Beef Wellington

Man...a revised Agamemnon...that's going to be an epic kit 🤩

We shouldnt judge a 20 year old project too harsh. During the 90s, Caldercraft pushed the bounderies much and was one of the few companies that actually developed new kits. However, its a pity that most old classic manufactureers of shipmodels live on very old kits and have completely stopped making new kits. That is why we all also appreciate and follow Chris and Vanguard models. 20 new kits in just a few years and constantly new designs and solutions. Many was quite disappointed when the Surprise was never released. But now we can look forward to a kit that will soon be out on the market and way better than a kit what was designed 20 years ago.     

The Jotika/Caldercraft Surprise sadly looks very clunky compared with the finely scaled details of  present day Vanguard kits. Chris has done to the established ranges of many long established kit manufacturers, what HMS Warrior did to the Wooden sailing navy.
 
B.E.
 

OK, I have now completed what I need to for the designs. The 'mule' is finished, no need to garner any more info from it - and here she is. No varnish, paint and much abused, Jim's model will have much more finesse (and colour).
I knew I was close to the finishing line (designs) for this, so I was up most of the night, and then all of today to complete it - now I can relax a little before starting the CAD drawings for plans..
 

I spent a bit of time yesterday belying the rigging that had been run in, some of which can be seen in the first three first photos below.

With the jibboom and flying jibboom added their respective shroud rigging were next to be added. I opted to use hooks to secure these blocks to the bow for ease of installation, as can be seen in the two photo below, noting the plan sheet shows these blocks should be seized directly to the eyebolts. The free ends of the inter-block rigging will be belayed to pins located on the bow inner bulwark belay pin racks.

The shrouds are also feed through eyelets located on the spritsail yard before being secured to the ends of the jibboom and flying jibboom.
 
 

Completed fore and aft riding bitts. Pinned the back beam as well as glued using PVA and very fine pins.Thinking of using  ply wood for the stove floor tiles. Unsure of the thickness which will depend upon the height of the chimney in relation to the deck above. I am thinking of framing this piece of wood and might score the wood to look like tiles. Unsure of the thickness of wood required for this as I have used the Brodie stove supplied by Vanguard which is an upgrade on the Caldercraft supplied parts and may need to adjust this hieght to get the right height above the upper deck. Any ideas on the correct thickness of this flooring would be greatly appreciated. I have primed the stove with white primer as I have no black primer at hand and will air brush this when  I have attched the various brass parts I have replaced the grating for the origonal light colour which is what i have hoped for and sealed them using Liberon sand & sealer which worked better than shellac or varnish as these  just seemed to darken them more than I would have liked.
                   According the Caldercraft instructions next up is assembing the 18Lb gun carrages and associated fittings  but I might deviate from this somewhat and inbetween and finish off some more gun deck fittings such as capstan, bilge pumps and binicle and manger etc cl
 

A 5 mm lime dowel was used for the seats of ease and drilled with a 3.5 mm drill. I did not use the supplied parts for the grating as the slots were very fine but used the origonal section for the out size dimensions and used 2.7 square boxwood sanded down to 2mm square for the frame and 1mm square boxwood for the ledges and the same for the actual grating pieces. Although the finished piece is different than the actual Caldercraft plans but apart from the paint work which could have been better I am fairly happy with my first attempt manufacturing my own parts out of boxwood and scratch building this part of the build. Lining up port & stbd  recesses for Boomkins were slightly out so will need to correct this at some later stage.
I am really glad to have completed this part of the build as this is the first time I have attempted to make my own head rails and other parts out of boxwood. I have made a number of mistakes and I have had to compromise with a the grating and seats of ease etc but on the whole I think it has been an improvement on the supplied kit parts and looks reasonable from a normal viewing distance. Hopefully as I continue with the build I will find the next bit easier going.

Continuing with the head rails and  stem . You can see there is something not quite working out with the gammonning knee. I can see from Dunnocks Diana blog that this needs to be thinner and a different shape altogether so proceeded to make a new one from boxwood.

Another problem I have noticed when placing the gammoning knee in position that the bowsprit hole is too low and this is confirmed when try to fit  the figure head in position and a 10mm dowel in the bowsprit hole. I could have swore that I had allowed for ths figure head when drilling the hole earlier in the build. Here is a reminder.
I have spent some time removing the rails from the bow in orde to sort out this problem with the bowsprit hole and I decided to blug the hole with a 10mm dowel and filler. Eventually after securing the ship as level as possible using a frame, I managed to drill a hole using a long 10mm drill bought for this purpose at an angle of 20 degrees( copied from the AOTS drawing) and this time it looks to be inline with the stem post and at the correct height. Here is the drilling in action.


