ianmajor

Initially I was concerned about how the lack of rigging on the remaining cannon would compare. In the event it is hard to see that there is any rigging in place when viewed through the ports. The non rigged cannon are also in deep shade under the decks.
 
To illustrate this, in the next picture the left hand cannon is fully rigged, the right hand cannon has no rigging. It also shows that if you get air trapped in the cannon bore when blackening it the bore remains bright. Doh! Plus what lovely off centre bores the Corel cannon have.  
 

 
A couple of errors/problems encountered.
 
The first was that when I pre drilled all the holes in the bulwarks for the side tackle I had the holes about 1mm too low. The result was the side tackle blocks closest to the bulwarks try to occupy the same space as the front trucks hence the side tackles don't sit neatly as shown in the next picture. Note how the far blocks are pushed out sideways through approx 90 degrees.
 
These blocks are fairly well obscured so I can live with this but I must make sure I get this correct on the cannon on the quarter deck where the tackle is in full view.
 

 
Another issue was that the deck planking was varnished long ago (it was in theory finished 30 years ago). This meant that it was a struggle to get the ropes to stick down and stay down using super glue. So after several attempts more glue was used than desirable. In places I will try to remove some of it with Isopropal Alcohol.
 
Next is to finish the pumps. Then I can climb back out of the waist area.....at last.

Nice update Ian - your Unicorn is coming together very nicely.  Your decision to open up the waist worked out very nicely.  Too bad the stove will be a little more hidden, but you and your fans know it is there.

Gosh! Was it really September when I last updated this log? I must be slacking.
 
I have been making progress on the Unicorn - despite the odd distraction - mostly repetitive stuff rigging cannon. I have now finished the 12 cannon on the main gun deck that I intend to do (positions 2 to 7 counting from the bow).
 
I made up some Flemish coils (as I believe they are called) which were added to the cut ends of the cannon rigging. I have seen the debate about how the excess rope should be handled but decided that my cannon were laid out as for an inspection.
 
I also rigged one cannon in the "run in" postion. I have debated this with myself. This looks OK from above but when the ship is viewed from the side it looks like a smile with a missing tooth. I think I will get used to that.
 

 
The quarter deck rail is now fixed permanently in place. I did a dry assembly of the pump cluster which revealed two coils foul of the pump bodies - it is a bit cramped around there. So the coils were moved.
 

 
With the pumps and ladders in place the rigging on the cannon in position 7 is fairly well obscured. The lack of rigging in position 8 is not very obvious through this cluster either. 
 

Initially I was concerned about how the lack of rigging on the remaining cannon would compare. In the event it is hard to see that there is any rigging in place when viewed through the ports. The non rigged cannon are also in deep shade under the decks.
 
To illustrate this, in the next picture the left hand cannon is fully rigged, the right hand cannon has no rigging. It also shows that if you get air trapped in the cannon bore when blackening it the bore remains bright. Doh! Plus what lovely off centre bores the Corel cannon have.  
 

 
A couple of errors/problems encountered.
 
The first was that when I pre drilled all the holes in the bulwarks for the side tackle I had the holes about 1mm too low. The result was the side tackle blocks closest to the bulwarks try to occupy the same space as the front trucks hence the side tackles don't sit neatly as shown in the next picture. Note how the far blocks are pushed out sideways through approx 90 degrees.
 
These blocks are fairly well obscured so I can live with this but I must make sure I get this correct on the cannon on the quarter deck where the tackle is in full view.
 

 
Another issue was that the deck planking was varnished long ago (it was in theory finished 30 years ago). This meant that it was a struggle to get the ropes to stick down and stay down using super glue. So after several attempts more glue was used than desirable. In places I will try to remove some of it with Isopropal Alcohol.
 
Next is to finish the pumps. Then I can climb back out of the waist area.....at last.

