johnsmachines

machines which I have made, am making, or intend to make, and some other stuff. If you find this site interesting, please leave a comment. I read every comment and respond to most. n.b. There is a list of my first 800 posts in my post of 17 June 2021, titled "800 Posts"
February 16, 2026

HMS Bellerophon model -2, and a bench saw on the way.

I flagged this next project a few posts before I ran out of storage space on my WordPress johnsmachines.com site.

Since I have now created 1gB of storage space by deleting 2.5 years of posts and media 2014-2016 I am able to recommence posting current stuff. I have saved those posts on my own computer, but regrettably they are not able to be shared.

I plan to make the model ship from scratch, i.e. not using a kit or bought parts,as far as possible. However I will be using plans of HMS Vanguard, which was almost identical to Bellerophon, except for decorations, figurehead and name. Both ships had distinguished careers which I will address in a future post.

Bellerophon was a 3rd rate Ship of the Line. It had 74 guns, a crew of 550, and being a ship of the line was considered suitable for fleet actions, such as the Battle of the Nile and Trafalgar. It was a very effective battle ship, heavily armed, very strongly built, and reasonably fast. A frigate, even a heavy frigate such as Constitution, would probably have come off second best against a ship like Bellerophon. The 74’s were the commonest naval ship produced by Britain and Framce because of their effectiveness, and reasonable cost of building and operation.

The plans were loaned to me by a friend who had built Vanguard. I had the plans scanned and copied, and decided to get the structural parts of the hull commercially cut using a laser. Unfortunately there was a complication.

The plans were centered around those structural parts being 5mm thick. Despite extensive searching I could find NO suppliers of reasonable quality 5mm plywood.

So I spent quite a few days modifying the plans to use 6mm plywood. That involved widening the slots to 6mm, and trying to forsee any consequences. Undoubtedly there will be unforeseen consequences, which I will detail as I progress. I did consider building an “Admiralty” style model but wanted a planked model, with masts, rigging etc, so settled for a bulkhead/keel type model.

Then a few days ago I collected the laser cut parts from JR Laser, North Geelong.

This is about half of the parts. The quality of the laser cutting is only fair. The shapes are good but there is a lot of charring in the cuts, and it extends onto the ply surface. Fortunately none of the plywood will be visible on the finished model. But I am concerned that the charcoal might interfere with the gluing process. I will experiment with some non critical glue joins before deciding which glue method to use. At this stage I am thinking PVA.

The steel ruler is 500mm long which gives an indication of the model size.

I specified marine ply as the ply type.

Also, I am currently building a Byrnes style bench saw. It is progressing well, but awaiting parts from OS. I am using some elements of the Byrnes saw, but have made the table longer, and situated the motor in the box instead of behind it. The box is made from 16mm thick alu, and the table is 12mm thick alu. The motor is a 750w AC servo, with speed and direction control.

This is a simplified drawing. Not shown are the blade height adjustment, drive belt, and control unit. Accessories will be designed later. It is built to this stage at this time.

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February 16, 2026

Johnsmachines.com Returning Soon

The thought of losing 1025 posts which are a diary of important aspects of my life, was just too awful to contemplate.

So WordPress has me by a sensitive part of my anatomy. I have paid my subscription for another year.

I have made a painful decision to delete posts year by year, starting 2014, until I have enough storage space to start posting again.

But before I delete anything I am going to save the text and photographs of the posts, starting with 2014.

NO BIG DEAL YOU THINK.

WordPress makes a big feature of how easy it is to save old posts. But I have tried it, and it is not straight forward. Maybe it is easier on the Business Plan, but on my “Premium Plan” I have tied multiple times to save the 2014 posts and photos without success. I contacted the WordPress AI for assistance.

Easy it said. Just go to Tools – Export – download – unzip the file – open the file and Bob’s your uncle.

Well, 3 days later I gave up, despite the instructions from the AI. It was incredibly complicated, messy, and the downloaded files was full of useless meta data. All that I wanted was my text, comments, and the photos. The videos has been deleted several years ago.

Eventually I said to the AI “why cant I just save the posts as PDF files?” Of course you can do that said the AI. How do I do that?

“Just open the post, right click on it, and press control P. Then save it as a PDF”.

(well, why the F didn’t you say that in the first place!!)

So, I have saved and deleted the first 1+ years of posts and photos, and I am no longer getting rude messages from WordPress about exceeding my storage limits. 2014 posts gone (but saved to my own computer), 2015 going, and probably 2016 as well.

So johnsmachines.com gets another reprieve.

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