Beef Wellington

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.

Good luck with the new thread, looking forward to follow it!

Today I received the fittings and more fragile laser cut sheet box. This fits within the main box, protecting the parts further when in transit, as the main MDF hull parts are very heavy. 
 

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.

Flawless Job, this is  class. Thank you .

I have only just discovered this wonderful work.
I'm reading from the beginning and bookmarking it.
Very inspiring Jason.
Such precise clean work, attention to detail...
Just wonderful and I look forward to the continuing.
 
And I would still like to ask what colour red are you using?
Thanks
 

Still busy, still beautiful !!

Very crisp!

Can I start over with my own build? Man this is beautiful!!

Fabulous looking build Jason!

Sorry Jason, I have not checked in the kit builds for a while and missed your updates.  She is looking superb; lovely work indeed.
 
cheers
 
Pat

Wonderful work, Jason! . . . although your captain looks a bit cranky 😊
 
Thomas

Your build is coming along wonderful, looks great - Hal 

That is flippin' wonderful Mate !!
 
Eamonn

Absolutely nice work Jason!

Beautiful work Jason

Stunning!

She looks beautiful Jason.

Regards,
David

Thanks again for all the likes and comments.
 
I have continued by planking the pinnace. After the first three strakes had been put in place, I had already broken a couple of planks and it wasn’t going well. Something wasn’t  right and looking closely at the pictures on the original pdf of the instructions, I realised that the first strake didn’t start in the bow rabbet as I had thought, but just below. I removed and refixed the strakes and was able to continue the planking in a much better line. All planks were tapered at bow and stern and some required edge bending. I was able to use the broken planks for the final short spiled planks as there are only just sufficient  supplied in the kit to complete the hull. In view of their delicate nature, a few spares would be nice.


Nearly finished

A bit more filler needed than I would have hoped.
 
The launch was easier to plank but again it looks like the first plank doesn’t go to the rabbet and again I broke a couple. All planks except the first were tapered towards the bow and the last three towards the garboard were edge-bent.  Again, I found that there are only just enough planks to complete the hull. I have none left over for the wales but can use some boxwood strip of similar thickness.

Only 10 planks left and 12 required.


I was able to recover the broken planks to finish off the hull but just as was fixing the last plank I slipped and put a hole in the bow. Luckily it wasn't a complete break and glued back easily.

Sanding the hull is a delicate operation. With only 0.6mm to play with, some areas become worryingly thin. When the bulkheads are broken out, the shell is extremely vulnerable.
I must try to use less glue on the bulkheads next time. Removing the excess needs a light touch using scapel and chisel and is helped by softening with a damp cloth. To try to give the hull a bit more stability I applied some diluted pva inside below where the gratings will sit and gave the outside a couple of coats of dilute matt varnish.
 

David
 

Extraordinary work David

Time to have a crack at the upper capstan. For the lower capstan I has resorted to 3D printing. I was never that happy with the look and finish but it was not really a problem as it is not possible to see it once the quarterdeck is in place. I may has well have used a block of cheddar cheese and no one would have been the wiser. For the upper one the temptation was there just to press the print button and save myself the trauma but I initially thought that I could construct it out of timber. The kit parts are the dreaded walnut ply and it is missing the upper chocks. The kit piece consists of eight whelps each with a width of 1.6mm rather than the six shown in the AOTSD drawings that are 3.4mm wide so I will have to scratch build it I guess.
 

I started off as usual by transposing the AOTSD drawings into a 3D CAD model so I could get an idea of what I was attempting. The drawings are fairly concise but a tad ambiguous and lacking detail in places so I had to resort to other sources and photographs of extant examples to fill in the gaps. I then created a kit of parts that I printed out so that I could assemble a rough prototype. The idea being that I would then use some of these parts as templates to construct timber pieces for the final model. Once I had printed out the pieces, I realised that they are quite small and the tolerances required to achieve an adequate product are quite narrow. I then decided that it would be less stressful to go down the 3D printed route. I figured that if I spent more time filling, sanding and using individual pieces rather than printing it out pre-assembled then I could potentially achieve an acceptable product.



