HMS Jason by Beef Wellington - Caldercraft - 1:64 - Artois-class frigate modified from HMS Diana 1794

[Beef Wellington]

Carl - what you see is my cardboard mock-up/template     And no, I don't like the white windows...they're just cutouts from a photocopy of the kit PE to see exactly how they would look.

[cog]

Pffff .... you just made my day, my friend!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

Cheers

[Blue Ensign]

Love what you're doing with her Jason, look forward to seeing the stern gallery develop.

 

B.E.

[Timmo]

Looking very good indeed Jason.

I'm wondering why you bought the kit now this is heading into scratch build territory with such good results.

[Beef Wellington]

Looking very good indeed Jason.

I'm wondering why you bought the kit now this is heading into scratch build territory with such good results.

 

Hi Wayne - well, good question .  I'm nowhere near being prepared to do a full scratch build, and it is more realistic for me to alter or adjust what is in the kit, knowing that I have the luxury of just using whats supplied if I want to to get a pretty decent result.  I think its easy to be critical of kits, unfairly I think, which don't get it quite how we would like or expect.  It reminds me of the phrase "standing on the shoulders of giants"   I just seem to having a lot of fun trying to figure this out, however slow the progress.

Edited March 12, 2016 by Beef Wellington

[Beef Wellington]

Finally finished the second planking!  Starting to finish off the gunport openings and then will need a good final sand, taking this very slowly as there is no room for filler if I mess up.  I took the planking a 1-2mm above the shaped bulkwarks to give me a little to play with in the future.  The two sides are not quite completely equal, but close enough.  Just goes to show that placement of the wale is key and despite my best efforts a little off...

 

 

Model is getting now noticeably weighty, and I do tend to cradle on my lap rather than on the table.  The inevitable happened and slipped resulting in a some damage after hitting the table.  Nothing for it but to saturate with glue and leave to dry, but reasonably confident it should be fine.

 

Edited April 4, 2016 by Beef Wellington

[mort stoll]

Hi Jason,

 

Wait until the hull is plated if you think he is heavy now.

 

Keep up the great work,

Mort

[NMBROOK]

MIGHTY fine planking work Jason!!!!!!!

 

Kind Regards

 

Nigel

[cog]

Sorry to hear about the slip ... hope that will work out well ... she's looking mighty fine though

 

Cheers

[mtaylor]

Jason,

 

Don't feel bad about the ding, bung, crunch.  I think we've all done that one at least once.  You've got some lovely work going on there.

[mobbsie]

It happens to most of us at some stage mate and fortunately the damage is not too bad.

 

With your skills the repair will not be noticeable.

 

I tend to do an awful lot of work with the boat on my lap and I have had it slip. We never learn do we.

 

You have a lot of good work going on Jason and I'm enjoying following along.

 

Keep it up mate.

 

Be Good

 

mobbsie

[JesseLee]

I've done the same thing too (quite a few times).

 

Jesse

[Beef Wellington]

Cheers guys (Yes Mort, I can only imagine it getting heavier, especially with all the cannons in place as well!).  Good news, the fix to the boo-boo turned out just fine.  Lesson learned, so will be putting some protection on these delicate areas going forward. Not much to show for time but feel I need to get up to date.  Lots of sanding sessions to get a nice shape, and the weather hasn't really been cooperating.

 

 

Batten at the waterline has been installed.  Tried thinning down some 1x1mm strip to approx. .5mm thickness but found that this was just too delicate a procedure, so thinned as much as possible and it was pretty easy to take more off once installed.  Used PVA to attach which worked just fine as it develops a sufficient tack needed for this thin stuff, even in the curved areas which just required a few minutes of finger pressure.  To help with this, I temporarily attached some scrap walnut strip to act as guides.

 

Once in place, put on a single coat of wipe on poly to protect the surface and then used some walnut stain to colour below the batten.  Although this will be coppered, think its better to have a darker surface in case there are gaps between the plates.

 

 

Also started to put in place the oar and vent ports.  Each needs to be individually shaped as I think it would follow the profile of the other planking.  Getting a uniform (or as best I can) fit takes a bit of fiddling.  Captain Sterling is keeping on top of things in his new nice new uniform....

 

 

And where things stand...

 

Edited May 1, 2016 by Beef Wellington

[BANYAN]

Very nice work Jason, she is looking great!  the batten came up really well.

 

cheers

 

Pat

[NMBROOK]

Super crisp work Jason She is looking fantastic

 

Kind Regards

 

Nigel

[Barbossa]

Well done indeed, Jason ( also superb pics )

Looking forward for further updates and hitting the like button.

 

[toms10]

Jason,

Your work is very neat and clean.  Something to be proud of.  The "like" button will get a lot of use here.

Tom

[Kevin]

lovely work Jason, nice to catch up on your build

[Beef Wellington]

Welcome aboard Tom, hope I can live up to your expectations!

 

Kevin, nice to hear from you and the kind words.

 

Not much has been happening in the shipyard recently, but I'll be back....

[Blue Ensign]

Great lines you've achieved there Jason, excellent work on the wale, and those gun ports look very sharp.

 

Cheers,

 

B.E.

