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Louie da fly

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  1. Louie da fly
    Thanks for the information. I use PVA (white) glue, not CA. But good to know packing tape works for CA. I might need that at some time. Steven
  2. Louie da fly
    It's good to see you finding solutions to the problems as they arise. You seem to be overcoming them well. Do you know what kind of wood that is? BTW, it's probably not important now, but I found wrapping clingwrap around the bit I didn't want to be glued to the hull worked quite well (though I was using a plug, not a strongback). Steven
  3. Louie da fly
    Bienvenu à MSW, Pierre! Are you working on a particular model at the moment? Steven
  4. Louie da fly
    I made a balsa mock-up of the aftercastle, to see how it all works. Here's the first version. This is why I make mock-ups - to see if it works the way it's drawn. It's rather too high - no way anybody can see over it, even though I intend to make the sides latticework. Also likely to make the ship top-heavy. I looked back at the mosaic I was using as my source and realised the aftercastle on this one actually started well below bulwark level, and the other mosaics showed the top of the aftercastle quite low. So here's the next iteration - I just cut the top off. I thought about lowering the whole castle but decided against it as most of the mosaics show its walls pretty much the same height. One other thing - it's perfectly rectangular rather than tapered to take into account the narrowing of the stern. But even though this looks somewhat weird, it follows many, many representations of ships of this period, so I'm going to continue with it, even though it offends my 21st century sensibilities. I think I've got the heights of the masts correct now, but I won't cut them to length just yet - I'm working on how they're going to be configured at the top, what with the calcet and all. Steven
  5. Louie da fly
    I want to be you when I grow up . . . Steven
  6. Louie da fly
    You've done a beautiful job, mate. Nice to see the flotilla all together, as well.
  7. Louie da fly
    Good luck with the insertion. You're a braver man than I am! Steven
  8. Louie da fly
    Portuguese rather than Spanish, and I don't know whether it contains info on masts, spars and rigging, but you might try the Livro de Traças de Carpintaria of 1616 - https://shiplib.org/index.php/collections/historical-sources/treatises-on-shipbuilding/livro-de-tracas-de-carpintaria-portugal/ - but it is in Portuguese . . .
  9. Louie da fly
    Unfortunately the entire document is only available (as far as I know) in black and white, but here is the reference - https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b9076701x/f118.item - the rest of the manuscript is also well worth looking at - it's replete with all kinds of interesting pictures - quite a few more ships (all galleys IIRC except this one), but all kinds of other things. I agree, the picture certainly looks like a hockey stick calcet with a short vertical "topmast" above it, presumably connected to it, to which the "crow's nest" is attached. How exactly this was configured is something of a problem and I'm going to have to think about it a bit. On the other hand, regarding the San Marco ships, even if we assume the artists got the "all-around the mast" tops wrong (which I think is quite likely) and they should be only on the back of the mast, nonetheless there's this pointy black thing sticking out above the top itself. Could this be the top of a calcet? And if so, how was it configured? And though one set seem straight up and down, the others are looking suspiciously hockey-stickish . . . particularly the second-last one. Added to this I'm still trying to work out how a two-sheaved calcet worked (and they all seem to have had at least two) - I think we had this conversation before - why have two ties? My understanding is that the knight at deck level would have maybe as many as three sheaves, but that it would be paired with a block above it with perhaps two sheaves, and the block would be attached to a single tye that goes through the calcet, adjusted by the halyard running between the knight and the block. So how does a double sheaved calcet fit in with this configuration? It's breaking my brain at the moment. Steven
  10. Louie da fly
    Well, I've taken off that stringer behind the gunwale - I just wasn't happy with it. I'll find some other belaying method. In the meantime I've been doing some thinking about whether or not to have a calcet. The main problem is that pictures detailed enough to show whether or not a ship had calcets (or perhaps where the artist could be bothered to add that kind of detail) are usually 2 or more centuries after the ship I'm portraying. The pictures from which Woodrat got the calcets for his 14th century ship are admittedly only (only!) 150 years later, but that's still a long time for development to occur, and doesn't help with whether or not a ship from 1150 would have had them. But then I remembered the illustration from the Annals of Genoa (1173-1196) - perhaps only about 20 years after my own! It seems to me that there is something there at the top of the mast, of a different colour from the rest, and that the top is attached to the rear of it. It would have been nice to see what was happening with the foremast, but unfortunately this is all there is of the picture - the artist ran out of space at the edge of the page and left the rest off (fortunately, though, it shows a rope ladder, which the after mast doesn't). I think I'm going to take this as evidence for calcet, and act accordingly. Now it's a matter of working out a configuration for the calcet itself and how to attach the top to it. A bit of a diversion from building the hull, but I like to think things out in advance. I've now finished all the wales and the next step in the sequence should be either the deck beams or the planking. But I'm also thinking ahead to the configuration of the aftercastle/poop and also how the side rudders are going to work. Steven
