druxey

Well done. A very nice model.

Well done. A very nice model.

Step 8: The Deck
 
This step wasn't toooooo bad. Like the transom, I did not wet the top surface of the deck like the instructions say to. What I ended up doing was dry fitting them both as best I could to make sure they would come together in the center. Before gluing I looked at the tops of the frames to see how flat they were to each other and it wasn't good.... I had to sand a couple down as they were much higher than the 2 next to it and multiple were too low and would need shims to make the deck flat. I started by gluing one half down only on frames 4, 5 and 6.
The instructions say to put glue on all of the frames... I'm very glad I didn't do that and started with the middle 3 only for two reasons. The frame at the transom still had a slight twist and I was able to use the deck to twist it back and glue it in place. The other reason is what I mentioned earlier, frames 1, 7, 8 and 9 all needed shims to make a nice looking curve of the deck. The first half of the deck went on without an issue; the edge of the deck lined up perfectly with the center of the spine. The second half went on mostly fine... The front section of the deck where it meets the other deck had a small gap in it somehow... I used some wood filler to fill it in along with the hole for the centerboard rod since I am not using it. 
The transom, somehow, was not perfectly lined up with the edge of the deck either. I suspect it was because this slight twist was there when I put frame 10 on and squared it to the other frames. Then when using the deck to get rid of the twist, the transom wasn't square anymore. Not a huge deal. I sanded it like the instructions say and it looks fine now! 
One concern I have is the fore edge of the cockpit does not line up perfectly with frame 6. I'm considering adding some wood filler to bring it all flush with each other. You can see this in the last picture of the last post for the cockpit seats. 
 
I have lots of sanding to do next for the fairing... it's my most dreaded step of the whole thing I think... 


 
 

General view of the hull.

The walls of the bow and stern superstructure are welded together.

I seem to recall reading somewhere that the copper plating fit between the keel and the wormshoe (false keel). The wormshoe was a sacrificial piece to protect the keel and was replaced when necessary.
 
It looks like the bottom of the keel was coppered first, then the wormshoe was stapled to the keel. Then the copper plating was placed on the keel.
 
I can't tell from the photos, but perhaps the angled strip along the joint between the keel and garboard strake is there, but under the plates on the keel and those on the garboard strake?

Not only great craftsmanship, but also great drafting, Ilhan!

Well done. A very nice model.

I believe that the diagonal nailing pattern Trevor refers to was British practice. Perhaps what we are seeing here is Dutch. If the copper was in good shape when the ship was captured, it would not have been replaced, as this was a major expense. The copper still looks in pretty good shape!

A few odds and ends and I’m FINISHED!
Railings
The PE hand railings were bent as required and then painted white.   Installation took some finagling but eventually all the posts went into place.

Then my least favorite thing to make, rope coils.  Most came out alright but I wish someone would sell pre-made rope coils. I would definitely buy them.



Lastly I decided to add a pendant to the main mast similar to the one shown in the first picture in my post #29.  I scaled the pendant from the picture and then drew and printed it out. 

I pasted two of the sides together and then gave it a few curls.

 
Completed ship.


I enjoyed making this ship, the instructions were clear and the included materials were satisfactory for the most part. My only complaint is that the rigging thread that is provided could have been a little better quality.  All in all though it’s a good kit and I would recommend it if you’re looking to do a ship with side paddle wheels.
 

Ensign halliard & Ensign
The ensign halliard was installed and tied off to the little bollard at the deck.  The ensign from the back page of the instruction booklet was used and curled trying to make it look like it was blowing in the wind.

Davits and falls for the boats
I wanted to use falls on the davits for the life boats and I also wanted to keep the boats above the rails. To do this however I noticed that the davits provided would not be high enough.  In order to raise the davits I made up some extensions out of 1/8” diameter dowel.

The davits were installed a little farther back than what was called for in the instructions to keep the boats clear of the aft cannons.

The falls were added to the davits and rigged to the boats.



Looking back I'm glad I changed the configuration of the lower yard brace because it would have been a real bear working around it trying to install these boats and the boom and gaff.
 

Moving right along now!
 
Boom parral
For the boom parral I used a different size jewelry bead that I blackened. Beads were threaded and tied around the main mast.



Topping lifts
The topping lifts were installed per the instruction by first attaching two blocks above the main masthead.

