Deck Details - Knight Heads and Railings

Knight Heads

These are 2 pieces which will be placed on the deck and used for rigging related to 2 of the masts.  Liek the kevels, the kit came with metal castings that could be used for these, but I decided to try my hand at making wooden ones instead.

After drilling 4 holes in each one, I cut them to length.  There are supposed to be 6 holes, but I couldn't drill that many without breaking the wood.  Plus, the metal castings that were included with the kit didn't have the full 6 holes either... they only had a couple, and they didn't even look lined up...

I next created little notches running between the holes and coloured them black with an archival pen.  I also created a notch around the tops and smoothed the edges a bit:

Some pieces ready to be stained:

Painting some eyebolts and cleats:

 

 

Putting it all together:

 

 

One of the knight heads attached to the deck.  The bottom of each one was angled slightly (based on the plans) so that when they are attached they will be slightly tilted towards the stern of the ship.  When the masts are finally attached, they will have the same angle - the one in the picture is just sitting in the hole at the moment.

Railings

Both the Poop Deck and Quarter Deck need railings (you can actually see the Poop Deck railing in the above photo).

The railing for the Poop Deck is actually fairly straight-forward - 3 uprights (stained Plantation Walnut) and a railing (painted white):

 

 Test fitting the pieces:

Gluing the uprights in place (I really need a way to ensure they are straighter...):

 

 

In the above picture, I actually had the railing too high, so I detached it, trimmed it a bit and re-added it (still not straight!!  Arrghh!):

 

The Quarter Deck railing was slightly more complicated, as it has a belfry in the centre.

The railings and centre crossbeams were intentionally cut wider than needed - they'll be cut to the appropriate size once I start assembling it.

Also, one of the crossbeams has a small hole drilled in it - an eyebolt was attached to the bell, then the extra was trimmed off so that it would fit through the hole and the bell would hang down slightly.

Once everything was stained, it was time to put it all together.  The belfry was mostly created off the ship, so I was able to get it fairly straight.  The tops of the 2 side pieces are actually cut at an angle, which will be used for the roof.

 

The belfry and all of the uprights attached to the deck (I still need to work on getting things straighter...)

 

 

The railings attached:

 

The roof added to the belfry:

 

Almost completed - the last thing I did, which I forgot to take a picture of, was add a little strip across the top of the roof.  There was a little gap where the 2 sides came together, which the strip covers up.