  11. Louie da fly
    French person. Bienvenu, Thierry! It's totally ok to just sit on the sidelines and watch. There's a lot to be learnt from many of the build logs, as well as the discussions in the other parts of the forum. I'd particularly recommend the sub-section "Discussions for Ships plans and Project Research. General research on specific vessels and ship types.." Steven
  12. Louie da fly
    I'd agree. Unless you really want to be that precise (and give yourself problems), I think notches would be the way to go. The sheaves themselves would be all but invisible anyway, as they would be mostly hidden by the pendant. Nice to see you back on the build, by the way. Steven
  13. Louie da fly
    Looks very good with the lights on, but perhaps there's too much of a good thing? Having lived by candle-light at times, I'd say you should probably go for rather less, and perhaps put some yellow/orange cellophane over your leds. A good example of the colour and intensity you should be aiming for is provided in Stanley Kubrik's movie Barry Lyndon in which all the interior scenes were filmed using only candle-light (with special cameras designed to do so). The castle itself is looking really good, though I can see you still have a lot of work ahead of you. Best wishes, Steven
  14. Louie da fly
    It's quite possible that quinquiremes were relatively open at the sides, just like they built the trireme reconstruction Olympias - see post #126 here
  15. Louie da fly
    Agreed - it's not a wonderful idea to make your ship top-heavy, apart from the extra cost of the timber. But to me it just looks wrong. And there's no evidence either way from pictorial sources or archaeology as far as I know; most wrecks are found with their upper works missing - unless something has been found in the Black Sea that will clarify the issue. Steven
  16. Louie da fly
    Finalising the gunwale, which hadn't quite reached the stempost due to a miscalculation. I glued in a couple of thin bits of wood to fill the gap, then trimmed them down to follow the line of the wales. I also curved the middle wales further upward at the bow, as the line was wrong. Now they form an intermediate curve between the gunwale and the wale below. Putting on the bottom wales - here's the first pair, at the bow. I hadn't bent them quite enough for the curve of the bow, but gluing them to the stempost and the first few frames will secure them enough to allow me to curve them around the "bend" by hand once the glue is dry, and tie the rest of the wale down to follow the rest of the frames. Another issue. To allow somewhere to belay the vertical lines, I added a stringer inside the hull in line with the gunwale. But I'm not really happy with it, and I think I might replace it with cleats or something of the sort, to perform the same function. What do you all think? Steven
  17. Louie da fly
    That tail looks very good, and I think your decision was the right one. Regarding ventilation, I spent a lot of time pondering this issue during my dromon build. Without a time machine we'll never know the right answer, but the research suggests that adequate ventilation was vital for an oarsman to produce the effort required to row the ship. I never settled the problem fully to my satisfaction, as there was a contemporary account of it being "dark and gloomy" below decks in a dromon. I compromised by having gaps between every pair of deck planks for a large section of the decking. But a quinquireme is not a dromon, and would ahve a had a different layout. IIRC the Olympias was very open for air to enter. Steven
  18. Louie da fly
    I wouldn't worry to much about the "uniforms". Though there's pictorial evidence of a nobleman's followers wearing his colours as early as 1195, they weren't really a thing until the Renaissance. Judging by the figures and the bombard, I'd be putting them all in the 14th century (nearest timeline that includes both a bombard and the outfits of the warriors, though it's stretching it a little bit to do so - that's a very advanced bombard for those guys to be using). I think you've done a pretty fine job with such small figures. I think you're right putting mail rather than hair under the helmets, but I'd suggest the horseman (as a member of the wealthy class) should also have mail "stockings" (called chausses) on his legs. Steven
  19. Louie da fly
    Have you seen the castle being built at Guédelon in France, using only traditional techniques? They've been at it for 20 years now, and it looks amazing. My wife and I are hoping to visit one day, and even perhaps lend a hand as unskilled laborers (sigh).
