Beef Wellington

very quick update, still working on square frames - but only 7 to go.  yee haw....    Looks like I have rear cants and fashion timbers in my near future, wonder how much trouble I'll have with those....
Thanks for looking in!
 
PS - if we ever have a messiest workspace/table area contest, I want to enter. I'll win for sure, LOL
 

 

I got mail today, fresh off the press, from Kerry Jang in Canada:

Victory, 100-gun First Rtae 1765, Seaforth Publishing.

The book is part of a series ShipCraft and is number 29.

The book deals with Victory model kits and is aimed specifically at modelers. Besides history, it presents the available kits from 1:1200 to 1:64 in the full range of materials, gives an overview of the current aftermarket and presents 3 built models. A larger article goes over the various appearances of the ship and ends in new overview drawings, done especially for this book by McKay.

I have yet to analyze the historical and appearance part at times, but know that Kerry Jang has talked to a great many protagonists of the Victory scene.

Personal notes:
- McKay´s AOTS was my first stop on the way to Victory. The color on the book´s pages were watched pale ever since.
- I stood in front of the first of the 3 models presented in the book at the convention in Rochefort with my mouth open, jaw to the floor: the 1:300 version by Etsuro Tsuboi. Breathtaking!
- The second model of the Victory is 1:48 by Kazunobu Shirai and it was the first model of this ship that I fell in love with over 15 years ago when I started doing internet research on this ship.
- And the third model shown is actually the little fatty one with bumble bee stripes by a certain dafi :-0

Never, really never would I have dared to dream of ending up with 3 of my heroes in the same book!

Thank you Kerry for that opportunity!

Dear greetings, DAniel

Big Stuff this past week or so. Sawing, hammering, gluing, sanding, detailing...you get the picture. In my basement shop where I can make sawdust ( I have two air systems: a plain ShopVac for vacuuming, and a ceiling mounted 'ShopFox' for all the tiny airborne particles.

HMS Camilla's diorama case completed. Tricky business to get the 4" high mitered corners precisely joined. Specialized 45/90 degree mitre clamps required. The model is positioned approximately in the case with an approximate list to starboard. The outside case measures 38" W X 28" deep. Height = 4" to case sides. The water may possibly be  slightly higher depending how I create the wave action of stormy weather.
Camilla will present herself considerably lower in the case once removed from the build clamper and resting her keel close to the plywood interior base - like all my other dioramas.
 
The yellow tube in the corner is Stainable Wood Filler (MinWax); I used it on the case and also on the model. The name says it all. It dries out rapidly and getting it out of its tube is a pain, but it does take stain well because it's a (somewhat) malleable paste with actual ground up wood; the solvent carrier evaporates rapidy so you need to work it as soon as it pokes out of its nozzle. Fingers work best I've found. 

Another view. I am a model maker, and at best, an amateur cabinet maker. You know the saying: "Measure Twice, Cut Once?" I measured Thrice and still got it wrong!
I had to salvage enough from cutoff pieces of the casing millwork to recover from this boob on the LAST side (of course). The yellow glue joints to a three-piece completed side rail are somewhat evident here. This will be less of an issue once I detail sand and then give the case it's final staining (I'll wait until all the water is complete and the model is in place before deciding the final colors for the millwork). The slight mis-match on the lovely Acanthus pattern of the case bothers my eye a little, but I'll be able to live with my imperfection(s). 3 sides out of 4 isn't too bad, right?🤫
 
Now, my next posts will be diving into the deep end: Camilla's water awaits!
 

24/10/2022
Hi everyone and thanks for the likes.
 
I’ve made some progress on the topmasts (and none on the ratlines). I’ve used the dimensions in AotS Diana and cross-referenced with Lees for tapers and diameters. The main and mizzen topmasts are almost completed with some details still to add and then trimming off the waste wood. I’m now on with the fore topmast. I planned to make them in order of size but owing to a mistake on the foremast it suddenly turned into a mizzen mast!

