HMS Bellona 1760 by SJSoane - Scale 1:64 - English 74-gun - as designed

[gjdale]

Very, VERY, nicely done Mark. Take a bow!

[dvm27]

Brilliant milling work, Mark. The Starrett wiggler would have saved me hours of fine tuning on my last project and I shall now get one. Love those perfect carling mortises also.

[SJSoane]

 

Thanks, Grant and Greg. The Starrett wiggler turns out to be a hugely time-saving device. I bought one with a couple of attachments. The center finder is a fine point that you align to perfect concentricity by pushing against it with a piece of wood. Go too far, and it flips out and runs in an oval. Push again more gently, and it comes to concentricity again. Once running perfectly, you can align it visually over a center point or a center line.

 

Another attachment has a very fine disk at the end. I used that to center the rotating table. Run it up against one side of the hole in the middle of the table, until it is running concentrically. Note the location on the digital readout. Then run it against the opposite side of the hole until it is concentric, and note the digital readout there. Subtract the one from the other, divide by two, and move the table by that distance. Do the same thing in the other axis, and the center of the spindle is now perfectly aligned over the center of the rotating table. Slick!

 

I also have a Starrett edge finding device. It works great, but in my recent projects I have left blanks a little wide so they can be planed down to perfect size later. It works just as well to locate the center line of a blank with the center finder, and let the edges be wherever they are.

 

Mark

[mtaylor]

Beautiful work.  And thanks for taking the time to document it.  I just had two "ah-ha" moments... one with the wiggler and the other with the rotary table and mounting..  

[michael mott]

Mark exquisite work on the mill. edge-finders and wigglers, are a must for working a mill, I just wish I could afford a digital read out, I have an old mill with slip dials.

 

Michael

[SJSoane]

 

Hi everyone,

 

This weekend, I pushed along to finish the aft end of the gundeck (all but ledges). The first photo shows using a caul shaped to the fore and aft camber of the gundeck, which I used to level the beams as I glued them in place. Clamping the beams up to the caul ensured that they are all precisely level on the upper surface, where it counts.

 

I then worked on the carlings. I found an easy way to measure the angle of the end of each carling in a beam, with an angle gauge. i could then use the gauge to set the angle of the miter gauge on the sanding machine, for precise results, and flip it over to reverse the miter gauge and sand the symmetrically opposite carling in the same bay. Systematically working aft and from outboard to the center, I got them all done in a day. I still need to cut mortises for ledges in the carlings before they can be glued. I got progressively better at this as I worked along. The carling fair well fore and aft, with only one joint needing a slight adjustment from my original mortise cuts.

 

I also built the mizen mast core in anticipation of building the partners, and found an easy way to set the diameters at the 4 quarters, using a proportional divider set to two divisions. I set the long legs on the ruler for the total diameter at any point, and then used the short legs to mark off either side of the center line. It saved a lot of time.

 

I made the fore and aft standard fitting up against the wing transom and stern post. It took some fiddling to match angles and cut the slot for the wing transom. But very satisfying after all of these years to see that finishing up the aft deck. You can see on the starboard side of the aft gun deck, my first efforts at working out how a knee would finish up the deck at the rounded aft end. I have no drawings that show what this knee would look like but there has to be one to provide a landing for decking in the corner, before the decking can land on the deck transom. I can't believe that the decking would just land on the inner side of the aftmost frames with no support under it. Does anyone recall seeing a drawing of what happens here?

 

Best wishes,

 

Mark

 

 

[WackoWolf]

All I can say is Excellent work. You eye to the detail is outstanding. Keep the pictures coming.

[NMBROOK]

Hi Mark

I had the great pleasure of reading your log for the first time yesterday but thought if I waited overnight I would be able to find the words to express my sheer admiration for your work,trouble is morning is here and I still can't find them!

So sorry absolutely astounding will have to do

 

Kind Regards Nigel

[mij]

Hi Mark

 

What a beautiful model, you are a true Master.

 

mij

[druxey]

Definitely there is a knee at the aft end of the deck to land the planking on, as well as tie the structure together. You are the master shipwright, and can shape your knee to suit your taste and eye.

 

As usual, it's a delight to see your photos of progress!

[SJSoane]

 

Thank you Joe, Nigel, mij and druxey. I get so little time in the shop, and the build moves so slowly. Your encouragement definitely helps to keep things moving along.

 

Best wishes,

 

Mark

[KobusBeukes]

Hi Mark

 

I took the link to your page for the gratings and I'm lost for words! Absolutely stunning work!

 

Will take some time to read through in detail but will definately be worth while!

 

Thanks for the advice on the gratings,

[SJSoane]

 

Hi Kobus, I am glad you found the grating details helpful. As you can see from earlier photos in this build log, I built the first ones way out of scale. It was worth trying again.

 

Best wishes,

 

Mark

[ronkh]

Hi Mark.

 

I have just been through your log from page one and what a pleasure it has been!

Thank you for that.

 

Kind regards,

 

Ron.

[Sailor1234567890]

A 74 is probably one of the most beautiful sailing warships ever built. Big enough to be powerful but not so big as to be lumbering like a three decker. Fast and handy with plenty of firepower. Just what the doctor ordered.

[the learner]

Thanks, Mark and Grant. My wife asked me if we would ever see this when the model is done. I explained that the modelmaker of the original 1760 Bellona model is likely looking over my shoulder, making sure I keep standards up...

 

Guy, it is probably late for me at this point. I lofted all of the frames back in the 90s before I started using CAD. And the details are now half a lifetime of research based on dozens of sources. It would be interesting to see someone else's reconstruction of the ship. Are the drawings published anywhere?

