thibaultron

Hard work but the results look terrific 
alan

Work on the flagstone walk has slowly made progress. I set my inexpensive mixer up and modified a broken wheelbarrow, so it would set under the mixer and not require my wife to hold the handles up on it while I dumped it.
 

 
Then I just drug it over a few feet to the molds.
 

 
They turned out pretty good. I’ve gotten better at not getting it too wet or too dry. In the sunlight they still look like concrete. Nature will stain them like it does everything else around the yard.
 

 
But the moonlight really shows the texture. 
 

 
I’ve been at it for 14 days of mixing an eighty pound bag per day. That fills all six stones and a bit left over. I use it just to patch pour a round stone that I’m sure I can find a place that could use one:-)
At first the stones were challenging to fit together. They just came in a box with zero paper work or diagram. So here’s where I started.
 

 
To push them up closer to the deck I used a straight edge to see where that middle stone needed removed. On my next pour I pushed wood strips in the cement where I needed it cut.

 
I think I may have 12 more days to mix. What I’m dreading is, having to remove them all, to semi level the ground. I didn’t do it to start with because I really had no idea where it was going to lead. After about 5 days worth I could visualize the pattern. I may need to move it north or south a little bit to work around those trees where it will stop.

 
 
 
 
 

Im glad to know that Im not the only one! 

I too have a lot of the Ancre books/monographs, even the French language only ones!

Chris: I have a bad (and expensive) habit of buying monograph plans from the French Ancre website https://ancre.fr/en/ . I find the French frigates have amazing lines and design and Ancre crew do a amazing job of transposing the old plans into something a modeler can tackle. I suspect you are already familiar with them but I just wanted to let  you know that there are others that also admire the lines and design of these beautiful ships. 

I love seeing stuff like this, thank you for sharing.

I have a kind of addiction, and it is buying these plans, at times for no other reason than to stare and admire the lines of them for hours on end. I find them fascinating. 

This is one of my latest, it is a particularly beautiful 48th scale plan of the San Josef of 112 guns (reputed to once belong to Emma Hamilton) – and damn do those headrails look nice and simple to transfer into a kit version!
 
In the same tube, I also had an even bigger plan of Caledonia (120 – but rounded upper bow, so probably never do that one), and 2 for the old Roebuck Class 44 gun 2-deckers. Not sure if I shall ever use them, but I would like display all of them one day, if I can ever sell my house and move to somewhere that has the room in my workshop…
 

It's a nice site and seems to have been considerably developed since I visited in 1994. The rea around is also pretty.
 
 

Thank you druxey!
 
Looks to be worth a visit 🙂
 
Here some more links:
https://bucklershard.co.uk/
https://bucklershard.co.uk/shipyard-trust-launches/
https://bucklershard.co.uk/attractions/bucklers-hard-museum/
 
https://bhshipyardtrust.org.uk/  (under construction)
 

Nice!
 
A (very) distant cousin of mine (our last common paternal ancestor born around 1678) was a shipwright at the Hard in the years around 1800, before moving to Parsons new yard in Warsash by 1810. No record tells of who worked on which ship but William K. may have had some hand in building the frigate Euryalus and the 74 Swiftsure, as they were built at the Hard during the years that his children were baptized there.
 
Sadly, I never got to visit the place before leaving England.
 
Trevor

The slipway at Bucklers Hard has been archaeologically excavated and an article on BBC News posted:
 
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c0qll3j0evyo

Thank you very much druxey.
 
I took the orientation from the picts of Victory´s guns, but without this hint the side shift wasn´t to realise for me. Too much black barrel around 😉
 

 
No problem to move to the side. The advantage of printing.
 
So the artefact of the cover in Thorsminde also could be complet? I always guessed that one side broke off. But seen the assymetrical position it could be still intact?

