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

[Glen McGuire]

8 hours ago, Thukydides said:

I started by adding in the first two using lego to hold everything square.

Very handy tools!  I also use them to square things up.

 

Also, what is WOP?

[AON]

Wipe On Poly.

[Thukydides]

56 minutes ago, Glen McGuire said:

Very handy tools!  I also use them to square things up.

 

Also, what is WOP?

As Alan said it is wipe on poly, a thin polyurethane that you wipe on with a rag and then immediately wipe off. You can build it up in several layers to get a very nice finish. I only used two layers at this point since it will be applied over the whole hull again at some point, but I need to paint / plank before I start adding more. It makes the wood slightly darker for every layer you add and so I want the keel to be slightly darker than the planking (to help differentiate it), but not too much so. If you search you can find a number of guides to using WOP here on MSW.

 

I didn't discuss this in detail in the post, but the reason the upper part of the stem looks much duller is I pretty much sanded away the layer of WOP I added to it initially. I want the ink I am going to use to paint it to sink into the wood and so I don't want the WOP barrier in the way.

[Glen McGuire]

Oh duh!  Wipe on poly.  I should have figured that out since I use it frequently.  🙄  Thanks for the explanation!

[Thukydides]

Time for a minor update. I continue to add bulkheads and am getting close to the bow at this point. You may notice some of the bulkheads have been painted black. The reason for this is I am as of yet unsure how much of the main deck I will open up to being visible and so on the off chance that these parts are seen I want them to fade into the blackness of the lower deck. They represent areas that would actually have been open and so we need to create the illusion of space.

One thing I don’t think I appreciated fully until now is how much minor errors or slight alignment issues can have significant impacts on a model when it comes to the main structure. I ran into one issue (though I was able to correct it) and since have been much more careful about checking everything in all 3 dimensions. This all makes me very thankful that the Vanguard Models kit I used for my first model was so precise. Really I took the structure of the model for granted. It is much harder when you have to cut and align everything yourself and even parts being a millimetre off can make a significant difference.

 

Thanks to everyone who is following along for all your encouragement.

[dunnock]

In awe...

So impressed by your care and attention to detail

 

David

[Thukydides]

I don't have a tonne of progress to show, but as it has been about a week since I last posted I figured I would give a short update.

 

I continue to work away at the bulkheads and am now nearing the end. The only bulkheads left to put in place are the final two at either end. I have left these till last as the stern ones are the most fragile and the bow ones need some pre-fairing before I glue them in place.

Still lots of structural work to go, but she is starting to take shape now.

[Thukydides]

Log #24: Structural Supports & Fixing Mistakes

Thanks to everyone who has stopped by to take a look at the log. I do find your comments and likes motivate me to keep pushing forward.

 

Since my last log entry I have continued to work on the structure of the model. I will discuss that in more detail below, but I have also in the background been continuing my work on research. My current focus is on the coppering of Perseus. She was one of the first ships in the RN to be coppered and though I am not planning on coppering her, I am planning some aesthetic choices which will allude to the coppering.

 

The handwriting of the documents I am currently looking at is not as good as some of the stuff I have previously looked at so it is slow going with the transcriptions at the moment. But I thought I would share an interesting tidbit I found.

Quote

Ships coppered between 79 + 1781 inclusive

Ships of the line    82
Of 50 guns            14
Frigates               115
[???] & Cutters    102
                            313

It is interesting to see how quickly the RN went from very few ships coppered to coppering  a huge share of the fleet. You can see in the above transcription that from 1779 to 1781, 313 vessels were coppered.

 

On the model itself, I have now got all the bulkheads in place. You will notice that the front two and stern two bulkheads do not have any bracing pieces as they are closer together.

The reason for the omission is that I am planning on filling in these sections fully with filler blocks. First I cut the bow filler pieces and glued them in place.

