Beef Wellington

Hi Martin, I've been starting to play around with the headworks on 'Jason'.  I'm of the opinion that the kit supplied parts are not the correct shape and will be making and shaping my own.  Aesthetically, it seems the head rail needs to be shaped to allow the space between it and the hair rail to follow nicely and from the side they should be similar in profile.  Just my observation, I'm sure there is something more scientific to the shape.

Let me preface this update with a statement: I have been the worst at updating and taking photos as I go along on this build...
 
So I've gotten a lot done, but have not been documenting well. The deck furniture was all completed along the way and has now been installed. The carronades are now rigged to completion as well. I have even gotten the lower masts and bowsprit built and installed. Again, I've been terrible with the updates...
 
I really like how the binnacle came out. I found a compass rose online, shrunk it down and printed it out. The rest of it is built from boxwood sheet and strip. I also built the companionway from boxwood. 
 
As I had mentioned earlier, the deck layout is from the Gannet plans, and thus it varies from what the kit shows. 

Made a little detour and built the ship's boat. This is a (separate) Caldercraft kit that I picked up from Cornwall Model Boats. Nice little kit.
 
I modified it by making a cap rail out of some spare maple, adding thole pins when complete. I made the thwarts and stern sheets from boxwood, to replace the kit supplied walnut. The Photo-etched oars and boat hook are included and just require painting. I also added a freshwater cask, and scratch built the rudder/tiller. I also made what is likely the smallest piece I've ever done: a bailing scoop carved from boxwood, that is ridiculously tiny. You can just see it sitting on the bottom.

Looking good BE.  Looks like I'm a bit too late, but one thing I found  that works quite well for planking between the ports is to edge glue some planks together for the height needed and then shape/trim these back as a whole.  This allows the interior edge to be nicely aligned. without needed to scuff up any paint.

Wayne, very nice looking ratlines.  Have to agree that the loops look just a little bulky.  Did you consider using thinner line to do the serving to keep the same look?  Using regular thread (would need to check exactly what) worked well for me following the dimensions on the plans - I was happy at least.  Nothing like a nice stack of served shrouds/backstays, looks like mine ended about half way up but didn't think it looked too odd...
 
http://modelshipworld.com/index.php/topic/509-hms-snake-by-beef-wellington-caldercraft-scale-1-64-first-wooden-ship-build/page-43#entry213341
 
Interesting that you picked HMS Pelorus as a candidate for next build, she was one of the few Cruizers that was ship rigged (at least for a period) so could be built directly from the kit and be authentic.  Also some nice paintings to follow and refer to after the storm.
 

Hello Everybody -- This is just about the first chance I've had to look away from work (retirement is calling me, and I'm beginning to listen), and since the weather outside has been cool, I've spent the rare weekends out there -- except for the days that were eight degrees.
 
I've been trudging along with the head works, and have mostly been finding my skills seriously challenged in just about every way.  So far I've re-made the rails twice, and am seriously thinking about redoing them yet again -- the problems have been keeping them even in their downward sweep, and in getting that sweep at the proper elevation.  I've also found that little decisions I made long ago were ill-informed and are revealing their consequences now.  In short, I've mostly been frustrated.
 
But I thought I'd show what I've done (without the repeats).
 
 
I made the rail out of two layers laminated. 
 

At the top is the kit's rail, made of walnut.  The bottom is the first layer of mine from boxwood, and if you can penetrate the poor photography, you can see the 2 scarphs.  The second layer will also be jointed with scarphs offset from these:
 

 
And then the two layers are glued up:
 

 
Here's the view from port of the rails pinned in place:
 

 
These look too low to my eye.  Simply to slide them upward makes them overlap the swivel mounts, however.  I'm thinking I might just get away with raising the mounts a smidge or two.  If that doesn't work, then I'll start over on the rails.  In fact, I've graphed them out again, trying to get the forward sweep to start just below the swivel mount, but haven't set the drawing against the build itself yet.
 
