HMS Surprise by Mayohoo - Artesania Latina - Scale 1: 48 - after Aubrey-Maturin series - First wooden ship build

[Mayohoo]

Hrs 625-637

 

Masts are not just sticks poking out of the hull...

 

Foremast

 

Working my way through the instructions and using a couple generic sources for hints. Applied styrene rings to mimic iron reinforcements as mentioned above. Then applied wooldings using thread at 3 inch scale using bamboo flute knots to bury knots. Not perfect, but the first tries...

 

Bottom view of platform showing cheeks, woolding

 

Top view of platform showing eyebolts. Unfortunately the black is so dark I had to remedy with a lot of exposure so background is very white.

 

And the doubling area with fore topmast and cap

 

A couple are upside down...

 

Then the topgallant platform is under construction

 

The vocabulary is pretty arcane and the directions are sparse so am using the modeling books for help. It all starts to make sense after awhile thankfully.

 

The Queen approves...

 

And the young lad is rowing at the Pac-12 Championships. The team took 3rd, his boat took 5th. Another way to move across the water 

[Mayohoo]

Have finished foremast (pics to follow). Question: Is it better to place the yards now or put into ship and add yards later? Beginning mainmast...

[Mayohoo]

After consulting the gurus, I have decided to try one mast seated now and one mast completed with yards seated later. Both Mtaylor and Gil Middleton said they have done it both ways and had success. Since this is an opening ship build for me and I don't know better, I'll try both techniques.

[Mayohoo]

Hrs 638-650

 

Finished the foremast. Everything is looking ok so far. Even figured out what a fid is! I am now ready for Scrabble 

 

Tapered area below topgallant area

 

Topgallant measured out correctly from calculations

 

 

Cap added to doubling area

 

 

and the Fid!

Edited October 7, 2013 by Mayohoo

[Mayohoo]

And a couple more showing the work on the topgallant foremast area.

 

 

 

[Mayohoo]

Hrs 651-661

I'm getting faster on the second mast. Mainmast done in similar fashion.

 

 

Now working on Mizzenmast. Diameter is 0.37 inches or 3/8 of an inch with a little sanding.

Doubling area is 1.1 inches, squared down to fit cap. Thought I'd show how I do it with a my Dad's plain old file and some sanding.

 

 

 

Also, marked the front and flattened the sides slightly

[Mayohoo]

Hrs 662-670

Finished the masts! Of course I made a mistake and had to take down some stuff and redo it, but a least I am done. I think I will place the masts and do the quarterdeck...I am in need of something different. Plus the yard and rigging look hard to do...

 

 

Been thinking of placing the masts and I think I need to add a screw or something solidly in the base as the bottom ends are a little short. Then epoxy in place and allow to solidify for 24 hours.

 

[mtaylor]

Masting looks pretty darn good.  Very well done, in fact.  How short are they?  it might be better to pin a piece of dowel to the end.

[Mayohoo]

Good idea. I sort of extended it by adding a screw into the end with a washer then loaded glue in and on top so it has more to grab on to. The holes I drilled into the new mast placement areas are not perfectly squared down so its more v like. Worked so far on the forward mast.

 

 

Am adding the plywood underlayment with camber in the middle of around 4 inches to scale.

 

 

 

The other thing...this thing is BIG. The picture is 55 cms (22 inches long) in frame and the ship dwarfs it even without the bowsprit.

 

I may have to build a room for it...

Edited April 21, 2014 by Mayohoo

[Mayohoo]

Hrs 671-675

First a pic showing the washer screw I added on the end of the foremast and mizzen. Seems to work.

Added the plywood underlayment with camber.

Cut out the 7 carronade positions on the starboard (right?) side. Of course the AL kit has the uprights exactly where they are on the Lavery plans... grrr.

 

 

Am building a carronade from the Caldercraft kit to see what the size is compared to the ports. Am going with yellow as I did the same for the other guns. I think I might name them too...

 

Question for gurus: for sternchasers, did they have permanent ports cut out? Or did they chop them open as needed? Or did they simply put the guns at elevation and shoot over the rear bulwarks?

[ScottRC]

This is coming along very well.  Great pictures of the masting and I look forward to your decking. 

[Mayohoo]

Thank you Scott! I try, it's a learning experience every step of the way. 

