Bomb Vessel Granado 1742 by gjdale - FINISHED - 1/48 - Cross-Section

[mtaylor]

I'm like Sjors, Grant... just WOW!!!!   

 

Curious question here... is 24 shells all the ammo she carried for each gun? 

[gjdale]

Thanks for all the kind comments and "likes" folks.

 

Mark - I've just had a look at my AOTS for Granado, and that does appear to be the case - 24 shells for each of the fwd and aft mortars.

[mobbsie]

Hi Gents,

 

Further to that particular question Mark, those shells were just empty cases, when it was time to fire them they were taken from the magazine to the Master's cabin where they were loaded with powder and the fuses put in.

 

There was only ever one loaded shell allowed on deck at a time and there was a series of blast curtains from the cabin to the firing point. When loaded these shell weighed in excess of 200lb's.

 

Granado did not carry a ships boat and any additional empty shells required were ferried across by other ships boats, there has been a discussion on the forum regarding the Granado not having a boat but when you look at the ship itself there really is nowhere to stow one, with regard to towing a boat, I know that ships of the line towed theirs when going into action but Granado was a siege ship and so was firmly anchored in position prior to firing.

 

Just my two cents ( pennies ) worth.

 

Be Good

 

mobbsie

[cog]

Just one remark, Mobbsie, I thought liners as well as frigates bound their boats with long lines and left them to be picked up after the fight ... one: to avoid splinters from the boats scything over the deck, two: to 'motivate' the gun crews and sailors ... rather strong persuasion I would say ...

[gjdale]

Thanks for that extra info and explanation Mobbsie. She is really is a fascinating subject to model.

[trippwj]

Beautiful work, Grant.  Hope you are feeling better!

[mtaylor]

Thanks for the information Grant and Mobbsie.  I appreciate it.  I wasn't sure if the shells were loaded which would be scary indeed.  Or if there would be a supply ship with extras around. 

[augie]

Really good info.  Thanks all!

[gjdale]

It's been a while since the last update. Recovery from my hip surgery has certainly slowed things down a little, but I have managed to make some progress.  The next stage was construction of the Mortar Pit.

 

Construction of the Mortar Pit

 

Construction of the Mortar Pit commences with the six Mortar Pit Deck Beams that sit atop the Shell Room.   These were cut from 1/4" Pear stock.  Six rectangular blanks of identical size were cut and then spot glued together. A single paper pattern for the beams was then glued on to the gang of blanks and the notches for the Shell Room headers (5/16”) and the Mortar Pit Boundary Timbers (1/4”) were cut on the mill to take advantage of the still square faces. The round-up of the beams was then shaped using the spindle sander for the inside curve and the disc sander for the outside curve.  After test fitting, the Deck Beams were used as additional support to ensure the Shell Room was squared up for final fixing. Once the Shell Room was securely fastened, the Beams were given a coat of Wipe-On Poly and glued in place.

 

 

The Mortar Pit itself is fairly straightforward construction, consisting of two Boundary Timbers of 1/4” x 5/16” Pear, a Primary Layer of planking (3/16” Holly) and a Secondary Layer of planking (1/8” Holly).  I decided to use pencil along the plank edges to simulate the caulking with these decks, rather than the black paper used on the deck of the Shell Room, partly because I was concerned about glue adhesion, and partly because I wanted to see what it looked like.  Once again, the “drill and fill” method was used for simulating treenails. In retrospect, I should have sealed the Holly before applying the filler for the treenails as some of the filler has gotten into the grain of the deck and slightly discoloured it.  Here are the component parts prior to receiving a couple of coats of Wipe-On Poly.

 

 

The Primary planking has a 1/8” brass spigot inserted – this will locate the base of the turntable in a later stage of construction.  The Secondary planking has a circular cut out for the turntable. This was formed by cutting roughly to shape on the Scroll saw, and then finishing on the spindle sander. 

 

 

Once both decks had been completed, it was a fairly simple case of finessing them to size to fit the space defined by the Boundary timbers.  Here are a few pics of the completed Mortar Pit in place:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Next up, fitting of the Upper Deck Clamps and preparation for construction of the Upper Deck.  Stay tuned.....

