AnobiumPunctatum

I’m still working on the upper deck framing but I need to start thinking about the forecastle and Quarter deck beams and hooks, so using a new tool in the workshop that I have been learning, I cut all the beams out of some pear stock.
 
 

In 1/48 I don't know an manufacturer of mediaeval figures. In 1/72 you can find lot of figures by Valdemar Miniatures. I planned to use them by a small cog diorama.

Really wonderful progress. Such figures in scale 1/48 would be a dream.

Really wonderful progress. Such figures in scale 1/48 would be a dream.

Really wonderful progress. Such figures in scale 1/48 would be a dream.

I've just (finally!) made a stand for the model. Should have done it a lot earlier.
 

 
And now, co-ordinating the positions of the the rudder, the tiller, the steersman's hands and the castle over the steersman.
 

 

 

 

 

 
Everything has to line up together - getting the hands to sit just on top of the tiller, and allow the steersman some headroom and "wriggle room" to manoeuvre the tiller without clashing with the arched supports for the castle etc.
 
Adding the "leather" brace for the upper half of the rudder (actually a bit of cardboard from a cereal packet).
 

 
And the ladders for access to the castles -
 

 
Adding the hearts for the shrouds. Though there is some indication that deadeyes may have been invented by this time (the Husoy wreck dated somewhere between 1160 and 1284 AD had fragments of what might have been deadeyes) I decided to go simpler and just use hearts.
 

 

 
Landström in his book The Ship interprets the Winchelsea seal as showing four shrouds only - two on each side,
 

 
but I believe (given the difficulty of accurately showing 3 dimensions in a side view) that it shows four on the near side, so that there are another four on the other side. Looking at other seals that show shrouds "each side" of the mast, they always seem to have at least three each side.
 
     
 

 

 
    
 
Temporary wire jigs to fix the distance between upper and lower hearts.
 

 
First two shrouds in place
 

 
And more
 

 

 
And I've given the buisiniers their buisines:
 

 
That's all for now. Next I'll be adding the forestay and a pair of backstays (one of which will have a crewman climbing up it to unfurl the sail).
 
Steven
 
 
 
 

So here are the two crewmen cut apart.
 

 
And their legs trimmed to shape.
       
 
You wouldn't credit it - after all the time and effort I'd spent to get the windlassman's hands lined up with the windlass bar, when I checked it against the ship his hands were far too high. The only way I could fix it was to cut a wedge into him and lean him over further - well, that was the plan, but  he split apart.
 

 
Then glued him back together and painted both him and the anchorman (not Will Ferrell).
 
      
 
    
 
 
      
 
And now I've glued the removable deck planks on, and the crewman putting them back in place.
 

 

 

 
Steven

So glued together and a fair bit of filling will be needed as some idiot didn’t wait for some glue to set on the wooden block I put inside the hull for the brass rod. This will be placed in the back of the baseboard for Seydlitz 

Thank you to all the 'Likes'.
With the critical period finally over at my job, I was able to devote some time to my hobby again and finally finish planking the hull.
A good step passed. 🙂

 

 

 
I decided to proceed to the treenailing of the hull. But I unfortunately broke the only drill bit of size #78. While waiting for a new batch of drills to be delivered, I decided to proceed with the last task producing a large amount of sawdust: to thin down the bulwarks inboard.
 

 
I started by roughing it all up with my Proxxon rotary tool. Then I finished the process using various home-made tools on which sandpaper was glued.
 

 
You will notice that to consolidate the planking of the hull, I coated the inside with a thin layer of woodfiller.
I can now proceed to the installation of the false deck.

While awaiting Chucks cross-section maybe consider a x-section of Echo? The plans and build log are available for free from Admiralty Models
http://www.admiraltymodels.com/Tips.html

Thank You for posting.
 
Today chapter ten was started.  You saw that I had already planked the qdeck along the bulwarks after adding the margin planks.  So before I could plank down the center I had to get the coamings all made.
 
The coamings are build exactly like the others we built.   They are laser cut for you.  Just build them using the 3/64" thick right angle template as before.   Round off the corners......yada....yada....and add the cambered gratings.  Two packages were enough to do these three.
 
But dont glue all three down yet.  Only glue the forward most grating and coaming in first.  This is very important.
 

As you can see above, the first coaming was positioned and then it could be used to help position the capstan partners.   These are also laser cut for you.  But because so much depends on where you placed you beams.....where you placed your lower capstan, etc....
 
