Some Idea

Fantastic what a great ship to build and what an amazing start - I'm in!

B-Ram luck with your build I'll follow along mate 👍

Goodness me that is beautiful work - that dividing head for you mill looks the business and I must get one of those.

Thanks for the vote of confidence - These really are not easy pieces to make if you want them to fit correctly. I'll get there I know that I will but I've scrapped two attempts but my third is just about spot on. Hi Keith and thanks mate! The forward piece is about 340mm long and the rear 300mm long. They are a simple butt joint and thank goodness for that! Over the length of the forward part the angle changes over its length by about 18 degrees. It's quite difficult to describe in words but you have to work upside down with your measurements as the widest part is at the bottom. Its tricky but I will do this.

Thanks Dave This is not really an update as I'm not that much further forward. I've finished my decorating and have been putting quite a few hours into Le Rochefort. I've just hit a hard bit of the build for me and it's taking time. I have incorrectly been calling these parts the waterway, but when having referred to the drawings they are in fact the spirketting which I guess makes up part of the waterway. Goodness me this is a hard piece to make correctly at this scale. I need the pieces to sit squarely on the beams and also have the correct angle from the clamp to the frame. They also have to follow the shape of the hull so it's a changing 3D puzzle. They are roughly 9mm square and if the shape isn't right and I clamp them in place (force them) I can foresee unnecessary stresses being built up in the hull. Here's a picture that explains what I'm trying to achieve. Width "A" is not a constant - It varies throughout its length. To make things even more exciting angle "B" also varies along its length from being 90 degrees square to a negative 18 degrees. Anyway I will get this done it's just taking a lot of time to do correctly. I like to share these issues so that other builders can see the problems that I encounter along the way. Cheers Mark

Lovely work Kevin 👍

Welcome mate from another UK builder 😀

Fabulous work Tobias - how nice to have another Le Rochefort builder on the forum too. Your attention to detail is great and I like the colour of the wood too.

I used to do a lot of spray painting and we removed the step whilst the paint was still slightly tacky. We removed the masking tape and then ran a finger along the line before it had fully set. This removed the step entirely - however after the paint had fully set....

Thanks druxey another hurdle sorted in my build Thanks BW - I found the hardest part of making this piece was keeping it flat on the beams and breast hook. It would have been easy to force it into place with clamps and I guess it would look the same once glued in. But the challenge for me was to make it fit like it dropped into place and was snug on its adjoining joints. I was really hoping to make the next piece along out of a straight piece of timber and bend into shape. Unfortunately at 9mm x 9mm square its not going to happen so I'll fashion the next pieces too..........well after my decorating is done 😆 Thanks all for the nice comments too 👍

Wow! I think your going to miss working on this beautiful ship when its finished after the small boats are made.

Thanks Bruce - I really am enjoying building this ship. I would recommend it to anyone for their first POF build. Cheers marsalv 👍

Hi All Another update from me - before the nailing I decided to have a go at the waterway first. So here's the first part of my journey trying to make the waterway around the bow. My first effort went in the bin! I made two pieces that fitted very nicely around the hawse timbers but I made them too narrow. Here's a picture of the plans and how I made my error. I used the measurement "A" which completely failed to take into account the thickness of the planking that sits above it. Below - The binned parts and the incorrect measurement that I used. So after a quick message to Gerard Delacroix I got back onto the right track and realised that due to the camber of the pieces I needed to take my measurements from the underside to get the correct thickness. So I made the same pieces again but left them much wider. I first fitted the outside to the hull and then placed my templates on the underside to get the correct thickness (I hope this makes sense) It was only then that I sanded the inside of the parts to shape and this worked quite well. Next I needed to cut the matching dovetails so that they fitted to the beams. I couldn't get a pencil in to mark them so I used the plans instead. I placed the parts onto photocopy so that I could see how the beams lined up. I then cut out the dovetail templates and glued them onto the waterway parts. All of the templates are upside down as if you are looking through the part. Now this may seem a bit extreme but I couldn't see the point of going to loads of trouble to make the dovetails on the beams of the waterway parts did not fit tightly. Next I milled out the dovetails. It was all worth it as I got a very nice fit. Next I marked out and sanded the bevel into the face of the parts and this is the result They should be ok once clamped and glued permanently but I have to say these are not easy parts to make and get a good fit. I've got to do some decorating at home now for the next couple of weeks so I'll get some more up on the build when I can Cheers Mark

Very nice tight work 👍 skills and patience were required and you’ve smashed it!

Lovely detailed work that is so hard to do and you make it look so easy 👍

Hi Toni - thanks very much 👍 Not too much of an update but I've been installing the deck permanently - It really did just click together with very little in the way of clamps. After all of the beams were installed I finished off the mast partner with the corners that I had not made originally. I also set the angle aft within it for the mast. Next were the pump partners - I admire all of you builders who work in a smaller scale. I wanted to keep it true to the original ship and made the joints accordingly. This was tricky at 1/24th scale so how you lot do it on a smaller scale I have no idea. Lastly I faired the deck - this is as satisfying as fairing the hull. You know that when you have done it - it's another mile stone in the build. A few pictures Its so annoying when you see that you cut a beam a little too short - 🤣 So now I need to get nailing - I've discovered that this is not my favourite job. I'll have a go at that next weekend. There are some things that I could have improved upon - Firstly the very rear stern hatch is not quite straight and square. I've obviously messed up a bit there but it's easily fixed. Secondly I can see that some of my beams are just slightly too short and this will cause some corrections when I make the waterway and spirketting. Again it's all solvable so I'll tackle those issues at a later date. I can't thank you all enough for your kind comments - Cheers Mark

Truly incredible - that ship is a thing of beauty mate 👍

Whether a kit or scratch builder this is the quality of work to aspire too. Chuck that is amazing!

Thanks druxey much appreciated mate 👍 Wow thanks Greg - I think it will all look really nice once it's glued up and tightly clamped together which will take some time as there's quite a few nails to go in too. Having looked at the plans I think one of the real tests of this build will be the waterway - now that looks tricky as it has to fit tightly and be symmetrical too. That will be the next big job on my build.

Thanks Tobias 👍 Cheers giampieroricci 👍 Hi Dave - I used to have the Proxxon sander and they are great and do the job very well - but Byrnes tools are just in a different league. So another update from me - First up was to get the mill out and cut out the notches for the beams. Then they were glued in place which was quite straight forwards. I did have to bend them a bit so they they followed the line of the deck clamp. Next was to make and fit the small knees that connect the shelf to the transom. And finally a last dry fit of the deck to check that everything fitted OK. I also got the height gauge out and checked the beams one last time for accuracy. So before I glue all of the beams in a need to put a final finish on the inside of the hull. Once this is done I'll glue it all together; finalise the mast partner and make the pump partners before fairing the deck. I'll get some pictures up hopefully next weekend. Thanks for all of the encouragement - Mark

Goodness me that boat is so tiny - fabulous work

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!!