G. Delacroix

Hi, and thanks at all ❤️
 
 

Hello,
 
The recommendations of captains upon returning from campaigns were normally followed if they did not entail excessive expenses. For a false keel 11 cm thick (the ship is small), it is within the realm of possibility. Real anti-drift keels did not appear until the end of the 18th century.
The experience acquired on one construction must logically appear on subsequent constructions but, at the time, ships were built by several different builders and each applied their own experience. The false keel is a minor part which often appears as natural in the construction of the hull even if it is not mentioned in the specifications.
 
GD

Hello,
 
The recommendations of captains upon returning from campaigns were normally followed if they did not entail excessive expenses. For a false keel 11 cm thick (the ship is small), it is within the realm of possibility. Real anti-drift keels did not appear until the end of the 18th century.
The experience acquired on one construction must logically appear on subsequent constructions but, at the time, ships were built by several different builders and each applied their own experience. The false keel is a minor part which often appears as natural in the construction of the hull even if it is not mentioned in the specifications.
 
GD

Hello
 
The false keel is used to preserve the keel and to prevent a little the leeway (the drift). On French ships, it is generally only 4 to 5 inches (French) thick, or approximately 11/14 cm. This value does not affect the draft value significantly. On the other hand, its protective role is very important.
However, you should know that not all ships have a false keel.
In the report published at the end of the monograph, there is no mention of gripe, it does not exist in the French navy. The text cites an iron stirrup intended to prevent the rudder from being engaged by an anchor cable. We can also observe this stirrup on the plans of the monograph.
 
GD

Hello
 
The false keel is used to preserve the keel and to prevent a little the leeway (the drift). On French ships, it is generally only 4 to 5 inches (French) thick, or approximately 11/14 cm. This value does not affect the draft value significantly. On the other hand, its protective role is very important.
However, you should know that not all ships have a false keel.
In the report published at the end of the monograph, there is no mention of gripe, it does not exist in the French navy. The text cites an iron stirrup intended to prevent the rudder from being engaged by an anchor cable. We can also observe this stirrup on the plans of the monograph.
 
GD

Hello everyone.
Last year I successfully completed the construction of the Le Gros Ventre model according to Gerard Delacroix's monograph and I chose L'Amarante as the next model (also according to GD's monograph). I started the construction of the POF at the end of last year and will gradually publish photos from the construction process here.
First, I made a jig for installing the individual frames on the keel and started assembling the keel.
     

@Gregory
@Keith Black
Hello,
thank you very much for your kind words.
 
 
Musée national de la Marine in Paris
Today I have to get the following off my chest.
As you all know, the Musée national de la Marine in Paris reopened its doors some time ago after many years of renovation and modernization. Our forum colleague Eberhard @wefalck reported on this with impressive photos.
I actually planned to visit the reopened museum later this year and in particular to view and photograph my "object of desire", the original model of "La Créole", in order to, among other things, to explore unclear details of the upper rigging.
After his first visit, Eberhard indicated that he was not sure whether “La Créole” could still be seen in the permanent exhibition.
After contacting the museum, I was informed that this was indeed the case and that the "La Créole" had ended up in storage, like many other models. When I asked if it would be possible to take a few photos of the upper rigging (topgallant yards and royal yards), I was referred to the restorers. A very friendly restorer then went to the depot especially for me and took a whole series of pictures of the rigging.
Regardless of the fact that these recordings are very valuable for my project, I am shocked by the fact that this beautiful model has now become the victim of a new museum education.
Apparently the aim is to reach a wider audience. The German Museum is also apparently following this trend. As I found out, for example, the beautiful 74 model after Boudriot by our forum colleague Robert @tarjack can no longer be seen in the permanent exhibition.
Is this the future of cultural-historical and artistic creation?
Here is a picture from the depot of the Paris museum, where the "La Créole" will now eke out its future existence alongside many other models.

It almost looks like a prison, which makes me a little sad. Previously proudly presented in the permanent exhibition, published with glossy photos, among other things, by J. Boudriot and now in the depot without protection. Hopefully the air in the depot is dust-free.
I'm still hoping that one of the restorers will remember the model and fix the already partially dilapidated rigging.

Continuation: Equipment of the fore topgallant yard – Vergue de petit perroquet
As announced a long time ago, I started to equip the fore topgallant yard. In principle it is the same rigging elements and accessories as the main topgallant yard, just with reduced dimensions.
In this respect, I don't want to repeat myself and let the pictures speak for themselves.



The double blocks for the royal sheets and the single cluelines are also a little smaller.
Here is a direct comparison of a quarter block for the main top gallant yard with those of the fore top gallant yard. Unfortunately, at this size you can already see some irregularities.

