Beef Wellington

This summer I had a perfect plan - send off the family to their parent/grandparents in July, and enjoy the hobby in the evenings. "Ha ha oh come on" said my work life, and I ended up with a series of business trips instead  Some of them were good though, can't complain.
 
I am still making the "Tosti-style" clamps. 
Drilling the holes on a mill:

To prevent the drill bit from slipping to the side of the rod - I flatten it with a file first:

That method is simple and works well enough.
Thread is tapped manually, no problems with that approach:

 
Then slicing this rod with a Knupfer slitting blade. It is really great, cuts brass like butter, I am impressed!

 
Cutting the thread in a thin (3mm) rod is trickier though. Frequently the thread is being cut off-center, resulting in a wobble closer to the center of the rod. Googled a bit, most common reasons are incorrect angle, uneven feed, etc.
 
I found a method that works well in the end. Die is placed on top of the benchdog hole, vaccuum is placed below it, and everything is held in place purely with a vaccuum.

In action:

Being on a flat surface, it is easy to control the angle and is easy to apply a steady pressure. As a bonus, air flow immediately cools both die and rod, and all chips are sucked into the vac.
The end result is a clean and straight rod (on top), versus wobbly alternative (the same die was used for both rods):

 
I am nearly done with metalwork, but now my left-handed die died (no pun intended), it cuts a larger radius and gets a lot of resistance - I broke two rods when trying to cut that thread  Ordered a new die, will cut the clamp jaws in a meanwhile. 

 
P.S.: machining is, actually, quite hard! You can't sand away the excess or cover gaps with sawdust and glue mixture. There is only one chance to do things right.

Gun Carriages:
 
Nothing revolutionary, prototype gun carriage has been completed after putting on some more coats of paint to the carriages.  Learning experience here is to use as little paint on metal items as possible, all ring bolts and ring bolts have been chemically blackened.  Cannon barrels and ring bolts have been finished with Testors clear matt lacquer to eliminate the shine still inherent to the blackened surface.  The carriage bolts are model railway/railroad track pins which have a shallow domed head, these come painted black, so the head was painted with 'dark iron' before attaching.  I had experimented with countersinking these on a spare, but this seemed a little over fussy, and also just using wire cut off wire but felt these looked too dainty.
 
Event though many of these will be obscured by the deck, I will probably build all of these as per the prototype in case glimpses can be seen through various openings.  The guns that are highly visible will likely get a little more detailing but I'll decide to what extent when all of these are done.
 

 
Its a little disconcerting when I sat back a figured out what will be needed, and this is just the upper deck.  Everything is at least now ready for assembly....
ringbolts - 336 blackened (7 per carriage, 4 per bulwark, 1 deck bolt) Domed pins - 168 (6 per carriage) 3mm rings - 112 (2 per carriage for breaching rope, 2 per gunport for breaching rope) 2mm rings - 28 (1 per gunport deckring)
 
So far 3 carriages have been built up, as the best method for construction becomes clearer, these do seem to be going together more quickly, but still not quickly 🙂  
 

There are now 3 coats of paint on the stern counter.  Despite appearances in the photos, it doesn't look too bad in the flesh.  Nothing has yet been touched up.  I will sand it back a little to improve the finish, then put 2 coats of polyurethane on it.  As an experiment I have made a couple of stern vents.  The instructions suggest that to give an appearance of the vents, scribing their outline on the counter which I would prefer not to do.
 
Here is the painted stern counter.

The vents.  They are less than 1mm thick, but I think I can make them fractionally thinner.
 

The vents simply resting on the counter.  The shadows exaggerate their thickness.  I am undecided whether to go ahead - opinions are welcome.
 

 
 
 
 
 

Lovely model Lin and great execution, shame you haven't shared progress up to now!  Will certainly be following you from here on, great subject matter.

Lovely model Lin and great execution, shame you haven't shared progress up to now!  Will certainly be following you from here on, great subject matter.

Post 39
A return to the inboard - Fitting the False Deck
The False Deck has been formed as detailed in Post 37, but before fitting it is useful to mark the deck beam positions which of course don't follow the bulkheads but relate closely to the centre line fittings where in reality carlings' ledges, and framing would be involved.

2517
I have taken the 'beam' positions from the kit deck plan where they are marked.

1972
They follow fairly closely the deck beams as shown on the Admiralty plans for Cheerful.

2518
You will note they do not butt to the edges of the centre line fittings template marks but allow for the coamings etc.