 
I have puzzled over the heeling of the main and fore topmasts which in Lees are shown as being of larger square section all round than the octagonal section of the mast but only larger athwartships in the AotS and the Caldercraft plans. I have followed the AotS but I am thinking to add further pieces fore and aft to give a more balanced appearance.


Heel and block from the starboard side

and from forward.
 If anyone has a more definitive view on how it should look, I would be glad of some advice.
 
 
All three topmasts. The lower sections of the fore topmast (pictured in the centre) are finished, the hounds and upper sections are to complete and details to add

 

A quick update on the Quarterdeck, with a small improvement and modification of the original kit: The National Maritime Museum model presents a nice molding above the rear bulkhead.
 

 
That molding is not present in the CAF Model kit and I wanted to add it: 
 

 
I used one of the 2 x 2 mm strips in the Session #4 box and after scrapping it with the correct shape, came up with this sandwich. Instead of the sub-floor going directly against the balusters/columns, I think it offers a little bit more realism for the stern of that ship.
 

 
You can see (above) how the molding is placed: a 2 x 2 strip sitting on top of the bulkhead and a 2 x 2 strip scrapped and glued to it. It does not cover entirely the top of the balusters, but once the top deck is in place, it will be impossible to see that.
 
Because of the introduction of that decorative molding, the top deck is raised by another 2 mm. At that point, the beams supporting the top deck must be raised to accommodate the change: 
 

 

 
This is easily done by placing a 2 mm thick piece of wood on top of the elbows, supporting the beams: 
 

 

 
Once everything is sanded smooth and cleaned, the poop deck fits nicely with just a slight curvature to eliminate the standing water: 
 

 
Note that the installation of these beams is part of the last Session #5.
 
Overall view of the rear section and quarterdeck: 
 

 
Time to move back to the Gallery and the bow. Thank you all for your comments and encouragements, as they are very much appreciated.
 
Yves

Finally, the building of the bulkhead separating the main cabins: 
 

 

 
Overall, it is pretty much the same way of building that partition. It is finally glued in place: 
 

 

 
Not much to see, once the poop deck will be in place: 
 

 

 
Time to install the diamond floor: 
 

 

 

 
That's it, for the quarterdeck. I still have the doors leading to the "Johns/Galleries" to build and a few details and we will be able to close the lid on all this :-(
 
Yves
 
 

The next phase is the building of the screen bulkhead. Here I wanted to depict it as close as possible to the National Maritime Museum model, which is basically painted in white. I only used some light gray for the windows and the wainscoting of the panels. Inside. the wood is just stained, lightly: 
 

 
The white putty is used to provide a very tight seal between the bulkhead and the planking. This prevents the light to go through.
 

 
 
 

 
The rear screen bulkhead is slightly convex in shape.
 
Yves
 
 

Cheers Guys,
 
As it happens in the past week, I have received my printed pictorial build album.
 I have done one of these for all my builds, it is a shame not to use all those build photos and record those internal details lost from view.
 
A few pages to give a flavour.

9094

9095

9096

9097

9098

8926(3)
Once again, thanks for your support, much appreciated.
 
 
B.E.
05/11/2022
 
 
 

Nice results there David, looking great.  Just curious whether you looked at and compared the 'aftermarket' pins provided by Caldercraft, they are much slimmer and proportional that those provided in the earlier kits.  I doff my cap to you as well for making 60 of those things!

Bit late, but congratulations on yet another fine build, with just the perfect amount of period 'je ne sais quoi' that you excel at!

Hi, another pictures:
 
 

Some detail shots:
 
 

Finished!  Seeing @Javlin finish his beautiful Chikuma build gave me the inspiration to finish this one up.  The Hasegawa kit with Infini upgrade set is a really killer combo, and I couldn't recommend it more.
 
I was thinking of adding smoke to the funnels, but I wasn't quite liking how my efforts were coming out so I bagged that idea.  If I can figure it out, I might add it later.  Otherwise, I'm really glad I went for the diorama setting.  If I had to do it over, I probably would have made the diorama a little less deep, but lessons learned for my next one.  Overall, for my first 1/350 ship with diorama, I'm pretty happy with the results.
 
