aviaamator

Hi,
The sails for historic ships sails were made of fabrics from natural fibers
initially with hemp and linen ( flax )  until it was supplanted by cotton during the 19th century. At first cotton was used as a matter of necessity in the United States as it was indigenous and the supply of flax was periodically interrupted by wars such as the War of 1812.
Often sails was impregnated as a protection against rot and there were white but red brown.
The sails were hand sewn from fabric which was hand-woven on a loom.
 
Foto 1 The sail of Vasa. Vasa Museum Stockholm.
Foto.2  The sail of HMS Victory. Historic Dockyards Portsmouth (UK)
Foto.3  The sailmaker glowe used as thimble. National Marine Museum Gdańsk
Foto. 4,6 Sailmaker at work. National Marine Museum Gdańsk
Foto.5 The hand weaving loom. Viking Boats Museum Roskilde Denmark.
 
Tadeusz

Cannons of coastal defense and the army.
These were the same barrels  as for naval cannons  but supported on other bases
fit for purpose.
 
Foto 1-4 Captured cannons at Gripsholm Castle Sweden
Foto 5 Big cannon in Arsenla in Copehagen
Foto 6-9 Costal defence cannons in Stockholm Army Museum
Foto 10-11 Cannons at Helsingor Castle   (Hamlet Castle) Denmark
Foto 12-13 Cannons at Wisloujście Fortres in Gdańsk
Foto 14-15 Cannons and mortars  in Old PrisonTower in Gdańsk
:pirate41:
 
Tadeusz

Naval cannons and how it was made.Part 2.
The water-powered ironworks at Finspong in Sweden established in the late 16th  century by the Walloon Wellam de Wijk by permission of Gustav II Adolf King of Sweden.
Factory was  developed up to 19th century and continued to make guns until the last was test-fired in 1912.
The model of early foundry is exhibited in Stockholm Army Museum.
 
Foto 1-8 Early ironworks at Finspong.Central part is iron melting furnace with water wheel powered blowers.
              Mold for cannon casting is situated below ground level for easy fill with melted iron. In adjacent building
              is installed metal working machine powered by water wheel.
Foto 9  Ironworks at Finspong in 19th century.
Foto 10, 12 Molds for casting
Foto 11 Working in a foundry
Foto 13 Iron melting furnace
Foto 14 Metal working machine for cannons ( Arsenal in Copehagen)
 
Tadeusz

Naval cannons and how it was made.
Naval cannons for age of sails ships was manufactured in foundries.
Cannons was made form bronze or cast-iron and sometimes they were richly ornamented.
 
Tadeusz
 




Bronze naval cannons in Stockholm Army Museum
 


Vasa cannons (reconstruction)
 


Early iron cannon in Gdansk Marine Museum
 


Mary Rose cannon in Portsmouth Historic Dockyards
 
 
 

Hi,
Rigging blocks.
In ancient times and middle ages blocks were handmade by craftsmen using simple tools.
The development of shipbuilding resulted in a significant increase in the number of blocks needed for rigging and their types variety.
A typical ship of the line needed about 1000 blocks of different sizes.
In 1802 Marc Isambard Brunel proposed to the Admiralty a system of making blocks using machinery he had patented and in August 1802 he was authorized by the Admiralty to proceed.
There were 22 types of machines and their total number was 45. The machines were driven by two 22.4 kW (30 hp) steam engines.
The machines included circular saws, pin turning machines and morticing machines.
With these machines 10 men could produce as many blocks as 110 skilled craftsmen.
Production finally stopping in the 1960s.
 
Foto 1-3 Blocks from Ancients wrecks and block making craftsman. Maritime Museum in Gdańsk.
Foto 4  Block making craftsman. Maritime Museum in Karlskrona.
Foto 5 Blocks from Mary Rose . Historic Dockyards Portsmouth.
Foto 6,7 Blocks on replicas of medieval ships.
Drwg. 8-10 Period ship blocks and tools for block making.
Foto 11 Block making . Maritime Museum in Karlskrona.
Foto 12,13 Brunel's factory and machines.  Historic Dockyards Portsmouth.
Foto 14 - 20 Blocks on Batavia replica in Lelystadt .
 
