HMS Pickle by flyer - FINISHED - Caldercraft - Scale 1:64 - my interpretation

[Martin W]

Not even a sea Cucumber? 

[flyer]

There will be dozens of them sea cucumbers - but 20 fathoms below Pickles keel on the sea floor. Too bad we can't see them.

[flyer]

The transom has been planked, inside and out and the gun ports opened.

The stern looks quite acceptable now but I'm afraid the taffrail will be tough to work out.

 

 

still in need of some painting

 

Presently only one carpenter is working on Pickle with one foreman. Slow...

[Martin W]

Help that poor carpenter out, Peter, give him a ladder!

[flyer]

Somehow that carpenter in the last picture was able to go on board and start to work there. The taffrail was made by bending a 5 x 1 mm (the same profile as the capping rail) stripe of boxwood around the stern. Before fixing it with epoxy glue and nails it was painted. Then, after trimming the ends and repairing the damage done during bending and attaching it was sanded and painted again.

 

It looks ok but a bit plump. I will fix the capping rails, check the overall picture and then decide if I need to trim the taffrail.

 

The taffrail after gluing on...

 

 

...and after trimming to final size.

[dgbot]

You are doing a fine job keep up the good work.

David B

[Martin W]

A nimble carpenter, indeed!  And a skilled craftsman! 

[flyer]

The capping rails were added and the taffrail was trimmed a bit, a bit of filler put in and all the rails painted black.

 

The outline of the hull is now completed. It looks - in my opinion - at lot more like schooner from the early 19th century than the unchanged kit. The paintwork has now to be touched up in several places. The few missing copper plates are installed as well and the whole copper awaits some polish. I will remove the glue stains and any patina. Starting from shiny conditions it will get its own patina over the years.

 

[Mirabell61]

very fine looking hull Peter,

 

the yellow and black color giving matches beautiful together

 

Nils

[Landlubber Mike]

Very nice work.  Great job on bending the boxwood for the taffrail - impressive!

[mobbsie]

Glad you were able to sort the Taff Rail Peter, it looks really good.

 

It's a shame to polish those plates mate but I can understand why.

 

Altogether she's beginning to look a bit of a lady.

 

Be Good

 

mobbsie

[flyer]

Hi Nils

Thanks. I will then leave the color scheme as it is now.

 

Thank you Mike

The boxwood broke and splintered a bit in one of the tighter bends on both tries I did. Filler and paint cover this.

 

Hi Mobbsie

Yep. The lady still needs some make up. I would have to polish the plates anyway to get rid of the CA stains. However re-patination would be possible.

 

Cheers

Peter

[flyer]

The future commander of Pickle was checking the polished copper.

After a lengthy discussion he decided that that the 19' launch in the kit was too large to stow on board. I mentioned something Jack Aubrey once planned:

 To increase the capacity of his boat he wanted to saw it in two (at its widest beam) and to lengthen it by inserting several frames. I suggested to do same but the other way around.

 

The decision was taken to try to alter the 19' launch into a 16' longboat by cutting out the mid section, gluing both ends together and adapting the remaining form to represent a longboat as depicted e.g. in Granados description.

 

The commander thinks that we will have to put a guard on this. The shine could attract some copper thieves.

 

 

 

jolly boat and 19' launch

 

 

after the cut...

 

 

much more work will be required, but the size looks promising

[Beef Wellington]

Hi Peter, coppering looks great.  I'm sure you've thought this through, but wouldn't shortening the longboat alter the lines of the hull and result in an abrupt transition.  Very interested to see how you work through this.

[Martin W]

Stunning coppering, Peter -- I agree that you should double the guard against possible thieves.

 

And I, too, will be very interested in your project of shortening the launch.  Capt Aubrey had some radical notions!

 

Cheers,

 

Martin

[flyer]

Hi Jason

Thank you for your vote of confidence - fact is that I simply ignored the possible transition. By cutting a similar distance both sides of the widest part of the hull I hoped to reduce it to a minimum and fortunately resin is a great material. You can bend it, it holds epoxy - glue quite well and finally you can sand it into a smooth form. (Plan B was to leave the oversized launch on land and sail with the little skiff only.)

