HMS Unicorn by ianmajor - Corel - Scale 1:75, 1748 to 1771

[mtaylor]

I think this was in the cross-over from the round ports and decorations to the square ports and no decorations on the ports.  Looking super, Ian.

[ianmajor]

Mike/Mark, again thanks for the input.

 

I have to admit I have put off this part of the modification for some time. I have been debating with myself at length about the best compromise.

 

Mike, you are right about the rail in option 1 ending shy of the leading edge of the quarter deck (drat, I thought no-one would notice), this is illustrated in the two top views below. I am now hooked on using 3D modelling rather than scraps of paper for my modification plans.

 

Option 1 top view

 

Option 2 top view

 

I gazed long and hard at the various plans. I had made the end of the bulwarks as per the Corel plan. This resulted in the two scrolls at the fore end of the bulwarks being very close together when compared with other plans/models. Below is an extract from the Corel plan to illustrate this. The Corel deck follows the line of the trim marked by the red arrow. The unmodified quarter deck front edge is indicated by the blue arrow.

 

 

Now back to the wood cutting........

 

Compare this with the Chapman diagram on which the Corel kit purports to be based. Below is an extract from that plan. The vertical position of the quarter deck is marked by dotted lines. My interpretation is that the pair of lines marked by the red arrow show the thickness of the deck planking and its height along the centre line of the ship. The single dotted line marked by blue arrow is the height of the deck at the bulwarks. I measured up and the solid bulwark is about 2'6" above the deck - which seems low to me. There is no indication of a rail which I believe there should have been. It is also unclear exactly where the leading edge of the quarter deck actually is - it sort of peters out in the middle of the main mast. In the original of this plan Chapman has another ship alongside where these details are more clearly set out.

 

 

Next is an extract of the Lyme plan showing leading edge of the quarter deck indicated by the red arrow. This shows the open rail terminating a roughly the same point.

 

 

The above three make an interesting comparison.

 

When in doubt, in these circumstances I consult Chuck's Winchelsea or in this case look at photos of the Winchelsea model held by the NMM. Below is an extract from one of the NMM photos the original can be found <here>  . Although the rail(s) are more complex than my offering a close look reveals that the high rail stops short of the leading edge of the quarter deck. So there is a precedent to my having a "short" rail - well at least that is my excuse.  

 

 

 

Now - back to the wood cutting.......

 ​

Edited March 21, 2016 by ianmajor

[JohnB40]

Hi Ian,

Once again you have outdone yourself  with the current construction. The swivel guns and mounts are marvelous examples of miniature modeling in their own right.

 

The quarterdeck round portholes look great the way you set them in the cap. I guess we can never know if there was any kind of decoration surrounding them,but looking at the Lyme plans,in the case of that frigate,I would say not.

 

The top rail and swivel gun posts will finish off the quarterdeck very nicely. As to where the the rail should end...I think I will throw a spanner in the works and suggest an option between one and two as in the second photo in post #511 of the sixth rate NMM model. With the last fore rail post in line with the end of the quarterdeck,or as close as you can place it so it is equidistant to the the other posts. From that point the curved down section should end just behind the upper cap scroll as in the NMM photo and Chapman's plans. This would work with where I ended my quarterdeck,maybe it would for yours.

 

Work on my Unicorn goes on at a snails pace,with long periods of inactivity. I hope to return to it with more enthusiasm in the near future,in the meantime I will carry on enjoying your log as you post it.

 

On another note. We have had a bad winter weather wise on the Oregon coast,heavy storms one after another. We had a lot of trees come down in a particularly strong one a fortnight ago,one of which was a neighbor's 40 year old pear tree. He knows of my modeling hobby and I mentioned in the past how pear was said to be good material for model ships and carving. He just dropped by this morning with a load of small planks 18 x 4 inches in 1/4 and 1/2 thickness and said he  would cut some square sections of various dimensions when he had some time. I don't know what sub species the pear tree was or how it compares to Swiss pear,but I have it all drying in the workshop. Most of the tree was unfortunately rotten.

 

Regards, John

 

[Landlubber Mike]

That settles it then 

[ianmajor]

John and Mike, thanks for your replies.

 

John looking at your suggestion I could push the "Option 1" front forward. I was looking to keep the distance between the front support and the rear scroll to be the same as the distance between the two scrolls. As you point out that is not the case with the NMM 6th rate model so pushing it forward should do the trick.

 

An interesting thing about the NMM model is that it is not the usual Admiralty type. The NMM notes say that it is ballasted with a lead keel suggesting that it is a sailing model.

