Louie da fly

Nice work on your first planking, and filling and sanding should smooth it off well. However, may I suggest that before you begin second planking, you check out the planking tutorials at https://modelshipworld.com/forum/98-planking-downloads-and-tutorials-and-videos/ - these show you how best to achieve the best planking finish, the way it was done with real ships. Good work! Steven

Beautiful workshop. I'm envious. Steven

Success! I've found upholstery thread that does the job in the right colour, plus some other kind of thread which I can't remember that's a tiny bit thinner, in off-white cotton (which can be dyed to match the existing thread). Just started replacing the tacks and sheets, and it looks good. No photos so far. BTW, thanks everybody for the likes and supportive comments. Steven

Obviously there's no defaulters on this ship - otherwise that rust would have been chipped off and painted over . . . Steven

Thanks, mate. If I don't get any joy with the crochet thread (today) I'll start looking at upholstery thread as an alternative. Steven

Such a beautiful ship. I'm sure you'll do her justice. Steven

Starting to rig the fore course and topsail. I've been following Anderson, as he's the nearest thing to contemporary for this period - only 60-100 years too late. But is it just me or do others think he's really difficult to read? I find I have to have my wits about me to follow what he's saying. First thing I did was the topsail halyard and tye, but Anderson says the tye went through a sheave in the topmast. There's no way I was going to try drilling a hole in that fore topmast (or the main topmast, for that matter) - look how thin it is! So instead I faked it - a short section of tye leading out from the front of the mast, and another, longer one from the rear, running down to a block just below the base of the fighting top - apparently the same bit of rope, but in fact each wrapped around the mast by a single turn, looking rather like a parrel. I decided to leave the parrel truck off - too confusing. A "runner" goes through the block - the fixed end to the port side, the runner to another block with the halyard, which has its free end and fixed end both going to the starboard side. I decided to do ALL the rigging for the larboard side of the forecourse, and once I'd done that do the starboard side. So far I've done clewline, sheet and tack, plus the topsail sheet (all left loose for the time being). The sheet for the course is supposed to start from a ringbolt or eyebolt set into the side of the hull just in front of the main channel. I hadn't planned to bother with that - that would be pretty tiny, but then I though "Why not?" - so I got some thin wire, wrapped it around a sewing needle and actually made an eyebolt that looks right! And I've found a good way to introduce "belly" into the sails. When I added the boltropes, the scale was so small that there was no way I was going to be able to sew them on - so I just ran a bit of PVA (white) glue along each edge of the sail and glued cotton onto the edge to act as a boltrope. Now I find that if I dampen the glue and curve the sail (eg with a bit of thread holding up the clew) the curve stays in the sail when the glue dries. But now I'm a bit stuck - I began by using cotton crochet thread, which was great for the shrouds and stays, but now I need something a bit thinner for sheets, tacks etc. Unfortunately the thread I have is either too thin (sewing cotton) or too thick (crochet thread). I'm going to have to look further afield and get something in between. I know there is good rigging line available but the sizing conventions for crochet thread are in numbers - No. 10 is thick, 20 is thinner etc. and they bear no relation to actual sizes in inches or millimetres, so if I want to order from a ship rigging supplier I have no frame of reference - I can't compare the stuff I want with the stuff I already have. I'm waiting till tomorrow to go to a specialty sewing etc shop to see if I can get finer crochet thread. Otherwise . . . Steven

I haven't visited this build for a while. You've certainly made good progress! Steven

Actually, that rust looks very good in the photo. But it might look different in real life, so you might be right in wanting to tone it down. Maybe leave it for a few days and come back to it with new eyes - you might find you like it after all. Steven

Hi Doug and Suzy, and welcome to MSW. The model's looking good so far. Are those big drill bits locating the mast positions? Interesting idea. There's a bit of a trick to turning those photos the right way up, but it might be a bit hard to explain. What I do is save the photos from my phone onto a USB stick, then open each one and if it's upside down or whatever, turn it (there's a little curved arrow) upright then move to the next - the one you've just turned gets saved upright and then you can insert it onto the page in MSW. Others my have better ways of doing it (and in fact probably do) but this works for me. I'm not sure why a paddlesteamer would be more difficult than a square-rigger - think of all that rigging you're going to have to do! Make sure you open a build log - then we get to share your progress, and you can get help and advice from the members here. I've found it an invaluable aid in my own modelling. And don't hold back from asking questions if there's something you can't figure out - the people here are very friendly and helpful. Steven

I've been following this discussion with interest but been unable to contribute to it. I'm the most hamfisted solderer in existence and blissfully ignorant about drill bits, but I can appreciate the knowledge of others which leaves me rather awestruck. Steven

Nice work, mate. Steven

Thought you might like to see this - Olympias and the frigate Salamis - both ships of the Greek navy. Steven

