mattsayers148

Have you considered putting a cleat/cleats on your mast?

Do you have an empty pin at the base of your mast to belay bunt lines to?

Hey CaptainSteve, I've been out of town working this week, so I'll get you some better pics of my rigging to compare to. I'm still not content with my two block pulley for the bunt lines and am waiting to see what you come up with.

Nice work CaptainSteve! On a previous set o sails, I slowly inserted a very small gauge of wire through the bottom cloth fold over, it can then be moved to desired shape. As for the lines I looked at a lot of photos and found that the tack and clew lines are belayed on the same side. I would imagine for safety's sake, a full sail could cause a bit of damage to the occupants, not so if the filled sails are off to the side. Don't know if that helps or not.

Beautiful lantern Buck! I'm always amazed by your talents!

George, either he's cheating or he's a time traveler!

Just in: photos have arrived from the Pirates Lair.

Well CaptainSteve, while the two knuckleheads practice their MMA, I was able to sneak in and found this photo along with some scribbled drawings and chicken scratch! Apparently the extended aft deck is going to hold the carronade. That way there's a sweeping defense on the rear end in case another ship gains ground.

From what I can tell, the center rail is to house a long range offensive ordinance. It kinda looked like they want to put a couple of mortars somewhere towards the bow and many small swivel guns. I think they plan on using their speed to get up close enough to blast away with powerful, short range guns.

I've seen that someone has been directing the build though. While guards have kept the Beavers at bay, there are a number of squirrels making some progress with construction. I just don't know whose in charge! I've sent one lone scout to bring back concrete evidence of who's running this show!

Sails look even better hanging! But the poo may drip on the thwarts so I hope you're providing antibacterial wipes!

I made a little progress today working on the bulwarks. Once they're done I can start the railing now that I know the size of cannons. In the end I extended the aft deck by 12ft.

The orders came in to plank the port side. Once that was done the inside was painted black and then cedar was added between the frames.

Since the Nutz brothers wanted to maximize firepower, it was decided to increase the deck size. The stern was extended 8ft and the port and starboard deck were widened a foot on each side. The curve was continued past the bow and will be combined with the bowsprit, in time.

Now I'd like to raise the boom on the mizzen mast but am not sure if this modification has a bad side or not, any thoughts? If I do raise the boom, how much can I get away with? I ask these questions to all because the Nutz brothers are doing a final duel to see who will be the captain of this ship!

Very nice Thomas, you definitely have a great display of precision and an eye for detail. It's good that you decided to do a build log, information documentation is a real asset in this forum, for the builder and spectators. Great start!

Thanks CaptainSteve, and wow those carronades on Dafi's HMS Victory are awesome!

Thank you to everyone for the likes and input in this pirate affair.

I agree with you George. The one in there has 3 strand which is way too big. it looks like the real bolt is an inch or so round, meaning a 1/64 or .0156, I hope I can find one that small.

I decided to try the wire screw technique that I had used on my launch. I used much smaller wires, experimenting to get proper size and look. I Lina like the copper one especially after it's blackened. The copper is .028 and the other at .021.

Thanks Ken, I've been diggin for screws small enough to work. My eyes were dartin around the room when my wife asked what the heck I'm doing. "Come on, really, I'm looking for something to tear apart in here that may have some tiny screws that I need." Needless to say, all items in our room remain untouched. So I did what I could on the slide carriage, still got a ways to go, but it's a starting point.

Ahhhh, finally!! Now you can see the hype about dangers was just that, hype. One cool thing I've done(on a Malaysian mahogany mini grandfather clock) was to add identical decorative half columns.(turn to desired look and cut in half) This would work well for doors, windows, etc. I can't wait to see what you make with it!

You are right Mark. The front side is held by a pivot point and the rear trucks are sideways. This would make an excellent sweeping defense for the rear end.

Here's the tubes CaptainSteve before and after they are CA'd together. The innermost pieces are a tube up front and a solid piece for the rear. Then it's locked into the dremel and filed into shape.