And finally here are the timbers:
 

 
Or I should say, here are the timbers in their first manifestation.  In re-reading FFM on the timbers, I finally came to the understanding that the rails will need to sit on top of notches at the outer ends, so I've already begun to do them over.
 
That's where I am.  Progress is slow to say the least (and sometimes backwards).  I'll update again when I get the lower rails done.
 
Meanwhile all comments and suggestions are welcome!
 
Cheers,
 
Martin

Post 18
Completion of Topside planking
Planking between the ports is now completed, looking a little rough but hopefully scraping and sanding will rectify the appearance.
6744

6763

6766
I think I will wait until the stern area is planked before doing any serious cleaning up along the hull.
Onto the stern.
 
B.E.
13/03/2018
 

One thing I did Stergios (I used the supplied CC rope), was to ensure that it had been fully straightened to remove any kinks ( simply running through fingers or leaving a length suspended from a door frame with a clamp on one end as a small weight).  It should then hang a lot more naturally, and if necessary then a little watered down PVA can help as well once on place.

Looking good Mike - I like this stage of a build...so much potential to look forward to.....and few regrets or mistakes!

Looking at those pictures of the second planking I can understand your slight frustration - especially after your fantastic Vanguard. But allow me a perhaps stupid question: Are you sure that your wood stripes for the second planking are truly boxwood? Judging by the pictures it looks more like lime to me, which would be rather coarse-grained for a second planking.

I had much fun with my Granado kit myself and would like you to have too. Please feel free to ask for more information or pictures. Unfortunately I made no build log - only a gallery file.

Cheers

Peter

Looking good Mike - I like this stage of a build...so much potential to look forward to.....and few regrets or mistakes!

Looking good Mike - I like this stage of a build...so much potential to look forward to.....and few regrets or mistakes!

Hi Pat, catching up and glad to see everything coming together so well, nicely done.  Very interested to see how the capstan works out.  Beautiful model.

Really nice progress Mark, love the work on the cannons, should look really sharp when all finally assembled.  Oh, and Licorne is looking pretty good too.

Hi Rob, really beautiful work, those rails look nicely in proportion and certainly 'finer' than the kit's walnut.  Colours are always hard to judge in photos but glad you were able to tone those down a bit.  Are you planning to attach all of the trim at this point?  I'm planning to wait until I have the quarter deck in place before going any higher than the sheer rail with trim to allow any compromises with the line of the wale and deck to get figured out....and also whatever is going to happen with the headworks.
 
Tell your son he did a really nice job on his Red Arrow.  I'm finding my son doesn't quite have the same passion for plastic modeling and hes been chipping away at a model of the Tirpitz for quite some time.  I've promised him I'll post a picture of it when he finishes!

possibly my last update until next weekend,

today i sat the main deck into the hull properly, and put a sheet of pasticard over the top, this also cover the hull edge, and now allows me to remove the whole deck off in one go
so a few photo's of how she looks at present
the Exocet, dont look right. they are not staggered on the plans, 









   

Slowly making some progress.  Finally got the bulkheads and filler blocks faired and started with the first planking.  First three planks starting from the keel are in:
 


 
So far so good.  Lots of curves on this ship.  There's a lot going on with the stern, so I spent quite a bit of time going over the plans and how the cast metal parts are supposed to fit together.  The interesting thing about the Euromodel plans is that they will be true to the Chapman plans in some drawings and simplified (e.g., straight, less curvatures) in others - sometimes on the same sheet.  So, you have to be mindful of that when building.  The cast metal pieces for the stern are pretty good, but in some cases like the row of stern windows fronting the balcony, follow the more simplified square approach, whereas the Chapman plans show more curves intended that follow the curvatures of the decks and balcony.  As is often said with respect to these Euromodel kits, they are quasi scratch kits that are intended allow a builder plenty of latitude to build the model as simple or as detailed as one would like.
 
