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Louie da fly

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  1. Louie da fly
    Yes, the word sounds somewhat rude, doesn't it? You have them making up the frames, and the shrouds that lead from the mast just below the fighting top to the outside of the top itself are called futtock shrouds You're doing very well with this build. Hard to believe this is your first model. I hadn't come across it until you pipped Ferrus Manus at the post with regard to age, but now I'm following it with interest. Where in Victoria are you? As you can see, I'm in sunny Ballarat. And there are quite a few of us Mexicans on MSW. Steven PS: While a lathe is certainly useful, it's not absolutely necessary. I've made masts for several models by the traditional method - start with piece of wood with a square section, take off the corners so you have an octagonal shape, then take those corners off so it ends up circular. Perhaps a bit more work, but many masts weren't circular for their full length anyway.
  2. Louie da fly
    Like I said - not a brawl, just a difference in interpretation. I think you must have been watching too many action movies Steven
  3. Louie da fly
    Dick, where do you keep on getting these amazing pictures? Absolutely wonderful! Thanks very much for them. Greatly appreciated. Yes, I'd thought of hogging myself. Rather like (in reverse) the way the bed of a large flat-bed truck is curved upwards, so when it is under load it straightens out. But not . . . Steven
  4. Louie da fly
    You can also make filler from sawdust and weak PVA (white) glue, particularly if you're trying to match the colour of your wood. Dunno about the ramen, though. I thought that was some kind of Japanese noodle. Well, I can't say I agree with that fellow. If you go see a Shakespeare play, most of the time you can follow what's happening very well. I remember when I was a schoolkid and we went off to see the Scottish play (don't call it MacB*th - it's bad luck) and some of the kids (who'd been studying the play, for heaven's sake) came back and asked why it'd been re-done in modern English - it hadn't. It's just that when you hear it spoken on stage it's a lot more understandable. But yes, jargon - a bo'sun is a boatswain - and as we all know, a swain is a man (Old English Sweyn, probably from Old Norse Svein). The word is still used today in poetry, but usually ironically (as in a lovelorn swain). In a document I came across from 16th century Scotland the word used was botisman (i.e. boatman). And then there are futtocks (would you believe foot-hooks?). Steven
  5. Louie da fly
    Hardly an argument, simply a difference in interpretation. Your idea has merit, but without a time machine there'll never be a definitive answer. Steven
  6. Louie da fly
    Congratulations. That possibly makes you the youngest member of MSW (at least that I know of!) About the same age as I was when I built my Great Harry. Steven
  7. Louie da fly
    Well, this is looking very good. It's a huge project adapting the kit to become something very different, and 'bodging' the bulkhead shapes, learning as you go. Having gone through a similar process, I feel I understand what you're going through. In such a case, I think you're right in allowing yourself some leeway between the original kit on one hand and perfect 'rivet counter' historical accuracy on the other. I'm following with great interest. Standing on the sidelines applauding. Steven
  8. Louie da fly
    Thanks for that information about the support above the turret. I hadn't noticed that. It's just a pity that they decided to sink her instead of preserve her back in 1926. (sigh) Steven
  9. Louie da fly
    She's looking good, mate. A very pretty hull. Looking forward to seeing the next steps. Steven
  10. Louie da fly
    Thanks, mate. I note that contrary to the plans I've seen, photos the upper deck is cantilevered over the fore turret, not supported on columns at the front (which would improve the field of fire but means the upper deck must have been pretty heftily built). But to be honest, this is going to be quick and basic, and I'll probably be leaving out a lot of detail. It just seemed like a nice way of combining my hobby with a fundraiser. No idea if the model will sell once complete, but I'll have some fun doing it. Steven PS: Such a shame that she ended up as a breakwater and is now unsalvageable.
  11. Louie da fly
    I just joined the local Men's Shed - this is a common set-up in Oz, where men can get together, talk about men's stuff, tell a lot of lies, and make stuff. The local one is in the woodworking section of a local high school which has now been converted to a community centre, and has an amazing array of equipment and facilities - carpenters' benches, planes, chisels, drill presses, bench and drop-saws, lathes of various sizes, thicknessers, disc sanders (my current favourite!) etc etc. As it's a fairly informal community group they're always short of funds and they make things to sell, to fund their activities - timber cutting boards (bread-boards), birdhouses, that kind of thing. It occurred to me that (not really wanting to make bird-houses, though I might be persuaded to make possum-boxes to put in trees to provide homes for the local wild-life), I should do something more in line with my own interests. Which led to the HMVS Cerberus, a coastal monitor built in England in 1870 for the fledgling navy of the colony of Victoria, Australia. https://www.navy.gov.au/hmas-cerberus-hmvs Fortunately, I was able to find this on-line: Looking at the plans, I realised she could be made quite simply as a "bread and butter" model, cut from 10mm sheets of pine with my new Precious (scroll saw), with only a little fiddly work to do the additional bits of pieces - the masts and skylights etc (which I will probably make out of bamboo kitchen skewers of various sizes.) I blew the plan view up on the photocopier, and glued the copy onto a bit of pine I had lying around. So, off I went, and here is the beginning of the build. The turrets were cut from the same sheet of pine, using a hole saw attached to my electric drill. More to come. Steven PS: Dan Vadas (sadly missed) made a model of the Cerberus out of card - you can see the build log if you do a search).
