HMS Triton by Justin P. - FINISHED - Scale 1:48 - Cross Section

[Justin P.]

Progress!

 

It has been over a month since I last posted, and Im glad to be able to report that Ive been able to make some headway, albeit at a much slower rate now that the post-COVID world is clawing back.  In all Ive been able to get the outer planking and wales completed, gunports framed-in, the interior planking at the lower deck completed and treenailed, the gun deck beams made and simulated caulking done to a point.    At this point Im not terribly convinced that I like the wales so hopefully time (or perhaps someone here) will point out if something is egregiously off.  

 

I opted to rip out and replace my lower deck hanging knees in favor of a more realistic shape and am much happier to have spent the time.   They were really bothering me, and despite the pain-in-the-**** method of shaping them and fixing them after-the-fact I managed to do a reasonable job of it. 

(Left: Old coming out, Center: New template, with old knee removed, Right: Completed replacement)

 

I also chose to give Chadb's method of using the putty for caulking a try as I like the effect he achieved and wanted to try something different.  I did do a pretty extensive mock-up first to figure out the process.  The result does look great, if perhaps somewhat out of scale.

[WalrusGuy]

That's some awesome planking and decking! One of the best I've seen. Did you use spacers between the planks? The putty caulking looks awesome. I'll remember that for next time 

[Justin P.]

32 minutes ago, WalrusGuy said:

That's some awesome planking and decking! One of the best I've seen. Did you use spacers between the planks? The putty caulking looks awesome. I'll remember that for next time 

Thanks!  I did use a thin brass shim for spacing (another trick purloined from Chadb's build).   The putty caulking does give a great impression and provides a nice level of detail.

[mtaylor]

Well done, Justin.   I'm not sure what you don't like about the wales though.   They look pretty good from here.

[Matt D]

This looks great, Justin!  The new knees are excellent.  I agree with Mark: there’s nothing wrong with the wales.

[BobG]

Looks like perfection to me!!

[Justin P.]

15 hours ago, mtaylor said:

Well done, Justin.   I'm not sure what you don't like about the wales though.   They look pretty good from here.

Thanks Mark, Im happy with how they turned out - but like the knee's I can tell I might eventually NOT like them.   I did mock them up on a smaller panel,  but I wonder if my mock-up wasn't large enough to get a good feel.   Ill just need to spend some time looking at them.

 

14 hours ago, Matt D said:

This looks great, Justin!  The new knees are excellent.  I agree with Mark: there’s nothing wrong with the wales.

Appreciated Matt, I am glad I went ahead and changed them out.   Im not sure where my head was at when I first did them.   

 

14 hours ago, BobG said:

Looks like perfection to me!!

Thanks Bob!

[Justin P.]

Ive been spending the last few weeks working on stanchions and the upper deck beams.   I probably turned about 20 of these before I settled on something I liked and could reasonably repeat.   I dont have a lot of turning experience so it took some time get into a rhythm.  Otherwise, I'm happy with progress.  

 

[VTHokiEE]

Looking very nice!

[mtaylor]

The stanchions look great.  Well worth the effort.   It seems that it's always the "few" parts we need to make that drive us nuts.

[Justin P.]

Progress is slow, but is moving forward!   I think Ive complained broadly about this but work onsite has geared back up to five-days-a-week so my time at the bench has dwindled significantly.  Add to that Fall family activities and well, things slow down.   We also bought a camper, so getting all that sorted out and clearing a space on the property to park it has taken quite a lot of my weekends over the last couple months.  

 

Anyhow..   since my last post Ive gotten all the gun deck framing completed and started in on the hanging knees.   

 

I have to say that the hanging knees are one my least favorite activities.  For whatever reason, working though shaping all ten really had my hands ache.  Happy with them for now, but as with my lower deck knee's they are subject to later perspective and could get rejected.  

After those, and cutting and shaping the gun deck waterways (which Ive decided to redo), I jumped into the hatchway framing.   This I thoroughly enjoyed.   Really any extended use of my Byrnes saw is just a joy.   All the notching and cutting was done on the saw. 

Last thing for this update was the installation of the bitts.   I left the gallows for later though do have a dummy placed in the picture.   I need to look back over TFFM for some ideas on shaping the gallows.  

 

Edited October 5, 2021 by Justin P.

[Matt D]

Beautiful work, Justin!  This is turning out terrific.  Your "dummy" gallows looks pretty darn good!  I'm curious to see what will be different when you put in the "smart" gallows.  I know what you mean about work getting in the way.  I'm in the same boat on my model.  Congratulations on the new camper!  I hope you had a lot of fun with it this summer.

Edited October 7, 2021 by Matt D

[Justin P.]

2 hours ago, Matt D said:

Beautiful work, Justin!  This is turning out terrific.

