Aussie048

Bowsprit finished & pre-rigged.Still working on the masts.
 

 
/Mark

Thanks all for your kind words.
 
Sometimes you run into a part and had no clue that it would be that hard to make. The quarterdeck transom is such a part, looking rather unexciting. One redo and the better part of a couple of days work went into it. I had expected the counter timbers to be trickier but after watching Mark doing his Belona's counter with the help of a jig, I constructed a small jig that saved a lot of head aches. The mortises on the wing transom I had made light-years ago had to come off as the spacing was all wrong. Where would a shipwright be without his bottle of isopropyl
 

 

 

 

 
Remco

Ouch!!  In my attempt to align the forcastle deck with the bowsprit hole, everything came apart...  Easily reparable to the way it was;  but also a way to fix old problems... It's late, time to sleep on this one....
 
~Bob

Druxey There ya go
 

 
Kieth I am glad that you can use the saw blade trick.
 
Mark Thanks
 
And than you all for the likes.
 
I was not very happy actually with the set of four new hinges so today I began a third set, this time I did not anneal the brass but bent it cold, and scaled up just a little by using a 1/16th end mill. The picture shows a steel rod acting as a bit of a drill to clean up the holes after the milling
 

 
The next picture shows the new hinge made today next to the slightly smaller earlier one. the new one looks a lot tidier to me
 

 
Set up in the companionway.
 

 
I added some small bevels to the door frame. tomorrow I will finish the second set for the other door.
 
Michael
 

Thanks for looking in again, and the nice comments Geoff, Brian, Ben, John and Spyglass.
 
 
Sorry about that Spyglass, I didn't realize that you were up to the same stage . Besides, the construction of your Pegasus is quite a bit different to mine . You're doing a fine job.
 
Ensign Staff Block and Clamp
 
There are a few more things on the taffarel that need doing prior to fitting the assembly to the ship. One of these is the Block and Clamp that hold the Ensign Staff, enabling it to be easily removed.
 
The block is stepped into the fore edge of the taffarel and has two small molded sections at it's ends,
 
The clamp is very similar to a Gun Trunion Cap, so I simply used a slightly modified spare that I had (I only had to enlarge the diameter of the half-hole slightly) :
 

 

 
  Danny

finished making my serving machine. It will be handy when I'll need it for the making of the shrouds.

placed some thread or ties to hold down the overlap on the inside cockrail

Finished one caprail. Turned out to be unexpectedly tricky to make a proper templates, so I just glued a Big Ugly Something and then sanded it down to name it a caprail. As you can see, right caprail looks legit, left one is just a piece of wood:

 
Remined me of a childhood, when I was locked up in a summer house for a month, and was so bored that made a solid hull ship about 25cm long, carved from a single piece of wood using one chisel and a sharp knife (that were the only tools available, apart from the garden shovel and a hammer). It is just a matter of time required to sand...
 

 
Speaking of mistakes, now a bit incorrectly aligned frame is very visible, one side of the hull have a wrong shape. Unfixable on a current phase of the build. Always always align your frames perfectly! Lesson learnt.
 
Chuck, do you recommend to cover a panted parts with a wipe-on poly? Is poly compatible with acrylic paints like Galeria that I use on your advice?

Evening all
 
The next step was to plank the bow. Not wanting to follow Corel' instructions for reasons shown below...

I tried to come up with something a bit more realistic and after getting some inspiration from the Ancre website, followed by some good tips from Danny this was the result

which you will agree (well hopefully ) is better than Corel's suggestion!
 
Next step was to mark up the frames in preparation for the second planking

followed by the stern planking

 
And then the second planking started...


and I'm sure you noticed on that last photo that I was still having issues with gun port location . Ho hum...
 
Only one more catch up post to follow and this log will have caught up with my progress.
 
TTFN
 
Nick

gun port omission (see previous post) now corrected...

 
After that it was "just" a question of applying the first layer of planking
 
in progress

 
and voila. Finished! easy.

