druxey

Hello all, just a little update.  I’m back up in Connecticut but the shipyard has been commissioned by my wife and daughter for wedding preparations.   My daughter will be getting married this coming September and the wife being frugal as always has voluntary me to make all the table center pieces.  Therefore the shipyard will be shut down for a bit longer. Not that I mind, looking forward to the wedding.
 
Air brushed flowers

Nice subject, Chris. And the prototype looks very impressive!

The color you show does look too intense. Even if this was what was used, it should be tinted (lightened) at scale size to look right.

Hi Everyone, thank you for the Comments, Likes, and for dropping by. The deck beams have been completed and then the king plank was removed where it crosses the cockpit.
 


 
The cockpit was framed using material from a carrier sheet that had the correct radius for the aft two corners.
 


 
For a change of pace I made the cockpit floor and then gave it a dry fit. 
 

 


 
Support was added for the deck furnishings and the holes for the masts were opened up
 


 
The inner stem was cut flush with the deck beams.
 


 

 

This week the hull planking will be worked on. Hope to see you next time.

Nice subject, Chris. And the prototype looks very impressive!

The color you show does look too intense. Even if this was what was used, it should be tinted (lightened) at scale size to look right.

I wonder whether a piece of tempered glass, shattered, would provide granules of the scale size?

The color you show does look too intense. Even if this was what was used, it should be tinted (lightened) at scale size to look right.

The color you show does look too intense. Even if this was what was used, it should be tinted (lightened) at scale size to look right.

Nice subject, Chris. And the prototype looks very impressive!

Cheers, I never know until they go on sale.
 
The last time I did an 18-gun brig was 25 years ago, so I wanted to make sure this one's a little more special and not a rehash of what I have done before. I do try to implement stuff I have thus far learned from previous designs, and also take on board constructive criticism of certain aspects. Harpy will be the latest iteration of that learning curve - plus I wanted to do this little fighter justice, being the longest served of her class and the most widely travelled, in action from the French Revolutionary to the end of the Napoleonic Wars. Plus she has great lines, being not nearly as 'Flat' as the Cruiser Class, but more like an much larger Speedy Class, lines wise.
 
When I started this, my first stipulation to myself was that I wanted to include a stove. This meant that I would need to show the lower deck, so the model also has scale upper deck beams (4mm thick pear) and adding more lower detail, which does increase the material count by quite a margin.
 
The deck planking pattern is actually copied from an original copy of a Cruiser Class deck plan, which includes the deck planking lines. As per usual now, anything directly glued to the inner and outer bulwarks have slots for their respective positions, eliminating the need to measure where they go, and because they are slotted as well as glued, the channels and pin racks are very strong and secure. I did make one change from the original plans, and that was to add stern davits, as I have a painting of her showing these, and I have no doubt these would have been added at some point in her long career. I will include at least one 3-d printed cutter, perhaps two, one for the deck and one for the stern davits. (Modeller can always leave the stern davits off, if they so wish)

As I said at the start, I have no idea how this will sell, but I certainly didn’t want to simply produce yet another run of the mill kit with just bulkheads, keel and upper deck, like the ones I did 25 years ago - no fun in that. This will be my 17th and final kit for this year. Jim will be doing a build log for this later this year - I still have much to do before then, though.
 

Round-up to the head ledges and gratings👍
 
B.E.

OK, I have just competed the hull designs for Harpy (1796), now onto masts. Here are a few pics of the (sacrificial) 'pre-prototype', again, used only to check fit of designed parts, so this has really been taken apart and put together a lot. (And is in fact the third of my builds for this)
 
Again, the only planking required will be at the level below the main wale down, with everything above this all pre cut/engraved, including the main wale (this is why they take so long to design)
 
Armament is absolutely typical of this vessel, 16 x 32-Pounder carronades and 2 x 6-Pounder long guns.
 
64th Scale, as I am sure someone will ask, and a hull length of around 545mm, with a lot of detail..
 
