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

[BANYAN]

That is some very nice planking mate with near perfect symmetry - she will look great with the planking completed.

 

cheers

 

Pat

[Landlubber Mike]

Looks really great to me Jason!  The boxwood and finish look really nice.  I took the same "Frankenstein" approach on my Pegasus.  If you're going to cover it up with copper plates, why bother using good wood?  I have a love-hate relationship with walnut.  I think it looks gorgeous when it is oiled, but working with it at this scale is tough given how splintery it is.

 

I was really glad to get through the lower hull planking.  I needed a mental health break after  The upper hull planking so far seems to be a little easier, at least on the Pegasus, where I haven't needed to spile.  Lots of custom planks to be cut around the gunports and sweep ports though.  

[Beef Wellington]

Cheers Captgino, Pat, Mike and the 'likes'....

 

Have started planking above the wales.  I'm going to use primarily wood strip where I can, so will not be following the planking scheme laid out in the AOTS book religiously.   Question below that I would appreciate insight into....

 

Relatively straightforward, initial challenge was to ensure the smooth run of planks around the curve of the wales which was a bit trickier than I expected but will likely turn out fine with a little sanding down the road.  The first gun port presented the first real challenge as this needed to be recessed as it has a lid, and also would have had a very thin sliver of wood at the base.  I got round this by simply gluing a small section of strip to the side of a longer length and then cutting back to size - saved a lot of time cutting from scratch.

 

 

The second gun port does not have a lid so I took the planks to the lip of the port.  Once dried, my heart then suddenly leapt into my mouth.  The approach I took seemed intuitive as the second port does not have a lid, but I was overcome with doubt so I perused a load of photos to confirm or deny whether this was correct, or whether the ports without a lid should also be recessed with a lip.  After looking at many pictures, I'm none the wiser...

 

My questions:

• Have I messed up???  ​Gun port 1 has a lid and logically has a lip that the lid would sit in.  Gun port 2 (and most others) do not have a lid, so should the planking extend fully to the edge of the port as I have done?
• Less critically, should the ends of these planks be painted red?  Chuck and others seem to leave the planking natural, but I'm pretty sure that on real ships the inside face is also painted red.  Hmmm...

 

Edited January 31, 2016 by Beef Wellington

[cog]

Jason,

 

If you can't find it on the net or on a drawing, ask yourself:

What's the use of the lip in general ... Would it be logical to have a lip on a port if it hasn't got a lid.

 

Cheers

[mtaylor]

Jason,

What Carl said about the lip...   He's right.

[Beef Wellington]

Thanks chaps, BIG weight off my mind...

[Sjors]

Your planking looks fabulous Jason !!!!

And so straight.......

 

Sjors

[Beef Wellington]

Too kind Sjors 

 

Quick update...I'd mentioned earlier that I had been trying to decide on whether to install the venting ports.  Well, I could delay no longer and had to make a decision....and decided to go for it.  Hopefully pictures below are self explanatory, but the reason I was wary was because these ports need to integrate into the thickstuff of the wale.  Positioning proved to be a challenge as these should follow the line of the deck, not the wale.  Of course once the lids are installed these will blend into the hull, but, as always...figuring it all out was a nice way to pass an evening.  The position on planks were marked on the ship as the planking is curved but cut off the ship with LOTS of fine tuning.  The black colouring was marker pen on the first planking simply to allow me to see the outline more clearly.  Now to continue planking, and do the port side, progress is a little more pleasant now as every step is now visibly moving her forward.

 

 

[BANYAN]

They look good BW; glad you took the tougher option as this adds some additional nice detail to the ship.

 

cheers

 

Pat

[egkb]

Mate .. That Looks Outstanding !!  

 

All The Best

 

Eamonn

[mobbsie]

Certainly got the WOW factor for me.

 

Those Vent Ports look great, a good decision to include them mate.

 

Planking looks pretty darn good too.

 

Be Good

 

mobbsie

[toms10]

Jason,

Beautiful job.  Good decision to add more detail whenever it is feasible.  Like mobbsie said above, it adds to the WOW factor.

Tom

[Beef Wellington]

Thanks for the interest and encouragement Pat, Eamonn, Mobbsie, Tom and the likes.

