Beef Wellington

Very good Stergios, just catching up on your work. I really need to get back and finish my Snake...

That's some really nice carving, well done!

I admire your passion for the subject, turning over every stone and sharing with us. I wonder if its possible to reconcile some of the visual elements to other sources to get a sense for how these reconcile and the reliability of the artists eye portraying what was there - for example using sources for masting dimensions for the period (if any?) to get a gut check. I always think of a classic painting by Turner - clearly impressionistic to highlight the majesty of the ships, containing a lot of detail that could arguably be relied upon based on his familiarity with ships of his day. However, the proportions and scale of the figures, ports and small boats are incredibly misleading. Looking at the masts, he has made them too short in proportion to he height of the hull which is greatly exaggerated, this seems to be a trend in all his works. Just food for thought.

Love the last photo with the yellow robe Nils with, he fits right in to the look of the ship.

OC, Thomas, Eamonn, thanks for kind words. @ BE - jury is out on a rudder coat, I've seen the great result you achieved, what I'm wrestling with the aesthetic and the quality of the result I might achieve. In the event I don't, I did simulate the end of the tiller @ Carl - You reiterated my dilemma 1:64 is a scale where it seems sometimes that details are a question of compromise. The downside of using raise pins is that to my eye, they appear more obvious and overscale - and also runs the risk that it would be hard to get these positioned accurately Staying with the indentations, from typical viewing distance it is not obvious to the eye that the indents are in fact indentations rather than raised (think of the classic 'hollow face' optical illusion). The rudder straps were unaltered and show how these parts came. Anyway...I was very excited to finally receive my copy of the Diana plans from NMM. WOW! I've never had a chance to see these types of plans before and I'm very impressed, not only will it hopefully become a nice decorative piece, but its very informative. Even though the plan indicates it's 'Diana' (non-contemporaneous pencil annotation), it appears to me that these should be considered to be more generic to the Artois class as a whole - there contemporary are annotations indicating that the foremast on 'Jason' and 'Diamond' were moved forward 6 1/4" - but, I'm not going to make any changes at this point as its quite subtle. There are so many details that are much clearer than in the AOTS or kit plans, but few items just for starters...(the poor quality of my photos do not do justice to the print and colours didn't come out well.) Given I'm building roughly 'as designed', I will need to reconsider a few things: The position of the mizzen channels, these are placed lower than the kit plans and AOTS which reflect the 'as built' higher position. Looking at the classic Diana models, I now see this is indeed where they are positioned. The structure of the chains is also very different to what is provided in the kit. This view also shows evolutionary changes to the positions of the cannon and carronade ports. To hopefully resolve a discussion/dilemma experience by Diana builders...my opinion estimating from these plans (and assuming plans to be correct scale) is that the kit stern frame are too wide at the top of the rearmost bulkhead by about 5mm. Not too significant, but enough to cause the misalignment with the stern fascia and light positions experienced by all builders it seems. Correction of this and other bulkheads would not be hard when starting out on the kit, but would need to be done prior to planking. The main channels are shown positioned below the sheer rail 'as designed'. Unfortunately I've been working to have these in line with the sheer rail (as built it appears), but am not going to make changes as the difference is quite subtle. The built up bulwarks are also clearly shown, the kit provides for, and reference made in AOTS to Diana having a more decorative style consistent with the open bulkhead profile - the plans show these as the more standard, utilitarian square profile that later became standard. The bow sections shows a number of interesting aspects: Changes to positions of timberheads to accommodate evolving cannon/carronade compliment Inclusion of a forward port (as built) which I suspect would have been for access to the cathead/anchor rather than including a cannon. This would have been a nice feature to add, but would require significant rework earlier in the build (more than I did) to allow this as it aligns with the foremost bulkhead Also seems that there was some variations on the profile of the stem, and position of the cathead

Catching up Pat, great progress. I'm similarly pondering the rudder chains so will be interested to see what you uncover. I wonder how much history there is of rudders becoming unshipped, intuitively it just seems very improbable considering the length of pintles and the fact that the motion would need to be perfectly in line with the hinge line. The photo of the chains with multiple attachments is very interesting, way more than I've seen on most ships. Is it to minimise drag caused by the chain being in the water?

Thanks all for the nice words, likes and continued interest. Know its been a while, seems as if I hit some sort of 'modelers wall'. Before I can really continue with the topsides, I needed to turn my attention to mounting the rudder. This is something I've been putting off for quite a while, and proved to be a very frustrating experience. I had initially delayed doing this to allow the copper to oxidize as much as possible just in case of any errant CA glue and prevent shiny spots. The kit provides PE rudder and pintle straps, but for some reason I couldn't get comfortable with them. On Snake, the staps come with holes and pins were inserted, but this was something that in retrospect look a little too clunky and out of scale. Looking at pictures of period ships, the bolts/nails are quite a subtle feature similar to treenails in visibility. I experimented with card and styrene strip to make these from scratch, but in the end decided to go with the supplied PE parts. I forgot to take a picture, but instead of premade holes, these have rather large circular indentations in them, I'm guessing to simulate the bolts. To my eye they looked to far apart, and the holes too big. I made a slight alteration to increase the number of bolts/nail heads by drilling additional indentations to simulate what was already there. The rudder straps also needed to be shortened quite considerably to eliminate overhang at the rear of the rudder. These were painted with "Admiralty copper" paint after experimenting with other similar Tamiya colours. The main challenge I found was to attach these without marring the copper plates, and this proved to be quite the challenge as at first the CA glue wouldn't provide a good bond and needed to be reapplied. Scratching the hull plates and inside surface of the PE seemed to get things strong enough. The rudder proved quite the challenge to mount as this had been made with a low (for me) level of tolerance following the AOTS plans which is documented earlier in the log. Interestingly, the box artwork shows a spectacle plate, but there is nothing in the kit nor instructions. This was simulated using painted card and eyebolts, but interestingly there is very little room for this, however this seems consistent with AOTS diagrams. The ironwork on the lower counter ports used some PE parts from the "Badger" set which I had bought a number of years ago. These looked a little more in keeping scale wise than what is provide in this kit. I may add ring bolts and rings to these, but will likely not rig with line as I'm concerned this may be a visual distraction - personal preference of course. Next up will be to attach the rudder chains which, nicely, are provided in the kit.