  20. Louie da fly
    That was the way my own thoughts were going, Dick. Not jewels or pearls, but simply a colour that contrasted with the black hull. The only difference as far as I can see between the ones you've included above and the San Marco mosaics is that the ropes are looped over extended frames rather than randomly distributed, and I don't think there's any significance whatsoever in that difference. Steven
  21. Louie da fly
    See sentence No. 2 in post #1 above. I wish I knew, but they do look very good. Steven
  22. Louie da fly
    Couta boats have a very characteristic and rather attractive curved bowsprit. I had to do a fair bit of carving and bending until I got it right. Then the Men's Shed got a bunch of thin dowelling (about 5mm and 3mm) ideal for the mast, boom and gaff. Very pleasing. I also made seats. Here they all are dry fitted (except the boom and gaff, as I haven't yet made the fittings). And I got some old teak woodstain we had hanging around and stained these bits. Starting to come together nicely. Steven
  23. Louie da fly
    A couta boat is a gaff-rigged fishing boat used for catching barracuda in the State of Victoria, Australia, up till about the 1920's, being superseded by motor vessels, but many of them have been preserved and are now raced competitively. I wasn't going to do a formal build log for the couta boat, but I've changed my mind as i feel it's a worthwhile subject for a log. I didn't take photos at the beginning of the build, it's necessarily somewhat incomplete. Here are the first photos I took of the model. It was built up in layers and then sanded to shape with a belt sander. A lot of mistakes (it was the first time I'd used one of those things) but fortunately builders bog filled in where I'd sanded off too much, so she ended up looking pretty good. Steven
  24. Louie da fly
    Leaving aside the discussion regarding the "beads", here's the latest progress on the ship. Adding wales in line with the stringers. The first starboard wale below the gunwale in place and the larboard wale clamped and waiting for glue to dry. And the clamps removed. Completing the stringers by adding the bits on the ends. And the second wale down from the gunwale glued and clamped. I only had two clamps that reached far enough, but my wife had a brilliant idea - use twisted wire as clamps. I had to be careful with this method to avoid the wire digging into the wood, but it seemed to work pretty well. It only works in very specific instances, but was ok here. Steven
  25. Louie da fly
    I've just answered it - I seem to be on this set of messages as well. Oh, yes. Two of my favourites - the ceremonial glove of William II of Sicily (BTW, have you seen the rest of the regalia? Just as amazing) and the mosaic in Hagia Sofia in Constantinople/Miklagard/Tsarigrad/Istanbul of Empress Zoe with her third husband, Constantine Monomachos - note that his name and face in the mosaic have been altered to update the husband! Thank you everybody for all the suggestions, but I'm afraid none of the suggested uses of these loops is convincing enough for me to include them as part of the model. I think I'll just have to put it down as "unexplained" for the time being. I'll keep an open mind and if I come across any other explanation all well and good. But for the time being, even though it seems to contradict the evidence somewhat, I think I'll keep the interpretation of them being coils of rope hanging from belaying points - they'd really only work for sheets and tacks, though, and I'll have to work out how to belay the vertical ropes such as shrouds and vangs (the rope controlling the top of the lateen yard - there's not really an appropriate English word for these as lateens aren't part of modern English usage. BTW, for a good representation of a calcet with a scarph joint to the mast, look at post #183 in Woodrat's Venetian Round Ship build log at Steven

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