Thanks Matt,  Ive been following your Winnie project and see that is going well too!  Especially your coamings and gratings.   I suspect I may have made an error in building out my hatch coamings BEFORE the grating, which you seem to have knocked out very nicely.   I was reading up on Clare Hess' blog @catopower,  and discovered that I may have trouble getting mine to fit as nicely as yours, I seem to have done them in reverse order.    Ive been looking to see if the Syren gratings would suit Triton or if I should just go ahead make them myself.   I might be making them over again now that I am stupidly reading up on gratings AFTER I made the coamings.   So much to be said about planning out through your entire project (or at least 5-10 steps ahead) rather than step by incremental step as I seem to continually forget.

 

The dummy gallows is just my latest attempt.   Its probably my third or fourth...   I kept shaping and trying to eek out something more graceful.  I hated all of them.   I decided to give it some time...   ha.  

 

Edited October 7, 2021 by Justin P.

[WalrusGuy]

On 10/5/2021 at 5:29 PM, Justin P. said:

Progress is slow, but is moving forward!   I think Ive complained broadly about this but work onsite has geared back up to five-days-a-week so my time at the bench has dwindled significantly.  Add to that Fall family activities and well, things slow down.   We also bought a camper, so getting all that sorted out and clearing a space on the property to park it has taken quite a lot of my weekends over the last couple months.  

 

Anyhow..   since my last post Ive gotten all the gun deck framing completed and started in on the hanging knees.   

 

I have to say that the hanging knees are one my least favorite activities.  For whatever reason, working though shaping all ten really had my hands ache.  Happy with them for now, but as with my lower deck knee's they are subject to later perspective and could get rejected.  

After those, and cutting and shaping the gun deck waterways (which Ive decided to redo), I jumped into the hatchway framing.   This I thoroughly enjoyed.   Really any extended use of my Byrnes saw is just a joy.   All the notching and cutting was done on the saw. 

Last thing for this update was the installation of the bitts.   I left the gallows for later though do have a dummy placed in the picture.   I need to look back over TFFM for some ideas on shaping the gallows.  

 

Truly a museum quality build! 

[Justin P.]

14 minutes ago, WalrusGuy said:

Truly a museum quality build! 

Ha!   I dont know about that, but do appreciate the compliment!   Im pretty happy with it, so long as I ignore all the annoying little errors, known and unknown.  

[Matt D]

18 hours ago, Justin P. said:

I may have trouble getting mine to fit as nicely as yours

One of the wonderful parts of the Winnie project is that the coamings were designed to fit the gratings perfectly.  Before I saw it, I was really worried about it.  Speaking only for myself, I can't imagine making the gratings myself when Chuck makes such nice kits with options on camber or no camber in boxwood, cherry, or AYC.  However, I've seen some amazing examples of scratch made gratings that are obviously worth the effort.  If it were me, I'd start by trying the Syren gratings to see, first if you like them, and second, if they fit or if you can easily get them to fit.  Who knows - you might just get lucky and find that your spacing is just right.  But at least the Byrnes saw has you covered if you have to remake them. 

 

I bought the Triton plans and took a stab at making frames before I started Winnie.  That attempt was awful, but I still want to build one at some point.  I'm really happy to follow yours and see your inspiring work.

[Justin P.]

Grating.

 

I thought I had taken more photos of the process, but apparently I did not.   I spent the better part of the weekend on this one hatchway.   I managed to make one in about 2-hours, which was ok-ish...   then spent the next 10-12 hours over two days trying to make another.   Getting the tolerances right so everything fit well and was consistently cut made the process that much harder.   Im happy with the result though.   I had thought I was going to get a bit farther with the planking of the gun deck, until about 12:30 Sunday a huge broad-leaf maple came crashing down from the area just off my property line and completely pulverized my fence...   

 

So the rest of Sunday and part of yesterday I was clearing and fence building.   Fun times.  

 

 

Deck planking going in...

[Justin P.]

More planking and a bit of fun - Guns!

 

Got a little headway with the rest of the gun deck planking and started assembling guns.  Probably a bit early for guns at this point, but I was excited to see them come together so went ahead anyway.   I went back and forth wondering if I would be "cheating" on a scratch build by buying a gun kit, as I have no experience turning brass and am not even sure I could do it on my MIDI lathe.   Ordered these from Syren, along with the carriage kits in cherry.   I actually spoke with Chuck about this to check in about size in relation to the Triton plans, and got some good input on what blocks sizes would be appropriate as well as rope.   The plans are a bit dodgy with regard to some of these details.     Otherwise, the cherry kits from Syren align quite well with the plans in terms of size of guns, carriages and so forth.  

 

I feel better actually knowing that despite being a kit they still required quite a bit of work to get them right.   All the hardware has to be made yourself, along with assembly and removing char. It actually did take me quite a while to get them this far - while also adding a few planks in between stages to both the deck and the exterior.   Still some cleaning up on this work before I move on but I'd call it a productive weekend. 