 

I'm thinking of putting a trap door in on the deck to be able to show off the captains cabin. Mulling it over in the ol' noggin...

[Jason]

Hello Mayohoo,

 

Thank you for posting your wonderful build of the Surprise.  Especially the details you have added in the great cabin and elsewhere.  I look forward to following your progress on her.

 

As for the stern chaser ports.  I did a little digging through the references that I have, and what I came up with, was yes they did as a rule have actual ports in the stern of war ships of the period.  And in particular, HMS Surprise, or le Unite, had them in 1798 according to the drawings taken off of her while she was in Plymouth for a refit.  The drawings clearly show the ports in the taffrail.  The plans are available, I believe on the NMM website, but I got my information from my copy of The Frigate Surprise by Brian Lavery & Geoff Hunt.  

 

Additionally, and really not at all accurately, the replica ship currently named HMS Surprise has stern chaser ports.  Though it is important to note, that she was not built as a replica of the Surprise.  You can see them in the pictures below.

 

Keep up the good work!

 

 

[Mayohoo]

Thanks Jason. Looks like I'm going to have to figure out hour to put two stern chaser ports in. Hmmmm. Hate to disturb the transom ast it is handsome (rhymes too). Will have to think on it

[Mayohoo]

Hrs 676-682

 

Doing carronades using the very nice kit. Did not show the company as I am not sure about rules on that here. A bit pricey, but heck, I am in for so much now whats a little more... Have decided to name them:

 

Goldilocks

Lucky Jack

Sophies

Polychrests

 

Now I need another 10 names... 

 

 

 

[mtaylor]

Feel free to name names... you got quality, let everyone know. Nice work on the guns.

[Mayohoo]

I like the music Jerome! Course if I played it while Iworked, the dogs would howl...

I wish youtube was a little higher resolution, but it is nice to see the Surprise come to life. Thanks for the find.

[Mayohoo]

Any name suggestions from the blogosphere?

(For the cannons, not my singing)

Edited November 22, 2013 by Mayohoo

[Mayohoo]

Greater Weevil

Lesser Weevil (naturally)

Spotted Dog

Lobscouse

 

Six more...

Nelson's Salt/Honor/Duty

Death to Boney

Spanish Flea

Blaster

Bollocks

Marine Mauler

 

I'll keep thinking...

Edited December 17, 2013 by Mayohoo

[Mayohoo]

Hrs 683-690

To temporize I made a trap door, just have to figure out how to conceal it.

The bulwarks are a little bit of a challenge. The carronades are significantly taller than the included cannons from AL although they should be 24 pounders by scale. So I have to increase the size of the upper bulwarks.

Also, after looking at the painting, the gunports are not red on the upper deck on the outside, so I had to repaint them.

 

And the inner bulwarks

 

 

Off to take a little vacation and sit in the sun playing golf with college buddy in Palm Springs... 81 degrees vs 8...some choice!

 

Edited April 21, 2014 by Mayohoo

[Mayohoo]

Hrs 691-700

 

Got the last carronades from Jotika and am working on them. Nice detail with screw elevation on back and the slide.

 

 

Also made 2 brass "Long Nines" for bow chasers which were Jack's favorites. Made the gun carriages green and did not blacken the barrels. I will call them "Catherine's Claw" and "Henry's Hammer" after the kids. 

 

 

Here's a view compared to the regular cannons on the gun deck and the carrondes.     

 

Note height differences of the bow chaser, regular cannon, and carronade.

 

Edited April 21, 2014 by Mayohoo

[Sailor1234567890]

I feel a little late to the show but I have something to mention re. the masts of HMS Surprise....... I know you've got them built but they're not rigged. You mentioned they seem a bit out of porportion. HMS Surprise's masts WOULD be out of proportion. Very much out of proportion.  You talk of scaling the foremast as .9 the size of the main etc.... HMS Surprise was refitted (in the books) at a prior date, with the main mast from a 36 gun frigate. This would make her main significantly larger than the fore and mizzen and therefore scaling the fore and mizzen directly from the main would provide masts that are incorrectly scaled to represent HMS Surprise as Jack had her. I can't tell from your build log if you took this into account or not. I would suggest it's not too late to rebuild masts though frustrating. Better than waiting until after she's rigged. (I'd say that would be too late and just leave it at that point). Unless you did take that into account, which I hope you did and I just missed it. 