 

Hi Martin

Yes, we do have some copper thieves over here, the price for copper being as high as it is now. Sometimes they steal overhead traction wire or earth cables overnight of our railway system.

You probably knew already that captain Jack is a deft hand with his fiddle or his sword. Now we know that he is quite fearless with a carpenters saw as well.

 

Cheers

Peter

 

 

[flyer]

Work goes on in different positions.

 

I made a simple template to drill the holes for the ringbolts for rigging the carronades and finished the empty gun ports. Also the coppering of the rudder goes on - it's a bit complicated because every plate is bent around the backside and must be cut to size.

 

The Work on the boat continues as well.

 

While touching up the paintwork of the hull I came across another problem: The scuppers.

There are a bit too many on the plans. Comparable vessels in my clever book show only two to three per side. But the main problem is that they are positioned much too low - below the wales.  The position is given by their function - they lead water from the waterways overboard. And in all examples I found in my sources they were always above the wales. Drilling an experimental hole from the waterways outboard ended in the upper, less prominent wale. I didn't want to weak a wale by drilling holes through it but I had no choice. But by having only two scuppers per side in approximately the right position seemed an acceptable compromise.

I don't know if there are mistakes in the plans about the relative heights of deck and whales ( the deck should be 5mm higher over them) or if my solution is a correct one. Changing the build to have the scuppers completely above the wales would be very difficult and alter the whole hull.

For scuppers I used again my 'Ader-Endhülsen' (wire-end-sleeves?) from the electric department. They are made from aluminium and painted copper.

 

template

 

 

finished empty gun ports

 

scuppers

[Mirabell61]

Hi Peter,

 

the scuppers look nice, flush with the wales, how did you blend out the (tubes ?) on the deckside ?

 

Nils

[Martin W]

That is an intriguing problem, Peter, but you seem to have worked it out.  Since the wales served mostly to hold the hull together, why not run the scuppers through them?  I don't see how that would weaken them, and they do, as you say, need to serve their purpose of draining the water.

 

Cheers,

 

Martin

[flyer]

Hi Nils

 

Ok, you got me there. I cheated. The waterways aren't built exactly (they should be rounded out) and I omitted the inner end by drilling deliberately below deck level from the outside. To show both ends you would have to drill from both sides to the middle (and hope you meet there). The inner end would be located in a copper plate covering a rectangle in the waterways, it's width the height of the waterways.

 

 

Hi Martin

Well, I thought the wales must hold the hull together also lengthwise. The extent able to take the stress would be its smallest square section (the one reduced by the scuppers holes). This reduces the usable size of the wales by perhaps 20%. Of course there are some other planks holding the hull together as well but the wales seem to have to take the main force. Anyway, my Pickle didn't fall apart yet...

 

Cheers

Peter

[flyer]

The coppering of the rudder is finished and the building of the boat goes on. Also the serial production of the carronades has started.

 

As a trial I rigged the first carronade. Instead of using the kits blocks I ordered the smallest available from Cornwall model boats - again following B E's lead.

While putting the tackles in place I found it strange that there was no train tackle. It would be used to pull an unfired gun inboard and to stop an unwanted running out of the piece. First reference was B.E.'s Pickle - no train tackle either. Searching further showed no train tackles on carronades with one exception and those suspicious train tackle eyebolts on the Constitution's and some other carronades.

As earlier stated the Pickle's carronades are small and could probably be pulled back without tackles and the static friction of the slide could be enough to hold it in position. Furthermore I found one example where the carriage and the slide were lashed together with a few (7?) round turns, fixing it against unwanted movement.

 

I decided to forego the train tackles and their eyebolts.

 

work in progress

 

 

The first carronade is rigged. It should be possible to move it inboard with the strength of two man without a tackle.

[Martin W]

An interesting detail there, Peter.  Carronades were small enough that maybe they were loaded without being hauled back?  The tiny bit I know about armament seems to include the notion that carronades were considered a major advance not only because of their heavier firing power but because of their convenience.

 

Your sailor had better watch his toes.