I laser cut the three parts for the capstan partners a bit longer on both ends (forward and aft).  This will allow you to adjust to suit you model and get the round opening directly centered over the lower capstan.   Then trim the aft side so it falls on the deck beam nicely.  The aft end of the partners should cover half the beam it sits on.
 
Then the other coamings can be glued in position.  Make sure to center them down the qdeck of course.
 

In that same photo above you can also see the mizzen bitts.   These must be glued to the forward side of the beam before you start planking.  So these were made up next.  They are laser cut but you must finish the top timberhead shape as is usually the case.  There is a hole laser cut through these as well.  They will accept a 1/16 dia. rod.   Use either brass, or even styrene or wood.  It doesnt matter.   You will have to clean out the holes with a 1/16" drill bit first as the laser doesnt cut a perfect right angle.  So I made this hole slightly smaller as a pilot hole.   Drill them again with a 1/16" bitt and insert the rod.  Use the plans to get their length.
 

Above you can see the bitts pretty good.  But you can also see a modeler's convention for adding the slots for the ships wheel rigging.   This is laser cut in two layers 3/64" thick.   The lower layer is glued between the deck beams first.  It has a laser etched reference for the second final layer.  Just glue it on top like in the photo.  We will plank around this.
 
Finally the planking can commence down the center of the qdeck.   Use your template as a guide like when you planked the fcastle.
 
This will complete the planking or most of it.  We still have the gangways to do but that will be done much later.  You can see I also test fit the upper capstan.  I still have to paint it red and add the metal band.   But its all coming together.   That will be done next along with the pawls....and also the mizzen mast coat.  
 


 

 
With each update she is getting less naked.  Its is starting to fill out nicely with details.  Any questions. On the workbench…

More work on the crewmen. Here's more progress on the second windlass-man. Note he's wearing a "hoodie".

 
 

 
    
 

 

 

 
And beginning the first crewman hauling in the anchor. (I'm using the windlass man as a handle to hold the anchorman as I work on him. When both are complete I'll separate them.)
 
    
 

 
     
 
 
Steven

Thanks everybody for the likes and comments.
 
Next is the crewman climbing a shroud to get to the yard and unfurl the sail. This is perhaps the most difficult figure I've ever had to carve - a very awkward shape, with the hands and feet all having to line up along the shroud. I'd been getting a bit short of pear wood, so I decided to try using some wood from an apricot tree that had been removed from the garden maybe a year or more ago. It's nicely seasoned and the grain turns out to be even better for carving than pear wood. And there's LOTS of it!
 
   
 
 
   
 
 
     
 
 
    
 
 

 

 
 

 
 

 

 
 
    
 
And finally, painting.
 
    
 
 

 
The anchor stock turned out to be too thin and I couldn't get it consistently shaped.
 

 
So I started again with thicker bits of wood. The first "insert" was just cut to shape so it fitted beautifully, when it leapt out of my fingers and into another dimension. So I had to make another one. Surprisingly, and in flagrant violation of one of the fundamental Laws of the Universe, the missing piece didn't turn up as soon as the replacement was made. Curiouser and curiouser . . .
 
Fortunately, no further mishaps of that sort.
 
     
 

 
On the other hand there was a mishap of another sort . . .
 

 
 
Fortunately, a bit of white glue and it was as good as new. Here are the completed stocks.
 

 
Fitting the stocks to the anchors: 
 

 

 
And my thanks again to @henrythestaffy for 3d printing the anchors themselves [advertisement].
 
Making the rings:
 
     
 
 
Rings fitted . . . and painted:
 
      
 
And now the second crewman for the windlass. (After the previous problem, I made a plasticiene (modelling clay) figure as a "draft" to get his hands in the right place. I hope I get it right this time.)
 

 

 

 
That's all for now.
 
Steven
 
 
 
 

Speaking of seals, I found this site interesting. 
 
https://www.cs.cmu.edu/afs/cs/Web/People/lkb/seals/aboutseals.5.html
 
 

It's a seal. If you put in on paper only the lion shows in the other direction.

It's a pleasure to follow your log.

It's a pleasure to follow your log.

Thanks everybody for the likes and comments.
 
Here's the guy on the windlass - I mentioned his arms were wrong, so I've changed them. In the photos one arm's already done, and you can see how I made and inserted new arms.
 
     
 

 
 
     
 
And here he is complete, pained and dry fitted in place.
 

 

 
And also the guy who's replacing the removable deck planks. Note - the funny hats are called coifs and were the height of fashion at the time.
 

