HMC Sherbourne 1763 by Gregor – FINISHED - Caldercraft – Scale 1:64 - first build

[Gregor]

Jay, finding this solution should be easy, but maybe my translation skills are too limited: With chemist I meant not a person but a chemist's shop or drugstore, where (in German speaking countries) they sell everything from non-prescription health products, household chemicals to glue and paint. The ingredients are openly available; the recipe is I on the label.  

But this solution works only with brass (called "Messing" on the label) - leftovers from silver soldering are not blackened this way, sadly.

Gregor

Edited February 25, 2014 by Gregor

[Jay 1]

Thank you Gregor! Too bad it only works with brass...it still does a nice job. I will see if I can obtain this in the States--didn't look closely at the label but as you pointed out, the formula is there, which I now see!

 

Thanks!

Jay

[Stockholm tar]

Gregor,

 

Those are some seriously good-looking guns – especially after the 'treatment'. I hope you find some decent carriages for them.

Edited February 25, 2014 by Stockholm tar

[Hollander-jan]

Gregor,

 

If you bought your guns by RB in Poland did you get not carriages with them? I bought my gun there also (see my log) and they came with very ok carriages.

 

 

 

Jan

[Gregor]

No, Jan, I didn't buy the carriages (they look nice, I agree). At the time the idea was to replace the barrels only. Since then I started to think about making my own carriages (plan A), but that proofed to be more difficult than I imagined, the results have not been very satisfactory thus far.

Plan B is to use the parts from the kit – their man flaw is the length. I scaled down Chuck’s drawing of his twelve-pounder kit. A comparison with the original carriage cheek shows their different proportions. 

 

 

So I took seven guns apart (they were the first things I built in Summer 2012) and kept one of the originals as a reminder of humbler days. I think it would be possible to make acceptable guns by shortening the cheeks, making thinner wheels (as Tony has shown in his log) and using smaller eyebolts and rings.

I’m still working on plan A, tough…

Cheers,

Gregor

Edited March 7, 2014 by Gregor

[Gregor]

Yes, these are 12-punder carronades, built for my Sherbourne. It was again the question: "What would she look like with a modernised armament?"

 

 

As a historian I was trained not to dwell too much on "what if" questions. But this being my hobby, and as a big fan of alternate-history and SciFi-literature all I need is a scientific alibi, weak as it may be: The carronade was first produced in 1776 (Spencer C. Tucker 1997), soon much in demand for merchant ships, and accepted in 1779 by the admiralty. The Sherbourne at that time was too weak to have any guns at all, but her successors had a mix of carronades and long guns, therefore while carronades on an early cutter model are not historically accurate, they aren't totally anachronistic, either.

 

 

 

The parts in Caldercraft's carronade kit are awfully small (see B.E.'s Pickle log). Besides making them a little bit lower to fit the gun ports, I added a few details, like additional 0.3mm eyebolts. The little wheels were cut from a 1.2mm brass wire; a screw (M1, the smallest I could find, a little too fat) replaced the brass wire provided with the kit; handles and a ring on the barrel were added.

Now I see hours of rigging (5 tackles per carronade) ahead of me (see Dirk’s research of carronade rigging).

Cheers (don't hit me too hard, please),

Gregor

[tkay11]

Nice discussion, Gregor. As Kester says, these cutter kits are a delight to play around with, experiment on and learn in whichever area you care to explore.

 

Would the 12-pounder carronades have had more recoil etc than 3-pounder cannon and so have put more stress on the deck and bulwarks?

 

I see the diameter of the  carronade 12-pounder shot was 4.4 inches as against 2.774 inches for a cannon's 3-pound shot, so at scale that would be 1.75mm, which is nearer to the 2mm shot I currently have to use.

 

I think I'll stick with the cannon, though. I decided to cut the gun ports to the rail as shown in the NMM plans. That has made the fitting of the cannon much easier as it was the height of the top edge of the port that was proving difficult. I would have thought 3-pounders wouldn't have been too heavy.

 

It's a great pity that the barrels in the kit are the equivalent of 3.5 pounders at 1/64 scale. As you'll see fairly soon, I've re-done all the carriages to the scale of a 3.5 pounder in order to save myself buying or searching for the exact size barrel, and as a result they just fit the modified gunports. Now if they had been 3 pounders, I reckon they might have fit perfectly.