The lift lines were run from the end of the boom through the blocks installed above the masthead then down to the deck.  I did follow the superdetail described in the instructions by providing a block and tackle at the end of the lift lines. I used the cleat nearest the water closet to tie off the halliard.


 Main sheet
The main sheet was rigged from the block attached to the traveler to the block on the lower side of the boom.  To tie this line off I used some small bollards I had left over from another build that I secured to the deck.


Gaff parral
The gaff parral was made similar to the boom parral.

Gaff throat halliard
The gaff throat halliard was installed per the instruction and belayed to the bitts at the deck.  Sorry no picture.
 
Gaff peak halliard
The gaff peak halliard was also installed per the instructions and belayed to the bitts at the deck.

Vangs
The vangs were installed per the instructions and the halliards were tied off to existing cleats on the bulwarks.


 

Thank you for those images! I think they will help lot of us.
 
Back in the day, I and many others picked over the wreck of the frigate Tribune -- ex-French but captured, refitted and in RN service when lost while entering Halifax in 1797. I think (though I'm not certain) that I have some bits of her copper kicking around, if anyone wants measurements of distances between nail holes or the like.
 
Interesting that Braak had the nails in the midst of each plate set at the corners of squares, rather than diamond fashion. It's been a long time since I paid much attention to the detail but I remember a diamond arrangement as normal. Maybe I'm wrong on that or perhaps there was a change over the decades.
 
That's how it looks to me. Yet the narrow strip is gone, presumably from being more vulnerable to long-term corrosion. I wonder whether bending it to fit the angle between keel and garboard introduced micro fractures, which then promoted corrosion. Or perhaps the narrow strip came from a different batch of copper and electrolysis across the dissimilar metals attacked it.
 
Yes, it looks that way. And the copper on the keel seems to cover the (bronze?) staple that held the false keel, where that lay across the keel but not where it lay on the false keel, so the copper plate was presumably trimmed around the staple. Yet that would mean that the false keel was in place when the coppering was done, so the edge of the lowest plate would have been pushed in, between keel and false keel, then nailed.
 
A detail I would never have guessed! Always good to learn something new every day 🙂
 
 
Trevor

HMS De Braak (or just HMS Braak) was originally built as a cutter in 1781 for the Dutch navy. She was captured in 1795, modified into a brig and taken into the Royal Navy. Her career was short and in 1798 she capsized and sank in Delaware Bay. 
 
Recent salvage work has raised a large part of the hull which is now the subject of preservation work. Much of the coppering is intact and is a true contemporary record, not a recent replating such as on USS Constitution or HMS Victory. In my opinion it is most likely to have been applied during her refit in 1795-1797 though there is a possibility that it was applied by the Dutch. Can anyone shed light on this?
 
Pete Stark in the 1805 Club sent me a collection of his photos of De Braak and I have attached some below. Thank you Pete for letting me share them. I recommend that you take a look at the club https://www.1805club.org/ which will be sponsoring the restoration of the ship's bell. 
 
1. A wide view of the raised hull. It looks to me like the keel is near the bottom and the curved planking for the hull is above it. The vertical joins between the plates show that the plate to the left overlaps the plate to the right which indicates that the fore end is to the left and we can see the port side of the hull. 
 
2. The plate at the centre of the next photo reveals the nail pattern. The top edge of this plate has closely spaced nails and it overlaps the plate in the next, higher row. The nail holes in the copper show a trumpet shape, probably formed by the profile of the nail heads. 

3. The next photo provides a detail that I did not expect at the join between the hull and the keel: the plates on the hull and the plates on the keel both have a tight row of nails at the edge that is at the join. This suggests that the plates butt against each other and there is no overlap. However, the photo above shows an edge above the tight row of nails at the lower end of the hull plate. Perhaps a narrow copper plate was placed over the join, overlapping the hull plate and possibly underlapping (if that is a word) the plate on the keel. (See also the fourth photo.) 

4. The fourth photo shows more of the join between hull and keel but does not answer the question about what plating was placed there, if any. It does look as if the copper went over the main keel but not the false keel - it appears to run into the gap between them. I might be completely wrong about this. 
I do like the bright, shiny copper with a touch of green verdigris in places. This came from a hull that has been stuck in a sandbank for over 200 years. 

