HMS Terror by DanielD - FINISHED - OcCre - Scale 1:75 - Second Build Started 10/4/2020

[clearway]

nice touch (don't forget to leave a bit of it blank though😉) have you thought about replacing the occre belaying pins with brass ones though?

 

Keith

[DanielD]

7 hours ago, clearway said:

nice touch (don't forget to leave a bit of it blank though😉) have you thought about replacing the occre belaying pins with brass ones though?

 

Keith, I purchased some 5mm brass belaying pins which I believe are more accurate to the scale of the ship, but my first attempt to use them was unsuccessful. Meaning, they appeared too small with only 1 mm above and below the pin rack. As such, I'm evaluating my options. I guess I could use thinner material to make the pin rails, but not sure how strong that will be. Also, the width of the pin rail may be an issue. What size of belaying pins are you using? I think I saw somewhere that you (or the other Keith) were going to use 5mm pins.

 

My next project is to build an all new not from the kit capstan. I've been avoiding this project as I'm not sure where to start or how to proceed. All part of the learning process. After all, it only took me three editions of the deck skylights to get a version that I was happy with.

[Arild Moland]

11 hours ago, DanielD said:

 

 

Daniel, I'm following your build (as well as the other Terrors on here) with great interest, as this kit somehow managed to fit under the Xmas tree

 

I pick up lots of good advice on stuff to look out for, although I intend to do a pretty strict OOB project, as I have a few too many plastic model projects where the AMS has taken over. I don't need that for what will be my second wooden ship project.

 

After seeing your latest post here, I'm curious as to what happened to the yellow on the insides of the bulwarks? Is it just a weird trick of the light in the above photo? Just so remarkably different in appearance to the picture previously with the lights on inside the ship.

 

Arild

[DanielD]

11 minutes ago, Arild Moland said:

After seeing your latest post here, I'm curious as to what happened to the yellow on the insides of the bulwarks? Is it just a weird trick of the light in the above photo? Just so remarkably different in appearance to the picture previously with the lights on inside the ship.

 

Arild

Arild, welcome aboard! Nothing has changed with the yellow on the inside of the bulwarks so what you see is just a trick of the light. I took this picture late yesterday so lighting could have been an issue.

 

Be sure to read through (and’s follow) Clearway and KeithS Terror builds as I have learned much from them. While you are going for more out of the box build, there are a few easy changes you can make to be a more realistic representation of this great ship.

 

 Again, welcome aboard.

[Keith S]

The map on the wee table is a nice detail. Somewhere in either the full-size plans or maybe Michael Palin's book I saw it labelled as an "azimuth compass" table... I imagine an "azimuth compass" may have been the same kind of thing as this "astro compass" that's only about 90 years older. Since compasses don't work in Polar areas, navigators use them to work out their heading using the sun or stars. They're still kicking around where I live because aeroplanes are required by Canadian law to carry a source of heading information that is "independent of a magnetic source". In order to use one, you need to know where you are, what time it is, and the "Greenwich hour angle" of the celestial body you intend to use. Since GPS was invented at the beginning of my career, I have only ever used it to calibrate the new compass on my sailboat. But I keep it around because I think it's interesting. 

[Arild Moland]

26 minutes ago, DanielD said:

 

Be sure to read through (and’s follow) Clearway and KeithS Terror builds as I have learned much from them. While you are going for more out of the box build, there are a few easy changes you can make to be a more realistic representation of this great ship.

 

 Again, welcome aboard.

 

Thanks! I'm following all of you, while reminding myself not to be carried away with all the nitty gritty details and errors in the kit. I think I remember one mentioning having to take a break from the project, as all the research and corrections made him neurotic.  I know that feeling only too well...

 

Having read the Dan Simmons book, and currently watching the TV series helps set the mood for my own project, which I hope to start fairly soon.

 

Arild

[Keith S]

21 minutes ago, Arild Moland said:

 

Thanks! I'm following all of you, while reminding myself not to be carried away with all the nitty gritty details and errors in the kit. I think I remember one mentioning having to take a break from the project, as all the research and corrections made him neurotic.  I know that feeling only too well...

 

Having read the Dan Simmons book, and currently watching the TV series helps set the mood for my own project, which I hope to start fairly soon.

 

Arild

 

That was me! I'm back at it now, sort of. I need to tidy my workbench and then I'll be starting again. Sometimes it takes me a few years to complete a model because I start thinking about it so much it becomes unenjoyable.

