ancre La Chaloupe Armée / 42ft Armed Longboat of 1834 by tkay11 – FINISHED - scale 1:36 - plans by M. Delacroix

[tkay11]

Ironwork

I finished my work on translations in February and took up work on the Chaloupe again. I haven’t been noticing the time fly by since then, so there’s quite a lot to cover.

 

The main decision is, as I had hoped at the start, to build the fully rigged model with sails. This meant that there’ll be no big cannon sitting in the middle of the boat. I’d left the option open of leaving the swivel guns on, and that’s what I decided to do.

 

I’ll start with some of the ironwork. First off are the clamps or holders for the bowsprit and the mizzen boom. The plan for the clamps shows the following:

I don’t have the skills to make them opening, so I went in for a simulation. I soldered 1mm brass tubing to either side for both clamps:

Pintles & Gudgeons

 

Plan 6 shows the rudder as follows:

 

I started work on the pintles by tapering lengths of 1mm rod then fitting them into sections of brass tubing which were soldered to a strap (for the bottom pintle) and a rod (for the top one):

Unfortunately my first attempt at the lower pintle showed that the soldering joint between the strap and the pintle was not strong enough to take the strain when the rudder was fitted, and it snapped off. So I had to strengthen the join by linking the pintle to the strap with a 0.5mm rod as shown in the picture below.

The completed gudgeons and pintles then followed the normal type of construction. You’ll note I still haven’t mastered the art of aligning the bolts in the straps correctly, nor have I mastered the art of blackening. The dark patch around the lower strap is where I tried painting a bit more of the blackening solution on to the strap:

Grapnel anchor

I also started to think about the various accessories that are needed on the boat. Although no plans for an anchor in the book, I found plans in the paper model of the 18^th Century French Longboat that I had partially completed (see https://modelshipworld.com/topic/21175-french-longboat-18th-century-by-tkay11-148-card-review-partial-build/). I scaled the plans up to 1:36 and made the paper version. This gave me the experience to do one in copper.

This led to a discussion as to where the anchor will be stowed. Eventually it was decided that it should go over the bulwarks at the bow, and be fastened to the main cross beam there.

Next up: Bow davits, yards and mast sheaves.

Tony

[tkay11]

Bow davit

 

I then went on to make the davit at the bow. First thing was to get the outline right, which I did with a piece of masking tape.

The davit itself was then fairly straightforward to make. You can probably make out the different pieces used in the following photo.

Mast travellers for the yards

Plan 9 shows the travellers as follows:

The following pictures should illustrate the sequence of making these:

Mast sheaves

All the masts and boom have sheaves at their ends. I started the process of making these by milling out spaces for the sheaves using a setup consisting of my modified Proxxon drill stand,  a Proxxon dividing head and a spare Jacob’s chuck from my Proxxon wood lathe.

The dividing head allowed me to rotate the mast by 90 degrees to drill the hole for the sheave spindle.

The sheaves themselves were then turned on a lathe after having their centres drilled through for the spindles.

Next up: Swivel guns

Tony

 

[Edwardkenway]

Hi Tony,  fantastic metalwork! It's good to see this fascinating vessel evolving. 

Cheers. 

[tkay11]

Swivel guns

There were two types of swivel gun used in the period of the Chaloupe. One was the breech-loading type, the other the muzzle-loading type. It is the latter that is shown in the plans, so I built the 4 swivel guns following the plans.

I started by boring the holes for the trunnions. This was done first by pasting the plan to a block of wood, then clamping a brass rod into a vice. The block of wood was then trimmed to fit the remaining opening in the vice by using the non-grooved edge of the vice jaw as a reference point. It was then a simple matter of drilling the hole using the plan. The brass rod could then be turned in the lathe as normal, using the set of gravers that I had made for my previous build (Triton cross-section).

A trick I learned from Herault’s build of the Chaloupe was to use a scribed reference point on the turned bar using the sharp tool. This then allows exact placing for the various steps in diameter of the barrel.

The swivel gun mounts have good detailed plans in the monograph:

Initially I thought I would make the basic barrel holder out of wood, but that proved far too fragile, so I ended up making them out of copper plate. The picture shows the process I used, but on the wood prototypes.

It’s probably easier to show the different components in the following diagram, rather than attempt an explanation.

Next up: Yards. bowsprit, mizzen boom

Tony

 

[tkay11]

Yards

 

After fashioning the yards, I cut grooves for the cleats, added a strip of wood and then filed the strip to mimic two cleats.

