Pirate adam

If it were me, I would go with what is shown in the planking expansion for HMS Sphynx. I have been working on the drawings for my HMS Crocodile, and I am constantly going back and forth between what is shown in the Pandora book and other sources. I think the Pandora book is a fantastic reference, but there are a few things that make me pretty skeptical about some of the drawings. The main thing is the authors make heavy use of inputs from a large variety of plans and models of ships other than Pandora or even ships drawn to the same lines. In some cases from much larger ships. It is a reality that this is necessary for some of the types for which less drawings are available, so don’t take that as a criticism of the authors or the quality of the drawings. There are sadly things that have been lost to history, but we are lucky a lot of great drawings are available for the Sphynx which is one of the closest siblings to your ship. Adam

Port side aft cant frames complete. On to the other side. Adam

Slowly but surely moving ahead with stern cant frames. I'm doing a bit of progressive fairing as I go while trying not to go too crazy. I'm pretty happy with the look of the chocks. Just a tiny bit of contrast due to the grain direction, but still pretty subtle. Adam

I've started attaching the aft cant frames. No more until I add some basswood spacers at the top of the frames. Soon I will also start fairing the internal part of the stern before too much more gets in the way. Adam

I finished gluing up the aft cant frames. My plan is to simulate the frame bolts with copper wire and blacken any exposed bolts on the model with liver of sulfur after fairing. I used wire labeled 0.019" diameter to simulate scale bolts 7/8" diameter. There are 2 types of joints on the cant frames. One type uses chocks and the other a simple scarph joint. I wanted to save some time laying out the bolt patterns on the frames, so I printed up some guides on label paper. I found that to work great. I drilled the holes using a micro drilling accessory on the Sherline lathe. I broke my last drill bit, so no more holes until I find some more. Adam

This is so much fun to watch. It really makes you feel like you are at the actual shipyard. Amazing work. Adam

Cutting of frames for the chocks. I cut these using the Sherline mill. I simplified the chocks a bit by not beveling them. I only cut to the depth of what would be the shallower side so as to not expose the nose of the chock when the frames are faired. The chocks are a bit funny looking now due to the excess wood outside the actual frame lines. One side of the chock will be a bit off after fairing, but I don't think they will be especially visible when the frames are glued up anyway. I used regular scarph joints for the top timbers. I will pin them later with copper wire to simulate bolts. Here are two sample frames. With a bit of alcohol just to highlight the joints. I'm pretty happy with the look so far. There are 117 frames to do in total counting the hawse timbers, but the nice thing is they are a great project to work on just a bit a day after work. Adam

Wow that looks amazing Mark! Great work. Very impressive actually painting it on. Adam

I forgot to show my high tech gluing setup. I glue them on a small plate of glass and weigh them down with a flashlight.

Picture with a bit more resolution.

Here I have begun to glue up the aft cant frames. I will cut the spaces later for the chocks using the mill.

With the transom shenanigans out of the way I am finally ready to start making frames. Here I have marked out the blanks for the aft cant frames. The black lines are the actual lines for the frames. I added the green lines to make sure I have plenty of wood for fairing the cant frames as well as to make sure the frames are sufficiently tall. Experience tells me that I just can't help myself when it comes to leaving enough wood otherwise. Familiar sight for anyone who has built POF. Adam

I made a slightly larger building board to provide a bit more room to install the frames at the ends of the model. Long story short, when I setup the new build board I found some issues with the alignment of the transoms and aft fashion piece. I have known for a while that something wasn't right with the alignment, and happy to figure it out before doing a ton more work. I envisioned this would be a problem that would follow me through the whole build, so got out the isopropyl and re-built the transoms and aft fashion pieces. I also used the opportunity to add a 4th filling frame which looks much better to my eyes. Adam

I think it would be a shame to paint it black. The wood is beautiful. Adam

I love this. Great work Greg

It is pretty straightforward. Dividing the circumference in inches by 3.14 will give you the diameter in inches. Then just divide by 48 to get the scale diameter in inches. example: 6 circumference rope. Divide by 3.14 gives 1.91" diameter rope. Divide by 48 to get 0.0398" diameter in real life for 1/48 scale. Adam

I can verify that the Anatomy of the Ship Armed Transport Bounty book has tables of the various ropes in the rigging. It would make a nice reference for anyone building a model. Adam

This seems like a very sensible plan for the long term. Getting away from the need to source large quantities of wood should simplify things immensely. I was able to see the 3D printed Syren blocks for the first time at the Northeast clubs show and was pretty blown away. Looking forward to seeing some of the other parts you come up with now that you have mastered the printing technology. Cool thing about moving away from the kits is we will likely see a much bigger variety of models being created by people using Syren parts. Adam

One thing that hasn’t been mentioned that you may already have based on your comments on well equipped wood shop. I would recommend a good set of wood chisels and the means to keep them extremely sharp. I use a set that is nothing fancy with sizes between about 1/8” up to about 1/2”. These are super handy for all sorts of work and well worth the investment. Another thing that I have recently added that I don’t know how I lived without is a small jewelers saw and various blades. They are relatively inexpensive online and incredibly useful for cutting out tiny shapes that aren’t so easy to do with a coping saw or scroll saw. Adam

No posts for a while, but I have been very busy over the winter revising some drafting before I cut out the remaining cant frames. I'm finally feeling good about the framing layout, so back to cutting wood. I will have some actual progress soon. The drawing below is where I netted out on the framing layout. I had originally intended to use the framing plan from the AOT Pandora book, but moved away from that based on the other references available. There wasn't a complete framing drawing available from the NMM for Crocodile or any of the other Porcupine class ships, but there are partial framing plans available from for sister ships Siren and Hyena. There is also a full framing plan available for the Sphinx of 1775, which is a smaller, but similar ship. I used those along with the scantlings for the 24 gun ship from Steel combined with the assumptions below to arrive at my final layout. There is some guessing involved, but I don't suspect anyone will ever look at the finished model and tell me convincingly that it is wrong. I am satisfied with the result. Assumptions used in frame layout: 1) All floors equally spaced and following both the dimensions and room and space from Steel 2) Frames aligned in line with all the frames shown on the partial framing diagram for Siren 1779 3) Minimal use of cast and shifted frames to assure frames were aligned with each gunport 4) Maximum use of top timbers to align with the timber heads shown on the plan. 5) Cant frame angles adjusted to line up with both gunport and top timbers whenever possible. The assumptions above actually resulted in a layout very similar to the one for Sphinx which I actually only came across when I was 90% done with drafting.

I would do the deck beams in pear to match the lower platform and the deck with the boxwood matching the inner planking. I don’t think you can go wrong either way. Adam

It is amazing to see some of the things that are becoming possible as people are learning to make full realization of the capabilities of 3D printing. I’m looking forward to seeing what the carvings look like when painted. 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