liteflight

Happy Birthday, Eric, and many more of them!
 
I take your point about the accuracy of the strakes as laser-cut.  But as you say it could be a gradual accumulation of tolerances till it makes itself known loudly
 
 Great birthday presents- the wee warriors will be a fun paint job.  My son used to paint Warhammer figures, and I learned a couple of things:
 spray everything Matt black to begin (after, of course, washing them down to remove release agent) 
and
The paints sold by Games Workshop are excellent quality acrylics, but not cheap

I feel that the book should include Oak in the title!

I deeply regret any minor digression- all quite inadvertent, I can assure you.
 
Ok, so the dromon has just debouching into the Ionian Sea and there is a kind wind to rest the weary rowers.  The sail hoisting gang/mob detail are doing their thing with the lateen.
(When I learned to sail gaff-rigged schooners I was taught that “Any port wine left goes down your throat” to remember that the throat halliard is on the port side.  Always my station as an ex rugby player)
 
I had not realised the sheer size of the wedges- they evidently made impressions on several artists.  It would make sense to Extend them and make a joint to the mast with some flex at least ( the woolding).  I have only come across them in the clipper context where the master of a  tea clipper, faintly pursuing one of the crack ships opined that “she has knocked out the wedges and we won’t see her again this voyage”
 
so are you going to increase the prominence of the wedges?

Eric
I realise that I am not sure of the strake numbers, but here goes anyway

I think that the aft end of the problem strake needs to move (in this position) down to establish the right overlap with the darker, redder strake below it, and the end needs to pivot somewhere near the place I have marked
I think that would fill the gap with the next pair of strakes
I hope this suggestion might help
 
What adhesive have you used for planking - if it is any of the carpentry glues the strakes can be removed with a hot iron.  NOT the household Iron unless you have a deeply understanding Admiral.
 
 
 

Eric,
 
Sorry to read of and see your dilemma!
Altho' I am not Duseking I can see that this could be the position that I might be in (I am Billing - without cooing)
I think that I agree with the principle of MBP521 (Viking it into place) and the practice of the fragrant Mrs. Louie-d-F.
Suggestion - reproduce the offending plank 24 in say, thin card and fit the end that fits, and then cut across the plank where it starts to fail to fit and see if swivelling it will improve matters - it looks as if it should!
The snagette with this approach might be that A)  cutting the plank would remove a slender wedge of plank and make it too short at the ends, so requiring the plank the be made from new in a new shape and b) the sheer line would be altered 
If the planks are 1mm ply or something similar can you get any more to remake a plank?  Failing that some thin veneer (https://www.cardsofwood.com/) in a suitable wood - I think they do birch and ash veneers about 0.030"
 
Further thinking with my Engineering/topographers head on  - the offending strake needs to rotate about 2 or 3 degrees to meet its mates at the stern, if it pivots amidships or thereabouts - so a cut across the plank around a midship frame would only leave a shallow VEE shape to fill in if the stern end is swivelled, or you could cut/sand a slender wedge out of the strake to allow it to be butt jointed.
Sketch follows, before you wake up 😊

Digress?
Perish the thought
What they are pulling is da cord

Love your hose-pullers, Steven  - must be a welcome relief after the rowers.  They are a splendidly assorted team
 
The rigging and block-making is also interesting and challenging - I can see that the shrouds will be rigged very soon.
Seeing the pictures and reading your words it occurred to me that this resembles the current method of setting running backstays .
I have heard somewhere that only the weather shrouds are tensioned on some rigs - the lee shrouds are either loosened or unshipped.  
 
Druxey - did you perhaps mean you juste noticed the mot?
 
Would a motte juste be a proper Norman Castle?  Sorry, my Franglais is rusty

PhilB
The Giant step is wanting to!
Until that is taken there is not the desire to get new things done
And yes, approach new things step by step, and each thing you do will be a little better (sometimes a lot)
Fascinating seal!  I could believe that both castles were rectangular in plan view.  The supports holding up the inboard of both castles I have not noticed before.  The ship is flying the three lions - not sure of the significance of that (? King on board?) .  And the sterncastle has a couple of jolly trumpeters.  I have not made much sense of the inscription - "Seal of Commuiic ------- ouvo RiH" 
Louie will know what it portends - probably wants to carve the shroud-shinner to go with the halliardeers.