 

I look forward to seeing how you get on with your fresh supply of pear wood. I love the smell of wood freshly cut from fruit trees. Takes me back to my Father's plum orchard.

 

Looking back at the swivel posts I thought you might be interested in how I "turned" the circular top part. I made a rose bit to do this. They are not hard to produce, only needing a drill press, bits, files and some mild still rod to make.

 

Below are some photos of how I did it. The first four are of an experimental one for use in a holder but show the basic process.

 

I had a 2cm piece of 10mm diameter mild steel to hand for this. I filed the ends square then drilled deeply the centre of the end. The diameter of this hole determines the diameter of (in this case) the end of the post.

 

 

I then drilled the centre of the other end with a larger bit most of the way through leaving a couple of mm's length of the smaller diameter hole. This is to stop the work binding in the hole particularly if using a rose bit to produce dowling.

 

 

I then used a fine blade saw to cut a shallow cross on the small diameter hole end. The middle of the cross being the centre of the hole. This was to act as a guide to filing.

 

Next I used a permanent marker to blue the end. Then with the rod in the vice with the small hole upper most and I filed the ends with the file at the angle shown in the next photo. The file was kept to the right of each saw cut.

 

 

I continued filing each face until the blueing between the file mark and the next saw cut just disappears. The next photo shows two faces approaching this point.

 

 

When all four faces have been treated this way you are ready to go. Here is the one I used on the posts.

 

 

The way I used it was first to cut around the post, using a knife, at the point where the round part of the post meets the square part - this acts as a stop cut. I bevelled the end of the post very slightly then simply used the rose bit like a pencil sharpener. (Cue gasps of horror from the guys who do things properly). 

 

Actually, when I get around to it I am going to make a holder for my rose bits to go on to the tool post of my lathe. I will be able to make fairly long lengths of brass and wood doweling in a variety of sizes.

 

Rose bits have been around a very long time. Another example of their use in MSW can found in <Garward's Montanes log> . There he makes the end of the cannon axles by putting the rose bit in the lathe chuck and mounting the axle in the tool post.

 

Unless disaster strikes I should have a set of 26 rail supports machined up by tomorrow - that or a pile of splinters.

Edited March 21, 2016 by ianmajor

[BANYAN]

Great explanation and a very useful tool accessory Ian - thanks.  I think I will need to make a few myself.

 

cheers

 

Pat

[Piet]

Nice bit of research on the railings Ian and coming to a suitable solution.

Great explanation on the machining and making a rose bit.  You said mild steel, no need to harden it?

 

Cheers,

[ianmajor]

Pat and Piet, thanks for looking in and all the likes.

 

Piet, re hardening the mild steel - I only use mild steel for infrequently used tools that will be used on soft(ish) wood which I don't bother hardening. Perhaps I should have mentioned hardening here. For tools that require more demanding use I use tool steel which I harden and temper. 

 

Pre-empting the question on how to harden steel (not from Piet) there is a good description <here>. 

Edited March 22, 2016 by ianmajor

[cruiseholidays1]

HI IANMAJOR,

CHUCK FROM FLORIDA AGAIN.  EARLIER IN THE YEAR YOU HELPED ME WITH PLANS FOR THE HEAD OF MY COREL UNICORN.  I'VE BEEN AWAY FROM MY PROJECT SINCE THEN.  I HAD A VERY HARD TIME DOING THE HEAD AND RAILS.  I CANNOT SEEM TO GET THE HANG OF THE 3 D  ASPECT OF THE RAILS BUT I DID THE BEST I COULD AND AND MOVING ON.  MY RESULTS WERE FAR FROM ACCEPTABLE.  I USE NO POWER TOOLS IN MY BUILDS.  I USE ONLY THE BASIC SAW AND XACTO AND ALLOT OF SANDPAPER.

THE REASON I AM WRITING IS FOR SOME ADDITIONAL HELP WITH PLANS.  I CANNOT SEEM TO LOCATE PAGE 4 OF THE PLANS.  I WOULD GREATLY APPRECIATE ANY HELP IN SENDING ME SCANNED COPY OF PAGE 4 DIAGRAMS.

 

 

THANKS AGAIN   CHUCK

[ianmajor]

Hello Chuck,

 

Drop me a PM so that we can exchange email addresses. I can then use your email address to give you access to my share. You will find the sheet you require there.

 

However I don't think much of Corel's idea of how the headworks should go together. Even with all the instructions it is not clear and produces a poor result. I suspect all the Unicorn builders will agree with this view.

