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

[cog]

Jason,

 

That's awful ... awfully good!!! As Barbossa said

[Seventynet]

Great work Jason. Stunning really.

 

Ian

[Sjors]

Wow, that's great Jason !

Maybe I steal your idea of the black paint 

 

Sjors

[hamilton]

Great choice with the black hatch coamings - I love the contrast with the deck and bulwarks. Beautiful work!

hamilton

[Blue Ensign]

Really nice work on the coamings Jason, great look👍

 

B.E.

 

[drtrap]

Great job Jason.

All the best!

[Beef Wellington]

Thanks everyone for the very kind words and continued interest...not really much to report with only some ad-hoc shipyard activity, but a cautionary tale whilst its still fresh.  Started to make up the gun carriages, all 28 of them :-(  The axles took quite a bit of time to shape appropriately which I did with a file to rough shape and then turned in the lathe to fine tune.  Cautious going is the name of the game, and of course some turned out not at well as I'd hoped but these should be able to be "hidden at the back".

 

The issue I encountered was that I didn't think to check the thickness of the Syren sheets the parts come from and assumed these would all be consistent.  The prototype I had already built all seemed to go together nicely and to make life a little easier I built a simple jig to make alignment easier.  By chance, I then noticed that there are some reasonably significant differences in dimension.  If you look at the second picture where I stack those that look thicker against those that appear thinner the difference is apparent (both 11 in number).  What this means is that to build the carriages to the same dimensions will need some parts to be custom made from spare stock as the laser cut part is too small.  It appears by chance that the prototype was built using the 'thicker' variety.

 

 

[BANYAN]

Hi Jason, could it be that if they are equal stacks (same dimensions separated) that one axle set is for the front the other for the rear? Nice simple assembly jig you have set up.

 

cheers

 

Pat

[Beef Wellington]

Hi Pat, the issue doesn't impact the axles as they work just fine, it only impacts the width of the interior dimension between the carriage walls - the impact being the provided part for at the front of the carriage (no idea what its called) is then too small.  If you look at the 3rd photo you can see how it is too small.  No big issue to make my own when I get there.  I'm just glad I saw it, because if I had mixed up all of the carriage walls, I would probably have mixed the different thicknesses and I think it would not have been noticeable until all of them were glued up.  At least I can now ensure the sides match to minimize and discrepancies.

[cog]

Bit of a setback ... can't you make the sides of your carriages thinner, (sorry) the front block wider (a new one) then you only have to make that part. If you keep the carriages. Or make new fronts and sand down the thicker sides ...

[mobbsie]

Hi Jason

 

I make no suggestions mate but I am really interested to see your remedy, thin the sides or make new Transoms. 

 

Looking at the pics I reckon it's gonna be bigger transoms.

 

Nice jig by the way.

 

Be Good

 

mobbsie

[Beef Wellington]

 

Been a while since posting and felt like I needed to get up to date, and thanks all for the continued interest - and yes Carl, Mobbsie, simply making slightly wider transoms is the solution.  Rather tedious which is why my fingers have been distracted as you'll see.

 

I feel like I should start with a "forgive me father its been 700 days since I've looked at the instructions or used a kit part"    Haven't been completely idle but have got a decent start on couple of visually small but meaningful tasks that should allow of this to come together relatively quickly when the time comes.  Main goal is to get items in place to allow me to give the sides a coat of wipe on poly for protection after gluing items in place but prior to touchup which will definitely be needed.  I've decided that my next model will only have one side 

 

Chesstree and fenders:  These were made up to allow the sheer rail to be positioned and were cut from 3mm and 2mm sheet respectively.  The Chesstree has a notable thinning in width as it goes down the hull which I tried to reflect. Felt these looked rather boring when shaped so decided to try and put a profile in these as is so apparent when looking at those on Trincomalee and Victory.  These seem to ne features often missing on contemporary models...think I now appreciate why   A scraper profile was made for each, the fenders proved much easier to do despite being smaller because of the constant width, the chesstrees much more challenging due to the steady reduction in width.  Things are a little messy at the bottom but to the naked eye the defects are much less noticeable and these will not be redone.  Chesstree sheaves will be simulated.

