USS BONHOMME RICHARD - POF - Cross Section in Pear - 1:48 - by Uwe

G'day Uwe, very nice workmanship, the word you were looking for is Chocks, I am amazed at how many of the non English members can speak and understand English, but I'm afraid I didn't learn another language, wish I had now,
Keep up your great work,

Best regards John,
 
Today I want to show the cross section detail with the hanging knees etc.
Knees: In the kit only wooden knees are foreseen, although the Bonhomme Richard had wooden knees only in the hold, on the other decks she had iron knees.
During her use by the french (Originally a French East-Indiaman Duc de Duras), the ship was a gunned merchantman and she had only one deck gunned, the other decks were reserved for transport and stowing.
Armed for protection against pirates in far eastern waters She carried her guns on one deck, twenty-eight 12-pounders, with six lighter pieces, six-pounders, on the poop-deck and forecastle.
Ports were cut in the gun room on the deck below where [John Paul Jones] mounted six 18-pounder guns.

On the left the kit drawing - on the right side Boudriot
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in a former post I mentioned already the differences of the knees - comparing the kit with the Boudriot drawings
On the left the kit drawing - on the right side Boudriot
23aa.jpg 23ab.jpg

In addition there is an additional information given in the booklet, where the iron knees are further described - I thought, that this information could be helpful for modelers, which want to make the historical correct knees
42c.jpg 42d.jpg
 
Also interesting is also the given information about the adaptations made with the gunports

42g.jpg

42b.jpg
Close-up of the timbering of the hull, showing clearly the original gunports, and those enlarged for 18-pdrs. (during adaptations for the Bonhomme Richard)


Now important and I would need and would like to get your advice and opinions:

These excerpts from the Boudriot drawings of the Bonhomme Richard I posted already in a former post

IMG_422011.jpg
"Only the ports shown in black were armed"

IMG_392311.jpg

This would mean also that the lowest gunport of the section model would be shown with a closed gunport-lid !

In the kit are all together 8 guns available, means enough gunnery material for all existing gunports.
I am in moment thinking about, if I should equip every gunport with a gun or if I should equip only the second gundeck with the two guns and the other decks not. This would be historical correct for the Bonhomme Richard.
This decision is now or in short time necessary, so I can rig the gun before i finalize the next deck beams......

I am open for comments and opinions:
A) Historical correct with only one deck gunned? (maybe to use the spare guns as decoration close to the section)
or
B) Historical incorrect with all gunports gunned?

So A) or B) ?
 

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Also interesting is also the given information about the adaptations made with the gunports

View attachment 142772

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Close-up of the timbering of the hull, showing clearly the original gunports, and those enlarged for 18-pdrs. (during adaptations for the Bonhomme Richard)


Now important and I would need and would like to get your advice and opinions:

These excerpts from the Boudriot drawings of the Bonhomme Richard I posted already in a former post

View attachment 142769
"Only the ports shown in black were armed"

View attachment 142768

This would mean also that the lowest gunport of the section model would be shown with a closed gunport-lid !

In the kit are all together 8 guns available, means enough gunnery material for all existing gunports.
I am in moment thinking about, if I should equip every gunport with a gun or if I should equip only the second gundeck with the two guns and the other decks not. This would be historical correct for the Bonhomme Richard.
This decision is now or in short time necessary, so I can rig the gun before i finalize the next deck beams......

I am open for comments and opinions:
A) Historical correct with only one deck gunned? (maybe to use the spare guns as decoration close to the section)
or
B) Historical incorrect with all gunports gunned?

So A) or B) ?
Great build Uwe. I'm a little bit confused - cross section you marked shows 3 gun ports. Where does the 4th one come from? Gun ports with closed lids look great on models and you have fewer guns to rig. Unless you are a big fan of gun rigging, I'd go with A.
 
Great build Uwe. I'm a little bit confused - cross section you marked shows 3 gun ports. Where does the 4th one come from? Gun ports with closed lids look great on models and you have fewer guns to rig. Unless you are a big fan of gun rigging, I'd go with A.
Many Thanks for your comment and opinion.....
Here is the sketch where you can see the marked gun-ports
IMG_392311.jpg
Only the ports with blue arrows were gunned at the Bonhomme Richard. The green and yellow were not gunned
 
Many Thanks for your comment and opinion.....
Here is the sketch where you can see the marked gun-ports
View attachment 142792
Only the ports with blue arrows were gunned at the Bonhomme Richard. The green and yellow were not gunned
Oopsie! Missed the fourth one on the quarter deck. In this case, maybe omit the one on the lower deck, and rig 3 on main and quarter deck?
 
