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Louie da fly

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  1. Louie da fly
    Beautiful work, Sceatha! I love watching speculative builds, the older the better! And you're doing a magnificent job of it. Steven
  2. Louie da fly
    I just had a thought. Do a Google image search for the Atlantic Charter - it was signed by Rooseveldt and Churchill on board the Prince of Wales - lots of publicity photos from the time taken on board ship. You might get some nice detail photos from that. Oh, and there's video footage at and Steven
  3. Louie da fly
    A worthwhile subject to build. I'm not sure whether you can get good pics of her for your detail work, but I just checked Google image search and Pinterest, and there are a reasonable number of photos. Might be worth checking out. Steven
  4. Louie da fly
    Yes, it's not the bronze that would be likely to corrode, but the iron. Steven
  5. Louie da fly
    You can say that again. Fortunately I was able to give her the broken one as a model, with an approximation of the required length to fit in the saw. No worries, as we say in Oz. Actually, not so. We've been working flat out together fixing up the garden - we've been building garden walls and paths. I only get to work on the model in the evening or when it's raining. Yesterday I wheelbarrowed a big pile of sand from the front driveway up the hill to its new storage area up the back. Today it's been raining heavily, so we get a break. You can see the results of our efforts in the "What Have You Done Today?" thread in "Shore Leave". Steven
  6. Louie da fly
    Wouldn't there be electrochemical issues with the bronze tending to accelerate the rusting process in the iron? Steven
  7. Louie da fly
    Oh frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!* (as Lewis Carroll wrote in the poem Jabberwocky) My lovely wife went to the hardware shop and bought me a packet of coping saw blades (to replace the one I'd broken, leaving me unable to saw anything.) So the production line is again in full swing. I've cut out the 24 oarsmen yet to be carved. At my rate of carving them - about one a day - it'll probably take at least a month to do them, but at last we're moving again. Steven * It took me years to find out that this was an in-joke. It is two of the declensions of the Greek adjective kalos = good, (καλού and καλη) which is among the first things you learn when you study Ancient Greek.
  8. Louie da fly
    Interesting - the garboard strake on the Lomellina, built between 1503 and 1516 (the Great Harry was built in 1512-14) was carved out of a tree trunk. Here's a cross-section: Apparently the garboards of the Cattewater wreck and the Red Bay wreck have similar characteristics. However, Lomellina was a Genoese ship, and the Cattewater and Red Bay wrecks were Iberian (Portuguese and Basque). The garboard strake of the Mary Rose, effectively a sister ship to the Great Harry, is much more "normal" (number 11 on the diagram below), so I think that's the path I'll follow. Steven
  9. Louie da fly
    Good grief! I'm gobsmacked at the level of detail and precision. You are a true artist, sir. Steven
  10. Louie da fly
    So there's no hard and fast rule - doing it the way I described above is at least as good as any other. Now I feel ready to go ahead. Thanks for your help, people. Steven
  11. Louie da fly
    Elvis on a grain of rice . . . that way lies madness! Pat, I hadn't thought of that. Thanks for the tip. Steven
  12. Louie da fly
    Nah, just a giant clothes peg . . . Thanks everybody for the likes. It's good to get the feedback. Taking a short break from setting up for planking (no, I'm not chickening out! ) Those who are familiar with the Mary Rose will remember that the archaeological team found her "figurehead" - aTudor rose - which is also shown on the picture of her on the Anthony Roll. You can see it at the top right of the forecastle, just to the right of the flags. The Great Harry is shown on the Anthony Roll with a crown on a staff at the end of the bowsprit, as is appropriate for a ship named after the king. It also has a dragon head as was common on carracks at the time. Landström shows both on his reconstruction in The Ship. So I made both - you'd think I'd get sick of carving . . . actually this model originally had them - I'd carved them when I first made her, but they got lost somewhere along the way. One day I'm going to find the box I put all that stuff in - probably not till I've re-done it all, however. Steven
  13. Louie da fly
    Working on the underwater hull so I can start planking. Because I was not only reconstructing the ship but changing the hull shape, there was a fair bit of trial and error involved. I used battens to get the curves as close as I could I've had to build up some of the frames (you can see open space between the frame and the top batten in the photo below). I cut strips of sheet balsa to make the additions, bending them to follow the curve, gluing them in place then trimming them to shape. I haven't been too careful with the glue because it'll all be hidden by the planking. and I had to shave others Almost ready to start planking. Steven
