rybakov

Thanks so much, Jason. This is my very first effort at sculpting the human form. The artist guides to human proportions helped enormously, then looking at examples of details like folds in clothing from other eighteenth century carvings.
 
Yves, the Bellona has 28 guns on the gundeck, 28 on the upper deck, 14 on the quarterdeck, and 4 on the forecastle. At the time the Bellona was first launched in 1760, which is what I am trying to reproduce, there were no carronades. The four on the forecastle were long range nine pounders. They peek through short interruptions in the forecastle railing. I have labeled them below.
 

Frames on the stern.

OK... I am finally done with the wale placement, anchor linings, etc. I am pleased with the sheer at the stern, as I tried to mimic Royal Duc as closely as I could.


 
The starboard steps are positioned (the kit steps had to be ground off with the wales), and the starboard fenders are ready and fitted, but I am going to tackle the bolting of the wales first. I have extended the fenders so the extra length will go up the bulwarks, and I will likely make a clean cut where the bulwarks meet the hull for later reinstall on the bulwarks.

 

 
My biggest takeway from the far more experienced artists here is "scale".. I am really trying to adhere to scale. For the wale scarf joints, I am using my plastic rivets, but I downsized to the 0.032" diameter round heads, as opposed to the 0.042" diameter I used before. I am using 0.020" round head brass nails for the bolting of the wales...
 
I simply make paper templates that I affix to the wales and drill the holes for the brass nails, and a tiny bit of super glue holds them firmly... the timber heads at the bulwarks are spaced 9mm apart, so I spaced the bolt heads on the paper template 9mm apart after also looking at the L'Ambiteaux monograph for hints.
 

 
 Finally, I hope I have a solution for my gun carriage tackle bolts. I found some 0.015" steel wire to duplic ate the iron rod that pokes out from the hull (at this scale, I will not attempt to imitate the wedge that hold the rod end in place!). As for the washer, this photo is a pitiful attempot at drilling out a 0.040" styrene rod and cutting a disc from it for a washer. I could never bore a hole in the exact center and got very frustrated. But, I found online, som e capillary tubes made from a hard plastic material called PEEK. These medical tubes are 0.040" OD and have a 0.015" ID hole, so they appear to be a perfect fit for me. The material slices easily and makes realistic looking washers (alas, I could never find a pre-made washer that small in plastic or metal, so I will have to slice 400+ of my own. This looks like it will work, but I need to finish the wales first!
 

 
 
 
 

The quarter deck breastwork:
 









 

Hi photo Victory 1765.

The best parties always take place in the kitchen.

First of all, of course, we need the kitchen worktop. Coincidentally, one of the prints I had made for the Revell Constitition fits like a glove, no wonder, almost the same scale and the design was based anyway on the design of the British 😉

Anyway, the kitchen and hearth are only worth as much as the life that takes place there.



The first three men assigned to kitchen duty were quickly pressed. Frederick Bush, the 24-year-old, hunky German is fetching firewood, Irishman Thomas Foley, at 47 one of the oldest crew members on board, will be working on a meat-like structure and Hans Yaul from Switzerland will be chasing the protein-rich maggots out of the cheese with his big knife.

Number 4 was more of a challenge. It's always nice when the kits come with little men, but they're usually not the right kind of hands-on character. Here on the right is a sailor from the Constitution kit.



Any sailor would immediately fall over on land with his legs in a row like this, so I first changed the leg position to a stable three-point position and also tilted the head slightly for the dynamics. After all, he should be fuelling the stove. However, the test position then showed a completely incorrect and far too static posture for this.

So he bent his back and brought his second arm into a working position. Now he finally looks like somebody doing a job.



Number 4 is alive 🙂

I then used one of my misprints to prepare the wood filling. The grill at the front of the Brodie Stove has 3 sections, so apparently you can fire it in 3 sections depending on what capacity you need. This is also the log length that dear Frederick has in his arms at the moment.



Afterwards, the lower decks are secured against falling objects with cotton wool pads ...



... and the grill is carfully loaded with firewood. We now know that our dear Lord of the Fire is 28-year-old James Caton from Brazil, with the logs that Frederik has placed in front of him and two bags of coals next to him for a nice, even heat.