The yards were then fitted with their slings and the grommets for the brails.

Bowsprit & Mizzen boom

The bowsprit was fixed as shown in the pictures:

The components for the holders of the mizzen boom are shown in the following picture:

Masts in place

An initial assembly of the masts and boom:

 

Oars

I’ve just started experimenting with making the oars. My first attempt is using lime wood, making the oar in three sections as follows (I’m happy with the method, but still don’t know whether to dye them or paint them. I also have to add the leather protective sleeve):

The next steps are (1) making the sails; (2) adding extras, such as barrels, portable binnacle and the oars; (3) making a stand.

I'll be working on these over the next week or so and hope to have postings in that time frame!

 

Tony

 

[MEDDO]

Amazing work there Tony.  I am liking that you are rigging it.

[G.L.]

A lot of progress in one post. She is becoming nice!

[tkay11]

Thanks, Edward, Michael and G.L. for the comments and to all the 'likers'. And I apologise for the large number of posts that I put up together -- this was the result of my being unaware of the passing of time and of thinking that each step was such a small one that it wasn't worth posting about! I still have the same aims in mind, though:

 

(1) to stimulate interest in this lovely model which I want to show is manageable by novices such as myself.

 

(2) for all us novices to show that it can be done by taking each small step one at a time, rather than being worried by the apparent enormity and complexity of the build at the outset. This means I try to show each of the steps in reasonable detail, together with the mistakes, rather than try to present a series of nice photos. I find that as I take each individual step I become totally absorbed by it, and enjoy it as much as making an entire model.

 

Tony

[Dane]

Hello Tony.

This is a great assembling and good job! 

I would like share with you and all modelers my method of metal work. I think the simpler the better. I made all "iron" for my french longboat from a wire from a paper clips. After producting I made all details blacken by fire from Cricket lighter. And other important detail is paper clips' steel wire must be preliminary annealed. All the rest are made by little hammer, pliers, file and vise. Photo #305 shows "species origin". 🙂  I did not get the result right away. It took a several attempts. Assembling and soldering of details is good to do in paper template. See picture #303B.

Edited April 3, 2020 by Dane
mistake in text

[Roger Pellett]

Beautiful model!!!

 

[VTHokiEE]

On 3/30/2020 at 5:21 AM, tkay11 said:

1) to stimulate interest in this lovely model which I want to show is manageable by novices such as myself.

After reading through your log I’m not certain that I would deem your work anywhere near “novice.” 
 

I picked up these plans as I had seen them labeled as a good choice for a beginner scratch builder. This log will be a great help when I finally try to tackle a scratch build but I do not think I have anywhere near the skills or equipment to try this one in the near future. 

[tkay11]

@Dane: Your card kit of the 18th Century longboat has been a great inspiration, and I hope you don't mind that I deliberately left it uncompleted in order to focus on this model! Thanks very much for the tips on the metal work. It's much appreciated.

 

@Roger Pellett: Thanks. I really like these small boats. I'll be concentrating more on them once I've finished the Chaloupe, although I will continue my apprenticeship with a Plank-on-Bulkhead model first, just to improve my experience and skills.

 

@VTHokiEE: Thanks for the kind words. I use the term 'novice' because I see each of the models I have made (this is my fourth if I include the partial build of Dane's longboat card kit) as a different area of learning. So first was a kit (Sherbourne) which rapidly became a 'bashed' kit, then the Triton cross-section to learn working from plans, then Dane's kit to learn something about card modelling, and now the Chaloupe in order to understand the 'mould' method of construction. Hence it really is a continuing apprenticeship (perhaps apprentice ship).

 

It looks as though your experience with all those builds of yours will more than equip you to build the Chaloupe. As you can see, it's an excellent model with great plans and, in addition, has a lot of elegance about it. As to the equipment, I can't say you need much. Although I did purchase a metal-working lathe, my inexpensive Proxxon wood-working lathe would have been more than sufficient and in fact I could have done all the 'lathe' parts with a simple electric drill (which I used as a lathe before I bought one). The other main piece of equipment has been my very inexpensive Proxxon Micromot 50 drill with its equally inexpensive pillar (which I modified into a mill at very low cost). The only costly item that I would really recommend is a table saw. The ironwork was done with a simple butane torch and a tube of silver solder with flux built in.

