Beef Wellington

Cheers Jim and the likes, and thanks Mort - unfortunately I'm way beyond that decision but something to think about for the future...
 
Rigging seems to be a little bit of a neglected area on this site, so wanted to post few pics of progress, for things specific to this kit where may be of help to others and also to hopefully capture where I've deviated from the plans.  Petersson has been INVALUABLE!
 
As a side note, I also nearly had a heart attack when I brought Snake outside for a few photos - I normally work in artificial light in my basement, and the natural light made all sorts of sorts of previously unseen 'fuzzies' VERY apparent.  I vow never to use kit supplied line again, but am committed to making it work here for consistency.  Will probably try brushing on some dilute PVA to try to tame them at some point.
 
I've found the following 3 scenarios to be common:
Plans are not clear - in these cases I've tried to follow Petersson Plans are clear enough and are somewhat consistent with Petersson - in these cases I've followed the plans but tweaked in some cases where it seems to make more sense Plans are clear enough, but differ from Petersson - in these cases I've followed the plans, unless Petersson seems more logical/elegant.  
Foreyard and Fore Topmast
 
Fore yard prior to installation.  Jeers and slings also pre-rigged


 
Foremast installed.  I used thicker line on the jeers (.75mm) as this seemed more in keeping with pictures I've found and attached round the yard following Petersson.   As expected, I found lashing the slings rather challenging.


I found the trusses could be made following plans and Petersson, but was the devil trying to get in place with all pendants and catharpins.  Truss in place (sorry picture is little blurry), I did not even attempt to put in the knave line!

 
Fore-topmast in place.  Found the parrals very fiddly to do, but they can be done according to Petersson.  I gave the parral beads a couple of goes in the drum sander to take off the shine and it gave a very pleasing result.

The fore-topsail yard tie and lifts were taken around the fore-topmast with an eye splice as per Petersson.


Belaying items for the foremast is rather challenging on Snake as the for'd bits are very close to the platform and leaves very little room for maneuver.  I also didn't make this any easier by belaying the hawsers around the bits either.

 
And finally, where things stand currently...I added flemish horses to the fore-topsail which are not identified in the Snake plans, but seem pretty ubiquitous and covered in Lever.

In the meantime the arming of the quarterdeck continued. The 9-pounder guns forward of the cabin bulkhead will be 'fully' rigged. To simplify the process the tackle blocks are directly attached to the eyebolts, bypassing the hooks. I use black thread which could be taken for iron binding and hook - considering the scale and my eyes.
When I'm fed up with rigging the tiny blocks I work a bit on the stern. Bellerophon got her name (or is it his name? - a female ship with a male name - the English language can be confusing). Instead of the kit's photo etched letters I tried 6mm gold gothic font letters. A full stop was added with a dot of gold paint. (There was a discussion in this forum about how the ships were named and it seem the names ended with a full stop. ) I think the result looks quite acceptable.
 
 

step by step reworking of guns and carriages
 
 

the skipper checks a gun which is ready to be hoisted on board
 
 

port side of the quarter deck
 
 

although the name is already there, I didn't break a bottle of champagne on the bow (yet)

The rigging of the guns continues. I will have to put tackles to the 12 of them, which could be visible from above. On this sides you find a lot of great looking, meticulously made rope coils. However, as I'm a bit afraid of hard work I was looking for a simpler solution. Now, if the guns are run out but not ready to fire but fixed in this position, wouldn't you lash the tackles instead of just coiling the ropes on the deck, leaving the guns free to move? Well, this skipper does. Most probably you would fix the gun with the side tackles, leaving you free to take off the train tackles to stow them out of the way. This skipper doesn't. The train tackles will stay in place but lashed with the free end of the rope. This is easier to do, looks tidy and perhaps isn't completely wrong.
 
 

 
the skipper checks a finished gun
 
 
 
 
 
 
stern
Between placing the guns I worked a bit on the stern for a change. The bulkhead was assembled and put in place. Two nail heads serve as door knobs. Also the two ports on the lower counter got their portlids, the toping lifts still missing.
 

 
glazing of the windows was done with some leftover cellophane sheet - thinner and easier to work with than the kit's part
 
 
 

 
ports on the lower counter
 
 
 
 
 
The cast stern decoration for Bellerophon is a problem. It doesn't fit well and I can't bend it to follow the curve of the transom. But Elephant has an identical decoration with the exception of the middle part. This, an elephant, was scratched away. Then I made a casting mold from the white metal original kit part and first tried a plaster casting. This came out nicely but was much too brittle to work with. A second try with dual component glue came out quite well and even stayed a bit flexible - probably I made a little mistake in the mixture. I need a few more tries, but this will be the way to go.
 
