HM Brig Supply by Jobbie - Caldercraft - Scale 1:64

[Jobbie]

2mm x 20mm strips of black cartridge paper fitter as per the plans, simulating iron rudder-hinges. Once more, trying to decide whether to paint the lower ones white, or to just leave them as is. 
 

I haven’t acknowledged any followers lately, if at all. I very much appreciate all of you looking in occasionally. This forum is one of my favourite places on the internet. 
 

Today marks one year since I underwent L5-S1 spinal fusion surgery. I’m relatively young (52) and a current Air Force member, so I had a difficult time coping with chronic pain and future uncertainty. This model and this website have been an absolute highlight of a particularly crappy year. 
 

A heartfelt thanks to all of you for helping me look forward to something. I’m much better and my future’s looking bright. Kind regards. 

Edited November 3, 2021 by Jobbie

[robdurant]

Glad to hear things are looking up for you. You're building a splendid model and it's been a pleasure watching it gradually progress on this build log, so thanks for all your posts.

[Jobbie]

One 4lb cannon rigged; Five more to go. Rope coils to be added later. 
 

there simply isn’t enough room behind the cannon to rig the inwards tackle blocks at an adequate distance from each other. I couldn’t get any 2mm single and double blocks; 3mm looks a tad large, but I’m happy with how they look. Better than no blocks at all. 

[Jobbie]

All six cannon are rigged. All they need now are the rope-ends trimmed and some coils added.

[Jobbie]

I had ordered a 1:64 scale binnacle and shot garlands from Vanguard Models in the UK. They arrived today in the mail; I’m really impressed with them! I have 25 2.4mm cannonballs left over from a previous build. I plan to cut the shot garlands into shorter lengths of five holes each and place them between the pairs of cannon.

[Jobbie]

I made a simple jig for making rope coils using plastic counters and a couple of map-pins. Soak a foot of rope in diluted PVA, wrap it around the former and leave it for an hour or so.
Works better than I thought it would.

 

 

Edited November 6, 2021 by Jobbie

[Jobbie]

The cannon-balls are fitted to the halved shot-garlands with Araldite five-minute epoxy and fitted along the bulwarks. Easy job. 

[Jobbie]

Main deck’s now complete. 
Feedback, please? I’d appreciate honesty- Are these coils oversized?

[Jobbie]

I previously hadn’t painted black inside the quarter-windows. They were bothering me more than I thought they would so I removed them and… you know…

[Jobbie]

All that remains on the hull now are fitting the shroud’s lower dead-eyes, the poop-deck ladder and the after-market binnacle. Then I work forwards and upwards.

 

So….time for a story. 
The lower dead-eye’s chain-strops are to be fitted with each one slightly angled in-line with its shroud. In order to gauge that angle, I dropped each mast-dowel into its hole and measured up to the height of the lower mast-top from the plans.  
Then I secured a rope at that height and bought it to meet its lower attaching point. 

Odd- the angles didn’t really match the drawing. Out came a ruler…

 

I measured the total length of the forward RHS chain-plate: 70mm. Correct. The rear’s 80mm.

 

I measured the distance from the aft edge of the plate to each pre-cut strop-slot:

5mm, 8mm, 24mm, 37mm, 48mm and 62mm. 

Then I measured the same on my kit:

9mm, 22mm, 33mm, 46mm, 57mm & 66mm. Hmm.

 

Then I flipped the ruler upside-down and measured from the top RHS to the strop-slots:

8mm, 22mm, 32mm, 46mm, 56mm & 64mm….Riiiiight! 
 

I had fitted the forward chain-plates upside-down! 

 

Now I measured the rear chain-plate…

 

I had fitted that upside-down, too! It’s very easy to do- they look the same mounted each way. They were all relatively easy to remove using bent long-nosed pliers as a lever. 

[Jobbie]

Flipping all four chain-plates drastically altered the shroud’s angles and measurements, so both main-mast chain-plates had to be moved rearwards to compensate. You can see the difference in the photos; (top- before, bottom-after). The main-mast rakes aft a few degrees more than the fore-mast. 

 

Now I’ve done that, both mast’s forward-most shrouds begin at the mid-point of each main-top and drop down to finish in-line with the rear edge of the mast. 
Long-winded, difficult to explain but easy to achieve. 