ETA - The hatch coamings sit on the deck beams and carlings, and not directly onto the deck, and the deck sits directly onto the deck beams, instead of ply sub deck and lime deck, for better scale appearance.

Hello everyone, and thank you for your interest and comments.
 
Not much has happened since my last post, but I have decided on a color to be used for the paneling of the “underste Kajyt”. Siggi had suggested a turquoise color, which is common for the rococo-style. In addition to all sorts of other suggestions such as grey, natural or red, I somehow stuck with it. Not because it was historically vouched for my model, but because it is something different from the usual red and white, and spreads a Northern European-Scandinavian cool atmosphere, which I like for my model, it is not English, so red would have been a good choice.
It may still be a little intense, but I'll leave it that way for now:
 

 
In the Danish National Archives, under the archive number A 1175d, there is a layout of the stern cabins of the Orlog ship ELEPHANTEN (same size, same designer and same year of construction as the TRE KRONER) and under the archive number A 975 an elaborately drawn longitudinal section of a Danish ship oft he line, which also shows the paneling of the “underste Kajyt” and the “Storre Kajyt” (great cabin). The “Storre Kajyt” has fluted flat columns with Corinthian capitals.
 


 
I am basing my model on both drawings, i.e. there will be no partitions in the areas of my stern section and the paneling in the upper cabin will be correspondingly more elaborate.
 
Further clues are provided by a contemporary cutaway model from the Krigsmuseet, where the rudder trunk, the stern bench and a bookshelf are beautifully depicted, and the preserved interior of the Swedish royal yacht AMPHION in the Sjohistoriska Museet in Stockholm. It doesn't have to be quite so magnificent, but the columns and the paneling are comparable to the sectional drawing A 975 (see above) I visited and photographed the Amphion myself, it is extremely impressive.
 


 

 

 

 
Best regards,
Matthias

Yikes, it's been about 3 weeks since I posted an update. Part of that time I was away, and part of it was working on the USS Kearsarge, but some real progress. First photo, all of the frames are fared, their elevations evened out, and glued in place. Large chunk of extra balsa from the Kearsarge in the background about to become part of the ship.
 

 
Second photo has the first of the filler blocks in place and (mostly) faired (final fairing needs all the fillers). It doesn't go to the top of the bulkhead at this moment because I'm trying to efficiently use the balsa block I have handy - I'll fill the rest in with leftover chunks.
 

 
I'm imaging 8 or 10 balsa fillers at the moment (between bulkheads 2-4 and  either 11 or 12 to 14. From 14 to the stern I'm going to make the filler blocks out of basswood, and for the prow to bulkhead 1, I'm going to make a basswood filler that includes the knightheads. 
 
The ship gets two sets of planking (as seen in the section below). The inner, thicker set where the planks average out to about 2mm (1/16 to 3/32") deep by 3mm about (1/8") tall at scale, although the actual thicknesses vary a bit, and an outer layer over about 2/3 of the hull that is about 1mm x 3mm at scale. The model will be pained, so, presumably I'll use basswood - it's cheap(er), it bends well, and it doesn't have to have beautiful color or grain. That said, can anyone recommend a wood source? The only sources I know of with small dimensional lumber are ModelExpo and BlueJacket. Do you all find one superior to the other? Is there someplace else people would suggest? Any input appreciated. I'm on the US East Coast if that matters.
 

 
As always, thanks for the likes and for looking in.
 
Regards,
George
 
 
 
 
 

Well, @MrBlueJacket's adage that "putty and paint make it look what it ain't" seems to be starting to come true. I've put the four starboard side balsa inserts in and faired them. The aftmost is going to be made from basswood since it is going to define the stern's curve. At this point I need to go to the hobby shop and get some more balsa, that chunk didn't go quite as far as I expected. But starting to look like a ship.
 

 
Thanks for looking in!
 
Regards,
George

Thanks Rick! Moving along slowly though...
 
