Beef Wellington

Tying blocks is a little repetitive so for variety, I cracked on with the carronades.  As I mentioned above the instructions and supplied parts didn't align, however Jason forwarded to me a revised set (see below) which helped clear up the confusion.  The assembly is a little fiddly but reasonably straight forward. 
https://modelshipworld.com/applications/core/interface/file/attachment.php?id=610306
 
I followed the sequence in the attachment and the product (not complete) looks good. Remember to drill out the brass holes with a 1mm drill - the fittings are tight and easily jam therefore this saves much frustration.  The fittings for the trunnion brackets on the slide are too tight and I had to length them gently with the 1mm drill; likewise the 1.5mm wire fits neatly through the slide but the hole in the main carriage is only 1mm wide - again needs rejigging.  
 
I painted the components before removing from the brass sheet...it came off in assembly!   No problem - touch up at the end.
 
P 

Good Afternoon Mark;
 
See below a few photographs of the model, taken while she has been on display at the NMM. Unfortunately this meant that I was not able to photograph the port side or the stern. These will be invaluable in working out the location of the seats of ease, though, and much of the other detail. The discharge chutes seem to be sitting on the headrails, which presumably gave them the support they needed. The final photo is from 'Endymion', a 44 gun ship, but shows the location of the chute clearly.
 



 
All the best,
 
Mark P
 

"Fascinating, complex geometry" you say? Just wait until you get to the head timber geometry - your head will spin! The notches for the head rails get progressively angled as you go forward. It's a challenge.
The aft end of the lower rail may need to be a moved little more toward the centerline? Would that solve the discharge tube issue (pun intended)?

Hi druxey,
 
Thanks for the idea, I was able to move the rails outboard by about 4 inches, by reducing the outboard curvature of the aft-most head timber. This helped with spacing looking more like the Bellona model in a number of areas. But there is a limit to how far this outboard curvature can be flattened out before it no longer looks like the Bellona model. And changing the curve moves the middle and lower rails in a set relationship to each other, since their outboard faces align with the outer curve of the head timber. So I can't get that much greater clearance between them.
 

This results in the following rail locations. The location of the seats athwartship is based on my reading of Mark P.'s latest photo, which shows the fore-most outboard corner of each seat sitting on top of, but not projecting beyond, the outer face of the middle rail. And as I read the photo, the fore-most seat does indeed discharge onto the top of the lower rail, by about its thickness. I think through a great team effort here, I have located these as well as I can until I start building and get another perspective entirely!
 
Mark
 

 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Great to see you making progress again, very nice rigging and attention to detail.  Love the anchor buoy, you really captured the feel of the real thing.

Alan, that bowsprit is a thing of beauty in of itself!

Looks great Lou, how much of this detail will be visible - I hope lots!

The Mizzen has arisen:
 
I can see why build logs tend to neglect rigging relegating it to a bit of a dark art - its so hard to reach a point where one can step back and say 'done' because nothing quite seems to get finished before its necessary to do something else before its too late.  Anyway, the mizzen rigging is now essentially complete.  This area proved to one of the more challenging so far 'learning the ropes', but also just because of the increased fiddliness factor and decreased access.  The plans also proved more challenging in this area due to their either lack of clarity or incompleteness.
 
Before starting, this was my last chance to address some things that have been annoying me.  The kit supplied ladders going to the stern platform just seemed too bulky, so these were ripped off and replaced with custom made items that just felt a little more to scale, and less visually obtrusive.  These proved challenging to make in walnut due to the splinter factor, but necessary to avoid introducing a new wood.  The ships wheel was also given some coats of a wash to try and make it a bit attractive from the flat brown colour I had used way back when I started (Pre-fix situation below):
 

 

 
Rigging could then proceed, planning ahead proved key due to the many elements that need to be fitted in a very tight space, especially below the tops (tye, parrels throat halliard etc).   Petersson's Rigging Period Ship Models and Lever's Young Officers Sheet Anchor provide invaluable to bridge contradictions and lack of clarity in the plans.  Items of note as follows:
Boom Sheets - went with single vs a double arrangement as illustrated on the plans as I couldn't find another example like this Gaff throat halliard - the positioning of the gaff is slightly different on each plan, I had to lower my original placement to allow for the two double 5mm blocks, luckily the pin hole was obscured Single boom horse - Common practice seems to have a knotted horses on either side of the boom.  I just couldn't get this to look right and the image of a young schoolboy with rather large and unruly ears kept coming to mind....so in the end I just went with a single and it seems to do the trick other than to purists. Blocks for main topsail brace - One of the first blocks I had installed has to be removed, a double block on the mizzen for the main topsail braces as indicated on the plans.  It was clear that this just wouldn't work with the crossjack and gaff in place as it needs to sit above the gaff.  I elected to remove and replace with 2 single 5mm blocks with a longer clearance from the mast to avoid interfering with the various rigging elements in this space as illustrated in Petersson.  These are held temporarily in place with sewing thread. Close up pictures of where things ended up that hopefully can assist others (errors are of course mine):
 

 
Finally, some overall shots...

 
 

Ok Folks .. Both Gaffs are completed.. Next Up the Boom    (No drama This Time.. Honest  )
 
Thanks For Looking In..
 
