HMS Fly by Martin W - Amati/Victory Models - 1/64

[Beef Wellington]

That's a fine looking cannon Martin!

[rafine]

Really nicely done Martin.

 

Bob

[Blue Ensign]

A result Martin, Daniel's ciphers  look better than the Amati versions.

 

I also passed on the front cap square lock shape and did something similar to yourself, it's a very tight area to work in and at scale size these items are very small.

 

B.E.

[Mirabell61]

Very nice Progress Martin,

 

the "Fly" is coming on real good, Detail work Looks very good, carriages and Barrels look great

 

Nils

[Martin W]

Thanks for checking in everyon, and thanks for the likes.

 

BE, you're right, Daniel's cyphers are really impressive -- their detai is astonishing given their tiny size.  When I peer at them through a magnifying lens held in front of my opti-visor (I'm not fooling), I can see that they are fully accurate.  And I am quite surprised at how well they show up on the barrel.  I hope loads of people read this and order their photo-etching from Daniel.

 

Nils -- you're generous to compliment my detail work.  Your own work on KWdG is jaw-dropping.  When I described it to my wife, her response was "Don't even consider it."  I comforted her only slightly by pointing out that it would take me a full year to do what you get done in a week.

 

Thanks for coming by, Bob -- it's an honor to have someone of your caliber check in.

 

Jason -- thanks for the kind words.  Your Snake is a splendid build, and the rigging is excellent!

 

Now I'm off to rake leaves.

 

Cheers,

 

Martin

Edited November 13, 2015 by Martin W

[Blue Ensign]

Hi Martin, I recall you mentioning a few posts back about the securing chain for the cap squares on the guns.
 
I came across my post today in the other place on this subject.
 
I used tiny chain at 42 links to the inch from Jotika.
 
http://www.shipwrightshop.com/shop/contents/en-uk/d59_Thread-Chain-Wire_02.html

 

 

 

These pics give an idea of the look of the chain in relation to the gun.

 

It is about ok for scale, if you want to bother with this very small feature at 1:64.

 

In practice, on my Pegasus none of this detail can be seen anyway as it is hidden by the Gang boards.

 

Cheers,

 

B.E.

 

ps: I'll delete these pics in a few days so as not to clutter your log up.

Edited November 14, 2015 by Blue Ensign

[Martin W]

Thanks for these, BE, I actually know them well (from over yonder), and they are what made me think of chains at all.  I found some 42 lpi for sale on Model Expo, but couldn't quite bring myself to buy it when the postage would have been more than the chain. 

 

And after looking at these photos again, I must say, BE, that your guns do look good  in all their details.  I'm thinking -- kinda -- about pulling my eyebolts out and replacing them with the style you have (and that seems more accurate according to FFM).  But I also really want to move on to other matters.

 

And I think these pictures sort of give my log some class!

 

Cheers,

 

Martin

[Martin W]

Greetings Friends -- Once again I have to apologize for my laggardly log updating.  As long as I have a job, a house, a horse & and a wife, I suppose my modelling time will continue to be impeded.

 

I am nearing the end of the gun-rigging, in hopes of being able to set in the 6 guns that go under the quarterdeck and forecastle; and then I can install all the other deck furniture that will go in after the guns are secured (it seems to make more sense to take care of the outer most items first).

 

The conversation with Blue Ensign about driving a wire through the gun's bed that then fits into a hole in the deck made me really want to try something similar, even though I'd already set the barrels in place, and therefore blocked access to the bed from above.  I tried putting a nail in the bed from below, thinking that the sharp point would enable me to mark the spot on the deck for a hole. That had the effect of loosing the bed.  Next I set a nail in the front axle, hoping that it's sharp point would allow me to mark the spot on the deck for the corresponding hole.

 

 

                                        

 

This was a pretty good idea, except with the nail in place I couldn't fit the barrel through the port hole.  My next try (no picture) was to put the nail in the rear axle.

 

The next step was to rig the side tackle.  I opted to frap these.  My experience with the Rattlesnake proved that this tackle needs to be pretty doggone short, and at the same time to show some thickness in the frapped line.  I didn't even attempt to make hooks for the blocks, since I'm using Chuck's 2mm blocks, which are roughly the size of sesame seeds.  So I seized an eye bolt at the end of the block, then used the seizing line to create the thickness between the blocks, which I frapped with .2mm line run through each of the blocks.

