HMS Diana by DavidEN - Caldercraft - 1:64

[DavidEN]

14 hours ago, Dave_E said:

Dave, Those cleats are incredible! You've given me hope that perhaps I may be able to use the Brittania cleats that came with the Rattlesnake. I love all your scratch built deck furniture! 👍😀

Thanks Dave. I think you will find that the Britannia metal is soft enough to be worked quite easily. I took off the excess casting and did a preliminary shaping using a sanding drum mounted in the dremel. I did the final shaping using a file and then sandpaper.

 

Regards,

David

[DaveBaxt]

47 minutes ago, DavidEN said:

Thanks Dave, I hope it will not be too long before you liberate your Diana from her box.

 

Regards,

David

I think I still have a way to go with my Endeavour and I am still trying to get my head around the rigging. . However when I do eventually get around to starting on the Diana, I will definately be following your build closely and hopefully will be to imulate some of your workmanship. Cheers

[DavidEN]

I started to work on the forecastle for a change of pace. The forecastle bulwarks were problematic. I had completed the deck planking based on the location of the kit frames but I had to thin these down to achieve the desired width of the plansheer. I was not that keen of replanking the deck so I had to introduce a more aggressive slope to the bulwarks in order to resolve the geometry. It is not the end of the world though and I can live with it as the area will eventually be filled with guns and rigging and so should not be that evident.

The supplied breasthook pin rail is too small and doesn't have enough holes for the number of belaying pins shown in the AOTSD drawings so I had to make a new one out of some 2mm thick maple. Once fitted it required some additional shaping with the dremel to match the upper curve of the bulwark.

I started to look at the plansheer. The supplied piece is too narrow, doesn't quite follow the curve of the bow that I have ended up with and the cutouts for the timber heads do not match up with the positions of my gun carriages. I had to cut a new one and locate the head timbers. To accomplish this I cut out a paper template that followed the curve of the bulwark and then lightly glued it to the top. I then mocked up the position of the lower shrouds so that I could fine tune the position of the guns such that they would not shoot into the rigging. I used the AOTSD gun locations rather than the kit positions but looking at the various NMM drawings it would appear that there are multiple possible configurations for these. Once I had positioned the guns I could then go ahead and cut the bulwark for the carronade ports. I added the external mounting for these guns as per those located in the stern.

After the paper template was marked up with all of the cutout locations I was able to remove it (mostly) and transfer it to a sheet of 1.5mm thick walnut. I could then trace out the profile and cut it out as well as mill out slots for the timber heads.

 

For the end of the plansheer I cut out a lump of 10mm thick lime and drew on the profile of the bulwark. I then carved out a 1.5mm thick rail using the scroll saw and a sanding drum in the dremel. I initially tried to include the scroll at the end but prior bungles left me with an odd juxtaposition of the upper and lower scroll so I decided to omit the upper one rather than having it winking at me every time I looked at the model. I can always pretend that it was shot off during a fierce skirmish.

 

For the timber heads I was hoping to use the kit supplied versions as there are a lot of these and they are fiddly little pieces to make. The kit timbers are unfortunately too thin and come in the dreaded walnut ply so I had to resort to making hand cut ones like the chips in a pretentious restaurant. Using the drawings in the AOTSD I knocked up a simplified version in CAD to get the basic dimensions. I cut out some 2.5mm x 14mm x 4.75mm walnut blanks and 3D printed a simple jig to hold them at a consistent angle to mill the chamfers. It turned out that the angles and dimensions of these are so miniscule that it was not that successful.

I had a second go around where I slightly exaggerated the angles and recesses to overcome the limitations of the scale. I also improved the jig by making it longer so that it was easier set horizontal in the vise. These changes gave me a better end product but still lacking. I didn't want to end up spending months fretting over these so I just went ahead with the second versions. I imagine the approach would be more successful if I was working at 1:48 scale. I guess the process was still better than freehanding them.

I continued in the same vein for the shorter versions but made some improvements to the jig for these by adding some integral shims to prevent it twisting in the vise. I finished these just in time as I snapped my last 0.8mm mill bit as soon as I had completed the last one.

 

The timberheads are just balanced in their slots for now. I am thinking of reworking the bollard timbers. They are almost square in plan as they butt against the stem but I think that the profile could be changed as a nod to the shape of those seen in the contemporary models despite not being shown in the AOTSD or NMM drawings.

 

 

[Beef Wellington]

Nice update David, sharing the challenges of the plansheer myself so appreciate the struggles.  Your timberheads turned out very nicely indeed with some very crisp detail, ingenious to use 3D printed jigs.  I will undoubtedly be going down the freehand road, but hoping it will be viable to make some less engineered jigs to get the angling correct.  The headshots show shes coming together very nicely indeed, well done.

