HMS Perseus by Thukydides - 1:64 - POB - Sphinx Class 6th Rate

[Thukydides]

2 minutes ago, Fritzlindsay said:

 

Where did did you find the design of the pieces for the knee of the head?   They look much too complicated compared to drawings in books by Goodwin, Antscherl, Lavery and other researchers/writers

Fritz.

If you look back through my log posts I have 2 log posts dedicated to the topic of my research on the knee of the head. Go back to the first post and there is a table of contents.

[Thukydides]

Another minor update as I actually have some progress to report (or at least in this case a relatively successful test).

 

On the scroll saw front I am getting more comfortable, and about half the time I get my cuts right on the line, but then all of a suddent I find myself wandering. In particular, certain types of curves I always seem to wander first to one side and then the other.

 

I have assembled my first completed iteration of the knee of the head and painted it. I discovered that to some degree firm clamping as you are assembling can mitigate some of my failures on the cutting of the joints. Also as a proof of concept my attempt to try and show the joints through black seems to have worked. I am not entirely happy with the effect, but for a first go I am pretty pleased.

I mixed the glue used in the joints with white ink so that when I painted over with thin layers of black, the lighter colour shon through. The effect I am aiming for is more the upper joints (the thin harder to see ones) than the lower joints, but that will be fixed by making sure my joints are tighter. 

 

Note I did not bother with the cutwater and the waterline is only the approximate location. This was just a proof of concept test.

 

Now to see if I can do another one, this time with tighter joints.

Edited March 6 by Thukydides

[AON]

I experience similar issues with my scroll saw so I stay outside the line and the sand up to the line with my table top disk sander and files.

[Thukydides]

Log #15: Construction Begins

I have finally reached the stage where I am comfortable enough with the scroll saw to start construction. I have found that I am now precise enough with it that I can do a straight line or slight curve right on the line, but I still struggle a bit with sharper curves (e.g. the hull lines). However, I found that I do have enough control to make sure that any errors are biased to one side so following @AON's advice I am erring on cutting outside the line and then using a drum sanding setup I attached to my mini drill press to fix any inaccuracies.

 

First step was to glue all the templates for the bulkheads to the plywood. For this I used rubber cement. The bulkheads with longer, fragile frames were positioned such that I will be able to retain the piece in the middle of them to use as a support.

Once the center two pieces were cut out I glued them together and left them pressed between weights for a few days. I then glued on a strip which will serve as the rabbet. My method of construction is certainly not original and I am broadly following the Winchelsea instructions for the underlying structural design.

I have also been doing more test work on my stem. You can see my fully constructed experiment here in place against the center bulkhead. Much like the upper parts of the knee of the head, I have been experimenting with using brown ink (as opposed to the white) to colour the glue. It seemed to mostly work well with two key caviats:

1. My joints were still not good enough
2. I need to seal end grain before gluing the joints as sometimes the colour bleeds up through it

I am going to do at least one more test head assembly using my scrap wood to see if my ideas for correcting the issues experienced in this version work.

I still have many more bulkheads to cut out, but it is good to be able to say that work on the actual project has finally begun. You can see in the below picture how (as previously mentioned) the offcut from between the frames on the bottom bulkhead has been cut out, but then left in place to help protect the frames from damage.

 

Edited March 12 by Thukydides

[AON]

I think you might be too hard on yourself.

Those joints look acceptable to me!

[JacquesCousteau]

Nice work! Getting the joints right is certainly tricky.

[Thukydides]

Thank you to everyone for all the encouragement.

 

I figured I would give a small update as work continues in the background with more test pieces. I am starting to get better with the scroll saw so only minor cleaning up with the drum sander is now necessary.

I also continue to do more test joint for the knee of the head. With the below example I think I am finally starting to get close to a satisfactory result. This is test article #5 and hopefully the next knee of the head I show you will be the final thing. You can see I also have been experimenting with managing the transition from painted area to unpainted area. The painted areas need white joints to shine through the black paint, but the unpainted areas need the dark brown joints to simulate the caulking.

I have 14/28 bulkhead pieces done so we are at the half way point with the internal structure cutting.

Edited March 17 by Thukydides

[JacquesCousteau]

Very nice job! I felt the light joints stood out a bit too much on the first attempt, but they look great on the latest version.

[Pitan]

I'll follow with interest.