HMS Grogblossom c. 1700 by Dan DSilva - 1:128 - hoy - solid hull

[Dan DSilva]

This design is my attempt at the smallest, simplest vessel of the early 18th century that would still plausibly have some of the features of a "ship" (deck, beak, square topsail, ratlines, etc.).  At 1:128 scale it will represent a length of 45 feet from stem to stern, slightly longer than HMY Royal Escape.

 

While I've scratchbuilt wood models in the past, they were almost all tiny and heavily simplified to the point of being abstract, and also had waterline hulls.  This will be my first proper attempt with full hull, realistic rigging and other details.  I've already had to alter some things from the initial draft.

 

I used what I first thought was a plank of poplar.  Don't ask why I thought that.  It's obviously maple.

(As you can see, I felt the need to add more gunports, even if it won't have that many guns.)

 

 

This is the way we plank the deck, plank the deck, plank the deck...

 

 

 

Upon finding that the rear of the deck was bowing upward in the middle, I added another vise.

 

The soaked grain swells so that the planking requires some redefinition the next day.

 

 

Because I'm not skilled enough to create perfectly straight lines, some setup is needed to keep the thingy flush against the front edge of the quarterdeck.  Unfortunately, due to the deck's angle, I can't put an additional weight on top to keep it from bowing upward in the middle.

 

At this point I started adding secondary lines for shaping the hull -- prematurely, because I only then realized it would be much, much easier to add certain other features while the bottom and sides were still flat.

 

After further comparison with period images, I moved the mast hole back by just over 3/8 inch from where it's indicated on the plan and decided not to rake it.  You can still see the tiny dent where I marked the drill spot as per the original plan.

 

I used a graver to mark the ends of the deck planks.  The nail holes didn't go so well, as the awl tended to make the basswood split.

 

Inletting for the bulwarks.

 

I will skip the guess-and-check process by which I figured out how to make the bulwarks and skip right to the outcome.  I found the basswood splits when bent where there's runout, so what works is extra-wide strips with straight edges cut along the grain, shaped to match the inlet after drying.

 

Here's where we stand right now.

 

Fitting the lower edge to the inlet was surprisingly easy with a Dremel cutoff wheel and sandpaper.  Problem now is I've never been on an 18th-century ship and don't know how high the bulwark should be, whether I should build it up or sand it down.

 

Anyways, more to follow.

[Dan DSilva]

Seems like about time for an update.

 

Part 1 of glueing down the bulwark.

 

Part 2, glueing down the back half.

These blocks of layered brass and steel were given to me years and years ago by an uncle to use as anvils.  I don't know what their original purpose was.

 

I somehow fitted the starboard bulwark a little forward and pushed to the left.  As a result it stuck slightly past the midline at the bow and had to be trimmed back.  Once it was glued in place, the only practical way to trim it was with the Dremel, and because none of the Dremel bits can fit into the tiny angle between the deck and the hull, there was a little lump left there that I had to compensate for by grinding a pit into the corresponding spot on the port bulwark.

 

The thingy that goes along the port side is just a leftover from making the bulwark, while the starboard one is cut down from my first attempt at a bulwark that turned out too low.  I had no idea basswood contains tannin, so I didn't put tape on the vise while shaping the first one and now it's a little bit ebonized.

 

Another unfortunate result of the imperfect fitting is that the back edge of the starboard bulwark falls slightly short of the stern while the port one sticks out a bit.  Obviously I shouldn't have trimmed it to length before glueing it in place, but there's an obvious solution which you've probably already guessed.

 

Realized that I should've drilled the hole for the rudder stock before attaching the bulwarks, but since I'd only attached one, it wasn't too late, as it could just go over the edge of the support block.  Unfortunately I lowered the drill press a little too much and left a rotary mark on the bottom of the hull.  Maybe I can fix that with wood filler.

 

Another problem with the starboard bulwark was I apparently failed to get the glue up to the bow midline.  So now it's become a three-step process.  I put a blob of glue where it should've been, pushed some into the crack with a pin, fitted, wiped off the excess and then set it up to press dry again.

All this press fitting and drying is taking a long time because I don't want to take things apart until I'm completely sure they're dry.

 

The port bulwark would be fitted just like the first, but I made the inlet slightly too deep.  That meant that it wouldn't be properly seated and there would be a gap between the bulwark and deck, so I had to raise the opposing wall formed by one of the metal blocks to above the edge of the inlet.