I turned my attention to the stove. Due to the restricted headroom it was difficult to fit it under the fore deck. So as part of final assembly I reduced the lengths of the legs such there was only 2mm clearance between the stove bottom and the brick base. I also reduced the height of the fittings on the still. 
 

 
A down side was that the stove now sits low against the drip try by about 0.5mm. It is not immediately obvious so I will leave it as is.
 

 
The stove now slid under the fore deck easily.
 
To fix it in place I put super glue on the underside of the base. To avoid getting glue on the adjacent grating as the stove slide in I laid in a strip of polythene which I was able to pull clear once the stove was in the correct position. The flue was glued in place through the fore deck.
 
I also added the deck beam under the rear edge of the fore deck. Of course the deck supports the beam rather than the other way round. This has got rid of the ripple effect in the deck. As can be seen in the next photo the beam protrudes beyond the deck in places so needs some final dressing. Sadly with the beam in place the still is now completely invisible.  
 

 

I am happy to see that the subject of finishes has generated comments.  All are appreciated.  When it comes to personal taste, there is no best answer.  Its hard to measure aesthetics on a common scale, so I won't go there.  Also, I am a major critic when it comes to finishes - especially my own - so I am never really satisfied.   For me the paint issue has less to do with sheen than with the effect of paint on detail - moldings, planking lines, treenails, wood joints, etc.  Because it obscures these things, it is not something I generally favor, however, I feel strongly that this model needs to be painted - at least partially - to convey its character.  I trust that the final overall product will do that.  We shall see.
 
Ed

Although the tool worked fine, the craftmanship was lousy. 
Here is the new version. Now the hooks are better and the whole thing stronger.
  

And now back to building...  Work continues on the rudder assembly.  After all the metal work done over the last few days I can vouch for the fact that sawdust smells much better than lubricating oil.  The metal work on the rudder consists of six pintles, the straps by the tiller and the spectacle plate.  I made the pintles from four pieces:  two straps, a pin and a center piece pierced for the pin.  All holes were drilled before assembly.  The joints were all silver soldered.  I use a silver solder paste, which has flux already in it, and the Smith Little Torch which uses propane and oxygen for its gases.  The first picture shows the pieces after they are removed from the pickling solution.  The next pictures show how the pintles look after soldering and before cleaning up.
 

 

 

 
Once I got a rhythm, I was pleased with how things came together.  Each pintle took about an hour.
 

 
The spectacle plate is on the aft edge of the rudder.  Chains attach which help prevent unshipping the rudder accidentally.  They were straight-forward to make.  All of the metalwork is recessed into the rudder.  In this picture only the recess for the spectacle plate has been finished.  
 

 
There is a strap above the topmost pintle but I am not sure how I will fabricate this.  The circumference at this point is smaller than the head of the rudder.  At this point I am leaning towards simply pinning it in place, bringing the ends together without actually joining them.  I still need to clean up the metal work, finish the recesses for the pintles, make the tenon for the tiller, and finish the metalwork at the head.
 
 
 

Michael, this one is for you!  Isn't there a beer commercial with a very similar jingle?  These are my display cases.  They are made of mahogany left over from construction of the house.  There is a can light in each bay (I think you Canadians call them pot lights).  The glass floor of the upper tier allows light into the lower tier.  
 

 
Some of the occupants of my dockyard are Mantua's Peregrine Galley (the first POB ship I built), Mamoli's Roter Lowe, Amati's Prince (abandoned because of terrible plans), Sergal's Cutty Sark, Model Shipways' Fair American, the Lumberyard's Oneida and Mantua's Victory.
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
Then there is my triplet of small ships, Scientific's Cutty (we're not even saying what decade that was built), Admiralty Model's cutter and Chuck's longboat.
 

 
Finally, there is a small display for my other hobby.  Those eggs take up a lot less room than a ship!
 

