druxey

I have to admit that I'm a little envious about the full-time narrowboat plan. I told my wife that we have enough equity in our home to sell it and pay cash for a narrowboat, but she wasn't keen on the idea -- my loss!

I found this on earlier post on the forum.Checking on Ai it came up with the same reasoning. So i will stick with the red.
   
“ The following is more likely the reason.   Deck furniture, bulwarks, etc, were red ochre. This was discussed in an earlier post here at MSW in 2021 and it was mentioned that this was for protection from the weather and ochre (earth) colors were inexpensive.  In addition, after long sea voyages and during repairs it was also refreshed. The idea that it would hide blood was coincidental, not the reason it was most often red.  There are a number of contemporary models where much of the inboard works were painted black.  I have no idea if this was original or done at some later time.  The Navy Board stated 18 July 1715 that painting (presumably outboard and inboard) was "not to refresh oftener than once a year or two and the inboard works that are from the weather."  There is no mention of a particular color or hiding blood.  The actual usefulness in protecting the wood from rot and the cost would probably be a bigger concern to the navy than the mental state of the sailors in the age of sail.    If you are next to a man that has had some part of his body ripped off, I doubt hiding the blood on a bulwark would make it any easier to avoid fear, panic  or the onset PTSD. 
Allan
Edited May 28, 2023 by allanyed”

Excellent work on that drop plank.

Planking between wales and molding rails completed.

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 Ian - yeah, all is okay here - apart from annoyingly and persistently high cholesterol (how much fiber and Omega3’s can a person reasonably consume?!), I’m doing okay.
 
Life just sped up for me, is all.  I was going to do some painting last night.  I opened a new (but very old) bottle of what I assumed was ModelMaster acrylic last night.  I was trying to thin the paint with water, but it was behaving strangely.  It took me far too long to realize that what I actually had was a bottle of enamel.  I am curious to see whether all of that water I added simply returns to the surface, overnight.
 
Anyway, I’m at a sort of critical juncture with my 13-year old son, who needs me now more than ever, and my daughter, who will be off to college in a year.  Nothing alarming, there, but guidance and support are really necessary, so that is where my energies go.

Oh and two more things...
 
I spoke too soon.
 
I cracked the code...1:64 or 3/16" scale belaying pins are now in stock.  They are 7.4 mm long or 9/32".

In addition...the first batch of chapter 4 parts for Speedwell are also in stock.  Dont worry more of these will follow.

I think silk rigging looks beautiful and I know many of the Navy Board models were rigged this way. I have also seen silken robes from previous centuries and they look fine (perhaps because they are preserved in a museum). But I now read that while silk can survive decades they start to deteriorate through a process called "shattering" (the short cross threads become unwoven) at around 60 years. Perhaps this appears in garments only and not laid up rope? But I am fairly certain that no restorer in 2300 will be able to replicate Johann's magnificent work here if the rigging starts to deteriorate.

@Richard Braithwaite
Hello Richard,
Thank you for your interest and the nice comment.
I made the ropes myself from silk yarn on my rope walk.

Hi, druxey. We met on this forum before. Nice to hear from you.

Finished the figurehead. A lion. 

The last 2 weeks i have been busy on the cnc creating the blicks for the main stays.
 

and steadily knitting..... 
 

agreed!

Here is the natural colour of the plywood. I think i prefer the red.

Before refining the joints, the accumulated error in length of the keel was nearly 2mm over the ~80mm unit. After working more on the joints, I've reduced this to less than 0.5 mm; so I'm now within 0.6% of the plans. I concerned that if I go further, I may end up being off by more in the negative side / am I already in the area of contraction / expansion of the paper plans - what to do now?
 
Here's what the 4 scarf joints that link the 5 pieces of the keel from fore to aft:
 
Next up some work on the false keel joints

First 3D print test and assembly of two French style lanterns after Boudriot.  There is no glazing insert in these....yet.  Thats a bit more complex than the other Royal Navy shaped insert.
 