And here you can already see why I had to shorten the height of the Brodie Stove compared to the original drawings: of course it has to pass under the deck beam and the two lids at the top should still be accessible. That's why there is a gap of exactly one deck beam width between the chimney and the lids at the top. How these two boilers could be effectively operated and cleaned with this limited access is still beyond my understanding.

Just like the automatic turning mechanism of the grill spit at the front. I know of English country houses that have a similar system, but there are usually much larger fires at work. The mechanics of the drive chain and the corresponding bearing of the spit are also not yet technically comprehensible to me in detail, even if they are based on identical plans in the NMM.

Furthermore, you have to bear in mind that the whole stove in Portsmouth is only a replica based on the plan just mentioned. I think back then, the stove size and installation situation were customised for each ship. Whether this is all correct in the replica is therefore not known. And fortunately, the difference in height is no longer noticeable once installed in the model.

And while we're on the subject of size and deck height, Frederick, with his height of 1.9 metres, which was unusual for the time but not uncommon, also has a problem here ...



... that standing is just about possible, but the next deck beam is already lurking for his head.



So he was clever enough to adopt a slightly more stooped posture to wriggle himself past the firewood, the coal bags and the water barrels.

In the small cooking chamber you can already see that with two people it's going to be a tight squeeze, especially if there's someone else working on the stove. I have deliberately avoided decorating the worktop like the breakfast buffet in Portsmouth, as everyone brings what they need for cooking from their mess and has to leave a clean worktop afterwards. After all, this is the only cooking area for 800+ crew members.

And that's the end of the small picture in the picture, just a few more impressions 🙂











Prost Mahlzeit,

XXXDAn

Hello, shipwrights. Those of you that are left. It's long past time for an update. I think my last one was in November. 


 
The hull of my Heller 1:100 Soliel was mostly complete last fall. With the advice of other modelers I respected, I had decided to forego the kit's rigging instructions, which I judged to be too impenetrable anyway, and just go line-by-line using three sources of reference: R.C. Anderson's The Rigging of Ships in the Days of the Spritsail Topmast, 1600–1720, Karl Heinz Marquardt's Eighteenth-Century Rigs & Rigging, Jean Boudriot's The Three-Decker of the Chevalier De Tourville, and Lennarth Petersson's Rigging Period Ship Models, AKA Model Ship Rigging for Dummies—which fit my (lack of) aptitude nicely. The intent was to use these to make a custom rigging diagram and obtain prototypical specs for belaying points, line weights, block sizes, etc.
 


Once past that point, I soon realized that, while the source materials specified what the lines did and where the lines should run, they didn't say much about how and in what order a modeler like me should handle the ropes. I figured—logically, I thought—to begin at the bow and work aft. Simple, right? Oops.

Nnnnnnnope. Without writing a boring screed about all my misadventures and re-dos, suffice to say that I learned you had to be much more subtle about this process. Rigging is like a chess game, you have to plan things several moves in advance. My present inclination is that If you're belaying lines behind shrouds and ratlines, DON'T put the shrouds and ratlines on first. A better plan is to take care of things from the masts, outboard. Lines close to the centerline of the ship should be dealt with before anything running to the rails.
 
So, after several months of mistakes and nonsense, I've more or less completed the standing rigging. I intend on completing the chain-plates and building a display stand before coping with the running rigging.

I'm going to show photos rather than make lengthy descriptions. There are SO MANY better rigging jobs to be seen on other build logs. If you want a thorough how-to, I commend you to those.
 
Here's the current work area. My foam-core clamshell protection box has done a good job of keeping my clumsy hands from dislodging the artillery.
 
 

 
I made an attempt to plan ahead. Bought the rigging supplies I thought I needed and organized everything with labels. Painted a lot of rope and sorted it according to size, with the sizes written on the spools. I felt like my dog, with her well-curated collection of tennis balls.


 
Prepared the lower masts and tops. Since everything else about the kit dimensions was exaggerated, I decided to go with the flow and keep the kit's styrene masts without much modification. They did get turned wooden dowels inside to straighten and stiffen them. The tops got their sides and ribs built up with styrene strips. Too late, I read in Boudriot that masts in this period did not have fish, unless the masts were damaged in battle. So—oops again—my masts have fish. I decided my model had to represent the Soliel as it was refit AFTER the Battle of Malaga, not BEFORE, as planned. Sigh.


