HMS Discovery 1789 by Don Case - 1:48

[Don Case]

I live on Discovery Passage named by Capt George Vancouver after his ship in 1792. I was thinking of building the Leopard but the local history of the Discovery made it more interesting. (plus I wouldn't have to make 50 guns). I've done a dozen or so POB so I thought I'd do a scratch POF to really challenge myself. I'm 73 and have shaky hands. That's one challenge. I also have very minimal plans so far. I'm waiting for the Vancouver Maritime Museum to get back to me about John McKay's drawings Vancouver Maritime Museum : Ship plan : H.M. Sloop of war <i>Discovery</i> [2007.5000.0164] (vmmcollections.com) I have 4 drawings from here(way down the page)  Category:Ship plans of the Royal Museums Greenwich - Wikimedia Commons.  That's the second challenge.  I started a preliminary build while I'm waiting for the museum. Their archivist left and the new one is starting in a week or so. If the preliminary build turns out to be close enough I will use it but I'm expecting to scrap it once I get some better info. The pre build is teaching me a lot. I thought I would start a build log so my questions wouldn't be shot gunned all over the site. Don't know if that's a good idea or not. Depends how entertaining I can be, I guess😃. Right now I'm mocking up cant frames. I'm using old wall panelling. I'm just in the process of tack gluing all this together so I call turn it over and see the outside. I can't tell if it's at all fair from this point of view.

[Don Case]

I'm reasonably pleased with how they look. Now to number them and store them away as patterns. Little bit of a dip in one or maybe a lump on five.

Edited February 21, 2021 by Don Case

[AdamA]

I like your idea to scratch build some rough pattern pieces to find out if you're on the right track before you use the expensive wood!

 

What wood will you be using?

[Don Case]

Hazel so far. I have quite a bit of it from when I was making bows (archery). It seems to work well. It does get dirty though, I'll have to figure out something there. I have Maple, Crabapple, Dogwood, Saskatoon(Serviceberry) left over from bowmaking. It's all probably good for boats. I have Yew also but it's a little soft. The panelling is left over from when we moved into the house before I was finished it. That was 45 years ago. Still isn't completely finished. I have 3 4x8 sheets of it left so I can waste all I want.

[Don Case]

I've noticed that Kevin Kenny and Dan Vadas use a mixture of scarf and chock joints on their frames. Their Swan class ships are about 10 years earlier than mine. My copy of Steel is 1812, about 20 years later. He calls for scarfed or "framed" joints. I'm wondering what "framed' means? Was there a change of methods in this 30 year span?

 

I've also seen frames constructed using overlapping layers of half thickness parts. These seem stronger but less realistic. Probably easier to build but I would have to mill a bunch of 1/8" thick wood. 

[Don Case]

Here's a couple of trial chock joint frames. They actually went pretty well. They would have to be reduced in the moulded dimension. I'm surprised how small(skinny) they are. I'll try and do some scarfed ones tomorrow.

Edited February 23, 2021 by Don Case
Spelling

[druxey]

The strength of such wood structures were more than the sum of their parts, Don. Once the framing is together, you'll be surprised at its rigidity.

[LyleK1]

Hi Don,

I will be watching your log closely.

I am very interested in the Discovery too. I live in the Puget Sound area, so I suspect we have the same interests.

Good luck!

[Don Case]

1 hour ago, LyleK1 said:

Hi Don,

I will be watching your log closely.

I am very interested in the Discovery too. I live in the Puget Sound area, so I suspect we have the same interests.

Good luck!

If you come across anything interesting please post it here. There is not much to go on. I'm hoping for a few gems from the book. I don't know if you're old enough but I was a big Capt Puget fan when I was a boy, 60 years ago.

[LyleK1]

1 hour ago, Don Case said:

If you come across anything interesting please post it here. There is not much to go on. I'm hoping for a few gems from the book. I don't know if you're old enough but I was a big Capt Puget fan when I was a boy, 60 years ago.

I'll keep an eye out...

I am aware of Captain Puget but slightly before my time! I do remember Don McCune on "Exploration NW" though!

Whereabouts do you live on Vancouver Island? We boat up in that area every year... when there isn't a pandemic!

Look forward to watching you log.