Extra Large stern lanterns also now available and in stock.  Good for those 1/4" scale 3 deckers.   They are 33mm tall without a crank.
 
Chuck
 

Thanks for any update, Marc, however small!

Log #24: Structural Supports & Fixing Mistakes
Thanks to everyone who has stopped by to take a look at the log. I do find your comments and likes motivate me to keep pushing forward.
 
Since my last log entry I have continued to work on the structure of the model. I will discuss that in more detail below, but I have also in the background been continuing my work on research. My current focus is on the coppering of Perseus. She was one of the first ships in the RN to be coppered and though I am not planning on coppering her, I am planning some aesthetic choices which will allude to the coppering.
 
The handwriting of the documents I am currently looking at is not as good as some of the stuff I have previously looked at so it is slow going with the transcriptions at the moment. But I thought I would share an interesting tidbit I found.
It is interesting to see how quickly the RN went from very few ships coppered to coppering  a huge share of the fleet. You can see in the above transcription that from 1779 to 1781, 313 vessels were coppered.
 
On the model itself, I have now got all the bulkheads in place. You will notice that the front two and stern two bulkheads do not have any bracing pieces as they are closer together.

The reason for the omission is that I am planning on filling in these sections fully with filler blocks. First I cut the bow filler pieces and glued them in place.

Then once that was dry I slid pieces of basswood which I had thinned to the appropriate thickness into the gaps between the bulkheads and marked off with pencil the approximate size they needed to be before cutting them out on the scroll saw. There is no need to be particularly accurate here so I have erred on making them oversized as this will all be sanded in the faring process. The most important part of this was making sure the bulkheads remained square through this process.

However, it was around this point that I realized I had made a mistake with one of the bulkheads. Essentially the slot was not deep enough and so it was not far down enough on the center bulkhead. It was only off by about a mm, but this is enough to throw off the lines of the ship. So I had to break out the isopropyl and slowly work it free with a knives and solvent. It was particularly unfortunate that the offending bulkhead was at just about the worst possible location (the stern platform also had to be removed). However after a few hours of working slowly and carefully on it, I managed to get it out.

Then I sanded and dry fitted it back in place, making extra sure of the positioning this time :).
 
Finally, I have also been starting the outer structural supports.  This is a line of bracing pieces which run along the upper deck line. These serve three purposes:
To allow me to correct for any warped bulkheads which might be square at the base, but are not square at the upper deck bulwarks. To strengthen the overall structure. To allow me to better see the line of the main deck to determine if I need to make any adjustments. These pieces are inserted square to the bulkheads, but at an angle such that they follow the sheer of the deck. I will then use a combination of planes and sanding to trim them back in line with the frames.

Getting the sheer of the main deck right is crucial as it will determine the height of the gun ports.
 
It feels like this structural work is taking a really long time, but I am trying to avoid future problems by making sure I am constantly checking to make sure everything looks good now while it is easier to fix.

Thanks Jacques,
 
Oh it was expensive, in many cases it cost almost as much as it cost to build the ship in the first place. For example Perseus was built by contract for a cost of £4,507, but her coppering cost £4,310. That said there were certainly some significant benefits. Many of the refits that you see documented often cost 50% of the ships original cost to complete. One document I have just finished transcribing is an analysis of the impact of coppering and he has this to say:
 

Just a note- the NRG photo competition wants a 500 WORD description, not 500 pages!
 
Nic

Readying  for copper.  
 
Rob

Finished vents.  
 
Looks like it’s time for copper.  
 
Rob

Finished the starboard pin rail and stanchions….. now onto the vent pipes.  
 
Rob

Rob, from a photographer's viewpoint it's probably not the most desirable since Arina's not entirely in the picture. Still from an emotional one, this is one of my favorites since to me it symbolizes "A Dream Realized." I'll keep looking for more images.