 

Photos below also show a slight miscalculation from way back nearly coming back to bite me.  The sheaves for the sheets and tacks were placed a little too high and these nearly interfered with positioning the sheer rail.

 

 

Fore and Main Channels:  The channels need to be placed at the same height as the sheer rail, so even though its not necessary to attach these until much later, its necessary know where these will be positioned before the sheer rail can be applied.  I've decided to go with natural castello channel rather than painted black finish - the latter would at least have given me the option to use the kit part.  Making my own allowed me to follow TFFM styling a little bit which is a bit more curvaceous and pleasing to the eye, it also allowed me to position the slots for the chains to reflect the positions of the gun ports - you can see small but noticeable differences in the comparison below.  (Interestingly the kit fore-channel has 6 slots at the rear, where-as the AOTS plans show only 5).  Holes to allow the pinning of the channels have been drilled so these just need final attachment.

 

 

Waist:  As previously mentioned, I've been leaving the final position of the upper hull to be tweaked later.  To be comfortable that the sheer rail was correctly positioned I needed to trim the waist height back to anticipate the position of the top deck, and allowing for a layer of planking.  This was also necessary to finalise the height of the fenders and chesstrees.

 

Quarterpieces:  These have been beveled to allow the placement of the figures, and also the quarterpieces were built up slightly to allow me more easily place and but up the top finishing molding for the taffarel when I get there.  The figures with bent arms sit quite pleasingly now and there is a definite sense of depth rather than just plain bas-relief.  Obviously lots of fine finishing and touch up still needed....curse you macro gods!

 

[rafine]

Wonderful work Jason. Well worth the wait to see it.

 

Bob

[Blue Ensign]

Nice progress Jason, very pleasing to my eye. 

 

B.E.

[jwvolz]

Jason,

Great idea leaving a lip for their capping strip on the channel so it all flows smoothly once that is in place, particularly with the rounded edges. Subtle but, makes a difference. 

[BANYAN]

Nicely detailed work Jason; everything fits well and looks great.

 

cheers

 

Pat

[md1400cs]

 "forgive me father its been 700 days since I've looked at the instructions or used a kit part"  

Yes indeed nice update. 

[cog]

Lovely work, Jason, and very nice details you added.

[Beef Wellington]

Bob, BE, Pat, Michael, Carl and the likes, thanks for sticking in there, and the kind words.

 

Joe - Not my idea at all on the channels, its laid out like that in the FFM which I've been referring to.  More work but seems a more elegant solution but grounded in reality than the kit solutions of just attaching to the outside face which doesn't quite look right when you have the curves at the ends.  One thing I realized I didn't do was to angle the slots according to the expected angle of the chains but hopefully that's not going to be too big a deal. May still have some wiggle room to something there but no need to worry about that yet.

[Beef Wellington]

Happy New Year to all!

 

Not too much to show for a little bit of extra time in the shipyard, but have put a bookend on the work at the stern and quarter galleries for now.  Basically, all I've done is glue the quarter gallery sections in place together with the various rails (Upper stool, rim and lower stool rails).  This took much longer than expected as  I had so many pieces of rework, either because if breakage when shaping, fitting or by trimming a little too much (despite reciting 'don't take off too much' continually under my breath) and needing to restart.  It was also challenging as the quarter gallery rails needed to match as well as possible to the upper and lower counter rails.  Anyway, don't think the pictures need much additional explanation - other than that some are taken without any touchup, but the extra time afforded by the site outage allowed me to get a little more done.

 

Suffice to say, I'm very pleased with the way the quarter galleries turned out, definitely challenging, but worth the extra time.  The PE lights still require some work and these will not be put in place yet, but I wanted to get a sense for the overall look and the lines.  Of course final judgement is left to others 

 

 

The kit supplied console brackets  proved to be a little oversized, to keep the same feel as the plans I wanted these to fit snuggly between the upper stool and the rim rails.  For comparison, you can see the adjusted starboard side bracket to the not yet adjusted port side on the left.

 

 

Taking a step back to compare to the plans and assessing varied angles I think I've done as much as can be done to bash any provided parts into something a little more consistent.  As always, the human eye is a little more forgiving in person.  The plan profile is enlarged from the AOTS book.  The quarter gallery sculptures now have a definite 'ledge' to visually support them and I'm glad I invested the extra time here.