 

Still here slowly cracking away at things.  Overall shot, with the unfinished boxwood and dampened to bring out the colour a bit...

 

 

One thing that becomes very apparent with a finish is the grain in the boxwood.  I've been trying to keep this 'harmonious' but its amazing how much the colour  and grain can vary in a way I hadn't really noticed on other models.  Not sure if my boxwood is just more grainy than average.  Anyway, think the finish I'll use will probably not highlight quite as much as dampening with water.

 

 

Even though I'm not following the exact planking pattern, I'm trying to apply the principles to get some practice.  I'm not darkening the plank edges, so they're hard to see.... .  This also explains why this is going so slowly.  Even around the sweep ports they have need to be built up and keyed in. (Don't know what this type of planking is called...anyone?)

 

 

One trick I found handy to get as straight an edge as possible on the recessed ports is to edge glue some strip together and shape off the model.  Seems to work nicely.

 

 

 

 

[Landlubber Mike]

That's some really nice planking work Jason.  This is turning out to be a real beauty.

[NMBROOK]

Super crisp work Jason In my experience water brings the grain out far more than finish.I wipe down with white spirit to get a better idea but his still exaggerates things more.On the plus side white spirit will not raise the grain on a sanded surface,water does and invariably leads to more sanding.

 

Kind Regards

 

Nigel

[jwvolz]

That's coming along very nicely Jason. Isn't the boxwood an absolute please to work with?

[cog]

Jason,

 

Some very nice crisp work! The grain depends on the origin of the wood. Europe, US, ... still, she does look stunning ...

 

Cheers

[mobbsie]

Lovely work again Jason, only to be expected really.  

 

Be Good

 

mobbsie

[Beef Wellington]

Cheers all and the likes...

 

Carl - Yup, US suppliers call it Castello Boxwood which is similar but not the same, and I suspect it does have a bit more grain

Joe - yes, very enjoyable compared to working with walnut

Nigel - Great suggestion, although I still have plenty of sanding ahead of me so a little raised grain at this point shouldn't be too much of a problem.

Mobbsie - couple of thousand miles help with that

 

Knew I'd forgotten something, the sheaves for the sheets and tacks - wanted to do more than the kit suggest holes.   I had originally thought about trying to build the actual blocks but quickly realized very little would be seen even if I did.  So took the approach taken by others to simply drill a couple of holes and then shaped a pseudo sheave into some strip.  Photos are not great, the super magnification does no favours... 

• Drilled the holes (the pencil is simply to provide a little contrast while working)
• Used X-acto knife to shape a 'slot' between them
• A rounded file then provided the profile of the sheave
• X-acto knife to square the outer edge of the slot

 

 

Main tack sheave in position.  I put on some paint just to get confirm it would look OK once in position (the area of the hull here will be blue).  With a temporary simulated tack, demonstrates that even less will be seen...

 

 

The fore and spritsail sheet block required me to cutout a section from a previously attached plank, wasn't too problematic.

 

Edited February 20, 2016 by Beef Wellington

[NMBROOK]

Excellent work Jason!!!!

 

Kind Regards 

 

Nigel

[toms10]

Jason,

Top quality work.  As was mentioned before, detail is everything and you are nailing it.  I am finishing a display case right now for my first build and seeing all the great work being done on this site is really giving me an itch to get started on another build.

Tom

[Beef Wellington]

Reached the point where I need to decide what I want to do with the rear bulwarks, built up or open.  After reading various sources, it seems that Jason would have been built with the built up barricades at launch which were back in fashion by the time of construction, even though various plans of the Artois class show open bulwarks.  I've decided to go with the open bulwarks like many who have built this kit as this more in keeping with the look of the NMM models which I'm going for. 

 

Armament seems also to cause a little confusion due to changes at the time, with slightly varying numbers quoted.  Seems there is no reason to deviate from what is suggested by the kit, and I'll stick to having a few carronades for visual interest rather than replace with cannons.  So what does this mean?

