Louie da fly

Yours is somewhat smaller scale than mine, which is 1:75, but there shouldn't be too much problem making framing close to the real proportions at your scale. And you'll find that despite the lightness of the framing, your hull will be very strong and sturdy. (well, ok, don't drop it on the floor and tread on it or run over it with a truck, but ueah, I think you'll be surprised how strong the structure ends up.) There are several builds on MSW that have worthwhile jigs for squaring your build. I did a search using "lego jig" but didn't find any examples, but I do like Kikatinalong's jig (and he was a total newbie who just came up with a brilliant jig). Steven

Hi Todd, and welcome to MSW. I'd recommend you start a build log for your model. It's a great opportunity for help and advice from the friendly and helpful members here. And also do a search (top right of this page) for your model, to see what other people who've built the same model did and how they overcame the problems you may come across in your own build. Steven

As I understand it this is dry fitted, and you won't glue it till you've made and used your jig to get everything square? And am I correct in thinking that this is a sort of "dry run" to work out and solve problems before you do another with lighter timber for your frames? Looking good, mate. Steven

If you need to clean off old dirt and grime, what museums do is wipe gently with a Q-tip dipped in saliva (I kid you not!) . I've used this very successfully on a model which had been neglected for 50 years or so. The only thing is - spit into a small bowl and use it as a reservoir. Don't (as I did at first) put the dirty Q-tip back in your mouth to refresh the saliva (YUK!) Steven

Hi Ian, and welcome. If you put "Bon Retour" in the search window (top right of this page), you'll be able to see the build logs of others who've made the same model, which I think should help you avoid mistakes and see solutions to problems you'd otherwise not be aware of. And have fun with it - that's what the hobby is all about. Steven

Thanks for the likes and comments, everybody. Mark, I had to get a new, bigger swear jar. Maybe no enough for a new car, but possibly a tricycle . . . Pat, pretty happy. The join between the shrouds and the "loops" isn't as good as it might be, but sometimes you just have to accept that it's as good as it's likely to get, and move on. Druxey; yes he's promised it won't happen again. Interestingly, thinking about the projects I've got planned for myself for the foreseeable future, (and I'm looking at three or four scratch builds, which should keep me going for a good while), though all will have shrouds, none of them will have deadeyes Steven

Edit your post, and you'll find that at the bottom of your post - not in the text but in the section at the bottom, from which you click on photos to put them in the text, there are three photos that you didn't click on for inserting into the text - i.e. unused photos. Delete those from there, and they'll vanish from the post. I had trouble with this time and time again till I found the solution. Steven

After a lot of waffle and fiddle, I'm just finishing the last pair of deadeyes for the fore and main masts, which had the shrouds already in place but without the deadeyes. (Warning - kiddies, don't try this at home; much more difficult than doing it the standard way. Lots more swearing, too.) This was all caused by my lack of foresight when I was 17 - I glued the shrouds in place and added ratlines without thinking forward enough to decide what to do about the deadeyes, and by the time I got around to thinking about it I was trapped into working around a less than optimum situation. I discovered the least problematic way was to make separate loops around individual deadeyes and then glue the free end of each loop to the corresponding shroud. Doesn't look all that good close-up, but sort of merges into the shroud if you're more than 6 inches away. Not the way I'm ever planning to do it again. Fore shrouds and deadeyes - lanyards held tight by weights (tiny clothes pegs) attached to the ends, with a dab of glue at the back of the top deadeye to keep them in place. And complete . . . Larboards main shrouds ditto (the starboard ones were completed earlier - see previous posts). Last pair of deadeyes - lanyards weighed down to keep them tight. Once the glue is dry I just have to trim off the excess thread from the lanyard, glue down the free end of the "chain" (really just thick black thread) and trim it off when the glue dries. I have to say this procedure was complicated over and over again by such things as deadeyes coming away from the channels after I thought I'd glued them securely, "chains" coming away from the hull ditto, glue plugging up the holes in the deadeyes so I had to pull the assembly apart and start again, mis-threading lanyards ditto, you name it. After this, the swear jar should not be getting full so fast (I hope!). Now I just have to a little adjustment - a couple of ratlines have come unstuck at the end shroud or two, and a few other little bts and pieces. Then I'm ready to move onto the next step. In fact, I've already done so. Greatly daring, I've glued the mizzen mast into position. Once I've put the stays in place, I'll be starting all over again with shrouds and deadeyes. But this time I hope I'll have taken the lessons of the previous debacle on board and do it a bit more cleverly. Steven

Some people use Lego blocks, which have the advantage that all their angles are right angles. Steven

