liteflight

My Admiral used to refer to this as his “ row of pink tents” voice
 
And we digress!
 
I am sure none of us has ever done that before
Having looked at the resource on rams, I went on to check out the rest of the site - interesting stuff and a great resource
 
andrew
 

I went hunting for Illustrations of the rostra
And this is what I have so far
 

My Admiral used to refer to this as his “ row of pink tents” voice
 
And we digress!
 
I am sure none of us has ever done that before
Having looked at the resource on rams, I went on to check out the rest of the site - interesting stuff and a great resource
 
andrew
 

I went hunting for Illustrations of the rostra
And this is what I have so far
 

My Admiral used to refer to this as his “ row of pink tents” voice
 
And we digress!
 
I am sure none of us has ever done that before
Having looked at the resource on rams, I went on to check out the rest of the site - interesting stuff and a great resource
 
andrew
 

I went hunting for Illustrations of the rostra
And this is what I have so far
 

Thanks Steven, I have now!  Thank you for that.
 
Warm thanks, too, to everyone who contacted me with messages of sympathy and support.  Much appreciated and very valuable to me at a difficult time.
 
So, as I was saying.......
I have reviewed Oseberg as she is and I find good news and less good news.
I had commenced the clinker planking, having decided that “my” overlap would be a thick 1mm
Easy decision, but how do I do that precisely and repeatable?
+
   
the current state of play:  both garboard strakes fitted with scarf joint between the two ( precut) parts of each strake
(just for reference, the clamps are  merely parked where they are)


i have added a second full strake on one side, using a method which I have not seen before, so probably worth describing ( even if only to give you a larf)
I aimed to scribe my fat 1mm overlap on the garboard strake.  
 
First attempt was using compasses, of which as a former Engineer I have a modest plethora.  None of them were designed to work or be rigid with a 1 mm gap.
Most were designed to use a lead about 2.5 mm dia, sharpened to a chisel point by arcane methods known (only) to draughtspeople.  However sharp the lead it gave a bad result!
 
I then remembered cutting thin styrene sheet using a hard pin pushed through a balsa sheet with a ply edge guide.
So postage stamp size bit if hard 1/8 balsa with a length of thin ply sticking down 2mm to slide along the edge of the plank to be marked.  
Lay it on its back and put a strip of fat 1mm width against the shoulder.  
Push pin through touching the strip
replace pin with 0.5mm drawing pencil lead and adjust till it barely protrudes ( or if you prefer - till it sticks out a wee bit)
Viola! You have a cunning device which marks a fat 1mm from an edge
 
And yes, it works only when the curvature of the edge is very gentle.
And also yes, this concept can be developed to work with sharper curves, both concave and convex - but no need here.
 
So the  edges of both garboard strakes are clearly marked with the overlap.
A cardinal principle of my build is that I don’t want glue anywhere but in a joint, because it would require clean-up.  IMHO even a careful clean up of a wood glue is likely to afffect any subsequent finish, so I aim to avoid that by removing the possibility of glue being squooged out of joints.
 
My strakes will be fixed by heat-activated wood glue.
I believe  it would be helpful to know Exactly where the glue is, so I mixed acrylic paint with  neat PVA wood glue ( I seem to remember it was an umber)

Like this
 
i had masked to the pencil line with fine masking tape and applied two coats of the coloured glue
 
Reason for that type of colour - the future holds dark staining of some sort - and any accidents of a generally wood-like hue should be unobtrusive.
 
The less good news
On careful inspection, I found that a part of the glued strake is not stuck.  
I’m not downcast, however because:
I activated the heat sensitive adhesive with a full size family steam iron I cannot be sure that these areas were ever stuck - this was nearly 18 months ago. I have since been given not one, but two neat little devices intended for applying delicate heat shrink film to model aircraft ( airplanes to American friends) photos to follow Please feel free to guide me in matters of technique or writing style.  
I have written at length in this post to catch up with where the ship sits today, and because the PVA/ acrylic ( or watercolour) trick may help someone else.
 
andrew

I am in the middle of a major tidy and sort of the entire house and garden, triggered by the death of a modelling buddy.  He died leaving a VAST air-conditioned modelling shed packed with 40 years of many fields of modelling hardware.  I and flying colleagues have sought to clear the shed, convert the contents to cash, and return the proceeds to his widow.
 