Edited November 9, 2021 by Jobbie

[Jobbie]

I measured the height of the tops from the plans, then taped a cord at that height. Then I dropped each mast into its hole, pulled the cord into each strop recess on the chain-plates and marked the hull just above the main-wale. 
 

My rearrangement of the aft chain-plate’s locations worked out well: Both fore and main mast’s foremost shroud’s ended up being just off the vertical. The aft sweep of the masts themselves is, of course, governed by their slots in the false keel.

[AJohnson]

On 11/3/2021 at 10:52 PM, Jobbie said:

I had ordered a 1:64 scale binnacle and shot garlands from Vanguard Models in the UK. They arrived today in the mail; I’m really impressed with them! I have 25 2.4mm cannonballs left over from a previous build. I plan to cut the shot garlands into shorter lengths of five holes each and place them between the pairs of cannon.

The Binnacle is good isn't it 😁, I got one for my Bounty, very pleased with it.

[AJohnson]

On 11/7/2021 at 9:19 PM, Jobbie said:

Main deck’s now complete. 
Feedback, please? I’d appreciate honesty- Are these coils oversized?

Well if those coils oversized, I did just the same with my CC Bounty and made them in exactly the same way as you.  There maybe someone on MSW who knows what the rule for gun tackle rope lengths are, but I do not number among them! 🤔.

In any case you are making great progress  👍, enjoying following along, will see how you get along with rigging, I am not far behind!

[Jobbie]

The binnacle’s complete. I think it’s a worthwhile addition to the kit.

I decided to leave the brass chimney unpainted.

 I’ve placed two pieces of thin polycarbonate inside the binnacle to simulate glazing. It looked odd without. I hadn’t bothered glazing the other windows of the ship, but because they have black backgrounds, I still don’t think it’s necessary.

[AJohnson]

1 hour ago, Jobbie said:

The binnacle’s complete. I think it’s a worthwhile addition to the kit.

I decided to leave the brass chimney unpainted.

 I’ve placed two pieces of thin polycarbonate inside the binnacle to simulate glazing. It looked odd without. I hadn’t bothered glazing the other windows of the ship, but because they have black backgrounds, I still don’t think it’s necessary.

Very neat, your decking and treenails look very good that close up also!  👁️‍🗨️ 👍

[Jobbie]

Thanks very much! Humbly appreciated. 

[Dave_E]

Progress report? I’m considering this build later on. It’s rated as a “beginner”. Do you concur? Looking good ! 👍😀

[ccoyle]

6 hours ago, Dave_E said:

Do you concur?

 

Dave, I think that if you can complete Lady Nelson, you will be well-prepared for a kit like Supply.

[Jobbie]

For six months now, I’ve been pondering what to do about a problem I’ve encountered with mounting the deadeyes to the chain-plates.

Kit part 101 (5mm deadeye strops) are wire loops that surround the deadeyes, then have kit part 78 (deadeye straps) bend around their lower hoop. The trouble is the wire strops have a gap at the lower hoop after the deadeye is inserted. When you apply upwards tension to the deadeye, the copper strops simply pull out of the brass straps. This is why I haven’t progressed…I needed to fix this. 
 

I thought about using a two-part epoxy to glue them together, but I wanted the deadeyes to be able to pivot. 
 

On a recent trip to Melbourne (Australia), I dropped into “Float-a-boat”, the Caldercraft supplier, to have a look at alternatives. I bought three packs of ten replacement deadeyes and straps at $AU15 each. 
 

In this photo, from left to right:

The kit supplied strop, part 101.

The kit supplied strap, part 78.

The 5mm deadeye installed in the strop.

The aftermarket strop, and

The new strop fitted to the strap.

 

i decided not to use the rest of the brass chains that came with the new parts. 

[Jobbie]

Thirty-odd deadeyes were finally fitted along the Supply’s chain-plates. 

I painted all the brass parts black to represent wrought iron. 

[AJohnson]

Good to see you back at this, I was wondering how you were doing. 😀

 

Reading the many Caldercraft build logs on MSW you have encountered the same problem of many builders.  Often people just epoxy glue the Deadeye straps into the slots of the channels to stop them pulling through.  Good to see you have found a solution! 👍

[allanyed]

Jobbie,

Glad to see back, very nice work!

