HMS Snake by Beef Wellington - FINISHED - Caldercraft - Scale 1: 64 - First wooden ship build

[Blue Ensign]

Looking great Jason, - regarding the Stay tension it looks fine to me on those photos, actually I prefer a hint of  slack on the Mainstays,I think it imparts a sense of heaviness to them, provided a nice even curve is obtained which usually happens if the line has been stretched.

 

B.E.

[Stockholm tar]

Jason,

 

She's looking great, and you made a very good job of the coppering.

 

I agree with BE (as per usual) about the tension of the main stay; I wouldn't worry about it overmuch, so long as it has a nice curve. In fact check out photos of the Victory (before she was de-rigged) and you'll see that her main and fore stays sagged somewhat, due to the weight. It wouldn't have affected their job.

 

 

[Ferit]

Hi Jason,

May I ask a question?

Do you think to narrow / to press the knots on the ratlines?

[Beef Wellington]

BE, Kester - thanks, I'll gratefully take that as guidance not to do anything!

 

Sjors - still didn't mind doing the ratlines.  With tweezers its pretty easy to get into a rhymn.  Next build though I definitely want to use better line for the shrouds (either Morope or Chuck's)

 

Ferit - man, you thrust a dagger into my heart!  Some of the clove hitches have proved to be a little 'stubborn' despite repeated retightening/tweaking, especially in very tight areas where the shrouds are only a couple of mm's apart.  Luckily they don't look as bad at real scale and I'm happy to move on.

[NMBROOK]

Outstanding work on the rigging Jason   Slowly slowly catchee monkey is paying off in spades.

 

Kind Regards

 

Nigel

[jim_smits]

Jason - we're both on the same wavelength. Thinking of replacing the thread and blocks for my Ballahoo with Chucks lovely products.

[clloyd]

It continues to shape into a lovely build Jason. 

I'm with you on the ratlines.  There is so much detail in one of these ships that things like that just don't stand out.

 

Colin

[Beef Wellington]

Yards:

 

Feeling my way with my first yards, technique seemed to work well so will continue with others.

 

Used the PE end cap to mark out the size that the end of the yard needs to be reduced to

 

Used a small plane to roughly shape the yard being careful not to take too much off

 

Sanded the shaped yards, and then cut down the central section to be a square profile (close to 1mm max depth) and then built up square section using spare walnut planks.  (The instructions call for the central section to be filed into an octagonal shape, however its pretty obvious that its not possible to make an octagon 6mm across from a dowel of 6mm diameter, not quite sure what they were thinking)

 

Filed down the corners to give the appropriate octagonal section needed in the center.  I find that using a marker to colour the sides allows the shape to seen much more clearly to allow this to be done more precisely - otherwise its very difficult to see the shape.  Paint will cover all this up, think it will be good enough once fine tuned.

Edited May 1, 2014 by Beef Wellington

[Landlubber Mike]

Gorgeous work Jason, very crisp and clean!  I'm sure that it will be a hit at the show!

 

On the bowspirit, I can't tell you how many times I busted a line/block off of it by accidentally bumping into it.  I'll probably move it to the latter stages of my next build.

[Beef Wellington]

Cheers Mike, sorry I missed your kind comment - thanks mate!

 

No real progress of sorts, but a few pics of the Snake's first voyage to the NE Join Clubs Ship Model Show (There are some great pics at the following link).  It was great to meet some folks face to face and see some really nice models and some in person from logs right here on MSW.  http://modelshipworld.com/index.php?/topic/4939-northeast-joint-clubs-ship-model-show-conference/page-2#entry191448

 

Sjors/Mobbsie/Pierre/Klaas - You should check out the pics of HMS Ardent, I think it was bashed from the Agamemnon kit but was heavily modified - it won best in show and was pretty impressive!

 

Hopefully with a bit of work in the garden done I can get back to a bit of modelling in near future.

 

MSW group photo, Chuck in front and me lurking in the back

 

Snake (very humbly) on display - the big boys are in the background

 

Chuck's stall, fantastic stuff that I will no doubt be using in the future, had to share a picture of his lamp kits

Edited April 28, 2014 by Beef Wellington

[jim_smits]

Looks like a great show. Going to a model fair of sorts here in SW UK this weekend. Interesting to see if there are any kits on display.

 

Just received some blocks and line from chuck to use on my Ballahoo kit and they look top notch!

[egkb]

Hey There Jason.. Snake looks perfectly at home amongst the fine company by the way !! I followed your link to some great builds.. thanks for that !

 

All The Best

 

Eamonn

[Beef Wellington]

Jeers:

 

Although topmasts are pretty much ready to go on, the jeers have been nagging at me.  These seem to be pretty awkward to get in, especially once the topmast shrouds are in place so I've decided to install these before the proceeding further.  Getting the right length required quite bit of trial and error.  As always, suggestions welcome.  For some reason photos came out particularly badly tonight, so apologies in advance.

 

Block double stopped and kept in place with few drops of GS-Hypo.

 

Loop added to provide correct 'length', the three stands then seized near the top of the block.

