Coppering Bellerophon -7

by John

I never imagined that coppering the hull of my HMS Bellerophon model would run to SEVEN posts! Well here is number 7, and I imagine that there will be another one or two after this one.

Yesterday I started laying the embossed copper strips, starting at the keel.

But after applying 2 strips on the starboard side I decided that I would then apply the matching strips on the port side.

But that involved changing the embossing wheel on the jig. Doesn’t sound like much, but it does involve some mental gymnastics and could foresee that if I made a habit of changing sides every few strips, eventually I would stuff up the setup.

So, I stopped, and printed another jig. So now there is one jig for port and another for starboard. And in the process I made some improvements to the designs for the new jig, and then had to make the same improvements for the other one. All in all, it took about a full day.

But after lunch today I made and applied 5 strips on each side. And touch wood, it all went pretty well….

The first 2 strips on each side were the most difficult, and I do admit to scrapping a few strips. The next 3 on each side went on much more quickly, but then I lost the light, so stopped for the day.

The two embossing jigs, and 10 embossed copper strips applied. From this distance the nail heads and individual plates are not very visible but in some lights they are quite visible. The bottom of the keel was not sheathed in the original, because it had a separate rubbing strip, a wear item. It did have closely spaced copper nails in the wood to discourage the teredo worm.
This is the appearance I was aiming for. The copper is rather shiny, but I expect that it will dull and tarnish in time. Meanwhile I rather like the shiny bling.