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

[Landlubber Mike]

Consider yourself fortunate as my 15-month old twins have been sick and, err, somewhat on the cranky side  You'll have to let me know if you're down here in the future.  

[jim_smits]

Good shout there with the Diana. That will be my next build after Snake and Ballahoo are complete!

[Beef Wellington]

Got the old girl outside today for a few pics, it was such a gorgeous day.  Rigging will probably continue to look a bit scrappy until everything is in place (maybe thats why this tends to be a less photographed stage of any build).  I'm following the principle of avoiding tying things off until absolutely necessary to try to avoid things getting in the way, and continuing to work from stern to bow - its serving me well so far.

 

The main topmast with the shrouds and stays rigged, its quite the stack.  Backstays have not been finally secured.

 

Main stay and preventer stay arrangement - these will be finally tensioned and tied off later.  The violin blocks do look rather clunky despite trying to round these off.

 

Couple of overall shots - she does still look as if she has her curlers in with all the loose line!

Edited June 30, 2014 by Beef Wellington

[HIPEXEC]

Your workmanship is fantastic!

[aliluke]

Stunning work mate. Super crisp and accurate.

 

Hope you are enjoying an East Coast summer. Here it is cold, wet and dark.....

[Blue Ensign]

Nice work Jason, she looks beautiful

 

B.E.

[egkb]

Beautiful stuff Jason.. those close up's of the foredeck area are amazing !

 

Stay Well Mate

 

Eamonn

[Guest Tim I.]

Jason,

 

I have been learning a lot about rigging as I follow your log. Most of the ships I have rigged are 1:96 scale and I have found it difficult to replicate "authentic" seizing and wrapping shroud lines. However, your build has inspired me to find a turning machine so I can attempt these things on my current build.

 

Thank you,

 

Tim

[Landlubber Mike]

Super crisp is a good description Alistair.  Jason, your Snake just looks perfect.  The lines, joints, etc. are so well done there's not a blemish in sight.  I hope to get to your level of "crispness" some day

[hamilton]

Beautiful work Jason, as usual - the Snake certainly makes an attractive model - even more so in such capable hands. And I'm supremely jealous of the Diana! I'll be following that build very keenly

hamilton

[Beef Wellington]

Hipexec, BE, Alistair, Eamonn, Mike, Hamilton - thanks for the kind words, means a lot coming from you guys.

 

Tim - I'm still struggling with this a little myself but definitely getting my eye in I think.  Thanks for the kind comments

 

Small bit of progress - ratlines are now completed, I say again, ratlines are now completed!  Little bit of a celebration, I haven't found these too bad and have figured out a rhythm that works.  What most bothers me is that I deliberately tried to avoid using line that was too thick to keep it looking the right scale, - I think I ended up with line that still looks a little thick to scale (not horribly so) but I will do differently next time.  Not everything is finally fixed yet, but she's starting to look more like a ship.

 

Started securing some of the various topmast back stays.  I followed the plans on these - why use just a couple of blocks when you could use more!  Next job will be to secure to the pins.

 

Edited July 6, 2014 by Beef Wellington

[hamilton]

Hi Jason:

 

A milestone indeed - I know what you mean about finding a rhythm to this part of the build - on a vessel like Snake there must have been a good number of clove hitches to complete these things - no small feat!

hamilton

[Landlubber Mike]

Great work Jason.  The ratlines really bring the ship alive.  I actually enjoyed doing the ratlines on my Badger - there's something therapeutic (to me at least) about a repetitive task once you get in the groove.

[Sjors]

That looks very nice Jason,

 

You are a fast learner   

 

[Beef Wellington]

Hamilton, Mike - thanks for the comments, and also to all for the likes.

 

Sjors - 'fast' is maybe relative 

 

Progressing with the rigging and have started tying off on cleats and pinrails.  Delicate procedure that did result in one of the bulkhead cleats coming loose - mustn't have glued it well enough.  It was a real swine to get back in straight with all the rigging, pin rails and carronades in place.

 

Question:  I'm tying off using the standard figure of 8 around the pin and using a dab of GS-Hypo glue to make doubly sure its secured, do people typically just trim this line off at the pin?  I was planning to simulate rope coils and thinking I can just make all these when everything is done and droop over each pin hiding any loose end.  

 

[jwvolz]

Jason,

I do that. Just trim them close so that any remaining tail doesn't interfere with the coil later on. Looking good. 

[Sjors]

Jason,

 

I see that you have make multiple 8 on the pin.

Maybe it is better to do it only ones or twice and then tie them up ?

But good job !

 

[Mirabell61]

Very nice looking details Jason

 

Nils

[Stockholm tar]

Jason,

 

You're doing a really good job on the Snake, very neat.

 

Regarding the lines coming off the pins, I do it more or less as they would on the real ship: Following the figure of eight turns, the line then comes off the top of the pin (as you have it) and I leave a 'tail' (a little shorter than you have them in the photos). Make your coil (so that it hangs off the deck of course) pass the end of the tail through it, and secure it to the turns (at rail height) with a spot of glue and leave to dry (making sure the coil is hanging vertically). Then bring the tail up over the coil, pass it around the pin, and bring it down over the front of the coil again and secure with a spot of glue. Cut the end off close and tuck it under the coil, using another dab of glue if neccessary.

 

That seems to work well, and looks good.

[Landlubber Mike]

Jason,

I do that. Just trim them close so that any remaining tail doesn't interfere with the coil later on. Looking good. 

Looks great Jason.  That's also what I did on my Badger.  Kester tells you how it really should be done, but I don't know that I could have done that as more and more deck details started getting in the way.