 
I figured the spritsail topmast was a good place to try tying shrouds and ratlines. I didn't like the result. The thread was too stiff. ANYBODY KNOW HOW TO SOFTEN THREAD AND MAKE IT DROOP?
 

 
The kit had the main and fore channels placed one deck too high. As shown in the Jerome Helyot drawing above, the channels on the prototype were placed BELOW the upper gun deck. No problem, right? Just make the shrouds longer, right?


 
But the kit had very little tumblehome. In order to keep the longer shrouds from hitting the rails, you had to make sure the new channels were wide enough. Also, you had to place the shrouds so that they didn't come down right over a gunport. I made diagrams, in the process realizing that my deadeyes were too big. Got new ones.



I ended up using the kit's channels, widening them with sheet styrene where needed. Filled in the slots for the kit's chain deadeyes and filed new ones at the channels' edges. This was closer to prototype practice anyway. The deadeyes got stained a uniform dark color. 

This began about three months of frustration trying different ways to make the lower mast shrouds and ratlines. I tried sewing them on because I had used that technique on another ship model years ago. Tried it three times. Disliked each try. Ran out of thread the size needed for foremast shrouds. Got more. Re-used deadeyes. Sobered up from the pity party. Tried again. Wash, rinse repeat.


 
I began to wonder if I was ever going to finish. I thought about different things I could do with this model. Like burn it.
 

 
But I finally settled on doing shrouds the old, time-consuming, uninventive way. Tied every knot. Accepted that the lines weren't going to droop the way I wanted.


 
The new channels were mounted on brass posts with epoxy for strength. Even then, when tightening the shrouds later on, one popped loose and I had to perform a do-over. I don't know what would have happened if I had just tried gluing on the channels styrene to styrene.



There was a lot of running rigging that was supposed to belay behind the shrouds. I decided that I'd better take care of those lines before the shrouds went on. To this day, I don't know if it was a good decision or not. I'll find out when I tackle the running rigging. For the time being, I tell people that my model has grown a beard and joined a Texas hard-rock band. 


 
Finally, I had shrouds and ratlines on the foremast. Managed to repeat the process on the other two lower masts without much further nonsense. 


 

 
The upper masts went up in a surprisingly short amount of time—within a month or so. This was very encouraging. I assembled them on my workbench and simply tied the deadeye lanyards after they were up.


 
Then came stays, backstays, bobstay, tackles, futtocks, crowsfeet—all the stuff that seems easy after fighting for months with the shrouds. 
 

 

 

 
One thing I forgot to mention is all the touchup paint on the ropes. I tried to soften the contrast between the tarred and un-tarred lines. It produced a nice variety of shades to the rope. Not being much of a tall ships sailor, I don't know how realistic that is, but to my eye, it helps the job look authentic. 
 
So—yeah. There's the standing rigging. By the time you're reading this post (it took me since April to decide to upload it), I'll hopefully be busy trying to figure out the best technique for making chain plates. 


 
I'll post more when I make progress with the running rigging. My hope is to have a finished model by the end of the year. I had originally planned for this project to take a year. I think now I'll be fortunate if it only takes two.  I'm still optimistic I'll have a mantlepiece-worthy model when I finish.

Thanks much for looking in. Gardez la poudre au sec. Or else.
 

Thank you druxey!
 
Well, Augsburg is now over and all buyers of my block collection have received a free update that includes the Steel specifications. I hope I haven't forgotten anyone, if not please let me kno 🙂

And after all those blocks, time for a chang 🙂

A long time ago I had already presented the built Brodie stove. Cooking place for 800 men.

First mishap - I had actually misplaced it for almost a year ...

Second mishap - space test and the stove turned out to be 2 mm too high ...

In the meantime, because of the unavailability of the original, I had made it again in print ...



... on the right the recovered stove, in the centre the first print - also too high - and on the left the right-scaled version, here the printing technique actually helped to quickly define the correct size, as I had scaled the stove in 2 % steps and could therefore simply place the results on my deck and select the appropriate size.





And the winner is:













XXXDAn

@druxey
@albert
Many thanks for your interest and encouragement, and thanks to everyone for the many LIKES.
 
In the meantime, the constant rain here in Bavaria is getting on my nerves.
On the other hand, I can spend more time building models again, so I can show you the latest results:
 
Equipping the fore royal yard - Vergue de petit cacatois
I continued with the equipment of the fore royal yard, analogous to the main royal yard. The fore royal yard still has a thickness of around 2.2 mm in the middle.
The first picture shows the attached tye and parral.

