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Richard Braithwaite
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Japanese Oak
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Trireme Olympias by Richard Braithwaite
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Japanese Oak
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Trireme Olympias by Richard Braithwaite
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Has anyone tried this? apparently it grows very slowly and has a very fine grain. I recently attended a presentation by David Hulse in Dartmouth. He has spent most of his life researching and building exceptional models of Atmospheric Steam engines, which he has donated to our local museum in Dartmouth. They are built to a scale of 1:12. He has used Japanese Oak for the wooden components and it looks very effective at this scale. He was Chief Engineer at Royal Doulton and used his knowledge and expertise to develop a process (and build the machinery) for producing thousands of 1:12 scale bricks using 17th Century methods for his models. Worth checking out his models at: The Hulse Collection - Dartmouth Museum -
Not a bad idea. May try to source a softer alloy, although seem to be able to bash this plate into shape with enough anealing. Silver is a thought...The Athenians did pay for their fleet with silver, but there doesn't seem to be any evidence that they made the ships out of of it! I have several other issues to explore. 1. solder colour match. Ive got both gold and silver solder to experiment with. I did think of making the whole thing out of 9 ct gold, until i worked out the cost.... 2. making the thing to fit... probably would have been better to make the ram and then make the ship to fit. Oh well....
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Trireme Olympias by Richard Braithwaite
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Trireme Olympias by Richard Braithwaite
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The answer, of course, is get a bigger blowtorch... My little Dremel blowtorch wasn't capable of heating the whole piece up enough to anneal it sufficiently. Last night I got a really hot (open) coal fire going and tried to use that. Placing the piece amongst the glowing coals did generate enough heat to get it glowing red hot, but it was difficult to control and I ended up melting the ends of two attempts. So today i bought a bigger blowtorch (the one on the left). That did the trick. Plenty of heat to get the piece red hot with sufficient control to avoid melting any of it... The results of about 15 cycles of heating a piece of 0.2mm thick brass sheet to red hot, quenching in water and bashing with a brass hammer over my former can be seen below. Not quite trimmed to fit yet, but I've achieved the shape I need...
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The copper is a bit thin for brazing, but it does seem more maleable, so a copper ram might work (not sure about colour, although i could always get it electro plated...)
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For some time I've been considering whether to cast the ram (like the archaeological Athlit Ram) or fabricate from plate (as was done on Olympias). Recently I had a go at estimating the weight and determined that the majority of the sheath needs to be 0.2mm brass (equivalent to 5mm plate full size). That excludes casting since the minimum achievable wall thickness seems to be around 0.6mm. So, the next thing is to determine how Im going to put it together and out of how many pieces... I've produced this former to look at the feasibility of shaping a single piece of 0.2mm brass for the top part of the sheath. First attempt in 0.1mm copper shown alongside the former. This worked quite well without any annealing. first attempts with brass have been difficult but, hopefully some more thorough annealing will make it work. Otherwise its two pieces with an overlap over the top. Either way Im going to end up with a lot of soldering stages so we'll have to see how that will work out...
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Trireme Olympias by Richard Braithwaite
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Dan (dicero) has kindly invited me to do an online presentation on this project for the NRG on October 11. I'm planning to include the background to the project and the construction of the hull, which all came before I started this build log and will do my best to answer any questions you have.
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Really spectacular. Fantastic craftsmanship. Well done
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The Gokstad Ship 900 AD by Siggi52 - FINISHED - 1:50
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Richard Braithwaite reacted to a post in a topic:
The Gokstad Ship 900 AD by Siggi52 - FINISHED - 1:50
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I've been thinking about how to secure the oars to the thole pins. During the first trials leather loops were used, but these tended to stretch as they got wet so in 1994 an adjustable rope grommet was introduced on the advice of a Poros fisherman (Ref The Athenian Trireme, Coats et al). I have used some thinned down leather for my steering oar bearings but am not sure of the longevity of using real leather in this application so will probable go with the 1994 rope version. Here is its using Ben's 0.5mm polyester rope (12mm full scale), which seems about right. In the Illustration "the stopper knot at one end of the grommet has been pulled clear for clarity". Mine is pulled up tight... Still getting to grips with this small scale ropework. One of the things I've realised is the amount of wastage one requires, just to give you something to hold onto. Its very fiddly stuff! I'm going to have to order some more rope to make sure I have enough...
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My three marines doing their best to model the Lenormant Relief... (it will be some time before they are joined by the lower oar banks...)
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62 Thranite oars completed... Roughly positioned on the ship (resting on a piece of glass at approx waterline...)
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Oar Painting step by step... From the top: 1. Unpainted oar 2. 3 coats of matt polyurethane varnish (thinned 25%) on shaft. 3. 3mm Tamiya masking for blade area with 1 coat of poly varnish (thinned 25%) on edge to prevent bleed. 4. Blade painted with 1 coat BIN primer and 2 coats of white enamel (thinned 25%)
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Yes the philosophy throughout has been waterproofness, hence use of expoxy for bonding and polyurethane for sealing. But aesthetics are just as important (probably more so now, given how much further Ive ended going with this model than I origianlly envisaged...)
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An exciting post about paint! I need to coat my oars. Shafts varnished and blades painted. Products Ive tried below: Four different trial combos below. 1. 4 coats of varnish just belond the boundary. 3mm Tamiya masking tape at boundary (with a varnish seal along edge) then 1 coat BIN primer (on bare wood) and 3 coats white matt enamel. 2. 4 coats of varnish over bothe areas. 3mm Tamiya masking tape at boundary (with a varnish seal along edge) then 1 coat BIN primer (on top of varnish) and 3 coats white matt enamel. 3. 3 coats white matt enamel on bare wood. 4. 1 coat Humbro undercoat (on bare wood) and then 4 coats of white matt enamel. The grey Humbrol undercoat seems to need a lot of coats of white enamel to cover it (it still looks a bit grey with 4 coats). Apparently the shellac in the BIN undercoat will slow the discoloration of the white paint by blocking any oils coming out of the wood, so Im probably going with option 1...although it seems a shame not to use the Humbrol Undercoat with the Humbrol paint...
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