Love your hose-pullers, Steven  - must be a welcome relief after the rowers.  They are a splendidly assorted team
 
The rigging and block-making is also interesting and challenging - I can see that the shrouds will be rigged very soon.
Seeing the pictures and reading your words it occurred to me that this resembles the current method of setting running backstays .
I have heard somewhere that only the weather shrouds are tensioned on some rigs - the lee shrouds are either loosened or unshipped.  
 
Druxey - did you perhaps mean you juste noticed the mot?
 
Would a motte juste be a proper Norman Castle?  Sorry, my Franglais is rusty

Digress?
Perish the thought
What they are pulling is da cord

Eric
I realise that I am not sure of the strake numbers, but here goes anyway

I think that the aft end of the problem strake needs to move (in this position) down to establish the right overlap with the darker, redder strake below it, and the end needs to pivot somewhere near the place I have marked
I think that would fill the gap with the next pair of strakes
I hope this suggestion might help
 
What adhesive have you used for planking - if it is any of the carpentry glues the strakes can be removed with a hot iron.  NOT the household Iron unless you have a deeply understanding Admiral.
 
 
 

Love your hose-pullers, Steven  - must be a welcome relief after the rowers.  They are a splendidly assorted team
 
The rigging and block-making is also interesting and challenging - I can see that the shrouds will be rigged very soon.
Seeing the pictures and reading your words it occurred to me that this resembles the current method of setting running backstays .
I have heard somewhere that only the weather shrouds are tensioned on some rigs - the lee shrouds are either loosened or unshipped.  
 
Druxey - did you perhaps mean you juste noticed the mot?
 
Would a motte juste be a proper Norman Castle?  Sorry, my Franglais is rusty

Eric
I realise that I am not sure of the strake numbers, but here goes anyway

I think that the aft end of the problem strake needs to move (in this position) down to establish the right overlap with the darker, redder strake below it, and the end needs to pivot somewhere near the place I have marked
I think that would fill the gap with the next pair of strakes
I hope this suggestion might help
 
What adhesive have you used for planking - if it is any of the carpentry glues the strakes can be removed with a hot iron.  NOT the household Iron unless you have a deeply understanding Admiral.
 
 
 

Eric,
 
Sorry to read of and see your dilemma!
Altho' I am not Duseking I can see that this could be the position that I might be in (I am Billing - without cooing)
I think that I agree with the principle of MBP521 (Viking it into place) and the practice of the fragrant Mrs. Louie-d-F.
Suggestion - reproduce the offending plank 24 in say, thin card and fit the end that fits, and then cut across the plank where it starts to fail to fit and see if swivelling it will improve matters - it looks as if it should!
The snagette with this approach might be that A)  cutting the plank would remove a slender wedge of plank and make it too short at the ends, so requiring the plank the be made from new in a new shape and b) the sheer line would be altered 
If the planks are 1mm ply or something similar can you get any more to remake a plank?  Failing that some thin veneer (https://www.cardsofwood.com/) in a suitable wood - I think they do birch and ash veneers about 0.030"
 
Further thinking with my Engineering/topographers head on  - the offending strake needs to rotate about 2 or 3 degrees to meet its mates at the stern, if it pivots amidships or thereabouts - so a cut across the plank around a midship frame would only leave a shallow VEE shape to fill in if the stern end is swivelled, or you could cut/sand a slender wedge out of the strake to allow it to be butt jointed.
Sketch follows, before you wake up 😊

Eric
I realise that I am not sure of the strake numbers, but here goes anyway

I think that the aft end of the problem strake needs to move (in this position) down to establish the right overlap with the darker, redder strake below it, and the end needs to pivot somewhere near the place I have marked
I think that would fill the gap with the next pair of strakes
I hope this suggestion might help
 
What adhesive have you used for planking - if it is any of the carpentry glues the strakes can be removed with a hot iron.  NOT the household Iron unless you have a deeply understanding Admiral.
 