The above work has held me up somewhat but needed doing. I now need to clean up the paint work and replace the rails  on the bow. I have managed to make some progress with the head rails but have found this very frustrating but have kept at it . The main problem I was having was trying different methods to get the correct decorative relief on the rails but after several attempts I don,t think I could come up with anything better than just using this tool.  

Here I tried to make one with a shaper which looked ok ( before painting) but did not turn out too well and did not look similar to other models .I also tried using modellers masking tape which was not great so ended up going free hand which is the best I can do
 
 
 
 

I am almost at the point of 9 months since starting this project and as the winter is almost upon us ( or it seems like it anyway) here in the uk, it is time I stopped working on the Diana in my garage,which is draughty and cold and return to finishing off the rigging on my Endeavour build. However before I do switch projects I would like to continue a little longer on the Diana and finish off the head rails. As I understand this is probably the most difficult part of the build so would like to complete this so that I won,t be jumping into the deep end on my return in possibly 6 months time.
        I have  Re fitted the stem post which after breaking off at the gammonning hole at some time in the past( Planking) and I left it off until I had filed out the hole for the Bowsprit which according to Lees book  'The Masting and rigging of English ships of war' and my calculations is 11mm dia at the widest part.( This was worked out from 1794 and not upto 1794 and this works out the same as the AOTS Diana., I  will not be using the Ramin dowels supplied by Caldercraft as it is my intention of making the masts from square boxwood stock.
Head rails
         After removing several parts from the walnut and plywood sheets ( see photo below) It is clear that some of these parts are at least on the flimsy side and at worst the incorrect size or shape. Perhaps my hull is not the exact shape so I have therefore decided to make as many of these as possible from boxwood. 
First I found that the upper and lower cheeks weren't long enough so fashioned 4 of these and shaped them to fit the hull and stem post and then roughly cut out the upper and lower rails as these will need to be modified in an attempt to make them similar to the rails fitted to the hull

I also need to paint the Figure head which is suggested in the following photo.

 
 
 
 

Thank you Allan and to everyone for their kind likes and replies. I am trying, but do find a lot of the upgrades difficult and don,t turn out as well as I hoped but hopefully some improvment on each previous build I have done.
          Fasioned a spectacle plate out of copper plate and then lightly blackened.

Small progress due to another leave of absence ( holliday). Cut out the sections for the scuttles and oars so that the doors would lie flush with the hull and also the 4" scuppers . I only fitted the 3 forward ones as I thought I would ensure the main mast chainplates were fitted to try and miss these if possible. Regards the hinges for the doors, the ones supplied are far to flimsy but managed to find some extra ones left over from my Endeavour kit which is the same 1:64 scale so a bit of improvement I think. I am also in the process of gluing the upper focastle drift rail but still need to make the decorative scroll out of boxwood as per the quarter deck drift rail. Some cleaning and touching up of paintwork is required. 

Slow process due to health issues and unable to work on my Diana other than short periods . After laying the deck planking and checking the height of the gun port sill against the 32lb Carronades it was obvious the sill were too high. It  was therefore necessary to remove the 1mm thick sill to remove some of the material or then replace the 1 mm thick sill. In order to do this the sides of the gun ports, also 1 mm thick also required removing. Although this was time consuming I eventually managed  to complete this. Below is a photo of a 32lb carronade in position and it can be seen not parallel with the deck due to the gun port being too high


Once the sills were lowerd then it was possible to fit the 1mm walnut planking on the inside of the bulwarks and cut out the shapes of the gun ports.I then moved onto the hatch coamings and various size gratings. Fitting of the stove chimney.
At this point I would like to Thank DavidEN for giving me the idea of upgrading the ships Wheel to 24mm Caldercraft Deluxe wheel as the one supplied by the kit looked to be on the thin side. Next up will be the 32 lb carronade and 9lb Cannon the latter of which I will once again upgrade to that supplied by Vanguard models.I think I can get away with the Caldercraft brass cannon but feel Vanguatd carriages are a definite upgrade. There are still a number of fitting which need to be completed before finally getting to the ships boats. Hoping my health improves so I can get stuck in during these winter days.
 


