newbee

I should have mentioned as well that I am contemplating tapering the cut water and the stem but as yet am not sure by how much. I like the idea of adding the shapes of the timbers on the stem while also creating almost a rabbet line for the final hul planking so fit into. Whether I am able to achieve this is another matter but it's just a thought for now. 

David. 

I am afraid this is just another brief update. Progress has been slow. I have sanded the hull down a little more, and, I am now much closer to the shape I am trying to achieve at the stern. After more reading up and looking at photos, I deciced to hopefully get the shape of curved lower stern counter. I then glued 0.5 X 5mm  mahogany strips to it. When I test fitted it didn't look right. The wale also didn't line up where I wanted. I then realised that the lower edge of frame 17, while I tried shaping the hull below, was running horizontally accross the stern rather than being curved downwards from the centre to 2 or 3 mm lower at the edges. I removed the lowest strip from the lower counter and replaced it with 10mm wide strip. I then shaped it to drop 5mm on either side to allow room to modify it. The 5mm drop was too much so I reduced it to 3mm. This, combined with the wale actually curving up at the stern looks like being pretty much ok. I had seen on the side view that the wale appears to curve up towards the stern galleries but thought it was more of an optical illusion due to the several curves of the hull in this area. Tomorrow I will re test the line of the wale and am hoping to find I have got it nearly correct now. 

One thing I have meant to have mentioned earlier in this log. My choice of the strip wood I want to use.

I have noted that many of you prefer to use boxwood for the visible planking of the hull, which I understand, however, the box I received had been faded a little from sunlight and I liked the look of what appeared to be walnut below the wale and a more yellowy brown colour above. Hence my decision to use beech above and walnut below the wale. I hope the photo shows the effect well. Should I not be happy with this effect I could always paint it in yellow ochre if needed.

Thanks, as always for the likes. 

david.

Since my last post I have made some progress all be it a little slowly. I added more filler beside the deadwood to try and achieve a better curve so as to not have any gaps beneath the second planking. This is still work in progress, as this area is still not as even as I need. While this filler was drying, I started to plan the deadwood itself. It needs to be widened at the top of the stern post and taper down towards the keel. My initial thought was to pin the back of the stern post onto the false keel and then add balsa to each side and then sand it to shape. I soon realised this wasn't so practical, so, looked at an alternative. To take a break from thinking of this, I started on the first run of spirketting on the gun deck. I was thinking of top and butt planking for this, but, although I would like to give it a try, I decided against it partly as I would need to order more wood but mainly as after painting it would hardly be noticable. I cut 22cm lengths of 1.5X4mm lime strip, lightly sanded them all over and painted them. once they were dry I again sanded them down and applied a second coat of red ochre. I then applied a thin bead of pva glue, smeared it evenly along the inside edge removing any excess and clamped it above the deck. It was only after doing this, I discovered that the deck was not completely even but sags very slightly in a few spots. Only 0.5mm at worst, but still noticable. As I am not entirely happy with the staining of the deck, I may sand it down again and replank it but without any stain, just varnish. Returning to the deadwood problem I thought that instead of using balsa, I could use more filler, Fill ine deadwood area and then shape the whole thing. The filler I have is drying out now but I added some pva glue to it to hopefully allow it to adhere better. I will find out if it worked tomorrow. It seems to be shaping up ok though. There is still a little more sanding and filling to do but the shape is definately getting there.

Here's a few photos until next time.

Cheers all. David.  

Thank you for the kind comments and likes. 

Thanks Jason, I understand what you meant now. I had never noticed the wale levelling off at the stern. If I had known that I definitely wouldn't have even tried to explain it. Special thanks are due for that. 

Thanks for your words too, Bill. I haven't quite started over with this build. I did take her back as far as I felt confident to do which at first was stripping off the upper deck and, unfortunately, the bulwarks above too. Effectively I have got back to, as close as I can, the first planking. Due to the original errors with the bulkheads there were some bulges and hollows to sand or fill. In places the original 1st planking is 0.5mm thin now so, Ive had to tread very carefully. The stern needed much work to get any kind of correct shape not helped by my over sanding in places. 

