rybakov

In the meantime, the white parts are also finished. And always these brain pictures. These were the two Trafalgar guns in the first attempt ...



... but when I checked the window dimensions again ...



... crap, the panes only have two parts. Three parts were at the guns in the upper deck.

Then glued in the frame as before ...



... filler pieces glued in for better support ...



... and filled with putty:-)

This deck is also only inlaid, because I will have to to take it out again and work on the inside later to put the window panes into the frames. For this I will trim back the carriages. That's why I made the new triangular cut-outs on the frontside of the carriage.

And I also did a test print. The foremost window in the lower deck had window bars. These are very fine.



And they are to be fitted into the already fixed frames. You can see, however, that they are so fine that slight distortions occur when printing - since no supports can be used. Since the frame has too little undersize for its hole, this is of course exacerbated.



And then again AAAAARGHH! With the dimensions of this bit, I got the first rectangular version and not the frames with a lower height that were used in the end ...



... ok, can be corrected with the next print, maybe the distortion will be better too.

XXXDAn

While the printer was finally processing white resin again, some more planning and work preparation went on. The bulwarks of the open decks will have to be built. This has to be placed on top of the plastic hull shells, so construction, positioning and stability are a challenge. That's why I first filed gaps in the deck support for supports of the bulwarks.
 

 
Then the supports are glued in place and a 2 mm polysterol plate is put on top.
 

 
Clamps to press the plate to the support and wire to press the plate down to the hull.
 

 
Then in the deck, slots for the supports were cut ...
 

 
... and the interior panelling added.
 

 
But it looked too thick compared to the photos. That's why I removed the panelling and the supports and it still holds perfectly.
 

 
I sanded the cut edge again to get an even gluing surface. Since all my big files have a very distinct convexity, I took a stable piece of wood and glued it on with sandpaper 🙂
 
XXXDAn

Hello,
I finished now also the last gratings at the upper gun deck. But when I started to plan the capstans, I realises that I had build the bases for them too small. 😬
I made the upper flat 24 mm Ø, and I don't know why. The capstans at the Dorsetshire, at the plans for the Tiger they are not drawn, have at there bases a diameter of 28 mm! And at the most plans I looked at, the capstans have nearly the same measurements there.
The stanchions at the front of them came out without any damages, and what a wonder, I had left over two extra 😃 So today I turned two rings to enlarge these bases, as you may see at the pictures.

 
 

Thank you!  🙂 🙂 🙂
 
Since I have to print with black resin paint at the moment and thus can't easily put my white parts in between, here is a bit of preparation for the next steps.  Sometime around 1860 to 1880 the Victory got a small booth on the cabin deck. This probably served as a shelter for the watch and was small in the early years ...
 

 
... but was quite quickly converted to a more comfortable size.
 

 
Therefore, here is the determination of the approximate dimensions and position based on the available photographs.
 

 
Here is the approximate relationship between the distance between the mizzen mast, the booth and the stern. It was easy to measure in some of the pictures and the values were always approximately the same. You have to compensate a little for the perspective shift, but the basic dimensions seem to be right.
 

 
On this view you can determine the width of the booth at its aft end, this point was already defined in the first step. Practically, the width of the booth is equal to its height. The two flag lockers could also be determined by the iron supports at the bulwark.
With this I have been able to draw a plan of the quarterdeck that is good enough for my purposes.
The measurements are 1:100.
 

 
And the height of the bulwark could also be roughly determined via the sailor's belly button. On the outside view I could also determine the foreward end of the bulwark by means of a port.
 
So far it fits.
 
XXXDAn

@Gregory
 
@Keith Black
 
@mtaylor
 
Hello,
 
your kind comments make me slightly embarrassed ...🥵
In this context I would like to mention that it gives me a lot of pleasure to be able to exchange experiences with ship model building with you here in this fantastic forum.  So everyone can learn and profit from each other. This also contributes to the development of my model building skills. Therefore, at this point to all a big thank you. 
 
Continuation: Ratlines for the top mast shrouds - Enflechures
In the meantime, the main mast has received the ralines at the top mast shrouds, at least on the starboard side. The futtock stave just below the crosstrees, I have also already attached.
Here are two pictures:
 
 


 
See you soon ...

Hello,
Jaager, I think I did't need such a sliding table for my saw and yes, I have my fingers all the time in view and away from the blade
 
So, the first set of gratings is so far ready. But from these curves under the beam you did't see very much 😐 

 

Somehow I still have some sanding to do and somehow I'm afraid that I'll get a lot of dirt behind the windows ...
 
That's why I temporarily put in the decks ...
 

 
... and opened all the window ports so that the inserts fit well.
 
The front 2 ports are also being closed right now, because ...
 

