L'Invention 1799 by Greg Davis - Scale 1:48

[Greg Davis]

I have finalized my decision to build the French four-masted privateer L'Invention based on the recent ANCRE monograph authored by Gerard Delacroix. 

The ship was built 1799 - 1800 and sailed its first campaign in 1801; unfortunately just 9 days later L 'Invention was captured by a pair of English frigates. It was soon sold, reconfigured with three masts and put into use as a trader. Later it was captured again, resold, and was lost in 1810. When initially captured by the English (in 1801) and evaluated by the Royal Navy, L' Invention was highly regarded for its construction and sailing qualities.

 

While not having an exceptionally long life, L 'Invention appears to be unique in design having 4 masts and a very streamlined hull shape. The ratio of length to breadth was 5.28 - typically frigates of the time had ratio s between 3.7 and 4. Importantly, Delacroix notes that the hull shape and masting foreshadowed clipper ship design that would appear 50 years later in the U.S.

 

 

Over the past couple of weeks I have immersed myself in the monograph and the included 34 plans in order to visualize the order of construction that I will follow. I have decided to begin with frame construction. In particular I will first  concentrate on the frames from 13 to 37. These should be the simplest to construct. I will then move fore and aft was the frame construction becomes more complicated. Once that is done, I hope to have become familiar with the qualities of the Swiss pear wood that has been chosen for the model. I will then move to, what I expect to be much more challenging, the axial framework; i.e., the stem-keel-sternpost structure. This order of construction should also keep my work area more open for quite awhile as the big building board will not be needed initially! 

 

I am currently milling sheets of pear that will be used to create the frames. Pictures of progress should appear soon!

[bruce d]

Oh boy, what a subject!

[mtaylor]

I'm in also. This should be fascinating;

[Jim Lad]

Now there's a ship I've never heard of.  What an innovative design!  It's a wonder she didn't just sail away from the British frigates!

 

John

[VitusBering]

This is an intriguing subject and will make a beautiful model. Following with great interest.

[Mic_Nao]

Nice ship, good luck for the build.

[dvm27]

In most of my Ancre books someone has already built the model and it is featured in color. Is this the case with L'Invention or will your model be the first?

[mtaylor]

23 minutes ago, dvm27 said:

In most of my Ancre books someone has already built the model and it is featured in color. Is this the case with L'Invention or will your model be the first?

I wonder if those photos in the ANCRE monographs are "test" builds to verify things?  In some monographs, the builds were never shown finished.

[Greg Davis]

23 hours ago, Jim Lad said:

Now there's a ship I've never heard of.  What an innovative design!  It's a wonder she didn't just sail away from the British frigates!

 

John

According to the monograph, the pursuit lasted 10 hours much in a strong gale. Three of the lighter-built masts of L 'Invention 'ruptured'. My assumption is that if the weather was not so extreme she would have easily sailed away from the frigates.

[Greg Davis]

40 minutes ago, dvm27 said:

In most of my Ancre books someone has already built the model and it is featured in color. Is this the case with L'Invention or will your model be the first?

Unclear; but, I haven't been able to find a build log and/or any construction pictures of the model. 

 

16 minutes ago, mtaylor said:

I wonder if those photos in the ANCRE monographs are "test" builds to verify things?  In some monographs, the builds were never shown finished.

I have always assumed that there is some urgency to get the monograph to press. The time between when plans are drafted and the 'test' model is fully built may not be what is needed for the publication schedule.

[G. Delacroix]

Hello,

 

The monograph of "L'Invention" has only been published for 6 months, there is still no model to my knowledge.
The prototype models which are detailed in photos in my monographs are of course finished after publication. But, for "L'Invention" and "L'Egyptienne", there is no prototype model. The model by Greg will therefore be the first whose construction will be published.
For "L'Egyptienne", there are several models under construction by members of my forum, including this one made with great talent:

https://5500.forumactif.org/t3726-l-egyptienne-au-1-48-mes-debuts-en-arsenal

 

GD

[Tobias]

Hello Greg, great to see you have chosen L'Invention. I will follow it with great interest and I am also happy for GD that it is the first publication of his latest monograph.

[uss frolick]

That L'Egyptienne build is just phenomenal! 

[Greg Davis]

Ok - it has been slow getting started.

 

For the last week or so we've had both of our kids home for a visit (with grandkids and dogs); with 7 people and 5 dogs running around there was not much time to think about ship building. But I've prepared some material for the frames - got to use the table saw, band saw, and thickness sander a bit. I now have six sheets 3" x 18" of 4mm wood to layout the various pieces of the frames. The frames should be made out of 189mm / 48 = 3.9375mm material. Once the two halves are glued together just a little final sanding will bring the structures very close to the desired 7.875mm thickness.

 

 

[Greg Davis]

This evening I had time to 'try out' the sheets of pear. I have made good progress on frame #30 - I started here because there was little bevel to the frame. I will be working fore and aft starting with the flattest least complicated frames and moving toward the more difficult ones. I feel that they will go better once I get a good feel for the required part sizes and how the wood works as this is my first try with pear. 

 

Here's the process that I will be following for a good number of weeks (months?): 

 

Made copies of the frame, cut out templates for the 12 needed parts, and rubber cemented them to a sheet of wood.

