ClipperFan
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Rob, I passed on your compliment to my wife. She replied that your amazing and that she wishes she had the talent you do. Yes, I was pleased to see you managed to get the corner posts in that tight area. Well done. -
Rob, Vladimir months ago, back when we were learning about Glory's nameboard, Michael Mjelde shared a pdf file of an August 1970 San Francisco Maritime Museum News Letter. In it he discusses discovery of the Port Bow nameboard which fortunately survived being extracted from the vessel as well as being stored mounted to a garage wall in Tacoma. It's a fascinating read.
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Rob, once again my wife Peg has the best reactions, just one sentence "Oh wow, that's awesome!" She did follow up teasingly with a silly question. "Ask him if he'd like to build a little house for me?" Honestly, adding the Carriage House surrounding rail with a fresh coat of white paint really ties the entire Stern area together nicely. As for the Walters' painting, I also noticed the missing vent structure and inaccurate iron rail shape. I have no good answer for why that fascinating item is missing. At least the addition of the rail proves it was there. Photos are more accurate, which is why we have focused so much of our efforts in diagnosing them as our main means of reconstructing Glory.
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Rob, Vladimir, I just received this lovely detail shot of the Stern from my favorite oil by Samuel Walters. Per Michael Mjelde's specific instructions, credit for this image belongs to San Francisco Maritime NHP. Besides being a beautiful close up, this image confirms a wealth of Glory's details. At the time of the painting , her stanchions were all left natural varnished wood while rails themselves were White. Meanwhile all along the sides of the Rear Carriage House, the fine sculpted raised surfaces are depicted, matching a similar pattern on the extended wheelhouse. Twin skylights appear to have 6 upper roof segments instead of the 8 which I erroneously depicted in my initial sketch. Incidentally, I have a topic idea for our pending NRG article with this suggested headline "Rediscovering the glory in 'GLORY of the SEAS' (with a subheading of) "a culmination of Michael Mjelde's over six decades of exhaustive research into Donald McKays last, longest lived Clipper Ship". Let me know what you think.
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Snug Harbor Johnny, as far as I know, all Clippers had scuppers (on Glory they appear as oval outlets) and freeing ports, which could swing outward to allow water to flow out from the deck. From the San Pedro dock scene, it's apparent the first Starboard freeing port is triced open.
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Rob, the fact that we were able to discover it at all, I feel was serendipitous. You're right that the shape of this fascinating rail is softer on Glory herself. Yours look just fine and in my opinion adds just another distinctive detail that further delineates the uniqueness of this McKay Clipper. As for not being seen in later images, it wouldn't surprise me that the rugged work she was involved in most likely cost her this sharp little detail...
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Rob, nicely done. Just this tiny detail reveals how substantially our good friend and author Michael Mjelde's contributions to this reconstruction effort has been. It was this remarkable image, that at least I had never seen before that contained the wrought iron bar end rail. I've posted the image and an edited close up to show this neat, distinctive detail.
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Rob, I bet if I were to take a survey from just those who are following your inspirational build, that you would be pleasantly surprised how many would confirm that you are being very precise in your continuing attempts to replicate "GLORY of the SEAS" in faithful detail. After all Arina "TheAuthorsDaughter" herself just shared with you that Michael Mjelde is impressed with your progress.
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Vladimir, beautiful work on detailing your Carriage House, it really gives an impression of how elaborately detailed Glory was. An immediate issue I noticed is that your Companionway is too short. The total height is 6 feet, equally divided above and below the 3 foot height of the Carriage House. My estimate for the turned rails which surround the Carriage House roof is 2 & 1/2 feet, or 30 inches. At that height, the rails would be 6 inches below the Companionway. As it sits now, the rails appear to go right over it, which makes no sense from a constructional viewpoint. Otherwise your work is continually impressive.
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Rob, the only item that you referred to which is vague to me was your reference to "transcription errors." To me that usually refers to either translating from one language to another or when a transcriber is reproducing spoken communication into written word. Since we've constantly referred to actual photos in order to reconstruct Glory's true dimensions, I feel like a fascinating NRG article would bring our readers along, as we relive this joy of discovery with each new revelation which leads us to evermore specifically accurate recreations of Glory's true appearance. Taking pictures of your and Vladimir's models in exact same positions as the images which helped us achieve these exacting dimensions will also benefit readers in being able to realize what we've discovered.
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George K, that's very impressive work. I especially appreciate the fact that you're following the authentic vessel by narrowing the rear house as it approaches the stern. The one significant revision I would encourage you to make, is to adopt the more ornate front fascia as depicted in the Buttersworth painting. Narrow oblong windows make sense on sides but not in front. There also seems to be a little bit of a sculptural aspect to the twin front facing windows. Now that we've had a chance to view how ornate McKay's Clippers really were from seeing actual pictures of the front fascia of Glory's rear house, the plans for "Flying Fish" look sparse indeed.
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George K, while it won't give the same impression as seeing a comparison of real vessels side by side, once Rob completes his 1:96 scale "GLORY of the SEAS" replica, she can be placed next to his completed 1:96 scale "Cutty Sark." Few people today realize how gargantuan Donald McKay's Clippers really were. For instance, "Cutty Sark's" keel was 203' while Glory's was 240'! While it may not sound like much, Glory's keel was 15% longer than Cutty's. Both of these vessels were launched in the same year too, 1869. One of the things that stunned the British Shipping Community was the towering sizes of American built Clippers. I'm sure Glory would have dwarfed Cutty and "Flying Fish" would still probably be larger too.
