Beef Wellington

Progress on 1st planking.
Tried different approaches just to test them. Im still bad with tappering. Dont like how it looks but sanding will clear it out.
Somehow these wood strip dont fit it so well as Terrora did. These are also thinner and more fragile-im sure this is really old kit. But that should still affect the wood if its stored properly.
 
Near bow the gunport bulkwark didnt bend well so there was gap between blank and it-glued few extra pieces and will sand it down.
 
Decided to put 1st plank on keel also then i know i can sand it down and have right surface for 2nd planking.
 
Summary-planking needs still practice.

Wow - that post made me sit up... Hope you don't mind me adding a few pictures of the last (very dusty) radio controlled semi-scratch model I built...  (Also HMS COTTESMORE, in 1:48). Fascinating vessels. That's a beautiful waterline model of her!    

someone asked about the ships on the wall - these are pictures of my various seagoing commands in the RN: top left clockwise: HMS COTTESMORE - HUNT Class MCM ship; HMS ALBION - Assault ship; HMS NURTON - Ton class minesweeper; HMS NORFOLK - T23 ASW Frigate.  Great ships.  A dear friend, Eric Dyke, made me a scratch model (in plastic) of HMS COTTESMORE which really ignited my interest in the hobby - he is to blame for the modelling mess that bedevils my study all the time!  Desk bound now....

Having sanded and carried out a little gap filling, I planked and then painted the inner bulkhead.  I then began to plank.  I required 10 4mm planks either side of the centreline plank before I need to commence the joggle cuts.  The guidance I followed referred to half width of the plank being cut into the margin and then shaped; some recommend a third plank width but I thought that would be quite fiddly and difficult to achieve an even look on both sides of the deck.  Slow and methodical - it needs a thought to keep the sequence - was the approach and it turned out well.  The deck was then sanded and a couple of coats of matt varnish applied to seal the wood.   Whilst I was at it I finished off a little more of the head rails.  Im now planking the remaining parts of the upper deck...slow progress though! Speak soon. P

So a little paper shows a lot! My CAD drawing was accurate, and model reveals that if the top and bottom of the windows are parallel but offset, the top one has to pull out further from the hull in order for the lower one to just hit the side. In other words, there is a gap at the top one, as seen here:

Looking back at the second Bellona model, it is clear that this is made up somehow by what druxey called the canting livre, as seen here:
 

I see I need to lay out the window muntins from the lower sill, and leave the gap at the head. Then it is filled by that little triangle. Funny, I never knew what those were for, until I tried to lay out the quarter galleries!
 
Mark
 
 
 
 

The French did the same thing but differently.  They used a thick plank for the wale and then tapered the planks down from there.  See attached,  The wale is at the bottom of the chainplates.

Be careful what you say, rationality is in the eye of the beholder!  The more exaggerated wales on British ships would help counteract hogging.  More of a concern on British ships which typically were more heavily constructed given the differences in expected role and tactics.

Be careful what you say, rationality is in the eye of the beholder!  The more exaggerated wales on British ships would help counteract hogging.  More of a concern on British ships which typically were more heavily constructed given the differences in expected role and tactics.

Be careful what you say, rationality is in the eye of the beholder!  The more exaggerated wales on British ships would help counteract hogging.  More of a concern on British ships which typically were more heavily constructed given the differences in expected role and tactics.

And the floor of the gallery follows the deck sheer, not that of the quarter gallery itself!

Bulkwarks were glued nicely.
 
In this build i educate myself more with books and other material. Will try to make a huge jump in general quality and techniques also.

As it came to my mind that this hull isnt like Terroe i had to remove false keel in order to sand down keel at the areas where there arent any bulkhead. Otherwise planking would be 2mm over the false keel when finished.
 
Installed 3 planks. 1st blanks under gunport bulkhead went in without tapering. Will start tapering from 2nd plank.

Got new toy-Amati clamps. Good investment. Bad is that i cant install many planks at once.
So i prepared filler blocks for each bulkhead (tried to avoid that and rush into planking) that i will glue on at next build day. This means at each bulkhead i can glue it with pva and fix with superglue as i have enough surface to work on.
 
i allready see that planks are meeting the gunport bulkheads line at bow area in one place. I will cover that area with extra planks and sand it down at later stage of the build.
 
Question-should i apply 1st planking to the area where there isnt any bulkheads and its just keel? I should be logical to put only 2nd planking there that would meet with the false keel(rabbet line).
the area is sanded down with dremel for now.

This is indeed a fascinating subject, and unfortunately I have nothing else to add other than musings.  Intuitively it seems inherently a risky design to have the pump directly feed into water outside the keel as shown.  This would make the entire pump case a watertight integrity hazard, failure anywhere in the pump casing below the waterline could result in severe, if not catastrophic, flooding.  While this is clearly something used today in ship design, metal is much more of a robust engineered solution allowing multiple fail safe options in the event of accident or failure.

