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

[rafine]

Wonderful work on the beams Grant,

 

Bob

[Jack Panzeca]

Hi Grant,

 

Beautiful work as usual.  I like being in the following position.  You make the best cheat sheet ever.  

 

Holiday today in the USA so I got a chance to catch up on MSW posts.

[Beef Wellington]

Very nice work Grant, way out of my league but you make it look easy.

[gjdale]

It seems to have been a long time since my last post, so just to show proof of life here is a quick update.

 

Upper Deck Framing

 

These last few weeks have been a very busy time since returning to work, and so visits to the shipyard have been few and far between.  As the opportunity has arisen, I have kept plugging away at making the various knees, Carlings and Ledges.  Preparation of the Carlings was very similar to that for the Deck Beams, with notches cut on the mill and finished by hand with a chisel. Knees and Beam Arms were all cut on the scroll saw and finished on the Spindle and Disc Sanders.

 

Unfortunately, despite the care that I took in aligning the Deck Beams, Beam No.2 is slightly out, meaning that the Carlings between Beams 1 and 2, and between Beams 2 and 3, are also slightly out of alignment.

 

Here is an overall shot to show progress to date – of course the angle was carefully selected to hide as many imperfections as possible!  This shot was taken immediately after sanding, so some clean-up is still required. The side that will not be planked will also receive a coat or two of Wipe-on Poly in due course.

 

[mobbsie]

Hi Grant,

 

Slightly out of alignment, must be by a gnats hair coz I cant see it, all I can see is some superb joinery.

 

If your not happy with it then I'll be happy with it for you.    Some great work mate.

 

Take it easy with that four letter word thing mate because you still have a ways to go before you finish w---.   :D    

 

Be Good

 

mobbsie

Edited June 14, 2015 by mobbsie

[rafine]

I'm with Mobbsie, Grant. Your idea of a mistake looks like perfection to the rest of us.

 

Bob

[CaptainSteve]

I'm still trying to find that mistake ... can ya gimme a hint ??

[gjdale]

Steve,

 

It's all in the camera angle!

[Canute]

Wow, I usually have a good eye for alignment, but I can't see it. Beeyootiful work, Grant. Keep on inspiring the crew.

[cog]

Grant,

 

Looks great, but you've got some running to do before you get close to Mobbsie......

[mtaylor]

I'm not buying the "hidden by the camera angle" thingie...     It just looks perfect, Grant.

[Rustyj]

Hi Grant.

 

Well done mate. I think I saw the gnat's hair but not the aforementioned alleged alignment issue. I do know what you mean though. We work so closely on all the pieces and when they aren't absolutely perfect they look like a drunk was running roughshod over our work. Keep up the fine work.

[keelhauled]

Hi Grant,

I've been catching up on the build.  Very Very clean.  The detail is amazing.

Don't take this the wrong way, but your skill seems to be getting greater and greater every time you build something during the builds.  And your skill was great on the Victory.  Just amazing work!

It's a pleasure seeing the build!

Marc

[gjdale]

Thanks everyone for the kind words and also to all of the likes.  Progress continues at a glacial pace, but I'm slowly catching up to Mobbsie (albeit that will only be a temporary state of affairs!).

 

Mortar Pit Housing

 

Construction of the Mortar Pit Housing is relatively straight forward, once you get your head around the angles involved.  Although the corner diagonal walls have two 45-degree faces, the faces need to be of different widths in order to align properly with the side/end walls.  It only took me three attempts to work this out……

 

The other thing that became immediately obvious once I started to fit the Mortar Pit walls, was that the pre-cut notches in the surrounding beams (for the angled carlings), were very poorly cut and positioned.

 

 

 

I decided to glue the Mortar Pit Housing in place and then adjust the notches to allow a proper fit of the carlings. This left some unsightly gaps, which I have filled with a mixture of sawdust and diluted PVA glue. 

 

 

The end result looks okay, but the lesson learned is that it would have been better to NOT pre-cut the notches for the angled carlings.  It was not as difficult as might be imagined to cut them in-situ (with a sharp chisel) once the mortar pit housing was in place.

[mobbsie]

Hello Mate,

 

Despite a difficult start it looks to have worked out well for you. I think that that was one of the hardest parts of the build so far, at least it was for me.

 

After you have completed the Hatch the next big step will be the Waterway, it's too small to shape with power tools and so a bit of thought will be needed to get it right.

 

Well done on the Mortar Pit mate, it really does look good.

 

Be Good

 

mobbsie

[augie]

Your perserverence has paid off.  Very nice.

