robdurant

Time for an update.
 
As always, thank you for the likes and encouragement. I'm not quite sure where I'll go with the decorations, but thankfully I still have a while to ponder that. Perhaps some fishes... I will take that advice and check out the alignment of the lower cheek. I'm somewhat dreading trying to get everything to line up, but as you say, fore-planning will hopefully take some of the pain out of the process.
 
In the meantime, I had the wonderful opportunity to visit Portsmouth historic dockyard. It was wonderful to be able to go round Victory again, and I was quite taken with the white bulwarks on the gundeck. Not sure if they're a little anachronistic on Ethalion, but I thought I'd have them white instead of red or ochre. We'll just assume that the captain fancied having them that way. I'm hoping it will allow a little more light to see everything once the quarter deck, foredeck and gangways are on. It also created a nice contrast with the walnut waterway(?) I added between the deck and the bulwark. The walnut wasn't in place when I took the photo below.

The gunports are all lined now and remain the red ochre.
 
The second task attempted was to build up the templates for the quarter deck bulwarks. Having decided that I wanted to have the railings on the quarterdeck (as per the NMM plans, rather than the AOTS plans), I thought I needed to modify the ply templates by cutting them down. However, when I checked the templates they were way off. In the photo below, the template sat on top of the ply is the kit provided template. The outline of this template can be seen faintly drawn on the ply below, along with the ports that are defined on the NMM and AOTS plans, which are all approx 5mm further towards the stern of the boat. The heights of the carronade and cannon ports are also different. 
 
When built, Ethalion (as per AOTS) had a quarterdeck armament six 32lb Carronade and six 9lb cannon in the following arrangement.
STERN – Carronade – Cannon – Carronade – Carronade – Cannon – Cannon – WAIST
 
This is reflected in the size of the ports.


I decided not to cut out the ports until the bulwarks were planked, in order to keep them strong, and allow any minor adjustments to be made.
 
Main Wale
 
I wanted to plank in line with the wale, so the wale needed to go on first. That gave me another challenge. To get the wale in the right place, I needed the waterline, and that wasn't marked yet. So. It was a job of propping up the hull (with 6mm clearance off the floor at the bow, and none at the stern), with masking tape to stick it in place, then using a jury rigged contraption to mark out the waterline. Once the waterline was marked, the wale could be carefully measured and marked out. These measurements were taken from the AOTS plans.
 
Once I was satisfied with the sweep of the wale, I put the first of the 3mm strips in place. I built up a layer of 3mm strips, then the black strake was created with 4mm black-stained boxwood strip. Then the wale below was built up with more 3mm walnut and covered with black-stained boxwood. Once sanded and scraped to smooth it, the whole was stained with admiralty ebony stain to bring the walnut into line with the boxwood.
 


 

 
 

Time for an update.
 
As always, thank you for the likes and encouragement. I'm not quite sure where I'll go with the decorations, but thankfully I still have a while to ponder that. Perhaps some fishes... I will take that advice and check out the alignment of the lower cheek. I'm somewhat dreading trying to get everything to line up, but as you say, fore-planning will hopefully take some of the pain out of the process.
 
In the meantime, I had the wonderful opportunity to visit Portsmouth historic dockyard. It was wonderful to be able to go round Victory again, and I was quite taken with the white bulwarks on the gundeck. Not sure if they're a little anachronistic on Ethalion, but I thought I'd have them white instead of red or ochre. We'll just assume that the captain fancied having them that way. I'm hoping it will allow a little more light to see everything once the quarter deck, foredeck and gangways are on. It also created a nice contrast with the walnut waterway(?) I added between the deck and the bulwark. The walnut wasn't in place when I took the photo below.

The gunports are all lined now and remain the red ochre.
 
The second task attempted was to build up the templates for the quarter deck bulwarks. Having decided that I wanted to have the railings on the quarterdeck (as per the NMM plans, rather than the AOTS plans), I thought I needed to modify the ply templates by cutting them down. However, when I checked the templates they were way off. In the photo below, the template sat on top of the ply is the kit provided template. The outline of this template can be seen faintly drawn on the ply below, along with the ports that are defined on the NMM and AOTS plans, which are all approx 5mm further towards the stern of the boat. The heights of the carronade and cannon ports are also different. 
 
