Beef Wellington

Nice job on the carvings Michael. The colour of the cherry looks vey nice indeed.

Love the detail that you have on the inner bulwark Paul.

Great progress Rob, must be a great feeling to have reached this point.

Ian, from my experience, getting sufficient tension in rope at this scale is pretty tough as it will put a lot (likely too much) strain on the mounting points - at small scales the relative force of the thread is much more than at full scale . I suggest the following, before attaching the crowsfeet, soak them in dilute PVA while under tension, that way when dry they will retain their taught profile without actually requiring much in the way of tension from the fore stay preventer. You should then be able re-attach avoiding the bow that you see . You could also use the dilute PVA on the standing rigging to introduce a more lifelike 'sag' but that's down to personal taste.

Looking really nice Bob, can't believe I missed this build get started.

I really have no excuse for buying, let alone starting this kit as I have plenty going on I my current builds. However, everytime I wandered over to the Syren Ship Model website to buy sundery items, this kit stared back longingly at me, and sadly up to now was 'out of stock'. Fortuitously on the last visit, there was one in stock and I just couldn't resist, after all, it couldn't hurt could it? Well, the package has arrived and despite my best efforts to leave the box closed (about 5 minutes), the genie is out of the bottle. This will most definitely be a side project, and it will finally be nice to be able to follow some very good instructions and build a very nice looking model out of the box. Hopefully this will be a nice diversion to 'Jason' which seems to be anything but. I hope that I'm up to this challenge, I can certainly appreciate the reasons why this is classified as a more advanced kit. Progress will be slow. I'm not planning on this being the most extensive build log, but will likely post progress pictures and ask questions as I go...

No comment needed! 👍 You must be happy you restarted.

My thoughts are with you Mark.

Great result, night and day difference Kevin. I really need to develop my skill soldering as well...

Looks great!

Hi Mark, I'm not very adventurous with colors, so have stuck to the Admiralty paints red and yellow ochre. I like the look of them, but of course colour preference is a very personal thing. I used the technique Druxey outlined, sealing the outside planking, painting carefully and then simply scraping off any excess - worked pretty well.

That's a really nice result Mark, looks great from here!

Quick update. Increasingly realizing I'm reaching a point that I need to attach the upper false foc's'l and quarter deck template before more progress can be made, but a couple of items I need to finalize and figure out first. Main and mizzen backstay stools: Unfortunately when I made the channels I neglected to make the stools at the same time, In a moment of focus decided to just get these done. These smaller items were definitely trickier than the channels when scraping the edge profile, other than that, these can be put aside for when I'm ready to install the quarterdeck drift rail. Upper deck coamings: As mentioned previously, I'd like to keep the option to have a few of the gratings be removeable. First off, appropriately sized gratings were made up, and the coamings then sized accordingly. I cheated here and used a simple butt joint as I didn't think the more authentic lap joint would really be visible. These were made of 3x3mm strip and 2x3mm strip with the inside ledge added after with some slightly thinned 1mm strip. The grating thickness had to be thinned quite a bit to make it them sit flush. These will also be simulating actual practice and so the edges were rounded off to 1mm above the bottom to butt up against planking. TFFM was used as a guide here. Once the coamings were finished, the fake beams and cross pieces could be made up to the appropriate size. The ends were sloped to ensure that the end of the face beam would not be visible for viewing angles. Adjustments were made to the false deck to accommodate the larger openings and positions tweaked a little. For the foc's'l, the coaming size does not match the deck cut-out or AOTS exactly due to the limited incremental options for the grating size. The stove flue needs to sit equidistant between the steam grate and the forward grating which moved forward slightly. The steam grating needs to be positioned appropriately to allow the belfy to sit on the aft end of the steam grate coaming. The top tackle scuttles have been filled in to ease future planking - the instructions indicate that there should be coamings and gratings here, however, these will be modeled as flush scuppers without a coaming as described in AOTS and shown on contemporary models. Although the surface of the center deck is very slightly curved, it is a close enough approximation to a flat surface that the flat top of the fake frame seem to sit without issue. Lighting is clearly an issue here, and the interior is a little more visible than the photo's suggest, and probably more so in a well lit room. Of note is the fact that the stove, and especially the condenser, sits a little higher than ideally would be the case, although looking at the AOTS diagrams its still a tight fit there as well. In retrospect, I would probably not have put wooden battens underneath the bottom plate to lower this by 1mm or so, but not going to risk damage at this point to redo. Putting some scrap planking in place give a better sense for the final proportion and the above deck rounded edge. Think these will be a nice contrast to the much higher coamings of the exposed upper deck below needed to withstand water ingress.

That jig is amazing, never knew they have jigs for planes. Clearly a jig to make jigs is what is needed..

Hi Candice, You did better than most as a first try on the first planking, your solution to the sunken plank at the bow is a good one, the soft lime wood is pretty easy to sand to shape, and I suspect that some sanding to shape at the bow will smooth everything up. Your efforts on the first planking will definitely pay off in a much easier and enjoyable second planking. Something to check as it is difficult to tell from the pictures - did you thin down the false keel at the stern (called 'bearding')? The 2 kits I have experience with (both Caldercraft) require the false keel at the stern to be thinned, so that by the time the first and second planking is applied the surface should be nearly flush with the walnut sternpost that still need to be applied. Otherwise the you'll end up with a significant step when it should really be a smooth. A suggestion for the future. You way want to consider cutting a rabett into the bow and keel (it is described in the 'pinned' planking tutorial in the planking section), basically its a small groove that the edges and ends of the planks fit into and definitely helps getting a nice curve. I didn't do this on my first build (Snake), and although it worked out OK, I'd definitely recommend trying it next time. Jason