Beef Wellington

Welcome Will, your models look great.  Definitely consider starting a build log, that way you will certainly get plenty of support and advice along the way, definitely the best way to get the most out of this community.

Greetings! I'm a freelancing classical musician living in Connecticut. I finished my second Masters at Yale in 2018 and am a singer specializing in early music and historical performance practice (although I sing a variety of different classical genres). I have a lot of artistic interests, including calligraphy, illumination, drawing, and painting.
 
My journey into model shipbuilding began with the Minicraft Titanic 1:400 in October 2018. I recently completed the Revell Cutty Sark 1:96 (thanks to covid-19), and am currently working on my first wood model, the Amati Lady Nelson. I originally did this in the spirit of challenging myself to be a more patient, precise, and focused artist. I honestly have a hard time looking at those first two models because of how much I have learned since, but I'm sure many of you feel that way about your first models. I feel very vulnerable and self-conscious sharing photos of these crude builds to a community of literal experts, but I've attached just a few wide shots so you can't be too scrutinizing ☺️. I will be putting up a build log for the Lady Nelson soon. I feel really good about how she's coming along, and have decided to really explore working with wood in future models, which I have no experience with (beyond a crude Pinewood derby car I build when I was 10). I absolutely love working with it on the Lady Nelson, though. It's resilient, sculptable, and full of character and life. I don't think I'll ever go back to a plastic model again.
 
As a young freelancing performer, I am rather limited on the space and funds I need to develop this hobby. I have a decent selection of hand tools but no power tools. Not even a drill. I work in a small carpeted office that also is a room I practice in. But I'm embracing having to do things by hand and having to be more creative with my processes.
 
This community has already provided me with so much knowledge and experience and I hope I can continue learning with constructive criticism and more active participation in the forums.  I am already (ambitiously) dreaming of which kit I will build next.
 
Thanks for reading!
Will
 

progress

Hello
and many thanks for all the likes and comments
 
I'm still working at the arsenal. But because we have here the best weather since ever, no rain since six weeks, and always sunshine, I took my lathe and reside now in the conservatory. 

Here I turned all the wheels. That took me two days busy. Then I build the stool beds down in the basement, I would't bring up my whole equipment


and the wedges. The handles are from 1 mm rods I made for the Dragon. 

And here the result



Tomorrow I have to buy new material and then turn the wheels for the other canons. These are now oiled and could dry in the sun until I paint them red. That is a drawback from the LED lights, they have no UV radiation in there program and most oils need them to harden. 
 

AMC Otranto
Afternoon Quickie. L to R HM Ships Glasgow, Otranto and Good Hope. Just before the Battle of Coronel
W/C 14” X 10”

Hi folks, back with another small progress reports.  I have started work on completing the armament; 6 x broadside guns - Dundas 32pdr 25cwt on rear chock carriages) and 1 x pivot gun (Blomefield 32 pdr 56cwt on an Improved Ferguson Slide).  I have not shown the pivot gun as it is still being reworked a little.
 
I have completed the six carriage (with the exception of blackening the wheels) and I have now painted the gun barrels (were 3D printed).  The barrels were airbrushed with Mr. Metal dark iron and I think look reasonably realistic in colour? 
 
I started assembling one as a prototype (version 2) to ensure all works.  I have yet to do the capsquares over the trunnions, and fit the breeching rope through the cascabel loop.  These will be seized to ring bolts before fitting to the ship.  The carriage shows the wheels painted but yet to be burnished to remove some of the lumpiness.  Please remember these are in very close-up so look a lot worse here than to the naked eye
 
I have manage to get the rear elevating worm screw to actually work, but I would not try this once fitted on the model; hopefully I do not put too much glue on the capsquares to stop the gun elevating/depressing.  The barrel is only dry fitted at the moment so it looks a little off-centre.  It will be corrected when the capsquares are fitted. 
 