When built, Ethalion (as per AOTS) had a quarterdeck armament six 32lb Carronade and six 9lb cannon in the following arrangement.
STERN – Carronade – Cannon – Carronade – Carronade – Cannon – Cannon – WAIST
 
This is reflected in the size of the ports.


I decided not to cut out the ports until the bulwarks were planked, in order to keep them strong, and allow any minor adjustments to be made.
 
Main Wale
 
I wanted to plank in line with the wale, so the wale needed to go on first. That gave me another challenge. To get the wale in the right place, I needed the waterline, and that wasn't marked yet. So. It was a job of propping up the hull (with 6mm clearance off the floor at the bow, and none at the stern), with masking tape to stick it in place, then using a jury rigged contraption to mark out the waterline. Once the waterline was marked, the wale could be carefully measured and marked out. These measurements were taken from the AOTS plans.
 
Once I was satisfied with the sweep of the wale, I put the first of the 3mm strips in place. I built up a layer of 3mm strips, then the black strake was created with 4mm black-stained boxwood strip. Then the wale below was built up with more 3mm walnut and covered with black-stained boxwood. Once sanded and scraped to smooth it, the whole was stained with admiralty ebony stain to bring the walnut into line with the boxwood.
 


 

 
 

Although a little out of sequence, I decided to do something "simple" today and make the timberheads.  I cut off the timberheads at the level of the plankshear on the port side because I knew I would never do an adequate job of shaping them in situ.  The false timberheads will have a stem to pass through a slot in the plankshear.  Here is how I made them.  First thing was to dimension the appropriate size lumber.  On my table saw I set the fence and the blade to delineate throat of the timberhead.  I made this a little shallow to allow for final shaping with the chisel.
 

 

 
I drew a pencil line a little below the top of the timberhead.  This marks the top of the chisel cut.  Next I cut down from that line into the notch formed by the saw.  The top of the timberhead was beveled as was the area below the throat. 
 

 

 

 
 
Finally I made a tenon and cut the piece to final length.  There are six timberheads on Atalanta.
 

 
 

The Rigging is all finished, it only took about 3 hours .




 
The last thing to be fitted is the one I usually try to leave to the end - the Ensign, or whatever the Japanese equivalent is . I just noticed that the railing at the stern is bent, good thing I took this pic or I may have missed it :

 
And here are a couple of pics of the finished ship. I'll be putting more into the Gallery :



 
Total time to build was exactly 3 months, about 6 months less than I was expecting it to take . Next up will be Bismarck, starting tomorrow.
 
  Danny

Ben, planking looks good.  You're right that the plans are a little misleading in this respect but you look to have handled that tricky tight curve at the lower counter nicely.  As long as you have a good bond between the top plank and the gunport pattern you should be set- nearly all the bulkhead extensions will come off and I know I was concerned with strength, but once the second planking goes on it's remarkably strong.

Ahh yes thanks Rob!  I had completely forgot about that manual. 

Hi Ben,
 
What a great start!
 
As far as the ship's boat goes, it looks very similar to the launch on HM Schooner Pickle (also by Caldercraft) - and that was one of the most recent kits, so it has the downloadable manual here: http://www.jotika-ltd.com/Pages/1024768/Manuals_Pickle.htm . Take a look at pages 53-56 for details and photos of how it all goes together.
 
All the best
 
Rob
 
 

The planking has begun.  I think it will soon become a hot mess but for now it looks ok.  It's only the first planking so it doesn't have to be pretty.  I never seem to learn anything from the resources on this site .
 

 
I got a delivery from Cornwall model boats today!  I received some sailors, Belaying pins, Rope, Blocks for the Carronades, And a Launch boat.  The belaying pins look so much better, I can't believe Caldercraft didn't add them automatically given the price of the kit.  The launch is going to be hard given the weak instructions, I'll give it another read I suppose. 
 

 
The Sailors are very neat!  The Captain and his Boatswain... I think
 

 

Thanks Slog, Greg and CDW .
 
