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Louie da fly

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Everything posted by Louie da fly

  1. Louie da fly
    Lovely crisp work, Patrick. I bet the piece of wood just died of fright when it saw that big spanner. If at first you don't succeed . . . use a bigger hammer. Steven
  2. Louie da fly
    Not as far as I know, Dick. Not all the results are out, but though one of the Yenikapi galleys had almost the whole of one side still in existence (including two or three oarports) nobody seems to have mentioned any rudders - or even oars, for that matter. But who knows what the Black Sea finds will turn up? Steven
  3. Louie da fly
    Beautiful work, Christos. A model to be proud of. Steven
  4. Louie da fly
    Looks really good, John. I can see the apparent crookedness of the transom was an optical delusion on my part because it's made of two beams angled to each other, not a single one at right angles. Steven
  5. Louie da fly
    Yes, the only thing I can think of (as it seems that having uphaul and downhaul it ought to swing) is perhaps the beam at the back could be removed? It doesn't affect the present model anyway as you're using a different method, but it would be interesting to come up with a solution as there seem to be far more representations of box-mounts than any other type. In the meantime I have to figure out what I'm going to do with my own rudders; back to Lawrence Mott, I think, and see if I can get any ideas there. [1/4 hour later] I've just been looking at Mott's paper and he was of the opinion that a swing mount was a variation of the aft-mounted rudder, but I can see that your braced rudder version would also work well. (Explanatory note for those not into side-rudders: aft mounted means two through-beams one above the other, with the lower one somewhat aft of the upper, and the rudder fixed to the after side of both beams. Braced is similar, but the rudder shaft passes between the two beams. Mott's paper discusses the relative advantages and disadvantages of the various systems.) Steven
  6. Louie da fly
    Siphon assembly in place. Adding "pipes" to convey the oil from the reservoir to the pump and thence under the decking (didn't take a photo of that, but it's the same as in the previous iteration of the forecastle) to the riser. The nozzle itself won't be added till I have the fore wall planked etc and the lion's head in place. Again, experience having taught me a better assembly sequence. Side walls in place. Making the arches for the awning over the poop deck. This time I used pear wood - easier than planetree wood to carve fine detail at this scale, and less prone to splitting. Roughly sawn to shape. Carving the concave parts of the arches. One arcade with the arches cut out. Paper removed and ready to carve the convex sides of the arches. One arcade cut to shape. And both arcades cut to shape and smoothed off. Steven
  7. Louie da fly
    New forecastle in progress, incorporating lessons I learnt when I did the first one. The main lesson was to get the sequence right. This time I put the siphon assembly in place before the side walls went on. Much easier to deal with. Adding the deck planking. Side walls - all the bits ready to put together. Side wall under construction. Decking and side walls complete, and siphon assembly (and lion's head) removed from old forecastle for recycling into the new one. Forward wall built and in position, with riser support in place. Pump lever, showing underside where the connecting rods for the cylinders will be fixed. Pump lever dry fitted. Pump cylinders dry fitted. Pump and oil reservoir glued in place. More to come. Steven
  8. Louie da fly
    Thanks for the likes, and thanks Druxey for the (very welcome) comment. More fiddly stuff. Gluing backing pieces behind the existing planking, for support when new planks are added. Steven
  9. Louie da fly
    By all means: 1372 Lorenzo Veneziano - Miracle of St Nicholas 12th century San Pietro in Ciel d'Oro - Pavia. Note the ship at the top has its rudder swung into the "up" position. Giotto di Bondone (1226-1337) - Navicella Milano - Church of Sant'Eustorgio, chapel of St Peter the Martyr - 1339 12th century mosaic - translatio of St Mark - San Marco, Venice 14th century Greek Romance of Alexander Plus the one at https://www.gettyimages.com.au/detail/news-photo/rib-vault-with-the-navigation-of-st-peter-by-andrea-di-news-photo/494733296 which I hit upload trouble with, so I've given the URL. And this is the kind of thing you get from Byzantine representations (unfortunately!). No detail at all of the suspension method. I hope this is of help. I find it fascinating. Steven
  10. Louie da fly
    Wonderfully precise work, and a beautiful model. Steven
  11. Louie da fly
    Beautiful work, Pat! Steven
  12. Louie da fly
    Thanks for the likes. Pat, I think it's ok for what it is. I've done another similar repair since then and the colour is rather better. Just needs a bit of practice. The larger additions are going to be the big test. Just doing fiddly little repairs at the moment - I want to finish them all before I start on the big stuff. The side planking has split over the years and has had to be glued back together here and there. Here I've got the planking clamped to the (new) frames with clothespegs. As the hull is now narrower at the stern, the planking has to curve further inward than it was in the original model. This affects the vertical curve of the planking to a small degree, but it doesn't seem to have made enough difference to be noticeable. In the meantime, I discovered and glued back a bit of the curved top timber of the foretop. There's a remnant of the top rail as well. Note how thin it is compared to a match. I certainly had high aspirations when I was 17, even if I didn't have the knowledge I have now. By the way, the black blob at the left-hand end of the rail is the back of one of the (decorative?) shields that seem to have been scattered all over the Great Harry, even in the tops. Steven