 

I would suggest having a look at Dan Vadas' Vulture log. He gives a very good, illustrated, step by step description of how the headworks go together. The start of his log covering the head works is <here> .     

 

Using Dan's description you should be able to produce a good result without machine tools.

 

Good luck.

[Landlubber Mike]

Hello Ian, hope all is well.

 

I was doing some poking around on my Le Renommee kit from Euromodel, and came across a deck plan for the Swedish frigate Venus from 1783.  The ship was designed by Chapman, as you can see in the link below.  Check it out - looks like this might have been the deck plan used by Corel for the Unicorn kit, at least when it comes to the narrow waist.  It's a beautiful ship by the way, one that I will put on my list for possible ships to scratch build in the very distant future

 

 

http://www.wikiwand.com/en/Swedish_frigate_Venus_(1783)

 

 

Based on the Gardiner book on frigates, we always knew that the waists closed up on ships as the 19th century approached.  Looking at the Venus plans, however, it looks like Corel might have created a hybrid model using not only Chapman's Unicorn plans, but possibly deck plans from a Swedish ship like the Venus (the two ships were of very similar size). 

 

As a big aside, it turns out the Unicorn is not the only kit I bought that might be somewhat inaccurate.   The Euromodel Le Renommee is another.  There were two Renommees in the 18th century, and one in the early 19th:

 

1.  1744, which was captured in 1747 for the HMS Dover, renamed as the HMS Renown, and broken up in 1771;

 

2.  1793, a Galathee-class frigate which was captured in 1796 by the HMS Alfred and broken up in 1810; and

 

3.  1808, a 40-gun Pallas-class frigate captured in 1811, renamed the HMS Java, which was captured by the USS Constitution and burned in 1813.

 

 

Euromodel says it is the 1744 version, but I think the Boudriot version in the Ancre monograph series is more accurate.  Keith Julier in "Period Ship Handbook 2" says he thinks the kit is based on the 1793 ship.  But, the Euromodel kit looks identical to plate XXXI in the Chapman "Architectura" book:

 

http://www.sjohistoriska.se/ImageVaultFiles/id_2212/cf_1054/31.JPG

 

 

There's some discussion on Russian forums which suggest that plate XXXI is based on the Swedish frigate Jupiter, but it's a bit hard to follow the translation of the conversation which essentially seems to involve a frenchman named Admiral Paris making a mistake in Souvenir de Marine Conservs.  Apparently he read an earlier work that contained plate XXXI and that noted that the anchor was similar to Le Renomee, but when Paris copied over the plans from plate XXXI, he mistakenly labeled it as Le Renommee.   I can't find anything out there on a Swedish frigate name Jupiter (my search is what led me to the Venus), so I don't know if I have a French ship or a Swedish ship    I might have to flip a coin after building it to figure out what nation's flag to add 

[ianmajor]

Hello Mike,

 

Sorry for not replying earlier - have been it bit distracted of late!

 

The deck layout of the Venus does look similar to the Coral Unicorn offering. I always felt the kit deck was from a later period and not very British(?).

 

How old is the Renommee kit? The Coral Unicorn is 1974 (pre Web days). I think when kits were designed in those days they were done as cheaply as possible and with the view that most people building the kit would not have easy access to the source plans/information so "would not know the difference". Or is that heresy?   

Edited August 23, 2016 by ianmajor

[Landlubber Mike]

Hmm, not sure if I would say it's heresy or not, but no names will be mentioned 

 

I'm not sure how old the kit is.  The Keith Julier handbook where he builds the model is dated 1995, so it's been around since then.  I don't blame Euromodel though - it seems like the kit is spot on as to very detailed and accurate plans.  It's just that the name and origin of the ship has been passed down through history due to what might have been a mistake of Admiral Paris in transferring the name of the incorrect ship to the plans 150 years ago.  Given the extensive plans (there are 18 sheets for the Le Renommee!) and Euromodel's reputation, I don't think that they took any short cuts with this kit.

 

It's been interesting using Google translate to translate some of the Russian forums where this ship is discussed.  They correctly noted that the stern of the ship is represented in zu Mondfeld's "Historic Ship Models" on page 108, where it is labeled as the stern of the Swedish privateer frigate from 1760 named the Jupiter.  I can't find any info on a Swedish ship of that name though, I'll have to reach out to perhaps European sources.

 

Sorry for the diversion.  Now back to your Unicorn 

Edited August 23, 2016 by Landlubber Mike