I think I'm going to challenge myself and scratch build some or all of the cast metal pieces for the stern.  I'd like to follow the Chapman plans as much as possible, and I think the cast metal parts deviate in certain respects.  For example, there are windows at the lower drop area of the quarter galleries and between the balcony and counter/chase ports - but the cast metal parts have these filled in.  Building them from scratch would probably take close to the same amount of time as opening these and other windows up.  Along with potentially not doing a clean job opening the windows up, I worry that the seams where the cast metal and wood parts meet would need to be filled, which sometimes could be a hard thing to do.  Then of course, there is the need to paint the cast metal parts, and I'm not that great when it comes to detailed painting.  I just think that I can achieve a crisper finish scratching these items than I can from working with the cast metal parts.  The good news is that the parts and plans give a very good model for me to base my work on.  I'll try to detail some of the changes from the kit in future posts.
 
 

Tops are now installed on the masts, completed futtock shrouds and crowsfeets. The "first floor" is finished and I can start with "second floor" - the topmasts.

Not much to update at the moment really. The time finally arrived to start the coppering of the Port side of the hull. I find it fascinating the way I tend to get into the groove after a while, and it gets done... I reckon I've probably got about 300 tiles on so far. I put a line of masking tape over the wood that'll be exposed above the waterline, just to protect it from superglue marks from tiles that slip...
 
On the starboard side, I put a coat of black acrylic to seal the wood and give the superglue something to stick to (otherwise it all sinks into the wood and leaves nothing to stick the tile - this reduces the amount of superglue I get through a lot)... this time, I used some matt enamel varnish. It was lovely to see how the box and walnut came up.
 
The first photo shows the difference with the varnish... at the top is the varnished wood, and at the bottom the untreated wood... left is box, right is walnut... (and the grey marks are my pencil marks from marking the waterline ready to put the batten on... this is that tricky bit at the stern where the hull tucks round.



 
I've carried on transcribing the Ethalion logs... turns out Ethalion went to assist the ships of the line the day after the battle of Camperdown, and helped Isis bring her prize home.
 

Oh, yes... and here's what my son and I have been working on at the same time   His first airfix kit! Not bad for a 7 year old. He's really excited about the second one, now. A DeHavilland Mosquito's in the post.

Happy building!

A major milestone! The coppering on the hull's complete! I'll be honest, I won't mind switching back to wood glue from CA. The mask worked really well, though. It's definitely worth paying a little extra for a proper vapour mask (not one of the wood dust masks). I used the following mask...
 
3M 4251 Maintenance-Free Organic Vapour/Particulate  (it was around £22 and worth every penny)
 
I ended up with a fair number of copper tiles left, so Caldercraft seem to have supplied ample spares. I may well go along the keel and tidy up a few of the first tiles I put on... they're pretty easy to pop off if required.
 

 

I'm still transcribing the logs for Ethalion - it really is fascinating... They're very matter of fact, recording this sort of thing from Thursay 12th April 1798. HMS Ethalion had just left Spithead and was passing the Needles.
 

I found this description of the "bridge" at the Needles...
From the following link (with which I have no connections - just found it googling:
http://www.yachtingmonthly.com/specials/pilot-the-isle-of-wight-the-needles-to-st-catherines-point-3161/2
 
Now, I appreciate I'm no professional sailor, but no matter how professional you are, that's got to be a bit of a heart stopper when heading for a thousand tons of wooden ship bumps along the bottom at sea!
 
Anyway - it all adds to the picture as I begin to detail the hull...





Having shaped these strips (don't know what they're called?) I'm not entirely happy with the colour - they are box, but they're much whiter, and look more like maple... I'll see if they tone down, and otherwise might remove them and remake them... we'll see. The paint at the top also needs touching up, and the yellow adding, but I just wanted to get the boundary line marked on before I stuck them in place. The top rail is clipped in place so I can measure up and check how it's all working out. It will be trimmed to go to either side of these verticals when the time comes.

