Beef Wellington

...and the result with the new bow grating angle.
 
I lost the close up photo, but one thing you can just see in the bottom picture was the enlargement of the slots for the gammoning.  As supplied, these slots were not long enough to allow the gammoning to be done properly but it was pretty easy to extend these using a needle file.

You can see in the picture below how even after fitting these, the bow grating does not lie correctly and would interfere with the bowsprit, simple adjustment to make but required a lot of dry fitting with the appropriate parts to get it to look right...

After spending quite a bit of time on the interior getting it to where I wanted it, time to move onto the exterior. As previously mentioned, I will be painting the hull black with a yellow ochre band or stripe, exactly how to be determined. Knowing that I will need to be using masking tape to get a clean line, I want to get as many of the features installed that will be key to figuring this out, while leaving off those things that will make this harder or impossible.
 
At the bow, after much deliberation (and deviating from the instructions) I decided to install the bow cheeks first after dry fitting the bowrails to determine the alignment. These tool a lot of time and patience to get right as pretty much every face has a compound angle. To get the right look, I used 4mm spacers from some spare walnut planking to ensure that the seperation was uniform fore to aft on the cheeks. I found the plans less than helpful in this, as each elevation (and even the box art) has the cheeks in different place. Once I was happy with the cheeks, it was relatively simple to gradually trim the bow railings to get the right alignment.
 
You'll notice I have not yet completed finishing the hawse holes. This is deliberate, my hope is to fit the hawse hole bolsters first so that hawse holes can be finished so they can be in alignment.

Had a chance to finish up on the interior bulwarks. After painting red ochre, there were a number of cracks and splinters around gunports I wanted to tidy up. Used a quick drying light wood filler, minor sanding and a fresh coat of paint it looks much better (hard to tell from photos unusually!). I'm not looking to have a compeletely smooth finish as these seem to be a little less finished on real ships. I'll probably do a final coat once I've had chance to tidy up the exterior, but more to come on that...befor eand after are reversed, haven't figured out how to fix that yet.


 

I added a thin strip of .5x3mm walnut strip purchased seperately to simulate spirketting and painted this before glueing in place.  Purpose was to try and make the deck/bulwark transition as clean as possible, as I found the deck ply was not 100% true at the edges once the false gunport patterns had been nstalled. I not quite sure it would measure up to being 100% accurate, and I did not do any sort of waterway or margin plank.  I have started to remove the small section to allow the cathead to fit flush.
 
Prior to this, last photo, I'd raised the height of the gunport sills.  I sanded these back flush with the hull as I'm planning on using the turned brass Caldercraft 32lb carronades instead of the kit supplied ones.  These mount to a block ont he deck rather than to a protruding sill as required by kit supplied peices, you can see this in the second photo.

Deck after finishing.  I'm planning to adjust the layout of the deck using the HMS Gannet/Bellete plans freely available for download from the NMM.  Decidied not to do any treenailing as I didn't think it really needed it as the deck seemed a nice backdrop for all the furniture to come, and its questionable whether these would be very visible at this scale...personal opinion only.

Gun port templates installed, had some difficulty with this as there was little space to attach with glue along ships length.  I found the bulkhead extensionsdid not seem to follow the correct lines,but they do add some protection at this early stage. 
 
The height of these patterns were determined by measuring from the bottom of the gunport to the the false deck - accounting for the thickness of the decking and the gunport sills.  I used the capping rails to try to get these as much in line with these as possible after soaking.  Decided to use the capping rails as the guide rather than the plans as they do not match closely at the bow.
 
Decking was done using soft pencil on the side of planks, and I decided to go with a 1-3-5-2-4 butt shift pattern and individual plank lengths of 15cm.  Finished with a couple coats of satin varnish which enhanced the colour a bit, but put a final coat of matt to finish.

Thanks so much, Marc. We had a scare with the virus with a relative in Denver, where the entire city is now locked down. Relative OK, now quarantined. But you have it way worse in New York City, Marc; stay safe!
 
Slowly moving along with the top strake of 4" plank. Just for fun, and for a break while waiting for glue to dry, I temporarily clamped a cheek on at the bow, and sat upon it a rough blank for the hawse liner. Still to be shaped, but it begins to show the lines relative to the planking. It is interesting to see how the cut down of the hull at the forecastle is not parallel to the outboard planking. It slopes down rather more towards the bow. I double checked the drawing, and this appears to be so the little deck at the bow is aligned more with the sheer of the upper deck, which it sits just above. This visual anomaly will pretty much be obscured by all of the head work later.
 