Thanks for all the support during the build, and thanks as always for looking in!
 









 
 
 

There are three transom beams in the upper half, two mentioned above for the Roundhouse and Quarter Decks, and a third at about the height of the top of the rudder.  I managed to get these three temporarily installed but had to use PVA as the rubber cement would not hold up to what I did next.

I tried marking the positions for the lights (windows) but was having trouble envisioning it all.
To make it clear for me I tied some black waxed upholstery twine on the upper beam with a clove hitch and then to the wing transom with a simple bend as the wax seems to grip and hold it.  They were equally spaced at the top beam and then again at the lower beam (needs some minor adjustments again) and now I can see it developing. Once I have it in a final position I can mark these on the beams with a pencil and then pop off the beams to cut the notches in them.  Before I do that I think I will make a few cardboard templates for some of the pieces.
 
It is hard to see the fanning of the strings in the photo but the upper (1st or Roundhouse Deck Transom) beam they are spaced at about 1/2" and the lower (3rd) beam about 5/8".

short frame removed

new long frame installed

doorways cut in

next update will be installing the cills

good evening, everyone
 
Thank you for comments and likes
 
been a busy couple of weeks, and i have not been doing as much on the forums as normal, like many others, we have been making life easier for ourselves and finding ways to keep ourselves warm but at the same time not restrict what we do
we made the decision that during the day if possible, we would both work from my mancave, keeping that warm and comfortable would mean not having to keep the temperature up in other rooms, that has worked very well so far, however the mild weather here in the SW has helped a lot
 
2nd set of boat racks has been made up today, i ran out of 1mm straight brass rod and substituted it for .8 wire, which is ok but seams a lot flimsier, getting it straight was harder than thought, but once painted and in its place, it should be ok

Kev,
 
i'm afraid the aft staircase skylight is 90degrees rotated. The dome should be parallel to the center axis.

 

Nice results there David, looking great.  Just curious whether you looked at and compared the 'aftermarket' pins provided by Caldercraft, they are much slimmer and proportional that those provided in the earlier kits.  I doff my cap to you as well for making 60 of those things!

The latest build session did not go to plan. I was focused on completing the bulwarks for the quarterdeck and all of my previous setting out missteps converged to give me no end of headaches. I started off with the installation of the pin rails. Due to my cavalier attitude regarding location of the gunports I had to remake all of these to suit the new dimensions I was faced with. For the forward pin rail I found that I did not have enough room for the required 14 belaying pins. To overcome this I extended the bulwark by gluing on a lump of maple and shaping with the dremel. This led to there being not enough room to accommodate all of the required scrollwork. I still haven't resolved this yet and have made a real pig's ear of the scrolls that I have already installed. I will need to meditate on this to see if I can think of a solution.
 
 




The top of the bulwark had some pronounced inaccuracies so I had to fashion my rough tree rail as best I could by taking a theoretical centre line through the meandering bulwark and then try to resolve the geometry using a generous offset. I initially went with a 1.6mm thick rail to match the plansheer but after checking the AOTSD and NMM drawings I realised that it scaled to a rail that is 128mm thick which is a handy 2mm at 1:64. I installed it in three pieces as a single 21m length of curved plank did not seem to be feasible. The three pieces added another layer of complexity trying to get the joints and curves to align and it didn't work out great but I am hoping the rigging and hammock cranes will disguise the worst of it.
 




The roughtree rail just peeps out over the top of the taffrail which is a bit sad but the best I could do given the location of the quarterdeck galleries without exaggerating the height of the bulwarks too much. It is at this point that I realised I should probably start again from the beginning armed with the knowledge that I have gained thus far but I have already spent so much time and effort that it would be foolish to walk away. I am just going to have to accept the fact that my ship is quite challenged in the looks department or at best quirky and hope that it develops some personality to compensate.
 