As far as cost the cheapest I have seen the kit for is about £580.

At the bring and buy stall at the model show, the asking price was 150. I offered 120 and got it. I have since spent around 180. I would have expected to spend at least the same replacing the kit timber, cannons and carraiges. I still need a little more timber, definately a lot of rigging thread (again this would have replaced the thread supplied). All in I think I'm running in at 300 to 350 spent but still well below the kit price without any extras. Of course 6 months of spare time's involved but the experience and learning more than compensates for that. It's possible that I have not quite finished going backwards as I'm not too happy with the shaping of the gunports. I will see if I can improve them or, as a last resort, remove the inner lining and balsa strips between and build them up from deck level again. I have attempted this before and know it's possible and should not set me back too far, maybe a week or two. I want to get her looking as good as she deserves. I've said before that the beauty of a wooden kit is if you make a mistake you can always make a replacement. You cant do that with plastic kits so easily.

For now I am rounding off and curving the lower stern counters and, I hope, finnish shaping the stern prior to starting the 2nd planking. 

Thanks again. 

David. 

Thanks again for the likes and comments. 

Jason, I noticed a while ago that the wale position would be critical to the shape of the stern both below the counters and also the position of the stern facia and galleries. It's taken so long to build up the rough shape of the stern to get to where I am now. The position of the wale now allows me to finalise the area beneath the counters. I still need to work out the correct shape of the deadwood but this should be a little easier now I have a better shape above. Please forgive me for asking but I don't understand what you mean about the wale looking like a flattend S. Do you mean looking at it edge on? 

ERS Rich. Thanks for your input too but, as I had to remove the top deck, along with the foc'stle and quarter deck bulkheads, I didn't have an accurate profile to measure down from. Just 0.5 to 1mm stubs where the frames were cut off at deck level or damaged while I  removed the deck. With hindsight I should have maybe thought of marking the waterline earlier but, there were so many problems to sort out, I didn't even think about it. I think the original builder assumed, as I did with my first wood kit, that everything was cut perfectly to fit together and give the perfect shape. I have now used the waterline to position the wale as, on the drawings, the gunports don't sit flush with the deck so are of no help. 

Another point to add is that I have one almost intact quarter gallery which, although will be scratch built, does seem to fit at the moment between the stern facia and the rear edge of gunport 14. 

As I've said earlier I've named myself newbee for a reason so any advice, suggestions or help is always very much appreciated.

No pressure on me but I'm hoping to start the second planking next week and thinking of laying the wale first, marking it and then I'll see the best direction to go. 

Thanks again to you all for your interest. 

David 

Thanks to everyone for dropping by and also the likes.

The first thing I should mention , in my last post, the wale sits way too high both fore and aft. I think I got a little carried with thinking Ihad the correct shape until I realised later. I aplogise for this mishap.

I wanted to get the final positioning of the gunports right so I could measure down from them to get the position of the wale and then complete shaping the stern below the lower counter. I copied several photos and drawings and found none of them coincided with the hull I have. I went back to the plans of the kit and, despite the instructions having the wale 21mm wide, they are shown as being 18mm. Unfortunately, on the plans, the gunports are of no use as the they do not run with the deck. Looking at various pictures it appears that the distances between the gunports, the waterline and the bottom of the keel are 1/3 gunports to waterline and 2/3 waterline to keel. finding this out as a by the way didn't help me but could maybe help others. Anyway. As I couldn't measure down from the gunports I would have to work up from the waterline. Unfortunately I found that, having highlighted this with a pen (between 1and 2mm thick) I would have to guesstimate a little. I measured the gap between the lower edge of wale and the waterline on the plans and marked these onto the hull apart from the mid section which I wanted to be 2mm higher rather than the 1mm shown. Once I had marked these points on the hull I pinned a 4mm strip along the hull. This does not only have, I think a flowing curve, but also almost perfectly matches the shape I have at the stern. My first thought was that I may need to add a little filler or balsa between the lower counter and the deadwood area but then realised that there will be 1mm strips added beneath the wale, the second planking, so I think I just need to add a little filler and then smooth everything down. The next step will now be to add the dummy stern post and finalise the taper of the deadwood. I feel so relieved that the stern appears to be nearly done and delighted that I've finally figured out the run of the wales. Unless anyone can see something wrong (unless I beat you to it)!!!