Mark
 
 
 
 

Hi Again Folks ..  I managed to sneak some Ballahoo work into my 'Day-Off' , I wasn't planning on doing so 'till my holidays which are coming in a few days time .. So I opened a few of my reference books to locate scale drawings of anchor stocks which I could size in Photoshop to suit my needs..  Success was found in Laverys The Arming & Fitting of English Ships of war 1600-1815 .. I scanned the drawing of the Anchor Stock into Photoshop and sized it to suit Ballahoo , transferred it to an A4 sheet and Printed (see photo attached) Checked the size (as scale can sometimes change when printing, if you aren't careful with settings) Then cut out the relevant parts and lightly pasted them to some of my spare wood stock (Don' think I've ever seen the word 'Stock' used so often outside a Cook Book !! 🙄 )
I'll Cut and sand them to size next week and report back as to how I get on 😁  I mean what could possibly go wrong .. 🥺 😆 ..
 
Stay Safe Folks 😷
 
All The Very Best, and Thanks For Taking The Time To Drop By.
 
Eamonn
 
Edit ..  BTW The wood Stock is thin enough to allow me to do both parts of each Stock on the Anchors .. So the bottom photo is for One Anchor Only !
 
Stock.. Stock ...Stock .. 😇
 
Stock ! (There, That Must Be A Record)

Thanks all for the continued interest and kind words,  unfortunately progress has been halted due to running out of certain line.  I have an order into CMB for some more but with the current situation may take a while, work will resume as soon as the supply chain catches up...hopefully I can get some Queen Anne Barge time in in the interim.

You are rather quick to pick things up again Jason. I'll follow along, search for my seat ...

Good to see work has restarted Jason. 👍
 
 
B.E.

Really nice work Jason.  Very detailed and great images of your work.
 
Robert

Brilliant to see Snake back on the Table Bud .. Nice reworking also.. Have to say she looks a treat !
 
All The Best J.
 
Eamonn

Thank You Michael, Chuck, Ryland and to all the 'Likes'.
Ryland, it's really nice to be able to find your way to the workshop and especially to be able to reuse your right hand. Shaving with the left hand is not always very safe. 😅
 
I finished all the carvings.

They are now in place and I am not unhappy to have opted to use them.


I steel have to order the wood for the base. And it will be my first completed project 😁
 
 

Thanks to all the 'Likes'.
 
The Queen Anne cypher was glued on a scrap piece of 1/8" thick cherry. I used some Uhu stick's glue. When everything is dry and strong, I started by removing the residue of laser chart and rounding the edges using a sharp #11 blade.  I referenced the drawing found in the appendix of the instruction manual. The arrows added on the drawing are very useful to know the right direction of cutting.


Finally, I made a light sanding with a small piece of sandpaper. I have to hope that the separation with the backing piece goes well...

The carving of the next 6 pieces will probably be more complex but I will mark beforehand with a pencil the stop cuts on the drawings and on the carving blanks.
 

Beautiful result BE, I do love the colour tones of your builds and cleanness of your rigging...and very educational to boot .  Looking forward to seeing your Queen Anne Barge take shape, more QAB can't be a bad thing!

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

Hi Gremreeper - Unfortunately I don't think there is a magic, secret solution to your problem.  Wood strip, even as thin as 0.5mm just wont really bend in multiple directions readily, you don't mention whether you have tried soaking the planks or not, if not, then worth a try.  Other than that, I think CaptPoison's suggestion to use a drop plank terminating in the area of the bulge is something worth pursuing.  Another option would be to try and first heat bend a strip using a hairdryer to give a strip a slight curve across the width of the plank, and then try to fit on the curve of the hull, this may be sufficient to prevent breakage.
 
And, if you haven't already, strongly recommend reading the planking tutorials as they are pretty comprehensive and provide great information on approaching this tricky step.

Interesting subject Andy, definitely want to see how this plays out.

Hi Gremreeper - Unfortunately I don't think there is a magic, secret solution to your problem.  Wood strip, even as thin as 0.5mm just wont really bend in multiple directions readily, you don't mention whether you have tried soaking the planks or not, if not, then worth a try.  Other than that, I think CaptPoison's suggestion to use a drop plank terminating in the area of the bulge is something worth pursuing.  Another option would be to try and first heat bend a strip using a hairdryer to give a strip a slight curve across the width of the plank, and then try to fit on the curve of the hull, this may be sufficient to prevent breakage.
 
