tkay11

Simon, you can order a set of Thermopylae plans (they're 1:124 scale) from Cornwall Model Boats. 
 
https://www.cornwallmodelboats.co.uk/cgi-bin/sh000001.pl?WD=thermopylae&PN=Thermopylae-Construction-Plans-Set-961.html#SID=136

Also:
 
https://www.rmg.co.uk/collections/objects/rmgc-object-388866

The Science Museum (London) once published a set of her lines at 1:48 scale:
 
https://collection.maas.museum/object/149083
 
Perhaps you can run down a copy of this plan.

Almost 5 years to the day....she is finally finished.   Always a bit anti climactic.   Thank you all for following along all these many years.  For those of you building her,  I hope you are having as much fun with it as I did.
 
Well here goes the final pics.  The top picture is of course of the Winnie contemporary model which inspired me as well as the Amazon.   I hope I did them justice.   Everyone should build a Georgian style model of an English frigate at least once in their lifetime.
 


 












 
 

Thank you all for your likes and comments. 
 
Phil: I am going through the same thoughts about pinrails and cleats on the masts (Petersson shows two examples) and shroud cleats. I have expanded the second tab to show these additional belaying positions explicitly even though no ropes are assigned to them, yet. 
 
Wefalck: Whiting had a crew of 20 so there were enough men and boys to do the work. I have made the fore topgallant flying so there are only a few ropes to raise and handle it. 
 
The third tab on the spreadsheet has expanded now. I show which ropes go to which belaying point using coloured symbols on the deck plan. Some on the mast pins or shroud cleats have not been assigned. I have not attempted to put the ropes in order at their belaying point for the moment. There are, for example, seven ropes belaying at the fore, port pinrail in some undefined order. It is enough to let me continue adding the deck furniture. 

sail rigging plan.xlsx
 
Questions and comments always welcome, that's what lets me improve. 
 
George
 

Topsail-schooners tend to be smaller ships that were sailed with small crews, perhaps a maximum of eight or even less. So the question is, whether they actually bothered with clew- or bunt-lines on topgallants at all, or rather struck them completely, as they may have been set 'flying' anyway. This would depend on time-period and region, of course.

George,
 
Very nice. I am following this with interest. I have worked out a preliminary belaying plan for my topsail schooner build, but I am not happy with the belaying point plan I have for the fore mast. Too many lines are crowded onto fife rails around the base of the fore mast.
 
I have been considering a belaying pin ring or cleats around the mast to take the running ends of some of the tackles. Also I could use cleats on the shrouds for lines that do not have much strain on them when sails are set (clew lines bunt lines).

Below is a reproduction of the oldest ship plan of English origin, taken from the manuscript Fragments of Ancient English Shipwrightry by Mathew Baker (British Archives). This drawing is widely reproduced and more or less extensively commented on in numerous modern publications, but so far I have not yet encountered a detailed analysis of it, especially by graphic means. 
 
The plan is attractive for at least two reasons: it is complete in the sense that it would have already enabled the construction of the ship's hull in full scale by shipwrights. Secondly, its historical potential is considerable, as it represents a method of design different from the methods known from the later English treatises and manuals such as Harriot ms, 'Newton' ms, anon. ms 1620, Bushnell and Deane ms. Apart from other considerations, this very plan is a further indication of where to look for the roots of the methods then creatively developed by English shipwrights.
 
The drawing contains quite a few inaccuracies characteristic of hand drawing. Reproducing errors of this kind as well as a simple redrawing misses the point, so in the following reconstruction I will rather look for the intention of the designer, trying to find as many regularities, proportions and interrelationships as possible.
 

 
 

Thank you Radmancoop, I'm pleased my log is of help, and I hope you are enjoying your Pegasus build.
 
I've looked back through my files and below I have copied the section on the Bowsprit netting and set up.
09/02/015
Returning to the head

With the Bowsprit fixed and the gammoning in place I can return to the head .