 
 

Completed planking the upper deck, mainly using 1 x 4 mm Tanganyka strips which came with the kit together with some extra wider strips used for joggling. I also used quite a lot of 1mm Tanganyka sheet which was quite difficult to cut and split along the grain. In the end I temporarily glued a 1.5 mm sheet of ply to the Tanganyka sheet to strengthen the Tanganyka whilst cutting and shaping the waterway . I used the same planking pattern as the lower decks(4) with the length of each plank 180mm and staggered 45mm. Unfortunately there was quite a big difference between the colours of the Tanganyka sheet and the strips but hopefully this will not be too noticeable once the decks are covered with the numerous fittings. I also used the drawings off the AOTS Diana book as to which deck openings had either coamings or scuttles  and ended up with a lot of wasted Tanganyika pieces due to attempting to cut this wood along the grain but hopefully I have made a reasonable job of this.
                I would like to thank Andrew Johnson for giving me the idea of using one of the many Liberon products on offer for trating the deck This time I have tried their superior clear oil which I think shows the Tanganyka wood off quite nicely.
           Next up will be the hatch coamings, gratings and the numerous upper deck fittings. Still  a long way to go as am well past the 18 month mark now and no end in site yet but she is beginning to look a bit like a late 18th century frigate..

Further preparation made for fitting of the forcstle and quarter decks and fitting of additional beams. For some reason several of the deck beams had to b  moved so that they did not appear in the middle of the hatch openings and scuttles I also fitted a number of the carlings in-between the deck beams. so as to line up with the edges of the hatch openings. This also would give additional strength to the deck. I also made a  frame work for ladders supports and made up a couple of ladders either side of the gangways.
I then marked off the forcsle and quarter decks to take the 1 to 4  deck plank pattern which is the same configeration as the lower gun deck planks. I also cut the deck into 4 pieces as I thought it would be easier to handle in smaller section when gluing to the deck.  Before fitting the deck I made a final check to everything on the lower decks as they should be and finally fitted the elm tree pumps.

              I am now going to take a bit of a break and will be off on holiday so it might be sometime  for the next update

I have a kind of addiction, and it is buying these plans, at times for no other reason than to stare and admire the lines of them for hours on end. I find them fascinating. 

This is one of my latest, it is a particularly beautiful 48th scale plan of the San Josef of 112 guns (reputed to once belong to Emma Hamilton) – and damn do those headrails look nice and simple to transfer into a kit version!
 
In the same tube, I also had an even bigger plan of Caledonia (120 – but rounded upper bow, so probably never do that one), and 2 for the old Roebuck Class 44 gun 2-deckers. Not sure if I shall ever use them, but I would like display all of them one day, if I can ever sell my house and move to somewhere that has the room in my workshop…
 

Small update:
 
Not a big update, but it does feel like a big step/relief to have this finished.😆
 
I've had some stressful weeks, and fiddling with small brass pins and such felt almost impossible, haha. I took many breaks from working on the model, but now I've finally finished the rudder with all the straps, horseshoe plates, and fish plates. The pics below are self-explanatory. I also extended the straps on the hull to the back of the sternpost with a piece of black paper. So that it looks like the straps go around the sternpost again.
 
I chose to keep the horseshoe and fish plates black instead of the recommended copper color in the manual. I think the copper looks great on a white hull, but I thought black would look better on a natural hull.
 

 

 

 

 

 

Okay, just a quick adjustment before F1 starts... I slightly countersunk the holes in the stern and it looks much better!
 
Thanks for the help guys!
 

Does anyone think the space between the rudder and the hull is too large? It seems okay, right? According to the drawing, it should be a millimeter, and mine is 1.5. So it's pretty close. When I first attached the rudder, I thought...the space seems too large? But now that I've looked at it a few times and taken a picture, it seems okay (perhaps also a bit influenced by Blue Ensign, who thought the space was too large and adjusted it  ) 
 
It's sometimes a bit difficult to see in other logs regarding the angle of the photo, so I thought...let me ask what others think.
By the way, there is practically no space between the edge of the hole where the rudder fits in...but in principle that is not noticeable  
 