And, if you haven't already, strongly recommend reading the planking tutorials as they are pretty comprehensive and provide great information on approaching this tricky step.

Interesting subject Andy, definitely want to see how this plays out.

Welcome aboard Bob, and thanks for the interest from all:
 
The upside of social distancing and resting in place is that there seem to be a few more hours in the evening with no commitments.  The remaining keel sections have been installed which is a little bit of a relief as it should provide a little more strength, especially at the sternpost.  The instructions indicate the thin center keel section is a little oversized and can be trimmed at the aft end.  I'm a little concerned that for some reason I needed to shorten this to the extent that the slot for the frame is noticeably narrower than others, which will surely require some attention before frames can be attached (center of 3rd picture below).  Open to suggestions on how this slot should be widened (centered, widen forward or aft).
 

 
Its very difficult to get a sense of size from isolated photos, and it must be said that this barge at 1:24 is far from small.  In fact, from stem to stern its nearly exactly the same length as His Majesties sloop of war Snake, but significantlymore susceptible to damage..
 

Hi Gremreeper - Unfortunately I don't think there is a magic, secret solution to your problem.  Wood strip, even as thin as 0.5mm just wont really bend in multiple directions readily, you don't mention whether you have tried soaking the planks or not, if not, then worth a try.  Other than that, I think CaptPoison's suggestion to use a drop plank terminating in the area of the bulge is something worth pursuing.  Another option would be to try and first heat bend a strip using a hairdryer to give a strip a slight curve across the width of the plank, and then try to fit on the curve of the hull, this may be sufficient to prevent breakage.
 
And, if you haven't already, strongly recommend reading the planking tutorials as they are pretty comprehensive and provide great information on approaching this tricky step.

All the channels are in place as well as those gun port lids which are between the chains. To improve the stability of the chains I tried to close the middle link with some tin-solder. It doesn't look perfect but seems more stable.
While constantly turning the hull for and back I came across our hero's sculpture every time and was more and more irritated by his brown breast armour. As higher Greek ratings anyway were entitled to a metal protection I replaced his leather by metal and even offered a heroic gold plating - means I painted his breast golden. It looks now more in line with the other colours, simpler and better.
 

mizzen channel
 
 

fore channel
 
 

our hero looks good in his new, shining armour
 
 
scuppers
 
Perhaps it's just another one of my obsessions but I try to install scuppers on all my models. They should show that ship's hulls are just fragile and leaking eggshells  and the water which comes in has to go out again.
Learning where to install scuppers was difficult. Finally I found a note in 'Bellona' from the AOTS series saying that there are 6 per side on the gun deck and 7 per side on the upper deck. However no plans where to install them were included. I think that those on the gun deck could be installed similar to those on frigates where I found some information and for the upper deck I will try to find logical positions. It seems that scuppers:
- are about evenly spaced in the central part of the deck
- are not below a gun port and therefore covered by a gun
- may be in the form of a slightly bigger pump dale near the mainmast
Scuppers on the upper deck should additionally not be above a gun port or a scupper of the gun deck.
The locations were chosen accordingly and the one near the mainmast on the gun deck is a pump dale and therefore slightly bigger.
I used again ferrules from the electric compartment with a diameter of 1,5mm respective 2mm for the pump dales . As they are all placed within the black wales I painted them black as well.
 

all scuppers except the foremost on each deck
 

main channel with scuppers
the second scupper from the left on the (lower) gun deck is a slightly larger pump dale
 
 
 
 
stand
 
Originally I planed to step Bellerophon onto 3 pilars mounted on an oak base, similar to Pegasus, Pickle and America.
I like those stands because the model almost seems to float on them. But while handling that rather heavy hull and thinking of the rather sof MDF which should hold the 3 screws which in turn would take all the strain I started to have doubts. Some destruction tests with  leftover MDF slid into the pilars' slot did nothing to dispel those doubts.
Reluctanly I accepted the kit's craddle as final support for the model. Painted with palisander stain it achieved a colour slightly darker than the aged copper but lighter and more elegant than the dull black shown on the kit's box.
 
 
Most of the still missing, fragile details on the hull will have to wait until the rigging is completed. I think the fuselage could be delared completed and it's time to start on the wings. Also this is the time for a celebration beer - I'll check if there's still  some Corona brew in the cellar.
 

ready to launch...