I have managed to show a bit of the detail even at this scales including the gunlock, dispart (fore) sight and Millers after sight.  I even managed to keep my hands steady enough to paint them bronze without making a real hash of it, but could do with some improvement   I will attempt to add a very small lanyard to the lock but I am not holding my breath on that one.  and yes, I have files one side of the trunnion bar off-angle but this will be hidden under the capsquare and I do not wish to muck-up the paint at this late stage
 
I have also added a photo of an actual gun fitted in the ship for reference.
 
cheers
 
Pat
 

Hi all,  shown below is my first attempt of the EOT.  This was 3D printed and is only 11mm high with the panels in the Engine Order face less than a mm  wide and about 1.5mm long.  This is extreme close up so shows a lot of bumps etc that are not visible to the naked eye.  The Mr Metal "Brass" has yet to be polished which will smooth these out somewhat.  the dabs of black are supposed to represent order positions (slow ahead, half ahead, full ahead etc).  At this scale and my shaky hands this is the best I can achieve and looks OK to the naked eye.

 
 
The second photo shows the EOT and one of the gun carriages with the brass wheels painted with Mr Metal "Iron"; again they need to polished and unfortunately, the photo implies the lot is painted but the wood of the truck is not painted, nor is the internal part of the axletree stub.  I will try to get a better photo.
 

 
cheers
 
Pat

That looks good Mark.  Did you adjust the stern profile to account for the curvature of the fascia?

Well, I got it out of my system. I am a long way from actually being able to construct the stern-a few decks still to install--but at least I can see an outline of what the stern will look like.
Back to planking....
 
Mark



 

Your display of her side through time is very impressive. Congratulations on a very fine job of research as well as painting. The rigged fore chains with stowed anchor presentation looks intriguing. The Augsburg show would have been fun to attend!

Hey There Dowmer & Jason..  Many thanks for the kind words ! 
 
Jason the Puddening was started off by Threading the 'rope' through a needle  (approx 18'' worth) I didn't make a knot at the ring (feared it may leave a 'lump', and as there was seizing going there I didn't want it being too prominent) so I laid the rope on the ring, at the shank, and fixed with a dab of CA, then proceeded to wrap the rest around and around, stopping every 2 or 3 turns to tighten and make sure of neatness.  The last turn was also CA'd in place, then onto the seizing, a light coat of Dilute PVA over all and that was it !  Simples    (what could possibly go wrong lol)
 
All The Best
 
Eamonn
 
Thanks for all the Likes too folks  

They look great Eamonn, well done.  How did you do the puddening around the anchor loop (esp. starting and finishing), need to get to that myself but can't quite get my head around it....everyone else seems to get it done without a problem.

Keith especially for you

One cannon and one carronade to go for the foredeck and the guns will be finished at last, then turning the boat around and bringing the port side up to the same level as starboard, timberheads, deadeyes etc
 

One of the planks under the chase cannon has developed a bit of a warp so going to replace that tomorrow as well

Hi Folks ..  Well I have the Anchors pretty much completed (possibly only a bit of tidying up to do)
 
I did some research on the proper 'Knot/Bend/Hitch' to use and went with the Anchor Hitch/Bend (also called in some places The Fisherman's Bend amongst other names)  which is used on smaller Anchors (which of course Ballahoo's is)
 
Next up I shall put the Anchors in place and make up an Anchor Buoy and it's line ..
 
All The Best Folks
 
Eamonn

That looks spot on.  I would love to be able to work with these drafting tools, very educational.

A good day of drawing. Now I understand this complex structure more completely, I am just about ready to start mocking up some parts on the model!
 
Mark
 

Did a bit more work this weekend. Attached the main and fore stays and snaked with the preventers. Also rigged the boomkins. 


I think I going to change gears a bit now and work on the anchors and their rigging. 
 