It has clearly been a very long time since last I was here and I hope that people remember me!  Suffice to say it has been hard to make any progress beyond a snails pace.  I last left off after focusing on the complex bow structures.  To keep moving I needed to install the rough tree rail and the various supports as well as the Fretwork to the upper finishing.  Dimensions were estimated from plans and contemporary model, and these all seem to vary to some degree.  
I had held off making the fretworks as I wasn't sure of the approach, and I wanted to get a curved profile.  In the end, shaped billets were made to size and shaped, thin 1mm square boxwood strip (which I had hand sanded down to ~0.5mm) was then glued to the upper and lower edges.  Once dry, the back was cut away and finished by hand.  This is where the piper must be paid for any prior size and alignment estimates- as things stood I'm estimating that this is maybe 1mm shorter than it should be per the various plans and diagrams (4mm vs 5mm), but this was necessary to sit appropriately.
Unfortunately, my progress was so slow making the rough tree rails that I neglected to take photos.  These were cut from 2mm boxwood following the profile of the hull and were 3mm wide.  The curved for'ad sections were made separately using a similar technique as taken for the decorative rails and then joining to the main rough tree rail.  This follows the sheer of the deck, rather than the wale, so a template was made to ensure that these were positioned correctly.  The timberheads were then added using 2x5mm pear strip., because these are continuations of the frames, they need to be perpendicular to the keel.  There seems to be a huge amount of small variation on how these were constructed and captured on plans and models, and a variation even between the plans I have for HMS Jason showing these and the various Artois class models.  The template was once again used to ensure the consistent height above the deck.  Much of this process required fine adjustments using the Mk. 1 eyeball which seemed to take a considerable amount of time.  In the end, I drew inspiration from model 1794-3 illustrated on page 19 of the AOTS Diana book.  This has 2 curious semi-bulkheads installed in the timberheads, as well as being solidly built up at the stern.  I have no idea what these are as I haven't seen them anywhere else.  The mizen and main backstay stools have also been glued into position.  Finishing up with some overall shots of where things stand (The quarter gallery lights are not attached, but were placed to get a sense for proportion when finalizing the fretwork)

 
 

Many thanks all for the comments and likes, definitely good to have people along for the journey..
 
Feels like a chapter is coming to a close, finally seem to be closing in on completing the upper deck.  Definitely a multitude of time consuming small tasks.  First off I needed to address the fixed part of the gangway.  This is shown quite clearly in plan view on page 46 of AOTS Diana, however it is not shown in profile.  Given that it appears to contain its own lodging knee, I decided to extend the profile of the deck beam.  This seems to make sense when recognizing that a ladder will eventually be located here.  This highlights one of the inconsistencies in the AOTS book, many diagrams show the non-flush gangboards which I understand were going out of fashion at this point to be replaced by flush gangboards.  Hoping I'm not too far off the mark here.  A strip with a slight profile was added also to the deck beam to sit flush with the false quarterdeck.
 
The base plate to the stove was ripped off and replaced despite my intentions to leave as, hopefully this sits a little more harmoniously.
 

 
Cables have been added and "secured" to the various ring bolts beside the midship gratings.  AOTS describes these as being used for stoppers, but decided to secure with simpler ring ropes as described in Lever.  Stoppers have been modelled as per Lever on the 2 foremost ring bolts, but not yet tied on or attached permanently to allow me to finally decide (or others to refute) the approach taken.
 

 
Even though this area will only ever be glimpsed, time was spent fully building out the area around the foremast with the For jeer and for topsail sheet bitts as they would appear.  The actual bitts on the fo'c'sl will be mounted to the deck, seemed unnecessarily complicated to build these fully.  Couldn't quite figure out what was represented on diagrams for the fore jeer bitts until I saw interior photos of contemporary models in the Roger's Dockyard Model collection - but still no clue what the "swan neck" arrangement is called.  What is very interesting is how crowded this forward area really is, fighting these guns must have been a real challenge.
 

 
Warning:  Here follows some highly indulgent closeups taken on Captain's rounds!  This is the closest I guess I'll get to seeing what this looked like in practice
 

 
And finally...some overall shots with where things stand..
 