 

Tony

[egkb]

Brilliant discussion guys, pleasure to read !

 

Eamonn

[Hollander-jan]

Very well done a brilliant dissension I like this experiment. (it is not an experiment but a well  thought out and argumented alternation ) It looks ok and although it is a bit heavy  on the ships timbers  it could well be the case after she was modernised. Congratulations on my part Gregor.

[p.hoek]

Gregor, they look lovely and in the right proportions! My Lady Nelson is armed with 3 pdr guns but I decided to replace them by Caldercraft 4 pdr guns. Compared with the historical models, the 3 pdr guns look very small. Moreover, I don't like the metal carriages supplied with the kit. For a decent rigging, the wooden carriages are more easy to handle!

Peter

[tkay11]

I've just bothered to do the calculation on the weights. According to the weights given in the AOTS book on the Cutter Alert, a 3pdr cannon would weigh 394 Kg. A 12pdr carronade would weigh 292Kg. I have no idea, though, of the forces associated with each.

 

Tony

[Gregor]

You are right, Tony, a carronade was much lighter than a long gun. According to Tucker's table a 12 pounder carronade used almost double the weight of powder to fire a ball four times the weight of a 3 pounder gun, and did this in a much more efficient way. So you get more bang for the buck. I was trained to fire heavy mortars in the final days of the Cold War, but I wouldn't dare to guess the amount of stress timbers and ropes had to handle. Comparing the construction of a gun carriage to the sled a carronade is mounted on, it seems to me that the carriage is designed to absorb heavier recoils than a carronade sled. But everything I know about firing guns on ships comes from (hugely enjoyable) novels…

 

The cutter Lady Nelson is bigger than the Sherbourne, so I guess an upgrade to 4 pounder guns is reasonable (all the more if pleasing to the eye).

But there is also the question as to how many guns there actually were. Several NMM plans give a smaller number of guns than gun ports, many of the cutters of 1763 had six guns, and eight to ten gun ports  (see the Pitt as an example). There is no number of guns mentioned in the Sherbourne plans, though.

Sadly I have no access to the references given in Wikipedia, which gives the number of six guns (and eight swivel guns). I guess most of our models are slightly over gunned (a male thing, obviously), and Captain Aubrey would only fire a staggered broadside to spare the timbers.

My Sherbourne, in her own space-time continuum, will get her six four pounders, too, I promise. And I'm looking forward very much to Tony's new carriages!

Gregor

[Hollander-jan]

Gregor

A good read is http://www.grantvillegazette.com/articles/Naval_Armament_and_Armor__Part_Two__Ready__Airm__F    -there are 5 articles 1 and 2 are about guns powders recoil etc etc.

 

Having read these I think that the carronade is given the time we talk about a good choice for the ship Sherbourne. Les crew to man the gun a much more controlled elevation. But I still have my thought on the recoil. The shot uses more powder, the gun by construction will take more recoil, but the gun is lighter so the impact of the recoil must be in the rigging and the incline of the deck. If the ports are opposite each other there was no much room to manoeuvre such a recoil. And besides that a full broadside fire, if ever done by a ship like this, would I think damage the ship ore parts of it at some point.

 

But that is all theory I like the look of the guns at your ship, and it give futher builders more choice to make it there build in some way.

 

 

Jan  

[Stockholm tar]

Gregor,

 

An interesting theory of yours, regarding the fitting of carronades. However, I'm not completely convinced they were suitable for a vessel of Sherbourne's small size and scantling – even if not Sherbourne herself. (I actually doubt Sherbourne herself was fitted with carronades, which in any case would have been towards the end of her life, which I think was around 1784. That's only five years, and I'm sure there were initial teething troubles to overcome.

 

I think I'm also a little with Jan on this one as, although the carronade was of course lighter, they fired a much heavier shot and we don't know what impact the recoil would have had on the timbers and other fittings, not designed for such treatment. I think these cutters were quite strongly built, but it would be good to know if there is any written evidence that carronades caused stress problems in small vessels.

