Barque Stefano by robdurant - MarisStella - 1:63

[dunnock]

A very nice start on the coppering. Those tiles are in a different league compared to the ones supplied in my Diana kit. Is the relative difference in size due to the different eras in which the ships were built?

David

 

[robdurant]

A very good question. To be honest I don't know, but it sounds plausible. Perhaps someone here can tell us.

[robdurant]

I've been gradually plodding along with the copper plating. This would have been faster, but I got distracted with another small kit, and took a holiday...

 

The copper-plating has two rows that run at the top parallel to the waterline. I've used masking tape to mark the bottom of that band (with 2mm to play with), so that I know where to stop the lower bands. These lower bands will be cut to fit the lower edge of this masking tape, and then the two top rows added to finish the job. So the masking tape finishes 13mm below the waterline. It's worth noting that this isn't 13mm vertically, but 13mm as the plates are laid... a fairly different measurement by the time you get towards the stern.

 

 

 

 

[robdurant]

Thanks for all the likes and encouragement.

 

I thought it might be helpful to some if I described in a little more detail how I'd planned out the bands along the top of the plating, when the plates are all laid from the keel up. It presents an interesting challenge, because the shaped tiles must be laid first, then the bands along the top which overlap them. All must be done leaving enough space for the top plates to overlay the lower, and leaving a smooth waterline, and without too much distance between the plating below the bands, and the waterline so that messy gaps are left.  In addition, one can't simply leave full tiles underneath the top bands as they have raised rivet detail which will raise them unevenly. Hence they must be trimmed. I wondered whether I might hammer down the detail, but I was unconvinced that I'd manage to do that on the rivets in question without completely destroying the visible area of the tiles.

 

Here's how I managed it. I measured the width of the bands at the top, and marked that width down from the waterline minus two millimetres. That gave me the line I wanted the plating to finish at below the bands. Once the lower plates reached that line they are now being cut to follow that line. The lower band can then be started overlapping those plates slightly, and leaving 6mm for the upper band.

 

Hopefully that makes sense. At each sense, I'm making sure I'm measuring again carefully and checking as I go. I'm using 6mm masking tape to keep a nice neat space for the top band (which are the tiles with rivets on the top AND bottom) to finish off. This should, hopefully result in a nice neat line. The waterline painted will be the guide for this.

 

Here are the results so far...

 

The first photo shows the lower plating cut to the pencil mark (which shows the bottom extent of the two bands, minus the overlap). The first two plates  of the lower of the two top bands have been added, with the yellow masking tape giving a guide to make sure sufficient room is left for the top of the two top bands. 

 

 

The second photo is the same work but from the stern to show the sweep as it goes forward.

 

 

And a couple of angles of progress so far.

 

 

 

These plates are quite simply cut where necessary with little scissors, so with a little care the job is proving relatively straightforward. I've also realised that the photo etch tags can be easily cut with a scalpel to remove them from the main sheet without any bending. So that's now my preferred method of doing that. Once done, they are then trimmed and separated with tiny sewing scissors.

 

Happy building!

 

Rob

[robdurant]

Starboard side plated....

 

A few more in progress shots, then the finished starboard side.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The keen-eyed among you will spot a patch where I did a bit of cleaning of one of the plates... It should blend in again over time.

[robdurant]

And the port side is now plated as well. Just the line along the keel and up the bow, and the rudder to plate now, but I shall take a breather first. 

 

I had to slightly sand the notches in the display stand to make space for the copper tiles which make the keel marginally wider.

 

A couple of pictures, one of which shows the Vanguard Models Zulu "Lady Isabella" for size comparison... Both are almost identical scale (1:64 for the "Lady Isabella", to 1:63 for "Stefano")

 

I have to say, as much as these copper plates are brilliant, I shalln't be sad to have a break from sticking them on individually for a while!

 

 

 

[BobG]

8 hours ago, robdurant said:

 

I have to say, as much as these copper plates are brilliant, I shalln't be sad to have a break from sticking them on individually for a while!

 

Beautiful job on the copper plating, Rob! I don't like those tedious, repetitive tasks like that either....treenailing comes to mind also! 

[Jobbie]

She's looking fantastic, Rob.

[robdurant]

Thanks Bob, Jobbie. Hopefully have some more progress to show soon.

[dunnock]

Just caught up with your build again Rob. Very nice job on the coppering and particularly around the waterline where it took some working out 

[robdurant]

I haven't given up on this build but coronavirus stepped in and I'm still not quite back to the stage where I can get my work done and have energy for Stefano at the end of the day getting better each day though.