Very nice start on 'Cheerful'. I like your heat bending setup!

Hi Stergios - I got them from Blue Jacket Shipcrafters. I seem to recall they were the 'bullseyes' - but don't recall which ones exactly... http://www.bluejacketinc.com/fittings/fittings4.htm

Looks good Rob...and I like the blue! Glad it wasn't just me that had a bit of a tough time figuring out the stern, but looking very nice. Interested to see how the lights turn out. I agree with you, the width of the stern frames do not tie in with the projections in the AOTS. I have the 1:48 plans on order from NMM so will be interested to see which proves most accurate. You look to be on track making sure everything aligns nicely, trial and error seems to be the only way and recognizing where compromises are needed to keep the 'look and feel' - even when the projections are scaled to account for the curve and the angle, it doesn't account for the curvature of the fascia in 3 dimensions and how the lower curve appears.

Thanks for sharing this so far, looking forward to seeing more like so many others!

I'm glad you corrected the signal deck, the details you added make it looks so much more authentic and visually appealing. Nicely done!

I am really happy to see this, and most importantly, that everyone can work together for the benefit of both companies concerned and the broader ship modeling community.

Lovely work Jesse, seems like I've missed a fair amount of progress. Love the way the hammock nettings turned out.

Thanks Pat, Stergios, Jesse and the 'likes' for your continued interest, it is a great motivator. Rob - glad the pictures are helpful, that's exactly why I think I tend to err on the side of posting too many pictures... Carl - there is a pair, how "matching" the pair is open to debate, but luckily they will never be seen side by side Mike - here's where I describe how I did the lettering, the filigree was done in exactly the same way. Everything is pretty much free hand so I'm not sure I could replicated again if I tried. Just jump in and realize there its just paint so nothing really horrible can go wrong!

Nice clean start Valter, I'll pull up a first row seat and follow as this is a very nice kit.

Will most definitely be making the trip down to Mystic to see this exhibit and 'Terror' in person - can't wait until November!

Looks good Stergios, nice idea on the stirrups.

Yes, it should. I don't think the step should be quite so pronounced, and the right stepped section should thin gradually as well. I think you're clearer than the plans at this point so just ignore them!

Mike - I think its a view from above, and it looks to be correct. The widest part is where the bowsprit sits, and the thinner part is the top of the knee of the stem. The reason for the jump rather than smooth transition is that it accounts for the difference in width between those two points. Hard to describe, but clear in my mind :-) Nice work BTW, good to see some progress.

Happy New Year to all! Not too much to show for a little bit of extra time in the shipyard, but have put a bookend on the work at the stern and quarter galleries for now. Basically, all I've done is glue the quarter gallery sections in place together with the various rails (Upper stool, rim and lower stool rails). This took much longer than expected as I had so many pieces of rework, either because if breakage when shaping, fitting or by trimming a little too much (despite reciting 'don't take off too much' continually under my breath) and needing to restart. It was also challenging as the quarter gallery rails needed to match as well as possible to the upper and lower counter rails. Anyway, don't think the pictures need much additional explanation - other than that some are taken without any touchup, but the extra time afforded by the site outage allowed me to get a little more done. Suffice to say, I'm very pleased with the way the quarter galleries turned out, definitely challenging, but worth the extra time. The PE lights still require some work and these will not be put in place yet, but I wanted to get a sense for the overall look and the lines. Of course final judgement is left to others The kit supplied console brackets proved to be a little oversized, to keep the same feel as the plans I wanted these to fit snuggly between the upper stool and the rim rails. For comparison, you can see the adjusted starboard side bracket to the not yet adjusted port side on the left. Taking a step back to compare to the plans and assessing varied angles I think I've done as much as can be done to bash any provided parts into something a little more consistent. As always, the human eye is a little more forgiving in person. The plan profile is enlarged from the AOTS book. The quarter gallery sculptures now have a definite 'ledge' to visually support them and I'm glad I invested the extra time here.

Beautiful work Nils as always. Best of the season's wishes to you and yours.

Good to see Jim, must be a bit of a weight off your mind. Must ask, what was the structure pre-demolition?

Hi Stergios, nice to see an update! I can't quite tell what you are showing in the picture. Are you using wire for the stirrups, looks like rope in bottom picture (?)

Looking really nice Rob, waterline looks just right. I'm not sure there's much in it size wise between Diana and the Agamemnon so she should feel a sense of accomplishment. The blue colour looks really nice, what colour is it?