ClipperFan
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Rob, I've learned from personal experience that it's the truly great artisans and artists who are the hardest on themselves. As for taking shortcuts or even (gasp) omitting entire systems, I know you well enough to know you won't take that route either. Since you're following a specific system, you might want to document your own final belaying points so that you can at least duplicate your own work for all three masts. Regardless, what I really appreciate seeing is the complex latticework of the myriad lines and comprehending the logic behind apparent mayhem. Good luck!- 3,560 replies
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Rob, At the level of expertise that you clearly are working at, I'm pretty sure the 'errors' you're discovering are only noticeable by one individual. That's you. As for the rest of us, we're just following along in awe as McKay's long lost Clipper comes to life before our wondering eyes.
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Pat, My sense is that, since we're discussing a component that is clearly visible on the latest image of Glory of the Seas supplied by Mike, we're not too far off topic for Rob's tolerance. The sketch you shared is fascinating. I've been on several large three masted sailing ships and have seen something similar but really didn't pay much attention. The illustration shows a substantial metal anchor point in the deck, then two oval-arrow shaped metal devices with a central axis implying a large roller block. My guess is the leather acts like an insulation of sorts to prevent friction chafing. Having the stay line doubled with lacing would greatly reinforce the strength of these critical lines. After all these anchor points are critical to the safety of massive lower masts. Thanks for clarifying this complex structure.
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George, Thanks for your progress report. It must be a little frustrating to run out of paint in the midst of a project. Two observations. The lower mizzen mast appears to be a 'solid stick' compared to the main and fore masts. The Buttersworth piece shows the mizzen built similar to both fore and main. I may be jumping the gun and you might be planning to complete to mizzen. If so, my apologies. Lubbers openings on McKay's vessels were larger than those on your tops. Here's a picture of Glory of the Seas from 1913. If you look closely at her tops, those lubbers holes are about twice the size of your model's.
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Pat, this is fascinating. Would that mean that most likely all 3 of Glory's stays would have been secured like this? The unknown component has an intriguing trapezoidal shape, would that be the stayplate/padeye you're referring to?
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Rob, Mike sent me the same picture this morning. He mentioned Carl Everts made 3 Glory of the Seas paintings. Sea History, Winter 1977 has his 3rd work titled "South Street 1879, 'Glory of the Seas' Picking Up Her Tow in New York Harbor." Here's the magazine cover and page with Evers' entire piece inside
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Rob, I'm working on completing Mike's two requests first. He asked me to do Glory's prow below the waterline using 8.3 degrees and to redraw her forecastle using Vladimir's sharper profile. It's taking me longer than I first anticipated due to the technical challenges of reimagining her upper deck profile. The revised prow is actually slightly more aggressive than the roughly 6 degrees of my large drawing. I have to admit too, that the only actual vents I'm familiar with are the large split-level structure on her wheelhouse. So I'll need a little more direction on this interesting request.
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Rob, From my limited time rigging old plastic Revell & Linberg sailing ship models, I recall that most critical steps are to work inside to outside. One of our proudest accomplishments was improvising all running rigging on the French Frigate La Flore. We came up with a way to have all yardarms fully functional, through the use of blocks and tackles just like on the vessel herself. While this is the most taxing process, the rewards in scale authenticity are immense. Thanks for sharing your process.
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Rob, The apparently innumerable amount of untethered lines sure looks intimidating. I know you have a reliable system to keep them all sorted out so that they arrive at their proper destination. I would appreciate some insight into your procedure, because your results are just spectacular.
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It would be really neat if the 8×10 includes the entire ship. Either way, as soon as I get it, I'll share it with you here.
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Hi Rob, Mike replied that he has an 8x10 print of the above scene and he'll send it to me once he locates it.
