Nikiforos

Yea, here's a feast for your galley's marble eyes, Steven. (Reposted img). Looks like an easier scratch. Straight lines, even I can't mess those up. Hope you're hale and hearty, cheers.

Hello there. Unsure if right forum, so, mods, please move if not. I'm considering purchasing Constructo's 1/26th 'Louise' Victorian steam launch from my favourite stockist for Mrs Nikiforos, who has a thing for Victorian regattas, porcelain and pomp. On various modelling sites that have relevant build logs, mention is made of including poor quality materials. This year I purchased some Constructo barrels for my Sambuq which resembled pine cones and a Constructo grapple which broke into two pieces just superglueing the thing together. This evidently leads me to believe this range is indeed inadequate quality and since the Louise is going for @£90 or so, one wonders if it'll be a case of Her Majesty's pounds, shillings and pence down the drain. Does anyone have recent experience with Constructo parts (wood, metal or whatnot) or the Louise itself, as of recently (/10/2019)? I'm not claiming all Constructo products are naff, but just in this case, you know? Thank you, what ho! etc.

Yea, Stephen's Dromon has sailed into view before, and it's a continuing testament to his skill in research and craftsmanship. It is "pulchra incomparabilis" indeed. Have a great week, yancovitch. Edit: If only there was a mainstream kit of that lovely Phoenician vessel. Can picture her rolling out of Sidon with colonists starting new lives in Carthago or Kriti. Fantastic.

Such beautiful boats. Absolutely top drawer. Congrats. My next project partly inspired by yours (for illustrative purposes only). I sort of fell in love with the design recently, if design be the right word. Cheers.

Years late to the party but... a beautiful boat. Congratulations.

Really interesting project with some good research to back it up. Vaguely OT, I think this is where modelling boats has a severe drawback - lack of range of eras to select from. There are Daniel Dusek's pentekontor and trieres, the Mora from Aeronaut, Amati's wonderful "Sahure Dynasty" nile boat and the Viking stuff (leaving out Amati's lolokontor for obvious reasons). The ever helpful Mr Dusek offers the super-expensive "La Real" galley --- and that's it for kits if you're not bothered about the big shooty warships in the later age of sail. I'd be happy if anyone could suggest any other ancient/medieval wooden kits except anything from AL (who went bust?). So nice choice! My Dusek pentekontor also had a knotted warped keel; luckily a hot iron sorted it eventually... but ... I feel your frustration. And agreed, Daniel is a great lad to deal with, very true.

That axe-wielder on deck looks like he's in a Varangian re-enactmrnt. If only we could find someone who knows about such goings-on... Amazing figures all of them, though, catching up with your masterpiece after a couple of weeks -- but is that a woodwind instrument for the oarsmen's rhythm a figure is holding or playing? Nika.

Hello there! Welcome to the community; you'll find some seriously impressive noggins where research is concerned and of course some truly amazing crafts(wo)manship to enjoy. Best wishes, Nika

She looks terribly fragile -- and all these scales ... 1200th, 350th, 72nd, 64th, 60th, 50th, 25th... Other modelled subjects tend to huddle around common scales but ships, no. Wonder why that is apart from the gulf between, say, an aircraft carrier and a coracle in their own RL scales, and that's obvious, but we could say the same of a 00's Bleriot monoplane and a 50's Vulcan nuclear bomber. Regardless, I think the Granado will be a looker once out of the drydock. O7

Just before finishing off the main planking a couple of days back, forming the very top of the hull using 1.5 mm tilia clamped on. The second planking will use 0.4mm tilia and sapele glued over. I took great care to sand the inside carefully --but looks like I need to add some more strngthening bulkheads, it looks too bare. The bit suspended at the very back of the boat is a genuine leather seat for Commander Idiot, burnished, varnished and ready to cut. Floorboards washed with a 40/60 umber/black oil paint and varnished matt. Nailholes courtesy of a 2B pencil. The victorinox penknife is 40 plus years old. Prefer Opinel no.6 blades, but this scoops out nails like nothing else. The stain is 'jacobean oak', unsure whether to keep it. The three small pine-cones barrels are from Constructo, and poorly turned. I bought a pair of Constructo grappling anchors for the dhow, and whilst carefully adjusting the cyanocrylate set, it snapped. Constructo get your act together! That thar mark on the thwart looks like a crack. It isn't, it's just a mark on the wood, looks worse than it is. No idea why I choose to work on a coffee table btw, there's a giant ikea work table seven feet away. I am a contrary individual, all told. \o/ Edit: It's dead, Jim.

