Beef Wellington

HMS Valiant refuels a destroyer while under way. Fleet Carrier and two escorts in company 
Watercolour 9.5“ X 7”
Jim

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.

Ok so more pics as promised. I finished putting on all the extra little bits on the sides and also finished the scuppers. I couldn't wait to see what they looked like painted and I must say they look rather good. I then decided to get the guns ready (still procrastinating about the figurehead at this time ?😉) . Rubbed them down sprayed them with grey prime then with matt black spray paint. Once they were dry, it had to be done, I had to see what they'd look like in situ. Again well chuffed with the outcome. Moving on to the chains on the rear gun ports that were closed. I looked for a chain that was small enough but couldn't find anything so, again because they're so small I thought I'd adapt...I know what you're all going to say that it's wrong but it's all I could do whilst in lockdown, however I think now I've painted them they look good as well 😄

Post 1

I have started the build, but much of the early stages are hardly exciting and my shipyard assistant is not particularly enthused to be brought back off furlough.


0024(2)
I have assured him that this is not likely to be a prolonged contract and he can soon get back to more spaniel related interests.

Bulkheads and false keel

The bulkheads fit to the false keel beautifully, just the right tension necessary.

I couldn’t trust myself with a Dremel to do the pre- bevelling on the fore and aft bulkheads but a sanding stick worked just fine.

I didn’t want to risk breaking off the fine points on bulkheads 1 and 11.


5119(2)
The infill pieces also require bevelling and these are perhaps the most tricky ones to do.

I found that a No 11 scalpel worked best for me, cuts thro’ the mdf like a knife thro’ butter. They were then finished off with a sanding stick.

 

05116
With the lower deck dry fitted the whole structure is rigid, and not a drop of glue applied. Turn it upside down and everything holds tight.

Well that starts the ball rolling, time to apply a little glue.


 
B.E.

16/05/2020

 
 

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.

Think its safe to say there would have been (or at least expected to be) arms, we seem to have become very familiar with classical statuary without arms but its only because they broke off at some point.

Bellona being a goddess of war, she would not have been unarmed! A sword of some sort in her right hand and shield in her left. I'd be pretty confident that the original figure had those.

Think its safe to say there would have been (or at least expected to be) arms, we seem to have become very familiar with classical statuary without arms but its only because they broke off at some point.

Upper deck framing design underway.

Lower Deck breast hook made and installed using 1” (0.52mm) black monofilament line “bolts”.
 
ben

Hello and thank you for the many likes and comments,
 
yesterday and today I was busy bending eye- and ringbolts. That is not my world, mass fabrication and this is just the beginning 😧
But here the first results. For the gun deck I would't fitting out more cannons with these bolts, because you would't see them later. But I have to install at least the bolts for the ship. 

Great to see you start this, nice choice in subject matter.

Annnnd a bit more ...
 
Jib Stay Time ..  Made up and fitted the Jib Stay and its 'Stem Block' arrangement , fairly straightforward bit of rigging, attached to the fore mast as per the Schooner stay earlier, then out to the Bowsprit end and back to the 'Stem block' and inboard to be made off on a 'pin' ..  The photos should explain better   
Getting busy up forward now eh   I see that a wee bit of a spring clean is required before I go too much further, the macro shots really show the dust and imperfections that the naked eye struggles to even notice, still a good enough reason to clean and touch up the paint etc.
 
All The Best Folks And Thanks For Stopping By
 
Eamonn .. Owner Operator at Speedy Ship Yard & Riggers.. Our Motto..  'Trust Me.. We'll Have Her In The Water By Christmas' 🙄🙄😇😇
 
 
 

Great to see you start this, nice choice in subject matter.

A delayed thank you Sam for the encouragement.  Other things have intruded recently.
 
I have now completed the wingsail gaff.  I would not care to do it again.  The fundamental difficulty is the lack of access, as it is surrounded by so much other rigging. I think there is a case for installing it, certainly before putting up the back stays, and even before the shrouds.   Replacing the kit-supplied bibbs which are made of rather unattractive coarse grained 1.5mm ply, with 2mm timber turned out to be a lurking problem.  The gaff jaws no longer fitted and then had to be adjusted.  Access to the rear of the block on the top trestle tree for the 0.5mm thread proved to be very difficult indeed.  I ended up threading some 0.1 mm thread through the front of the block, down to the the end of the 0.5mm thread, joining it with CA, then pulling the whole lot back through the block.  
 
As well, and VERY important, when installing the block earlier in the build, there is no indication that the thread initially leads down from the **** of the block.  It therefore had to taken out of the trestletree  (I found I had installed it all too well), the thread installed, and the block replaced.  If you have to do all of this - good luck.
 
Here are the results.
 

 

 

Some fiddly work on the prow, starting with the laser cut bow rails and various photoetch parts for the vertical bow rails and prow decoration. 
 
