Louie da fly

I agree wholeheartedly, Dick. It would be a shame to obscure that beautiful planking, and a black hull wouldn't show that elegant shape off anywhere near as well.

It's always difficult to work out a realistic shape for a ship based almost entirely on contemporary pictures. Did they shorten the thing to fit on the town seals? Almost certainly. But how much? What's a sensible shape for a merchant ship? I know I used to think of carracks as much tubbier than they really were, based mostly on contemporary pictures. It was quite a surprise to find how relatively narrow a "round" ship was.

Starting on the shrouds. Because this is a mediaeval Mediterranean lateener the shrouds are fixed to the hull with pairs of blocks, not deadeyes, and they are attached to the blocks with toggles, for quick release. I've also been working on the belaying points for the tacks. To allow the tacks to be belayed near the lower end of the yard, but also to enable them to be pulled back aft of the mast so the yard could be pulled the behind the mast to the other side I'd originally intended to add modern style "open" fairleads. Mainly because I couldn't think of any other way to do it. But looking at modern lateeners, I found they tended to use a much simpler system for belaying - just a vertical wooden rod, basically. I adapted this for the fairleads,using what amounts to a sort of bollard - put a loop around it and it can act as a fairlead and a belaying point as you choose. You can see them sticking up from the "battlements" just at the after end of the forecastle. And here is the banner still in progress. One side finished: And because I put down a coat of white first, I have to paint the other side as well, to cover up the white. A bit of overlap past the outline of the "tails" but that's intentional - this will be cut off when I trim them to shape.

Cathead, I think your post above will be valuable to anyone who takes on - not only this, but also other model kits. One thing I'm particularly impressed by is that you've put the time and effort into working out what went wrong and why - that some of it was the fault of the kit's inadequate instructions and some was your own assumptions - particularly when it doesn't really matter any more because you've already worked out how to remedy it and moved on. But that you've shared this information and your conclusions with all of us is a tremendous boon. It's good that you're now in a position to (once you've fixed it) leave this planking issue behind and carry on with more interesting and enjoyable aspects of the build. Keep up the good work, mate. This is one of the better logs to follow, simply because you are doing this extra work and explanation as you go - we all hit problems, but it's very good when the nature and cause of the problem and how it was overcome are explained.

I stand corrected - I thought you were making her without sails! She looks brilliant without them, anyway, but there's a particular beauty about the shapes of the sails of ships of this period. It must be something to do with the proportions - a beauty that such vessels as clippers just don't have.

I've been enjoying following the progress of the framing in your longboat. Beautiful work - take a bow, sir!

A-a-a-a-h I love it! Just wonderful all this careful work to restore a prized model.

Looking very good.

A very interesting vessel, Kondzik. Looking forward to your progress on this one - I have a weakness for lateeners. But I don't know how you guys manage to make things in card. It all looks too difficult. I take my hat off to you.

I've visited the Victory twice - once in 1973 and once in 2009. I missed the Warrior - we had a choice and decided on the "harbour cruise" - a mistake in retrospect. And the Mary Rose had just been locked away while they built a new building to display her in. But they compensated by displaying an enormous number of artefacts found on board, so we didn't miss out completely. The redback is pretty much equivalent to the black widow - apparently a variant of the same species. The red mark varies from individual to individual - sometimes it's not very obvious. They're pretty tiny - about the size of the pic above. We see them a fair bit. They like to hide in dark crannies - there's an old song called Redback on the Toilet Seat. I had a mate who woke up with redback bites all over his stomach (it'd been in his bed and must have panicked). He got sick but survived ok. But apparently you can die from anaphylaxis - the poison is more powerful than that of the funnelweb, but doesn't act as fast - 15 minutes for a funnelweb. Then there's the white-tip, whose bite makes your flesh rot, though recent information suggests that's not true after all . . . You sure you want to come here?

Hi Jerry and welcome. You can probably best find an answer to your question by asking it here: https://modelshipworld.com/forum/16-masting-rigging-and-sails/ Make sure you start a build log when you begin your schooner - it's a very good way to get help and advice, and we get to see another beautiful model in progress. Instructions on how to start your build log are here: I hope you get your question answered. Are you holding off completing the model till it's answered, or is it just one of those things "Yeah, but why . . .?)

Wa-a-a-a-ay outside my comfort zone (anything not powered by the wind is an Instrument of the Devil ), but I'm sure someone will be able to help. Starting a build log is certainly the way to go to get help and advice - and encouragement.The instructions are here. Welcome to MSW. That's a nice build you've got there.

Thanks, Druxey. I'll have to check this stuff out. Never heard of it before.

There are pros and cons for both. Naturally staining/painting everything beforehand means don't miss any corners, and you don't get the problem that blobs of glue resist the stain. But I believe there can be problems with adhesion of glue over stain or paint. I normally construct and glue, and then paint - but that's just me - most of the time. And I don't use stain.

Beautiful work as usual, Dick. Good to see work on this hasn't been snarked by the incredible hulc.

This is a beautiful build. Nice to see so many mediaeval craft getting built, and it makes a nice change from the ubiquitous Viking ships (much though I like them, a bit of variety is a good thing). As far as minor errors in alignment go, they certainly don't leap out at you - it's a very good looking model. Not sure I'd want to try working in card- I think wood is a lot more forgiving. Actually, no. Contemporary pictures of cogs quite often show them as quite light colour, suggestive of pine: Though others are somewhat darker:

This is so good. Having just hand-carved 48 mediaeval Byzantine oarsmen (nobody makes and sells these!) for my 1:50 scale dromon out of pear wood, I could have done with this technology. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy carving, but that was rather more than I'd been wanting to do . . .

