Saint-Philippe 1693-POF to the Monograph by Jean-Claude Lemineur by NMBrook-1/36

Not an exciting update but all part of the process.Whilst I am waiting for Epoxy to set on each plank as I work on the bulkhead,I have started nail production for this assembly.

The technique is originally one of Michael Bezvernhky(Dr Mike) but is illustrated in one of Audrey Kudin's Fleuron videos in his Fleuron build log.The first picture shows the tools I am using.The old kitchen knife has had the cutting edge reground so it is 45 degrees on each side with a dull edge.Too sharp and you will cut through before forming the burr on each side of the cut.The Tamiya side cutters are for cutting each piece in half.I am rolling0.5mm brass rod every 7mm.The 7mm pieces have the head of the nail formed on each end.I then cut these in half with the side cutters.I cut them at 45 degrees,not only to make it easier to fit in the hole,but also to make it easier to identify which end is which.The rolling operation needs to be carried out on a cutting mat.

The second picture shows the first batch after blackening.I did three from 1mm rod to see what they look like but have ordered some 0.8mm rod as well.The rule is the nail size is a quarter to a fifth the planking thickness.The 2mm planking will have 0.5mm nails and the 4mm Spirketing 0.8mm nails.

Kind Regards

Nigel

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A small catchup as a prelude to what I hope is going to be a productive weekend on the model.
A have completed the planking inside on one deck enabling me to fit the lower cills to the gunports.There are raised stops in the corners.I have decided to slice these from separate timber and I will glue in place.I think this approach will yield better consistency and surface finish even if the purists scoff.The lower edge of the outside planking and cills will be past through a jig in the mill to restore the notch that takes the Beakhead deck.

I have done some small tweaks to the design on the plans to match more how I feel things would be.For instance,I have lifted the cills slightly so they are not flush with the deck as water would easily wash through the openings.I have also tweaked the secion of the plank inside that the deck sits on.It didn't seem correct to me that the spirketing above projected further than this plank.

Perhaps the biggest departure from the "norm" is the Pear veneer on top of this plank.As discussed earlier,the gundecks will have Paduak interiors but I spent some time thinking of how to highlight the different levels inside the model.In reality the deck beams would not be painted Red Occre on the top face where the deck planking sits.Yes I am going to veneer the top of every deck plank to show this.Also the tops of all the Knees and Carlings.I must be a gluton for punishment.

Kind Regards

Nigel


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Next job was to clean out the rebate for the Beakhead deck planking.I chucked together a KISS(keep it simple stupid)mill jig so I could carefully feed the assembly through by hand milling it out.I worked downwards to the bottom of the channel in 0.5mm steps to avoid the mill grabbing and ruining the workpiece

Kind Regards

Nigel

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Thanks Chaps:)

I have now started the monotonous job of drilling holes for my rolled nails.There is a rule that states the head diameter is between a quarter and a fifth of the board thickness.I have 2 and 3mm thick boards on this piece so am opting for 0.5 and 0.8mm nails.This increase in diameter is negligible with the rolling technique so these sizes are near enough for me.
I have opted to utilise the big mill and it's xy table to enable all the vertical runs to line up where they should.I will have to rotate the workpiece and drill one half at a time as the cross travel is just too short to do the vertical in one go with the piece inline with the table.This is going to take a while as with both sides I roughly worked out around 1000 nails just for this assembly.

Kind Regards

Nigel

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Thanks guys

I had looked at these and the I feel there are two issues.The small nails hand rolled should appear almost flush when fitted,I would have to counterbore every hole so these don't project.Next is the cost,as a rough guess there will be around 30,000 fixings on the model so it would cost me the thick end of £3000.One pack of Brass wire from Albion alloys costs roughly the same as one pack of 50 of these fixings and yields about 800 nails.
However I do like the look of projecting heads on the black wales like on Marc's great Soleil Royal plastic kit bash.When you get to large diameter's the rolling technique takes ages and is not so uniform.I may well strike a balance and buy these for the wales.I may change my mind later when I come to fit my nails,if they don't look as intended I will bite the bullet,but my already large proposed budget just got a whole lot biggero_O

Donnie,do not be disheartened,your joinery work on your scratch cross section is brilliant.It is no different to this,there is just a lot more of the same principles on this build.It is all about breaking the bigger picture down into many smaller steps.I previously followed Remco's build on another forum,his moto is "treat each area as a model in it's own right".There is a lot of mileage in this statement,if I were to spend too long looking at this project as a whole then I would be bogged down and my head would be at the point of exploding:oops:.On that basis I am completing this bulkhead as far is practical,not only is it easier to do off the model, psychologically it is one very small step completed and time to move to the next one.

Adding so much detail at this scale is full on and if I were to complete the entire frame and were to be faced with each step in completeness I feel I would loose focus and the quality of my work would suffer.Some processes have to be done as a whole,like the hull planking for instance,but many of the items to produce can be built off the model with maybe just a trial fit before completing as was with this bulkhead.It can be built complete with Catheads as a finished unit then fitted to the model.The intention was to glue in position much later to maintain access.However I have discovered I can easily get my head inside this bow section so I am not so sure now( that gives you an idea just how big the model actually is)

Kind Regards

Nigel

Nigel
 
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