  14. Louie da fly
    Beautiful job on the oven, Patrick. Very realistic! Steven
  15. Louie da fly
    Unbelievable. I had no idea the model was so small. That just makes your achievement even more amazing. Such a sad fate, though for such a proud ship. To sail right across the world to be so ignominiously defeated; and the whole of that fleet was either destroyed in the battle, or later at Port Arthur, or captured. Was that the beginning of the end of Tsarist Russia as a world power? Steven
  16. Louie da fly
    Well, I'm almost ready to start planking below the waterline on the Great Harry. I've only ever done one previous pair of garboard strakes, and they weren't all that successful. I've read the tutorials and looked at various builds but I just can't figure out - I know the garboard strake is different widths at different points along its run; but is it the same as the widths of the adjoining planks, (the only difference being that the garboard has one edge that is straight)? For example, if there are (say) 15 strakes between the keel and the other reference point you're measuring to, is the width of the garboard at any given frame 1/15th of the distance measured along that frame ? This has always been a puzzle to me , and I don't want to start planking before I'm sure I know what I'm doing. Thanks, Steven
  17. Louie da fly
    What an amazing build! I'm always interested in weathering on models, but you've taken it to the nth degree! Superb! Steven
  18. Louie da fly
    Beautiful work, Dick. A wonderful build and it's been a pleasure to follow it. Steven
  19. Louie da fly
    Or possibly Parkinson's . . . Damn! I'm derailing my own thread again! Steven
  20. Louie da fly
    Yes, not too bad, Pat. I've been chasing down those white marks (which are only obvious in a photograph - almost invisible to the naked eye). Thanks everybody for the likes, by the way. Steven
  21. Louie da fly
    Blast! Oh well, on to YK-12 Version II. At 1:16 or larger that will involve a whole new set of interesting problems to overcome. How big will it be at that scale? I have to say I really look forward to seeing this one progressing - lots of interesting issues in reconstructing a Byzantine ship as originally built. A break to work on Gros Ventre while you collect your thoughts and get a new look on things would probably be good, as well. Steven
  22. Louie da fly
    Well, a lot handier than the previous arrangements . Steven
  23. Louie da fly
    I've been agonising over the calcets at the top of the masts, which take the halyard. I'd followed a diagram which showed the calcet as having two sheaves, but try as I might, I couldn't get it to work properly. Any arrangement I was able to come up with was always awkward and overcomplicated. I thought this violates Occam's Razor - the principle that the simplest solution to a problem is usually the best. After looking at many contemporary pictures and also modern photos of lateeners (many of them dhows) I discovered that almost without exception (where it was shown) they certainly had blocks with multiple sheaves, but at the lower end of the halyard. My thanks to Woodrat for his help and advice, which confirmed me in my decision to change the calcets to single-sheaves (which of course meant I had to make new ones!) Also, based on archaeological finds (admittedly from several hundred years later), I changed the connection between the calcet and the mast, from a socket and tenon to a long scarph (known in French as a sifflet or whistle joint - probably because it resembles the angled cut at the top of a tin whistle). I've attached the calcets to the masts with brass pins cut short and filed down. In due course I'll paint them black to resemble iron. And I discovered two more Byzantine single-sheaved blocks! I already had one single-sheaved block from archaeology, but these ones were in considerably better condition and were about double the length. From a 7th-8th century wreck, but so similar to later ones that I'll be using this design in the dromon. The two blocks are identical in design, with a slight difference in length. Here's my reproduction at 1:50 scale of the larger one - yet another opportunity to use my gigantic oversized matchstick. It seems to be a standard feature of Byzantine (and mediaeval Mediterranean) blocks that they didn't have strops around the block to connect them to the rigging, but a hole through the block. Steven
  24. Louie da fly
    And cleaned the forecastle: I used isopropanol and cotton buds (Q tips), and occasionally a scalpel to remove built-up glue when it was too thick. The deck isn't perfectly clean, but it's a lot better than it was. I had to remove the bitts, but it's just as well - it was smothered in old glue. I'll put it back later. Steven
  25. Louie da fly
    I almost missed this! Another really interesting build. I'll pull up a chair if I may. Steven

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