The clew line blocks that had already been produced were then fitted with served block strops and attached to the yard.

This was followed by the final fitting of the yard with the lifts, braces and clew lines. As already mentioned, I will not be attaching any sails to this model. Accordingly, I will later connect the clew lines of the royals to the sheets without the corners of the clews using the toggles.


Last but not least, a picture with the center section of the main yard for size comparison.

To be continued ...
 

So, I had a small pocket of time to snug and snip the fore, port channel. I was able to finesse that first knot up a little higher. Really - and considering that they do tighten up just enough more under slight tension - I am very pleased with this experiment. Black touch-up paint to follow:


I am at least confident that these long links would not look better as wire. I may have over-calculated the angle of the two furthest aft preventer plates, but I was just following what the test line told me to do. Also, technically, the preventer plate links should span to the lower wale, but the first batch I made just looked over-long. I can live with this compromise. It is still a vast improvement over the stock kit. The important thing is that the chains no longer interfere with the port lids.

There are three backstay deadeyes that I have yet to prepare, but I will get to them in the next few rounds of deadeye prep.

This business of learning to make the chains continued to confound me as I discovered yet another mistake in my process.
 
For anyone who may also be new to this aspect of the hobby - BEWARE: jewelry wire (brass/copper) is coated with an anti-oxidation layer.  Brass black will not take without first stripping the coating (acetone bath, 99% purity - available at the pharmacy), and then roughing the wire surface with ScotchBrite.  I failed to do either of these things.  For your own sake, just buy untreated, soft copper wire.
 
My first dipping in JAX brass black almost didn’t take at all.  Whatever oxidation there was, was very spotty and wiped away easily.  After thoroughly rinsing the parts in acetone, my second JAX bath did much more to blacken the parts, but the depth of oxidation was highly irregular, there were still lots of completely bright brass patches, throughout, and the oxidation that was present still rubbed off too easily.
 
What to do, now?  I quickly decided that I absolutely was not going to re-make all of these fittings, as I had at least bent them into nicely uniform parts.  The only reasonable solution, IMO, was to spray-prime the lot black:
 

After inserting the deadeyes, and any necessary touch-up, the deadeye strops looked like this:

Quite satisfactory, I think.  On the inside, bottom edge of each deadeye, I placed a drop of CA, in order to fix the orientation of the deadeye.
 
I needed to make a run of split-rings, both for the gun out-haul tackles, and for between where the chains attach to the middle wales.
 
For these, I really like how tight a twist I get with galvanized steel wire.  Given that I was going to paint these, as well, it didn’t seem quite so important what the material was, but how it behaved.


I found it quite easy to close the eyes with my parallel pliers, a decent set of which are essential for this work (Thanks Druxey!), and I sealed the rings with a spot of common, brush-able CRAZY GLUE.
 
The eyes on deck:


In preparation for the deadeyes, I made ready the channels.  Because I found it necessary to shift a handful of deadeyes, so that the chains do not interfere with the gunport lids, I found it necessary to widen a number of the channel slots.  I then drilled for short sections of .030 styrene rod, so that I could favor one side of the slot:


Next I made capping strips for the outside edges of the channels, and simulated the nailing with shallow slices of triangular styrene rod.  I used the same “heat flashing” technique to dome over the heads:

With my masts in-place and a guide-string, I penciled-in the preventer plate locations.
 
The important thing, I think, was that the join of the preventer plates and the small loop-links be in a consistent plane, along the upper middle wale - just slightly higher than mid-wale.
 
Following a tip from fellow SR enthusiast Eric Wiberg, I purchased the following dome-headed rivets:
 
https://www.eugenetoyandhobby.com/products/plastic-rivets-round-head?_pos=3&_sid=320937e14&_ss=r
 
My idea was to use these with plastic cement to secure the preventer and loop links.
 
After drilling the top preventer plate/loop-link hole, I secure the position of the preventer plate with a common sewing pin in the top hole, and then swing a short mechanical pencil arc for the bottom hole location.
 
There are very slight differences between preventer plate links, so you do have to drill specific links for a given location.  It is very fiddly to fix the plates with these tiny styrene pins, but it can be managed from the bottom up with plenty of patience and a sewing pin to guide mating eyes into alignment.
 
