Beef Wellington

Wish you all the best in your endeavor's Chris, I think you are truly re-invigorating the PoB kit market with some outstanding high quality kits, and also providing a source for quality scale mini-kits for many fittings that seem to have been missing in the market place.

Well plastic wood…
 
anyways the superstructures are done up, now to start on the PE! The instructions are pretty rubbish. 

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.

Alan, that is some pretty amazing detail at 1:64, and its nice to see detail normally omitted or obscured by paint.  Very nicely done indeed.

Plodding away on the superstructure that will be nearly invisible below the flight deck. The rear most structure has planked sides! 

I’ll put together the plastic blobs to compare 

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.

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.

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.

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.

I've finished the simulated chain plates, so I thought a few progress shots were due.
 

 
 
 

 

 
I ended up with one chainplate photo-etch part left, so do be careful with these parts (especially that you don't cut them too short, which would be easy to do if you forget to take into account the angle in towards the hull from the wale)  
 
There's a little painting to do at the stern to touch up where I've sanded down the detailing to make it flush with the wales, but otherwise Stefano's looking quite smart.
 
Next step, attaching the deadeyes to the main rails to complete the illusion that the chain plates pass through the hull.
 
Rob

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.

and some more

This question has been bugging me, I thought I knew most of the WW2 flying boats but this one I didn't recognise. Sikorsky?  Dornier?  Neither fits.
 

 
After some intensive searching, I find it's a Consolidated P2Y Ranger.  This is the service history from Wikipedia:
 
The Navy ordered 23 P2Y-1s on 7 July 1931. They were serving by mid-1933 with VP-10F and VP-5F squadrons which made a number of classic long-range formation flights.  At least 21 P2Y-1s were modified to P2Y-2s in 1936 and flown by VP-5F and VP-10F until 1938, when they were transferred to VP-14 and VP-15.
The first P2Y-3s reached VP-7F in 1935, and this version was flown by VP-4F at Pearl Harbor and in 1939 was in operation with VP-19, VP-20, and VP-21. By the end of 1941, all the P2Y-2s and P2Y-3s had been withdrawn from operational use and were at Naval Air Station Pensacola.
 
So not really a WW2 flying boat. Phew!
 

By 1941 there were fuel lines running down both sides of the hull (not mentioned in the kit at all). They stand out like the proverbials when you look at the photos. 
and @BANYAN I just found them on the ebays 

Nice work Richard, you may well find that the falls of the Main Yard Brace  cover that scarph.
 
B.E.

Thanks for the likes.
 
The planking of the quarterdeck was completed. I made one mistake - one of the hooded ends abuts the hooked scarph in the margin plank, and it shouldn’t 😖. I did think about tearing up the planking and starting again, but decided against it. Not a big deal as it’s not going to affect the build, and I can always dump a coil of rope over it later 😁.
 

 
The foredeck was then planked. Again, tapered planks, hooded ends and no joggling. The TFFM plan shows the margin plank as one continuous piece. I made this in two pieces simply to keep the grain running roughly along the length of each piece to avoid splitting. The two pieces were just butt joined and the join was located where the cathead will be and thus hide it.
 

 
I did think about using the technique for tapering planks that Jason (Beef Wellington) described in his build log of HMS Jason, (link here) but I used a sharp knife and a straight edge instead.
 
 That’s it for the moment.
 
Cheers

Hello. Moving on...
 

 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 

 

Beautiful work Matiz, your woodworking is just amazing.

Another update, mostly concentrating on the rear mast:
 

 

 

 
Getting a tripod mast to look aligned and vertical can be tricky, so I'm pleased with the result!
 
Cheers,  Tom

Rigging the Anchors #2
 
Rigging large equipment like anchors on a small ship must have been a tricky proposition. They must be stowed securely, but without fouling rigging or guns. I found that very difficult on the model and in the end decided secure storage trumped convenient access to the rigging, especially lanyards and deadeyes that would only be adjusted occasionally. 
 
So, the lashings for the aftmost anchor (the stream?) on each side went round a deadeye on the fore channels and through a gun port:

I used 0.5mm rope for the lashings. I've been reassured to see anchors rigged like this on contemporary models, including the use of gunports.
 
Moving on to the bowers, I used 0.5mm line for the buoy rope and 0.25 for the lanyard used to suspend the buoy from the shrouds.
 

Looking at the anchor in more detail...
...I've improved the simulated bolts (previously just holes pricked with a pointy tool) by using nylon bristles from a hair brush. These were 0.5mm diameter and perfect for the job. I just drilled holes a couple of mil. deep in place of the pinpricks, pushed the bristle in and cut it off flush with the cuticle cutters. 
 
The anchor cable is attached to the ring with a double inside bend (I'm sure there's a technical term but I've forgotten it😬!). The buoy rope on Speedy would have been 120', which is 570mm at scale. It attaches to the anchor with a clove hitch round the crown, with the end seized against the shaft as shown. One seizing is near the crown, the other two close together near the end. In full-size practice a knot imaginatively called an anchor buoy knot would have been raised on the rope between these two seizings as extra security against losing the buoy rope - and hence potentially the anchor. I omitted this tiny detail. 
 
