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

[the learner]

Impressive jig, what does the horizontal thumb screw do? It appears it holds the ebony marker in place or does it allow for height adjustment? 

I know stupid question, but just curious.

Edited January 30, 2021 by the learner

[Hubac's Historian]

The chandlery is all pretty reMarkable, if I do say.  This problem of rings has been vexing me for a while now.  The parallel pliers are a great help, and I will add them to my tool kit.  I would like to know what the micro-angled nippers look like, though.

[tlevine]

Putting aluminum or ferrous materials in pickle "poisons" it.  That is why pickle pots are ceramic.  Since you put that strainer in the pot, you should throw out the pickle before using it again.  They make inexpensive copper strainers for bartenders.

 

[SJSoane]

Thanks, everyone, for your comments.

 

Marc, the parallel jaw pliers are terrific for flattening a construction without denting the soft metal. And they are not all that expensive, relative to other jeweler's pliers. I found mine at Contenti.

 

Tony, my strainer is plastic, so I hoped that would be OK in the pickle. I did make the mistake at the very end of using the strainer in the baking soda and then putting it back into the pickle without first washing it. So I probably did kill the pickle with that mis-step. I will look into the bar-tender strainers in the future. It would be nice to keep the parts in a strainer all the way through to the JAX solution, instead of picking them out individually with tweezers. But I take your caution, and ideally would use separate strainers for each step of the process. The smallest pieces, the wedges for retaining the carriage trucks, were so small that many actually fell through the strainer mesh. Very bitty process....

 

Guy, here is a sketch of the measuring device. The horizontal screw locks the pointer in place, after using the fine adjustment screw at the bottom.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Hubac's Historian]

Thanks for the reference on the pliers, Mark.  I was hoping, though, that you could show a picture of the micro nippers.

[Landrotten Highlander]

I think height adjustment is the vertical screw though the ebony piece. The horizontal screw holds it firmly in position.

 

I now see the the answer has already been provided.  Should read all replies before acting - ah wel, learn from ones mistakes is part of life

Edited January 30, 2021 by Landrotten Highlander

[SJSoane]

L.H., yes, you guessed it!

Marc, here are the cutter and the parallel jaw pliers.

The pliers are: https://contenti.com/brass-jaw-flat-nose-parallel-pliers

The cutters are Lindstrom 8141, found on this page:  https://contenti.com/pliers-cutters-n-shears/jeweler-s-pliers/lindstrom-pliers/lindstrom-80-series-micro-bevel-flush-cutters

 

[Hubac's Historian]

Aha - thanks!  ‘Much appreciated.

[druxey]

Learning about both those tools when taking jewelry lessons revolutionized my miniature metal-working. They are now , along with my miniature needle-nosed pliers, indispensable!

[the learner]

Thank you for taking time to draw out and enhance your description for the deck height marker! The picture is worth a thousand words!  and a copy will definitely go into my box of tricks file.

[SJSoane]

druxey, a workshop on jewelry making, or miniature metal smithing for ship models, would be a welcome break right now. If only....

Guy, happy to help out. I have learned so much from others on this website, I am glad I can contribute some myself.

 

I am at a crossroads on the Bellona right now. I am trying to think ahead to the order in which things must be done so I don't tangle myself up.

 

I was headed towards installing all of the standards, gun carriages and ironwork, but then thought that cutting the mortises for the decks above would be spraying wood shavings all over the delicate gun hardware, impossible to clean away without potentially breaking things. Also, I still have to turn the hull upside down to mask and paint the wales, which probably should be done before all of the delicate stuff is installed on the gun deck.

 

And as long as I am painting the wales, I might as well do the paint on the stem, which first needs the cheeks and hawse holes pushed along.

 

Long story short, I think I need to move onto more external work and painting, and then cut mortises and fit beams for upper decks. Only then should I finish up the work on the gundeck, when it is a little less vulnerable to this other work. It will be a bear to fix anything down there once the upper decks start to go in.

 

At least this is my story today.....🙂

 

Mark

 

 

[druxey]

What you need are mini-tarps to tuck around each gun....