 
However...something was amiss at the stern...

 
so drastic measures were required...

 
and the original booboo was fixed.

 
At this point can I say to anyone who hesitates in making a fix. Dont! Once you've ripped up what was wrong, well, you can't leave it like that so might as well do it properly!
Seriously I was tempted not to fix it. But I'm glad I did.
 
And finally a couple of pics of the first planking filled and sanded.


 
That's it for now. Thanks for looking in.
 
Hopefully I wont keep you waiting for the next installment too long.
 
Nick

Hi everyone
 
Since I have restarted my build of Le Mirage I thought it was time to resurect my build log from the ashes of the Great crash of 13!
 
This will be more of a summary rather than a detailed log. Lots of pictures, some words. You never know some of it might be interesting!
 
I started this build 3 years ago. Yes progress is slow but in my defence having two children in that time has somewhat limited build time...
 
Comments/criticisms/etc gratefully received. Always good to get feedback of more experienced modellers.
 
Anyhoo enough of the intro. Hope you're sitting confortably. Popcorn ready?... Good.
 
A few box content pictures to get going
 
The box

 
Inside the box


 
This is my second build after the Billing Bluenose and I have to say I was very impressed with the quality of the materials. However the bulkhead slots needed some adjusting...

 
All the bulkheads in place

 
Unfortunately I didn't notice until way too late that the first one was higher up than it should have been. First mistake (and not the last!   )
 
The slots in the bulkheads are used to determine where the gun ports are.

 
and again

 
although that didn't stop me forgetting some gun ports (told you there were more mistakes!)

 
Well that's the limit of 8 photos per post reached. Until the next post...
 
Nick

Aft Cant frames 2 & 3 installed using some scrap basswood sized and shaped to fit as temporary spacers at the frame tops.
 
Ben

And one side of the second aft cant frame being adjusted for fit.
 
Ben

Well here is the first aft cant frame installed.
 
Ben

Thanks Rusty, Mark, Grant and everybody for the likes.
 
Mark - I know the picture looks silly, sometimes I feel like destroying my phone but I wouldn't want to damage my precious Byrnes Sander.
 
Anyway - the stern transoms have all been fitted and pinned in place successfully! I had left the ends of the transoms slightly overlength so I could fair them back to suit the aft cant frame which is what I'm doing now and I have started cutting aft cants 1 thru 7 out of 9" stock.
 
Ben

Thanks for the Likes everybody.
 
Druxey - already been done, after that picture I marked the bolts and trimmed them down to a perfect size, see first pic.
 
I have predrilled all of the transoms before fitting for pinning with bamboo treenails, I used a #65 drill bit and drew bamboo down to #35 hole in the Byrnes plate, this is not to scale but just for reinforcement purposes.
 
Then the 4th transom was installed and pinned, making sure that it lined up with the buildboard markings as well as the heights above the keel bottom as measured from the mylar plan. I am deviating from the TFFM description of installing the transoms which would have the wing transom installed first, I am going to install the 4th first, then the fashion pieces below it, this should give me a solid bottom reference point, then I will install the wing transom which will give me the top point, and then install the transoms in between. Hopefully this works out like I envision.
 
Now on to the fashion pieces, they were cut out of 9" stock oversized slightly by 1/32" outside the lines, then I setup the Byrnes sander to excatly 29.5 degrees using an app on my Iphone, the angles were sanded and then the pieces refined until a perfect fit was achieved under transom 4. I drilled them ready for pinning and then glued in place using a square to make sure it was perpendicular ( the picture doesnt look like its correct but it is! ) you can see how the square matches the correct line on the buildboard.
 
ben.
 
 

Thanks for the vote of confidence Druxey, I shall do my best with the cant frames but I have laid in store some isopropanol anyway.
 
Today I managed to spend a few hours getting the keel bolts installed into the forward rising wood and aft deadwood, it was a little difficult as I don't have a mill but after drilling clearance holes for 6/32 bolts, I then ground down some 6/32 nuts, marked their position and used a small chisel to make the rebates for them. Then I used 5 min epoxy to glue the nuts in place.
Corresponding clearance holes were drilled through the buildboard and 2 inch 6/32 machine screws were cut down to correct length and then tightened up.
Almost ready to start fixing the transoms permently but one more addition to the buildboard is needed.
 
