Beef Wellington

A really beautiful model, will definitely follow your progress Giampeiro.

For what its worth Kevin (and please feel free to delete!) I experimented a little with wipe on poly and tung oil when I was trying to decide.  I found the sample sheet from what must now be close to 7yrs ago, although this has not been in sunlight (though this photo was taken in natural light)  The wipe on poly gives a little more of a rich finish to my eye.  I seem to recall putting a second coat of both on the outside edge and this is faintly visible as well, both being a little 'richer' again.  Of course, your results may vary....

A really beautiful model, will definitely follow your progress Giampeiro.

A really beautiful model, will definitely follow your progress Giampeiro.

For what its worth Kevin (and please feel free to delete!) I experimented a little with wipe on poly and tung oil when I was trying to decide.  I found the sample sheet from what must now be close to 7yrs ago, although this has not been in sunlight (though this photo was taken in natural light)  The wipe on poly gives a little more of a rich finish to my eye.  I seem to recall putting a second coat of both on the outside edge and this is faintly visible as well, both being a little 'richer' again.  Of course, your results may vary....

A really beautiful model, will definitely follow your progress Giampeiro.

good evening everyone
thank you for comments and likes
 
my mum is home again having had a mild hear attack, but going down with Covid hindered her stay in  hospickle, she has been fitted with a stent and now getting stronger by the day at home,
with the boi being ill, my mum, wife and myself, it has been a long 1/4 of the the new year
day 57 of 59
the lower hull planking is complete, its a large hull to play with, esp when you want to make it presentable and not add any paint ot tiles, there is no symmetry between the sides, but yes, im happy with her
 
lots of sanding ahead, any suggestions for a nice varnish to bring out the best in the boxwood

 
 
 

The fore jeer bitts:

I think 'raised wooden welcome mat' is probably the best answer, it is a nice detail.  I wonder if its practical application would be to reduce tripping hazzard when entering/exiting as it is at the same level as the floor of the entryport and step.  I just can't think of a sensible drainage explanation.

Headworks (Part 2):
 
@DaveBaxt - the diamond cutting wheel is similar to this, easily cuts into the razor blades (545 Dremel | Tools | DigiKey ) with suitable eye protection!  Sure there are many other similar items and prices from other retailers.  The razor blades were bought in bulk...similar to these Multi Purpose Razor Blades (Pack of 100) (double-glazing-parts-spares.co.uk).  Also, have provided a little more detail in update below...The wood used is either pear or castello box depending on what I have on hand, these woods are great for this.  I would suggest you have nothing to lose, and much to gain by giving it a go....think you'll be pleasantly surprised at how simple it is with a little practice.
 
Much fiddling, fettling and fine tuning has been going on with the headworks, but this should bring me up to date.  Think the back of this challenging task has been broken as I will likely be needing to spend much of any available time on unrelated projects.
 
Once the shape of the head timbers had been finalized, the covering boards could be added.  These are identified as being 1" in TFFM, so these were cut from 0.5mm pear sheet to approximately the correct dimension.  TFFM suggests shaping these and attaching once the lower rail is in place, but am going to try and simplify because I'm not sure how successfully I'd be able to do this.  Photos below show work very much in progress.

Once finalized, the time head timbers can be finished.  A scraper was made specifically for the purpose to scribe the profile, with a long inner face than usual to act as a guide on both the fore and aft sides, and to account for the very different angle the face presents.  A light coat of blue paint was applied to the outer face of the covering board to aid the eye in seeing the results of introducing the profile.  Unfortunately, the only photo I had of this was of horrible quality, so apologies in advance but you get the idea.  The scraper detail and a more final version is also shown below with paint applied.

The lower rail was profiled by temporarily attaching to some spare sheet and again a custom scraper.  Finding one that followed approximately the desired profile and looked acceptable took quite a few attempts.

With all the key components really only requiring the some final finishing, it was time to cross fingers for another dry-fit - it gives confidence knowing that any additional tweaks can be easily addressed before glued to applied.  The covering boards introduce a 'ledge' for the main rail to sit on, something that the simplified approach to shaping the head timbers did not include but seems prototypical.  Some slight alignment issues apparent in the photos below should disappear when finally secured in place with glue.  Next up is clearly some touch up after seeing these pictures on the PC!

 

I think 'raised wooden welcome mat' is probably the best answer, it is a nice detail.  I wonder if its practical application would be to reduce tripping hazzard when entering/exiting as it is at the same level as the floor of the entryport and step.  I just can't think of a sensible drainage explanation.