It has clearly been a very long time since last I was here and I hope that people remember me!  Suffice to say it has been hard to make any progress beyond a snails pace.  I last left off after focusing on the complex bow structures.  To keep moving I needed to install the rough tree rail and the various supports as well as the Fretwork to the upper finishing.  Dimensions were estimated from plans and contemporary model, and these all seem to vary to some degree.  
I had held off making the fretworks as I wasn't sure of the approach, and I wanted to get a curved profile.  In the end, shaped billets were made to size and shaped, thin 1mm square boxwood strip (which I had hand sanded down to ~0.5mm) was then glued to the upper and lower edges.  Once dry, the back was cut away and finished by hand.  This is where the piper must be paid for any prior size and alignment estimates- as things stood I'm estimating that this is maybe 1mm shorter than it should be per the various plans and diagrams (4mm vs 5mm), but this was necessary to sit appropriately.
Unfortunately, my progress was so slow making the rough tree rails that I neglected to take photos.  These were cut from 2mm boxwood following the profile of the hull and were 3mm wide.  The curved for'ad sections were made separately using a similar technique as taken for the decorative rails and then joining to the main rough tree rail.  This follows the sheer of the deck, rather than the wale, so a template was made to ensure that these were positioned correctly.  The timberheads were then added using 2x5mm pear strip., because these are continuations of the frames, they need to be perpendicular to the keel.  There seems to be a huge amount of small variation on how these were constructed and captured on plans and models, and a variation even between the plans I have for HMS Jason showing these and the various Artois class models.  The template was once again used to ensure the consistent height above the deck.  Much of this process required fine adjustments using the Mk. 1 eyeball which seemed to take a considerable amount of time.  In the end, I drew inspiration from model 1794-3 illustrated on page 19 of the AOTS Diana book.  This has 2 curious semi-bulkheads installed in the timberheads, as well as being solidly built up at the stern.  I have no idea what these are as I haven't seen them anywhere else.  The mizen and main backstay stools have also been glued into position.  Finishing up with some overall shots of where things stand (The quarter gallery lights are not attached, but were placed to get a sense for proportion when finalizing the fretwork)

 
 

The Ekeing and Cathead supporter:
 
The Ekeing is a detail as presented in the kit that consists of a simplified approach consisting of cat head supporter and ubiquitous white metal moldings.  I was determined to make this as prototypical as I could as shown on the plans.  Studying numerous contemporary models, this is a detail that seems to vary quite a lot, and I'm unsure whether this varied significantly from ship to ship, or whether the model builders took their own simplified approaches.   The following photos of Minerva helped a lot in visualizing this complex shape consistent with the original plans (photos are my own taken at the Rogers Collection).
This was a very humbling experience and definitely one of the more challenging pieces to make, requiring many hours of fiddling and sanding.  In short (!) , the Eking and cathead supporter needs to meet the following criteria:
 
Narrow from 3mm to approx 2mm at the middle rail to butt into it cleanly Follow the curve of the hull Extend the graceful curve of the middle rail up to the cathead when viewed from the side Be positioned such that the cathead sits snuggly against the top of the main rail, and is perpendicular to the hull Follow a smooth curve outboard from the cathead to the lower rail, the ekeing curving forward almost immediately below the cathead Pass just upward of the outboard hawse hole, but cross the inner....(differing from Minerva above)  
I had a couple of abortive attempts which while failures, were very helpful in helping me understand the approach described in TFFM Vol 2.   The best piece of advice here is focus on one curved face at a time.  A cardboard template was made to approximate the profile (this was initially estimated using the spare metal molding strips which work well for this).   (Note:  In the photos below, the various rails have been cut out to allow placement of the final rail.  (When the template was made this had not been done which made this a little more challenging and subject to approximation)

The profile of the hull at the bow was taken using a profile gauge and transferred to block of balsa.  The ekeing template was transferred to some 5mm pear sheet and cut out leaving quite a bit of excess.   The hull profile was then introduced onto the inward face.  The shaped balsa block helped a lot in this exercise to allow frequent validation.

Once the inner profile had been finalised, the card template could be used to fine tune the shape.  This has to be transferred onto the curved surface that will sit against the hull, and it important to remember that the profile on the outboard face will be different because the shape will follow perpendicular to the interior face (i.e. the hull).  Some excess was still left here to allow additional fine tuning.

The top of the profile was then thickened using some more 5mm pear, and the cathead supporters roughly shaped and glued into place.  The cathead supporters were attached perpendicular to interior face, not the exterior face.  This rough structure can then be further fine tuned, again using the template on the inner surface and ensuring that the top and bottom face are perpendicular to this along its length.  Following the advice in TFFM, The sternmost face was worked first, and once finalized, the inside curve was worked using the outside as a guide.  Once these had been completed, the outboard curve following the underside of the cathead supporter was introduced.
 
The lower version shown below still required a lot of fine tuning on the model.