 

More soon hopefully. But first I have a holiday for a few days.

[BobG]

Glad you're on the mend, Rob. This Covid virus is nothing to take lightly. Getting back into your shipyard may be some very good medicine!

[dunnock]

Good to hear that you're getting better and could be back to light duties in the shipyard soon. Enjoy your holiday

[robdurant]

Thank you David, Bob for your kind words, and to everyone for your patience as this build paused. I'm pretty much back to normal now, and work has eased just a little, allowing me time to get re-focussed on Stefano, and back into the shipyard.

 

I have a little progress to report. I was conscious that I'd coppered the hull, and it was gradually beginning to gain a patina, but I had not coppered the rudder, and I didn't want to end up with a rudder that looked like it had been put on the ship at another time. So, that was the next job.

 

This was surprisingly tricky to think through, as the tiles overlap from the bottom up, and they need to finish at the perfect point at the top. Equally, I didn't want to have a part tile if I could avoid it. So a bit of measuring, and head-scratching, and lots of pencil-marks later, it CAN be done... 

 

Before I started, however, I removed the laser char from the rudder, and made it wedge shaped, so it narrows from front to back. I think this little touch makes the rear end of the vessel look much more delicate, and I can imagine this would help the hydrodynamic properties of the hull, too, perhaps? 

 

 

 

 

(nb: The tiles are sided - (and in this picture upside-down!) The tiles have vertical rivets at the rear, and the top tile has rivets along the top AND bottom...)

 

 

Finally, some copper paint was added on the front and back faces of the rudder, and then it was trial fitted in place... 

 

 

Right - now I need to go and read the manual and work out what I'm supposed to be doing next

 

Happy building, all!

[dunnock]

Good to see you back in the shipyard Rob

[robdurant]

Thank you all for the likes and encouragement  It's very very good to be back in action again.

 

Looking at the plans, I realised I hadn't shaped the front edge of the rudder - nearest the hull - before plating it. With some careful application of a sharp scalpel blade, I was able to carve this wood away, and then wrap the copper round, as it now protruded a couple of millimetres in front of the front edge of side of the rudder. 

 

 

Then I got stuck into making the pintles and gudgeons. But real life calls, and I think that subject deserves a slightly more in-depth post, so I'll write about that tomorrow.

 

Happy building, all!

 

Rob

[robdurant]

Okay... pintles and gudgeons... 

 

MarisStella in their plans have sections where they show all the component parts of one area of the model (e.g. the rudder) laid out alongside each other.

 

In plan 5, section P19, all the component parts of the rudder are shown... At first glance it seems that there's duplication, but actually when you look more closely it's the pintle components and the gudgeon components. (I was struggling to remember which was which, but the pintle is the one with the pin, mounted on the rudder, and the gudgeon, the one with the hole mounted to the hull).

 

These components are all labelled neatly on the plans, and those labels are also on the photo-etch fret, so no problems identifying them.

 

They go as follows:

 

er is the strap at the top of the rudder (the spectacle plate that provides the mountings for the rudder chains) This will have two eyelets added.

dr, cr, br, ar are the straps, with two associated pieces of photoetch that form the pintles.

 

The mountings for dr, cr, br and ar have their respective gudgeon partners, dh, ch, bh and ah which will mount on the hull. I decided to start with the pintles on the rudder before cutting out the gudgeon parts.

 

These are very similar parts, so I was careful to keep a note of which was which. Note that the ends of the straps are designed to follow the stern-most edge of the rudder, so it DOES matter which way up they go. They are the right way up in the photo below.

 

 

What are the rounded parts? They're the formers that provide shape and support for the front part of the pintle. The instructions are sparse for these parts, but the plans are helpful.

 

First fold the rounded parts along the line (I would suggest folding with the photo-etched line on the outside.) It's pretty thick metal, so you'll need pliers or similar to do this. Then stack two, one on top of the other and put a length of 0.4mm wire through. I found that mine folded so precisely that there were no problems with the holes lining up, although I did opening them up a little with a 0.5mm drill.

 

Now they can be soldered together - I used lead, soft-solder - and you should end up with something like this (excuse my soldering... I need more practice, clearly!). It doesn't actually matter how neat the solder looks here as long as it isn't sticking out too much. It's going to be melted again when we add the strap in a minute.

 

 

By drilling a .5mm hold into the wood I was using as a soldering board, I could cut the wire so I had about 8mm left on the side that would end up being the pin, and insert it to hold the assembly flush to the board ready for the next step.

