Louie da fly

A very nice bit of planking, Peter. I'll PM you today or tomorrow with my thoughts on the stern Steven

(Blush). With the quality of build he's doing, Peter's model deserved something better than the figurehead provided with the kit, and anyway I had a lot of fun doing the carving and painting. And it was very good meeting Peter and Bernie. We had a good time together, and of course Peter and I were able to talk models and compare notes. Ballarat's a bit out of the way (one and a half hour's drive from Melbourne) and it was nice to be able to meet one of my fellow modellers face to face - and we've made two new friends. Steven

You're making very good progress with the build; the ship is already looking very attractive, and I'm sure it will look even better when it's finished You're quite right about the words galleon and carrack. People were fairly careless about names at the time and those two terms are what we call them today, not necessarily what they were called. The current understanding of a carrack is a two or three-masted vessel with a round stern as in your second picture above, but certainly the Mary Rose, although she had a flat stern, was in all other respects a carrack, as is the ship in your first photo, which is the earliest flat-sterned carrack I know of. Steven

That's a nice bit of planking, Peter - particularly for someone doing a stern as difficult as a carrack's - and planking for the first time. I'm impressed! Steven

Thanks for the likes. Druxey, that sounds worthwhile. I'm already committed on this build to the way I've started, but I'll be keeping it in mind for future builds. Christos, many thanks. Steven

Thanks everybody for all the likes and the supportive comments. I'm sure the decoration on the full sized ship would have had minor faults and errors, but unfortunately at 1:50 scale they would be all but invisible and I would dearly like to emulate that. I'm fairly happy with it, but I think I can still do better with the geometric borders. We'll see. Druxey, I've used a bow pen in the past but with ink, not with enamel paint. And to be honest I've had my share of bow pen disasters, where all the ink suddenly decides to glob out onto the surface I'm so carefully trying to keep pristine. Also, I don't have a bow pen. The idea's interesting, though. Kikatinalong, that's the only input the cat gets to have - all cats are banned from the boat room, though Louie (the one who supplied the tins) is very sneaky about following me into the room un-noticed and has to be roused out from his hiding place and removed. He did manage to get in once without being noticed at all, and spent quite a bit of time in there without causing any damage, but I don't trust any of the cats further than I could throw the Queen Mary II. Steven

Paintwork not finished yet, but coming along. It's a bit frustrating because I really can't go ahead with anything else till I've finished the decorative painting. What I'd like to do is get on with finishing the upper deck and then add the upper benches which I've already made. But I can't do that yet because I've made angled marks below decks to get all the oars at the same angle and I have to be able to see down there to line them up. And if I put the lower bank of oars in first they'll get in the way and make painting the hull and forecastle very difficult. So to finish the decking I have to (1) paint the hull and forecastle and (2) put the lower oars in. So, here's current progress with the painting. Xylokastra (side castles): Still some more tidying up to do on the decorative paintwork, but one relief is that I've realised that as they aren't yet in place I don't have to do it till later if I don't want to. Here is the pseudopation (forecastle): Oh, and I've straightened out the wobbly white lines at the edges and for the blue lines I've done some masking - which I should have done before - to overcome much of the problem caused by my shaky hands. (Here's hoping it works!) Steven

Apxeos, that is definitely a galleon. Since the carrack that preceded the galleon was often referred to as a nao, people assume it means a specific type of vessel, when in fact nao just means ship. You might be interested in this one as well - French, from 1548. And these ones, also French, from 1545. You're doing very well with it. I'll be following this build with great interest. Steven

Yes, that's pretty much what I do. Unfortunately my aspirations for the painting seem a little higher than my ability for precision. I'll do the best I can and tweak it till I get it as good as I'm able to, but I think there'll be a point where I have to say "that's as good as I can do" and leave it at that. Nikiforos, I'm quite happy with acrylic - I used it on the carved figures and had intended to do the same with the hull, but I've found acrylic over the top of PVA glue shows up marks that stand out like a dunny in the desert, so I had to use enamel instead. I used enamel on my Great Harry model way back in the day - Humbrol was available and acrylics certainly were not. Unfortunately the rust red enamel I've used on most of the hull goes gluggy and won't give good coverage over other colours, so when fine line of white, or worse still, the dark blue on the "hearts" goes outside the line, it's difficult to touch it up. I've tried three different tins and they all have the same problem. It's rather annoying. Still, one can only do one's best. Steven

I've been working on the upper oarbenches - very tedious work - and I'm finally finished. It's a little bit previous, because I don't yet have a completed deck to put them on, but it's been my relief when I get tired (after about 5 minutes!) of doing the fiddly painted decoration on the castles. I can't put the deck on till the painting's finished, but it's at least something I can do in the meantime. There are only two legs, at the inboard end of each bench. The outboard end has a tenon that fits into a mortise in the gunwale. Legs attached: Just butt-glued together. I wasn't too careful about keeping the legs perpendicular to the bench, because I had a cunning plan to straighten everything at the next step: The crosspieces made sure the legs weren't splayed apart, and I "broke" the bond between the legs and the bench as I glued the upper crosspiece on, so the final joint was square and straight. Not too shabby. Fairly pleased with it. Now I have to finish off the fiddly painted decoration. I've got the finest brushes I can, but the faults lie more with my shaky hands than with the brush. There are still bits I'm not satisfied with, but I'll be tweaking the paintwork till I'm happy with it. More to come . . . Steven

