garym

The Unicorn that sits on the stern rail at the starboard side was the next carving in the round to be done.
 
The next photo shows the beginning of the carving against the section of the stern from the Lely portrait.
 

 
I used several aids as guides to how the unicorn would look besides the Lely portrait. Here is an image obained from Google pictures.
 

 
The Unicorn underway..........
 

 
A little more refined........
 

 
The finished Unicorn mounted on the stern of my model.  The horn was made by inserting a piece of boxwood in my rotary tool and using a diamond file to create the shape. It was then cut off and mounted on the carving.
 

 
More to follow................................
 
Bill

It might be interesting to see the comparisons of the Mantua - Sergal stern, The Sir Peter Lely stern in his painting and my stern The following pictures show the differences.
 
                             
 
                                             The Mantua stern
 

 
The Sir Peter Lely Portrait, and my stern side by side.
 
It appears that Mantua copied the stern from the model in Greenwich at the National Maritime Museum.
 
More to follow.........
 
Bill
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After planking the bulkhead between the upper and lower gun decks, I needed to fashion a curved rail with a profile cut into the leading edge of the rail. As the rail has three distinctive and rather tight curves along its length, I decided to make it from a solid piece of Mansonia and cut out the curves. with the jigsaw and other tools.
 
The first photo shows the piece with the curves on the front side of the rail cut out.  It is mounted in my keel clamp with the profile scraped into the leading edge with a straight edge razor blade.
 

 
As the rail does not follow a straight line from port to starboard, I cut it in three sections as shown.
 

 
I used a rotary tool with a drum sander attachment to remove the wood from the rear side of the curves.
 

 
All theee pieces are now complete and ready for mounting on the model.
 

 
The railing mounted on the top of the bulkhead.
 

 
More to follow.........
 
Bill

Some further progress on the Coat of Arms, detailing the lion and a start on the crown at the top.
 

 
More to follow.............
 
Bill

Some further progress on the Coat of Arms.
 

 
More to follow.........
 
Bill

The next carving I approached was the Coat of Arms for the area below the gallery windows on the starboard side. It is much the same as the one shown below that I carved for the port side.
 

 
The Coat of Arms drawn on the blank of boxwood.
 

 
The blank in position on the starboard gallery.......
 

 
The carving roughed out.......
 

 
The ball end burs I will use to carve the crest.......
 

 
 
Additional unnecessary material removed.....
 

 
Starting to detail the lion on the right......
 

 
More to follow.....................
 
Bill
 
 
 
 
 

The next project was to start filling in some areas on the starboard gallery. There are small carvings with a face and swirls beside their heads above the gallery windows as shown on this section of the Pett Painting.
 

 
The start of the carvings in a strip of boxwood.
 

 
Some of the carvings separated from the strip.......
 

 
With a Canadian dime to show scale......
 

 
Three of the four carvings mounted on the gallery.
 

 
More to follow...............
 
Bill

Got a little more refining done on the lion, unicorn and the crown at the top.
 

The port and starboard fore deck rails are mounted and the next step is to fit and mount the front rail seen sitting loosely on the deck surface.
 

 
More to follow..............

This photo shows the assembly of the stanchions to the front part of the fore deck rail.
 

 
More to follow.............

The following photos look at preparation of the fore deck and the bulkhead against that deck for the placement of rails.  At the top of the bulkhead a capping trim was formed and glued in place.
 

 

 
The next few photos show of the progress of rails that will surround the fore deck. Also shown is the Temco Template former used to copy the profile of the shape of the front of the fore deck.
 
 
 
More to follow..................

The beginnings of the carving for the right side of the coat of arms. Still looking quite rough.
 

The four spaces adjacent to the coat of arms should be two wide spaces so I removed the dividers in the middle of each space. I then carve another mythical creature with a rider on his back to fill the left hand space.
 

 
Regards,
Bill

The Coat of arms is now complete and the additional small faces on each side have been added.
 

 
Regards,
Bill

The bulk head supports are now modified to include the height of the side decorative panel and are now gently curving towards the beak where joined.
 

