davyboy

Whilst built for the Confederate states, Alabama was built in the UK by Lairds of Birkenhead. Just a coupleof miles from where i used to live.
So she could have been built to British scantlings for the time period. 
There used to be a model of her on display at the outdoor swimming baths at New Brighton that was built by a member of the CSS Alabama Association who wanted to raise her.
Alabama Wiki

The swivel gun mounts:
 







 

Why thank you, Mark. Unfortunately, they are going to be on the weather side, so I think Doreltomin's point stands. However, perhaps a flick of the rudder(s) could take the load off for a short time even if they were weather shrouds. [And of course if they were just completing a tack and hadn't yet got under way, these guys tightening the last weather shroud could well be believable].
 
Tartane, yes, I'm still going to be using lateen sails. I've looked carefully at your arguments and they aren't convincing enough to make me change. I realise that you have the best intentions in making your suggestions, but I have done plenty of research of my own and I'm satisfied that I'm making the right decisions. What may have been the practice for a chebec in the 18th/19th century is by no means necessarily what was done in the 12th century, and I believe I have ample evidence to back me up.
 
Theoretical reconstructions will always be a matter of interpretation of the available evidence, and our interpretations are different. I think the best policy is for us to agree to disagree. I'm not really willing to engage in any further discussion on these points, as I find it's distracting me from the build.
 
Steven

Post One hundred and Seventy-one
Album photo's
I have at last got around to taking the completion photo’s which will form part of the Photo build record book that I’m currently putting together.

4395
4361A

4392

4364

4365

4391

4390

4396

4369

4405

4395

2161A

2145a

4397

2162a

2164a

4380

4379

4388

4494a
I am currently faffing around with a clinker built 18’ cutter, and ‘Indy’ is yet to be enclosed in her case, so the story has not quite ended.
 
Then there’s the 26’ Launch, still on my mind.
 
Cheers,
 
B.E.
 

So I have set up the knighthead and have glued all the bracing in place. Not my best work but it is now straight and stable. 


So I now have to trim everything flush with the bulkheads. Time to check all the plank runs to find where I need to fine tune the shape. 
Also, I can get all the measurements of the below deck, main, for castle and aft decks. 

Hi ☺️
 
 

As always, thanks for the likes.  I do appreciate you all following along.  After all the metal work of making the chain plates, backstay plates, eye bolts, and deadeye strops, I decided I'd work on a relatively straight forward sub assembly.  I went ahead and installed the rudder, and gudgeons and pintels (I had shaped the rudder itself a couple of months ago).  I used Chuck's mini kit for those.  You have a choice in the mini kit of .010" thick paperboard material or .028" thick plywood.  I opted for the thicker plywood and sanded it down to .018" thick.  By my eye that's a good compromise.  I used .020" diameter styrene rod for the bolts.  Yes, yes, I know it's probably sacrilege among purists to use plastic on a wooden ship build.  Haha.  But since the bolt heads are covered in paint I chose the easier to cut and work with styrene rather than metal wire.  Everything was painted with black paint and then once mounted I taped the simulated metal straps off and applied rust brown weathering powder. I haven't glued the rudder on yet.  I'll do that at a later date after I drill the final hole to mount the tiller (I did drill a small pilot/locator hole though).  That said, the rudder sits correctly straight and true with the pintels snugged down into the gudgeons.
 
On a related note, I received the last few packages of blocks I'll need for the build, and a serving machine, from Chuck this week.  If I'm inventorying correctly, I think that may be the last stuff I need to complete the build.
 
Erik

In general I have completed work on the small boat. On the drawing it comes without metal fastenings for the mast, after some thought I decided to do it as on the drawing. What is left to do is to cover it with oil, make two slipways and install it inside the  longboat.

It was so great to see everyone at the New London show yesterday.  There were some fantastic models on display.  I hope everyone has a safe trip back to their workshops.
 
And talking about a safe journey back to the workshop.  Many of you may recall that 4 and maybe even 5 years ago, Someone swiped my mini-me off the Winnie model under construction at the show.  
 
I am happy to report that after several years as hostage…and with no ransom paid,  someone anonymously released mini-me and placed him in the depths of the speedwell model at this years show.  I was happy to find him below deck upon my return to the shop.  No harm was apparent on “mini-me” and he is in good health.  Thank you goes out to person for having a change of heart and I am sure that both of you will sleep a bit  more soundly this evening!!   Since I have lost 30 pounds this year so far...mini-me will now undertake the same dietary and exercise regime that I am now unfortunately tolerating.
 