 

 
Elephant decoration with elephant scratched away
 
 
 

 
original cast part, plaster casting and mold
 
 
 

 
white painted cast  of Bellerophon made with dual component glue
 
 
 

 
Bellerophon replacing the Elephant
 
 

After installing gudgeons and pintles the rudder got also a spectacle plate (made from cartridge paper) and eyebolts for emergency steering and securing the rudder.

The following painting of the outer hull was even more cumbersome than expected - mainly because I used a much too stiff masking tape for the first side. With a better tape the second one was a bit easier. I used tree paint covers and countless corrections and I still see flaws every time I look at the build. However I keep telling myself that all those imperfections add to the 'handmade' quality of the model. The paints are Admiralty water based paints, with 15% white in the yellow ochre and about 5% white in the dull black. The black looked rather grey on the brush but I like the finished paint.

The upper part of the rudder was painted as well and all the lower hinges touched up with copper paint.

The inner part of the side galleries and the cabins were 'grey washed'. I used white with just a little bit of black in order to get as close as possible to the impression on the pictures of Victory.

After touching up the gun port frames with red and provisionally hanging the rudder it was time for a photo session.


 



seen from a distance, the paint looks ok


 



the captain, inspecting the newly hanged rudder, is dwarfed by the ship


 


 

Finished some of the bow work and played with some of the small sculptures on the stern. Michael Angelo has nothing to worry about. 😁. Progress is a good feeling no matter how small. 



At 1:85 scale the sculptures can get pretty small so detail is very difficult. At least for me. 

 
Tom

Hull nearly complete just some tidying up to do.
 
I used Manns floor varnish to finish the hull and deck. I put this on another topic.
 
 



 

Lou, Thank you for taking an interest, Below is another view of the deck showing the nibbling strake and planking.

Gun port eyebolt positions were drilled through a simple jig made out of two layers of scrap ply. The larger layer had the jig holes drilled through, the smaller layer is the exact size of the gun port. Has a planking screw through the centre so can be passed through the port and held from the outside whilst drilling for the eyebolts from the inside.
 
Take a note of the hawse hole positions as predetermined by the kit. They are too far from the stem post. Any anchor cable would rub on the cathead brackets when running in a direct line too their access to the cable tier. If you look to the next photos of the outside of the hull you will see they are too far out compared to the cheeks.
 

Funny our good the kit looks to you photograph it.

View of headrails etc, Not much like the kit, I managed to shape the grating / marines walk by soaking for hours and then shaping with a hot iron.
 
 

Gratings in place on the deck. None are these are true to size of the plan. I cut the deck back to the apertures on the false deck. Big mistake, not only are the grating parts provided insufficient in length to cover the holes the subsequent built size are not to plan.
 
My advice would be to plank the deck completely and apply the gratings over the top. Not correct to real manufacture which is the opposite way round. The over issue is the small gap between the gratings and between them and the companionway. The planks are too small and to easy to keep breaking away. Hole for the companionway ( still visible above) is also too large. I have this ready to put in place and have had to run a plank round the bottom edge to make it wide enough to cover the hole.

Rudder pintles added, rudder ready to be fitted but leaving off for now. Paint will need touching up.

Hull entrance steps

Now the forward deckhouse is painted and various parts glued to the roof.
 

Post 2
Getting to grips
First thing to note is that the part numbers are not laser cut into the mdf parts. It is necessary to mark all parts with the reference number before removal from the host sheet.

336
When starting a kit I like to dry fit the parts to get a feel for the build, and make up a simple build board to support the stem and keel.
 On my kit the bulkhead parts and the false keel are quite a loose fit so great care will need to be taken make sure that the bulkheads remain square during assembly while the glue dries.

338
The lower deck which slots over the bulkheads helps to stabilise the bulkheads square to the keel, but still allows  some movement in the vertical plane.
The stern post fits loosely into slots on the false keel and is glued into place, but before this can be done the instructions say to reduce the stern area  to half its thickness to allow for subsequent planking to fit flush against the stern post.
The actual area of the stern to be reduced is indicated as relating to the very aft edge of the false keel and the tabs attached to the stern post.

347
A specific  bearding line has not been indicated, but I have drawn one in for the purposes of my build.

348
Altho' there is a long slot down the stem piece which in effect is the rabbet for the bow planking, the set up doesn't seem to lend itself easily to a keel rabbet to secure the Garboard plank.
Any such rabbet would need to be cut along the actual keel leading up to the stem slot.
There is only a 3mm width of keel to play with so any rabbet would have to be fairly shallow and would inevitably reduce the gluing area to the false keel. I think faying the Garboard strake into the keel is the safe option.