 

Just as an FYI for the future, during the ten years RN ships had their names on the stern, 1780-1790, they were painted on, they never had carved letters.  No names in any form were allowed before 1780 or after 1790.  Also, guns smaller than 32 pounders used 2 single blocks for the running out tackle, not a single and double.  Not a huge issue for the casual observer, but some builders find these kinds of details interesting.

 

Allan

 

[Jobbie]

Allan, that’s very interesting. It’s detail like this that I find fascinating, but I just don’t know where to find it. I would have thought the Supply had stern windows, but I quite like the ‘out of box’ look of her.  

[allanyed]

Jobble,

There very well may have been stern lights (windows) but probably not.  Look at models of other brig rigged sloops on the Royal Museums Greenwich Collections website as one source of contemporary information.  The points about the cannon rigging and stern lettering have been discussed a number of times here at MSW based on contemporary information and research by folks such as Adrian Caruana and others.  The MSW search function is a godsend.

 Allan

 

 

 

 

[Jobbie]

So then. Onwards and upwards. Literally. 

I’ve started shaping the masts with a combination of file and sanding stick. 
 

A question; In Longridge’s The Anatomy of Nelson’s Ships book, fig 91 (page 166) shows vertical battens fitted to the corners of the square mast-head. Would all the masting details shown in this book be applied to an Admiralty ship the size of the Supply?

[Jobbie]

There’s a slight problem with the dimensions in the plans for the topmasts. 
 

the instructions state “The make-up of both masts is almost identical except for the height.” In fact, the fore-mast height (177mm) and main-mast height (232mm) is the only difference between the two. 
 

However... The fore topmast and main topmast are drawn differently. Whilst the overall length for both is 154mm, and the lengths are written the same, the fore topmast is out as much as 9mm when measured with a ruler. For a 1:1 drawing, that’s pretty poor.
 

Every other mast dimension is consistently 1mm out. I’m perfectly fine with that, as it’s probably the difference between a 1:1 drawing and a photo-copy of one. 
 

Both the fore topgallant and main topgallant masts are identical in drawn and actual dimensions, so I’ll make two identical topmasts to the dimensions shown for the main mast. 
 

Problem solved. 

[Jobbie]

[allanyed]

 

4 hours ago, Jobbie said:

A question; In Longridge’s The Anatomy of Nelson’s Ships book, fig 91 (page 166) shows vertical battens fitted to the corners of the square mast-head. Would all the masting details shown in this book be applied to an Admiralty ship the size of the Supply?

The Anatomy of Nelson's Ships book is fantastic and you are to be complimented for not using any information in the kit without verifying it first.  But to know what applies and what does not would take hours of research to compare each item in a more complete book on rigging such as Lee's Masting and Rigging English Ships of War which covers a range of sizes and years.  With the investment in money and time you have already made, Lees' book is a worthwhile incremental investment to consider for this project and future projects.

 

Allan

[AJohnson]

13 hours ago, Jobbie said:

There’s a slight problem with the dimensions in the plans for the topmasts. 
 

the instructions state “The make-up of both masts is almost identical except for the height.” In fact, the fore-mast height (177mm) and main-mast height (232mm) is the only difference between the two. 
 

However... The fore topmast and main topmast are drawn differently. Whilst the overall length for both is 154mm, and the lengths are written the same, the fore topmast is out as much as 9mm when measured with a ruler. For a 1:1 drawing, that’s pretty poor.
 

Every other mast dimension is consistently 1mm out. I’m perfectly fine with that, as it’s probably the difference between a 1:1 drawing and a photo-copy of one. 
 

Both the fore topgallant and main topgallant masts are identical in drawn and actual dimensions, so I’ll make two identical topmasts to the dimensions shown for the main mast. 
 

Problem solved. 

 

You are not alone in finding the dimensions out on the Caldercraft plans, I'm finding that with my CC Bounty build (paused at the moment as I was getting a bit bogged down with all the measurements and constantly cross checking the dimensions).  I can't comment on the accuracy of the dimensions on the "Supply" plans, but I agree the fore and main topmasts look identical to me!