Fore course
While comparing the kit's plans and Lees' book I found that there seem to be too many buntlines in the kit's plans (also already installed for the main course). Lees mentions only 2 per side - a total of 4 - while the kit has 3 per side. The total of 4 is confirmed by several Books of the AOTS series. Therefore I reduced the number of buntline cringles at - and the number of associated buntline clothes on the fore course accordingly and could at the same time simplify the hole setup a tiny little bit. The 2 superfluous buntlines on the furled main course remain for now.
 
Making the sail, bending it to the yard and hoisting up the whole shooting match was similar to previously fabricated yards and sails.
The yard tackles were installed as on the main yard.
 

fore course with the 2 buntline cloths on the port side visible
 
 

the yard tackle is hooked into the futtock shrouds
 
 
 
I also took advantage of the moderate weather (it was neither raining nor raining cats and dogs nor snowing although it is still the month of April) and took Bellona outside for a few photos:
 



 
 
 
 
 
 
 

I think 'raised wooden welcome mat' is probably the best answer, it is a nice detail.  I wonder if its practical application would be to reduce tripping hazzard when entering/exiting as it is at the same level as the floor of the entryport and step.  I just can't think of a sensible drainage explanation.

A big milestone today   I've just finished sewing the bolt ropes onto the sails... Here's a photo of them all laid out on the plan

Onto the reef points, now... 
 
Happy building all, and thanks for looking in
 
Rob

Finished off fitting the planks to the lower gun deck and joggled 4mm planks to square off the ends of the planks. Not perfect but as this deck will not be seen except through the gun ports and as this my first attempt, it  was good practice joggling the planks into the margin plank. I am not sure if cutting the false deck into two seperate pieces was the best way forward, as I have  found that gluing the planks onto the  thin plywood without pinning the false deck onto the bulheads, has allowed the deck to curve/warp  the  wrong way ( oppisite to the natural curve of the deck) I am sure I will be able to get this right by adding more curved supports under the deck and bending the finished deck into position. I will however need to do this before planking the hull which was not my original intention, but will now be as per the instructions. If I were to do this again, I would have not have bothered with fitting margin plank and  fitted the false deck whole first and then glued the planks into position.
       One other problem I had was when cutting the  Tanganyka wood it had a tendancy of following the grain and is very soft. I ended up being very wasteful with the tanganyka strips. Sorry if this sounds like I am making excuses and I could have soaked the strips of tanganyka in water first but I also worried about shrinkage as I have not used this wood before. For what it is worth I would definitely use Maple instead if I could source it other than CC.
 



I now have the task of repairing the upper section of the bulkheads which many have broken off. I may have to strengthen these somehow and ensure they are back in their original position. I have thought about fitting them with brass pins but unsure if this will work. I definitely need to be more careful the next time i do this. This construction of the Diana has so far been way more dificult then my previous two builds, but determined to carry on.

I think 'raised wooden welcome mat' is probably the best answer, it is a nice detail.  I wonder if its practical application would be to reduce tripping hazzard when entering/exiting as it is at the same level as the floor of the entryport and step.  I just can't think of a sensible drainage explanation.

Heck no David.  This is an interesting little detail.  I hope someone has a proper answer but based on the cross section it looks like a raised piece of grating so looks almost like a wooden welcome matt. 😀
 
This also brought up another question for me.  On multi deck ships, were there the same number of scuppers on the lower decks as the weather decks?  I did some digging and found specs as to the number of scuttles for the gun deck, middle deck and upper deck in the 1719-1750 Establishments which was 4, 6, and 6 for 90-100 gun ships.
 
The Ship Builder's Repository 1788 and Steel's The Elements and Practice of Naval  Architecture which were closer to the time of Victory are quite different.   For the gundeck, only 2 per side (all of them in the manger), middle deck had  six per side,  and eight per side on the upper deck.  Hope this is a little help.
 
Allan

Deck shots in natural light look fantastic Dave, the level of detail you've achieved is very impressive.  Well done indeed.

Deck shots in natural light look fantastic Dave, the level of detail you've achieved is very impressive.  Well done indeed.

Deck shots in natural light look fantastic Dave, the level of detail you've achieved is very impressive.  Well done indeed.

Okay, so I have made a tiny amount of progress on this build. As you know, I have a now five-month-old puppy on my hands, which is like having a toddler in the house. To make matters worse, my wife had to travel to California for a month, so I've been taking care of the toddler, er, puppy all by myself during that time. Needless to say, modeling time has been precious scarce.
 
