Beef Wellington

The Ekeing and Cathead supporter: The Ekeing is a detail as presented in the kit that consists of a simplified approach consisting of cat head supporter and ubiquitous white metal moldings. I was determined to make this as prototypical as I could as shown on the plans. Studying numerous contemporary models, this is a detail that seems to vary quite a lot, and I'm unsure whether this varied significantly from ship to ship, or whether the model builders took their own simplified approaches. The following photos of Minerva helped a lot in visualizing this complex shape consistent with the original plans (photos are my own taken at the Rogers Collection). This was a very humbling experience and definitely one of the more challenging pieces to make, requiring many hours of fiddling and sanding. In short (!) , the Eking and cathead supporter needs to meet the following criteria: Narrow from 3mm to approx 2mm at the middle rail to butt into it cleanly Follow the curve of the hull Extend the graceful curve of the middle rail up to the cathead when viewed from the side Be positioned such that the cathead sits snuggly against the top of the main rail, and is perpendicular to the hull Follow a smooth curve outboard from the cathead to the lower rail, the ekeing curving forward almost immediately below the cathead Pass just upward of the outboard hawse hole, but cross the inner....(differing from Minerva above) I had a couple of abortive attempts which while failures, were very helpful in helping me understand the approach described in TFFM Vol 2. The best piece of advice here is focus on one curved face at a time. A cardboard template was made to approximate the profile (this was initially estimated using the spare metal molding strips which work well for this). (Note: In the photos below, the various rails have been cut out to allow placement of the final rail. (When the template was made this had not been done which made this a little more challenging and subject to approximation) The profile of the hull at the bow was taken using a profile gauge and transferred to block of balsa. The ekeing template was transferred to some 5mm pear sheet and cut out leaving quite a bit of excess. The hull profile was then introduced onto the inward face. The shaped balsa block helped a lot in this exercise to allow frequent validation. Once the inner profile had been finalised, the card template could be used to fine tune the shape. This has to be transferred onto the curved surface that will sit against the hull, and it important to remember that the profile on the outboard face will be different because the shape will follow perpendicular to the interior face (i.e. the hull). Some excess was still left here to allow additional fine tuning. The top of the profile was then thickened using some more 5mm pear, and the cathead supporters roughly shaped and glued into place. The cathead supporters were attached perpendicular to interior face, not the exterior face. This rough structure can then be further fine tuned, again using the template on the inner surface and ensuring that the top and bottom face are perpendicular to this along its length. Following the advice in TFFM, The sternmost face was worked first, and once finalized, the inside curve was worked using the outside as a guide. Once these had been completed, the outboard curve following the underside of the cathead supporter was introduced. The lower version shown below still required a lot of fine tuning on the model. Once happy with the shape, the position on the model could be determined, and the decorative rails cut to allow the ekeing to sit flush against the hull. This was definitely a little nerve wracking and will require a little touch up when all is said and done. (The outer surface profiling was not introduced until after this work had all been done and position finalised - these still require some finishing as these photos embarrassingly highlight...) The end of the ekeing also needed to have the shape of the hawse hole introduced onto its lower edge to open that up.To allow the position to be determined, the catheads also needed to be madeup. The "cathead" decorations on the end was made from polymeric clay and followed the very nice original example originally on Trincomalee and other contemporary models - they look a little more acceptable at a distance! Not much else to comment on other than the dimensions and decoration were estimated from the original plans and inspired by contemporary models. These will get further attention in due course. The upper rail is still just pinned in place and will require the top to be shaped prior to final installation. Overall, I'm very pleased with how this came together, the various lines seem to flow quite nicely when viewed from the side which was a goal entering into this. The plansheer, ekeing, catheads and upper rail are all still dry-fit at this stage....but think I can move forward with more confidence.

Looking very nice Alistair, Colour scheme is a nice change.

Fascinating project, very interested in seeing this come together.

The following illustration comes from Old Ship Figure-heads and Sterns by L. G. Carr Laughton (1925). Think this summarizes the trends in ship colours nicely, and is not identified as nation specific. Unfortunately, no specific dates are provided, but that seems reasonable as changes would likely not be introduced instantaneously, and there were very likely exceptions. The one takeaway is that red/yellow ochre went through various interations, white was gradually introduced as a decorative element (pin striping on the edge of bands) and finally became prevalent along with green, likely becuase of paint technology/cost evolution.

some masterful work there David, know how long that must have taken! You've achieved a very authentic look, nicely done!

Nice plan! Do you know if Indy retained the upper wale from when she was a 64 when she was razeed?

Its a real shame that display is only temporary, everything just fits together so well, just amazing the life you've built in.

Looking very nice Mark, good to see you back at her.

Looking great Kevin, nice paint job. When I first saw the pictures it looked like the upper hull was blue, but its clear that's just lighting!

Good question Allan. James is probably spot on that for many kit makers it would be an unnecessary complication and would not be a big deal for most modelers, so it is understandably omitted. What is a little more surprising is that some of the more complex (i.e. expensive) POF kits (e.g. CAF Grenado, Bellona) do not seem to account for this in what would otherwise seem to be very comprehensive and well laid out kits. Its a small detail, but one that makes for a more pleasing model.

Very nice Henke, your Agamemnon has a very authentic look to it.

Thats exactly how I made the scrolls Dave, I tried to include the detail of how these were made in my log. It was something that scared me off for a bit, but of course once you get going, it tends to come together after thinking things through. I have not tried scraping profiles in the supplied walnut, but I suspect the grain may be too big. Pear or boxwood is very close grained and ideal for this type of finish.

