rybakov

Hello, 
I would like to thank you for your attention and interest. 
The strops with collars for the tye blocks of the fore topmast are finished.

 
 
The tye blocks are hung in and the pendants are put on.

Hello,
at the moment I make the heavy tye blocks with real sheaves. The single blocks are 7.9 mm long.
They have double stropps and are lashed with two eyes on one collar. 

 

 

 

Hello,
I'm busy with building the hinges for the port lids. For that I chiseled with an engraver a die out of a piece of steel and hardened it.
 

 
The hinges itself I build from copper wire, hammered slightly flat, bent one end back and soldered it with tin
 

 
Then I hammered it into the mould
 

 
filed the surface at the back flat
 

 
and at the disk sander I cut the sidelines flat
 

 
The drilling I made by eye, 0,65 mm Ø
 

 
And with that I rounded the back of the hinge
 

 

 

 
And that is it, also with a prototype of an hinge pin. The pin is made from 0,6 mm brass wire.
 

 
So, I think that I'm busy with them the next days. Today I build 10 hinges within 1,5 hours and I need 84 of them. 😟

binnacle of the bell:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Little step:

 

 

 

 

Thanks for the compliments! You are far too generous!
I completed the structure of the formwork and the castle:
 

 

 

 

 

Continuation. 
 

 

 

 
Pawel 

One of my first revelations was that the aft-facing window must also follow the continuation of the stern round-up.  If I were to position that window square with the ship’s side, then it would create an awkward angle along where the window bottom edge meets the transitional moulding that it sits upon.
 
The other thing that quickly crystallized in my mind is the difference between drawing something in the one-dimensional plane and the practical application of that drawing to a space that requires compound angles and elegant transitions between curved and flat surfaces.
 
To begin with, the outboard edge of this aft-facing QG window has a subtle curved profile:

I very much wanted to include this detail because it is one of the many small details that would be glaring, in its absence.   The difficulty is that the three windows of the side QG exist in a flat vertical plane, angled-in towards the ship side, while also conforming to a elegantly bowed horizontal plane (more on that later!😤).
 
First, I decided to provide myself with a pair of glue cleats that would help position these aft windows on their back-raking angle, while also conforming to the round-up:

Forward of those cleats are a series of reference lines drawn at a right angle to the ship sides.  These lines delineate the aft window backing-block and the window pilaster framing gussets.
 
Next, I needed to make the backing-block.  I had some 3/8 stock left over from the making of the lower finishing.  This was exactly the right width (according to my flat 1-D drawing that neither accounted for round-up or outboard bowing 😭), to provide room for the aft-most pilaster, the crossed diamond ornament, as well as a 1/16” landing ledge for the aft edge of the window plate to recess into.
 
So, I first cut the back-raking angle onto a piece of this 3/8” stock, and then I scribed it to the tumblehome.

With that much established, I could then lay-out the outboard angles and profiles.  A photo montage that I hope will explain this better than I can:


Here is the fore-face of the block.  That shadow-line on the side is the transition from the flat vertical plane of the side windows to the curved pilaster of the stern profile.

The aft face of the block has a small styrene spacer strip that abuts the aft-window glue cleat:

The aft-window held in place - I am riding pretty high and feeling really good about myself, at this point.

I had established the interior depth of the pilaster gussets and made the first of those:


Initially, I had cut the height of this gusset too short because I was foolishly thinking that it sat perpendicular to the transitional moulding: it does not, obviously (after finally seeing the reality of it), because the windows have a back-raking angle.
 
No biggie!  I simply glued strips of styrene to the top and bottom edges of the gusset, and then beveled them, accordingly.
 
I went to bed feeling accomplished - like “a million bucks!”
 
I woke up, though, to a horrible realization.  My window plate - drawn in a flat, one-dimensional plane - has straight and parallel top and bottom edges:

In order to conform to this space, that billows outward in a gentle curve, while tipping in, toward the hull, this window plate must actually be shaped like this:
 
Well, that is a bit of a set-back!  There remains the small possibility that I may be able to extract and still use the frames that I spent so many hours making.

I won’t really know, however, until I complete the underlying framing, as well as the forward block, and can make a cardboard template that fits this space.
 
Maybe the plate I made can be scribed without losing detail.  I sincerely doubt it though.  My preliminary quick test on a flat surface looks as though I’ll lose about a tapering 1/32” at the bottom ends - which might be doable - but, also, a probable 1/16” at the top middle, which is not doable.  I have zero margin at the top, or bottom, for that matter.
 
If that weren’t enough to chew on, I probably made the windows too tall, in the first place, which means that my window panes are probably also un-salvageable.
 
I won’t know for sure, though, until I have a working template to compare against.
 
And things were moving along so nicely😖
 
More to follow...

With the construction of the framework of the QGs underway, I was searching for a small-work project to take to work with me for my down-times.
 
There was no immediate need for anything that didn’t require very specific and concrete measurements to work from; parameters I don’t yet have because I haven’t gotten that far.
 
So, I decided to focus on detailing the ship’s boats.  I started with the grand chaloupe - the larger of the two.
 
I am using the St. Philippe plans as a reference for their detailing.  I won’t go all-in, but I will add frames to the interior, floor planking, a mast step, bowsprit brace hardware, bench braces, oar locks, and a small aft sheer step.  A few pics of the framing process that includes floors and futtock top timbers:

The plan shows some 27 frames.  At 1/8” spacing, I managed 26.  Interestingly, at a point just forward of midships, the top timber futtock placement runs forward toward the bow, and aft toward the transom.  I’m not really sure why that is, but that’s what the plan shows, so that is what I did.