So, I took those vertical pieces off... fenders? - I wasn't happy with the colour, so I used some very watered down Admiralty Paints Yellow Ochre as a wash just to tone them down a little... I don't want everything to be exactly the same colour (that's the beauty of wood, surely) but close enough that it doesn't whack you in the face when you look at it... It looks better to the naked eye - these close-ups are brutal!
 
I took the opportunity to narrow them down equally (to 1.6mm at the bottom), and align them better... the photo makes them look uneven, but the ruler tells me the vertical centre lines are parallel. I also added the paint, although this will need touching up.  Overall I'm closer to happy with them. Side steps next. I have a scraper lined up for them.
 
The fenders now...

Hi Pat, catching up and glad to see everything coming together so well, nicely done.  Very interested to see how the capstan works out.  Beautiful model.

OC, Thomas, Eamonn, thanks for kind words.
 
@ BE - jury is out on a rudder coat, I've seen the great result you achieved, what I'm wrestling with the aesthetic and the quality of the result I might achieve.  In the event I don't, I did simulate the end of the tiller 
@ Carl - You reiterated my dilemma   1:64 is a scale where it seems sometimes that details are a question of compromise.  The downside of using raise pins is that to my eye, they appear more obvious and overscale - and also runs the risk that it would be hard to get these positioned accurately  Staying with the indentations, from typical viewing distance it is not obvious to the eye that the indents are in fact indentations rather than raised (think of the classic 'hollow face' optical illusion).  The rudder straps were unaltered and show how these parts came.
 
Anyway...I was very excited to finally receive my copy of the Diana plans from NMM.  WOW!  I've never had a chance to see these types of plans before and I'm very impressed, not only will it hopefully become a nice decorative piece, but its very informative.  Even though the plan indicates it's 'Diana' (non-contemporaneous pencil annotation), it appears to me that these should be considered to be more generic to the Artois class as a whole - there contemporary are annotations indicating that the foremast on 'Jason' and 'Diamond' were moved forward 6 1/4" - but, I'm not going to make any changes at this point as its quite subtle.
 
There are so many details that are much clearer than in the AOTS or kit plans, but few items just for starters...(the poor quality of my photos do not do justice to the print and colours didn't come out well.)
 
Given I'm building roughly 'as designed', I will need to reconsider a few things:
The position of the mizzen channels, these are placed lower than the kit plans and AOTS which reflect the 'as built' higher position.  Looking at the classic Diana models, I now see this is indeed where they are positioned.  The structure of the chains is also very different to what is provided in the kit.  This view also shows evolutionary changes to the positions of the cannon and carronade ports.  
To hopefully resolve a discussion/dilemma experience by Diana builders...my opinion estimating from these plans (and assuming plans to be correct scale) is that the kit stern frame are too wide at the top of the rearmost bulkhead by about 5mm.  Not too significant, but enough to cause the misalignment with the stern fascia and light positions experienced by all builders it seems.  Correction of this and other bulkheads would not be hard when starting out on the kit, but would need to be done prior to planking.
 

 
The main channels are shown positioned below the sheer rail 'as designed'.  Unfortunately I've been working to have these in line with the sheer rail (as built it appears), but am not going to make changes as the difference is quite subtle.   The built up bulwarks are also clearly shown, the kit provides for, and reference made in AOTS to Diana having a more decorative style consistent with the open bulkhead profile - the plans show these as the more standard, utilitarian square profile that later became standard.
 

 
The bow sections shows a number of interesting aspects:
Changes to positions of timberheads to accommodate evolving cannon/carronade compliment Inclusion of a forward port (as built) which I suspect would have been for access to the cathead/anchor rather than including a cannon.  This would have been a nice feature to add, but would require significant rework earlier in the build (more than I did) to allow this as it aligns with the foremost bulkhead Also seems that there was some variations on the profile of the stem, and position of the cathead