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Louie da fly

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  1. Louie da fly
    Very nice. Looking forward to it. Steven
  2. 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
  3. 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
  4. 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
  5. Louie da fly
    These look really good. They're a real credit to you, mate. Steven
  6. 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
  7. 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
  8. Louie da fly
    Beautiful work. A magnificent model of a magnificent ship. Steven
  9. 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
  10. 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
  11. 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
  12. 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
  13. 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
  14. 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
  15. Louie da fly
    After a rather frustrating session with the dromon build, I thought I'd take a bit of a break and work on the Great Harry as a relief. Just fixing up the broken arched gunports bit by bit. I've had to reinforce them at the back in places because they're so fragile. I sometimes impress myself, though - when I was 17 I'd thought of reinforcing these runs of arches with paper glued to the back of the wood. I think that's pretty cool for a 17 year old. Still broken in places so I've got more to do, particularly at the after end of these panels. I thought of also fixing up some of the arches that I made the wrong size way back when, but I think this would go against the original idea of restoring it to the way it would have been if I'd repaired it properly at the time. (One exception - I've given the hull a "rounder" shape than I'd originally done, on the basis that if the Mary Rose had been found at the time I would have done it that way). And I've glued in over-size balsa deck beams which will be trimmed down to make a smooth line for the upper deck (Balsa's really great for this kind of work). All a bit rough and ready and not square at the moment. That will come with the trimming, and the roughness will be hidden inside the hull - as it was when I first built her. Not sure if I'm going to camber these beams - I didn't know about that at the time and probably wouldn't have bothered if I had. Steven
  16. Louie da fly
    Thanks for the likes. John, thanks - very much appreciated. Don, welcome back! (and thanks for all the likes!). I really enjoyed following your liburnian build and I'm grateful for the comment on my own build. After a certain amount of frustration in realising the forecastle wasn't going to work and couldn't be fixed but needed to be replaced by a new one 😭, I've made a start on the replacement. It's rather smaller than the previous version to make it fit better at the bow, while still having enough space for the siphon plus crew. In some ways it's a relief - in making a new forecastle I get to re-do some things I wasn't completely happy with in the first one. Because of the maindeck sheer and horizontal foredeck, the're'll be a larger gap below the after end of the foredeck than forward. This will be convenient for storing the anchors, which I hadn't previously been able to work a place for. Steven
  17. Louie da fly
    Thanks everybody for the likes. Michael, sorry for not replying earlier. Your comments are much appreciated. Patrick, I agree with your assessment. Several of the pics in my earlier post were also from Landstro"m's The Ship. Since that was written a lot more evidence has become available, which is why my model is somewhat different from his reconstruction. However, I agree about the forecastle, particularly that the deck should be horizontal and the forecastle itself should be lower. Unfortunately, it looks like I will have to completely rebuild it rather than just remove the arches.😖 Oh, well. Back to the drawing board . . . Steven
  18. Louie da fly
    Hi Pat, That's my thought as well. The arches should come off fairly easily and I can see how it goes from there. I still think the two mast option is the better one. Steven
  19. Louie da fly
    Carl, I realised I'd misread your post, thinking you simply meant seawater, not oil for the siphon. You're quite right - I'll have to ensure the deck is horizontal, otherwise spilt oil could flow back into the ship. (it might anyway if the ship is bouncing around on the water, but that's a different problem. I can at least reduce the risk as much as possible.) Thanks for pointing this out. Steven
  20. Louie da fly
    Oh, I've just "plonked" the forecastle on top of the deck for the moment. When properly in place it should follow the sheer of the deck at the bow, which is fairly shallow. However, I'll check it out in case it looks like causing problems. Steven
  21. Louie da fly
    Having all but completed the forecastle, I've been having second thoughts about its height. Looking at the dromon with the forecastle at its present height placed temporarily at the bow, it looks like it will interfere badly with the lateen foresail in the current configuration. As I see it, I have two options - to take out the foremast and make the dromon a single-master (you may remember I'd spent a of time and effort earlier in the build trying to decide whether to go with one or two masts) - or reduce the height of the forecastle. Though going single-masted would require re-doing some of the deck planking and putting in a new mast step, that's not necessarily a reason not to do it. There's plenty of contemporary written evidence that can be read to support the idea that dromons were single masted. On the other hand, there's just as much evidence to the contrary. Looking at a few near-contemporary illustrations of galleys (though none of them are dromons) it appears that the forecastles of galleys of this time (those that had them) were considerably lower than I've made mine. I started with the idea of that a dromon would have a higher forecastle than those of other cultures, because being equipped with a Greek Fire siphon it would need enough height below the forecastle deck for the oil reservoir. However I've checked the available space and it looks like I could just as easily put the reservoir on the forecastle deck without messing anything up. This would reduce the forecastle height and both make it look more like contemporary ones, but more importantly, wouldn't interfere with the foresail. But it would mean I'd have to get rid of all those arches and columns I'd put so much work into (sigh). The lower ends of the lateen yards will still have to be a certain distance above the deck because dromons had structures (presumably two or more upright stands set into the deck) to rest the masts on when not in use, and similar ones for the yards. And the masts and yards would have to be above head height to allow free movement beneath. On contemplation I think this is the right answer - I just haven't summoned up the nerve to change it. I'm going to think about it overnight and if I still feel the same way tomorrow, it'll be "goodbye arches!" Steven
  22. Louie da fly
    Blast! I thought it was going to be a video! (Nice photo, though) Steven
  23. Louie da fly
    Looking really good, John. On the third photo above, the transom looks a little out of square, but I expect that's just a trick of the photograph angle. Steven
  24. Louie da fly
    Beautiful work, Dan. And fascinating following your analysis and reconstruction of the complex details of this section of the superstructure. Captain Hartley isn't based on the Fat Controller, by any chance? Nah, can't be. Wrong hat . . . Steven
  25. Louie da fly
    Absolutely stunning work, Greg. It's a real pleasure to follow this build. Steven

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