[Don Case]

I've spent the last few days building this jig and setting in a few frames. As it turns out the room and space is very close to the station spacing so at least midship I can just copy the station shape. I started at station 0. The first two stations on the body plan are 0 and (D). Three frames fit in between them. I made a 0 and (D) according to the body plan and made three more 0's. Clamped them together and roughly faired them. The first 5 frames fit nicely. Then I moved to station D with the idea of just repeating what I did on the first five. Station(frame) D wouldn't fit. It's 3/16" to narrow. The jig is the 5th waterline which I lofted using the original body plan. I've measured and re-measured and double checked my lofting. All I can figure it that all the minor errors are adding up rather than averaging out but 3/16" is a lot. The only other thing I can think of is that on the body plan the upper part of the midship stations all come together in a big blurry line. Maybe that massed me up but if I lofted the waterline from the body plan and my dividers went back in the same holes every time this should work. A plank seems to lay nicely on the frames but it's a big jump (about 2" or 4 frames) between station (D) and D and that could be fooling me. Anyway it's fun although this stumbling block is getting a little tiresome. I can either modify the frame or the jig but I think they're both right. Dunno. Maybe spend another day trying to sort it out.

 

Edit- I've decided it's the jig. I'll fix it with a bit of 1/32" plywood.

 

 

Edited March 1, 2021 by Don Case

[Don Case]

I'm just about done the forward cant frames. I'm just roughing them in, nothing is glued. I'm a little concerned with slimming down and fairing the inside of the frames until I've gotten the outside looking good. I'll get there. A question. As the cant frames get closer to the bow it seems to me that they should get closer to the shape of the stem. Is that so? I finely heard from the museum so maybe I can get my hands on some drawings😃

 

Edited March 6, 2021 by Don Case
Better picture

[Don Case]

Next step. I want to fair the outside of the cant frames first, then tear it all apart and clean up the inside of the cant frames and make them uniform. Then I can cut in the chocks(they are just butt jointed with epoxy) and re-assemble it for real. I thought it would be easier to fair if it was upside down so I tack glued(PVA) the cant frames to the apron and then glued a piece of 1/8" ply to the tops of the frames. It looks like it's leaning to one side a bit in the picture I'll have to see what's causing that.

Seems like a rather complex way to go about it but I'm thinking the square frames will go a little smoother.

[Don Case]

Just thought I'd stick this in here

[Don Case]

I'm working on the hawse pieces and bollards. They are roughly shaped and held in place (more or less) with double sided tape. I can find the sided dimension in Steel but I can't see the moulded for either. Should they be the same as the frames? 

[Don Case]

My first major screw-up. Somehow I managed to get the first three hawse pieces 1/4" to short. Soggy old brain I guess. Removing and replacing was out, they are glued in too well. I tried IPA and they just don't want to move. So I'm  scabbing little pieces on the top. It will be planked over but I'll always know😒 

[LyleK1]

Don’t worry Don, I’ll never tell!

😉

[Don Case]

I was starting to have to be on both sides to measure frame and gun port heights so I made a new bench. I'm working up the miles walking from one side to the other but it's way nicer to be able to get all around. It's 4' tall so it's easier on my back.

[Don Case]

While you're waiting for glue to dry or some such thing is there some things that you shouldn't do ahead of time? Obviously some things have to wait but some should be OK. I've made all my timberheads and I was thinking of trying to make the guns. I was going to make a bunch of knees but I have to figure out how many different sizes there is. 

[allanyed]

Making the cannon and carriages is what I have often gone to while the glue dries.   Knees may require a bit of field fitting so should wait.  The spacing between deck beams may vary so the horizontal knees will vary in their fore and aft length.  The vertical knees will vary with the lay of the inside planking, plus some are canted.  For vertical knees at least, it is often a good idea to made card templates to get a perfect fit, then use the template as your guide for cutting out the knee itself.    

[druxey]

Each knee will be 'custom', not off the shelf! If you are planning to rig later, there are also a myriad blocks to make....

[Don Case]

Thanks guys. Yeh, blocks, that's going to be a challenge.😕

[Don Case]

I've been kind of stumped here. Trying to make the transoms and I don't really know what the underwater stern looks like. This is what I get for building a ship with no plans(Insert a rounding course of "I told ya so" here😉) I have the sections and the waterlines which gives me a rough Idea but I'm not experienced enough to get a solid picture of what it looks like. I've used three family sized cereal boxes making patterns. I re-used Longridge's jig that I used for the forward cant frames but it doesn't seem to work as well for the transoms. I've resorted to sticking together a stack of "transoms" that I can just grind away at with the drum sander. It's a lot easier in 3D. I have all the patterns of stations and waterlines to check my progress as I go. Tomorrow should show some progress. Deciding where to cut them off to fit the fashion pieces will be stressful.

[Don Case]

I've been negligent with my log. I got all confused and just forgot. Shoot me I'm old🙂 I think I got the  transoms all sorted. They look like a plank will follow the shape and I guess that's the point. Once I stopped fretting about stuff beyond what little plans I have it's smoothed out some. I've discovered(Thank you everyone) that frames are usually double(bend) so now I have to make a duplicate of each frame. I've got ten partially done since yesterday. Each one of these need six chocks inserted. I'm taking pictures of the process as it goes and then I will post my frame making system for your criticism. I'm sure it can be improved. I tried cutting out patterns and gluing them to the wood and then cutting and  assembling them but I had no joy with that.

