druxey

First question, in the back of my van and onto a trolly with bicycle wheels the mast will be an easy take down.
 
Second question The ceiling in my shop slopes from 8 feet at the north wall (where the mill is) to 12 feet at the windows overlooking the lake.
 
so no problem in either case.
 
Popeye thanks for the kind words.
 
Carl here is the modified mast step. the openings will not create any capillary now.
 

 
Also began working on the set up for the shrouds.
 

 

 
I am going to roll the top of the chain plate to create a loop for the deadeye shackle. the scale size is 2 3/4 x 3/8 metal strap.
 
michael

Hello Doris. I love your work. already got the clay. soon try some figure. but looking diodes, found these, you do not need strength. run on a button battery. thank you very much for eneñarnos another way to build beautiful boats. a greeting. cabrapente.

The hinge assemblies were blackened.  I have used Blacken It for a long time but I have some Birchwood Casey’s on order for the next batch of metal work.  Once they are installed and the finish applied to the wood, I will apply a coat of Floquil reflectance reducer to the hinges.  This will even out the color and protect them from getting the gray bloom that plagues blackened fittings (at least mine).  I am still deciding on what adhesive to use.  I find epoxy too messy.  I am considering contact cement.  I used it to apply the copper plates on a Cutty Sark twenty years ago and it has shown no signs of failing.
 
 
 
Author:  druxey.  Silver solder and brass soup…been there and done that!  On the other hand, I accidentally discovered a new technique.  Heat the end of a wire or thin rod.  The tip will melt and form a nice ball.  Great for metal stanchions!
Author:  Dan Vad.  Epoxy doesn’t have to be messy to use on very small pieces.  The trick is NOT to try to clean off any excess until it has at least ¾ set.  Then trim it off with a sharp Xacto.
 
Author:  remcohe.  I used very small drops of thick CA to fix them.
 
Author:  druxey.  Excess epoxy can also be removed before it is set up by – yes, you’ve guessed it! – isopropanol.  I use a Q-tip to do this. 
 
Dec. 3, 2012.  I did not like the effect from my blackening solution so I took the hinges back to almost bright metal by soaking them in Sparex pickling solution and reblackening them in Birchwood Casey Brass Blackener.  Quite an improvement.  I installed the hinges using contact cement.  I put a tiny stripe of the cement on the door and on the hinge.  I let it dry for 15 minutes and then installed them.  No adhesive squeezing out.  I deliberately made the hinge pins come from the same side.  It seemed to me that it might be necessary for someone to remove the lid for access or repair and this would  allow the door to be removed more easily.
 

 
 
Dec. 3, 2012.  There are several rooms built on to the aft and fore platforms.  On the aft platform are the magazine and its maze of entry passages, the bread room, the steward’s room, the light room and other rooms on the starboard side of the ship which I will not be installing.  Superficially, this seems easy.  Build a bunch of walls, trim them to fit, put in a few fenestrations, pop in a few door and voila…instant room.  Needless to say, this is not the case.  One of the hardest parts of this for me was visualizing how everything went together.  I then followed the platform plan, only to discover that the fore and aft positions of the bulkheads were slightly different from the body plan.  “Slightly” loosely translates into just enough to make me start over.
 
I decided to start aft and work forward.  The aft magazine bulkhead sits behind the mizzen mast step. 
The aft bulkhead does not go all the way to the hull.  There will be a bulkhead connecting the fore and aft magazine bulkheads and lateral to that is storage for the bread room.  There is a box surrounding the mizzen mast, keeping it separate from the magazine.  The magazine also has a removable false floor, called the palletting.  These planks go athwart ship in contrast to the deck flooring.  My first mistake was making the magazine area too short.  The fore pallet beam had to be remade and a wider plank installed.  Compare the 2nd and 4th pictures for before and after shots of the pallet beams and decking.
 
 

 
 

Greg wraps the area he wants to de-bond with plastic wrap to retain the isopropanol where he wants it. It prevents weakening nearby joints.

I think you'll be fine with the alchohol as long as you don't flood the temp spacers with it.  I use a artist's brush to apply the alcohol to the area I want to loosen.  Sometimes takes a couple of applications to loosen the piece, but eventually the glue gives up.  

Hi Mark,
 
I was alerted to your build by your question on rigging, your craftsmanship and artistry are of the highest order.
 
Bellona is a beautiful ship and you are building a wonderful model of her, a pleasure to see.
 
Regards,
 
B.E.