                                          

This was actually my first effort, and I assure you the others are neater.

 

So here is the first gun, fully rigged and in place.

 

                                       

This is the aftermost gun on the port side.  The side tackle is still too long, even at only 7/16 inch, so the others have been shortened -- and several in the waist will have the knees for the gangway to contend with, so they'll be even shorter still.

 

Cheers,

 

Martin

 

 

 

[Landlubber Mike]

Very nice Martin.  The cannons took a ton of time on my Badger - for a small part of the model, there are so many parts and opportunities to improve on the details.  Great work!

[Martin W]

You got that right, Mike.  Loads of parts, details, improvements, changes of mind & strategy.  And also a non-stop education for the eyes and fingers.

[Martin W]

A brief update on the guns:  the three on each side that need to be installed before I can advance on anything else are done.

 

Here are the four aft guns:

 

                                           

 

And here are the two foremost guns:

 

                                           

 

With these 6 in place, I can at last begin installing some of the other deck furniture, most of which I've been building and storing away in various safe places (so safe that sometimes I have to hunt for them).

 

First off is the capstan, which I made quite a while ago out of redheart:

 

                                           

 

In putting this in place, I recalled that Blue Ensign had to trim the Quarterdeck beam (#9) to allow the barrel to pass upward toward the Q-deck.  The same proved to be true in my case:

 

                                           

 

But then I found that I had to cut even more to make room for the trundle head:

 

 

                                            

 

And even though I did build this from scratch, it does match the size of the capstan shown on the kit's plans (sheet 5).

 

And now I'll start putting in the bitts, and other items.  And I'll need to make the elm-tree pumps.

 

Cheers,

 

Martin

 

[Landlubber Mike]

Looks really great Martin.  All coming together very nicely!

[Martin W]

Bulkheads & Bitts

 

Moving ever closer to getting the Quarterdeck in place, I've been adding some of the soon-to-become invisible pieces. So here are  a few views of the two main bulkheads forming the Captain's cabin and the officer's cabin:

 

                                                 

 

 

 

                                                 

 

 

 

                                                 

 

These I made just about a year ago and then put away, so it's nice to see them again, if only briefly.

 

As I mentioned before, I want to make the one visible Quarterdeck beam from boxwood, so I cut it and shaped it by following the pattern of the kit's version.   But before putting it in place I needed to install the Mainmast bitts, which are pretty plain, and serve the purpose of supporting the foremost Quarterdeck beam.  Here they are:

 

                                                   

 

What I next discovered is that these bitts had better not serve much more of a purpose beyond their supporting role, because the cross piece wanted to be smack up against the backs of the chain pumps.

 

                                                   

 

Yikes! I hope I don't find myself trying to belay some rigging line there.

 

And here are the chain pumps, with the bitts and the beam all in place.

 

                                                   

 

Speaking of rigging, as I was checking out my supply recently, I found this:

 

                                                   

 

I'm suspecting one of my little grey friends (har! where's that trap?)

 

Cheers,

 

Martin

 

 

 

[aliluke]

Could be that your pumps have got too big (out of scale) with all of the beautifully added detail? Just a thought - I reckon you'll want to tie off something or other to the bitt later...looking all good though - sweet work all round.

[Blue Ensign]

Those pumps against the Main jeer bitts do present a problem in belaying the Main Jeer falls.

 

My approach was to drill sheave holes in the bitts and pass two loops of cotton pass thro’ the jeer bitt sheaves, and I hope to attach the falls to these and pull them tho’ at the appropriate time.

 

The kit plans appear to show the jeers belayed at the Topsail sheet Bitts which gets around the problem.

 

I covered this aspect on page 24 of my full build log in the "other" place.

 

Those pump covers do look good Martin

 

B.E.

[flyer]

Just had a look on the situation on my Pegasus. It will be tricky with your larger (but beautiful pumps) but should be manageable with your nimble fingers.

 

Cheers

peter

 

[rafine]

Nicely done Martin. What a shame that those bulkheads will never be seen.

 

Bob

[Mirabell61]

nice work Martin,

 

I second Bob`s comment (beautiful bulkheads), but perhaps you may be planing a cutaway in the quarterdeck to allow sight below....

