Louie da fly

Thanks Andrew and Jeff. I think I need to tone down the whiteness of his shoes (even though the Breugel Holbein painting shows them that colour) - it makes his pedal extremities look colossal (his feet's too big) 
 
 
 
Steven
 

Is that a challenge? (Note the extra gigantic match stick . . . 9 metres long )
 
 
 
   
 

 

 

 

 
He's 9.4mm (just under 0.4 inches) tall. That's 188 cm (6'2") in real life - Henry was very tall for the time. Looks better to the naked eye than he does in the photo (possibly because with the naked eye it's all blurry to me).
 
And I've done some sanding of the planks:
 
  
 
  
 
  
 

 
Starting to look much nicer, and most of those ugly inequalities in the planking that were preying on my mind are vanishing.
 
I do love that beautiful curve at the stern.
 
Steven
 

- Actually, from the archaeology I've seen, planking usually was a case of "what can we get hold of ?"

Thank you, Roger. When I first built her I had the lines at the stern completely wrong - the bilge was almost down to keel level. in fact it wasn't until I was making the new frames for the rebuild that I realised that with a flat stern the bottom of the hull shouldn't go all the way down - it should end near the waterline so the water could flow past it and reach the rudder. And that was one of the main things I had to change with the rebuild. One of the big advantages (apart from increased accuracy)  is the much more beautiful underwater lines at the stern.
 
    
 
Looking back on it I myself am amazed at what I was able to achieve at that age. I'd previously done two pretty basic solid hull waterline models (a brig and a frigate), I'd made two fair-sized plastic models of the Victory (Revell and Airfix) and I'd built a (probably very inaccurate) balsa model of an excursion ferry called the Zephyr that plied across to Rottnest Island from Perth in Western Australia where I lived. (I think it must have been POB - I don't remember).
 

 
Some of the things on the Great Harry model - to be honest I have no idea how I did them back then. But I agree - despite having to replace/rebuild much more than I'd expected, I believe she was definitely worth restoring. Because of the difference in wood colours, it's pretty obvious which bits are original and which are new - but though I didn't like it to start with I now think that's a good thing. 
 
Steven

The Great Harry planking has been a real trial for me, but I must say I'm glad I decided to make it a learning process rather than try for perfection. I've made quite a lot of mistakes - the planking of the two sides isn't equal and as it's effectively POB (i.e. there were only a small number of "frames") I could only have the planking shift repeat every three rows, not the four I'd hoped for. And I kept losing track of the planking shifts - another lesson to learn, particularly when the arrangement was affected by drop planks. Still, unless you're really looking for the mistakes they're not obvious, and once I've sanded the planking I think it'll look pretty good.
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
Note the lack of symmetry between the planking of the port and starboard sides. But who's going to notice except me? And in future models I'll take much more care to keep it even. Lots of excess messy glue but the sanding will take care of that.
 
And here's the planking of the port side finished:
 

 
Ever since I heard the Flanders and Swann song Have Some Madeira M'dear I've wanted to use the word antepenultimate (the posh way of saying "third last") in a sentence.
 
 
And I've finally got my chance.
 
Here is the antepenultimate plank in place . . . going. . .
 

 

 
Going . . .
 

 
Gone.
 

 

 
And now for the sanding . . .
 
Steven
 
 

I'm afraid I have to agree with Jaager regarding the scarcity of information and the amount of work needed to produce a worthwhile model that is accurate to the time and type of ship.
 
However, there's more known than you might imagine.  Firstly I'd recommend you read and become familiar with
Woodrat's superb Carrack or cocha here: https://modelshipworld.com/topic/4915-venetian-carrack-or-cocha-164-by-woodrat-completed/
This is of an earlier vessel, taken from a drawing of 1445, but many of the features hardly changed, if at all.
 
We know the number and types of ships that took part - see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magellan's_circumnavigation - four naos (carracks) and a caravel - and the number of crew per vessel, which might give us an indication of their size. And we know they set out in 1519.
 
Presumably they weren't brand-new ships - it's unlikely the king would have had them especially built for the voyage, as he was strapped for cash and had to get loans to pay for the expedition - but they wouldn't have been more than, perhaps, 10 years old. So that gives us a rough idea of when they were built - maybe 1510 or thereabouts. Given the size of the crews they weren't all that big, and probably would have had three masts, not four as larger and later carracks had.
 
So what do we have from that time, keeping in mind that this was a period of considerable evolution in carrack design - they were getting bigger and adding decks, and starting to be pierced for heavy cannon. With the crew sizes quoted they  wouldn't have been as big as the Santa Caterina do Monto Sinai (see https://modelshipworld.com/topic/25590-santa-catarina-do-monte-sinai-by-robert-taylor-pyro-1144-scale-plastic/), and she's a bit late anyway - launched in 1520.
 