2519
A final bit of tweaking to ensure both halves fitted together without buckling and that the reference lines matched.

2537
But before gluing into place...
One of my little foibles is that I like to have a realistic view below decks where lights or openings are concerned.
I made a small modification below the skylight to give the impression of a lower deck.
 
The bulkhead was cut away to form  false deck beams and create a space.
A false deck was fitted which was then planked over.

2545
I followed this up with a similar modification for the Ladder way; I am thinking of having the lid cover/doors open.

2550
I will probably end up also creating space beneath the gratings, I don't really like sticking them on solid board.
A short break now while I adjourn to enjoy the delights of Dorsetshire. 🙂

2549
William also looks like he's ready for a break from the shipyard.
 
Cheers,
 
B.E.
05/09/2018
 

Hello all
just got back from a fantastic vacation in Ireland. Problem about having a great time on vacation is eventually it must come to an end. I have now since settled back into reality. I did manage to finish turning my 12 pound wooden cannons on my homemade or should I say poor man’s “lathe”. I am pleased with the results. Just need to bore out the ends and put the pin holes in the full ones, paint them black and the assemble. 

 
Tom

The instructions suggest the next steps are to attach the stern fascia and counter. The fascia does not provide a problem: the stern counter certainly does.  The only practical way of working on it requires the model to be turned upside down.  Having installed the cannons for the chase ports - as suggested - this leaves the guns hanging from what has become the ceiling.  I just hope the guns are still where I glued them when the thing is turned the right way.  Lesson: do the stern THEN the fore deck.  The second problem is with the walnut ply supplied as the base for the stern counter.  Having given it the obligatory 30 minute soak in water and 2 days in a jig to bend it, it refused to be bent to shape.  Fitting clamps to glue it to the hull proved impractical.  I therefore scrapped it and simply used timber strip which proved to be relatively easy.  Here are the results.  The first three photos have been rotated.
 
This, and the next photo show the first layer of planks.  The last two show the planking complete.
 

 

 

 

 
 

The planking continues...  This planking method is taking a lot of time.  It gives great results though.  I'm probably not going to continue much past the water line because it will be coppered, I'll just just plank dirty style after that    
 

Gun Carriages:
 
Nothing revolutionary, prototype gun carriage has been completed after putting on some more coats of paint to the carriages.  Learning experience here is to use as little paint on metal items as possible, all ring bolts and ring bolts have been chemically blackened.  Cannon barrels and ring bolts have been finished with Testors clear matt lacquer to eliminate the shine still inherent to the blackened surface.  The carriage bolts are model railway/railroad track pins which have a shallow domed head, these come painted black, so the head was painted with 'dark iron' before attaching.  I had experimented with countersinking these on a spare, but this seemed a little over fussy, and also just using wire cut off wire but felt these looked too dainty.
 
Event though many of these will be obscured by the deck, I will probably build all of these as per the prototype in case glimpses can be seen through various openings.  The guns that are highly visible will likely get a little more detailing but I'll decide to what extent when all of these are done.
 

 
Its a little disconcerting when I sat back a figured out what will be needed, and this is just the upper deck.  Everything is at least now ready for assembly....
ringbolts - 336 blackened (7 per carriage, 4 per bulwark, 1 deck bolt) Domed pins - 168 (6 per carriage) 3mm rings - 112 (2 per carriage for breaching rope, 2 per gunport for breaching rope) 2mm rings - 28 (1 per gunport deckring)
 
So far 3 carriages have been built up, as the best method for construction becomes clearer, these do seem to be going together more quickly, but still not quickly 🙂  
 

Lovely model Lin and great execution, shame you haven't shared progress up to now!  Will certainly be following you from here on, great subject matter.

I've done a bit more to my ship. Working on the Bow trim and whilst things were going off I started on the deck furniture 

Stuck the trim on the other day. Everything is going slowly at the moment things are so fiddly lol

Ahoy there Lin!
 