Well, after a lot of trial, and even more error, I seem to have sorted the problem out. The first problem to solve was getting the mizzen stay the right length - as it has a pair of deadeyes and lanyards as part of its length, what I did was to try attaching the two ends separately - one to the lower part of the mainmast, the other to the mizzen just below the top -and then add the lanyards. Bad idea. After many iterations and false starts I realised what I should have done is put the whole assembly together and pull the lanyards roughly to length, then attach the ends to the masts. So I did that - in fact I only threaded the lanyard through a single pair of holes in the deadeyes to start with, to see if it would work - and it worked like a charm (relatively - I discovered when I had the assembly partly threaded that I'd run the lanyard through a gap between the deadeye and the strop instead of through the hole in the deadeye, so I had to pull it all out and do it again. This kind of thing keeps happening to me - I really dread doing this fiddly stuff with ropes - they don't seem to like me and tangle at the slightest opportunity. However, I am learning bit by bit about how the rigging works, so perhaps it's all for the best). I finished threading the lanyards, and then of course I had to remove the glue from the mainmast, which had accumulated from the false starts. I think I've got rid of it all And then the same procedure with the lower bonaventure stay: I'm not totally happy with the way the ends of the strops lie against the stays - I'm considering shortening them so they look tidier, but I might be better leaving well enough alone -they're not perfect, but messing with them might make them worse (worst case scenario I might accidentally cut through the stay and have to start all over again). Then to start on the halyard, threading it through the sheaves of the knight and the block. Not all that easy - I didn't have all that much room - the knight was so close to the fore bulwark of the upper deck that it was difficult getting the tweezers in to grab the free end of the halyard - and I had to do that three times. Oh, and I'd got it through three sheaves when I discovered it was on the wrong side of the stay so I had to unthread it again and re-do it. Finally finished it, and I have to say it looks better. Apart from anything else, the knot at the end of the halyard (which holds it from pulling through the sheave) is now on the forrard side - which means it can't be seen - and what you can see is three nice parallel lines running between the knight and the block. Not only that but I discovered that when I was putting the knight in place many months ago I had inadvertently put it about 2 millimetres off-centre - just enough to avoid the problem I'd been so concerned about - that the halyards and tyes would chafe on the mizzen stay. Funny how these things turn out, that an earlier mistake solves a later problem. The mizzen stay and main halyard assembly in relation to each other. On the right hand photo you can see the free end of the strop on the lower deadeye isn't tied down properly. In this photo it's now tied down, but not totally happy with the look. As you can see, I haven't pulled the halyards and lanyards tight. I think I'll leave this for the moment and do it when I'm sure it won't have the same nasty effects as last time. On another subject, I've added all the ratlines to the lower bonaventure shrouds. This photo shows the ratlines in place and in the process of being trimmed to length (I've since completed them). Sorry about the photo quality - the automatic focus on my phone is very frustrating. Steven

A fascinating discussion on not only the Battle and the rams, but on the development from "threes" (triremes) to "forties" and many other things, with a side journey to the SIZE of the rams from the Battle of Actium, where Augustus defeated Mark Antony. Steven

Just came across this video of a lecture by Boris Rankov - who was the rowing master on the Olympias -

That will be interesting. Making your own deadeyes can be a real trial (don't ask me how I know), but if your tool works out, it would be worthwhile sharing it with others. By the way, when it comes to attaching the chains that secure the lower end of the deadeyes, be sure to take note of the angles, as in Lapinas's post # 62 above. Also note from the diagrams in that post that real chains are rather different from the ones supplied with the kit. Steven

A little, but I don't think terribly much. I'm working on it at the moment, to see how it works out. Steven

You're making good progress, mate. I must have missed this one - I normally keep up to date with the pre-1500 builds. Steven

I was going to contact you regarding this, Patrick, but you've beaten me to it. Yes, I'd thought it was a bit off-centre, but I'm following the Lomellina wreck for which they've found the whole of the knight assembly and it appears to have been supported centrally, directly on the keel itself. And despite the risk of chafing, this seems to be the only way to go. By the way, as you can see my knight is considerably bigger (with more sheaves) than that of the Lomellina - just as the Great Harry is much bigger than the Lomellina herself. Steven

Hmm, this photo of how Patrick did it with his Pelican may show the way forward - and it confirms me in my resolve to move the deadeyes for the mizzen stay further from the mainmast. I note that the knight in this photo is turned at right angles to the one in my Great Harry, but even then I think there may still be possible chafing problems. But I can't see a better solution at the moment. Steven

A lot of fiddling with the bonaventure - I made the mistake of gluing the lanyards for the deadeyes before I'd got everything adjusted equally. I tried loosening off the lanyards by dissolving the glue, but all that happened is that the deadeyes "popped out" of the strops as I tried to adjust things - the plastic deadeyes were only held to the strops with PVA glue and friction - not a good combination. Then the holes in the deadeyes got gummed up so the lanyards wouldn't go through. So I had to make two more whole shroud/deadeye assemblies to replace the existing ones. Then tightening the shrouds slackened off the lower bonaventure stay (as you can see in the photo). And I'd already glued in place the lanyards for the deadeyes that tension the stay. Big mistake. So I'm having to remove the stay/deadeye assembly and make a new one. But in the meantime I've been adding ratlines to the lower bonaventure shrouds in the usual way - no clove hitches, just glue (PVA -white glue). The shrouds were unequally spaced - those bits of stick between the shrouds are temporary spacers to keep them apart till the ratlines stabilise the spacing. The trouble with the PVA, however, is that the residue is shiny. So all the new shrouds and ratlines are shiny. The old ones were probably shiny back in the day as well, but 50 years of dust has probably dulled them off. To compensate, I've just been experimenting with painting them with watered-down acrylic black paint. I've only done it on one set so far, but it looks promising. By the way, I'm not totally happy with the configuration of the tackle for lower mizzen stay - the lower deadeye is too close to the mainmast and the two deadeyes are too close together - the lanyards should be longer. I've also decided that the halyard should be belayed to a cleat on the mast instead of to the capstan (otherwise the capstan can't be used for anything else). So I'll have to do a bit of tweaking, otherwise it will all sneer at me later on. Now, a problem I've come across that I'd appreciate help with. The main halyard tackle, which goes to a knight at deck level, seems to foul the tackle of the lower mizzen stay, and I can't figure out what to do about it. I'm sure there must have been a solution to this back in the day, but I can't work out how they could have done it. Does anybody have any ideas? Steven

Researching rowing technique:

Aah! I see you're master of nautical terminology - a man after my own heart - none of this woossy bow and stern stuff . . . Steven PS: Loving the model and the fact that you're 3rd generation navy.