Beef Wellington

I'm back working on the Snake after a few months off from it, feels good to be back with fresh eye's.  I hope to finish this ship by summer so I have room for Chris Watton's HMS Sphinx, but that's just wishful thinking... 
 
I've added the shelves for the fore and aft platforms and am shaping them for installation. Of course there are a few things to be done before gluing them in. 


I've found some good colors for the rigging. This tan and brown thread I bought will work perfectly. I'm working on some cable-laid lines for the anchor and for the larger stays. They tend to take a while as you need to make 3-4 separate ropes first. 

Steering gear
 
Though steering wheel is itself fitting of quarterdeck, I made it at this moment because I want to confirm tension of tiller rope down from quarterdeck to upper deck and point of upper deck sliding foots.
 
Sliding foots are clearly can be seen on Victory today.
https://www.alamy.com/stock-photo-ships-wheel-on-hms-victory-at-the-portsmouth-historic-dockyard-28568636.html
 

 
https://andyandjudi.com/2017/07/10/hms-victory-portsmouth-historic-naval-dockyard/
 

 
AOTS Victory shows sliding foots are also fitted onto upper deck. Except heels of ladders down from fo’c’sle deck, quarterdeck and gangways, they will be last parts to be fitted onto upper deck in my building.
 
Base of sliding foot is 0.7 x 3 x 8.5 mm walnut and I rounded each edge. Sliding cover and rails of both sides are shaped as one part from 2 mm square walnut dowel and their lengths are 12 mm. These figures are referred to Goodwin’s “The Construction and Fitting”.
 
Those of upper deck are simplified shape, but for those of quarterdeck I add some details including rabbets of sliding cover to be hold into side rails、grooves between sliding cover and rails.
 

 

 
Wheels and their supports are upgraded. Decoration of forward support is made of 0.3 mm brass rod and Liquitex super heavy gel medium. Though it is apparently bigger than real one, I accept it considering my skill😅😅😅.
 

 

 
After constructions of these parts are finished, I dry fitted them into their places. I split quarterdeck baseboard into two parts at slightly starboard position of hatch opening. Tiller rope is spread with tweezers and passed through sliding foot on upper deck from starboard.
 

 

 

 
Depth of upper deck beam immediately aft of opening is thick because of rigidity, but I thinned it to show tiller rope more clearly.
 

 
After finishing dry fitting including rest of quarterdeck baseboard, poop deck baseboard and grating just before of ladderway opening,-I shed light there. Happily tiller rope and sliding foot are can be seen through opening. They may be able to seen well after fitting of ladder of this area.
 

 

 
Next, I want to start construction of fo’c’sle deck, quarterdeck and gangways.

Skid beams
 
Boat stowage method of wooden warships is one of major items which significantly changed through 18th century.
 
Model of 50 gun ship around 1714 shows boat stowed on spare spars hang on between fo'c'sle break and main bits.
https://collections.rmg.co.uk/collections/objects/66357.html
 

 
Model of Victory in her original form around 1765 shows gangways are connecting between fo'c'sle and quarterdeck at slightly lower level than fo'c'sle and quarterdeck. Boat is stowed on skid beams on iron crutches projecting from inboard edge of gangways.
https://collections.rmg.co.uk/collections/objects/66473.html
 

 
Although skid beams and boat are omitted, model of Queen Charlotte of 1789 shows almost same boat stowage method with Victory model, except gangways are raised to same height with fo'c'sle and quarterdeck.
https://collections.rmg.co.uk/collections/objects/66516.html
 

 
Sectional model of 74 gun ship around 1795 shows significant change. Skid beams became permanent structural members of the ship and are placed below the gangways. Gangways themselves seem to be broader than ever.
https://www.scienceandsociety.co.uk/results.asp?search=1&screenwidth=1280&pixperpage=50&searchtxtkeys=midship+sectional+model&lastsearchtxtkeys=Midship+Model&withinresults=&searchphotographer=&wwwflag=&lstformats=&lstorients=All+Orientations&captions=
 

 

 
Victory today in Portsmouth also has skid beams below the gangways, but details of them show not a few differences from 74 gun ship sectional models.
https://www.alamy.com/hms-victory-gun-deck-portsmouth-image212002530.html
 

 
While skid beams of sectional model have hanging knees, those of Victory today have no hanging knees. Instead many Victory reference books are showing skid beams are notched to slots of inner planks. Skid beam of former seem to be directly above of beams of upperdeck judging from skid beam pillars situating near the corner of coamings. OTOH many Victory reference books are showing there are no connection between upper deck beams and skid beams. Finally, pillars of sectional models are fitted to immediately outboard of coamings and those of Victory are fitted on coaming themselves.
 
