Brig Eagle by robnbill - 1:48

[CaptainSteve]

Lookin' good, Bill. That stand really sets it off.

[mtaylor]

That is a great looking stand.  

[Guest Tim I.]

Bill,

 

I am greatly enjoying following along with your build. Excellent work!

 

You may have answered this question already, will you be rigging your Eagle?

 

Thank you,

 

Tim

[robnbill]

Thanks for all the reviews and likes. 

 

Tim, the answer is I do plan on rigging her. Keeping with my desire to make everything that I can, I purchased a Byrnes Ropewalk. The masting will all be out of maple with the spars made of walnut. 

[robnbill]

A quick update on the Eagle. I have completed the installation of the pin rails as well as turning the required belaying pins in brass. To do this I used Ed Tosti's process to create the jig for the lathe. This made quick work of it. After looking at the available belaying points with the rails installed I felt there would have been more to handle sails than were available with just the side rails. Chrisman used the Niagara for a modified sail plan for the Eagle. However other than the chainplates, there was no evidence of the belaying arrangement.

 

I went back and forth on whether to add more towards the stern or as in the case of the Niagara, adding a fife rail around the main mast. While there was no evidence of any footers for this in the wreck, there was also no evidence of the bowsprit bitts but Chrisman added it where it would have been. So I added the fife rail to the ship.





I installed all the rings to the bulkheads and simulated the bolts through the sides for the breeching rope rings. To do this, I threaded the brass ring, added small hollow eyes to the outside of the hull and glued small square tubing over the end to simulate the square nuts.

I used brass tubing and walnut to create the hawse holes in the bow, then glued in the cannon balls to the waterway.






Lastly I have installed all the channels to the sides. Next I will start working on the chainplates. Chrisman has documented these from the wreck.

Edited January 29, 2016 by robnbill

[Elijah]

I can't say much more than that it is amazing, so here goes. It's amazing !!! Great job! I look forward to seeing more updates!

Edited January 29, 2016 by Elijah

[mtaylor]

Looking very grand, Bill.   Her real story is just as amazing as your build.  

[robnbill]

Thank you all for your likes and comments. 

 

Mark, you are correct, her story is fascinating. Such a great deal of work, done over such a short period for one battle. It is what makes working on her so interesting. 

[robnbill]

I have completed the rudder assembly. The ship would have had a rudder chain. In addition, since Crisman now feels the ship had a tiller, I wanted the chain to transition to rope and this to terminate at the main deck level as a backup for the tiller should the handle be shot off.

 

Since I am trying to make as much as possible for this build, I tried my hand at the chain itself. I hammered brass tubing until it had the form I desired for the inside of the links. Then I wrapped it tightly in brass wire. This was then carefully cut off to form the links. I soldered half the links into individual links then joined them by soldering them with the additional links. Once all the links were soldered, I hung it between two arms of the helping hands to finalize the shaping of each of the links.

 

I cut this in half and connected each side to a ring and eyebolt that mounted in the rudder. I drilled holes from each side of the stern to the main deck and inserted brass eyelets for the rope to pass. I terminated the rope to walnut cleats mounted to the waterway.

 

On a side not, the rope is the first to be added to the ship. It was made on my Byrnes Ropewalk. It will be dressed at the cleats much later in the process.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

To make the pin rails I created a small jig to mount in my frill presses XY table. This allowed me to drill a hole, slide the hole over a pin in the jig and drill the next hole and so forth. With this I could set the distance I wanted between holes and be assured of consistent holes in the rail. In addition to those abreast the masts, I also added pin rails just forward of the catheads for the bow lines to terminate on. These with the addition of the fife rail at the main mast should allow enough terminations for the ship. While many of these will not be used since there will be no sails shown on the model, they still need to be available for accuracy.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I also completed the chainrails and lower deadeye installations. The deadeyes were turned from walnut then soldered into the chainrail assembly.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Now I will turn to the cannons building and rigging the carriages for the starboard side.