The PE parts are painted yellow ochre, with the recessed central parts painted a contrasting blue or black (I chose black). Chris suggests painting the parts yellow first, but I didn't think I'd be able to do the recessed parts neatly enough and avoid getting black on the yellow, so I did it the other way round - painting the black first, cleaning the raised bits carefully with a fine file, then painting them yellow:
 


The next task was fitting the bow rails, which proved tricky. The main problem was that there were  gaps between the bow rails and the vertical rails that are meant to join them to the prow. I decided that this was because the bow rails were too straight. Rather take them off the model I managed to bend them in situ with my trusty hot air gun. I wet the rail with a finger dipped in water, pushed it inwards with the stick and blasted it with hot air until dry. Miraculously it stayed curved enough to touch the vertical rails. In the photo below I've already done the port side. Btw, I'm not pushing on the stick as both hands were busy holding the air gun and my phone!
 
As a minor aside, I think Chris originally intended that the ends of the vertical rails should locate in holes in the bow rails. The PE parts had little lugs on their ends (which I cut off to make them fit), and if you look carefully at the photos in the manual the bow rails have holes. Anyway, that's not how the design ended up and it works fine.
 
Remaining details were relatively straightforward - catheads, knigtheads etc. I departed from the instructions by not painting the crown on the end of the cathead yellow. I figured Cochrane could have afforded a bit of gold leaf so I left the neat little photoetch crown unpainted.


Back to the stern next.
 
Derek
 

Work on the middle deck is coming along nicely.
 
As mentioned, earlier, I found it much simpler to re-make the dummy carriage platforms from scratch, in order to achieve a close scribe without sacrificing platform depth.  I used this simple scribing method to arrive at a faithful pattern for each side:

You can see the relative flattening of the ship’s sides, here, with the new pattern mapped-out on white styrene:

Once I had achieved a close scribe for each side platform, and before gluing them in place, I checked for the ideal positioning of the dummy carriage blocks, along the whole broadside.  On the lower deck, my blocks all follow a uniform line, as they all butt-up against a raised lip at the back edge of the platforms.

The middle deck presents a somewhat different reality, as the outward re-curve of the hull, in the area of the anchor lining, would make the barrel projection seem too short, if I were to simply place all of the dummy carriages at a uniform distance from the port opening.  How’s that for a run-on sentence?!
 
So, testing the depth from port to port, I discovered that the forward 5 dummy gun carriages needed to be staggered closer to the port openings in increments up to 1/16”.  Splitting hairs?  Yes.  The result, though, will be a finished projection like this, relative to the lower battery:


The added benefit of remaking the side platforms is that they are deep enough to adequately support the carriage blocks without any supplemental blocking.
 
With all of that settled, I glued-in the side platforms and center deck sections, as before - taking care to consider the next step of raking the masts.
 
Again - because the masts have been raised, their tapered lower diameter no longer corresponds with the openings at each center deck section level.  My solution is to make mast plates that will enable me to align each mast on the ship centerline, while also establishing the rake.
 
With Lemineur’s masting plan of the St. Philippe at hand, I set the rake for the foremast as nearly perpendicular to the waterline as eye and square could ascertain.  I will still have some wiggle room to adjust the foremast, if necessary, at the main deck level; the foremast step is not even an inch below this first mast plate, and the fit is deliberately just a hair slack.
 
The main mast is raked aft so that the main top is sensibly level to the waterline, while also accounting for the upward trajectory of the top and t’gallant masts.
 
Here are the relative layout of mast rakes and top heights from a variety of angles:





Without the upper deck and bulwarks in place to complete the picture, these mast heights may appear exaggerated, but I am confident that this impression will trend favorably as the model continues to take shape.
 
In other works, the sprit, fore, main and mizzen tops are now complete, and I have made up all of the middle-deck dummy carriages - complete with shims for height, and lid lanyards.  I will wait to set the dummy carriages until after I have made the gusset supports for the main deck beams.
 
Placing those beams will require a little thoughtful layout, as they must accurately frame the openings for the main deck hatches and gangway.  The beams around the gangway will have to be realistically sided, as they will be partially visible.
 
So, onward and upward we will go.  Thank you for the likes, your interest and for looking in!

Another Bit Done ..
 
This time I attacked the Bow section in preparation for the Jib Stay (where it comes inboard) and a 'reinforcing' detail on the Bulwark Capping Forward where running rigging (I won't be using them) would come inboard from the Bowsprit ..
I drilled a hole in the upper Port Side Bow for the 'Jib' Stay to come inboard from the end of the Bowsprit and set up a belaying pin to receive it..  I will be attaching a block to the Bow (you will see the eyelet on the stem below the bowsprit for it) as part of run of this stay..
 
All The Best Folks ..
 
Eamonn

That looks very nice. Seems like those are some of the best designed kit head rails. Much more authentic looking than most. 

Very impressive Siggi, can fully appreciate the huge amount of time you've invested to get these to this point, such quality work.

Very impressive Siggi, can fully appreciate the huge amount of time you've invested to get these to this point, such quality work.

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...

 
 

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...

 
 

Looks great Michael, beautiful!

Thanks Glenn.  Winston & Newton Galeria acrylic brand with the color crimson.  Although I have never used them my daughter who paints uses Grumbacher brand and seems to like them.  I may try them on next model which may just be the Cheerful.  Following you as you get started has me looking forward to the next one.  I still have  much to do with this one before I make that decision 
 
 
Recent progress