 

Loose ends trimmed, and additional seizing put on.  I did this in accordance with the Grenado AOTS diagram (i.e. unserved), although it seems that these were also commonly served.  Frankly I didn't have the patience to attempt that...but suspect that the method could work just the same.

 

Mocked up the installation to check again length is appropriate.  There is not much room for error here, and it took multiple attempts to get length correct.  Looks OK to me.

 

Jeers will be lashed to the mast cleat on opposite side, this again is just a temporary mock up to prove it works.

Edited May 1, 2014 by Beef Wellington

[MEDDO]

 Looks great.

[TBlack]

Jason (AKA BW)'

I think your work looks fantastic! You are too humble about your accomplishments. Great having lunch with you the other day.

 

Tom

[JesseLee]

Just ran across this log. Good work. Enjoying following the rigging work.

[jim_smits]

Looking fantastic as ever Jason, setting the standard. I shall obviously have to start getting back to my snake build...

[Sjors]

Very nice Jason !

I will watch this very closely !

So more pictures please   

 

[Timmo]

Very nice indeed

[Dimitris71]

Hello Jason , your ship looks fantastic!!

Cheers

Dimitris

[Guest Tim I.]

Jason,

 

Just catching up on your build log. Your rigging and your build is impeccable!

 

- Tim

[Beef Wellington]

Michael, JesseLee, Jim, Sjors, Timmo, Dimitris, Tim - thanks for stopping by and the kind words

 

Tom - great to meet you as well, the pleasure was all mine

 

No photos I'm afraid, but couple of things in process.  Seem to have spent far too much time pondering and not enough doing.

1. Trying to find a tidy way to attach a block to a deadeye using .75mm line and am struggling a little.  Its a bit thick for using a simple knot, and seizing works but am not sure how strong it would be.  Using thinner line looks underscale to me looking at contemporary drawing.   Any advice welcome.
2. Working on final shaping of the top-gallant masts.  These are proving to be a challenge as it seems that every single piece of dowel is slightly bent.  Even after selecting the straightest pieces its proving a little challenging.
3. Thinking ahead to the rigging of the remaining stays, there are a couple of areas that I think I want do differently to the plans.  These indicate a couple of the stays that are simply seized at both ends.  I would have thought that every piece of standing rigging would be adjustable in some way to allow changes to be made in tension so may follow some of the diagrams in Peterson which seem to support that.

[clloyd]

Hi Jason,

 

looking good.

 

in response to your questions:

1: if a knot is out of the question then seizing is the way to go.  If you are unsure about the strength, then two tricks I use are to pass the seizing through the line with a needle first - essentially sewing the line together before wrapping it tight, then flood the sieze with diluted white glue.  Just out of interest which block to which deadeye?

 

2: though shalt not use dowels for masting     This will also go to something I wanted to say about your yard.  My experience is that CC tends to over dimension their masts and yards - probably to protect against people breaking things too much.  When I look at the yard my eye screams that it needs more taper.  You've done so much in the rest of the build that I wanted to encourage you to look at the dimensions in steel and compare.  (my mainyard starts at 6.5mm and tapers to about 2.4mm)

 

3: if you want to specify which stays I can double check in Lees.  Peterson doesn't neccessarily cover all ship types.

 

Colin

[Beef Wellington]

Hi Jason,

 

looking good.

 

in response to your questions:

1: if a knot is out of the question then seizing is the way to go.  If you are unsure about the strength, then two tricks I use are to pass the seizing through the line with a needle first - essentially sewing the line together before wrapping it tight, then flood the sieze with diluted white glue.  Just out of interest which block to which deadeye?

 

2: though shalt not use dowels for masting     This will also go to something I wanted to say about your yard.  My experience is that CC tends to over dimension their masts and yards - probably to protect against people breaking things too much.  When I look at the yard my eye screams that it needs more taper.  You've done so much in the rest of the build that I wanted to encourage you to look at the dimensions in steel and compare.  (my mainyard starts at 6.5mm and tapers to about 2.4mm)

 

3: if you want to specify which stays I can double check in Lees.  Peterson doesn't neccessarily cover all ship types.

 

Colin

 

Thanks Colin - my comments:

1. Duh, should have though of that, I'll give it a go tonight and see how I get on.  I can't find much guidance on this but looking at picture it seems like the line used to strop blocks needs to be somewhat proportionate to the size of the block otherwise it just just doesn't look right.  The block in question here is an 8mm violin/sister block for the lifts.  Anything smaller than the CC 0.75mm line looks too small to my eye (The CC line sizes seem to be err on the large side, the 0.75mm seems closer to 0.5mm, and so on...)
2. You are so right - but I'm going to need to leave turning my own spars for 'next time'.  For the main yard, the central section is 6mm and tapers to 3mm (per plans), haven't got as far as painting these yet so will wait to see how they appear
3. A specific example (though there are more) is for the mizzen topmast stay (there is no topgallant on Snake) and it shows the stay seized around the top mast ans then seized to a ringbolt on the the main top.  (On the plan, its really just a line, I'm inferring it should be seized).

Thanks for the thoughts!