 
 

Eric,
 
Sorry to read of and see your dilemma!
Altho' I am not Duseking I can see that this could be the position that I might be in (I am Billing - without cooing)
I think that I agree with the principle of MBP521 (Viking it into place) and the practice of the fragrant Mrs. Louie-d-F.
Suggestion - reproduce the offending plank 24 in say, thin card and fit the end that fits, and then cut across the plank where it starts to fail to fit and see if swivelling it will improve matters - it looks as if it should!
The snagette with this approach might be that A)  cutting the plank would remove a slender wedge of plank and make it too short at the ends, so requiring the plank the be made from new in a new shape and b) the sheer line would be altered 
If the planks are 1mm ply or something similar can you get any more to remake a plank?  Failing that some thin veneer (https://www.cardsofwood.com/) in a suitable wood - I think they do birch and ash veneers about 0.030"
 
Further thinking with my Engineering/topographers head on  - the offending strake needs to rotate about 2 or 3 degrees to meet its mates at the stern, if it pivots amidships or thereabouts - so a cut across the plank around a midship frame would only leave a shallow VEE shape to fill in if the stern end is swivelled, or you could cut/sand a slender wedge out of the strake to allow it to be butt jointed.
Sketch follows, before you wake up 😊

I've been working on the shrouds and the tackle for them. Woodrat was kind enough to send me drawings of the upper fastening of shrouds on various mediaeval Mediterranean lateeners, and I've based mine on these and other contemporary representations.
 
            
 
I used a clothes peg to hold the calcet upright so I could glue the shrouds at right angles to the sheave (i.e. on the sides of the mast)
 
        
 
It was a bit more difficult on the foremast because I'd already glued it in place, so I had to deal with it standing up instead of lying on the bench. And then I wrapped wooldings around mast and shrouds as in the contemporary representations above.
 
 
 
The next thing was to work on the tackle for the lower ends of the shrouds. Deadeyes were an Atlantic invention, and they didn't come into use in the Mediterranean until the 16th century. Instead, shrouds were held to the hull, and tension adjusted, by pairs of blocks - the lower block single-sheaved and the upper block double-sheaved. Single-sheaved blocks have been found on Byzantine wrecks, but I haven't come across any equivalent finds of double-sheaved blocks. However, triple sheaved blocks have been found, so I extrapolated/interpolated between the singles and triples to create what I believe a Byzantine double-sheaved block would have been like.
 
Threading these things is very fiddly, and they often act like fencing wire - they have a mind of their own and fly off in all directions right in the middle of the process, and get twisted so you thread through in the wrong direction and have to do it all again. So I adapted a method I've seen in setting up deadeyes, which get the tackles the same length and reduces the problem with twisting.
 
       
 
 
     
 

  
Rather than strops, the main rope is secured by passing through a hole in the block. I've then glued the rope in an eyelet to approximate the look of an eye-splice, which I believe is most likely how they were attached. The rope for the double-sheaved block is short and ends in a toggle. This will pass through an eye-splice in the main shroud, acting as a quick-release mechanism (this technique is still used on Mediterranean lateeners, though I haven't seen it used on shrouds). The free end of the rope from the single-sheaved block will pass through a ringbolt attached to the side of the hull and be tied off. This leaves the tackle between the blocks, which is used to adjust tension. The free end will  be belayed to a cleat near the ringbolt.
 
When I started organising all this I realised I'd made a mistake. There are in fact three different single-sheaved cleats that I've made copies of. The ones in the shroud tackle have a small through-hole at the end (see photo immediately above) to which the tackle between the blocks is belayed. Unfortunately, I used these ones for the tacks and vangs on the yards, when I should have used the other ones I'd made (which were identical except for the little hole in the end). So I had to undo all that work and swap the blocks around. Annoying, but it had to be done.
 
As I removed a pair of blocks I replaced it with the correct pair and then moved to the next pair. That way I didn't get things mixed up (very easy to do). I used a clothes peg to keep the yard upright, so the blocks would be hanging vertically from the ends of the yard.
 