Here's the latest photo's anyway.

Cheers for now.

David.      

Just a brief update this time. Thanks to Allan, I looked at the shape of the wales, and, I think it was more a case of the camera angle making them appear too high at the stern, combined with the hull not being level on the base. From the dimensions given, the lower edge of the wale needs to be 30mm below the stern most gunport and 33mm below the first. this pretty much tied in with their positioning. However, I realised that to get the correct curve of the wales I needed to finalise the size and positioning of the gunports. originally I was planning on having the gunports 7mm above the deck level with 0.5mm frames. I have now decided to make them 8mm above and use 1mm thick frames. This means that the ports still sit 7mm above the deck but, the sprketing will be 8mm high with the sills butting up to them. I have now widened the gunports on the port side to 16mm wide and levelled them off, and will do the same on the starboard side over the next couple of evenings.  I still need to slightly adjust the dead wood area to get the waterline correct.

cheers for now.

David.

I have just looked

at your document and it looks like the wale should be 17. 9 mm wide. I was planning on 16mm but with the black strake being 2mm, the instructions say it should be 3mm. Also, by the way, if the stern counters were a little lower it would give a slightly flatter shape to the hull either side of the stern post/ deadwood. Yet another thing to consider. This could be very useful if time consuming. This ship would be a challenge for me in kit form but I don't give up easily though have felt like doing so. I don't have the knowledge or tools to make this millimetre perfect but fully intend to make a good looking ship in the end. However long she takes. Thanks again Allan. 

David. 

Many thanks again Allan for your advice. In my case it's more determination than perseverance. It's your knowledge that's commendable. The thinner line is the waterline. The 2 thicker strips are 3mm wide strips to mark the upper and lower edges of the wale. They are just an approximation to see how I need to shape the upper and lower stern counters. This morning I looked at the photos again and assumed my measurements were wrong. After finishing work today I had another look and realised that it was the curve of the wale that was wrong. I pinned the lower strip below gunports 3 and 4 and allowed the strip to curve up to the correct height at the stem. I should have used a couple more pins further forward to obtain the correct curve. I've also realised that the strip sags a good bit below gun port 1 and the upper strip is closer to where it should sit. The stern, however, still involves some guesswork, as other builders have noticed, that the stern galleries sit a few millimeters too high. I may still have to adjust the depth of the stern counters to allow for this. The most difficult problem to solve is the actual shape. Now this is almost done I have something to work with. I will have to scratch build the stern and quarter galleries, more or less, so having the correct shape beneath them is crucial. Thanks again for your input. It's really appreciated. 

David. 

I have noticed now that the wale needs to be raised up to sit higher against the stem. One of the best things about taking photos as you govis they can really highlight errors before they become a problem. 

Cheers for now. 

David. 

Once again, thanks for the likes. It's always nice to know folks are dropping in. 

I forgot to mention before that I pinned some 1X 4mm strips to see how the planking will look. I was quite happy with this trial run and it seems I am going in the right direction.

