thibaultron

My father unexpectedly passed away late last year. He was working on a Model Shipways wood model of the USS Constitution, maybe 70-80% complete (photos below). Complications from his condition led to him accidentally dropping it, damaging the prow. So, the model (in Dallas, Texas) needs some repair in addition to overall completion.  
 
I don’t have the ability to take on this repair/completion project, but was hoping to find someone who might be willing to do so. The project, as you might imagine, is a sentimental one. I’d like to see the model completed in his memory. Any leads would be much appreciated, and I’m happy to visit to offer more information, discuss, etc. Thanks for your time. 
 

The cannonballs are ready. I made them out of aerated concrete. The photo shows how the process went. A block was sawn out and touched up with a box cutter. The bullet had to fit exactly in a mold that has the diameter of the barrel. Then I filled the holes in the concrete with a filler and they were painted in the right color.




Next to the cannon there will be a wooden tray with six cannonballs in it. To prevent anyone from taking them, they are screwed into the bottom of the box from the bottom. Attached to the barge is a chain that will soon be attached to the cannon so that no one can take the barge in its entirety.
In reality, such a granite bullet would weigh about 500 grams.
The carpenter is still working on the wooden carriage. We are waiting for a few parts that a local blacksmith is making.

 
 
 

5
 
The gun carriage is made in a carpenter’s workshop.  The medieval Dutch name was "lade" (drawer). It is carved out of an oak tree trunk. The barrel is then placed in a semi-circular floor in which the spaces for the rings are also saved. That way, the barrel couldn't move on a shot, the rings stopped it. As can be seen on many old depictions and also on the recovered cannons of the Mary Rose, the barrel was tied to the carriage with rope. In this way, the gun could be taken apart and transported on a campaign. The wheels could also be removed.
Behind the breech the wedges. In this way, the breech could be clamped into the back of the barrel.


 
The carpenter warned me that the carriage would be very heavy. I did the math and indeed it would weigh about 650 kilos. Too heavy to carry him up the stairs in the tower to the place where he will stand. We decided that he would cut the carriage in the lenget into two parts. That sounds crazy, but I can imagine that this was also done in the 15th century to facilitate transport. The two parts are then attached to each other by large bolts fitted with wedges.
 
Behind the wedges a white ball, that's the cannonball. I carved it out of a slab of aerated concrete. In reality, it was natural granite or something like that. The ball still has to be provided with the correct color. In granite, the bullet would weigh about 500 grams, so a pound.

Constant

As an American myself, I can confidently say that everyone behaves better than American kids. 

4
 
The Burgundian Tower in Zutphen, the final residence for the cannon. It was built in 1457 because of the threat of war by the Burgundian Empire. The building has the floor plan of a horseshoe with a maximum wall thickness of four meters. In that wall there are three gun emplacements on the ground floor and five on the first floor. Below were heavier cannons.
This cannon will be placed on the first floor in one of the gun emplacements. Not all gun emplacements had cannons. In the event of a threat, the cannons could easily be moved inside the building.

This also must have happened to the cannons on ships. The many gun ports on Willem Barentz's ship will not all have been equipped with cannons. If you have 14 openings and there are 16 people on that ship, it's already clear
 
 
A gun gate of the first floor.

The gun emplacement for the cannon I am building.

The floor plan of the floor, with the five configurations. This cannon will soon be placed in place A. After the renovation, that place will be accessible by stairs, the others will not. The museum is scheduled to be completed by July 13 of this year.
plattegrond.tif
plattegrond.tif

I do not know if Dutch kids better behave then American kids, but that is the risk one has to take who build a Cannon.
Constant

Nicely textured and colored!

An interesting project, well done!
 
Since this will be on public display just hope that kids don’t sneak in and try to shoot this thing!😀😀  But then Dutch kids are probably better behaved then American ones.
 
Roger

One thing that is very important to me is to be able to adjust the height of the arm rests to the same level as the desk top. My forearm can rest on the arm rest and my wrist on the desk top.
 
The arm rest height must be adjustable relative to the seat height. Many/most office chairs have fixed arm rests.

Your printing is thoroughly excellent Mike 
alan

I worked on the rear section adding details.

In this interesting picture you can see the natural wear of the deck color along with some rust.
 

Finally I managed to print some life rings with tripod base and rope

Man Ive wanted one of these for awhile, but could never justify it to the family...   jealous!  Following along!

that would look great on my deck, but bit pricey for me

Onto the final leg of building the turbofan. 
 
The intermediate casing is now used and fitted with the parts I've just built, as well as inserting a secondary drive shaft through the casting, to the outside, where a gear is installed. 
 


 
 
The sealing plate is now attached, as well as the brackets which will hold the tie rods.

 
 
After fitting its bearing unit, the casing is connected to the forward low pressure casing unit.


 
....followed by the high pressure stator case.

 
The next in line to be fitted to the engine is the combustion chamber.

 
The high pressure turbine is now interred. 


 
 
The anterior vertebrae is now fitted to the back end of the combustion chamber, followed by the cone and the tail nozzle.