      
 
And when the blocks had all been removed I was able to re-use them on the shrouds, which is where they were supposed to have been all the time.
 
More to come in due course.
 
 
 
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Eric,
 
Sorry to read of and see your dilemma!
Altho' I am not Duseking I can see that this could be the position that I might be in (I am Billing - without cooing)
I think that I agree with the principle of MBP521 (Viking it into place) and the practice of the fragrant Mrs. Louie-d-F.
Suggestion - reproduce the offending plank 24 in say, thin card and fit the end that fits, and then cut across the plank where it starts to fail to fit and see if swivelling it will improve matters - it looks as if it should!
The snagette with this approach might be that A)  cutting the plank would remove a slender wedge of plank and make it too short at the ends, so requiring the plank the be made from new in a new shape and b) the sheer line would be altered 
If the planks are 1mm ply or something similar can you get any more to remake a plank?  Failing that some thin veneer (https://www.cardsofwood.com/) in a suitable wood - I think they do birch and ash veneers about 0.030"
 
Further thinking with my Engineering/topographers head on  - the offending strake needs to rotate about 2 or 3 degrees to meet its mates at the stern, if it pivots amidships or thereabouts - so a cut across the plank around a midship frame would only leave a shallow VEE shape to fill in if the stern end is swivelled, or you could cut/sand a slender wedge out of the strake to allow it to be butt jointed.
Sketch follows, before you wake up 😊

That works for me, with judicious use of the vernier eyeball.
 
I used to work in NC machine tools, and I have seen a big mill carving, basically, the bottom half of an aircraft wing from a massive billet.  Chips were thrown off at near- ballistic speeds and most of the billet finished on the floor as hot, sharp aluminium snow. (Hot only briefly, I hasten to add)

That works for me, with judicious use of the vernier eyeball.
 
I used to work in NC machine tools, and I have seen a big mill carving, basically, the bottom half of an aircraft wing from a massive billet.  Chips were thrown off at near- ballistic speeds and most of the billet finished on the floor as hot, sharp aluminium snow. (Hot only briefly, I hasten to add)

Really excellent modelling, Kris.
so all you have to do is to feed the model into your 7- axis mill and walla, a room full of sawdust!

Aluminium can be soldered readily using An ultrasonic soldering iron and the appropriate solder.  The snagette of course is getting hold of a u/s iron.  The solder is specifically for u/s soldering as well.  It’s basically normal solder with additions to allow it to bond to the metal surface.
 
I used to use u/s soldering to join copper to graphite(!) and it would also solder anything happily to glass, ceramics, etc.  you could regard the u/s vibrations as abrading the surface enough to get the solder to adhere to the base material
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultrasonic_soldering
 
There are other techniques to solder aluminium, but all require technique and practice, and I doubt if they would give you the result you want.

Really excellent modelling, Kris.
so all you have to do is to feed the model into your 7- axis mill and walla, a room full of sawdust!

That works for me, with judicious use of the vernier eyeball.
 
I used to work in NC machine tools, and I have seen a big mill carving, basically, the bottom half of an aircraft wing from a massive billet.  Chips were thrown off at near- ballistic speeds and most of the billet finished on the floor as hot, sharp aluminium snow. (Hot only briefly, I hasten to add)

Thanks Louie/ skerryAmp for the likes, scratch building certainly has its challenges bit of an understatement from my point of view.  Just plodding on with the first layer of planking allowing me to think ahead. 
 
 Looking for advice, a ship of this size ~ 50 ft, would the bulwarks be left open showing the top of the futtocks or would they be planked on the inside. If the former,  might have to add some frames and consider removing the ply bulkheads just as Backer did in his Pelican. If they were boxed in life would be easier.

Hello again!
Continuing the internal structure of the bulwarks and framing. There is a peg attached to every other frame, these will support the rowing benches. The oar slot have also been cut. The slots are deeper towards the stern as the sheer does not follow the deck of the curve (as discussed previously).
 



 
Cheers!
George