345
It is interesting to note that the stem, rudder post and rudder are quite close to the  1:64 scale drawings in the Goodwin book.

343
I will scribe the section joins that make up the stem as indicated in the Goodwin book, onto the kit provided stem.
I had considered reproducing these items in Boxwood, but as I intend to paint the stem this would be a waste of good timber.
 
B.E.
23/06/2019
 

Update.  Not much to add really.  I have had a free morning so finished the majority of the upper section of the second planking in boxwood on both sides.  I will do the quarterdeck and the trimming around the transom area later.  I then cracked on with some walnut planning on the hull that will be below the waterline and will eventually be covered by copper tiles. My planking is not great so I am using this to get practice and improve even though my labours will be masked in due course.  I think this phase might take some time!     

Hi Peter - planking is looking good, you handled that tricky area at the stern under the wale very nicely! Always hard to tell in the photos, but did you leave a lip for those few ports that will receive a lid at the bow and stern?

Glad you've jumped into this BE, very intrigued to see one of Chris' new kits come together with your usual excellence in execution.

I need to bevel the bottoms of the false rail before fitting, a coat of sanding sealer and final sanding of the head timbers first though, oh ! and the seats of ease
Regards
Paul
 

Time for another small update. Small because of late I've found myself sitting staring at the model when I get a little time to work on it, and not achieving much beyond that.  Oh well, the ship's patient with me!
 
Anyway... For a break in the channels, I've been looking at the head rails. The top rail needs to be made up before you can see where the other rail, and all of the parts that sit on top of the beakhead go.
 
I wanted to make these parts up so they reflected the AOTS / NMM plans shapes more closely than the kits parts. To that end, I stretched the plans (which started at 1:64) around the bow by 114% on the x-axis, which by my calculations allows for the angle the rails are at on the plans. Then I printed them out, made a card mockup to trial it, and then pritt-sticked them onto some cherry (in two parts so that the grain was running along each part) and cut them out.
 
And here are the results...  (roughly taped in position for a trial)
 
The redeeming feature of these headrails is that they're straight when you look at them from the top. It won't be so easy for the middle rail, which seems to bend in every direction possible. This will at least give a good reference point for starting out making that part!



 

It's been a while since I posted an update.. that's for a few reasons. Firstly, I've been agonising over the deadeye strops. The kit includes some pre-bent wire, which can be soldered shut - the problem being that the joint ends up at the bottom, where the chains connect... It may be my soldering, but I found that the joint was coming loose, and that meant the chain just fell loose. That was irritating at this stage, but I didn't want to start the standing rigging and find deadeyes were coming loose, and I guess they're going to have a fair amount of tension on them by the time they're rigged. So... I scratched my head... and waited while I thought about it.
 
The second reason was that I went away for a few days, and took a model with me, and I still haven't finished it I haven't put a build log on here, becuase it's just for fun and I'm chucking it together. It's a 1/350 Tamiya Prince of Wales with _some_ photo-etch from Eduard on it and a wooden deck. Those of you who know the ship well, or know the photo-etch kit, or know pretty much anything about plastic / photo-etch builds, will see a myriad of problems ... and I don't care it was just for fun!
 

I had a bit of a play making a seascape for it, to make it a waterline model... and here's the current state of it. I'm going to finish it off so I have my boat building desk back to get on with Ethalion. It should be done in the next week or so.
 
Back to the deadeye strops, and I've found a solution. Caldercraft sell them as photo-etch sets separately, so I've ordered a bunch, and that should take the cork out of the creative bottle as they say!
 
I'll let you know how I get on.
 
Rob

Today I managed to add the decoration onto the port gallery so that it matched the starboard. I've also added the capping rails onto the forecastle. I added walnut strip to the edge of the capping strip to widen it before pre-painting it and then fixing it onto the hull.
 

Hi all,
 
First of all, thanks very much for the likes
 
Just a little update. I've been working on the channels and chain links that pass the pull from the stays and deadeyes down to the hull sides.
 
The first job was to get the plates at the base of these links in place. So I put the stub masts in, clamped a 30cm ruler to it them and used cotton thread to show the line the stays would follow. The thread was weighted down with small bulldog clips and passed through the notches in the channels. Masking tape on the hull side allowed me to mark the locations of the pins, and then drill them without marking the hull sides.
 