 

Seriously, I learned all kinds of neat things from jewelry making. My silver soldering success rate went from 50% to 99%, amongst other things. My wife benefitted as well; a custom white gold ring and a repousée silver 'waterfall' necklace.... The latter developed my sheet metal forming skills. I miss my days in the jewelers' studio.

[SJSoane]

Hi druxey, I so wish I could take a jewelry class somewhere. I seen now how exceedingly helpful that would be. Silver soldering still eludes me...

Other things in life have taken me away from the shop. But while distracted by other things, it helped clarify my next steps, resolving the numerous chicken and egg issues of what has to come before what.

 

I have concluded that I cannot install the barrels of the guns on the gundeck afterwards. The stool bed and wedged quoin are way too delicate; several have broken off just picking up the carriages. I will need to epoxy the barrels both at the capsquares and at the quoin, possibly pinning somehow at the stool and quoin. So all of this has to happen before I start closing in the gundeck with the upper deck over it.

 

And once the cannon are sticking out (druxey, is that the official naval description?), I need to avoid putting the hull on its side or perhaps even upside down. So everything requiring turning the hull upside down or sideways needs to be completed before the cannon go in and I can start on the upper decks.

 

So, I first need to finish as much carpentry work as possible that will create shavings inboard, so I can tip the hull over and clean it out before proceeding. This means cutting all of the mortises for the beams on the upper deck, quarterdeck and forecastle, and roundhouse. Also, drilling the hawse holes.

 

Then I need to finish up the outboard work including planking as much as possible, so I can turn the hull on its sides for painting the wales and the cutwater at the stem. I also need to consider finishing more of the stern works, which will also require turning the hull upside down--particularly for the frieze painting on the lower counter.

 

Next step, then, cutting the beam mortises. Last time, I laboriously measured each beam location from the drawing, then measured from a station line on the hull. I had to square every beam up, to ensure they were parallel. This was complicated by the fact that many beams were asymmetrical due to the halved joint between the two parts. Each side was offset a little from the other side.

 

Now many years later, with CAD drawings available, I am planning to print the upper deck, glue it to some stiff card, and lay it on the beam shelves. Then I can simply mark the location of each beam for the mortise.

 

For the first time, I took electronic copies of my CAD drawings to the local UPS store, where they printed out very accurately dimensioned sheets on 30 X 42 inch paper. Doesn't look too bad, hate to cut up the sheet. But it was only $3 US per sheet, so I will go back for more.

 

Mark

 

Edited February 19, 2021 by SJSoane

[SJSoane]

A couple more sheets. These are not yet really finished or laid out as final drawings, but they do help pull together a lot of work I have done on more detail. Just in case the electronic world fails, I will have hard copies of the basic information!

 

[AON]

You've put a lot more effort into your drawings then I have!  

Should be fewer surprises.  

BZ

[SJSoane]

Hi Alan,

Doing more drawing is how I procrastinate on actually cutting wood! It is becoming a bad habit...🙃

Mark

[druxey]

Well the gun deck cannon issue is a serious one. And you wonder why so many models show the gun deck ports closed? One idea (thinking laterally); why not show the lids closed and display the armament for this deck on the model's baseboard? It has been done before; I recall at least one POW bone/ivory model in the Rogers' Collection with a similar presentation.

[michael mott]

Probably speaking out of the top of my hat here.... But would it not be possible to make a cradle that you can hold the hull in and be able to revolve it and lock it into position for various operations. The model engineers do it for working on the underside of model locomotives, The automotive industry does it for building cars.

Beautiful work on the metal parts Mark.

 

Michael

[Sailor1234567890]

Car guys call it a "rotissery restoration" as the setup is essentially a rotissery. I see no reason why that can't be done for this ship. 

[Wintergreen]

Hey guys, look up bitao7697s' setup for his Young America. I think that is @michael mott means.

[SJSoane]

Hi everyone,

 

I have been in and out of the shop for the last long while, attending to other life things, but also really pondering my next steps forward.