 
There is a running theme with these ships.  I discovered that I truly dislike rigging.  I keep telling myself that I will finish the rigging on the Cutty and Victory, especially the Victory, but so far it hasn't happened.  That is why I have converted to hull-only models.  Sorry about the photographer in one of the pics, those mirrors make photographs difficult.
 
 

The Unicorn makes into a real beauty. How I missed this log this long is sad. You are doing a great job. If you want there a couple of books that should interest you and give you some insight on your build. They are The First Frigate by Robert Gardener & The Heavy Frigate by Robert Gardener.
David B

I was not happy with the hood front so I took it and the left side off. The next photo shows the replacement side in place. I cut it the right height, plus the rear edge was cut to the correct size, but the front was left over long for now. This was fitted. The replacement hood front is lying in front of the stove.
 

 
I actually had difficulty fitting the new front so I produced a new one with a large tab on the top. When soldering it in place I gripped it using locking tweezers on the tab which allowed the part to be pulled in to position.
 
The tab and the excess on the left side was filed off.
 
To finish the hood body I added a plate on top which has a slight overhang to represent the flange between the hood and the flue (to be constructed). When the stove is installed the main part of the stove will be go in through the waist area. The flue will have to be installed separately down through the foredeck. To help align the flue I have fitted a small length of brass rod on top of the hood.
 
I also decided to model the hood in the open position. The hinges were short lengths of 1mm x 0.7mm strip. They were soldered to the lid part first, bent to shape then the whole unit was soldered to the hood front.
 
The various plans and pictures show the lid either being held up by a latch or a length of small link chain. A reasonable representation of small link chain can be made using two pieces of fine wire twisted together. The more it is twisted the smaller is the simulated link size. I used some core wires from instrument wire. I took a length bent it in two then trapped the cut ends in the vice. I put a small drill bit through the loop end. Then using the bit as a wrench carefully twisted the wire. This makes the two wires wrap around each other. If you grab the end with pliers and twist, one part of the wire tends to remain straight whilst the other wraps around it. This latter approach does not give the desired effect.    
 

 
In hind sight, soldering these hood parts together would have been easier if I had left the fire grills off until after this point. This would have allowed it all to be soldered from underneath.

Next up was to solder the other side in place and create the hood.
 
The rear of the hood was already in place but pointed backwards at too great an angle. So using the piercing saw I cut a grove along its rear face immediately above the sides. This allowed me to bend it cleanly upwards to the right angle.
 
The front of the hood was cut from the strip used to make the cross pieces above.
 
From the rear of the hood I measured the height for the hood side pieces, produced strip to this size and cut off two over length pieces. The hood sides were then soldered to the hood rear and the hood front soldered between them. This left the hood sides overlapping the front. It was simple job to file them back to the correct size.
 
Photo 8)
 

 
Next came the grate. I threaded 5 lengths of 0.5mm and 2 lengths of 0.75mm N/S rod though the stove sides - not forgetting the middle spacer. The rods were soldered in place on the outside of both sides. The middle spacer was then carefully positioned centrally and squarely. This part only needed flux applied, no extra solder, before the iron was touched on it. The solder still on its surface from the earlier stage flowed in to all the joints - leaving firmly in place and tidy. Photo 9 shows it before I trimmed the excess rod off.
 
Photo 9)
 

 
 
 

Initially I was concerned about how the lack of rigging on the remaining cannon would compare. In the event it is hard to see that there is any rigging in place when viewed through the ports. The non rigged cannon are also in deep shade under the decks.
 
To illustrate this, in the next picture the left hand cannon is fully rigged, the right hand cannon has no rigging. It also shows that if you get air trapped in the cannon bore when blackening it the bore remains bright. Doh! Plus what lovely off centre bores the Corel cannon have.  
 

 
A couple of errors/problems encountered.
 
The first was that when I pre drilled all the holes in the bulwarks for the side tackle I had the holes about 1mm too low. The result was the side tackle blocks closest to the bulwarks try to occupy the same space as the front trucks hence the side tackles don't sit neatly as shown in the next picture. Note how the far blocks are pushed out sideways through approx 90 degrees.
 