I'll be following your progress with this build. Like you, I visited the ship last year and I was also surprised at the dimensions since this is "just" a frigate. My wife was just going to 'do' Asda while I was on the ship but she decided to come on board for a 'quick look'. She was very surprised at how much she enjoyed her extended visit and was very pleased she had done so.
Although the Trincomalee isn't the ship I'm building, I was keen to get some photos of the rigging as I was close to starting the rigging on my ship at the time . . . and I'm nowhere near finishing it yet!
(Didn't you make a comment like "everything is going slowly at the moment"!)
Right now I'm at the figurehead stage as well and to enable me to work on it, I left a sizeable 'chunk' on the bottom. I made a 'through slot' in it and also made a dummy beakhead so that I could slip it on there while trying to pretend that I can do some carving!
The picture below should show the extra bit before it is finally trimmed to its proper size >>>

Gun Carriages:
 
Nothing revolutionary, prototype gun carriage has been completed after putting on some more coats of paint to the carriages.  Learning experience here is to use as little paint on metal items as possible, all ring bolts and ring bolts have been chemically blackened.  Cannon barrels and ring bolts have been finished with Testors clear matt lacquer to eliminate the shine still inherent to the blackened surface.  The carriage bolts are model railway/railroad track pins which have a shallow domed head, these come painted black, so the head was painted with 'dark iron' before attaching.  I had experimented with countersinking these on a spare, but this seemed a little over fussy, and also just using wire cut off wire but felt these looked too dainty.
 
Event though many of these will be obscured by the deck, I will probably build all of these as per the prototype in case glimpses can be seen through various openings.  The guns that are highly visible will likely get a little more detailing but I'll decide to what extent when all of these are done.
 

 
Its a little disconcerting when I sat back a figured out what will be needed, and this is just the upper deck.  Everything is at least now ready for assembly....
ringbolts - 336 blackened (7 per carriage, 4 per bulwark, 1 deck bolt) Domed pins - 168 (6 per carriage) 3mm rings - 112 (2 per carriage for breaching rope, 2 per gunport for breaching rope) 2mm rings - 28 (1 per gunport deckring)
 
So far 3 carriages have been built up, as the best method for construction becomes clearer, these do seem to be going together more quickly, but still not quickly 🙂  
 

Stern looking very nice indeed Rob, well done!  BTW, the two outside lights were false lights, similarly the foremost and aftmost light in the stern gallery.  Looking at Trincomalee shows this in practice, though think those were painted a lighter green.  Seems it was all to keep the proportion and elegance of the stern rather than for practicality.

Stern looking very nice indeed Rob, well done!  BTW, the two outside lights were false lights, similarly the foremost and aftmost light in the stern gallery.  Looking at Trincomalee shows this in practice, though think those were painted a lighter green.  Seems it was all to keep the proportion and elegance of the stern rather than for practicality.

Thanks Guys for your comments and likes. much appreciated. 🙂
@ Dave - I'm not averse to a bit of scratch building but if one of Chuck's mini marvels will do the job I am more than happy to go with that; I do have the set.
                 Thanks for the heads up on the yard dimensions, not sure yet if I am going to fully rig her (space issues) but that decision is a way off yet.
@ Martin - I do have steady hands, it's the eye sight that's my issue, but with this sort of item gentle hands are certainly required.
 
Post 38
A check around the exterior hull.
The wale has again been recoated using Admiralty Metal Black, hopefully for the last time.

2454

2458

2459
A very light sanding to the hull followed, and a further coat of wipe-on poly applied.

2448
The Horse shoe and Keel plates were added to complete my action on the outer hull for the present.

2450
Still having thoughts about the counter and whether to paint it.
The older I get the more  indecisive I seem to get! 🙄
I wonder how the real Cheerful would have been painted. Built post Trafalgar with the war grinding on, navy under pressure with patrol and blockade duties, and now in an era of austerity where elaborate decoration had given way to plain paintwork .
By 1780 the 'approved' colour for British Naval ships was Black wales, yellow painted sides, with a black ground to the topsides. Inboard Red Ochre was the order of the day, had been since 1715 but shortly after the start of the new century yellow ochre which had been used unofficially for some years became officially approved.
My own inclination is that Cheerful would have had painted yellow sides, black wales with the counter and capping rails painted black, and red inboard works throughout.
She may also have had her topsides painted black.
Cheerful was a small unrated vessel and as such I doubt  any Commander would have put his hand in pocket to 'personalise' the scheme.
In naval circles of the time to be appointed to the Cutter Service was not something to be particularly desired especially by those with ambition.
Still I am not trying to reproduce a working appearance, otherwise I would have painted or coppered her bottom and there was a fair bit of licence taken by even model makers of the day when it came to decoration.
I don't want an excess of paint to cover the natural wood but I have come to feel that the expanse of the counter did require something.
To my conservative eye Red was too much, and Blue too fancy for this small working vessel.

