Louie da fly

Very nice work. She's looking very good.

Will do - if they ever let us in with our Victorian number plates . . . A pity, really. I was born in Adelaide, and when we visited a couple of years ago my wife fell in love with the place. (Almost as good as Ballarat!) This is a very nice build. Beautifully crisp work. Pear is a lovely timber. I've been carving with it for years now. Fortunate to have a neighbour with a huge pear tree . . . and the pears are nice, too.

Umm, that was a mistake. I thought the further guy was going on the other side of the ship - only realised when it was too late that there'd be two together with matching tunics. (But they're wearing different coloured hose, for what it's worth.) I'm trying to get the colours as much a random assortment as possible (like jelly babies, as in Tom Baker's Dr Who.) Hmm, to a jazz rhythm? Could be interesting, but I think they'd be likely to do thmselves a nasty injury . .

Yes, I was trying to figure out how it might be possible to remedy it without a great deal of success. Isn't it possible to dissolve CA with nail polish remover? Otherwise I suppose the only other option is to put it down to experience. Never having attempted to do clinker planking I'm certainly not in a postion to criticise, and in fact I was rather loath to even bring the subject up. IF it was possible to dissolve the glue just at that second frame it might be possible to free the strakes up, let them assume their "natural" shape (i.e. to follow the rest of the curve) and either cut out that side of the frame and replace it, or put a packer in to increase the width of the frame and then cut out the existing part. Just a thought, and it might be completely impractical, but perhaps worth looking at as an option. Having said that, the unevenness isn't terribly obvious and when everything else is added (especially the shields), it will probably become quite hard to see.

Horrifying idea! (And yes, I actually have heard of Gene Krupa!) Fortunately, despite what Hollywood tells us, the rhythm for the rowers - at least in Byzantine times - was given not by a drummer but by a flute-player. James Galway, perhaps? And thanks, Mark, for the compliment.

Thanks, Binho. And thanks everybody for the likes. Moving ahead a bit faster now. Here are the latest additions: Figures B and C are painted and glued in place. Figure D now has his arms glued on and filler added, ready for trimming to final shape. And I've added oars for two new starboard oarsmen, who are temporarily glued to their benches awaiting arms. Later in the same day: Figure D is now painted and glued in place. The new starboard oarsmen (E and F) have their arms temporarily glued on, awaiting bamboo pivot pins to locate them on the bodies so they can then be carved to shape. You can't see it on the photos, but I've also put in some short brass pins alongside the tholes of the oars I'll be adding next. So that's 8 oarsmen completely done, another two in progress, and two more just about to be started.

I'd try it on scrap first to see if you like it. Personally, I find yellow ochre, red ochre and black and white (all possible with the materials of the day) a very attractive combination. I hadn't thought so until I saw a tv show where someone did a recosntruction of an Ancient British chariot and painted it in the colours above with the materials available nearby. Not sure how you'd make green paint back in the day. But it's your model - do what suits you.

I used to hit this problem, too. I finally worked out how to fix it. Once you're in "Edit" you have to go down to the bottom of the post and delete the pictures from "uploaded images". Then you have to go back to the post itself, and "cut" the unwanted photos from the bottom of the post - otherwise they'll come back. That will get rid of them permanently. Hope that is explained properly and is of use to you. The ship is looking good by the way and that mast step is particularly nicely done. But I noticed in one of the photos you're about to get rid of (the view from above) there seems to be a small "kink" in the planking on the right near the bottom of the picture (second frame from the bow - or stern - who can tell with these double-ended ships?). Or is that just a fault of the photo?

That's for sure. The other side of the harbour! I visited Taksim Square way back in '93 and got to the covered market but not the Grand Bazaar (ran out of time). Stayed in a little pension at Sultanahmet, with a roof deck that looked over the Marmara Sea and the Straits. Loved the place! Next time I went back (in 2000) the pension was gone and I stayed in another one (not as good) just out the back of the Hippodrome. Wonderful memories. Oh, and I nearly got run over by one of those wonderful trams because, coming from a country where people drive on the left, I looked the wrong way before I crossed the street (Yeniçeriler Cadessi).

Perhaps the sewing thread is polyester or nylon, which won't take dyes. It's also a bit difficult to get linen thread to take up dye. Cotton is much better for this.

Hi, Kpnuts. First time I've seen this log. It looks good. Did you end up completing this build?

Ron, I've only just come across this log. Did you ever go on with this restoration?

Yes, I like him too. That's very good - hard to believe he's your first attempt. What's the grain like on linden wood?