These blocks are fairly well obscured so I can live with this but I must make sure I get this correct on the cannon on the quarter deck where the tackle is in full view.
 

 
Another issue was that the deck planking was varnished long ago (it was in theory finished 30 years ago). This meant that it was a struggle to get the ropes to stick down and stay down using super glue. So after several attempts more glue was used than desirable. In places I will try to remove some of it with Isopropal Alcohol.
 
Next is to finish the pumps. Then I can climb back out of the waist area.....at last.

I turned my attention to the stove. Due to the restricted headroom it was difficult to fit it under the fore deck. So as part of final assembly I reduced the lengths of the legs such there was only 2mm clearance between the stove bottom and the brick base. I also reduced the height of the fittings on the still. 
 

 
A down side was that the stove now sits low against the drip try by about 0.5mm. It is not immediately obvious so I will leave it as is.
 

 
The stove now slid under the fore deck easily.
 
To fix it in place I put super glue on the underside of the base. To avoid getting glue on the adjacent grating as the stove slide in I laid in a strip of polythene which I was able to pull clear once the stove was in the correct position. The flue was glued in place through the fore deck.
 
I also added the deck beam under the rear edge of the fore deck. Of course the deck supports the beam rather than the other way round. This has got rid of the ripple effect in the deck. As can be seen in the next photo the beam protrudes beyond the deck in places so needs some final dressing. Sadly with the beam in place the still is now completely invisible.  
 

 

Gosh! Was it really September when I last updated this log? I must be slacking.
 
I have been making progress on the Unicorn - despite the odd distraction - mostly repetitive stuff rigging cannon. I have now finished the 12 cannon on the main gun deck that I intend to do (positions 2 to 7 counting from the bow).
 
I made up some Flemish coils (as I believe they are called) which were added to the cut ends of the cannon rigging. I have seen the debate about how the excess rope should be handled but decided that my cannon were laid out as for an inspection.
 
I also rigged one cannon in the "run in" postion. I have debated this with myself. This looks OK from above but when the ship is viewed from the side it looks like a smile with a missing tooth. I think I will get used to that.
 

 
The quarter deck rail is now fixed permanently in place. I did a dry assembly of the pump cluster which revealed two coils foul of the pump bodies - it is a bit cramped around there. So the coils were moved.
 

 
With the pumps and ladders in place the rigging on the cannon in position 7 is fairly well obscured. The lack of rigging in position 8 is not very obvious through this cluster either. 
 

Nice to see an update Ian. Great work on the stove. She's coming along nicely. 

Great to,see you back with an update Ian. What a shame that your lovely stove is now hidden from view. At least you have the pictures, and we have all seen them.

Gosh! Was it really September when I last updated this log? I must be slacking.
 
I have been making progress on the Unicorn - despite the odd distraction - mostly repetitive stuff rigging cannon. I have now finished the 12 cannon on the main gun deck that I intend to do (positions 2 to 7 counting from the bow).
 
I made up some Flemish coils (as I believe they are called) which were added to the cut ends of the cannon rigging. I have seen the debate about how the excess rope should be handled but decided that my cannon were laid out as for an inspection.
 
I also rigged one cannon in the "run in" postion. I have debated this with myself. This looks OK from above but when the ship is viewed from the side it looks like a smile with a missing tooth. I think I will get used to that.
 

 
The quarter deck rail is now fixed permanently in place. I did a dry assembly of the pump cluster which revealed two coils foul of the pump bodies - it is a bit cramped around there. So the coils were moved.
 

 
With the pumps and ladders in place the rigging on the cannon in position 7 is fairly well obscured. The lack of rigging in position 8 is not very obvious through this cluster either. 
 