 

Looks good though, I admit!

[Gregor]

Jan and Kester,

I think you are both totally right, technically and historically. It was a fun project, after all, which I enjoyed very much, together with this discussion.

But who knows, maybe my Sherbourne is much stronger than others, breathing fresh mountain air…

 

Gregor

[Mirabell61]

A very beautiful built model Gregor,

 

and a pleasure to watch your build log

Well done !

 

Nils

[Stockholm tar]

But who knows, maybe my Sherbourne is much stronger than others, breathing fresh mountain air…

 

So, that's a cow bell she's fitted with then...

[Hollander-jan]

Gregor,

 

This thing about your lovely carronades is just for the fun of making arguments not for historicaly right or wrong. You do what you want to do and in my opinion you do it very well and it all looks good. We all live now and nobody can tell exactly how this particular ship was armed, because there are no records. And beside that it must have a hell of a job to manage it and at the same time  to do the difficult thing of sailing it and fighting and chasing the bandits.

You keep doing what you think is nice and we all be pleased with the way you do it because there is no doubt about that.

 

cheers

 

Jan 

[Gregor]

I have completed the rigging of the carronades, I’m now certified insane at home. It was kind of fun, and I’m no longer afraid of rigging the long guns when the time comes …

 

 

Both carronades got a full set of five tackles, with a single and a double block (2mm from Chuck’s Syren Company) and 0.1 mm thread. They still look quite big beside these 12 pounders.

I guess they weren’t used all at the same time. Here they are laid out for inspection. The rope’s ends are not cheesed down; I choose to tie them as shown in many pictures of museum replicas.

 

 

The stress on the timbers we have discussed lately will have to be compensated with modernised pumps. They come from Caldercraft’s Pickle; I bought them way back when I thought I would never solder anything myself. I like the metal parts that came with the mini-kit, but took a bigger dowel to make the pump case octagonal with a file.

Cheers,

Gregor

Edited March 16, 2014 by Gregor

[Stockholm tar]

Gregor,

 

Looks good – I wouldn't like to be the smuggling lugger on the end of that lot, at close range!

 

As for the 'Pickle's pumps', I'm sure ship fittings were often recycled from other vessels.

[Hollander-jan]

Gregor,

 

Look at it in the way " a man has to do what a man has to do " And it is done well, so they maybe think your crazy but tell them I am building a boat.

 

Ship Ahoy  

 

Cheers and congratulations job well done.

 

Jan 

[Gregor]

This was a rainy weekend, so I made a jolly boat, bought at the same time as the pumps. Small improvements were made (as well as mistakes). My main inspiration was Blue Ensign’s Pickle log again.

 

 

 

Like him, I made a clinker planking out of computer label paper, cut in 3 mm strips. You can hardly see it in the pictures here, and even by eye you have to know what to look for…

The best thing I learned: Instead of the splintery walnut strips provided with the kit I used the computer labels also for the ribs and raising planks on the inside and the rubbing strake on the outside – the stickiness of the labels helped a lot. For the ribs I cut strips from a double layer, the planks and strakes from four layers. They are much easier to bend, too.

As I will have no rope coils around my guns, here I could make one from 0.1 mm thread. The method is shown in Modeler12’s log.

 

 

 

The boat is not tied to the deck, as it probably should be, but only to the chocks. This way I can remove the whole thing if I decide otherwise.

 

 

 

The smallest parts I glued on so far are the rudder pintles, made from unused stems of 0.3 mm eyelets. This was real fun.

 

 

 

After all is done, I’m beginning to dream about making my very own jolly boat. But I will make the missing guns first.

Cheers,

Gregor

Edited April 16, 2014 by Gregor

[tkay11]

Very pleasing to the eye, Gregor. A lovely addition, well crafted.

 

Thanks yet again for the inspiration!

 

Tony

[flyer]

Grüezi Gregor

 

After your visit on my log I had to have a look at yours – and it certainly is worth quite many more. Seeing how you improve that basically already excellent kit makes me once more proud to be a fellow citizen of that great seafaring nation: Switzerland.