 

Nils

[Martin W]

What a treat it is to have so many prominent Swan builders dropping by!  Thanks everyone, I really do appreciate your comments.

 

Alistair -- It's great to hear from you again.  I hope you're enjoying summer in your beautiful land (I remember those pictures you posted of your family expedition to a secluded inlet with blue waters -- Oh my).  Yes, you hit the nail on the head:  I used the kit's pumps as the basis for the boxwood, and that did increase the dimensions.  It's always astonishing how 1/32 here and there can suddenly be big.

 

BE -- Thanks for compliment -- coming from you that means loads.  Going back to page 24, I realize that I'd looked over that page a few times before, though not the discussion of the chain pumps, but rather the gallows.  Your strategy with the piece of cotton thread is ingenious.  But what strikes me in looking at your pictures (apart from all the skillfully executed details -- I had to remind myself not to get sidetracked by studying your work on the gang boards & knees) is that your chain pumps are just almost as close to the cross piece as mine.  Now, I did fit the cross piece a bit more deeply into the pins to make room, but now I'm wondering (hoping?) that maybe, just maybe I'll have enough room to belay one or two lines.  Though when I look at the kit's rigging plan, I couldn't work out much of anything that belays there -- they all seem to go on the main topsail sheet bitts.

 

I hope to see you posting your own progress soon -- and maybe some pictures of William romping and taking charge in the New Wing?

 

And looking at your picture, Peter, I'm both hopeful and concerned again.  You did manage to pass the jeers down and belay them, but then I also think my pumps inadvertently got wider as well as thicker -- if so, then I would have difficulty just belaying them on the outer portion of the cross beam.  As for the fingers that will be doing the rigging, you must be thinking of someone else, since I'm sure that those thick inflexible logs at the ends of my hands could never be called "nimble" (be happy that you've never had to hear me at the piano  ).

 

Bob -- Hidden details add to the sport of modelling, don't you think?  And if they're hidden from view, their precision only grows in our imagination. 

 

Nils -- I like a lot of the builds I've seen (like yours!) that have the cutaway sections, but those entail advance planning, and the knowledge to determine (in advance) how to accommodate the structure, as in support.  Perhaps I should have taken some courses early on in structural -- or naval -- engineering, but I never anticipated at age 20 that I'd be infatuated with these little floating architectural monuments forty years later.

 

Cheers to all!

 

Martin

[Martin W]

Here's a brief update.  As I prepare to conceal everything on the maindeck, I'm adding all the furniture that will forever be hidden.  Up in the front I've installed the bitts, the stove, and the manger. 

 

Now here's a little difference between the Pegasus and Fly:  in Blue Ensign's account of the manger, a bulkhead extension goes from the bow to the fore bitts, but that's absent in the Fly.  So simulating the chock for the bowsprit becomes a slightly different matter; and yet it's necessary to have something for the manger boards to butt into (and so that the cow won't get out).  So I simulated the bitt pins and fastened a very thin piece of cherry between them.  Voila:

 

                                                     

 

 

 

                                                     

 

And with that, I think (or maybe I should say I "think," since I'm not wholly sure) that I've installed everything necessary to be hidden.

 

Now, I'm sanding the plywood false decks for the Quarterdeck and the forecastle.

 

Cheers,

 

Martin

 

[Martin W]

Hi Spy -- thanks for this, the link is very useful.  Actually, the lengths & sizes of the bitts and pins haven't caused much of a problem yet, because I've mostly been making new ones so that I can stay with the boxwood (ie castello).  The cross piece for the riding bitts does seem pretty big to me, but I based my dimensions on FFM.  I haven't installed the main gallow bitts yet, because I understand their height depends on that of the quarterdeck; I've cut and shaped them, and have left them quite long with the expectation of trimming them to size.  Your advice to check the size of kit pieces is well-heeded.

 

Now, I do have to wonder about the dimensions of pieces like the stove & the capstan, both of which I scratch built.  They interfere with the beams, and the capstan particularly would seem to involve a design problem.

 

My false decks weren't terribly a-symmetrical.  I did have to trim both of them quite a bit as they were seriously oversized, and that might be why they didn't seem problematic otherwise.

