Victory Has a New Home

 Done and delivered. I let Carl do all the ship handling, because that made me nervous.  He had to extract her from the industrial grade shipping case in the garage and bring her in without hitting anything.  He succeeded, but I was very glad it was him doing it and not me.

Blurry picture, probably because I was shaking.  That's a big ass ship.

In her new home.  All four plexiglass panels are removable by turning the locks on the top.

And then I went camping!

On legs

Definitely getting there. 

Got the legs done today.  Next I need to assemble the doors and cut the roof and floor boards, then take everything apart, sand, stain, and varnish.

Starting the legs

Test fitting

Adding the outer door stops

Gluing up the first leg. Reinforced strapping tape followed by a mess o' clamps.

Wrong ship!

After I've been calling this a Constitution case all this time, Bruce finally had the heart to inform me that it will be the new home of HMS Victory, not Constitution.

Blog title and picture are hereby corrected. Apologies to Lord Nelson.

Here's a shot of the actual ship, complete with proper colors and authentic copper bottom.

The case is under construction

As I work on the case, I'll occasionally post pictures.  Add your email in the box on the right if you'd like to be notified when I post updates.

First, lots of drawings

 

 

Including 3D drawings.  These are just for me, to work out the construction.

And lots of color samples

A new dead flat surface for the workbench

The workbench is leveled using these big corner bolts

The sub-base

Fitting the second layer

For stability, the columns are laminated by clamping to the true bench surface.

The columns, trimmed, tenoned, and detailed.  Each will have a threaded rod running through it.

Top frame in two layers

Jig for precise leg placement