Some Idea

This is fantastic news and I’m so pleased for Donna too. The name Byrnes has a special meaning in our small community and rightly so. They make the finest tools which help make our ships so accurate. I use mine every week without fail.

Nice job Mike making a deck off of the ship that fits so well is tricky but you’ve got this - that little vice - mmm you’ve just cost me £19 and mine arrives tomorrow 😂

I'm just catching up with your build Chris I'm a bit late to the party but I'm in now What a beautiful build with such attention to detail - simply stunning!

Thanks Marc! Good to hear from you. I've never made pintles before so I did a little research to see how others had made them. I saw examples where the strap was soldered around the front of the pin which was then filed away to move the rudder closer to the stern post. I didn't think this method would work for me as getting the 1mm thick strap to sit exactly around the pin seemed slim so I ruled that out. Frolich in his book says to make them out of a solid piece to get a very good fit. I thought that this was a great idea but struggled to think of a way to hold the piece whilst I was making it so I also ruled this out. I decided to just try and make them exactly the way that Gerard has drawn them in the monograph. The brass used was 1/16" (1.55mm) solid rod for the pin and 1mm x 2.3mm for the strap. I needed to silver solder the strap directly to the side of the pin to achieve the fit that I wanted. As silver solder has virtually no filling properties I needed to make a jig to hold each piece tightly in place whilst soldering. I used a vermiculite block which I drilled a hole for the pin to sit in and then milled a couple of brass blocks to hold the straps. It took me 3 attempts until I found the correct relationship between the pin and straps. The first attempt set the pin slightly too high; the second attempt set the straps a little too high but the third was just about right. Making the other bends was simple - what I did was cut a light line using a saw through the inside of the bend to get a clean result. I also had to make the other fitting on the rear of the rudder that the chains attach to. Once made I cleaned them up and drilled the holes in all of the pieces and also the rudder. Finally all of the parts were blackened and fitted using just small amounts of epoxy resin. So thats another challenge completed and I'm hoping to get a nice close fit to the stern post. The pintles really are solid I just hope I've left enough space to slide them onto the gudgeons - in theory I have! So the gudgeons will be my next job. Thanks Mark

Hi Paul thanks for the nice comments. Great idea using a fly cutter and rotary table I never would have thought of using them. Funnily enough I have both so that idea is going in the memory bank for later 👍 Thanks cotrecerf 👍 Thanks Tonyphil1960 👍

So having discovered that I didn't cut the reliefs for the pintles I thought I'd give it a go. This would have been so much easier when the piece was still square. I got a good result and it needed to be done. The pintles are made out of 1mm x 2.3mm brass so they need to sit flat as trying to force them into shape just will not work and damage the rudder. You can see below the much better beds for them I also have made the iron bands that reinforce the rudder around the tiller hole Thanks for all of the comments and likes they really are inspiring. I'm off to Malta for a week today so I'll catch up with you all when I get back Mark

Hi mate - mines a Sherline mill; its the manual metric version Thanks Greg I did get a bit lucky with the piece not moving but I'll take it as a win. Since looking at the pintles I've noticed that I need to cut a further relief into the rudder. This is going to take some thought but I've plenty of time as I'm still waiting on my delivery of silver solder. The name change 😀 well I think I've got a bit better since I started the build 🤣 Thanks Adam 👍

Hi Mike - lovely work. Just a thought would a ship of this size have binding strakes to tie all of the beams together. If so I would make and fit them before the carlings. Also a quick tip on the table saw - If I need say 2mm wide planks I just find a 2mm wide piece of wood and put it between the blade and fence. Thats it! The fence is set and I just sense check the first cut. Mark

Lovely work - looking at your last picture running a batton; I think that if you faired the outer frames the batton would lay just about right. Fantastic build keep the updates coming.

The rudder - This is made of 2 quite substantial pieces of wood which are 11.8mm wide. I hadn't really studied the drawings of it before but it became obvious very quickly that it was going to be harder to make than first thought. The challenge was working out the cutting order in sequence as the rudder is tapered in 2 dimensions. Once tapered holding down onto the mill becomes difficult so I worked out how many tool cuts I could do with both pieces still being square. I also cut the 2 pieces individually rather than gluing them together first. After gluing together the first few cuts are straightforward as I'm just bringing the wood down to size Next I cut the taper on the main body of the rudder - the rudder widens away from the stern. It's not much of a taper; it transitions from 8mm wide at the stern post to 10mm. I did this but cutting a series of steps into the rudder which can be sanded smooth later. Sketchy machining warning - now I can't just turn the piece over and repeat as it will no longer sit flat on the tooling plate. So I used a couple of laths to level it out but as you can imagine you are not going to get a good work hold doing it this way. Its just a case of giving it a go and holding your breath! I wouldn't recommend it but I got lucky and nothing moved. It was nice to see the taper so even considering my less than safe practice. Next to be machined was the taper on the leading edge of the rudder. I worked this out to be 51 degrees which worked out OK. Once again gripping the rudder was a bit hit and miss due to the tapers. Small cuts and taking your time helps enormously in these situations After a good clean up the finished (wooden part) of the rudder I need to make the pintles next but I'm waiting on a delivery of brass and also some silver solder. They also look like a good challenge. Mark

