Beef Wellington

Congratulations, and best wishes for future continued success!

I am starting a new topic as the last one just got huge....over 2000 replies.
 
Its fitting that I would do so today actually.   Today marks ten years since I have started Syren.  Its been a long and interesting journey.  Ten years and miles and miles of rope made and thousands and thousands of blocks sold.   Here's to the next ten years.  Maybe not that long, LOL.
 
For a bit of news....I have finally received the parts to maintain my CNC Mill.  So blocks are on tap over the next few weeks.  In fact I have already started.   3/32" singles and doubles are now in stock.   More will follow. Although half of the 3/32" singles already sold out.  UGH!
 

 
Onward and upward as they say.
 
Chuck

Excellent work on the masts, wolding, and tops David.  The detail on the hounds us especially nice.  I know I'm not going to mast 'Jason' (in this lifetime anyway) so will need to live vicariously through you.  Have you considered putting swivel guns in the tops?

Excellent work on the masts, wolding, and tops David.  The detail on the hounds us especially nice.  I know I'm not going to mast 'Jason' (in this lifetime anyway) so will need to live vicariously through you.  Have you considered putting swivel guns in the tops?

This method of construction appears deceptively simple, but definitely still needs planning and experience to execute well as you have shown.  Glad I'm not the only one that requires 'redos' 🙂 .  Looking great BE.   

Well hope she had a safe journey, well done anyway! 

Finished but no pictures

Thanks for the very kind words and likes everyone - sadly no further progress (or even pent-up progress).
 
@westwood The colour is 'red ochre' from the Admiralty paints series sold by Caldercraft.

I haven't decided how to display them yet. If I mount them on the skid beams a lot of the upper deck detail will be hidden. I will probably hang one from the mainstay tackle pendants. I may mount one or two separately within the display case.

Upon further scrutiny of Mr. Okumoto's videos, I found a scene where he does appear to have removed some interior wood before mating the frames and keel together.
 

 
And here as well . . .
 

Yes, it's a work of patience, definitely .... but I find it quite relaxing

I dont…as mentioned before I have others do that work for me.  This is one thing I care not to learn.  My brain just cant absorb any more.  I have no idea what software package my guy uses.

Did some work on the final iteration of the figurehead and trailboards today.  

The fit is really quite good.  If you can imagine the hairbrackets in position…all will fit rather smashingly.  Also picture them with a wood finish.

With these done I can send the masters for casting in wood colored resin.  Note the raw 3d printed example in the photos.  Looks very Syfy like before the supports are removed and the figure is cleaned up and tweaked.  Its all very interesting the way its done and printed with a high end resin printer.  
 
The surface quality is excellent.  A big thank you to Chris W.  from Vanguard for his help with these.   


so now its back to frame-making…
 
 

Excellent work on the masts, wolding, and tops David.  The detail on the hounds us especially nice.  I know I'm not going to mast 'Jason' (in this lifetime anyway) so will need to live vicariously through you.  Have you considered putting swivel guns in the tops?

Excellent work on the masts, wolding, and tops David.  The detail on the hounds us especially nice.  I know I'm not going to mast 'Jason' (in this lifetime anyway) so will need to live vicariously through you.  Have you considered putting swivel guns in the tops?

I've clear coated the quarterdeck, waist and forecastle and now added the black wash.  I looks a little too green compared to the main deck seen through the waist, not sure why, but there's no going back, so I will add a little more wash to the main deck to match.  Well, since the paint is clearcoat sealed I could try to rinse away some of the wash.  I'm not sure our ship's Captain would allow his decks to look so, but perhaps we've just returned from a long mission in the North Atlantic where the hollystoning was postponed. 
 
I need to get some more clamps to glue this new deck to the hull sides.  My trick for gluing is to scrape off the primer so that the plastic cement can adhere, plus I put super glue on a few spots to help it stay in place.  My painting skills or patience still need work, but we're making progress.

Beautiful pictures Peter, you've done an amazing job on the hull and the sails and running rigging look fantastic.  The detail in the deck shots really show your workmanship.