120' of rope makes a large coil, which must be stowed with the buoy and near the anchor. I used a 1/2" drill bit to form coils that would have been 32"/812mm at full size, which felt about right:

After painting the coil with matt acrylic varnish and leaving it to dry, I removed it from the bit and 'smooshed' it - Glenn's word (@glbarlow)! - into a more realistic shape. I'm still waiting for the Liquitex product that Tom (@TBlack)  recommended but I got impatient and the varnish seems to work OK without discolouring the rope. The last job was to tie some small stuff in a couple or three places round the coil to hold it in shape.
 
As for stowing the buoy and rope, I've always thought it impractical the way most models show the buoy half way up the fore shrouds. I found a picture of a model of a 70 gun ship in the NMM that shows a more sensible and more readily accessible arrangement:

However, I tried and failed to replicate this arrangement on Speedy. What might have worked on a larger vessel wasn't possible on Speedy. I suspect this might mirror the difficulties sailors would have faced in Cochrane's time, where the sheer amount of tackle that had to be crammed into a limited space - and operated in all conditions - would inevitably have led to less-than-ideal arrangements like buoys half way up shrouds. 
 
Anyway, that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it. Here's the result:

Here, the bower is lashed through a gunport again. The stock end is secured via a line attached to the ring with a bowline, which is then tied off round the cathead:

I'm definitely on the home straight now, with just a few odd jobs to do - last swivels to fit, base to build and final tarting up. My next post will be my last main entry, with final photos and a summary of my overall impressions of the model.
 
Derek
 
 
 

Good morning Mark,
at one draughts for the Dragon there are these extra stools for the mizen backstays, but an other draught of the Dragon did't show them.
 

 
and this picture is from the Thunderer/Hercules, which I believe is the Dragon. The Superb did't have them

 
Also the Centurion once had them, and the 60 gun warship has them. That are 60 gunners from the 1740's

 

 
But also newer ships have these stools, Standart 1782, Glory 1788 and Prudent 1768, just as examples.  So it's not unusual. 
 
 
 

Hi all,
 
A small update. I've added the eyelets on the deck, drilling the holes using the template I made for the deck. This kind of worked, although in retrospect I would have gone back and neatened up the marks a little before I actually drilled them.
 

 

 
I've also completed the (faux) chain plates on the starboard side. These are attached like chain plates, but actually stop where they enter the underside of the rail. The deadeyes themselves will be glued into the rail on the top side. Careful comparison of the top down and side elevations were necessary to ensure these match up, and will look right compared to the mast position / pin rails, etc... 
 
This was done by overlaying the two elevations on the computer and printing out the resulting overlay to cut out and place on the model. The chainplates themselves are photoetch, and look very flimsy, but I was surprised by how sturdy they actually proved to be. They were blackened before fitting with brass pins (a 0.8mm hole was drilled to accommodate the lower pin for fitting, and then once fitted the position of the upper hole was marked and drilled. This ensured the two holes lined up as hoped.
 
Small sewing snips proved to be the best tool for removing the chain plates from the photo-etch sheet.
 

 

 

 

 

 
You'll notice that the remained of the belaying pins also arrived from Cornwall Model Boats, so those have been put into position. It blows my mind that I'd pre-drilled the holes for these wooden components before they arrived (to 0.6mm), and they were a gentle push fit when they arrived... every single one of them! I wish I could work with that kind of precision and consistency!
 
Happy building, all!
 
Rob

Beautiful work Matiz, your woodworking is just amazing.

I’ve started to plank the quarterdeck. All the planks, except the king plank, are tapered. None of the planks is joggled into the margin plank but but some have  hooded ends. The plank pattern is based on that given in TFFM.
 
The first few planks in place. I decided to cover the two scuttles at the forward edge of the deck with solid covers rather than gratings as suggested in the instructions. My reasoning was that gratings provide light and ventilation through the deck and as these scuttles are very close to the forward edge of the deck, gratings here will do little, if anything, to provide additional light and air down to the upper deck.
 
 

 

 
The next photos show how I marked and cut the hooded ends of the two planks that needed these. The piece of strip wood in the photos was a demo only, and not the actual plank. The margin plank (cut from some sheet) was held in place and the strip offered up. The width at the end was marked (A), and the point where the width of the strip became less than the gap between the margin plank and the already installed plank was marked (B).
 

 
The strip was trimmed to these two points.
 

 
At B, the plank was marked with a point 2mm in from the outer edge, the plank here was 5mm wide. An angled cut was made and the plank was tapered from here forwards, as shown in the photo.
 

 
The actual plank is shown trial fitted.
 

 
The margin plank has two hooked scarph joints. The underside of the margin plank with one of the scarph joints marked out with a pen.
 

 
A sharp knife was used to cut the plank into three sections.
 

 
The margin plank glued in place.
 

 
Cheers