Wasa by Andre - FINISHED - Corel - 1:75

[Andre]

The last weeks I have been busy with the chain plates. I have now completed them, on both port side and starboard side. See the pictures. Lateron I will attach the deadeyes to them.

Meanwhile, I have also made and installed the blocks that are located on the stern whales. I had seen them many times in the museum photos, but was only alerted to them when Michael mentioned them.

[Andre]

During the last days I have added the ropes that keep the gun ports open. (I do not know the exact name for them)

The ones directly under the whales were most tedious because the attachment point to the hull was between the chain plates...

Unfortunately, I am now permanently missing one canon. I lost it inside the hull when Itried to remove the canon before attaching the chain plates above it..

Some photos:

 

[md1400cs]

Andre,

 

Your last post made me laugh - thanks - (the inside of my hull is also the owner of three lost cannons (:-))  

 

Your ship is looking super excellent. Nice work on the cannon doors, as well as the ropes. Yes, I see the difficulty of adding those ropes between the chainplates, nice job

 

 

Regards,

 

Michael

[NAZGÛL]

Nice work Andre!

 

 

/Matti

[Karleop]

It s getting great Andre,

 

Saludos

[Keith_W]

She looks great!

 

Re: the missing cannon, can't you order a spare one from Corel? Alternatively, you could pull one cannon out and make a duplicate of it - either on a lathe, or you could mould one using Sculpey. Chuck has a nice tutorial on how to make a push mould using Sculpey in the articles and downloads section.

 

A question if I may - how do you thread the ropes in and maintain tension? It looks as if you drill a hole through the lid, and another hole through the gunport, then feed the thread through the lid, then through the side of the ship, then back out the gunport? How do you get the rope back out again??

[Andre]

Keith,

Indeed, I realized that I can purchase some additional after market canon to replace the one lost inside the hull. First, I will check if I can use the kit-supplied deck gun to fit into the gunport. I have already bougth 14 decorated guns for the deck canons, so I have some spares.

 

About the threads of the gunport lids: indeed, I drilled a small hole through the lid and also drilled a hole in the hull above the gunport. I made a small knot in the thread and put it through the hole in the lid. Then is pushed the thread into the hole in the hull until the desired amount of rope was left. Next, I fixated the thread in the hull with some glue. Afterwards, gravity made sure that there is some tension on the rope between hull and lid. The thread at the 'inside' of the lid was cut to the desired length and then stretched somewhat and glued at the lower corner of the gunport. This resulted in some tension in that part of the thread as well.

 

Thanks for reading and commenting!

[Andre]

It has been many months of inactivity, but the last week I have resumed again with my Wasa.

Following on my last post: I did eventually manage to retrieve the canon that had fallen into the hull.

 

I have made the anchors, and following the examples of Michael (md1400cs) and FrankM, I used the drawing of the Landstrom to make a fish davit for holding up one of the anchors. I decided to attached the davit on the starboard side, as depicted in the book. On port side, the anchor is attached simularly to the model in the Wasa musuem.

 

I did not use the stocks provided in the lit, but made my own from two pieces of wood glued together. I added small nail heads to emulate the treenails.

I made the hooks on the blocks using brass and fixated the hooks using a brass piece that I had in my box of general parts.

 

[kruginmi]

Love the colors and how it makes everything pop.    Great attention to detail.

 

Mark

[fmodajr]

Andre,

 

Glad that your back working on the Vasa.

 

Nice work on the anchors!

 

Frank

[md1400cs]

Andre,

 

Yes, those anchors look great....

 

MIchael

[edmay]

Andre ,more than one masterpiece Wasa today,Nice to see you back at it,Edwin

[Andre]

I have started with building a prototype for the canon carriage. Of course, I have looked carefully at the examples of the members of this forum.

In the picture: the one in front is my (still in progress) carriage, together with an after-market gun; the one at the back, is the set provided by Corel.

 

I will add metal parts and rings to complete the prototype. Once I have figured out the sizes and methods to make a nice looking and good fitting gun carriage from the various tiny parts, I will continue making the remaining 15 carriages and guns...