 

 
As a side note, contrary to what s shown in the movies (and beautifully sent up in Monty Python and the Holy Grail), people in the Middle Ages didn't all wear mud-coloured clothing - or black. Natural dyes - madder (red), woad (blue) and about half the plants you come across every day (yellow) produce some absolutely beautiful colours, which can then be combined to produce greens, oranges, pinks and a whole range of variations on the basic colours.
 
To fix the lower ends of the shrouds, the earliest deadeyes I've been able to find are from the Bremen cog of 1380, over 100 years later than this nef. But the Gokstad ship's rigging pieces are from the 10th century, even further away in the other direction. As a compromise I decided to do hearts for the shrouds, as a step in the evolution toward deadeyes.
 

 
 

 
 
And I'm very fortunate in that henrythestaffy 3d printed and sent me some anchors taken from a Viking find. The stock is made from wood, based on another Viking find, as shown. Note the interesting way of attaching the stock to the shank. Looks to me as though that would be a source of weakness, but it seems to have been used, so I'm going ahead with it.
 
 
  
 
 

 
More to come . . .
 
Steven
 
 

A short update after my holiday.
 

Thanks for the likes and comments.
 
I've been working on the new forecastle - Here you can see the height difference between it and the earlier iteration.
 

 
Apart from that, the technique was the same as on the aftercastle, so I haven't included photos. However, the decoration is different -  pointed arches instead of quatrefoils.
 

 
I used the same technique I'd used to make the earlier arches, but as the arches were smaller I had to bend the wood in an even tighter curve. I made each arch a bit too long so I could trim it to fit exactly in situ before I glued it down.
 

 
Here are the uprights:
 

 

 
And the first and second  arches
 

 

 
The bottom of the right hand arc of the second arch is a little out of place in the photo, but I was able to gently push it into place at the top of the upright.
 
Third arch complete
 

 
 
I'd been thinking about access to the castles. Sure, use a ladder, but if the top of the ladder is at the edge of the castle, the base is right at the edge of the raised deck and would make access a little difficult. Landström has the ladder coming up right in the middle of the castle, but that seems a bit wrong to me - you'd always be worried about falling through the hole. So I did what I thought solved both problems - put the hole right at the inboard edge. This is the aftercastle - the forecastle isn't decked yet.
 

 
I worked out that a 600 mm (2 feet) gap would be wide enough - it's the size of a small doorway, at least here in Oz. At 1:75 scale, that's 8 mm. You can see there's a deckbeam supporting the inner edge of the decking, and the distance between it and the next deckbeam is enough for someone to get through without too much difficulty.
 

 
So here she is with both castles dry fitted.
 

 

 
I still have to add the deck of the forecastle and also the arch between the legs on each side (though they're simpler than on the aftercastle).
 
Note the rope around the windlass. I'm just checking it out against how they did it on the Harald Fairhair replica ( see 0:32 at
 
 
And I discovered the drum of my windlass was too close to the deck so the rope got stuck underneath  . I've had to take the whole assembly off and glue a spacer under each of the side brackets to raise the drum. Just waiting for the glue to dry then I'll trim it all to shape and glue the windlass back in place.
 
Steven
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

I will follow your log with great interest. I have in my collection also the old kit from BB. The scale of the model should ba 1/25 and not 1/20.

Well done, mate !  You've 'tailored' techniques to provide a great looking result ... don't let the notion of doing the 1,300-odd rivets dampen your enthusiasm, since the final result will inspire awe from anyone examining the finished model.  Cutting the copper tape to the size desired, piercing with an ordinary pin in the center (by eye) then using the pin to locate over the predrilled hole could largely eliminate the need to do a lot of trimming of the square washer after the copper nail is pushed through and trimmer with the cutter.  (Nice touch using a cuticle cutter!)  The scale of the Billing Oseberg ship in my 'stash' is a bit different, but there may be a way of adapting the method when I get around to that project.  And since a deck will be installed, most of the rivets won't need washers anyway.
 
   BTW, I know what you mean about exposed plywood in current laser-cut Viking ship kits, and reproducing the shapes in the builder's wood-of-choice is a good way to get around that.  Splitting of walnut or mahogany can be a problem, but I'm considering making my own 'plywood' out of layered cabinetry veneers where the grain crosses less severely than 90 degrees - so it will be flexible but resist nuisance cracking.  The Oseberg deck will hide most of the interior, so the lower planks provided might need only a thin veneer applied to the exterior - while the the top planks would be made solely of layered hardwood bonded veneers.  Your project is one where most everything will be visible, so the care you are taking at every stage will produce a fine model.     Johnny