I can't judge which method is most appropriate for Bellerophon. Considering her building time, her boat stowage method would be same as Queen Charlotte model. But there is also strong possibility that skid beams were altered to permanent structure during her long career. After some (or much?) thought, I finally decided to follow the method of 74 gun ship sectional model.
 
Skid beams themselves are laser cut parts of kit. Pillars are shaped from 2 mm walnut dowel. Total numbers of 12 pillars are required, 2 for each 5 skid beam, 2 for aftermost fo’c’sle deck beam. So I made simple jig from plastic.
 

 

 
I firstly tried making pillar from 3 mm dowel, but it seems to be slightly fat. Pillars shaped from 2 mm dowel seem to be slimmer than those of 74 gun ship sectional model. But those of Victory today also seem to be slim, so I decided to go on 2 mm dowel.
 

 
To placing skid beams directly above of pillars, I stack masking tape on upper deck, marked position of pillars, peel off it, stack it between rearmost fo'c'sle beam and foremost quarterdeck beam, then decided positions of skid beams with help of calliper to maintain equal intervals for both end of starboard and port.
 

 

 

 
Hanging knees are shaped from 2 mm walnut sheet.
 

 
Main course tacks and fore course sheets are tied to each cleat at this stage. Gasket coil like ones are separately made and CA glued there. Another end of each rope is passed through each sheave and hung on outboard, gasket coiled there until rigging stage.
 

 
Carlings are also added with 2 x 3 mm walnut. They are glued to just inboard of kit gangway baseboard so that I can broaden width of gangways later.
 
Hanging knees are also added to aftermost fo'c'sle deck beam and foremost quarterdeck beam. AOTS Bellona shows knee of former is thin and latter is thick. So I used 1.5 mm sheet for former and 3mm walnut for latter.
 

 

 

 

 
BTW, to my eyes afterend or break of fo'c'sle of kit design seems to be slightly rearward than it should be. I cut that area of fo'c'sle deck baseboard (approximately 1.5 mm width), aftermost fo’c'sle deck beam are glued to fit this position.
 
Although kit rigging plans show only ends of foretop yard braces are tied to main bit. But I added other rope coils to crossbars of main bits.
 

 

 

 

 

 

Ladders between upper deck and lower deck
 
Although kit contains ladder parts, they shows steeper slope than both of kit plan or Elephant plan. So I determined to scratch build them.
 

 
I don't have table saw, I made side carriages by laminating. I scanned kit plan and draw lines equal intervals with Adobe Illustrator again. They are printed and used as jig by gluing guide of 0.5 mm plastic strip.  I prepared jig only for one side, but I laminated horizontal strip with slightly longer length than required, another diagonal strip is glued onto another side of laminated components, then carefully divide them to 2 separated side carriage parts. Material of them are 0.5 x 3 mm maple strips. They are basically deck planking materials, but I used them because I have surplus numbers of them.
 

 

 

 
Treads are also 0.5 x 3 mm maple strips. Firstly length of uppermost and bottom tread determined by actual parts matching then glue them to side carriage.
 

 
Length of other treads are determined measurement between each side carriages with calliper.
 

 

 
Main ladderway is added with centre carriage by inserting other pieces of wood between each tread.
 

 
Completed ladders were stained and fitted between decks. Handrail stanchions are kit PE which is chemically blackened. It is difficult to fit them to lower deck. So I fitted them heel of side carriages with holding wood piece.
 
Handrail rope is prepared with excessive length. I placed one of lower pair of stanchions to its holder, rest 5 stanchions are reft free. I pass rope through holes of all 6 stanchions. One end of rope on fixed stanchion is knotted. 5 stanchions are fitted their places after ladder is located. Point to be knotted of another rope end is determined and this last stanchion is once removed, rope end are knotted, then finally this last stanchion are fitted to its holder.
 