Initially I was concerned about how the lack of rigging on the remaining cannon would compare. In the event it is hard to see that there is any rigging in place when viewed through the ports. The non rigged cannon are also in deep shade under the decks.
 
To illustrate this, in the next picture the left hand cannon is fully rigged, the right hand cannon has no rigging. It also shows that if you get air trapped in the cannon bore when blackening it the bore remains bright. Doh! Plus what lovely off centre bores the Corel cannon have.  
 

 
A couple of errors/problems encountered.
 
The first was that when I pre drilled all the holes in the bulwarks for the side tackle I had the holes about 1mm too low. The result was the side tackle blocks closest to the bulwarks try to occupy the same space as the front trucks hence the side tackles don't sit neatly as shown in the next picture. Note how the far blocks are pushed out sideways through approx 90 degrees.
 
These blocks are fairly well obscured so I can live with this but I must make sure I get this correct on the cannon on the quarter deck where the tackle is in full view.
 

 
Another issue was that the deck planking was varnished long ago (it was in theory finished 30 years ago). This meant that it was a struggle to get the ropes to stick down and stay down using super glue. So after several attempts more glue was used than desirable. In places I will try to remove some of it with Isopropal Alcohol.
 
Next is to finish the pumps. Then I can climb back out of the waist area.....at last.

Initially I was concerned about how the lack of rigging on the remaining cannon would compare. In the event it is hard to see that there is any rigging in place when viewed through the ports. The non rigged cannon are also in deep shade under the decks.
 
To illustrate this, in the next picture the left hand cannon is fully rigged, the right hand cannon has no rigging. It also shows that if you get air trapped in the cannon bore when blackening it the bore remains bright. Doh! Plus what lovely off centre bores the Corel cannon have.  
 

 
A couple of errors/problems encountered.
 
The first was that when I pre drilled all the holes in the bulwarks for the side tackle I had the holes about 1mm too low. The result was the side tackle blocks closest to the bulwarks try to occupy the same space as the front trucks hence the side tackles don't sit neatly as shown in the next picture. Note how the far blocks are pushed out sideways through approx 90 degrees.
 
These blocks are fairly well obscured so I can live with this but I must make sure I get this correct on the cannon on the quarter deck where the tackle is in full view.
 

 
Another issue was that the deck planking was varnished long ago (it was in theory finished 30 years ago). This meant that it was a struggle to get the ropes to stick down and stay down using super glue. So after several attempts more glue was used than desirable. In places I will try to remove some of it with Isopropal Alcohol.
 
Next is to finish the pumps. Then I can climb back out of the waist area.....at last.

I turned my attention to the stove. Due to the restricted headroom it was difficult to fit it under the fore deck. So as part of final assembly I reduced the lengths of the legs such there was only 2mm clearance between the stove bottom and the brick base. I also reduced the height of the fittings on the still. 
 

 
A down side was that the stove now sits low against the drip try by about 0.5mm. It is not immediately obvious so I will leave it as is.
 

 
The stove now slid under the fore deck easily.
 
To fix it in place I put super glue on the underside of the base. To avoid getting glue on the adjacent grating as the stove slide in I laid in a strip of polythene which I was able to pull clear once the stove was in the correct position. The flue was glued in place through the fore deck.
 
I also added the deck beam under the rear edge of the fore deck. Of course the deck supports the beam rather than the other way round. This has got rid of the ripple effect in the deck. As can be seen in the next photo the beam protrudes beyond the deck in places so needs some final dressing. Sadly with the beam in place the still is now completely invisible.  
 

 

Gosh! Was it really September when I last updated this log? I must be slacking.
 
I have been making progress on the Unicorn - despite the odd distraction - mostly repetitive stuff rigging cannon. I have now finished the 12 cannon on the main gun deck that I intend to do (positions 2 to 7 counting from the bow).
 
I made up some Flemish coils (as I believe they are called) which were added to the cut ends of the cannon rigging. I have seen the debate about how the excess rope should be handled but decided that my cannon were laid out as for an inspection.
 
