Louie da fly

That's pretty much what Woodrat decided to do with the mast on his Frumious Hulc. Steven

I think I've found evidence to support your crew's choice of clothing . . . Steven

That should make it very secure, Dick, and your take on it seems very logical. Steven

I've been doing some more fiddly things. Funny, my list of things to do seems to expand - even as I'm crossing items off it more suggest themselves to me. I had to dye some thicker thread for the halyards etc to match the thin cotton I'm using for the lanyards - a mix of brown, tan and green fabric dye. I've wrapped a length of the thicker thread around the reel of the thinner thread. I'm pretty happy with the colour match And I decided the knight needed four sheaves instead of three, as the Lomellina (the ship I copied the knight from) was quite a bit smaller than the Great Harry. I followed the outline in The Rigging of Ships in the Days of the Spritsail Topmast. Though it deals with ships of maybe 100 years later, a lot of things seem to have already been in use considerably earlier. And also Wolfram zu Modfeld's Historic Ship Models. Here is the knight and the "ramshead" block that goes with it. And I added cheeks with hounds (sheaves) to the mainmast for the halyard ties. Again I'm in a bit of a quandary. The idea was to keep the restoration as close as possible to the original model, but as I hadn't bothered myself with the halyards it had no cheeks or hounds on the masts - in fact it didn't even have crosstrees and trestletrees to support the tops. And rather than being looped around the top of the mast, the tops of the shrouds were just glued to the sides of the mast. So to put halyards on, I needed to make the ties and cheeks and hounds. And to add the cheeks I had to remove the shrouds that were already in place and I'll have to re-glue them in position - to the sides of the new cheeks. I've stopped short of adding trestletrees and crosstrees - otherwise it just gets too far away from the original. And here's the railing for the foretop, made out of a thin sliver of wood curved in a circle around the lid of a plastic bottle. I'll be putting it on in due course.

I used a hand drill and a mini-hacksaw, sawing gently back and forth. https://modelshipworld.com/topic/12426-henry-grace-a-dieu-great-harry-by-louie-da-fly-scale-1200-repaired-after-over-50-yrs-of-neglect/page/4/ The first results were a bit rough but as I got more practice "I got better" (like John Cleese after being turned into a newt).

Hi Tallyho and welcome to MSW. Have you decided on a model to build? Steven

Bienvenu à MSW, Francis! Have you decided on your next maquette? When you start making your model, make sure you also start a build log for it. The instructions are here: https://modelshipworld.com/topic/24705-before-you-post-your-build-log-please-read-this-starting-and-naming-your-build-log/ It not only shows a pictorial record of your progress but it is also a very good way obtain advice and encouragement from other members - they are very friendly and helpful. Steven

Welcome to MSW Pascual. Yes the Palma Nova looks like a good kit to begin with - an interesting vessel that should teach you many of the important shipmodelling skills, without being too complicated, but will be something to be proud of. Yes, starting a build log is a great way to get advice and encouragement, and the people here are very friendly and helpful. Good to have you aboard. Steven

Welcome to MSW! You've made good choices with those kits. They should build your skills without overwhelming you, as a larger more complicated model would. And you'll have something very worthwhile at the finish. Yes, make sure you start a build log when you begin your model/s. It's a great way to get help and encouragement, as well as a record of the build itself. The instructions are here: https://modelshipworld.com/topic/24705-before-you-post-your-build-log-please-read-this-starting-and-naming-your-build-log/ Good to have you aboard. Steven

Nice work. How many more to go? Steven

Well that's pretty much what I told him. We'll see if anything comes of it. But as far as I can see there are no other kits out there that are anything like the ship he wants to build. It appears to be a neglected field among kit manufacturers - but then again, there's certainly very little information available on (or interest in) merchant ships of this period, and the Josiah (if Wikipedia is to be believed) started life as a frigate. Steven