Thats the 'wrong' Foudroyant...it's actually the frigate Trincomalee, which was temporarily named Foudroyant before reverting back to her original name...and of course is now restored and berthed in Hartlepool as a museum ship.

Think photos of the actual items may be clearest. These are of Trincomalee and show them running the full length of the deck. Given that the strakes directly under the beam would not really be seen, there is opportunity for simplification on the model.

I think you have to be careful here...this seems to be a common mis-perception, especially in the US. It suggests that somehow ships just kept getting built until suddenly...surprise...there were no more trees left. While clearly the construction of ships would reduce the supply of specific timbers that require substantial time to replace, and required significant forest management, the impact of other factors were far more impactful in general (urbanization, increasing arable land etc which had been a factor for centuries before the 'golden age' of sail, and continue to be issues today. Who chopped down Britain’s ancient forests? | Aeon Essays

Hi Dave, I think you have some latitude, and I don't think anyone can definitively say how it was. Included below are some pictures I took at the Annapolis museum, so sorry for the poor picture quality. You can see that the frigate does not have any port lids at all (not sure which model this is), and the two decker shows ports only in the more extreme end of the hull, i.e. open around about the open deck. Despite Chris beating himself up unecessarily, I don't think the kit representation is really that out of whack with historical likelihood. My suspicion is the port lids are added primarly where there would have been a permanent or semi-permanent cabin for obvious reasons.

Looking really nice, well done!

Hi Stergios, hopefully I can answer your question. The problem is that at real world scale, the lines that are secured to the braces would not pull the stays out of their natural position because they are so much more massive. Without dealing with this at this scale, the braces would pull the stays out of their natural line which is what I wanted to avoid. The approach used weighted the stays down enough to keep them in their natural position while the braces were given a little tension, then dilute PVA was brushed onto the braces so that when dry, they retain a 'taught' profile, even though there is no longer any real tension. Seem to recall I just used plastic clips or simply tied other thread around the stay to counteract the force of the braces. In the situations where the brace goes through 2 blocks on the stay, these were handled sequentially, waiting for the PVA to fully dry before moving on. Good news, if it doesn't quite work out as you'd like, you can re-wet the line and repeat the process until you're happy.

I 'started' at the rearmost bulkhead and which positioned that gun port. The rear of that gunport was flush against the full bulkhead with no adjustment. From there the other positions were determined, 30mm apart which resulted in only the first two bulkheads requiring 'treatment'. Based on differences on each it and construction, I'm sure this could vary a little which is no big deal. There is one pair of ports where the steps are located that are further apart as indicated on plans, I made a really silly error by mispositioning this which had to be corrected. I didn't find a satisfactory solution that avoided having to deal with bulkheads 3&4 keeping a consistent port separation. Good luck! Interestingly, I found at a later date on NMM plans that there was in fact another port added further forward, this could only be a bridle port with no cannon as it would be located in the manger area. It would be very difficult to show this port opened, but had I known I may have attempted to show this in a closed position.

Hi Dave, please feel free to delete this as I really don't want to clutter up your log, but this may help your thought process. The first decision is the determine the gunport positioning, with an even spacing - I remember fiddling about out with this a lot, rather than relying on the plan position (i.e. figuring out the position based on the equal distance from other ports). This is all rough work, so plenty of time to neaten it up and strengthen where necessary. And yes, the supplied cannons are atrocious, seemingly having footballs for cascabels aside from all the dimension issues!

Hmm...think there are some other considerations here to consider. Even when shot garlands were used, it doesn't seem practicable have been used as a permanent place to store cannon balls on an exposed deck due to rusting. Even shot stored in lockers below would rust and require that to be removed before use. There would have to be a reasonable ready storage area around all guns to allow even the shortest of engagements, whether in garlands or racks. Considering a typical well trained RN crew could fire 2-3 times in a 5 minutes, each gun would likely require at least 9-10 readily available balls to last first 15mins of an engagement. Its amazing to think of the logistics bringing shot up in a lengthy engagement - you don't exactly put 10 of these things in a plastic bag and carry it up a few deck levels. That would be worthy of logistical analysis all by itself! I'm skeptical that the practical driver of the change was due to weight alone. Lets use a 32lb shot as an example, a rough back of the envelope calculation ...a single 32lb cannon weighed 56 cwt (hundered weight)....or there abouts. This as approximately 6272 lbs (Long imperial cwt of 112lbs) so assuming a 32lb ball weighs...er 32lbs....then it each cannon would be the equivalent weight of 196 balls (!). Considering motion of guns being run in and out, and ships motion, the weight of 10 (for example) balls at hand would be negligible (5% of the cannon weight) and would not impact to any significant degree the centre of gravity to a point that ship stability would be impacted.

Good to see you back at it Alistair. You've got some nice details going on.

Interesting subject and approach (to finish the hull before glueing the upper bulwark pieces on). Nice to see some new ship types!

For what its worth Kevin (and please feel free to delete!) I experimented a little with wipe on poly and tung oil when I was trying to decide. I found the sample sheet from what must now be close to 7yrs ago, although this has not been in sunlight (though this photo was taken in natural light) The wipe on poly gives a little more of a rich finish to my eye. I seem to recall putting a second coat of both on the outside edge and this is faintly visible as well, both being a little 'richer' again. Of course, your results may vary....

A really beautiful model, will definitely follow your progress Giampeiro.