[Andre]

I finally continued with the canons.
I had seen on MSW the method that I have used: glue together many strips of wood, so that the carriage profile is built up. Then I used my saw to cut slices from it. Of course, not all slices survived the sawing action, but I had made plenty.
 

 
I milled two lines in the wooden strips used for the bottom of the carriages. Here the axis of the wheels will fit into.

I had made some thin sheet of polyurethane in black color (I did so at work; I work in a coating company) of about 0.2 mm thinckness, from which I cut small strips to be used as wheels supports. These polyurethane strips are flexible and I could bend them somewhat.

 

all the stepts combined in one picture, including the wheels that I made from a 6 mm wood and drilling a 2 mm hole in them (I made a small holder in order to drill them all straigth and in the middel):

 

Next will be to add the wheel caps and attaching the axis & wheels to the canons.

Edited September 4, 2016 by Andre

[Andre]

I have finished making the canons. I made 16 of them, also two for on the highest deck nearest to the end of the Wasa.

 

I made the axes from soft wood, which were actually sold for use in the kitchen in food preparations. They have a diameter of 2 mm, which was the desired size. I used washers (bought from Amazon) with outer size of 4 mm and inner size of 2 mm for the discs next to the wheels. I spray painted them black.

I drilled holes into the axis to be able to push small nails trought them.

Because of the soft wood, I could use a knive to cut the axes to the desired length.

 

Pictures of the canons. The coin is a 2-euro coin.

 

Compared with the canon, as supplied in the kit....

[Andre]

After not doing much on the Wasa for a long time, I continued with the cannons.

Having read and looked carefully at the beautiful examples of other Wasa builders, I had a good example on how to attach the blocks and ropes to the cannons for placing them on deck. The 3mm blocks and the 3mm hooks were bought by me at a Czech website, as I had figured out that these parts should be that small indeed. The hooks were actually a bit too narrow with its hook opening, so I had to bent somewhat.

The hole in the hook was therefore very small and I could not insert the medium thickness rope through the hole. As an excape, I used thinner rope to attach the hook to, and then attach this rope to the medium thickness rope. The knot became somewhat large, but still ok. Afterwards I fixated the knots with water diluted wood glue. The ruler is in cm.

The blocks needed some extra drilling with 0.7mm drill to be able to insert the rope. First I prepared the double block to have an loop from rope. Next the single block to have the long rope to pass through the ropes and a ring on the other side, to connect it to the cannon.

 

Here are all 16 cannons, with the blocks and ropes attached. The coin is a 5 eurocent.

 

The next steps are the placing on the deck of the Wasa. Of course, the first one is the one with which to figure out how to do so.

I used 1mm thickness wood pieces as sticks to holds the rope loop in place on top of the rings.

 

 

So, 15 more to go...

[Andre]

I have now also placed the other cannons on the decks. So, now all 16 are in place, including their ropes.

Previously, I had to sand the bottom of the wheels somewhat in order to fit the cannons through the holes in the planking. This happens when you first make the holes and only later the cannon carriages...

In the pictures, you can notice that the cannon barrels do not stick out much outside the holes. This is due to the relatively thick planking, which was caused by my restoration work, as I added more wood than there should be according to the plans... At the moment the cannon carriages are still movable on the deck. When I glue them in place, I will do so by pushing them more outside. Unglued, the tension from the ropes prevent this to be their 'natural' position. I did use diluted wood glue to fixate the small wood pieces to hold the rope loops.

 

Overview of the decks with the cannons placed:

[fmodajr]

Andre,

 

Happy New Year!

Glad to see you found your way back to your Wasa build.

Cannons look great!

 

Frank

[Andre]

Continued with the items on deck.

Previously, I had made blocks with 2 sheaves, in which I used some messing discs as the pulleys inside.

However, inspired by fellow builders on this website (md1400cs; Michael), I decided to replace them in order to improve them.