XXXDAn
 

Very  nice, Dafi. However, the guns I've seen that were fitted with locks had their mounting holes offset on the right edge of the pan (the rectangular raised area that the vent hole was bored through) as seen from the breech end. The gunlock was mounted there with two thumbscrews.
 
Early gunlocks were experimented with in the late 1720's by the French and were in general use by the British by the late 1780's (Caruana).

Ok, let's talk about something we guys know more about: ze big guns.

Or at least we think we do.

In the past, model guns were mostly rotational pieces, and only larger-scale models were retrofitted with details such as ignition pans and coats of arms. These were custom-made or complex castings. With the printing the excuse of the effort involved no longer applies. That's why I finally finished the new guns for my Victory.

And here starts a new point of discussion about how to present the guns. Not saying that the classical we usually show is wrong, but as an opener for mind and possibilities. Just to stir things up 😉

The version we usually show is with an exposed touch hole and without a tompion is simply how we know these things from museums and recovered from wrecks long time ago.

But in real seafaring life this appearance was probably rather rare, it was probably mostly different:
There are enough orders, records and wreck finds that describe the guns as most of the times ‘loaded’ during the period of 1800 and before. This also means that the powder charge stored inside the barrel had to be protected from water and moisture. For this purpose, tompions, simple wooden turned parts, were used as plugs at the front. They can be seen in many paintings, mostly white.

The sensitive touch hole also had to be protected. Lead covers were used for this purpose, which protected the touch hole of dirt and, if the gun was equipped with one, the gunlock, and above all protected the hole against fire and sparks.

When the gun was made ready for battle, the tompion was removed as late as possible and the cover of the touch hole was removed also only shortly before the shot was to be fired.

Thus, in real life, there were mainly the following 2 conditions:
- Stowed, lashed down, run out with cover over the touch hole or gunlock and with tompion
- Shortly before firing, without cover over the touch hole or gunlock and without tompion

Here we have the triad of touch hole, gunlock and cover in comparison:

And here are the five gun sizes required for the Victory:
32-pounder medium lower battery deck, 24-pounder medium middle battery deck, 12-pounder long upper battery deck, 12-pounder medium aft, 12-pounder short quarterdeck.


The classic ‘pure’ representation with open touch hole
 
With gun lock. It is worth considering that the tompion could also be set if the enemy is not yet within firing range.
 
And with cover and tompion.


I adapted the colour of the lead covers to the artefacts from Thorsminde. The same applies to the fastening holes. This also results in the rear fastening via the ring, as all other types of fastening would slip off.
The colours of the tompions – natural wood, white, red – are taken from the artefacts and paintings and should, of course, be uniform on the model. The wood-coloured ones were probably the most common, as the tompions were carried as prefabricated spindles in sets of about a dozen and simply sawed off as needed. I doubt that they were painted every time.


Side discussion:
Also this involves in my humble opinion the presentation of the tackles. If stowed it is clear that those have to be properly set to hold the gun, plenty of drawings show this. If ran out but gun secured (Touch hole and muzzle protected) those tackles should be secured too but probably not laying on deck. If ran out for "clear for action“ (touchhole and possibly muzzle protected) the tackles should be open, but secured on the carriage, the free ends in a way that it wont become knotted. And just straight before the shot: no muzzle, gunlock or vent hole open and the tackles be held by the crew.

Is there any place for the nice spirals we like to show, especially with an tackle not made fast? Try this in real life and the guns will run amok at the first wave ...


To sum the theme up, here are two scale pictures of the barrels shown above  🙂
 
Enjoy 🙂

XXXDAn

Back to ship stuff. I finished the master drawing for the King Charles II cypher. This is the last piece for the HMS Tiger cannons I'm doing for a forum member. After I finish those I will complete the Charles II era Commonwealth cannons, to (hopefully) be added to the other cannon files in the Resources Section of the NRG site. The Commonwealth barrels are drawn, I need to add this cypher to the barrels.
 
The depth of the Solid is so I can fit it in the 3D barrels. The 3 different levels of relief with be trimmed parallel to the barrel, and the part sticking inside removed.
 