 

 

 

[BANYAN]

Looking very good Jason, very neat detail and pleasant to the eye.

 

cheers

 

Pat

[robdurant]

This is so helpful as I'm just starting out on the quarter galleries myself... They look amazing! If mine turn out half as good I'll be very happy.

[cog]

A happy, healthy, and prosperous New Year to you too, Jason

 

That quarter gallery looks real spiffy! I presume you have a matching pair

[drtrap]

Excellent, neat work Jason!!

[JesseLee]

Wow, beautiful!

 

Jesse

[Landlubber Mike]

Really beautiful work Jason.  Do you mind me asking how you did the stern lettering and filigree design on the red areas?  They came out absolutely superb.

[Beef Wellington]

Thanks Pat, Stergios, Jesse and the 'likes' for your continued interest, it is a great motivator.

 

Rob - glad the pictures are helpful, that's exactly why I think I tend to err on the side of posting too many pictures...

 

Carl - there is a pair, how "matching" the pair is open to debate, but luckily they will never be seen side by side 

 

Mike - here's where I describe how I did the lettering, the filigree was done in exactly the same way.  Everything is pretty much free hand so I'm not sure I could replicated again if I tried.  Just jump in and realize there its just paint so nothing really horrible can go wrong!

 

[Landlubber Mike]

Thank you - I remember now seeing this (sorry, old age).  Now I know who to send my models to for similar work - you did a fantastic job!  

 

The Pegasus kit has PE pieces for the frieze decorations (as well as the name board).  I think I'm going to try the paint route with both using your technique, which I think I recall seeing something similar in the TFFM series.

 

Thanks again!  Happy new year to you!

[Beef Wellington]

Thanks all for the nice words, likes and continued interest.  Know its been a while, seems as if I hit some sort of 'modelers wall'.  Before I can really continue with the topsides, I needed to turn my attention to mounting the rudder.  This is something I've been putting off for quite a while, and proved to be a very frustrating experience.  I had initially delayed doing this to allow the copper to oxidize as much as possible just in case of any errant CA glue and prevent shiny spots.

 

The kit provides PE rudder and pintle straps, but for some reason I couldn't get comfortable with them.  On Snake, the staps come with holes and pins were inserted, but this was something that in retrospect look a little too clunky and out of scale.  Looking at pictures of period ships, the bolts/nails are quite a subtle feature similar to treenails in visibility.  I experimented with card and styrene strip  to make these from scratch, but in the end decided to go with the supplied PE parts.  I forgot to take a picture, but instead of premade holes, these have rather large circular indentations in them, I'm guessing to simulate the bolts.  To my eye they looked to far apart, and the holes too big.  I made a slight alteration to increase the number of bolts/nail heads by drilling additional indentations to simulate what was already there.  The rudder straps also needed to be shortened quite considerably to eliminate overhang at the rear of the rudder.  These were painted with "Admiralty copper" paint after experimenting with other similar Tamiya colours.

 

The main challenge I found was to attach these without marring the copper plates, and this proved to be quite the challenge as at first the CA glue wouldn't provide a good bond and needed to be reapplied.  Scratching the hull plates and inside surface of the PE seemed to get things strong enough. The rudder proved quite the challenge to mount as this had been made with a low (for me) level of tolerance following the AOTS plans which is documented earlier in the log.

 

Interestingly, the box artwork shows a spectacle plate, but there is nothing in the kit nor instructions.  This was simulated using painted card and eyebolts, but interestingly there is very little room for this, however this seems consistent with AOTS diagrams.  The ironwork on the lower counter ports used some PE parts from the "Badger" set which I had bought a number of years ago.  These looked a little more in keeping scale wise than what is provide in this kit.  I may add ring bolts and rings to these, but will likely not rig with line as I'm concerned this may be a visual distraction - personal preference of course.  Next up will be to attach the rudder chains which, nicely, are provided in the kit.

 

 

Edited January 29, 2018 by Beef Wellington

[Old Collingwood]

Superb.

 

OC.