Among the relevant items are two electric covering irons, photos attached, which I expect to be a neater and more manageable heating tool.  Both of these are sealing irons used for the smaller corners and seams of heat- shrink covering for model aircraft.  Normally they would be temperature-controlled, but these may be the “economy” models.  Easily rectified with a mains dimmer in the supply.
 
I included the household iron Originally used for the first strakes.  Not easy to use among a line of clamps!
 
Now to make progress!
 
1) Test the new heat sources on scrap materials
2) Obtain dimmer if required - the household iron was set to “max” if I remember right so dimmer may not be required 
3) clamp up and carefully reheat the strake which is not fully stuck down
4) Prepare next half- strake, scarf end where it joins existing strake
5) Mark, mask and apply coloured PVA ( carpenters) glue to the fat 1mm overlap
 
I think five steps is sufficient for now
 
andrew
 

I went hunting for Illustrations of the rostra
And this is what I have so far
 

My Admiral used to refer to this as his “ row of pink tents” voice
 
And we digress!
 
I am sure none of us has ever done that before
Having looked at the resource on rams, I went on to check out the rest of the site - interesting stuff and a great resource
 
andrew
 

I went hunting for Illustrations of the rostra
And this is what I have so far
 

My Admiral used to refer to this as his “ row of pink tents” voice
 
And we digress!
 
I am sure none of us has ever done that before
Having looked at the resource on rams, I went on to check out the rest of the site - interesting stuff and a great resource
 
andrew
 

Thanks, Steven
 
it was the Atlit ram that I remember being found and discussed
 
The list is interesting and the thumbnail pictures take you to high-quality illustrations
 
When people addressed the crowds in the forum of Rome, they did so from the “rostra”.  I was always taught that these were the bows of warships captured by the Romans ( presumably complete with ram).
And I assumed that they were the whole bow of the ship, with enough deck to orate from.
Does anyone know of any illustrations of a rostrum in the forum?
My main source is the film “ Carry on, Cleo” and I would hardly claim it to be authoritative  ( although it did ascribe to the dying Julius Caesar the memorable line “ Imfamy! Infamy! They’ve all got it infamy”)
 
sorry
andrew

Thanks, Steven
 
it was the Atlit ram that I remember being found and discussed
 
The list is interesting and the thumbnail pictures take you to high-quality illustrations
 
When people addressed the crowds in the forum of Rome, they did so from the “rostra”.  I was always taught that these were the bows of warships captured by the Romans ( presumably complete with ram).
And I assumed that they were the whole bow of the ship, with enough deck to orate from.
Does anyone know of any illustrations of a rostrum in the forum?
My main source is the film “ Carry on, Cleo” and I would hardly claim it to be authoritative  ( although it did ascribe to the dying Julius Caesar the memorable line “ Imfamy! Infamy! They’ve all got it infamy”)
 
sorry
andrew

Came across this while scanning the general news
 
https://www.livescience.com/medieval-cargo-ship-estonia
 
First  picture in the article seems to me to show thwartship beams passing through the sides, and generally the parts pictured seem to be complete and intact.  Interesting to see how the investigation proceeds
 
andrew

Thanks, Steven
 
it was the Atlit ram that I remember being found and discussed
 
The list is interesting and the thumbnail pictures take you to high-quality illustrations
 
When people addressed the crowds in the forum of Rome, they did so from the “rostra”.  I was always taught that these were the bows of warships captured by the Romans ( presumably complete with ram).
And I assumed that they were the whole bow of the ship, with enough deck to orate from.
Does anyone know of any illustrations of a rostrum in the forum?
My main source is the film “ Carry on, Cleo” and I would hardly claim it to be authoritative  ( although it did ascribe to the dying Julius Caesar the memorable line “ Imfamy! Infamy! They’ve all got it infamy”)
 
sorry
andrew

Came across this while scanning the general news
 
https://www.livescience.com/medieval-cargo-ship-estonia
 
First  picture in the article seems to me to show thwartship beams passing through the sides, and generally the parts pictured seem to be complete and intact.  Interesting to see how the investigation proceeds
 
andrew

Thanks, Steven
 
it was the Atlit ram that I remember being found and discussed
 
The list is interesting and the thumbnail pictures take you to high-quality illustrations
 