Now, my hope for some time and results redemption depended upon whether or not I could make appropriate diameter thread look like the long connecting links.
 
Among my stash, was some really nice line that Dan Pariser very generously donated to my cause.  Although light in color, I found I could “paint” lengths of line with two passes of a black sharpie, which also gave the line some stiffness when dry.  I found that a single bow-knot gave me the ability to introduce tension to these links:
 
Obviously, it is important to ensure that the loop links and deadeye strops are in the correct orientation to each other.
 
The proof of concept on this first link gave me sufficient confidence that this idea will produce a nice result.  It is only important that one wait to stiffen the knot with CA until after you have pulled the knot up close behind the deadeye strop loop.  On this first one, I glued before doing so, and the knot is less perfectly concealed than the others will be:

This picture above was before pulling the knot up.  Eventually, when the lower deadeyes are lashed to their corresponding upper deadeyes, these chain links will pull fully taught with just the slightest tension.
 
Here is where things stand as of now:

I quickly learned it is wise to cover the gun ports, so that you are not continually losing links into the hull.  After pinning the links in place, I brushed over the link assembly with thin CA, to give it a little extra holding power.  I then left it to dry overnight.
 
Next, I will draw all remaining loops taught, and then the whole of it will receive a thinned acrylic black wash to homogenize the assembly and touch-up any bright spots.
 
There are, of course, many better ways to go about all of this.  For me, for now - I’ll take this all as a learning experience and move-on with it.
 
Thank you all for looking-in!
 
Best,
 
Marc
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Keith, the end is in sight, but I think it takes a lot of time to get there. There are at least a lot of things to do left.
Ian, no with these sticks and ropes I would't play. 
 
Today the Tiger came up from the basement to see some daylight. And both Tigers now are looking how it rains outside.

 

Hello,
when I look at the last likes, some like the picture of Victory's wheels more then that what I have build! It would be interesting why? I had asked before I built it so. But I say thank you to all, for the likes you gave my work.
 
The carpenters have installed the last two deck beams and also the knees for them. The inspector from the navy board was pleased. So I think, we could go all into the summer vacations.
 
Except the shipwright. He must look how to build in the taffrail, before the deck could be planked. And may be the carvers, who could start carving the quarter pieces. Steady and slowly we come to the end of this build.

Thank you guys for nice comments and likes.
I continue with the construction of hawse timbers.

Spring has taken over the last several weeks... planting, gardening, cleaning, staining, etc. Finally managed to (almost) finish the new wales. I studied the few Royal Duc drawings available (the premise being that it was a very slighter smaller sister ship that was launched before SR) and studied the sweep of the wales. And this is what I came up with after sanding off the old wales... the molded wales on the Heller model are all 4mm wide and mostly 1mm thick. The drawings (and Guy!) suggested that the bottom wales were wider/thicker than the middle wales, and they were wider/thicker than the top wales... and the spacings between the wales was different. The bottom wales are 4.2mm wide/1.5mm thick, the middle wales 4mm wide/1mm thick, and the top wales 3.2mm wide/0.75mm thick. It may seem sometimes that the spacing between the wales varies, but actully I maintained exact spacings alomg the length of the ship; I think the various curves and bends in the hull create a bit of an optical illusion. Oh - and the top two wales on the rear bulwark are paper! I can't attach the top wales on the bulwark until later in the process. You may notice that I removed the top sheer step on the rear bulwark and also sanded/scraped off all detail so that I can create my own.

 
I spaced the scarf joints about every 150 mm per the butt joints on the Heller model (except where they might land on a gun port opening). I found it easiest to make the individual wale planks, and then glued them together in one long strip. A long strip made it much easier to get the curves that I needed; a drop of glue was applied and I just went gun port by gun port to make sure the spacings were correct.

 

 
Now I can proceed to finish the anchor linings and the boat fenders. Also, I knew it was almost a certainty when I started down this path, but I am resolved to working on the quarter galleries so they follow the new sheer curves as the drawings show. I forgot where I got the circular gun port picture, but I found some brass rings that fit perfectly over the circular gun ports. And I will "bolt" the wales onto the hull using a pattern from the St. Phillpe monograph. The bottom wales will be bolted by the 0.03" diameter plastic rivet on the right, while the brass nail in the middle has a diameter of 0.02" and will bolt the middle wales. The top wales will be unbolted as they will be covered with "ses listons d'or" per Guy.