Looking good, but can I suggest the frames don't need to be anything like so heavy - check out the frames on surviving ships of this period. The first is a Viking knarr (Skuldelev 1) , the second is the Bremen cog (with through-beams for strength). The timbers of your frames can be considerably lighter - both thinner and narrower - and still produce a strong sturdy hull. The deck-beams, and particularly the through-beams, provide rigidity to the frames and help the hull keep its shape. And here's a modern reproduction to show just how light a construction you can get away with, particularly when you build in clinker. And it's even better in a model, which is not subjected to the same kinds of forces a full-size vessel has to contend with. Best wishes, Steven

Very clever Steven

Very nice work. I was lucky enough to see the Krait in Darling Harbour on a visit to Sydney pre-Covid. A real privilege. You might be interested in this: https://www.sea.museum/2018/09/26/restoring-krait Steven

Flags all complete. In fact, I may have more than I need. For flagstaffs I went across the road to get some more of that fine grass I'd used as packing in the hold of the Winchelsea nef, . As the grass stalks are already circular in section (and quite rigid and tough considering their diameter) it worked much better than trying to carve them individually from bits of wood. And I've completed the first "run" of deadeyes - for the starboard main shrouds. I'm much happier with them than I was with the ones I'd made myself. Thanks VERY much to henrythestaffy, who 3D printed them for me. For one thing, they're all smaller, as well as being the same size and shape, something I'd been unable to achieve by hand. And the consistency makes them look so much better together. Compare the ones I made myself with the 3D printed ones. Here I've replaced the first 3 sets (far left) and the rest are the old hand-made ones. All replaced, and I've added weights to tighten the lanyards of the three on the far right, preparatory to putting a dab of glue on the back to keep them tight. All the lanyards glued in place and trimmed to length. Note how much better they look than the old ones. A couple of problems working with them - breaking a deadeye off the stem that held it to the base was a pretty delicate process - if I did it by hand the deadeye would break not at the stem but across the lower two holes. And if I wasn't careful enough with the tweezers, the deadeye would break off at the stem but fly off into the air, never to be seen again - I suspect they ended up in another dimension. Happened all too often. Unfortunately they're (i) tiny and (ii) transparent and (iii) greyish - which effectively makes them invisible. I've lost more of them than I care to admit. I still have (I think) more than enough to complete the job, but so far I've only done the shrouds on one side of one mast - there's the other side yet to do, plus three other masts (sigh). This has taken a long time and been really fiddly, but I think I've got it a lot more systematic now, and if all goes well the following ones shouldn't take quite so long. Steven

Very true. Have you ever seen the movie "The Witches of Eastwick"? Jack Nicholson explaining to Susan Sarandon that the problem with her cello playing is not the intonation (left hand) but that she's too timid with the bow. Wonderful scene. To play an instrument from the violin family you have to be prepared to go nuts with the bow or it will always sound insipid. (A case of "do as I say" rather than "do as I do", I'm afraid). Steven

Yes, it's not a dazzling white. But hey, these flags would be brand-new; the ship's on display for the king! Steven

Yes, it's a nice surprise to discover that (I still remember my first time). It's amazing how sturdy they get - much stronger than one would expect from looking at them. One of the drawbacks of plywood keels. I prefer solid wood. Still, most people seem to manage. Steven

