HM Bark Endeavour 1758-61 by DaveBaxt - Caldercraft - 1:64

[DaveBaxt]

First layer of planking almost complete. After a quick rub with coarse sandpaper, I now think it will e neceassary to use some filler. I also needed to fill in some hollow using 0.5mm thick strips of lime. Before I can fill in the underside of the stern facia with planking I will now fit the keel, stern and stem posts.

I still have the bulwarks to do before starting on the second planking. Here is a couple of photos of the second planking. Note the stand and keel is not yet attached.

Edited July 25, 2021 by DaveBaxt

[DaveBaxt]

Thought I would  post an update. before heading off to Cornwall for a week break.( I wonder if there are any good model shops or Museums I could go and see whilst I am down that way) Any way I have  made a start on the second planking. As it happens I don,t think I have done as good a job as I did on my Bounty when using 0.5 x 4 mm Walnut. This is 1 mm thick and I found it more difficult to work with. I ended up soaking for several hours and then allowing to dry overnight. Sometimes I used a heating iron to quicken the process before glue into place. There will be quite a lot of sanding to do ( perhaps that is why they use 1 mm thick Walnut) and will need to use some filler in one or two places but hopefully it should look ok when the planking is finished. I will try the Walnut dust and PVA mix as a filler , but wonder if you can buy Walnut filler already mixed..

 

[DaveBaxt]

Completed the second planking from the wales to the keel ,working with 1mm x 4mm Walnut. It didn,t work out as well as my last ship the Bounty which was also in Walnut but only 0.5 mm thick and easier to work with I think. I had to use a few steelers  to fill in the gaps at the deadwood area .A lot of work still to do to with sanding and filler to get it presentable . Fortunately this area is painted. Hopefully I make a better job of the rest of the planking up to the Bulwarks.

[Fernando E]

Hi Dave, coming along nicely. 

 

Cheers........ Fernando 

[DaveBaxt]

Completed second planking and started the sanding process. I need to fill some gaps with glue and found it was better to water the glue down so it would run into the gaps. The photos are of completed hull with coarse sand paper. next up will be using medium and fine grade sand paper before sand and sealer followed by super fine sand paper.

 

Edited September 20, 2021 by DaveBaxt

[DaveBaxt]

I am now considering the stern facia . Although the instructions say fit this before fitting the second planking I purposely left this until after the second planking as I thought it would be easier to trim the second planking at the stern before fitting the stern facia. Also it would be easier to clamp the 1.5x1.5 mm  strips of walnut to the stern facia before fitting to the hull I also sometimes wonder if it would be better to fit the wales at this stage, but on this case will follow the instructions and fit the stern facia before the wales. I will take another look at the other Endeavour builds and see what the other guys did. Any thoughts on this would be appreciated.

I am also considering leaving the inner bulwark planking until I have fitted the deck planks as I intend to fit waterways and think any inperfections of the waterway outer edge will be hidden.  I am not 100% sure if this is the correct way to do this but think it will be the easier as I did make an accurate template of the deck, only a tracing of the deck after the first planking was done. Hope this makes sense. Best regards Dave

Edited September 23, 2021 by DaveBaxt

[DaveBaxt]

Wales fitted and coarse sanding done  240 just 320400 to do ready for sand & sealer and then final sanding with 400/600 then. I then need to fit various port lids. I have been looking at the position of the channels which according to the drawing is fitted to the top ( side rail) wale and it looks like it is fitted just below the  just below this wale, however in all the photos bar one and including the Endeavour replica is inline with this top wale. I have discussed this in the following thread.

Also here is a few photos of the progress so far with the wales fitted. I have just notices there is one more to fit hwich is just below the Transom.

[DelF]

Looking good Dave

[DaveBaxt]

37 minutes ago, DelF said:

Looking good Dave

Cheers Derek. I am still making a few mistakes , fortunately they are not the same ones as my last build the Bounty. There are a number of things I might do differently on my next build. Seriously looking at Vanguard for hopefully better instructions. 

[DaveBaxt]

Regarding the position of the wales. Thanks to Allenyed who kindly supplied me with the following link to the origonal plans it would look like the wales are cut into the wale somehow. I just need to fid out the best way to do this. It may have been better if I made the wales to suit the channels first .

 

Edited September 26, 2021 by DaveBaxt

[DaveBaxt]

After deciding the length of planks 100mm I then decided on a 4 plank pattern and marked off the deck in 25mm sections and lay the first plank as No 4 with a pattern of 13241324 etc etc. then either side of 4 would be 2 and 1 and then outside of these would be 3 and 3 so on so on.I have one or two models of the Endeavour whereby the planks were continuous along the length of the deck which I thought would be ok on the fore and midship section but to long on the aft section . I thought for the size of the model and a scale of 1 64 the 100mm lengths would be 6.4 mtrs which thought would be long enough.. Here is the work after today. Using my Proxxon FET table saw made short work of the many 100mm lengths required but not so quick marking the edges with a marker pen.

