Beef Wellington

The channels etc. are finally done. 
 

When, some time ago,  I made one of the rowing ports with its little door open,  I made the mistake of choosing one that turned out to be under the middle channel.  This was not a good idea.  Not only does it obscure a rather nice feature, the little door makes life difficult when fitting the channel. You may just see it in the following photo.
 

 

 

Most of the deck fittings have now been finished and it's now just a process of putting them in place. They will have to wait as I will be going away for 3 or 4 weeks on Thursday and household chores need to be done.
 

To my rather pleasant surprise, the bowsprit and the jibboom go together quite nicely.  Here they are joined by the cap.  They are dry-fitted and held by gravity.  Well they would have been here, but again the uploads were knocked back.
 

 
Tried again later.  Joy.

Thanks for the encouragement!! The first planking is now finally complete! It was a very large time investment but I'm mostly happy with the way it turned out!

I did make a few mistakes that made my life rather interesting. I aimed for the deck on the bow instead of the top of the slot above the deck. I therefore got very worried about the way my planks were creeping higher and higher on the keel. I dropped a few planks but then ended up with a dip in the planking across the first bulkhead and had to resort to some rather interesting stealers to correct the deficit.
 
Some regress photos to illustrate my point. First of the dip on the left:

Then of the stealer I used for the same dip on the right, seen four planks down. It worked in the end, but I'm sure I'll manage to do a better job on the second planking!
I also then ended up with a lip between the planks at deck level and the two just below. If I'd planked deck down I might have been able to correct this but planking keel up I saw the problem too late. The drop is a full planks' thickness so I'm considering gluing a short stretch of spare plank on top of the fourth and fifth planks from the first bulkhead to the keel and sanding it down at the edges to complete the curvature of the bow.
 
Any thoughts or recommendations??
 
The stern was a bit more successful, with Dan's advice about the CA glue solving my problem of getting planks to stick.

I've now begun the sanding process and will then getting cracking on the second planking! Any advice on ways to improve on my first attempt?

I probably have to wait until I start working on her for real and do more on my other kits. Here you can see her in comparison with my Granado and Snake.  

Whales added and sanded. For once, i didnt use pins... the Chuck method with CA. It took some time to get used to … with my fingers constantly stuck on the model like a kid licking a metalpole a cold winterday.

I am seriously thinking of using Tanganyika Wood for the planking since i dont know where to get boxwood in Europé.  

ASAT,
 
Bristol will be first half of next year.
 
I had to take a step back and be realistic. I know that Bristol will have the same new design principals as the large Amati Victory I did. The Victory took me two years to design, build the model and picture taking, and plans and instructions. This almost killed me! Although part of the time was trying to perfect the designs, so now that I know what's required, the next will not be so bad. Although Bristol is not as large as Victory, it will have fundamentally the same designs in the way it is built, a cross between Victory and Prince. I want Bristol as the forth kit and a frigate (or Swan class Atalanta) for the fifth. There is some overlap between each kit development, though. For example, I already have the correct shapes and number of bulkheads, decks and deck levels for Bristol, and same for the third kit, as I need to ensure the decoration at the stern and figureheads are going to fit perfectly. the best way to do this is to have the parts to which they will be attached to already complete, so no nasty surprises if I left it all to the last minute, and realised that what's shown on the original plans doesn't quite tally with how things should be - this happens often..
 
If I can develop three smaller kits first (Alert, Speedy and the one shown above, which I do not want to name yet), and they end up being successful, I can perhaps think about leaving my day job (which is also killing and restricting me right now), and concentrate fully on the larger, more complex and expensive developments. If working on such projects full time, they should take no longer than the smaller kits are taking me now, as I have an extra 40 hours per week to spend on them. Although I did design/develop the kits at Amati, Amati did format the instruction booklets and sort out the box art. It is only me now that does everything, from sourcing parts, getting the master carvings sorted, putting the plans and instructions together for publishable format, and sorting every other of the seemingly hundreds of things required to get even these smaller kits together. I am still getting used to this heavier workload, and am sure than when I get more used to it, it will become easier. But with working full time as well as doing this, there are only a set amount of hours per day, and the kits are not simple 'block models' anymore, there is a lot more to them.
 
As it stands at this moment however, I need my day job to pay the household bills and preserve my investment money. I am even putting some money into my business account from my wages each month, so every available Penny is being invested.
 
I should finish the Speedy hull assembly today, if I manage that, I will take some pics and post them, I now have the missing 0.4mm PE sheet!

As a kid I always remembered staring up at this kit with longing eyes, it was always sitting out of reach - physically on the top shelf, and financially in its huge box!  Never seen the PE before, so definitely want to follow your progress Kevin, this is the first PE I've seen that needs to be soldered.  You're doing a great job.

As a kid I always remembered staring up at this kit with longing eyes, it was always sitting out of reach - physically on the top shelf, and financially in its huge box!  Never seen the PE before, so definitely want to follow your progress Kevin, this is the first PE I've seen that needs to be soldered.  You're doing a great job.

Mass production of family portraits of metal parts

Taken from Andrew Lambert's "The last sailing Battlefleet", the Queen class were provisionally designed for 110 guns, all 32lb  with the exception of two 68lb cannons on each of the lower and middle gun deck.  The total also include two 68lb focsl carronades.  While still on the stocks, and based on experience with the launched Queen, three ships were lengthened by 3 feet at the bow to accommodate 118 or 120 guns (including a full lower gun deck of 68lb cannons), but not as a result of steam modification.    Marlborough which was the least advanced, was further redesigned to carry 68lb cannon on all decks (!) at launch.
 
