jbshan

For somebody on the lowest end of the economic scale, life aboard ship was not much worse than on shore.  While not the nicest, the food was usually plentiful and on a regular time table, they had a place to sleep that wasn't under a bush in a field, they could be punished in what is to us a barbaric fashion ashore as well as afloat.  In a British ship that was long at sea but close enough to a shore base to get regular provisions, considering that the crew was young men in the peak of physical condition, the death rate was less than the population ashore.

There are usually two sides to any story.  Many of the horror tales were told in the 19th century as reformers were becoming active, after the war was won.

Now, as to deafness, probably.  They could tie a scarf around their heads, but probably a long-serving gun crewman would not hear as well as somebody not exposed to that racket.  They had to hear well enough to understand and carry out orders, after all.

2 minutes ago, mikiek said:

Joel - I will revisit that idea next build. I tried it once and seem to remember that I didn't get the darkness I wanted.

I try to keep in mind the atmospheric diminishing of contrast.  If you stand back a couple of feet from the model, that's 30 yards back, real life, and the 1/8" seams won't be nearly as apparent, plus I think stark dark seams are distracting.  I prefer them a bit more subtle, both in shade of darkness and in consistency.  A lighter somewhat irregular look is more to my taste.  I think there are one of two deck pics in my log page.  Follow the link in my signature.

Having said all that, I'm nearly at the point where I'll find out how grey paper in the seams looks at 1/2" scale, on my Philadelphia model.  Again, I went for less-than-black, but I fear it will get more prominent if I stain things as I probably should.

I use a soft pencil on one edge of the deck seams. 

Mike, I use a small 50¢ brush, just dip in and put a few drops where needed, or you can 'paint' a larger area.

I've had a bottle of 90% isopropyl on the work bench for a while now.  It's a handy arrow to have in your quiver.  If the joint doesn't come apart, just add more alc.  It doesn't raise the grain and hardly mars the wood if you're careful.  Also handy for removing glue overrun without compromising the joint.

Save and refrigerate the blood.  You can use it to coat the gun carriages or something when the time comes.  Just call it 'Iron Oxide'.

Yah, I had no tools either.  I think I worked with the block hanging over the end of the table or something like that.

Make a scale figure for checking purposes.  The pump brake or handle wants to be at waist height or thereabouts.

Don't look at a picture of a duck while you're cutting away.

I take it the blocks are already glued in?  I did blocks on my Niagara model by marking the bulkhead shape on the front surface and the top (deck) shape from the deck, then cut that much off with a coping saw.  It gives you some parameters.

Cons:  (?)

If there is some glue on the surface, does the ink show up different where the glue spots are?  Paint will go right over and result in a uniform coating.

If you still need to do some gluing, can you scrape back any ink or do you need to, in order to get the glue to penetrate and give a good joint?  Some folks like to paint pieces individually then assemble for good color separation.

Pros:  (?)

Black India Ink does a pretty good job at imitating ebony, an evil wood and to be avoided, but it's a nice rich black.

And dafi's point is a very good reason not to merely plank on top of a false sub deck, at least without making sure you know where the beams are supposed to be underneath.  One of the less desirable results can be a plank with a butt in between two hatches, each length about two feet, but that's where the planking scheme called for a butt.

Test your concoction on a test panel before you rely on it.  Staining over glued/filled surfaces and natural surfaces can give irregular results.  If you're painting over, the glue-filled will work much better.

If you wind up needing it, you could fill in the space between the ends of the 1st layer plank and the keel piece with blocking, then put the 2nd planking over the blocking.  Niagara, I believe, uses blocks to fill in at the bows so the plank has something to lay on and help shape it.

The forward, smaller, one is sometimes called the 'jeer capstan'.  I suspect it was used for raising the lower yards into position on the masts, among, as said above, other tasks.

Brian, I suspect it's a balancing act between cost of membership and journal and the number of copies sold/members.  There would always be a certain number who would refuse to continue their association if the price went up, even a little bit, and no matter how well-explained or desperately needed.