Cut the parts out with a scroll saw and milled the juncture with the keel.

Glued up the pieces with white carpenter glue - here I'm basically following the instructions provided in 'The Art of Ship Modeling' by Bernard Frolich.

I've placed the glued up frame between to heavy sheets of glass. They will stay there for a good 12 hours. 

Once nice and dry, the frame will be sanded back close to the final molded shape.

[Greg Davis]

This morning, frame #30 got some refinement on the spindle sander. It matches up nicely with the plans and will be labeled set aside in a safe place while the remaining frames are manufactured. In this picture you can get some idea of the cross-sectional dimensions that the model will have. This frame is nearly 7" ~ 18cm at its widest, and about 5" ~ 13cm high (not counting the 1 extra cm at the top of the frame). Here again I've followed the guidance of Frolich in extending the frames an additional 1cm so that shaping and the attachment of ribbands near the top will be more easily and precisely managed.

 

 

[Mic_Nao]

 

 It's risky to machine a part to the exact size. Better to leave about 5/10mm which will be removed when all the members are laid in the yard. Beautiful wood color.

[Greg Davis]

Mic -

 

I agree - there is still approximately 0.5mm of excess on the frames for final adjustments.

 

I am very pleased with the wood color as well!

 

Greg

[ChrisLBren]

Looks great Greg - will be following along

[Greg Davis]

The work will be repetitious for quite awhile, but I thought I would put a note here that progress is being made.

 

I feel that I am getting the hang of making these full frames. With the size boards that I had prepared I can make the rough frames in batches of 3. I cut out the templates in the evening, rubber cement them to the board, and then let them set to the morning. During the day, between working on house projects I find time to cut out the 36 pieces on the board and mill the 6 floor notches. Later I find time to square up the ends of the pieces with the table saw and glue up the 3 frames. After the three are between glass plates it's back to making the templates and preparing wood to cut the next day.

 

When I feel like taking a break from the frame assembly line, there will be plenty of finishing sanding opportunities to obtain the molded dimensions. 

 

So far the work is pleasant and going well and I expect that I will be ready for the more complicated frames when the time comes!

 

[Greg Davis]

A quick progress update - spent some time with the scroll saw today and have cut out parts for frames 13 - 20:

Once assembled, I will have put together frames 13 - 37. These are the ones that were my first goal to complete. (Of course sanding / shaping will take a few hours to give them their final shape).

 

In the meantime the pile of frames continues to grow:

The next set of frames that I will work on will be 9 - 12 and 38 - 42. These 9 frames will have 2 piece floors of a certain type. The remaining 20 full frames (2 - 8 and 43 - 52) also have 2 piece floors, but of a different design.

 

 

 

[No Idea]

Fantastic what a great ship to build and what an amazing start - I'm in!

[Greg Davis]

No Idea:

 

Thank you for hopping aboard. I just got a look at your 1/24 scale Le Rochefort - it really is an inspirational piece of work!

 

Greg

[Greg Davis]

All 25 of the 'Type A' full frames are assembled now.

 

I have turned my attention to roughing up the 'Type B' full frames with their two-piece floors. I'm finishing assembling frames 9 - 12 this evening. When done I will have half of the frames assembled.

 

I decided to cut some wood so it wood have a 'V' shape when glued together. The templates for the larger floor pieces were then lined up and cemented over the joint. I felt this would be easier than cutting the 2 halves of the floors and then joining them. Similarly, wood was prepared with a horizontal joint for the smaller floor pieces.

 

 

Here's what the backside of the pieces for frame 10 looked like after cutting them out

 

The joint on the larger piece is clearly visible; but that on the smaller is hard to find as the grain is so fine and straight. Perhaps the horizontal joint will show up better after a finish is applied and there is a chance for the finish to seep into the seam. If not, I still know the joint was made! Five more to go and then onto 'Type C' frames. There are then 10 additional frames to arrive at the required total of 59 frames for this ship.

[Tobias]

Hello Greg, the idea of pre-cutting the wood, gluing it and then cutting out the whole piece is clever, looks very good.

[Greg Davis]

Here the final 5 Type B frames are drying between glass plates. So all 34 of the type A and B frames are now assembled.

Now I can decide between preparing more 4mm thick material and assembling the Type C frames or spending some time standing at the spindle sander and finish sanding what is already assembled. This evening I'm thinking the spindle sander might be a nice change of pace!

[druxey]

Good progress, Greg.

[ChrisLBren]

Nice work Greg !  I do love this ship and enjoy watching your progress

Chris

[Greg Davis]

I thought that I would post a note indicating that I have not abandoned this project! 

 

Through the summer, I had been involved in a great deal of work on our house - it turns out that a lot of projects needed to be done after living here for 20+ years that you don't notice as much when you are working. As the weather gets cooler, there are fewer big outdoor projects to tackle and the number of indoor projects has been shrinking dramatically.

 

I will also note that I am about to start yet another modeling project - a quick diversion - the new Model Airways kit of Santos Dumant 14 bis. 

 

But  most importantly, I will be back to work on L'Invention very soon.

[James G]

Great to hear Greg! You select such interesting subjects and I was hoping you would be forging ahead with this one. Getting colder here on our side of the big lake. Should mean more time for the fun projects!!!