On p. 142 I scanned above, it is stated that the cyllinders were made of elm, which is very hard and moisture resistant wood, additionally reinforced with iron rings, and this simple construction was very robust, requiring little, if any maintenance, only occasional replacement or greasing of the boxes (valves), so it is quite unlikely that these barrels were susceptible to cracking/ breaking, unless being directly hit by the enemy's fire during a battle. The text also says that  the pump was capable to extract (suck) about 25 gallons of water per minute. I imagine, that if the barrel was cracked/broken, similar amount of water would rush into the bilges. Considering the size of the hull, this wouldn't be so much - after all, there were other pumps onboard to use...
Jean Boudriot says that in French vessels, the working part of this barrel was made from a bronze pipe, only upper and lower ends of the pump were made of elm. As we know, bronze is quite strong, unlikely to crack or corrode. It is used even nowadays for plumbing in certain countries, e.g. Germany...
 
I fully agree with you all, that the life onboard those vessels was very dangerous (not even considering loosing one's life during a battle, where opposing forces were desperatly trying to kill each other!). Even after all these years since then and numerous improvements, it is still one of the most dangerous occupations today!
 
BTW, I found out in B. Lavery's book an illustration, showing a combo-elm pump, which allowed drawing water from both sources, either an inner cistern or directly from the sea. Interesting...
 
Stay safe and healthy,
 
Thomas

Got clearance from Admiral to do some heavy sanding  so was able to move on - had to vacuum whole living after that.
Gunport bulkwark was the most complicated fit so far. Did it so that marked line on bulkwark where it should meet false deck. Fit isnt 100% perfect, some gaps, but 2nd layer will cover it.
 
Applied too much CA at bow so it ran on keel(heavy sanding awaits i guess). That was only way to get it to stick at deck.

As its my 2nd build i have learned a bit. Added some balsa filler blocks and intend to add some more before the planking. Some tore apart during sanding.
 
i know it dosent look nice at the moment but thats my style to make hull rock solid and it all will be covered.
 
Next is to finish with the keel and stren bulkwark.

This is indeed a fascinating subject, and unfortunately I have nothing else to add other than musings.  Intuitively it seems inherently a risky design to have the pump directly feed into water outside the keel as shown.  This would make the entire pump case a watertight integrity hazard, failure anywhere in the pump casing below the waterline could result in severe, if not catastrophic, flooding.  While this is clearly something used today in ship design, metal is much more of a robust engineered solution allowing multiple fail safe options in the event of accident or failure.

This is indeed a fascinating subject, and unfortunately I have nothing else to add other than musings.  Intuitively it seems inherently a risky design to have the pump directly feed into water outside the keel as shown.  This would make the entire pump case a watertight integrity hazard, failure anywhere in the pump casing below the waterline could result in severe, if not catastrophic, flooding.  While this is clearly something used today in ship design, metal is much more of a robust engineered solution allowing multiple fail safe options in the event of accident or failure.

mast tops dead eyes in place using aforementioned method.

This is indeed a fascinating subject, and unfortunately I have nothing else to add other than musings.  Intuitively it seems inherently a risky design to have the pump directly feed into water outside the keel as shown.  This would make the entire pump case a watertight integrity hazard, failure anywhere in the pump casing below the waterline could result in severe, if not catastrophic, flooding.  While this is clearly something used today in ship design, metal is much more of a robust engineered solution allowing multiple fail safe options in the event of accident or failure.

OK Bluto, here is the previous page nr. 142 from the above mentioned book. This should give you further explanations to your questions.
 
Not being any expert on pumps, I think that the water let inside the hull through those horizontal pipes from the openings in the bulwarks below the waterline, was directed into the watertight cistern, and from there it was sucked up, onto the decks by means of the elm tree pumps, to be used for cleaning the decks and/or for extinguishing fires, or such.  An alternative was to draw water directly from the sea, without this cistern - look on the pic 5/14.
The stale water in the bilges was removed rather by the chain pumps - being more powerful than the elm tree pumps.
 
(also, in the book "The Arming and Fitting of English Ships of War 1600-1815" by Brian Lavery, there is an entire chapter (13 pages!) devoted just to pumps. If you read it, you'be an expert on the topic, for sure!)    :-)

Starting to get there I think.  So far about 9ish coats of very thin paint.  Seems like the last 2-3 really start to bring out the color.
 

Am waiting to paint the top of the caprail until the inner planking is in so I can make sure the gap is nice and clean and if needed the filler <gasp> can be blended in
 
(picture looks weird at the bottom moulding irl looks nice and straight)

Small update: thnx Wahka_est! Tried out the combined CA/PVA approach, works like a charm:

Continuing tomorrow 🙂
 

Hi all, it seems I do have more time on my hands: as the nails kept bothering me, instead of putting the Dremel on them I decided to remove them completely, and manually. That took some time, but here's the result:
 

A more smoother surface, and about 300 nails recuperated 🙂
 
Sanding has commenced, starting with the bow:

That was... interesting 🙂 As the plans call for straight pieces of plywood to be stacked and then sanded down, I used the Dremel with the hose to get the chunck off, before moving to the finer finish with the sanding blocks. I really need some Dremel 101 because I managed to make 2 small dents in the bow wood on the starboard side, which I can fill with wood filler of course (got my hands on that before the lockdown went into effect). Another lesson learned.
 
