobs. I've also been treating myself 😊 I bought my sanders little brother for some of the finer work. Wow what a lovely tool this is - Its not as powerful as its big brother but it has excellent control for both speed and direction. Just what I needed and another fantastic tool from Model Machines. Loads to do and thanks to you all for your comments and likes on this build Mark

Thanks Greg 👍 Yea it is the normal way to do a joint by cutting the dovetail first and thats the way I have always done them. I just fancied trying something different to see how I would fair. They are not too bad but not as tight as they should be - I do these things to get better at using edged tools. I will put some glue into the joint but I also think I'll run a HB pencil around the receiving part so that I don't completely loose the joint. I've been looking at the deck shelf and the more I look at it the harder it looks. I think its going to be one of those parts that gets made more than once - just as well I've got a good stock of wood!!

Looks great Kev - those pictures show how tight you got the planking running up the stem.

Hi All Work continues on the deck and I've been making the short and thinner half beams. The plans give you a very good idea of the shape but don't give the individual shapes for the undersides although the lengths are shown separately. This simply means that you have to use your brains a bit and translate the drawings as you see fit. Thinking back I would have struggled with this concept at the beginning of this build but now I can see what is required. So here are the eight half beams. Now just for a change and to try something new I thought that I would make the female part of the dovetail joint first and then fit the end of the beams to suit. This was not a great idea and I won't be doing that again - it's so much harder that way around and I couldn't get the joints as tight as I wanted. Anyway they turned out ok and here they are fitted on the ship. I still need to drop a few of them further into the deck clamp but thats an easy job. On the whole I think the run of the deck looks pretty good as this is only a dry fit and I don't think it will take much sanding at all. I can see some slight variations on the dovetails for the waterway and spirketting so I guess that will need some adjustment when the time comes to make them. I'm not going to make the pump partners until the deck is fixed in place either. So now I have to remove all of this work and make a start on the deck shelf which is fitted to the entire length of the deck clamp. This shelf is there as no knees are fitted to the beams on this ship and it looks quite difficult to make. Hopefully I'll have something to share soon Cheers Mark

You know what Kevin I really admire you here - A small error which has changed the course of your build in your own mind and you have risen to the challenge. Now that the paint is on you can really see the lovely shape of the hull that you have made - this is going to be one lovely build 👍

Another update from me as I finished the mast partner in far less time than I thought it would take. The first thing I did was to make sure that the carlings were a very good fit in between the beams. As mentioned earlier I had placed beam 7 in the incorrect place and once this was sorted the parts fitted as they should. In this picture they are sitting proud as I had not yet cut the rebates to make them flush. The cut rebates and how they sat on the beams after. I have deliberately left them slightly proud so that I have something to sand down to deck level. Next I cut out the notches for the other two parts of the mast partner and the dovetail for the half beam Nothing like a nice piece of symmetry 👍 I then made the other two parts which basically followed the same process. The actual hole is bevelled towards the stern but this is not difficult to achieve. The parts assembled The parts on the ship between the beams. To complete them they still need some small corners made but I'll make and fit them once the mast partner is fixed in place. I've still got loads to do before I get the half beams in. Cheers Mark

I use a Sherline mill with a 10k rpm pulley upgrade and more importantly 2 flute end mills as these really get the chips away well. The surface finish is more down to the wood I'm using than anything else. Its Castello and is very good at keeping an edge.

Hi Nersch - you are correct the angle gets wider in both directions and this is a tricky job to get right. I worked out the angles and then milled the parts. The angle was achieved on the mill by packing the stern end up from the bed of the mill. It's a very slight angle which had to be replicated to obtain a mirror image on both sides. As I remember I then finished the job by hand - I hope this helps.

