rybakov

I placed a few more frames. In this type of carpentry to be able to set up a frame it takes a lot of time!
To give the structure more solidity, I thought of using some steel nails placed transversely at the base of the frames:

 

 

 

 

 

 

I started square frames. These constructions take a long time, each one is different from the other, each component has a different thickness, in short, a real challenge!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I have finished the installation of the cant frames.
I hope I have interpreted well the shape of the rising wood !
 

 

 

 

Thank you, Allan and Glenn, and for all your likes!
The work seems to be going well, even for all the measurements that I look at at least three times before operating ....
I have finished the arrangement of the fore cant frames. The arrangement of the fore cant frame n. 11 is very particular because it has a cast timber:
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

sills:

 

 

 
 
I continue with the fore cant frames:

 

 

 
 
 
and aft cant frames:

 

 

Thank you, Gary!!
I placed a couple of fore cant frames:
 

 

 

 

The hawse pieces:
Of course, everything still needs to be roughed out. I kept myself very abundant!

 

 

 

 

I started fixing the whole aft part.
I have encountered considerable difficulties in getting everything to fit together!
 

 

 

 

Some progress; I fixed the bollard timberheads
 

 
Now comes the hard work!

 

 

 

 

 
 
 
I haven't fixed anything yet, I have to test all the joints first

 

 

 
 
 
 
 

I fixed the keel to the base - everything seems to be fine!
 

 
 
bollard timberheads:

 

Axial carpentry:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As I had anticipated, I started a new challenge: the construction of an English frigate, with a carpentry that, until now, I had never approached. Very fascinating architecture, and a model, the Pegasus that struck me immediately, already from the first splendid images seen here on MSW. I am studying a lot, because I would like to be able to come up with a model that is worthy of the great work done by David Antscherl and Greg Herbert and I count a lot on your help and support!
 
Meanwhile, I started setting up the first job:
 

 

 

 

 

Given that this balcony doesn’t wrap to the quarters the way the middle balcony does, I thought it would be easier to first attach the corbels.  Fitting these is a little tricky because they toe-in toward the centerline, a little, and they have to match the raking angle of the quarter gallery, fore and aft, and they have to be beveled athwart-ships to match the camber of the balcony platform.

I thought I had done a pretty good job of matching all the angles, however the outside corbels looked a little droopy:

Especially the port side:

The solution was to add a piece of .030 styrene to the tops of the outside corbels and re-fair until the angle of the balcony platform matched that of the quarters.  The hardest part of this was paring away the glue squeeze-out and repairing the paint.
 
The window plate is probably the thing that gave me the most problems.  It is very fragile, and I broke both doors off at different times.  Then, when I CA’d the acetate in-place, I developed a little bit of CA frost on several of the window panes:


I probably could have avoided this problem if I had either used a quick-set CA, or used an accelerant.  I like the medium-set CA glues because they give you a small window to make sure the part is correctly positioned.
 
The frost blooms were not super noticeable, but they were nonetheless disappointing.  I kind of wanted to scrap the piece and start over, but that would also necessitate casting new pilasters in resin, as I did not have another scrap stern plate to pull from.
 
Well, fortunately there’s a simple solution to this problem, and it works like magic.  One approach would be to dissolve the CA with gasoline and re-paint/re-built.  Or, I could simply paint a little petroleum jelly over the blooms and let them sit for 5-10 minutes.  Then, I cover the head of a q-tip with a t-shirt scrap and wipe the PJ off the surface.  An un-covered Q-tip gets into the corners.  This simple trick worked perfectly!
 
The next hurdle of this window plate was that I had pretty radically underestimated how much needed to be trimmed from the window edges so that they would fit within the transom framing.  The only way to trim these, after they had been glued to the plate, was to grind the edges with a diamond-coated bur and sanding sticks.  This was tedious, and I managed to dislodge one pane, but I somehow avoided breaking the plate, so I kept going.
 
The next thing that had to happen was cutting back the center pilaster so that the Arms of France would not intrude into the space for the big tafferal carving:


Again this is difficult to achieve without breaking the window plate because the blue plastic of the kit window pilasters is, for lack of a better word, chewy.  
 
With all of that out of the way, I could finally glue-in the balcony platform, and plank-in the transom bulkhead:



There remain a pair of supporting balusters that I have to fit between the middle balcony rail and the upper balcony platform.


Now, I can paint the transom planking red and figure out whether I’ll be able to salvage the kit railing, or whether I will have to make one from scratch.
 
I’ll get all of that together, and then I’ll go back to the head to complete the headrail installation and head grating.  That may be all I manage to accomplish before the show, but that will be significant progress, since the last time I showed the model.
 
Thank you for looking in!

Hello and many, many thanks for your comments and likes
 
Mark, just try and try again. It's not the first lion I have carved that sits there. As an architect I think you could think in three dimensions. The rest is training. Or as some say, the lion sits already in the wood, you must only cut away all the parts who did't belong to the lion. 😉
 
Greg, that is the example after which I worked the gammon rack or rack block. Its from the Invincible 1747. All the parts they have recovered from the wreck, are now in Chatham and many on display. 