I have made some good, all be it slow, progress since my last post. I have made the lower stern counter from balsa and roughly shaped it on both sides. However, this has highlighted just how much of the stern shape I have lost. To try rectifying this I used a 1 X 10mm strip pinned to the side of the hull and a strip of balsa held to the stern. I then built up the space in between with filler and allowed it to set, after 3 goes at this I had the shape I required. It's cosiderably different to the shape I had and a huge improvement. This area still needs to be sanded a little more. But, before shaping it any further, I decided I need to work out the waterline position followed by the lower edge of the wale. I thought the "helping hands" device would work but one or other croc clips would move. I resorted to the"paper cup method" only with a platic bottle. The hull was propped up with long balsa strips and the bow raised by 6mm , when the hull was level I used a couple of heavy monkey wrenches to hold everything in place, and then drew the waterline. I next measured the lower edge if the wale from below various gunports and marked the edge. On my laptop screen I zoomed in to 365% which practicaly takes the hull profile to 1/64 scale and took measurements from this which pretty much agrred with my measurements. I have pinned  strips of 1X3mm wood to mark the upper and lower edges of the wale. when I took a few photos these were hard to see so I highlighted them with a black marker pen so I can check the look of their postitioning. The lower edge of the wale sits pretty much exactly where I need (and hoped) it should be, which, should allow me to slightly round off the hull without having to bend the 2nd planking into severe bends and, instead, curve smoothly. That's the idea anyway. 

My next task will be to finnish smoothing off the hull below the wale and hopefully achieve a perfectly symetrical finnish. The waterline has shown up a slight discrepency between port and starboard. My one concern at present is attaching the planking to so much filler. I am thinking of adding a 2mm wide strip under the lower stern counter to glue the planks onto and just use the filler as a shaping support.

Here are a few photos to help explain things better.

I will add more soon I hope.

David.   

I have returned from holiday and started back to working on the ship. I was going to start on the inner lining of the gun deck but, decided to again tackle the stern first, as this will be more difficult. While looking at the stern section as it is, I thought I would form the rear face of the stern post from 1mm by 10 mm strip, taper it from 9mm at the top to 4 mm at the bottom and pin it to the end of the false keel. Next I roughly sanded the deadwood area. I then added 2mm thick walnut strip to each side of the rudder along with a 3mm X 5mm block at the bottom and removed the strip from the stern and pinned it to the inner face of the rudder as a guide and sanded the rudder to the approximate shape. This was then tapered both from top to bottom and also from fore to aft which was much easier than I expected. At this point I realised that I had done myself a favour as, I had forgotten that the stern post needs to be 1mm wider on each side of the false keel for the 2nd planking to butt upto ( I need to keep reminding myself that I am finnishing this as the first planking).

At present I have 1mm either side at the base and 1.5mm at the top of the stern post so I can hopefully taper the rudder to fit properly. My next task was to finnish shaping the hull from frame 17 to try to achieve the curve required. To be able to do this I removed the parts 26 (stern counter frames) as these were preventing me from getting the required angle to shape lower edge of frame 17. With a little sanding at a time I have been able to achieve the shape I want but still needs a little fine sanding to obtain the correct run of the planking. It is very close to being correct though. 

Having decided to remove the stern counter frames I decided to also remove the outer ends of the hull. The idea being that I shall build up the upper and lower stern counters with balsa sheet/blocks and then plank over them. It seems the easiest way to obtain the correct shape and can also be roughly done off ship and added later. The upper counter has now been done and I will start on the lower tomorrow night.

I hope that this all makes sense and here are the latest photos of the progress.

Thanks again for the likes and comments so far.

David.

Hi Jason, It's great to see you back. I know I am not alone in thinking you've not only provided a fantistic build log, but also a beautiful looking ship. Having read through every build, saving photos and taking notes over the last few weeks, I think I confused myself and hadn't realised you hadn't added the head gratings and thought you had finnished. I am really wishing I had another 20 years of model making ahead of me to get anywhere near the standard you have achieved. She is truly a work of art and am looking forward to the upcoming installments. As you are moving forwards I seem to be going in reverse but am looking forward to hopefully learning from your log once I start progressing in the right direction. She is truly a beauty. Well done.

David.

Many thanks Jason. I really appreciate your wishes, especially having read your entire build log on your version.  ( I must admit I've saved quite a few of your photos too) I really take my hat off to you for the amazing quality and detail you achieved. I am afraid my version will not make your standard nor a few other builders, but, it is certainly a challenge, and I am enjoying it immensely (though with much less hair by the end) especially the research and learning. This will probably be my last ship build so I am starting to feel I should really put in the extra effort to get a good looking ship. I may follow your lead and make her hull only or possibly just add the lower masts. Mainly due to her overall size. The jury is out on that at present though. Many thanks again for dropping in. I will need to check in on your latest build soon. 