Edited May 8, 2014 by Beef Wellington

[Mirabell61]

your rigging the blocks Looks great Jason,

 

Nils

[drtrap]

Hi Jason

may I ask you about those two types of holes drilled on the desk and their importance?

Have you created those holes as an in advance procedure for the next steps of the deck fittings fixing, for example to tie and "thread" the large rope of the most anterior gratting?

As always, thank you.

 

Stergios

Edited May 8, 2014 by Stergios

[clloyd]

1. Duh, should have though of that, I'll give it a go tonight and see how I get on.  I can't find much guidance on this but looking at picture it seems like the line used to strop blocks needs to be somewhat proportionate to the size of the block otherwise it just just doesn't look right.  The block in question here is an 8mm violin/sister block for the lifts.  Anything smaller than the CC 0.75mm line looks too small to my eye (The CC line sizes seem to be err on the large side, the 0.75mm seems closer to 0.5mm, and so on...)

 

Yes - the size of the block was proportional to the line going through it.  Larger lines took more stress, so the strop holding the blocks needed to be as strong.

 

You had me confused there too - you do mean eyebolt not deadeye? On the cap?

 

 

 

1. You are so right - but I'm going to need to leave turning my own spars for 'next time'.  For the main yard, the central section is 6mm and tapers to 3mm (per plans), haven't got as far as painting these yet so will wait to see how they appear

 

Turning - who needs turning?! Sharp pencil, sharp chisel, some maths and sandpaper is all you need.   

 

The taper on the lower yard was to 3/7 it's width (before battens).

 

 

 

1. A specific example (though there are more) is for the mizzen topmast stay (there is no topgallant on Snake) and it shows the stay seized around the top mast ans then seized to a ringbolt on the the main top.  (On the plan, its really just a line, I'm inferring it should be seized).

 

per Lees: prior to 1773 deadeyes were used for the mizzen topmast stay.  "About 1773 the deadeyes were replaced by thimbles...."  so the CC diagrams would seem to be correct.  The line is probably small enough that a fall lashed between two thimbles would be sufficient for tensioning.

 

Colin

[Beef Wellington]

Hi Jason

may I ask you about those two types of holes drilled on the desk and their importance?

Have you created those holes as an in advance procedure for the next steps of the deck fittings fixing, for example to tie and "thread" the large rope of the most anterior gratting?

As always, thank you.

 

Stergios

 

Nothing complicated.  The small holes (green arrow) were done when I was considering pinning the gratings to the deck, these were covered up when grating glued in place.  The larger holes (red arrow) are for the anchor ropes, the reason they are so ugly is because I found out that a bulkhead sat right below where I wanted these so it took a bit of effort to remove enough material so I could get the ropes to feed in correctly.

[Beef Wellington]

Yes - the size of the block was proportional to the line going through it.  Larger lines took more stress, so the strop holding the blocks needed to be as strong.

 

You had me confused there too - you do mean eyebolt not deadeye? On the cap?

 

The taper on the lower yard was to 3/7 it's width (before battens).

 

per Lees: prior to 1773 deadeyes were used for the mizzen topmast stay.  "About 1773 the deadeyes were replaced by thimbles...."  so the CC diagrams would seem to be correct.  The line is probably small enough that a fall lashed between two thimbles would be sufficient for tensioning.

 

Colin

Thanks Colin.  Yes, the blocks on the cap are attached to eyebolts...must have been a little sleepy when I wrote deadeye!  I'll see what I can do with the taper, I definitely get where you're coming from.  As for the stays, I think I'm going to go with the thimble approach which is also shown in Peterson, there is no mention of a thimble in the CC plans/instructions.  Thanks for the pointers, much appreciated!

[Beef Wellington]

Have been working to get the fine tuning fit and shape of the various masts.  Its definitely taking some time to fine tune the fitting of the masts with the various modifications, its amazing how things that seem to be square single result in quite a bit of skew when finally assembled.

 

Picture to close out on the jeers, although I still have the foremast ones to finalise.  These seem to be easier to do before the top masts go in.

 

 

One possible problem that has come to light after getting the mizzen topmast in place.  Everything seemed to be looking good until I put the shrouds in place (these go through holes in the cross tree rather than ending in a deadeye).  I followed the rigging on plan 3 closely which shows the position of the futtock stave.  However,  then end result looks very odd, with the shrouds being too vertical below the cross tree.

 

After seeing this I double checked to plan 5 which shows the position of the various spars, and it appears that these are possibly inconsistent.  My understanding is that the futtock stave would be placed at the level of the yard so the catharpins can most effectively keep the shrouds from interfering with the yard operation.  Taking all that into account, I think what I need to do is relocate the futtock stave higher to be level with the placement of the cross jack yard.  This would then give the futtock shrouds a better lie (see added red lines below).

 

Before I commit to this (it probably involves some risk as well) I did want to see if I'm misunderstanding this or looking at it the wrong way, or just others thoughts/opinions.  As always, comments are most welcome.

 

 

Futtock shrouds look very odd with currently positioned staves, proposed relocation in red...

Edited May 12, 2014 by Beef Wellington