 

As I get ready to plank the quarterdeck, I'll definitely be re-reading your log along with the other Swan logs just to try to anticipate any problems -- almost always when I do that I find some detail I'd forgotten about or some trick I'd never imagined.

 

Cheers,

 

Martin

[Martin W]

Hello Everybody -- In my desultory fashion, I am adding this update.  I should have posted this back in April, but my work has taken over my life so much that the waters of professional obligation are threatening to close overhead.  I have a hard September 1 deadline, and so will probably prove even more desultory than usual in providing updates.  But I'll try whenever I can manage to come up for air.

 

For now, the Quarterdeck.

 

The planking went fairly smoothly, measuring out the margin planks, and setting in the regular planks down the center.  After defining the space in this way for the hooked planks I began the more technical work of measuring, cutting, and shaping the hooked planks.  Here is the template for the first hooked plank:

 

                                      

 

Next, you can see the fairly logical progression of the hooked planks filling in the space of the deck as they move forward.

 

                                      

 

And here are both sides fully planked:

 

                                      

 

The hooked planks look a might wide to my eye, but I decided to go with them, mostly because my efforts to map out narrower versions created new problems.

 

Since I treenailed the main deck, I felt obligated to do the same here.  I know the trend is for treenails that are barely visible, but I have to confess that I like a bit of contrast.  I do assure you that this does not necessarily mean that I wear two-tone shoes, but sometimes I can't resist a bit of flash:  my horse is generally recognized as the most chromacious in the pasture. 

 

For the treenails, I used some Swiss Pear that I passed through the draw plate down to the smallest gauge, then set that into predrilled holes:

 

                                       

 

And here's the result of the fully treenailed quarterdeck (unsanded):

 

                                        

 

Next up was the coaming (ie coamings & headpieces) for the tri-partite gratings.  For this I used some boxwood (castello), framed with lap joints, and with a rabbet cut along the bottom:

 

                                        

 

After some preliminary sanding (the real sanding will come after the gratings are all set in), I put treenails in the four corners:

 

                                        

 

And finally, I made up the gratings using the kit's supply of ready-cut pieces (they seem to be basswood).  Here's the first:

 

                                         

 

And that's more or less where I am.  Since we've gotten some rain (something rare out here in the prairie), my lawn has made some work for me this evening.  I do hope to spend some happy evenings relaxing in the boatyard (where hours can pass by in mere seconds) ahead.  And I even hope that I can get another update posted before Mrs W & I head up to Maine (she has already been informed that I will be bringing work along).

 

Cheers (or Glub, glub),

 

Martin

 

[Blue Ensign]

Glad to see an update Martin, a fine job on your Quarterdeck planking.

Hope your busy schedule will soon allow you more time in the dockyard.

 

B.E.

[Landlubber Mike]

That came out really nicely Martin, really nice job!

[rafine]

Very nicely done Martin.

 

Bob

[Martin W]

Hi guys, thanks for checking in.  Here's the latest:  while working on the capstan partners yesterday evening, I began looking at the tripartite hatchway, and could only decide that it was too ugly for words.  If I posted a picture of it in the completed state, I'm sure I would be sanctioned by the FCC for offensive practices.  I ripped it out to do over, and didn't even throw it in the scrap pile, but used it to create the new Ugly Pile of Rejects.

 

Mrs W & I will be off to Maine in a few days.  But I will try to post something when we get back and I'm able to sneak off to the boatyard, even though my camera will be full of shots of lighthouses, lobster boats, and the USS Constitution (we'll be passing through Boston, so I absolutely have to make a pilgrimage).

 

I also want to mention, though, that I've spent some time looking at BE's clerestory lights, and wonder, just wonder if I could, should try my own unskilled hand at something similar? 

 

Cheers,

Martin

[Blue Ensign]

Nothing to be lost Martin, an easy way would be to make the sides out of clear plastic cladded with thin boxwood or similar strips which would give you ready made windows (lights) which are very small at the scale. If all else fails you can always go back to the grating.

 

Enjoy your trip, looking forward to seeing progress on your return .

 

B.E.

[Mirabell61]

Martin,

 

nice deck planking for your HMS Fly...

 

Nils

[donrobinson]

Looks good Martin, have a good trip

[Landlubber Mike]

Enjoy your trip!