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Brig Eagle 1:48 scale

From a naval architecture perspective, these vessels are interesting, IMHO more so than their ocean counterparts of the 1812 period. The men that built these ships were faced with two major problems; the need for shoal draft vessels, and the need to build them quickly.

Shoal Draft: Lakes Champlain and Erie are both studded with sandbars and overall Erie is the shallowest of the five Great Lakes. For service on these lakes, shallow draft vessels were required. To be effective warships, ability to carry heavy armament was necessary. On the other hand it was not necessary to devote internal volume to carry fresh water. These requirements would dictate a wide hull with minimum draft compared to their salt water cousins. Draft is also related to transverse stability. The wide hull form would help to allow the ship to carry her armament while under sail.

Building Shortcuts: For Eagle, the Browns eliminated knees by sandwiching the ends of her deck beams between a pair of heavy longitudinal clamps. Famously Noah supposedly said that “construction only needed to be good enough for one battle.” Not said was that neither lakes Champion or Erie would produce the long rolling waves that would twist hulls like those on the oceans. The heavy longitudinal clamps would also add longitudinal strength.

Roger
 
Hello friends. With my limited abilities at this time to be working on the keel and ribs like I am wanting to, I have changed my focus for the time to the favorite topic of the gun carriages. I have provided you a picture of the wheel chassis for one of the carronades. I found pieces of styrene that came molded in a square shape and filed away one of the sides. That provided me the opening for the wheels and the block of wood that I make still. Each of wheels are 1/16" wide, used a small diameter dowel I found in my workshop that proved the perfect size.

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With the weather remaining nice here, I have been attempting to make new progress despite limitations involving certain power tools. Currently working on several more of Eagles rib frames in addition to more on the guns from my last post. Using a giant sanding block a member of my local guild gave to me, I thinned down the two widest frames on Eagle and have them sitting in position (Frames 7 and 8 on the jig plan). The frames of identical shape immediately behind are being shaped up and will be constructed hopefully soon. Also been attempting some other rib construction both in bow and stern (Frame P in the bow and Frame 36 which is sternpost). In the photo you will also see the keel guides I have made but haven't yet screwed into place yet.

Brian D :)

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Another quick update. I am slowly continuing to shape frames. As had mentioned in post 39 (April 2023 *gasp*) I had even started experimenting with hawse frames. Today I cut out the excess wood around the first hawse timbers for both port and starboard. I know lots of thinning and trimming remains, and many frames still to make. Feels good to feel sawdust again.

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Hello everyone. I haven't forgotten about this project, despite some inconvenient changes in circumstances. I've had to temporarily shelve Brig Eagle because of change in housing situation and many of my tools had to be put in storage for a few months. However, I am still doing lots of research and making frame templates for this model to work on once housing situation improves. Lately, I've been doing additional comparisons of different ships, this time the American brigs Syren and Oneida. Syren seems more like Brig Eagle in deck layout and overall hull contours (even though Eagle is 20 ft longer than Syren and Syren was a deep water hull with additional deck including European ships HMS Blandford and Le Cygne), whereas Oneida would be more followed for rigging and was also a "shallow draft" hull design with just only berthing deck and gun deck like the Eagle was and Niagara. However, I found one article interesting about Oneida saying she was a slow performer under sail, I am guessing that she may have been top heavy for a ship her size. Will have to do more digging around work schedules.
 
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