[Mayohoo]

_{I did actually. I was not sure if it was the entire mainmast or just the lower mainmast, which would be a thicker diameter lower mainmast. In any event I added a small amount of length to it. According to the resources the formulas were not precisely exact and the distance overall length between a 28 and 36 gun frigate was (to scale) only 1-2 inches different. In addition, there was a suggested range for the masts and the formulas were sort of an average. I plan to make up the difference up by not pushing the length of the lower mainmast as deep into the hull using a screw extension off the base. (I haven't put the main mast in yet). The fore and mizzen are in already.}

 

_{But thanks!}

Edited December 17, 2013 by Mayohoo

[Sailor1234567890]

Phew, glad you knew. I'd hate to see her with the wrong mast. And to "upgrade" to a bigger stick like that would have been rare. I have always wondered what a 28 gun frigate would look like with the mainmast of a 36 gun frigate. In the parlance of the trade, the "mainmast" would refer strictly to the lower stick. The main topmast, main topgallant mast and main royal masts would have been refered to as such even if the royal and topgallant were the same stick. I am led to believe that this would mean she simply would have carried a heavier lower main mast, likely several feet taller. This would enable her to carry a mainsail or main course that was correspondingly deeper. A bit more sail area and the tophamper would have been a bit higher up. I suspect it would have improved her sailing abilities provided she was properly ballasted. The extra weight would have been pretty much in the middle of the ship so trim wouldn't be an issue. The extra weight aloft would need to be properly countered with extra ballast but since she carried a full set of spare cannon in the hold, I doubt this would have been an issue for her. As refit, I'd say she'd be a faster sailer than as originally designed. I'll be keeping a close eye on your progress.

Cheers,

Daniel

[Sailor1234567890]

Any progress?

[Mayohoo]

Hrs 701-705

Some. Went on vacation to Spain and so has been slow. Was not happy with quality of bulwarks so did a lot of reworking. Also added trenails to make more realistic. Hard to see but they are around gun port frames and on end of stern bulwarks.

 

 

Also hooked up one light for the stern lantern.

 

Still need to touch up paint job.

 

Went to a museum in Barcelona and they had a replica of a galley gunboat on display. Pretty cool. Big too. May add a pic if they come out on my iPhone

 

 

[Mayohoo]

Hrs 706-720

Working on forward bulwark details including the openings for the bow chasers and the catheads. Also the half circle, large square and small square on the Jotika model (not exactly sure what they are for, but what the heck). Unfortunately, one of the AL braces is right in the middle of one so I sized it down a bit. 

 

So cut outs of the gun ports for carronades

 

and the other openings, all of which are lined.

 

Painted and covered with the railing.

 

Slow and steady wins the race...

 

[Mayohoo]

Hrs 721-733

 

Done with the Bow deck area (finally). Used styrene to create half circle area in wall. 

 

I couldn't get the top rail perfectly smooth, but it is the best I could do with the gentle rise and the curve of the wood at the same time.

 

Began work on the stern and put up the main stern lantern with light. Will add smaller lanterns later

Also beginning the deck planking in a modified 4 butt shift with cut into the sides (joggling?). I made the edge a little more narrow because the carronades won't come to the gun port otherwise. 

Am working on having a detachable segment of deck to be removed by lifting off the wheel or binnacle and removing a single nail. It's the one in the middle of the deck. Hope to be able to look into the cabin through the stern windows (which open) and through the small piece of removable deck.  (That's the theory of course...)

[Sailor1234567890]

Nice job.

[Mayohoo]

Hrs 734-745

Revised the deck and put the thicker rail back in. Tried to make them as mirror image as possible but have discovered they are not perfectly congruent. So had to put stealers in...

 

Placed glass in the skylights. Figured out how to cut the glass a little easier by using a plastic ruler on a granite surface which allows support all along the surface. Still break 2/3 of them tho.

Can just see the capstan, hatch cover and some cannon balls. I anticipate the light will be visible through the gratings and the skylight.

 

Have to finish the deck, then add trenails (that's going to be a lot of bamboo to shave...), then sand and then teak oil it lightly. Hard to get a perfect 5 butt shift, but at least it isn't uniform and artificial looking. Maybe some battle repairs