14
 The Berthing rail and stanchion which provide a safety barrier can now be put into place. For the rail 0.7mm brass tubing is used.

I had previously fixed the eyelets to take the rail and small hooks inside the False rail to hold the lower edge of the netting that completes the job.


26
For the netting I returned to my stock of old  net curtain material which has 1mm square holes; cut on the diagonal it looks about right.

 Colron Light Oak wood dye was used to colour the netting, the dye was simply brushed across the netting both sides and allowed to dry.

This produced a pale hempy colour similar to the running rigging scale hemp and to my eye gives a reasonable scale effect of untarred rope.

The Boomkins

Dimensions taken from Steel and made from 3mm dia dowel tapered down to 2mm.

Outside of the False rail there is a curve in the spar, this was induced by firstly soaking and then curving over a suitable former.


30

69

48

51

60
 
Regards,
 
B.E.
 
 

Installing the deadeyes/chainplates for the mizzen mast had been holding  up progress for some time. The only option was to cut slots and hope the damage could be hidden.

I was not happy with the first batch of chainplate cleats, the new ones are significantly better. Domed fixings for the chainplates/cleats proved easier than expected. 1mm copper tube with an internal diameter of 0.5mm brazed onto 0.5mm wire, trim/file down to 0.5mm thickness.

 
The dome was created using a small nail punch with the fixing held in a steel plate.

It all worked out better than expected.😁

Grant.
 
 

That's not only excellent, George, it'll be enormously useful to many. Thanks.
 
Tony

Hello,
thanks for the likes and encouragement. 
 
There are a few updates to log. 
Below, I made a jury rig with scrap to experiment with a becalmed, drooping look for the gaff sail, with the gaff lowered a bit. 

Again, I used watered-down pva and reworked it on several occasions. It’s not entirely satisfactory, but it’s iteration. It might be good enough for this project. Unless I change my mind about what to do with the gaff sail. 
 
And below, I present:

Completed standing rigging! 
I think. Well, except for all those clove-hitches I’ll have to start soon. 
 
Calculated rings for the staysail and jib, made out of rope:

Getting the jib stay heart stropped and ready to reeve to the collar (and a tangle of untrimmed shrouds):

 
When rigging the mainstay, I think I spent most of a functional day trying to figure out what I ought to do for the mouse. I opted for a couple knots of thread wound over with small diameter thread, but no fancy weaving. My first attempt ended up far too large. Mice below:

And below, the stay lanyard. There seems to be no obvious consensus on how to start and terminate this, but some photos of contemporary models helped. I seized the lanyard to the top heart and terminated it like a shroud lanyard, to the stay:

 
Next will be rigging those sails and yards I’ve prepared, and getting the look I want for them, or something like it at least. 
 
Stay healthy!
Meriadoc

I have chosen the sail plan for my model of Whiting and it includes a lot of canvas. Working from fore to aft:
Flying jibsail Jibsail riding on stay from foremast top to end of bowsprit Gaff fore sail (no boom) Square topsail on topmast Studding sail to starboard of the topsail Flying, square top gallant sail on the same topmast Gaff main sail with gaff and boom Gaff topsail on the main topmast Ringtail sail aft of the gaff mainsail I might well change my mind by the time I get to making these sails... 
 
The sizes of the masts and yards must wait a while because the more pressing task is to design the belaying plan for the deck. The belaying plans for schooners depend a lot on where and when and who used it and we do not have 'standard' plans as for ships. Marquardt frequently says that some rope or method might or might not have been used so there is a lot of judgement here. I will describe my method which might help others with this detailed operation. 
 
