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Louie da fly

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  1. Louie da fly
    Thanks everybody for all the likes. Much appreciated. It's going a bit slowly at the moment because I'm doing these deadeyes and they take a fair bit of time with the technique I'm using - and I want to make sure that each one is finished and the glue dried before I start on the next, so I don't stuff up the previous one. I've pretty much used up most of the "in the meantime" projects I can get on with while I'm waiting for glue to dry so I spend a fair bit of time sitting on my hands. Balclutha, I used a No. 11 scalpel or craft knife, but that's because those frames are made of balsa. If the timber had been anything more substantial I'd have used a saw. Steven
  2. Louie da fly
    Yes indeed. He was pretty much Europe's "golden boy" in his youth. He seems to have gone sharply downhill physically and mentally after a very severe jousting accident in which his leg (thigh, I think) was very badly injured and never really recovered from it. Steven
  3. Louie da fly
    He was a big guy (over 6 feet), and solidly built, but he wasn't really all that fat until the end of his life. But the fashions of the time emphasised bodily "bulk". I've seen his armour from various times of his life, and it wasn't all that tubby. Steven
  4. Louie da fly
    Henry looked a bit lonely so I've added a couple more figures. I also moved him from the weather deck to the (quarter?)deck where he's a bit more obvious, and I think more in keeping with his station in the Grand Scheme of Things. Also another sailor - he'll be climbing the ratlines (when I get them in place). And I thought I'd show the process I use to put deadeyes on. I've made a little jig to standardise the spacing of the deadeyes - copied from other people's builds. (I should have made it earlier - the earlier deadeyes might end up a bit higgledy-piggledy because of that.) First put the wire jig through the extreme holes in the corresponding upper and lower deadeyes. Note this doesn't work as well on mine because I have tiny triangular deadeyes which rotate when you try to pin them down, so I just use a dab of glue to fix the shroud to the top of the triangle. Then gradually wrap the shroud around the deadeye, gluing as I go. Trim the shroud to length and "feather" the end to get it to merge into the rest of the shroud like a splice. And voila! Oh, and I've (possibly too early - I hope I don't break it) added the fore topmast. It struck me how tiny this topmast is - then I noticed that though Landström's reconstruction has topgallant sails, it doesn't have a topgallant mast! Looking at the Anthony Roll picture, it gets even worse - he's drawn it as though the mast is a single unit, all the way from the deck up to the truck! As topgallants were very new at this time, and contemporary pictures show topmasts as being pretty tiny, I'm going with Landström. Maybe they hadn't yet developed the idea of a separate piece of mast for each sail, at least up to the topgallants. Steven
  5. Louie da fly
    Beautiful figures. Better than mine, about the same scale. Steven
  6. Louie da fly
    (including building an impossible ship!) Steven
  7. Louie da fly
    Boom - tish!
  8. Louie da fly
    Very nice work, Cathead - and very fast work. By the way, I forgot to mention spears - the most common weapon at the time. You should take them into account. And shields - and from personal experience flat round shields with bosses do not "stack" - they have minds of their own - as you already know. Oh, and blue dye was fairly common. They used woad - it produces a colour very much like what your figures are wearing. Steven
  9. Louie da fly
    Reef-points are shown on sails in 14th century representations and even into the early 15th century --but they seem to have "got lost" in between times. Cog, 1st half of 14th century - Bettman archive 'Saint Nicholas Saves Travelers at Sea' from The Belles Heures of Jean de France illustrated by the Limbourg brothers 1405-1409 It is very unusual (and probably unlikely) for a ship of this period to have reef-points rather than bonnets. I have a single contemporary source showing galleons with reef-points from 1545. All the rest show bonnets. 1545 Map of Normandy - Jean Jolivet By about the end of the 17th century ships were using them again. It's quite likely the kit manufacturer just got it wrong. But it comes down to whether you prefer to follow the kit instructions or to change to bonnets. It's your model and you can do what you want with it. But it's looking really good. Steven
  10. Louie da fly
    Just subscribed.I wish it every success. But where's the podcast? Steven
  11. Louie da fly
    Oh, I forgot to mention - when i was young my twin obsessions were Nelson and heraldry, so I became familiar with Nelson's coat of arms, granted to him after the Battle of the Nile - not [edit - Oops! Should be NOTE] the ships and, on the diagonal line on the shield, the mortar bombs. In 2000 I was in the UK and visited Westminster Abbey and there was a row of tiny coats of arms of important people along the walls. I said to my wife "Look, there's Lord Nelson's coat of Arms" and a woman who was one of the official guides heard me and said - "Oh, that's it, is it? I'd been told it was here but I didn't know which one it was." Score one for the home team . Steven
  12. Louie da fly
