HMS Beagle by LucienL - OcCre - 1:60

[DonSangria]

Nice to have you back! 😃 Looking forward to your posts.

My Beagle will have to wait for 3 months, since I'm travelling. She has now all 3 masts completed and all the yards and booms except for the main mast. So I'm in for some rigging after my travels.

[Robp1025]

Hey welcome back friend!! Yea my progress has been slow on mine because life went crazy on me but it's better now 

[LucienL]

Thanks for the comments Rob and Don.

 

So for the forecastle details the first step was to blacken the chain. I have outlined how I made my home-made blackening solution in my bounty’s launch build log but it basically involves using copper sulfate and bicarb soda to make copper carbonate which can then be added to ammonia to give the blackening solution. I was still using the same batch from my Bounty’s launch, and I think it is much weaker now as some of the ammonia has evaporated. It took over 5 hours to produce the colour seen here where it was achieving the same results in 10 minutes a year ago. I guess the container must not be particularly airtight.

 

 

 

Also, on a few other Beagle threads, it's been mentioned how crowded the belaying pins at the foremast are. Anatomy of the Ship indicates that there should be some eyebolts around the base of the foremast to possibly ease this. It's pretty clear why OcCre has not suggested this, as it is going to be a pain in the **** to tie off ropes here once the mast is in, but why are we here if not to suffer? I'll probably tie off the threads to these eyebolts before adding the mast, which might make things a bit easier.

 

Painting the windlass was fun. The beige I used for the pins didn’t look quite right on the windlass as a whole, so I added a tiny bit of brown. Painting in the lines was a challenge that took a few goes to get right.

 

I also made the carronade. The top ring in my kit was very poorly cut and one edge was thinner than the other side and it broke as soon as I cut it out. I had to bend some 1 x 3 strips to give two half rings to make up a new one. I did also add some gun tackle using 2 mm blocks.

 

The hatchway was also fun to make. I added some hinges to the hatches with some off cuts from the eyebolts. I also made up some chain stoppers. I’m not really sure if they’re quite right but I think they get the idea across.

 

And finally, the two binnacles have been added. There’s a bit of a story as to why I have two. From anatomy of the ship, it’s clear that two binnacles were onboard, while the kit only has one. I noticed this months ago and emailed OcCre asking to pay for an additional binnacle as well as shipping. They may have misunderstood me as they assumed I had a missing part. They sent over a bunch, so I have way too many now, but I could at least install the correct amount. But as many other people have mentioned, OcCre definitely has top notch customer service, which I guess is something to keep in mind for any of their kits.

 

Anyway, I'm having a lot of fun with the little details, it's definitely one of the most rewarding parts of the build. The thought of building the boats is a bit daunting as I think I've set myself a few challenges there and I'm not really sure how it's going to turn out. The next few updates shouldn't be too far off though.

[LucienL]

Hey everyone, I’ve been quiet for a while but have a couple of posts that have been ready for a while now. It’s been slow going for the past couple of months, but significant progress has been made since the last update and I have a few posts I can do now.

 

First up is all the details around the main mast. The hatchway was mostly straightforward to make. I had a bit of trouble with the number of eyebolts around the main mast. I settled on 6 around the mast and one in front (changed after this photo). I did also need to order some more cleats as I think the rigging in the OcCre guide is not quite accurate. I’ve forgotten the specificities of what each of the eyebolts are for, but I’ll get into that later.

 

 

 

The winch was a little tricky. I added some gears by cutting a thin wheel off of a dowel and cutting in some grooves to mimic the effect, which I think works. I also had to make the posts a little longer as it clashed with the belaying pins

 

 

Bilge pumps were fiddly, but mostly straightforward, getting them to align symmetrically took a bit of trial and error but turned out okay.

 

 

The sounding winch was also fun. For ages I could not figure out what this thing was for. This was apparently used to lower ropes to the sea surface in order to gauge the depth of the sea floor, which is pretty cool. 

 

 

 

Then it was either cannons or skylights. I had planned some pretty major deviations for both of these and both seemed a bit daunting. In the end, I decided to do sky lights first to get all the stuff that is actually fixed to the deck done first.

