Group Prototype HMS Winchelsea - FINISHED - 1764 - by Chuck (1/4" scale)

[Jack H]

It's really great, high quality resin castings are what many modelers expect,can't wait to see hull's planking  in next step.

 

Jack

[paulsutcliffe]

Those First rows of planking above look awesome chuck and the figurehead

Regards

Paul 

[Rustyj]

Thanks for the update and milling tips. She's looking great and thankfully the busy summer

and complete lack of shoptime quenches my desire to start on her! 

[Chuck]

thanks guys....Rusty, I am just waiting til I finish planking a bit more.  Its been a long time since I had to cut around so many gun ports.  The Starboard side is a third of the way complete.   

 

You can see the five strakes of the wales and black strake which are darker.  This first layer was done this way on purpose so I could make sure that I put the second and final layers on the right strakes.  Also....the black strake can be left bright and unfinished or painted black along with the wales.  In this case the wales on the Winnie are so wide I think it would look a bit much.  So I will NOT be painting the black strake.   I am using other contemporary models like the Amazon as inspiration for this.  See below.  Imagine if you can if the black strake was also painted black on the model below.  It would be too wide and look over-bearing.  Dont forget to click on those pics of Amazon.....they are quite large and quite a treat to see this magnificent model up close.    I have these handy as inspiration while working on my model.

Oh I also made this mock up of the other carvings to display at joint clubs.   I know its not the best picture....but I thought I would post what all of the other carvings will look like.  These dont have any finish on them.

 

[JeffT]

The carvings are excellent.

[Thistle17]

Forgive me Chuck, I have read and re-read your milling description and I am still wanting. In the first picture with the billet, is the grain running from L to R? If so then when you rip off a 1/4" sub-billet, say from that upper edge of the billet your "sub" billet has a clear face and the resulting planks are almost 1/4 sawn? Am I correct? And you can get the same results with cherry?

 

And in terms of bending is edge bending any more difficult?

 

Thanks.

 

Joe

[Leopard]

Joe,

In order to understand, I had to draw this one out for myself.  Here's the drawing I came up with:

 

[Chuck]

Leopard did a great job showing what I was describing......and no.....edge bending is fine either way.  But the face of your strip is smooth and grain-free on your model.

[Thistle17]

Got it! Indeed Leopard I should have done what you did. I guess what was throwing me off was what appears to be milling marks on the face of the large billet.

Joe

[Chuck]

Yes they are the milling marks from the monster bandsaw I use to mill sheets from those larger bricks of wood.  But you dont see any on the wide sheet I milled.  What you do see on the smaller 2" wide sheet is the grain pattern.......so when you rip the strips from this smaller sheet the "important" side of each strip wont have them.

[BANYAN]

Ditto Maury's comment Chuck, there is no comparison with the older mass produced kits.  Kudos!

 

cheers

 

Pat

[allanyed]

Chuck

Are the carvings Castello box or English/European boxwood?   Great work regardless, just curious.

Allan

[Chuck]

Neither...They are some weird Asian Boxwood.  Its what they use to make all of the little carved sculptures you can buy on the web.  It has no grain pattern at all and carves like butter.   But it is more yellow than Castello or even European box.

[allanyed]

Thanks Chuck!  Source from you or???

 

Thanks again

[Chuck]

No I dont sell the wood or have any of that material.  Its pretty impossible to import other than by commisioning the cnc carvings.  Damn near impossible to import raw wood from China.

[Chuck]

I have finished planking the starboard side up to the sheer.   I will start on the port side this weekend.   As you can see now, the wales and black strake are much darker than the wood above it.  That was done on purpose so I could easily identify the wales when I add the second layer.  Having said that,  the Alaskan Yellow cedar is really nice stuff for working this large.  I like the color and its easy to work with.  This is the largest model ship I have seen made from Yellow cedar.   This will be a great test of how versatile and useful it is for ship modeling.

 

 

Chuck

 

 

[AnobiumPunctatum]

Your planking looks absolut fantastic. I like the color of the cedar. I think it will give a really nice contrast with pear of swiss pear.

[Jim Rogers]

Gorgeous!

[Chuck]

Thanks guys...

 

Interesting about the Alaskan cedar is that like other woods, there are plenty of color variations within a batch of lumber.  It was fairly easy for me to select the darker/more tan cedar I used for the wales which incidentally is a near perfect match for boxwood.   You would of course need a huge amount in your wood pile to select the tone you wanted.  I could have very easily selected that same color I used for the wales for the entire model.  But I wanted to use the more traditional and more plentiful lighter and warmer tone which is what most will see when they get this.