 

One approach that Hubert recommended on his website was to connect the belayed points first, then run the lines to where they should start.  That seems like a good way to avoid all the difficulties with belaying lines when the deck starts filling up, but I wonder how easy it is to attach the lines to blocks, etc. and get the proper tension.  It seems like you would be just substituting one difficult task with another.

[Beef Wellington]

Thanks guys

 

Kester - thanks for the great (and detailed) explanation and tip, think I now understand what I'm seeing in photos, will definitely try that approach

 

Mike - the thought had occurred to me, but I agree with you that I'm not sure its any easier.  The advantage of tying of the end at the belaying pin is that you do have a bit more control over the tension.  There are a couple of points on the stays where I've had to seize a hook on the end 'in situ' and while it can be done, its challeging.

 

Sjors -  The line I'm using (kit supplied) is rather springy and I found it just wanted to pop off, but seemed a bit more controllable by doing a couple of turns and then tying off.  Do you think I'll encounter a problem doing that?

[Sjors]

Not a problem Jason but it "looks" not right......

When you look at the replicas on scale 1:1 they are always ones or twice around the belaying pin.

Then they tie them up in a coil or just a loop.

When the rope is jumpy, maybe you can use beeswax?

Not the synthetic but the pure one.

Pull the rope a few times true the wax and it stays as you wish.

When you make the 8 figure then, it wil be staying an 8 figure....

I know you can buy it in the States.

We don't have it and someone send it to me and it works just great !

No fuzzy rope and you can turn it in every shape that you want.

Don't misunderstand me please....your work is just great and I only want to help a little.

 

[Beef Wellington]

Yards...

 

Putting rigging aside for a wee while to do some work on the yards.  Decided that I'm going to keep the jib boom off for as long as I can as it really does seem to make working on the ship easier (and probably safer).

 

The yards are probably the last point where I think this build could stall, so I'm quite keen to get past this.  Per instructions, yards were shaped with a small davids plane to get a rough shape and then sanded to shape.  I'm not sure the dimensions given in the plans are 100% accurate, but I'm following them anyway.  I will be more meticulous with "Jason" when I get to this point as I'll follow the AOTS book closely.  I've started with the main yard as a prototype and will finish this one before doing the others together.  Additional detailing, cleats and blocks should be fun, but I'll leave that for now.

 

To help secure the yard to the mast I inserted a small length of brass wire and drilled a hole in the mast, as well as installing the sling cleats.  There are some photo etch 'caps' that go onto the end of the yard, not sure these are needed, but they do have some wings on each side, presumably to simulate an iron band.  I don't have a photo, but they were way to thick/big at this scale and removed them.  I will possibly simulate with thin paper strips.

 

The kit provides two soft metal pieces to make up the quarter irons, which are to be joined by brass wire.  These are too thick for scale, but I think the kit can be forgiven for this.  After fiddling, I decided to replace the cast mast band with a thin strip of styrene, but thin card would probably be easier to use.  The hoop for the studding sail yard has two bumps that I'm guessing simulate the  hinge and cotter pin.  These need to be lined up I think and be parallel to the waterline.

 

The various pieces were drilled, glued together and attached to the yard.  To get these to align properly I used a piece of long dowel feeding into each hoop allowed each one to be fine tuned before glueing in place.  Also helped ensure they are symetrical, especially important for the boom irons.

 

Yard dry fitted for first time...

 

I had ordered some walnut dowel for the studding sail booms.  Of course, I now come to find that the alleged "3mm" dowel is in fact 2.5mm   Would welcome opinions on whether this looks OK, 0.5mm seems a big difference.

 

Using supplied 3mm beech dowel (of course, slightly larger than 3mm!) perhaps illustrates whats intended.  No need for a decision now, but it does appear a little more to scale so I'll probably try my luck again and order some 3mm walnut dowel.

Edited July 23, 2014 by Beef Wellington

[TBlack]

Jason,

Why not stain the beech to a darker shade? Or am I missing something?

Tom

[aliluke]

Hi Jason

The last photo is a better fit of course. What more could you achieve? It looks very good to me!

[Sjors]

Jason,

 

I'm with Alister on this.

It fits much better.

So please order the 3 mm walnut dowel and surprise me further....

For the rest it looks great !

 

[Mirabell61]

very good looking Model Jason,

 

also the rigging, well done

 

Nils

[egkb]

Looking very snazzy Jason..

 

That .5mm difference does seem big when you look at it in comparison to the other one, just how tight a fit would those studding sail booms have been..

 

Stay Well

 

Eamonn

[Beef Wellington]

The shipyard will be closing down for a few weeks for the summer holidays/vacation - heading up to Maine and New Hampshire.  Feeling like I'm leaving on an upnote so its all good. Hopefully I'll have this baby complete by end of year even with some side work on the "Jason".  I'm not taking anything with me to work on as I can guarantee something would get lost, a break is not a bad thing.

 

Tom - good to hear from you.  Its not a big deal at all, I can either try to sand down some the the 4mm stuff I already have or order more.  To answer you question, I haven't had too much luck with stains and had decided to keep everything a natural wood colour, so my first choice would be to stick with walnut to match.

 

Sjors - yup, think all the great minds are thinking alike

 

Nils - thanks for kind words

 

Eammon - its amazing how much of a difference .5mm can make, I would never have believed it, but these small scales do have surprises (both pleasant and unpleasant)

 

 

[Sjors]

Enjoy your vacation Jason !

 

We will be here when you are back