A Cutting-out Expedition

Work's begun!

The Royal Navy made up some kits in Chatham to be sent to Kingston during the War in 1812. They got as far as Montreal before the Admiralty went "screw it" and sold them, but the plans reached Kingston and one of them was built. Sort of. The frigates were designed with 32 guns, the plans have 42, and the only one ever built had 56.

Psyche was built, and I intended to build her sister, Prompte. But, knowing I would not be able to make things exactly accurate, I intended to build my own ship. Based of the plans for the Psyche and Prompte, thus, the Psyche-class, I decided to call my ship Expeditious, to honour the real ship, and also because it sounded painfully British.

The first step was scaling. Boy. I hate math.

The instructions I'm sort of following are for 1/1200th scale, but I decided to build in 1/600th.  After a lot of "what the hells" I got it things figured out and printed off plans.

Then came the cutting. As the instructions were for 1/1200th and I was doing 1/600th, I upsized from 1/16 inch balsa to 1/8th inch. Rather than glue the plans to the wood I simply traced, figuring that would save some paper for later, if I need the plans for any reason.

Can anyone spot the mistake yet?

Quite pleased with myself I then set about gluing and clamping the decks. I didn't worry too much about any roughness, since I knew I'd be sanding, anyway.

Once the glue was hard enough I removed the clamp, very pleased with my work so far. Until I realize I forgot to cut out a piece! And with wood glue in there, I'd never be able to carve it out.

So I made a another ship!

Whoops!

Initially I figured I'd used the botched one simply for practice, but then I realize that, for Psyche to have carried 56 guns (even if half of them were carronades), she had to have been converted into a two-decker - and likely a flush-decked ship, at that. Even if she wasn't actually, mine could be, and that was enough justification to not scrap it.

Ah but then I've a second ship, so what to call it? Well, I would have liked something Greek, but I wanted it to start with an e, so I went with Essence. Sort of close to Psyche... in a way.

The next step, carried out the following day after the glue had fully cured was simple sanding.

I may have messed up the proper lines a little during this step but hey, they're fictitious ships anyway! After the sanding, I was going to try and follow the instructions and print out the side profile to stick on, but frankly, getting it small enough while still being visible enough was going to be too much work for too little reward, so I just experimented with paper strips and white glue for a while until something came together.

The crinkly paper on Expeditious's port side looks bothersome, but it dries straight. The tips need trimming once dry, as well.

This deprives me of exact locations for gunports and the like, but I'll figure that out when I come to it.

I also spent some time today on the masts. Again, I had to deviate from the instructions, since I couldn't be bothered with music wire, and decided I didn't much mind if each section was the same width. Ergo, toothpicks.

Everything's curing now, and I'll get back to the hulls tomorrow. As well as figure out if the masts are hilariously too tall or not. I suspect they are.