[DavidEN]

12 hours ago, Beef Wellington said:

Nice update David, sharing the challenges of the plansheer myself so appreciate the struggles.  Your timberheads turned out very nicely indeed with some very crisp detail, ingenious to use 3D printed jigs.  I will undoubtedly be going down the freehand road, but hoping it will be viable to make some less engineered jigs to get the angling correct.  The headshots show shes coming together very nicely indeed, well done.

Thanks Jason. I would wager that your freehand ones will be crisper than my machined versions. It will help if you have some boxwood to work with. In that size I only had a choice between walnut or some very splintery maple.
Regards,
David

[DavidEN]

I reworked the bollard timbers to more or less reflect the shape of those shown in the contemporary models. I then glued in all of the other head timbers and added the ringbolts for the canon rigging.

I decided to have a go at the belfry. I dashed together the kit version to see how it looked. To be sure it is not the most handsome belfry. After looking at the NMM and AOTSD drawings I can see the problem they faced in designing a piece that could be construed out of laser cut timber. The actual belfry is quite a delicate construction at 1:64 and it would be very difficult to replicate. I guess a 3D printed or cast version would be more feasible. Nonetheless I thought that I would have a stab at it.

 

First off, I made a new roof piece out of a 15 x 15 x 4mm piece of walnut. It more or less corresponds to the AOTSD dimensions albeit slightly thicker to give my clumsy hands more of a chance. I then ran it through the milling machine to get the edge mouldings and cruciform step in the middle. The internal vaults were drilled out and the roof profile was shaped using files and sandpaper.

 

I now turned my attention to the columns which had me tossing and turning at night trying to think of a way to achieve the required detailing at such a small scale. I eventually decided that the 3D printed jig was the way to go so I drew up a simplified column which then formed the basis of a jig that would sit in the vise and hopefully allow me to get a consistent product. Once it was printed out, I realised that the steps were so miniscule that there was little chance of success. Still, I persevered and loaded it up with some 2.4 x 2.4mm walnut. I then made passes with a mill bit using the jig as a guide for depth and position. After each pass the walnut blanks were given a quarter turn like kebabs on a BBQ and the process was repeated until done. The first set got all the way to the last pass before one of them popped out of the jig and received a large gouge which meant that I had to start the whole process again. The final product is a bit rough but it is really so small as to be beyond my skill level so I do not think I could produce anything significantly better. I suppose I could try using some aluminium to see if I could sharpen things up but I think that it needs to be timber to match the softness of the adjacent barricade.

 

The belfry on HMS Victory has copper sheathing on the roof so I did quite a clumsy approximation of this using some 0.3mm thick copper sheet that I had lying around.

 

To assemble the pieces together I used some 0.5mm diameter brass rod as dowels with some 1.0 mm thick walnut to form the bell beams. I am not well pleased with the bell and will have to order an aftermarket brass part for a replacement but will wait until I need enough things to get a reasonably sized order together as flying a 5x5mm brass bell 10,000km solo in business class seems excessive although I do not want to revisit the trauma experienced during the installation of the kit bell. The bell beam was secured using 0.5mm brass rod as pins and the whole assembly does swing back and forth but I think that it only has a dozen swings in it before catastrophic failure. The crank was formed out of a very delicate brass eyebolt that I found in my box of spare bits.

 

The last bit of the assembly was to include two cleats on the forward columns to satisfy the myriad of belaying points shown in the AOTSD drawings. The cast Britannia metal cleats supplied were way too large for the delicate columns but luckily, I had some PE cleats that I had procured for my Charles W. Morgan whaleboats. These were closer to the scale of those seen on the HMS Victory belfry. As small as they were they I thought they could still go on a diet so I had an attempt at removing some material using a file but mainly ended up filing my fingertips. A spot of paint and they blend right in.

 

I have been trying to give the roof a patina using Miracle-Gro and red wine vinegar but the results are a bit spotty and quite garish. I have found it is not an exact science and it may develop over time so I will let it sit for a while and see how it goes. The copper should darken and the patina should lighten.

 

 

 

 

 

[DavidEN]

Still working on the forecastle. One of the remaining pieces of the puzzle is the funnel for the stove. I used the kit supplied parts for this but modified the fixing element for the baffle plate. I used 1mm diameter brass tube to accept a 0.5mm brass rod fixed on either side of the baffle plate. I then added some 0.5mm brass rod details and painted it black to finish off. I found I had to add an additional spacer at the base as I suspect that my custom stove was sitting at a slightly lower level than the kit part. I installed timber around the base and added a flange by cutting out a disk from some photographic paper I had lying around and then painting black.

