Louie da fly

Agreed.

Thanks for the likes. No - I'm very aware of how far the standard of this model falls below museum quality. Ask me again in another twenty years.

Beautiful job, Jeff. Not only the paint job under the waterline (which looks really good to me), but the rest of the hull as well. A seriously attractive model.

That's beautiful crisp work, Peter. She's really starting to look like a ship. As far as motivation goes, little steps. Just do a bit as you find the time (and motivation). We're all our own worst critics, but from where I sit that's a very cool and beautiful model, and getting better all the time.

Wonderful work, Hellmuht. The sewing gives it a completely different look from most models.

Another three oarsmen complete and two more started. When I began I put the first few oarsmen in place somewhere amidships and worked both forward and aft from there, so I was able to add four new oarsmen each time - two (one each side) towards the bow of those already in place, and two aft. But now I've filled all the forward benches right up to the bow, so the only empty benches are towards the stern. So I can only add two oars and oarsmen each time. But on the bright side, there are now only 6 left to do (sigh) including the two aftermost guys who don't have their arms yet. In between times I've got back onto adding the ropes which hold the oars to the tholes - it's a tholeless task. Here are the larboard ones with a dab of glue holding each rope to its thole. I got a bright idea of how to pull the rope into its correct position across the oar, without having to sit like a twit holding each rope in turn while the glue dried. Whack a peg on the end, pull the rope taut and hang the peg from something convenient, so its weight keeps the rope taut and in position, and add another dab of glue to hold the rope to the oar at that point. And then once that's done, loop the rope right around the oar and repeat the process. Once all that's done I'll trim the hanging ends of the rope so it just looks like a loop around the thole and oar. I can only do a few at a time because the pegs get in each other's way. But once one set is done and glued in place, I can move on and do another set. Six more to go. I'm looking forward to it all being finished!

Hi Pchem, and welcome to MSW. I'm looking forward to seeing your Lynx build log.

Good to see you've started your build log, Paul. Mind if I pull up a chair? Looks like an interesting one. I've come close . . . I just - walk away . . . come back when I've calmed down . . .

That's a thought, Mark, but I really don't think this chest was intended as a seat for rowing, given its contents. Also the sloped face is the front - i.e. the one you face when you open the chest. If anything, that would mean the guy behind the oarsman would be the one who'd be able to open it . . . My belief is that this is such a highly decorated chest it probably did belong to Queen Asa, as KrisWood suggests. And as it was a burial, there would have been no reason for the oarsmen to leave them on board. It's thought one of the bodies was a maidservant sacrificed to accompany the Queen on her journey to the afterlife. But it would have been wasteful (and probably unpopular) to sacrifice the crew (and their chests) as well . . .

Christos, I agree with your interpretation for both the reasons you mention - firstly, that the red would be more visible if it was high up; second, that, as you say, Homer's word μίλτοπάρηοι relates to the upper part of the face. Of course that is always a problem with translating - a word in one language doesn't necessarily have exactly the same meaning as the "equivalent" word in the other, and though "Παρειές" translates into English as "cheek", it doesn't really mean exactly the same thing.

I should think that would be determined by the diameter of the shields and the distance apart of the oarports. The Gokstad shields were 80-90 cm diameter, http://members.ozemail.com.au/~chrisandpeter/shield/shield.html but i don't know how far apart the oarports were.

That does seem strange, but I doubt the inequality would be intended to make rowing easier - in fact I doubt that the chest was intended specifically to go on board a ship. The chests on board the Oseberg ship all contained women's possessions, except for one that contained wild apples - http://www.vikingage.org/wiki/wiki/Chests,_Caskets_%26_Boxes

Looks very good, Christos. Funny, I would have thought the "cheeks" would be lower on the hull (as they are on the face), but to be honest I can't see a better place than you've chosen.

Looks very good, Silverman. Youre making great progress. I also like your carpenter. Though this period isn't my specialty, he does seem to be wearing gear from about the right time, with the pigeon-chest doublet and little skirt and all.

Thanks, mate. So much better than I started out with. Quite a lot of worthwhile detail. You can never have too many pictures of carracks.

Oh, yet another pune - and in French, yet! We have a language expert here, do we?