She's old now and if I read Messrs Coates and Morrison (sadly now both deceased) right, warriors should sit down or lie down on deck to help with oarsmen's manoevers and general seaworthiness. Old trieremes were sent off for horse-carrying duty once a certain age. She still looks beautiful though. Taken from the website yesterday, it's a media article about 'heightened tensions' with the best friend and close neighbour. When is there never heightened tensions with the BFF? Made me smile (a bit).

You're welcome! Savour these treasures. I hope you get an agora's worth of value from these and others. Funny, I was just thinking how the western classical scholar relies upon the Roman and Greek heritage as a core part of who we are in the Western world. But how about how western Asia -or middle east- regarded the survival of their own heritage outside of this hegemony? The greek was an invader, in classical and early medieval times, as was the Roman. The Sasanian descendents of Shahanshah Xerxes and Artaxerxes in the 3rd century AD saw things very very differently to our western ancestors whilst quietly disassociating themselves from their illustrious predecessors. From Alexander to Justinian and beyond, in pre-Islamic Iran -then Zoroastrian or Mazdayasnan- they had to adapt or accomodate the alien -or fight them for hundreds of years, which they did, but otherwise try to contain their influence as an alien influence as best they could. What do we know of Xerxes' triremes? Very little. Because it doesn't concern us? Infuriating and narrow-minded. Islam changed everything in the 7th century, but that's another kettle of spiced fish. Enjoy your reading and modelling! Pic from www.ekathimerini.com

Steve and Mark -thank you a hundred times over. The main mast is Nakatomi, but perhaps that is how it should be, after all. The useful threads linked here indicate the AL atrocity is =broadly= well-proportioned but a little trimming is indeed called for because 340mm mast length just looks wrong. I learned a few bits of terminology as a bonus. \o/ Nika

Okay. Question time for you talented vets out there -both of you Here is this thing, with its magnificent hull that I didn't photoshop. It actually is like that in the instructions. My question is this: If I were to remove the bowsprit and foremost sail (not familiar with its name -- represented here by black lines) would this idiot be seaworthy? Its a way to reduce the skyscraper look, but would the darn thing be able to sail with two ehm ... sails? I hope it sinks, personally. The red lines represents somewhere I could reduce the length, hopefully. Even then, Nakatomi Plaza is a bungalow by comparison*. Thank you! I can finally finally upload some pics this week; I don't have access to a digital camera until my son can snap a few shots. Edit: still annoyed by the black lines between yellows and red in yonder Spanish flag, the pole of which collides with the boom (?) It's unconstitutional *hyperbole.

https://store.warlordgames.com/collections/greeks Might be useful as there are shield decals on sale. But the scale is off? Best wishes.