  13. Louie da fly
    Oh dear. Sorry for putting you to all that extra work - that's certainly not what I intended. Still, I think you're doing the right thing and you'll end up happier with it. Steven
  14. Louie da fly
    Yes, Hollywood has a lot to answer for, Pieter. I hadn't known it either till I read Age of the Galley. As Michael Caine would say "Not many people know dat".😉 Steven
  15. Louie da fly
    Very interesting, and showing your usual thorough research to arrive at a solution. I look forward to developments. As far as swing rudders go for Byzantine ships, the pictorial evidence is very sketchy indeed. They mostly don't bother to show any kind of attachment for the rudder. If I recall correctly, rudder "uphauls" and "downhauls" often appear in contemporary representations about the 14th century, but the earliest representations I can find are some 12th century mosaics in San Marco in Venice that show a downhaul. Having looked at my picture files I've also found several more examples of the swing mount in contemporary representations. You may already have them, but I'm quite happy to send them to you (or post them here) if you want. Steven
  16. Louie da fly
    Again, depends on the time and place. No matter what Ben Hur shows, in ancient Greece and Rome, mediaeval Byzantium and elsewhere, and right up to the Renaissance (when everything changed because of shortage of crews) galleys were rowed by free men. It was a skilled activity. And even galley slaves had rights. Some of them hoarded up a proportion of their food ration and sold it ashore. We know this because the captain wanted them deprived of the profits, but was told they had a perfect right to do it and get the benefits. (Information from the excellent book Age of the Galley. Took me by surprise, too.) Steven
  17. Louie da fly
    Very sneaky. And as Gene Wilder said in Young Frankenstein "IT - COULD - WORK!!!" But would it be secure enough in a rough sea? I get visions of the thing whacking back and forth and coming loose as the waves hit it. (Of course I'm not totally without an ulterior motive - I'm currently trying to work out how to do the side rudders for my own build.) Steven
  18. Louie da fly
    I do all my carving in pearwood and can get some pretty fine detail. Never tried box, but can certainly recommend pear. Can you post a photo of your carvings with something that can give an idea of scale? (Matchstick, coin, ruler, whatever) Steven
  19. Louie da fly
    Very nice. Looking forward to it. Steven
  20. Louie da fly
    Beautiful work, as usual, Dick. Both the rudder mount and the "aftercastle" (if that's its right name). How are you fixing the rudder to the through beams? Lawrence Mott was very careful to say the lashings in his diagrams were only speculative. Steven
  21. Louie da fly
    Thanks everybody for the likes. Pat, here's the "filler" for the doorway trimmed and coloured. (Actually I had to make another one - the first one just wasn't up to standard). I roughened the surface of the wood to help absorb the colour better, and used black acrylic paint very heavily thinned with water to do the weathering. When I took it out into the sunlight the colour value wasn't quite right - it should have had a little more red in it - but on such a small piece it will still be acceptable. Still needs sanding to get rid of the shine from the glue. To make it easier to attach the new bit I glued a thin piece of wood across the back of the gap so it had something to fix itself to. The white "smear" to the left of it is where I glued together a crack in the break of the aftercastle. I'd previously tried darkening it with tea, but didn't have all that much success. When I do the bigger patches I'll have to be more careful about the colour matching, but at the moment i'm pretty happy with it. Steven
  22. Louie da fly
    No worries, Druxey. A hangover from my previous life as a re-enactor. Christobel and Peter are good friends of mine, and the quality of their research (and their interpretive reconstructions of Viking-era gear) is excellent. Steven
  23. Louie da fly
    These look really good. They're a real credit to you, mate. Steven
  24. Louie da fly
    And they just kept on building them, right up till the end of the war because they were so perfect for the job. And tough! They could even survive losing their undercarriage through flying too low over the water (not recommended, but possible). A beautiful rendition, CDW. So, next you'll be building a 1:48 Bismarck?😉 Steven
  25. Louie da fly
    More progress. I held the old superstructure planking in place against the frames and marked black lines where the line of the deck intersects with them. and trimmed the beams to the height of the deck, using a thin batten to get the line of the deck right. A couple of frames were a bit wobbly because they were only fixed to the keel, so I glued them to the remaining hull planking to make them a bit more secure. One of the problems with the original model was that the balsa frames were so thick they overlapped the gunports from the inside, so you could see the balsa through the ports. Best solution I've been able to come up with is to cut notches in the frames where they cross the gunports, and paint them black inside so they're somewhat less obvious. A bit of repair - the arched doorway under the sterncastle got broken, so I've glued a bit of walnut in the gap and will trim it to shape to hide the damage. That's all for now. Steven

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