CDR_Ret

I haven't posted any updates here for a while, so I figure I'd pop up and let you guys know where I'm up to. I've pretty much completed most of the running and standard rigging at this point. I have brace-line, sheet-lines, tack-lines, lifts, braces and bowlines all installed. The only thing missing is the clew-lines which I'll likely to install at a later date cos there's a layer of complexity with those which I need to work around when it's time for furling up the sails, amongst other things.
 
I've attached a video of a sail test if you are interested.
 
Right now, I'm trying to work on a nice figurehead. The aim is to have a siren chained somehow to the ship like she's been captured and calling enemies to their deaths, holding a shield with Medusa donned on the front (thus the name.) Modelling humans is... a different beast though so I'll see how that one plays out 😄
 
 

Dan,
Every once in a while I have a good idea. But that's it for this year!
Tom

Not sure who to send this to, but I received this security message when I tried to access the site's article database:

Probably not related to this weekend's mishap, but thought you should know.
 
Terry

What are you using to drill with? With small bits, a Dremel or other powered drill may be overkill. 
 
Try using a pin vise to hold the small bit. Create a "starting hole" by gently pushing a pin into the wood slightly to create a center punch hole for your drill bit. Use a new bit that you know is sharp. Twist gently and let the drill do the work of removing the wood from the hole. Don't press down with any more force than is necessary to get the bit to eat into the wood. That should do the trick for you.
 
If you don't have a pin vise, read up on them here: 
 

The NRG website is currently experiencing technical problems.  Many who try to log in are getting "Privacy error" or similar messages.  The website is secure.  If you wish to go to the website, type in the entire URL,  https://www.thenrg.org, rather than simply "thenrg.org".  

I just went through this posting and happily found out that it wasn't due to something I did on my end.  I still remember the old Computers for Dummies manuals which emphatically declared that your computer won't blow up if you push the wrong button. Yes, but other bad things definitely could and in my case did! 🙈🙉🙊

Not sure who to send this to, but I received this security message when I tried to access the site's article database:

Probably not related to this weekend's mishap, but thought you should know.
 
Terry

No, this is an entirely different thing.
 
The site's security certificate has expired and I'm dealing with the host in getting it sorted. It really is nothing to worry about.

Not sure who to send this to, but I received this security message when I tried to access the site's article database:

Probably not related to this weekend's mishap, but thought you should know.
 
Terry

Attached is a dissertation written by marine archaeologist Daniel Pasco and titled ‘Archaeological Evidence for the Development of RN Gunnery from 1545- 1811’. It focuses on evidence from the wrecks of the London (blew up 1665), Hazardous (wrecked 1706), Invincible (wrecked 1758), Colossus (wrecked 1798), and the St George (wrecked 1811).

It has a lot of very interesting information; far too much to summarise here, and many of the findings deserve a topic of their own. If you have an interest in naval gunnery during this period, I recommend you read it.

The dissertation made me realize the importance of archaeology in filling the gaps in the historic record and appreciate that archaeology uncovers what was actually done rather than how it should be.

It’s disappointing that there’s such a lack of funding for maritime archaeology otherwise we’d see more papers like this. What’s worse, though, is that a lot of archaeologic evidence is being lost forever.
 
Here is the dissertation (note that it's 47MB):
 
Archaeological Evidence for the Development of RN Gunnery.pdf
 
Here’s a link to Daniel Pascoe’s website, which has more interesting information.
 
https://pascoe-archaeology.com/
 

I was finally able to finally log on this morning at 4:24 EDT and there were four of us logged on. That's the least number of MSW members I've ever seen logged on, it was weird. I logged out and came back a couple of hours later and our site was down again. I logged on just now  and I'm grateful to see we're back up and running in fine fashion.
 
 If during this outage you discovered how much you truly missed being able to log on to MSW to enjoy all the benefits that MSW provides and you're not a NRG member, then help by financially supporting MSW by becoming a NRG member.   

I really missed this site after only a few hours . It kind of went hand in hand with my cup of coffee. A big thank you to the technical guys or who ever brought it back to us. Well Done.

Well... that's a bit of problem, as such, that's been around for awhile.  The like is a replacement for the "nice work" comments.   One way is look at the logs of others building the same (or similar) ship and ask questions or make comments.  Most will answer and reciprocate.  I guess I should add that it's tough to read and comment on everypost.  So many each day.  

I second the suggestion that a hard look at the PNW be made.   Aside from Bremerton, which has historic ship museums, an undersea museum as well as a healthy maritime tradition it also has the Center for Wooden Boats, the School of Wooden Boat Building and the annual Wooden Boat Festival.  Im positive a location could be had at reasonable prices with choice accommodation collocated.    I also live here...  which is a bonus for me :).

Each mast is raked at different angles and there is a bit of adjustment possible on the real ship with the mast partners and wedge ring.  You can see the angles on contemporary plans and models.  There are 10 contemporary low resolution plans of Terror 1813 in the RMG Collections site. https://www.rmg.co.uk/collections/objects/rmgc-object-85464 and many of them in high resolution on the Wiki Commons site on page 17   Go to 
  https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Ship_plans_of_the_Royal_Museums_Greenwich  and then go to page 17.    If accuracy is of interest, study all of the drawings as they are a wealth of information.  See below for mast angles.   
Allan

Thanks Eberhard, appreciate your time looking.  Pity there isn't as much info available in contemporary literature.  As you say, it should have been somewhat standardised by 1855.  Thhe tid-bit on short-link chain on rollers is useful.
 