Cheers. 

David

 I have been on holiday for a week now and am still away for another 10 days. However, this has allowed me some precious time to study the build logs and techniques to hopefully make a decent job on the hull, without the distraction of work and the ship. It's also given me the chance to think through what I still need to do and, more importantly which order it needs to be done. I wasn't happy with the inner lining between frame 2 and the after edge of gunport 2 so had removed them so this will be completed first. I will be adding the 3 X 5mm strip under the keel and will use the original rudder but will build it up on each side and add a block of wood to lengthen it before shaping it to a taper. From previous posts I've realised that many builders have noticed the stern galleries can sit a few mm higher so I will then mark the waterline and the position and width of the wale. This should show me where lower stern counter should sit along with the rest of the stern pieces. I am contemplating then removing the filling blocks that I over sanded and refitting them as well as building a frame to replace the area in front of the stern facia with supports running up in-between the lights. I will use the frames that are in place for the shape required before removing them completely. Having looked at where the water line will sit, I have realised that it is closer to the keel at the bow and higher at the stern so the bow needs to be raised before marking it out. Once I have attached a false wale then I should be in a position to finally correctly shape the stern and deadwood areas. That's my thinking at the moment but, if anyone has any suggestions or advice please let me know. Any advice is highly appreciated. 

I will update properly in a couple of weeks time.

David. 

Thanks for the continued likes. At last I can now supply an update. 

The 18lb carraiges are finally complete apart from the rigging tackles. I originally used the smallest copper eyepins I had, but, having made the eyelets on top of the capsqares, I thought they looked too large so made more of the eyelets for the carraige cheeks. They are maybe a little small now but they look much better I think. The hinges I made from the left over copper eyepins. I next turned my attention to working on the hull along with figuring out the 9lb carraiges. 

Following the lead of previous build logs, I will try to taper the stern post from 8mm wide at the top to 4mm at the bottom. I am also contemplating adding a 3 X 5mm strip along the keel to give it some extra depth, and improve the shape of the bow section.

In the instruction book it says to terminate the end planking 5mm away from the stern and add a 1X5mm strip to represent the stern post. Judging from the photos from the maritime museum it looks to me that the stern post is almost twice as wide at the keel than at the top. rather than being a consistant width all the way up. I have also added another problem if I proceed with deepening the keel, it will alter the shape of the deadwood aswell as requiring the waterline to be lowered followed by the wale also dropping down. This would only be a mm or so but it looks like the shape of the deadwood would change a fair bit. This in turn will alter the curve of the hull up to the stern counter so I am now planning to build from the keel up and see how it goes.

I have ordered more timber from CMB which will arrive on Monday. As well as wider strips of walnut for the stern post, I will also have 1.5mm lime strips for the skid beam clamps and spirketting. I tested 1mm strips which looked too thin and also 2mm strips which I thought were too thick. 

The 9lb carraiges were a challenge as both the Vanguard versions seem too short for the long 9 cannons. I decided to order 10 12lb carraiges as they were about the same length as the 18lb but the cheeks, I hoped, would be slightly lower. Thankfully I was correct and although the rear of the carraige looks slightly too wide, the other dimensions are perfect. I widened the holes for the eyepins before painting the sides of the carraiges and wheels. I have the eypins ready to fit and just need to deepen the trunnion holders for a better fit before adding the capsquares. 

While sanding down the stern counter I have removed too much balsa so this also needs to be built up again. I will try sorting this once I am happy with the shape of the stern upto the lower edge of frame 17. I may try rebuilding the complete stern above this point and maybe build a frame behind the stern facia so the false keel doesn't block the middle window but again I will wait and see. At least I am still proressing although much slower than I would like.

David.   

Thanks again for your input Allan, The barrels are from Vanguard and I believe are the Armstrong versions. I painted them matt black and then dry brushed with rubber black and then a little matt black mixed with sea grey. I'm pretty happy with the final results. 

David. 