The belaying pins were another item that were are lot more time consuming than I first imagined. The kit supplied items are good quality but way too fat. I tried putting them on a diet by spinning them in the dremel and taking off some excess using sandpaper. It was an improvement but they were still too wide for their height and prone to flying out of the end out the dremel at high speed never to be seen again. I then attempted to make new ones using a toothpick and the lathe. An improvement but still a little top heavy and the toothpicks were quite fragile and fond of breaking at the last minute. I remembered that I had some cast metal pins from my Charles Morgan kit. These have good definition but were a bit too long and the head too bulbous. Getting an acceptable woodlike finish would have also proved problematic. I decided to have another go using a different brand of toothpicks. The new toothpicks are bamboo nominally 1.6mm in diameter and not perfectly round or straight for that matter. I ran them through a drawplate until they were 1.3mm in diameter which improved their roundness. I then used a lathe to form the handle end using a convex needle file. For the final finishing I spun it in the dremel and used sandpaper to reduce the shaft down to a 1mm diameter. They are not the best as no two are the same but they are closer to the proportion I was aiming for.
 


 







 


The bamboo does not take a stain so I have to dirty them up using pastels, charcoal and china marker. I must admit that hand carving 62 belaying pins was not in the original budget but I found that if I tackle 10 at a time in a production line manner then it is almost achievable so long as I knuckle down and complete 10 every day for a week.
 


I still need to work on their finish.

I assembled one of kit supplied 9lb guns to see what I was dealing with. They are probably better than the carronades but they have some issues. The side brackets are too thin 1.5mm vs 2mm shown in the AOTSD drawings. The wood has a very pronounced grain and it is ply so has an unfortunate edge look. The axletrees are a bit thin, lack detail and the transom is missing. Time some scratch building I guess.
 



Earlier on in this build log I produced 3D printed gun carriages for the 18lb guns. I was not that pleased with the finish so for the 9lb guns, which are more visible on the upper decks, I thought I might try a hybrid approach where I would 3D print the axles, wheels and other bits and pieces that are not that visible but then use timber for the side brackets. It is a lot more time consuming but I am happier with the result. To begin with I cut out timber blanks from some 2mm thick maple. I found out later that this maple was not the best quality and I had a hard time maintaining the edges which tended to splinter. I had already cut out the 40 blanks so I persevered in the hope that it would just look like the canons had seen a lot of action. I printed out a template so I could locate all of the holes and cut outs. I built one as a prototype to see how everything went together which brought about a couple of modifications.
 



The prototype was a bit wonky so I printed out a jig to help me align the parts more accurately. I had made the bracket bolts from some small brass nails but they were a bit to prominent so I went forward using 0.8mm diameter black annealed wire filed down almost flush. For all of the gun tackle loops I experimented with the various PE ringbolts from HiS Models and others however it was a case of them being slightly too small or slightly too large so I had to resort to 0.3mm diameter black annealed wire wrapped around a 0.8mm rod. The two ends of the wire are fed through a hole drilled into a scrap piece of wood and twisted together. A bit of a fudge but the best I could come up with. The stool bed and quoin were 3d printed. After what seemed like an endless number of experiments and an afternoon wandering around the dollar store to see if there was something I could repurpose I ended up making the quoin handles by shaping the pointy end of a toothpick using the lathe and some small files. No two are the same but it is a part barely visible to the naked eye. I used the kit supplied canon barrels as they are good quality however they use a 1.5mm diameter trunnion. The drawings in the AOTSD indicate that this should scale to a diameter of 1.7mm. I could only find 1.5mm diameter and 1.8mm diameter brass rod. I went for the larger size as the smaller diameter looked a bit tentative. I had to drill out all of the barrels but I think the larger size sits in the carriages more confidently. I guess I could have lathed the 1.8mm diameter rod down to a 1.7mm diameter but that seemed like a step too far. The capsquare was the kit supplied version with an HiS PE eyebolt and a piece of 0.4mm diameter wire for the capsquare eyebolt and joint bolt. I had a go at turning the wheels from birch dowel but soon tired of that and resorted to the 3d printed versions to maintain consistency. The bed bolt and transom bolt were formed using 0.95mm diameter black annealed wire straightened by holding either end in a pair of pliers and pulling until you can feel it beginning to stretch.
 