 

Cheers,

 

Martin

[riverboat]

          Peter your build is coming along nicely........ Good job on the taffrail and ships boat... keep an eye out for the cooper thieves

 

         frank

[Cathead]

Here is a very useful article from the Nautical Research Guild about carronades. Among other things, it includes this answer to your question (emphasis mine):

 

The true carronade was mounted on a carriage of completely new design, secured to its bed by means of a bolt through a loop cast on the underside of the piece. The bed recoiled along a slide, held in place by means of another bolt in a slot. The slide pivoted on a bolt in the ship's side and traversed on small rollers at the rear end of the slide. The gun was elevated by means of a wooden wedge, known as a quoin, or a screw placed through the cascabel, or button or knob, at the end of the gun. It was trained by means of traversing bars or training ropes. When fired, the carronade recoiled, pushing the bed back along the slide and against the breeching ropes. After reloading the carronade, the crew would use the side tackles to return it to firing position.

 

 

In  other words, the piece recoils far enough along its slide to allow muzzle-loading. I've also seen it suggested online that the piece could be rotated far enough around, to the left or right on its swivel point, to allow reloading that way, though I've no idea if that's actually true. Seems to slow and too much bother.

 

You might also look at the Model Shipways deck carronade kit for detail on how such pieces were rigged:

 

[flyer]

Hi Martin

You're right about carronades being easier to handle than the same calibre long guns. However, if you check NRG's article  Cathead is referring to below, you see that Pickles carronades still weighted about 300 kg (I assume that's just the iron weight) - yes that sailor better watches his toes.

 

 

Hi Frank

The coppery things are hidden in the basement - safe, so far. And yes, I'm quite confident now about the outcome of my boat-shortening-experiment.

 

 

Hi Cathead

That is a really very interesting article from NRG! Thank you. The carronade from the Model Shipways kit then weights about 870 kg and still doesn't have a train tackle - hmmm.

 

Reloading after shooting that beast seems easy because the recoil puts it in the appropriate position. But I wonder how a dry gun drill was executed. You could always haul it back with handspikes but I think this could damage eventually the wooden surfaces where you put them in.

 

I will leave train tackles to Pickles commander. He can do a retrofit if he needs it. Me, I take a rest. (I like your avatar.)

 

 

 

 

 

Cheers

Peter

[flyer]

It's about time for a little update on Pickle. The work in the wharf went rather slowly lately. The weather was just too nice and part of the family spent a few days in Ireland where we also visited Trinity college and almost found traces of Steven Maturin there. At least the wonderful library still seems to be in about the same condition.

(One pub or another was also visited and the good news are: there is really good beer beside Guinness!) The people are nice as well, their music is great and the weather was like an beautiful English summer: whatever you took along on your stroll, umbrella, pullover, windbreaker, nothing - you were always wrong.

 

On Pickle the boat which was sawed in two is whole again and the fiddly work on the carronades rigging goes on.

 

This Dublin pub opened in the year 1770!

 

 

 

the launch is in one piece again

 

 

rigging the carronades really is fiddly work...

[Mirabell61]

nice Progress on "Pickle" and it`s boat Peter,

 

Nils

[Blue Ensign]

Nice progress Peter, the modified boat is looking good.

 

Regarding the 'training tackles' I wasn't sure they were necessary given the bijou size of the carronades. Only 2' 2" in length, any need to shift the position laterally could be achieved by the use of leverage, there were rollers on the slide. Not that you could shift the position on the model guns because the way they are set up the bulwarks would be taken out. They don't appear to clear the ports sufficiently in the run out position.

 

One other consideration, purely aesthetic, is that adding even more tackle to those tiny guns would look too much in my opinion.

 

Regards,

 

B.E.

[flyer]

Work is going on.

Pickle got her name on her transom (even gold plated, which might be a bit bouncy for her class but I like it). The carronades are stowed and the deck furniture is coming along quite nicely. Even a small belfry to be placed on top of the parrel bits is under construction. I thought that a ship with a gilded name should also have a ships bell and try to tinker a belfry according to an illustration in Karl Heinz Marquardt's book.

A 5x1 mm walnut strip serves as a false keel and the rudder was provisionally hanged. A few more crew figures have been hired including one who can man the tiller.

 

The 'I' and the 'C' need some adjustment

 

 

the false keel

 

 

The tiller must be reworked a bit

 

 

there is still some work to do...

[Blue Ensign]

Love the shape of the stern Peter, nicely done.

 

B.E.