The ship as she appears now:
 

 
The bow filler blocks are in place, as are the stern blocks with the exception of the starboard side block after frame 14. The last two blocks that shape the stern were made from a 2"x3" piece of basswood that I bought at the local hobby shop. It is the hardest piece of bass I have ever seen. My saber saw could barely cut the blank out. I wore out three sanding drums on my Dremel getting it to shape, plus an entire sheet of 100 grit sandpaper. It was so hard, the sanding drum was sometimes burning rather than sanding. I'm frankly wondering if they were making a joke and gave me a chunk of hard maple labelled as bass. 
 
I also build out the knightheads and installed them on the bow. They were made from a couple of pieces of spare bass I had from another project and they trimmed much more easily. They are too high right now - once I have the planks that define the forecastle, I'll trim them down to size.
 
Either way, 1 more chunk, some finishing sanding, and it's time for the waterways, which, at least I have a plan for.
 
Thanks for looking in!
 
Regards,
George
 

Thanks Peter. It has a long way to go, but there is definitely something fun about designing it yourself. In my case, it probably means I'll do a lot of stupid things, but hey, we learn through our mistakes.
 
Isn't that the truth. The bass knightheads were way softer. The good news is that the stern is going nowhere; it will be a nice solid platform to build on.
 
On the update side, I haven't had a ton of time to work on the ship - there have been some things at work and my wife and I have been doing a major declutter associated with our 15 year anniversary at this home, and based on the fact that I'm pretty confident that we are truly, truly empty nesters (the younger child is going to be leaving her job in Boston to start graduate school in nursing in Philadelphia at the end of the summer, so I am not anticipating her moving back in anytime soon). As part of that, I'm moving my work space into a different location, so we can better use the rec room that I currently work in, etc., etc. However, the move is more or less complete, so back to making sawdust.
 
I did finally finish the filler blocks, so she is ready to start the process that will generate the hull. I've designed her more or less as the Flying Fish kit I built was designed. On the Fish, I laid the waterways on the bulkhead tops flush with the outer edges of the bulkheads, and then the planksheer (cut for the bulwark stanchions) was laid on top of that. The nibbing strake was flush with the waterways and on top of the bulkhead, and the deck laid directly on the bulkheads. This ship is designed slightly different. If you look at the below
 
you will see that the planksheer is kind of integrated into the planking itself, and in addition to the waterway (angled plank), there is a fairly significant timber that is mounted against the frames. As it happens, at 1:72 that timber, plus the extension into the frames works out to 1/4 wide and 1/8 inch tall, a nice, even size that is readily available in bass. So, my plan is as follows:
 

 
I will build the timber that abuts the waterway and the extensions to the outer edge of the frames from a piece of 1/4 x 1/8 bass, cut to allow a bulwark stanchion to fit (they are spaced about 0.7 inches at scale center to center between the stanchions). This is the blue box on the diagram and it will be aligned with the outside edge of the bulkheads. I will run it for about 22 inches, until the curve becomes too great to efficiently bend, and then will cut out the stern curve with my scroll saw from some 1/8 inch thick basswood. The two layers of planking (red and green) will be added as normal and then a 1/32 inch piece of square bass (purple) will be added on top. Finally I'll make the bulwark stanchions (yellow) out of 3/32 bass and fit them into the slices I cut out of the large 1/8 by 1/4 x 22 piece.
 
One thing that I will need to be careful about is ensuring that the bulwarks have the correct angle, because the ship 
 
I think that will work, and produce something that resembles the real thing as below:
 

Photo by Michael Garlick, retrieved from Wikimedia Commons (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:RRS_Discovery_Dundee_Main_mast_rigging.JPG) under license CC-BY-SA-4.0)
 
One thing to note is that the Discovery in common with a lot of other ships of that era has "floating" bulwark extensions, that is, they were separate timbers that were not extensions of the frames. Since the bulwarks tended to rot faster, it was simpler to seal and maintain them if all you needed to do was pull a single timber out and not have to mess with the frames. That will not be obvious from the model, but it is the way that the ship was built.
 