 

 

Now the strap is bent round the part to form it into the right shape and soldered into position. Once cooled, you can lift the whole assembly out, and it should look something like the assembly below...

 

 

 

Now - I can't emphasise this enough... do make sure you cut off the right end flush to the assembly, otherwise you'll have the pin going up instead of down (or the straps with the endings facing in the wrong direction), and you'll end up doing it all over again.

 

 

With a bit of clean-up, I think this should look okay.

 

 

This part was dr, now I need to add the spectacle plate (er), and the three remaining pintles, cr, br and ar, going down the rudder, one in each of the flat areas. I'm waiting to put these in place until I have the gudgeons complete, so I can check the spacing and make sure it all lines up nicely.

 

That's all from me for now. Hope it all makes sense.

 

Rob 

Edited November 18, 2021 by robdurant
correcting typo - "are" -> "area"

[robdurant]

Hi all,

 

Thanks very much for the likes.

 

A little more progress to report. I've completed soldering the pintles and gudgeons. The process for the gudgeons is the same as that of the pintles, except when you have lined up the formers using the wire through the hole, don't solder the wire into the formers. Instead, use it to keep the formers in place, until you've soldered the strap in place, then simply remove the wire, and it's ready to accept the wire from the pintle.

 

Some pictures of today's soldering... here are the pintles completed.

 

 

Then I cut out the photo-etch parts for the gudgeons... (Again, it goes ah, bh. ch, dh for the gudgeon parts going up the rudder, to partner with the pintles: ar, br, cr, dr). In the photos below, the pintles are only dry-fitted.

 

 

 

 

I'm planning to blacken these before I fit them, as I'm not a fan of the brass / copper colour clash. I know that iron and copper don't like each other, so I may paint the pintles and gudgeons below the waterline copper... or I may just go with it, because, hey, it's my model, and perhaps someone painted them black 😁😋

 

More soon.

 

Rob

[robdurant]

Okay - more work on hanging the rudder... 

 

I test fitted the rudder with the pintles and gudgeons in place, and it quickly became apparent that there was going to be a massive gap between the rudder and the hull. 

 

 

I wasn't happy with that gap at all... but equally I didn't really want to start over, and I wanted to try and use the photo-etch pintles and gudgeons if I could, because they're really nice and sturdy.

 

I put my thinking cap on, and it occurred to me that a big part of the problem was that the rudder didn't extend very far out towards the forward extend of the pintles... so I decided to increase the size of the angled section at the front of the rudder. I used the walnut from the laser-etched sheet that I took the rudder from, and created a triangular cross-section that I could then use in between the pintles.

 

In the photo below I've only fitted the top section. The remaining section is behind the rudder with the next part already cut and bevelled at the top.

 

 

The net result is shown below... 

 

 

Then I covered the extra sections with copper tiles.

 

 

Having taken this photo, I then opened out the hole in the hull that the rudder passes through to allow the bottom of the rudder to swing forward a little more.

 

Here's the before and after (still dry-fitted)...

 

 

It's not perfect, but I'm much happier with the gap. There's a bit of touching up to do and it all needs to be fixed in place, but if I were starting out all over again, I'd definitely do a lot more to the shape of the rudder first of all to make sure I avoided this re-working.

 

That's it for this evening. Thanks for the likes, and happy building to you all.

 

Rob

 

[robdurant]

And now it's daylight, some better photos... 

 

 

 

 

[robdurant]

Hi all, and thank you for the likes,

 

I've made up the tiller. This is made up of six parts. Three wooden, and three metal.

 

First is to find the tiller parts - marked as 46 - on the laser-cut sheets. One part is on a4mm sheet, and the other two on the 2mm sheet, but all are very well marked.

 

These are glued together as shown, leaving a gap for the rudder post. The parts glue like this...

 

 

And can then be marked up for the front to back taper..

 

 

And the extra cut back...

 

 

A test fit meant cutting down the rudder post to size (approx 3.8mm square).

 

 

Now the photo-etch detailing can be added to the tiller, along with two eyelets (I reused some eyelets I had left over from a previous model, because they were already blackened, and readily available, but there are eyelets provided on the photo-etch sheet. What I couldn't tell was whether there were any assigned for this particular task - there didn't seem to be any specifically marked 46 (for this stage).