Great info Ken, thank you. After reading the info at Fort Vancouver, chatting things around(squirrels get chatty too) with you guys and concrete evidence like you've shared, and I see a glimmer of light. A pirate has no rules, accept what's yours is mine and the sort.

I feel like I'm in an episode of Mythbuster falling towards the plausible items. So I think it's time for me to set aside the reality for a bit and swim around fantasy island....is that the blue pill or the red one?

So I fiddled around with some brass tube bits, CA and a lot of fileing to come up with a carronade that looks a little better than the kit supplied one. I'm going to build a slide carriage instead of mounting it on the circular rail. For that railing I'd like to put a much more impressive and powerful gun, something to be feared. Now that some of the basic have been learned about cannon size I can move forward with the necessary changes that will be handed down to me by my superiors, the Nutz brothers.

Beautiful as always Igor! Thanks for the photo with the ship in hand, it really shows how tiny everything is. It makes me appreciate how skilled you are.

I couldn't agree more with you both. My eyes wandered here as well.

As for whether or not they're from Britain I'm not sure. My guess is that they are reproductions, but I'll try and find out for sure. There were different military personnel that did inventory lists for several years and none of their notes jive with the others. There's notations in the 171 page booklet that refer to the cannons possibly were intended for somewhere else.

Hey Mark, thanks for the quick check on bore sizes. This is where I'm confused. They are listing the 3 pdr shot size of 2.77in plus .138 for windage for a bore size of 2.91in. Scaled off a known source(my knife) measures to this dimension of a hair under 3in. This gun was ordered from Britain as "3 pounder new iron gun 3ft 6in long about 5cwt 7lbs each."(563.25lbs each) however the length and weight of these guns are not to the British gov standard of 4ft 6in at 812lbs after 1764.

Now these guns were ordered in 1842(a bit newer than my pirate bash). After about 1820, the three pounders were only used on ships which is why these guns were fitted with training tackle. As to who made these unusual size guns and when are unknown and only speculations exist, but they are not of any gov patterns. No records are found after 1800 that mention 3ft 6in 3pdr guns, only 4ft 6in. There is a similar gun found in a Canadian museum.

So I did a 1:12 sketch of this gun(scaled to 1:64 is .73in end to end). The kit supplied carronade is roughly the same length just a lot fatter, which still leaves me wondering as to the size of the carronade. It scales out to a 24pdr but I've read its a 32pdr.

So I gave the squirrels a little mini vacation while I've been researching what type of armaments that would best compliment this pirate odyssey. As luck would have it, I worked down the road from Fort Vancouver in Washington today and decided to check it out.

The 3-pounders found at the Fort measure out to 3ft 6in, whereas the standard for the time was 4ft 6in. (For an in depth account on this search Armaments and Furnishings of the Fort Vancouver Bastion.) It's presumed that this variance may be that these cannons/guns were made by a private unnamed source. So this gives rise to the ability of a small deck to be able to carry a fair amount of firepower on board. So with the photo below and the information that I've gathered, I'm scaling out the lifesize measurements to convert to 1:64. I may go back there this weekend to do physical measurements because we all know what an inch or two can do when shrunk. If anyone wants an idea of the size here, my little knife on top of the barrel measures 7 and 3/4 in length. I'm going to draw up a scaled diagram to see how well it fits on the deck.

When I scale out the kit supplied carronade I came up with a 24pounder, is this correct? I've seen some other builds state its a 32-pounder.

That's pretty awesome that you found the Hellman's, and their antique shop, who actually have one! Thanks to you and the Hellman's for this contribution to this forum. Buck you may now dawn the title "Tenacious B"

Lookin awesome Ken! It all fits just perfect!

Well now, that is absolutely incredible Buck! I'm glad you put the lantern next to a ruler. The penny seemed to be getting crowded so you might consider smashing one in one of those penny crusher/stretcher/smasher machines. It would be the penny's version of a minivan, ya know, to be able to fit more kids in/on.

Did you ever get the info on the lantern keg? I almost forgot about that one.

And don't worry about the sideways picture, this guy had a siniminalr per emblem.