Regarding the 3D parts we last spoke about, my initial impressions have been more or less borne out. The 3"/50s are indeed nice. Do they look like the real thing or even like the kit guns? I can't say for certain -- they're just too small for me to tell easily. At the very least, they are satisfyingly lumpy and bumpy, and I think anyone will be hard pressed to notice if they are faithful reproductions or not at stand-off viewing distances.
 
The 1.1" mount, despite the poor barrel shapes, does have some astonishingly fine details molded into it, although at the small scale a viewer may wonder whether they're details or imperfections in the print. I ran into a couple of difficulties with the mount. First, it proved impossible to replace the unsatisfactory barrels with the much better barrels that came with the earlier set of parts I received from Darius. The good barrels won't fit into the mount. So my choices were either use the bad barrels or build the mount from kit parts to use with the good barrels. I chose the first option. The 3D mount had separate parts for the trainers' seats. One seat had a footrest, but the other's footrest had broken off and was nowhere to be found. No problem there, though -- while trying to glue the bits together, the first seat's footrest likewise broke off (the plastic is very brittle), and my tweezers subsequently flung the tiny, tiny footrest off into that Dimension of Lost Parts. So now neither seat has footrests.
 
I went ahead and glued the aft 3"/50 and 1.1" mounts into their tubs. There's no rigging in that vicinity, so they should be safe from getting knocked around.
 

 
Cheers!
 

Deck shots in natural light look fantastic Dave, the level of detail you've achieved is very impressive.  Well done indeed.

Hi Alistair - yes, it is the Syren rope, and from memory it was the largest diameter Chuck produces which seemed to fit the bill nicely.

I carried on doing not very much. I think it is an avoidance strategy as the rigging stage is looming large. I went ahead and rigged and installed the carronades. I was quite disappointed with the end result . With the cannons, I had the entire lower deck to practice on before I got to the upper decks but no such luxury with the carronades. On the positive side it does mean that all of the guns are now in position unless I decide to add swivel guns to the tops.








With the guns in place and rigged it did allow me to glue down the remaining deck furniture. For the most part I drilled holes into the legs so that I could insert 0.5mm diameter brass rods to act as dowels in the hope that they give some protection against an errant elbow later on in the build. I also took this opportunity to fix the lower masts in place. For these I used the merest dab of glue to position them. I am relying on gravity and rigging to hold these elements. To be fair, once rammed in, they sit quite snugly in their holes.
 






 




 
 

Headworks (Part 2):
 
@DaveBaxt - the diamond cutting wheel is similar to this, easily cuts into the razor blades (545 Dremel | Tools | DigiKey ) with suitable eye protection!  Sure there are many other similar items and prices from other retailers.  The razor blades were bought in bulk...similar to these Multi Purpose Razor Blades (Pack of 100) (double-glazing-parts-spares.co.uk).  Also, have provided a little more detail in update below...The wood used is either pear or castello box depending on what I have on hand, these woods are great for this.  I would suggest you have nothing to lose, and much to gain by giving it a go....think you'll be pleasantly surprised at how simple it is with a little practice.
 
Much fiddling, fettling and fine tuning has been going on with the headworks, but this should bring me up to date.  Think the back of this challenging task has been broken as I will likely be needing to spend much of any available time on unrelated projects.
 
Once the shape of the head timbers had been finalized, the covering boards could be added.  These are identified as being 1" in TFFM, so these were cut from 0.5mm pear sheet to approximately the correct dimension.  TFFM suggests shaping these and attaching once the lower rail is in place, but am going to try and simplify because I'm not sure how successfully I'd be able to do this.  Photos below show work very much in progress.

Once finalized, the time head timbers can be finished.  A scraper was made specifically for the purpose to scribe the profile, with a long inner face than usual to act as a guide on both the fore and aft sides, and to account for the very different angle the face presents.  A light coat of blue paint was applied to the outer face of the covering board to aid the eye in seeing the results of introducing the profile.  Unfortunately, the only photo I had of this was of horrible quality, so apologies in advance but you get the idea.  The scraper detail and a more final version is also shown below with paint applied.

The lower rail was profiled by temporarily attaching to some spare sheet and again a custom scraper.  Finding one that followed approximately the desired profile and looked acceptable took quite a few attempts.

With all the key components really only requiring the some final finishing, it was time to cross fingers for another dry-fit - it gives confidence knowing that any additional tweaks can be easily addressed before glued to applied.  The covering boards introduce a 'ledge' for the main rail to sit on, something that the simplified approach to shaping the head timbers did not include but seems prototypical.  Some slight alignment issues apparent in the photos below should disappear when finally secured in place with glue.  Next up is clearly some touch up after seeing these pictures on the PC!