Beef Wellington

Looks great, keep the updated coming! Ballahoo looking good as well in the sun.

Ben, I think your coppering looks really good, and you've got a nice curve at the waterline batten as well which really helps enhance in my view. Obviously personal preference on pristine vs patina. I had cleaned the copper plates on my Snake with metal cleaner once finished similar to you, mainly to get rid of any skin oils from fingerprints as these seem to accelerate the oxidation process and become pretty noticeable pretty quickly. I've been surprised at how slowly the surface has oxidized, but that may be a fact of it sitting out of sunlight.

As others have said already, thats a fantastic looking gun and carriage. I can only imaging the amount of work that went into this with the 3D printing and all but the results speak for themselves. Love the overall deck shots, as well 🙂

I edited my reply after you quoted it. Just want to make sure you saw updated option 1 which would still look very good, and be by far the least painful option. I wish you the best!

Hi, yes you have Snake bulwarks! Now that you show it, it should have been obvious from your prior posts (and I feel bad for not noticing!) but so easy to miss for those of us building Snake because it looks 'right'. The larger gun port size is to accommodate the carronade armament rather than cannons, looking at your earlier pictures it seems they unfortunately, but correctly, supplied cannons. What to do? I think your options are limited to the following: Simply install the cannons in the larger port. If you look at my Snake log, you will see that I installed cannons in the first port which seemed to be practice at the time, this gives you a sense for how this would look. strip off wood and redo, I completely understand how painful this would be (if its any consolation I had to do that partly on my 'Jason' build to move upper deck gunports, it can be done with patience, but would totally understand your frustration. This might be messier if you used CA glue (which I think you did) rather than PVA glue which can be softened with isopropyl alcohol. Strip off wood as per above and paint - this would give you more options to fix less 'perfectly' or comprehensively, but....you end up using paint.... Change the armament to carronades. There would plenty of justification for this given this large class of ships would have only had cannons for a short period of time on a few of the very early built ships. A carronade armed, 2 masted Cruizer class would probably be more historically relevant/accurate. However, you would need to source some carronades. It could be worth contacting CC and explain the situation, they may be willing to provide these, their customer service is typically good. They also provide more upgraded turned brass aftermarket kits, however these are very expensive, especially for the whole ship.

Really like the look of your stand there Eamonn, I to like the knots....but "down with that sort o' thing"...

Subtle but noticeable difference...looking good BE. Looks like a fun little project. Good decision on the deck by the way, much more in tune with a working fishing boat.

Hi Rob, yes the strips were just cut straight. I was fearful these would need to be spiled but that did not prove necessary. When damp, the cardstock was very forgiving to place, each was only around 2.5mm wide.

Hi Rob, I'm always amazed at your very thoughtful and methodical approaches to things using the CAD drawings, I really want to learn that. Your cutter framing is looking fantastic. You'll have a really solid foundation there, and the photos always seem to belay the small scale of these things, feel like all fingers and thumbs. All the best!

@mugje - just to be clear, the resin hull shown is an 'aftermarket' mini-kit supplied by caldercraft, its not included in the kit. What I'm attempting to do is leverage the kit supplied items as best I can. Cutter Progress: Part 2 Keel and bow section was cut out of some spare wood and glued in place, and once the basic hull was completed, a decision was needed on how to add a second layer of planking, kit instructions specify to use another layer of 0.5mm walnut. I really wanted to try and replicate the clinker hull planking shown in the AOTS Diana book, and to do this a used some cardstock instead of wood to cut individual strakes. Fist challenge was to determine the width of each plank on the hull. This was done using 'tick strips' at about 10 points along the hull. The lowest (non-clinkered) garboard strake was simply omitted. The end of the cardstock strips were cut down (rather than truly tapered) to allow the planking to terminate smoothly at the front bow and stern which is how I believe the planking is done in practice. Each strip was cut to about 2.5mm thickness, the benefit of cardstock is that when coated with dilute PVA glue it becomes very manageable and can simply be bent to shape rather than the spiling that would have been necessary if wood had been used. Once the hull had been marked out to 'prove' the planking separation, these were not referenced again. Once a strip had been installed, the lowest point of the next strip was placed using the tickstrips. This process was simply repeated, with time allowed for the glue to dry sufficiently for the surface to harden. Dilute PVA was used quite liberally to ensure a good bond between the wood and card as the hope is for this to add additional structural strength. The final 2 strakes were completed with one wider strip as the uppermost strake is non-clinkered and would not be visible. Extra height was added for safety as this can be easily cut back once glue has dried. Once both sides had been completed, each was given a few more coats of dilute PVA for added insurance....why not?! With the exterior planking work completed, attention could be turned to the interior and the potentially catastrophic step of removing the frames. This actually went smoothly, but has to be approached with patience and a light hand. The kit base was removed as well as the actual flooring should be a little lower I feel. The frames were cut back a little more than is perhaps necessary, but this will allow flexibility as to where the floor is, and hopefully prevent them from being seen. Practically, it also allowed the interior planking to be sanded more effectively. The hull in this state clearly needs a light hand, but is surprisingly robust despite my fears. Once an initial sanding had been completed, some light wood filler was used to fill imperfections and deal with some of the slight clinkering of the topmost walnut strips. Once sanded back, dilute PVA was once again brushed on....yes, paranoia perhaps, but can't hurt. Finally I was able to add an initial coat of white point to the hull to get a better idea of how this turned out (In this case Valejo 'off white' as it was all I could get from Amazon in a reasonable timeframe). This highlighted that some finish work will be required in some areas where the eye is drawn to surface imperfections, but one thing I've learned is that the cardstock planks can be effectively sanded, probably due to the application of dilute PVA glue. Definitely some fine tuning still needed and far from perfect, but its hard not to be pleased with the result for a first attempt.