[DanielD]

3 hours ago, Keith S said:

Since GPS was invented at the beginning of my career, I have only ever used it to calibrate the new compass on my sailboat. But I keep it around because I think it's interesting. 

 

Hmmm, me thinks you must be a commercial pilot, maybe I saw that somewhere...I love to fly, grew up around small aviation most of my life and I flew fairly regularly for about ten years. Then life happens. We still have two or three airplanes in the family, but I don’t fly anymore, my wife is not a fan. The only flying these days is commercial to a destination, a few years ago to Hawaii and before that to Calgary when we spent a couple weeks in Banff national park, most beautiful.

[clearway]

17 hours ago, DanielD said:

 

Keith, I purchased some 5mm brass belaying pins which I believe are more accurate to the scale of the ship, but my first attempt to use them was unsuccessful. Meaning, they appeared too small with only 1 mm above and below the pin rack. As such, I'm evaluating my options. I guess I could use thinner material to make the pin rails, but not sure how strong that will be. Also, the width of the pin rail may be an issue. What size of belaying pins are you using? I think I saw somewhere that you (or the other Keith) were going to use 5mm pins.

 

My next project is to build an all new not from the kit capstan. I've been avoiding this project as I'm not sure where to start or how to proceed. All part of the learning process. After all, it only took me three editions of the deck skylights to get a version that I was happy with.

I used 8mm belaying pins for mine Daniel , glad to see the other keith clearing the decks and preparing for action😁.

 

 

Keith

[Keith S]

I'm using 5mm belaying pins. They are the correct size according to the full-size plans, but I find them to be so small that some are not machined properly and just look like little pinheads. For pin racks I'm tapering them so they're a bit thicker where they attach and thinner where the pins go through. I think other Keith's 8mm pins are a very good compromise between scale size and reasonable function. After all, we will need to tie lines to them. The 5mm ones are so small they don't look right, even though they are. I would go with 8mm ones if I did it again.

 

[DanielD]

Today in the shipyard was all about the Phillips Capstan. I hope I did it justice, but I see I might need to sand her down a little, might be a mm or two too tall. But I’m not making another one...

 

[DanielD]

Here is the capstan after a paint job.

 

[Keith S]

Wow, that's pretty nice!

 

[DanielD]

One more deck building finished, the mid ship hatch to the lower(s).

 

Edited January 6, 2021 by DanielD

[clearway]

or my capstan i used the spindle and base off the kit one and made new head from two pieces of wood with squares filed in then sandwiched together, and plasticard discs for the metal base and pawl bits.

[DanielD]

Well, I built my first pin rack with 5mm brass belaying pins. They are the correct scale for this model, but very small, not sure how useful this will be😬. The wood pins supplied in the kit are 10mm and way too big. A compromise might be 8mm brass pins as clearway is doing; however, I would need to order more at a cost of about $30 US. Just not sure it’s worth it, so will try to make the ones I have work.

Now for a little stain...

[Rach10199]

On 10/22/2020 at 2:09 PM, DanielD said:

Back in the workshop today. Finished the first planking layer and lots of sanding. Then more sanding, a little filling, and more sanding. Attached are the results.

 

Today’s questions: 1) I see some model builders add the ice bumpers before the final planking while others follow the OcCre instructions and finish planking before adding the bumpers. Is there a reason to add the bumpers first? 2) as I think ahead, I’m looking toward the straps on the masts. Should they be rope as in the kit instructions, or should they be metal? I’m happy to help do the research, but I don’t know where to start. It seems that Matthew Betts blog is not to that point yet. I did see in one shot of the found Terror wreck, a metal spider band at the base of a mast, presumably for belaying pins. Could this mean that the other bands were metal also? So many questions. 😬

 

Today I realized that the OcCre kit contains wood 4mm deadeyes and plastic 5mm deadeyes. Why would they do that? I’ve now ordered new wood deadeyes as well as new chainplates as the ones that included in the kit are not even close.
 

I also found some scale figurines to add interest and a few other enhancements, like a new wood life boat kit, similar to the one Keith found for his build.

This looks amazing! 

[Keith S]

Hi Daniel, I think those are going to work just fine. They are certainly nicer than the ones I got. Some of mine were poorly machined and look more like dressmaker's pins than belaying pins. Where did you get those ones? 

 

Also if I may make a suggestion: if it's not too late, that particular fife-rail (the board the pins are stuck into) was curved on the original ship. You may find the larger, correctly-sized mast is a tight fit otherwise. This is one of the things the kit gets wrong. If it's not too much hassle, you might want to re-do that. I'll try to find a picture of mine. 