 
These are fiddly blighters. I blackened all the photo-etch parts, and now I've made up the brass wire links that complete the links I'm ready to blacken those. Just the 5mm deadeyes on the fore and main channels done so far and dry fitted. To strengthen the parts, I soldered the parts surrounding the dead eyes to make them a closed loop. So far, so good... none of the chains, lined up to follow the lines of the stays, obstruct the gun ports! 😅


 
And in other news, I had a surprise on Saturday. I turned 40 a few days ago, and my wife had organised a surprise party... in Bristol... a harbour trip on the Matthew (the replica of John Cabot's caravel from 1497)...  they even let me steer! (brave of them!)
 

 
Not something I ever thought I'd do, but a nice way to start a new decade!
 
Rob
 
 

Hi all,
 
I've been spending a little more time transcribing the master's logs for Ethalion. It's a fascinating process... Lots of it is repetitive but then you find passages where the entire rig of the ship is taken down and set up again... As others have speculated in the past, it is clear that lots of knowledge was simply assumed - the passage below logged when Ethalion was moored in Hamoaze demonstrating that nicely...
 
 
Tuesday
18th December 1798
Varble

NNW
Light Winds & Cloudy, fitted the Bobstays and set them up. Riggd the foretopmast and Mizen Mast, Sway’d up the fore & main top Masts and set up the fore and Main stays &c. &c. AM Modt and Cloudy, Got the top sail Yards across & Rattled Down the Fore & Main Rigging, Recd 354 Pounds of Fresh Beef Recd also Boatswains stores.
 
It's nice to see the humanity of the Master (James Duckworth) creeping in too... (Not quite a month of Sundays, but seemingly a week with two Thursdays!) . The error continues to the end of the page (with Saturday rather than Sunday) and then suddenly skips back to the correct day... but perhaps the error was never spotted? There have been a few places where that happened. A sign of the similarity of days aboard a ship of war?
 

I found myself writing about putting on the dead eyes on the same day I've been starting to set these up on my build. A pleasing coincidence!
 
For those who would like to read more about the order in which the ship was re-rigged (having had considerable amounts of the rigging condemned), you can find it in the December 1798 entries in the following PDF (a work in progress).
 
LogTranscription.James_Ducker_Masters_ Log17980701-17990630.ADM-52-2983.20190325.pdf
 
More on the build soon.
 
Rob
     

Hi all,
 
A short update. I've completed planking the forecastle, gangways and quarterdeck. The next task was to plank the bulkheads, which were pre-painted red ochre. These could have been yellow ochre, but I figure light levels aren't an issue on an open deck, and I like the contrast.
 

I planked the bulwarks on the quarterdeck, which was simple enough, but when I reached the foc'sle I realised that I'd cut down the hull too far. A good while has been spent building this up again so that the sheer rails look right next to the rail at the top.  I think I'm nearly there, but it's tedious, fiddly and time-consuming... I'd work harder to avoid this in the future. Thankfully it's on an area of the hull that's painted.
 
To break the tedium I decided to add the channel supports. As others have noted, there are 22 supplied, and _at least_ 26 are required according to the Caldercraft planks. I reused some of the rudder hinges (which I'd replaced with black card because they seemed too bulky for that) for this purpose. Even then, I reduced the six supports on the main channel to five so there were enough to go round. (One could buy another set of the Diana photo-etch, but at £95 it's a bit steep for 6 channel support brackets!
 
The brackets were blackened first. The channels themselves aren't glued onto the hull yet, so they were removed and the brackets stuck to the bottoms, then the channels temporarily reinstalled. These will need gluing on soon, and once glued on, then I'll drill the holes to pin the brackets to the hull sides. (After a good sleep, and when I'm feeling confident I won't leave the hull looking like a swiss cheese!)
 

 
I'm very pleased with the results so far.
 
All comments welcome, and all likes appreciated.
 
Rob
 

Well, the quarterdeck is planked and the starboard gangway. I've also managed to tidy up the edge of the deck where it meets the hull side at the waist. Really pleased with how that worked out. Not sure whether it needs a yellow ochre trim... I can add that later if I want to.
 
The gangway planking is wider than the quarter deck planking, as per AOTS.
 
On the bottom photo you can see a box strip laid tranversely in front of the gangway planking - I'm still not sure whether I like this effect. I may revert to a narrower maple strip to match the rest of the planking as the contrast is too great. Something needs to go across the deck there, though.
 
Happy building
 
Rob

The chain pump's fixed in place, and the cleats on the bulwarks are finally there (I scratched them out of box)! A couple of stanchions to go, and I want to get the channel supports in place before I put the top deck on. Not far to go on the gun deck now! Feels like a major milestone! (Someone needs to get a broom out by the looks of it!)
 

Test fitting the quarter deck / foredeck and gangways.

Rob
 
 

Good morning.