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Le Saint Philippe 1693 after Jean-Claude Lemineur (Ancre) in scale 1:48

dockattner said:
Oops, I meant to post this last night but failed the part where you hit: Post reply...

Hello friends,

Part 1

I rarely post techniques or 'how-to' notes. I think there are people much better suited for that sort of thing. Even after more than five years of wooden ship modeling, I consider myself more of a learner than a teacher.

But I came up with a clamping jig for cutting mortices in deck beams and I am rather happy with it, so I'll show you what I made.

My set up begins with the small Proxxon mill and compound table. When I purchased the mill I also added a few accessories - including a machine vice which can be bolted to the compound table.

I fabricated a very simple jig that fits on the machine vice. It includes some clamping battens to hold the beam in place. I rounded the end of these to avoid introducing torque as the beams have a camber and do not sit perpendicular to the mill along their length. The wider battens are for beams - the narrower battens are for short pieces like carlings (I added these after-the-fact once I realized my first ones were too far apart to use for short pieces).

View attachment 589919

In order to connect the jig to the vice I added a housing on the underside. These housings fit the respective members of the vice very (very) snuggly:

View attachment 589918

I simply lay the beam on its side and mill in the mortice. But now, rather than moving the compound table to the next mortice I just loosen the vice - slide the beam to the next mortice location - tighten the vice - and mill away.

Here is a short (2 minute) video showing this in action:


That's four, perfect, identical mortices in two minutes. Much faster than I can do them by hand using chisels - and much faster than I can do them if I have to turn the tiny wheels of the compound table over the length of the beam. This approach also keeps the cutting action at right angles to the top of the beam (that will only make sense if you have ever cut mortices into curved pieces that are taped to the full length of the compound table).

I'm sure others have their own preferred approach to cutting pockets into beams, so I make no claims of superiority. And I suppose CNC milling would do this even more precisely - but this is a pretty usable solution.

Part 2

In the words of Yogi Berra: it's déjà vu all over again...

The beginnings of the quarterdeck:

View attachment 589920

The quarter deck adds a new twist... the joinery (joint) between the deck beams and the deck clamp on the first, second, and third decks was a blind dovetail. With the quarter deck the dovetail remains visible:

View attachment 589921


My very best wishes to all of you this Easter.

And for those of you who approach this season with hearts and minds of faith: He is Risen!

View attachment 589922
Click to expand...
Again a very nice outcome of this floor, Paul. Your demonstrated method with a useful tool has certainly helped you make this 148 recesses and 22 dovetails in those 12 beams. (If I have counted correctly) Yes, I do like ‘numbers’.
Regards, Peter
 
dockattner said:
Oops, I meant to post this last night but failed the part where you hit: Post reply...

Hello friends,

Part 1

I rarely post techniques or 'how-to' notes. I think there are people much better suited for that sort of thing. Even after more than five years of wooden ship modeling, I consider myself more of a learner than a teacher.

But I came up with a clamping jig for cutting mortices in deck beams and I am rather happy with it, so I'll show you what I made.

My set up begins with the small Proxxon mill and compound table. When I purchased the mill I also added a few accessories - including a machine vice which can be bolted to the compound table.

I fabricated a very simple jig that fits on the machine vice. It includes some clamping battens to hold the beam in place. I rounded the end of these to avoid introducing torque as the beams have a camber and do not sit perpendicular to the mill along their length. The wider battens are for beams - the narrower battens are for short pieces like carlings (I added these after-the-fact once I realized my first ones were too far apart to use for short pieces).

View attachment 589919

In order to connect the jig to the vice I added a housing on the underside. These housings fit the respective members of the vice very (very) snuggly:

View attachment 589918

I simply lay the beam on its side and mill in the mortice. But now, rather than moving the compound table to the next mortice I just loosen the vice - slide the beam to the next mortice location - tighten the vice - and mill away.

Here is a short (2 minute) video showing this in action:


That's four, perfect, identical mortices in two minutes. Much faster than I can do them by hand using chisels - and much faster than I can do them if I have to turn the tiny wheels of the compound table over the length of the beam. This approach also keeps the cutting action at right angles to the top of the beam (that will only make sense if you have ever cut mortices into curved pieces that are taped to the full length of the compound table).

I'm sure others have their own preferred approach to cutting pockets into beams, so I make no claims of superiority. And I suppose CNC milling would do this even more precisely - but this is a pretty usable solution.

Part 2

In the words of Yogi Berra: it's déjà vu all over again...

The beginnings of the quarterdeck:

View attachment 589920

The quarter deck adds a new twist... the joinery (joint) between the deck beams and the deck clamp on the first, second, and third decks was a blind dovetail. With the quarter deck the dovetail remains visible:

View attachment 589921


My very best wishes to all of you this Easter.

And for those of you who approach this season with hearts and minds of faith: He is Risen!

View attachment 589922
Click to expand...
Good morning Paul. A very informative log and video. Doesn’t help one bit ROTF. Us merely mortals need a how to for a chisel blade and ruler….…ROTF. Jokes aside -4 perfect deck structures. (Well three and a half). I don’t know if you guys in USA celebrate family day today. If you do have a good one. Cheers Grant
 
GrantTyler said:
Good morning Paul. A very informative log and video. Doesn’t help one bit ROTF. Us merely mortals need a how to for a chisel blade and ruler….…ROTF. Jokes aside -4 perfect deck structures. (Well three and a half). I don’t know if you guys in USA celebrate family day today. If you do have a good one. Cheers Grant
Click to expand...
Thanks, Grant. We did have a great day with family yesterday!
 
Hello Friends,

This week I was able to wrap up the fabrication of the quarter deck. While the construction is lighter (timbers are smaller throughout) - it was made more difficult but the exuberant use of dovetails by the French shipbuilders. I'll not be sad to move beyond this stage - I'm just about tapped out on making tiny dovetails.

Anyway, here you go:

IMG_1868.JPG

IMG_1869.JPG

A closer look:

IMG_1870.JPG

IMG_1871.JPG

IMG_1872.JPG

IMG_1873.JPG

IMG_1876.JPG

Next up: the rather simple poop deck...

IMG_1874.JPG

Thanks for stopping by!
 
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