To establish the floor spans of each frame, I simply sketched in a line midway through the turn of the bilge.  I did it by eye.  It is reasonably symmetrical.  The floor timbers will be mostly covered by the floor planking.


Once the floors were in, I trimmed their ends for a fair run, fore and aft.  Then, I started with the top timbers:



I had traced a line one heavy 1/32” below the sheer.  I trimmed my top timbers to this line  because the kit bench framing has a glue lip that requires clearance here.
 
These glueing operations are inherently messy.  The frames are cut from .011 x .033 styrene strip stock, and one must apply a liberal amount of cement to afford enough open time that the small pieces can be tweaked into position.  After the floors were all in place, and the glue had cured overnight, I came back and scraped away the excess glue with my 1/8” chisel, scraping on a skewed angle between frames.  This is tedious, but it works well enough, and ensures that distracting glue ghosts won’t telegraph through the paint.
 
I have decided that I will not be placing these boats on the main deck, over the gratings.  I spent too much time adding camber to those gratings to cover them up.  Instead, they will be set into the sea and tethered to the ship through the stern chase ports, as is often shown in VDV battle portraits.  In light of their less prominent placement, all of this detailing is probably excessive, but I am a man of excesses, afterall.
 
In the evenings, I have been building the underlying structure of the QGs.  It made sense to me that the logical starting point would be the aft-facing window, working forward.  I will try not to, but I could write a book about this aft corner.
 
Let me post this much, and then I will continue in a second post.  Cliffhanger alert: my so carefully rendered plans were not as carefully considered as they should have been 😱 

EJ, Kirill and Dan - thank you very much!
 
Well, it has been a slow and painstaking process, with much re-touching, but the lower stern is finally painted:


From here on out, the paintwork should not be so challenging.
 
Thank you for stopping by!

bow gun ports and artillery positioning:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Work on the decorations continues with the outside of the taffrail arch completed. Next up will be work on the frieze. Slowly the stern decorations are coming together. 

The anchors in place:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

little progress:

 

 

 

The two big anchors are over, I just have to wrap the cicada.
 

 

 

In this way:
 

 

 

 

 

Handle of the helm and chain:
 








 

Small forward:
this is my wrapping machine

little progress:

 

 

 

 

 

 

advancement:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thanks, druxey. Here is a closer look at the marking jig.
 
The ebony pointer slides up between the two side pieces of the shell, and has a screw on the bottom for fine adjustment. And then a screw at the right tightens it down in place. The top screw tightens the entire sliding mechanism against the bar.
 
The empty screw holes were drilled when I used this for the gun deck. They got in the way when I had to shorten the throw for the upper deck. Should have thought ahead way back then....
 
Mark
 


 

druxey, you are right, those parallel pliers are a god-send. Flattens things out without marring the soft copper.
And nice capsquares. The giveaway of built up construction is that the join between the flat and the curve comes to a sharp 90 degree corner. Even the best bending still leaves a small radius at this intersection.
 
I have been busy for the last week constructing all of the metal for the gun deck. Easy with jigs, but many, many pieces to make over and over.
 
I learned from YouTube videos how to make the rings, which are called jump rings in the jewelry world. Clamp a drill bit of the right internal diameter for the ring into a vise. Then tightly wrap copper wire of the correct diameter around the drill bit. Remove from drill bit. Use sharp angle cutters to cut a square end at the beginning of the coil, then reverse the cutter to cut another square end facing the first. A perfect ring drops off the coil. Cut a new square end, reverse the cutters and cut the opposite end square. Repeat.
 

 
I used two parallel jaw pliers opposing each other to open up the ring enough to drop in an eyebolt, then close up the ring. A trick I learned online was to twist the pliers back and forth a few times, listening for a clicking sound as the two ends of the ring pass by each other. This helps form a ring without a gap.

 
 
And then there were all of the other metal pieces for the gun carriages, the ends of the bolts, and the wedges for retaining the trucks to the axles.


 
And slowly but surely the metal parts accumulated:
 

 
I blackened in batches, to keep different types separate (left and right cap squares, rings for carriages vs. rings for deck vs. rings for quickwork).
Following Greg's good advise (above), I cleaned in pickle, then neutralized in baking soda and water, then I used 99% isopropyl alcohol). A final soak in diluted Jax blackening for copper.
 

 
The pieces were so tiny I used  the orange filter to put into the pickle and baking soda. But then I had to dump them individually into the alcohol and JAX. It was pretty tedious picking them all up individually with tweezers at this point.
 

 
The resulting blackened pieces are really quite wonderful in color and luster:
 

 
While waiting for some of these processes, I started marking out the upper deck height, in anticipation of finally moving on to the next deck in a few weeks. I dug out an old jig I used to mark the height of the gun deck. It has a bar between opposite gun ports, and a device that slides up to the side at the correct distance down from the port. I then run a pencil over the ebony pointer, to get the mark on the side at the correct height. Without this jig, it would be very difficult to measure down accurately with so much tumblehome. This ensures that the final beam height will be exactly parallel to the gun ports.
The jig allows the black pointer to slide up and down and lock at the correct height within the larger shell of the device.
 
 

 
Best wishes,
 
Mark
 
 
 
 
 
 

As covid pushes on we just keep building. I decided some time ago that it was time to get some order and structure in the way I was building. Before I just did as I went along in what ever I found fun doing. But then I decided structure was needed and I would build from bottom to top.
So as the front is nearly finished up to and including the bakdek I must reach the same level at the rear. So time to speed up things there.
here some pictures with the latest status quo.
 





 

 
 
The first try was a round one but I liked the second better

Thank you Keith and also all who give me there likes.
It is done, also the port side is ready. The next thing would be the anchor lining.