USS BONHOMME RICHARD - POF - Cross Section in Cherry - 1:48 - by neptune,

I have put the barrels aside for now while I think about what to use for ballast to sit them on, they give you some
white stone chippings in the kit which don't look right to me, so i will have a look around, I like the black stone that
Jeronimo used in his cross section,


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So I started on the wooden triangles for holding the Cannon Balls, again with these I had difficulty removing the
middle pieces, you can see the tabs holding the middle pieces in place and when i tried to cut the tabs the wood
would split,


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so after two had split I took a different approach, I glued around the back of the triangles with some CA
glue and stuck them onto some ordinary white paper, make sure to only have the glue on the outside of the triangle
edges,



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Then I used a small 3mm drill bit to drill a hole near each tab, then I started at the middle of each and dug the
wood out carefully with a small sharp knife,



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and the finished pieces, if you look you can see the splits in a couple of them,
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so this is the view of the holder on the deck,


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and the triangle fits nicely over the plan, it shows 10 cannon balls held in place,


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but you cannot get ten cannon balls in it, in one kit the balls were 3.2mm Dia and in the other kit they
were 2.8mm Dia, These obviously are the 3.2mm cannon balls,


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and these are the 2.8mm ones, but these are very loosely fitting,



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oh and by the way both the bores on all the barrels are the same dia, see pics below, so i am going to enlarge the
two lower deck barrel bores, and use 4mm ball bearings, and 3mm ball bearings for the other cannon, it might
not be exact but i think it should be OK, I should add that I probably will not take the bores out to 4mm but just
enough that you can see a difference,

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For the ballast, fish tank gravel is available in many sizes and colours from aquarium shops. Cheap too.


Thanks Ross, thats what I was thinking, something not too big or sharp edged, I bought some extra ball bearings in sizes 4mm and 3mm off ebay $10 including post, how are you getting on with your section or sections,

best regards joh,
 
Slowly but surely, spent a couple of weeks doing just the barrels, should have done that in a better ventilated area, accidental glue sniffing occurred, not pleasant. You are way ahead of where I am at, just starting to do the interior fitting of the bottom deck.
Would be great to see also your work on the section - Please start a building log of yours :cool:
 
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These are the parts that go on top of the pump tubes, all these parts came away from the wood sheet quite easily,


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and attached to the top of the tubes,



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and the eight pumps finished, though they still need to varnished or maybe painted red and have a few metal
reinforcing bands attached,



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close up of the tops,

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Would be great to see also your work on the section - Please start a building log of yours :cool:
Maybe my next build. Me doing a log of the Bonhomme Richard section would more be a litany of errors. The lastest of which was me wondering why the shot locker didn't fit under the bottom decks cross beams. It was only after I adjusted part D31 to move one of the beams that I noticed faint laser marks on the side of said part showing the correct position of the beams. :oops:RAC_3304.jpg
 
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For some reason in one of the kits I got 110 large eye bolts and 20 medium, and
in the other kit I got 130 small thinner ones, I have plenty of these larger ones in
my spare parts box so there are no worries,



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the larger ones along with the brass rings after blackening,



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and the smaller ones after blackening,

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some of the cannon balls after blackening, the top ones are 3mm and are for the top deck, the bottom ones
are 4mm and are for the lower deck, I am in the process of making up some in 3.2mm size for the middle deck,



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close up of the 4mm ones,



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close up of the 3mm ones,



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the larger cannon after the trunion was trimmed to size, I have all the cannon soaking in the blackening solution,
keeping my fingers crossed that they come out OK,

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So that's all the cannon balls sorted, bottom two 4mm, lower deck, middle four 3.2mm, middle deck and the top
two 3mm, for the top deck, they will have a coat of matt varnish to finish them off,


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Once again the blackening didn't take on the cannon barrels, it just came up patchy, it blackens all the smaller
items like the eye bolts rings etc but just will not blacken the barrels, so I cleaned them up and painted them,
this is the larger cannon for the lower deck,



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and the smaller one for the middle and top deck, i still have to add the eye bolts and truck pins, also with the
cannon I might use the french way of attaching the recoil rope, which went through the centre of the carriage
my memories getting bad with not remembering the name of parts,



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I have decided to paint the bulwarks red, it adds a bit of colour,

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I have now cut and attached the waterways to the gun deck, I cut enough to do all the decks on both sections,



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I used my mini drill with the sanding pad to sand the waterways back flush with the end of the section,



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view of the finished waterway,


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and a look at what the lower deck cannon is like in place,


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and a view outboard,



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I have drilled the bulwarks for the ring bolts for the cannon and also attached the ring bolts in the lower deck,


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Working out the positions for the deck beams for deck one and also what height the pumps will be above deck
one the pumps are not yet fixed, they have to be set at the right height, also I am going to have to attach the keel
pretty soon,

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