[LucienL]

Similar to how I did the cabin windows, I wanted to cut holes in the wood and place a mirror behind it to give the illusion of depth. This proved quite difficult with the pre-cut parts as cutting out the holes was extremely painful and they ended up being too small. So instead, I decided to scratch build them using some of the limewood pieces. This gave some ugly little skeletons here (I think the main one is wrong here, I fixed it later but the slope on the roof should go the other way)

 

 

They looked a bit better with the sycamore lining and the roofs

 

 

 

I had to also make the bars from scratch, which was a long night cutting 1mm brass rods (I ended up buying some spare stuff in the end)

 

I really did not feel like priming all of these and then painting them multiple times, so I decided to blacken them instead, which turned out okay

 

Then I glued in the mirrors to give this effect, which is quite difficult to take photos of

 

Then I fixed them to the boat, and the deck was starting to come together

 

 

There was a bit of trouble on the poop deck as the sounding winch did clash a little with the larger sky light and I had to rebuild it with shorter wire and shift it a bit so that there was enough clearance (I think this piece is a little too large for scale, but I still like it)

 

Anyway, cannons next.

[LucienL]

Cannons were also a fairly significant deviation from the kit instructions. Instead of using the laser cut parts which did not look right to me, I only cut off the top ridged bit of the side pieces and used that. The bottom section of the side piece was then glued to that to give a groove.

 

I made up the quoin using the previously purchased brass belaying pins

 

 

 

Then I could add the actual cannon barrel (yay)

 

 

The main body of the cannon was finished off with wheels, eyebolts (from 0.5 mm wire) and cannon hinges. This all had multiple steps that took quite a while with 6 cannons. I can’t even imagine doing 100 for something like the Victory, but I would definitely want to do a big battle ship like that eventually.

 

 

I also rigged them with some 0.5 mm thread. I now need to add the blocks and tie them down to the deck. I think I will also add eyebolts to each of the gunports where the cannons are supposed to go.

 

 

Anyway, here are some more pictures.

 

[LucienL]

Hey everyone, so long time since my last post. I haven’t had a lot of time this year to work on the boat much, but I’ve been slowly working away at a few things. Part of it is time, but I also haven’t been able to give the proper head-space to the boat all that much. I've been very busy with my final year of uni, which is a research project that has been occupying a similar place in my brain that was previously occupied by the boat.

 

Last post was about the cannons, they were tied down using some tiny blocks, but that I think look okay.

 

I also painted the figurehead and did the prow details with some blackened chain

 

Then it was finally time to actually do the hammocks. It took some trouble shooting, but eventually I did end up with a method that worked. Then it was just a slow process of repeating it 100 times. They are a bit random and rough, but I don’t mind that, as my key frustrations with the kit hammocks were the regularity, the missing fold lines and the fact that they were completely the wrong material. 

 

This was one of the three biggest changes I had been planning from the start of the build and been most apprehensive about so I’m really glad that this is done. Coppering was the first.

 

The third big change is what has been causing considerably more difficulty, which is to scratch build all seven of the survey boats. At the moment, I am working on a jig for the frames and planking. I think I will post when that is done even if it is not very exciting

 

 

Edited August 22, 2022 by LucienL

[LucienL]

Hey everyone, so I have finally gotten around to planking the first boat, which is the 26 ft Yawl that sits in the centre of the main deck. I’ve used the anatomy of the ship to construct the jig. This involved printing out the body lines and using these as template to cut each piece of the jig out of 1.5 mm plywood. These were all fitted into a false keel and the space between them filled with balsa. I sanded them down to give a jig that closely approximates the body lines in anatomy of the ship.

Then I used the jig to bend 1 mm sticks to shape to form the frames, I stained each of these with a dark oak stain.

 

I glued each of these at the top with a spacer piece (I think it was 5 mm length and 0.5 mm thick). I hoped that this would prevent them from sticking to the jig, but in hindsight, I should have covered the jig in plastic to really prevent this.

 

After fitting all the frames, I added another layer of the keel to hold them all in place, the planks would then meet the keel at this height. I also fitted the transom and sternpost and then did some fairing

 

I figured I would lay the sheer plank first to get an idea of how much space I was working with. It was very difficult to measure these things accurately as the boat is so small and my equipment is not really precise enough. I ended up eyeballing a lot of it and hoping things were the correct length. I think I am extremely lucky that it worked out as well as it did.