Here's one of the smallest assemblies I've had to make, a Windlass. There are 15 tiny parts in it and it's only 4mm long :

 
I'm not sure what the function of these parts is, it seems to be some kind of covered entryway. I made the actual units some time ago, and now it's time to fit them :

 
It's also time to fit the Bridge :


 
The last major sub-assembly to fit is the aft superstructure :

 
A couple of overall progress pics with the major assemblies fitted. I'm leaving the last three turrets until later as there are a lot of small parts to be made and fitted around them first :


 
  Danny

Is this build still alive??  Has there been any progress on the Winchelsea??
I was very interested in following along with this (or Chucks) Winnie build.  
Probably make this my next build if/when that time ever gets here....
It's a beautiful ship !!!
Thanks

Interesting you should mention the build.   I am making preparations to begin working on the Winnie within weeks.   It is very much alive.
 
Chuck

Not much progress, but I want to ask a question, so felt obliged to post  a few photos 
 
Progress made on the upper and lower counter rail.  These need to follow quite a curve, more so than they appear, and were pre-bent to shape using a failed counter template I had kept.  Seems very important visually to get a smooth curve.  The ends of these rails will need to butt up against the side gallery rails and so were angled to approximately 45% in preparation.  Using a single pin amidships proved to be the ticket here ensuring that the rail could be consistently placed while the ends were fine tuned - the small hole should be pretty easy to mask afterwards with filler.  The top rail is not glued in place yet, but its possible to get a feel for the run of these rails.  Overall, I'm rather relieved and pleased with how this turned out with the name placement.  
 

 
So, to my question.  The Diana kit provides two 'ladies' at either side of the stern fascia which are pretty good castings (represent the goddesses Hera and Athena from Jason's story) which I'd like to use.  The tafferal is quite thick, and when compared to the AOTS diagram, the female figures appear to have some depth.  I thought that by this time, complex carvings in the round would not be in vogue for economic reasons, so I'm wondering if what is illustrated is a simpler relief carving on an angled corner.  If so, then the approach could be to simply angle the corner.  The hesitation here is that after so much work on the stern, I'm wary of making a mistake...but I do like the more 'fitted' look in the AOTS picture as it seems to gradually transition the thickness of the tafferal in a visually pleasing way.  Angling the corner would be easier with the upper counter rail off, but until that's decided its a roadblock to moving forward with the rest.
 
Opinions, thoughts and recommendations sought...
 

Hi Jason:
 
Sorry I can't help with your question....but the model looks beautiful! 
hamlton

Jason,
 
What I see in the image you posted, and what I can find on the net, e.g. here and here , it seems it is not going "round the bend" but remains on the stern facia. It looks ike it is a somewhat massive carving piece.
I hope you find a fitting answer to your problem though.
 
Cheers

Superb work on the coppering Jason.
I had a similar issue with the Quarter figures when I decided to retro modify the stern on my Pegasus, and replace the flat etched figures with angled relief figures.

 
 I had to chop quite deeply into the transom for my modification and I spent some time visualising how I would approach the task before I took knife to the stern.
 
I wonder if the raised arm of the figure would present a problem. If the figure is simply placed at an angle the arm would be away from the face of the transom unless the figure is set into the edge and the angle of the arm can be modified somewhat.
 
I think I would make a stern mock up using some stuff of the same thickness and see how it worked out. 
 
Cheers,
 
B.E.

Thanks Jason,
 
Yes, the more I thought about it overnight the more I came to the same conclusion... the figure overall is about 1cm longer than the Diana figurehead, and most of that extra height is above the head (although the legs are longer too). Thankfully Aethelion gives a solution - for the brave! I launched in to remodel the figure to have a dolphin's tale - one fluke on each side of the beakhead... I can't claim credit for the tail - it was part of a plastic dolphin ordered on Amazon.
 
After a LOT of hollowing out using a Proxxon drill/engraver, the figure sat much lower on the beakhead, and was able to lean forwards more. That solved the clearance issue, and then it was "simply" a case of cutting off the legs with a mini-hacksaw, splitting the dolphins tail vertically with a craft knife, and using 1mm wire and CA glue to strengthen the join between the figure and the halves of the tail.
 