Thanks Jason,
Without redo's you can't advance in model ship building; it's the 'that'll do'  approach that blocks  improvements in build quality.
I don't always succeed  but as I grow older I'm far less forgiving of myself in terms of 'what'll' do.
 
Cheers,
 
B.E.
 
 
 
 

Finally finished all of the square frames.  That was a good day and a milestone.   I have faired the outside of the hull pretty good but stopped short of the outmost frames because I didnt want to over fair.  Those will be done as I work on the cant frames next.   The forwards cant frames are next.  I also did some preliminary fairing inboard where I could reach.   Just a little to make my life easier when the time comes to do that later.   
 

I basically just repeated the instructions I already mentioned until all the square frames were completed.   It is really important to check the heights and positions of the sweep ports and gun ports as you progress.   I have provided the laser cut parts to simplify that and yes you can measure up from the baseboard to check their heights.   But I was also using a template I created.   I just havent showed it before in my previous updates.   This will be provided on the plans.  This in combination with those other means of measurement will really help ensure that your ports all end up where they are supposed to.   The top of the template aligns with the sheer.   The bottom of the template actually aligns with the top edge of the wales.  The heights are most important for the ports and dont go nuts if your openings are a 1/64" to the left or right.   It will all work out in the end.   You can always fix slight issues before you start planking if you have to do some shifting.  But I highly recommend that you use this template from the start of your framing to check the port positions as you progress.   If you do this before you glue the actual sweep port fillers into position permanently (and the gun port sills),  you can adjust them at that time to ensure the opening are in the correct spots.   Then after you get a match glue them in permanently.  Using the template is really the key to successfully and easily taking the guess-work out of positioning the ports.
 
With any POF project there is a lot going on and a lot of parts.  It is inevitable that some frames may not end up where you want them exactly.   Thats OK and certainly it happened to me.  You may get a slight bend in your frame etc.   Your wood thickness might be a little over or under with your frames.   Maybe a frame isnt perfectly perpendicular to the keel after it settles once glued in.  Creep can be an issue after 20 frames etc.   But regardless of where you frames end up you can easily manipulate the sweep port fillers and sills using the template to get them exactly where you want them.   As you can see the framing looks perfect to the naked eye but I can assure you they are not...the template is your salvation!!!
 



The hull is really shaping up after doing some fairing.   I hope you guys and start to see the shape in the photos I have taken.
 
I will take a few days to a week to get organized before I start on the forward cant frames.   I want to prepare the parts files for final laser cutting up to this point.   What you see in these pictures should constitute the starter package or chapter one.   It will cost more than a typical chapter because there is so much wood and so many parts.   But it makes for a nice start.  I will also prepare all of the carvings for casting before I start on the cant frames so it may be a while before my next update....A couple of weeks maybe.   Any questions or comments are welcomed.  Chapter 2 begins really soon!!!
 

I should have jumped onto finishing the carronades but I felt like I needed a change so I had a stab at one of the masts. I chose the mizzen as it is the easier of the three. I checked all of the heights against using Steel, Lees, Caldercraft and AOTSD. The AOTSD and kit lengths are fairly close although the diameters are a bit different. The dimensions in Steel are all shorter but he was quite the short mast evangelist. I decided to stick to the AOTSD dimensions as I had used those heights for the dummy masts that I used to position my gunports.
 
For the mizzen I used an 8mm diameter beech dowel which sits between the Steel and AOTSD dimensions but the last time I had a go at enlarging the hole for the mizzen with the dremel I nearly set fire to my ship. Luckily the 8mm diameter mast did fit into the lathe so I used that to get the taper using sandpaper and multiple dimensional checks to see that it was going in the right direction. The taper is as per Steel's formulas and is quite subtle but noticeable. The end was squared off with the milling machine and the taper to that done freehand which ended up a bit wonky but that gives it a nice homemade feel.

I added the cleats to the bottom of the mast as per the AOTSD drawings. I had to eyeball the height based on my 1:64 captain figurine but I do not think it is critical. I used modified Bluejacket cast Britannia metal cleats. I gave the mast a coating of yellow ochre and painted the top black. I left off the top iron hoops for now until I have fitted the crosstrees.
 