 

 

 

Capstans
 
Capstans are basically made of kit parts. Firstly whelps should be glued with equal intervals around spindle. I divided length of circumference of spindle by numbers of whelp, namely six and prepared scale of this numerical value. They are drawn with Adobe Illustrator.
 

 
I rolled this scale to spindle then marked according to scale.
 

 
These marks are lengthened by using simple jig. Then whelps are glued carefully.
 

 

 
Aft capstan is almost straight built of kit parts but forward one is upgraded because they can be seen well through opening of waist. Chocks and drumhead top are added. Shape of chock is also drawn with Adobe Illustrator. 
They are cut from 1mm walnut strip. Then they are glued between whelps and shaped.
 

 



 
Disc slightly smaller than drumhead is cut from 1.5mm walnut and rounded to give slope then glued onto drumhead.
 

 
BTW, I removed round base plate of capstan because I already glued rectangle base plate onto deck.
 

 

 

18 Pounder Guns
 
As I posted previously, guns were specially 3D printed by one of my fellow modellers.
 
https://modelshipworld.com/topic/2926-hms-bellerophon-1786-by-fake-johnbull-amativictory-models-172-vanguard-kit/page/3/?tab=comments#comment-751146
 
Kit PE monograms are CA glued to guns, but I didn't use flintlock PEs because firing lanyards are lost from some of them. I sprayed primer, then sprayed Mr. Color semi gross black, and finally dry brushed with Humbrol silver.
 

 

 

 
Carriages are kit diecast parts. Although diecast carriage of Amati isn't best ones and much more superb carriage can be obtained through market or scratch built by oneself, they can be seen acceptable by applying paints and gun tackles.
 
It was hard task to open holes for eyebolts for gun tackles, but they were done by help of electric drill. Red paint is Humbrol enamel mixed with proportion suggested in kit instruction. Wheels are also painted with Humbrol mat black. Chemically blackened eyebolts are added after paints dried.
 

 

 
BTW, kit design is showing varying heights between deck level and gunport openings. Those of forward sections are higher, and those of lower sections are lower. As I posted previously heights of carriages are modified to protrude guns from centre of gunports.
https://modelshipworld.com/topic/2926-hms-bellerophon-1786-by-fake-johnbull-amativictory-models-172-vanguard-kit/?tab=comments#comment-81139
 
Gun tackle blocks are Amati parts, but their shapes are improved with PE saw and Urawa mini router.
 
Hooks are added to gun tackle blocks. They are represented by turning copper wire around strop rope, then twisted and finally bend to hook shape.
 

 

 

 

 
Eyebolt positions of inner planks of hull are determined by help of template.
 

 
Gun tackles are fully rigged for guns of midship sections because they can be seen well from opening of waist.
 

 

 
But those of each ends are simplified because they can't be seen well. Gun tackles are directly knotted and reeved between eyebolts of carriage and inner hull side, and finally small walnut pieces are CA glued to suggest blocks.
 

 

 

 
Gun tackle ends are separately coiled and glued to deck. They are omitted for aft section guns.
 

 

 

 
Along with 18 Pounders, cleats for main course tack and fore course sheet are also glued.
 

 
Sheave position of main course tack are altered according to suggestion of Alan.
 
https://modelshipworld.com/topic/16452-hms-bellerophon-by-flyer-victory-models-scale-172/page/4/?tab=comments#comment-627024
 

 

Anchor linings
 
Parts around anchor lining are ones of confusing terms in ship history. For example, Peter Goodwin depicts the part directly fitted to hull between main wale and chain wale as “anchor lining”, the part covering chain as “billboard”, and longitudinal part between them as “bolster”.
 
 
 
Other two images are I downloaded from the internet while ago, which I suppose scan from books of George F. Campbell and L. G. Carr Laughton. Former reverses usage of terms of Goodwin, and latter depicts whole parts as anchor linings.
 

 

 
For convenience, I will follow usage of term by Goodwin.
 
For determining their shapes, I referred Bellona coppered model.
 
https://collections.rmg.co.uk/collections/objects/66299.html
 
Firstly, side elevating image of Bellona model are enlarged to fit 1/72 scale. Outline of anchor linings are taken from it.
 