Eamonn
Oh, there's a quick Deck Shot thrown in too .. 
 
 

Amidships metal deck, it needs to be quite dark looking at the original photos. One I’ve done the red and white now I can work it a bit more. 

...and for an encore, my 6 (and 3/4s daddy!) year old son wanted to show some pictures, we're building 1:700 HMS Hood and he is very proud of his progress.  Perhaps not enough for its own build log but I'll maybe post more if there is interest (he also chose the emoticon!) 

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

RAF Coastal Command Hudson drops an ‘Airborne Lifeboat' to a downed crew somewhere wet! Designed by Uffa Fox, they could be carried by several types of a/c Sorry about quality of photo w/c 14” X 10”

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...

 

First time using the weathering powders and it seems to have come out pretty nicely.  Compared my test carving piece with a single coat of wop the color isn't perfect but looks pretty good to the eye.
 

 
The next pictures are just the piece resting prior to adhering to get a sense what it would look like
 



 
I am going to go another round to see if I can match it even closer

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.

Here is one more variation, with the shield to the left side. It will have to await the construction of a maquette to visualize exactly how this goes.
 

For an image of Bellona and shield location in a 1906 sculpture by Bertram Mackennal, see:
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mackennal_-_War.jpg
I understand this is on the grounds of the Australian War Memorial in Canberra.
 
Mark
 

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.

The Mizzen has arisen:
 
I can see why build logs tend to neglect rigging relegating it to a bit of a dark art - its so hard to reach a point where one can step back and say 'done' because nothing quite seems to get finished before its necessary to do something else before its too late.  Anyway, the mizzen rigging is now essentially complete.  This area proved to one of the more challenging so far 'learning the ropes', but also just because of the increased fiddliness factor and decreased access.  The plans also proved more challenging in this area due to their either lack of clarity or incompleteness.
 
Before starting, this was my last chance to address some things that have been annoying me.  The kit supplied ladders going to the stern platform just seemed too bulky, so these were ripped off and replaced with custom made items that just felt a little more to scale, and less visually obtrusive.  These proved challenging to make in walnut due to the splinter factor, but necessary to avoid introducing a new wood.  The ships wheel was also given some coats of a wash to try and make it a bit attractive from the flat brown colour I had used way back when I started (Pre-fix situation below):
 

 

 
Rigging could then proceed, planning ahead proved key due to the many elements that need to be fitted in a very tight space, especially below the tops (tye, parrels throat halliard etc).   Petersson's Rigging Period Ship Models and Lever's Young Officers Sheet Anchor provide invaluable to bridge contradictions and lack of clarity in the plans.  Items of note as follows:
Boom Sheets - went with single vs a double arrangement as illustrated on the plans as I couldn't find another example like this Gaff throat halliard - the positioning of the gaff is slightly different on each plan, I had to lower my original placement to allow for the two double 5mm blocks, luckily the pin hole was obscured Single boom horse - Common practice seems to have a knotted horses on either side of the boom.  I just couldn't get this to look right and the image of a young schoolboy with rather large and unruly ears kept coming to mind....so in the end I just went with a single and it seems to do the trick other than to purists. Blocks for main topsail brace - One of the first blocks I had installed has to be removed, a double block on the mizzen for the main topsail braces as indicated on the plans.  It was clear that this just wouldn't work with the crossjack and gaff in place as it needs to sit above the gaff.  I elected to remove and replace with 2 single 5mm blocks with a longer clearance from the mast to avoid interfering with the various rigging elements in this space as illustrated in Petersson.  These are held temporarily in place with sewing thread. Close up pictures of where things ended up that hopefully can assist others (errors are of course mine):
 

 
Finally, some overall shots...

 
 

Time for a small progress update.
 
The underside has been painted black and lettering has been largely finished, both sides. The decals came from Black Cat Publishing. Up until the 1930s or so, CPR used gold leaf (actual gold leaf!) lettering on their passenger equipment, and even on their dedicated passenger locomotives too. As a cost saving measure the lettering was switched to what is known as Dulux Gold, a more yellow-ochre colour. Personally, I prefer the Dulux colour better as it adds a nice contrast to the dark tuscan red (it stands out a bit more, the gold leaf gets a little lost at any kind of distant viewing).
 
I have numbered the car #1548. One of three 15XX series cars assigned to the Dominion Atlantic, the others were 1544 and 1551.

The decal set even includes service, inspection and test data stencils for the underbody appliances and tanks (you can just make them out on the two air tanks at the centre of the car).

A few more end details; the diaphragms have been added (also leftovers from those infallible Branchline kits). The small car number on the door was a lot of "fun" to apply as all the numbers had to be put on individually (they're about 1mm in height).
 

All that remains to be added to the car exterior are the safety chains and hooks. These will be mounted on either side of the coupler. After the chains are on, the car will needs a little touch up (there are a couple of tiny nicks in the paint) as well as a little dusting/cleaning before a coat of Dulcoat is added to seal everything nicely. Then it's on to the windows!
 
Still no sign of my seats yet.... I expect it will be a couple more weeks... maybe...?
 
Andy

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...

 

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...

 

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.

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.