Hi Paul - cheers mate thats nice of you to say 👍 I tried to start the mast partner tonight and discovered that the beams that it sits between are 5mm to close together. After having a good look at my mistake it was obvious that the front beam was 4mm to far aft and the rear beam was 1mm to far forward. So I've been fixing this issue which is no big deal it just means a few repair pieces in the deck clamp. Ship building is amazing - just when you think you've got it right.........well something needs correcting 🤣

Thanks mate 👍 Work on the deck continues - Having found the centre line of the beams I placed the templates on each beam to cut out all of the required notches. There's quite a lot of them to cut and I had to look through quite a lot of the plans to find the required sizes. I was cutting for the carlings, binding strakes, bowsprit partners, mast partner and pump partners too. Also some to the cuts follow the curve of the beam and some need to be cut vertically. There was one dimension that I just couldn't find and a quick email to Gerard Delacroix gave me the place to look - Thanks Gerard So lots of cutting which I mainly did on the mill using a 1mm twin flute end mill and then squared out all of the corners with a chisel Once that job was done it was a pretty simple job to make the carlings for the hatches - I was just trying to get the tightest fit that I could. I now need to make and fit the 8 half beams that fit along side the hatches and mast partner. So I guess I'm going to have to make the mast partner too. I think this will take quite a while so I'll update you once I get somewhere with it. Thanks for all of the encouragement Cheers Mark

Wow mate that really is some tight woodworking right there - fantastic 👍

beautiful work 👍

I really admire the honesty of this post - It says it all - SOTS is a beautiful beast of a ship and I couldn't build it yet. I see too many builds start and falter which puts the builder off of our amazing hobby. Great advice above which as the OP says will probably be unpopular.

Chuck I like the one on the right - it looks like the sea has had a go at it and looks just right. Just my thoughts.

Hi ya Jason - I use a spindle sander to make the concave profiles with the biggest cylinder for such a gentle curve. Its my most least liked machine if I'm honest - it vibrates - its loud - its just not a great machine to use. I've been asking Jim Bynes for ages to make a decent spindle sander for ship builders for ages (I never miss an opportunity to say it again) and I hope that he does one day 🤣 Its not challenging to do just not one of those jobs you look forward too - Oh but I should have said its a very easy profile to achieve 👍

Wow - thanks druxey! Thanks mate 👍 This is a bit of a nothing post below but sometimes I just love the simple things that are just so accurate. Two pins - a length of red cotton - dead centre the length of the hull. If only everything was this easy

Thanks Brian 👍 Cheers Vladimir Thanks HH its starting to come together now! I've now done some more work on the forward beams. It's exactly the same principle as before. Here are the beams cut to length and carved. And cut into the deck clamp making sure that they are sitting at the correct height. Just like the stern; at the stem the beams must line up with the breast hook which was fitted over a year ago! A couple more pictures So my next job is to mark the centre line of the beams and then mark out and cut all of the notches for the carlings and hatches. Cheers Mark

If you want the best it really is a matter of opinion and the users experience of how the saws they have used in the past perform. In my opinion I now use a jewellers saw as it does everything that I need. It can hold so many different types of blades (which break often) that its use for me is pretty much limitless. The blades can be installed as push or pull and turned to suit the cut as well. This is the one that I use but it ain't cheap and before this I used many saws which were adequate but never as good as this one. However as has been said a really good knife is essential and can actually quite often do the job of a saw. Your choice is huge and dependant on your budget. I originally started with the cheapest blades and saws that money can buy and they have got me to where I am today. https://www.knewconcepts.com/MK4-saws.php

That is just incredible work - amazing 👍

Welcome to MSW from the Black Country

Thanks Mic_Nao the wood is Castello and its very nice to work with Thanks Albert 👍 Hi Paul - No problem mate I think it's really important to show how we try to make these parts. It took me a few weeks to decide how I was going to tackle this joint and in the end it was quite easy once started. Thanks B-Ram 👍

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

Hi Nersch and thanks for you kind comments. To answer your question in my experience Castello is only slightly harder than pear and they are very similar to work with too. They both hold a very good edge so the choice for me is really about your personal preference in regard to colour. Both are fantastic woods for model ships. Hi Adrian thanks for dropping by and your comments are very welcome. Gerard also pointed out my error but thanks for the photo of your barrels. I follow your book very closely and it has guided me through this build so far. I have a lot to learn about building ships! I still haven't had any time to work on Le Rochefort but hopefully work will resume very shortly Mark