[Sjors]

As far as I can see it is your usual standard of planking Jason     

 

Sjors

[Beef Wellington]

Dockyard is still the victim of an ongoing labour dispute.  Little bit of detail added onto the main deck, tried to simulate the deck clamps and the sheave blocks.  The clamps were cut from a sheet of pear using a sharp blade and a ruler which seemed to work OK.  The standards have also been added.  Glad now I added in the sweep ports as it adds a nice touch of background detail with the deck on.  Think I need to get on with the coppering, but do have some questions...

 

1. Range cleats:  The kit provides a huge 'block' for these which seem way over scale and don't look like a cleat (see bottom picture).  The photo at the bottom shows these side by side with one of Chucks cleats (12mm).  The FFM indicates the range cleats are 2' 9" which translates to about 13mm in real money at scale, very similar to Chucks.  Would the size of these vary considerably between ships of different sizes. Thoughts?  I'm leaning toward Chucks.
2. Copper plates: Amati are very clear in providing left and right sided copper plates.  I thought that British ships were coppered from the stern, forward and up which would suggest the visible edge nails would be on the aft and lower edges on the starboard side.  Is that correct?

 

[cog]

Jason,

 

It would be strange to have them plated from fore to aft. With heavy weather, or going against a strong current, bump into debris, etc the plates may be ripped off or work as a break...  fish scales run in the same direction ...

[mtaylor]

What Carl said about the plates, Jason.  As for plate up or plate down.... well, that's been part of a lot of discussion.  

 

On the cleats.... the size of these seems to vary by country and by shipyard it seems.   When it doubt, go with the TFFM.

[Landlubber Mike]

Looking really nice Jason - very crisp details!  

 

If you're still having labor issues, I know a few guys in NY who are pros at breaking up labor strikes...

[BANYAN]

Looking really good Jason.  Yep agree with your interpretation of British naval practice for the aft to forward direction, but according to my info, the plates overlapped  by 1.5" on the upper and after edges.  This method/system resulted with the overlap of the plates on the trailing end/edge (much like fish scales as suggested above). The purpose for the upper edge overlap is so that when the ship ploughed down into a wave there would be less resistance on the leading edge of the plate (less pressure in the vertical dimension = less chance of separation).

 

cheers

 

Pat

[Blue Ensign]

Very nice work Jason, great finish, the large scale photo's show off perfectly the cleanness of your work.

 

Regarding the copper plating, I agree with the method of fitting as you suggest, at least with the Amati plates no actual overlapping is required as would be the case on the real thing.

 

B.E.

[Beef Wellington]

Thanks everyone for continued interest and support...

 

"It" has started.  I've been proceeding all along assuming that I would install a false keel visible beneath the copper plates as wonderfully shown on the Minerva model in the Annapolis museum.  I installed the various false keel planks using swiss pear as I felt the more orange hue would blend better with the copper plates.  I had intended to then copper to this false keel as per pictures below, which required the copper plates to be trimmed which I did with an exacto blade.  But this would have resulted in a rather odd plate layout at the bow using the supplied plates which I didn't like.

 

In the end, I decided to copper to the bottom of the false keel which was rather luckily pretty much exactly the width of a copper plate.  This is how David Anscherl describes it in the FFM series so its good enough for me to justify this approach! Definitely still trying to get into a groove with attaching these with thick CA glue but pretty sure it will get easier...

 

Edited July 20, 2016 by Beef Wellington

[Sjors]

Almost a shame that you copper that wonderful hull Jason......

But I will wait with the comment till that is finished !

 

Sjors

[Beef Wellington]

Sjors - maybe these photos will help you make up your mind    The planking is not as beautiful as I think you think because of the different woods used, copper was always the plan.

 

Believe I reached a point to deliver a verdict on the Amati plates and share some progress now that copper has met boxwood.  I know that there seem to be many diverse opinions on coppering, and it does present its own uniquw challenges.  Its also amazing how many varied diagrams there are of copper plate layouts.  In the end, I probably ended up somewhere between what is shown in the AOTS Pandora book and TFFM book 2.

 

So, some thoughts on the Caldercraft:Amati copper plate matchup.  First off, I cannot believe how much more fun it is to work with the Amati plates vs my experience with the Caldercraft plates (which do still give a nice result).

1. Because the plates come in sheets, its possible to apply in some cases in multiple plates at a time.  This is a real bonus when its necessary to shape some which otherwise would leave a tiny sliver to be attached.  This results in less wastage..at least so far.
2. The thin profile of the PE plated I think attaches much more easily (in my experience) using the Admiralty Pro thick CA glue.  This also allows any needed overlaps to be achieved easily without having to hammer out the distinct nail head profiles on the CC plates

On to the photos and little bit of the method I've found works well for me.  I started working on the stern as this will likely be the most challenging due to the hull shape.

 

I'm not sure what these are called, but determining the flow of the plates where they need to fan out is the first challenge. Because the plates don't bend and can't be spiled, the problem is a little more intractable.  I found that by using a small sheet 2 tiles wide to find the natural lines of how the plates lie well on the hull was the simplest method, it just takes time and fiddling....

 

 

Once the lined had been figured out, household painters tape helped me keep the lines straight at these transition points (I go through a lot of tape)

 

 

From above (the view as I work), the lines of the plates does appear a little erratic...

 

 

...however, the appearance from normal angles is much more acceptable