 

I decided to keep the ply bulwarks and reshape them, I'd already planned the other planking around using these so this was no issue.  The required shape however had me scratching my head for a while, but then it suddenly dawned on me that the top of the bulwark would simply follow the sheer.  To get a nice smooth curve some strip was used to a consistent height from the whale (in this case ~50mm, leaving just a tad for some potential future fine tuning).  I estimated the position from various pictures which all seem to vary slightly - this seems good enough

 

 

The front portion is brings in a few additional challenges, so I cut out the stb main drift to help with shaping

 

The curve of the top of the bulwark is quite apparent...shading beneath the ports is not correct at this point, which needed to be tackled next...

 

Once cut, the next thing was to adjust the port sills as these seemed too high.  To do this the deck was fitted and then measured up approximately how far the port sills should be for the cannon and carronade ports followed the line of the deck allowing for the final deck planking.  The lateral position was not changed.  The shading indicates material to be removed.

 

And finally glued in place....planking can continue.

Edited March 6, 2016 by Beef Wellington

[BANYAN]

Looking really neat Jason; you seem to be overcoming all the challenges being presented.

 

cheers

 

Pat

[Blue Ensign]

Great progress Jason, she's going to be a fine model.

 

B.E.

[JesseLee]

It's looking really good Jason. Your work is very outstanding!

 

Jesse

[Beef Wellington]

Thanks Pat and likes for the interest. 

 

Jesse - hope you're feeling better, your Syren is looking fantastic.

BE - glad to see you back in your new work area, jealous how clean and tidy it is

 

Stem and Stern:

Planking seems to be never ending with all of the various ports, it seems there isn't one plank that can simply be

cut to length and glued in place, but at least I've been managing to get at least a couple done each day.  I've been spending quite  a bit of time trying to figure out two key elements...

 

The bow is coming together, and thankfully it seems my modifications to replace the cutwater and have a properly fitted bowsprit to haven't ended in disaster.  I needed to remove the filler block to allow the bow planking to be clamped in place and this was a delicate time, it strengthens quite nicely with the laminated layers, again I'm using PVA glue. 

 

The bowsprit hole has been fine tuned and quite happy with the result.  Overall the modification added a lot of extra work, but I'm glad I did it.  The uppermost shape of the bow is more rounded which seems more intuitive and consistent with the AOTS diagrams, but differs from the kit which seems to be more 'pointy'.  Ray had identified that the bow cap rails in the kit ones are undersized means that these would need to be redone anyway.

 

I still finalizing the exact shape of the bow bulwark following the sheer, but this also seems to consider the angle of the foc's'le deck - will be leaving a little extra here to be cut back later based on what looks right.

 

 

The stern has had my head in swirls for some time.  There has always been something that bothered me with the kit pictures but I couldn't figure out why - the kits stern fascia seems too wide, too 'flat' and the stern lights too small and far apart.  After enlarging the diagram in the AOTS book I figured out what was up.  It seems that Caldercraft used the stern projection to shape the stern fascia without accounting for the vertical angle and lateral curve.  Estimating what this would be I cut out a card template to confirm the needed shape on the lower fascia and the upper counter.  This now seems much more in keeping with the needed curves.  A problem to deal with down the road at the PE lights, I think these made undersized vertically, again because they do reflect vertical foreshortening.  Glueing photocopies of the lights in place has made me wonder whether I'll be happy with these, because in addition the panes do no match the desired curve of the fascia or the vertical alignment of the hypothetical stern timbers....something to ponder some more.

 

Kit supplied fascia compared to AOTS diagram, the lower curves match perfectly even though they shouldn't...

 

Card template compensating for lateral curvature and vertical slope...

 

What these look like in place, much nicer in my opinion.

Edited March 11, 2016 by Beef Wellington

[Landlubber Mike]

Beautiful Jason!  That's going to look fantastic.  Are you planning on adding carvings, etc. to the stern?

[Beef Wellington]

Hi Mike - well...I suspect that that is where this is going , the kit provided castings are definitely OK, but I have been considering doing my own carvings based on 'Jason' mythology - you can see my badly drawn impressionistic golden fleece in the center of the fascia .   As it stands, the kit supplied PE is pretty flat, not the '3D' look I'd like to achieve. I'll think more about that once the stern fascia is done, more than enough on my plate right now.

Edited March 11, 2016 by Beef Wellington

[jim_smits]

Fantastic looking work. You're providing an excellent standard to follow when I come to build Diana myself. Keep it up!

[cog]

Jason,

 

Do you really like those white windows ...