Anchor linings are made of amarillo strips. They are straight forward building of amarillo strips, but bottom lining strip should be thinned to fit diminishing depth of "thick staff" above main wale. Once shaping done, it was dry fitted.
 

 
Rest of linings are roughly cut, dry fitted, determined outline referring enlarged Bellona side elevation image, and finally shaped.
 

 

 
In the case of Bellona model, anchor linings are also covering forward area of second gunport of lower deck. It was made of 1 mm walnut strip, but it also should be thinned partly to clear gunport hinge.
 

 
Bolsters are made of 3 mm walnut dowel. It also should be partly bored to clear preventer plates. Lengths of preventer plates are also shortened than other plates not to interfere with bolster.
 

 
Billboard of Bellona model are showing gentle S shaped curve viewing from fore and aft.
 

 
To represent it, I made billboard as lamination of 0.5mm maple sheet as baseboard and outer planks of amarillo and walnut. Firstly maple sheet is bent by steam and heat from kettle. Maple sheet can be bent to convex by applying steam and heat. S shaped curve can be formed by apply steam and heat to end of one side of the sheet, then reverse it and apply steam and heat to another end.
 

 
Outer planks are glued to be lined up with blackened wales and yellow plank between wales. Walnut strips are firstly glued then blackened by black dye and ebony colour Watco oil. Next glued amarillo strips.
 

 

 

 
One of problem of Bellona model is that upper edge and bottom edge of starboard billboard seems to be parallel...
 

 
but those of port one seems to be twisted to fit narrowing line toward bow of each level.
 

 
Image posted by Siggi52 are showing this twisting clearly.
 
https://modelshipworld.com/topic/196-hms-bellona-1760-by-sjsoane-scale-164-english-74-gun-as-designed/page/65/?tab=comments#comment-757479
 
I don't know which is correct, but twisted one seems to be more natural. To represent it, I twisted billboard lamination by putting pressure on my fingertips, but cracks occurred to maple baseboard. I repaired them with CA glue, but hindsight tells me that outer planks of walnut and amarillo should be also twisted before gluing onto baseboard.
 

 
Anyhow, I made up my mind to satisfy billboard repaired with CA glue. Fortunately repaired surface can't be seen from outboard.
 
 
 

 

 

 

Thank you for your comment.
 
Some more images seen from beakhead bulkhead opening.
 
 

Daniel,
Thank you for your comment and sorry for not updating my building log.
 
Although I don't have enough time to write English text at this moment, I have been posting latest status of my building to Twitter with Japanese text. So appreciated if you are enjoying them till I add new post to this topic.
 
https://twitter.com/fake_johnbull/status/1386226116659007489
 
I have almost finished upperdeck arming and fittings.
 

I've been busy!
 
Rigged the tackle for the tiller ropes

 
Then fitted the platforms and all the deck fitting except the guns.  Eagle-eyed will spot that I'm missing the pins from the bitts - there aren't enough in the kit to fill all the rails!  You can also see that I've followed my guru again and put copper 'sheet' on the bitts, and continued with the brass edging on  the rails.  I tried to take a panorama shot, but it was not good.  Instead, here is a set of pics scanning from forward, aft.
      
 
    
 
And one in all its glory
 

 
Of course, I know where the mistakes are, but I am delighted with how she looks.  Now to make 12 more sets of breeching ropes, assemble 14 more guns and then mount them all.  Might have to install the gunwale rails after that.
 

Working on the deck fittings.
 
The gratings were fiddly, but fun.   Sadly the supplied walnut strip for the framing was split, and the replacement I ordered was very pale, essentially the same colour as the deck.  So I stained it a kind of teak colour, that makes sanding to fit and end-grains difficult, so I mitred the corners.  I have also added a galley flue and rearranged the path of the cable.  The flue is solid, though, as has been remarked elsewhere, it usually sported a cap when not in use; I imagined my cap being of sheet copper