[DaveBaxt]

Decking completed 

 

Edited October 2, 2021 by DaveBaxt

[DaveBaxt]

Before starting on the paint job I removed another 1 mm from the pedestals so the keel would fit into the slots. I used my Proxxon milling machine for the very first time and found it so easy to us.

A

And here is the paint job so far together with the pedestal stand. There is still need to make a few touches here and there on the transom as I found it very difficult to achieve the straight lines even when using 6mm and 10 mm modelers masking tape.

 

I must apologize for the quality of light in the photos ,unfortunately  the blue on the transome looks black the same as the mainwale/rubbing strake.

Edited October 2, 2021 by DaveBaxt

[DaveBaxt]

Started preparing the various cast metal parts with cleaning then white primer using spray  can then acrylic yellow orce and white for the brass windows . I have also blackened the brackets for the rudder with the help of the following thread which produced much better results than previous attempts at blackening.

 

[DaveBaxt]

Tried the above method for blackening and for some reason it didnot work so well. I attempted to have another go but it was in the blackening solution much longer that expected. Yet once again after polishing there was on or two areas of brass showing through,so decided to wire brush the parts and then acetone before pickling and this time after only a few seconds in the blackening solution it was evedent the process worked better. After polishing on this occation it was 100% imrovement.

Edited October 6, 2021 by DaveBaxt

[DaveBaxt]

Started adding some decoration to the stern quarter and stern facia and adding the larger of the 3 hinges to the gun port lids which were previously fitted to the hull. There are still a number of lids to fit to the hull ( In the closed position) but I found it difficult to accurately position these on the hull ( Its an age related thing) so will probably glue these in position away from the model which I hope I will find easier. The metal decorations were glued using appoxy resin but the hinges were glued on using CA.

I almost forgot. I removed the stand as the ship was not sitting level athwartships so decided to build another slipway /drydock which keeps the ship level. This is mainly for when I begin to fit the channels in the hope I can keep these in line with the water level rather than 90 degs to the hull. I am not 100% sure if this is correct but heard it mentioned somewhere.I think it will help with other parts of the build.

 

Edited October 7, 2021 by DaveBaxt

[DaveBaxt]

Fitted Rudder pintles and bushes which I found very fiddly.Then I fitted the rudder straps first then temporarily secured the rudder with tape whilst gluing and pinning the longer rudder staps to the hull. Glued Quarter badges using CA glue after paining behind the windows mat black .Started focusing on the anchor linings part no 122 which did not fit. I therefore decided to make new ones with 5mm x 1.5mm Lime strips as can be seen below using double sided tape and extending the strips to enlarge the anchor linings and then shaping them. It will also be necessary to bend the 1.5 mm strips to suit the shape of the hull. Hope this works out ok.

Edited October 12, 2021 by DaveBaxt

[DaveBaxt]

Just realized I think O have made my first major mistake or perhaps not myself. Looking at the two hawse plates just which I have lined up just under the upper wale. Fortunately as yet I have not drilled the holes out yet. I have checked other blogs and they too have had the same problem and have fiited the naval hoods higher up than what is on the drawing.so I will need to do the same and cut away the upper wale. I am kicking my self for not noticing this earlier as a few people have documented the problem with this build. Hopefully I can sort this without any damage to the hull when removing naval. hoods.

After removing the naval hoods and a section of wale you can see from the new position of the pins through the hawse holes that there should be enough clearance for the anchor rope to clear the deck. 

 

Edited October 11, 2021 by DaveBaxt

[DaveBaxt]

After fitting the new position of the Naval hoods and the holes drilled through there is now sufficient room for the anchor ropes. Anchor lines also fitted and painted. 

[DaveBaxt]

Change of tack here. Instead of following the instructions to continue with the hull fittings I have followed the blog by Dashi

 

and started on the deck fittings. First few fittings went rather well

 

 

Moving onto the Capstan and although the fittings weren't the best I decided to turn down the ends of the 8 mm Dowel and then cut slots to take the vertical Whelps. This has worked reasonably well

Next up is the Binnacle assembly and I can't see any other place other than above the area between the ships wheel and the skylight assembly. I have looked at a few blogs and cannot see such a thing as this and see from some photographs that the compass his housed in a small cuboard and wonder if I should try to make something similar. Here is the drawings of what is supplied be the kit. 

If there are any Endeavour builders out there some help here would be of value. Thanks

 

 

 

Edited October 14, 2021 by DaveBaxt

[AJohnson]

Hi Dave, you are making cracking progress on the Endeavour after your Bounty.  I've been kept busy over the summer by the Admiral, who wanted a Summer house building and some DIY/decorating doing!  🙄

 

Light at the end of the tunnel, just one more room to finish (my eldest gone to University last month), so apparently that "Has" to be done before he comes back at Christmas and makes a mess of it again!  🤣

 

Then I shall be back to my Bounty...

[DaveBaxt]

1 hour ago, AJohnson said:

Hi Dave, you are making cracking progress on the Endeavour after your Bounty.  I've been kept busy over the summer by the Admiral, who wanted a Summer house building and some DIY/decorating doing!  🙄

 

Light at the end of the tunnel, just one more room to finish (my eldest gone to University last month), so apparently that "Has" to be done before he comes back at Christmas and makes a mess of it again!  🤣

 

Then I shall be back to my Bounty...

