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

[Bitao]

I appreciate your careful and meticulous work, come on man, you will do better!

[No Idea]

15 hours ago, bitao said:

I appreciate your careful and meticulous work, come on man, you will do better!

😂Cheers bitao I’ll give it my best shot my friend  👍👍

[No Idea]

Hi All

 

Well at last I've now completed the other side of the hawse timbers 😃

 

I must be honest and admit that I have found these few timbers to be the hardest on the build so far.  The drawings are complicated and yet very precise and complete but the translation to the wood was difficult for me.  I think that this was partly due to the way each piece is stacked onto the next piece.  Assembly without glue is hard and yet the dry assembly is critical.

 

I can now see the shape of the bow and its another milestone for me.  I have not yet cut the top timbers to their finished height as this will wait until the outside of the hull is faired.

 

I have made the hawse holes and also made the small triangular filler piece that fits between hawse timber 1 and the top of frame 1.  I need to finish the hole for the bowsprit and I'll try and get that finished tomorrow; if I do I'll get some more pictures up for you.

 

Phew I'm so glad that this is done even if they are not the best joints I've ever made.

 

Thanks to you all for the encouragement - Mark 🙂

 

 

[WalrusGuy]

Amazing work!!! 

[druxey]

Well done so far!

[mtaylor]

Looks wonderful from here.  As for dealing with bits and pieces and needing them fitted to check everything, there's two ways for this.  One is a few drops of something like Elmer's Glue All (a white general purpose glue) or rubber cement.  Once checked, the glues can be removed.   Alcohol for the white glue . Rubber cement can be rubbed off.   Use either but very sparingly for test purposes.  As always, test on scrap before committing to use on a build.

[Hubac's Historian]

You are, by far, your own worst critic.  This all looks wonderfully crisp and clean.  Forge ahead with confidence, Mark!

[bdgiantman2]

Atta boy, sir! Well done and a great looking model ship. She will look great on display in the future.

[allanyed]

Beautiful fairing of the frames!!!  This will allow the planking to go much more smoothly.

Allan

[No Idea]

Thanks for all of the comments, likes and advice 👍

 

I cut the hole out for the bowsprit this morning which like most things required a solution.  The hole required needs to be 14.70mm in diameter or there about's 🤣.  I'm sure that many of you have looked at this hole like me and thought I really need to keep the correct angle or it will just look bad.

 

So what I did was made a hole saw out of a piece of 13mm brass and used the bowsprit saddle as a guide. I popped the hole saw into a power drill and ran it through nice and slowly so as not to split the wood.   To get to the final size I just kept on gluing sand paper to the brass until the correct diameter was achieved.

 

So that's the bow now closed in so its onto the counter timbers at the stern for me next.  This will have to wait to next weekend now and I'm looking forward to the next challenge.

 

Mark

 

[No Idea]

7 minutes ago, allanyed said:

Beautiful fairing of the frames!!!  This will allow the planking to go much more smoothly.

Allan

Thanks very much Allan - I've only faired the inside so far I'm going to fair the outside once I get the deck clamp in and a bit of internal planking too.

[dvm27]

That's a hole-in-one Mark! You're lucky as well that French warships seem to only have one pair of hawse holes. I always have trouble getting the second pair exactly right.

[No Idea]

11 minutes ago, dvm27 said:

That's a hole-in-one Mark! You're lucky as well that French warships seem to only have one pair of hawse holes. I always have trouble getting the second pair exactly right.

Hi mate - you know what they say; measure twice  - pray 5 times and just pull the trigger on that drill 🤣 

 

Would you believe I started off with a 0.5mm drill and then progressively went through each size until I got to 6mm.  My thoughts were that I could maybe adjust it a bit if I needed too.  Mind you lining up 4 holes precisely on a curved surface; you don't need much of an imagination to see the pit falls there!

[No Idea]

Hi All

 

I've made a start on the counter timbers and I'm back to following Adrian Sorolla's excellent book.  He suggests making a jig which involves making another although less intricate wing transom and an angle plate to set the timbers.  Once the assembly is complete it is then transferred to the ship. 

 

So I set out to make this jig which is actually a bit more tricky than he lets on.  Not only do you have to obviously set the exact angle there is a curvature in the stern too.  I think the pictures explain this far better than my words but the jig took many hours to make compared to the hour it took to make the counter timbers.

 

So having made the jig I next made the four counter timbers which were by now quite easy for me to make.  The results are below and I just hope that they are right.  Next up is to make the quarterdeck beam to begin to tie the counter timbers together.

 

Cheers and thanks for the continued encouragement - Mark

 

 

 

 

[G.L.]

That jig is a very good idea, Mark.

Your craftmanship is remarkable.

[No Idea]

3 minutes ago, G.L. said:

That jig is a very good idea, Mark.

Your craftmanship is remarkable.

Thanks but honestly the jig is not my idea at all. It is Adrian Sorolla’s idea in his book on how to build this ship. I do think though that this method could be used on any ship. 

[No Idea]

Hi All

 

I've now made the quarter deck beam which I think has gone ok.  The drawings do not give a separate drawing for this piece so the template's must be made from 3 different views of the same piece number 13.

 

A few pictures below of the result

 

Cheers Mark

 

 

[mtaylor]

Looks very good from here.  That is a tricky piece to do.

[Bitao]

Well done! The tail is really tricky, and it’s not easy to get all the angles together. I actually had to work three times to qualify here, even though everything looks pretty good in my pictures. Here I whisper to you: no matter how skilled the craft will have mistakes, but most of the time I will not easily show others my failure. A successful piece of work must be the accumulation of countless failures!