 

I added the cat block on the plansheer. I milled this out of some 4 x 3.5mm walnut. I didn't really have a plan for this and just made some fairly arbitrary moves with the mill to take some material off the one end. The sheave was cut out of a 4mm diameter brass rod with a 0.5mm diameter brass rod as the axle. It could actually rotate if enough force was applied. Compared to the kit part it is a slight improvement but still looks a bit clumsy to my eye.

 

In a flurry of finishing activity I installed the ringbolts in the deck for the canon relieving tackle. I also put in the ringbolts around the mast collar.

 

I installed the previously constructed rigging timber heads and then remade the fore jeer and fore topsail sheet bitts, which I had said I wasn't going to do, to include the triple sheave at the base. This was done using a 0.6mm mill bit to give me enough room to fit the 3 slots in. I added a styrene collar around the base to try and improve the junction between the bitt and the deck.

 

 

The forecastle is nearly there though I have still to rig the guns but before I do that, I have to get round to painting the barrels however in the spirit of procrastination I am moving back to the quarterdeck to finish of some of the structures there instead. I still have the barricade, the capstan, the taffarel fife rail and a myriad of eyebolts still to install. I cannot say that I am enthusiastic about any of these as they are all quite problematic in their own right except for the eyebolts.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Beef Wellington]

Wonderful detailing David, looks great.  I do dislike the supplied funnel, 2lbs of poorly defined white metal, but you've managed to get it looking good.

Edited January 1, 2023 by Beef Wellington

[DavidEN]

1 hour ago, Beef Wellington said:

Wonderful detailing David, looks great.  I do dislike the supplied funnel, 2lbs of poorly defined white metal, but you've managed to get it looking good.

Thanks Jason. I agree it is not the best of funnels. I did toy with the idea of remaking it out of thin brass sheet to make it look more authentic but my soldering skills leave much to be desired and I could only forsee third degree burns if I went down that route. I suppose it would be possible make it out of thin styrene sheet but I have generally had no luck when working with styrene.

Regards
David

[DavidEN]

Back to the quarterdeck and on to the barricade. I touched on this way back in post #70 where I was bleating about the difference between the kit supplied item and the NMM drawings and figured I would waste an afternoon seeing if I could replicate the NMM situation, well an afternoon turned into a long week and I am not sure if it was time well spent. I had initially drawn it up as I interpreted from the NMM drawings but I was having the worst time trying to lathe the tiny columns.

 

After my work on the belfry I realised that I had made a fundamental error and there is no real indication in the NMM drawings that these columns were actually turned and just going by these drawings the only conclusion one could make is that they were square which makes a lot more sense and seeing as it is easier for me to construct I am not going to argue. I sketched them up in their square profile and they present sturdier and more workmanlike as one would expect on a ship.

 

Decision having been made I proceeded to simplify the design to only include detail that I could feasibly achieve and then printed out a jig much in the same manner as the belfry. I beefed up the size of the blanks to 2.5 x 2.5mm for practical purposes and then had a go with the milling machine. I made ten instead of the eight required in anticipation that there would at least be two of the dreaded pings into the parallel universe where all small parts go.

 

 

The first lot were a bit wonky in the shaft department and I tried to get too much detail in the astragal which made it prone to crumbling. The next batch improved this situation but the column shaft ended up a tad thin and the astragal a touch thick. I didn't really have the will to go for a third round so these will have to do. I shish kebabed them onto a 0.5mm diameter brass rod to keep them aligned and to give them a sturdier fixing.

 

I then turned my attention to the horizontal members. I printed out the profile from the NMM plans at 1:64 scale. This was used as a template to locate the fixing holes on the deck. It did give me a smile when I was drawing diagonals through the dashed square on the NMM plans to find the centre point for the fixing hole. The square was drawn 230 years ago by a possibly disgruntled draughtsman who had no idea that what he was drawing would still be useful a couple of centuries down the line by a disgruntled modeller. I then glued the paper template onto some 1.6mm thick walnut sheet and cut this out. I tried to add an edge profile using a scraper but the walnut was very soft which meant that it disintegrated into a stringy mess with no hope of maintaining a sharp edge and the curved end pieces kept snapping off.  I assembled what I had in a quick mock-up and realised that I needed a new strategy to construct the horizontal piece and I also came to the conclusion that I could not live with the skinny columns so would have to try make a third batch.

 

For the horizontal section I dug out some 0.8mm thick walnut sheet and some fairly narrow 0.5mm thick walnut strip. I thought that I could possibly build up a composite profile by layering these. It was a lot of work and only semi successful but better than the completely solid piece.