You cant make this stuff up!!!
 

Doreltomin, you're probably right. But I'm not going to carve another figure - the mistake will just have to remain for eagle-eyed people like you to spot and comment on 
 
Tartane, thank you for your input, but despite your belief that the halyards in this configuration would foul the sails, that nonetheless seems to be the way they did it. Note the position of the halyards on these two 2-masted ships  - they lead to the black triangle at the top of each mast and around the white dot (the sheave) and back down again.

Zibaldone da Canale  early 14th century
 
And the same applies with these ones
                  
Bestiary Morgan Library ms4 59 fol 18r North Italy c. 1290          1232 - 1261 Bohemund: William of Tyre's Histoire d'Outremer, BL Yates Thompson 12 f.58v
And these 
  
1332 Italy, KBR ms. 9404-05 - Liber secretorum Fidelium Crucis       St Ursula, Church de San Francisco de Palma de Mallorca 1st quarter 14th century
 
And as confirmation that this is not just artistic invention,  multi-masted lateeners and setee-rigged vessels in the 20th century continued to do so:
   

I am quite prepared to believe your contention that chebecs did it differently, but there  is sufficient evidence that this was the way it was done in mediaeval times, and has continued to be done this way in many vessels for centuries in between.
 
Steven
 

Hello, and thanks to everyone for the comments and likes, the work is progressing, everything needs to be finished and nailed:

Knee of the head Mk. II.  I messed up the first one when I was sanding the backside to fit the stem.  I learned my lesson and made up a sanding block with the same profile of the stem to sand back the second version.  This time I used brown artists pigment mixed into the Titebond glue.  The lines are hardly visible, but show up nicely when the wood is damp.  I will stick to that approach for the rest of the build. The stem, keel, and knee of the head are just on the bench for show and not glued up yet.
 
Adam
 
 

Now it's time to build magazines and all sorts of decks and beams. For that phase an accurate depth gauge is essential, so I've let my brain overthink yet another tool 
 
The requirements are:
1) Soft plastic or wood to avoid scratching the model
2) Nice looking and pleasure to use, that tool would be in active service for at least a decade.
3) Ideally it should have a thumbwheel or a knob for fine adjustment. 
 
I have a cheap plastic vernier calliper that satisfies the first requirement, but it does not have an knob / thumbwheel.

Could not find any plastic callipers with a knob, unfortunately. The plastic ones are already rare enough, let alone with a wheel adjuster.
 
Then I spotted a Lego set with a container loader ("reach stacker", to be more precise) that has a worm gear and tried to make an abomination out of it. It is surprisingly challenging to build a compact functional tool out of random lego parts, a whole puzzle of its own. Respect to people who do it on a regular basis!

It kind of works, but the play and precision is not good enough for my needs. 
So I gave up on the wheel adjuster requirement and went back to the simple "calliper on a gantry" setup.
It was a nice warmup to recover some skills that I've lost over years of inactivity.
 

This time I even got help from my little helper! She enjoyed cranking the mill  

 
The resulting design has two parts - sliding gantry (no t-tracks, it is stable enough on its own) and a "calliper holder" that slides sideways on the gantry to allow the gantry keep contact with both sides of the baseboard.
The bottom edge of the caliper is trimmed to a flatter profile to avoid hitting the keelson. Both ends of the calliper can be used for a markup to allow for a comfortable pencil positioning.
The setup relies on three clamps to fix everything in position. These plastic clamps are a bit of an eyesore, maybe I will sidetrack again to build a nicer ones  


 
 

Filling transoms.

Thanks to all.
Knee of the head.
With Le Gros Ventre, I installed the knee of the head only on the already completely finished hull, which caused me a bit of a problem (the gap between the stem and the knee of the head). That's why I decided to make and attach the knee of the head already at this stage of the construction. In this case, the installation went without any problems.        

I modified my lathe to clamp long sections of masts..🔥


Production of topmasts has started..
 







Add some details and I can start assembling..💥

 
 

After a lively and instructive  debate on rigging, back to build progress, .
 
