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

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 

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

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

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

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

Blast! I thought it was going to be a video! (Nice photo, though)

Steven

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

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

Absolutely stunning work, Greg. It's a real pleasure to follow this build.

Steven

Forecastle complete except for intermediate columns, which will be added once it's in place on the ship.

Arches for poop deck awning

Framework done for awning. Support columns still to be made.

Steven

5 hours ago, yancovitch said:

gads....this build is way beyond my ability  or patience 😲....super...........

Thanks Yancovitch - and yet, like you, I'm very aware of the faults in my own build that others don't seem to see . . .😉

Thanks Pat for the comments, and everybody for the likes.

More to come.

Steven

I've done the arcade substructure for the forecastle, incorporating lessons from my mistakes when I did the two side castles. The main things I'm doing different are leaving this bit till last as it's all rather delicate, and to fix the component parts with tenons or dowel joints, rather than rely on butt joints to keep everything in place.

Here are the capitals for the columns below the arches.

and the parts of the column/corner assembly - and the assembly - er - assembled

Adding the first column/corner assembly

and the arcades

I won't be able to have tenons on the intermediate columns - there's note enough thickness in the arches, and I can't determine the locations of the bottoms precisely enough to put the mortises in place. So I'll be forced to put these in with butt joints, but that should be ok - they're subsidiary pieces and not truly structural.

I've also made a start on the arches for the awning at the stern. Couldn't work out how to get a decent semicircle for each, until I thought - two of them make a circle, and a perfect/imperfect circle is much easier to spot than a perfect/imperfect semicircle. So I put six arches together in sets of two to form circles; much better.

Steven

Beautiful work, Luponero. I am enjoying following this build. Naves of this time are of great interest to me.

Steven

I'm in the middle of a book called "War in a Stringbag" by the pilot who was the last to land on Glorious just before it was torpedoed and sunk, redeployed to Illustrious, took part in the Taranto raid, was in the air when Illustrious was heavily damaged by Stukas (which also  tried to shoot him down) and had to fly to Malta to land, then the desert campaign and then Greece. That's as far as I've got so far, but fascinating reading.

Steven

Thanks everybody for the likes.

Christos, thanks for the comment. I wish I could speed it all up, but I have to fit it in with everything else I have to do, and it all takes time - more than I'd expected. The amount of time I've spent waiting for paint to dry, then glue to dry, you wouldn't believe!😁

Steven

Just painted the "bronze" plates on the spur and the forecastle so they're the right colour. And added the "bronze" lion's head to the forecastle. Not too bad, but I'm sure I'll do better next time if I have to do something similar again.

And installing the siphon on the forecastle is almost complete, with the nozzle passing through the lion's mouth.

I've run a "pipe" under the deck between the pump and the riser.

To finish the rest off I have to wait till I've finished the forecastle's arched substructure and the dry-fit the forecastle onto the ship, with the oil reservoir on the main deck below it, so I can install the "pipe" through the forecastle decking to connect the pump to the reservoir.

Then it'll be ready to install (when I've done all the other things that need to be done to the ship before it goes in position).

Making progress.

Steven

Hmm, I might have been better cutting individual plates for the cladding and gluing them on separately.

Steven

Thanks, Dick. Looking forward to seeing your interpretation in practice.

Steven

In the process of making the siphon a permanent feature of the ship, rather than a self-contained unit. First I've put fake bronze cladding on the raised portion of the forecastle's fore parapet. I used the thin aluminium sheet from a can of cat food and will paint it to resemble bronze.

Note also three attempts to duplicate the "rectangle" of pipes I made for the first version of the siphon. Isn't always the way, I got it right really easily the first time but had no end of trouble trying to do it again. In the end I pulled the original siphon apparatus to bits and re-used the bits I'd made the first time.

 Sticking the cladding on with epoxy. Not totally happy with it - it's still a bit rough and ready compared with how I wanted it. I guess to really get on top of it I just need to do lots more practice working with sheet metal at a small scale. And in the meantime be satisfied with what I've done at the current level of skill.

Inserting the pillar to support the "pipe" riser, and cut holes in the deck for the pump assembly.

The pump in place - compare it with the photos in my previous post. In these photos the sheet cladding isn't fully glued down yet.

I think this works better. Considerably more deck room. Note in the final photo the pump handle up against the upright containing the pivot. There's one in the previous photo on the other side of the unit, but it doesn't show up well. The handles are glued in place but I think I'll have to make some sort of clamps or fittings for them.

Steven

Beautiful work, Dick. The hull has really taken shape well.

Regarding the side rudder, I take it you already have the TAMU paper on the development of rudders/steering oars?

Steven

On 2/15/2019 at 3:12 PM, Cathead said:

Canadians are so trusting. You Aussies really ought not lead your family fellow colonials astray like that.

Damn! Sprung!

Steven

That's amazing Yancovitch! I've got 50 oarsmen to make for my dromon and I was intending to cast them, but with almost no experience at all I was not looking forward to it. This site is a tremendous resource! Many thanks.

Steven

On 2/13/2019 at 8:54 AM, Jim Lad said:

Sorry, Druxey - obviously an Australian product.  There is (or was) a non-alcoholic drink sold in pubs (bars) and they had the slogan, 'the drink you're having when you're not having a drink.'  It's found its way into the language over here.

 

John

Us Aussies understood it, John. Just don't say anything about drop bears . . .

Steven

I've raised the level of the gap for the siphon in the forecastle parapet and added an extension to fix the lion's head to as well as acting as a shield against the heat of the flame.

I've also been having second thoughts about the siphon. My original plan was to have the oil reservoir at the break of the forecastle, below the deck, with pipes coming up through the deck to the pump. Then presumably the pipe/s would go under the deck and up to the siphon. I hadn't really thought about it past that, then I saw the videos and made an apparatus that followed their design.

But now I'm thinking of revisiting the original idea. It would make for a much less cluttered layout - the forecastle turns out to be rather short of space - and if I don't try to fit everything together as a single apparatus the pipes could be longer so the pump could be further back on the forecastle where it's wider to allow for more room for the rest of the marines using the forecastle in battle (if that's what they did when the siphon was in use!). 

Here's the current layout

And here's what I have in mind:

Additionally, it's occurred to me that the pump could have two handles if they were removable, as on a capstan. That would mean the pump could be a permanent fixture on the forecastle and hardly get in the way at all, and having two handles would allow for more efficient pumping.

I haven't fully decided whether I'd make a new apparatus from scratch or re-use the pieces I've already made.

Steven