 
The forward edges of the supports are now being beveled to reflect the line of future planking and structural woodwork that will support the sculptures.
 

 
Side view.
 

 
More to follow................

The work now begins on fabricating the beak-head supports. I am using contemporary paintings and sketches as well as some beautiful models of the Sovereign that I have seen in my travels as guides to how I will represent the beak-head. One such model is located at the US Naval Academy in Preble Hall, Annapolis MD. Built in 1921 by Henry B Culver. Another was built by Ed Marples and is located in the Ventura County Maritime Museum in Oxnard CA. I have viewed both of these fine models and have many photos to refer to. The following picture shows the blanks cut out in Costello Boxwood. Now begins the process of forming the shapes that best support the sculptures they will be fitted with.
 

 
This photo shows the blanks test mounted on the beak.
 

 
More to follow.............

The following photo shows the assembly of the fore deck rails. They now have to be final fitted in place so that the joins are smooth and flowing from front to side rails.
 

 
More to follow.......

Hey Dave,
 
You have found me out on this issue. When I adjusted the base construction of SOS to accommodate the many changes I wanted to make, I overlooked the poop deck height and it is the same as yours. What I did to compensate was to make an illusion that the deck was higher by finishing the fore side of the bulkhead with windows that are higher than the height of the deck.
 

 
If viewed from the aft side, this rail is plain with no windows as if they are below the deck level.
 

 
It was the only way I could think of to correct my error.
 
Regards,
Bill

Hi Dave,
 
To explain it better I have included partial pics of the three main references I am using to build my model. First the Payne Engraving. It shows the deck bulkheads from fore to aft and I think the poop deck bulkhead is rather straight with just a gentle curve. The rest of the bulkheads have the three rounded portions in each.
 

 
Next is the Van de Velde sketch showing a rather similar view. This also shows the poop deck with a gentle curve and the rest with three curved sections.
 

 
The last is the starboard side depiction credited to Peter Pett and it shows the configuration as presented to King Charles I. The decks all appear to be slightly curved with none of the triple dimple affects.
 

 
Finally, here is a shot of my model from a similar angle showing the decks in question.
 

 
My model is a conglomeration of all these paintings and in the case of the bulkheads, I have followed The Payne and Van de Velde depictions. My assumption is the the Pett painting was presented to Charles and he ordered changes which resulted in the depictions of Payne and Van de Velde which were done when the ship was near completion or completed.
 
As I have previously noted in this thread, there are no plans for this ship and all we have to go on is the paintings sketches and engravings of the time for reference. This means that we are depending on the eye of the artist and what he saw when he created the depiction.
 
I hope that explains it.
 
Regards,
Bill
 
 

I had been meaning to cap the railing to the poop deck a long time ago and finally made the capping rail piece from boxwood and assembled it. it is about 1 mm wide and 0.5 mm thick. It was shaped using my soldering iron fitted with a brass tip I made specially for bending wood strips. The cap adds a nice finishing touch and blends nice with the stairway railings.
 

 
More to follow............

After some due consideration of my attempt to replicate the beak I came to the conclusion that it would not satisfy my vision of drainage grates and would not accurately reflect building methods of the day so I removed the decking and have started milling and building a new version of this area. The following picture shows the beginning of the fabrication.
 

 
More to follow...........

The following series of photos shows my method of representing treenails at this scale without drilling holes and making very thin wooden treenails. First I create the holes with a drafting divider.
 

 
Then I rotate a 5H pencil lead in the holes to create the illusion of wooden treenails.
 

 
Finally after sanding to remove any surface pencil marks,
you can see the result.
 

 
More to follow................

In this picture I am simulating plank endings using a modified straight razor blade to press cut the lines at the end of the planks.
 

 
This shot shows the completed simulated plank ends after removal of the reference lines.
 

 
Next step is to simulate treenails.
 
More to follow...............

The following picture shows scraping the Holly deck planks with a furniture scraper to remove inconsistencies in the plank thicknesses and any excess glue. The next step will be to treenail the deck.
 

 
More to follow.........

The beak deck is now rough planked with Holly planks ready for scraping and final finishing.
 

 
More to follow.............