Ian_Grant

God Bill, do you work non-stop? Sails look great!

Thanks Phil! I looked around just earlier tonight. National Maritime Museums Greenwich has a lines plan about 2m long (!). There are also a side elevation and some deck elevations at the Science Museum UK. What they lack is an athwartships elevation showing the deck cabins which appear to be of an unusual design I can't quite make out. Also, Model Boats Dec 2008 issue has a model of the ship, if I can find it. Revell also has/had a kit, but pricey. But first, let's get this galley completed!

I seem to recall some other builder saying you can get hull lines for the Great Eastern but limited info on deck layouts and superstructure.

Hi Vic! Too much! At the start of the hull buiId, I overestimated the weight of the hull and mechanisms and electronics, then designed a full bilge to handle that displacement. It turned out less than estimated so I had to add ballast to make up the difference. I'd have to look back in the log but I think the ballasted weight for correct waterline came to 24-25 lbs. Not easy to carry with all the oars projecting!

Milestone - got a piece of deck glued on! Beforehand, added fixed ballast in the form of lead shot in bilge compartments, covered/mixed with epoxy resin. I put 3/4 of what was needed in the bow in the last water test. Will finalize fixed ballast at the end of the build. Some ballast will be in shiftable packets in bilge compartments in the engine room. The bow ballast is much lower than in the pool tests, where the packets were too big to slip into these spaces and so sat high up. Stability should be better now. Fixed ballast covered in epoxy: Then I added a couple of sticks of wood to form a little cradle for the Arduino, under the shelter of the fixed portion of the foredeck. This fixed part is needed as far back as the bitts for the artemon. That piece of ply on the port side provides solid mounting for the bitts, which will be offset because the artemon passes by the stem on its port side. Then added the foredeck and forward access hatch. Just a flat deck, KISS. I've made the laser files to etch the greatest portion of the deck, 30" long, which covers the engine room but sadly I couldn't get a laser booking before Tuesday. People must be busy making stuff for Christmas. In the meantime I need to make the frame of beams this large deck will be glued to. Oh, I also drew the rudder to 3D print. I will do a first test print in white so as not to waste precious transparent filament. Looking good. The upright stick marks where the mast will be; I'm planning my deck furniture. Made a CAD drawing to 3D print some hatch gratings, and also laser etch files for four walls and a platform for the archery tower which will sit between the boarding gaps and the mast.

Stay sails (stays'ls). They're named by prefacing "stys'l" by the name of the stay they are set on. You could omit them, or have them furled (peaks hauled down by the "downhaul" lines and furled to the foot of the stay. Might look a little odd with no fore topmast stays'l set? Maybe that's ok if the sprit-topsail is set? But I don't know about this century's practice. Builders' preference.

Wow, that's really family-friendly! Ha Ha! I was thinking more along the lines of "ordo, filii canino!". Err, the translator doesn't translate back to the same English from the Latin??!! English "Row, you sons of bit***s" >>>>>> "Ordo, filii canino" >>>>>> "order, the children of the dog". No wonder it is difficult to construe Latin. Glad I never had to take it.

Funny you should mention sound, Vic. Just last night I was at the local RC boat club's annual auction and one of the boats up for grabs had a sound recording of a marine diesel running. Maybe I could have background noise and shouts in Latin. Speaking of the auction, it was ridiculous. Fast electric boats with brushless water-cooled motors and 100A water-cooled ECSs going for - wait for it - two dollars! One chap scored two Spektrum transmitters, one 5 and one 6 channel, for five bucks. I wasn't in the market for anything there except I did buy a plan for the SS Klondike, a stern paddle wheeler that I actually walked around on in Whitehorse this past summer. Might be interesting to build an RC paddle-wheeler although I was thinking about maybe the Great Eastern, ....maybe.....?

Yes, "spectacle iron" rings a bell.....👍

Lots of spare channels in that receiver; you could use them to switch on lights, sound a horn, etc. Maybe we'll see that you did as this epic build unfolds......

In a nutshell: "degrees off wind" is the angle between your course and where the wind is coming from. No one can get to zero. Your diagram is showing the two boat types sailing as close to straight upwind as they can. A square rigger can get to within about 65 degrees of the wind. Fore and aft rigged vessels can get closer (like the yacht in your diagram). If you are shallow draft, like your canoes, and with a rounded bilge, then the hull's innate ability to resist sideways movement is limited. If you're trying to sail, say, 90 degrees off the wind (ie a "broad reach" with the wind from abeam) then the wind blows you not only along the course you want but also downwind to some degree or other. This is leeway. One can compensate by pointing a little closer to the wind and in a perfect world cancel leeway. It's like when you see a small plane on a windy day moving across the sky but not quite in the direction its nose is pointing.

I was trying to get my eyes to "see" the sails as billowing away from the viewer but it doesn't work. The rising/setting sun is somewhere to the right, so given the shadowing on the sails they're billowing towards the viewer. The tell-tale shows the wind coming from somewhere forward. I think the boat is going a point into the wind. I see the guy sitting at the stern but he does not seem to be holding anything, nor is the rudder in the water. Actually no one is doing anything much. Could they have heaved to for a break? There's no wake evident.

Cut 1mm lengths off toothpicks! 😬 Gives a sense of how tiny your boat really is. Great work as always. It does look better with the deck lower down!

Here is the equipment they have available. They have plans to add more. It's great for me as I can walk to that branch in just under 30 minutes. Regarding those kids; they might have been 12 or 13 not 10. It's hard for me to guess now, in relative dotage to them. https://biblioottawalibrary.ca/en/imagine-space

We get it! LOL, was a great series.

The makerspace was opened in collaboration with the US embassy; someone enterprising must have known someone there.