[No Idea]

Mark and bitao thanks for the comments 👍

 

It is a very tricky piece to make correctly and I think that it’s ok. I’m hoping that I’ve read the drawing correctly and that the dog legs butt up against the beam. If they do then all’s good - if not I’ve probably made it a little short. I’ll soon find out 🤣

[No Idea]

I've had a little more time in the shop today and I've now made the counter timber extensions that run up to the taffrail.  

 

They have nice little tenons on the top and were quite easy to make.  It was just a case of making sure that I followed all of the existing angles to the counter timbers and beam so that they sat correctly.

 

I give them a 50/50 chance of surviving until the end of the build as they will be pretty vulnerable as the build progresses.  So if I have to make them again it's not a problem.  I now need to make the parts in-between and the window frames which hopefully I will find some time this week.  Thanks for all of the comments and likes too 🙂

 

Mark

 

 

 

 

 

[No Idea]

Hi All

 

I've now made the taffrail filler pieces and also the window surround timbers which has made the counter timbers strong enough to remove them from the jig 👍

 

The counter timbers are now fixed onto the wing transom and are supported to keep the correct angle and hopefully protect them a bit too.  I pinned them using some 0.5mm brass as I didn't want them to move whilst the glue dried.  I set the angle by taking a measurement from the stem all the way back to the furthest point on the taffrail filler.  The only thing that went wrong was the screw head on the support decided to shear off - so I'll have to cut the support away at some point and try and remove the screw from behind.

 

Its on and square so I'm a very happy builder 😃  Now for my next challenge - the dogs legs!  Happy Xmas everyone 🎄

[druxey]

Lovely work there, Some Idea! I might suggest you attach a piece of wood to the top of the support to form a protective 'T' over those vulnerable counter timbers. 

[No Idea]

Thanks druxey and thats a great idea about the T piece.  I'll get one on tomorrow as those little extensions are so vulnerable. I only wear T shirts now when I'm working on it too!!!

 

Another photo from the other side too.  For some reason this wouldn't upload earlier.

Edited December 22, 2021 by No Idea

[No Idea]



Thanks for all of the likes 👍

 

"Dogs legs" - Wow these are tricky things to make.  I've been following Adrian Sorolla's excellent guide and have tried his suggestion on how to form them. He uses a slightly wider piece of wood than the actual counter timbers and basically shapes it slightly diagonally to obtain the dogs legs.

 

Now I've tried this approach and discovered that although it seems quite simple it has two issues that I think can change the shape of the stern slightly.  It makes it very difficult to come off of the wing transom vertically as two angles in different planes are required even if coming off straight.  More worrying is the way it changes the shape underneath the counter timbers which I believe is called the stern vault.

 

I've made two pieces this way and have found them to be completely unacceptable so I have decided to try a different approach.  I have looked at this part square on which requires three timbers being glued together to make a very wide piece to work with.

 

I then transposed the drawings as best I could to get the correct shape which I then cut.  The result is actually quite close to what I want.  I am now coming off of the transom vertically and the stern vault is keeping its square shape.

 

I have attached a few pictures of my experiment below but I would like to know what others think?  Is this a good way of making this part or am I way off base here?  The part that is in the pictures is very rough just to try and help me see a way forward with these parts and it is not going on the ship.

 

Any comments or advice would be very welcome and I hope you all have a great Xmas.

[No Idea]

Hi All

 

Moving on from my experiment I've now used the same method to make the actual dogs legs for the ship.   The only thing that I did differently was to just take more care marking out their shapes.  The practice one was a bit angular whereas the correct shape is more sweeping from the wing transom upwards.  As before I cut the birds mouth joints first and then just sense checked them on the model before moving on.  They are pinned and glued onto the wing transom and I cut the quarterdeck beam to accept them too.  I'll fair them when I get a bit closer with the small frames that now need making as I think that this will give me a better line of sight to get it right.

 

I'm really pleased the way that these have turned out and the stern vault is roughly the correct shape and dimensions too.

 

For other first time POF builders like me I think its worth saying that actually making these parts is not that particularly difficult or time consuming.  The tricky part is lifting the drawings onto the wood correctly.

 

Cheers Mark

[albert]

Beautiful work. 

[No Idea]

On 12/29/2021 at 8:14 AM, albert said:

Beautiful work. 

Thanks Albert 🙂

 

As with all builds I've had a bit of a set back today through my own inexperience.  I had made the first two half frames which come off of the wing transom and also the angled chocks that secure this assembly even further.

 

It was only when I made the extension top timbers for the fashion pieces did I realise that I had set the first set too far apart from each other.  So in essence the stern was too wide at that point.  There was no saving it the pieces needed to be removed which I have now done.  Its not nice taking a saw to your model but it was wrong so so be it.  What I need to do is run something from stem to stern to use as a datum to check that all is well.  Lesson learnt and luckily I've got away with it.

 

I'll have another go next weekend 👍

[No Idea]

Things have been a bit slow for the past week as I've been laid up with Covid - Not the best experience I've ever had but I should be OK again next week.

 

I have though managed to sort out my problem.  Why is it that there is always a few places in a build that give the builder a real headache 😂

 

These 3 pieces on each side have really given me grief to get right and in the end I did have to cheat a bit.  The chock/filler piece between the half frame from the fashion piece and the fashion piece extension is supposed to be a solid piece of wood.  Having tried about 5/6 ways of making it so that it fitted tightly and failing I decided to make it out of 2 pieces instead.

 

A small give up on my part and the result does look like a patchwork - but its dimensionally correct as far as I have measured and that'll do for me.  I just need to sand the starboard side down now to get these parts finished.  

 

Thank goodness for that 👍 - Mark

 

[druxey]

Sometimes we just have to do what works. I suspect it was the same in a real shipyard as well. It's looking very good.

 

Sorry to read that you came down with the dreaded 'lurgy, but good to read that you are recovering.