Wonderful work, Luponero. The only question I have is - where did you get that enormous blue-headed pin? Steven

Glad to see the finished model. A beautiful end result. Steven

But no mention of his wishes regarding Lady Hamilton? Probably censored for PR reasons. Steven

Welcome Kukular. Where in WA do you live? I grew up in Perth and have very fond memories. Steven

This looks very good indeed, Dick. A beautiful build. Steven

Certainly it's hard to believe certain things weren't always in use, but in the case of footropes there are contemporary pictures of ships being worked by sailors without them - they're actually sitting astride the yards to furl/unfurl the sails, and quite a few are standing on the yards! It's always struck me as weird that Mediterranean ships in the 15th and 16th centuries had no ratlines, though shipbuilders must have been exposed to northern ships that did have them. It seems so obvious to me that ratlines were superior, but apparently not to Mediterranean skippers! Steven

Bienvenue! Steven

Beautiful detailed precise work, Jack. Steven

That's a beautiful effect you've achieved with the water, mkash. It looks very convincing. A lovely job over all. Steven

Hi Hotswarf (love the name!). There are quite a few build logs of the Artesania Endeavour on this forum. Do a search (top right of the page) using those keywords and you should be able to access them. I think they should be able to answer a lot of questions you may have and help you along your way. Good luck with it all, Steven

Hi Nikiforos. Do youknow where that pic of the tripod mast comes from? I googled ancient egyptian ship bas relief but I haven't been able to find the original anywhere, the only ones I've found have been either single or bipod masts. In fact, finding any photographs of the original bas-reliefs of Egyptian ships meets with very little success - you mostly get drawings of them, which could have added inaccuracies, above and beyond those the original Ancient artists may have perpetrated. However, if this is an accurate rendition of the original, I can't off the top of my head think of a good reason for a tripod mast except to add strength, but it seems very awkward, and the only thing I can think of for the tensioning ropes and bars is to "weld" the three masts into one structural unit, also for strength. (Those twirly rope things would also hold the mast down into the mast step, so it doesn't lift off under anti-gravity and fly into the air . . . ) There are two tensioning bars for each outer mast; the upper right-hand one goes in front of the outer mast and behind the central one, which is totally ok; but the lower goes behind both right-hand and central mast, and the two left-hand bars both seem to go behind both left-hand and central masts. To my eye, there's nothing keeping these three from just unwinding again. If, say, the lower right hand bar had gone in front of the outside mast and behind the middle mast it would have balanced the forces acting via the upper one, and equally I'd have expected the left-hand pair to do the same sort of thing, perhaps in reverse. Is this detail correct, or is it a mistake by the copyist, or by the carver of the bas-relief? The heavy cross-bar at the top of the twirly ropes seems to be for tying the three masts together; certainly, the twirly rope on the right goes around it and the right-hand mast, tying them together. But the left-hand one doesn't go around the cross-bar, just the mast, and as far as I can see that wouldn't achieve anything structural. Again, is the discrepancy artist error, or is it accurate? Perhaps the central "mast" is nothing of the sort, and is shorter than the other two (if only we had the top of the picture!) There are some apparent similarities with the mast reinforcements/wedges in the mediaeval Spanish ships of the Cantigas de Santa Maria, where there is a central mast reinforced by lashing to posts either side - maybe the "tripod" mast is the same sort of thing, but with two actual masts and one central post? By the way, apparently herons don't quack, they sound like this - Steven

Glad to see no horned helmets! Steven

Looks good! Steven

The detail of the Mora model is based on the representation of her in the Bayeux Tapestry. Given the complete lack of other information available at the time, not a bad effort. Certainly if you wanted to kit-bash a Mora, I'd recommend you duplicate at least the figurehead, tail decoration and lantern at the top of the mast (which if I recall correctly is described in contemporary accounts). On the other hand, the caveats at https://www.vikingeskibsmuseet.dk/en/professions/education/viking-knowledge/the-longships/picture-sources/the-bayeux-tapestry/ should be taken into account (though the explanation of the "triangular" sails is surely just a matter of square sails seen from a particular angle). The progressive simplification of the images in the Tapestry mentioned in the page above also applies elsewhere. Have a look at the first three armoured figures in the narrative (frame 16 at https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Bayeux_Tapestry_tituli ) and then at later ones - the rings of the mail become much larger and sometimes degenerate into criss-cross patterns, which would have been quicker to sew and much more economical in thread (which was hand-spun, hand dyed and hand-sewn). This has led to all sorts of theories about large-ringed "Russian tractor armour", and various alternative types of armour (which have never been found in archaeology) based purely on these representations, when it seems to me they are all conventionalised representations of normal mail (popularly known as "chain" mail, though it was never called that at the time). Which leads us away from the reconstruction of Mora. And in that, I'm afraid you just have to go with a lot of educated guesswork based on the best information currently available. It will almost certainly be wrong in many details, but will nonetheless probably be a pretty good representation of the ship as it was. Steven

Wow! The last person who got one of those was Belisarius! I'm honoured to be in his company . . . Going very well, Nikiforos. I've used ramin many years ago when I was a schoolkid. Nice timber. I'm enjoying following this build. Steven