RRS Discovery 1901 by gak1965 - 1:72 - First Scratch Build

[gak1965]

@Canute that makes as much sense as anything I've ever heard, which seems all over the place. I've seen people say that hatches are only on horizontal surfaces and doors on vertical, but in my own experience I've heard people say to "shut the hatch" when referring to a door on a vertical bulkhead. The items on the deck houses open out and are vertical so "door" it is.

 

@KeithAug, thanks!

 

@Rick310, that must've been pretty weird. I wonder if the sailors were creeped out, or if they had the attitude almost everyone does of "well, it couldn't happen to me."

 

Last update on the Discovery for 2025 as we are headed back to DC for the last 2 weeks of the year tomorrow (a little early, as one of our dogs is getting surgery Thursday morning to remove a mast cell tumor). Before turning to the monkey poop, I decided to do some of the deck furniture in the after part of the ship. The two items I worked on were the gratings that the ship's wheel is mounted on, and the well that allowed access to the propeller. The latter is an interesting feature, which in theory meant that they could pull the prop out of the way to prevent damage, and I suppose repair/replace it if damaged. I tried many different ways to make scratch gratings. I can see how to do so, but don't have the tools, and in the end, just broke down and bought the grating strips from ModelExpo. The wheel gratings are just a rectangle sitting on a very thin platform around the edges. It's shown in the photo below.

 

 

The well is more complicated. If you look closely at the plans, you will see that it is an irregular octagon with 5 identical sides and one shorter and two longer sides. The shortest side is the aftmost face of the octagon. Ultimately, I built out a rectangular grating using the ModelExpo strips, cut out the octagon, centering it as best I could and stained it as per below:

 

 

I then took a 1/32" by 3/64" square piece of painted basswood, and wrapped it around the octagonal grating. The painted piece became the part of the lid that fits over the octagonal well. The rest of the well was made for 1/16" by 1/4" basswood, painted white. I cut out each of the well's sides to fit, trimmed the edges to approximately the correct angle to fit, and glued it onto the underside of the well grating, until I had the full octagon. A little touchup and you get the following:

 

 

I then mounted the steering box (black), the well, and the wheel gratings onto the deck. Here are two views. The first from above:

 

 

And the second oblique from the starboard side:

 

 

As always, thanks for looking in. Everyone have a safe holiday season, and a Happy New Year.

 

Regards,

George

[Keith Black]

 Very nice, George. Hope you and yours have a wonderful Holiday and I hope your canine child comes through surgery okay. 

[gak1965]

16 minutes ago, Keith Black said:

 Very nice, George. Hope you and yours have a wonderful Holiday and I hope your canine child comes through surgery okay. 

The tumor is in our (apparently) Carolina Dog, Annie (seen here guarding (?) the house in Cleveland.

 

 

Her brother Hobbes the coonhound is partially visible is in his characteristic pose as well, which is to say, sleeping. They are both 11. So far the prognosis is good and surgery is usually curative on cutaneous mast cell tumors. Since she will be sedated the vet is going to remove a stye and clean her teeth. Suggesting this was quite reassuring to us since we trust our vet and can't quite imagine her doing the other treatments if she thought the prognosis was poor.

 

Regards,

George

[Jim Lad]

Hope she's home with you again soon, George.

 

John

[Keith Black]

57 minutes ago, gak1965 said:

Suggesting this was quite reassuring to us since we trust our vet and can't quite imagine her doing the other treatments if she thought the prognosis was poor.

 It sounds like Annie will be in good hands. 👍

[Jared]

Wishing you the best for your pet George.  Best wishes for the holidays ahead and for a great 2026.

 

Jared

[Canute]

Nice build, so far. Have a happy holiday vacation. Hope your pooch weathers the surgery.

[Rick310]

George, your gratings look great!! Good job!!

Best wishes for your pup and Merry Christmas for you and your family!

Rick

[gak1965]

Happy New Year everyone. Back in Cleveland since Monday, so a bit of time to work on the Discovery. 

 

Thanks to everyone for the best wishes for our pup. She is doing quite well, despite actually needing to have 3 tumors removed rather than one. She is back to being the scourge of small woodland creatures and I think I may be able to take her for a run soon.

 

I've started working on the shell over the engine room. This is a very complicated structure. Here are a couple of views from the plans. The first is a side view that is pretty much port side only:

 

 

and from above:

 

 

Something to understand about this structure is that it is not symmetrical. The starboard side is not the same as the port. The aft port side has a stair down to the engine room from the deck and aft starboard side has an angled surface with a vent (here is a photo from https://aboutaberdeen.com😞

 

 

or you can take a look at this video tour (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VsotxBpE0Mg).

 

The aftmost vent is different from the other 3 on the starboard side because it goes up to the higher roofline. I should also point out that when the ship was refitted in 1923, it the structure on the ship in 1901 was substantially shortened. Basically, the section shown outlined in red was removed:

 

 

Presumably this is why the reels are gone. The plans show doors only on the port side, the current ship has doors in the forward (middle on the original) section, apparently both port and starboard, but the plans only show an entrance on the port side, so that's how I'm going to make it. I'm going to keep the knee knocker door in place, presumably that was to prevent cold seawater from getting in and spilling on the engine which would be, bad, I imagine.

 

So, here are the cut patterns for the structure:

 

 

On the side structure at the lower left, you will notice (a) faintly drawn lines between B|B and C|C that represent the height at the centerline (which will be held up with the internal bulkhead in the drawing), and a line across the hatch between C|C and D|D which is for the starboard side. It's going to be important for those two pieces to be the same. I may try to join two pieces of wood and cut them out together so they match. Once I have two cut like the starboard side, I will cut the port side down to size. The two pieces on the lower right are also being duplicated. The rectangular one will fit at both the forward end of the structure and A|A and the irregular pentagon at C|C and D|D. There is a door in the forward most bulkhead, which isn't shown on these drawings, but which I will add.

 

So, plans made, now time to execute them.

 

As always, thanks for looking in.

 

Regards,

George

[Rick310]

Welcome home George!  This will be interesting to follow!

Rick

[druxey]

Just pulling up a seat for this one. Looking good!