[DanielD]

2 hours ago, Keith S said:

Hi Daniel, I think those are going to work just fine. They are certainly nicer than the ones I got. Some of mine were poorly machined and look more like dressmaker's pins than belaying pins. Where did you get those ones? 

 

Also if I may make a suggestion: if it's not too late, that particular fife-rail (the board the pins are stuck into) was curved on the original ship. You may find the larger, correctly-sized mast is a tight fit otherwise. This is one of the things the kit gets wrong. If it's not too much hassle, you might want to re-do that. I'll try to find a picture of mine. 

Keith, I bought my belaying pins, as well as most of my supplies, from ageofsales.com. They have always been fast shipping and great on the phone when I have a question. They are in California, not sure if they ship international, but worth a look.

 

I noticed the curved pin rack last night after I finished the one I made, but it’s not glued in so I already planned to redo it. I’m confused about all the stuff going on around the main mast, the pumps, the other equipment just forward off the mast... I’m just not clear what I’m trying to make. I did a bit of research last night, but hard to research something when you don’t know what a device is called or what it does... for example, in the original drawing in your previous post, the device that has two (what looks like thread spools) just forward of the main mast. What is this piece of equipment? What is it used for?

 

Oh, and I hope you had a good new year!

[Keith S]

Happy New Year to you as well! Those things, I believe are called warping drums or warping winches. Have you seen on most modern recreational sailboats, there's at least one little hand-cranked winch on either side of the cockpit? It's like a giant one of those. The ones in front of the main mast probably had big removable crank-handles I think. I thought I saw that depicted somewhere in the builder's draughts. There's also a set of them forward of the foremast, and also at the top of the fore and main masts. Although other Keith believes the ones up in the tops would have been removable and only up there during rigging. 

 

I'll try to find some information on that stuff for you. It's in the builder's drawings somewhere. Other Keith and I managed to basically make the same thing without really consulting with one another, ha ha.

 

I can't remember if you said you'd managed to get those F-scale brake wheels from Ozark miniatures. 

 

Here are some pictures of my model of this area on the ship. Sorry to put pictures of my model on your build thread. I hate taking pictures of the model this close up; I swear it looks perfect from two feet away, but in these closeups I can see all the slopped paint, fingerprints, blobs of glue and crappy carpentry. Anyway this is what the contraption looks like. Note the four vertical posts are taller than the kit ones, and the aft pair are "kingposts" which mean they have that top bit to tie lines off upon. I used the pump heads from the kit, although they are not quite correct, I decided to pick my battles ha ha. I can measure this stuff up tomorrow if this helps. I'm pretty sure I got it more or less right. 

 

EDIT: there is a good diagram of this area on Matthew Betts' blog entitled "getting pumped for Terror's birthday" Note the aft posts are also angled slightly backwards a degree or two. I didn't get this right on my model. Didn't notice till it was too late!

 

Edited January 9, 2021 by Keith S

[DanielD]

Keith, many thanks for the pictures! They really do help. I will go review Matthew Betts work again (I’ve looked at it so much I think I can recite it verbatim, not really, but if feels that way sometimes), before I remake my set. I’m also not happy with my hatch just forward of the capstan. In Dr. Betts build log, the two hatches are different height, I think this is an easy fix and will make the necessary adjustments. 
 

i did get a pair of flywheels, but I’m not happy with them. I like the ones you have so I will try to get a pair of those. Last time I attempted to get a pair from Ozark, there was something that made me think I was looking at the wrong part, I thought it was too small. But hard to tell as there was no actual dimensions. So I went to my local model train store and found something I thought I could make work... alas, it’s not working out well.

 

 I’m nearly finished with my capstan, just want to square out the holes for the handles, but still working out how I’m going to do that. I made the head (top) of the capstan in one piece on my lathe, basically not split so couldn’t make square cutouts like Dr. Betts did on his.

 

i echo your comment on the close up images, one minute I think things look great, then I take a close up to post on the log, and I find each dust partial and every minute flaw looks like a huge blunder.  

 

oh, and I love what you did with the crank handle, looks like the real thing. 
 

i don’t like how OcCre mounted the pump shaft, both you and the other Keith mounted on the side of the post. What did you make the bracket out of? Well, that’s what I get for never having set foot on any kind of sailing vessel, I am just now learning how all this stuff works.

 

Again, thanks for all the info, I appreciate your help.