My approach has been to use an Excel spreadsheet to organise the information. So far it has three tabs (sheets) and the first (Sail-yard-rope) is a list of all the ropes that I could think of. I started at the tip of the jibboom and worked aft and up, adding more ropes in a fairly sensible order, until the list stopped growing. That's about 150 ropes for Whiting. The extract below shows the column headings. 
Sail/ mast. This is the title of a group of ropes. ID #. Reference number that links to the other tabs. Don't put these numbers in until you are confident that you have included all you want.  Rope. Name of the rope(s). Mostly single ropes, but not always. For example, I used one line for a group of shrouds that went to the same mast from the same side of the schooner. Rope size. To be filled in later and I will use the traditional circumference in inches.  Extra bits. Do I need to buy blocks (1xS = single block; 1xD = double block) or eyes or thimbles... Belaying points. This is summary description of the route that a rope follows.  References. I used three main books for reference and they have their own columns where I put page numbers and drawing references. 'Other' has the less frequently used references.  Notes. These explain to myself why I made a particular decision, because I will forget later. The lines with a grey background are for ropes which I will not include on my model. Two of them, the main mast tackles, 85 and 86, might yet become part of the plan. 

The second tab (Belaying) expands the 'belaying points' into one line for each location where the rope makes contact. They are grouped by the locations such as 'Bowsprit cleats' or 'Fore fife rail' which are in column A. I enter the ID # reference number in column B and then a =VLOOKUP formula fills in the other columns for me. One reference number will often appear in several groups if it has a complicated route. The extract below shows that I need three cleats on the bowsprit (I counted them manually, it's not some clever formula) and seven on the fore fife rail. The fife rail is not big enough for this so I have to look at putting pins or cleats on the mast as shown in Petersson's book. 

The third tab (Deck) is still somewhat embryonic. My intention is to arrange the ropes in their belaying groups so I know which to belay where. Petersson does this well in his book but unfortunately I cannot apply his plan directly to Whiting. I will use the same =VLOOKUP function to add details to this sheet. The reference numbers, ID #, are key. 

I guess that others have been through the same process and combined snippets of information into a coherent belaying plan. Any comments or suggestions? The spreadsheet is copied below if you want to play with it. 
 
sail rigging plan.xlsx
 
George
 
 
 

A very methodical approach, George!

Thank you for your comment, Tony. I keep wanting to do some 'proper modelling' but find that my research is inadequate and I need to find out more, sift and sort it, shuffle it around and finally turn the data into useful information. I enjoy doing it but it is time consuming. 
I have added my current work on the belaying plan to another thread so it does not get in the way of the model build log. 
 
George
 

Your model is looking good. Nice job on your hull plating, a very difficult and fiddly task.
I've been dealing with my model's sail belaying for the past month. There is not a lot of information on the specifics of where and how sail management lines get rigged on a 17th-C, three-masted frigate. Detailed sail and belaying plans for frigates are also in short supply!
 

Yes, belaying plans are such fun!
 
Tony

Greetings! 
Thanks everyone for the likes and encouragement; it’s gotten to be a bit livelier around here. 

Upon the realization that summer had evaporated and November looms but two months away (meaning I’ll have been at this project for over a year soon), I redoubled my sloop efforts and got to work on the rigging stages. 
I wanted to rig the gaff and boom, or at least all the preparations for them before getting shrouds and backstays up. I went ahead and figured out my sails and prepared them as well. Details below. 
 
Sails. I started with paper templates 

 
I conducted experiments to determine a way to get my white cotton lawn to a satisfactory yellowish tone. Lemon tea surprisingly turned to a warmer tone, but the clear winner was camomile. Pencil marks are to test the effects of the dyeing process on penciled lines (I had to buy a 6B pencil to be able to mark the fabric for panel lines, etc).  Most people probably mark their sails after dyeing, but it seems the process doesn’t affect the penciling much if at all. 

Oversized cutouts, with enough margin to tape to a board, drying  after steeping in camomile tea. 


Taped to board over templates after ironing; bolt ropes going on. Did the topgallant early as a proof-of-concept/ for practice. 

 
Bolt ropes on. Lightly thinned PVA and a cheap brush seem to work best. Still took all day for various reasons. 