Tadeusz

Hi,
Art of shipbuilding.
Due to the lack of scientific methods of calculation and design of ships
ship building in the old days was a kind of art and everything depended on the experience of employee master of shipbuilding.
Gathered here from my archive of photos from various museums showing how ships were built centuries ago.
A few photos from the net is because old shipyards are still in the Navy possession  or a ban on photographing in some museums.
Project.
Construction of a new ship ordered by the King was preceded by a performance of the model to the Admiralty can assess whether the project meets its requirements. Many of such models have survived to our time, they show the details of construction of the hull, we call it The Admiralty Models.
Because in those days there were no scientific method stability calculations all based on the experience of masters of shipbuilding.
 
Admiralty models
 

 

 

 
Assembly of Admiralty
 

 

 

 

 

 
 
Tadeusz

Brace Winches
 
The winch drums were cut from pine planed down to 1/8 inch thick.  Each pair of drums was the diameter determined for it's yard and each had a slot cut in it so the brace could be threaded and knoted inside the drum.  Each drum was separated by a flange made from compact discs, CDs.
 

When the drum was assembled, a 1 inch hole was bored in it's center, and a servo horn was mounted at the bottom of the assembly.  The forward drum (right) is the main & mizzen mast winch; from the bottom up, in pairs, are the main-corse, crossjack, and main-tops'l.  The aft drum is the foremast winch with the fore-corse and fore-tops'l braces.
 
 
To the right top of the winches in the photo you can see some silver colored cylinders; those are the springs that will maintain tension on the braces.  There are 5 on each side.  The large servo at the right of the photo will control the fore-n-aft sails; heads'ls, spanker, etc.
 
Steering
 
The rudder head is very close the to stern of the ship, just as the real one is; so I don't have the space to mount a T type servo arm with hard push-pull linkages to steer the model.  Instead, I mounted a tiller on the rudder and will mount beams with blocks to route the tiller rope to the steering servo; a high-torque, metal geared type.  In the images you'll see some cup-hooks in wood blocks hot-glued to the hull to test the theory.  Beams will be epoxied in place and the tiller rope guides will be mounted on them, that way it won't pull off the the hull.
 
 
With the servo hard-a-port, and hard-a-starboard.
 

Setting up a model square rigger to actually sail by remote control isn't especially difficult, unless you're trying to maintain a scale appearance - then it becomes a challenge.
 
There's two major geometry issues to deal with; the yard braces, and any sails that overlap each other or a stay, such as the heads'ls.
 
The usual way of dealing with bracing the yards is to put the widest set of arms on the brace control servo that will fit in the hull.  The braces are run up to the yards and attached the same distance out from the center line on the yard as they are out from the center of the servo arm.  This basically forms a parallelogram where everything moves evenly.  The problem is, this isn't how the braces run on a real ship; they are run out almost at the end of the yard, out-board of the side of the hull.
 
The best way to deal with this is to use a winch on a servo designed to rotate multiple times, a winch servo.  I intend to directly control the braces for the fore and main course yards, the crossjack, and the fore and main tops'l yards.  The other yards will be pulled along by the sails below them.  I also intend to control the fore mast braces separately from the main and mizzen masts so I can back the fore when tacking ship.
<=- The braces will be controlled by the left stick on the radio transmitter.
 
This means I need two winch drums for each controlled yard for a total of 4 for the foremast and 6 for the main and mizzen.  The problem is, again, geometry.  The fore course yard is longer than the fore tops'l yard (measuring between the points where the braces attach.  The winch rotates 3.5 times.  If the drum were the same size for each yard the braces would be pulled more for the shorter yards than for the longer ones - I want them all to come around evenly together.

 
The simple answer is different sized drums for each yard, but nothing is ever simple.  When the yards are squared across the hull, the braces are at their tightest.  As the yard is pulled to one side, the opposite brace is fed off the winch at the same rate and goes slack.  Bracing the other way the braces both go taught as the yard squares, then the paying out brace goes slack.
Slack lines on a remotely controlled model are not good.  They tend to snag and catch on things, and the brace paying out could actually run off the drum and tangle.  To deal with this I intended to run each brace through a block (pulley) on a spring that would keep tension on each brace all the time.  Initially I also planned to put some bungee else where in the circuit to be sure, but in the end I felt only the springs were needed.