 
Next, the companionway, wheel, a possible binnacle (from Vanguard Models, badly stained, but a decent colour match) and the capstan.  Petrejus tells me that capstan heads were often covered in brass sheet - so mine is painted to look that way. I was not convinced by the PE wheels, or that Snake would have had a double wheel.  So I glued the two together, back to back, making something more substantial and also allowing me to paint it and keep a brass hub and rim showing



 
Here they are roughly in place
 


 
Finally, pinrails and belaying pins installed.  Again Petrejus reports that the rails were often edged in brass to protect from wear and add some decoration - so mine are.  I read in Steel that belaying pins were 16" long, or 1/4" at 1:64 ie 6mm, so the kit-supplied materials are not ridiculously small, though they are somewhat over diameter. I have seen pictures of pinrails bolted to the bulwarks, so I have borrowed from that by using round-headed black pins instead of hidden wire to give strength.
 


 

A little bit of blackening.
I'm moving onto the deck furniture now, and thought I  would start by installing the ringbolts (largely for the guns, but in other places too) while nothing else was in the way.  There are 200 of these provided, in nice shiny copper.  So that's 200 tiny pieces to be painted black.  And there are 4 eyebolts and then 5 little photo-etched (PE) brass pieces for each gun.  So the guns alone have 162 tiny pieces to be painted black.  I also need to decide what to do with the gun barrels.  So I thought I would try some chemical blackening of the kind described here.
 
To stop the small pieces drifting off on their own I tied them onto small loops of fishing line.  The supports for the guns need to fit in slots pre-machined in the gun carriages.  Joy-oh-joy every piece of brass is alittle over-size so needed to be filed down fore and aft
 
 
I set up in the laundry.  Across the back you can see: (a) pH minus ie sodium hydrogen carbonate, (b) sodium bicarbonate, (c) water and (d) John Wardle black antiquing solution.  Across the front: the columns for the display board, the small parts for the guns, the guns themselves, two sheets of PE, a pair of wooden tongs (most metals are a bad idea in one or more of acid/bas/blackening solution), and a measuring spoon (about 3 table spoons  - 45 ml - in 250 ml of water is about right for both acid and base.  Blackening is a 10-fold dilution)

 
And how did it go?  Great at first on the small gun parts:

 
But the guns, no so much:

 
You can just see in the middle one of the guns came out solid black, but most have only a few spots of black acne.  This matches the descriptions on the blackening page ,linked above, of lacquer coating on the brass.  So after soaking in iso-propanol (acetone is not readily available in the UK, it seems) I scrubbed them with steel wool and gave them some extended acid treatment.  After neutralising and washing, I then painted on neat blackener and then dumped them in the dilute solution.  For about 15 of the guns the results were good.  The others needed a repeat.

 
And here is everything that's fit to show:
 

 
The PE worked perfectly.  The brass columns not at all - including on the parts that had been extensively filed, so not a lacquer problem.  This being a selenium solution, that reacts with the  copper in the brass (see @bartley's post here) I wonder if this is a particularly low copper brass.  I did get a little bit of antiquing, which I think I quite like.
 
As also explained in the links I've given, the blackening is microscopic selenium metal particles that are not chemically bonded in place.  I messed around for quite a while exploring rigging options handling one of he guns extensively.  As the following shows, it doesn't look so black anymore:

 
I picked the least impressive of the 18, and perhaps bronze would be ok.  I will give this one another bath in the solutions.  Of the fittings, only the eyebolts in the bulwarks were blackened all the other parts were painted from an earlier mock-up.  They look fine to me.
 
The kit recommends 0.75 mm neutral thread, which looked too skimpy.  Lavery in "The ship of the line vol 2" quotes 7" circumference for breeching on a 32 lb (long) gun, which would be 0.88 mm diameter at 1:64.  I  didn't have any 1 mm neutral so tried black for size - I've ordered some 1 mm neutral.  Because the cascabel does not have a loop for the breeching (as was quite common with carronades) I'm going to imitate a (ahem) cut splice.