There's still a little work to do to make the join invisible, but here's the progress so far (with some shots against the plans to show how the jib boom at AOTS angle should clear the figurehead).
 
Here's the figure with the dolphin tale attached, but no filling / painting. The white is where I've carved the tail back to fit the figure.
 

 
And after some filling / painting:
 

 
A bit of work to do to hide the join, but I think I'll make his clothes come down to the join - that'll hide the join more easily.
 

 
Oh, yes... and I got two more gunports lined... onwards and upwards! Thanks for all the advice, likes, and encouragement.
 
Rob
 

I couldn't resist hollowing out the slot for the beakhead and putting some paint on Aethalion today, along with his buddy... let's call him Acoetes, as per the captain of the same ship that was overtaken by Bacchus in Ovid's tale.
 
Here's the result so far...  (with the Caldercraft-supplied Diana figurehead next to it for comparison)
 




 
And his buddy, Acoetes... standing guard.
 

 
Now... back to the gunport lining on the port side. Two down - twelve to go!
 

Thanks Jason,
 
Yes, the more I thought about it overnight the more I came to the same conclusion... the figure overall is about 1cm longer than the Diana figurehead, and most of that extra height is above the head (although the legs are longer too). Thankfully Aethelion gives a solution - for the brave! I launched in to remodel the figure to have a dolphin's tale - one fluke on each side of the beakhead... I can't claim credit for the tail - it was part of a plastic dolphin ordered on Amazon.
 
After a LOT of hollowing out using a Proxxon drill/engraver, the figure sat much lower on the beakhead, and was able to lean forwards more. That solved the clearance issue, and then it was "simply" a case of cutting off the legs with a mini-hacksaw, splitting the dolphins tail vertically with a craft knife, and using 1mm wire and CA glue to strengthen the join between the figure and the halves of the tail.
 
There's still a little work to do to make the join invisible, but here's the progress so far (with some shots against the plans to show how the jib boom at AOTS angle should clear the figurehead).
 
Here's the figure with the dolphin tale attached, but no filling / painting. The white is where I've carved the tail back to fit the figure.
 

 
And after some filling / painting:
 

 
A bit of work to do to hide the join, but I think I'll make his clothes come down to the join - that'll hide the join more easily.
 

 
Oh, yes... and I got two more gunports lined... onwards and upwards! Thanks for all the advice, likes, and encouragement.
 
Rob
 

I couldn't resist hollowing out the slot for the beakhead and putting some paint on Aethalion today, along with his buddy... let's call him Acoetes, as per the captain of the same ship that was overtaken by Bacchus in Ovid's tale.
 
Here's the result so far...  (with the Caldercraft-supplied Diana figurehead next to it for comparison)
 




 
And his buddy, Acoetes... standing guard.
 

 
Now... back to the gunport lining on the port side. Two down - twelve to go!
 

Apologies to people who couldn't see the few pictures on this log. I've moved them from photobucket to MSW, so there shouldn't be any problems. (I've learned my lesson.)
 
Hope to have more progress to report here soon. I haven't disappeared. Just paused this while I learn more skills with the Ethalion. Thankfully the wood is patient

Okay - so I said I was feeling a bit jammy, because I'd had a cunning plan about figureheads. I know enough about my own abilities to know that I'm not about to carve / sculpt a figurehead out of a block of wood or fimo or (insert your medium here), and choosing to model Ethalion instead of Diana meant that the kit-supplied figurehead wasn't going to work! (Ethalion was a bloke for starters, and then he (was) turned into a dolphin!).... so... back to the internet to pursue a solution. And I think I have one. You can let me know what you think.
 
It's a UK based website called http://www.irregularminiatures.co.uk/. Just to be clear, I don't have any relationship with these guys other than this transaction, but this transaction was as good as I could have asked. It's a simple payment process where you email the address on the site and let them know which figures you'd like (I chose the 54mm figures (red links at the bottom of the home page), Greek Peltast with javelin and Spartan Hoplite - it's the Peltast who'll be gracing the bow of Ethalion... they were £3.75 each, which is a steal! You can get them painted, too if you want. Anyway - I ordered on Wednesday, and they sent a paypal link for payment, and they were waiting on the door mat on Monday when I got home from camping.
 