 
 
 

Back to ship stuff. I finished the master drawing for the King Charles II cypher. This is the last piece for the HMS Tiger cannons I'm doing for a forum member. After I finish those I will complete the Charles II era Commonwealth cannons, to (hopefully) be added to the other cannon files in the Resources Section of the NRG site. The Commonwealth barrels are drawn, I need to add this cypher to the barrels.
 
The depth of the Solid is so I can fit it in the 3D barrels. The 3 different levels of relief with be trimmed parallel to the barrel, and the part sticking inside removed.
 


 
 
 

Hi,
 
I fairly new to this and I am working on the Model Shipways 18th Century Longboat, 1:48. It's a really great little kit 🙂 
I bought some upgraded lines and blocks from Chucks' Syren company and they are absolutely beautiful. Great detail in them. The first line I was rigging was the topping lift for the boom and the line hangs nicely, but there is no load or resistance in the topping lift to force it to be a nice taught line. I looked at a bunch of posts and it seemed like the technique is to make a 50-50 mix of white wood glue and coat the line under a bit of tension. I tried that and it seems like I lost a much of the definition in Chuck's nice ropes and a bit of fuzz was raised up. Have others seen this, and is there a better way to make a line appear to loaded, or even to artificially create some (permanent) sag? I tried to take a photo, but my phone didn't do close ups very well.
 

There is also the fact that all these lines work as part of a system. Where one line is pulling upwards or outwards, an opposite line is pulling downwards or inwards.  You get your tension set up automatically that way. For instance, your boom probably has a sheet line at the end of it that will add a downward pull.
 
Also, if you can arrange it while prepping for your build.  Try adding weight to the parts by incorporating metal inserts or fittings. That might just add enough weight to snug up a line.
 
Regards,
 
Henry

@popeye2sea Good point about the opposing lines... I was thinking I would have the boom vang slack, since it will be off to the side of the tiller, but if I made that taught it would tighten the topping lift. 

Roadless supplied the crawler kit as,(what we would call now, an aftermarket kit for a standard Fordson N tractor.  While some may have been used in farming, I believe the intention was more for industrial applications such as roadwork, logging and the like.
 
Andy

I have no idea, it was just a nice build 

Something that one doesn't see too often, neither as model nor preserved examples. I gather they were too complicated and expensive to maintain by the average farmer. Rubber or steel tyres (as in early ones) were easier on time and budget.
 
In Germany, Lanz also made a tracke version of their Bulldog.
 
Well done - what will you do with it?

Nice!
Will there be a diorama in which this tractor is starring?
 
Jan

Thank you for the feedback.  I looked through your model engineering posts and found them very enjoyable.  The 10V with a disc flywheel and reversing gear is a marine engine, so it seems very relevant.  Forms of beam engines were also used to power ships.  Building model ships and model engines require a similar mindset.  There seems to be much more interest in model engineering on your side of the pond, but fortunately, the internet makes the world feel smaller.
 
My father built the Malek Adhel as a young man and I believe that it had big part in making him patient and detail orientated.  You have to be clever to come up with setups for machining and for model ship building.  The Stuart 5A that I have was primarily built by my father and he intended for it to power a small, full size steam boat.  His 5A was extensively modified, but serious mistakes were made in the redesign and the execution, so he shelved it and passed it along to me.  He wasn’t very hopeful that it would ever run, but after some redesign and a lot of rework and remaking of parts, it is now a complete and running engine, but I have no intention of building a boiler and putting it to work.   
 
Here is a closeup of the 5A marine engine, (like the Malek Adhel, another father to son project).  The Unicorn and Stuart #7 engines were made by me father and the D10 is one that I built.  I still need to make the governor for the Unicorn and the reversing gear for the #7.  That will finish up the joint projects.
 
I hope that you will continue to post your engine and machine builds.
 
 

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