I reworked the CAD model to make some minor adjustments suggested by the mock-up. This was then printed out and I proceeded to work on cleaning up the pieces.

I painted the barrel black to disguise the lumpiness and to give some additional definition to highlight that it is assembled using several distinct parts rather than printed out in one go. The whelps were then painted red and glued on. The whole structure was designed to be threaded onto a 3.2mm diameter styrene rod with a centre hole left in all the parts to ensure that they could be easily aligned. 
 

 

The chocks were deliberately printed larger than they had to be so that they could be hand shaped to their final dimensions to make it look a bit more artisanal. I included a slew of wire bolts as per drawings from the NMM using 0.44mm diameter wire with the end filed down nearly flush.
 



While test fitting it on the deck I accidentally knocked the captain headfirst down the ladderway and he got wedged under the chain pump brake. At one point I thought that I would have to perform a double amputation below the knees but I eventually managed to extricate him in one piece.
 

For the drum head I decided to include the circular iron plate on top. Most of the contemporary drawings show this on the top of the trundle head for the bottom capstan and below the drum head for the upper capstan. I would speculate that this is for weatherproofing reasons. Having this extra detail on the top does allow some distraction from the finish of the piece and I did see a contemporary model in the NMM that had this detail. Once assembled I loaded it into the dividing attachment and drilled twelve 0.5mm holes to accept some of the 0.44mm diameter wire which then received the same trimming and filing treatment. Once I had completed this I decided that it looked a lot flatter than I had envisaged. I went back to the drawings and realised that I had lazily copied the trundle head for the lower capstan which has a much flatter profile and a smaller diameter so back to the computer to make a new drum head and into the bin with the old one.
 




The new profile was drawn and printed out and this highlighted the limitations of my 3D printing setup. As the curve of the cap is fairly shallow the individual layers that are laid down by the printer are quite visible in a series of steps. I decided I could lathe a central cap out of timber to be inserted into the 3D printed drum head. This was fairly easy to accomplish and it made me realise that I might as well construct the whole assembly out of timber. I Fortunately had a beech dowel that was exactly the same diameter as the drum head so it was just a pedestrian series of operations on the lathe and the milling machine to finish. Looking at the picture it is apparent that I had not centred the lower part of the drum head in the dividing attachment but it is good enough for my purposes.
 

 

 



 I added the iron plate and bolts and then glued it all together. It took five versions to arrive at the final one but I like the timber version far more than the 3D printed efforts.
 


 
I never bothered to assemble the kit capstan for comparison but I think this one is more in keeping with the details shown in the AOTSD and NMM drawings.




 

I now have lots of little fiddly bits to complete before tackling the dreaded cannon rigging.
 
 
 

Final shaping of the hull, installation of tafferal and plansheer:
Happy New Year everyone!  Lots of work over the holidays has finally resulted in what I consider to be a major milestone, namely the final shaping of the hull, installation of tafferal and plansheer.  Before I could proceed, had to finally deal with some cannon dislocations that I had been putting off for a while - two of the rear cannons has become loose, the carriages were still firmly fixed luckily, but the barrels had broken away.  Thank goodness for those long thin CA tubes that allowed these to be re-glued through the gunport...panic over.
 
Once the volutes had been installed and the gunports were cut out and finished (photos below show the aft and fore positioning), it was possible to install the remainder of the quarterdeck drift which was installed parallel to the main wale.  This then allowed the final shape of the upper hull to be determined, once again parallel to the main wale.  The topside of the bulwarks should be horizontal, and I found that the easiest way to do this was to use a long enough file that would reach from one side to the other, fine tuning one side at a time. 