Hello Uwe, Great build and no surprises here, you always strive for clean and historically accurate work. Here is what i think: How much close do you want to build to ANCRE plans? Will you incorporate the metal knees or use provided with kit? Personally, I would close the lid and show the gun with all the tools next to it (building from scratch?) as a model itself. Method 'A' for my taste, but decision is always yours, thought ;)
 
Many Thanks for all your comments (and likes) - much appreciated !!!

Next small working step was the finalization of the gunports of the second side
42i.jpg

42j.jpg

In addition to asking you, I made some dummies of the guns and put them on the section, so I can see how it would look like.....
Off course once more the supervisor came with his complete team
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50c.jpg

50d.jpg

50b.jpg

Based on this, your comments I decided to follow here the chosen gun equipment of the real Bonhomme Richard, means there will be no gun in the lower deck and the gunport lid will be closed. Nevertheless the iron bolts and rings have to be installed at this level.
51f.jpg

51g.jpg

The same after oiling
51d.jpg

51e.jpg
 
and the next hanging knees were prepared

Hello Uwe, Great build and no surprises here, you always strive for clean and historically accurate work. Here is what i think: How much close do you want to build to ANCRE plans? Will you incorporate the metal knees or use provided with kit? Personally, I would close the lid and show the gun with all the tools next to it (building from scratch?) as a model itself. Method 'A' for my taste, but decision is always yours, thought ;)

Hallo Jim,
I am not a good solder, so I have to get more experience (and tools) in this work, before I even think about making knees out of metal
Therefore here I stick with the kit, even it is historical incorrect....
50e.jpg
 
Excellent work Uwe
As a side note,the French switched to Iron Knees as a result of running out of suitably shaped Oak trees to cut knees from,keeping the grain running around the corner.

Kind Regards

Nigel
 
Some days ago I realized, that there is an other incorrect technical detail in the kit design (compared to Jean Boudriot), the partners of the main mast

The kit is showing these carlings between the deck-beams around the mast (parts 309 and 310)

the kit drawing (so called deck 2 in the kit)
53e.jpg

and the kit view
IMG_5686.JPG

For the lower deck I already cut some notches to take over these carlings, for the upper deck not
50f.jpg

and the same in the kit drawing (so called deck 1)
53g.jpg

and now the drawings from Jean Boudriot showing the same details
53d.jpg

for "deck 2" - no carlings are shown
53c.jpg

for deck "1" - here carlings are shown
53f.jpg

So I checked the detail of the partners of the masts in other publications and found some information in the 74-Gun books from Jean Boudriot
53a.jpg

This made it now clear for me, that the french did not use everytime carlings as partners, but used thicker wooden elements, which were able to take over the forces from the mast and transfered these forces to the deck beams

So I had to revise this detail and made the partners out of 3mm thick planking, which will be on top of the beams (in reality they were even thicker, but this will be not visible at the end)
On the right side the laser cut part (half of it) from the kit - on the left the 3mm planks ready to be connected (glued together), the whole for the mast is roughly prepared, the four holes for the pumps have still to be done
51c.jpg

51b.jpg

finetuned
51a.jpg

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51l.jpg

and the complete in place
51j.jpg

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The next working step are the pumps, which I have also to change - will follow in short time...... Many Thanks for the interest
 

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I realized, that the pumps of the kit have a too small dimension, compared to the prepared holes in the "original" partners, but also compared to the Boudriot drawings, so I started to scratch the pumps, which will be my new task for the next days

the laying pump on the left side is the original one from the kit which is much smaller than the prepared holes in the partner - on the right side you can see one started pump wiith the correct dimensions
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52b.jpg

and in the following photos some views, how much the pumps will be visible later on.
54a.jpg

54b.jpg

54c.jpg

Hope to make some better photos in the near future......

Here only an additional view inside of a storage room - a nice view, so therefore I wanted to share with you (has nothing to do with the pumps)
54d.jpg

Many Thanks for your interest ......
 
Luckily your supervisors are looking like paper tigers, so you will get away with the errors in the kit.
Great build, Uwe.
 
The installed second store room

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A little bit closer look on each side

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and the view from the other side
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some nice closer views - a little bit like from seamen eyes
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Unfortunately with these close-up photos you can see every grain of dust ;)

afterwards I dry-fitted the next elements of the deck with some fine-tuning that everything fits well for the next gluing session
View attachment 139373

Many Thanks for the interest ..... to be continued ......
Might I ask as a novice why the partial walls on the store room? those with staggered lengths on side? What was reason to have full wall on one end and not the other.
 
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