 
... around 1922 they were also closed 🙂
 

 
A wonderful picture*** from 1922! You can see how the Victory was still lying on the water shortly before :-0
The bolts in the holes and especially the detail I'm looking forward to building the most: the support of the chimney pipe!
The port/window at the very front was still open for many years, but judging by the sequence of photographs it was planked over sometime between 1900 and 1920.
 
Best regards, DAniel
 
PS***: The historical picture is mirrored to match my construction pictures.
 

Leetle by leetle, Soleil Royal rises from the ashes.  This will be my best paint work, yet:
 

Hello, and many thanks Gary
So, the first arrangement of gratings is ready. Left is only painting, but I think that is something for tomorrow. To the right comes later a capstan and a ladder way

 

 
And before anybody cries, oh that is not authentic, here the Centurion 😉

Hello,
today I finished these gratings. And my question is also answered, I found pictures of a 70 gunner 1730 and of the Ajax 1767. Both are models where the upper part could be taken away, and they show at the underside of the upper gun deck these two planks.
 

 

Continuation: Ratlines for the topmast shrouds - Enflechures
In the meantime I was able to finish the ratlines on the starboard side of the mizzen topmast shrouds. 
The tangle of ropes in the upper right corner of the following picture are the topgallant shrouds and royal shrouds that have not been fixed yet.
 
In the next step the main topmast shrouds will get the ratlines.
 
To be continued ...

Hello,
today I started building the gratings. To show you how I did it, here some pictures.
I think the pictures explain how I work. It is important, to cut first the grooves transverse to the grain. Otherwise you would have later a large puzzle.

 

 

 

I leave them over night so, that they may straighten out a little more and glue the battens tomorrow in. After that, I grind the back away, and they are ready.
 
But at least I have a question. At Falconers deck plan (gun deck) you could see to the left and right of the gratings and ladder ways two planks, who are going more or less straight through the ship. Those with the rings for the canons, Z. Was that also at the upper gun deck so? At the models you see mostly only the waist.

Siggi, beautiful work as always. I always enjoy seeing an update from you. Glad to see your workers practicing social distancing. 
 
 
 
 

Then came the window panes. PVC film and matt transparent sellotape on the back ...
 

 
... gives exactly the right opacity against inside view while ...
 

 
... the outside reflects well, to be seen on both pictures on the right side window.
 

 
And then the special windows for the four old Trafalgar guns on the middle deck.
 

 

 

 
The guns sit almost on the bottom edge of the port, an indication that the windows sat higher than the former gun ports. The interior view is also funny 🙂
 

 
Then one of the 6 signal guns for saluting.
 

 
But I still have to do some work on both of them, the half ring above the old gun and the middle window bars on the signal guns are too narrow.
 
The "chasing" windows at the stern are also in now, ...
 

 

 
... and even better with paint.
 

 
XXXDAn

@Wintergreen
Hi Håkan,
Thanks for the encouragement.
If I understood your question correctly, this is what you meant?
 

Making new decks was necessitated by the extensions I placed to either side of the stem, which made the whole hull wide enough to include the missing sixth stern light.  Incredibly (considering how many I took), I don’t have pictures of this plastic surgery on my phone still, from before priming, but you can still faintly make out the join-line 5/16” to the left of the stem.  It runs right through the center of the near hawse hole:
 

 
In fact, you can see how I filled-in the outboard stock hawse hole because it was now too far outboard.  This was THE critical stage of the build because if it didn’t work convincingly, there wasn’t going to be much sense in moving forward.  It was tricky, but it worked out better than I could have hoped, at the time.
 
Anyway, what I was illustrating in the post above is just how much wider my new forecastle deck is, as opposed to the stock deck.  And, if one is going to go to the trouble of making new decks, one might as well include a ton of more realistic detail.  The timbering of the Heller decks is all wrong.  I mean, for an out-of-the-box build, it’s fine, but in real practice the deck strakes would not have been parallel strakes that disappear into thin points at the margin; they’d be a fixed number of strakes that tapered from wide, at mid-ships, to narrower at the ends.
 
I mapped out reasonable beam-locations, based on the deck openings; a realistic plank-butt shift; I included the scarfed, wider binding strakes; and I made cambered, instead of flat gratings.  The stock gratings, which I used anyway, were now too narrow for my wider deck, so I deliberately made wider hatch coamings to influence the overall perception of scale, since the hatches and coamings would all be painted red;  like many details on this bash, it isn’t exactly right, but it gives a more correct impression than the stock kit parts do.
 
As for the new rigging guide, I haven’t studied it too closely because I don’t think I will be referencing it much.

And then finally I was able to start. Open the gun port ...
 

 
... check from the outside that the width of the frame fits ...
 

 
... from the inside, that the height at the top is correct ...
 