 

A pair of extended rails are added to match the raised quarterdeck.  After looking at a few period examples again, I realized the slanted front edges I put in the original draft are incorrect and they should stick straight up.

And here you can see step 1 of the obvious solution.  Step 2 is in the works right now.

Edited May 2, 2023 by Dan DSilva

[Baker]

Small, but impressive.

Nice work

[Dan DSilva]

Thank you!

 

The obvious solution:  I sand the stern to a convex shape so the rudder stock hole is saved and the deck meets the back ends of the bulwarks symmetrically.  The blank for the transom is cut to considerably longer than its final length and wet-molded to match the stern's curve.

 

As with the deck thingy, the transom is then sanded to shape.

 

The side thingies are applied in basically the same way as the bulwarks.  I ran into a snag when I glued the starboard one noticeably farther down than the port one.  Luckily I was able to break it off in one piece with an X-Acto, but that just makes me worry that this wood glue may not be as strong as I thought (maybe it weakens if it's not used up quickly enough?).

 

The further I advance, the more detail I decide is necessary for it to look real.  At this point I decided it was really necessary to add a rail around the tops of the bulwarks.  I started by grinding and sanding about a millimeter off the top all around.  Then I traced the edge onto a basswood sheet and added some extra width to provide a little overhang.

 

After cutting the overall section out, I opened it by splitting with a knife instead of with a saw or cutoff wheel so there wouldn't be a gap, and traced the initial interior sections to be cut out.

 

The insides of the rails shaped and sanded, I then wet-formed the rails with a bunch of pens as the contact points, a bag of marbles to distribute pressure, and a steel block for extra weight.  Actually, at some point the block fell over and took the marbles and pens with it, but by then the rails had dried, so it was okay.

 

When the glue was dry, a quick trip to the mini belt sander and a little finishing with fine sandpaper gives a shallow, nicely rounded overhang.

I should've angled the back ends of the rails before glueing them, but my flat triangle needle file came to the rescue.  I inserted some vertical rail sections as seen here and later trimmed them down and angled them.

 

The transom rail is another wet-formed piece -- hopefully the last I'll have to do.  It likewise has angled ends, and is sanded first on the inside, glued, and then sanded on the outside just like the main rails.

Weighting down the transom rail.  The curve of the transom was a little higher than the rail, which worked out well since the transom is the interior piece and could be sanded down to match the rail.  If it had been the other way around, there would've been trouble.

 

As you can see, I've started thinking about the cross-sectional shaping of the hull.  I began by re-pencilling the grind lines that had previously been rubbed away.  You can't see it in this picture, but I also added the groove for the keel and stem; it seemed like now was the time to do it, before rounding the bottom of the hull and risking the cutoff wheel sliding off-center.  While the groove wound up a little too wide in spots, I hope to correct that with wood filler.

 

Since the remaining pieces are straight, they were much faster to shape and glue.  Here's the fully framed transom.  For some reason I'm feeling excessively pleased with the angled joints.

I briefly considered adding stern windows, but it doesn't seem feasible.  I've come to realize that I didn't take the width of the stern rails and frames into account in my draft; thus the upper half of the stern is going to be too wide overall.

 

Next step should be to drill the holes for the gunports and figure out how I'm going to make their doughnut-shaped frames.  Then it'll be off to the belt sander to finally do the cross sectional shaping.

[druxey]

Save yourself some work; hoys didn't have gun ports! They worked in sheltered and well protected harbors.

[Dan DSilva]

Interesting.  The admiralty plan for HMS Lion appears to have them, but I guess they may have been added later (it was in service until 1752) or maybe it was just unusual in that regard.

 

Well, in any case, I've already drilled them.  So it's gonna have them, period-correct or not.

 

---

 

Fabricating them from scratch and getting nice rounded edges seems extremely delicate.  Right now, I'm thinking of using either fiber washers or wooden bullseyes split along the grooves.  Either would require boring out slightly with a needle file.

Edited May 18, 2023 by Dan DSilva

[Dan DSilva]

I spaced the gunports carefully and somehow screwed up anyway, so the starboard bow gunport is a few millimeters too far back.  Oh well.

 

 

The guns are left over from an old plastic kit -- possibly a Revell Constitution.  At 1:128 they're about as big as minion drakes.

 

While deciding what to do about the doughnuts, I FINALLY took the hull to the belt sander.  It's now starting to kinda look like a boat!

 

Marking a flat-edged scrap of basswood for the keel.

 

I bought the fiber washers.  They're too small.