 

After thinking at great length about the issue of when and how to mount the guns, I finally decided that it would be best first to finish all of the outboard work, allowing me to turn the hull on its side for painting, putting in the friezes, etc., then go back to working on internal work including the decks and mounting the guns.

 

So I have turned my attention to planking again, now facing the fun prospect of making the various mouldings on the upper works. I started looking at how to make the waist rail, to start. It sits against a large tumblehome, so its profile had to be cut at an acute angle to keep the upper surface level.

 

I used an old hacksaw blade softened with heat, and then tried cutting the profile a couple of different ways. I first tried hand filing, and then for fun I tried milling the profile, sandwiching the metal between two thin pieces of plywood to keep it from flexing as the cutter ball passed by:

 

I ended up with a combination of hand filing and milling, putting the final shape into an "L" shaped wooden holder creating a fence. Early experiments with letting the cutter run freely without a fence did not work well. It wandered too much.

 

 

Because the moulding sits on the angled tumblehome, I decided to pre-angle the moulding blanks by running them through the Byrnes saw using the angled table. I found this to be difficult to set and keep the desired angle, relying solely on tight Allen screws at the mounting. So I made a wooden angle block, clamped under the table. It allows precise setting, and I can return to the exact same angle later on.

 

I first tried scraping in my small bench vice, trapping the moulding blank between two long vice faces. but this allowed too much vibration, leading to uneven cuts.

 

I later tried clamping it in my large bench vice, which proved much more stable. I neglected to take a photo of this better arrangement; maybe next time.

 

With more confidence in my ability to make good mouldings, I turned to thinking about the remaining planking. I ran 1/8" wide artist's tape (9" to scale, the exact size of the desired mouldings) at points measured from the sheer drawing. This allowed me to confirm the fairness of the runs, especially relative to each other.

 

I did discover that the hollow at the flair out at the bow at the starboard side was a little too hollow, leading to a slight, undesirable reverse curve on the waist moulding. When I faired this area almost 20 years ago, I did not fully appreciate the direction of the run of the planking itself. So don't tell anyone, but I have had to glue a small filler piece into the hollow, to fair it out to match the port side and clean up the run of the waist moulding. It was only off by less than 1/16", but enough to cause a hollow. All will be covered by the planking!

 

 

This all brings me to a big question for those of you who have experience with laying mouldings. I had originally planned to glue the mouldings directly to the frame, butting against it the planking above and below. This, I thought, would allow me to lay the mouldings on a nice curve  because I could clamp it down to the faired edge of the planking below. But as I pondered how the mouldings would intersect things like channels, fenders, chesstrees, the various mouldings at the head, and how they would stop at the quarter galleries astern, I began to think it might be easier to apply the mouldings over the planking. But then, how do I keep the mouldings precisely faired and parallel to the planking underneath it? My wood is quite stiff, and does not nicely bend to a smooth curve by itself.

 

Maybe, a wide batten that could rest on the upper edge of the channel wale, with a faired upper edge, and to which the moulding could be clamped in a vertical direction as well as against the hull?

 

 

 

All for now,

 

Mark

 

 

 

 

 

[druxey]

Over the planking for sure, Mark. The batten idea will certainly help align the pieces nice and smoothly. 

 

I found that my best molding strategy was to start with blanks that did not account for bevel on the back. The lengths were rubber cemented on a wood backing board. The molding scraper was then run along repeatedly and lightly until it bottomed out on the backing. That ensured a consistent depth of cut. After removing the molding from the  board and cleaned of rubber cement, the bevel was put in. This was done with a very sharp chisel to establish the angle, then rubbed on a sanding board to refine the bevel.

[SJSoane]

Thanks, druxey, doing the moulding afterwards sure simplifies the next steps of planking!

 

Got the first plank on above the channel wale today. Gets me back into the groove.

 

 

While waiting for the glue to dry, I started looking forward to outboard fixtures and fittings.

I drew up the channels, and discovered a few questions.