When people addressed the crowds in the forum of Rome, they did so from the “rostra”.  I was always taught that these were the bows of warships captured by the Romans ( presumably complete with ram).
And I assumed that they were the whole bow of the ship, with enough deck to orate from.
Does anyone know of any illustrations of a rostrum in the forum?
My main source is the film “ Carry on, Cleo” and I would hardly claim it to be authoritative  ( although it did ascribe to the dying Julius Caesar the memorable line “ Imfamy! Infamy! They’ve all got it infamy”)
 
sorry
andrew

Thanks, Steven
 
it was the Atlit ram that I remember being found and discussed
 
The list is interesting and the thumbnail pictures take you to high-quality illustrations
 
When people addressed the crowds in the forum of Rome, they did so from the “rostra”.  I was always taught that these were the bows of warships captured by the Romans ( presumably complete with ram).
And I assumed that they were the whole bow of the ship, with enough deck to orate from.
Does anyone know of any illustrations of a rostrum in the forum?
My main source is the film “ Carry on, Cleo” and I would hardly claim it to be authoritative  ( although it did ascribe to the dying Julius Caesar the memorable line “ Imfamy! Infamy! They’ve all got it infamy”)
 
sorry
andrew

I noticed that the article mentioned a large number of anchors all aligned in the same direction, suggesting this might have been the Roman fleet cutting their cables to close the ambush.
 
I am also so old that I remember much debate about “rams” ( rostra) when Olympias was built.  If I remember aright there was one found in shallow water somewhere near Tyre at about that time, and I think it may
have been the only one identified.  And here is at least one, potentially several more.  I imagine that a bronze casting of this size would
a) last forever underwater*
b) be a significant part of the total cost of a warship

*before metal detectors and greedy scavengers 
 
andrew

Next up are the spiderbands which require lugs to be soldered to some small thin walled tubing.  I made up a jig which I think is self explanatory.  I used aluminium as the solder will not stick.  The jig allows me to keep the lugs square to the tube even though in the photo they don't look it (optical illusion).  These lugs have yet to be drilled, shaped and cleaned up, then I will use a razor saw to part of 1.5mm wide band with the lugs attached.  The real tricky part will come when I have to try and impart a very shallow taper to the ID of the tube; hopefully the solder (silver soldered) will hold.
 
cheers
 
Pat
 

I noticed that the article mentioned a large number of anchors all aligned in the same direction, suggesting this might have been the Roman fleet cutting their cables to close the ambush.
 
I am also so old that I remember much debate about “rams” ( rostra) when Olympias was built.  If I remember aright there was one found in shallow water somewhere near Tyre at about that time, and I think it may
have been the only one identified.  And here is at least one, potentially several more.  I imagine that a bronze casting of this size would
a) last forever underwater*
b) be a significant part of the total cost of a warship

*before metal detectors and greedy scavengers 
 
andrew

I noticed that the article mentioned a large number of anchors all aligned in the same direction, suggesting this might have been the Roman fleet cutting their cables to close the ambush.
 
I am also so old that I remember much debate about “rams” ( rostra) when Olympias was built.  If I remember aright there was one found in shallow water somewhere near Tyre at about that time, and I think it may
have been the only one identified.  And here is at least one, potentially several more.  I imagine that a bronze casting of this size would
a) last forever underwater*
b) be a significant part of the total cost of a warship

*before metal detectors and greedy scavengers 
 
andrew

I noticed that the article mentioned a large number of anchors all aligned in the same direction, suggesting this might have been the Roman fleet cutting their cables to close the ambush.
 
I am also so old that I remember much debate about “rams” ( rostra) when Olympias was built.  If I remember aright there was one found in shallow water somewhere near Tyre at about that time, and I think it may
have been the only one identified.  And here is at least one, potentially several more.  I imagine that a bronze casting of this size would
a) last forever underwater*
b) be a significant part of the total cost of a warship

*before metal detectors and greedy scavengers 
 
andrew

Came across this while scanning the general news
 
https://www.livescience.com/medieval-cargo-ship-estonia
 
First  picture in the article seems to me to show thwartship beams passing through the sides, and generally the parts pictured seem to be complete and intact.  Interesting to see how the investigation proceeds
 
andrew