Some continue



 

Nice build of an interesting subject!

Cole.
 
Definitely look up pushsticks and feather boards as well as cutting small pieces on a table saw with Google. There used to be a link to a great video from the old site on how to deal with small pieces.
 
I am showing a pushstick that is now well used, to fit the higher Byrnes rip fence. It rides along the fence, and has an adjustable hook at the back that pulls the piece along the fence while your hand is safely up above. It also has sandpaper on the bottom edge, so it grips the wood all along its length. You can see it has been chewed up with a lot of close cuts. the hook is adjustable up and down for a precise fit with whatever thickness of wood you are cutting.
 
Best wishes,
 
Mark
 
 

Cole,
For starters, make sure the fence is square to the blade or even a like more away from the blade at the rear of it.  If the fence is closer to the blade rear than the front, it pinches and then kicks the wood out.  Also, lower the blade it's just above the top of the wood.  As I recall there's several videos on youtube.com about this and about cutting thin planks.  I had some links for videos about pushsticks and featherboards... I'll have to do some research to find them.

Hello Mark,
 
Lees refers to the Breast B/S set up in the usual fashion ie with deadeyes, but considers that very few English ships carried them, basing his view on having found only two contemporary models of ships of 1719 and 1733 fitted with them, and then presumably a model circa 1839 also with them.
 
Lees differentiates between a Breast b/s and a running breast b/s which is set up with the tackle on the channels.It may be that by the time Steel was writing, breast backstay (with tackles) was the norm as the other form had not been in use for many years and there was no need to specify between the two.
 
In the AotS book Bellona by Brian lavery he shows 3pr of standing b/s on the Fore topmast and what he also calls a Fore Breast b/s  having the tackle and falls set up. He shows on the main topmast in addition to the three pr of standing b/s a shifting b/s, something Lees says were not generally seen. A breast b/s is not shown on the main Topmast.
 
Longridge writing about rigging his model of Victory decribes three forms of topmast b/s, standing, breast and shifting and he includes all three on his model on the fore and Main topmasts.
 
Personally if I were rigging  Bellona I would include the 3 standing pair, and the breast b/s (with tackles) on both Fore and Main Topmasts.
 
B.E.
 
 
 
 

Frames all raised, plumb, square, even.  First shot is with all the cross-braces still in place.  The next is with all intermediate braces removed.  The ones on the fore and aft ends are left in place being used to insure the frames at the ends are plumb.  Last shot shows the carefully measured spacers between the frames being glued.  I did the first four frames, then moved to the aft and did four spacers moving toward the center.  Then I filled in the remaining.  I held the frames fairly even with each other by running some stringers inboard and out (held with the blue clamp).  I could slide the frames fore and aft without pushing them in or out.  They are not faired yet, but it kept them in close position.  Next up are the port sills.  Very challenging.  I suspect a lot more pieces for the scrap box.
Maury

Gluing partitions walls.
To be able to work with the portable close to the desk, the last picture shows a support for it. Already built with angle adjustment for the keyboard, another angle adjustment is added to make sure that the keyboard is perfectly horizontal which was not before because of the weight of the portable.

Love the way you've fitted the well and shot locker onto the keelson and strakes. It's a difficult job to do without gaps and considering you won't see it later on, it reflects the no-compromise approach you're taking in building this model.

Messing around with treenails and ebony.
Trenails are made from those bamboo barbeque sticks using a drawplate.
They are about 0,4 mm in diameter.

Photo of the Fleuron

Aft cant frames and square frames underway....

Now on to the transoms and aft cant frames.....

On to the forward cant frames....  The templates for the frames were down loaded and printed from a CD provided with the book.

After carefully insuring the proper assembly of the stem and knee of the head as well as the after deadwood and stern post against the plan, I endeavored to build and assemble the hawse pieces....  
 
My building board was a 3/4 inch thick particle board sealed and painted white, on which was glued the hull framing guide.  The board was then screwed into my work bench to keep it structurally ridged.

Here is the aft deadwood construction.  I used a black conservator's marker to simulate the tarred felt used along the joints.
 
 

Goring (belts) of copper with parallel to the waterline strakes came in in the 19th century, Before that, as Russ describes, the copper ended up at an angle at the waterline.

and beams and riding bitts

And then inboard...
and a jig.
 
Mark

Hi everyone,
 
Here are old, not very good photos of early construction, Hahn style. Cutting it off the base and flipping it over after years upside down was a thrill and also very scary.
 
Mark