 
... and finally clear the lower edge. The frame should touch the hull only on one side, the other side and top and bottom must have a minimum of
clearance, otherwise the frame body will bend quickly.
 

 
When glueing in the frames, you could also see nicely on the inside of the hull if the long "carriages" are properly aligned.
 

 
Then the whole appearence looks even.
 

 
Then cut the outside to the right length with a bit of excess ...
 

 
... fill ...
 

 
... neaten ...
 

 
... and that's how I had imagined it 🙂
 

 
Now just find the right window pane.
 
XXXDAn

Thank you druxey!
 
Pictures from 1900 show exactly that all the whales had been removed. 
 

 
The middle middle whales of the kit can be easily filled up, only the lower ones stick out. So out the coarse file 🙂
 

 
The black sharpie line above and below the whale is for height control. The copper plates are protected with duct tape.
 

 
Then make a notch with the edge of the file to the required depth, i.e. to the black. If the notch is nice and even, then you have a nice depth control. And then the next notch next to it. And then blacken the notches and sand away the ridges between the notches and ...
 

 
... smooth as a child's bottom 😉
 
After filling in the spaces in between the whales, I did another installation test. Gluing in parts from the inside ...
 

 
... then trimm with a little excess. You need fast and sharp cutting disc, because the resin is quite brittle.
 
The excess material makes it easy to fill in and doesn't mess up the inside.
 

 
Cleaned up with the sanding tool and primed, it's already close to what I want.
 

 
And to make the whole thing easier to paint, now printed in white resin 😉
 

 
The matching frames for the window pane holders are also included and you can see the "gun carriage" well 🙂
 
XXXDAn

Thank you for the new instruction notes on rigging, Bill.  You will see what I mean, eventually, about the single-post belay points.
 
The process of making new decks is somewhat complicated by the fact that the centerline reference for the line of the masts does not neatly correspond with the width of the decks, at any given point, owing to the hull distortion discussed earlier.  I make perfectly scribed half-patterns that correspond with the centerline of the masts:
 

 

 
Above, the deck length is over-long for the time-being.  Below, you can see how adding width extensions to the beakhead bulkhead resulted in a slight concavity that the deck must scribe to:
 

 
Here, you can get a sense for just to what degree the early bow extensions increased the width of the hull:
 

 
I use the stock decking to find the new scribe for the bulwarks, since the profiles are reasonably close; it only takes a little re-shaping to get the pattern right.  I then transfer that profile to my cardboard and refine each half until it is a perfect scribe.  
 
As a side-note, the painting on that kit deck was part of a tech demonstration I did for the 2018 NorthEast Joint Clubs demonstration.  I was showing how I wash and weather these two different base coats to arrive at the effect seen on the model.  The darker brown would be what the pristine, freshly painted deadworks would ordinarily look like.  The color is referred to, by the French as Ventre de Biche, or belly of the doe, in English.  The lighter tan is the base-coat for my decks. 
 
Here is the new deck, before layout and scribing, with the foremast properly located:
 

 
There will still be a mast plate and mast collar to follow, but the opening for the mast is, for now, as tight as it needs to be.
 
Little by little, we are getting there!  Thank you for the likes, comments and for looking in.  More to follow…
 
 

Thanks Kev, how the hell did you guess?
 
With the possibility of printed parts I finally saw the chance to mass-produce the window crosses in a neat ship shape fashion. To get the vertical alignment of the window panes, I had the idea to link opposite windows over a wooden rod. Therefore I constructed a window frame with an adapter behind it, so that you can pull out the stick trough one side and cover the hole with the square window pane in front.
 

 
Inside it looks like this ...
 

 
... and outside like that 🙂
 

 
Rods pulled out, gaps of the frame filled and trimmed, it looks good for now.
 

 
Instead of the polysterol sheet I used 300 gram paper cut in single planks. That could look like this.
 

 
You can also see that the window crosses are difficult to paint. The window panes are also still intransparent black.
 
But above all, the windows are difficult to align at an horizontal angle.
 
Therefore a new system. Window frame with cross on a "carriage" that stands on the deck and thus guarantees height and angle. The window pane can then be added from behind and be secured by a small frame.
 

 
Since these windows were square, and the decorative strip had to sit exactly at the top and bottom of the window, I put a piece of round rod in to align the decorative moulding.
 

 
And it looks very cute 🙂
 

 

 
XXXDAn

@Wintergreen
@jdbondy
@mtaylor
 
Hello,
thank you for your interest and the nice comments and also thank you to the others, also for the many LIKES.
 