That's really fascinating, Dick. I suppose there's no good reason not to have reverse clinker, unless it caused structural problems somehow. It would be interesting to know what happens at the transition between reverse clinker and the rest.

Thank you George. It's always been an area of uncertainty for me. I normally bypass the problem by writing dromons, but there's always that niggling doubt that I'm doing the right thing with it . . . I learnt Ancient Greek for a year about 20 years ago, with the idea of using it to read Byzantine manuscripts. I enjoyed it very much and I wish I'd been able to go on but life got in the way, so I never had a chance to get back to it. I got to use it only once - I was in Athens at the base of the acropolis. There was a tiny church there made of bits of marble and discarded stone. I asked a workman "What church is that?" (τις εκκλησίας? - Ancient Greek, remember) and he answered Άγιος Γεώργιος (Saint George). Big triumph for me - actually got to have a conversation (no matter how short) in Greek! There's been movement at the station. I've attached the sails with robands and furled them - the after sail completely furled and the foresail in the process of being unfurled. Topmen dry fitted. And here they are in place. The fore halyard is pretty much done and the truss which holds the yard to the mast is in place. (I tried this out a couple of months ago to see if I could do it and had a lot of trouble -it all seemed so complicated. But I must have absorbed the information because this time it was quite easy.) I still need to do more work on the after yard. Here's the fore yard, with the topmen undoing the gaskets. It's occurred to me that it would probably be good policy to undo the central gaskets first, to get access to the sheet - so it didn't fly around out of control when the whole sail was unfurled. And the after yard in the process of being hoisted. When the model is displayed that's how it will be, with the yard halfway up the mast and the other guys I carved hauling on the halyard. Still quite a lot to do. I have to work out the belaying for the tacks - it looks like they need to pass through an "open" fairlead a fair way in front of the mast (to control the front end of the yard in normal sailing conditions) and lead to a ringbolt or something aft of the mast, so the yard can be pulled back far enough to pass behind the mast when tacking. I also have to do the vangs at the other end of the yard and work out where to belay them. I know standing rigging usually goes up first, but I'm leaving the shrouds till after all this is done - I think that will make the work easier, so they don't get in the way while I'm working on the rigging for the yards. And I've started making the new (cloth) banner to replace the metal foil one that self-destructed a few months ago. After my experience with cutting out the sails, this time I taped the fabric to a bit of board before I started. I'll cut it to shape after I've finished painting. I'm using acrylics, which worked well when I made the awning for the poop. I first painted the whole thing with white acrylic so it wouldn't "bleed", and I was pleasantly surprised to find the pencil marks still showed up, I've done two coats of pink and one of blue and of white. I'll add another blue coat and go over the white border and cross again. Then I'll do the red for the other "tails". I'm hoping after all that it won't be too stiff to put a "wave" in it so it looks like it's fluttering.

True, but obviously not impossible, as the black and white photo above shows. Anchor cables, yes. Nippers? I doubt it, but how they did raise the anchor I don't really know. I've put a windlass on the foredeck just aft of the forecastle (pseudopation), but I've no idea how that would all work. Anchors of the time were not very heavy - the ones recovered from the approximately contemporary Serce Limani wreck weighed between 47 and 67 kg. The Serce Limani ship was a merchantman about 15metres long - about half the length of the dromon, but perhaps approaching its overall weight as a dromon had to be very lightly built so the oarsmen could actually get it to move. You could be right, though my guys don't really fit that description . . . Still, it gives me an excuse not to empty those oarbenches. (Dromai, I think, but I'm not sure. The second "o" of the word dromon is the long "o" - omega, not the short "o" - omicron, which indicates the word is "running" rather than "runner". So the usual rules for making plural nouns, (where the plural would be dromoi) presumably don't apply. Perhaps more information than you needed.). No information on brailing. There are very few contemporary representations of dromai under sail and they are so oversimplified that I'm pathetically grateful they even show shrouds - they don't show tacks, vangs or sheets so it's probably asking a bit much to expect them to show brails . . .

I agree.

This is such beautiful work. And that's just the planning for the model . . .

That conjures up a mental picture that will give me bad dreams for weeks . . . Are you thinking what I'm thinking B One? I think so B Two . . .

Hi Ron, Just found your build. No posts since June, though. How's it all going? Going well, I hope.

Gazzarian, that Drakkar is not too bad at all, though I do wonder about that mark on the front of the sail - is that one of the bloodstains? You might like to have a look at this when choosing your next build - these have been vouched for as suitable for beginners, and shouldn't cause too much pulling of hair. In some ways it's therapeutic to make all these mistakes when starting out - it brings a certain measure of humility and patience (don't ask me how I know), and the realisation that sometimes the instructions are actually worth following, at least some of them. To be honest, the clinker planking on the drakkar involves a fair bit of difficulty in its own right. The fact that you got it reasonably right is a credit to you, particularly with the less than adequate instructions. When you start your next build make sure you start a build log as well - it will give you access to the help, advice and encouragement of this amazing group of people. And occasionally commiseration when an error occurs that can't be remedied in any way (and though most mistakes can be fixed - wood is a very forgiving medium - they do happen once in a while and you just have to put it down to experience and resolve never to repeat that particular mistake.) And every model you make will be better than the previous one. The members here are of all levels of skill, from total beginners to those who are demigods of ship modelling, and everything in between. And the demigods were once beginners themselves and probably made some pretty ghastly mistakes when starting out. Just keep at it and have fun with your modelling - that's the whole reason we do this stuff.