 

I did some blackening and tiny turning to get the Quoin right. Aside from the basic construction of the carriage nothing is glued or permanent.   I think there are few elements that I should think about a little longer.   

• 1. The quoin is in a contrasting wood color to the rest of the assembly.   For whatever reason I thought this would give the overall assembly something more interesting but I dont know if it really makes sense.   

• 2. The eyes look a little large.   I may need to pull them and make a small channel so they can recess a bit more.   OR, I may need to scale them down farther.  Perhaps @Chuck has an opinion.   Also worried a bout about the height of the guns in relation to the ports.   Once I add the wheels, I may be relying on the quoin to point the guns back down to center in the port...  not sure if this will look ridiculous. 

• 3. The exterior planking runs split at the edges of the gun ports...   I wonder if this is a detail that needs to be fixed.   I did some digging in the various books and couldn't find anything that specifically deals with this and whether it would have been avoided.  If anyone has any input on this, I would appreciate sounding it out.  

 

[WalrusGuy]

So beautiful and precise work! How did you blacken the guns evenly? They look really good! 🙂

[Justin P.]

28 minutes ago, WalrusGuy said:

How did you blacken the guns evenly? They look really good! 🙂

Thanks!   I dont know if I do it the right way...   I use brass ager, diluted in water and then do successive treatments until its as dark as I want it.  

[BobG]

47 minutes ago, Justin P. said:

I use brass ager, diluted in water and then do successive treatments until its as dark as I want it.

 

Gorgeous, precise work, Justin! 

 

Is "brass ager" the brand name of the blackening agent that you use?

[Justin P.]

8 minutes ago, BobG said:

Is "brass ager" the brand name of the blackening agent that you use?

Hi Bob, I don't know about  brand.   The stuff I use sells through amazon from Rockler.  Interestingly they dont list it on their actual website, but do sell it through Amazon.

 

https://www.amazon.com/8-oz-Brass-Darkening-Solution/dp/B001DSZSQE/ref=asc_df_B001DSZSQE/?tag=hyprod-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=532952400236&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=8217704862455578212&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9033309&hvtargid=pla-1225493476318&psc=1

[mtaylor]

Very well done, Justin.   I'm of the opinion (take it for what it's worth) that gunports in the open area would not have had lids.  I'm not 100% sure though.  I took a look at my build and no provision for lids.   I looked at the two full hull builds that were finished and no lids in this area.  I've linked those builds.  Same for the other finished cross-section builds.   

 

https://modelshipworld.com/topic/19363-hms-triton-1773-de-jorge-diaz-o-finished-148-modelo-completo/page/7/#comments

 

https://modelshipworld.com/topic/1557-wang-shuos-triton/page/6/

 

[Justin P.]

1 hour ago, mtaylor said:

Very well done, Justin

Thanks Mark, what are your thoughts about the plank ends meeting in the area of the gunport frame?   I admit I did this wondering if it was correct, but couldn’t find anything definitive that says special care would have been made to ensure planks did not meet in this way.

 

Thoughts?

[Rpolson]

Nice work Justin!....Do you remember the size of the guns you ordered as well as the carriage size?

Richard

[mtaylor]

On 10/25/2021 at 3:56 PM, Justin P. said:

Thanks Mark, what are your thoughts about the plank ends meeting in the area of the gunport frame?   I admit I did this wondering if it was correct, but couldn’t find anything definitive that says special care would have been made to ensure planks did not meet in this way.

 

Thoughts?

Good question for which I can only speculate.  The practice was minimize the grain end to prevent rot so they would have needed lining from outside the port planking to the inside planking.  But the question in my mind is:  would it have been done on the Triton  ?   Ask both these questions about lids and lining in the Building, Framing, and Planking area and see what others might think or know.

[ChadB]

Awesome work!!!!! Your cross section looks absolutely fantastic!!! 👏👏👏👏👏

 

Chad

[Justin P.]

On 11/5/2021 at 8:23 AM, ChadB said:

Awesome work!!!!! Your cross section looks absolutely fantastic!!!

Hey thanks man!   Im following your Triton build pretty closely, referring back often.   A owe you a great deal of thanks for an excellent build log with many salient tips!  I have to say the display case you made is likely well outside of my ability but something I hope to learn how to do one day as well.

[mtaylor]

Looking at your build log, Justin, I have no doubts about your being able to build a display case.

[ChadB]

On 11/6/2021 at 1:56 PM, mtaylor said:

Looking at your build log, Justin, I have no doubts about your being able to build a display case.

 100% agree with Mark. There's no reason you won't be able to make the display case also. Worst case you give it a whack and it doesn't work out, right?

 

Glad the build log is helping... your comments are the exact reason I spent so much time making it so detailed. Keep up the amazing work!!

 

Chad