 
George
Remember to look up the 1805 club https://www.1805club.org/ 
 

Step 7: Cockpit Seats
 
Now I had a ton of fun with this step! I ended up not using the parts they supplied for the seats and ended up using some walnut strips to make my own. This was completely unplanned and only happened because Joe from Modeler's Sawmill accidentally sent me the wrong wood when I ordered some for the planking (he was great and corrected the issue before I even received the walnut planks). 
I ended up putting the supplied seat together just to make a stencil to plan my seats out. I used some spare pieces to hold all the planks together from underneath and just went for it! I glued the seat supports to the bottom of the seat and had to cut out some slots for the support planks underneath. **Note I had to sand the seat supports quite significantly in order for the seat to be level with the floor. 
I also used a piece of walnut for the back but didn't quite make it the same size as the supplied back. I have 5/16" wide strips and just used that for the back, cutting out a square slot at the same height as the spine. 
Lastly, I applied some wipe on poly and glued it in! I'm so happy with how it came out and really just confirms my eventual desire to do more scratch based builds. 
 
(Ignore the fact the deck is on in the last photo... I forgot to take one of the seat after i glued it in)
 

 
 

OOOh, beautiful work. Now....... add a few deck houses, a steering gear box and helm aft, a bowsprit and jibboom, and a brig rig. She looks like a prime candidate for someone to have purchased her as a retired pilot boat and given a new life as a sail training vessel. She's perfect. Cheers, Daniel    

Hello
now of course the name is still missing. Letters made of brass, white painted.
 

 

 

 
 

Mensch sieht das aber fein aus! You did a fantastic job on the hull, Wolle!! The deck looks amazing too, love that color tone. Haste gut gemacht  

Hello There I am again. 
The deck has been planked and painted with boat varnish. Then I painted the hull.
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fortunately we keep our house fairly well controlled in terms of temperature and humidity so I'm hoping that there is minimal dimensional changes going on here! For this project I will make use of the dimensions listed in the monograph as well as the plans.
 
I had read about your use of Mylar in your books and it may be wise for me to think in this direction for future projects. This certainly seems to be a situation where it would be valuable to have CAD files which don't appear to be available for ANCRE publications. But I do have a project in the wings that needs to be done in the next couple of years for a local non-profit. They want I model of a Mackinaw boat and I have agreed to make one for them. Still not sure what draught I will work from, but it appears that I will need to draw the plans myself - it could be a good introduction for me for working with Mylar. 
 
I am very much looking forward to seeing the result of your current project; South Carolina (ex L'Indien?) is such a beautiful frigate!
 
Greg

Starting the process of coppering the hull. 
 
Rob

Eberhard, I saw that your wonderful build log had never been tagged as finished! I have belatedly rectified that oversight. 

To all modelers who are new or semi-experienced, spiling could be a conundrum. Yes, there are many different articles and book sections/chapters that explain it; sort of. I was in the same predicament as many of us have been but here's a suggestion. Yes, read about how to do spiling but then put the book down and  get out there and try it out. Yes, you MAY mess it up but try it again and you'll get it. For me it just sort of happened after I got tired of reading and said to myself, "Self...get in your boat shed and just try spiling." Wouldn't you know it...after looking at my first try mess-up for a few minutes, the light came on and on my second try everything just fell in place. So if you're bothered by spiling or if the subject just makes you cringe, just tell yourself, "Self! Get out there and start spiling!"

Thr problem with paper plans is a considerable degree of expansion or contraction depending on humidity. You can be absolutely 'on' with that keel today,and be off several mm by the next day. It's like chasing a chimera. Madness will ensue!
 
Two solutions:
 
1) Take a known scale measurement  such as keel length and apply a scale rule against your work. 
 
2) Produce a scale drawing on Mylar sheet. It is dimensionally stable regardless of humidity. Use that rather than a paper plan. 
 
The second solution is one I've used now for decades, since I discovered paper plans were a snare and delusion for accurate work. Sure, it's more work, but saves my sanity in the long run! The photo is the prelude to my current project, the South Carolina, ex L'Egyptian.

Hi Chris, yes it is exciting. But also a little overwhelming how little time and space we now have since we committed to the move. Our boat Ruby needs some TLC on the outside and a fair amount of upgrading with solar, batteries and WiFi, washing machine, 12v fridge etc. but she is a cracking boat and as solid as can be. The rest just takes time and money to fix up.