 

I am taking a break from the hull for a short time, while I sort out the Byrnes ropewalk and set up a rigging table based on Steel. I have posted a few questions over in Tools and in Rigging. I thought it better to keep these off the build log.

 

Best wishes,

 

Mark

Mark I do not know if there were ever plans published from the source but I can ask one of our club members who have the disk from the Rope member and see if that is so, if you wish 

 

sorry for the delay in responding to this post

 

Guy

[SJSoane]

Hi everyone,

 

I finally got time over the holidays to get back into the shop and to check out the website. Thank you Ron, and Sailor 123... for your comments. The 74 gun ship of the mid 18th century has the perfect balance of form and function--I learn something new every day about how elegantly the shipwrights met a functional need with a beautiful form. Guy, I would be happy to see anything you might turn up on the Bellona.

 

I finally finished the gun deck framing. I did it in record time, compared to my previous work. I followed Gaetan's advice from some time ago, to keep working systematically at the same task, and it will become easier and faster. I worked out a systematic way of numbering the ledges, and I was able to do each process on each piece, before going back to do the next process on each piece. It helped with a rhythm, and it meant the whole deck was built up in each stage. It was harder that way to say that I had finished a few more bays, and could come back later for the remaining bays. I had to keep working to see any real progress, and then it was all done. It seemed to work for me!

 

I counted up. There are 525 pieces in the deck framing itself--beams, carlings, ledges, and knees. And 856 mortices.

 

I am moving on to framing the stern, for a nice change of scenery. I have made some very interesting discoveries about the Bellona framing, while drafting it up. More on that later.

 

Best wishes,

 

Mark

 

[druxey]

That is first-rate work, Mark. Lovely! A happy New Year to you also.

[dvm27]

Magnificent work, Mark! Your carling runs fore to aft are perfect. Happy New Year.

[SJSoane]

 

Thanks, druxey and Greg. Fairing the carlings to run sweetly fore and aft turned out to be more difficult that I ever would have expected. Even the slightest discrepancy in the mortises in the beams show up as a waver in the line of carlings.  I am working on some ideas for doing this more efficiently on the upper deck. Good thing I have a lot of decks to practice on....

 

And thanks to Gary, who gave me some great insights on next steps, on his Alfred build site.

 

And a happy new year to all of you. New modeling challenges in the new year, new tools to buy or at least to think about buying....;-)

 

Best wishes,

 

Mark

[druxey]

Getting those carlings to run smoothly is tricky. I use a flexible batten on the beams to mark out the run of them before cutting them in. You might try that. The example here is of the fire ship Comet of 1783.

[Remcohe]

Mark, all the work payed off, the gun deck looks beautiful.

 

Remco

[gjdale]

Gosh that's beautiful work Mark. Well done!

[AlexBaranov]

Wonderful model. Very delicate and precise work. Congratulations. However, if I was doing this job, I would not use paint and chose more tenuyu wood with fine texture. However, this is a matter of taste.

[dvm27]

I used to feel the same way about painting only with wood, Alexandr. But, in looking at many Navy Board models, I see some were done precisely as Mark is doing and the overall effect is very pleasing. Getting the right shade and texture of red seems problematic but Mark and Druxey have it just right. As you say, it is a matter of taste, and mine has changed a bit recently.

[AlexBaranov]

Yes, it's a matter of taste ... However, the taste is different, very different ... But it is worth remembering that we are building a model, there is not a real ship, but a ship model. First of all it is a work of art, so a good visual form, giving birth to the association is always a priority in relation to the exact copying is not possible is a real ship. The laws of physics, chemistry and ergonomics has not been canceled yet ...

Edited January 2, 2014 by AlexBaranov

[Gaetan Bordeleau]

Here is Mark model in 150 years from now and I absolutely like  this visual  form

[SJSoane]

Hi everyone,

 

Thank you, remco, grant and brian for your comments. They help keep me going.

 

druxey, beautiful model, exquisitely built! What I am thinking about on the carlings for the upper deck is a way to scribe the carlings locations right at the start. On the gun deck, I penciled the lines, and later they faded a bit. I like the idea of getting a positive scribed line against which to register the chisel. Did you pencil or scribe to get such perfect alignment?

 

Alex, you are right that this is a matter of taste. I fell in love with the admiralty models in the National Maritime Museum in London many years ago, and could not get the color scheme out of my head. I do worry a bit about red inboard planking, which is the admiralty norm, but druxey's photo in the last post shows how effective this can be. I may try some dummy setups of colored card to see how it looks before committing. I had to throw away my original riding bitts, because I painted them, and they were too garish. Red stain was more effective, a little more subtle for me. Greg, interesting to hear that you are rethinking color. It is difficult. I sympathize with remco's concern about losing some of the detail in his beautiful masts if he stains the tops black; but then the blackened mast heads look great from afar. I may have a scotch before deciding myself...

 

Gaetan, thank you for the vote of approval. I will thank you again publicly for the great advice on craftsmanship. I was able to work much faster, and more accurately, keeping to one step at a time, and processing as many similar pieces as possible at the same time.

 

I have attached a couple of photos of the stern timbers beginning to take form. A lot still to go!

 

Best wishes,

 

Mark

 

 

 

[dvm27]

Damn, Mark, I recognize that Preac blade elevating screw. Never thought of using it elsewhere.  I'll definitely be using that one in the future. 

[garyshipwright]

Hi Mark. Have to agree with Greg sir, a good ideal for future use, much like Remco washer. Both good ideals for sure. I do have to admit druxey red and black color's brings her to life, and a good looking ship on top of that. Gary.