Here they are literally as they arrived in the post without any further cleaning up at all.
 

 
 
And after I did a little basic surgery... with the boxwood beakhead insert for Ethalion...
 

 
And next to the dolphin I'm intending to use to replace the feet and show the beginning of the transformation that Ethalion underwent... (shouldn't have argued with Bacchus!). I shall move his left leg back a little and cut out his back a little to allow him to sit better on the beakhead, but I think it should be doable.
 

 
For those of us who aren't up to creating our own figureheads (at least, for the model we're building today), perhaps this will be of help
 
Happy building
 
Rob
 
 
 

I couldn't resist hollowing out the slot for the beakhead and putting some paint on Aethalion today, along with his buddy... let's call him Acoetes, as per the captain of the same ship that was overtaken by Bacchus in Ovid's tale.
 
Here's the result so far...  (with the Caldercraft-supplied Diana figurehead next to it for comparison)
 




 
And his buddy, Acoetes... standing guard.
 

 
Now... back to the gunport lining on the port side. Two down - twelve to go!
 

Okay - so I said I was feeling a bit jammy, because I'd had a cunning plan about figureheads. I know enough about my own abilities to know that I'm not about to carve / sculpt a figurehead out of a block of wood or fimo or (insert your medium here), and choosing to model Ethalion instead of Diana meant that the kit-supplied figurehead wasn't going to work! (Ethalion was a bloke for starters, and then he (was) turned into a dolphin!).... so... back to the internet to pursue a solution. And I think I have one. You can let me know what you think.
 
It's a UK based website called http://www.irregularminiatures.co.uk/. Just to be clear, I don't have any relationship with these guys other than this transaction, but this transaction was as good as I could have asked. It's a simple payment process where you email the address on the site and let them know which figures you'd like (I chose the 54mm figures (red links at the bottom of the home page), Greek Peltast with javelin and Spartan Hoplite - it's the Peltast who'll be gracing the bow of Ethalion... they were £3.75 each, which is a steal! You can get them painted, too if you want. Anyway - I ordered on Wednesday, and they sent a paypal link for payment, and they were waiting on the door mat on Monday when I got home from camping.
 
Here they are literally as they arrived in the post without any further cleaning up at all.
 

 
 
And after I did a little basic surgery... with the boxwood beakhead insert for Ethalion...
 

 
And next to the dolphin I'm intending to use to replace the feet and show the beginning of the transformation that Ethalion underwent... (shouldn't have argued with Bacchus!). I shall move his left leg back a little and cut out his back a little to allow him to sit better on the beakhead, but I think it should be doable.
 

 
For those of us who aren't up to creating our own figureheads (at least, for the model we're building today), perhaps this will be of help
 
Happy building
 
Rob
 
 
 

Hi Danny,
 
Wonderful work!  Very innovative with your techniques.  You are a real asset to the card modeling community. 
 
Thanks,
 
Greg

Construction of the Aft Turret Superstructure. For anyone building this model there are a couple of things to look out for.
 
Firstly, the outer wall isn't vertical - it slopes very slightly inward at the top, so care must be taken to fit the framing the right way up. The difference between the length of the tops of the frames and the bottoms is about 1mm or even less and it's easy to fit a frame or two upside-down which will throw the whole side out of whack.
 
Because of the slope the bottom of the side (part #80) isn't a straight cut, even though at first glance it appears to be. I've marked the approximate positions of the changes in direction in the following pic. If the cut is just done straight there will be slight gaps on the bottom of the wall in various places.
 

 

 
I added several extra pieces of scrap 0.5mm card to the framing to ensure that the wall didn't buckle when I glued it in :
 



 
There is a complex curved section which needed pre-forming before gluing :
 


 
The finished structure before touching up. Virtually no filler will be needed :
 



 
  Danny