BLACK VIKING

today I got the bulwarks finished, and the garboard plank on one side done.  getting these thin planks to bend across grain is an acquired skill i find.  I think it would be easier if they gave sheets of veneer to let us cut our own spiled planks from scratch.
 

Hi Bryan
             I think you're right that the thicker planks are the first planking and the thinner the second planking, but i also think the kit manufacturer has supplied the wood sizes the wrong way around. I.E the thickest should have been the Lime and the thinnest the Walnut. That is the way it has been on the kits i have made before. So in my opinion it's not your fault, it's the manufacturers fault IMHO.

Hello all,
 
Here is another update on my build.
 
Alexandru

Installing the Gaff Boom
 
Installing the gaff was very similar to the mizzen boom however there were a few surprises. The gaff halliard goes from the tip of the gaff through a double block strapped under the mizzen cap, back to a block half way down the gaff, up through the double block again, down to a deck block and ties off to a deck cleat. That double block should have been installed during the assembly of the mizzen mast as it was a real pain to strap it on at this point.
 
Then I discovered that I needed to add cleats to the deck on each side of the mizzen mast for the gaff halliard tie off and the gaff throat halliard tie off (the line that lifts the gaff jaws). It turns out that I had added the cleats when constructing the deck but I placed them forward of the mast instead of aft. Because the deck was constructed to show the deck below, the area where the cleats needed to be was open so partial planks had to cut to fit. I also had to use the Syren cleats because I didn’t have any more kit cleats. I left the misplaced cleats in place.
 
Another item that had to be installed, were the jeers to hold up the mizzen cross jack yard. These should also have been installed when it was easier when the mizzen mast was being assembled; but because I was/am a newbie to rigging, I didn’t know that. I know I will have the same and similar problems on the main and fore masts.
 
At the tip of the gaff is a small eyebolt where the flag halliard block is attached. The Mamoli plans call for a 4mm block, the equivalent of a 10” full scale block. The MS instructions state “The halliards are single lines reeved through very small blocks on the gaff.” It does not indicate a particular block size. The MS instructions seem more reasonable; you don’t need a large block for a flag. I used a Warner Woods 2mm (5”) block stropped with sewing thread. From my research, since the instructions were not very precise, the flag halliard is a continuous loop and is tied off to the most convenient point so I chose the obvious point, the boom. If the flag halliard went to a cleat on the deck there would have to be enough slack rope to accommodate the swing of the boom and gaff. If the halliard were tied off to the boom the two would move in unison and no excess slack would be needed. I suspect the flag halliards are tied off to a small cleat on the boom but near set of plans address such a cleat. I could be totally wrong. For that reason I do not plan to add the flag to the halliard at this point for two reasons. First, somehow adding the flags seems like the final act of a model build and second, I’m not sure how it supposed to be done. For now, I’ll just tie if off to the boom with no flag. 
 
Any thoughts out there?

due to private reasons is my build now in almost dead-slow.
we are at this moment trying to sell our house and for this reason my workshop is cleaned-up now and the Vasa protected under plastic
 
I started with the preparation of the yards for all the masts
 

 

 
made also a temporary sketch with all blocks summarized for each yard
plan is to finish all yards completly so they can be mounted directly to the masts.

Transom update....
 
All of the major sculptings for the transom are now completed and fitted to the off ship module.
At this point, there remains about thirty more figures to complete before I will be fitting the module to the stern.
 

 
Needing a little break from sculpting, I think I will now begin working on the beautiful lantern housing that fits in the center of the cap rail. 
I've been really anxious to do that piece forever.

I am stunned to realize that I have not posted on this build log for almost two months!  Well, work and life just have a tendency to get in the way.  I have started working on the armament.  There are sixteen cannon on Atalanta.  I will be showing the eight on the port side.  This project has taken three times as long as I had anticipated and is not over yet.  
 
The first step is making the carriage side.  I laminated strips of costello the correct thickness together.  The various steps were milled into the laminated blank.  The curved under-carriage was roughly milled and the filed smooth.  The pictures show the blank from different angles.
 

 

 

 
Holes for the various bolt were drilled while the blank was still intact for stability.
 

 
The remaining parts of the carriage (axles, wheels, bed) were made.  There was nothing complicated about any of these parts.  The front and rear wheels are different diameters. These were turned down on a lathe and then cut off with a razor saw to prevent chipping. 
 