In the next photo I show, among other things: an already made strop for a double block with my scale man, which I've been neglecting a bit lately. Actually a loyal companion at the model building yard for more than 10 years now.


And here's another picture of the stirrups. On the one hand you can see the unraveled rope and on the other hand the finished braided plating.

 The sheets are connected to the cluelines in the usual way when no sails were attached.

 Finally, here is a picture of the entire fore topgallant yard, but still without lifts.
 
Sequel follows …

Thanks druxey and I'm glad you said that because after I glued the stove in I could see that I completely forgot to take the shine off of it.  Oh well just another of my little mistakes but I'm gradually learning to live with them.  As for the recovery - yea I feel loads better but can't go back to work yet but cheers for asking
 
The garboard strake - This was a bit of a nemesis for me on my last build but I learnt a lot from that experience.  So firstly I cut the planks but the profile is not flat it's slightly curved.  I only curved the centre section with the view that I could blend it into the other two planks.  I won't say exactly how I cut the inner curve as it involved using a table saw in a way that it shouldn't but the result was nice 🤣

I started in the middle as this is an easy plank - The other ends rotate through about 90 degrees.


I then made and fitted the other two ends - This strake is 2.3mm thick so takes a little persuading but with hot water is not too difficult.  I'm pleased with the result even though I haven't quite got it right on the forefoot.  It's difficult to bend and clamp a plank through 90ish degrees and see if it fits exactly.  I thought that it was but alas no!  A bit of saw dust filler to the rescue  which I'll blend in properly at a later date.


Just looking at the hull I would guess that it will need a couple of stealers at the stern and a couple of drop planks towards the bow.  I'll soon find out as the next job is to line out the planking which will reveal all!
 
Cheers Mark

Some more work done - This time it's the small office/store cupboard.  It's a very simple construction with brass hinges and lock.  It has a small shelf too and many angles come together for a good fit.





So now I have to bring all of these parts together and finish off some of the little details that I have missed
 
Mark
 

phoenix raises from the ash
 

 
 
This is first time i have priviledge to build from boxwood at will and Im quite perplexed how beautiful this wood is not for carving only but for bending as well. its pure joy to work with and I am delighted how helpful this is. So I finished starboard side from wells up. Sharp eye wipll spot my usual sinful things as unnecessary repairs. It was constant pressure on me whether planks would meet upper end correctly, so there it is. After brute thorough  sanding boxwood colors out almost white. im not sure what final treatment  to use for it. tung oil? one can spot not advanced fancy modeling here as cutouts around gunports...
its quite obvious how this shape  differ from english tradition shapes, being fattest at the prow thinning slender aft. and how shallow is foreship curvature. I like most enter of forecaatle opening up outwards of deck providing splash protection. its really modern  cathedral of ships. 
as far as moldings, according compendium, streak between double   molding between gunwales and channel strip can be black or yellowˇ I tried to leave it natural not sure if permanently. maybe later on i will paint it black so it will provide one color up down molding shape.   so far i like it this way too. well there will be longer because  as I have worked franatically in this and my fingers need rest. thank you for looking in and any comment  etcetera....
I dont like looking at bare skeleton,  finally this long passage is behind me and part of boat is coming up.   there is now other side to be done. same work same challenge. and now million dollar question. treenail or not :))) ://// hm hm. i guess i will do. i never tried it before. 
 
outward strake shape  is my favorite one. 

 
better view....
 

damn there she goes...
upper deck gunwales closer. 

most important curvature of entire ship. 

2 mm thick strakes ...and holes before fairing. . I like idea bowsprit hole is just underneath front small deck...so so but 4 mm molding just fitted. barely but...will work on it later.
 

on the aft side its "just there". 
 
curvatures...

overall...
bowsprit support
simple doors opening with one ugly seam
moldings are quite substantial 

gunport sill detail 
 

 
 

Thanks Jeremy 🙂
 
Right I'm back from the hospital and I've been repaired but apparently it's no work for me for a few weeks.  So completely ignoring their requests I decided to get on with a bit of ship building to keep me sane 😜
 
Picking up where I left off my next jobs are to make the ships stove and the small office.  Both of these parts require a bit of deck for a base so I did this first.  I made these parts of the deck as they should be underneath them rather than just placing a bit of wood for them to stand on.  The deck under the stove has a layer of metal on top I guess to keep the heat away from the wood.
 


The stove starts with a pretty simple wooden box with 4 legs that go through the base.