 

The third go around with the columns was probably the best of a bad bunch but making thirty columns to get eight usable is not great economics so time to put an end to the column making madness.

 

I knocked up the top rail and then did a test fit without glue. It sits at a good height to place a pint glass so I will take that small victory.

 

I had a bash at the ornate newel post by lathing some 3mm diameter brass rod down to 2.5mm diameter and adding some steps. It is not as elegant as that in the NMM drawings but it is so small as to be nearly invisible to the naked eye. The ball on the end was just a spare 2.5mm diameter cannon ball.

 

The exuberant end rails gave me no end of problems. In the contemporary models these are often made out of brass but I thought that I should at least work on my stress levels and have a go making them out of timber. I tried carving a solid piece and when that did not work, I tried to bend some thin stock around a curling iron. That too was not successful so I had to give up and 3D print them. I traced the profile using the NMM drawings as a guide. Once printed out I did a bit of freehand carving to add some relief and give them more of a handmade look. They are very small and will be painted black so I doubt anyone will notice the shabby finish.

 

The barricade is just dry fitted at the moment. I should probably finish up some of the other adjacent detailing before installing it permanently as it has some delicate parts that would be prone to damage.

 

 

[Blue Ensign]

More examples of your ingenuity David, loving the look of your Diana, the QD breast rail looks excellent.

 

B.E.

[DaveBaxt]

Excellent work on that barricade and definately worth the extra work making them on your Milling machine.It's a good job those stantions are square as I don,t think I would do a very good ones if I had to make them with my very basic lathe. You have done a very good job too on the jig. I am assuming you made this on a 3 D printer. Is the brass pins all the way through? if so It should be  really strong. Keep up the good work and she will be an exceptional model at the end. I look forward to seeing your progress. Best regards Dave

[DavidEN]

Thanks for the kind words BE and Dave. In response to your questions Dave, the jig is 3D printed and the brass dowels do not go all the way through the columns. The picture where you can see them is actually two separate brass rods. One goes all the way through the bottom block and then 2mm into the column base while the top one sits about 3mm into the top of the column. I did not have a 0.5mm drill bit long enough to go all the way through and I doubt it would be easy to do even if such a drill bit existed as it would be very flexible and would no doubt deviate from the straight and narrow as it navigated the grain. Even with two piece dowels the structure is surprisingly robust.

Regards,
David

[DaveBaxt]

Good points regarding the length of the drill . I thought I seen one somewhere with a 3mm shank It came with a set . perhaps Proxxon  but may have been larger than 0.5mm.  You are correct it is very flexable. Sorry to come of the subject a bit. I should have sent you a PM. but good to hear that you are happy with it, as that is what counts. I think its terrific and wish my level of workmanship was as good.Best regards Dave

[Beef Wellington]

Agree with everyone's comments, your barricade is so much more in keeping with your model.  Nicely done!

[DavidEN]

Time to have a crack at the upper capstan. For the lower capstan I has resorted to 3D printing. I was never that happy with the look and finish but it was not really a problem as it is not possible to see it once the quarterdeck is in place. I may has well have used a block of cheddar cheese and no one would have been the wiser. For the upper one the temptation was there just to press the print button and save myself the trauma but I initially thought that I could construct it out of timber. The kit parts are the dreaded walnut ply and it is missing the upper chocks. The kit piece consists of eight whelps each with a width of 1.6mm rather than the six shown in the AOTSD drawings that are 3.4mm wide so I will have to scratch build it I guess.

 

I started off as usual by transposing the AOTSD drawings into a 3D CAD model so I could get an idea of what I was attempting. The drawings are fairly concise but a tad ambiguous and lacking detail in places so I had to resort to other sources and photographs of extant examples to fill in the gaps. I then created a kit of parts that I printed out so that I could assemble a rough prototype. The idea being that I would then use some of these parts as templates to construct timber pieces for the final model. Once I had printed out the pieces, I realised that they are quite small and the tolerances required to achieve an adequate product are quite narrow. I then decided that it would be less stressful to go down the 3D printed route. I figured that if I spent more time filling, sanding and using individual pieces rather than printing it out pre-assembled then I could potentially achieve an acceptable product.

I reworked the CAD model to make some minor adjustments suggested by the mock-up. This was then printed out and I proceeded to work on cleaning up the pieces.

I painted the barrel black to disguise the lumpiness and to give some additional definition to highlight that it is assembled using several distinct parts rather than printed out in one go. The whelps were then painted red and glued on. The whole structure was designed to be threaded onto a 3.2mm diameter styrene rod with a centre hole left in all the parts to ensure that they could be easily aligned. 