Probably the best available pictures the right size and from about the right time are below:
 
 
 
 1495-1500 carrack fleet from Story of the Destruction of Troy the Great, French.
 

 
1492-3 Jonah and the Whale Nancy, France BNF MS Lat. 10491 f. 166v.
 

 
1494 reprint 1518 Consolat de Mar Barcelona, Catalunya (Spain)
 

 
1500 approx.Octavian de Saint Gelais France
 
    
 
                                                                                     1500 Jacopo Barbari Panorama of Venice (details)
 

 
1504 Return of Vasco da Gama from India, Tapestry.  Tournai, Belgium (detail)
 

 
1514 Jonah by Bellano. Basilica of San Antonio, Padua, Italy
 

 
1515 Panorama of Antwerp Roadstead, Holland (detail). This one might be a bit late - it seems somewhat too advanced and sophisticated.

These are probably the most appropriate for the time period you're looking at. However, it has also to be kept in mind that different regions had different details - for example the shrouds of carracks serving in the Atlantic had ratlines and were fixed to the hull with deadeyes, while carracks of the Mediterranean had a single rope ladder per mast, and the shrouds were fixed to the hull with blocks. Also, contemporary pictures very often show the bow as too "tubby" compared with the reality, and exaggerate (often dramatically) the sheer of the decks and particularly the forecastle. For an accurate carrack shape, look at Woodrat's build referenced above.
 
I've put together a Pinterest page on carracks at https://www.pinterest.com.au/lowe1847/carracks/ which you might find of use. And there's a collection of archaeological reports on carrack wrecks at https://modelshipworld.com/topic/10190-archaeological-studies-on-carrack-wrecks/
 
 
And don't take too much notice of modern reconstructions - they have no more information than you do, and often get it very wrong indeed.
 
But to get something that is as close as possible to Magellan's ships given the lack of information, you'll need to draw your own plans based on what is available, and build from scratch. The alternative would be to get a Santa Maria kit and bash it to be more in line with what we know. Some of them would probably be suitable for this and end up with a ship that was pretty close to the reality of Magellan's vessels - but choose one with a round stern, not a flat one. Though caravels had flat sterns, carracks didn't begin being built with them till later.
 
The only other thing I'd recommend is to get hold of the contemporary account of Magellan's voyage, to see if they mentioned anything about the ships or their rig or characteristics (for example, Columbus's account describes the rig of Santa Maria and how they changed the rig of one of the caravels from lateen to square, so perhaps there's similar information in the Magellan accounts).
 
For the caravel, you could use a kit of Pinta or Nina. Apart from getting bigger, caravels didn't change much over the period they were in use.
 

I found this image in my refernce images. Mayby it can be useful.

I decided to move on with the rowing benches. The kit's version of these is really simplistic, while the reproduction's are far more interesting. The kit just wants you to lay rectangular planks with no other bracing, like this (from the Dusek website):
 

 
But I want to do better than that. On the reproduction, you can see various other details, such as knees connecting the benches with the hull, the rounded surface of the benches, and the thin posts supporting the benches from the deck. It's hard to find photos of the reproduction's interior; the best ones I can find are part of a copyrighted stock photo collection, so I won't embed them here. But this and this are representative of the look I want to replicate.
 
My first challenge was that adding my own wooden deck raised the deck surface quite a bit, given its thickness relative to the kit's paper-thin insert. So if I rested the benches on the bracing added by the kit's instructions, they'd be too low. In addition, since I raised the hull's sides a bit, the benches would also be too low relative to the gunwale. I could have added more bracing all the way along the hull, but decided that an easier and interesting-looking way would be to raise each bench individually, also making this build a bit more unique. Here are the first two test benches:
 

I simply cut and glued two small pieces of the bench material at each end, then sanded them into an attractive curve where they join the bench. This raises the bench top to about the same height above the deck as a modern seat would be (slightly lower, but then again people were shorter 1000 years ago). I think it looks cool. Notice that this also raises the bench surface right to the next interior strake, making it easier to add knees later on (no need to notch each knee over a plank joint).
 
Encouraged by this, I did three more:
 

 
In the above photo, note that the right-hand two haven't yet been sanded into their rounded shape. This shows how much proper rounding adds; the square planks (a la the kit version) just don't look right to me. Here's another view of the difference:
 

 
And here are two views of five fully finished benches:
 

 

 
So far, so good, I think. If you looked closely at the stock photos linked above, you'll notice thin posts supporting the benches from the cross-beams in the deck. I'm going to need to integrate those into the benches as I install them, as it'll be a huge pain getting them just right if I try to do it after all the benches are glued in. So right now the benches are just resting there. But that's a detail I definitely want to include.
 