 
Cut out with difficulty and installed in the file:


Next, I spent far longer than you might believe getting familiar with my blocks, how to laminate them and reliably strop and thread them, and getting them attached to the yards in mostly the right orientation. 2mm blocks are awfully small, but 1:100 is worth the learning pains. 
For anyone using Seahorse laser-cut blocks, it is best to laminate them with watered-down PVA. For stropping such tiny blocks, I made a wire jig which sticks out of my vise on whose wire fingers blocks can be threaded to keep them in one place. Then I sneak a drop of CA on one side of the block and strap on some rope to start the strop. The rest depends on what the block needs, but usually you just bend the rope around and glue down the other side, tie it or seize it and you have a block ready to go. Of course this took days of trial and error. 

 
I then managed to get a little bit of actual rigging done; including the gammoning, which turned out well enough. 



Boom jaws and parral.  I found some acceptable beads after long searching:


Topping lift and boom sheets. The Occre thread I used for the topping lift was ostensibly 0.15mm, though closer inspection puts that figure at at least 0.25 or .3. I couldn’t get it to thread through the final block.  Keen observers may also note something wrong with the boom sheet tackle at this stage as well:

 
All fixed. Fixing it took a small fraction of the time it took to do it wrong and learn what not to do. 


Finally, I glued the deadeye chainplates into the channels and am working on an experiment to explore possibilities for my sails with the fabric I am using. More on that soon, probably. 

Little by little. 
Meriadoc

 

Pinrails and belaying pins
These should have been a quick job, and they were once I had worked out how many pins I needed and where to put them. The time consuming task was to create the belaying plan for about 150 ropes. I will post about this a little later but for now here is what I did with scalpel and glue rather than Excel. 
 
I used brass belaying pins made by RB Models and blackened them with Carr's solution. They are much neater than the wooden clubs supplied in the kit. The pinrails are from 4x1mm walnut, cut to the same length as the channels for the deadeyes. The longer, fore rails have a curve on the outboard edge so they sit snuggly against the bulwark below the gunwale. I did consider putting a concave curve on the inboard edge but decided to keep it simple. The aft rails are straight and I reduced the width to about 3mm after drilling the holes for the pins. The holes are 3mm apart. 

I put the pins into the holes then fixed them from the underside with a tiny drop of CA. The completed assemblies were glued in place with wood glue. 

Having fixed the pinrails I glued pins into the breasthook and the fife rails. The breasthook has a purposeful look to it now and is calling for ropes to be belayed there. 

The aft pinrails and fife rail are in a very crowded part of the deck. I snapped out the pumps that I had previously glued in place because there was not enough room for a sailor to squeeze between the pinrail and the pump handle. I am considering shortening the handles (6 foot down to 5 foot) and inclining them forward. 

 
George
 

I decided to have another 'waterline' model in a perspex/acrylic stand. The top is acrylic blue, the sides plain so as to see underneath. It's to make me think of a clear blue Mediterranean sea.
 
I've now completed this model. As with previous models this was more of a learning exercise to look at (1) what it is to work at a smaller scale (not quite the 1:196 some modelers achieve and certainly not nearly as good as those who have worked at 1:96); (2) seeing if I can improve working with card; (3) practising with an airbrush; (4) continuing to try to improve working with a lathe and making blocks.
 
After completing it, I can see I have a long way to go before I can be satisfactory in any of these areas, although there is some improvement.

(1) My main concern is especially with the sails. I can't seem to make them retain their shape in the wind even though I used dilute PVA to stiffen the paper and a hair dryer. Part of the problem was maintaining the tension in the ropes without a real wind to keep the sails in position (perhaps wire is the answer). Then there is the fact that the left side of the sails is left bare as the bolt rope is fixed to the right.  I shall try working with cotton voile next time and sewing on the bolt rope.
 
(2) I don't think I'll ever try mixing card with wood again, and will stick with just wood and metal.
 
(3) Although I used a satin varnish to mix with linseed oil and white spirit as a finish, it remains too glarey under artificial light.
 