Short interlude, "What if."

I wonder what the Constitution would look like with a 12 cylinder sports engine?



A contemporaneous anchor nozzle from HMS Royal George at Thorsminde actually still survives. A lead pipe with the ends flanged around.



So new hawse inlays printed, with 3 mm inside, 4 outside and the curves at the flang.



Hawse holes drilled out to the nea diameter, inlets pushed in ...



... and inside still another fake flange put on.



Now the whole area is also neatly wallpapered in one piece, the closed port is no longer visible, and the intersection of the plastic strips is in the middle of the port and will be covered by the gun.

XXXDAn

After that, I took care of the anchor hawses. In the kit, these go 90° perpendicular to the ship's axis and out downward.

Considering that the ship is driven away from the anchor by the wind on the tensioned anchor cable, there would have been a nice bend in the tensioned cable.

That's why the anchor nozzle has to sit parallel to the ship's axis with minimal downward slope. A toilet paper roll happened to be the right height and served as a rest for the Dremel.



The anchor cable has about 2 mm in my scale, so printed short semi-finished tubes with 2.2 mm inside and 3 mm outside and glued them in and then still trimmed all after that.



Then the cable was threaded ...



... and noticed, omg, there is missing the clearance. Often the anchor cables were still secured with various wrappings against chafing.

In addition, I decided that the ship is represented before 1812, and there the bridle port, the foremost port was not cut in yet. This one was not equipped anyway and served to facilitate the anchor handling. So this port was closed and I noticed that this would probably result in a nasty patchwork on the internal planking.

So came what had to come, a dafi did what a dafi has to do: Demolition!



With these cruel pictures I just want to leave you ...

XXXDAn

So far I had ever avoided, and the gun ports not yet clad inside. Was made up, so that one does not see the wooden slats and also file irregularities are concealed.



First all 4 sides laminated with 0.25 polysterol ...



... then trimmed the inside with a scalpel ...



... built a small sanding block with a handle ...



... and neatened everything.



Fortunately only 30 times and not 100 like the Vic.



Saved the scraps, you can still fill up any gaps with them.



XXXDAn  

You bet! Rob Napier once referred to its bow as having the "Mother of all figureheads"!
 
If anyone can duplicate this, it would be Johann!

Yes, John, I have been very lucky that this project has attracted the attention of such a diversely talented group.  I guess, at the end of the day, we all like our painted ladies 😏
 
I’m intrigued by your choice of avatar, John.  Le Fleuron by Jean Berain:
 

Are you planning a scratch-project of this ship?
 
As for the question of removable panels that conceal gun ports, you are spot-on.
 

The lowest tier of 3 lights, where the functional toilet resides, are all false lights.  The forward panel likely conceals an additional gun port.  The middle two lights, in the amortisement, are also false lights - the forward, of which, could also be an armed port.  As a side note, I kinda wished that I had done all of the stern lights in this stylized black.  The upper tier of balcony lights is giving me fits, at the moment, but I’ll address that more fully in the next post.
 
The only real light in the quarter gallery is that of the Captain’s cabin on the quarter deck.  Interesting side note: I had always assumed that this was the Admiral’s cabin, and that Tanneron had perhaps incorrectly placed the crenelated bulkhead on the wrong deck, when it should reside on the main deck below.  Well, as with so many of my early assumptions, that proved to be wrong.
 
The insight comes from the survey drawings of the cabins.  These drawings, which include pre-refit drawings of the three cabins, as well as post-refit drawings with the new 6-window layout, illustrate dimensionally that the Captain’s cabin must always have resided on the quarter deck.  I discovered these, dare I say, facts through a closer reading of Guy Maher’s research document.  I wish I could take credit for it, but that is all Guy Maher.
 
And, so, this is why Guy posits that Tanneron perhaps intended to build a model of SR as she first appeared upon launching; the framing of the stern that his model shows reflects the rather severe tumblehome that the pre-refit cabin drawings dictate.
 
Tanneron chose a 5-window layout, as opposed to the five window + 2 half-light layout of the pre-refit great cabin.  As discussed in earlier posts, Tanneron was not a stranger to simplifying window layouts on his other Musee models - see L’Agreable.

Another assumption of mine has been that Tanneron adapted Berain’s design to fit within the reduced area of this taller, more narrow stern.  Perhaps, though, at the time he made this model he had access to the mythical Puget drawing which was, itself, a reworking of the LeBrun conceptual drawing.  Guy suspects that this drawing may still exist somewhere in the archives, but he has not yet located it.
 
I have long believed the Tanneron model is a composite of the ship from 1670 and the second ship of 1693, as it shares distinct construction characteristics of both epochs.  The quarter galleries share the overall shape of the 1690’s and beyond (see Louis Quinze model), however, their fully open, terraced design is an artifact of the 1670’s.
 
That Guy is one sharp guy!  I can’t post a link to it directly, but if one were curious to see his particular vision of the ship, just Google: “Guy Maher, Soleil Royal 1671”
 
In my next post, I will detail my travails with my stern.  Oh, and my liquid bitumen finally completed it’s epic pilgrimage from the shores of England!  I’ll be able to resume work on the head soon. 