 

I did my planking from the garboard up. The logic was that if there were problems at the top, I could simply re-adjust the sheer plank to make it all nice. Fortunately, this was not necessary (it is such a little thing!)

 

Then filling and sanding to give a nice finish (this will be painted white). This hull would have been double diagonal planked on the real ship. I was tempted to give this a try, however I figured that it would be a good idea to get practice planking on this one as I would want to hide much of the planks in the finish anyway (because it is inaccurate already). This would help me later when I try and do the remaining 6 boats, 5 of which are clinker planked.

 

 

 

I guess we’ll see whether it comes off the jig...

 

[LucienL]

Just a quick update here, I fitted the final layer of the keel over the planked hull and started painting it.

 

I got a little excited and tried to get the hull off the jig. I still have painting to do, but I was a little worried and wanted to see how it would go. It did not come out of the jig easily, definitely glad wrap it next time, I’m amazed nothing broke. The remnants of the jig are also attached.

 

[Robp1025]

On 12/29/2022 at 7:08 AM, LucienL said:

Just a quick update here, I fitted the final layer of the keel over the planked hull and started painting it.

 

I got a little excited and tried to get the hull off the jig. I still have painting to do, but I was a little worried and wanted to see how it would go. It did not come out of the jig easily, definitely glad wrap it next time, I’m amazed nothing broke. The remnants of the jig are also attached.

 

Looks like it held on for dear life there!! really nice way to handle this because i struggled with the size of the life boats and trying to get those right. 

[LucienL]

Hi Rob, yeah it was definitely close! I’m not sure if this is the best way to go about it, I’ve seen other people use laser cut frames which might be a bit easier. This works for me though, even if it is pretty time consuming.

[LucienL]

Hey everyone, I’ve been working on fitting out the hull of the yawl and making it look nice. I painted it and fit the sheer clamps to give it some more rigidity. I was a bit worried about it spilling out at the sides, as this happened on my first build the Bounty’s launch

After fitting the gunwales it was much more sturdy. I cut these from a piece of ply after tracing the outline from the remnants of the jig. I cut them wider than they should be to start (around 4-5 mm width), and then sanded them down to fit the hull as best as possible to around 2-3 mm. They should be mirror images, but I did have to bend them a bit while gluing.

Then some other bits and the deck planks (varnish is not quite dry yet. It was a bit fiddly to get the bow looking right

I think the sheer clamp got a bit grubby by this stage, will try to clean it a bit.

Really enjoying making this little guy and getting into it. I think I’ve gotten over the main barriers which were bending frames, planking and fitting the gunwales. Should be much easier to do boat number 2 (and 3-7) now.
 

 

[LucienL]

Another smallish update but has taken some time. I fitted the stern-sheet bench and back, which took ages to make from scratch and sand to fit properly. I also added a few thwarts, the third one is the mast thwart and is only dry fit.

The mast helpers are made from 1 mm wide brass strips and painted back. I’ve used the kit nails to fit them in, they’re probably a bit too big but add some nice detail. Also made the windlass holders. I think I will make up a full windlass and strap that to the deck as part of the boat kit. I’ll probably also make up some oars, a grapnel, the rudder, masts and sails and chuck in a barrel. I’m drawing a lot from my experience on my first build: The Bounty’s Launch to make these little boats. I think my sheer clamp and thwart raisers are too wide, but I can live with them.

 

And finally, with all the thwarts in.

No pennies in Australia, but our 2-dollar coin is around the same size (I think)

 

Next steps are to make the grating for the quarter deck, do the mast steps, tholes and the thwart stanchions. Then I should be able to move on to fitting it into the main boat and building the 23 ft cutter. Feeling motivated and keen at the moment, so should be able to keep making progress (unless the gratings kill me).
 

 

[Capella]

Looks great, Lucien!

 

Personally, I'm kind of dreading building those launches mainly because they're so darned small and look like they'll be difficult to work with due to the size.

 

But everyone else's Beagle launches have turned out well, so I'm hoping they just look difficult, but won't be once I get started.