    Cathead, I suppose it's possible it's not a barrel, but it seems the most likely thing. A rolled up carpet wouldn't be heavy enough to need its own cart. And yes, buckets with (willow) hoops have been found, so the technology existed. BTW, a wooden tent frame was also found on the Gokstad ship. Reconstruction below. I'm pretty sure the fabric had disappeared. Steven
  13. Louie da fly
    Beautiful execution as always. But I can't get over the look of that planking. Curiouser and curiouser Steven
  14. Louie da fly
    Looking good, Chuck. You'd never know there'd been a problem. Good save. Steven
  15. Louie da fly
    Nobody knows for sure what was carried on yer average Viking ship, but there is a representation of a large barrel on the Bayeux Tapestry (late 11th century - not Viking, but Norman/Anglo-Saxon) at - note also the man on the far right is carrying a shapeless bundle over his shoulder. I don't think there's any proof that oilcloth was used, but it seems likely. It's likely a ship would have carried a large cauldron to cook up food for the crew when on land, and a tripod to support the cauldron. These photos are of actual artefacts. and http://warehamforgeblog.blogspot.com/2010/11/forging-norse-cook-pot.html Several wooden chests have been found. The Mastermyr chest was full of blacksmith's tools and wasn't terribly big (the dimensions are in millimetres) . https://www.angelfire.com/wy/svenskildbiter/Viking/vikchest.html There is also the Oseberg chest which contained fruit and wheat - https://www.historicallocks.com/en/site/h/safes/mastermyr-and-oseberg/description-of-the-chest-and-lock/ The size of the other can be estimated by comparison with their surroundings - http://www.europa.org.au/index.php/projects/28-projects-lejrechest and http://viking.archeurope.info/index.php?page=oseberg-15 I would say weapons would be wrapped, probably in bundles, against the salt spray, and though there's no proof, I expect oilcloth, or perhaps oiled leather would have been used. Steven
  16. Louie da fly
    I made the tiny Airfix Shannon, Golden Hind, Victory, and once the big Airfix Victory and the Revell Victory. Oh, and the Airfix Vasa - I'd forgotten that one. Plus even tinier Airfix models of the Graf Spee, Exeter, Achilles and Ajax from the battle of the River Plate. All gone the way of all flesh . . . Steven
  17. Louie da fly
    Wonderful work, Steven. She's a beauty. Would I be offending you if I said she looks very steampunk? BTW, given the apparent size of the model, you could possibly have got away with thinner metal than 16ga, which is fairly difficult to form. But I have to say you've done a beautiful job of it. Steven
  18. Louie da fly
    That's a beautiful base, Eric, and it really works well with the model. Steven
  19. Louie da fly
    You've done a magnificent job with her, Clare. Truly a model to be proud of. (And yes, I'd have sworn she was wood.) Steven
  20. Louie da fly
    If you were "created" as a peer (i.e. your father wasn't a lord - you were elevated to the peerage for services to the Nation), you generally got to choose what title you were known by - if you lived at Smallbridge, for example, you could choose to be known as Lord Smallbridge. Or you could be known by your existing surname, which happened a lot - Lord North, Lord Melbourne etc. Or in the case of Smallbridge, Lord Hornblower. When Arthur Wellesley was granted a peerage, he couldn't call himself Lord Wellesley, because his brother had already taken the name. So he became "Arthur, Viscount Wellington of Talavera", or just Lord Wellington - later (as he went up the ranks of the peerage) he became successively the Earl, Marquess and then Duke of Wellington. Whatever rank in the peerage you were, you could either be called by that rank (Viscount So-and-so) or just "Lord So-and-So". Nelson's full title (leaving out his navy rank) was "Horatio, baron Nelson of the Nile". Or he could be called just "Lord Nelson", or even "Nelson". Later the King of the Two Sicilies granted him lands in Bronte (Italy) and a further title and he signed himself "Nelson and Bronte". Steven
  21. Louie da fly
    Happy to be of help, Bolin. Some of the anchors are from the Mediterranean and should be regarded with caution, but others are much more appropriate. It seems to me that anchors with the ring next to the flukes co-existed with anchors without them. I've made anchors from brass and also from wood. I think it comes down to what you're most comfortable with. Steven
  22. Louie da fly
    Here are some examples which might help. The dates are either side of the date you're after, so you should be able to get some idea of what was likely in the period you're interested in. 1403 Boccaccio-Maitre des Cleres Femmes du Duc de Berry Expedition to Canary Islands 1420-30 Seal of San Sebastian 1297 Bayonne cathedral 14th century Bodleian Library MS. Bodl. 764 f.74v 1226-1250 Bodleian Library MS. Bodl. 764 f.107r 1226-1250 BL Egerton MS 3028 f. 81. 1338-1340 San Eustorgio, Milan. 1336 to 1339 Fresco, Skamstrup church, late 14th century. St Thomas Becket Pilgrim badge 1360-1400 San Pietro in Ciel d'Oro, Pavia. 12th century I hope that helps, Steven
  23. Louie da fly
  24. Louie da fly
    More fiddly stuff. King Henry with one of his courtiers glued to the deck. I think I'm going to need a few more figures - they look a bit lonely standing there by themselves. And the anchors with their reinforcing bands - in progress and finished. I made them out of strips of paper I'd blackened with a spirit pen. Starting to attach the starboard fore "chains". That's all for now. Steven
  25. Louie da fly
    That's beautiful work, Pat. Well worth the wait. Steven

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