 

 

The chocks were deliberately printed larger than they had to be so that they could be hand shaped to their final dimensions to make it look a bit more artisanal. I included a slew of wire bolts as per drawings from the NMM using 0.44mm diameter wire with the end filed down nearly flush.

 

While test fitting it on the deck I accidentally knocked the captain headfirst down the ladderway and he got wedged under the chain pump brake. At one point I thought that I would have to perform a double amputation below the knees but I eventually managed to extricate him in one piece.

 

For the drum head I decided to include the circular iron plate on top. Most of the contemporary drawings show this on the top of the trundle head for the bottom capstan and below the drum head for the upper capstan. I would speculate that this is for weatherproofing reasons. Having this extra detail on the top does allow some distraction from the finish of the piece and I did see a contemporary model in the NMM that had this detail. Once assembled I loaded it into the dividing attachment and drilled twelve 0.5mm holes to accept some of the 0.44mm diameter wire which then received the same trimming and filing treatment. Once I had completed this I decided that it looked a lot flatter than I had envisaged. I went back to the drawings and realised that I had lazily copied the trundle head for the lower capstan which has a much flatter profile and a smaller diameter so back to the computer to make a new drum head and into the bin with the old one.

 

The new profile was drawn and printed out and this highlighted the limitations of my 3D printing setup. As the curve of the cap is fairly shallow the individual layers that are laid down by the printer are quite visible in a series of steps. I decided I could lathe a central cap out of timber to be inserted into the 3D printed drum head. This was fairly easy to accomplish and it made me realise that I might as well construct the whole assembly out of timber. I Fortunately had a beech dowel that was exactly the same diameter as the drum head so it was just a pedestrian series of operations on the lathe and the milling machine to finish. Looking at the picture it is apparent that I had not centred the lower part of the drum head in the dividing attachment but it is good enough for my purposes.

 

 

 

 I added the iron plate and bolts and then glued it all together. It took five versions to arrive at the final one but I like the timber version far more than the 3D printed efforts.

 

 

I never bothered to assemble the kit capstan for comparison but I think this one is more in keeping with the details shown in the AOTSD and NMM drawings.

 

I now have lots of little fiddly bits to complete before tackling the dreaded cannon rigging.

 

 

 

[dunnock]

Extraordinary work David

[DavidEN]

Carrying on with some more details as I inch forward to hull completion. First off, I gave the deck a good sanding to repair some of the damage it has sustained in the preceding months. I do not mind a distressed look but the gouges and scratches were not really 1:64 scale. I then gave it another coat of golden oak stain and a spritz of polyacrylic coating.

 

I added the stanchions for the various rope handrails at the gangway and ladderway. These were constructed, as per those down below, out of 1mm diameter thin-walled brass tube with an HiS blackened PE eyebolt epoxied in the top. The flange at the base was made out of a Caldercraft PE eyebolt with the leg cut off and the central hole drilled out to a 1mm diameter to match that of the stanchion. These were then painted black and a bit of colour added from my weathering powder rust palette that sits on top of a tupperware container which was the nearest thing to hand at the time but now means that its sandwich toting days are over.

 

The ropes were 0.5mm diameter tan from Ropes of Scale (RoS). My clumsy seizings are a reminder that I am hopeless at knots and rigging. I am sure that it is a skill that I could learn once I have enough models under my belt but I am not there yet. I need to attend some sort of rigging night school and I suspect that I will really botch the model from here on in.

 

I turned my attention to finishing the cannons. I painted the barrels black and added the capsquare. I used the kit supplied PE for these as they sat a bit more snugly on the trunnions than the other ones I had lying about. The capsquare eyebolt was fashioned out of 0.44mm diameter black annealed wire and the capsquare key from a blackened HiS PE eyebolt.

The breeching rope is the 0.8mm diameter tan rope from RoS. This is a tad larger than that indicated in contemporary tables of cannon rigging size but looks more the part at a 1:64 scale. The length was determined in situ by positioning the cannon far back enough to allow access to the muzzle. Eyebolts were then added and seized. I lashed the breeching ropes over the top as per the 18lb'ers on the upper deck. I drilled holes in two of the wheels, diagonally opposite each other, and inserted a pin which was then inserted into a hole drilled in the deck to give a sturdier fixing for the cannons. I had installed a few cannons before I realised that I had neglected to add a set of gun tackle loops to each of the 9lb'ers. I am such a bungler. Ripping out the already installed guns would be more destructive than living with the omission as these are the loops that are not in use for the configuration that I have. I added these tackle loops to the forecastle cannons that I had yet to install but the inconsistency may pique the interest of the nosy pedant.

