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Ian_Grant

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  1. Ian_Grant
    Hi Bill; thanks for reminding me of this model ship collection. I did go there once a few years ago when we were passing through (used to take the kids to the nearby "Prehistoric World"), but it was closed. I since forgot about it. I see it is closed for the entirety of 2021 too 😞. I have also been meaning to visit the Thompson model ship gallery at the Art Gallery of Ontario in Toronto, but haven't been yet. Toronto is not a place I go to for pleasure, having grown up there 40 years ago and seen traffic explode since. http://www.ago.net/thomson-collection-ship-models In other news, I see I missed the visits of the "Theodore Too" tugboat along the St Lawrence and lake Ontario on his way to a new berth in Hamilton. Many years ago we took our son on a road trip to ride in "Thomas the Train's" passenger cars in the railway museum in Strasbourg Penn, and then we saw "Theodore Too" in Philadelphia. Fun times 😀. Plus dad got to see "Moshulu". https://montrealgazette.com/news/local-news/theodore-tugboat-might-pass-montreal-on-semi-secret-voyage-to-ontario http://www.moshulu.com/
  2. Ian_Grant
    Well, ahem, no, only the port side is seen at present. Suppose I could turn it when occasionally removing the case for cleaning. I kept the extra cannons in my parts box, for who knows what future use? Those wires are for making the gunport lanyards; see pg 15 near the right margin. They expect you to cut them to perfect length and glue the ends🤪. I didn't use them.
  3. Ian_Grant
    On my model, I have all guns run out on the port side and no glazing for the captain and admiral. On the stbd side I closed all gunports on the two lower decks (to see the chequer effect), and glazed where applicable for captain and admiral. What you do is your choice.
  4. Ian_Grant
    Another Smithsonian news article re ancient shipwrecks: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/archaeologists-find-ancient-roman-vessel-near-sicily-180978313/?utm_source=smithsoniandaily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=20210730-daily-responsive&spMailingID=45385991&spUserID=OTY4MjUzNzkyMTQ3S0&spJobID=2047048466&spReportId=MjA0NzA0ODQ2NgS2
  5. Ian_Grant
    This is the future. Coming together in record time and looking great!
  6. Ian_Grant
    It's hard to say from that photo because the actual meeting of hull and forward edge of the 1/4 gallery is out of sight "round the bend". I've just been looking and I cannot find a closeup stock photo of the 1/4 galleries taken from forward. I thought the upper two beelines merged nicely with the lower two rows of gallery windows, indeed this is what my copy of Geoff Hunt's "England Expects" seems to show, as here: That's how I painted mine, as here: However it seems one of the beelines might not be so aligned: The first beeline lines up with the gallery windows as expected. The second beeline just misses the lower sill of last middle gun deck port, and ends up above 1/4 gallery sill. Mine also just misses the last gun port sill, yet aligns with the gallery windows. So I may have mis-spoke, as the politicians say 😁. Sorry to distract. I'm sure your beelines will be fine.
  7. Ian_Grant
    Hey Bill, Don't completely trust Heller's bee lines. If you compared to photos that's great. I would, however, offer up the quarter galleries to your hulls before you paint and make sure the ocher bee lines meet nicely with the lower two levels of gallery windows. ps: nice balusters...
  8. Ian_Grant
    I have never had a lot of patience with computer applications and their idiosyncratic user interfaces, the creators just didn't seem to think like me; in fact I nearly quit engineering in the late 80's to pursue a cabinetmaking certificate once PC's landed on all our desks. Lost the "creative" feel when switching from drawing schematics on vellum with pencils to sitting with slumped shoulders clicking away on a mouse 😒. And what goes around comes around - after my Nortel layoff they paid for career consultant time for us, and it quickly became apparent I had a greater aptitude for skilled trades all along , no surprise really......
  9. Ian_Grant
    Yes, I shudder at the memory of writing in assembler at university 😬
  10. Ian_Grant
    Thanks Bedford, that's very interesting and perhaps I could cut them shorter since the oars only move about 1/4" along their axis!
  11. Ian_Grant
    Generally conditioners are called for for soft woods like pine, or fir plywood, which otherwise can absorb stain unevenly and give a "blobby" appearance.
  12. Ian_Grant
    Joe, Yours sounds pretty specialized. A Nano or Uno are more general-purpose.
  13. Ian_Grant
    Hi Steven, yes they used sheaths as you describe, apparently called "askomata". I wondered about doing something similar, but how to attach to hull in some way to allow replacement, also there would be 44 or 60 of them....😅.....plus the oar slides back and forth a little through the stroke as distance to loom mounting point varies.........something like the rubber bulb on an eye dropper comes to mind 🤪😵........trying to think of something..... By the way, your dromon is AWESOME!!!! Love the scenic backdrop!