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Vladimir, here's my sketch of the rear companion way entrance to the Rear Carriage House. It's still in process but only since the final shape of the turned pedastals isn't quite satisfactory yet. Since there's no photographic evidence of this particular structure, I've gone with a style that echoes that of her front fascia. Most companions had duel opening doors and the top would slide up and back. Like the skylights, I figure this structure too would offer benefit of glass behind venetian blind type natural wood. Since I saw the lower embellishment on the rear of the House, I've included them on the entire back of the house as well.
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Rob, a laudable effort, nicely done. Unfortunately it also highlighted the limitations of the Revell Cutty Sark hull filling in for the far more substantial Glory one. You get an A+ for innovative thinking. I don't believe anyone else has ever tried modifying the CS Hull for an American Clipper before. This effort is what first led me to you also.
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Rob, perfectly said. I believe that concept, of seeking to recreate Glory as accurately as possible through the use of Michael Mjelde's rare and beautifully clear photos can be the basis for our NRG article. We can walk readers through the step by step process we have taken to literally "reverse engineer" McKay's last, longest lived Clipper.
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Rob, my annual licensing studies have kept me from being able to participate as much as preferred. Your bumpkin work details are just beautiful.
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Vladimir, it's truly amazing how two models, in two different scales end looking so remarkably similar to each other. It's a tribute to the modeling skills of you and Rob. Before you pop the bubbly for the completion of your Hull build, there's the little matter of a companion way entrance to the rear of the Carriage House. From Mike's floor plan layout, you can see where the original companion way would have been. Located on the Port rear, from his other ship's lines, it appears to be 5' deep, probably 3' high above the Carriage House deck by 3' wide. It most likely would have had thin double doors and an angled sliding top too.
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Rob, nice to see you back in action on your lovely ship.
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Rob, I think that's also why author Michael Mjelde has mentioned the idea of doing an updated article on "GLORY of the SEAS" for publication in Nautical Research Journal. We might all want to decide how we would describe this painstaking recreation journey of ours in a manageable way to share with the good folks at NRG.
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Rob, actually for a cheap model under $3.00 in the 60s, Revell's "Flying Cloud" built into a decent model which at least replicated her lofty rig fairly decently. Her small scale also enabled her to be easily displayed anywhere. However, they made the right decision modeling "Cutty Sark" in the larger scale for accuracy.
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Rob, "Flying Cloud" was 20 years old by the time this gorgeous painting of her was done. By then she was under British ownership, her lofty 3 skysail rig has been greatly cut down and her Hull is a lovely shade of green. Regardless, she still retains her beautiful trumpet bearing angel, this time accurately portrayed mounted on her gold embellished carved cutwater just below her carved, gilded naval hoods. Ironically, today there is not one model of "Flying Cloud" that accurately replicates these intricate features. Instead, they just portray a bare stem with the angel figurehead awkwardly tacked on underneath her bowsprit. Even the three quarter scale reproduction, built in Nova Scotia, berthed in Boston in the '70s followed that exact practice . I know, because I saw her there in the early '70s. It's just one of many reasons why I consider our painstaking recreation work on Glory so profound. To me, she's the "Rosetta Stone" of Donald McKay's Clippers.
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Rob, Revell could have made a larger model of McKay's Clipper "Flying Cloud" but chose to do "Cutty Sark" instead. It's just as well since there never has been an accurate reproduction made of a McKay Clipper. Probably the most accurate contemporary painting of "Flying Cloud" is this 1871 one by John Scott 'Flying Cloud off Whitby, North Yorkshire' Notice how similar her Bow treatment is to Glory's.
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Vladimir, I shared this image so you could see how well embellished these vessels actually were. The tricky aspect for modelers is to keep these really fine details to scale. While including such fine touches helps to establish how ornate these ships truly were, if the added details are too large, it throws everything else off. Some of these might be better done with painting impressions instead. Just a thought.
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Rob, this book was another fortunate find from Abe books. It's #20 of 100 exclusively signed by the author. A nice bonus surprise was a personal letter of gratitude from him to the previous owner who apparently made a lot of contributions to his efforts, in the form of rare photos. Without which, the author himself admitted his book would have been pretty thin! Considering the Packard was a Maine Downeast vessel built 20 years after Glory, it's not much of a stretch to consider McKay's vessel was a precursor to that style of vessel. Much like his "Great Republic" with her 4th "Jigger Mast" led the way to the massive steel 4 masted Barques just a few short years later. McKay was described as a restless innovator, constantly striving to reach his vision of maritime perfection with every new vessel he built.
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Rob, Vladimir & George K "A Portrait of a Ship, the Benj F Packard" was recommended to me by Michael Mjelde in order to get a look at the Wheelhouse. While there are some useful images of that structure, what impressed me more was this image of the Packard's Rear House. This beautiful scene shows her massive sculptured corner bracket as well as the elegant touches all along the front and sides. This is very similar to how both Glory and "Flying Fish" houses would have looked too
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