 

I dusted off the homemade serving machine to give the gun tackles a good frapping. These were assembled using 0.3mm diameter tan rope from RoS again oversized but still looking a tad thin to my eye. I used 3.5mm single blocks from Vangaurd. I had used HiS blocks for the upper deck and thought I would use the Vanguard blocks for comparison. Unfortunately it was too long between the installations for my weak memory so it was hard to pick a favourite. They are both way better than the kit supplied blocks to be sure. The hooks were the 3mm HiS blackened PE variety. I made the tackles gradually producing shorter and shorter ones until I got down to 15mm between the outside edge of the blocks which I felt was the best looking of a bad bunch. The rope still appeared a bit spindly so I tried one using 0.25mm diameter Caldercraft rope. This seems to be more relaxed than the RoS version and gives the frapping more bulk. It does not have the fine detail of the RoS offering but I am happier with the overall look.

 

 

I need to move on to the carronades but my homemade efforts, while dimensionally correct, are quite top heavy so I think they will be really susceptible to damage from the errant elbow as I do not have the opportunity to utilise a robust fixing as I have for the cannons. I have also been looking at the lower masts as that will probably be the next task after the guns. Mast making literature is a real muddle of somewhat contradictory information that made my head hurt. For the masting stage I think that I am just going to go with whatever I feel is easiest.

 

 

 

Edited January 25, 2023 by DavidEN

[DaveBaxt]

Nice cannons and their tackle, I also like the serving machine doubling up to make nice work on them small blocks.

[Mic_Nao]

Very nice model. Your work is very fine.

[DavidEN]

I should have jumped onto finishing the carronades but I felt like I needed a change so I had a stab at one of the masts. I chose the mizzen as it is the easier of the three. I checked all of the heights against using Steel, Lees, Caldercraft and AOTSD. The AOTSD and kit lengths are fairly close although the diameters are a bit different. The dimensions in Steel are all shorter but he was quite the short mast evangelist. I decided to stick to the AOTSD dimensions as I had used those heights for the dummy masts that I used to position my gunports.

 

For the mizzen I used an 8mm diameter beech dowel which sits between the Steel and AOTSD dimensions but the last time I had a go at enlarging the hole for the mizzen with the dremel I nearly set fire to my ship. Luckily the 8mm diameter mast did fit into the lathe so I used that to get the taper using sandpaper and multiple dimensional checks to see that it was going in the right direction. The taper is as per Steel's formulas and is quite subtle but noticeable. The end was squared off with the milling machine and the taper to that done freehand which ended up a bit wonky but that gives it a nice homemade feel.

I added the cleats to the bottom of the mast as per the AOTSD drawings. I had to eyeball the height based on my 1:64 captain figurine but I do not think it is critical. I used modified Bluejacket cast Britannia metal cleats. I gave the mast a coating of yellow ochre and painted the top black. I left off the top iron hoops for now until I have fitted the crosstrees.

 

I remade the hounds and bibs as two separate pieces rather than the all-in-one kit version. This will also allow me to splay the bibs. I notice that the drawings show this for the main and fore masts but they are quite shy in describing the condition at the mizzen. For consistency I am planning on splaying all three.

 

For the wooldings I did a couple of samples using 0.3mm diameter rope as per Steel and 0.5mm diameter rope as per other sources. I could have gone either way on this but eventually plumped for the 0.3mm. I then realised that I did not have any of the dark brown from RoS in this size so had to revert to the 0.5mm. I noticed that they now do a 0.35mm diameter version which would probably be the sweet spot in terms of dimension but I am too impatient to wait for delivery.

The timber hoops above and below the woolding were fashioned using a 0.5mm sliver of cherry wood cut from a 0.5mm thick shim. This was then well soaked and wrapped around the mast. It was nigh on impossible to do this without getting glue on the woolding. It does have a nice yellow colour so I can forgo the painting and avoid further mischief to the woolding.

 

I started on the top. This turned out to be a bigger adventure than anticipated. I looked at many drawings describing these structures and most of them seem to be based on the one included in Steel. This is a beautiful drawing to be sure but it is full of ambiguities. The AOTSD drawings sort of fudges the matter and is such a small scale that it is very hard to see what is going on. I eventually found out what I needed to know in the Longridge Victory book. His drawing is not as evocative as Steel's but has much greater clarity. A further study of the existing condition on HMS Victory and HMS Trincomalee confirmed this solution. To start I rebuilt the deals using individual planks. Here I shamelessly copied Rob Durant's colour scheme that he used in his Ethalion build and left the planks in their natural state. It is a non-regulation colour scheme but I like the way you can see how the top was put together. Although these planks would not have been caulked, I did darken the edges to give better definition to the layout.