  14. Ian_Grant
    I have been wondering how to construct oar ports on a real model. Wouldn't want the oars rubbing away at the necessarily thin skin and making the holes ever bigger! My current idea is a drilled hole, with a suitably dimensioned brass "chicken wire staple" for the oar to rub against. Real galleys apparently lashed the oar to a single thole pin, but this doesn't seem practical in a working model. The lower reme's ports need to be pretty snug because their scale freeboard will be less than one inch from the water - remember, literally whole fleets of these things were sunk by sudden storms. Here is a brief video showing movement of the mechanism. As I said before, with my two channel RC set I can only power one side; that's where the Arduino comes in! The last part is me trying to row by twiddling both sticks, not very successfully. Arduino will provide consistent motion. Next step is to go to Digikey and order the servo connectors I will need for the Arduino daughter board, plus I think some DIP switches in case I need a "Cal" test case or whatever. I was also thinking of using the 3-position switch channel on my nicer 2.4G RC transmitter as an "over-ride" with its three positions (a) stopping all oars in water, (b) allowing oars to row normally according to throttle and rudder signals, (c) stopping all oars out of the water. But for that I would need to buy a new 2.4G Rcvr unit of 4 or 6 channels. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ivhx3jbQ4p8 Let me know if this link works or not 😉
  15. Ian_Grant
    Thanks Steven, I saw this before but you are right, the stroke is very flat. If this project proceeds to fruition, I expect to be modifying the oar code pool-side during trials to get the shape right, and also to decide at what point the rudder needs the assistance of stopped or backward-going oars on one side.
  16. Ian_Grant
    Funny you should mention Fusion360. I've only used tinkerCAD which seems to be at a rather "for children" level. There really are no accurate plans extant for any ancient galley; having purchased both "Age of the Galley" and "Roman Warships" I am amazed at how little we actually know. Knowledge of Roman galleys is gleaned from coins, a few uncovered fresco paintings in Pompeii or Herculaneum, and some stone relief carvings on Trajan's Column among others. That's it; that's all. Contemporary historians never seemed to include descriptions when mentioning galleys, assuming their contemporary audience had actually seen them already. "Roman Warships" provides an "educated guess" at the various ships but drawings are pretty much limited to a side view, top view, and single cross section in the "engine room". Oh, and they're about 4" or 5" long. Anyway I was wondering how to modify and marry the bow and stern lines from "Olympias" (as an approximation) to Pitakis's extended engine room cross section and Fusion360 came up in my thoughts. But what a learning curve! Oh, for my old drafting machine and table.........
  17. Ian_Grant
    I'm just using standard Arduino language commands, which are based on the "C" language, and the Arduino "integrated development environment" (IDE). The great advantage of the Arduino language is that you can write programs without having to understand and control all the register bits in the microcontroller, and more especially how to use all the timers. For example, the "pulseIn" command returns the duration of a pulse occurring at a specified input pin in microseconds; the compiler handles setting up a timer to count clock cycles during the pulse. For another example, the SERVO library provides the writeMicroseconds command which outputs a pulse of specified length on a specified pin i.e. to a waiting servo; the compiler picks a timer and sets it up to time out after the desired pulse length. In fact, using the servo library one can control up to 12 servos with the compiler employing only a single timer. I won't need to worry about timers at all, because I know that each time the program receives and measures the "throttle" and "rudder" pulses from the RC Receiver, 20 msec has elapsed since the previous pulses. I can derive the stroke cycle timing in terms of "number of 50Hz RC cycles elapsed". I think 🤪. You can find a list of the standard Arduino commands at https://www.arduino.cc/reference/en/ . Arduino provides a free development environment which one uses to write, compile, and easily download programs to the target board.
  18. Ian_Grant
    Checked under "CGTrader boats" but no Roman galley files.....sigh....
  19. Ian_Grant
    Wow Kevin those after market stern embellishments look fantastic!
  20. Ian_Grant
    Dale, there is something or other awry with your main channel deadeye placement. The deadeyes should be in groups such that the chains, when extended in a straight line from their respective shrouds from the masthead, do not interfere with the guns and port lids. From the forward end of the channel, there should be: a group of three (2 shrouds, 1 topmast backstay); gap over gunport; a group of five (4 shrouds, 1 TM b'stay); gap over gunport; two shrouds, space, one shroud; gap over gunport; two shrouds. Here is a Figure from Longridge showing the starboard side main channel. Notice how the chains and preventers are at larger angles moving aft, since the shroud angles change, and how none interferes with a gunport. The smaller topmast backstay deadeyes have shorter chains here, as you noted. I don't know if your deadeyes are just too large, or the channel is a bit too far aft, but you might want to investigate before moving forward. Regards, Ian.
  21. Ian_Grant
    You mean the lower deck port lid? No, I just drilled holes and rigged the port lid ropes. You mean the middle deck port right forward with the two half-doors? I did nothing here. Some people open them; I believe they are at the sick berth.
  22. Ian_Grant
    This large model deserves, nay demands, extensive rigging. It is an undertaking, but well worth the time.
  23. Ian_Grant
    Dale, she looks really good! It's a bit late as I just happened on your log now, and I hesitate to say, but looking at your photos ...😔..... your waterline is quite low...in actual fact the waterline (and thus the copper) reaches the main wale in the midships area. Since you coppered from the keel up, using adhesive tape, you could possibly add a couple more rows. Your decision I know, but if you decide it is do-able her hull would look more true to life. Sorry, I hope I have not offended, at this late date....😟
  24. Ian_Grant
    Just to say that Smithsonianmag.com is an excellent site; you can subscribe for free and receive a daily email with several story links. There is a vast range of topics and there's always a story of interest.
  25. Ian_Grant
    https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/divers-find-second-century-military-ship-sunken-egyptian-city-180978244/?utm_source=smithsoniandaily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=20210721-daily-responsive&spMailingID=45337671&spUserID=OTY4MjUzNzkyMTQ3S0&spJobID=2045187682&spReportId=MjA0NTE4NzY4MgS2

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