I tried to use my proxxon milling machine, but had no small milling tips. Therefore, I made from several layers of wood, like I had done before. I made the internal pulleys by sawing small parts from a round wood, used sand paper to thin them and then drilled a hole in them.

 

The situation before the upgrade:

 

Making the block from wood planks:

All of them, before pplacing them on deck:

 

The upgraded blocks on deck:

[Andre]

Attached the triangular deadeyes. Earlier, I did not manage to bend cupper wire around them, so I had thought to fall back to rope. However, I found conveniently on the Czech website photo-etched clamps for (triangular) deadeyes.

It was not easy to get the clamps trought the holes in the metal bars, but I found that I could squeeze them bigger using a hand drill to open the bended metal bars.

[zappto]

I just read your log, your Vasa build is very clean! Pleasure to watch hight level work!

[Andre]

I have now started working on the bowsprit.

Making parts one-by-one. I will do the assembly later on.

For making the crows nest, I watched first the great examples by others on this website.

To ensure that the spacing between the wood (basswood 2 mm by 1 mm) of the 'fences' is equal, I used 2 mm thickness wood as spacers.

The basswood is still very white, but I will use some stain paint to darken it.

[JanV]

Looks great Andre.

[Andre]

After again a long pause, I am now continuing with the bowsprit.

To be able to have the knots good and strong on the deadeyes, I used the hangman's knot. I am not really sure if this is correct, but at least it fits well and is strong.

I used triangular deadeyes, of same size (5 mm) as elsewhere.

When comparing my crow's nest to the drawings, I noticed that I had made mine somewhat too large... But I am fine with it.

[Andre]

My bowsprit is now more or less completed.

Most of the blocks are now attached as well. I will follow rather the examples here than strictly the Corel plans, as the Corel plans apparently have only standing rigging.

On the photo, I noticed that the knot, and rope from it, to attached the big block is rather big. Perhaps that I will cut the rope. But will do this only after fixing the positions of the blocks.

Now only dry-fit of the bowsprit in the ship.

[Andre]

Now working on the fore mast.

Made the lower mast part.

Added the two pulleys at the top of the mast.

[Andre]

Made the first platform (crow's nest) for the fore mast.

As always, looked carefully what others at MSW (mostly md1400c [Micheal]) have done and experienced. This in order to not run into the same hickups as others have found out.

I used the Corel supplied metal ring as size reference for the bottom of the platform (fits in it), and the wooden ring (same size as the metal ring) through which later the deadeyes will go.

[fmodajr]

Nice job on the platform!!

 

My wife bought me the same Proxxon lathe (for Christmas) that you show in the photo above. How do you like the lathe?

 

Thanks,

 

Frank

 

[Andre]

Hi Frank,

 

Thank you for your compliments!

 

I have the Proxxon lathe already some time. I had bought is used, and as a result it is probably not complete with all accesories. At first uses, I had difficulty to have the wood fixed thightly in place, but that was with very thin wood (I think that this was with the flagpole at the stern of Wasa). So, at first I thought that it was too light/weak, but now working with somewhat larger diameters and stronger wood, it works well.

At present, I have only one chisel, but I have ordered more. It took me some trying to figure out how to use the combination, but it works well enough for me now. I assume that with new/more chisels, it will be much easier for me.

 

Andre

[etubino]

On 1/4/2015 at 11:07 AM, Andre said:

It has been many months of inactivity, but the last week I have resumed again with my Wasa.

Following on my last post: I did eventually manage to retrieve the canon that had fallen into the hull.

 

I have made the anchors, and following the examples of Michael (md1400cs) and FrankM, I used the drawing of the Landstrom to make a fish davit for holding up one of the anchors. I decided to attached the davit on the starboard side, as depicted in the book. On port side, the anchor is attached simularly to the model in the Wasa musuem.

 

I did not use the stocks provided in the lit, but made my own from two pieces of wood glued together. I added small nail heads to emulate the treenails.

I made the hooks on the blocks using brass and fixated the hooks using a brass piece that I had in my box of general parts.

 

Beatiful hull finish!