The upper edge of the tafferal was also tweaked to ensure it was parallel the keel (even on the original NMM drawings, it was not possible to determine whether this should be parallel to the sheer of the quarterdeck or keel.  After making a template, the tafferal was cut out of a pear sheet, and pre-bent on a template previously made when originally making the stern fascia - this needs to be made from 3 pieces.  This seemed the most reliable way to get this done given the compound curves, and the pear wood was soaked and steamed on the former before being left to dry for 24hrs to ensure it was fully dried.  Once the main section had been installed, the two small sections over the quarter galleries needed to be made.  To do this, a separate former was made up to introduce the different curvature - these pieces are small, and proved to be quite challenging to shape (The second photo illustrates this step, but shows a 'reject').  Painting the edge highlight also proved 'challenging' to say the least.
 

It was also realized that the rear edge of the hull planking needed to be extended further aft - this is needed to account for the counter timbers which of course are not present in the POB kit.  I debated doing this, but felt it would be necessary to ensure the tafferal fife rail can terminate properly and not be left hanging in space.  The tops of the counter timbers will not be added until the tafferal fife rail is installed down the road as I suspect this will be a magnet for damage.

Not much more to be said, here are some overall shots of the finalized stern and quarter gallery area.  I am satisfied with the way this turned out, but as anyone who has built this kit can testify, getting the positioning and sizing of all these elements 'right; is a challenge.  Overall, it has been an exercise in constant compromize and adjustment between the original plan dimensions, the AOTS diagrams (which are not all consistent or fully representative of 3D reality) and the kit dimensions.  I will likely need to reduce the dimensions shown on the plans of the decorative upper finishing fretwork that will be installed on top of the quarter gallery roof by 1mm or so to avoid it protruding above the stern fascia - another decision for down the road.

Gunports were tested with anticipated armament, in this case Vanguard 9lb carriages and Syren barrels.  Had I been only using these, I'm sure I would have used the Vanguard barrels as well, but I wanted to keep the use of brass barrels for consistency...

...and finally some overall shots of where things stand, the lights are only temporarily installed for now.

 

This looks fantastic Chuck, what is your trick for removing laser char so thoroughly?  Everything is so clean.

Final shaping of the hull, installation of tafferal and plansheer:
Happy New Year everyone!  Lots of work over the holidays has finally resulted in what I consider to be a major milestone, namely the final shaping of the hull, installation of tafferal and plansheer.  Before I could proceed, had to finally deal with some cannon dislocations that I had been putting off for a while - two of the rear cannons has become loose, the carriages were still firmly fixed luckily, but the barrels had broken away.  Thank goodness for those long thin CA tubes that allowed these to be re-glued through the gunport...panic over.
 
Once the volutes had been installed and the gunports were cut out and finished (photos below show the aft and fore positioning), it was possible to install the remainder of the quarterdeck drift which was installed parallel to the main wale.  This then allowed the final shape of the upper hull to be determined, once again parallel to the main wale.  The topside of the bulwarks should be horizontal, and I found that the easiest way to do this was to use a long enough file that would reach from one side to the other, fine tuning one side at a time. 

The upper edge of the tafferal was also tweaked to ensure it was parallel the keel (even on the original NMM drawings, it was not possible to determine whether this should be parallel to the sheer of the quarterdeck or keel.  After making a template, the tafferal was cut out of a pear sheet, and pre-bent on a template previously made when originally making the stern fascia - this needs to be made from 3 pieces.  This seemed the most reliable way to get this done given the compound curves, and the pear wood was soaked and steamed on the former before being left to dry for 24hrs to ensure it was fully dried.  Once the main section had been installed, the two small sections over the quarter galleries needed to be made.  To do this, a separate former was made up to introduce the different curvature - these pieces are small, and proved to be quite challenging to shape (The second photo illustrates this step, but shows a 'reject').  Painting the edge highlight also proved 'challenging' to say the least.
 

It was also realized that the rear edge of the hull planking needed to be extended further aft - this is needed to account for the counter timbers which of course are not present in the POB kit.  I debated doing this, but felt it would be necessary to ensure the tafferal fife rail can terminate properly and not be left hanging in space.  The tops of the counter timbers will not be added until the tafferal fife rail is installed down the road as I suspect this will be a magnet for damage.