 
I made a very simple jig to facilitate assembly.  On the left side one can see the two size holes for the wheels.  The center hole for the axle was drill by inserting the wheel into the jig.  This helped prevent splitting.
 

 
The next pictures show various views of the partially completed carriages, including various rings, the bed bolt and the wheel pins.
 

 

 

 

 

 
Finally the quoin and the rest of the bolts were added.  The quoins were hand carved.  
 

 

Well, I procrastinated long enough, I knew that installing the Keel would be difficult, and it lived up to the billing. I started by lining up the Keel on the overturned hull, and marking the Hull as per plan. I used West System G-flex epoxy with 406 filler.( That went smoothly ) The tricky  Part was Installing the Deadwood. ( this took a few attempts and burned thru a bunch of wood ) Once the Deadwood was set, I epoxied them in and filled the seams. I will let her stand for a day or 2 and fair the Keel. Here are the results

Masts finished.  About to start the ratlines.

Awhile back, I was debating whether belaying pins were proper for the 16th century, and ultimately decided to keep the pins.  However, one decision I made was to not have pins on the two fife rails.  On page 160-161 of W. Mondfeld's book he says fife rails didn't have pins until 1660.  While truth of that may be for more debate, the 1628 Swedish ship Vasa didn't have pins in it's fife rails, while having many other pin rails around the ship.  A drawing in Mondfeld's book, and the Vasa had carved heads on the fife rails, so I thought that would be a cool thing to do.  Also, one of the Golden Hind replica ships has carved heads on a fife rail, though it has pins in it's rail.  Since there is almost no documentation on the Golden Hind, some liberties on details can be made.
 
So, I tore out the fife rails I had already made, and made completely new ones from walnut.  One of the pictures below shows the discarded ones in the foreground.  For the carved heads I thought of the idea to use a plastic figure for them.  After looking at a lot of figures, I settled on the 1:72 scale figures in the picture below.  A 1:64 scale figure would have been better because of the larger size, but I could only find a few S scale railroad figures and they didn't have the right look.  I felt the figures needed to have beards, and no odd looking hats.
 
Anyway, after cutting the heads off, I inserted some brass rods in them to give them support, and glued them with CA.  I added a little CA around the base to fill any gaps, and filed around the necks a bit.  Then I painted and stained them to look like the surrounding wood.
 
 

The following photos look at preparation of the fore deck and the bulkhead against that deck for the placement of rails.  At the top of the bulkhead a capping trim was formed and glued in place.
 

 

 
The next few photos show of the progress of rails that will surround the fore deck. Also shown is the Temco Template former used to copy the profile of the shape of the front of the fore deck.
 
 
 
More to follow..................

some progress in the last week (some real life jobs fell through.....so I had 3 days off to kill  )
 
worked on the rudder - amazed the difference it makes to the overall look of the stern - chains are too long right now, I'll get around to adjusting them in the future....

 
 
added the bow doors and figure head....not sure why my camera doesn't like taking pictures of painted parts.....I'm not suggesting my painting is great.....but it looks much nicer than this photo makes it look lol

 
added the side reinforcements and the steps.....I really like how the steps turned out, but they are a bit squashed and out of line at the top - a symptom of me moving the gun-ports off-plan to avoid the BH's .....so many lessons to learn, I sure hope I remember them all for next time

 
assembled some of the chains, and was really chuffed with how they looked....until I saw them in the photo close up, I might have to try and re-make most of them a bit tidier....

 
added some of the deck furniture and riding bits....and what I assume to be the chimney for the ovens....or maybe it was the blacksmiths forge?

 
right now I'm experimenting on how to rig the upper deck cannons.....I think it needs a rope attached to a bolt on the deck at the rear....but now quite sure the best way to deal with the slack on the main rope attached to the bullwarks....

 
That's all for now,
 
Waspy
 
 
 
 
 
 

The finishing touches to the bulkhead and mounting on the ship.
 
Vince P.

March 16th, 2016
 
Hi all
a new update from the dockyard of the French brig “Colibri”.
It has been a busy period, with many tasks started at the same time to interrupt the challenging carving activity...that I absolutely hate!!
 
First task: Continuing preparation of carronades parts masters for pewter casting.
While my friend was still lathing the second carronade barrel, I have prepared the barrel supports masters: they are built with hard Yellowheart wood as I’ve been assured that the curing temperature of the silicon resin to be used for the mold will not destroy them. In contrary case, they will be re-carved in lead alloy before creating the mold.
The numbered sequence is self-explaining: I started from a milled batten and the pieces are singularly created by hand with a scroll saw, files and dental burrs loaded into my Proxxon rotary tool. They are 3 LH side parts and 3 symmetrical RH side parts. The measures of the completed pieces are 3x4x7 mm.
 

