Shipyard's HMS Bellona

[birder]

Ron I agree with all others, looking very nice. I personally don't like the idea of adding wood planking...card planks can be more scale accurate for thickness and much easier to permanantly affix....might not jump in and be disappointed if the planking does not adhere... the wood guys can trenail or otherwise insure the permanance of wood planking...I do think it would make an awesome deck, and since the outer hull would normally need protective paint, or coppering, Bellona was coppered later in her life, although not as initially built...then card planks are perfect (since would typically be painted) I'm thinking about making her with card planks to the coppering and then textured copper tape...if I EVER get to it....

[Ron0909]

The main thing that shows up the problem on your model is the long narrow oval left against the keel. In fact the plank nearest the keel, called the garboard strakeshould be one piece running smoothly from stem to stern.

Brian, thank you for all of your learned advice! I do have a few books and specifically Anatomy of a ship: HMS Bellona, Moonraker #1 'Planking Model Ships, and a few others. That oval you see is still the remnants of the Shipyard 'first planking' which is actually just thin cardstock. The keel is incomplete until later today(it's not installed yet) when you will in fact see the single garboard strake on each side. Keep in mind, this is going to all get covered

I wished we could see what you came up with for the frame

Rick, It's not so bang on as you think! You can get a look at the initial framing and paper 'planking' here. Ship modeling advice needed!
What I learned when doing that paper planking was not to glue the bulkheads
solid right to the outer edges. Leave a 1/2 inch or so, so that if it needs a slight shift forwards or back to line up with the paper, it won't have to be forced. The other thing is that nothing is perfect and it all needed some
trimming or bulkheads beveled before they would fit. Excuse the images in that post! They were done with a Blackberry and are poor as hell! Those wood strips are from Lee Valley Tools. I started a thread on those guys (they're amazing!).

Zathros, I envy you your time spent! I did a bit of volunteering on aircraft restoration for a bit one year but otherwise not much else. Right now I'm stuck on a river :( No large body of water for some distance. My brother got me hooked on historical fiction with Cornwell's Sharpe series but it wasn't long before I found O'Brian, Lambdin and the rest! In regard to that hull, I have a lot of learnin' to do before I tackle it I guess...

Glen, Thank you for your advice as well! The wood I'm using is sooooo thin
I think it will do very little to the scale of things. I'm afraid to tackle it as like you said, the adhesion is sure to be a pain! The gun ports are scaled to be using 1/8 inch planks(Shipyard's drawn lines) and I'm going to bump up the hull planking to 3/16". Even though I want to portray her in her later 'coppered' stage of life, I was thinking the experience of doing a full veneer planking would be great. Please start your own Bellona! I can get back to my Sopwith Snipe while you catch up and we can do this together. It would be fun and I'm sure humbling in my case

I never thought there would be this much of a response! Now I 'have' to finish it

Thanks again guys, I'd surely be lost without this combined experience from all of you

Ron

[Papercut]

Thanks for the info Ron0909, the link was just what I wanted to see, and the photos were alot better than I could have done w/a cell phone.
The tip about gluing of the bulkheads with leaving the last portion not glued, I do understand what you are pointing out there.
Beveled or truing bulkheads, I believe that is called fairing the hull for planking and again, I understand what you are helping us to grasp about this most excellent build.
(YES you must finish her).
Rick

[Ron0909]

Rick,
Just 'Ron' will do The 0909 was added ages ago as I was not the only one around at the time. Man... this nautical jargon has my head spinning at times! It's only going to get better (I hope). Here's a question: after looking through the Shipyard paper for the gun ports, I noticed that some of the ports are out of square. Looking at the 'Anatomy of the Ship: HMS Bellona', they look truly square. Any opinions?

Ron

[birder]

If other ShipYard kits are any comparison they will indeed be square when applied to the complex shape of the hull..usually there is some framework to attach the upper parts to, and then the question is..do you put the guns in first or not? The tumblehome shape of the big 74's is quite pronounced and that with the slant of the decks may seem to be out of square, hopefully not, though...go Ron go!!

[birder]

Ron have you seen this? It is a comprehensive build thread...for Bellona
Kartonbau.de - Alles rund um's Kartonmodell... | abgeschlossene Bauberichte | HMS Bellona von Shipyard (vergrößert auf 1:72)**FERTIG**

[Ron0909]

Uh-Oh...one more Bellona to measure up against! ( I'm kidding ) Thanks for the link Glen as it definitely answers a few questions. It's always a pleasure to see other solutions but I tend to second guess every move I make. Today was more of an experiment with decking material along with getting the Stempost built (I think that's the correct name.)

I have business cards made of Maple veneer. 50 of them were $3.50 and when cut into 1/8" strips look really nice for decking. The part I was messing with needed to be completed prior to gluing in the Stempost so grabbing the bull by the horns, we made deck planks. The first pic was a failed tool I was trying to make to make strips. It's some ugly!. Ultimately, perfect strips can be cut with a sharp hobby blade with multiple passes and very little pressure. Press too hard and the veneer will split ahead of the blade along the grain. I'm thinking a rotary blade would probably do really well for this too. As it turns out, the maple is nice to work with and finishes easily with sandpaper and a file. As a side note you can see the difference between the 1/8" cherry and the maple. Quite a difference!
More to come!
Ron

[Michael Mash]

Hello Ron:
The hulls of the old sailing ships are always inspring. Yours looks terrific.
And those two images of the real thing are wonderful to see.
Mike

[Ron0909]

Thanks Mike
The hulls are what always inspired me to want to build but they also scared the droppings out of me after seeing the efforts of others. At this moment I'm just about to crack open the filler to smooth mine out a bit. I decided to follow the years of experience and advice so freely given here as much as I hate sanding! I'll post a few pics later on. The stempost is glued in place along with one of the keel pieces. Shipyard's stempost/keel assembly comes in 4 pieces but one was almost 1/2 inch short
for some strange reason. I should have followed Doris' lead and made it from wood in one piece. Oh well

Talk soon
Ron

[Ron0909]

Not much happening here...just a shot of the hull (again..)with the keel
installed and the rest of the rough planking on both sides of the keel.
It's nice to see the final lines!