ancre Le Rochefort by No Idea - 1/24th Scale - First POF Build

[Justin P.]

8 hours ago, No Idea said:

Hi Justin P - I'm fortunate that this is sometimes a team build.  I have a book by Adrian Sorolla that explains the entire build of this little ship.  I also have G. Delacroix who actually owns the monograph who is a member on here.  He answers so many questions for me regarding this build which I would otherwise struggle with.  I also have the 1000's of members of this forum that often put me right -  so don't quit go build a ship  

Dont sell yourself short, the craftsmanship is all yours!   Beautiful.

[No Idea]

12 hours ago, Seventynet said:

Such outstanding work!

Thank you 👍

12 hours ago, druxey said:

Photos like that make me smile! Lovely progress.

Thanks druxey - its good to be back building at last

11 hours ago, Hubac's Historian said:

It has been a while since I checked-in, but WOW - Mark, you never disappoint with the fairness of your lines, nor the cleanliness of your craft!

 

It is so gratifying to see her take shape, and I agree that those ship-lapped transom planks are a visual delight.

 

All I can say is BRAVO, and keep on keeping-on!

Hi Marc - good to hear from you and thanks 

[No Idea]

4 hours ago, Justin P. said:

Dont sell yourself short, the craftsmanship is all yours!   Beautiful.

Thanks Justin 👍  Hopefully I'll have another update on the build soon

[Thunder]

Hi,

 

This build is outstanding, i have been catching up on it and it is the kind of work that i would love to be able to achieve. You are an inspiration.

 

I would like to know what the below power tool is:

 

[No Idea]

Hi Thunder and thanks for your comments 👍

That tool is a very old dremel router table. This was one of my very first tools and still use it occasionally. I pretty much stopped using it when I bought a spindle sander which is a lot easier to use than the dremel  - Mark 

[Thunder]

Hi Mark, i put a spindle sander on my christmas list but obviously had not been good enough!!

[No Idea]

A very small update today - I'm back to work on Monday after a very nice week off

 

Firstly the moulding below the stern timbers was made and fitted.  This was my second attempt as the first one moved slightly whilst drying and left a small gap between it and the vault planking.  Now I could have bodged / disguised / turned a bling eye to this but it just needed ripping off and another being made to replace it.

 

What was left of the original moulding - I'm sure that I can make something else from it so it will go into my offcuts box.

Now I'm not sure what this part of a ship is called but moving upwards I needed to make the stern timbers.  The part which has the windows in?

These planks are curved and I wanted to make them off of the model so that I can cut the window holes on the mill.  So what I did was first was to just roughly edge bend some planks on a really simple jig.  I use foil underneath as if the wet Castello touches steel which is the base it turns the wood black.

I then made some vice jaws which matched the curvature on the drawings

I then put all of the planks into a really simple jig and squeezed them all together with glue.

I have ended up with what will hopefully be the planks that I will shape and use.  If not I'll just make another one now that I have the jig.

Thanks for all of the comments and questions - Mark

[SaltyScot]

Sometimes the simplest jigs give the finest results. We don't need to "over engineer" stuff like this do we. Once again, your eye for perfection (this is aimed at your first post in this new lot where you swapped out that piece that was not quite good enough for you), is what is giving this build the quality it has. Thumbs up from me sir.

[marsalv]

Fantastic work.

[BradNSW]

I've discovered your build log and spent two evenings just trying to absorb all the detailed info!  Your incredible joints, milling, plane and chisel work, as well as the accuracy of your measuring and set-up will be something I strive for when I begin my next scratch build!!

 

Thanks for sharing this wonderful work with such thorough documentation and photography!

[No Idea]

Hi All

 

I've had some more time so I've been getting on with the stern.  I decided to go with the curved planks that I had previously made but I did break off the top two planks and replace them.  It was really easy to do and I just reused my jig to make this happen.

 

Moving forward there is a carved moulding which goes around the stern.  It's quite basic compared to many ships which was a bonus for me as I have never tried to make anything like this before.  So as per usual I made a photocopy template and cut out the basic shape.

 

And now the fun started - Using a mixture of scrapers and chisels I went ahead and tried to replicate how it should look.  I'm no carver thats for sure and I could not replicate the very fine detail but I gave it a go.

 

This is pretty much as good as it gets from me so I decided to use this first version.  Hopefully my carving will improve as I learn this skill more.