And we're off at section 1 of this absurdly anaemic and futile instruction booklet. As above, no images but bear with. Typical plank on frame construction guide; all is well except for part 2, the bulkhead/frame at the very bow of the boat. Now, I am sure its impossible to incorrectly slot in frame 2 into the false keel unless common sense deserted me. I can also tie my own shoelaces. Regardless, the pointy apron prefab part rested 1cm too high on the bulkhead 2 at an angle of what... 25 degrees downward or more from the stem. Enter said bastard file to remedy the situation. A whole cm cubed of sawdust for my travails. Section 3, oh my! The instructions here would have you add the complete floorboard section, but how're you going to have the option to gradually stain the inside of the hull with this stuff occluding it? Should be much later in the guide. Add the 'batayolas' which are the large horizontal boards immediately in front of the transom. Problem. If you fit the planking to the outside of the transom, there'll be a 4mm gap beside these batayolas and hull, for an ugly 8mm of combined gappiness. Inside, it fits better but you arent supposed to do that here. Gaps are a big problem, as you will see. Reference to ply sheet B. The ply sheets here are 1 to 4, inclusive, instead. This is because we're sharing the instructions with AL's jollybountyboat kit, but slightly modified. Section 4. Add the thwarts, all six of them. Again, it makes staining or painting nearly impossible, inside the gappy hull. Should take this step later in the process for ease of assembly. Section 6 File down the bulkheads so the planking will hug the hull around the plywood 'collar'. The tighter, the better. Thing is, there is no way the curvature of the forward hull will allow avoidance of a 3mm gap each side of the walnut apron prefab thingy no matter how much wood is removed to obtain a good close fit between frame and plank. You're going to have to find a method to plug all these visible gaps. Section 8, the star of the show. Initial planking -or battening- as AL likes to say. It clearly states here that first planking is a mixture of prefab smaller and wider planks, parts 27, 28 and 29 and plain old wood strips of the linden variety. There are no prefab parts 27,28 and 29. Just the 1.5 x 4mm linden bundle, as generous as it is. The accompanying illustration resembles the fore section of the Hindenburg dirigible blimp. But festooned with brass nail-heads. Can you picture this mess? You're going to have to bite the bullet and plank away with the strips as best you can because of noplan and this disgrace of a guide. Recall, there's a second planking of 0.5 x 4mm sappele to be done later -btw later images show a near-complete model without this second layer -just nailhead after nailhead sort of sticking out of the linden-planked hull. It'd be nice to line the inside hull with the sappele, but with so many parts already suggested as glued in, good luck! Section 10 shows both layers of planking. Look carefully and you could find a clean way out of this confusion as the first planking and how it was applied is visible. It works too, for the love of God. Amazing. I won't mention the unfinished photoshopping in subsequent sections. There are images with parts added by visible bits of wire, but they forgot to airbrush them out... One image consists of a rudder covered crudely with freshly applied 'plastic wood', the hinges of which sort of cut into some very rough shapes... Meh. Other stuff. Missing parts, and "Please refer to the accompanying rigging guide " There is no rigging guide (only one brief insert covers it all). The instructions broadly omit how to attach sails and rigging. Nice work AL! *** We must persevere. Life is a beach. Even with its 400 metre Skyscraper mast and its lovely wooden bucket/khazi, we must persevere. . But please, if you are new to the hobby, stay away from this hideous cash-grab derived from another kit (Bounty jollyboat). It almost killed my interest in boats all together, this is that bad. Its name: 1/25th scale San Juan de Nepomuceno Captain's boat. Dear God.

Pulchra Incomparabilis. Nika.

The more you look at each image, the more you superlativise (new word). Incredible. Now if anyone can re-imagine Constantine's Imperial barge of say, 340 330 AD... close your eyes... the exotic mystique of Konstantinoupolis compels you.... You can open them now. You recall I like my flags: have a Fausta, St. Helena and the Imperator himself. Just in case you need a motivation for the future.

Hey, Captain, welcome back. You know, I'm learning some real techniques with this grotesque little thing -- possibly far more than a regular straightforward kit might have offered. Every cloud has a silver lining and all that. For instance AL's wonderful mushroom -head nails are best quietly removed before you need to file them off with a 9 inch bastard file. There'll be pics of the thing with its 200 foot mast. Tomorrow. But unfortunately no AL .pdf excerpts for my angrified critique-- they pulled the lot during their website facelift -- copyright infringement isn't something we want to invite. Nika