I remade the hounds and bibs as two separate pieces rather than the all-in-one kit version. This will also allow me to splay the bibs. I notice that the drawings show this for the main and fore masts but they are quite shy in describing the condition at the mizzen. For consistency I am planning on splaying all three.
 

For the wooldings I did a couple of samples using 0.3mm diameter rope as per Steel and 0.5mm diameter rope as per other sources. I could have gone either way on this but eventually plumped for the 0.3mm. I then realised that I did not have any of the dark brown from RoS in this size so had to revert to the 0.5mm. I noticed that they now do a 0.35mm diameter version which would probably be the sweet spot in terms of dimension but I am too impatient to wait for delivery.



The timber hoops above and below the woolding were fashioned using a 0.5mm sliver of cherry wood cut from a 0.5mm thick shim. This was then well soaked and wrapped around the mast. It was nigh on impossible to do this without getting glue on the woolding. It does have a nice yellow colour so I can forgo the painting and avoid further mischief to the woolding.
 

I started on the top. This turned out to be a bigger adventure than anticipated. I looked at many drawings describing these structures and most of them seem to be based on the one included in Steel. This is a beautiful drawing to be sure but it is full of ambiguities. The AOTSD drawings sort of fudges the matter and is such a small scale that it is very hard to see what is going on. I eventually found out what I needed to know in the Longridge Victory book. His drawing is not as evocative as Steel's but has much greater clarity. A further study of the existing condition on HMS Victory and HMS Trincomalee confirmed this solution. To start I rebuilt the deals using individual planks. Here I shamelessly copied Rob Durant's colour scheme that he used in his Ethalion build and left the planks in their natural state. It is a non-regulation colour scheme but I like the way you can see how the top was put together. Although these planks would not have been caulked, I did darken the edges to give better definition to the layout.
 
Studying other builds I noticed that it is quite popular to plank over the kit piece, which was tempting, but I wanted to see the planking on the underside as well. Lees gives a drawing that shows how these planks are scarfed together which got me fretting as to how I was going to be able to mill a plank exactly in half to form this scarf joint. Luckily, I had no planks of the required thickness but I did have some that were half as thick which made me realise that it would be a lot easier to form the scarf by laminating them together and save myself the milling headache. That done it was fairly easy to glue them into the required pattern and cut out the final shape.
 



At this point I should include a "do not try this at home" disclaimer as I decided to represent the nail pattern to highlight the scarf joint. For this I used some dark 0.18mm diameter filament that I found in a drawer. I do not exactly know what this material is made of as I cannot recall where I purchased it and it has no label. I inserted the mystery material into a 0.2mm diameter hole. This was very frustrating, time consuming and ultimately not that successful. Having done it on the Mizzen top I am in the dilemma of whether to carry on and do the same thing for the Fore and Main top or to remake the Mizzen top. it is a 50/50 decision.
 




I added a copper strip to the side to represent the plate that prevents the futtock plates damaging the timber. I then constructed the rim and the filling out of walnut. I made the copper bearing plates out of styrene and milled the slots for the futtock plates. These slots do not go through the top but pass to the side hence the requirement for the protective plate at the edge. I formed the timber battens out of 1.6mm thick maple. This was a painful process as each one has to be notched, chamfered and shaped to fit. I added some blocking under the gunwale to accept the stanchions for the rail.
 







I decided to use 1mm thin-walled brass tubing for the stanchions rather than timber as it was more structurally robust and it was not uncommon to have a metal rail structure. The top rail was formed out of 2 x 2 mm walnut. I left off the fabric cover as I did not think that I would be able to make this convincingly enough. To finish off I drilled some speculative holes for crows feet which is a future aspiration. Now that it is finished, I am wavering over the natural finish. The temptation is there to just paint it all black. I am going to hold off on that decision for now until I have built more of the mast.




I have not yet fixed the tops as I realised that I have to make the top mast to ensure that everything fits together. 
 