I'll keep working on these, assuming someone doesn't see a major flaw in this plan! 5 down, 25 to go.

All the rivets are now ready for installation!
 
In between the sessions with preparing them I have started on some other parts, to be installed later. That is rudder, tiller, mast and yard. The mast has a "bulge" around the hole for the halyard will be a stop for the shrouds.
 

Yesterday I also received a package with some dark stains that might look like tar.
 
I have experimented with some mixes and found that three parts light oak stain mixed with one part ebony stain and eight parts water starts to look OK. That is the lowest right piece in the picture below. The other pieces are to black to look realistic. Tar, when mixed with linseed oil, is not ink black, but rather very dark brown.
 

 
 
 
 

Building the mold I’ll make the base first
 

Then the false frames
 


Assembled
 

Interesting to see that since now the clinker planking is already marked in false frames.... let’s remember that this ship has a very special planking process.......several layers with different joint systems
 

Once I sent this mold to the expert......guess what.....It was not that right.....
If you take a look  the blue line in very end of the bow is what I have.  The thick gray line is what should be.  So I made the correction....
 
 

Now I can move forward.  Since I’m not an Autocad expert..... I usually check the forms with the LOFT function.....
 

I realized that the false frame 4 front is not right....... son another correction...... and finally we are ready to go!!!!!
 




These are the false frames (all but the master).  With this one I’ll move forward to build my mold.
 
 
 
 

Aha! Well, having seen the cross-section, the plank does seem to be in the right orientation after all. I wouldn't sand it - if that's the way it's supposed to be, leave it as it is.  It does look strange, though, doesn't it?

The second-last plank in the second photo seems to be at an unusual angle - but this may just be a fault of the photo. Certainly, clinker planking can be very difficult to get exactly right. It's probably best to just leave it as it is rather than try to change it.
 
Overall, looking very good.
 
Steven

Here are a couple more photos -
 
Waterways added to the aftercastle deck (absolutely vital -  to cover up gaps at the edge of the decking which you can see through down to the gunports below).
 

 
 
masts and bowsprit dry fitted. Still sanding the underwater planking.
 
   
 
 

 
 

Is that a challenge? (Note the extra gigantic match stick . . . 9 metres long )
 
 
 
   
 

 

 

 

 
He's 9.4mm (just under 0.4 inches) tall. That's 188 cm (6'2") in real life - Henry was very tall for the time. Looks better to the naked eye than he does in the photo (possibly because with the naked eye it's all blurry to me).
 
And I've done some sanding of the planks:
 
  
 
  
 
  
 

 
Starting to look much nicer, and most of those ugly inequalities in the planking that were preying on my mind are vanishing.
 
I do love that beautiful curve at the stern.
 
Steven
 

- Actually, from the archaeology I've seen, planking usually was a case of "what can we get hold of ?"

The Great Harry planking has been a real trial for me, but I must say I'm glad I decided to make it a learning process rather than try for perfection. I've made quite a lot of mistakes - the planking of the two sides isn't equal and as it's effectively POB (i.e. there were only a small number of "frames") I could only have the planking shift repeat every three rows, not the four I'd hoped for. And I kept losing track of the planking shifts - another lesson to learn, particularly when the arrangement was affected by drop planks. Still, unless you're really looking for the mistakes they're not obvious, and once I've sanded the planking I think it'll look pretty good.
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
Note the lack of symmetry between the planking of the port and starboard sides. But who's going to notice except me? And in future models I'll take much more care to keep it even. Lots of excess messy glue but the sanding will take care of that.
 
And here's the planking of the port side finished:
 

 
Ever since I heard the Flanders and Swann song Have Some Madeira M'dear I've wanted to use the word antepenultimate (the posh way of saying "third last") in a sentence.
 
 
And I've finally got my chance.
 
Here is the antepenultimate plank in place . . . going. . .
 

 

 
Going . . .
 

 
Gone.
 

 

 
And now for the sanding . . .
 
Steven
 
 

Well, I've done some more planking. It's a long process, and I sorry to say I find it rather tedious.
 

 
 
 

 
Slowly getting there . . . I've done a few dropped planks here and there  to follow the shape of the hull (e.g. there's one from frame 6 aft in the second row down.)
 

 
I was getting more and more disillusioned with the look of the planking, and worrying that it wouldn't look any good when it was all finished. So I sanded the planks on the starboard side (except for the top two or three runs) to see how it would look. Turned out much better than I'd expected. So my confidence is restored.
 