 
Next task: Completing the carved stern decorations.
The first picture shows a palm-tree leaf to be installed on the center-top of the transom. I carved it erroneously with light color Pearwood, with bas-relief method, and the re-carved from darker Pearwood using the high-relief method. The size is 8,5x5x1 mm.
 

 
The following were the leaves decorations for the roofs of the stern (fake) side-galleries. For this very delicate and thin detail I used the FIMO© as previously described, and the following are the resuts:
 


 
The color shade, slightly yellowish, is not exactly the same as for the other wood decorations but I think it is acceptable.
Also better visible are the small Acanthus leaves carvings at the corner of the gallery and transom moldings.
And finally a shot of the almost completed stern decorations:
 

 
Still missing are the decorations for the parts below the galleries windows (I don’t know the name for this).
I wanted to try again with the FIMO©, so drew a curl with a fan of Acanthus leaves curved upward and rearward and tried  to reproduce it with this material. The result was not completely satisfactory, because after cooking in the oven the material still remains a bit soft (a bit harder than a pen eraser, but still too soft) and I could not get an acceptable smooth finish.
So decided to try again with wood carving: below is shown the results comparison (consider that total thickness of the carved Pearwood is 1mm in the thicker areas). Obviously my final choice was for wood, and the following picture shows the completed stern-galleries.
 


 
Next task: Completing the catheads.
As described earlier, I rebuilt them from a single piece of Cherywood, ‘L’ shaped and beveled to match the bulwark internal surface and the waterway and to protrude outboard with an angle slightly more than 90 degrees (toward poop) w.r.t. the bulwark itself.
Then cut two slots for the anchor tackle pulleys, and added a cleat on the forward side of the beam to house a third pulley, whose scope is still a mystery to me.
I’ve ordered several 5mm diameter brass pulleys from RB-Model-Fittings at The Model Dockyard on-line shop.
 

 
A knee is supporting the cathead outboard, and then the last details can be then added: a ‘V’ shaped groove on the horizontal beam head, an iron band, two ring-bolts and an internal cleat.
I added a filling piece of scrap wood in lieu of the third pulley, hold in position by a brass nail, to protect the thin cleat wall from possible breakage.
 

 
Next task: Building the bow rails joining the catheads to the knee-of-the-head.
There are two rails whose shapes can be deduce from the Ancre plans with several geometric projections. I started with the main one: decided to build it in two layers of multiple pieces, in order to keep the wood grain as much as possible along the curved arch direction. The pieces are staggered by half their length, using the sketches shown here below.
 

 
Here are the two rails’ pieces assembled, with the rail ready for finishing: the upper in the picture is the LH side rail, showing its internal side
 

 
And here are the two rails completed, with two scraped grooves as decorations on the outboard face.  Another carved decoration is scheduled on the aft end and will be built later.
The small block piece on the inside end of the lower rail is intended to fix this end against the bulwark.
The drawing on the background explains the projection method I used to find the correct shape of the rails from the 3-view plans.
 

 
To install the rails, a cut-out must be created in the cathead's knee face. The following pictures show the modified knee and the port rail temporarily fit for installation checks.
 



 
The rails are supported from below by a series of four head-timbers that lay above the cheeks and against the head-of-the-knee. The rough shape of these pieces is included in the plans, but they must be adapted with lot of dry-fit tests and modification to get the correct shape. A squared 'U' groove is scraped in the external face and my intention is to paint matt-black the bottom of this groove.
 


 
The bolsters are also visible after their definitive installation. Quoting and in total agreement with Dan Vadas's buildlog "...Their function is to prevent the Hawse Cable from chafing on the upper cheek and planking around the holes.... Making one of these was enough of a mission - it took me 3,5 hours to shape..."
 
The bow has been partially painted with a first coat of black, to avoid the need of reaching hidden areas after all the headwork is completed.
The next picture shows the first head-timbers couple definitely fitted and the building of the trapeze piece joining the two main rails to the tip of the head-of-the-knee.
 