The reason I ask, is that Victoria used chain for the tye (among other rigging that ran through blocks).  For the topmast, gin blocks were specified for the chain tye in the Rigging Warrant, but no blocks are listed against chain for the topgallant tye.  This infers a tye sheave cut into the mast at the topgallant stop.  BUT as chain needs a wider sheave, and the mast diameter at this point is only 5.3" diameter, that would seriously weaken the mast.  The chain is specified at 9/16" wire diameter but I would really like to find a rule of thumb for the chain width and for the slot.    Fincham provides a rule of thumb for slot length (1 and 1/6) sheave diameter but I can find nothing on width for rope or for chain except for a comment by Fincham that the sheave for chain is shallower in the groove, bigger in the mouth and overall wider than for a rope sheave pully.
 
cheers
 
Pat

Maybe it works better in the northern hemisphere where it was made😁😁  bath drain effect 😁

Interesting approach to the problem of adding bulwarks. Looks like it worked very well, Pat.

Added a few fiddly bits, I think it's pretty much done.
 


 
And about how it fits in Lapwing:
 

Thank you for all your kind remarks. I’ve been taking photos with my phone as I’ve been building, but because of deteriorating eyesight I have only visited this forum on my computer or ipad, so will have to figure out how to post from my phone, which may take a while since neither cell phone use nor social media are among my few strengths. But I’ll do my best. I have been following the work of many of you for months now, and already owe you all a considerable debt, so I’m very much looking forward to sharing with you! Thanks again for the welcome!

Hello everyone!
 
I am a new member from land-locked Utah (presently, at least), but have lived on both coasts. As I mentioned in my profile post, I am a university professor and professional artist, and have extensive experience in construction, carpentry, and woodworking. I have been building models since I was very young, almost always modifying them and often scratch-building them.
Life in miniature is a constant source of fascination for me. Probably my most ambitious project was a scale model of the Verazzano-Narrows bridge I scratchbuilt as a 15-year-old out of wood, metal, and heavy thread—from plans I drew myself with the help of library books and long-distance snail-mail correspondence with some very kind and patient engineers. 
 
I started a wooden ship model (a Bluenose) years ago, but soon realized that I lacked the knowledge to build it well, and doing anything halfway is not in my nature. “If something is worth doing, it is worth doing to excess” is the dictum that rules my life, much to my family’s frustration at times. So, I returned to building scale airplanes until I could acquire the necessary skills for ship modeling. In the meantime, I learned to sail and have spent years reading books (and lately forums) on ships and model shipbuilding (and am thus familiar with some of your names from your plans, designs, and publications—and am grateful for the learning you have generously shared!). As I am now nearing retirement, I’ve been actively perusing this forum and model-building again for about 6 months (starting with the excellent Model Shipways shipwright kits,) and feel I am ready to start posting (assuming that I can learn to navigate the bewildering technicalities of an online forum).
 
I look forward to “meeting” you all, drawing on your experience, and hopefully contributing one or two things that might prove helpful to others. Thank you in advance for your friendship!

Hello 3DShipwright,
Thank you very much for your invitation,  I am deeply impressed by your work. 
As a builder of the MSW kit I am highly interested in your project and look forward to your progress.
 
Best regards 
 
Werner  

Inviting @wernerweiss and @WalrusGuy as other current Confederacy builders if they'd like to weigh in.
 
So yes, American frigates, specifically the Confederacy - were/was quite different than anything else out there at the time. The 'why' these choices were made is actually kind of ironic. But in historical context, they make perfect sense.
 
A few years back, @mtaylorshared an excellent link to letters of correspondence between Confederacy's shipwright and the Continental Congress that shed light on her design and build. For the life of me, I can't seem to find his post again, so I'm paraphrasing from memory here as well as some inferences I drew from the text:
 
1. Most 'American' (I'm using quotes because the notion of America as a country was in dispute at the time lol) shipwrights were trained in service of the Royal Navy, but when war broke out, they were cut off from the design resources and structure of the British Admiralty. This was both good and bad. On one hand, they were free to break status quo and experiment with more modern techniques, such as Chapman's works, but also the Swiss mathematicians, Bernoulli and Euler.
 
2. America had superior lumber (specifically species of live oak and other greenwoods), but inferior or simply less availability to copper. In 1781 the American Navy finally followed suit of the English and mandated that all military vessels be lined with copper. However, that's not to suggest they didn't understand it's importance well before that, and my guess is confederacy was intended to be sheathed.
 
3. Confederacy can best be described as an overly ambitious project and an un-realized dream. At a time when the American Navy had a grand total of 6 warships and a handful of repurposed sloops, the Confederacy was to be the Flagship of the new nation. She was ornate, featured dozens of hand-sculpted carvings, and was stylized in an Italian sub-set of Neo-classical architecture, known as Palladian style.
 
4. BUT - not only did she repeatedly run out of funding, when the build inevitably ran over schedule, she was rushed out to sea. So instead of a copper hull, she got one of white oak, poorly painted white. In the cold waters of the North Atlantic, white-bottom hulls could stave off large quantities of marine growth. However, a single trip to the Caribbean, the pesky teledo worm had bored enough holes in her hull that wood rot consumed her greenwood framing within a few months.  Finally, instead of 38 large caliber guns and several carronades, she left port with 28, comprised solely of 12pdrs and 6 prds.
 
As I promised my build of her would be as close to historically accurate as possible, I intend to show her [paraphrased]
 
"Prepped for copper but hastily white-washed below the wale, black wale and top-section, red internal planks, a hull above the wale of 'natural ochre', trims of red, white and blue, and carvings of natural wood." That's a surprising amount of color, and means the typical yellow, black and red as seen on the MSW kit is not actually correct, but to be fair, I don't know if those letters were publicly available when they came out with the kit.

I’d challenge anyone to say that ten times in a row without slipping lol
 
Progress looking good!

Main head rails, cheeks, bolster plates, and the beakneck bulkhead (love saying that, lol) in place.