Post Eight.
 Armed with Chuck’s good advice and with better heart I sallied forth to re-fix the bow section frames.
 What testy business, once I’d got frames 1 and 2 at the bow spot on centred, attempts to centre the frames along the keel instantly threw them out.
I decided to centre and glue the foremost bow frames H and G into the keel and let them set.
I figured that I could still remove the forward Build board section and then refit it for centring the remainder, noting those which presented difficulty.

0198
I eased the frames a little to allow the keel notches to slip a little easier across the frames.
It seemed to work, and the remainder were re-fitted and glued.
There was time to check the measurements both sides of the frames which are now matching.

0199

0195

0203A

0206

0204
Hopefully back on track, now where did I put those tick strips.
 
 
B.E.
 
03/02/2023
 

Post Seven
 And it was all going so fine.
 
When I came to do the tick strips I quickly found that there was a variance between the overall length of frame edges port and starboard.

0179
The eight aftermost rear frames were fine, but ten of the forward ones were out between 2-4mm. The port side (with the hull inverted) were all shorter than the starboard side, suggesting that the frames are not centred.

0181
You can see here marked in pencil on the frames the length difference between the keel rabbet and edge of the floor timbers on the opposing side.

0182
There is no wriggle room laterally in the frames they fit tight against the board slots, and the two halves of the board are squarely joined. The keel looks straight but as it stands, I can’t proceed on this basis.

0184
Nothing for it but to disassemble the forward half of the keel and re-set, hopefully with better results, but at least the fairing has been achieved.

0186
Fortunately, the keel separated from the frames fairly easily without any damage, but I’m still left with the issue of how to centre the keel without lateral movement in any of the frames.
 
It looks like I need to shave a fraction off the board slots relative to the offending frames to allow a degree of lateral movement. This would be easier and less risky than messing with the frame centres.
 
Before I proceed, any thoughts from those who have gone through this process?
 
 
B.E.
02/02/2023
 

Postscript to previous .
 
Chuck has identified the likely cause of the issue as the keel not being fully centred on the forward framing section, plus a slight keel bend that I couldn't detect.

 
Round two coming up, I must try to do better.
 
Given how busy Chuck must be, what a great service he provides.
 
Thank you Chuck.
 
 
B.E.

Post Five
 Preparations are made for the fairing process.
 I will be using 320 grit aluminium oxide fabric backed sandpaper, which I buy on rolls. I also have some 240 grit sheets.

0154
Many will be familiar with Model Craft finger sanders, the main drawback being replacing the sanding bands which cost around £9.00 for three, comprising a coarse, medium, and fine grade which for this job means two of the three aren’t of much use for the fairing process.

0152A
I make my own replacements using 320 grit off the roll with the ends joined together using ca and heavy duty parcel tape. (The same stuff used for securing the two halves of the building board.)
A lot cheaper than the replacement bands, and the exact grit grade required can be used.
 
You will all have heard of range anxiety in relation to electric cars, well I suffer from frame anxiety in relation to model ships.🙄

0156
Overkill maybe but I added small blocks of balsa between the frames to reduce flex.

0160
Fairing in progress. Cedar is a fairly soft wood, so the 320 grit is sufficient for the purpose.

0161
At this point I have probably spent a couple of hours fairing, but I’m not done yet.

0157

0163
I use a thin planking strip to regularly check the run across the frames.
 
More than enough of that for today, tomorrow with fresh eyes I will use the strip to check across all frames at  different levels.
 
 
B.E.
30/01/2023
 
 
 

 

Post Four
Being a belt and braces sort of chap I applied the tape and  wooden tabs to all the frames in preparation for fairing.

0128
I spent time assembling/disassembling the frames and keel on the building board. I didn’t find it an easy task getting all the keel slots to sit fully down on the frames, but until this is done there is no point moving on. Some of the frames required a slight sanding where they fit into the keel slots.

0132
Once I could assemble the aft section in a fairly seamless manner, I proceeded to glue. This process took but a short time.

0139
No hogging in the keel.

0137

0145
… and no keel warp.

0146
Always a relief when this first part has been completed without mishap.

0136
I added an extra support for the transom using  spare brace pieces.

0148
The hull is flipped for the application of tape to the  underside of the building board.

0147
The tricky business of fairing beckons.
 
B.E.
27/01/23