 

Next was to mill out the windows - I wanted to use the mill so that I could get the shape as correct as possible.  However they could easily be cut out using a fret saw and files.

 

The two parts now glued together - I'm going to fit this part to the counter timbers tomorrow and as long as nothing splits when I bend it all should be OK.  If not I'll have a rethink on how to approach this part of the ship.

 

 

Thanks for all of the comments - Mark

[SaltyScot]

I think that turned out very well, Mark. You had a plan, worked through and implemented it AND got it right on the first try. Thumbs up from me sir.

[CiscoH]

Any pictures of the carving process?  you got a very clean bead on a curved surface going 90 degrees to the grain, which is pretty impressive.

[No Idea]

12 hours ago, CiscoH said:

Any pictures of the carving process?  you got a very clean bead on a curved surface going 90 degrees to the grain, which is pretty impressive.

Hi - No sorry I didn’t take any but I achieved the bead by making a scraper out of an old blade. You are right though about working against the grain the wood is difficult to cut 

[SaltyScot]

16 hours ago, No Idea said:

Hi - No sorry I didn’t take any but I achieved the bead by making a scraper out of an old blade. You are right though about working against the grain the wood is difficult to cut 

That is why, when doing relief carving like that, you actually have to go in both directions so that you don't rip out the grain. Sharp tools are a must and you achieved that crisp edge because of that. Nice work.

[No Idea]

So moving forward I have now fitted the stern timbers and generally tidied the stern up.  I'm really pleased with the way it looks and I think it's fairly symmetrical too.

 

But as with everything it seems with ship building,  I soon discovered that the very rear beam that I fitted maybe 2 years ago is 2mm too low.  It's not a problem but it will need a filler piece on the top fitted at some point.  I also found that my location of the counter timbers was not as good as it could have been as the windows did not exactly line up with them.  Again it's not a problem but I do have to make some extra pieces to hide these errors.

 

The stern windows were my next task - The drawings more hint at their design rather than give a detailed instruction.  As such I did what I always do and contacted Gerard Delacroix and asked his opinion. He advised me that their parallelogram shape on the outside followed through to the inside windows.  He also went above and beyond and sent me a drawing of how they should look  - cheers mate 👍

 

So to keep the shape I made a couple of false windows to set the window frames.  I really want this part of the ship to look correct hence all of the questions and effort.  Below you can see the false window in place whist the frame sets.

The cheeks of the window frames also require some extra timber but thats ok and I'll sort that out too.  I have decided to have them closed but I'm going to make them as best I can anyway.

 

Here's a picture of both windows with the top and bottom parts of the frames in place.

 

So the next jobs are to complete the window cheeks and work out how to make the windows so that they look as near to the drawings as I can.

 

Thanks all for the very nice comments - Mark

 

 

 

 

[SaltyScot]

When I have a particularly good day in my shipyard I say to myself, "I think I could really tackle a scratch build now". Then I scroll through builds of this quality and workmanship and say, "yeh, right......". I am a looong way from something like this, but, one can always dream, right?  

[No Idea]

I've been trying to figure out how best to make the windows as they are a parallelogram in shape but also all of the parts are angled to suit the angle of the stern.

 

I tried a few mock ups using separate parts but they really did not go well at all.  So I thought that the best way was to try and mill them out of a single piece.

 

So I marked them up to roughly match the drawing

 

Then I set the required angle and using a 1mm mill bit I cut the windows out.  

The result actually isn't too bad - sorry about the poor quality pictures and I just balanced it into the ship to give a rough idea of how it looked.

One down although it needs tiding up and one to go.  I can then complete the window frames and plank the inside to tidy it all up.

 

Mark

 

[Tobias]

On 1/17/2025 at 9:47 AM, No Idea said:

Some more done

 

Before I started the planking I just did a quick check to make sure it was all square as I didn't want a wonky stern 🤣  I did this because I fitted it a long time ago when my measuring skills and equipment wasn't as good as today.  It was only 1mm out on the port side so I squared it up with a rasp.

 

All of the planks are curved so I pre-bent them all just using Chucks edge bending technique and then got to work fitting them.

The last plank was the hardest as it's a moulding which makes the transition from the counter timbers to the overlap of the stern planking.  I made a scraper and shaped it on the bench.

It was tricky to fit and I lost some of its detail but all in all I think it looks ok.