 
I used the detailed step-by-step description posted by Dan Vadas for his HMS Vulture as a tutorial, but decided to reverse the sequence by installing firstly the head-timbers and then the beams joining the rails in athwart direction. This will be shown in a next post.
The last picture of today shows the second couple of head-timbers installed below the rails.
 

 
That’s all for today.
 
Cheers
FAM

here is my last update:
 
 

 
 
 

 
 

 
 
 
 

here are some pics of the stern gallery. I have left some blinds down and some up (coloured blue).
Dick
 

 

Well, the painting is finally finished! 
Definitely not my favorite part of the build, but I wanted it to look as good as possible, so I spent a lot of time on it. 
 

 
I also decided to change the bulkhead from mahogany to cherry wood. I made the little window with lead wire and Microscale Kristal Klear
 


 
...and last, but not least, I am attempting my hand at treenailing the deck. I still need some fine tuning on the technique, but it looks alright for a first attempt. (i still need to finish the set on the right, just need to pull more bamboo through the drawplate!)
 

Hello friends!
 
I would like to show you, what I have done in the last weeks.
 
As you can see, I have started with the gratings on the upper deck. First I have made them with the wood from my kit. It does not look bad, but nevertheless I was not really happy. The color seems to be too bright. I had the idea to work it with the black wood putty, but that does´t work well. In contrast to the planks of my deck, the frames only look dirty and not old and used. 
 
The strips for the cannonballs does´t look good too. They had a different color than the frames. And the color changes in the middle of the strips. 
 
I decided to make them all with my own dark walnut wood. I did the same with the stairs.
 
Unfortunately I did the frames with false measurements, so I did it a third time :-). But now I am happy with the result!
 
Now I have started with the cannons. I am still at the beginning. But I love to see them standing on my deck :-)
 
Best wishes to all of you and a happy sunday!!!
 
-Heinz-
 
 
 
 
 
 

I have decided to use a truss pendant to mount the crossjack to the mizzen mast. As Arthur pointed out, the plans are ambiguous in their treatment (two drawings; two different methods). I have also followed Peterssen and hope it turns out alright in the end.
 
The idea is simple: make a loop on the end of the thread, the length  of which will reach roughly to the deck; make a second separate loop with an eye through which the length of thread passes, and on the end of which is a double block. This will eventually lead to a single block attached to one of the channels towards the stern  (I haven't decided where just yet).

 

 

 
With ropes going every which way it is difficult to see what is going on, but I hope these give the general idea.
 

 

 
This shows the block on the end of the pendant, roughly where it will eventually  be when the whole thing is finally fitted.
 

 

 
I think my next step will be to put on the ratlines, something to which I have not been looking forward.

Hi,
 
The hull planking and framing has been completed.  
The motor installed and work on interior details has begun.
 
Walter
 

 

 

 

 

 

 
 
 
 
 

Had some fun time with the granddaughters so my daughter could have a business meeting. Moved on to adding the gallery and transom moldings after making new ones at a smaller scale of 1/32" half round strips made with brass cutter.


 
I will leave the gallery components off until later in the build to minimize potential damage while handling the hull.

 
Here are in progress forming of the curved transom moldings, the kit ones were junk in my mind and out of scale as well. I am using 1/16" half round moldings again using my brass cutter.


 
While waiting for moldings to dry I turned to the metal castings for the decorations around the windows; and much to my surprise more junk castings. One even broke taking out of the bag; glued the pieces to a 1/64" plywood carrier to save it.
 

 
Now back to fixing the above parts, not a good one in the bunch.
 

The mast bowsprit and the rigging has now been completed, with the ropes, buckets, barrels,boat hooks,and oars added, only the barrels were bought the rest made,I will cover that on the next boat in the group,I also made a simple stand out of ply,so the 26ft launch is finished,one down three to go.
Mast


Stand

Rigging started


Inboard views




Finished boat





 
 
 
 

Awesome work Dave!
 
Jesse

Re-sizing port side gun ports....
Before proceeding with the beak-head ornamentation, I decided to turn my focus to the twenty four unfinished gun ports on the port side. 
The last five days have been spent building the frames and lids that must be retro-fitted into the openings originally cut according to the plan sheets.  Again.... after discovering the scaling issue with each.
 
The first two pics showing the creation of very small lid rings from staples....
 

 

 
Construction of the closed lid module (left) and the open lid module (right) ....
 

 
Carefully measured re-sizing of each port opening....
 

 

waist railings, beams and supports all in..... I'll cover the waist with something now to try and minimise the inevitable dust of the next year or so.....