 

Of course you still have to buy the wood and all the other bits and pieces such as drill bits, sanding paper, files, glues etc. However doing so is still, in the long run, cheaper than buying kits -- especially if you find (as many do) that building a kit often involves you in buying extra wood and discarding many of the parts provided in favour of your own parts.

 

So I really would recommend your just jumping in and trying it out. That's what I did. It's a great exercise and you'll feel great at every new step you learn and complete -- a bit like attaining levels in a computer game.

 

Tony

[VTHokiEE]

Thanks for the encouragement and when you frame novice in that way it does make sense. I think I might actually try to follow your path a little. While I continue work on my current build I keep eyeing cross sections and I think using the Triton as a way to get a taste of scratch building and reading plans might be a good way to not get in over my head too soon (and maybe an excuse to pick up a mill or a lathe in the process 🙂). Either way, I have plenty in front on me with my current build so I'll probably continue to think it over for a long time to come and in the mean while I certainly am enjoying watching you work!

[Dane]

Tony,

Of course! Absoluteley no! On the contrary, I have to say you grand thank that you mension my model here.

Your work on this wooden model is very interesting and valuble for me. Because I haven't big experience in wooden modeling. I try to carefully watch for you work. Good luck!

On the picture my most big wooden model. Lmax=about 200 mm.

Edited April 4, 2020 by Dane
Edit text

[tkay11]

Thanks, Dane. That's a neat small model. What is interesting is that you meet different types of challenge when you do card modelling in contrast to those in wood modelling. In this particular instance, with the longboat, I was intrigued to see how you could approach such a boat and at such a small scale using the frame cut-away method in card. I thought your design looked innovative and clever. It certainly was a good learning experience for me, and made me appreciate the fantastic skills you have in Eastern Europe with card modelling. I'll definitely be trying more!

 

Tony

[tkay11]

Sails

I made the sails in the same way as I did those on the Sherbourne, using Modelspan (the same as Silkspan) and following the steps suggested by David Antscherl. (See page 9 of my build log, entry #226 Making sails.)

 

The only difference was that this time, instead of tracing the outline of the sail, I placed the main sail lines on card and drew around the card to establish the outline on the Modelspan. This allowed me to place the holes and the seam lines accurately.

 

The one thing I regret is that for each sail I made a new mix of the acrylic paints, so colouring between the sails was inconsistent.

 

Erm, sorry, make that two regrets: as you will see, when it came to painting the seams I did not dilute the paint sufficiently for the mizzen sail, making the seams on that sail stand out excessively. Still, I left the mizzen as it was as I have treated this build as another in my learning exercises, and no one else will be looking at it other than family and myself. It’s a useful way of chiding myself!

Rigging

The rigging diagram with the monograph was very helpful. I also turned to the discussion and plans in the excellent Ancre monograph on The Ship’s Longboat which shows the variety of possibilities. Both sets of plans show the tacks and sheets simply held in the clews by a knot at the end of the rope, but I cheated here and simply seized them to the clews – and occasionally added a hook.

 

The monograph notes that the jib was rarely used, and that in fact the boat would often be sailed with the foresail alone. I decided to put all the sails up, mainly to see what it would look like.

 

As with my other models, I used the following simple jig to seize ropes to hooks and blocks.

I found that the anchor needed something like 65 metres of rope, equivalent to 1.8metres at 1:36, but I decided to save on my 7mm rope and just cut one metre for it. As you can see, it is lashed to the bow and held on the main davit. Actually the anchor rope is in two pieces: a short piece that goes around the anchor and is lashed to the davit, and the metre of coiled rope that is laid over it on the davit to give the impression of a single piece.

Current state of the model

It isn’t exactly pretty, but I’ve had a lot of pleasure and satisfaction in putting in the rigging and sails. It was a good learning exercise to understand this way of rigging a longboat – a way that allows everything to be taken down very quickly. In the same spirit, I didn’t glue any of the masts to the boat, nor spars to masts. Everything can be dismantled in the required way. I certainly don’t miss the presence of the enormous cannon!

 

The brail lines made the sails curve, but I ensured they were as smooth as possible by applying a very dilute PVA paste to the sails and blowing them dry with a hair dryer.

 

You’ll note the base I’ve made from 10mm thick plain acrylic. Not the most elegant of designs, but functional.