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Rob, what really impresses me about the loftiness of Glory's masts is the fact that it's so difficult to get her entire rig in frame of the camera's lens. Unless you back up a good distance, it's impossible to see her whole rig because it's so tall. It would be interesting to calculate the scale distance required to get your whole Glory of the Seas into frame once she's completed. Maybe then we could calculate the actual great distances contemporary photos such as this have been taken from. I was reviewing this beautiful scene and noticed a significant difference in height of the group of disembarked passengers in the foreground compared to a seaman standing amid ship on Glory of the Seas in the background. Based on the relative height of the camera's viewpoint above the people, it's clear the photographer was aboard the docked passenger vessel Dora when this picture was taken. Considering by 1910 her rig had already been reduced several times, even so Glory's rig is still impressive.
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Hi Rob, I will send Mike your request. It was a great thrill to get this latest image. Mike is such a nice guy. He actually gets a kick out of how much we enjoy the beautiful images he shares. When I received this latest one, I was again struck at how simply beautiful Glory of the Seas truly was. Even though her entire superstructure is marred by the uncaring, callous factory additions, there's yet enough of her original lines observable to still imagine her classic beauty.
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Hi Vlad, It's not stupidity. I'm sure you didn't intentionally slice open your own fingers. That's why they're called accidents. Meanwhile, do be careful while juggling with multiple sharp knives. Leave that up to the professionals.....
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Hi Pat, Here's 2 more edits, each focusing on the bowsprit and the particular rigging line you requested. At least I hope this encompasses the forestay to bow Knighthead rigging that you want a closer look at. I can still get tighter if you need to, just let me know.
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Rob, Vladimir et all, Michael Mjelde or as he prefers Mike, has come through for us again. Months ago I literally stumbled on a rare scene of the old McKay Clipper Ship Glory of the Seas depicted in a cork insulation company ad buried deep in an Insulation business magazine. I shared the third low res picture with Mike just in case he hadn't seen it before. He casually mentioned that he had an original of the same picture in his files and voila! here it is. Since the original arrived positioned vertical with slightly more surrounding white space, I rotated it and cropped some of the white, leaving the entire image intact. First pic is my 4th edit, primarily to enable her lovely Grecian goddess Athena figurehead to be seen closer. A portion of her lower left leg and entire right arm below the shoulder are both missing. As an artist, I would love to make a painting of this scene, recreating her razor sharp prow with her entire, impressively lofty rig, depicting some of her enormous sails as she's towed through the Golden Gate into her ending berth at San Francisco.
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Rob, Vladimir et all,
Michael Mjelde or as he prefers Mike, has come through for us again. Months ago I literally stumbled on a rare scene of the old McKay Clipper Ship Glory of the Seas depicted in a cork insulation company ad buried deep in an Insulation business magazine. I shared the blurry picture with Mike just in case he hadn't seen it before. He casually mentioned that he had an original of the same picture in his files and voila! here it is. Since the original arrived positioned vertical with slightly more surrounding white space, I rotated it and cropped some of the white, leaving the entire image intact. Second scene is my 4th edit, primarily to enable her lovely Grecian goddess Athena figurehead to be seen closer. A portion of her lower left leg and entire right arm below the shoulder are both missing. As an artist, I would love to make a painting of this scene, recreating her entire, impressively lofty rig, depicting some of her enormous sails as she's towed into her ending berth at San Francisco.
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Rob, Thanks for that fascinating and very detailed tutorial on your Glory of the Seas gin block construction process. Your description of their use too, is concise yet fully understandable. A bonus was the comparitive difference in the type of gin blocks constructed for Great Republic which made use of the more complicated Forbes design while the later vessel employed the more advanced Howes rig. Just one last observation. I gather to do such tiny construction you must have some pretty sophisticated magnifying lenses.
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Rob, When my son Mark saw your scratch built gin block sitting on FDR's face inside the dime, he exclaimed "Oh my God, that's so miniscule! How does he make something so.... tiny?" So, Rob.... How you make such tiny gin blocks? He also asked what are they for?
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Rob, I'm almost done on the revised forecastle deck sketch for Mike. Seeing the size of just this fore section of Glory of the Seas (it goes as far back as 38' of the large house behind her foremast) again reinforces how seriously large your model is. Then when I think of Vladimir's even larger one..... you both are creating such impressively beautiful tributes to McKay's final Clipper Ship.