Then once that was dry I slid pieces of basswood which I had thinned to the appropriate thickness into the gaps between the bulkheads and marked off with pencil the approximate size they needed to be before cutting them out on the scroll saw. There is no need to be particularly accurate here so I have erred on making them oversized as this will all be sanded in the faring process. The most important part of this was making sure the bulkheads remained square through this process.

However, it was around this point that I realized I had made a mistake with one of the bulkheads. Essentially the slot was not deep enough and so it was not far down enough on the center bulkhead. It was only off by about a mm, but this is enough to throw off the lines of the ship. So I had to break out the isopropyl and slowly work it free with a knives and solvent. It was particularly unfortunate that the offending bulkhead was at just about the worst possible location (the stern platform also had to be removed). However after a few hours of working slowly and carefully on it, I managed to get it out.

Then I sanded and dry fitted it back in place, making extra sure of the positioning this time :).

 

Finally, I have also been starting the outer structural supports.  This is a line of bracing pieces which run along the upper deck line. These serve three purposes:

1. To allow me to correct for any warped bulkheads which might be square at the base, but are not square at the upper deck bulwarks.
2. To strengthen the overall structure.
3. To allow me to better see the line of the main deck to determine if I need to make any adjustments.

These pieces are inserted square to the bulkheads, but at an angle such that they follow the sheer of the deck. I will then use a combination of planes and sanding to trim them back in line with the frames.

Getting the sheer of the main deck right is crucial as it will determine the height of the gun ports.

 

It feels like this structural work is taking a really long time, but I am trying to avoid future problems by making sure I am constantly checking to make sure everything looks good now while it is easier to fix.

[JacquesCousteau]

Excellent work and great catch on the errant bulkhead! The model’s really coming along well.

 

Very interesting statistic about how quickly the royal navy coppered its ships. That's a lot of copper, and as I was under the impression (possibly incorrectly) that coppering was expensive, I wonder how they financed it.

[Thukydides]

2 minutes ago, JacquesCousteau said:

Excellent work and great catch on the errant bulkhead! The model’s really coming along well.

 

Very interesting statistic about how quickly the royal navy coppered its ships. That's a lot of copper, and as I was under the impression (possibly incorrectly) that coppering was expensive, I wonder how they financed it.

Thanks Jacques,

 

Oh it was expensive, in many cases it cost almost as much as it cost to build the ship in the first place. For example Perseus was built by contract for a cost of £4,507, but her coppering cost £4,310. That said there were certainly some significant benefits. Many of the refits that you see documented often cost 50% of the ships original cost to complete. One document I have just finished transcribing is an analysis of the impact of coppering and he has this to say:

Quote

Their Lordships will be pleased to observe, that the ships, on which the experiment has been tried, were run up hastily in time of war, and that the sheathing of all the three was put on by task, and yet that their whole defects, after three years unremitting service, were found to be not of so considerable or alarming a nature, as to have prevented their going on foreign service, had the continuance of the war made it necessary.
 

...when we look back and consider new ships, under wooden sheathing, after eighteen months service in the W. Indies, obliged to have every plank stripped and shifted in a six month repair, and two of these very ships here examined ordered to be stored for the East Indies about the time hostilities ceased, after three years constant service without being refitted. 

 

[JacquesCousteau]

Very interesting! So, while coppering was certainly expensive, it significantly cut down on the need for expensive full refits every few years of ships sent into warmer waters. So some portion of the funding for coppering could have just come out of the maintenance budget (in theory, although in practice I have no idea if the Royal Navy handled its finances in that way).

[Desertanimal]

Daniel, the amount of research you do never ceases to amaze. The ship is looking great. 
Chris

[Thukydides]

Log #25: More Structural Supports and the Deck Sheer

It has been almost a month since I last posted as I have been busy with other tasks and though work has progressed, there had not been a lot of significant progress. One challenge is this work generates a lot of dust and so I have been trying to do it outside (I don’t have a dedicated workshop space). Between rain and the fact that most of my free hobby time is in the evening, this has slowed the process down a bit.