 

The remaining pictures show the boat in its current state. I’ll do some oars, and am still thinking about adding a portable binnacle, a landing hook, some barrels and a chest. Then the model will be as complete as I want it to be.

 

Tony

 

 

 

[G.L.]

Beautiful model, Tony. I like also your stand. Did you make it yourself?

[cog]

Your model turned out lovely. It turned out to be an eventful trip, quite educational. Thank you for sharing

[Edwardkenway]

Another very nice model Tony, your attention to detail is always a pleasure to see! Great work, thanks 😁

[tkay11]

Thanks for the nice comments and likes. It's always rewarding to know that others share the same interest and pleasure in this process and its various outcomes. The criticisms and questions are equally useful.

 

@G.L.: Yes. You can see from earlier posts that I had first used a card stand temporarily. It was made using the frame outlines at +3 and -3 to cut the outlines for the supports. I thought that this would work fine. So I just bought a small block of 10mm thick clear acrylic (A6 size = 148 x 105mm) from eBay for £3. This was sufficient for the base rectangle and the two support rectangles. I then used my bench saw to cut it into those three blocks. I cut the outlines for the supports using a scroll saw, finessing with a jeweller's saw. The rough edges were then polished using progressively fine micromesh polishing cloths from 1500 to 12000 grade.

 

The supports were then cemented to the base with Model Z Pro Plastic Weld, which is probably based on methyl melacrylate (MMA) monomer.  I have used this before and found it very useful and easy. Apparently you can make this by dissolving acrylic chips in acetone. I applied it with a fine paintbrush run along the edges of the joints. Quick and simple! The polishing of the rough edges took the longest - maybe an hour all told

 

I had taken considerably longer to research the various ways suggested to cement acrylic - although I ended up using the same product I had used for the Sherbourne base. Two videos I found particularly useful were:

 

 

 

Tony

[G.L.]

Thank you for the information, Tony. The videos are indeed very useful.

[Schrader]

Tim

 

Very.... very..... nice work. So educational. You took your time to explain every step. Thanks a lot

 

nothing to compare with mine. At the present I followed your advice I’m posting a log about my present work. The St Caterina. 
 

thanks again

 

this my final result in my longboat

 

[tkay11]

46 minutes ago, Hellmuht Schrader said:

nothing to compare with mine

You must be joking, Hellmuht -- unless you mean that mine is nothing compared to yours! I find your finish far more professional and elegant! As always, I'm way behind in finishing technique - partly because I have very little faith in others showing interest (apart from members of MSW). Your planking is also excellent. Also partly because I see these builds simply as an apprenticeship in learning how to model and I see the finishing as something that will come gradually. Look at my deliberate keeping of that ugly mizzen sail.

 

The bottom line is that this Chaloupe Armée is a great model to get into building from plans, as well as learning how to use a mould. All the builds I've seen of this show the great pride in achievement that the modellers express - and that's what counts most.

 

As you've probably realised, I've been following your build of the St. Caterina with much interest and enjoyment. You might like to know that I have the Ancre monograph of the Allège d'Arles, so I may well be following your own train of thought as to the next model. I've also been thinking of making the card model of the Allège d'Arles by WAK in Poland, after seeing the wonderful log by Kondzik on this site.

 

Tony

[tkay11]

Oars

As indicated in the recent posting, I made the oars from three pieces. I only made 10, rather than the 20 that it would normally have, partly because of having to stow them all and partly because I reckoned that with the sails up there would only be effective room for 10 oarsmen.

 

The oars were stained using my own mix of walnut crystals diluted 1:30 in water. As you can see, this ended up with them being rather blotchy. The sleeves were made of black card 0.2mm thick.

The problem was where to place them on the boat, and then how to fix them. There were three possibilities: along the centre, on either side of the foremast, or held over the sides. I went with them being held over the sides as being the most efficient use of space.

 

So how to fit them to the sides? Naturally this should be based on a loop, but I needed to be able to adjust the loop so that the oars would hang exactly at the gunwale, and also ensure that there would be no unsightly knots visible.

 

The solution was a simple one of seizing together the two ends of a loop that had already been strung round a thwart in a way that would allow easy adjustment.

 

So now I have to think about how to make a barrel, a boathook, a chest and a binnacle. I may well fail!

[By the way, for those who look at the rake of the mizzen mast, it is at the prescribed angle. The main and fore masts are almost vertical.]

