HMS Bellona
Days 1 thru 6
HMS Bellona was a 74 gun British Ship of the Line. It was ordered by the British Admiralty on December 20, 1757 and launched on February 19, 1758, a pretty quickly built ship.1 Bellona was taken out of service, sent to Chatham on February 4, 1814 and broken up in September, 1814.2
The Kit I am building is Corel's. (Box Cover Photo) I am writing a day by day log of my progress. During the narrative, I'm trying to show the part numbers in parentheses although I may miss some.....my apologies.
Day 1 4/4/2004 15:30 to 7:10 (with some stoppages) Actual time 2:40
I began reading the manual, reading through the framework section and skimmed the rest. It's obviously a translation and can be very difficult to follow the phraseology. The planking section was too cryptic without having the parts in front of me for reference. I began tracing the bulkheads onto paper to check for symmetry by folding along the center lines. Several were slightly off. I trimmed the large side of the trace, then matched the paper to the actual part & traced the discrepancies.....5 left to do.
Day 2 4/5/2004 20:35 to 21:35 Time 1:00 Total Build Time 3:40
I completed the symmetry checking and began dry fitting the keel(1), bow fillers(2), and bulkheads(3-15). I immediately ran into a problem with bulkhead #4 which was too tight, needing the keel slot opened up a bit. Several other bulkheads needed the same.
Day 3 4/11/2004 21:05 to 22:45 Time 1:40 Total Build Time 5:20
Having dry fit the parts listed above, I need to add the stern fillers (16), counter timbers(17,18), stern frame(19), main deck(21), poop(22), and foc'sle(23), along with the quarterdeck support(25), stern balcony, and stern wings. The notches on the stern fillers for counter timbers(17) were both off. The starboard one is 5mm(should be 4) and the port is 3mm. I filed down the port toward the keel and shimmed the starboard with planking material left over from Harvey. Port counter timber also required shims for snugness and position.
In dry fitting the bow deck, it appears to need a camber which should have been no surprise. Anyway, I broke off one of the wings that fit into bulkhead#3. I glued it back and will let it set overnight. I got as far as getting the main, poop, and foc'sle decks dryfit. I will probably have to redo the foc'sle in order to do the bow deck once it dries.....hope it's strong enough!
Day 4 4/12/2004 20:00 to 21:20 Time 1:20 Total Build Time 6:40
Continuing the dry fit with the bow deck repaired from last night. I soaked it in water for 10-15 minutes and heated up the plank bender. It fit in place well with the camber....I did the same with the stern balcony(26), then put in the 2 stern wings. The poop was a bit out of kilter camber wise. A bit of water on the surface and heat from the bender did the trick. The quarterdeck support(25) need a bit of trimming on the bottom edges to meet the main deck camber. Oh, I burnt the hell out of my finger on the plank bender!!!!
Day 5 4/15/2004 21:00 to 21:50 Time 0:50 Total Build Time 7:30
Now that I have all this stuff dry fitted, I need to disassemble it and prepare for the permanent assembly. I've marked positions of the frames and fillers. I noticed the camber on the stern balcony is not symmetrical. I'm soaking it in water and heating the plank bender to set this straight.
I'm more than a little worried about the order of assembly. The decks need to go in as the bulkheads are installed so that the tabs will fit. This was difficult enough during the dry fit...with glue, there's no room for experimentation. So, I've glued the bow fillers, holding them in place with bulkheads 3-5(unglued) and a clothespin at the top behind the prow.
Day 6 4/18/2004 09:15 to 10:10 Time 0:55 Total Build Time 8:25
I'm cutting openings for the stern gunports into the stern fillers(26) and gluing to bulkhead15. Although I've searched the SSL list and Mastini's book "Ship Modeling Simplified," I'm still not sure of the best way to construct the gunports. I'll do some more research before I complete an undoable assembly.