As far as he can make out his ancestor came from England to Virginia as an indentured labourer in 1679 (not 1684 as I previously stated) on a ship called the Josiah, which is described as a frigate. But most of his information is from Wikipedia and can't really be verified further. He's a beginner who wants to build a kit model of the Josiah (which is of course impossible - no kits exist, and there's no real idea of what the Josiah was like - so I've pointed him at the nearest thing - and not very near at that - Corel's Berlin). I don't think he's interested in historical accuracy - he just wants a nice model to display to his friends so he can say "The Josiah was a bit like that", which is fine by me. Steven

Thanks everyone for the answers. Very interesting. I'd thought those would be the flags flown, but didn't know if they were confined to warships. Chuck, interestingly enough I'm trying to find out for someone whose ancestors were colonists in 1684. Steven

That pretty much says it - does anyone know what flag/s would have been flown by an English merchant ship in the 1670s-1690s? Steven

That's such a great idea! And the vessel looks just right being supported by the book. It'll probably be something most people miss on first inspection, and you can perhaps enjoy the "Aha!" moment as they realise the book really is about the ship.

That's looking very good, Kondzik. Steven

Having worked with sheet metal myself, I'm very interested in how you went about shaping the hull. Fascinating project!

Welcome to MSW, Halvor! I see you've already begun your build log. That's great. Make sure you put up plenty of photos, and don't be shy about asking questions. The members here are very friendly and helpful. Steven

Beautiful work (as usual), Dick. Steven

I think that's a good creative solution that could well have been used at the time. Steven

Onto fiddly bits. Here's the picture in Björn Landström's book The Ship I originally worked from, showing the dragon figurehead and the decorative crown and flagpole on the bowsprit: I'd already carved the dragon-head - now I've painted it: Very happy with the crazed look on his face. And here is the flagpole/crown assembly I made a mistake - the fore topmast had snapped off just above the top and I was intending to just glue it back onto the remaining stub. Then I forgot what I was doing and removed the stub. So I had to reconfigure the topmast by adding an extra bit of wood to replace the stub . . . and carve it to shape. I wouldn't have needed to do any of this, if I'd remembered what I'd originally planned Steven

Thank you, Keith , and thanks everybody for the likes.

Well, I discovered that all those nice shields I made a while ago were ok for the rails on the tops but turned out to be too small to go on the railings at the sides of the weather deck. So I had to make a whole lot of new ones. So there's been a bit of a delay while I did that. But now I can happily say they are all finally in place. And another small milestone. When I first made the model I'd put the lower starboard shrouds in place on the main and fore masts and added the ratlines (glued, not tied, in place) - but I hadn't done anything about the deadeyes - I'd put that off till later. Well, now it's "later", and I find I really made problems for myself doing it that way. I've made deadeyes for the main shrouds and put in the lanyards. I've intentionally left the lanyards with some "play" in them so I can adjust them when I attach the deadeyes to the channels. It's all a bit (as we say in Oz) "a*se about face" and once these two sets of shrouds are done I'll be doing the rest more conventionally. As I mentioned earlier in this log I'm not bothering with making chains - when I first built the model I didn't even know chains existed, and at 1:200 scale I feel it's all a bit too much. So thick thread will take their place. I've hit the wall a bit with knowing what to do next, so I made up a spreadsheet with a list of all the things I can think of that still need to be done, then shuffled the items around - obviously, the masts have to go in before the stays can be added etc etc - until they made a fairly logical sequence. I think this will help. Steven

Well, it's a very attractive piece of wood - and much more likely to be a good representation of what was actually used than a smooth, machined piece bought from Bunnings(!) Steven

I was working on the Great Harry when I was about 17. I'd just changed the scalpel blade so it was nice and sharp. I knocked something off the table (I'm still just as clumsy today) and it bumped on my foot. I looked down on the floor, thinking 'I don't remember having a bottle of dark purple ink on the table". Oh. The blade had landed point first on the big vein that feeds blood to the toes. So sharp I didn't feel any pain. A very nice clean cut. Just needed a band-aid. Steven