AON

75 years ago today: D-Day -1 My father manned a Bren gun aboard HMCS Caraquet, the flag ship of the 31st flotilla, Canadian minesweepers. They sailed at about 1700 GMT and throughout the night cleared the channel and then in the early morning of the 6th they went to work clearing OMAHA beach for the Americans. Attached is the story, including mention of the moon coming out to temporarily illuminate them to the enemy while they continued to clear the shore. And how they worked through the sun rising until the enemy saw the approach of the massive assembly of ships... and then spotted them. Exactly how my father described it to me except they don't use his words to describe how scared they were the whole time. The 31st Canadian Flottilla - poem.pdf The 31st Canadian Minesweeper Flottilla on D-Day.pdf

If I am correct it was 54 years ago to the day that HMS Victory hoisted a foreign countries flag to fly above her. The only time in her history. It was the new Canadian Maple Leaf that replaced the colonial Red Ensign. On 24 May 1965 the Maple Leaf was hoisted to the cap of the the main mast in recognition of Canada's new national flag.

Oskar24 If I may add, there is the detailed and then the simplified method of doing Plank on Frame. The simplified method does not have scarph joints or chocks in the frames. It might be simple butt joints or even no special joint at all. As the builder you get to decide what you are comfortable doing or want to attempt to do.

Potato? ... one persons taper may be another persons angle, but a taper is definitely at a specific angle. (or is it a chamfer?) either way I am buggered

Two steps forward.... three steps back. It is the worst dance step ever but leads to one more lesson learnt that will likely never be forgotten. The chocks on the forward cant frames should taper opposite to those on the aft cant frames. It was clearly there in black and white. One lesson learnt some time ago: the second time is always quicker!

Thank you Druxey. I will see what I have and hope to give it a try today.

Thank you Dowmer. Possibly another trip to the dollar store is in order. 😉

Making treenails (or trunnels). I've searched online, through my small collection of books, and in this forum to find instructions. Allow me to add my take on making treenails with a draw plate. If I have done anything incorrectly I trust one of the more 'weathered' people on this forum might set me on course. First I borrowed (long term no return basis) about a 10 inches (25 cm) in length of bamboo from the garden. This stuff has spent the winter in the garage and is well dried out. It needed to be split and as I am trying to be less of a hazard to myself I did not attempt to do this with a knife. I used three slotted or flat blade screw drives as wedges and split it as I use to split large logs for the fireplace (but without the sledge hammer). Once opened up I could easily identify the soft inner core and the hard outer shell. I needed strips of the white stuff from between these zones. I put the bamboo against a dog (stop) on the bench and pushed a chisel blade through to make smaller strips. Eventually I had to forego the dog as the strips were getting quite thin. The contract reads the frames were bolted to the deadwood with 1-1/2 inch (3.8 cm) diameter bolts. This would be 0.023 inch (0.58 mm) at 1:64 scale. I clamped my draw plate in my vise using soft jaw inserts to protect the draw plate. Looking at the draw plate I can see numbers from 16 to 59 stamped next to the holes. 16 means 0.016 inch (0.4 mm) diameter and 59 means 0.059 inch (1.5 mm) diameter. I need to draw down to the hole size identified as number 23. The holes in the plate are sharp edged on one side and funnel (tapered inwards) shaped on the other side. The tapered or funnel side faces you. The strip of bamboo is fed into the sharp edged side. Once poking through you grab it and pull! I sanded a taper on one end and poked it through the smallest hole it would fit through. I had read that you pull through the draw plate and can assist by pushing lightly from the other side. Let me say this method works for the larger diameter but as it gets smaller you do not want to try to assist by pushing from the far side as the sliver of wood will buckle, or split and buckle. Also, eventually my fingers could not adequately grip the small strip of wood and I needed to employ small hobby pliers to pull it through the draw plate. This did crush and flatten the end of the wood which I nipped off with my chisel and re-sanded a taper to allow me to feed the piece into the plate. I also found that if you push the lead end of the wood through the funnel side a very short distance, it helps to crush and shape the sliver of wood to assist feeding it into the other side. Presently I have a number of slivers of bamboo at hole size number 33 or 0.033 inch (0.8 mm) diameter. This is about 2-1/8 inch (54 mm) diameter at scale. My first piece at 0.023 inch is extremely tiny and I am not certain how this will add any strength to my joint for sanding my frames. I believe I will stick with the larger size as no one but Druxey will be taking a caliper to my build.

I believe the block and sheave are both angled at about 7° or so. Yes they sometimes wrote diameter but meant circumference. Steel's tables for rigging are located here: https://maritime.org/doc/steel/tables/pages/032-ShipOf74Guns.htm Thanks to this forum I discovered the site on JSloane's HMS Bellona build. Yes the Canadian younger generation are more metric but it is still mixed for some industry. I am so close to the states that I hear and see many words pronounced and spelt oddly for the way I was taught in grade school. The good thing is no one will take a caliper to your model so close enough is damn good in most cases.

Measured off the plans to the scale on the plans from aft to forward. aft double set of sheaves (see photo below) approx 8" diameter x 1" wide sheave next forward approximately 13" diameter x 2" wide sheave next three forward approximately 9" diameter x 2" wide sheave The best way to size the sheave is to identify the rope that it is used for and follow the sheave sizing rule for the size of the rope. Rope size is the circumference Divide this by 3.1416 = rope diameter Multiply the rope diameter by either 4 or 5 (Lee versus Steels) to get the sheave diameter Multiply rope diameter by 1.1 equals the sheave thickness Add 1/16" to the sheave thickness equals the width of sheave hole The length of the sheave hole is 1.333 times the sheave diameter

If you really want to go nuts there is another set of sheaves further forward. I can measure these off the print for you if you like.

If you've only done the pair I am not sure you have gotten them all. This is from HMS Elephant... same as the Goliath... same as the Bellerophon.

maybe consider some blackening practise runs on some of the drops (cut off pieces).

Seems these are more of a guide line than a hard and fast rule.

hmmmmmmmmmmmm