Next - fit the tiller.  I deliberately left this until after I had the stern platform assembled to ensure there was no clash.   Bit of attention to get the angles right, then I drilled a 1.5 mm hole in the rudder post.  In my version of the kit, the tiller is 1.8 mm walnut ply - which does not require pinning with 1 mm wire.  However, it presented a problem.  To fit to the hole, I rounded off the "spur" removing most of the external ply from it.  It then had no strength and "sprung"  as I tried to fit it.  I spliced in a short length of 1.5x1.5 walnut:

 
I rounded of the external part with a file.  Works just fine

Headworks done.  Not trivial as the provided parts and drawings are what a draftsman wold describe as being of nominal scale.  Once you work that out, and engage low gear and defensive driving mode, it was all quit pleasing.  The bow rails and cheeks go on first, and take quite a lot of sanding (cheeks) and trimming to length (rails) before all is good.  
 
Next comes the "bow head rail frames", or grating supports, as might be said with fewer words.  Easy enough to paint and glue, at which point it is apparent that the grating sits much too high (wish I had re-read @Beef Wellington before I glued).  The fore support was firmly glued in place so I just took a saw to it, and chopped the top off.  For the aft support, I could prise it off, and then filed-out the slot as deep as would allow the support to fit above the bow rail.  Photographed it at that point:

 
That meant that the lower rail slots in the aft support were not in the right place - so I "moved" them, filling the old slots with milliput, sanding down and filing new slots, and then painting, again.  Not the RH slot has been eased slightly to allow the rail to rotate
 

 
With that, the supports could be glued again and the lower rails added.  I used thick CA, but the rails needed a little persuasion to adopt the right position, so needed clamping while the glue set.

 
Now, the next job is to fit the grating, but as many have discovered before me, the slots in the grating and in the knee of the head, for the gammoning, do not aline, at all.  BUT Petrejus says they shouldn't, because the gammoning is not simply would around the bowsprit and through the slots.  Instead they cross over to create an "hour-glass' shape.  (Steele say the same, too)
 


 
I bit of fiddling with a dummy bowsprit and a bit of thread shows that all is good!


 
Upper rails to install and then we are done! (naturally I had a glue nightmare at this point, but deep breath, clean it up, all's good)





 
Quite a lot of fun, really, and IRL it looks good.  In these photos you can see that the paint has taken a bit of a hammering, and the glue is not as neat as some manage.  I used gloss varnish on the grating, which I think looks great.  It should be said that this really was a painstaking process, as a great deal of dry fitting is needed, but you cannot do that for a part until the previous parts are glued and secure.  It's a case of gradually trim and sand to shape, paint, wait, glue, wait, repeat six times, on both bows.  Fun though, as I say.
 
Catheads next.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

A little update again.
Coppered the rudder, make the ropes to the steering wheel.
Place the poop deck and stern deck.
Painted and the decks are done with Danish oil
 
Sjors

Mike_H,
 
First the copper plating of the rudder.
The first picture you see the under layer of te tape and above it the layer with the paper still on it.
The second picture you see the copper plates.
Easy to work with.
 
Then the lathe.
You see the extension bed and the total length of the lathe with the extension bed.
I mond the bed is difficult to get but mine was bought in the UK.
Don't ask me where because it was a gift from Mobbsie.(also a member of MSW)
More questions then just ask.
 
Sjors
 
 
 

This looks like a fascinating project, off to a great start!

You know I'll be following closely Sjors, I'm sure you'll have fun with this.

Not much of an update, but its all I have as I haven't had much time to spare recently.  I've been staring at the holes I'd drilled in the cathead pretty much from when they were installed and I just couldn't get comfortable with the way they looked. Reaching a point where I would have no options I decided to try and improve these, took a while to convince myself fully recognizing that a mistake would probably make things a lot worse.  Finally plucked up the courage to tackle them, and by drilling some more holes in between, and using a sharp knife, a very small file and some patience I was able to get proper slots rather than holes.  I then simply cut small slices of dowel for the sheaves.  Far from perfect but I'm much happier with how its looking now.
 

I would suggest diluting the solution more, the flaky finish seems to be common when the concentration is too strong resulting in an overly fast reaction - at least from my experience...

Love these ships, and you seem to be very skilled with the PE.  Definitely post more soon!

Glad to see you have started this BE, keel section is looking very nice.  I've jumped back in myself and trying to figure out where I was a year ago...

Post One
 
This involves the keel assembly and I was happy to follow the leads of JpR62 (Jean-Paul) and Chuck Seiler, by using scrap 1/32” sheet to assist the alignment of the inner keel pieces.
 