 

Here it is with the photo-etch in place... This is _very_ zoomed in - it looks much more tidy to my eye in person, if a little heavy for scale? The part is etched to help with the bending, but this means it is full depth, rather than the half depth of the pintles and gudgeons (which were etched back to give the rivet detail).

 

 

I'll see if I can live with it, and if it starts to irk me, I'll replace it with card, painted with Tamiya dark iron... instead.

 

I've also put the eyelets onto the spectacle plate ready for the rudder chains...

 

 

And blackened one of the 1mm chains (3x 1m lengths are provided in the kit) ready to install.

 

 

And I've started working out how to form the shackles - the smaller of the two sizes provided - which are tiny, indeed. I found cutting the excess brass away from these parts quite tricky, and you can see the remaining on the part below. Filing it is, from what I could tell, almost impossible as they are so delicate. Perhaps I could use a sharp knife and a solid surface instead. More practice is required, evidently!

 

 

 

 

The following photo gives some idea of the size...

 

 

Linked together, and awaiting solder, it looks something like this...

 

 

I've yet to see if I can solder this... it may pleasantly surprise me, but I ran out of time today

 

More soon! In the meantime, happy building to you all.

 

Rob

[Keith Black]

 Rob, if can make a suggestion......why not spread the eye of the eye pin and slip the end chainlink onto the eye, providing it fits. 

[robdurant]

It's an excellent suggestion and may save me a great deal of faff in the long run and make for a neater end result. I was keen to try out the method suggested in the kit to see how doable it was, but it may well be a step too far for me at 1:63 scale.

[robdurant]

I've done a little work to add the rudder retaining chains, and the rosette round the rudder post on the deck.

 

Rudder chains:

 

Here is the soldered clasp at the end of the chain that will go into the hull against an X-acto #11 blade...

 

The chain was cut to length (using eyeball 1.0), and allowing for a little droop, and tied off to the spectacle plate...

 

 

The end result was as shown below...

 

 

Rosette round rudder plate:

(part 46 on the 3mm walnut sheet, as I remember). This is a very square part, due to the laser cutting, and I wanted to round it off to make it look a bit smarter... This was done by putting the part onto the end of a dowel that fitted the internal diameter... (masking tape was used to take up a bit of slack). By mounting the dowel in a electric drill / screwdriver, I was able to sand the edges to remove char, and begin round off the top.

 

 

Once done, the slot was filed into the bottom to accomodate the king plank on the deck.

 

 

Dry-fitted...

 

Once I was satisfied, it was glued in place.

 

Photo-etch pulleys for steering chains:

 

These are small, but it IS possible  

 

They start off looking like this...

 

The bit that will make up the plate opposite the hook can be bent a little first...

 

 

MarisStella provide the pulley inserts... there are small and large, and no indication in the instructions which is the right choice. Trying them it seemed to me that the large was too big to fit, so I went with the smaller.

 

 

The bending process continues by bringing the two sides in...

 

Closing the two sides in...

 

Now the holes can be drilled out (0.5mm) and 0.4mm wire used to capture the pulley inside the casing.

 

The bar through the centre holds the unit together, and because no solder or glue has been used up to this point, this whole unit can now be blackened.

 

Rob

 

[Beef Wellington]

Catching up a little Rob, seems I've missed a few trials and tribulations but you've definitely overcome them.  She really is turning into a beauty.  The kit seems intriguing, they provide some really very low level detail but seem to omit or simplify some of the larger scale items like the rudder.

[robdurant]

Thank you Jason. Yes, I think it's a mix of instructions that are often quite succinct, and a large quantity of plans that I'm only now beginning to really get my head around, and some simplified items. For example the posts for the balustrade round the rear superstructure are entirely missing from the fittings. They'd be something of a pickle to turn on a small lathe so that they each looked the same. Anyway - that's a challenge for another day. 

 

Here is a little more progress on the chain arrangement for the steering. The blocks were completed and blackened, then the 1mm blackened chain (the same chain that's used for the rudder chains underneath the transom) was linked to the first blackened eyelet, and threaded through the blocks for each side. The plans provide good detail for this arrangement. The sides are done individually, because the chain will need to pass through the grating that will go above this setup, and then round the drum behind the ship's wheel. The instructions helpfully remind you to leave some slack for just that purpose. I erred on the side of caution to make sure I wasn't under when the time came to link it all up.

 

Some pictures of my progress...

 

 

 

 

 

 

For a first attempt at these photoetch blocks I'm quite pleased, I have to say. They are fiddly and time-consuming, but it's nice to have metal pulley blocks where they would have been metal on the ship.  