[DocBlake]

Beautiful build.  It makes me want to start mine...but I need to get a little more experience before attempting this POF scratch build.  I purchased the Lauck Street Shipyard's POF kit "Armed Virginia Sloop" and will soon start a build log. Hopefully this will boost my experience level and make the Granado  cross section doable!  BTW:  If you've not seen the Lauck Street kit, it is awesome!  The 3/8" scale makes a fairly large admiralty model.  The build style is similar to Harold Hahn's, with sistered frames.  I ordered mine with hard maple frames and cherry keel and deck framing for contrast.  A beautiful kit.  

 

http://www.lauckstreetshipyard.com/avskitpmt.htm

[mtaylor]

That is well done mortar pit, Grant.  If you hadn't mentioned the carling cuts being off, we probably wouldn't have noticed.

[gjdale]

Thanks once again for all the kind words folks and to all those who hit the "like" button.

 

The Main Hatch

 

The main hatch was a fairly simple construction using Redheart for the Coamings and Head Ledges, and Walnut for the Hatch Cover Boards. Templates were made from the drawings to assist with the lap joints and round up. Once the timber components of the hatch had been completed, two coats of Wipe-On Poly were applied to the Hatch, the Mortar Pit Housing and the deck frames on the Starboard side (which will not be planked).

 

Lifting rings for both Mortar Pit Housing and the Main Hatch were made from brass wire formed around a drill bit, cut off with a rotary cutting disc and then soldered closed (I cheated and used a lead/tin soft solder).  These were blackened chemically using a new (for me) product called Jax Pewter Black.  Its claim is that it blackens all sorts of metals, including solder.  After a bit of experimentation, I settled on diluting the solution 50/50 with distilled water, and after the usual cleaning process with vinegar and acetone beforehand, it seems to work fairly well. The same process was used to install lifting rings in the mortar pit housing.

 

The Waterways were next to be tackled.  These are made from boxwood and have two angled faces on the top side, which are not even.  I thought about how to mill these for quite some time. After a tip from Danny, I tried to follow his technique of making a scraper from an old exacto chisel blade. Although I managed to make a reasonable shape for one angle, I couldn’t get an edge on it sufficient to scrape the timber.  After some more thought, I marked out the profile along the length of the timber, and then used a couple of very small planes – one Veritas squirrel tail palm plane, and one even smaller Japanese finger plane. These worked a treat and the job turned out to be much easier than I had expected.

 

Here’s a couple of pictures showing the current state of play.

 

 

 

 

 

[augie]

Waterway angles look perfect.  Nicely done, mate.

[mobbsie]

Hi Grant,

 

I cant quite believe it but my build partner has given me the hurry-up. I think that's a bit ironic as I've been playing the waiting game for weeks now.    

It all looks really good mate, the waterway shape looks right and they fit nice and snug.  

 

Your hatch coaming and boards look great although I still don't like Redheart.  

 

I will catch up soon enough but at the moment were experiencing a mini heat wave and its sapping what little energy I have, and jees that aint much to start with. Temperatures are up around the high 20s with the highest in London of 37 degrees C. Not very hot I hear some of you say, hot enough for me, time to sit in a ice tub.

 

Chat soon mate and well done on taking the lead   :P  

 

Be Good

 

mobbsie

[mtaylor]

Looks super, Grant.  Like Mobbsie, I'm not a fan of redheart but you done well with it.

[cog]

Grant,

 

Very nice details. Different woods different problems, but you seem at ease ...

 

It seems Mobbsie'll need to switch from slippers to his running shoes

 

A question considering the mortar pit: "What happens with the water which get into it ... I see no drain, and a pump isn't really practical ... just curious ..."

[gjdale]

Thanks folks.

 

Carl - I have no idea of the answer to that question. Perhaps one of our more knowledgeable brethren can answer that for us both.

[mtaylor]

A question considering the mortar pit: "What happens with the water which get into it ... I see no drain, and a pump isn't really practical ... just curious ..."

 

Good question.. maybe one for the research sub-forum.   My first answer was:  they pulled the gun out and used it as a hot tub!... but.. that's not the right answer is it.

[cog]

Considering the 'tubiness' ... probably pulled the plug ...

[lb0190]

Hi Grant, I'm late to the party but I hope there's room for one more chair. You have an excellent build log and a beautiful build!

[GLakie]

Ditto on that! It's an amazing build and I don't know how I missed it for this long. 

[AnobiumPunctatum]

Really nice progress, Grant

[gjdale]

Thank you very much Larry, George and Christian.