 

In the meanwhile, another idea occurred to me that wouldn't cost anything since I already had the materials on hand.  This is the second time wooden beads have come to my rescue (I also use them as arrow nocks).

 

As with the other ideas, the beads did have to be bored out a little.

 

Then I rounded down the end and got the finish off with some 320-grit sandpaper.

 

In a perfect world I'd have been able to get about four slices off of each bead, but because they're short to begin with and just keep getting shorter and I couldn't think of a better way to hold them than my fingers, I only got two, so I now have four halves of beads left over.

 

The bulwarks aren't really high enough for gunports, but in many period boats the doughnuts overlapped the rails and I'm cheating a bit by having them extend all the way to the top.

 

The quarterdeck gunports are dummies.  In fact, with the windlass in place, I doubt there'll be room for the bow guns either, but I felt like if it had any gunports, it wouldn't look right with less than four on each side.  So we'll say it only carried four minion drakes, but had eight gunports in order to appear more formidable.

 

Current state of completion, with the tops of the doughnuts sanded flush with the rail.

Edited May 21, 2023 by Dan DSilva

[CiscoH]

great build log Dan!  i love the idea, however historically ambiguous, of an armed Hoy.   your fabrication skills are impressive.

 

cisco

[Dan DSilva]

Thank you!

 

Was getting time for the stem and keel.

 

While basswood will do for the keel because it barely protrudes at all, I put off making the stem until I'd gotten some 1/16-inch plywood.

This will also do for the channels and other parts that are at a risk of snapping.

 

Dry-fitting.  In retrospect, after the final shaping, the keel is a little too shallow.

 

Triangulating the length of the curved beams to form the beakhead.

 

 

 

 

Ideally there should be two beams that stand off the hull above the attached cheeks, but this is so small and cramped that I couldn't manage it.

 

Also at this time it was feeling more necessary to start the display stand.

 

Fitting the stands didn't go quite as intended, but you'll see the problem later.

 

Drafting the tiny struts that go between the beams and cheeks was not possible, and fitting them by eye resulted in a crude appearance (they're slightly better now I've sanded them down).

 

Current state of completion.  I'd wanted to do the channels before posting this update, but I'm having difficulty deciding whether to insert them above or below the side thingies, and I've got a lot of schoolwork this week.

The stand is not sanded or glued up yet; I'm still chewing over how to improve it.  The props are 1/8-inch plywood so the thin upper parts won't break too easily.  The forward prop is looking a little too far back and I'll probably replace it with one that fits maybe half an inch further forward.  Also, the base is looking too big, but maybe it won't look quite so bad once the forward prop is moved forward.

 

You can see here the lower mast, which is part of a bamboo cooking skewer, not yet tapered.  I'm basing the proportions of the mast to the hull on this model.

[Dan DSilva]

A few minor updates and a few questions:

 

The rudder blank.

Wondering about whether to round off the inner edge, which would be more realistic but would also reduce the contact area for it to be glued in place.  The hinge plates will be card stock.  Adding actual hinges at this scale is probably out of my depth.

 

You can also see the steps (?) on the side.  Only room for two on each side.

 

Obviously, before adding any of the deck fittings, it was getting to be time to paint the deck.

I had to redo every plank and nail hole using the pin and graver, because the thick acrylic fills up every crevice.  When mixing the paint, I was going for the light honey color on this model, but somehow whenever I added more yellow, it looked wrong.  It also turned more pinkish as it dried, and looks even more so in person.  But it's close enough to a wood color that I can live with it, especially if it's not contrasted with something that's more yellowish.  I've mixed up a lot of this, so I'm going to use it for all the decks and "unpainted" interiors of ship's boats in the Spanish Succession fleet.

 

Finally did the channels!

They are also plywood, installed above the side thingy but in a shallow groove so I didn't cut through the bulwark.  The port channel went on first and seemed a little too narrow, so the starboard one protrudes about half a millimeter more.  Slightly asymmetrical, but I'd rather that than have both of them be too narrow.

 

In other news, I made a bilge pump.  The design is cribbed from build picture 23 here, with all its iron reinforcements.  Unfortunately I have yet to figure out how to add the spout.

 

I may have made the pump too big.

 

The deck is looking like it's gonna be awful crowded once the mast, guns and the other deck fittings are in place, so I'm wondering whether I need to redo the pump even smaller and/or assemble the second one and try to cram both in.  William Mowett claims that "Every warship since the 15th century had at least two pumps in case one failed."  On the other hand, this isn't a ship, exactly, and at 45 feet would be one of the smallest decked naval vessels of the period.  What do you think?