 

Thanks for all the likes, and apologies that progress is slow, but real life rightly takes priority, and the Barque is, thankfully, patient 

 

If I don't post again before then, every blessing to you all this Christmas!

 

Rob

[Keith Black]

Nice work and Merry Christmas, Rob. 

[robdurant]

Thank you all for the likes. Hope you've had a great Christmas!

 

I've been working on the gratings at the stern for Stefano. These are made from grating strips provided in the kit, which are put together loose, then brushed over with diluted carpenter's glue (Aliphatic resin / yellow glue is a souped up version of PVA glue).

 

 

The sections of gratings (as shown in P9, P10 on the plans) are too large to be accommodated by one length of grating strips, so these must be carefully cut and joined together. I worked out a scheme as shown below...

 

 

The sections were outlined with 4x2mm walnut, giving an outline as follows. This assembly is upside down (i.e. the solid lines in the gratings will face fore and aft on the up-side, as per gratings on an 18th C ship.) Assembling it this way also means that the flat side is up, although I later sanded these walnut strips flush on the under side as well. This is dry fitted... DON'T glue part 48 (at the front on the picture below) on yet... it will be glued so that it's flush with the bottom of the gratings, not the top, as the top of the grating will end up level with the bottom of the rail, and part 48 will be level with the TOP of the rail.

 

 

The beam at the front is a 4mm walnut laser cut kit part no. 48, which has been carefully fitted to sit underneath the main bulwark rail so that the top is flush with the rail. This involved enlarging the notches, and setting the width.

 

 

The assembled gratings sit in the area to the stern of part 48 (in the photo above) and cover over the tiller and chain arrangement. As far as I can tell they will sit just under the bulwark rail so that it looks tidy (there's no way you could get the gratings to look tidy if they butted up against this rail without a lot of extra work to create some walnut trim that fitted this shape, so this is the trade-off!

 

To trim the parts, I made a template out of card using shape left in the laser cut sheet from the main rail part as the template. (nb: it's the lower rail, not the upper!)

 

 

Then it was a task of gently cutting out the gratings to shape... tedious and easy to break them, but I got there eventually. Lots of test-fitting was called for. Here it is dry-fitted. I won't stick it in yet. Not least, because as I put this together, I accidentally knocked one of the blocks for the tiller chain below off it's hook, and had I glued this platform in place, I wouldn't have had any access to fix it... so I want to make that a little more idiot-proof before I lose access permanently! In fact, you can see it in the photo below.

 

 

Right - there's more, but I'll put that in a second post.

 

Edited December 29, 2021 by robdurant
problems with upload failures fixed by saving, then editing the post.

[robdurant]

The next task was to take a look at the ship's wheel arrangement.

 

I had already bought a replacement 18mm wheel, which was the perfect size. However, it needs a long rod coming out of the back, and the one provided is 1cm or so. Initially I thought I might simply solder a longer length onto it, but it is vulnerable, simply sticking out, and the joint was hopeless.

 

Instead, I realised I could simply take the existing rod off, and replace it with a 1mm brass rod cut to the right length, soldered into place. 

 

 

The walnut parts (parts 47, shown on Plan 5 in the kit) were cut out of the walnut sheet. Initially I managed to snap the post that holds the rod up, and wondered whether it would simply disintegrate when cleaning off the laser char, but it actually proved to be more robust than I expected.

 

This section of the build was yet another head scratcher. It shows a 6mm dowel with a hold drilled through the middle. Seemingly simple enough, but I don't possess a large lathe or a pillar drill, and my efforts to drill a 1mm hole through a dowel have been shaky at best! Anyway, eventually I bit the bullet and tried with my proxxon lathe. As predicted the drill wandered, and what was a central hole at the entry point was at least 2mm off by the time it came out the other end of the 16mm long dowel. Undeterred I enlarged the hole so that the 1mm rod could pass through straight, and used the end parts provided (which were turned in my drill to remove the char) to line up the rod when glued on. All in all, it was alright, but it's all left to the build to work out.

 

It looks okay - as shown dry-fitted below, but I think I may try and tidy these bits up a bit and make them look a little smarter before they're glued in place. I think I may also add some planks to show where the parts are mounted on the grating before fitting them finally... they look a bit flimsy just placed on the grating. All comments and thoughts welcome!

 

 

That's it for this evening. 

Happy building, all, and a happy new year if I don't catch you before then!

 

Rob

[Keith Black]

 Rob, nice clean work, looks really good.