[Canute]

Bill, your attention to those details is outstanding. Scratch built chain - WOW.

[Omega1234]

Hi Bill

 

I've been admiring your ship for quite some time, and it is, without a doubt, a real beauty! Museum quality, dare I say.

 

As Kenmentioned above, the fact that you've done your own chain is masterful.

 

Nice stuff!

 

Cheers

 

Patrick

[Elijah]

Amazing! The chain looks great!

[robnbill]

Wow the time flies. It has been slightly over a month since I updated my log. However, I have been quite busy with the ship as well as updates to my shop. Since the cannon/carronade construction was covered in detail earlier in the build log, I did not want to duplicate this but rather update the long once they all were done. First, the shop.

 

In preparation for my next build as well as getting to the next level in my tools, I decided to ditch my router table and drill press and use the space for a new mill. I looked at all the various mills and decided to go with a full size mill with a digital read out. I have had great luck with Grizzly tools and their support as been great on all my previous tools. I chose the Grizzly G0759. This is their widely popular G0704 with a built in DRO. This is accurate to 4 microns and will display in either inches or millimeters. By going with a full size shop mill I will be able to work on larger items as well as the detailed work that our modeling demands.

 

So far I have been very happy with the new mill. I have a great deal to learn but it will be a fun challenge.

 

When I last left the log, I was ready to start working on duplicating the cannon and carronades based on the prototypes I built last September. The barrels were all turned and the gunlocks assemblies had been etched. I needed to duplicate the carriages and make the associated hardware.

 

I started with the long guns and then moved to the carronades. Between the long guns and the carronades, I installed the mill. To the first task I completed on the mill was to cut the mounting yokes and mounts for the barrels. I found the long guns/carronades to be a fun sub project.

 

My next project will be to mill the blocks for the cannon rigging. Once the cannon are rigged, I will start building the masting.

 

Here are some shots of the Eagle with the armaments in place.

 

 

This shows the carronade from inboard. The working castors can be seen here. They are not completely on the deck at this time. They will be adjusted/fine tuned during the rigging process.

 

 

One of the long guns from the side. This still needs the cap square pin installed.

 

 

This is the long gun from inboard.

 

[Omega1234]

Hi Bill

 

...pretty darn hard to find anything to find fault with in your ship.

 

Love your work. Everything's finely crafted, precise and beautifully detailed.

 

Really, really nice!

 

Cheers

 

Patrick

Edited March 13, 2016 by Omega1234

[mtaylor]

Beautiful work, Bill.  I'm loving the details.

[GDM67]

Bill, she is looking spectacular.  Chain, barrels, treenail details.  Its all coming together wonderfully. G

[Elijah]

She looks great as always! Time really does fly.

[ggrieco]

Hello Bill,

 

I'm sorry that I didn't catch this build from the start but I have really been enjoying it. Beautiful work and incredible details. I will be following if you don't mind.

 

Glenn

[robnbill]

Glenn, I welcome your input. Your work is so fantastic. I poured over your photos on the Texas A&M site. Thanks!

[robnbill]

The last month has been in fits and starts. I made all the blocks to rig the cannons out of boxwood. Here is a shot of the smallest blocks. these are the single two mm blocks. Most of this work was done with the mill followed by shaping in the block tumbler.

 

 

Next I started working on the hooks. After a number of different attempts at bending hooks that a 1) liked and 2) was extensible to 200 hooks, I decided to use photo etching to make them. I have completed the artwork but am waiting on some supplies for the process.

 

I also had a setback on the rigging lines. I pulled the Byrnes ropewalk out to make the left hand breeching lines and found the control unit shorted out. Jim was very responsive and hopefully I will have the new control unit within the next few days.

 

Since rigging was at a standstill, I moved on to the anchors. I used ⅛" brass plate to make these. I drew up the plans in DeltaCAD and printed them at scale. The pattern was glued to the face of the brass and taped over with clear packing tape. The tape acts as a lubricant during the cutting process.