 

First, as best I can tell, the mizen in this period did not have a topgallant, only a topmast with a pole (see below). So this means that there would only be a backstay to the top of the topmast, correct? And no backstay to a non-existent topgallant. So am I correct in thinking that there is only one backstay coming down to the sides near the mizen channel? The Bellona drawings do not show a deadeye for a backstay on the mizen channels, nor a stool for backstays. I could invent a stool, but it would have only one deadeye, for the mizen topmast backstay. Lees' Masting and Rigging mentions mizen topmast backstays on page 58, and says they either come down to a stool or to a deadeye plate. Might it be a deadeye plate because the drawings do not show a stool?

 

Second, I see in David Antscherl's Fully Framed model books that there are two rings in eyebolts on each of the fore and main channels. Brian Lavery's Bellona books shows a fore breast backstay on the fore channel, a line seized to the channel, through a block on the backstay, and back down to another seizing on the channel. Would the rings and eyebolts be the fastenings for the breast backstays?

 

Mark

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[druxey]

Odd. The fine Bellona model in the NMM shows the mizen chains as 2 and 4, not 3 and 3 as above. (The block model indicates the same arrangement.) I do know that Polyphemus, 64 guns, had a small stool for the mizen topmast backstays:

 

https://collections.rmg.co.uk/collections/objects/81287.html

 

Perhaps there are other examples to study.

[SJSoane]

Hi druxey,

 

My copies of the original 1759 Bellona draughts show the same thing as the model of about the same date; 3 and 3, no stool.

I confirmed that the ports were moved at the stern in the later 1780ish model, leading to a different arrangement of 4 + 2 deadeyes to avoid a port.

But no stool or other backstay support in either model.

A mystery....

 

Mark

 

 

 

[Alex M]

Hello Mark,

 

look at the Medway of 1742: https://collections.rmg.co.uk/collections/objects/66289.html

 

 

No stool here.

[Mark P]

Good Morning Gentlemen; an interesting topic;

 

I have checked my photos of ship models, and all the 74s, which are Ajax, Egmont, & Warrior, have backstay deadeyes on both fore and main masts, either as a narrower extension on the aft end of the channels, or as a separate stool; but no stool or deadeyes on the mizen channels. I also have pictures of the Thunderer/Hercules (which I strongly believe is actually Hero) which does have mizen backstays on a stool, but this was rigged in the NMM in the later 20th century, and these just might have been added then.

 

Although looking at the as-built draughts, which again all show backstays for the fore and main masts, Ramillies, 1785; and Warrior do show a separate backstay stool for the mizen. Yet the draughts for Alfred and Cumberland do not show a mizen backstay stool. It is perhaps possible that the mizen backstays in some ships were set up with a lanyard to an eye-bolt in the topsides outboard. 

 

However, it is interesting that the model of Warrior shows her without backstay deadeyes, yet the as-built draught does show them. Draw your own conclusions!

 

All the best,

 

Mark P

[druxey]

So, what is your conclusion, Mark? Thanks for the clarification about the altered port positions; I'd suspected that that was the case.

[SJSoane]

Hi Alex, Mark and druxey,

 

Thanks so much for you thoughts on this. Alex, I think you found the key to the puzzle. I am assuming the Medway at 1742 also had a mizen with only a topmast, not a topgallant. So it, too, would have only one backstay at the mizen.

 

Unless someone knows of another piece of rigging at the mizen with deadeyes in this location, I will assume what we see in the Medway is the backstay to the mizen topmast. It appears to bolt directly to the side, perhaps this is what Lees was calling a deadeye plate as one of the possible rigging arrangements at the mizen topmast backstay.

 

I think, problem solved. thanks!

 

Mark

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[SJSoane]

I forgot to mention in the last post that this question about the mizen backstay is a good example of a challenge I have faced working on this project, where I look for examples in other models or drawings to answer a question. I have a great tendency to see only what I expect to see. And if an example is contrary to what I expect to see, I tend to think that there must be a mistake or an omission in the model or drawing. In this case, I really expected this to be a stool. And when I could not find one of the right period with a stool, I assumed that the model builder or draughtsman just "left that detail off".

 

That is why it is so great to have many eyes in this website, each bringing a different way of looking at things!

 

thanks again.

 

Mark