 
 
This grand looking engine now needs to be fitted to the test cradle so that it's easier to work on. 

 
 
The electric motor drive unit is now fitted to the low pressure fan casing and some model grade used for lubing the gears.


 
The ties and some other external engine details are now fitted to the engine.






And she is now complete!
 
 
 
I really have to say that this has been a blast to build and despite the high price of the unit, you are left with an extremely heavy and beautiful replica of a turbofan that you can power up and see working. This has taken me a week of evenings to build, and part of a weekend, only broken up by waiting on some replacement parts which came very quickly from China. Would I recommend it? Absolutely! If your budget can stretch to this behemoth, then she will look great on your office desk or cabinet. 
 
Here she is, working...
 
 

I use an old Steelcase that I acquired when my previous company went belly up (27 years ago).   It's not a perfect chair, but I've spent many happy hours in it (most of them *after* the chair came into my shop).   Used office furniture stores can be good sources for chairs that are still in excellent condition.
 
Bob

Darius, I can one falling asleep in a chair like that. Especially when one can recline the backrest to that extent. 

I have one of these ,(the earlier version Anda Seat AD12XL-03 Gaming Chair XL) ,but it's the same chair - It's on the expensive side but I've got a shot spine and on the larger size so it was worth the investment!
It's my computer chair and modelling chair in one seeing i do my modelling at my computer desk😎 ,and it has got to be one one of the most comfortable chairs ive ever owned ,(fallen asleep a few times in it😏🤣) ,5 years and the only thing wrong is a small split on the front of the seat!
https://www.andaseat.ca/products/dark-knight-gaming-chair

I can now look at assembling some of this heavy metal, as well as looking at how it'll be powered and displayed.
 
A substantial electric motor is hidden in plain view on this model, in the ancillary equipment which sits on the outside of the low pressure housing. Here you see the motor being fitted into that. You'll see the gearing too. I do pack this out with some model grease which isn't shown in the photos as it's fairly gunky.
 








One thing that doesn't need to be assembled is the control unit. This is a self-contained unit which has a shiny button on the left for engine sound, and a toggle on the right for simple engine on/off. In the middle is the working throttle. This is connected to the unit I just built to test that all is working. I left this for a minute or two to properly bed in.

The engine test cradle is now put together and the control unit bolted into position.




 
The engine needs to be built up before it can be mounted. The forward low pressure rings are now bolted together with a mix of both locking nuts and regular nuts with thread-lock applied.

 
 
Enter the large low pressure fan I built at the beginning. This is now slid into position and a high pressure rotor bolted into place from the rear.


 
More rotors now slid into position.


 
 
The electric motor needs to have a gearing system in place which turns the rotation through 90 degrees towards the main fan shaft. This little unit is now built and greased and then inserted into the intermediate green casing which will be seen in the next and last update.


...to be continued.

Cleats are located outside both quarter blocks.  The length of the cleat is 125% the diameter of the yard.  The easiest way to make two identical cleats is to glue two pieces of the correct width wood together with PVA.  Shape them and then dissolve the bond in isopropanol.  The cleats were glued to the yard outside the quarter blocks. 
 
 
There are three more blocks on each side of the yard: two buntline and one clueline.  These are  single blocks and are stropped just as was done with the quarter blocks except the strops are not served.  I used 3 mm single blocks for them.  Because these strops are not served, it was easier to make an eye-splice on each end to form the loops, just as was done for the futtock shrouds (minus the thimble).  As with the other blocks, the strop seizing is on the fore side of the yard.  The buntline blocks point skyward and the clueline blocks downward, as seen below.

I have temporarily inserted the pin connecting the mast and yard.  The pin passes between the turns of the double strop of the jeer block.

For anybody interested, the kit is now available through the NRG store.  https://thenrgstore.org/collections/plans-and-projects/products/masting-and-rigging-kit
 
The jeers are the pulley system used to raise and lower the lower yard.  This ship has three jeer blocks, one attached to the lower yard and two others suspended by strops from the masthead.  These blocks are not included in the kit.  They are large enough that they are not difficult to make.  The jeer tye runs through the blocks.  The tye is a 6” rope with a scale diameter of 0.04”; the opening for the sheave is just large enough to allow the rope to run through it.
 
Look at the block proportion drawing.  The sheave opening width is “1” on the drawing.  The length of the block is 8, the width is 4, and the breadth is 6.  The sheave opening length is 5.5 times the sheave opening width.  It is not centered in the block, as shown in the drawing.  The jeer blocks have a double strop, so the blocks will need two grooves on their sides instead of just one.

 
To make the three blocks, I took a piece of boxwood a little larger than required and sanded the sides to the correct width and breadth.  Sanding instead of sawing prevented any burn marks on the wood.  The tops and bottoms of the three blocks, the sheave opening and the strop grooves were drawn onto the wood.  A  space was left between the blocks to make shaping the bottom of the blocks easier.  These blocks will have a false sheave and the sheave bolt is omitted because it is hidden by the strop.
 