 

 

[augie]

Glad you're feeling better.

 

She gets more and more handsome.

[mtaylor]

Looking great, Grant.   I'm assuming you're not planking the inside? 

[gjdale]

Thanks Augie and Mark.

 

Mark - apart from the limited amount of planking that has already been done on the inside, it will be fully planked internally above the upper deck (ie bulwarks etc).

[Canute]

Grant, she's a beauty. Super joinery and wood selections. Someday....

[rshousha]

Awesome model, Grant. Well done. 

 

Regards, 

Rick 

[mobbsie]

Really glad to see you back in the workroom again mate, even if it is in a limited capacity.

 

Precision work mate, she's looking really smart, and by the way, I don't see any discolouration at all. 

 

Be Good

 

mobbsie

[Sjors]

Fantastic !!!!!

 

And no dust   

 

Sjors

[cog]

Grant,

 

Good to see you back at it. A very nice job, as well on the beams as on the planking. Like that 'fuzzy' caulking look

[DocBlake]

Beautiful work, Grant.  When I start my Bomb Vessel, I'll use your log for  inspiration and guidance.

 

Dave

[Jack Panzeca]

Just brilliant Grant,

 

Your precision is something that I can only dream about.  Glad to see you back in action.

[gjdale]

Thanks again folks for all the kind words and the "likes".  

 

Just a small update today.  I have completed preparations for the Upper Deck framing.

 

The next step was to make the Upper Deck Clamps.  These comprise an Upper and a Lower Clamp and I opted to include “iron bolts” using copper wire blackened in situ using Liver of Sulphur.  To make life easier, I prepared a card template for the bolting pattern and inserted the bolts prior to installation on the model.  Here are the clamps ready for installation (the bolts to the right appear not to be blackened, but this is just a trick of the light in the photo):

 

 

Clamping them securely was a little tricky and I was grateful for the mini Spales I had made previously:

 

 

The final preparations prior to moving on to the Upper Deck construction were the Mortar Pit Support Standards (knees) and the Centreline Stanchions. The knees were easily cut on the scroll saw, ensuring the grain was oriented on the diagonal, and then given their final shape using the spindle sander and disc sander.  The Centreline Stanchions introduced another timber – Walnut.  These were turned on the lathe.  My extremely limited turning abilities managed a reasonable approximation to the stepped shape at either end of these.  The Walnut is not a particularly good wood for machining, but it was finished up by a series of increasing grit sand paper, to an almost polished finish prior to being coated with Wipe-On Poly.  During the turning process, each end of the columns were drilled to take a 1.5mm brass locating pin.

 

Here are the Stanchions and Standards (Knees) in place, along with a view of the completed Deck Clamps.  The Stanchions are only temporarily placed for the photo – they will be permanently fixed once the Deck Beams are ready to be permanently fixed in place.

 

 

I have now started work on the upper deck beams, but have discovered a possible error in the drawings.  I have sent a message to Jeff Staudt for confirmation before proceeding.

 

[mtaylor]

Beautiful work, Grant.   Limited turning ability my foot...  Those stanchions look great.

[mobbsie]

Good stuff Grant, both the knee's and stanchions look great.

 

So, you say you have limited ability on the lathe, I do believe we have a tall story here and your just saying that.  

 

It would appear now that I'm playing catch up, this has got to be a first for me, not too sure if I like that position.

 

Thanks for the heads up on the possible errors mate, it's still early in the morning to get my head fully around them but I will try, it's 08:43 here and I've not been up long. Benefits of being retired.  

 

Be Good

 

mobbsie

[cog]

Grant,

 

You certainly do not know your limitations yourself ... at least, it seems that way ... for what you say doesn't comply with what you show ... Great work!!

[Rustyj]

Hi Grant.

 

Looking really good there. Those mini spales are great. I wish I had them when doing the deck clamps.

[gjdale]

Thanks very much everyone for all the kind words and "likes".