 

Along the way I realized that the existing inserts I had taped in place to support the thinner bulkhead extensions were in the way and so I cut off the bottom of them and added glued pieces above them to hold them in place. Then I place rubber bands around the whole upper part of each bulkhead to hold it together. This is actually more sturdy than what I previously had done and it also keeps the supports out of the way.

I have been doing some preliminary faring as I add the bracing pieces along the sheer of the deck. The bracing pieces are now all in place, though the ones near the bow and stern have not been fared at all yet. As you can see from the below picture, the sheer is not perfect and so now I need to make small adjustments inboard to make sure the line of the deck is right. Then I can use that line to measure the gun port heights.

The sheer will also allow me to measure and mark the height of the quarterdeck and forecastle and I will likely add bracing pieces to mark their locations before I start faring in earnest.

 

I have also taken the opportunity to reinforce the area where the nuts are glued to accept the bolts that will attach the model to the base. To do this I cut pieces of basswood and then used my mini chisels to hollow them out. I then filled this hollow with a wood glue sawdust mixture.

This was then pressed in place over the area of the nuts until the excess sawdust-glue mixture started to squeeze out indicating the area was fully filled. This is probably overkill, but as it didn’t take much time, I figured it was worth the effort to make sure that these don’t come loose.

So that is all I have to show so far.

 

Thanks to everyone who had stopped by to take a look. On the research side of things I don’t have much to report as I have only had time to transcribed a couple letters and they didn’t have any particularly significant info in them. Hopefully the next ones will have some more interesting information.

[Thukydides]

Log #26: Framing the Gun Ports Part I

I have started work on one of the more consequential parts of the structure of Perseus, the gun ports.

 

These represent one of the one of the visual focuses of the model. The line of the gun ports catches your eye so getting the sweep of them right is important to making the model look right. As I mentioned in my last post I have been working on getting the inboard sweep of the deck right and that was my starting point for measuring the ports.

 

Given the size of the basswood I was using for the framing (1/4 inch), there would not be much space below the lower port so I decided to start with the top of the ports.

Starting in the middle of the ship, I used a jig to measure a consistent height. The jig is built from 3 layers. First on each side I had a small strip of wood which was used to line things up with the sheer of the deck at that point. On top of these were some folded paper (as this was the easiest way to add consistent small amounts of thickness to get the height right) followed by a spacer piece 1/4 in thick. Above this was a piece of wood the exact height of the ports. This also allowed me to check using a level that the ports were the same height on both the starboard and larboard sides of the ship.

 

I then glued the upper port frames to the bulkheads using the jig to position them at the right angle and height. I did one of the middle ports and the ones at each end before using a batton to check how things looked. Every time I did another port I would check how it fitted with the batton and adjust the inboard profile of the deck as necessary.

At this time I also placed cross bracing pieces between the bulkheads at the height of the forcastle and quarterdeck beams. For the forecastle I used spacer jigs (similar to the ports), but for the quarterdeck I had to be a bit more creative as according to the contract, the fore end is a different height than the aft end. So I measure and marked the two ends and then used battons to make a smooth sweep. This is not as important to get perfect as these heihts can easily be adjusted later and the main point of these bracing pieces is to strengthen the structure in the space between bulkheads that don’t have ports. You can see below a picture of the jig used for the quarterdeck.

For the lower pots I used my jig for the port heights held up by a rubber band. I then used an old piece of scrap wood to apply pressure to the bottom of the port framing to hold it against the bottom of the jig at the correct height and angle.

And this brings us to where things currently stand. I am still working on the lower framing for the ports, but the strengthening structure has allowed me to remove some of the bracing pieces I had in place.

The top of the quarterdeck beams follow the line of the top of the pieces circled in blue, the forecastle the ones circled in red and the green ones are just extra pieces I added to strengthen the structure. You can see that I have 3 of the ports framed (though I still need to add vertical pieces to set the width). I also still need to prepare the framing of the foremost port, but that will first require some more faring as it is on the curve of the bow.

 

Thanks to everyone for all your encouragement.

 

Edited yesterday at 02:02 AM by Thukydides