Not much more to be said, here are some overall shots of the finalized stern and quarter gallery area.  I am satisfied with the way this turned out, but as anyone who has built this kit can testify, getting the positioning and sizing of all these elements 'right; is a challenge.  Overall, it has been an exercise in constant compromize and adjustment between the original plan dimensions, the AOTS diagrams (which are not all consistent or fully representative of 3D reality) and the kit dimensions.  I will likely need to reduce the dimensions shown on the plans of the decorative upper finishing fretwork that will be installed on top of the quarter gallery roof by 1mm or so to avoid it protruding above the stern fascia - another decision for down the road.

Gunports were tested with anticipated armament, in this case Vanguard 9lb carriages and Syren barrels.  Had I been only using these, I'm sure I would have used the Vanguard barrels as well, but I wanted to keep the use of brass barrels for consistency...

...and finally some overall shots of where things stand, the lights are only temporarily installed for now.

 

Final shaping of the hull, installation of tafferal and plansheer:
Happy New Year everyone!  Lots of work over the holidays has finally resulted in what I consider to be a major milestone, namely the final shaping of the hull, installation of tafferal and plansheer.  Before I could proceed, had to finally deal with some cannon dislocations that I had been putting off for a while - two of the rear cannons has become loose, the carriages were still firmly fixed luckily, but the barrels had broken away.  Thank goodness for those long thin CA tubes that allowed these to be re-glued through the gunport...panic over.
 
Once the volutes had been installed and the gunports were cut out and finished (photos below show the aft and fore positioning), it was possible to install the remainder of the quarterdeck drift which was installed parallel to the main wale.  This then allowed the final shape of the upper hull to be determined, once again parallel to the main wale.  The topside of the bulwarks should be horizontal, and I found that the easiest way to do this was to use a long enough file that would reach from one side to the other, fine tuning one side at a time. 

The upper edge of the tafferal was also tweaked to ensure it was parallel the keel (even on the original NMM drawings, it was not possible to determine whether this should be parallel to the sheer of the quarterdeck or keel.  After making a template, the tafferal was cut out of a pear sheet, and pre-bent on a template previously made when originally making the stern fascia - this needs to be made from 3 pieces.  This seemed the most reliable way to get this done given the compound curves, and the pear wood was soaked and steamed on the former before being left to dry for 24hrs to ensure it was fully dried.  Once the main section had been installed, the two small sections over the quarter galleries needed to be made.  To do this, a separate former was made up to introduce the different curvature - these pieces are small, and proved to be quite challenging to shape (The second photo illustrates this step, but shows a 'reject').  Painting the edge highlight also proved 'challenging' to say the least.
 

It was also realized that the rear edge of the hull planking needed to be extended further aft - this is needed to account for the counter timbers which of course are not present in the POB kit.  I debated doing this, but felt it would be necessary to ensure the tafferal fife rail can terminate properly and not be left hanging in space.  The tops of the counter timbers will not be added until the tafferal fife rail is installed down the road as I suspect this will be a magnet for damage.

Not much more to be said, here are some overall shots of the finalized stern and quarter gallery area.  I am satisfied with the way this turned out, but as anyone who has built this kit can testify, getting the positioning and sizing of all these elements 'right; is a challenge.  Overall, it has been an exercise in constant compromize and adjustment between the original plan dimensions, the AOTS diagrams (which are not all consistent or fully representative of 3D reality) and the kit dimensions.  I will likely need to reduce the dimensions shown on the plans of the decorative upper finishing fretwork that will be installed on top of the quarter gallery roof by 1mm or so to avoid it protruding above the stern fascia - another decision for down the road.

Gunports were tested with anticipated armament, in this case Vanguard 9lb carriages and Syren barrels.  Had I been only using these, I'm sure I would have used the Vanguard barrels as well, but I wanted to keep the use of brass barrels for consistency...

...and finally some overall shots of where things stand, the lights are only temporarily installed for now.