(4) I found that by making the ropes to the correct diameter, the appearance seemed very meager. I now understand why the advice is sometimes to go with appearance rather than correct dimensions. However, that brings with it the need to make blocks bigger than they should be. Also, using cotton thread without waxing it or singeing the fluff, the ropes have a very ragged appearance.
 
(5) The paintwork. Ouch! The poor waterline and edging of the card wales. I don't want to repeat that!
 
(6) Finally, it is clear I need to spend more time sanding the wooden parts.
 
All the same, I do like the general appearance of this allège, and am pleased to have done it. It would make a great model in more experienced and better hands.
 
It was also a kind of review of the Ancre monograph. In summary, I'd say that in comparison with other Ancre monographs (1) the explanations and translations were inadequate; (2) the plans needed very careful checking as there were plenty of inconsistencies and some mistakes (so far the plans I have worked with from Ancre or studied have been of a much higher quality); (3) very poor quality of the photos, which often were also poorly taken from the point of view of knowing what was shown. However, the rigging diagrams and notes were very good. Understanding this monograph is certainly helped by looking at the detailed photos on Fissore's own site.
 
You're welcome to have a look at the overall pictures that follow. If you need detail, they'll enlarge considerably.
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
That's it until next time! I wonder what it will be?
 
Tony

Just thought I'd add a photo to demonstrate scale. Sorry for the slightly dull look to the photos in the last post, I had my screen brightness too low when preparing them.
 
Tony
 

Impressive to say the least.  BTW, are the pulleys supposed be rounded?  The side photos seem to show them being high in the center.  

Hi all,
 
After roughing out the cast iron lathe bed and it's 'legs', it was time to have a look at the lathe's cast iron Headstock and Tailstock.
 
Basically, the headstock clamps and rotates the workpiece, whilst the tailstock mostly provides a means of accurately supporting longer workpieces and drilling down the centreline of the workpiece. 
 

 
The headstock is fixed at the left end of the lathe (where it is attached  to the motor or belt drive) whilst the tailstock can be slid and clamped at a chosen position along the length of the bed.
 
Below shows an exploded view of the main parts of the headstock. Item 7, the headstock body was first in the queue.

 
So I started with the headstock body itself (7). It is a casting and has no square surfaces. I had to decide what I would use as the reference plane/dimension. This is important since the large holes through the two lobes of the headstock must end up the same height above the lathe bed, parallel with the bed centreline and coaxial with the tailstock. Since there seemed plenty meat on the base of the headstock I decided to machine that first, and if I later found the coaxial holes were too high, say, I could machine more meat of the bottom face.
 
I filed the two longer bottom edges as parallel as I could and then clamped those edges in the vice to mill the tongue that slides in the bed slot.  I formed the tailstock tongue the same way.

 
I then gripped that tongue in the end of the vice.  Note: The tailstock, with the same width of tongue, is clamped (out of picture) in the other side of the vice to ensure the vice jaws clamp squarely.

Above, whilst machining the tongue and it's adjacent faces I also took a light skim off the tops of the two lobes to make the lobe tops parallel with the bottom surface....this allowed me to use a set square to make sure the headstock was at 90 deg to the mill table.
 
Below. I then, after drilling a 6mm hole in both lobes using a stub drill, opened up the lobe holes to finished size using a series of end mills of increasing diameter.

Above, I was wary that the mill would exert a strong downward force so packed out the underside of the headstock.
 
Below, that looks like the job is done...so on to the next items, the Bronze bearings 🙂

 
There are two pieces of (Phosphor) Bronze bushes supplied with the kit. These fit in the lobes of the headstock and allow the headstock Spindle to rotate freely. The raw bush material is not long enough to be supported in a chuck whilst all maching is done, so a 5/16" dia mandrel had to be made.
 
Below. Firstly, a new 6 mm stub drill was gently drilled through each bush, without issue. But once I started to drill close to the finished diameter using normal twist drills they started grabbing the inside of the bush.
 