Tom
 

I thought I'd have a break from the hull and cannon and show how I intend to make the spars for Speedy from castello boxwood sheet. I've gone for the bowsprit as it is a reasonable size to demonstrate the method.
The bowsprit is 6mm diameter, so the first step was to rip a square strip from 6mm sheet. I made it over-length to allow for trimming and to allow sufficient waste to grip in the lathe.
  
The next step is to reduce the square section to an octagon. Some years ago I made a little jig to mark square stock prior to planing:
 

The idea is to pull the stock between the two brass pegs, making sure that the wood keeps in contact with both pegs and the marking pin between them. When you've made one pass, you turn the wood round end to end and pull the wood through again. You repeat this for all four faces, ending up with two scribed lines in each face. So what, you say?
 

The idea is that these two lines divide each face in the ratio 7:10:7, which ensures that when you plane each corner down to the lines, all eight resulting faces will be equal. The beauty of the little jig is that it doesn't matter what size the stock is - provided it will fit between the pegs, the scribed lines will always be in the correct ratio. When I made the jig I had to work out the spacings and the diameter of the pegs from basic geometry but if anyone's interested I could post the measurements. 
 
Here's the next stage, using a standard planing jig.

Starting with the green Stanley 100-type finger plane and finishing with the Veritas low-angle block plane it only took a few minutes to reduce all four corners.
 
On to the lathe - although a drill or Dremel-type rotary tool would do equally well:

Again, it only took a few minutes to sand the dowel down to a reasonable round section. I started with 120 grit and finished on 600. A quick coat of shellac which protects and imparts a nice warm sheen and the bowsprit's finished, bar trimming to final length.

 
I'll make the remaining spars in due course. Even if you can't get hold of boxwood, I'd certainly consider using a lighter coloured wood than walnut if you can.
 
 
Derek
 
 
 

Limited progress this week as I've been taking advantage of the fine weather to get jobs done in the garden (that's manspeak for trying to cross off a few of my chores from my wife's lengthy list). 
 
First job was painting the wales and prow. I started by masking off the unpainted areas but made a mess of it. Paint seeped through in some places, and in other the tape pulled bits of paint off the top edge of the wales. I used good quality tamiya tape so I don't believe that was the problem. Rather, I think my mistake was applying several coats of matt polyurethane to the unpainted areas before painting the wales. Some of the varnish got onto the wales and prevented the acrylic adhering properly. So, after much sanding, cleaning and swearing I went back to basics and repainted the wales with as steady a hand as possible. The result is certainly better than my original attempt (which I was too disappointed to photograph ☹️). 

Meanwhile I've made some progress with the cannon, starting with a little jig to shape the cap squares. It's just a drill bit the same diameter as the trunnions, half-sunk into a groove in a piece of wood. Once in place I just use a thumbnail either side to press the little piece of photo-etch into shape. Just makes it a bit easier to fit to the carriage. As for that, I started using CA but found I couldn't always get the cap square sitting properly before the glue set, so now I use PVA. Not ideal but it's not load bearing so it shouldn't matter.

The cannon are coming along, but you'll see that the blackening process didn't work too well on the cap squares. I think it was because I tried to do too many small pieces all together, and I couldn't agitate them enough to get them all evenly treated. I'll touch up with Admiralty metal black when I've finished them all.
 

Back to the chores!
 
Derek

Coppering - finished the starboard side this morning. Overall I'm quite pleased as this was my first go. I'm also pleased I used a batten on the waterline as suggested by Glenn.
 

Port next.
 
Derek
 

I've finished planking the outside of the bulwarks, and decided to give them an initial sanding before trimming the gun and oar ports:
 
Apologies for the picture quality.
 
Derek

Royal Navy Brig HMS Black Joke intercepts a Spanish 'Slaver' off the west coast of Africa. 'Black Joke', probably built in Baltimore, was captured by the British and became part of the 'West Africa' squadron suppressing the Slave Trade. She went on to become one of the most successful ships in the Squadron, freeing hundreds of Slaves.
Watercolour 14” X 10”
Jim 
 

Thanks everyone for the comments and the likes! 
 