Here I continue with my report:
Ratlines for the topmast shrouds - Enflechures
Long enough I shied away from attaching the ratlines to the topmast shrouds, also aware that this requires extremely sensitive precision work. 
The ratlines for the topmast shrouds of the La Créole had a smaller diameter than those of the lower shrouds, so these have ø 0.25 mm in model scale. Some time ago I made a successful attempt to attach these thin ratlines to the outer shrouds by means of eyes. The formation of the corresponding eyes was done by a simple splice or fake splice.
I also reported that for this difficult work in the rigging an adapted working height is very advantageous. Accordingly, I got myself a scissor lift in order to obtain the optimum working height steplessly.
Who doesn't know the strain of maintaining a steady hand when doing detailed work in the rigging. A flexible support option close to the position to be worked on would certainly be a great help. With this in mind, briefly searched for suitable material for implementation and set to work. 
In addition, besides the storage facility for rigging tools etc., appropriate lighting was also installed, which brings even more advantages for working in the rigging.
In retrospect, I am very glad to have built this simple auxiliary device. It facilitates this work immensely. It is easy to adapt to new situations.

 
Now back to the actual topic, the ratlines of the topmast shrouds. I started with the mizzen topmast to see if it is at all feasible in the intended form. The further up you go in the direction of the crosstrees, the smaller the distance between the shrouds, which ultimately means less and less space for the simple splice. In the end, I achieved it. In this respect, the way is now clear for the remaining ratlines.

 

  
The last picture should give an impression of the different thicknesses of the ratlines. 

 
See you soon ...
 

Thank you, Eric!  Yes, that does seem to work whenever that server error pops up.
 
This is just an alive’n kickin’ post to say that work has continued, albeit at a meager pace.  I am starting, though, to regain some of my former momentum.
 
I made the starboard channels, and I have all of the ground colors painted for the starboard, aft bulwark.  I won’t bother posting pictures of those items until they are installed on the model, as it is nothing new to see.
 
Last night, I made and installed the lam-beams for the forecastle deck:
 

 

 
Tonight, I can sand them fair and then make a cardboard pattern for the forecastle deck.
 
More to follow.  Try not to let COVID overwhelm your thoughts and emotions - despite the grind we are living through now, life won’t always be like this.
 
All the best,
 
Marc

Continuation:  War pennant (flamme de guerre)
I continued with the making of the flags and the long pennant for the La Créole. 
  
  
The following picture thus shows the finished flags and the flamme de guerre with indication of the original sizes.

   
In the next two pictures, the war pennant can be seen again on the model, especially the detail on the flag button with the flag line sheared through and the pennant wood. 

 

 
I provisionally sheared the flag line of the large flag at the gaff through the iron single block at the nock.For the detail to attach the flag line to the eye of the boltrope, I used a toggle as in the original. 

Source: Wictionary
 

 
However, the final assembly of the flags and the long pennant will be done just before the model is completed, as this fine silk fabric is not very durable.
So until then, off it goes into the "evidence room" with the other "suspects" until the final installation.
 
 
To be continued ...

PS: Macro shots are merciless ...
 

Thank you all for the kind comments! Very appreciated!
 
After finishing the lower deck project, there was a short breather - the exhibition stood still for about 0.035 seconds - I immediately took advantage of the nice momentum and continued:
 
New adventure: middle deck and beyond, projected construction time approx. 12 years (experience value) .
 
The coamings of this area off site ...
 

 
... and on site, first fitting samples ...
 

 
... and for retrofitting for the folds so that the gratings don't fall onto the lower deck....
 

 
And then glue was put underneath the coaming and another public wait for the glue to set. Model making is soooooo exciting 🙂
 

 
... and waiting ...
 


And then it came, as it had to come, the public open heart surgery ...
 

 
The stairs had to be lifted from below as for the fold of the coaming, the thread was to lift it up ...
 

 
... and the whole thing quickly-quickly ...
 

 
... without bumping into anything, because ...
 

 
... there was superglue at the bottom of the ladder.
 

 
And then just let go of the line and done we are 🙂
 
 
Finally the coamings around the main hatch ...
 

 
... and some impressions of the finished area.
 

 

 

 

 
Well, now I have to cut some more deck planks ...
 
XXXDAn

In the meantime, all the deck beams were in place and the stove could be provisionally adjusted.
 

 
The next stage was the area between the stove and the fore capstan.
First, the capstan was removed and the bottom plate from the 1788 plans was added. No one has yet been able to tell me its purpose ...
 

 
And then glue it in and press it ...
 

 
... and public waiting, oups, the life of a model maker can be sooooo exciting ...
 

 
And with that, something had happened that no one had ever dared to dream of, that no one had thought was humanly possible, something earth-shattering:
 
This was the last piece to be fixed on the lower gundeck.
Herewith I call this adventure finished 🙂
 
It was only 12 years since October 2009 for the lower gun deck 😉
 
Respectfully, with kind regards, Daniel Fischer
(out of town after dictation)