 

Tony

 

[tkay11]

Barrels, Sea chest, Bucket

In providing equipment I decided at least on the barrels, sea chest and bucket in addition to the oars. I’m still debating whether to try to make a portable binnacle, but reckon this boat would not have been used for any journeys requiring its use – so may decide to leave it out.

 

Barrels

As I had not made barrels before, I looked into the different ways of making them, and decided to try two of them. The first method was using a solid core of a wood dowel to which is added the width at the middle by ringing it with wood strip or, as I did, a strip of masking tape.

 

There were a number of problems with this method. The first was that no glue I used would stick satisfactorily to the masking tape. That is why it would have been preferable to use paper strips or else strips made of very thin wood shavings. I ended up using excessive quantities of PVA.

 

The second problem was that given the compressibility of the tape, it was difficult to keep to the width of the staves so that all would have the recommended 4” width (at scale). As a result there was a lot of variation in the width – which was to some extent compensated by sanding.

 

The big advantage of this method is that the staves overlap the ends of the barrel, so requiring no further drilling out to leave an overlap. The planking on the ends of the barrel is of course placed first, before placing the staves.

 

I found it was useful to soak the staves first and curve them in a template jig using a hair dryer for rapid shaping.

 

The second method involves cutting long angled strips of wood and gluing them together to form a cylinder. I chose to have 20 staves cut to an 18⁰ angle (20 x 18 = 360). This was because the stave width at the circumference of a 10mm diameter cylinder would then be equivalent to 4” at full size.

 

I found this part to be very simple to do using the Proxxon FET bench saw angle function which has a nice accurate guide to the degree of rotation. The barrel was then fixed on to a dowel which could be held in the lathe, and it was shaped to the correct curvature using a template.

 

The barrel was then stained using walnut crystals, and bands placed with strips of black card. You’ll see the photos later in this post.

Sea chest

I made the chest using a card base on to which wooden planks were glued. A locking plate (made of card) and stanchion (0.4mm copper wire) were added, along with rope handles, two 0.5mm brass rod hinges and two supporting bands of black card over the curved top.

 

Bucket

Making the bucket was initially very puzzling to me. I could see others have made the bucket using the same method as for the barrels – namely the making of angled strips bundled together to form a cylinder, shaped and then hollowed out. I just could not see a simple way of hollowing it out while keeping the angle of the staves.

 

In the end all I did was make the staves individually using as a guide the end dimensions of 10mm tall with a 7mm base. In order to keep it simple I restricted myself to 8 staves for which I made a pattern, glued to a strip of wood, then cut and angled the edges with a razor.

 

I then took the gamble of just gluing the edges to each other, one stave at a time, in the knowledge that the grip of PVA would be sufficient to keep the parts together while adding them to one another and then curving into a cylinder. I left the cylinder to dry overnight, then glued the base on. As I had used white maple, I tried staining with my walnut crystal stain, but it didn’t alter the colour very well, so I had to paint with brown acrylic and finish off with a home-made shellac varnish.

 

I added a rope as a handle.

 

This now leaves me with the choice of whether to go with a binnacle and a boat hook. I can’t see my way to the method of making either one, but I’ve asked a question on the forum about the binnacle and I’ll see what answers I get.

 

Otherwise I’ll be labelling this build as complete.

 

Tony

 

[Edwardkenway]

Those are good looking and well made extras for the boat Tony 👍

[tkay11]

Thanks again to all those who commented on this build and signalled their likes. I've decided not to go any further as my struggles with making binnacle have not been very fruitful. In any case, there is nothing to suggest that it carried one - it was more the challenge for myself.

 

So I have marked the build as FINISHED!

 

I am still in the throes of exploring another build, experimenting with a mixture of card and wood on a 1:100 model of the Ancre Allège d'Arles, while also looking in detail at the Ancre Rochefort. I'll post a new log once I've decided on the final boat, and maybe I'll post my experiments with the card/wood composite plank-on-bulkhead Allège should I think it of interest.

 

Thanks again to all of you who have given me such marvellous support, donated their experience and helped!

 

Tony

[mtaylor]

This has been a wonderful build and very well done.   Thanks for letting us follow along.

[Edwardkenway]

Beautiful build Tony, your detail is superb and processes wonderfully explained. As Mark said, thanks.

[tkay11]

Many thanks, Mark and Edward, VTHokiEE and Carl for your very nice comments and likes. They certainly make me feel as though I'm not as ham-fisted as I often feel!

 

Tony