 

 
Finally, I actually found a use for my laser leveler! I bet a French carpenter would have paid a years salary for it... I used it to make sure the gun ports that I cut in were plumb as oppsoed to following the curve of the deck as some people have mentioned (Hubac's Historian, for example). I am also using it to mark on the wales where the "timber heads" that arise vertically to support the bulwark rails; I assume they are the top, visible pieces of the futtocks (vocabulary ?) and the vertical laser line will show me where to add my bolts to the wales, ala the St. Phillipe monograph (I hope that makes sense!). 

@Thukydides
Thank you for your nice comment, and everyone else for the many LIKES.
 
 
Equipment of the main royal yard – Vergue de grand cacatois
The royal yards are on the 4th floor of the rigging. Since these yards on the La Créole were obviously equipped with lifts and braces, it can be assumed that they were already an integral part of the ship's rigging. In contrast, until the end of the 18th century, the royal sails were often hoisted together with the yards and flown as fair-weather sails only when necessary, i.e. without braces and lifts.
To carry out the tyes for the royal yards of La Créole, I have photos of the original model at my disposal, which a restorer from the Musée de la Marine in Paris kindly photographed in the depot especially for me.
You can't see much in the following picture of a royal yard of the Paris model, except that the tye is somehow knotted and doesn't have a hook like that of the togallant yards.
 

Source: Musée national de la Marine de Paris – La Créole
 
Source: Atlas du Génie Maritime

In conjunction with the depiction of a royal yard from the Atlas du Génie Maritime and various other examples, the tyes may have looked like this.
 

 
My model implementation or interpretation of the tye ø 17 mm (ø 0.35 mm in model scale) for the main royal yard looks like this:


Next I made the parral. The royal yards receive a slightly simpler version of a parral, only served with ropes, without leather covering.


This was followed by the production of the single blocks for the royal yards. These were used to guide the clew lines - The clew lines for the main royal sail had a diameter of 11 mm (in the model scale ø 0.23 mm), accordingly the blocks were around 13.5 cm long (in the model scale approx. 2.8 mm) according to the table in the monograph .



After attaching the grommets as abrasion protection, the equipment of the main royal yard was completed by attaching the braces and lifts.

We then continue with the fore royal yard.
Sequel follows …

Continuation: Equipping the mizzen topgallant yard - Vergue de perruche
After the small mishap, as reported, I have now made a new mizzen topgallant yard and fully equipped it. This means that the topgallant yard chapter can be put to bed until it is installed on the model.
Here is a picture of the finished mizzen topgallant yard. 

And another picture with the tye.

 
The next picture shows different yards of the French corvette in size comparison. In the center you can see the mizzen topgallant yard. Above it is the mizzen royal yard and finally the middle section of the main yard is shown below.
 
The next step is to equip the royal yards with the necessary rigging elements. Then I'll finally have finished fitting out the yards.
To be continued ...
 

The belfry: technical implementation tests:
 



 
Final version in ebony wood:

Post One Hundred and Seventy-six
 
Casing the model.
Today 'Indy' was finally encased and moved to her display position.

4713
Quite a fraught business lifting the heavy glass cover over the base, but at least there are no tall masts to negotiate and yards to snag.

4717
The cover was set with the model/base on the floor, and the combination case lifted in two stages onto the chest of drawers.

4715
I had been waiting for the arrival of the ‘Indy’ Admiralty  plan which I have had framed. This was also a tricky exercise to hang being 53” in width, supported by three hooks.

4708
This is the last available space I have for a large model, but I think I can still accommodate a few smaller ones.

4723
The final act is to compile the build photo record book that I do for all my builds, this is now ready to go to the printers.
 
I can now finally declare the project completed, and I again thank those who have shown an interest.
 
Regards,
 
B.E.
18/05/2024

Post One Hundred and Seventy-five
18’ cutter – completion.
Lifting rings and a mast step are added to the basic kit along with the incredibly tiny thwart knees. Amazing how Chris manages to produce identifiable laser cut pieces this small.

4602
I have gone with a double banked six oared rowing arrangement, mainly because with single banking I would have to cut an oarlock in the wash strake above the sternsheets, and there’s insufficient depth.

4625
I’m not a fan of the kit rudders supplied with this range of boats, comprising a thin central core sandwiched between two brass etch facings complete with straps.
 
