Techniques

The building techniques from this log, apart from the kit: planking, joggling, coppering, blackening and the rest, with the how-tos and problems that go with them.

Coppering a model ship hull

Laying copper plates on a model hull: set out the bands first, follow the planking runs instead of the keel, and what to do when a row runs crooked.

4 how-tos

Deck fittings: capstan, ship's wheel, gratings and bitts

What goes on the deck: cambered gratings, a scratch-built ship's wheel, the capstan with bars, shot garlands, a binnacle, and bitts and pin rails that will have to hold the pull of the rigging.

8 how-tos

Deck planking: margin plank, joggling and caulking seams

Laying deck planks in scale: the margin plank, joggling at the bow, a caulking seam made of thread and the four-butt shift for the joints.

5 how-tos

Fairing bulkheads and getting the hull to run true

Fairing the bulkheads of a wooden ship model: only after gluing, always checked with a batten across several bulkheads.

1 how-tos

Guns, carriages and carronades in scale

Twenty-eight guns to size: blackening the barrels, detailing carriages with bolts and breeching rings, getting the gun at the right height in the port, and the ropework that goes with it.

7 how-tos

Hammock cranes and hammock nettings

Replacing the fragile kit hammock cranes with home-made ones from brass tube, with netting from fly screen and hammocks from tea-dyed cloth.

2 how-tos

Head, cathead and rudder

The head with grating and seats, catheads from one piece, the bowsprit and the angle sheet 1 gets wrong, and a rudder in line with the keel with pintles set into the copper.

4 how-tos

Planking a wooden ship model hull

Hull planking in scale: tapering strakes, drop planks and stealers, the second planking and the wale, including the mistakes made along the way.

6 how-tos

Ropework and knots: breeching ropes, gun tackles and coiled falls

The first ropework on the model: cable-laid breeching ropes, gun tackles with 2.3 mm blocks, a silk-thread seizing instead of a knot, eye splices in the messenger and coiling the fall.

3 how-tos

Stern, quarter galleries and mouldings

The stern and quarter galleries of a frigate: making windows opaque, bending mouldings round the bow, finishing ornaments in gold, and why that gold is a choice.

8 how-tos