Beef Wellington

We had a couple of absolutely gorgeous days here in the Niagara Peninsula so I decided to take some work outside... and make another attempt at my interpretation of the original  figurehead.
 
Below are a few rough carved photos.  It needs considerable cleaning up but looks good so far.

Took another look at my Iron Bars and decided they are keepers, so I won't be replacing them.
 
However, I did notice something missing on my mast.... the LUBBERS WOOD!
These are 1-1/2" thick planks installed on top of each Cross Tree and they fit inside the Lubbers Hole in the TOP.
As they will help self centre the TOP onto the TREES when it does get permanently installed I decided to add them today.

Thanks for all the all the likes and to Rob for the encouragement.
 
This might be obvious to most but despite cleaning up any excess immediately, I was having difficulty obtaining clean joints with the wood glue that I was using. After reading around, I realised that what I thought was PVA was in fact a PU adhesive. I have now bought a bottle of aliphatic glue which I’m finding is much better. It quickly forms a strong bond and any excess can be cleaned up without leaving any stain.
 
I wasn't happy with my attempt at hand-painting the taffarel and maintain a fine line, so I have taken some 1x1mm strip scraped and sanded it down to about 0.5mm and formed it around the bottom of the curve. A bit more touching up of the paintwork and further decoration to be added before it’s complete but I'm happier with the look now.
 

 
In the meantime I’ve been working on the main rail. After many failures at cutting a suitable scraper freehand, I finally got to a working method by fixing my Dremel in it's stand, turning it through 90deg and set it running with the thinnest grinding disc. The blade to be cut was fixed in my drill vice and then the scraper blade was moved towards the grinding disc.
The rails are 2.7mm square boxwood planed down to 2 x2.7mm.
 
A final check on the run of the rails and the quarter gallery
 

I used Tamiya tape as a guide for fixing the rails
 

 
The chesstrees and fenders are also cut from 2.7x2.7mm boxwood.
 

I'm working on the steps now. After a few attempts, I have cut a profile for the scraper that I was happy with and then cut and shaped the steps.
 

 
13 done and 13 to go...

I'm sure another masterpiece in the making.  I suspect that this would be a very disappointing kit without the PE given the extensive lattice structures.

Season's greetings Stergios!  Can't say definitively whether this is definitively right or wrong, but it is at least consistent with the plans and various references I could find.  It gets pretty crowded in there 🙂  Hope this helps.

Looks great Rob.  I'd love to see the plates before they go on, that sounds like incredible attention to detail that they supply multiple different kinds of plates for the different locations.

Oh boy, my time is very limited at the moment and I have projects on the shelf but this style of model is very interesting to me. I can’t wait to see what you do with her and who knows maybe (as with the Alert) I’ll be following in your footsteps again.

I am stunned, thank you all for your support. I never thought I would sell so many. I did enough for 50 in total, as I always order 50 PE sets (which weigh in at 20kg for Sphinx). But castings, thread and anything else non PE and laser cut, I ordered 100 kits worth.
 
I will add a couple more to stock, but damn, thank you!
 
I have put in a repeat order for the photo etched sets, and will start another production run of laser cut parts, each kit takes well over 6 hours cutting/engraving time..
 
And again, thank you!

I have written only recently that the era of building large 18th century square rigged warships was over for me, feeling perhaps 75 was too old to start such a project, coupled with where to put it issues.
 
However, despite my best resolve I have once again fallen victim to the siren song of Chris’s latest offering.
I spent yesterday evening looking at the eye candy photo’s provided by Chris’s fellow conspirator, James, looking for reasons not to wing £665 across to the Forest of Dean.
 
 All to no avail, even Mrs W said stop messing about and press the button.
 
So, Sphinx will be my next project, but there will be compromises; I will build her as a Navy Board Style model without masting and rigging, and with much of the decking left off to reveal the wealth of detail provided by Chris.
 
At least with this model, Chris has thoughtfully designed all the below decks detail so I won’t have to gut the innards as I did with Pegasus.
 
In the meantime, back to figure bashing for the barge.
 
B.E.

Those are very impressive, clearly a different size at pretty much the same scale.  I had the same experience with the CC plates on my 'Snake' build, I cleaned/polished the surface hoping for a patina which seems to be very slow developing, I wonder ifs the metal composition that causes that, the Amati plates seem to be much more copper rich.

Thanks Eurus, and Jason.
 
 
You ask and we deliver 😁
 
My digital micrometer tells me I've been tricked by an optical illusion... the plates are all the same height. Nevertheless, there are right hand, left hand, and finishing plates. Here are some close-ups of each... 
 