 

Studying other builds I noticed that it is quite popular to plank over the kit piece, which was tempting, but I wanted to see the planking on the underside as well. Lees gives a drawing that shows how these planks are scarfed together which got me fretting as to how I was going to be able to mill a plank exactly in half to form this scarf joint. Luckily, I had no planks of the required thickness but I did have some that were half as thick which made me realise that it would be a lot easier to form the scarf by laminating them together and save myself the milling headache. That done it was fairly easy to glue them into the required pattern and cut out the final shape.

 

At this point I should include a "do not try this at home" disclaimer as I decided to represent the nail pattern to highlight the scarf joint. For this I used some dark 0.18mm diameter filament that I found in a drawer. I do not exactly know what this material is made of as I cannot recall where I purchased it and it has no label. I inserted the mystery material into a 0.2mm diameter hole. This was very frustrating, time consuming and ultimately not that successful. Having done it on the Mizzen top I am in the dilemma of whether to carry on and do the same thing for the Fore and Main top or to remake the Mizzen top. it is a 50/50 decision.

 

I added a copper strip to the side to represent the plate that prevents the futtock plates damaging the timber. I then constructed the rim and the filling out of walnut. I made the copper bearing plates out of styrene and milled the slots for the futtock plates. These slots do not go through the top but pass to the side hence the requirement for the protective plate at the edge. I formed the timber battens out of 1.6mm thick maple. This was a painful process as each one has to be notched, chamfered and shaped to fit. I added some blocking under the gunwale to accept the stanchions for the rail.

 

I decided to use 1mm thin-walled brass tubing for the stanchions rather than timber as it was more structurally robust and it was not uncommon to have a metal rail structure. The top rail was formed out of 2 x 2 mm walnut. I left off the fabric cover as I did not think that I would be able to make this convincingly enough. To finish off I drilled some speculative holes for crows feet which is a future aspiration. Now that it is finished, I am wavering over the natural finish. The temptation is there to just paint it all black. I am going to hold off on that decision for now until I have built more of the mast.

I have not yet fixed the tops as I realised that I have to make the top mast to ensure that everything fits together. 

 

[AJohnson]

Those tops are really nice, loving all the scratch built improvements you are making, it really makes a difference, well done David.

[Dave_E]

I’m a bit late, but for 1/64, your cannons are insane! Outstanding! What did you make the canon “axle” strap from? I plan to rig my Rattlesnake cannons exactly as you have done. I’m marking this page for future reference! 👍😀

[Ian_Grant]

Beautiful work!!  For what it's worth, I'd leave the top planking in natural. 🙂

[DavidEN]

Thanks for all of the likes and thanks for the kind words of encouragement from Ajohnson, Dave_E and Ian_Grant.

 

Dave_E I assume that you are referring to the capsquare that sits on the trunnions. These are brass photoetch that came with the kit. They are built using two layers which helps them sit snugly. You can buy pre-formed ones from Cornwall Model Boats. They are listed as Small Bridges but you can also just make your own using thin brass stip. If you want the photoetch ones you will have to buy a whole sheet of photoetch parts and then discard the bits you do not need. I am afraid it will be quite an expensive exercise.

 

Ian_Grant - I may still leave the top natural. I am going to finish the other two masts before making a final decision.

 

Regards,
David

 

[Beef Wellington]

Excellent work on the masts, wolding, and tops David.  The detail on the hounds us especially nice.  I know I'm not going to mast 'Jason' (in this lifetime anyway) so will need to live vicariously through you.  Have you considered putting swivel guns in the tops?

[BenD]

Amazing work all around! I really like the way you rigged the guns. 

[DavidEN]

On 2/5/2023 at 9:45 PM, Beef Wellington said:

Excellent work on the masts, wolding, and tops David.  The detail on the hounds us especially nice.  I know I'm not going to mast 'Jason' (in this lifetime anyway) so will need to live vicariously through you.  Have you considered putting swivel guns in the tops?

Hi Jason , I am considering adding a couple of these. Caldercraft produce a brass turned barrel so I would have to make the mounting structure but that shouldn't be too difficult. I am going to see how the rigging goes before I decide as there is a good chance that I will end up with a great nest of untidy ropes with no room to poke a swivel gun through.

 

Regards,

David

[DavidEN]

A bit of a dull post but most of my work for the last few days has ended up in the bin. I had assumed the masts got simpler the higher they went but this turned out not to be the case. The mizzen top is octagonal at the heel and even worse has a tapered octagonal section at the hounds. It took three attempts but I have just about got the straight octagonal figured out but the splayed octagonal still eludes me. There must be some trick I am missing but I am resorting to freehand filing and positive thoughts. For the mizzen top I started with an 8mm diameter dowel to give me enough wiggle room to gradually remove material and hopefully retain enough to form the details and still have 6mm diameter left for the mast. I added the sheaves as well as a fid hole for the final fixing.

