HDMS Elben 1831 by TJM - scale 1:64 - PoB - first scratch build

[TJM]

Hello everyone and welcome to this, my first scratch build project!

 

I have been playing around with my laser cutter for a little year and I am slowly getting to know how to adapt original plans from 18th-19th century into something I can cut out with the laser and assemble.

 

I have been documenting my tests so far here: https://modelshipworld.com/topic/37190-historical-plans-via-cad-to-laser-cut-parts-practicum/

 

Thanks to everyone who stopped by and who commented and liked the posts there, it is much appreciated.

 

I was doing another small ship plan, trying to push a few things (like laser engraving the decks, etc.) and since the project was small, I found myself with a whole mini-kit of designed cut files, including gratings, beams, decks, etc. And then I couldn't help but try to cut it all out...

 

So instead of continuing my previous practicum, I will start and actual build log here, my first scratch built project!

 

My main project is still Christiania, adapted from the fantastic Vanguard Models HMS Sphinx kit, and it is likely ill advised to start on a new (albeit small) side project, but I feel I have exhausted what I can get from just designing and making the frame of ships for 'scratch built training' - I have to actually try to assemble and plank something to continue to the fittings stage of the design process. Especially the plywood bulwark patterns need tweaking that I can't do off model, so I need a faired hull to work out how to best make those parts.

 

Christiania will continue as my main project but while I slowly get the planking finished on that, I will work on this project along side it.

 

The next few posts will be a presentation of the ship in question, a small schooner used as a guard ship on the river Elben - Elben also being the name of the ship itself - and then the initial assembly of the frames.

 

I hope many will stop by and give their input along the way - the conversations on this forum is a large part of the hobby to me, and I really appreciate all the great feedback I get here!

 

BR

TJM

[TJM]

Intro 

 

I decided to do this small schooner for a number of reasons:

 

First, it is small. At 76 feet, it is one of the smallest vessels from the Danish archives (apart from ship boats). It does have a little brother named Delphinen that is only 56 foot long, but I found this one to be a nicer overall project.

 

Secondly, it is from a later period - a period that I have somewhat less of an interest in, but I wanted to try something that has a copper plated hull. Being small, I thought it was a good candidate as it won't be too big of a task to copper it.

 

Thirdly, I wanted to learn resin 3D printing and I will use this project to do that, as the armament will need to be customized (very short 12 pounders).

 

An inspiration was the model by Peter Maack at the Danish War Museum of the aforementioned Delphinen:

 

 

I will take quite a few visual cues from this model.

 

The following are the original drawings from the National Archive.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As you can see, this is a small schooner with 8 guns. The guns are short 12 pounders. These were much the same as carronades, but more often used by the Danish ships than actual carronades of the English model. I don't have any drawings of 12 pounders, but I have a few of short 18 pound guns. They were around 10 calibres long, translating into around 121 cm or 1.9 cm at 1:64 scale. Just like a carronade.

 

I really like the drawings of the details on the deck and bulwarks. It should make it relatively easy to make a lot of nice accurate details.

 

Here is an image of the 18 pounders showing both a long and a short one. I will just scale this down to a 12 pounder.

 

 

After the loss of almost the entire Danish navy in 1807 and the conclusion of the gun boat wars in 1814, the Danish navy had to be rebuilt almost from scratch. It never again became anything close to as large as before the Second Battle of Copenhagen. Inspiration was drawn from many other navies, as had been customary in the past century, but as a new thing, America was now also in scope for that. From there, the Danish naval architects brought back plans for East Coast schooners and a few ships were made withe these as inspiration. They were used for guard duty in ports or on rivers. This particular one was stationed on the river Elben, then still in Danish territory, and named after that river.

 

Adapting the plans via QCAD was quite easy and quick, but I was pushing the thickness (or rather thinness) of the bulkheads and this will probably cause some issues later. It is a bit silly really, as there is no real need for them to be this thin on this build - it is just roughly the correct thickness of the actual frames, but woking with MDF bullheads, I should have added another mm or 1.5 of thickness.

 

Here are the laser cut sheets, 7 in total. The 2 mm one was cut twice, as I had a mistake in the cut file and had one of the parts cut in two.

 

 

The bulwark patterns are WIP and will need tweaking on the model. This is why they are just cut out of cardboard for now.

 

Now, I will continue with the initial building of the frame of the ship and see how it goes together!

 

BR

TJM

Edited 5 hours ago by TJM

[TJM]

Log entry 1 - building the skeleton 

 

I am following roughly the same approach as I have experienced in the few Vanguard kits I have been working on. 

 

So I start with attaching the bulkheads to the keel and adding the braces.

 

 

 

 

So far, so good.

 

When using the 4 mm MDF from Amati, I get a very nice tight fit, but with this 3 mm, it is a little on the loose side. I think the material may be a little under 3 mm thick, and I should account for that when designing i CAD, but I have not done so here. 

 

It will work ok for this small projet and once the glue was dry, everything was set firmly, but care is needed to not have anything set in a slightly skewed position.

 

I then added the laser engraved lower deck parts and the first pear gratings, also laser cut and engraved. 

 

 

 

 

 

I am very happy with how this looks! 

 

It will be almost entirely covered by the upper deck - you may be able to catch a tiny glimpse through the upper deck gratings and the ladder hatch, but it is more about figuring out how to do these things for future projects.

 

I then added the beams to all the bulkheads:

 

 

 

 

I used pear, as I was not sure 3 mm MDF would not just snap when I glue on the upper deck. It looks very nice in pear at this point, but it will all be covered up immediately, as the next (and final for this post) step was to glue in the upper deck base pattern:

 

 

 

 

 

I had not accounted for the prow pieces, so I had to trim off a few mm at the front of the pattern, but no issues otherwise. So far things are working out. 

 

But I can see that the top parts of the bulkheads are indeed too thin. They will not take the load of forming a 1 mm ply bulwark pattern, even if there are many of them!

 

My solution will be to cut out braces for the correct distance for all of them and glue these in. After fairing, I will then form and attach the plywood bulwark (that I first need to tailor) and then remove the upper part of the bulkheads as planned all along.

 

BR

TJM

Edited 4 hours ago by TJM

[ccoyle]

Wow -- creating your own one-of-a-kind laser-cut parts set is pretty impressive, at least to me. I'll be interested to see how this progresses.

[Thukydides]

This is very cool. Good luck, I will be following along.