First breeching, gunlocks and all guns assembled
The first breeching
Not all the guns are ready yet, but I have already tried a breeching rope. Still needs some practice, but I am reasonably pleased already. In the end the breeching will be attached a bit lower on the ship’s side, but I still have to drill those holes. I have placed the knot at the ring for now; I think that just works.
The rope comes from modellbau-takelgarn.de, a tip from Stephan. I immediately replaced all my rope with it, it looked so good. This breeching is left-hand laid as well. I did have to reorder it, because the first variant of 1.3 mm was too thick; this one is 1 mm.
Gunlocks
At the back of the barrel I have glued a very small fiddly thing that is in the instructions. They are called flintlocks, but I had no idea what they are for and I rarely if ever see them on other builders’ models. Not surprising, because they are impossibly small and can only be fitted with a good drop of CA glue or Uhu Hart, and that remains visible.
Building Mouse knew that a flintlock is a flint ignition, instead of a slow match. Pingu57 found in zu Mondfeld that from about 1800 guns were fired with a gunlock and a lanyard. I had read straight past that. In Anatomy of the Ship the thing is not on the drawing; there is a pan and a vent there, which looks more like a match mechanism. Annoying, because I am building the 1794 version. What if I do half with and half without? Inconsistent twice over is consistent again (two minuses make a plus). Pingu57 thought I should build them the way I like them, and so it is.
In the evening Herby63 came up with the reasoning: the Royal Navy had flintlocks while its opponents still used slow matches, and as a result fired two to three times as often (“rate of fire”). So in 1794 they will already have had them; that 1800 in zu Mondfeld should not be taken literally. Learned something again. Perhaps on all the guns after all.
All guns assembled
All the guns are assembled. Now the rigging, and I suspect that is quite a job still. Only the visible guns have been given a gunlock. Nor do all of them have the George ciphers, because I wanted to save those for the upper deck; all the visible ones do have them. They all have a handle on the quoin, those were fun to make. Now waiting for the hooks for the tackles, ordered at the beginning of January and not yet in. Oh well, the breechings are enough work to be going on with.