For the mizzen top gallant I used the AOTSD dimensions but the AOTSD drawing was lacking detail so I brought the Steel drawing into the CAD file and superimposed my AOTSD dimensions on top of this to get the correct proportions of the heel and hounds as well as the locations for the sheaves. The top gallant masts are so thin that I did not dare to try make them all in one go as they would be bound to snap as I was doing the last cut so I made them in two separate pieces that I then dowelled together using some 0.8mm diameter brass rod. This was a sturdy solution but I had to trim the brass rod down drastically as it clashed with the position of one of the sheaves so it is now a much wobblier proposition.

 

I was dithering about the colour of the top masts and eventually went for a dark stain in the hope that it would disguise some of the defects. I had switched to the kit supplied dowels for these top masts as the beech dowels were telegraphing their grain too much when stained. I do not know what timber the kit dowels are but they are a bit soft and also do not take the stain that well although better than the beech. I used chestnut stain and then decided it looked a bit spotty so I went over it with Hickory. This looked better but I feel that it is now too dark and there is not enough contrast with the black painted areas. I went to visit the hardware store to see what they had available in the lighter range. The nearest I could get to the shade I was after was Puritan Pine. I tried it on the top gallant and I guess it will do. It does mean that I will have to remake the Mizzen top mast for the fifth time.

Perhaps I can claim that the old one is a Harry Potter wand and sell it to some gullible child to recoup my losses.

I had to remake the caps as the kit supplied versions have two circular holes rather than the required square and circular. I used the Steel formula to work out the size and they turned out larger than those included in the kit. These were finished off with ringbolts on the underside using the Steel location.

I also had to remake the upper cross trees as the kit pieces were the unfortunate walnut ply and the resulting gaps when assembled were too small to accommodate the mast sizes I ended up with. I was hoping to avoid having to scratch build these as they are very delicate pieces and not suited to my clumsy hands. I just about managed them but they are not great lookers.

 

 

I started work on the lower fore mast. I followed the AOTSD dimensions and the Steel details to put this together. It is nominally 10mm diameter at the deck tapering towards the head. I used the supplied black cartridge paper to form the iron mast hoops. I had never used this technique before and was quite surprised by how easy it is. Unfortunately, my subsequent freehand dremeling put paid to the nice neat appearance I initially achieved. I then added a front fish. There was much contradictory information regarding a front fish or a rubbing paunch but both Steel and AOTSD seem to indicate that a front fish was the way to go. I took the Steel drawing into CAD and worked out the size of timber that I would require to form this. This turned out to be 6.5 x 2.65mm. I then hollowed out the back using a sanding drum in the dremel. This ended up a bit rough. I really need some sort of a jig to keep everything aligned to achieve a consistent groove. It was a longshot that my freehand dremel work and the mast taper were going to match. Nonetheless I glued my rough and ready version onto the mast with notches for the iron hoops. I tried to disguise the shoddy workmanship with lashings of filler which just caused more mess.

 

 

In the Steel drawing he indicated filling pieces that sit between the front and side fish. These maintain the circular profile of the mast and give support to the wooldings. Steel notes that these can be continuous or can be provided just at the location of wooldings. I went with the latter as the geometry of the continuous one was beyond my imagination. To get the shorter filling pieces I cut out sections of 15mm diameter dowel at the height of the woolding including the timber hoops. I then cut out a hole in the centre of these corresponding to the diameter of the mast at each respective woolding. I then cut out the filling pieces and glued them onto the mast. They got a final shaping using the dremel. Things became a lot more complicated when I introduced the side fish and I had to get the two sloping sides at the correct angle.

 

 

Wooldings were completed using the 0.5mm dark brown rope from RoS and the timber hoops were the same cherry used on the mizzen. Once done I feel that it is lacking in finesse. I suspect that I should have dremeled some more material off the various fish and used a slightly smaller timber hoop It is a pretty sturdy construction though. Unlike the mizzen top gallant, I will have a hard time snapping this one. I added the battens at the head and gave it a coat of black paint.

 

To take a break from all of the circular trauma I knocked up the tops for the fore mast. I used the same method as per the mizzen except this had additional items such as the mounting brackets for the swivel guns which were constructed out of walnut notched at the batten locations. The metal plates to accept the gun mounts were 0.25mm thick styrene strips. I just have to paint the handrail stanchions which are in the painting queue behind the carronade barrels.

 

 

 

 

[DaveBaxt]

Really nice work on those tops and such an upgrade on the tops supplied by Caldercraft.