Once happy with the shape, the position on the model could be determined, and the decorative rails cut to allow the ekeing to sit flush against the hull.  This was definitely a little nerve wracking and will require a little touch up when all is said and done.  (The outer surface profiling was not introduced until after this work had all been done and position finalised - these still require some finishing as these photos embarrassingly highlight...)  The end of the ekeing also needed to have the shape of the hawse hole introduced onto its lower edge to open that up.To allow the position to be determined, the catheads also needed to be madeup.  The "cathead" decorations on the end was made from polymeric clay and followed the very nice original example originally on Trincomalee and other contemporary models - they look a little more acceptable at a distance!  Not much else to comment on other than the dimensions and decoration were estimated from the original plans and inspired by contemporary models.  These will get further attention in due course.  The upper rail is still just pinned in place and will require the top to be shaped prior to final installation.

Overall, I'm very pleased with how this came together, the various lines seem to flow quite nicely when viewed from the side which was a goal entering into this. The plansheer, ekeing, catheads and upper rail are all still dry-fit at this stage....but think I can move forward with more confidence.
 

It has clearly been a very long time since last I was here and I hope that people remember me!  Suffice to say it has been hard to make any progress beyond a snails pace.  I last left off after focusing on the complex bow structures.  To keep moving I needed to install the rough tree rail and the various supports as well as the Fretwork to the upper finishing.  Dimensions were estimated from plans and contemporary model, and these all seem to vary to some degree.  
I had held off making the fretworks as I wasn't sure of the approach, and I wanted to get a curved profile.  In the end, shaped billets were made to size and shaped, thin 1mm square boxwood strip (which I had hand sanded down to ~0.5mm) was then glued to the upper and lower edges.  Once dry, the back was cut away and finished by hand.  This is where the piper must be paid for any prior size and alignment estimates- as things stood I'm estimating that this is maybe 1mm shorter than it should be per the various plans and diagrams (4mm vs 5mm), but this was necessary to sit appropriately.
Unfortunately, my progress was so slow making the rough tree rails that I neglected to take photos.  These were cut from 2mm boxwood following the profile of the hull and were 3mm wide.  The curved for'ad sections were made separately using a similar technique as taken for the decorative rails and then joining to the main rough tree rail.  This follows the sheer of the deck, rather than the wale, so a template was made to ensure that these were positioned correctly.  The timberheads were then added using 2x5mm pear strip., because these are continuations of the frames, they need to be perpendicular to the keel.  There seems to be a huge amount of small variation on how these were constructed and captured on plans and models, and a variation even between the plans I have for HMS Jason showing these and the various Artois class models.  The template was once again used to ensure the consistent height above the deck.  Much of this process required fine adjustments using the Mk. 1 eyeball which seemed to take a considerable amount of time.  In the end, I drew inspiration from model 1794-3 illustrated on page 19 of the AOTS Diana book.  This has 2 curious semi-bulkheads installed in the timberheads, as well as being solidly built up at the stern.  I have no idea what these are as I haven't seen them anywhere else.  The mizen and main backstay stools have also been glued into position.  Finishing up with some overall shots of where things stand (The quarter gallery lights are not attached, but were placed to get a sense for proportion when finalizing the fretwork)

 
 

Chris: Not to say this is gospel, the maritime museum in San Diego has a ochre colour for there guns below deck on the HMS Surprise moored at the museum. For what its worth!

For the last day or two, I've been concentrating on some of the smaller stuff, as I usually do at this stage in a VM build. I like to get some stuff out of the way early, such as guns, grates, etc. This update will look at the main guns and the stern chasers. The main guns are constructed like Indy, meaning the barrels aren't actually fitted until the model is almost complete. This means the capsquares in the carriage sides, are open at the front, allowing the builder to slip the barrel through the port and glue the part in place. The stern chasers are more traditional. Here, the barrels are fitted through whole capsquares during assembly. 
 
Fourteen on the main guns come complete with name decals. When the cart is painted, some gloss varnish is applied and when set, the decals are added to the carts before being sealed and matt varnish applied. Here you can see the names.


 
PE is used for eyelets and the small stop bar which sits between the sides. The latter is painted ochre to match the cart.

 
Wheels are now added....remember, large ones at the front, so as to deal with deck camber.
 

 
 
The barrels are NOT glued at this stage. The carts will plug into slots in the deck, and the barrels will be one of the very last things you fit as you build Surprise.

 
Chasers: Almost identical in formula to the main guns, except the barrel is fitted as you close the carriage sides.



 
I'm currently working on carronades. I might be able to update today, but maybe not. I have a visitor later who operates the Modelkits Stuff YouTube channel, and he's coming for a preview of the work and sheets of parts etc.