 

This shows the anchor ready to be cut out.

 

 

Here is the anchor roughly cut out on the bandsaw.

 

I used a combination of the Dremel tool, hand files, and disk sanders to smooth and shape the rough anchor. Once satisfied, I used the power buffer to polish the anchor prior to attaching the flukes.

 

The flukes were cut from thinner plate and roughly shaped. These were clipped into position with paste flux in the joint. The photo below shows this ready to solder. You can see the small pieces of solder cut and laying on each side of the joint.

 

Once I was satisfied that everything was in it's proper position, I hit the joint with the micro torch. This only required seconds to heat the joint enough for the solder to flow into the joint.

 

Then it was back to the files to clean up the joint and do a final polish on the power buffer.

 

Here is the anchor ready for the stock.

 

 

The stocks were cut out of walnut with the halves glued together around the shaft. Once glued, the final shaping was done and banding added with black rope. I still have to make the rings, but the preponderance of the work on the anchors is done.

 

 

Edited April 12, 2016 by robnbill

[Omega1234]

Love that Anchor, Bill.

 

Nice job.

 

Cheers

 

Patrick

[mtaylor]

Wonderful work on the anchor, Bill.

[Elijah]

The anchor looks great! Nice method!

[DocBlake]

OUTSTANDING!  I love the anchor.  Great job, Bill!

[robnbill]

I am sorry I have taken awhile to update the log but I have been busy with the ship. In preparation for rigging the cannon/carronades I needed to accomplish a bit of homework. First, I needed to draw up the hooks for the rigging. This was etched into .015 brass sheet. This would be the equivalent of a ¾" thick hook. I also really wanted to spend dedicated time to work with the Byrnes Ropewalk to I have spent some dedicated time working on the Byrnes Ropewalk to test materials (silk, cotton, and linen), and to derive formulas for achieving the various rope scales I would need in the rigging.

 

I will post more details on this later but have decided most of the rigging will be cotton. Once this was accomplished it was a matter of starting the assembly of the cannons to the ship. The long guns were pinned through the rear trucks and the carronades were pinned through the sled and quoin. The breeching lines were all seized to the breeching rings previously installed on the ship. Next I started rigging the blocks sets to the cannons starting at the stern long gun and working forward.

 

The huge lesson learned in this is silk line and photo etched hooks do not mix well. The sharp edges of the brass damaged the strop sufficiently to cause them to break as I tried to rig them to the ship. I have switched the silk out with cotton which stands much stronger against the brass edges.

 

As the cannon are rigged, the loose end of the lanyards are cut and glued to the deck. Later coils will be glued over the ends. Since the cannon are fully run out, the coils will not be Flemish coils or tied up in neatly but similarly to those shown on the photo below. These are temporary coils (not final).

 

 

Here is a photo showing the first long gun and carronade rigged. The lines have been terminated where the coils will later be glued.

 

]

 

 

Anyway, that is where she is currently, I will update again once the cannon are all rigged.

[Omega1234]

Hi Bill

 

Super rope work! Love it.

 

Without a doubt, she's coming together beautifully!

 

Cheers

 

Patrick

[Mirabell61]

beautiful build Bill,  

 

Nils  

[DocBlake]

Great job igging the guns, Bill.  That is one awesome model you've built!

[robnbill]

I have completed rigging the guns. I purposefully made the various coils inconsistent and a bit sloppy. Much of the crew of the Eagle had very limited ship experience. Since the guns are run out, the lanyards should not be neatly bound up, or in flemish coils. So this is what I ended up with. These would also have been unhooked before firing (I think) but having them laying on the deck really would have looked terrible. I will still play with the shape of the breeching lines, but this is close.

 

Now it is on to the masting. I just received my new rotary table for the Milling machine. I should be able to mill the masts in a horizontal position. However these are still in the box, so I will need to play with them a bit.

[Omega1234]

Awesome work, Bill!

 

Cheers

 

Patrick