 
The winches would be mounted on a pallet that would fasten to the mechanical deck in the model, so the entire control system could be removed as a unit if required.  They would also be offset vetically so they wouldn't interfere with each other.


 
More on braces and rudder control next:

Funny you should mention that lambsbk, as it was about this time the model got wet for the first time 
 
On October 4th 2009, I had taken my daysailer Lydia out and tossed Constellation in the truck.  When we got back I put the hull in the water for it's first float.  I forgot the rods that held the ballast on, so the closest thing that might be deemed a test was when I pushed the hull down to it's waterline.  No leaks.
 
 
On the 7th, wanting a better "test" I tossed her in the truck and took her to the end of my street to Sloop Cove - where else do you float a sloop of war, eh?
In total there was 50 pounds of lead on board; 42 in the torpedo, the rest in baggies placed in the hull.  There was also about 4 pounds more consisting  of battery, radio gear, and a couple of hand tools; plus her lower masts, which together don't weight half a pound.
She floated 2 inches above her load waterline.  I figure it'll take 12-15 pounds of internal ballast to get her down to waterline, that includes her running gear and battery.
   
 
Next up: Radio Control

All the deck beams didn't go in at once.  Some would have been in the way to do other work in the hull, but the basic framework that provided the main hatch, battery hatch, and mast partners was in place.  Below beams were set that carried the mechanical decks where the servos, battery, and other operating mechanics of the model would be mounted.  The battery was initially going to be stood up on the keel in a thin plywood box, but at the suggestion of a friend that was sailing a 1:24 HMS Surprise around, I laid it on it's own little deck with Velcro tabs to hold it in place; getting the weight lower in the hull as a result.
 
 
On a visit to the ship I acquired from it's director a box of pieces of live oak removed from the ship during it's restoration.  One was stamped USS Constellation 1854 and will have the model's completion date and my name added to it, then it'll be mounted inside the hull so in the future folks will know what lunatic built this thing. 
Other bit of live oak were fashioned into the three mast-steps and fastened to the mechanical decks with brass screws.
It's really nice to incorporate wood from the original ship into the model.
   
 
I then focused on the rudder.
First I drilled the 1/2" hole in the counter for the bass rudder tube.  This would stick out through the counter and approximate the sort of cowl the ship's apparently always had.
 
 
 
This tube would be filled with JB Weld epoxy with a 3/16" i.d. brass tube suspended in it.  The epoxy would form a top to keep the rudder from riding up.  The rudder itself was cut from 1/4" Plexiglas with a larger surface than the scale rudder.  Two cheek pieces of 1/8" plexi, cut to the size of the scale rudder, were attached to each side - these would be painted, etc, while the over sized portion would remain clear.  The rudder's post was an 3/16" brass rod glued to the back edge of the rudder, with 3/23" brass rods drilled through the post and into the rudder as drifts.
 
The head of the rudder was made from a maple dowell that only reaches into the rudder tube about 1/8" and is the bearing against the JB Weld and inner rudder tube that keep the rudder from riding up.  The post rod extended into the hull and has a tiller attached via a steel collar.  It extends below the rudder about 3/8" where a gudgeon plate is attached to the hull to hold the bottom of the rudder to the ship.  Removing the tiller and gudgeon plate allow the rudder to be removed if the need arises.
   
 

While I considered what to do about the plug, I found some very nice white cedar while getting something else at the lumber yard, so I began making the lower masts.
Since I had no plans for Constellation's spars specifically, I used several sources for the details, including Spars and Rigging From Nautical Routine, 1849 and Biddlecomb's Art of Rigging, but the best source I found for this 1850's warship was Luce's Textbook of Seamanship which has some very detailed drawings of the rigging of this period.
 
After drawing the spars full-scale, I cut the cedar to the rough dimensions on a table saw:
 
 
I then marked out the details and the taper:
 
 
Shaved the taper, then marked the spar to make it 8-sided:
 
 
The masts were banded with the same brown paper tape the plug was made from, the hounds and the front fish were made and attached:
 
 
The cross-trees and trestle-trees for the lower tops were made along with a rough set of mast caps:
 
 
The topmasts were made from the same cedar and in the same manner as the lower masts.  Some temporary mast steps were placed inside the plug, a stand made from 3/8" plywood to hold the model up, and some paint went on the lower masts.