I also rigged one cannon in the "run in" postion. I have debated this with myself. This looks OK from above but when the ship is viewed from the side it looks like a smile with a missing tooth. I think I will get used to that.
 

 
The quarter deck rail is now fixed permanently in place. I did a dry assembly of the pump cluster which revealed two coils foul of the pump bodies - it is a bit cramped around there. So the coils were moved.
 

 
With the pumps and ladders in place the rigging on the cannon in position 7 is fairly well obscured. The lack of rigging in position 8 is not very obvious through this cluster either. 
 

Initially I was concerned about how the lack of rigging on the remaining cannon would compare. In the event it is hard to see that there is any rigging in place when viewed through the ports. The non rigged cannon are also in deep shade under the decks.
 
To illustrate this, in the next picture the left hand cannon is fully rigged, the right hand cannon has no rigging. It also shows that if you get air trapped in the cannon bore when blackening it the bore remains bright. Doh! Plus what lovely off centre bores the Corel cannon have.  
 

 
A couple of errors/problems encountered.
 
The first was that when I pre drilled all the holes in the bulwarks for the side tackle I had the holes about 1mm too low. The result was the side tackle blocks closest to the bulwarks try to occupy the same space as the front trucks hence the side tackles don't sit neatly as shown in the next picture. Note how the far blocks are pushed out sideways through approx 90 degrees.
 
These blocks are fairly well obscured so I can live with this but I must make sure I get this correct on the cannon on the quarter deck where the tackle is in full view.
 

 
Another issue was that the deck planking was varnished long ago (it was in theory finished 30 years ago). This meant that it was a struggle to get the ropes to stick down and stay down using super glue. So after several attempts more glue was used than desirable. In places I will try to remove some of it with Isopropal Alcohol.
 
Next is to finish the pumps. Then I can climb back out of the waist area.....at last.

I turned my attention to the stove. Due to the restricted headroom it was difficult to fit it under the fore deck. So as part of final assembly I reduced the lengths of the legs such there was only 2mm clearance between the stove bottom and the brick base. I also reduced the height of the fittings on the still. 
 

 
A down side was that the stove now sits low against the drip try by about 0.5mm. It is not immediately obvious so I will leave it as is.
 

 
The stove now slid under the fore deck easily.
 
To fix it in place I put super glue on the underside of the base. To avoid getting glue on the adjacent grating as the stove slide in I laid in a strip of polythene which I was able to pull clear once the stove was in the correct position. The flue was glued in place through the fore deck.
 
I also added the deck beam under the rear edge of the fore deck. Of course the deck supports the beam rather than the other way round. This has got rid of the ripple effect in the deck. As can be seen in the next photo the beam protrudes beyond the deck in places so needs some final dressing. Sadly with the beam in place the still is now completely invisible.  
 

 

Gosh! Was it really September when I last updated this log? I must be slacking.
 
I have been making progress on the Unicorn - despite the odd distraction - mostly repetitive stuff rigging cannon. I have now finished the 12 cannon on the main gun deck that I intend to do (positions 2 to 7 counting from the bow).
 
I made up some Flemish coils (as I believe they are called) which were added to the cut ends of the cannon rigging. I have seen the debate about how the excess rope should be handled but decided that my cannon were laid out as for an inspection.
 
I also rigged one cannon in the "run in" postion. I have debated this with myself. This looks OK from above but when the ship is viewed from the side it looks like a smile with a missing tooth. I think I will get used to that.
 

 
The quarter deck rail is now fixed permanently in place. I did a dry assembly of the pump cluster which revealed two coils foul of the pump bodies - it is a bit cramped around there. So the coils were moved.
 

 
With the pumps and ladders in place the rigging on the cannon in position 7 is fairly well obscured. The lack of rigging in position 8 is not very obvious through this cluster either.