I am sorry I didn't get any notifications on your responses. Thank you all for your input. Alan, I thought you would have some knowledge of this. In between posting my question and now I remembered that Chris (Vanguard) had expanded his range of cannons and carriages after I had ordered the carraiges I bought. I had another look earlier and found that, indeed, he now has different sized carraiges for the long 9s and the shorter ones. I should have included photos to help show my dilemma, which I will do now. Hopefully this can help others. The top cannon is the 18 lb'er. Below left is the long 9 on the 18 lb carraige, middle is the 9 long on the standard 9lb carraige and below right is the long 9 on a carraige bought for a previous build but never used. Thanks again fir your help guys. It's very much appreciated. 

David. 

It seems like I have the answer to my question above. I remembered seeing that Vanguard have extended the range of guns and carriages. From the quality of the carraiges, previously bought, I went back to the website and looked at the 9lb'ers again and Chris has longer carraiges for the 9lb long than for the shorter barrels. It's only millimeters but looks like the longer barrels won't protrude beyond the rear of the carriage. I am not sure if they sit higher but am guessing they will. Chris, if you look in on this, would it be possible to post a photo of the long 9 on its carriage compared to the long 9 on the smaller one. It would be handy to see the difference, not just for me but others as well. I also need, in the near future, to plan the foc'stle and quarter deck bulkheads. Thanks. 

In the meantime I am getting on with the 18lb'ers and am getting to the point where I really want to get back to finishing the hull. I really expected to only take a couple of weeks away from the hull but it feels like months now. Now I am hoping to complete the the 28 carraiges for the 18s. I am hoping to get get back to the hull again sometime next week. I will post more photos once these carraiges are done. 

David. 

I have posed this question on my build log but thought I would also try here. I will try to keep it simple. Basically I am stuck with the size of the carraiges required for the 9lb long cannons. I believe that all the dimensions of the barrel and carraige were determind by the bore. My problem is that the 9lb long barrels are too long for the carraiges I have. The ship I have taken on is HMS Diana which I believe would have carried the long 9's on the fore and quarter decks. Should the carraiges for these be larger than the standard 9lb carraige. I've searched online for a couple of evenings and have had no luck with this. Any help would be really appreciated. 

Thanks.

David. 

Unfortunately, progress has been extremly slow over the past couple of weeks. I have made up the quoines for the 18lb'ers and made extra for the 9lb'ers. I knew they would be too large, but, thought I could shape them to fit. Having tried shaping one as small as possible I found it was still way too big. I also found that the 9lb long cannon barrel is way too long for the carraige. While researching cannons and carraiges for the San Fransisco II, I remebered that all the measurements for the cannons and carraiges are calculated from the size of the cannon ball, (ie the cannon ball determines the width of the bore, this determines the width and length of the cannon which in turn determines all of the measurements  of the carraige, length, width, height, position of the trunnion ans well as the size of the trucks. I have spent the last couple of evenings trying to search if the carraiges for the long 9lb'ers should be larger than for the shorter barrels, but to no avail. I maybe overthinking this but, as I will probably have quite a few things that aren't quite right with this build in the end, but I would at least like the cannons looking correct. From what I have found the carraiges I have are the correct size for the 18lb'ers and also the 9lb'ers with shorter barrels, but the long barrels are too long for the carraiges. As these barrels are actually longer than the 18lb cannons, should the carraiges for them be a little larger than the 18lb ones or just a little longer but about the same height. In the mean time I will finnish the 18lb'ers and hope for some help with this from the experts among you. I've attached two photos which I hope will highlight the problem. The uppermost gun is the 18lb cannon with it's carraige, the 3 below from left to right are the long 9lb'er on the 18lb carraige, the same on the 9lb carraige and on the right, again the same barrel on a previously bought carraige which is about the same length as the 18lb carraige but a little lower. This last one would require a lot of work to match the quality of the ones I have never mind drilling identically drilled holes for the eyepins. The trunnions on the last two also extend beyond the sides of the carraiges, another problem. Any help with this would be really appreciated.

thanks.

David.