Anyway here's where she sits. I still have to do a lot more fairing but it's reasonably close.

[Don Case]

Thought I'd run over how I made the frames. I was fortunate that the stations were very close to what I decided was the R&S, 28". I have tried lofting but wasn't that successful so I looked for another way. Because the R&S matched the stations it meant that I had the shape of a good portion of my frames. It the bow and stern The stations were close together so I had every frame shape. Midships the stations were four frames apart so I drew a line between the stations on the body plan and then drew another line between that line and the station. I figured I could draw these lines as accurately as I could have lofted them, maybe even better. The center 15-20 frames(bends) were almost identical. Sandpaper would fix them up.

Because half the body plan is forward and the other half is aft I split two and taped like ends together. Because that put half facing me and half away from me I slowly went over the lines on one side with a Sharpie. By going slowly the ink soaked through so I could see it from the other side. Now I had complete stations. I used carbon paper to transfer the shape to some cardboard and then cut them out. I kept both the inside and outside pieces. I only did every other one as there was only about 1/16" difference and I figured coarse sandpaper could fix that.

Then I had to decide how many futtocks there were. I went with my gut(wrong) and made sure the grain of the wood didn't get too short so I ended up with too many but I'll live with it this time. Then I started cutting out pieces. (first picture) I only did 5 at a time so I could get a chance to check my work. I laid the pieces for one frame on the work bench(it's flat) and laid the pattern over them. (second picture but with the pattern instead of a frame. The picture was taken when I was making the second half of the frame)  Then I sanded the joints until the edge of the pattern was on all of the pieces. Then I glued the pieces together with epoxy. When it was cured I could clamp the pattern on it and trace it properly, then I cut it out. This gave me a frame but with just the outside defined. I drew in what I assumed would be the about the inside and cut that out. Now I had a rough frame that I could stand on the keel. Now I used the outside of the cardboard pattern to check and made sure that the frame, in position, matched the body plan. The outside of the frame I didn't worry over to much because it's easy to fair and there are no chocks on the outside. The inside was/is tough. I had to educated guess the moulded dimensions and try and get the inside as fair as possible because now I had to cut in the chocks. I custom made and fit each chock on each joint. as It turned out I had left the frames a bit thick and some later fairing sanded away too much of some of them so I'll have to go back and re-do them.

In the last picture all the frames are shoved forward so I can work on fairing them.

My fingers are tired, I'll stop now.

[Justin P.]

Shaping up nicely, I’ll follow along if you don’t mind.  I love Discovery as a subject and hope to give her a crack someday myself.

[dvm27]

Very nice woodworking, Don. I'm a bit concerned about the first two frames of the forebody in post #24. It doesn't look as if the heel of the frames is seating anywhere near the rabbet. Or is that an optical illusion. Will there be sufficient wood to fair them into the frames adjacent to them?

[Don Case]

10 hours ago, dvm27 said:

Very nice woodworking, Don. I'm a bit concerned about the first two frames of the forebody in post #24. It doesn't look as if the heel of the frames is seating anywhere near the rabbet. Or is that an optical illusion. Will there be sufficient wood to fair them into the frames adjacent to them?

If I'm following you all I can say is that the shape follows the body plan. I do know that it's going to take some creative planking. The planking goes down to the keel and back to the stern post but you probably knew that.

[Don Case]

I discovered that when fitting the fashion pieces that I had removed too much wood at the foot and as a result the top had moved out about 1/8" or so. My waterline jig is 5" and the fashion pieces are 7 1/2". The fit was good at the foot and the jig but not at the top. I removed the fashion pieces and re-did the foot.

While taking out the fashion pieces I knocked off a couple of cant frames. Since I am in the process of doubling up my square frames this may be an opportunity to do the cant frames, but, I was looking at Dan Vada's "Vulture" and noticed that his cant frames, fore and aft, don't appear to be doubled. Is this another decision I have to make?

[Don Case]

Just about finished the second half of the frames. Three or four to go. Since I decided to double the frames I had to get critical about the frames sided dimension. An extra inch or so, even if it's only .021" uses up the "space" real quick. So I had to run all 55 frames through the thickness sander. The steps for the frames on the aft deadwood were too short so I had to glue a small piece on each step to bring them out to 28". Fortunately they are all hidden. I'm roughly fairing inside and out as I work my way a long. None of them, except the cant frames, are glued in. I'll get them all roughed in and then when I'm sure I'll glue in 3-4 at a time so I can fair the inside more easily. I've been putting in 6-8 hour days on this. I'll be glad to see the end of the frames. It's starting to look a bit shipish, much like her last days as a prison hulk.