After ten months of silence, the first 9-pounder assembled on its gun carriage, held together with pins and washers instead of glue, and the linchpins made from flattened brass dressmaker's pins.
All ten gun carriages are assembled (about two hours each), the quoins have a small turned red handle, and the first breeching is rigged following the picture of the breeching knot in Zu Mondfeld.
All the breechings are on; I make the gun tackles in a jig, with self-assembly blocks of 2.3 mm, and this time with the falls frapped around the tackle instead of coiled on the deck.
Fed up with the guns for the moment: the belfry in the kit made no sense at all, so I made my own belfry after the example in the Anatomy of the Ship, converted to 1:64.
The black belfry with its bell and a moving clapper is on deck, but its feet don't quite fit: the grating notched and a slight overhang over the forecastle; Jan rightly asked why the beam runs fore and aft.
Well over a year and a half after starting in January 2022, all ten 9-pounders on the upper deck are rigged and ready for action; now for the carronades.
The white metal 'trucks' from the kit replaced by trucks made from brass tubes slid into one another, and the elevating screw by a 1.2 mm bolt with a pin as its handle, which really turns thanks to the soft white metal.
The carronades are black, with sight, royal cipher, rings and a truck base in which pin heads give the effect of round bolt heads; the carronade sits loose on its slide and can move forward and back; only the V-shaped piece at the front is still missing.
All the guns on the upper deck are finished, the carronades rigged with rope and blocks accidentally one size larger, and the belfry made anew: a size smaller and turned through a quarter turn.