 

Keep up the good work

Peter

[Gregor]

Thank you all – here some news: Finally some progress with the guns! Because I’m still resisting the temptation of buying dust-producing machines like mills and lathes – I usually do the heavy sanding outside of our apartment, peacefully on the roof – I had to look for alternative ways to make new gun carriages.

A jeweller’s saw and files didn’t work successfully for me. Then I found out that our local technical university has an open lab policy: You can use their equipment like laser cutters and 3d-printers for a very tiny fee. For preparation I had to download a manual and a template file, and then show an assisting student that I know what I’m doing. Preparing the drawings with Adobe Illustrator was easy for me at home; I’m using this software often. A big help were Chuck’s drawings of a twelve-pounder gun (sadly his smallest guns are six pounders). 

Once there, it was like printing. That is, you have to tinker with the settings like speed, frequency and heat of the laser. Working with cheap plywood, I saw smoke and flames. But after an hour, my allotted time, I went home with more than enough carriage parts (many of the very small things were lost to the ventilating system because I forgot to draw small bridges…).

At home (smells of burning wood and adhesives in my study) I had to admit that drawing is easy, but constructing is more difficult – while I tried to reengineer Chuck’s design I made some mistakes – I started with Chuck’s drawing, hence the layout, and tried to make the parts fit. But simply make something smaller doesn’t work very well; tiny differences in thickness of wood have great impact. In the end I did not use all the parts, sanding, cutting and filing was necessary to make the parts come together. If it were not for the interesting experience with the laser, I’d like to buy the kits from Chuck’s, where my blocks come from. For four-pounders I would suggest a new, simplified design.

 

 

I recycled the axles from the kit’s guns. The cheeks came out well, also the wheels. In the following picture you can see the limits of this method: my wheels look like winter tyres in this magnification. More time with the laser and better wood would surely produce a better result.

 

 

The best thing was, the laser could cut and scratch at the same time (red and green lines were prepared in the drawings); this gave me the markings for all the small holes to drill for the eyelets. It was even possible to cut out the holes in the wheels (1 mm).

My guns are still four ponders, but I’m quite pleased with them so far. Since the guns were the first things I made when I started in summer 2012, they are proof of some progress.

Cheers,

Gregor

 

[tkay11]

That's a really great idea, Gregor! I'll have to look into the local universities to see if something similar is available. Certainly beats my attempts at milling.

 

Tony

[Gregor]

No, Tony, I don’t think the laser beats the classic method at all. It went well with this method, and it was fun being student again, but for a better result there would be a lot of designing to do. The burn marks also forced me to use paint, the wheels should be cut bigger so you can sand down the winter profile…

But for the moment I’m quite pleased, the new guns fit in nicely. It was fun to use scrap parts for things like quoin handles: again I used leftover stems from 0.3 mm eyelets and a tiny drop of PVE glue. The eye bolt on the back of the rear axle will be added together with the double block later. Here a few Sunday evening pictures.

 

 

 

 

 

 

As you see, I left the wheels unpainted; the plywood can still be seen. I have a cheap excuse for that: I show dowels that hold the parts of the wheels together, after all. Ok, Goodwin’s Alert shows only halves and not three parts…

But the pins to prevent the wheels from falling off defeated me utterly – I can live with that.

Cheers,

Gregor 

[tkay11]

Well, it certainly beats the kit cannon and trucks! Mine won't come out anywhere near as good. I've turned the cannon in ebony but the level of detail and finish are of course nothing like the ones turned in brass, and I haven't done the quoins very neatly. Despite that, though, it's all still very enjoyable.

 

Tony

[egkb]

Looks fantastic Gregor.. I've only just spotted the 2 carronades down aft ! .. nice addition !

 

All The Best

 

Eamonn

[Gregor]

I have been thinking about sails for a long time now. The decision “no sails” or “furled sails” has not been made yet. Thinking ahead, something more basic came up: How would furled sails be made fast at the bow? The staysail can rest on the bowsprit, I think. But where does the jib go? Out on the bowsprit? Or hauled in and stowed in a bundle on deck inside the bulwark, impeding everything else (my traveller is too small anyway, I have to make a new one)? Or would it be better to take the jib off and stow in under deck?

Any suggestion would be greatly appreciated.

Gregor