Hi Stergios, I'm assuming you are referring to the fore topmast preventer stay, it goes through the front 'hole' in the bowsprit 'bee'. The plans are really not clear at all on this and seem to have it be attached to other rigging elements. Photo below of how I did this, if memory serves it is called out in Petersson's "Rigging Period Ship Models" on page 18. This also shows a fore topmast preventer stay as well, I wonder if this is something that is not necessary on Snake because of the different sizes of the ship (?).

Thanks chaps for the ongoing interest and support. Continuing to feel my way through this. I really wanted to make the kit materials work, but had to go off on my own which was educational, and more fun than I expected. I managed to get only 3 strakes of the walnut strip, with tapering, on before it became apparent that no more could be done - even with these some clinkering was unavoidable even with the thin strip. The thin 0.5mm walnut strips (all of varying thickness and closer to 0.65mm thick) don't edge bend at all to be able to use that technique and luckily some ~1mm thick wood sheet was found from which spiled planks could be cut (not sure what it is, CMB had supplied this when I ordered maple, but it clearly isn't and my guess is its limewood sheet, its pretty soft). You can see the curvature required below. The keel former was cut back to provide a slight rebate for the planking at bow and stern, fiddly and a bit messy but seemed to work. Glad the more structural work is behind me. The garboard was installed before the planking was closed up, don't think the shape is fully correct for actual planking practice as this was not tapered at all, but it allowed the last 2 strakes to fit easily enough. The other benefit was that the final strake had a straight side which made shaping that much easier. Glue was only used very sparingly on a few strakes and frames where necessary to keep the lines true. After each strake was positioned, the surface was sanded lightly and diluted PVA glue brushed on to the whole to hopefully add some additional strength. Finally, here's a comparison of the hull form to the resin Cutter mini-kit supplied by CC, I bought this way back with the kit. This looks much more like a launch rather than the sleeker Cutter's lines and overall proportions very different. To my eye the stern fascia is probably a little big proportionally but need to consider that the keel strip is not yet installed which will change the proportion, but will probably reduce this a little by thinning down the planking thickness there. Rather than put on a second layer of planks, I'm considering using card stock as a second 'planking' layer to represent clinker planking. It needs something because when the interior is sanded down the hull could be wafer thin...to quote Mr Creosote. Any thoughts or experiences with this? Next steps will be to cut and install custom bow and keel pieces, and remove the bizarre sternpost aft of the stern bulkhead that doesn't seem prototypical.

Nice to see the update Stergios. Don't think there is any problem not adding the additional stays in place, just be careful to ensure you put them on before any of the running rigging for the yards goes on that would go over the standing rigging.

Hope everything arrives safely! Where is your new home Martin, I'm in Simsbury...not too far, but there again, nothing is in CT 🙂

I think the problem with any single piece deck no matter how perfectly it is laid out or marked is that the large natural wood grain crosses over the planking boundaries unavoidable advertising that its a single piece. Personal preference of course, but I find it very hard to unsee once its been noticed. Laying individual planks, even if less perfectly, seems (again to my eye) a better way to go as the grain and slight imperfections seem to blend and disappear. Interested to see which way you go.

Just in awe of your work Thomas, and thankyou for showing the details. These would be amazing at twice the size, what you've achieved at 1:64 is just incredible. Definite eye-candy, pleasure to watch your continued progress.