 

(Crossing my fingers that I'm right! 😉)

[LucienL]

In the wise words of Samwise Gamgee "It's the job that's never started as takes longest to finish". I'm sure your boats will look great! I was also dreading this a bit and it did turn out to be much easier than I expected.

Edited January 12, 2023 by LucienL

[Capella]

How could I go against good, loyal Sam?!

[LucienL]

Been finishing up some of the last details on the yawl. The big one was the grating that makes up the quarter deck. I glued some 1 x 1 mm sticks to a 3 x 1 mm stick using some 1 mm spacers. Then I cut them in half to double the amount of grating made, which could then be glued together. In only had a small amount to make, so this relatively inefficient process was still effective.

 

I’ve also done the thwart stanchions, mast steps and the tholes, which means that this one is basically done aside from boat gear, which I might combine with some of the other boats a bit later.

 

[Capella]

Looks great, Lucien!

[allanyed]

Lucien

Yours is definitely the best ship's boat for the Beagle I have seen here at MSW.  The method you used is similar to that published by Frolich in The Art of Ship Modeling and variations can be seen in several scratch build logs 1751-1800 regarding a launch.  I have used plugs similar to yours for a dozen boats over the past years and have saved all of them so I was surprised to see you had to destroy yours. Was there a reason you did not save it?  You may find the following interesting as there are similarities.

Allan 

https://modelshipworld.com/topic/33539-23-foot-launch-by-allanyed-bounty-late-18th-century/

 

Edited January 28, 2023 by allanyed

[Snug Harbor Johnny]

  Such a nice method ... and a great outcome for the boat !  This is something that anyone learning from MSW logs can benefit from.  Sure, its a lot more trouble than just building them as provided by OcCre - but you are going to significant lengths to make the entire Beagle build far better than an 'out of the box' exercise.  I tip my hat to you!

[Capella]

@LucienL

What color stain did you use for the boats?

[LucienL]

Thank you for the kind words everyone.

 

@allanyed I think the trouble came when I tried to glue the spacer pieces that sit between the frames. I think some of the glue stuck to the jig, which meant that it would be impossible to remove in one piece. I think that next time I will wrap the jig in some cling wrap and that should allow the boat to lift off the jig easily if I do it the same way. Thank you for the link, I actually did come across your log towards the end of this process. The Bounty's launch from the Model Shipways kit was my first build, so I'm interested to see you tackle it.

 

@Capella The darker bits were stained using an oak stain. This is much darker than other oak stains I have seen and I think that this stain is meant to be diluted before use with a colour reducer that is sold separately. I liked the colour that came from the undiluted stain, so that's what I have been working with. I also rub in a small amount of walnut filler into the grain before staining to give a more even colour and hide some of the grain. I have used some paulownia wood for some pieces, which doesn't stain the same way as the limewood and has a very large grain. Adding the filling putty is necessary to get all the bits the same colour. The pale bits are just the raw limewood sealed with a matt varnish.

[allanyed]

3 hours ago, LucienL said:

The Bounty's launch from the Model Shipways kit was my first build, so I'm interested to see you tackle it.

Hi Lucien

The build log I referenced is a scratch build at 1:48 scale and is based on the contemporary plans at RMG, scantlings from Steel, and notes from Bligh's papers which does not seem to be the case with the kit you mention. 

Allan

 

[LucienL]

Okay, so it’s been a while, but I haven’t exactly been idle. Over the past year and a bit I’ve been continuing to work on the Beagle’s boats. In my last post, which was January of last year, I had finished up the yawl. The next steps were to make the chocks for it on the ship.

I next started on building the cutter that would have nested inside the yawl. This would have followed a similar construction plan, so it made sense to do it next.

Similar to the yawl, I printed out the plans and used these to cut the pieces of jig

I glued these into a frame and filled the gaps with balsa

Then I sanded it back to the frames. I also thought it might be a good idea to add some glad wrap this time as I had such a problem getting the hull off the jig last time

Then came lots of bending and staining frames to create a platform to lay the planks on

Then planking

Unfortunately, it was only at this point I decided to size the boat up next the yawl I had already made. I’m not sure how it happened, but the plans I printed out were too small, which resulted in the ship having significantly reduced dimensions compared to the yawl.