Craig, that's fantastic! Really pushing the limits of the technology. Do you mind if I upload this to my Pinterest carrack page?

Coming along nicely!

Well, it's a bit of both. But books are the best way of gaining the theoretical information (depending on the book - some are pretty useless - but there's a whole section of the MSW forum that deals with masting, rigging and sails, and I just used the search function for "books on rigging" and found this which would be appropriate to ships of Thermopylae's period and there's probably others among the search results if you care to look further. Then building the models gives you the practical experience and you get to see the inter-relationships of all the ropes, and how it's all a balance of forces - some pull this way, others balance them by pulling the opposite way - for example, the stays keep keep the masts from falling backwards, the backstays keep them from falling forwards and the shrouds stop them falling sideways (and forwards). If you're doing a clipper, the above book is probably ideal. Other books are more appropriate to other periods. If you have further questions, it's probably best to ask them in the "masting rigging and sails"section (but first do a search - your question may already have been answered); then you don't have to worry about hijacking someone else's thread (which is not recommended - but heck, you have to find out somehow).

WalrusGuy, ask away - there are no "stupid questions", and those who know about this stuff are probably checking on this log every now and then. I'll leave it to those more knowledgeable to give the proper information, but I'm pretty sure that for a start those braces (the ropes at the ends of the yards) should lead aft, not forward, on the fore and main masts. [Edit] Damn! Jim Lad beat me to it! That's the trouble with both being in the same time zone . . . [/Edit]

Aha! Did an image search for Sibenik 1486, and voila! Not perfect, but certainly better.

Liteflight, General Sir Charles Napier, when he subdued the Indian province of Sindh, is reported to have sent to headquarters the single word "peccavi" - I have sinned (a pune or play on words, as Terry Pratchett says). Turns out someone else really came up with it, but why let the facts spoil a good story? Intertwingled - I like it. 1mm=1 inch - well, almost - that would be a scale of 1 to 25.4. Close enough, I suppose . . . Having been raised on Imperial then having had to convert to metric later in life - and working as a building designer, having to convert drawings from 1"=8 feet (1:96) to metric 1:100 (so close and yet so far . . .). And converting links to metres on Site Plans (as everybody knows, 100 links equals 1 chain, because there are 100 links in a surveyor's chain, and a chain is 66 feet, the length of a cricket pitch, and so 1 link equals 1/100 of 66 feet = 66 x 0.3048 metres, divided by 100 = 0.201 metres - or about 8 inches in the old money - oh, it's all good fun till someone loses an eye!) And don't get me started on avoirdupois! Sorry, rambling again. Spending too much time at home. Back to the subject at hand, laser cutting your own scrollwork sounds like a plan. Metal might have its advantages, but it would be harder to round the edges than it would if you used timber. Not impossible, just more work. It might well be worth investigting the veneer greeting card method - assuming it wasn't prohibitively expensive. I'm not sure, though, whether greeting cards come under "essential services" in the current climate . . . Still think it’s a strange place to have an opening, but probably there was so much water everywhere it made little difference. To me it all seems very sensible and practical. It seems to me that it would be impossible to make the area under the forecastle deck watertight, and having water under there would affect the trim of the ship quite badly. Trying to access that space to bale out would be murder, so why not just let the water slosh around into the main body of the hull where you could get at it?

Thanks, Bigpetr. I don't need it at the moment (too busy manufacturing arms!), but I'll keep your kind offer in mind for later.

Hi Devildog.Looks like you're making good progress, and I agree with the assessments of the others. One point is that with that very tight curve at the stern you might find planking there a bit of a challenge. Steaming should help a lot, but you might find you have to try it several times before you get it exactly right. If that's the case, then do it over and over again, rather than settle for "almost right". You'll be glad down the track, because otherwise it will sneer at you every time you look at it, and remind you that with a bit more patience you could have got it right - don't ask me how I know. And this applies to every aspect of the model.Patience and persistence are what it's all about (it's not a race).

I am very impressed by your ability to think "outside the box" regarding materials and techniques. I've used toothpicks occasionally, but you've incorporated so many everyday things into your build, giving them a whole new life, instead of relying on the stuff that everybody else uses. I applaud your initiative and ingenuity, and I'm looking forward to seeing your further progress..