Thanks gents for the continued support and kind words. @ Eamonn - Honestly feel like I bit off more than I can chew here, but the end does seem within reach now which is a good feeling @ Carl - its a mind game! The rope tends to stretch a little after installation, so its a constant matter of installing, but not securing, and tying off in an order that doesn't cause a problem by taking away access....feels like playing Jenga. Before I continue with much more rigging I need to get going on a ships boat that I'd like to install. None are provided in the Snake kit, so I'm high-jacking one of the ship's boats provided in the Diana kit. I'm therefore keeping the building of these boats in that log (link below) to avoid confusion as it comes from that kit, even though hopefully a finished product will eventually appear here....

Sorry for the delay to recognize the kind comments and likes! 24 Foot Cutter: Work has started on the 24' Cutter. I'm recording my progress in this log as it seems more logical coming from this kit, however, I hope to mount this boat on my other build, Snake. I leaning toward not mounting any ships boats on Jason, at least directly, so this seems a good opportunity to stick my toe in the water on these smaller boats without risk of serious catastrophe if things don't turn out as planned...I'm determined to make the best show of these as I can building from the kit, so we'll see. Many other build logs seem to show the finished article so I wanted to try and record progress as I stumble in the dark. The frame parts fit together pretty easily, however what is not clear is how these would ultimately go together to end up as a cutter. The instructions essentially say 'plank this as you did the main hull' which isn't too much help. The first decision was to figure out where the frames should be set in the keel former. Looking at the profile and the lines, it seemed the best option was to sit the frames approx. 1mm above the keel bottom. This will mean that planking will be pretty much flush with the keel former so an external keel will need to be added. Straight away the stern fascia looked far too small so a replacement was made from the same 1.5mm ply. The formers at the bow we reduced and beveled as best could be estimated envisioning the final hull shape and how the plank will sit, and some limewood shaped at the stern. The instructions do indicate the floor should be glued in position, however I want to leave the option open to remove this as it seems to sit a little high (should be at same hight as the keelson), and put the floor planking (footwalling) in as low as possible once the hull is completed. Profiling the frames also indicated another challenge, the 1.5mm play is rather soft and pliable, and very thin in places. To try and reduce the strain, some limewood reinforcement was glued to the most delicate frames. Even with this, this requires a light hand. Planking could then commence using 0.5mm walnut provided. The usual frustration here, the kit supplied walnut is poor....no more need be said. The main challenge at this stage is that the planking can't be glued heavily to the frames as these will need to be removed later on, and the keel former is rather bendy. Small amounts of PVA glue were used to keep planks in position on a few frames only. CA glue was used to attach the walnut strip at the bow. A second strake has been added so far using the same approach, only some PVA glue was applied to the strip edges to try and bond these. Once set, dilute PVA glue was brushed onto the installed planks to try and give it a little more strength at this stage. We'll see where this goes...

So the next obvious question is how does the figurehead get into the roundhouse?

Well Eamonn, the difference is far from subtle, the small things can make the biggest difference. If I had a chest of drawers, this would be in the top one!

Planking is definitely something that you can only learn by doing, and you're doing just fine, keep going. Everything can be solved. Regarding planks, there is some variety here but I was guided to go with planks around 150mm long, but these would have varied somewhat for the following reason that was not obvious to me at the time I planked mine. The planks should terminate on a beam in practice and the position and spacing of these vary from ship to ship. Most obviously, beams would go between the hatchways, not mid way through them. Not a big deal at all, but just as easy to follow practice.

Ok, could be wrong here so please don't send me to detention...I think war is from the root 'bellum', whereas beauty is from the root 'bellus', so of course in natural latin fashion these conjugate similarly depending on the sex and context.

Rob you're really motoring, love those deck shots highlighting your very fine work. Didn't know Vanguard offered those minikits - I'm now very intrigued. I see that you've also started the ships boats, if you'd be willing I'd love to see how you're approaching those as these seem to be quite the challenge (although Ray managed very nicely in his build). I hope Chris starts to make some 1:64 boats available as minikits as they would certainly be ahead of the dated kit provided items. I've started building the 24' cutter but to hopefully place on my Snake build, and look to be at a very similar place to you, hopefully I can post some pictures later.

You look to be off to a really nice clean start Stone, good choice of first build. As you and others have found, the instructions are somewhat dated, so definitely don't feel constrained by them. The gunport pattern is a common cause of concern, but is surprisingly strong. Definitely put some PVA glue on the lower edge to get a good join with the top plank of the first planking as a safety measure. Look forward to following along, and feel free to ask questions. I'm intrigued to see how a 32lb'er fits, I know I played with an 18lb'er from Jason next to 9lb'er chase guns I used and it looked HUGE!

Mark, unfortunately can't help with the shape of the spear question, but its probably fair to say that the 'roman spear' is probably not it, a 'pilum' was designed to be thrown only once into an enemy shield and designed to deliberately break/bend and then be very difficult to remove so the cumbersome shaft made the enemy shield much less effective or impossible to use.