 
By this time I was convinced that glassing the plug and making it the model's hull was the best course to take...
 
Next: Prepping to glass

Much more regarding the details of why I chose this ship to build; history of the ship; and other items of interest can be found on my web page for this project.  This "log" is to replace the one that had been posted here before the forum crashed and lost a lot of data.
 
Beginning
 
Having the plans already in the size I wanted saved a lot of time getting started, and I used the Model Ship Builder article as a guide at first.  A bit of scrap particle board from a remodeling project was used as a building board.  The forms were cut from scrap wood paneling, and the keel was some 1/2" scrap birch plywood from a cabinet I built.  This was all stood up by the end of March, 1999.
 
 
Then I discovered a book;
William Mowll's Building a Working Model Warship:HMS Warrior, 1860.

Mowll covered his forms with battens instead of planking and covered that with gummed brown paper packing tape over which he applied masking tape to create a plug for making a fiberglass mold. The masking tape was to give the texture of Warrior’s cast iron plating. I happened to have a large roll of the brown tape, and got the idea of using this method to make a plug and cast 3 hulls in glass fiber.  I didn't need the masking tape as Constellation wasn't iron plated, I would use the brown tape to impart planking details to the mold.

 
So, moving forward with this plan, I battened the forms with scrap white pine strips...
 
 
 
...and proceeded to cover that with the brown paper tape creating what would be a plug for a fiber-glass mold.
 
 
The tape shrinks a bit when it dries and can be sanded.  Once the form was covered diagonally I began applying a second layer in the form of strips to represent planking, gunport lids, and even copper bottom plating - all this detail would be picked up by the mold and imparted to the glass hull when it was laid up.  The plug still needed more details, like quarter galleries, but none of the drawings available gave these details, so I had to go digging.

 
In the meantime we sold the house and bought a small farm where we kept some horses and I commuted 65 miles one-way to work.  The plug went into the barn, covered in plastic, and wasn't touched from 2003 till 2008.

 
Next: Work resumes.

Continuation.
 
 

 
 

 
 

 
 

 
 
 
 
The beginning of the relation is available at this address:
 
 
http://5500.forumact...ndre-1-24#66516
 
 
 
Regards, Pawel

I will deliver my project tomorrow and hopefully I can return to the Triton
 
Before

 

 
After

 

 
A good cleaning, mast repair and relocation, new set of sail and rigging for this Art model!!
 
Looks pretty good! No?

Jaerschen, sorry for the delay but work comes first!  Above is a pictureof the fwd cant frames. I was a little concerned about the shape but both sides are the same and it looks ok so it appears I am going with this
 
 
Guy

I still have about 15 frames to construct. I am cutting out the patterns to glue on the wood. I still need to cut a couple of additional pieces of board to do this.
 
I have started attaching frames to the keels!

 

 

 
 
As this is the first time that I have constructed a build in this manner the going will be slow. I always have that fear that there will not be enough wood when I start fairing out. As you can see, I have done some fairing on the inside and a little on the outside to accommodate the temporary riband
 
I will try taking and posting as many pictures as possible to show this progress.

The keel is started but I need the sided deminisions to start the deadwood at the stearn and the bow.
 
Before I start that I will embed the nuts in the keel to secure to the building board and eventually the final mounting if the model is completed
oops I never put the nuts in the keel and will have to do so now that I have most of the frames installed~!

Speedwell's framing has finally been completed. Note the various shifts and casts of the toptimbers as they frame the ports. There are many more of these on this vessel than on a Swan class ship and they can be challenging at times. My plan is to plank her from the ports up and rig her.

here are some photos of the naiad in construction...
 

 
 
http://i.imgbox.com/adbOFtmU.jpg
 
 

 
 

 

Still a bit of time to make... CNC helps! Really want to immediately to glue all these details, but the mind says " Not so fast!"

А little more... Here's a decorative element may be installed on the side Board.

Thank you all for your appreciation of my efforts! Today, I completed the program "maximum", finished sheathing the hull, with the exception of wale. At this stage, I suspend the construction, because tomorrow might go to the hospital... good Luck to all!!!

Yesterday and today worked on the stern of the ship. Very interesting problem!

All big thanks from a beginner! The first attempt to use a gas burner was successful! ( in my opinion).