I prefer to make rudders using slightly thicker wood with a vertical grain. For the 18’ cutter I used 1mm Boxwood.

For hanging I use the ‘quick release’ method as used on such boats, as seen here on one of the Victory’s cutters. 
With this arrangement the pintle is attached to the sternpost with an extra-long pin which allows for easier rudder hanging once the boat is in the water.

4590
Rudders are fairly simple to replicate, as is the hanging, provided sufficiently tiny eyelets can be obtained.

4605
To match the other boats on the skids I have painted the bottom with Vallejo ivory, but otherwise left the remainder of the hull and inboard works bright.

4610
The oars provide the colour element linking to the general inboard works of ‘Indy’

4612
I think this small cutter looks ok on the skids, obscuring little of the gun deck, so I’ll leave it onboard.
 
It has taken around 8 days to build this smallest of the supplied boats. From around 10” she looks fine to my eye, especially given the scale, but the macro is somewhat less forgiving.🫤
 
B.E.
10/05/2024

Post One Hundred and Seventy-four
18’ cutter – fitting out.

4571
A shot of the gratings and footwalings which are laser cut. A much better option than the brass etch version.👍
These take a little fettling to get them to sit fully down involving bevelling the underside of the parts, and shaving down the frames as required.
 
The kit sternsheets are combined with the aftermost thwart.
This is an arrangement I don’t like primarily because the grain of the thwart tends to run the wrong way and the set-up  makes it more difficult to  fit the vagaries of  individual hull constructions.

4577
I find it easier to cut away the thwart and make a replacement from spare fret. I have also filled in the open stern area to create an additional bench seat.

4570
At the bow I thought the area looked a little unfinished with  the remnants of the mdf construction block on view.
 
The kit plan (sheet eight) does show a small fore deck in this position but I can’t locate such a part with the 18’ cutter fittings.

4582
This benefits from facing up using spare fret, and the addition of a breasthook above it.
 
One other puzzlement with the 18’ cutter is the height the thwarts and sternsheets relative to the wash strakes.

4579
They are positioned as per the kit and instructions, but have very little freeboard. It is not a case of fitting them too high as the scale figures show a correct height between thwarts and footwaling.

4580
There is only 2mm between thwart top and wash strake top. This equates to 5” at scale.
Working up from the 1:48 scale drawings of an 18’ cutter in The Frigate Diana AotS book the difference should be around 11”
 

The new Vanguard resin cutter, what a beauty that looks, shows a much greater depth between the seating and wash strakes which looks more appropriate.

4583
Even so, visually the wooden version is a pretty little thing, and for most casual viewers this disparity won’t even register.

4588
I am fairly happy with the ‘clinker’ look but it does need a good clean-up.
 
 
B.E.
08/05/2024
 
 

Post One Hundred and Seventy-three
 
18’ cutter – Jolly Boat
 
I thought I would have another stab at clinker planking one of these bijou cutters to go with 'Indy'.
 
My original cutter which sits with Alert was of the older version replaced shortly after I had completed it.
This one is the current and revised version, which includes laser cut gratings and footwalings whereas the original had brass etch versions.
 
I will be using 3.4mm x 0.6mm Boxwood strip, and of necessity the planking starts at the keel and works up to the Wash strake.

4315
The Garboard is applied first using pva. This is shaped at the bow but is otherwise untapered.

4320
The second strake overlaps the Garboard by 1mm.
In proper practice there is a rebate or rabbet edge along the top of each plank to take the bottom edge of the plank above.
At scale and with 0.6mm board I can dispense with this nicety.
 
From the second plank above the Garboard I am adding a degree of taper both fore and aft. How much is down to eye and best guesstimate.
4528
As with all these projects clamping is an issue, more so as the planking rises.

4531
With three strakes added I move to the wash strake. This is fitted untapered into the bow slot.
 
Twice the stem part broke but repair was effected and once the wash strakes are in place the area is more stable.

4542
As the strakes are applied the taper increases fore and aft until the final strake fits flush with the lower edge of the wash strake.

4552

4550
Planking completed in its raw state, but the lapstrakes are clearly evident.

4565
I applied a 1mm square Ebony strip along the lower edge of the wash strake to represent the wale.
It looks broader than it is because top and face edges are not clearly defined on the photo.