Right-hand...
 

 
The Left-hand plates...
 

 
And the finishing plates (because they overlap you need plates with rivets along the top and bottom to finish off the effect...)
 

 
Finally, a comparison between these (amazing!) MarisStella copper tiles (on the left), and the Caldercraft ones I used on Ethalion (which I found fine, but are clearly not as refined as these ones). I don't have any Amati tiles to compare, but I've heard these are also very good. You can see that the rivet detail is much more pronounced on the Caldercraft tiles, and they also have rounded corners. Because they are not -handed, it's hard to overlap them, and so the rounded corners result in a tiny diamond gap where they are butted up against each other. I've also noticed, already, that the overlap makes it much more forgiving to go round curves with the MarisStella tiles. They're also a bit bigger, so they cover the area more quickly. All in all, they're an improvement. 

The MarisStella tiles seem to tarnish quite quickly, but I'm hoping if I'm careful with the superglue, and I give it a good clean when I'm done, over time this will result in a pleasing patina.

Looks great Rob.  I'd love to see the plates before they go on, that sounds like incredible attention to detail that they supply multiple different kinds of plates for the different locations.

Hi all,
 
Just back from a lovely holiday, camping up in the Midlands (of the UK), but before I went I did manage to make a little start on the coppering of Stefano. She now has four bands of the starboard copper tiles. I was wondering how I'd get on with this, as they have to be cut out individually, but it was fine. I used some little sewing scissors to cut the ends and then bent a row off the rest of the fret. The scissors were then used to separate them and trim excess sprue. They overlap beautifully (being -handed), and the whole process is well described on the plans.
 
Here's progress so far. (I put a little card in using carpenter's glue to make up the over-narrow stern and prevent a dip in the plates... it'll all be invisible, so only myself and anyone who stumbles upon this topic will ever know 😇 ) I'm quietly optimistic about how this is all going to work out. At some point I shall need to put the rows along the top, but I thought I'd put this off for a little while as I got used to the tiles themselves. It's worth nothing that the top row has rivets along the top AND bottom... also, there are specific tiles to go under the keel. Again, with rivets on both sides, and I think they're a little narrower, perhaps. 
 

Italians seem to work in geological time frames.
 
But hopefully this will not be the case in this instance...

.
These are gratings (actually right half of them), turned 90 degrees around its symmetry axis.
 

I agree with Waldemar: the (half) plan view is superimposed on the profile drawing!

The saddest thing for me was that while everyone else was making progress in post construction, I was regressing in reconstruction and failure. But I'm glad you guys supported it, especially Greg and Druxey for their timely comments! I learned something. It's been specially modified today. Also feel harmonious and much better-looking!
 

 

 
 

 
 
 

 
 
 

 
 

 
 

 
 
 

Thanks to everyone.
 
Part 6
Balkweger, Deck beams, Verbindungsknie, knees, 
fitted these are dismantled again for further interior work.
 
Karl
(Google Translator)
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
 
 

Yves, fascinating project....I've got nothing to add here but would like to watch and learn.  Great results so far.

Section of a 36pdr. Cannon on the first gun deck of a 74 gunship in1/12 scale.
 
Due to the center distance of 150 mm of my small Proxxon FD150/E,
I had to manufacture the cannon in two parts.
 
Karl
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

No, Bitao. Those are the hawse and bollard timbers. Look at the photos below. In the first one the black arrow points towards the upper end of the knee of the head. It is where the figurehead sits and tapers to about 6" in width on the Naiad frigate. If you look carefully at Sheet 2 of Ed's plan you will see this taper. The taper also extends down to the lower part of the knee. Ed also discusses this on page 71 (volume 1) "Tapering the Knee of the Head". In the second photo the red arrow points at the standard ("gammoning knee") which sits atop the knee of the head. Note that it is narrower then the stem and knee of the head. Ed mentions it briefly in volume 2, page 272.
 
It would difficult for most people to add this taper once the knee of the head is attached to the model but if you have already done so I believe your skillset will find a way to do this. Hope this has clarified things for you.
 

 
 

Beautiful work that many can only aspire to, would love to follow your progress.

Yves, fascinating project....I've got nothing to add here but would like to watch and learn.  Great results so far.

I agree. I wasn't sure about the acetate stand for Speedy, but I've been looking at display options and may decide to mount her on a mirror to show off the copper bottom. The clear stand is ideal for this. Here's a test shot I took on a mirrored table:

The brass nameplate looks particularly good on the acetate.