2466
I overlaid the counter with some black planks to gauge the look, and know what I like it.
So decision made black it is.

2475
Not particularly obvious on this shot I was also concerned that the plank lines showed thro' the paint I'm not really a fan of the solid sheet look.

2487
Thinned coats of Admiralty Metal Black were applied with sanding between coats.

2478
Moving on...………….
 
B.E.
03/09/2018
 
 

Hi Jason.
 
Thanks - yes, I agree, the quarter is definitely a lovely angle on these frigates.
 
Looking through your log, I noticed the barrels had changed. I'd seen the comparison on your log of the different barrels, and had intended to swap mine up for the RB barrels, but comparing the ones in my kit with the AOTS book, they're certainly close enough for my liking... I'm really impressed with them. A considerable difference at the muzzle and the cascabel to the ones you were provided with. Hopefully that's a change that's going to be permanent for future Diana builders, as it seems a shame to let down such a beautiful ship with the previously kit supplied barrels. That said, I'm also looking at the carronades which are the whitemetal moulded ones, for the quarterdeck, and thinking I want to upgrade those with the caldercraft ones they sell separately. Thankfully there aren't so many of those to swap up!
 
As always, your build is an inspiration, and a great encouragement along the way, and given we're both working on gun carriages at the moment, I feel your pain - I've done half of them and turned back to the Stern to work on that for a break! I'm happy with the results I'm getting, but yours are something else! I stopped a step short of adding the vertical bolts... I wasn't sure how many holes I could put in the carriage sides before they'd start turning into sawdust
 
I also agree that blackening the brass wherever possible is better to painting. It's so nice to be able to handle the parts without knocking off flakes of acrylic paint left right and centre! And the idea of hand painting 600 eyelets doesn't really appeal, if I'm honest! It took 30 seconds to blacken them. A technique I'll be using every time from here on in.
 
Rob

A little progress...
 
I've been working on the stern, trying to tidy it up and make sure everything fits together neatly. I've worked myself into something of a corner. I want to glue it all together, but as soon as I do, the window glazing has to go in, because the frames are fixed. I don't want to do that until I'm confident I'm not going to fill the stern with dust... and I can't be confident of that until the quarter deck is fixed on, and it's all sealed... It's all a bit of a poser... but until I've worked out how that happens in my head, I'm not gluing the stern lights on.
 
That said, I've started making the lower-most sections of the quarter galleries. These are provided as white metal parts, but because of the way the stern on my "version" worked out, I've remade them to fit better. The decorative spheres at the bottom are still a little further towards the stern than I'd like, but I think I'm getting to the point where I can live with it. (They're glass dress-making pins)
 

The lines will all be covered by the decorative mouldings.
 
Next job was to start putting the decorative moulding strips on. I started with the stern, so that things match up side to side.
 
(NB: The stern isn't glued on, just held in place so I can make sure it all lines up - the decorative moulding at the bottom of the stern lights is glued onto the stern lights.)
 
This was quite tricky, as increasingly there's nowhere to fix clamps to keep everything in place... I used a mix of masking tape, and 0.65mm drilled holes to pin the rails in place before gluing with carpenters glue. Everything was checked before and after gluing to make sure there was a nice curve (to my eye) both from side to side, and top to bottom... This curve needs to match between the upper and lower rails, so it's not a job to rush!
 
The lower rail was sanded so the profile was not facing the floor, but facing more outwards... This seems to have helped with the look. The upper rail was sanded to face pretty much directly outwards, almost as though it were a window sill.

 

 
So... after much rearranging, and checking, and double-checking and careful trimming... That's the progress I've made to date. You'll notice I trimmed the rails, but left them a little over length. The side rails will butt up against the front of these, and then they'll be gently shaped (hopefully) to merge them into one. They'll be painted with Admiralty Paints yellow ochre, so hopefully any minor bodges will be hidden by that point
 
Just for the fun of it, here are a couple of pics before I did the rails, with the light coming through the lights as it were. (Notice the false light on right and left - they couldn't be real windows, because the hull intersects with the transom in the middle of them... From what I understand they were put on to make the ship look bigger and more imposing). The glazing (which is not fixed yet, and before I do, needs a good clean) is in once piece, and is the clear plastic supplied with the kit, with black card glued onto the back to block the false lights.