0681(2)

0697(2)
I utilised the fret cut out to hold the bow section during keel gluing and the inner keel sections.
 

0690(2)
The stern section is likewise fitted in a jig for gluing.
 
I also agree with Chuck Seiler’s approach of assembling the keel pieces as two separate sections and bringing them together only after tapering and the addition of the inner bow and stern keel pieces.
 

0703(2)
This is a long keel secured initially only by the central scarph and I share his concerns about the risk of breakage.
 

0709
Gluing the bow inner keel piece.

0713
…and the inner stern keel piece.
 
 
The stem, keel, and Sternpost require tapering.
The pieces are 4mm thick and will initially be reduced to 2.5mm. Final finish 2.38mm or thereabouts.
 
The taper runs down the stem, starting 18mm down from the head, and from inboard to outboard. The taper continues along the keel from top to bottom and is also applied to the lower sternpost.
 
To this end I have pva’d a styrene strip 0.25mm x 2.5mm along the parts to be tapered to give me a guide to the thin end point.
 
With the two sections joined the centre inner keel piece can be fitted which adds security to the structure.

0721
Initially I used pieces of scrap 1/32” sheet to centre the piece along the keel, but this didn’t give a good result; something must have been off, probably me, so I resorted to placement by eye which worked better.
 
 
Chuck mentions that the piece was made long on purpose and that sanding the after end may be required. In my case it did, reducing the keel slot size, the implications of which I have yet to find out.
 
 
The final tweaking of the tapering is now done making sure the inboard edges of the keel remain untouched so as not to affect the rabbet.
 
 
The final task of this part is to attach the transom piece.
Chuck makes the point about ensuring the transom is perpendicular to the keel.
 

0735
There are etched lines to assist centring the transom, but I then used my eye and diverse methods to try and check that the piece was vertical to the sternpost.

0746
One of the diverse methods I used to check the transom was level.

0741
Not quite as simple as may seem given the inbuilt flexibility  due to the length and relative thinness of the structure.
 

0756
A coat of w-o-p and I can move onto the next part.
 
 
B.E.
01/03/21
 
 
 
 

Guess I got the first choice of seat, not familiar with the manufacturer or the ship so will likely be learning a lot.  Looking forward to seeing some action.

Michael - welcome aboard and thanks to you and the others for the interest.
 
Nun-Buoys:
I've been trying to get my head around these for some time, there seems to be little info on these in sources but seeing how others have tackled these (esp. BE and Chuck) were of great help.  I seem to recall that the buoys should be around 1/3 to 1/4 the length of the anchor but for the life of me can't find the reference or place that I read that to confirm.  The body of the buoy was shaped from some spare dowel, and 2 ringbolts inserted at the extremities leaving some of the length exposed.  These would have been made from leather and would have been 'served' with leather strips as suggested by Lavery, but this was a detail I ommitted, and these were simply painted with brown and black paint.  In a slightly larger size, these would be fun items to add a little more detail on (as I think BE did on his on his Pegasus build)

To make up the anchor buoy slings, eyes were seized into some rope, and threaded onto the rope that will become the hoops.  I wasn't quite sure what size to use, but considering that in practice these would have been wormed, parcelled and served - presumably for protection - it seems likely that they would be reasonably substantial.  I used some Syren line to get a little definition, and used a black marker to darken as I only had some tan stuff handy.

Mounting the slings on the buoy itself proved quite the challenge.  Firstly, the hoops were made up with a single overhand knot, secured with GS Hypo glue, and then trimmed.  The slings on each end need to go underneath the hoop on the opposite end.  I found the best method was to suspend in some helping hands to fine tune, although this proved very fiddly.

Once everything was satisfactorily in position, the 4 slings were seized around the ringbolt (which simulates the loop the slings would make), and then trimmed.

This was then attached to a pre-made coil to represent the length of rope needed for given depths of water, and then secured to the shrouds for storage, and attached to the anchor.  On many models, these are shown as rather drab items, I have to believe in practice that these would have received some sort of brightly coloured paint to aid visibility, but I stayed with the more conservative muted tones.



So at this point, the only item remaining to be completed is an ensign of some sort, and some tweaking of the rigging...