I've now had the opportunity to add some more of my carved figures, plus the knights are now in place and rigged for the fore and middle masts. I have yet to finalise the halyards, but the tackle at the lower end is sorted.


For the mizzen mast, there is not enough structure below decks to hold a knight, so I've made a block to be fixed to the deck beams instead.




Halyards temporarily threaded through the sheaves of the fore and middle calcets. I made the halyard double - I couldn't figure out how there'd be two sheaves in the calcet otherwise. Happy to be corrected, but now that I've committed myself I'm not going to change it - not on this model, at any rate, but maybe for future ones.

I think the grab-rings on the hatch covers are still a bit too  shiny, so I'm planning to weather them a bit more.
And just for something cute (and for people inspecting the model to spot and comment on), two crewmen tightening up a shroud - one pulling down on the shroud, the other pulling the lanyard tight. I had to drill tiny holes for the ropes to go through.
  
  

I don't think I mentioned earlier the upper fixing for the shrouds. Based on this carving

and a very instructive picture kindly sent by Woodrat when I was doing my dromon, I've fixed them like this:
  

That's about it for the time being. More to come when I've done a bit more.
 
Steven
 
 

This build thread is incredibly fun to read.  I can tell that there have been some differences in opinion in within the last page, but I hope that everyone continues to post their thoughts, even if they think they might contradict the information someone else is providing.  I think it's better to have a number of dissenting opinions about something, than NO opinions.  That's the difference between a fun and thought-provoking log, versus a single builder just talking to him or herself.
 
It's also fantastic to see the reference material that people are providing, as that's a gold mine for other builders who follow.   
 
Thank you for sharing your build with everyone Steven; it's one of the most interesting logs on the site right now.
 
Alan

Yes, most will not be seen, as I have to take into account the depth of the carronade carriages and the various openings down the centre of the deck. When I started this, my main thought was that I want to include a ships stove, and it kind of progressed from there.
 
However, as some build logs of Sphinx and Indy has shown, the modeller can choose how much of the upper deck is planked, and this one will be easier due to the sub deck being much less prominent, and the beams being flush with the upper surface of the ply deck.
 
I always think back to the excellent Tamiya kits I have, where they have details that are almost, sometimes completely covered up once fully built. 

Harpy also has 17 bulkheads with lots of bracing, so very structurally sound..
 
Yesterday I clamped and then glued the final iteration of the gun port patterns - as usual for this sort of kit, no gunports or oar ports need to be marked and cut out, these will be already done.
 

Had some time out from trimming the 'Box' hedges so made a ladder for the companionway with a bit of sanding and tidying up it should look the part.
 

 
 
Tim

They finished up with only one paying passenger plus the owners family (wife and two daughters) and two servants (this is from newspaper articles and the servants may actually have been the daughters). They were heading out for the Gold Rush so possibly had a full (free?) crew.
 
I don't actually have any info from my Great grandfather but again from newspaper reports (passing ships took mail and messages and reported sightings, whoever reached port first let them know who was coming and vaguely when to expect them) it was London to Cape Verde then probably Cape Town via the Brazilian coast, then on to Adelaide or Adelaide direct (I think Cape Town). Roughly 14,500 nautical miles in a boat that fits comfortably in my cousins front yard ( a 1 acre block, ~100' wide).

 
No idea but probably.
 
Supposedly Bramble just going in to Brisbane:

Hello everyone, I am embarking on this new project, my favorite period is 1800, after having built a French ship and an English frigate, I am trying my hand at building a corvette, Boudriot's plans do not include the framework , I therefore proceeded to the drawing myself, by hand, what I needed to build this corvette in frame, I must thank Gérard Delacroix for the advice he gave me and for the plans he provided me, he was very kind, and thanks also to Francis Jonet for making one of his available books, after spending twenty days drawing, I started the construction with the axial elements, let's see what comes out of it , any errors will be corrected during the construction phase. This time I'm building in 1:48, because the model allows me to have manageable dimensions for me:

UPDATE:
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The windlass and stern davit was used for various tasks, one of thich was to help work the anchors with their parent ship, helping lifting the crown so that the anchor could free itself, and the the ships capstan did the work of raising it. The windlass was used to coil the buoy rope.

My mill doesn't go that fast so I go for thin cuts and slow movement of the cutting bit.   I do notice that sometimes some pieces do chip out but I suspect it's due to the grain usually at the end of the cut.