Pirate adam

Slowly but surely. I managed to break the top timbers off both of the aft frames while wrestling with the filler pieces. Two lessons learned the hard way despite all the helpful hints in people's books and build logs. 1) the direction of the grain of the chocks matters 2) I will wait until I have a few more cant frames ready to stick to the deadwood, so that I can glue spacers at the top to provide a bit more strength. In the meantime I am making tree nails. I must say as much frustration as this portion of the model has caused the results are very satisfying. Adam

I love the display. Adam

Washington galley is a great project. I think you will like it. Adam

Mark, I can certainly verify the accuracy of that statement. Adam

Christian, Yes, I made the plans myself. I bought the drawings from the NMM, and then re-drew them in Turbocad largely following the article by Wayne Kempson as well as the Swan and Naiad books. It has been a really interesting learning process and to be honest a bit humbling. It is safe to say that drafting a set of POF ship model plans is an exercise that “builds character.” I have a whole new level of appreciation for the authors of the various monographs. I’m finally feeling good enough about the frame plans to be close to starting to cut out and assemble the cant frames. Adam

Transoms cut out and in place.

It is totally up to you, but I would paint them. There are plenty of people that build plastic models and don’t paint them at all. The Britmodeller forum has tons of good info on plastic models and painting. Very helpful and likeminded group to this one. Adam

I was recently lucky enough to make a visit to the museum at the Naval Academy in Annapolis. I told my wife I am basically going for something like the ship below. I'm not sure she was convinced. I would 1000% recommend the museum at the academy (and visiting the academy in general) for anyone who gets a chance. The collection is amazing and either really inspiring or a tad demoralizing if you are into ship model building. I have been to most of the big museums, and there is really nothing like it at this point.

Un-stuck and back to building. I had to do bit of re-drafting on my plans before I was finally sure I more or less have the stern assembly right. Tricky to get the waterlines right around the transoms. Lots of foam board mockups before I was convinced. I have the transoms made and the stern deadwood and stern post assembly glued up. There is a pesky little gap in the front of the sternpost where I cut a mortise I shouldn't have in the front part of the post. I will fill it in later, but it will be covered up anyway. Still some cleaning up to do, but overall I am happy so far.

I use something called 3 in 1 oil on my Sherline chucks. One thing to keep in mind is that no matter what type of oil you use some will inevitably fly out when you turn on the lathe for the first time. It is worth making sure nothing is in the area that you don’t want to get oil machine oil on. Adam

I meant Porcupine, not Porpoise. That's what I get for trying to type while eating a plate of nachos. Adam

This conversation is interesting to me, as I am working on a POF model of another of the Porpoise class ships the HMS Crocodile 1781. I am working from my interpretation of the admiralty draughts from the NMM. Working from the draughts is definitely something that “builds character” lol, as there is never ending learning to figure out how they guys did things back then. One thing I would mention is I am deeply skeptical of the frame configuration in the Pandora book. The authors don’t list a framing drawing in their references, and their drawings show a design that makes immense use of filling frames in a way that doesn’t seem practical. I have the book, and it is a fantastic reference. That said I think the authors had to do a lot of guessing due to the drawings available. The National Maritime Museum has admiralty draughts of some of the ships in the class (see Hyena 1788) but they only show some of the frames. For my model I have recreated (ie, guessed) at the layout from the scantlings and what seems to make sense from the admiralty draughts. I ended up with something very similar the the HMS Sphinx 1775 framing patterns which they have available at the NMM. You might check the Sphinx drawings as a reference, as it is a very similar ship. I just guessed at the structure of the head based on the designs in the Swan and Naiad books. You can see where I netted out in my Crocodile log. My conclusions were very similar to thukydides above. Adam

Alan, That really stinks, but look on the bright side. That is way better news than you won’t be posting for a while because you are off to spend some time behind bars or got a horrible medical diagnosis. It will go lots faster the second time around, because you have answered so many questions and figured out so many challenges the first time. Just stick with it. This will be an amazing model in the end. The fact you weren’t willing to just settle with the wrong deck position is testament to that. It would have been really easy to just decide to model the lower decks with port lids closed and move on, but you didn’t. Adam

That will be an impressive fleet!

My build board for Crocodile is 36" x 16". This is for a 6th rate 114' 3" on the gun deck. The nice thing about this size is pre-finished melamine shelf boards are readily available in this size. You can see in the picture that I have pasted the framing diagram to the board. That gives a good indication of how much space will be available around the hull (I would heartily recommend doing the same or at least making a paper mock up based on widest frame and length of ship as per Mike's recommendation). Believe it or not in real life the centerline of the framing diagram is right in the center of the board. I would probably make another 6" longer if I was to do over again. You can see the stern is getting a bit close to the edge. I went with the t-tracks closer to the edge vs. closer to the model. I originally had in mind to do a build board that could be used later for a 4th rate ship, but the size was going to be a hassle for something that might never be used. The nice thing about the size I have is it is easy to move around for cleaning, putting in back seat of a car, whatever. It will surely start to get heavy once the hull comes together. You may consider putting some handles on the ends. Adam