4568

4569
There is a satisfaction to be had from completing the hull of this smallest of the boat range, but there is a fair bit of cleaning up required before the inboard fittings are put into place.
 
B.E.
 
06/05/2024

I think it better for ventilation and drainage open.
A model of the Bellona has it open.

A very brief update. Visually doesn't look much different, but I've put in the inner bulwark, which is cut from 1/64 inch wood. I wound up kinda not following the directions. It's supposed to be made as 4 pieces; 2 that are about 20 inches long and 1 inch wide (bow to about 5 inches from the stern, and 2 that are about 2 by 8 inches. I wound up using the carrier sheet for the middle bulwark to cut the long pieces, and made the stern section from 4 smaller segments, which I found to be easier, and still made a perfectly fine looking inner bulwark. Some sanding, a little putty and we have the ship as below:
 

 
The instructions say that the bulwarks shold be 7/16 inch tall until about 5 inches from the stem, where thy rise to about 1/2 inch. If you form the bulwarks using the templated materials it too tall at the stern and way too tall at the stem. I wound up cutting almost 1/8 of an inch off the stem and about 1/16 off the stern to make it the correct size.
 
I dry fitted the upper bulwark for the forecastle, and it appears that the curve is slightly off. I am going to cut the upper bulwark piece off just past the foremost deck beam, and fit a similar sized piece of wood to cover the last 1/2 or so. This does mean though, that the precut forecastle deck will not be congruent with upper bulwark (it will be a bit too small at the bow. Depending on some imponderables at this point (for example, how much material gets removed for the opening for the boswprit) I will either buy a piece of scribed decking or just cut a piece to fill the gap from the carrier. I doubt it will be very visible, the question will be how much will it will annoy me.
 
I have also dry fitted the stem pieces. I may put the stem and the external keel in place before it is nominally called for in the instructions. 
 
Otherwise, next steps are to sand, prime, and sand, and then to cut out the gun and sally ports, and to cut out the slots where the channels will be inserted when the main rail is put in place, and the main deck. 
 
As always, thanks for looking in and the encouragement.
 
Regards,
George
 
 

It's been a while, as I've been working on the Discovery and had some travel in there as well. However, I've built up two of the three layers of the bulwarks and continued the preparation of the hull surface. Here are things as they stand (port and starboard) minus the innermost layer of the bulwarks.
 

 

 
And from above:
 

 
I did a dry fit of the decks and while they will need a bit of trimming, I think I'm in a pretty good place there too:
 

 
In general, I think it looks pretty good, and after some additional sanding and puttying should probably leave me with a good base to copper and paint.
 
I've progressed far enough to start to have some opinions about the kit. First, the good. I can't fault the materials. The wood has been good, the laser cutting sharp and clean, the brass, castings, and resin parts look nice and clean. That said, this is not the way I would have designed the kit. That doesn't make it wrong, but I have found a bunch of the steps in this kit to be really awkward. Compared to having the keel in place from the beginning with a nicely carved rabbet to accept the ends of the planks, I have found this to be very difficult. Similarly, building the bulwark core as a separate piece that you have to glue to a relatively narrow (1/16 x 1/16) "L" shape formed by multiple pieces of wood is much more difficult than forming the bulwark from an extension of the bulkheads, and planking both sides. In addition, you may have noticed that the ship is no longer upside down on the building board - this is because it was virtually impossible to fit the large bulwark core in place with it upside down and glued, and in the process of bullying it in place, I accidentally broke the ship loose. At that point, I said to heck with it, and finished it right side up which I found much easier. FWIW, in common with some of the other build logs I've seen on this ship, it seems to me that the instructions are a bit incomplete. I gather that there is a separate CD with a lot of very helpful build images at additional cost. At the moment, it seems to me that the balance between those that are in the instructions and on the CD is off. This isn't a free kit, and while I absolutely get that this kit is expensive to produce, throwing in some more pictures would probably improve the build experience.
 
And to be fair, it's possible that this design works better when everything is perfect, and I'm far from a perfect builder. It's also true that this just isn't the way I'm used to building, and who knows - I might have felt different if this was my fourth go with this method rather than my first. And I think it's going to eventually build to a really nice looking ship. It definitely deserves the 'Admiral' level, though. If I had tried this three ships back, I probably would have put it aside and moved away from wooden ship building. 
 
As always, thanks for looking in!
 
Regards,
George