HMS Bellerophon 1786 by AON – scale 1:64 – 74-gun 3rd Rate Man of War - Arrogant-Class

[AON]

Completed the painting of all 28 x 32 Pdr carriages and the assembly of one.

 

Carriage painting was done with brushes. Three coats of yellow ochre and then spots with black.

Could have used younger, steadier hands for the fine black touch ups... but it look fine from 12" away. The camera hides nothing!

The cannon was spray painted with acrylic flat black some time ago, multiple coats.

I tried highlighting the reinforcing rings and royal cypher with a smokey grey but it made a mess as it is all so tiny.

 

The cap square is card stock blackened with a permanent marker. The one end is curled over itself.

The cap square chain is simply black sewing thread. I tried a finger knitted chain stitch,  which look quite good until set up to the carriage and it was about 3X too large for the scale.

 

The eye bolts and breech ring are made with 0.02" (5mm) copper wire, the proper scale.

The breech rope ID (0.1") is correct but the eye loop (0.06") is larger than it should be as this was the size I was comfortable with.

Eye bolts were twisted over a 14 AWG copper wire (0.06" dia) ... I do not have a 1/16" drill bit to use for this.

The breech ring was coiled over a 7/64th drill bit, multiple wraps and then cut with hobby snips to produce multiple coils at once.

They were soft soldered 60/40 (% tin/lead) solder.

The eye loops and rings were blackened with a permanent marker.

 

I used Weldbond, water based PVA glue to assemble all the parts. It dries crystal clear.

 

The quoin handle was made from a small diameter maple dowel, sanded down while mounted on the drill press and then pulled through a draw plate.

All holes in the carriage were pilot holes and needed to be opened up for the twisted wire eye bolt stubs and quoin handle.

 

Presently, I have all the breech rope rings (54 ea) made and soldered. Going to start on the (189 ea) eye bolts next.

 

Edited Sunday at 03:39 PM by AON

[Wintergreen]

And then there is only, how many more to do?

I guess it becomes some kind of therapy once you work out a feasible step by step progress for them.

And it is true, the close up photos hides nothing. You can alway step back an arms length an shoot from there 😉 

 

It looks really good Alan, keep it up!

Edited Monday at 05:10 AM by Wintergreen

[Wintergreen]

Edited my previous post because I missed a "can" in "you can always step back.." so you dont think I'm a complete tart.

 

[AON]

For those interested ...

 

The 0.5 mm (0.02") diameter copper wire was from Billings Boats: P/N 04-BF-022A

The package has two coils but they do not state the length.

I emailed them and they told me each coil is 250 cm (98.4"/coil)... so I can now figure out how much more I might need to complete 74 guns.

 

The formula for sizing the eye bolt and breech rope ring wire size and the breech ring diameter was found in the NRJ Publication 36-2, page 100: Sizing Gun-Tackle and Breeching Eyebolts and Rings - Published by I.R.Butts (Boston, 1858)

 

It states that to calculate the size of wire for carriage gun-tackle eye bolts and breeching rope rings, "multiply the diameter of shot by 0.2, the answer is the diameter in 8ths".

It also states that the breech ring inner diameter is "to be in the clear of the diameter of the shot".

 

I found a table that stated the inside diameter of the eye (the loop) was in essence clear of the diameter of the wire:  32Pdr @ 1.83" inner diameter = 0.028" at 1:64
 

[Thukydides]

They are looking good Alan. Not sure if you are planning on rigging them, but if you are, when it comes time to do the breeching and tackle ropes I found an ordnance stores table from 1794 which lists the size of the breechings, tackles and blocks (including whether single or double blocks were used) for tackles by gun rating of the ship.  If you look at my Perseus document I reproduce the most relevant entries in the appendix.

Edited Monday at 03:12 PM by Thukydides

[AON]

I have a copy of the table Tackle + Breeching scantlings  The Sea-gunner's Vade-mecum Being a New Introduction to Practical Gunnery by Robert Simmons, 1812

It would be interesting to compare this to your table.

Would please you send me a copy.

[AON]

I also have a copy of the tables by Edwin Newell Rich from NRG spring 1962 issue 12-1

[AON]

The photo below is my setup for soft soldering two breech rings at a time.

 

The soldering station was purchased from https://gesswein.ca/products/grs-soldering-station

They were considerably less expensive when I got mine!

 

It is meant for silver soldering, but I normally use it when using my butane torch and copper-phosphorus wire solder. This solder allows me to blacken the copper wire and solder joint with LOS (Liver of Sulphur).

 

The 60/40 soft solder I used on the thin gauge copper wire here (0.5 mm = 0.02" dia) will not blacken with LOS so I used a black permanent marker as I've seen done by other modellers in our local club.