I then lined 3 of sides with bricks that I bought online at 1/24 scale - I never realised that building ships also involves brick laying!  The only tricky part of this job was the small corner 45 degree bricks.  To get the 12 that I needed cost me about 40 bricks!


I never really know how much detail people want but next I needed to cut the brass strips for the iron cage that fits inside.  These strips were cut from 0.25mm thick brass and are 1.2mm wide.  To do this I use double sided tape to hold the brass on a sacrificial piece of wood.  It's dead simple but the clean up of the saw takes about 30 minutes as the sawn tape just sticks to everything inside of it.


 I wanted the cage to be half decent so I opted to use a plug to try and get a good fit.  It's a nice snug fit inside which does not allow for the brass cage.

I then marked out and milled the cage to be made - The inside cuts are 0.5mm deep and the outside cuts are 0.25mm deep.  It's not perfect but it's good enough.

Next was to solder the pre-cut brass strips into the plug.

This can then be pushed into place and the brass can be easily folded over the edges of the stove without loosing any of its intended shape.


The result turned out quite nice




Finally the brass was blackened; the bottom bricks installed; the feet cut to a 5 degree angle to suit the deck; lifting eyes made and my favourite - the grill bars were installed.  I've not explained how the grill bars were fitted as this caused me some thinking as they are sunk into the bricks - so how do you think this was done??





I'm very pleased with this little stove which I guess took 10 - 12 hours to make as there are many elements to its construction.  It's a bit glossy on the inside at the moment but I'll sort that out before it's finally installed.  I have 2 more parts to make for it which help firmly fix it to the deck.  Other than that I'll make a start on the small office next.
 
Cheers Mark

Ok last one from me!  I couldn't resist making the lever for the windlass just to see how it looked.  I haven't got a lathe so I winged it a bit but overall I'm happy with the result. I also like the way I can put it in any of the holes on the windlass.



Sorry for the poor picture quality - Mark
 

Thank you Vladimir 👍
Hi Dave thanks for your nice comments.  I work to the dimensions on Gerards drawings as best I can - so if I measure a piece to be 5.8mm I try and make it that size rather than rounding up to 6mm.  I have found that I get very little cumulative error by doing this   BTW have a really great holiday you lucky fella 👍
 
Okay - the windlass 😍 what a lovely piece this is to make on this ship.  Although I've not strictly adhered to Gerards drawings as it should be slightly barrel shaped I have enjoyed making this.
 
So first of all I had a bit of play to work out the indexing on my rotary table which you can see standing on the mill slide.  Once sorted I shaped a hexagonal piece which was again made by gluing two bits together.  Its dimensions are just over 18mm wide it's quite a chuck of wood.

Looking at the drawings there is a 3 degree angle to be cut on the length of the windlass and also the pawl cut outs are set 12 degrees back from the hexagonal facets.


So I set the 3 degree angle and cut the taper and also rough cut the pawl locations.


Once that was done I revised the pawl cuts and milled them to their final size.  This is easy to do as long as you do not accidentally reset your mill dials.

Then I drilled out the holes for the windlass lever which are set a 90 degrees to each other and go all of the way through too.  I also cut the windlass bearings.
So now I've ended up with a piece looking like this - Now anyone that does machining knows that my biggest problem is turning the windlass around in the chuck.  I cannot grip on the tapered surface with the 4 jaw chuck.

So to solve this problem I made some tapered inserts that I glued on using PVA knowing that I can remove them later using IPA.

I then turned the windlass around in the chuck and repeated the same processes to the other end.


Now the chances of me hitting exactly the same angle with such a Heath Robinson solution was slim.  The windlass did not come out entirely symmetrical but it looks ok to me.  If I made it again I expect that I would get the same result so upwards and forwards.  
 
The next stage was to make the round holes square for the lever which I intend to make later.  I'm sorry but I forgot to take any pictures of this process - Its time consuming to get the square hole completely through but the end result is well worth it.
 
Finally there are 2 iron bands that fit around each end of the windlass.  These are hard to make and get a correct fit being hexagonal  - my advice is just keep at it until you get it right.  Due to my taper/angle discrepancy the ends of my windlass differ by 1mm so each one had to be custom made.

So here's the final result all cleaned up with blackened iron bands - I've never used brass black before but its very easy to use and the results are lovely.



So next I need to make the windlass supports - Thanks everyone for the likes and support with my build
 
Mark
 

More done this time it's the forecastle deck waterways.  As with the main deck these are tricky to make and get a good fit.
 
Here I'm just pretty much roughing out the shape to get a good fit on the hull and beams.  I learn't from last time to leave loads of extra material on until the final shaping.
 