Thank you for  that and nice  to get some input. There is a good bit of work more than the Amati Bounty but up to now it has been fairly similar but think the extra gear on the deck compared to the Amati Bounty is quite a lot and should keep me busy for sometime. I am currently pondering over whether or not to go with keeping everything on the deck vertical or perpendicularto the deck. I think most of the previous blogs have gone with vertical which is different then the drawings so will need to either fit wedges or cut out material to make a slope. Just trying to figure out the best angle. I will probably go with as near to when she is on the stand. If that makes sense. 

                  Hope you get your other work done soon. So you can get back to your Bounty.

[DaveBaxt]

Making progress  with compensating for the slope of the aft deck. I made two wedges for under the Capstan base on my Proxxon Milling machine and cut a wedge out of the sides of the skylight

Edited October 15, 2021 by DaveBaxt

[DaveBaxt]

I have made some progress with regards to the deck furniture/fittings . I did find assembling the windlass rather tricky compaired to the Bounty as I wasn't too happy with the barrels. Each flat of the octagon required assembly using 0.7 mm plywood strips as can be seen in the vice. This part on the Bounty was a cast piece and was much easier to assemble. however I got there in the end.

I

I have now only got the bilge pumps to assemble and perhaps tweek the angles of the bottom of the bitts and then I am almost ready to start attaching the fittings and furniture to the deck. However I need to fit pins to the bottom of the bits and the supports for the ship boats. I am still not sure of the Binnacle as I cannot see were this will fit. It is my intention to make something similar to the Endeavour replica as can be seen here

Anyway here is a couple of photos of my progress so far

Edited October 20, 2021 by DaveBaxt

[DaveBaxt]

Before I continue with the steering I would just like to mention that although there is nothing on the plans and as far as I can see on other blogs there is no cover over the hole in the deck where the rudder post comes out. I can see from a photo of the Endeavour replica that a small cover is fitted and on my last build the Bounty a small hut was placed over this opening which would prevent the ingress of water. So I would like to replicate this and see if this works

Above is a photo of a small platform which fits over the tiller arm alsready fitted with hand rail stantions made out of brass and blackened. The end of the tiller is fitted with another brass piece which I believe is so that the tiller arm does not come into contact with what I think might be a chimney. This is also not in the drawings but have seen this added to other builds of this model. Fortunately I have needed to use a few of other modellers ideas as I do not own a AOTS book of this ship. 

Edited October 24, 2021 by DaveBaxt

[Schubbe]

Dear Dave,

I had to close down my Workshop over the Summer, because I needed my desk to do home office. Now I come back online and the first thing I see is your amazing progress. I thought we might be working at a similar speed, but now you are way ahead of me. Impressing. I will follow at a slower pace... 😉

As you mentioned the missing AOTS: If you need something, I can send you a picture from my book. Just let me know what you need. The tiller arm is indeed bent to avoid contact with the chimney. These images are what I thought could be useful to you:

[DaveBaxt]

Thank you Schubbe for joining this blog and for your kind words. The picture you have sent me has helped me a lot and can see from it, what looks like a canvas cover of somewhat . From a translation to English ( this didn,t work out too well) I think it confirmed this. It would appear that a few previous builders have just decided to leave this off so you can see the mechanism at the top. Unfortunately this mechanism differs from the Caldercraft version so will just have to live with that. 

                                       I have also changed the design of the Bitts which gives them a more realistic look rather than just square at the ends I have shaped them and drilled holes at the bottom to simulate pullys,where I believe the rigging goes through before it is secured round the top of the bitts

                

At a risk of using up your valuble time I would appreciate any photos of the Bitts in the AOTS book,especially the forward ones. As yet I have only shaped the tops on these and not drilled the holes in them. I too notice there are a number of suttle differences between the AOTS book and the Caldercraft kit which I am not to concerned about but another major one I think is maybe the Binnacle and I am still not sure which way to go. AS nothing is yet glued down I have still got time to decide. Your offer of helping with any photos of these items would much appreciated.

Edited November 2, 2021 by DaveBaxt

[Schubbe]

Hi Dave,

here is what i found for you. I hope this helps.

 

[DaveBaxt]

29 minutes ago, Schubbe said:

Hi Dave,

here is what i found for you. I hope this helps.

 

 

Excelent and thank you for the quick response. The Binnical is similar to the Caldercraft one so I will attempt to use it. The Fwd Bitts are interesting and will continue the way I am going but looks like there is only one pulley on each side of the Forward Bitts. I can now move forward knowing I have improved the accuracy of how the Endeavour was built. Good luck with your current build and I look forward to your progress.

[DaveBaxt]

Here's an attempt at making my own cannon carriages as I did not like the look of the Caldercraft ones with the square axles . I stll need to figure out the best way to make the axles , whether or not to start with dowel and machine flats or start with square material  and shape the ends which go  and I think are round and not square through the trucks. Anyway I am quite pleased with the prototypes but also need to figure out how to cut the half circle on the underside  of the carriage sides.