Ben

Ok update time After sorting the remaining deck supports I preceeded to mark the subdeck out on a piece of 1/16th ply.After cutting out,I began to establish the deck beam positions in order to mark where plank butts treenails etc would be.Refering to 'Restoration Warship',Richard Ensor states that common practice was to have one deck beam central to each gunport and one inbetween.I drew out the gunport positions of the gundeck and marked the beams then marked the other beams halfway inbetween.This design is completely different to that portrayed on the plans,sorry Euromodels but the internal structure just doesn't ring true.Yes I am still working to the plans for the internal layout,just not the beam placement.Another issue came to light in the fact that the long grating and main mast resulted in 5 consecutive beams being split.There is no way this would happen,so I have shortened the gratings to allow two beams to run right through,hence the deck infill at each end.After one or two trial runs and a little trimming,making sure nothing was tight on the pear frames,the deck was glued in place.I did remove the temporary ties across the frame tops to allow this and the deck had to be bent ALOT to get it to 'spring' in.There is still lots of shaping to do to the lower hull especially the stern which is simply a block at the moment.Thorough checks on symmetry will be carried out as the work progresses. 
 
Kind Regards
 
Nigel

Some more pictures of my recent visit to HMS Trincomalee, showing great detail of the gun rigging.
 
A fine looking ship

 
Close up of rigging



 
Nice set of cannons

Finally, the second layer planking is over. I stained the planks with blue stain and although I like it, plywood didn't go as well. The layers are visible on stronger light. I'm still thinking whether to leave it as is, or paint.
 
Next, I will paint the hull below the water line with white matte color but before that, I have to do some metal work, for which I got my hands on a 0.3mm brass plate. The copper sheet that came with the kit is very, very thin... more suited for coppering.

A little bit more work done on my Bracera build. I sanded the hull of the vessel, shaped the bow and is now ready for the second planking. I had problems at the stern with clinkering so I hade to put filler (diluted PVA and sawdust) on both sides as the hull was getting paper thin. I am not happy with the second planking strips that I got with the kit so I am thinking of buying cherry veneer and making my own. In the meanwhile, I started working on the rudder and stained the cargo bay.

First planking is finally over. A lot of clinkering at the stern. There shall be a lot of sanding to make it smooth.

I placed a couple more planks for the weekend. I made the garboard strake too long at the bow and I had to taper the next plank to a pointy edge so that the following planks would have a normal bend. Not a nice job but it will be covered with a second layer of planking (which I hope to do better). The stern seems to be OK.

I began planking the first layer. I seem to have forgotten how it is done as I cracked the first three planks. I was cursing, swearing the Basswood planks that came with the kit. Took an Obeche plank from my previous build, soaked it and applied heat to bend it without a glitch. Since I had just a few Obeche planks left, I decided to try the Basswood again. Soaked it a bit longer in hot water and then using a steam iron and soldering iron (the part before the tip which I kept at 200C), I took my time and with a little bit more patience and less pressure I bent the plank to the shape of the hull. It was not the wood after all, it was me! Basswood seems to be stiffer than Obeche but unlike Obeche doesn't start splintering when pushed too much. It just cracks.

For the filler blocks, the kit came with two choices: Basswood and rigid polystyrene foam. Basswood would need too much time and effort to shape with the tools I have, so I tried the foam. It is easy to shape and rigid enough, but the dust is very fine and sticky. Since the admiral was frowning I decided to go with Balsa with a vacuum cleaner ready for action.
 
To make a nice edge (Balsa did not hold it well) I used a wide, 1.5mm thick beech plank from the kit, shaped it and then glued the Balsa block on top. I pre-shaped them as in the plans and glued them to the bulkheads. The final shape was reached while fairing the bulkheads.