 




 

 

It was quite a tedious production line to get all 10 finished but with some good tunes in the background the time flew by. A spot of paint and the carriages were mostly finished. Just have to paint the barrels which are sitting in the queue behind the carronades. They look a bit gruesome in macro mode but luckily my eyesight is poor so I do not see them that way in real life. I need to get on finishing up all of the bulwark fittings and rails though. Not looking forward to that as I can foresee some problematic geometry arising from earlier missteps.
 
 







 

 
 

Very nice Kevin, those frames look SOOOO much better!

Very nice Kevin, those frames look SOOOO much better!

Very nice Kevin, those frames look SOOOO much better!

Hancing pieces and volutes....
 
I'm a little embarrassed that it has been so long that I've been away, somewhat from the shipyard but also this wonderful site.  With the weather starting to turn and a bit more available time it seemed a good time to get back into things and try to pick up from a point that I left a little disheartened so many months ago.  To be able to move forward, I had to come up with a solution for the hancing pieces which should then really allow much of the final hull form to be finalised.  The problem I faced stemmed from the fact that I had to come up with a hancing piece volute 6mm high (per NMM plans) to transition the upper rails into the waist, and following a profile already established for the other rails.  Although these are not large details, they are features that to my eye need to be sufficiently elegant and accurate to avoid detracting from the lines of the hull.  I tried many different approaches, but here is the one that worked best for me and provided a method of construction that allowed consistent results.  I'll apologize in advance for quality of the photographs, I was so focused on the work and forgot to check the photo quality as I progressed.
 
2.2 mm holes were drilled using a pin vise into some 2mm pear wood (actually 1.5mm + 0.5mm pear laminated together cross grain because I didn't have any 2mm sheet stock), this matches the starting thickness used for the upper rails which started as 2x2mm square strip.  (A 2.2mm hole was found through visual trial and error to introduce the gradual narrowing of the rail into the end of the volute).  A 1.5mm diameter recess was then carefully made at the edge using a round needle file at 45deg to the bottom of the hole.  Each 'blank' was then cut from the sheet, given a slight reduced profile using an exacto blade, and a thin cut made above the filed lobe (explanation below). 

Small sections of 1.5mm diameter pear dowel were then glued into the 1.5mm recess, so they very slightly protruded above the top of the block.  Sufficient PVA glue was used to ensure that these were well bonded.  Once dry, a the top of the blanks were gently cut back and carefully finished against a circular sander so that the top edge of the blank was tangential to the top of the 2.2mm drilled hole (the cut previously made above the recess allows this section to release easily as it will no longer be needed.

A length of 2x2mm pear wood strip was scraped with the same molding profile as used previously in the build, but care taken to leave an untouched section toward the end.  The volute blanks were then attached to the unfinished end of the scraped molding.  PVA glue was used generously, and left to dry overnight to ensure a full strength bond.  Once dry, the excess was then carefully cut away to give proportions pleasing to the eye (mine at least) and ensure that the final volute form would be 6mm high.  The rough cut was then very carefully reduced to its final shape using various grades of sanding sticks.

 
Once the final shape was achieved, a profile needed to be introduced to match, and transition as smoothly as possible from the molding strip into the curve of the volute.  To do this I needed to create a second scraper profile at the very edge of a razor blade to work on the volute curve effectively (the scraper profile used previously for strip had been centered to give best control on straight strip).  This was performed very slowly as catastrophic failure would be very easy!  While it is true that it took multiple experiments to get this method down, it did work well and the four needed volutes were all first time efforts with no rework, and despite the many imperfections highlighted by the macro lens, the results to the naked eye exceeded my expectations.

In position, the volutes will now allow final shaping of the hull profile.  Onto the next challenges!

Very nice Kevin, those frames look SOOOO much better!