This is what the final piece looks like - It varies in thickness, angle and profile.  I haven't put any of the making pictures up as its a replica of the process that I followed before.



Just dry clamped in place to check that all is ok.



It's all still a bit scruffy and needs cleaning up and pencil marks removed but on the whole they fit nicely and now I know that everything lines up.
 
So I can now put these parts away until later as I want to make the windlass, stove and office that sit between these decks.  Once they are made and installed I'll finally fit all of these pieces too.
 
Mark

It should take no more than week or two until I get bulkheads. Im thrilled waiting. 
I little continued on stern...first making planking grove and transom planks.. next massive ornamental piece that attaches to the skeleton. 
im not good at scraping but i tried to make- modify  pattern out of comercial one to mimic prototype....photos to say more. 
transom will be black but i  intend to leave ornamentals natural boxwood so far. I  should cover it at this stage not to smudge it much. thanks. 
 
 
 
 

More done on the beams to get them just about completed.
 
Firstly I made the deck shelves (this ship doesn't have knees under the ends of the beams) and also cut the dovetails in the clamps and beams.  I actually got a nice fit this time on these parts.
 


There were also a few more notches that needed to be cut into the beams and also a slanted hatch for above the kitchen stove.  I couldn't quite see the details for the carlings in the drawings so I made them like the other hatches on the ship.  This is pretty much a 50/50 notch into the beam and a similar one into the carling.  The hatch sits at an angle of 74 degrees as best that I could measure it.

The beams in place and also at the correct overall height.  They sit flush with the highest breast hook for the planking to run over.



So next I'm going to make the waterway for this deck.  Its thickness and angles vary quite a lot so should be quite a challenge.  I also want to make some detailed parts rather than just structural ones.  So to shake my build up a bit I've decided to pretty much finish this end of the ship.  I'll be making the stove, office and windlass along with several hatches.  I just think it will be nice to add some details before getting on with the planking on the starboard side.
 
Mark

Some more done on these two parts.  I made the final pieces and drilled all of the required holes into them both.  The hawse holes are drilled at about 20 degrees.


Unfortunately I drilled the nail holes around the hawse hole at 90 degrees or if you like straight in.  So in these pictures they look correct but after milling the top to its final thickness it moved them off centre - Oh well these things happen.
 
So I fitted them onto the ship and also finished the scuppers for the manger.  I also thought it best that I protect the ship a bit at this stage so I gave the planking a light coat of shellac sanding sealer.



My next job is going to be making the beams for the forecastle deck.  I need to do this as I think my alignment of the bowsprit is slightly off.  Making the beams above the bowsprit partners will help me to see this.
 
Mark

Hello,
It is probably a printing problem because the "exploded" part is drawn from the "assembled" part, there is no difference in the AutoCad file (I just checked).
It is possible that the printing method has deformed the print although it comes from a pdf file dimensionally reliable.
Sorry for this inconvenience that I hope is unique.
Gérard Delacroix

Thanks Tobias but I can assure you that this build is far from perfect mate.  I'm constantly having to make allowances for earlier errors but I guess thats ship building for you.
 
The scuppers - The technique that druxey suggested to me works great for finding the line through the hull.  On this scale though it's a long way through the hull to make each side meet.  I guess you just have to be brave and get cracking with a chisel.  So first of all I cut the holes through as best that I could - I did pick up a little damage but nothing really to worry about.  I've also learnt that these small errors disappear in the long run as you simply stop seeing them.
 

Next I made a rectangular tube out of pewter - easy to make and difficult to fit through the hull - it just takes time.

Then I roughed the tube to the correct dimensions but left some on to sand down later.  Its worth noting that that the tube dimensions are slightly different from the outside to the inside.

Following on from my previous bad experience using cyano I glued these in using 20 minute epoxy resin.  I really like this glue - it gives loads of time to jiggle things around and cleans up easily with IPA.

Next was to make the end plates on the inside and outside.




So thats one side complete and now onto the starboard side - which I still haven't finished nailing yet!
 
Cheers Mark

Took me week to work the skeleton. 
though I will have to figure out how to drill cannon holes at later stage. maybe i will do it at this point sometime. Thanks for looking in. Im glad this extremely difficult part is behind me. windows sills inserted and polished..
 

Good day fellow scratchbuilders. 
 
Bulkheads are in making so im excited.
I decided not to waste time and made stern structural backbone. ride is on.
 

The curvature of the rail is very elegant, well done!
 
GD

The curvature of the rail is very elegant, well done!
 
GD

The curvature of the rail is very elegant, well done!
 
GD