Welcome Jandrus! Don't forget to start a build log for your HMS Beagle. You'll find quite a few Logs for her on MSW, which you will probably find helpful. Just type Beagle into the search bar at the top of the page. I'm a fan of ships of the 15th century, and the Basques were the leaders in maritime design and shipbuilding at that time and for some time after. Am I right in thinking that Vasco da Gama's first name translates into English as "the Basque guy"?

That's a beautiful piece of work. And it appears nice and whippy. Please make sure you report back on its performance after you've tried it out in practice. People need to know . . .

Mind if I pull up a chair? That's a very elegant longship. Much nicer in my opinion than the generic Gokstad ship (though I still love the Oseberg ship as well - very beautiful)

Don't go there, Cathead! That way lies madness! I've got 48 oarsmen to do, you'd have 58! (I just checked on your build log). And anyhow, if your sail is up, you don't have to have anybody rowing. Add to that, you can buy Viking figures, though there are some pretty bad ones out there. Having been a Viking period re-enactor for over 20 years I know. No, they didn't wear ugg boots, helmets with horns, they didn't look like the guys on the tv series Vikings, they wouldn't have worn armour while sailing (it's heavy, plus what happens if you fall overboard) . . . more like this- not a bad selection (the last one is very high status, and I have to say, super-cool): [Edit]: NOT LIKE THESE! [/Edit] OTOH, if you just want to carve a few crew members, maybe that wouldn't send you bananas. Always nice to have another person on MSW carving figures.

A step forward. To start with, there were several times in finalising and positioning an oarsman where I had to sit on my hands while I waited for glue to dry between one step and the next, but now I've worked out a way to increase the number I'm working on at any one time, so while I'm waiting for the glue to dry on one, I'm working on another. Unfortunately, there is a limit to how many things I can do at once. For example, although I could glue all the upper oars onto the gunwale at the same time, I don't want to because I could easily undo the work with a careless hand movement. However, once the oarsman is permanently in place the oar is also fixed more permanently -it's glued both to the gunwale and to the hands of the oarsman, who himself is glued to the seat and his feet are glued to the deck. However, as I have now completed several figures I've become able to work on a new figure at each end of the row that's already done. So Figure A has just been completed - he's had his final shaping and sanding, and has been painted and glued in place. Figure B is the first on the starboard side. He's got his arms shaped and glued on, and he's ready to be removed from his seat, and filler put in the gaps between arms and body ready to finish the shaping. Figure C has just had his arms temporarily glued on, ready to be pinned to the body so I can do the hands and roughly shape his arms. This usually takes several tries - I work out where and what shape I think the hands should be in relation to the oar handle, unpin the arm, carve it to the shape I've decided on, then pin the arm back in place. Check to see what still needs to be done, take it off, shape it some more, put it back on again etc till I'm happy with it. Once I've got the arms and hands the way I want them, I glue them permanently in place, as in figure B. Finally, as the figure at A is now complete, that leaves me able to glue the next oar to the gunwale (D). As you can see in the first photo the oarblade is being supported (by a little plastic tub) at the same height as the others till the glue dries. In the second photo I've got a bit ahead of myself - I've placed the next oarsman on the bench, but in fact I don't do this till the glue dries on the oar, as it's fatally easy to dislodge the oar by careless hand movements (don't ask me how I know). Once the starboard figure (B) is permanently in place I'll be able to have four oarsmen in progress at the same time - one at each extreme end of the row on the port side, and the same for the starboard side. I have to keep up the supply of arms, so in between times I'll be cutting out new ones and carving them roughly to shape. Not quite mass-production, but a faster procedure than before.

Mind if I pull up a chair? Looking forward to watching this one after seeing your Thermopylae build.

Waitoa, not laughing at all. Impressed, actually. And I second the idea that you should start a build log.

Good. I hope it's of use to you. Photos! We need photos!

I agree about bamboo. Per http://www.ijstr.org/final-print/nov2015/Comparative-Analysis-Of-The-Tensile-Strength-Of-Bamboo-And-Reinforcement-Steel-Bars-As-Structural-Member-In-Building-Construction.pdf steel is 2 to 3 times stronger than bamboo, but weighs 6 to 8 times as much .Overall the tensile strength of bamboo per unit of weight is 3 to 4 times that of steel. I occcasionally use it in ship modelling. It's very tough and strong.

Stick close to your desks and never go to sea, And you all may be rulers of the Queen's Navee! Damn! I derailed my own thread again!

Beautiful work, Matthias.

I've seen pictures of the Sutton Hoo lyre reconstruction. As I understand it not all that much of the original survived and the reconstruction was based as much on contemporary pictures as on the artefact itself. I don't remember seeing the lyre when we went to the British Museum to see the Sutton Hoo exhibit. Perhaps I was distracted by the magnificent gold and garnet work and the amazing helmet.