 

Also, although the model I'm using as a reference has the pumps midway between the mast and quarterdeck, because this boat is so cramped, I'm thinking of putting it right behind the mast to allow the most room for the cannons to roll back.  Either that or put it right before the quarterdeck and have the brake point forward.  Do either of these plans make sense?

 

---

 

I'll add one other thing:  I'm beginning to realize the quarterdeck should be shorter.  That would've solved several problems.  As is, the main hatch will have to be on the quarter deck.  There's just no other place to put it.

 

---

 

Painted as best I could manage.  The gold dots are supposed to be the brass bolt heads, but they're pretty flat -- I might be able to build them up with repeated applications.  Anyways, yes, it really is quite large.  The brake would be chest-high and more than four feet long.

Edited May 30, 2023 by Dan DSilva

[Dan DSilva]

Second bilge pump assembled.  This one has a whittled-down cheek and brake to give it a smaller aspect and is a bit simpler, taking some basis from the one on the Vasa.

Left to my own devices, I would choose the smaller one.

 

Making the windlass by whittling and sanding another piece of bamboo skewer.

 

I was unable to add teeth to the center at this scale.  The ridges to either side are cardstock again.  Before drilling all the handspike holes, I felt it necessary to add the supports at the end so as to tell where they should be.

 

Marking off holes with the supports dry-fitted.

 

And painted.  The drilling left some rough bits, but I don't think these will be visible to the unaided eye.

 

Lastly, making the supports for the bowsprit.

The rail fully encloses the front of the deck, so the bowsprit will sit very high up.  Right now I'm wondering whether to grind a semicircular hole in the top of the rail so it can sit lower, or possibly even a rectangular cut straight down to the deck with posts on either side.

Edited June 2, 2023 by Dan DSilva

[Dan DSilva]

More anchor stuff.

 

Fabricating the catheads.

 

The asymmetries are compounding because of further screwups.

Not glued into place yet, I'm saving that for after both they and the railings are painted.  As you can see, the hawse holes are also drilled.

 

Reworked and glued up the display.

 

Piece of grating and 20 belaying pins arrived from Crafty Sailor.  The pins require a 1/64" drill bit -- I'm not even sure any of my drills will hold one that small, in any case the bit itself will have to be a special order because stores around here don't stock them.

 

The bannisters (?) for lashing up the anchors.  As before, the design is based on the ones on Baksa Béla's Bermuda sloop.

 

Wanted the bottoms of the posts to be set into the railings a bit, so they're conical.

 

Making the attachment holes with more needle files and handheld Dremel bits.

(Mast hole is looking wildly off-center in this photo.  It isn't actually.)

 

Posts glued.

That's all for now.  What I'm a bit concerned about in the immediate future is how I'm going to drill or chisel holes for the anchor cables to go into under the windlass.

 

Also, really gotta get around to shaping the bowsprit supports and making the thing with the board that sticks in the windlass teeth.

Edited June 17, 2023 by Dan DSilva

[Kenneth Powell]

This is amazing

 - Kenneth

[Baker]

4 hours ago, Dan DSilva said:

What I'm a bit concerned about in the immediate future is how I'm going to drill or chisel holes for the anchor cables to go into under the windlass.

Drill 2 holes and use 2 pieces of cable.
nobody will notice this once the model is ready.
a hole in the bow where the anchor cable enters the hull.
a hole under the windlass where the cable comes "out".

I used this trick in my Bounty project (see link in signature)

[Dan DSilva]

Thanks, I'll take a look!

[Dan DSilva]

Stand's finished.

 

I'd have liked to make an authentically-detailed thing that goes clink (seriously what is the word for that?) but I just can't construct a box that's only two millimeters wide.

 

Un-blanking the rudder blank.

 

The hinges are card stock and the hinge pins are tiny bits of sanded-down bamboo.

 

Trimmed.

 

And glued.

 

Glueing and trimming down the bowsprit supports.  The trimming was largely carried out with a Dremel cutoff wheel and then finished with 320-grit paper.

 

Notch added to the bow rails, and the bowsprit and deck fittings dry-fitted.  The forecastle (is it a forecastle if the deck isn't raised?) is gonna be cramped.  Hopefully they won't be forced to fire cannon and weigh anchor at the same time...

 

Cutting the grating that's going to go under the windlass demonstrated that this commercial grating is very delicate.  Luckily I only need to cut a few pieces, and since it's raw wood, broken bits can be glued back together.

That's all for now.