The deadeyes have arrived. Now I have to work out how to attach them. I tried CA (no good) and an Oz brand of glue called Tarzan's Grip (too gooey). I went back to PVA and discovered that it was good enough to hold the rope and the deadeye together for long enough for me to wrap the rope around it and glue the rope back on itself. We'll see if that's a good long-term solution. I might have to back it up with a dab of CA. And I've started on the flags. Though in almost everything I've been following Landström closely, in this case I won't be. I started out doing so, but though I have the greatest respect for him and almost always agree with his interpretations, on more investigation I became aware that his flags for the Great Harry bore almost no relation to those either in the Anthony Roll or The Embarkation at Dover (painted about the same time) In fact, apart from the long banners and the royal standard at the top of the main mast, none of them correspond to either picture. He's got the cross of St George (symbolising England) a castle (for Castile, home of Henry's first wife? which would be a bit weird as he divorced her), the Prince of Wales feathers, a (single) fleur-de-lis (symbolising Henry's claim to the throne of France), and what appears to be the Cinque Ports flag. Plus what I suppose is meant to be a Tudor rose (it isn't - it's the red rose of the Lancastrian house in the War of the Roses, as the White Rose symbolised the house of York - the Tudor rose has red outer petals and white inner, signifying the joining of the houses at the end of the war, when Henry Tudor of Lancaster, after having defeated and killed the Yorkist king Richard III in battle to become Henry VII, married Richard's niece) and what might be the Sun in Splendour (the badge of Edward IV - again a bit strange because he was of the house of York). On the Anthony Roll, there are horizontal stripes in green and white and in yellow and white, and flags divided vertically into half green and half white. The cross of St George is only half the flag - the other half is a vertical green band (Tudor colours) and none of them correspond to Landström's flags at all. The Mathew does have fleurs de lis, but there are three of them on the flag, not one (4th and 6th flag from the left). It does also have the plain cross of St George and the red and blue English royal standard of lions and lilies. So, what to do? After starting out on the Landström flags I've ended up going with the Anthony Roll. I've also waffled a bit about the sizes of the flags. At first I thought Landström's were too big and made smaller ones, but I changed my mind and went back to the original size. Then I had to work out where the flags were supposed to go, and how many I should show. Does Anthony show all the flags on the ship, or only the flags on one side? He seems to have been a bit careless - he's just sketched in the lower ends of the flagstaffs so it's really impossible to work out where they sit. Some are at the gunwales, others appear to be on the top of the beam that supports the boarding nettings (which would be very impractical). Landström puts them on the gunwales, but has left off the ones Anthony shows at the weather deck. I finally decided that Anthony seems to have shown all the flags, from a three-quarter view, and that I don't have to add more. An the Embarkation painting shows the fixings of the flagstaffs in a way which makes sense to me. There's a lot of speculation in all this, and I'm aware that neither painting can be regarded as perfectly reliable, but I'm fairly satisfied now with what flags to use. I haven't done them all by any means, and I had to do some experimenting to get the effect I wanted. I first did them on paper with acrylic paint, but it really didn't work when it came to solid bands of colour. I tried enamel on fabric - no good. Finally, acrylic on fabric, which gives a very stiff flag, but enables me to get the "look" I want. I will be mostly following the Great Harry but taking a couple of the Mathew's flags to add interest. Here are all the flags I've made so far, including some incomplete ones and the ones I'll be discarding as no longer appropriate - either the wrong design or too small. You can even see the ones I did on paper at the bottom. Steven

Welcome to MSW, SUBaron. Yes, I was guilty of blowing up my models when young (one ship I floated in a concrete tub in the laundry and set off a firework that looks much like an M-80 - nearly deafened myself!). I played violin in my teens and still have my grandfather's fiddle made in 1900 in a beautiful inlaid wooden case that looks more like a coffin than a violin case. I sometimes think I should get back into playing, but - too many other things to do (including ship modelling). Steven

Welcome to MSW, Michele. I'd second Keith's recommendation that you start a build log. The instructions are at https://modelshipworld.com/topic/24707-before-you-post-your-build-log-please-read-this-starting-and-naming-your-build-log/ You'll find this a great way to get help, advice and encouragement. It's quite likely that others have already built this kit and will be able to help you if you hit problems. The other thing you should probably do is to do a search (top right hand corner of this page) for your own model and see if anyone else has built it. Good luck with the build! Steven

Of course you could take the top plank off, make a new, slightly wider one for each side and do it all over again. But why? Who's going to look to see how much overlap there is? Apart from anything else, it's invisible - the only way you can check is to measure the distance from the top to the bottom of the top plank both inside and outside and compare the two. The model is looking good. You're doing fine. Steven

Aha! Yes, I'd come across this before but not taken too much notice because it's earlier than my main period of interest. Let that be a lesion (sic) to me . . . Steven

Thanks, I'll take your advice on board. Certainly, I think I've both been having the revs too high (not sure if I can adjust them to be lower) and pushing too hard. No carving on the agenda for the moment anyway, but I'll keep this in mind. Steven

That's beautiful carving, Pete. I've tried doing it with a drill but I haven't had a lot of joy with it. Partly because my bits keep going blunt. I think this is probably a combination of inferior bits, lack of experience with these drills, and trying to take off too much wood with the drill, rather than remove a lot by other means first. Possibly also because I'm making 3 dimensional figures rather than "friezes" (again, trying to take off a lot of wood at once). I find I end up going back to the old standard No. 11 scalpel blade. But it does show the facets from the blade if you look carefully enough. Steven

Very nice work, Dick. I agree, the simpler housing looks more appropriate. That's a beautifully detailed bas-relief - it shows the way the shrouds are fixed with pairs of hearts and even how the hearts are led down to the sides of the ship, plus how the control lines for the rudder are attached to the shaft. I've never seen this one before. Where and when is it from? And do you have a pic of the whole relief? Steven