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Louie da fly

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  1. 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
  2. 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
  3. Louie da fly
    Wonderfully precise work, and a beautiful model. Steven
  4. Louie da fly
    Beautiful work, Pat! Steven
  5. 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
  6. 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
  7. 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
  8. 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
  9. 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
  10. 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
  11. 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
  12. Louie da fly
    Very nice. Looking forward to it. Steven
  13. 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
  14. 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
  15. 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
  16. Louie da fly
    These look really good. They're a real credit to you, mate. Steven
  17. 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
  18. 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
  19. Louie da fly
    Beautiful work. A magnificent model of a magnificent ship. Steven
  20. Louie da fly
    Thanks, Fabio. That makes sense. Between 1494 and 1546 the kings of France were hiring Genoese ships to supply their armies (and perhaps fight) in their wars in Italy. Your progress is very good. Beautifully crisp and detailed. That little circular saw attachment - I have to get one! Steven
  21. Louie da fly
    Can't help you with the paint question, but are you also interested in the designs on the shields? The only Viking ship ever found with shields on the sides was the Gokstad ship. Half the shields were painted yellow, the other half of them were painted black, and they alternated - one black shield, one yellow, one black, one yellow . . . There were no designs on the shields apart from the yellow or black colouring, though some fragments of Viking shields have been found with more elaborate decoration. See http://members.ozemail.com.au/~chrisandpeter/shield/shield.html#Decoration The Amati model appears to be based not on the Gokstad ship but the Oseberg ship, which was much more elegantly shaped. But even the Gokstad shields are more likely to have been there for decoration rather than combat. I realise this doesn't answer your question, but I hope it's of some use to you. Steven
  22. Louie da fly
    That's amazing, Fabio. The carrack in the picture is flying the flag of the Lomellini family, who owned the Lomellina! (See https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giannotto_Lomellini). What year was the picture painted? Perhaps it is the same ship! The land-based artillery have the same kind of wheels as in the wreck's cargo, and it is thought the barrels of those cannons were recovered after the ship sank. But probably the wheels weren't valuable enough to salvage. I haven't seen this image of a culverin before. It's certainly in very good condition. I'm interested in the book. I'll have to find out about it. I wonder if it is available in English. Best wishes, Steven
  23. Louie da fly
    This looks good, Patrick. Apart from your own pragmatic reasons for having a single large opening for the forecastle, contemporary pictures of carracks (yes, I know, 50-100 years or so earlier) show them with large openings both under the main deck at the break of the aftercastle, and at the entry to the forecastle. I realise you're doing a galleon not a carrack, but I think you're on the right track with this. And yes - the support beam for the deck beams is the beam shelf. Steven
  24. Louie da fly
    Beautiful work, Luponero (that's Black Wolf in English, isn't it?). I'm glad you're enjoying the dromon build. I'm hoping to do a carrack at some point in the future. The balustrade is very nice - lovely crisp detail. I love your cannons - they're beautifully done; you're very accomplished with the lathe. Your cannons are very much like the ones they found on the wreck of the Genoese ship Lomellina (built 1503, wrecked 1516), with only a few differences as you would expect between one region and another. Note those large wheels don't belong to the ship's cannon - they appear to have been part of an artillery train the ship was carrying as cargo when she sank. Steven
  25. Louie da fly
    Thanks, Pat. Mark, comment appreciated. Maybe I will. I'm going to remove and re-use the siphon assembly, but it really would go against the grain to just throw the forecastle away. Heaven knows where I'd display it. Steven

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