[GrandpaPhil]

The model is looking great.

That is the windlass and the things that go clink are called the pawls.

[Dan DSilva]

Before doing any further assembling, I thought it was time to paint the hull.

 

Marking the waterline.

 

After painting the bottom, I realized there should be a black middle stripe.

 

On the upper half, I began painting the sides, then realized I was more likely to slop paint down from the raised details onto the sides than the other way around.  I believe this photo bears that out.

 

It took a lot of adjustment, especially along the waterline and among the crevices of the beakhead, to get it looking passable.  Not perfect, but just...  not extremely uneven.

The Craft Smart outdoor acrylic is a bit thick and gets blobby when layers accumulate, further contributing to the model's crude appearance.  However, I think thinning it down would just require that I paint even more layers to cover up underlying paint while making adjustments.  I would use scotch tape along the waterline, but it tends to rip up the paint when removed if it's pressed down tightly enough to prevent paint from getting under it.  Also, the Craft Smart is too glossy IMO.  I'm kind of locked into it for the Spanish Succession fleet if I want the ships to match, but for everything else I'm going to look into a different product.

 

Wondering if the stem should be black between the waterline and beak?

 

I began working on the tiller earlier.  It's 0.8mm solid round brass rod.  One end is sharpened to fit into a tapered hole at the top of the rudder.

 

After lightly sanding it to remove any factory coating, I shaped it with round pliers.

 

The only primer the local store had that they said would allow me to paint acrylic on metal was spray-on, so I embedded the sharp tip of the tiller in an old block of floral foam so it wouldn't have to lie on its side and wind up swimming in primer.

This seems to work.  If I'm successful at fabricating brass oars, I'll use this method with them too.

 

Dry-fitting the tiller.  I left the point unpainted and unprimed on the theory that the fewer layers there are between one thing and another when they're glued together, the fewer layers there are that might delaminate, the less chance the bond will fail.

I didn't manage to paint down to the line where the tiller will be embedded, but it can be painted after glueing, which will also mean any exposed superglue (which is super-glossy and looks terrible) will be painted over.

 

Next up I really need to get around to locating and drilling the holes for the bilge pump and anchor cables, and start assembling the mast.  I've got the cap, lower and top masts shaped, but for some reason the top and trees are intimidating me.

Edited July 5, 2023 by Dan DSilva

[Dan DSilva]

I'm starting full-time student teaching in a few days, so this'll probably be the last update for some months -- possibly the last of the year.

 

The cheeks are a single layer of basswood.  I briefly considered cardstock, but they need to be thick enough to support the trestle trees.

 

Cheeks after cutting with the Dremel wheel and fine-tuning with sandpaper and files.

 

Using the ratio barkeater provided for me here, I traced the top onto plywood.

 

The trestle trees are basswood and the cross trees are very thin bamboo that I originally prepared for oars.

 

Having filed slots for the shrouds to go through, it was now necessary to hold the masts in place while the glue dried -- luckily they're so close together that a single piece of cardstock was enough to do the trick.

 

Marking the trestle trees for the cross tree notches.

 

At this point I had the miserable realization that since I hadn't cut tenons on the masts for the cheeks to sit in, they would stand out far enough to block the slots for the shrouds.  So I had to use a tiny needle file and riffler to widen the slots.

 

Took a long time but I think this'll be sufficient.

 

Not wanting to be bothered with a vise, I set the Dremel between some heavy books to hold it in place.

 

Sloped sides on the top produced by rotating it in gentle contact with the sanding barrel.

 

To get the right curvature for the rail, I rolled a small piece of cardstock around the top and traced it.

 

This initial piece became the guide for tracing the final piece.

 

I "broke" the rail by wrapping it around a pencil.

 

Finding the right length to trim it to.

 

I glued the rail down a little at a time so that it wouldn't spring away, similar to adding the deck rails.  When I was done I found I'd somehow cut it too short, so an additional piece of card needed to be trimmed precisely to shape with my sharpest scissors to cover the gap.

 

The ribs are a thin strip cut from a card with a desktop paper trimmer.

 

Mast, fully assembled.

 

With a solid hull you can mark the deck level on the mast by putting it in its hole and rotating it against a pencil point.  Then it's time to paint.

 

Current state of completion.

The deck fittings still aren't glued down, that's why the grating, windlass and pawl are kind of jumbled.

Edited August 29, 2023 by Dan DSilva

[ccoyle]

I remember this wee beastie. I hope we may see some progress once the term is out? Hope your student teaching went well!