 
Happy building
 
Rob
 

Hi Rob, love that last quarter shot, most definitely her best angle in my opinion!  Picking up on my cannons as well, I'm intrigued by the barrels that came in your kit, they are definitely different to what was supplied in mine, much more appropriate. They look very nice indeed.

Gun Carriages:
 
Nothing revolutionary, prototype gun carriage has been completed after putting on some more coats of paint to the carriages.  Learning experience here is to use as little paint on metal items as possible, all ring bolts and ring bolts have been chemically blackened.  Cannon barrels and ring bolts have been finished with Testors clear matt lacquer to eliminate the shine still inherent to the blackened surface.  The carriage bolts are model railway/railroad track pins which have a shallow domed head, these come painted black, so the head was painted with 'dark iron' before attaching.  I had experimented with countersinking these on a spare, but this seemed a little over fussy, and also just using wire cut off wire but felt these looked too dainty.
 
Event though many of these will be obscured by the deck, I will probably build all of these as per the prototype in case glimpses can be seen through various openings.  The guns that are highly visible will likely get a little more detailing but I'll decide to what extent when all of these are done.
 

 
Its a little disconcerting when I sat back a figured out what will be needed, and this is just the upper deck.  Everything is at least now ready for assembly....
ringbolts - 336 blackened (7 per carriage, 4 per bulwark, 1 deck bolt) Domed pins - 168 (6 per carriage) 3mm rings - 112 (2 per carriage for breaching rope, 2 per gunport for breaching rope) 2mm rings - 28 (1 per gunport deckring)
 
So far 3 carriages have been built up, as the best method for construction becomes clearer, these do seem to be going together more quickly, but still not quickly 🙂  
 

That's a nice mock up you have going there.  I think you've already found the solution, to mount on a deckblock.  Mounting outside seems to have been of the earlier practices once carronades came into use.  If you look at other's logs, you'll see that this problem has been experienced by every Snake builder so you're in good company 🙂  As for the chequer, down to captains orders and what you think looks good.  On Victory the proportions are a little different on each row of ports.  The consistency seem to be to roughly hit the top of the ports for the upper line, but extend slightly below the bottom.  One contemporary and earlier practice was to paint a similar pattern, but following the line of wale which looks subtly different.

Back to the Carronade problem.  As you can see the first two pictures are with the gun mounted on the gun port sill... the dam thing doesn't fit.  The cutaway section's port is 1 mm short in respect to my ship.  I could sand the bed down and sink the bracket but that would only give me 2-3 mm of extra space. I don't think 4 mm is going to fix this problem.

 
Mounting the Carronade from the deck is probably the way to go.  It instantly looks better and when I move the gun to my ship for comparison it looks even better.  I will have to make some adjustments to the Beds and figure out what height to make the wheels but that's all fun to do anyway. I will add 1 mm of material to the bottom sill on the ship to make up for there not being a shelf there.
 
Question! 
 
Where can I find info on the positioning for the Yellow Ochre band the Nelson checker?  I've seen paintings and pictures but every ship seems to have something different going on. All of the builds on this site seem to have a different orientation for their band.  I don't think what I have planed is very good or accurate.

Gun Carriages:
 
Nothing revolutionary, prototype gun carriage has been completed after putting on some more coats of paint to the carriages.  Learning experience here is to use as little paint on metal items as possible, all ring bolts and ring bolts have been chemically blackened.  Cannon barrels and ring bolts have been finished with Testors clear matt lacquer to eliminate the shine still inherent to the blackened surface.  The carriage bolts are model railway/railroad track pins which have a shallow domed head, these come painted black, so the head was painted with 'dark iron' before attaching.  I had experimented with countersinking these on a spare, but this seemed a little over fussy, and also just using wire cut off wire but felt these looked too dainty.
 
Event though many of these will be obscured by the deck, I will probably build all of these as per the prototype in case glimpses can be seen through various openings.  The guns that are highly visible will likely get a little more detailing but I'll decide to what extent when all of these are done.
 

 
Its a little disconcerting when I sat back a figured out what will be needed, and this is just the upper deck.  Everything is at least now ready for assembly....
ringbolts - 336 blackened (7 per carriage, 4 per bulwark, 1 deck bolt) Domed pins - 168 (6 per carriage) 3mm rings - 112 (2 per carriage for breaching rope, 2 per gunport for breaching rope) 2mm rings - 28 (1 per gunport deckring)
 
So far 3 carriages have been built up, as the best method for construction becomes clearer, these do seem to be going together more quickly, but still not quickly 🙂