I have been slowly working away on my coach build. I've now made up the interior bulkheads and partitions. Most of these areas will really not be seen after the model is complete so I've kept the details rather basic. I still intend to add seating and the requisite features in the lavatories.

The smoking room end of the car. Getting the 0.030" styrene to curve that tight and stay without springing back was fun. I simply used the handle of one of my files as a mandrel and gently and repeatedly worked the styrene until it held its shape. After glueing the panels to the floor, I then added some gussets to help hold everything in one place, and give it some structural strength. The interior is still removable at this point (and I'll probably keep it that way).

The opposite end of the car was much simpler to construct, with only the women's lavatory and the heater room to contend with.
 
After the interior, it was time to get after the grabs and gutter details. I find grab irons to be one of the more tedious parts of any railway rolling stock model build. Very easy to mess up, very hard to undo is there is an error, but absolutely essential for any finished car.

Each end of the car has two drop grabs, plus the entry handles on each side. Up on the roof there are eight more, four located on top of the clerestory and the wavy looking grab, just above the eave, is the ladder rest. Also on each end is a peaked gutter above the end door, and a sloped gutter above the entry door. This were formed using brass wire. The grab irons where salvaged from my parts bin (leftovers from old Walthers passenger cars) and are made of stainless steel wire. 
I've also almost completed the other end details. You can see the coupler cut-lever attached to the entry step as well as the hose ends for the steam, air and signal lines (the one is slightly obscured by the coupler head).

Finally, I've added the fill cap to the Baker heater header tank. I made this from a Precision Scale Co. (PSC) 0.030" pipe union brass casting. 
 
At this point I'm getting closer to finishing the model, all that really remains now are seats and a few final details such as the window mullions and the air deflectors for the clerestory. I'm going to have to put in an order  this week for the styrene strip that I need. I also need to order seats, but the problem lies in getting the right kind. The few suppliers there are make seats for later streamlined cars. I have yet to find anyone who makes the old fashioned "walk-over" seats (seats that could be made to face either end of the car by "walking over" the seat back from one side of the seat bench to the other) appropriate for cars of this era.
 
Andy

I've done the head and body which I carved from scratch. It's the waistband and swirls that I'm having trouble with. I will try sculpey though...I'm just procrastinating really 😅

For geometry nerds only:
I woke up at 3 in the morning, suddenly remembering that traditional classical architecture has long dealt with how to wrap complex mouldings around a variety of forms. I dug out an old drawing book from 1919:
 

It reminded me that classical mouldings change their profile when they run into a surface not in the same plane, like a pediment moulding running down on an angle and then hitting a vertical wall. This book shows how to determine the profiles at various places.
 


 
The key to working this out is realizing that in plan, the various lines of the moulding have to match up at the line of the miter. In the drawing below of a quarter gallery corner (stern to the left), the brown line represents the edge of the moulding at the top, the green line represents the moulding at the bottom, and the blue lines represent the lines of the various moulding pieces like the vertical fillets. Since the moulding at the stern rakes back and the moulding at the side of the quarter gallery rakes in, the overall width of the moulding at the side will be narrower than the moulding at the stern. Furthermore, the top line of the stern moulding is aligned with the sheer of the hull, while the top line of the moulding at the side aligns with the roundup of the deck. When these all match up, then the profile shapes change relative to each other. The top two drawings represent the moulding at the stern and then at the quarter gallery respectively.

 
Now at 3/16" scale, the difference between these might be minuscule, probably outside my technical abilities to make different. One scraper might do the job for both. But it is finally satisfying to understand the true geometry, as the shipwrights would have had to work out on the real thing. 
 
Here is the difference in the actual profile edge:
 

 
Geometry lesson over, you can go back to your regularly scheduled programming!
 
Mark