James H wrote---

I was running a couple of wikis that were open to the entire world to read, but the only members allowed were those few actually writing them.  Ever get people pi***d off at you for not letting them join when they could have the same thing for free?  I did red, bold type, larger fonts, they still couldn't manage to read the notification.  You guys have my sympathy.

It should work as long as you leave a flat surface for the stem, stern and keel.  It'll basically look like normal construction.  Do a little sketch to check out the concept.

You going to paint the interior of the funnel stacks soot black?  Just curious, not critical.  Beautiful work.

If you don't use the full width of both plank layers it may indeed throw something off elsewhere.  Additionally, the kit may, by the scant supply of bulkheads, require a thick plank layer for support, and if that is supplied in a less expensive wood, they can use a more desirable wood for the veneer outer layer.

The placing of ports one above the other bothered me, too, so I checked a little bit.  I think because the upper deck ports are on a spar deck and not part of the original structure of the hull, indeed some wind up directly above the gun deck ports, especially in the waist.

Your build log at http://www.niagaramodel.com is one of the most thorough I have seen.  I hope you will show your progress warts and all, as there are some tricky bits to this kit which are so much easier to explain with the kit in front of you.  It (the log) should be a great help to anyone attempting this model.  Unless one is a master builder with several others under the belt this kit will stretch the mind, and as you reach those tricky bits and solve them you will be doing a service to those following in your wake.

Some of the 30 ships' program, after completion, Lenox, for example, were moored in places where they could ground by a few feet at each low tide.  This resulted in a band of plank that was constantly being dried, then wet, then dry, then wet.  Rot of that band of plank was the result.  They didn't indeed receive the care they should have, both because of the neglect of their caretaker crews and the lack of funds to effect appropriate repairs.  Indeed some of the repairs that were done did nothing to help, but encased the rot so it could flourish.  There is a book on Lenox, 'Restoration Warship', by Richard Ensor, that goes into this at fair length.

As to plank length, Vasa, in her lower deck plank is nothing if not expedient.  There are various lengths and widths, even small 'plugs' inset.  I have not seen a hull plank plan, I don't think it has been published yet, but all of the remaining decking is shown on the plans included with the first volume of the official publication.

The big thing with plank length, as somebody has mentioned, is that the butts must be on frames or beams, so the length will have to be adjusted somewhat to match that spacing.  In other words, '25 feet' is a guide, and probably more of a lower limit than an absolute figure.

They are certainly for reinforcing a 'made mast'; a ship with pole masts wouldn't necessarily need them.  Where that change occurred would depend on the sizes of spars available and the capacity of the yard to do the work.  A place with lots of tall straight spars possibly would use a pole mast to a larger size than one that had to import everything.

Kurt, once you have the plank between the hatches, etc. in, then you have to work out to the waterway and forward and aft to the hood ends of the plank.  I don't think there's much advantage to one direction or the other.  I have found you need to come in from the waterways and aft from the bows, sort of together, as one blends into the other.  Eventually you'll have a gap sort of in the middle of the deck somewhere and you can adjust the widths of the last remaining planks to fit without making it too obvious how you got there.  The old boys had the complication that some strakes of plank were thicker and let down into the deck beams to keep the top surface even.  Just keep in mind that you need to have your joints on the beams, not simply cut off to match some artificial requirement of length.  If a plank needs to be 18" shorter or longer, just go ahead and make that one different.  It makes things less even and more realistic.

And it all gets covered up with gray paint.  Almost seems a shame.  The old line-of-battle ships, at least all that gleams might have actually been gold.

(Back a posting or two):

The crew may indeed have slept on some sort of pallet on top of the stores in the hold, or on deck in good weather and not used hammocks.  We just don't know.  There was a 'saloon' so apparently some portion of the hold was set up for accommodations.  The hammock rails had of course the function of protection from musket fire. The gundalows at Valcour Bay (Philadelphia, for one) in the previous conflict used apparently bundles of sticks and saplings in the same place and for that same function.  Who knows?