I started with the sheave opening.  A 0.045” opening corresponds to a #57 drill bit.  I drilled the holes for all three blocks at the same time.  I used a drill press but this could be done with a pin vise.  The key is to keep the drill bit exactly at 90 degrees to the wood strip.  If you do not have a drill press, I would suggest drilling shallow holes from each side and having them meet in the middle.  This is what happens if your angle is slightly off and you drill through from one side.

A #11 blade was used to score the block along the pencil lines between the two holes and using a combination of files and #11 blade, the area between the score marks was shaped to simulate the sheave.  Two shallow cuts were made all around both ends of the blocks and halfway between them.  Using a V-shaped chisel, the strop grooves were cut.  The halfway cuts acted as a stop to prevent from cutting into the next block. 
 
With a sanding stick, the upper part of the block was shaped on all four sides.  I removed most of the wood between the saw cuts and start shaping the bottom of the block.  Finally, the block was cut free from the strip and the lower edge was shaped. 
 
The jeer block is located in the center of the yard.  The double strop for the jeer block is made from served 5” rope.  Just like the quarter blocks, the jeer block is not centered on the strop, but at the 1/3 mark.  The strop eyes are located on the fore side of the yard and secured with a seizing.

 
I made a template for the strop from a scrap piece of rope following the instructions below.  It took a few trials to get the correct length.  Once I was satisfied, the strop splice was unglued and the total length required was measured.  The pictures look somewhat crude but consider that the entire strop is less than 1.5” long.  These pictures are enlarged so that you can see the process.  I served a piece of rope, leaving extra unserved rope and serving thread for the splice.  The two ends were untwisted to make the splice.  This was glued and, when dry, served over with the extra serving thread.  Eyes were formed at both ends of the strop.
 
The block was positioned on the strop and seized so that one leg was twice as long as the other.  The splice is on the side of the block, where it will be less noticeable.

 
The arms were wrapped around the yard and the two loops were seized together.  These pictures show both sides of the yard.  The seizing is on the fore side. 
 
 

Mary,
    Many thanks. 

We just activated it in the store a few minutes ago.  We have an initial batch of 25 ready to go.  If they start going fast we will order more parts right away!
 
Mary

The lower yard is specified on the plans as 41.5 feet long, with a centerline diameter of 9.2”.  Just like the mast, the yard is divided into quarters.  There are four quarters on either side of the centerline.  The two center quarters are octagonal and the yard tapers from 9.2” to 7.8” at the end of the second quarter.  Because this is a desktop model, I did not want the yard to extend beyond the side of the hull and made only the middle twenty-five feet.
To make the yard, I started just like the mast, marking the dimensions on all four sides of the dowel.  Because this is such a short piece of wood, a template was not necessary.  The center octagonal section was made first.  Then I wrapped tape around the center quarters to protect them and tapered the outer part of the yards.  Finally, I rounded the tapered portions with sandpaper.  The drawing illustrates the dimensions.

 
A pin was placed in the center point of the yard to secure it to the mast.  The yard sits at the level of the futtock stave so I drilled a corresponding hole in the mast.  You can see the mast hole location in the picture in the previous post, just above the uppermost woolding.
Nine blocks were installed on the yard.  The jeer block is part of a pulley system to raise the yard.  Its configuration changed several times in the eighteenth century and varied with different sized ships.  This configuration is appropriate for a ship smaller than 28 guns in the last quarter of the 18th century.  Quarter blocks carry the topsail sheet falls.  Clew lines run from the corner of the lower sails (the clews) through the clew blocks.  The buntlines raise the foot of the sail for furling and run through the bunt blocks.   

 
The quarter blocks were installed first.  The kit will include 5 mm blocks; mine were slightly larger to be the correct length of 5.2 mm.  These blocks are stropped with served line.  This is my technique.  Serve a piece of line that you think will be the right length; on my model this was 1.6”.  This is running rigging so the serving thread is natural color.  I used Gutterman sewing thread.  Leave a long tail of serving thread on either end.

The first step was to make a loop at one end.  Untwist a short segment of rope next to the end of the serving on one side and cut the untwisted threads at a 45-degree angle to decrease the bulk.  Form a loop, with the untwisted threads laying alongside the served part of the rope.  With the tail of serving thread, wrap the untwisted threads and previously served line.  In actual practice, the untwisted line would be laced into unserved rope and then the service would continue along the loop, terminating at the throat of the loop.  Temporarily seize the block and measure how long the strop should be by wrapping it around the yard.  The loop ends do not meet; a seizing will run between the loops to secure it to the yard.  Make a kink in the rope to mark the spot.  Remove the block and make the second loop the same way.  Measure the length of the finished strop so you know how long to make the strop for the other side.
 
Reinsert the block and secure it with a throat seizing.  The seizing is located on the fore side of the mast and the block hangs below the mast.  This picture incorrectly shows the legs the same length.  Finally, the strop was wrapped around the yard and the two loops were seized together.
 
 

Really well done!!
Rick

Thanks Ian,
i wasn’t sure how those things would work out.