I like the side detail where the first 2 planks sit flush with the outer planking but the rest sit behind.  Its also the only place where you can actually see the shiplap joints too.

So I'm going to continue working on the outer of the stern working my way upwards for now.  More mouldings to make and more planks to pre-bend for the construction of it.

 

Mark

Good morning Mark, fantastic work on the planks, as always a feast for the eyes. However, I am not 100% sure that the two boards are flush. I am currently sending a request to Gerard about this. When I look at the plans, I get the impression that the two boards are a little longer to create a more harmonious transition.

 

[No Idea]

Hi Tobias - I think that you are right and I completely missed that!  I have just had a look at Adrians book and he has missed this point as well.  It will be interesting to see what Gerard says but either way I think that using these planks to help the transition would look very nice.

[Tobias]

Hello Mark, Adrian didn't describe it in the book either. I couldn't find it in any construction report in the French forum either. Gerard replied to me today and confirmed my suspicion.
 

[No Idea]

Very well found my friend - I’m going to leave mine as it is as breaking those shiplap planks out would destroy them all. At least your ship will be spot on 👍

[No Idea]

Another update from me - I've now closed off the stern and finished the stern windows.  There's not too much to say about this work other than the planking is not straight but curved.

 

I tried bending planks but pretty much got no where with that so in the end I made them from a 13mm wide plank by sanding them to shape.  The hinges and closers are blackened brass.

 

I still need to place the nails on the external planks but thats a nice easy job.  I think I'm going to make the quarterdeck beams, supports and waterways next. 

 

Mark

[JacquesCousteau]

Very nice, precise work!

[SaltyScot]

I second that, absolutely!

[No Idea]

Hi All

 

I've not posted in a while as I found an issue with my build that began 3 1/2 years ago when my building skills and general ship understanding were very much in their infancy I guess.  I first noticed this problem when I fitted the stern timbers and stern windows.  I could see that the counter timbers did not go fully to the top of the stern timbers and the quarter deck rear beam seemed far too close to the top of the windows.  The issue is -  I have set the counter timbers at the wrong angle which to correct at this stage would be very difficult indeed.

 

I felt that this would be the end of the build as I have tried my very best to keep as accurately to the plans as possible.  I decided just to have a break and come back to it later with a fresh outlook and see how I felt about the problem.

 

So with a renewed outlook I took loads of measurements of the entire ship.  I discovered that everything forward of the stern post is fine.  I also discovered that everything rearward of the stern post is 5mm out of spec.  So I have a ship that is 5mm longer than it should be and the issues that accompany it.

 

Upwards and onwards - The build continues but first I had to address a couple of problems.  I would need to lift the rear beam upwards to the correct height and the quarter deck would have to be bespoke behind the stern post.   So firstly the rear beam - Rather than remove the beam I have just made it 1.5mm thicker by adding a piece on.

 

Next I made the beams  - here's a few pictures of the process that I use.

Just rough cut on the band saw

I prefer to sand the inner curve first but I'm sure it makes no difference 

Then the outer

Next I cut the dovetail joints - I really like doing this part its so satisfying 

Then I cut them into the clamps using a height gauge to make sure that they are at the correct height.  I also sense check the alignment with a steel rule as they must be level with the stern post.

Then I made the beam supports 

Finally I made the waterways which sit nicely on the level of the planksheer

 

So although I'm not exactly to the plans anymore I think I've pulled it back enough to get away with it.  I do have knock on issues such as the taff rail will be longer etc etc.... but I've got my head around what needs to be done.  On the positive side you are getting 5mm more ship for your buck!!!  Also stepping away sometimes is a very good thing to do!  I'm very much back into it now - A slight delay though as it's my wife's 60th birthday next week so we are off to Crete for a fortnight to celebrate.  I can now remove all of the beams and start some of the interior detail.

 

Mark

 

[Keith Black]

 Mark, Happy Birthday to your wife, enjoy your trip to Crete, and 5MM (0.196 inches), I guarantee the only person who is ever going to notice that tiny amount is you. Beautiful work. 

[JacquesCousteau]

Excellent work! At 1:24 scale, those 5mm work out to 12cm on the real vessel. I think you can chalk it up to building differences between shipyards. 

[ChrisLBren]

Nice recovery Mark !  Have a great time in Crete

[No Idea]

Hi Keith what a really nice comment - I also told Lorraine about your birthday wishes and she said thank you very much    Cheers mate!