 

Jeff got back to me and confirmed that my observations about errors in the drawings were correct, and also confirmed that my corrections were….correct.

 

Deck Beams

 

I ummed and ahhed about the best way to prepare the Deck Beams with all of their various notches for receiving carlings, trimmer beams, beam arms etc. I then made the happy discovery that I possessed end mill cutters to exactly match these various sizes, so I decided to do as much of this work as possible on the mill in order to provide the maximum degree of accuracy and consistency.  In order to do that, I needed to start with beam blanks that retained a “square” face for use as a reference plane for the milling work. So blanks were prepared to match each beam location, with just the ends angled to match the angle of the hull sides (10 degrees as it happens).  Here are the beam blanks cut to size for each location and with a centre line marked for further reference:

 

 

I forgot to take pictures of the next stage, but this consisted of sticking the beam patterns onto the fore and aft faces of the beam blanks, using the centreline and bottom edge as a common reference.  The tops of the beam blanks were then cut down in height, using the mill, to align with the top of the pattern, while maintaining a parallel face with the bottoms.

 

By further happy coincidence, or clever design by Jeff, all of the notches, regardless of depth (top to bottom), were set back a common distance into the beams (fore to aft, or aft to fore). By milling the notches with the blanks lying on their sides, I could then use a common depth of cut for all milling operations, and would therefore only have to be concerned with the “length” of the cut.  That depth happened to be 1.5 mm. The length of cut varied with the size of timber to be accommodated, and was measured off the plans in imperial units (eg 7/32”) and then converted to decimal millimetres (eg 5.56mm) for application on the mill.  It sounds complex, but was actually pretty easy.

 

Once all of the milling was completed, the beams had their respective curvature applied while the paper patterns were still in place, using a combination of the spindle sander and disc sander to achieve the required curves.  Here is what the beams looked like after all of these operations were completed and the residual paper patterns were removed:

 

 

 

You can see in these photos, that the milling process leaves a rounded end.  These had to be cleaned up and squared off using a chisel, which again seemed more daunting than it was in practice to achieve.  The only real difficulty was in achieving the 45 degree angled notches to take the angled carlings that will eventually support the outside of the Mortar Pit.  To achieve these, I used the mill to cut the “straight” bit in the middle, to provide a reference plane, and then completed the rest with a chisel.  It was the 45 degree undercut that was particularly difficult – I’m sure there is an easier way than the method I used, but we got there in the end, and with no feeding of the scrap bin along the way! Here is a picture of the cleaned up joints:

 

 

And finally, here is a picture of the completed beams dry-fitted in place.  The “Trimmer Beams”, which will surround the Mortar Pit, are sitting loosely on top of the main deck beams.  These will be trimmed to final length once the deck beams are permanently affixed.  You can see in the photo that the centre lines of the beams seem to line up quite well, so the installation of the various carlings etc, should be relatively easy.

 

 

Next up, cutting the various Hanging Knees, Lodging Knees, Beam Arms, and Carlings – all of which will also need to be notched.  Progress may very well slow down from here as my period of convalescent leave ends this week and its back to work next week.

[mtaylor]

Wonderful work on the beams.  I was trying to figure out how you did that with a mill... a chisel to finish!!!!  Love it.

[mobbsie]

Hi Grant,

 

You've done a really good job on the beams mate, so good in fact that I'm thinking of re-doing mine, this time with the mill, at least I will give it a good shot.

 

I like what you've done and I think I quite like the idea of playing catch up as permanent position so you cant go back to work just yet.  

 

Be Good

 

mobbsie

[cog]

Some work just must be done by hand. Stunning Grant ... really beautiful work ... So now the remaining builders get an errata on the building instructions ... (proudly presented by G. Dale)

[Canute]

Grant, your little tutorial is excellent.   The dimly lit light bulb in my brain just got lit up like a fireworks display. Thanks for that explanation for doing the beams.

[usedtosail]

Very nice work on the beams. I am coming to the point where I have to make a few beams for the Connie, so this is a very timely tutorial. Thanks.