 
When I get bored with planking I've started making things that will come into use later. At various places the ship is to have shields with the cross of St George (England's patron Saint) lining the sides - the waist and the fighting tops. It used to have the full set, but many have got lost over the years. So I've had to make replacements. I rounded the edges of these lengths of wood a little, to suggest the curve in the shape of the shields. After the dromon, you'd think I wouldn't get involved in making shields ever again - must be a glutton for punishment.
 
     
 
     
 

 
 
Also, the maintop and foretop are to have railings around them. Again, the ship used to have them but they've been broken over the years. So I've been making a replacement railing for the maintop (I won't do the foretop till later - as I can't remove it from the ship, adding a fragile railing would be a bad idea at this stage).
 
I'm amazed that I was able to make something that fine and fiddly when I was 17 - a case of beginner's luck, I think - or perhaps ignorance is bliss; I didn't realise it was supposed to be difficult so I just barged ahead and did it. But how I got all those uprights to sit vertically when they were just butt-jointed to the edge of the top I really don't know. Perhaps the fact that they were sitting in a thick bath of PVC glue had something to do with it - I had to lift off all this thick layer of glue before I put in the new ones. Still butt-jointed, and getting them all to sit vertical and then attach the circular top rail to them and have it sit properly was a bit of a trial and error job.
 
Here's the railing before bending, plus another piece to be cut into lengths for the balusters
 

 
And the maintop with the balusters (roughly) in place. You can see that when I first built the model I got up to the point of adding the ratlines to one set of main shrouds but not the other. Same with the foremast. I even made a couple of deadeyes and fixed them to the shrouds - not the correct way at all, but I intend to do it the same way now as I did then.
 
  
 
And the railing. It needed a fair bit of tweaking to get it to sit correctly, and there's still a bit of room for improvement, but I'm confident that in the end it will look ok.
 

 
And here it is with the shields in place. 
 

 
So, more to come in due course. It would be nice to think I'd have all the planking finished by the time I'm ready to post again, but we'll see how that goes.
 
Steven
 
 
 
 

Here are a couple more photos -
 
Waterways added to the aftercastle deck (absolutely vital -  to cover up gaps at the edge of the decking which you can see through down to the gunports below).
 

 
 
masts and bowsprit dry fitted. Still sanding the underwater planking.
 
   
 
 

 
 

Is that a challenge? (Note the extra gigantic match stick . . . 9 metres long )
 
 
 
   
 

 

 

 

 
He's 9.4mm (just under 0.4 inches) tall. That's 188 cm (6'2") in real life - Henry was very tall for the time. Looks better to the naked eye than he does in the photo (possibly because with the naked eye it's all blurry to me).
 
And I've done some sanding of the planks:
 
  
 
  
 
  
 

 
Starting to look much nicer, and most of those ugly inequalities in the planking that were preying on my mind are vanishing.
 
I do love that beautiful curve at the stern.
 
Steven
 

@Louie da fly, you are referring to plank 40, as shown below.  It is at an odd angle WRT to the surrounding planks.  I am considering sanding but would like to see some reference photos before doing any adjustments.
 
 

Though the Gokstad ship's shields didn't have them, there's a fair bit of evidence that shields of the period also had the face covered with leather, which added strength and rigidity. Then the leather rim was sewn on through holes in the circumference of the shield-board. But I just can't see it being likely they would have put them in place if they were going to encounter any kind of weather (or waves, for that matter).
 
Steven

Welcome back to everyone!

Work has continued with the construction of the yard, in two halves as can be seen from many illustrations of that time.

 
The extremities are grooved for the fixing of the blocks. I've only followed instructions.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Where the two halves overlap there are bindings.
At the ends of the two halves, the first blocks, of the one-way type, were tied:  

At this point there will be the problem of the parrel....
See you soon!
 
Rodolfo

I have completed one side to plank 41; the other is in progress.  Plank 41 was a bit of work, as it lies flat to the frames and must be shaped to fit.  It came quite a bit oversized, and required some time to get the sizing correct.  As I did this before soaking for bending, final attachment needed to wait until it had returned to dry size.  The first two photos are overviews, interior and exterior, respectively.
 
 

 
Bow facing viewer, below:
 

 
Stern facing viewer, below:
 

 
I have not yet decided how to complete treatment of the bow and stern planking, in process as seen below.  The first photo is the bow
 

 
and stern

 
Overall, the fit of the planks has been good, and achieving the alignments illustrated not overly difficult.  The lengths of the planks have not been altered.  Most of the frames required some adjustment via sanding prior to installing the following planks.  The hull feels quite sturdy.
 
This completes step Va of the instructions.

You're a legend, mate!