A huge amount of appreciation goes to Marc's log and his knowledgeable commenters. I've learned so much in the last few months from going back and reading from the beginning. 

It might be that it wasn't just the figure carvings that were removed in preparation for war. I have a strong suspicion that the panels of the "bottle" quarter galleries may have been removable, too. There are several surviving line drawings and illustrations that show that some galleries on some ships were pierced with gunports. I have a feeling that the glass lights in the galleries wouldn't have gotten along well with cannon fire. All that flying glass must have made using the officer's heads exciting during battle. In all seriousness, maybe this is why Tanneron chose to "open up" the galleries on his model instead of making them the typical closed "bottle" galleries seen in the drawings of the Second Marine ships.

Is there any documentation that would confirm/deny my suspicion?

Everything best,
John O

Hello and many, many thanks,
here a little update. The gammon lashings are ready.

But not to forget the basics besides all the fascination of printing. The next step was the stern cabins layout.



Since the sources about the position of the cabins are quite "soft", I took another look at the situation. In the galley runs the mast and in front of it the rudder ropes. And food preparation should also be there. According to most sources, there is a cabinet with a worktop there, consequently the front edge has been pushed forward and the space for a small cabinet has been created.



Fits just so with the grating, although I do not know to what extent this opening is historically documented.



Inside was now the necessary place for food preparation. And doors and guns don't get in each other's way either.



The back of the captain's cabin is also nice and cramped.





For the bed, I did away with the lattice structure and provided a curved entrance in the French style.
The sofa is also now in place.



A little side note: I had already mentioned that the lattice structure gets a nice belly when printed, which almost disappears again when cured under UV light.



XXXDAn

Thanks so much for the kind comments, Yancovitch and Steve. Slow but steady!
 
In my last post, I express doubts about the way I had managed the hair bracket, sitting tenuously on top of the knee at the stem. After pondering it a while, I decided there was nothing for it but to cut down the top of the knee that I had shaped in 1998 when I started construction (see image below). It was too short for the hair bracket, the gammoning slot and the hole for the mainmast stay collar were in the wrong locations. To this day, I don't quite know how I got that so wrong. I might have copied something out of Lavery's book on the Bellona, which I have subsequently discovered is not  accurate enough to build a model from. And I started construction years before I finally started drawing more accurate drawings--always a mistake!

So, I made a complete new piece, combining the hair bracket and a carved ornamental piece that stands directly behind the figurehead. It seemed more solid the two together, and they are the same thickness relative to the figure head:
 

 
And after a lot of faying and tapering, the new core for the hair brackets now holds everything firmly together.
 
I made up a dummy of Bellona (don't tell her I said that, she is supposed to be a very scary warrior...), just to see how things are starting to fit together. The first image below shows the new core piece still covered in the paper pattern, showing the bas-relief carving to come on the piece behind the figurehead (she is pulled away from it a little in this photo). It also shows the captain standing on the cheeks. Gives a good idea of the size of the figurehead.
 

And here are parts starting to fall into place:
 

 
I have been reading David Antscherl's excellent explanation of how to carve a figure head in Volume II of the Fully Framed Model. I might start with the maquette, and see how it goes...
I have pondered what wood to use, to carve the figures on the ship. My boxwood is not buxus semperivens, the stuff the old modeler's used, and that David recommended when he first wrote his book. But I can find no supplier anywhere in the world of buxus semperivens anymore. I know my boxwood is from South America, but I don't know its actual species. It seems to be stiffer in relation to what others have written about working true boxwood. I think it will have to do. And I can always blame a bad outcome on bad tools or bad wood, not lack of skill!🙂
 
Best wishes,
 
Mark
edited with higher resolution image here:
 

 
 
 
 
 

Thanks, Gaetan, someday when I get further along, I would be interested in studying French ships of the period. Always fun to see what is universal, and what is culturally different!
 
Further progress today. I finally got in the second layer of the hawse lining, ready for drilling the hawse holes:
 

And now on to that pesky support for the hair bracket. I tried letting a liner down into a rebate I cut today on top of the knee, but I may sleep on this. It seems flimsy, kind of cobbled together. I may consider making the entire core in one piece. A decision for tomorrow!
 
 

 

Hi druxey and Alan,
 
The last image was a little misleading; the bowsprit shroud coming across the drawing make it look like the bowsprit was lower. The drawing below without the shroud shows the actual clearance I am working to, which is from the original Admiralty drawing.
 
While referring to the previous drawing, you can see my drawing of the bumpkin or boomkin has no stays or other supports.
Lees' Masting and Rigging pages 130-131 says that no rigging was fitted in the first years of the bumpkin, although he doesn't say when it first came into use. The few models I have seen of ships contemporary to the Bellona ca 1760--like the Thunderer-- do not show any rigging other than the shoulder block for the fore tack. Does anyone have any further model examples or further evidence of what may or may not have been used as additional stays for the bumpkin around 1760?