Non-fiction: A history of Greece -- J. Bury and R. Meiggs. THE definitive history. Ends with the death of Alexander the Great, so not a complete history, obviously. This is a very hefty tome that might become a lifelong friend. I have the 4th Edition. The Athenian Trireme by J. Coates and J. Morrison. How to build and row a trireme --in the 1990s. Very thoroughly researched and a real page-turner. It covers what woods (pine or fir?), hemps, pitch and other materials were used in the original construction, resolving how many banks of oarsmen fit in such a narrow lightly built warship and a thousand details in-between in making a real trireme to corroborate or refute decades or centuries of supposition and presumption. Building the Trireme by F. Welsh is its companion book written by one of the financiers of the reconstruction, iirc. A more back-seat appriach but interesting to compare them both, in matters of fine detail. Another pairing is The Peloponnesian War by D. Kagan and Lords of the Sea -How Trireme Battles Changed the World by J. Hale. The authors are/were University colleagues iirc and there are excellent maps illustrated by a shared third-party artist. The former's factual tone is complemented by specific narratives in the latter. History of the Greek City States, 700-338 B. C. by R. Sealey. This is an academic examination, very dry but fascinating all the same. Fiction: When you're done with that lot, but in the mood for some fiction, Gary Corby writes 'Whodunnits' based around Perikles' Athens. Heroes Nicolai and Diotima chase down villains, search for hidden clues and unmask murderers in Delos, Ionia, Thebes and Persian Asia. There are seven books in the series; Mr Corby diesn't shy from writing about the less happy facts of life in those days, but on the whole, it's light reading with easy humour. I own 4 of the hardcovers and will complete the set very soon. Poetry: The famous Odyssey by Homer. Read it and impress your mates when you can quote from it by heart. A peerless work. The Iliad by the same poet isn't that far behind either. Pc games: Rome Total War 2 has an add-on involving the Peloponnese war with armies navies, seasons and city management. Runs on averagely powerful windows and apple machines, not linux or BSD iirc. Zeus and Poseidon: City-builder strategy game that got my son firmly into greek mythology. Its a 100+ hour romp across Greece with missions and many classic fables to enjoy from Jason to Perseus. An older game, released in 1999 and costs pennies nowadays. Phew! That's a nice starter for ten, please do enjoy if you are able to have a look at them. Nika.

I'll post a list of really good resources later today, including some classical works. But we could start with wikipedia: "The Persians (Ancient Greek: Πέρσαι, Persai...) is an ancient Greek tragedy written during the Classical period of Ancient Greece by the Greek tragedian Aeschylus." The author was 'there'. It's not light reading, but you wouldn't expect it. Buy or borrow this one -nowhere else imho captures the spirit of the times so extraordinarily. More later. Nika Edit: I think you can buy paper/card hoplite shields in small scale for wargaming. 54mm scale is possible, not sure. Search for 'hoplite shield design'.

There was a PC game released a few years ago where the modders released graphical enhancements for Rome: Total War 2. Here is one modder's greek hoplite (hop-leet-ay) shield design set, and if I discover his name, he'll get the credit for such As it is, it's in the public domain. Bear in mind, if you stick with Spartan, their "L" Lambda design was in effect only when Lakedaemonia (Sparta country) was at war. Other times, the owner carried any design. If you'd like I can give you a wall of text of resources to books and images for the Peleponnesian War or circa 500BC -ish. It's all good stuff. Best wishes, friend. Edit: I can possibly see some Iranian (Eran) style designs in the image. Numbers 3, 12 and 19 might look better placed on a persian client state soldier's shield maybe? It really is hard to be sure, but these look 'suspect' Edit edit: The last, 20, could be for the Goddess Demeter. The beehive is also to be found to represent a certain Later Roman Empire's noble family, but here I think for Demeter. 14 and 15 for Poseidon. (Nothing for Artemis, the old Matron-God of Byzantion ) Number 2 looks too modern; it's probably meant for Sicily (the trinacria). Here, have a medusa Also in the public domain.

Seconded. Running out of superlatives to describe this masterwork. If you see a limo, Steven, registered at Athens and a fellow with a large briefcase on your doorstep, don't sell. His briefcase isn't large enough. Nika.

Spartan troops certainly were capable of snagging enemy ships during the Pelepponese war, and they would have gladly taken the prize. I'm no expert on classical Greece, more into Roman Greece of <5th Century AD, when Athens, Korkyra, Korinth and Sparte were almost old pagan embarrassments, to be brushed aside in history classes for the young "Byzantine" scholars. This is a Greece where Christian semantics pervaded all walks of life, whoever you were; Roman law and Roman heritage trumped all, right after religious doctrine. But your Spartan troops carry the Lambda on their shields (for Lakedaemonia --their 'country') during that vicious war against their Athenian league foes. Your troops look fine; maybe just change one shield or two to other designs? Even then... No, actually, they look fine -typical Spartan soldiers on a captured ship (or even a friendly hired mercenary vessel --a very common occurence). Spartan power was land power, as per the movies/films. Best wishes.