[Keith S]

You're welcome! I made the pump shaft bushings out of little bits of brass tube held on with small brass sheet straps on the front posts, and on the aft ones I just used the eyes called for by the kit but attached to sides rather than the top. 

 

You're correct, the aft companionway is cut down, I assumed it was to allow clearance for the capstan bars. I built mine using kit parts, and then ground it down on a sheet of coarse sandpaper before putting the finishing veneer on. 

 

Edited January 9, 2021 by Keith S

[clearway]

Hi Daniel, i used some spare billings turned brass eyes left over from previous builds for my bearings (never throw anything away after a build)! The drums on the posts in front of the main and fore masts are warping drums especially for the jeers. In later days these evolved into dolly winches (see cutty sarks deck fittings).

 

Keith

[Ian_Grant]

On 12/28/2020 at 3:06 PM, DanielD said:

Exciting day, I finally received my copy of James Lee's The Masting  and Rigging of English Ships of War 1625-1860! This book can range from $50-$350 US, so I waited and looked, was patient (at least for me) and finally found one in the states for $80. Thank you ClearWay for pointing me to the AbeBook store as that is where I finally was able to find one close to where I live. Now to find time to read it...

Daniel, fantastic job on this your second wooden ship. You have an innate skill; I've never dared try one. I noticed some talk of suitable books for rigging. I have Lees and it's very good, but you might also like "Rigging Period Ship Models" by Lenarth Petersson. This much thinner and presumably cheaper book has an illustration on each page of one particular part of the rigging of HMS Melampus built in 1785. May be too early for your Terror model, but it's a great book for learning the names of various ropes and how they are rigged for future models.

[DanielD]

Today was a day of, well, fixing a couple things before moving forward. I updated the mid ship pin rail to have a curve, more like the real Terror and less like the kit. I changed up the pin rail at the base of the mizzenmast, my first one was store bought and using the belaying pins that came with the kit; however, these pins are just way too big for this model, so I hand made a new version for the 5mm pins I’m using for this build. Also started the paint job on the mizzenmast and a few touch ups along the way. Thanks for taking a look everyone.

 

 My next task is to make the bands that go around the mast. The bands for the Terror are metal, not rope. What have you used to represent these metal bands? I’ve heard black construction paper works... thoughts or other options? If you used paper, what thickness works best?

 

[clearway]

nice work with the main bitts- look far better with the curve😁. for my bands a just used some black card that was backing for a 1/35 turned aluminum gun barrell so can't say exactly but isn't much thicker than a sheet of paper. 

 

Keith

[DanielD]

It’s been a few days since my last post, I ran into a bit of trouble.  While working on the pumps mid ship, I drilled through the deck and wouldn’t you know it, I hit one of the electrical wires to 1/2 the ships lighting. So with half of the ship not working as designed I was a bit disheartened. It took a bit, but I was able to remove one deck plank without damaging it or the planks around it. I then found the broken wire, and performed micro surgery with a soldering iron through just 5mm of space, repaired the wire, and reinstalled the plank. All is back to normal and progress can begin again. 
 

[clearway]

can't beat it when stuff like that happens😱. going to make you swear a little now..... the fife rail abaft the the mainmast should be on the forward side (initially made that mistake myself)🤪. Decks are starting to look nice and busy now😁.

 

Keith

[DanielD]

On 1/17/2021 at 2:24 AM, clearway said:

can't beat it when stuff like that happens😱. going to make you swear a little now..... the fife rail abaft the the mainmast should be on the forward side (initially made that mistake myself)🤪. Decks are starting to look nice and busy now😁.

 

Keith

Keith, I discovered my error while building my second fife rail, the one with the curve. However, I had already drilled holes in the deck for the first posts and to put the rail on the other side of the posts without hitting the mast, i would have a couple spare holes in the deck. I decided to leave the posts where they were with the rife on the "wrong side." I know its incorrect, but still looks better then what the kit says to do. I hope to finish all this gear around the main mast soon, its delicate work and im ready to move on...

 

One question, in the original drawings around the main mast there are some short lines, several dashes. What are these lines meant to depict? Tie downs maybe?

 

 

Edited January 19, 2021 by DanielD

[clearway]

I agree Daniel anything better than instructions! the dashes around the mast area are eyebolts for taking hooks from rigging blocks. on later drawings there appear to be less. i settled for 6 (4 at base of mast 2 fore and 2 aft with a couple further forward under the posts for the winch drums / massey pump flywheels).

 

Keith