I wasn't sure what was going on...I tried some lubricant, slowed the drill speed and lowered the force and eventually got through but it was a chore. I believe the Bronze may have been heating up and grapping the drill tip ...also there may have been some galling and burnishing going on inside the hole.
 
Strangely, after the hole was drilled, the 5/16" twist drill could be hand fed through the hole but a 5/16" rod couldn't...I eventually realised the hole was slightly bent in both bushes. The (long awaited) 5/16" reamer eventually arrived and that allowed me to straighten out the holes....and then the 5/16" rod ran smoothly in the holes....phew.

 
Below. Cleaning up the bush exterior faces on the mandrel using a HSS tool without issue. The bush is 'glued' to the mandrel using green thread locker.

 
 

Above. Using Acetone to get the mandrel out of the bush, once machining was completed. Sometimes a 15 min dip in Acetone is sufficient, sometimes 30 mins in the oven at a high setting is required. I think it depends on the amount of threadlocker applied and the area it covers. It seems a bit of a black art.
 
Below, the Bronze bushes now sitting happily in the headstock and well aligned with the tailstock.

 
Now on to the headstock Pulley - the pulley connects via belt drive to a ceiling mounted, powered pulley.. Again, this is another cast iron part.
 
Below, the pulley is being cleaned up to diameter and length...it had to be turned around and re-clamped in the 3" chuck jaws to complete this machining.

 
There are four stepped diameters on the pulley, to give different belt drive speeds. The picture shows the hole (for the Spindle) being drilled.

 
Again, a mandrel was required to complete the machining.

 
I was probably a bit too generous with the threadlocker this time since (once the machining was finished) I spent about a day trying to get the darned pulley off the mandrel...eventually i put it in the kitchen electric fan oven for 30 mins on a high setting ...it then came off relatively easily. Below, still on the mandrel, waiting for the kitchen oven to warm up.

 
Unfortunately, when removing the well cooked pulley from the well cooked mandrel, the largest pulley diameter got a bit marked...no big deal...I attached it to a makeshift mandrel, then a light filing + emery cloth and all was good.

 
Now the heastock Spindle ie the shaft that runs in the bronze bushes and supports the chucks and faceplate. It was machined in steps, since it is long and spindly.

 
Then held in the lathe's live centre for a final light cut to size.

 
Below, the results of the (few) days efforts ...all keen to be assembled.

 
And a free running headstock assembly is achieved. Still lots of cleaning up of cast surfaces to do but the main machining features are now in place.

 
Yup, there's more 😉  ...the Tailstock.

 
The tailstock followed a similar machining process to the headstock.
 
I've still to put the 3/8" counterbore in the right-hand end .... and I'm not 100% sure how to do that since the barrel of the cast tailstock was way off centre and filing it back central has removed a lot of meat, meaning 3/8" is now too large.So I may have to drop the 3/8" dia to 9mm (...end mill on order).

 
Below, we see the tongue of the tailstock being machined...I tend to use a strip of paper on the clamped surfaces to help even out any surface irregularities.

 
And turned 90 deg to get the through hole milled, similar to the headstock. Shown below is the faces being cleaned up before the holes were added.

 
Almost there 😉
 
The tailstock is held in position on the lathe bed by a T Clamp..
 
The first clamp  I made was to the drawing dimensions but turned out way too short ...so here I am making anothe clamp with an 1/8" longer threaded portion. And the old T Clamp sitting atop about to be launched into orbit.

 
Finally, a sub-assembly of where I am so far. A lathe shape is beginning to vaguely emerge.

 
Thanks for bearing with me :-.)  
 
In spite of some of the issues I encountered, I actually enjoy this stuff....happy days.
 
Regards,
 
Richard
 

Much enjoyed the build. A lovely model. Thanks!
 
Tony

Much enjoyed the build. A lovely model. Thanks!
 
Tony