Moving forward with the gratings I knew that the top faces required a curve but what I had missed was that they did not just sit on top of the carlings and beams. They are actually let into the carlings so that they sit within the beams. This picture explains it far better. So I cut the bevels into the carlings - I also discovered that I had set the 4th beam about 2mm too far forward so I had to cut into the beam too. I sanded the curve on the gratings using a face sander with 320 grit paper. This worked really well Then finally I drilled and fitted the 252 nails and fitted the gratings Thanks for the advice and help in the making of these parts it was very much appreciated. I'm going to have a go at making the rudder next. Mark

Thank you so much for this information and fantastic pictures - Mark

Hi Alan - thanks very much for the reply mate I was really unsure whether I had done something wrong - so in the meantime I've been referring to Bernard Frolich's book "The art of ship modelling". I can see by his photos that yes the gaps should be there. This now gives me the confidence to carry on and get the other 2 glued together. Mind you I seem to have cut enough timber to make another 20 🤣 Every days a school day!

Guys thanks for the lovely comments 👍 I've made a start on the gratings which seem to be going ok but I'm not sure that they are correct so I do need a little help. The gratings have a gap of 2.3mm between laths - every example I have seen of making gratings involves using a table saw to cut the slots. Unfortunately I don't have a blade of that width and I also don't have an arbor where I can safely stack blades together. The closest cutter I have is a 2mm end mill so thats what I used. It took a while to mill it all out as each slot took 2 passes but I got there in the end I then cut the parts to the required sizes and also cut the flat laths I made a little jig to help with assembly which made the job very easy My first grating squared off and its actually the correct size which surprised me Now my question - looking at the underside I have the gaps shown in the picture below. Is this correct or have a done something wrong or missed something out? If someone could give me some advice it would be very welcome. Thanks Mark

Some more work completed this week - I've been getting on with the planking between the mouldings which will complete the stern planking. I also caught up with quite a bit of nailing that required finishing The ship really is starting to look solid now Finally I made the decorative moulding for the first beam on the quarterdeck I want to make the gratings next but I need to wait for Gerard to confirm whether I have read the drawings correctly or not. It shouldn't take long for a reply and then I can make something I've not made before. Mark

Lovely work on your model - welcome aboard MSW

Hi Mark believe it or not the more PVA glue you use the better. I find that a good layer of it rubberises much easier than a thin coat

Thanks Keith - it's starting to look like a ship now. Funnily enough I want to get onto the QD gratings as I've never made them before. Should be a good challenge. Mark

Hi all another update from me - this one's going to be a bit picture heavy. This time I'm approaching the gunwales; moulding and timber heads. So I started with the easiest pieces which were the lower gunwales. These were easy to make and I pre-drilled all of the holes for the guard rails Next I needed to sort out a piece that I had failed to see in the drawings - goodness how long ago was that! It was this piece coloured in red below - Its a small extension of the short frame which supports the fancy transition between the quarter deck and main deck gunwales. Because I didn't see this another issue was that I cut the interior planking too short. So I made a piece that could fill the gap and also go far enough inboard to be flush with the interior planking Next was the mouldings - these were pretty straight forward. I scraped them to shape and to hold the tricky bits still I PVA'd them to a piece of scrap and then heated the back to release them. They did take a bit of fitting but I got there and I took the opportunity to finally shape the timber heads. Now this is a tricky part to make - the gunwale transition. It is such a prominent part it needs to be as good a possible. The gunwales are different widths and they need the transition to "S" a little too. So what I ended up doing was to make the part much wider that I needed it. In fact I made it 13.5mm wide. I then roughed the "S" out but left loads on to finalise the shape once the quarterdeck gunwale was fitted. This is one of those parts where if you force it - it will snap so I just slowly worked away at them until I got a good fit. Lastly I made the remaining wale - It fits around the timber heads and also the guard rail stanchions so I made sure that they fitted correctly. I think this would be difficult once they are fitted. A few pictures of where I am now. So next I guess I need to finish the planking between the mouldings and also make the decorative face for the first beam on the quarterdeck. Thanks for all of the nice comments Mark

Here's mine - I keep everything away - its easier to keep clean that way

Hi Paul - your Winchelsea is beautiful mate and I bet you get the itch to Start Le Rochefort before you finish her! Hi Mark - Thanks but the question is when are you going to start your first scratch build? Thanks druxey - I'm obviously very familiar now with Le Rochefort and I do get a lot of help from Gerard who always answers my questions regarding the drawings. I'm now getting nearer to the end of this build so I purchased L'Aurore (slave ship) as my possible next build. When look at the drawings I find it difficult if not impossible to relate the half breadth and lines plans to the actual hull. I've discovered I'm a craftsman not a draftsman thats for sure and I have tried to read a couple of books on the subject but still no. However once it's been explained I get it! Well until the next point where I do not. I think what I probably need to do to get that one off the ground would be to start another build and just get the questions out there. It's a little while away yet though as I can only ever build one thing at a time.

Thanks Vladimir they look very realistic did you etch them yourself or is something that can be bought. The reason I ask I would be very interested in either learning how to do the process or even better purchase some.

marsalv beautiful work - I have to ask how did you make the metal hinges for the door? They really look to scale and are so tiny - Mark

Fantastic work and how you do all of this with paper is just amazing - Mark

Tis done - but I still need a drawing mentor ta 👍