While I decide how to progress with the hull, I have started construction of the 18lb guns. I started painting the cannons first with vallejo matt black as a base and then dry brushed tyre black followed by a mix of enamel dark grey and matt black to highlight the details. I am pretty happy with the final look of these.The carraiges, as previously mentioned look great, and easy to put together. To begin with I only started assembling one of the carraiges as a prototype. I found I needed to drill the 3 holes on each side for the pins to fit into a little larger.  I then built up the carraige as per instructions. I used very little pva glue at first to avoid any excess oozing out when clamping the pieces together but, however, the bond wasn't strong enough so I resorted to a litte super glue applied with a tooth pick to the joints. This worked much better. With the sides and axles glued the assembly was painted red. Next I stuck the eyepins into a block of balsa wood and painted them black. These were then glued into place. I also added the qoine bed support with a section of a long eye pin that just happenned to fit into the hole, and coincidentaly, I have enough for all 38 carraiges. With the barrels and carraiges painted I started on the capheads which, after scraping off the glue, straightening and removing the burr from the ends, wasn't as hard as it looked. I then pinned 2 of these down onto the balsa block and painted the black. With this done I test fitted the barrel onto the carraige and realised the qoines supplied were too low and the wrong shape for my needs. After several failed attempts at making the qoines and particularly the beds for them to sit on I compromised and did without the lip on either side of the bed and just used a 1 by 6mm strip of beech cut 11mm long. I then added the qoine on top with a 1mm belaying pin from a previous kit (that was from a wasn't used but may come in handy one day box). God I've got so many of those!!!

Anyway here's photos of the cannon. Hopefully it looks pretty decent although a little touching up and highlighting is still required especially the trucks.     

It's been a long 3 weeks since my last post. Thanks again for the likes so far. Having checked my measurements, I have decided that I'm happy with the gun ports sitting 7mm above deck level and the guns will sit correctly. I have built up the spaces between frames with balsa and also remade the skid beams. These now fit into slots on the hull with the exception of the forward most one which lies level with frame 6. I need to decide whether to create a notch or fit a knee to accomodate it. I am also struggling a little with shaping the bow section to accomodate the fore section of the upper deck. 

Many thanks for your input David. I take it that means that the gunport sill sits on top of the spirketing, I have a bad feeling I've messed up my calculations. Very dissapointing but, if so, I'm glad it's not too late to fix. My original thought was the gunports should sit 5mm above deck level. But, when I measured the height of  the carraiges, I had a height of 14mm and, assuming the cannons should be dead centre of the ports, would make them 7mm above the sill level and 14mm above deck level. I also thought, after much trial and error, that I should make the openings 15mm long instead of 16mm, and 13mm high instead of 14mm, and line them with 0.5mm strips instead of 1mm thus making them still 14 X 12mm when completed. I will need to re think this now, as I am working out how to get the upper deck to fit and I don't have enough space above the gun ports for the skid beam clamps to be fitted. An extra couple of mm's could help me with this. The previous builder had all the skid beams over the open deck sitting several mm away from the hull which, on the real ship, would mean them hanging from the deck planking alone. Figuring out where they should lie was going to be my final task tonight. I have started re drawing the upper deck with the aim, once it's symetrical from the centre line, of making it 2 or 3mm narrower but still fit on top of the sides of the hull to be able to create a lip that it can fit into. When the time comes to fit it properly I will be able to plank over this lip along with the deck itself. I also want to attach the skid beams running accross the open deck area from the hull instead of free standing. 

Thanks again David. I've named myself newbee for a reason. If I can get a result with this build, in a couple of years I may promote myself to newbee(ish) with your and others help of course.

Cheers for now.

David. (yet another one)   

I forgot to mention before that I am planning on adding the skid beam clamps along with the spirketting. The only problem I have is the sizes and correct positioning. I am guessing the clamps run the entire length of the hull and look to be 2 strips of 2X2mm. The spirketting looks like only 1mm thick but I can't tell if it runs level with the gunport sills or runs below them. Any help with this would be really appreciated.

Thanks again.

David.