Unfortunately I have no information on any subsequent changes in armament, before or after lengthening to accommodate steam, but clearly that was at some point after initial launching, and born out by the photos above.
 
Sadly after reviewing every photograph of both pre and post steam ships, I can't see any similar structure to the question that started this thread.  My view, they appear more along the line of outboard lights than any sort of armament - why would any further armament addition not use one of the already cut gun ports, makes no sense from an engineering standpoint to cut another port right between 2 perfectly good ones.  Just my 2c...

good evening everyone
 
please ignore the mess the pieces are in, they will be cleaned by the next post
 
the bridge work continues, apart from looking and playing with some deck parts earlier
 
but for now this is my priority, 
 
it may look a mess but it does look better in real life, LOL had i known they would look this bad i perhaps would not have posted them
 
photo 6 took me 3 hours to redo time and time again, at last i then got the finish i wanted, to realise it was meant to be stepped up,

Work on stunsail boom irons...
A copper strip is used. Rounded and glued... The small gap between edges is filled with CA and sanded. Will be painted matte black... Yard irons and stunsail irons will be glued to each other with a brass stick also painted matte black...
 

First layer of the whales in place... one more to go!

As a kid I always remembered staring up at this kit with longing eyes, it was always sitting out of reach - physically on the top shelf, and financially in its huge box!  Never seen the PE before, so definitely want to follow your progress Kevin, this is the first PE I've seen that needs to be soldered.  You're doing a great job.

Especially since I started the rigging, when big 'sticks' started sprouting upwards and in all other directions, I've tried to be as "unclumsy" as possible and although there have been a few times spars and rigging threads and other things have been caught by my hand or whatever, they have all survived the experience - - - until now.
 
I managed to clunk the starboard bumpkin - - - and >>>

I attempted to save it by applying a little PVA glue and holding it in position by using a thread looped through the block which was clamped on to the mast top. I wasn't very confident it would work, and my lack of faith was justified when, the next morning it looked like this >>>

I wasn't keen to rip it off to start again as it's glued and dowelled into the knighthead and also glued and nailed via a metal bracket on to the head timbers so I drilled a 1mm hole as close as I could in the centres of both parts of the casualty and inserted a 1mm brass wire, then glued the two pieces together again >>

. . . and (hopefully) back to normal (it feels at least as firm as the original) >>>

As a kid I always remembered staring up at this kit with longing eyes, it was always sitting out of reach - physically on the top shelf, and financially in its huge box!  Never seen the PE before, so definitely want to follow your progress Kevin, this is the first PE I've seen that needs to be soldered.  You're doing a great job.

Good evening everyone
 
over the last couple of days i have been learning to solder, and even I have seen some improvement 
 
the hull will stay as it is for a while, whilst i basically built a ship out of PE 
 
so at present i am concentration on the Bridge area, for several reason
it is one of the smaller kit from GLS, so if i was to completly mess it up it wont cost as much as the the main set set to replace, also has a wide variety of different projects to build so that i can get used to not burning my fingers so much and learn new techniques 
lol it also uses some of the original kit as well
 
Bridge area
PE set

from the kit

replacement walkway

first real successful soldering


flag locker 20 pieces no glue,  has been cleaned up a lot since the photo

nearly all the metal work has reverse rivets the need to be pushed through with a centre punch 


 
 
 
 

good evening everyone
 
made some progress over the last couple of days, not pretty though, lots to learn, and enjoyable but shameful to show everyone, but im happy to share the rubbish, as i like to think i will get better
 
this is the bridge area 

good evening not my photo and i dont know where it came from

That is some seriously good first planking, well done!

Because the parts are too small and the rate of good products is not high, today we can finally solve the problem of this part.

Hi Vane - Looking good.  The trick with the wale it seems is to have it parallel to the sheer of the top of the bulwarks and all of the various rails.  Once you see it it seems so obvious but is very apparent from looking at original plans, but I completely missed it on my Snake build.  Given that you have these preformed, it should be possible to use that as a guide.

Those are just stunning Thomas, well done, such precise work at a small scale.

That is some seriously good first planking, well done!

Post 11
Planking above the wale
Above the wale I  have used Boxwood strip forming three strakes down to the wale top. At the aft end the planks are shaped to meet the lower side counter pieces.

1598(2)
I won't completely finish these Top sides off until I have cut the half ports along the bulwark.

1606
I then moved onto planking the internal bulwarks. For the Spirketing I used kit Pear wood strips,(1x3mm and 1x4mm)
Above this I used a Boxwood strip sanded back to the top line.

1607
The second layer of the Wales were then attached using 6x1mm Boxwood strip.
A rabbet is cut into the bow stem to take the forward end which is slightly reduced in thickness.
The plank requires a little heat bending to take the stress out of it and before fitting the three Hook and and Butt scarph joints are  represented by scribing into the surface.
I have followed the arrangement from the Goodwin Alert book.
Using Caldercraft metal black paint I applied a thinned coat to seal the wales, but these will need to be finished much further down the road.
As suspected the scarf joints are barely visible, and probably not worth the effort.

1604

1605
 I added the waterways along the deck, cut from some Boxwood sheet.

1609
Starting to look a little better now, my next  job will be to cut the half ports along the bulwark, before planking the deck.
 
B.E.
08/08/2019