HMS Victory 1:98

[WP Rayner]

Currently there is a restoration project going on to the full sized ship.  When they removed the masts as part of the project, they discovered a coin from when the mats were first stepped under one of the masts.  Probably the main mast.  Do not forget to include this detail once you get to the stage where you step the masts.

Start of project looks great and I believe will be instructive to those of us who consider a boat to be "A hole in the water into which a rich man pours money".

The coin under the mast is a long-standing tradition and is still practised today. It is an offering to bring good luck and safe passage. Believe I have an old English Farthing tucked away which would seem appropriate for the model. Boats are indeed holes in the water into which you pour money, but fortunately, being definitely not a rich man, the only expense for this one is the exorbitant amount of time it will take to build it.

[Lawton Maner]

     The coin is still a sign of good luck even with the construction of steel hulls.  When the keel of the Frigate California was laid in the late 1960's thee was a new coin placed under the dedication plate on it, and a penny was tossed into the first melt of steel for the castings to come from the foundry. 
     
     The fixture you built for erecting the frames an intriguing bit of work.

     As for the copper cladding on the hull, since you are using walnut and other non-traditional woods for the construction, could you partially cover a small portion of the hull with copper leaf to represent the cladding. Here is a link to a vendor that has the foil ( https://www.riogrande.com/product/copper-metal-patent-leaf/681126 )  The use of the cabinet woods is forcing the observer to focus on the construction techniques in addition to your skills. 
     

[WP Rayner]

     The fixture you built for erecting the frames an intriguing bit of work.

     As for the copper cladding on the hull, since you are using walnut and other non-traditional woods for the construction, could you partially cover a small portion of the hull with copper leaf to represent the cladding. Here is a link to a vendor that has the foil ( https://www.riogrande.com/product/copper-metal-patent-leaf/681126 )  The use of the cabinet woods is forcing the observer to focus on the construction techniques in addition to your skills. 
     

Thanks Lawton and thanks for the link to RioGrande... been a long time since I ordered from them. There's a jewellers' supply house in Toronto that is also quite good, I've ordered several items from them over the past couple of years. Cladding part of the lower hull in copper is a good idea, perhaps one side in copper and the other in finished wood, my preference is for finished wood. But then if my planking skills aren't quite up to par, then the copper cladding will serve to disguise it somewhat...

[finescalerr]

Gimme a break, Paul. Your planking skills will be outstanding. -- Russ

[Design-HSB]

Paul, I'm afraid their planking will be so perfect that it's too bad to cover them with copper.

[WP Rayner]

Thank you Russ and Helmut for your confidence in me... much appreciated.

[WP Rayner]

Small update on the Victory. Finished scratching the keel, sternpost, and inner post assembly. Joints between the sternpost/keel and inner post/keel are reinforced with .030" dia. Boxwood treenails (the ends of which are visible on the bottom of the keel). The rabbets running along the keel and up the sternpost accommodate the lower edge and ends of the planks so they fair neatly into the keel structure. Had originally planned to make the keel from Walnut but couldn't source any walnut locally (at least in a size I could work with) so used some Mahogany I had in stock.



The aluminum block in the background is my sanding gubbins. I lapped one surface flat on the surface plate then glued sandpaper onto that lapped surface. Like a miniature jointer plane it works perfectly for sanding small surfaces, joints, and edges flat and true. Now working on cutting the individual pieces that make up the stem and bow portion of the keel.

[finescalerr]

Ho-hum, merely another example of your usual level of perfection. -- Russ

[WP Rayner]

Work continues on the keel, this time the Bow timbers. First photo shows the main Bow timbers cut and ready for glue-up... bit of a jigsaw puzzle! Lot of careful scroll saw and razor saw work.



Second photo shows the assembly after glue-up and a light sanding. There remain five more curved pieces (stemson and boxing) to be cut and assembled to the inside edge (left-hand curved edge in photo) before this assembly can be joined to the existing keel.

[finescalerr]

I can't believe you did that with hand tools. I'd need a CAD program to make anything look like that. -- Russ

[WP Rayner]

I can't believe you did that with hand tools. I'd need a CAD program to make anything look like that. -- Russ

The scroll saw is electric, which I used for most of the curved cuts, jeweller's saw for the tightest curve. The long straight cuts were done with the scroll saw, the short ones were cut with a razor saw. All analogue work, no computers involved. I started with vellum templates copied from the original plan, cut out, and then glued to the stock. I then used the templates as cutting guides.

[Ray Dunakin]

I can't believe how precise the joints are! Everything fits together perfectly!

[Bill Gill]

Paul, excellent joinery to look at. Do you "shave" the joint faces with some kind of fine "plane" for the final fitting?

[Peter_T1958]

What an incredible precision! I can well imagine that working  with wood in this way  must be very satisfactory...

[WP Rayner]

Thanks Ray, Bill, and Peter. Yes, it is satisfying, at least when it comes out right!

Paul, excellent joinery to look at. Do you "shave" the joint faces with some kind of fine "plane" for the final fitting?

Not really Bill. I use my aluminum sanding gubbins (in the background in the sternpost photo a couple of posts back). I lapped one surface of an aluminum block on the surface plate to get it absolutely flat, then glued on a piece of sandpaper. With that I can remove saw marks from the straight cuts, kind of like a miniature jointer plane. I use a sanding drum with a fine grit paper in the mill to remove saw marks on the curved cuts. The drum sits into a cavity (slightly larger than the drum's outside dia.) in a block setup on the mill. The top surface of the block is 90 degrees to the drum surface, so this works quite well truing up edges. The original cuts of course need to be as accurate as possible, the sanding just removes marks left by the saw. Too much sanding will destroy the accuracy of the joints.