Thought I should expand on this. Their closet has sheet MDF, plywood, paper card, and lexan, all at very low prices. If you bring your own material, there is no charge for using either of the laser cutters. As I said there is a very low charge for plastic filament you consume in the 3D printers but no additional charges. The three printers are Makerbot Replicator+ marketed for educational institutions. They are really no muss, no fuss. There's no fiddling trying to get the base perfectly level; when your print is done you unplug the plastic baseplate (they are covered in masking tape to prevent the hot print from melting to them) and flex them to release your print. I've never seen them have a problem during printing. Ten year old kids are there using them sometimes, downloading dragons or whatever from Thingiverse. Lots of fun!

Geez Marc, you keep raising issues that I will have to deal with when I get to my stashed SR. 😬 You made an excellent job of it. Not sure if I could keep them round and evenly tapered working manually. Will see if/when I get there. Keep up the beautiful work. Merry Christmas!

Bill, I know what you mean. I was hugely impressed when I went to a place that uses a blast of water to cut metal or whatever. I just wanted him to cut some porcelain tiles neatly for my fireplace but when I walked in it was slicing through 1" aluminum like it was butter.

Yes it's quite a deal; they're not out to make money on it even though there are tens of thousands of dollars worth of machines to maintain. They also can supply MDF sheets out of their closet in various thicknesses at ridiculously low prices, wholesale I suppose. Good question about the steering platform shape....the books I have show them square but possibly no one really knows for certain.

They just charge for the plastic you use, by weight according to what the maker software calculates will be needed. For example, the ram cost me $1.60, speaking of which I printed it again with some changes and also in four pieces so the decorative elements came out perfectly.

Nice!

Thank you Michael! Yes it has encompassed a broad range of challenges, starting with me writing software. 😏 Looking forward to painting the crew. Thanks Pat! Not too much longer to wait, I hope.

Quite a bit to talk about. I came to like the width of my steering platforms less and less; they stuck out like cauliflower ears whereas they should be about the same as the outrigger. Thinking about rudder installation, I realized I could make the steering platforms narrower if I let the rudder horns swivel through the hull skin when swivelling inwards (I had sized the platforms to let the horns traverse their full arc beneath them). Just means enlarging the slots in the hull through which the rudder linkages pass. So, I cut the platforms off the hull, reduced their width by 3/8", and re-mounted them. I formed two wood blocks shaped to fit against the hull at the back of the platforms, and drilled through them at an 18 degree angle for the brass rudder tubes. Formerly the steering platform front walls had two panels similar to the side walls, but the inner set was destroyed when I hacked off the 3/8" and rather than make new walls I just covered it with another layer of 1/16" ply yielding a blank wall as seen below. I'm now planning to put a relief lion's face on each of these walls. There are lots of free 3D lion face files available on the web. The new, narrower steering platform. The formed block holding the rudder tube 1/8" ID, angled at 18 degrees from vertical. Brass rudder tube and rudder shaft are yet to be trimmed to length. You can see the upper collar; the horns act as the lower collars. Horn beneath the platform; 1/8" DIA brass rod rudder shaft; linkage disappearing into the hull. I'm thinking of making 3D printed flanges to clean up the linkage holes. Here's a little video of the cardboard pretend rudders moving. They are 2" x 3" which pool testing showed would turn the hull. I'm planning to make the actual rudders by, altogether now, 3D-printing using transparent filament. I can then paint on scale rudder blades and the extra will be invisible when rowing near shore. Of course, the real rudders will include a tapering wide blade all the way up to the steering platforms, hiding the brass rod. Rudder servo is offset to one side to ease insertion of the NiMH battery pack through the aft access hatch. PB290334.MOV I will soon be adding the fore and aft portions of the deck. To that end, I laser etched deck planks on a wide piece of 1/16" ply as seen below. This will be split in half to do both ends. Note the hole: That was my mistake as I started the laser but still had a previous file loaded (OOPSIE). Fortunately two corners will be trimmed off to form each of the two decks. Now, more on 3D. I bought a 3D OBJ file for a Roman legionnaire who is "fully rigged", meaning one can pose him as desired before printing. I am allowed to make as many men as I like since I paid for the file (Cyber Monday Sale!!). I can scale him as I like; I could even make crew of varying heights. Here is a picture of what the model looks like. One can pose him right down to how the fingers are bent, apparently. Maybe even facial expressions (what can be seen behind his face protection). Here he is imported to 3D Builder. I'll need to import him into Blender to use the posing functions; I just wanted to see him. My brother emailed me about 3d "Roman Sailors" he found, which I also bought on Cyber Monday. Here is what they look like; not readily poseable (brother says he can do it manually, but ouch!), and I have no use for the rowers, but they only cost me four bucks and again I can print as many as I like, even if only to cut up to pose. What's more exciting for me is that while on the site, I noticed they also had ballista files!! I had made a start at drawing these in TinkerCAD but due to my lack of CAD skill I was forced to draw the later period metal type which is simpler. Have a look at what they offer; the older wood type with twisted sinew torsion springs and all! Resin printed, these should look amazing on deck. Picture of CAD ballistas; Picture of a resin-printed ballista; I will need to scale it to suit. Painting should bring out the details. Speaking of painting, I'll need to acquire some figure-painting skills to do my crew justice. Need to learn about washes especially. I installed the upper trim pieces at the stern (port side incomplete). I couldn't edge bend the wood right at the sternpost (I'm not into steaming) so I cut the last section from a small sheet. Not perfect but this trim will be covered by some previously-shown Etsy bling. Hopefully I will have the rudders at the next update. Snag is that the library is nearly out of transparent filament and I don't know if what they have is enough for me. They won't order new until they run out apparently. Till next time! Thanks for following, and Happy Modelling!

Check out Kevin the Lubber's Cutty Sark build for 3D printed masts etc.