 

Chuck

[Rustyj]

Beautiful!

[Mirabell61]

Beautiful build Chuck,

 

its a pleasure to follow your Winchelsea Version 2

 

Nils

[amateur]

Beautiful ship!

question: does the colour differences remain over time?

the socalled wallnut in the European kirs also show rather large colourvariations. These tend to disappear over time, as the wood changes colour due to the influence of sunlight. 

 

Jan 

[Chuck]

I dont know.......I havent used it for very long.  Time will tell!!!   But I am being very careful to pick wood for planking that is very close in color.

[BANYAN]

If we did not know better Chuck you would think that is a 3D generated model - you are a master of your craft Sir!

 

cheers

 

Pat

[Dowmer]

6 hours ago, amateur said:

Beautiful ship!

question: does the colour differences remain over time?

the socalled wallnut in the European kirs also show rather large colourvariations. These tend to disappear over time, as the wood changes colour due to the influence of sunlight. 

 

Jan 

Amateur,

I’ve been using Alaskan Yellow cedar in ship building for 20 years. It’s one of my favorite woods. It does tend to slightly change color as it ages into a warmer yellowish color. I use Tung Oil and keep the models out of daylight. 

 

Below is a ship built 20 years ago that I haven’t finished yet and has been stored away in a box all those years with no light. As you can see, the tone of the wood is still very yellow, but it has aged a bit and slightly darker.  But not too much. 😀

 

 

 

 

Edited June 14, 2019 by Dowmer

[mtaylor]

Downer,

It doesn't bleach out in light then some other woods?  

[John Cheevers]

Chuck,

You have a good eye, your fairing is spot on!

[Dowmer]

6 hours ago, mtaylor said:

Dowmer,

It doesn't bleach out in light then some other woods?  

Mark,

I keep my models out of sunlight. But I assume it would bleach to some extent if exposed like any other wood. Like Chuck said, it really is a wonderful wood to work with. 

 

Edited June 14, 2019 by Dowmer

[mtaylor]

15 hours ago, Dowmer said:

Mark,

I keep my models out of sunlight. But I assume it would bleach to some extent if exposed like any other wood. Like Chuck said, it really is a wonderful wood to work with. 

 

Thanks for the feedback.   I'm starting to use it and it really is wonderful.

[Chuck]

I finished planking the other side up to the sheer.  With that completed, I would really like to add the second layer of the wales and the black strake.  BUT...it just makes sense to add a few strakes below the first layer of wales first.  

 

To do this, we will need to make a drop plank at the bow.  The drop plank essentially takes two strakes at mid ship and reduces them down to one strake as it enters the rabbet at the bow.  I really good example of this is shown below on this contemporary model.

 

A very similar drop plank was used on the Cheerful model as well.  They are not that difficult to lay out and make.  But having said this, I noticed that a few people building the Cheerful had some trouble making theirs.  So to make that easier this time around,  I laser cut the drop planks.  Of course this may need tweaking to fit on other models of the Winnie. It will be almost certain that the planks above it will be added slightly different on everyone's model.  But it should be very close.  At the very least, it could be used as a template and new one cut to fit your model.

 

You will notice another small tool in that photo above.  Its two 1/4" wide planks glued together.  This will be used as a gauge to mark the two strakes aft of the drop plank.  Basically you should mark every bulkhead starting with bulkhead "Q" and work your way aft.  Those bulkheads ahead of "Q" will have planks slightly narrower and tapered.

 

Then I took the "tail" of the drop plank which will end on bulkhead "Q" and did a dry fit.  I wanted to make sure a 1/4" plank would fit between the drop plank and wales....the "tail" of the drop plank is on the top in the photo below......then I checked to see if the plank fit and matched my tick marks.

 

The drop plank was glued into position.  I made sure that the "tail" ended where my tick marks indicated.  Then I continued planking the two strakes and worked my way aft.  Now I can finally add the second layer of wales and the black strake.  That will be done next and after painting the wales this model should actually start looking like something recognizable as a frigate.

 

Heres an overall view of the hull.....it will look much different once those wales are completed and painted.

 

Once again heres that contemporary model.....note how the wales are black and the black strake is left natural.  This is what I will be shooting for.