After that manual sanding, and I found the P180 is doing a much better job than the P60 I was using before. Conitued using that on the hull:

Still a working progress, but am I correct in assuming there's 3 phases to hull sanding:
 
1: Basic levelling, exposing areas that cannot be sanded down and need to be filled with wood filler
2: Use the wood filler
3: Sand down the wood filler and finalise.
 
Also, I found the best way to discover unevenness is to use your fingers and go by touch. That led to some strange looks from the Admiral and the Rear-Admiral (17-year old daughter) 🙂 Am I missing a technique I haven't read about?

Busy week last week, managed to do some work nonetheless.. And my first blunder 🙂
 
After testing the varnish, I planned to move ahead: glueing the deck on the bulkheads, bending, painting and attaching the bulwarks. First experiences with the CA glue were... interesting. Mind you, I got the thin CA, which was not really suited for attaching the deck. Friend of mine gave me some advice to try this out:
 

CA glue, but a gel, easy to apply even with a spatula if necessary. In short, good stuff. After some tests I attached the deck without any issue. Next up, bending the bulwarks.  Did a lot of reading and asked for advice (thnx Wahka_est!) and went for it: put the 2 bulwarks in piping hot water and let soak for an hour. Then bending them around a tin can:
 

Worked like a charm... But after allowing them to dry I realised I apparently choose to neglect my marks on the wood and bent both bulwarks in the same direction. After a brief moment of panic and a dash to find the Occre support contact, decided to simply put the wood back in the water, and try and bend it the other way. To my surprise, not a minute after re-immersing the bulwark in the water, the curve straightened itself out. Let it soak, bent it carefully the other way, let dry.  What a material, you try doing that with plastic 🙂
 
After varnishing the bent bulwarks, planned the assembly to the hull. Stern fitted perfectly, some CA was going to be needed for the front, and here we are:
Far from perfect, but a good first try, I think. I'm going to let the hull dry overnight and then fairing commences 🙂

It's not pretty but I won't make the same mistakes again.

Glad to have you follow along Jean-Paul, I very much enjoyed reading through your QAB log, a model to aspire to.
 
Frame Installation:
 
Additional work done on the keel was some final shaping of the stern post, finishing of the keel taper, installation of the transom, and a coat of wipe on poly for protection.  One thing I have noticed with cherry is the grain can cause optical illusions.  In a couple of places I know the surface is as smooth as I can make it, but the grain makes it appear quite course still.
 
I had been working on making up the frames for some time, for many this simply requires to a frame foot to be glued to its corresponding futtock after cleaning off some areas of laser char.  Pretty simple as each has its own guideline which is well explained in the instructions.  The grooves on the assembly board needed to be filed out a little to allow the frames to be inserted, primarily due to the thickness of the wood and the slight angle introduced by the laser cutter.
 
I think this is good opportunity to share an observation about the kit.  It is definitely a well thought out design with very clear instructions, however, that does not mean that some experience is not required as I was soon to find out....I'm sharing my experience below because every other build log of this kit seems to go together without a hitch, so a little humbling that I found this so problematic.
 
First Attempt:
First off, the assembled frames were inserted and the keel glued according to the instructions making sure that frames aligned well beforehand and that the bottom of the frame floor were at the right height to sit in the keel, and best effort to keep this in a straight line as well as by eyeball trying to keep what will be the top of the frames smoothly aligned.  Everything seemed to work fine, and once the glue had had sufficient time to set, I started to fair the frames.  This is when a first inkling of problems started, I noticed that some of the frames were moving in their slots, and upon further investigation some the frames were not really secured solidly to the keel.  Although the planking will definitely add to the strength, I wasn't convinced the frames would be rigid enough to allow planks to be installed.   Given the construction method, its not possible to remove and re-glue a single frame, so the isopropyl alcohol was brought out to remove all the frames....
 

 
Second Attempt:
Upon analysis two things became clear.  I hadn't used enough glue in the joints, and that my judgement of what 'play' was needed for the frames in the build board was wrong (the instructions say that these shouldn't be too tight or too loose), but it was really only trying to go through the process of fairing that indicated what this should be.  Some tape was added as suggested in the instructions to more rigidly seat these, and the process to align and glue repeated (using more glue this time around).  Unfortunately, in the final stages of seating everything,  I somehow placed too much pressure on frame G and the result was that the frame foot broke in two places, and the small tabs on one side of the futtock popped prematurely (these are weak by design to allow easier removal at a later stage).  The isopropyl alcohol was brought out once more to remove all the frames........I don't have any photos of this, honestly I was too despondent to record it...
 
Third (and so far final attempt):
After examining the break, the cherry had broken with the grain and looked like it could be repaired.  These are delicate pieces, but I don't think will be subject to much stress once the planks are on.  The breaks were located on each side of the foot where there is a small dark element of grain, and can just be seen in photos below.  The small tabs on the futtock were also given a tiny spot of glue, and to hopefully provide a little more strength a splint was glued to the central section to absorb some of the shearing forces that will be unavoidable while fairing the frames (this is NOT glued to the actual futtock itself). 
 
So far, things seem to be back on track, and work has resumed on fairing the frames which is where things sit currently.