  12. Louie da fly
    Yes, I see them now you point them out! Naturally my question was prompted by wanting to do the floor timbers and get them right. BTW, as far as strange ways of fitting mast steps, at least one of the Yenikapi ships had a mast step that was totally free-floating - not fixed to the hull at all! No idea how they made that work. Now some progress on the model. On coming back to it after several weeks, I decided the hull was too tubby and re-calculated the shape using the Mezza Luna method. You can see the new outline offset somewhat from the original. (sorry, it's a really rubbish photo). Using My Precious, I cut a bunch of futtocks and then smoothed them off, as being very inexperienced with my new toy I cut well outside the lines: Then I cut out the parts of the keel and stem and sternposts. And courtesy of the local Men's Shed I was able to smooth them down with their nice disc sander. (When you asked me earlier if I had one, I thought you meant a sanding disc, such as you'd attach to an electric drill. I've certainly got one of those, but the disc sander is so much better.) And yes, there's a very mild catenary to the keel. And I cut and smoothed off all the rest of the futtocks. That still leaves the floor timbers, and the frames for the bow and stern to do, but it's good having finished this part of the project. It means I'm now free to go ahead with the next steps. Steven Steven
  13. Louie da fly
    Thanks, Dick. That's what I'd thought I'd seen on your model, but I wasn't sure. I agree - it does seem a bit of a strange way to do things. Steven
  14. Louie da fly
    Superb work. She's absolutely beautiful! The kind of precision and quality I aspire to but don't achieve (so far). Steven
  15. Louie da fly
    Dick, I was just checking your Venetian Round Ship build log (which I'm shamelessly copying) - there's no specific mention of adding the mast steps, but it seems to me that you used a rectangular piece of wood each side of the keelson plus "blocking pieces" between these to make a slot for the bottom of the mast. Am I correct in thinking this? Best wishes, Steven
  16. Louie da fly
    Dick, You had to post this just after I cut the keel, didn't you? Like the Famous Eccles shouting 'Ahoy! Land Ahead!' CRASH - (I should have said that sooner, shouldn't I?) (Actually, it's ok - I've only cut it roughly to shape - I still have to trim it and I'm pretty sure I have enough leeway to get a catenary curve into it.) Steven
  17. Louie da fly
  18. Louie da fly
    That's coming together well. What are your plans for repairing the masts? Steven
  19. Louie da fly
    It's like Captain Cook's axe - same axe he used, but the shaft has been replaced 50 times, the head has been replaced ten times.
  20. Louie da fly
    Nice work, mate! You're making good progress. Steven
  21. Louie da fly
    That's very interesting speculation regarding the deadeyes. I'll be fascinated to see it in practice. One thing about the higher castles is, of course, that earlier practice had been to attack by boarding, having softened up the opposition with missiles - but only anti-personnel weapons (such as the swivel guns you see on late 15th century vessels). We're just getting into heavier ship-killing guns, and naval tactics were still governed by the old mind-set. Naturally the higher the castle, the easier it was to board the enemy and more difficult for him to board you. And you could also shoot down on him from a higher castle. By 1536 big guns in gun-ports were fully accepted, so having a high castle was a bit pointless (apart from being dangerous due to instability). Steven PS: Have you noticed that the larger galleon in the Normandy map above has a lateen topsail on the mizzen?
  22. Louie da fly
    That's what I thought. Steven
  23. Louie da fly
    Yes indeed. The guys on board are probably mostly passengers, as they are dressed as landsknechts (mercenary soldiers) - lansquenets in French. Here's some more information on the picture itself - https://sammlung.staedelmuseum.de/en/work/ship-with-revelling-sailors . Holbein was a superb artist. Interesting about the deadeye shape. Have you seen the deadeyes they fished up from the wreck of the Mary Rose? They're in McElvogue's book Tudor Warship Mary Rose. Here's a sample I only found out bout these after I'd committed myself with the deadeyes on my own Great Harry. And anyway, at the scale I was working in they would have been impossible. Steven
  24. Louie da fly
    Beautiful work, mate. She's looking good. Steven
  25. Louie da fly
    Thanks for the advice and information, Dick. Interestingly, on my dromon I installed every second frame then filled in the gaps, but that was because of structural problems fitting all those frames in at once with the way I was building the dromon. I've certainly taken into account the need for spacers. I'd been intending to put in the master frame first and then progressively move forward and backward, frame by frame, but I'll look at the method you suggested. I can see the advantages - particularly in avoiding additive errors in maintaining trueness. And yes, I hadn't thought about the mast steps. Thanks for that. Finally, I do have a disc sander, but given how small the frames are, I might be better just using a file to bring them to shape. I'm still in the experimental stage - working out how the frames fit together (or even if they do) and whether my jig pictured above will really work. Steven

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