HMS Beagle by LucienL - OcCre - 1:60

[brunnels]

Those extra whale boats look fantastic, I was debating on adding them to my beagle as well, but I don't think I am skilled enough yet to do them from scratch.

[LucienL]

Hey brunnels. Thanks for the comment. I doubted my abilities a lot going into it. I think I am quite lucky with the way it turned out. Adding these whaleboats ends up concealing quite a lot of detail so it's definitely a choice to consider.

[Firs49]

Hi there. Your build log has been really interesting to follow. I am really impressed with your hammocks and was wondering whether you would mind sharing what materials and methodology you used? Thanks 

[LucienL]

Thank you for the comment. I’ve realised now that I didn’t actually include very many details of how I did the hammocks in this log.

 

I used a thin piece of fabric similar in texture to the sails used in the kit. I’m not sure where I found the fabric. I would cut a 1 cm by 1 cm square and roll it as tightly as I could. I would then use a bit of CA glue to seal it and then fold the roll of fabric in half  (with the edge of the fabric facing inwards) with some CA glue again to hold it in place. Then I cut the roll with fabric scissors. The dimensions ended up at 0.3 cm width (the width of the space in the rail) and 0.38 cm long. There was some quality control where I would throw out the ones that didn’t look quite right. Then I would place them in the rails and check with a ruler to ensure that there were the same number of hammocks on each side of the ship, some squeezing or adjustment was necessary with tweezers. After the rails were full, I brushed some varnish over the hammocks to help keep them clean.

 

I hope this helps, I tried a few different things including using wire to help with the rolling and holding them in shape but eventually found that it wasn’t really necessary.

[LucienL]

Okay, so next steps were to fit all the boats to the ship. I made the chocks for the whaleboats out of the Sapele supplied in the kit. I had to fit them to the boats and add an extra layer of wood to make it level with the skid beam over the main deck. I also placed the davits and added the support beam found in AOTS

 

After placing the boats, I realised that they are a little large. They are to scale, but I suspect that the deck in the occre model isn’t quite the right proportions for 1:60, which makes them seem a little big and makes the quarter deck a bit crowded

 

I then went and did the anchors. I chose to keep the bower anchors with the iron stocks from the kit. Two of the bower anchors in the kit are given a ‘wooden’ stock that is actually a cast metal piece. I chose to replace these with wooden stocks that I made from sapele. I made some iron bands out of a thin masking tape that I painted black.

 

I made up some new blackening solution. This time, I had access to lab grade copper sulfate and sodium carbonate, so I was hoping the higher degree of purity would mean I could add a bit less copper carbonate. The ratio was 0.5 g of copper carbonate to 20 mL of household ammonia. It basically worked as well as the homemade copper carbonate, it still took around 30 minutes to blacken the chain after cleaning with vinegar.

I then fit the anchors onto the boat. I added some additional lashing as suggested by AOTS. I also fed the rope holding the chain through a hole in the bulwarks to tie off to some belaying pins. I can see that is what has been done in the model built for AOTS so I decided that it was worth it. I’m not sure how authentic this is or how anchor lashing would normally be tied off.

 

 

 

 

Edited Saturday at 03:28 AM by LucienL

[Firs49]

On 6/21/2024 at 1:20 PM, LucienL said:

Thank you for the comment. I’ve realised now that I didn’t actually include very many details of how I did the hammocks in this log.

 

I used a thin piece of fabric similar in texture to the sails used in the kit. I’m not sure where I found the fabric. I would cut a 1 cm by 1 cm square and roll it as tightly as I could. I would then use a bit of CA glue to seal it and then fold the roll of fabric in half  (with the edge of the fabric facing inwards) with some CA glue again to hold it in place. Then I cut the roll with fabric scissors. The dimensions ended up at 0.3 cm width (the width of the space in the rail) and 0.38 cm long. There was some quality control where I would throw out the ones that didn’t look quite right. Then I would place them in the rails and check with a ruler to ensure that there were the same number of hammocks on each side of the ship, some squeezing or adjustment was necessary with tweezers. After the rails were full, I brushed some varnish over the hammocks to help keep them clean.

 

I hope this helps, I tried a few different things including using wire to help with the rolling and holding them in shape but eventually found that it wasn’t really necessary.

Brilliant. Thanks for sharing your approach. I am still quite a way off reaching the hammocks but will definitely give your method a go.