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Rob, Mainmast height is just incredible. Your detail work is second to none. I especially appreciate those teenie, tiny gin blocks. Amazing!
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Rob, by now you know of my vivid imagination. It's not much of a stretch to think of you asleep at night. Meanwhile an entire crew of miniature shipwrights and riggers are furiously at work all night. The following morning, you post pictures of their work and take credit as if it was your own! Of course that's just too much "Disney" for reality. But you get my drift. Your work and I know it's entirely you, is more akin to miniature ship construction than mere modeling. I continue to be in awe of your results.
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Rob, Not one bit. The Stag Hound ratios were precisely what I used to illustrate mast placements. Other than the forecastle deck, the mast distances are from center to center.
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Here's the logic I used to calculate Glory's mast placements. First I calculate ratios of all elements specifically listed by MacLean in his description of McKay's first Extreme Clipper Stag Hound which had a length of her main deck between perpendicilars of 215'. Dividing each figure by this LOD gave me the following ratios as follows: stem to foremast: 50' ratio .2325 fore to mainmast: 67' ratio .3116 main to mizzenmast: 56' ratio .2604 mizzen to sternpost: 42' ratio .1973 Assigning these ratios to Glory's 250 LOD gave me the following results: stem to foremast: 58' fore to mainmast: 78' main to mizzenmast: 65' mizzen to sternpost: 49' Repeating this exercise with Flying Fish which had an LOD of 210' gave me the following numbers: stem to foremast: 52' ratio .2476 fore to mainmast: 62 ratio .2952 main to mizzenmast: 52' ratio .2476 mizzen to sternpost: 44' ratio .2095 Using these ratios, I again calculated Glory's mast distances: stem to foremast: 62' fore to mainmast: 74' main to mizzenmast: 62' mizzen to sternpost: 52' Before I discovered the actual distance of Glory's forecastle listed as 35', I used this same process to calculate it based on a 30' forecastle of Flying Cloud. Here are those results, based on her 235' LOA: forecastle: 30' ratio: .1276 Using Glory's 265' LOA resulted in: forecastle: 34' (1' shy of actual length) I mistakenly told Mike that I used the ratio results of Flying Fish but when I reviewed the large sketch, it revealed that I actually had used those of Stag Hound. Glory of the Seas mast distances: forecastle: 35' (Boston Daily Atlas) stem to foremast: 58' fore to mainmast: 78' main to mizzenmast: 65' mizzen to sternpost: 49'
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Rob, Vladimir, Mike was generous enough to send me a personally autographed copy of his second publication Clipper Ship Captain. He's such a caring fellow. Since he was still recuperating, his wife actually mailed it. How thoughtful that he wanted to keep his commitment even while recovering from a health issue. Meanwhile I stumbled on another issue where our recreation corrected another unforced error of the original. Mast spacing was very carefully calculated by Mike using the same 1869 fitting out scene in Boston Harbor. As before, nothing was done to take into consideration the rear facing angle of the massive ship to the cameraman. That means the masts, all of them are shifted slightly forward. It's a delicate line to walk but I think I'm doing it with as much diplomacy possible. Since there is no published spread for the masts of Glory of the Seas I made reference to two other Clipper ships for which there are: Stag Hound & Flying Fish. Calculating the ratios of each measurement gave sensible results to keep proportions equal. Accuracy of this process was confirmed when the ratio for Glory's forecastle predicted 34'. That's before I rediscovered her actual forecastle was specified as being 35' in the MacLean article. This issue has come up since Mike requested I draw Glory's fore section incorporating the slimmer bow lines that Vladimir drew. Now I'm realizing to be fair, due to having to respace her masts, the entire deck arrangement needs to be redone to include these corrected mast distances. Since I'll be tracing her hull from the foremast back, it's just a matter of getting the entire new sketch done before the July 1st deadline.
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