I spent plenty of time trying to determine whether I could live with this. Ultimately, I figured that the scale problem would likely only become worse as I proceeded and make it more difficult to fit all the deck planks and thwarts into the boat at the dimensions I wanted. I decided to bite the bullet and start over. This caused a big break in progress, so when I eventually came back to the ship, I decided to try to make all 6 remaining boats in parallel to move the project along a bit faster.

 

[allanyed]

7 hours ago, LucienL said:

I figured that the scale problem would likely only become worse as I proceeded and make it more difficult to fit all the deck planks and thwarts into the boat at the dimensions I wanted.

Hi Lucien,

Many of us scrap first and second attempts so you are not alone by any means.   One small suggestion, the plug looks to be grooved similar to the method Frolich details in his book The Art of Ship Modeling.  I found this to be troublesome with the frames getting stuck in them at times.  An alternate is to leave the plug smooth and glue tiny spacers where the frames go.  Just need to be sure they are shallower than the frames.   For scantlings of every part of many types of English boats, W.E. May's book Boats of Men of War is a great help.

 

The below is 1:128 scale 31 foot long boat using the plug method so it can be used at least down to that scale.  The last photo is a larger plug (1:48) that shows the spacers. 

 

Allan

Edited April 25 by allanyed

[LucienL]

Hi Allen, that's not a bad idea, I'll have to keep that in mind for next time. That boat is beautifully detailed even at that scale.

[LucienL]

After deciding to do all the boats in parallel, suddenly each step became quite a big task (shocking). After printing and cutting the body lines, I assembled these 6 skeletons for the jig. From left to right it’s the 23 ft cutter, the dinghy, the replacement gig, the 25 ft whaleboat and then the two 28 ft whaleboats.

I filled these frames with paulownia this time. This wood is now quite readily available in Australian hardware stores (Bunnings) at sizes that are suitable for modelling. It’s not really as good as balsa for this particular purpose as it is less spongy, harder to sand and more prone to cracking when pushing pins through. It works quite well for other parts though as it is a bit sturdier than balsa, doesn’t ‘fuzz’ up in the same way and looks alright after filling and staining.

Then here we are with the frames again

This time I checked early to make sure the cutter was the correct size

Slowly coming together

Planking finished on the cutter

Now while both the cutter and the yawl are carvel hull, the remainder of the boats are all clinker planked. By this point I had planked three carvel hulls with reasonable success and was ready to give the clinker planking a go. I used slightly wider planks and marked the overlap with a pencil using a 1 mm stick as a guide after tapering the plank.

Then I could lay each plank from the garboard up, ensuring that each plank roughly met the pencil line

This actually ended up going reasonably well first try, here is the dinghy

I went ahead and planked all the other boats in a similar way

From AOTS, the boats hanging over the sides of the ship are painted black and those stored on deck are white. I’m not sure if there is a reason for this correlation, but it is nice aesthetically.

They all made it off the jigs safely, and this time the jigs survived too.

[allanyed]

1 hour ago, LucienL said:

That boat is beautifully detailed even at that scale.

THANK YOU.   2X and 4X magnifier googles are needed for these old eyes.  😀  For me the use of photos is even better to see the details and what needs to be redone.   

Thanks again for the compliment.

Allan

[LucienL]

After completing the hulls, I could start working away at all the internal details. First, I laid the deck planks. These all were a bit narrower than the previous boat. I’m still not really sure that there is enough space between the planks and the thwart raiser.

Then I worked away at the gratings, quarter decks and various benches

After the thwarts went in, they really started to come to life

I’m just going to post a bunch of pictures now. There were many small things on these boats. I think the thwart knees were a particular pain and they could be a bit better, but I’m otherwise very happy with the boats now.

So this was my biggest point of improvement going into this build and I am extremely relieved it is done and very happy with how it turned out. These boats absolutely turned into a project of themselves, but I feel they take an important place in the model. I’ve learnt a lot through this process and am extremely grateful for all the logs and posts I’ve seen on this forum of other people’s small boats, that was a huge help. Anyway, onwards now. I can finally start thinking about the ship again and how I am going to fit all these little guys in.

[DonSangria]

The boats look really nice! Great work!