Also interestingly, I had assumed that the extension that I am modeling as the 1/32 square plank was where the white stripe was painted, but looking more carefully, the stripe is actually painted just below that plank, and it points to something I need to be careful about - the angle of the bulwarks. If you look at the photo below, you will see that the ship doesn't really have channels where the chain plates are, so making sure I have adequate clearance to drill the holes for the chainplates is going to be important.
 

Photo by Magnus Hagdorn, retrieved from Wikimedia Commons (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/55/2007_-_Trip_to_Dundee_(4000147227).jpg/1024px-2007_-_Trip_to_Dundee_(4000147227).jpg) under license CC-BY-SA-2.0 generic)
 
Anyways, as always, thanks for looking in! Please let me know if I have mangled the terminology somewhere.
 
Regards,
George

Brief update. Followed the plan described above. I took two pieces of 1/4 by 1/8 bass, taped them together so that the two pieces would be identical, and marked off the 3/32" squares, about 0.7 inches apart, and then started cutting out the 3/32" slots.
 

 
Here are the two pieces ready to start installing.
 
 

 
I soaked them in boiling water to get them to soften for improved bending, and put them on the ship, held in the correct orientation with some clamps and nails to 'prebend' prior to installation.
 

 
Once dry, they were installed, I glued them into place. Other than some minor smoothing of some of the bulkheads. I can start planking once the lumber arrives.
 

 
Thanks for looking in!
 
Regards,
George

A brief update, as I haven't had as much time as I would like to work on the ship. However, some progress.
 
First, I needed to continue whatever that timber represented by the 1/8 by 1/4 inch bass section is (it's not the waterway, which is 1 timber in, anyone has the right name please let me know) around the stern. To do that I cut a (sorta) semicircle (arc?) out of some 1/4 inch thick bass sheet that I had from another project, and notched it for the bulwark stanchions. As depicted in the plans, the stanchions appear to be closer around the stem - not too surprising since they maintain the shape of the bulwarks there. Here is a picture:
 

 
That was then installed on the stem, and the stem evened so that the curve of the above piece and the stem matched:
 

 
And the first planks have been added to the ship:
 

 
I put a couple of pieces of 1/8 thick bass in the forecastle (hidden behind the first strake to give me a reference point to align the strake, but I'm not doing anything special inside the forecastle because it was closed off on the real ship. No sense modeling things no one will ever see.
 
Anyways, thanks for looking in!
 
Regards,
George
 

I'm off to the annual American Society of Clinical Oncology meeting in Chicago for the next few days, so no updates for a bit. The "plankers progress" continues. Here she is port and starboard...

 

 
 
A ways to go, and then a second planking. The second isn't for aesthetics, the ship had an extra layer of planks over the part of the hull that contacted the ice, but it will still be thinner like an aesthetic double planking.
 
You can see this on this small portion of a photo from Google Maps (source is named Open Virtual Worlds).
 

 
I find it interesting that it needs stealers, although I suppose I shouldn't be. I also note that while the primary planking aligns into the rabbet near the stern, the second layer does not, and that's good, because I didn't cut the rabbet to handle two layers of planks.
 
Anyway, thanks for looking in and hopefully an update in a week or 10 days.
 
Regards,
George 

This shows the construction and temporary positioning of the portside accommodation in the great cabin

note the panelling surrounding the sternpost and in due course the rudder head on its way to the poop deck
 
Cheers
 
Dick

I've also had this problem to solve. I cut a blank, longer than the finished ellipse, and PVA glued it to a backing block. This reduced the chance of breakage cross-grain. I then very carefully scratch molded the section. After soaking the piece off the backing, I was able to cut the joints with the straight sections of the moldings.
 
If there are any 'tricks' to this, a really good piece of boxwood is needed and patience while running the molding along it.

Both those weathered looks seem fine on camera, even if the first was unintended!

Exemplary miniature work as usual, Daniel! Looks like it was a great exhibition and meeting as well.