Glen McGuire

43 minutes ago, Keith Black said:

You've been awarded the seal of approval.......

OMG!  I am dying!!!   I am soooo not worthy.

It was a good, solid start for the man at this point.  But the model was about to get angry and start fighting back with a vengeance.

The man's last triumphant moment for many hours was getting the mast stepped into the hull.  But in doing so, you can see what a tangled, jumbled mess I had made of the rigging lines.  The 2 lines of black thread are the stays, one for the starboard side and one for the port.  Both are tied off at a sternward eyebolt, run thru a hole in the top of the mast, back down thru an eyebolt between the forward ballistas, out the bow and out the front of the bottle.  The tan threads are 2 braces and 2 clew lines.  Neither are tied off.  I ran them thru eyebolts and out of the bottle so I could adjust the yard and sail afterwards (in theory anyway).  The plan was to pull the threads and take slack out of the lines as I pushed the mast/sail into the bottle.  Unfortunately, that turned out way harder than I thought and resulted in the hot mess seen below.

Trying to sort out the lines and untangle everything inside the bottle was a disaster.  The more I tried, the worse things got.  And every time I adjusted a thread, it would drop and get tangled up in the oars.  UGH!!!  So I decided I needed to pull the mast/sail out of the hull and out of the bottle and try the whole thing again.  Getting the mast/sail back out of the bottle was ridiculous but I did manage to pull it off.  Speaking of pulling it off, I also pulled off a bow/bowstring from the middle ballista on the port side of the ship.  UGH again.  

Back at square one, I reinserted the mast/sail, this time being super careful to try and keep the lines organized.  Big fail.  So I carefully extracted the mast/sail from the bottle again.  Ugh.  Try again.  This time, I was super-DUPER careful not to tangle up the lines.  Even bigger fail (if that was even possible).

At this point, the model had put the man on the canvas 3 times.  The man was woozy, couldn't see straight, and about to give this thing up and find something better to do with his time.  The only thing left I could think of was a Roger Staubach Hail Mary.  So I decided to unthread all the lines from the eyebolts and hole in the bow, leaving the back stays tied off and running thru the hole in the top of the mast.  The braces and clewlines remained tied to the yard and sail, but I pulled their lines straight out of the bottle.  From there, I separated everything and cut the lines down to a manageable length. 

Then I reinserted the lines 1 at a time and did something I did not think was possible.  I re-threaded them back thru the tiny eyebolts that run along the inside of the bulwarks.  If I had thought that was even possible, I would have done it originally.  Now I know I can do it, so I won't go thru this nightmare again!  The downside of doing this was that I could not get the braces and clewlines very tight.  So they look like they are flapping in the breeze.  But at least they are in place.  However, the stays are nice and tight.          

So the man was back on his feet.  Still staggering and a bit woozy, but still in the ring.  

Now it was time to revisit that bow/bowstring I'd separated from its ballista.  A small dilemma - I needed long tweezers to reach the ballista since it was in the middle of the ship.  But the ends of my long tweezers were too fat to pick up the tiny piece.  So I found yet another use for duct tape by affixing my fine point tweezers to the ends of my long tweezers.  It worked perfectly and allowed my to drop the tiny piece right in place.

After that, it was a matter of adding the forward grating and corvus which was pretty easy.  

And suddenly, the fight was over.  Shortly thereafter, the judges rendered their verdict - a controversial, split decision going in favor of the man.  Whew!!

Here's the ship, mast/sail, and attached rigging lined up ready for the insertion process to begin.

Starboard side of the hull getting dropped into place.  The long tweezers have serrated ends so I wrap the tips in painters tape to keep from marring the surface of the ship.

Both halves are in. as well as the brackets that will be used to push the halves together.

The 2 halves of the hull successfully pushed together and brackets removed.

Stepping the mast.  I grab the lower end with tweezers and use a prong to pull the top towards the front to get it upright enough to slip into the hole in the deck.  

Thank you to Grant, Mark, Pat, Keith, John, Steven, and Javelin for the well wishes.  I needed them more than ever for this one!

@John Fox III - The tissue wrap idea for the lines sounds brilliant.  I wish I'd read your post before I dove head first into the insertion process.  It might have saved me a lot of time and angst!  

@Javelin - I've actually added water texture both ways you describe.  For my Independence, I put a fake hull in the bottle, then textured the water with acrylic paint all around the fake hull, leaving a nice open spot for the real hull after the fake one was removed.  For my Adventure Galley, I had a split hull (like this project), so I needed a really wide bare spot on the water which meant I'd have to apply texture after the ship was in anyway, so I decided to do all the texturing after the hull was glued in place.  I used bent q-tips and prongs to maneuver around the ship.  It ended up being easier than I expected, so I don't think it will be too difficult for this one.

On to the main event, man vs model.  The insertion and final assembly process was a 15 round title fight that carried on throughout the weekend.  The model put the man on the deck a few times and had him on the ropes thinking about throwing in the towel.  Against better judgment, the man kept crawling back up and staggering his way back into the fight.  After the fracas was over, it was a tense moment waiting for the judges, but in the end, the man squeaked out a narrow, split decision.  Whoa!

Following this post, I will do a couple with pictures and descriptions of the process.  Actually, most of it went ok, but I made a historic mess of the rigging lines and that's where the real hours-long battle took place.  I took 3 fairly short videos of the process (7-10 minutes each) if anyone wants a front row seat.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pm8UEENgyj4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQ4hzk_aKkU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jF5HEW64x-c&t=2s

Somehow I missed this whole project!  Dang!  But caught up on it now.  

Well done, Bob!  Fantastic job on the entire fleet.  And once again, I must say how much I like the clamshell name plates.  So creative and a nice decorative touch!!

9 hours ago, Knocklouder said:

Today I was supposed to go to work but it was raining, so I decided to do a kit opening  page for my new log, the Pegasus. 

Ship modeling vs going to work.  Hmmmmm.  A difficult choice but I like your decision!  😃

Looks like a very interesting project.  However, I'm concerned that I don't see Marvin the Martian overseeing your work again.  Is he ok?

With the ship almost complete, I circled back to the issue of how to join the 2 halves of the hull once they are in the bottle.  I experimented with the noose idea from @Keith Black and @Javelin as well as my first thought of building little platforms and sliding them together.  Those proved more difficult that I was comfortable with.  I came up with another plan which I believe is more manageable. 

I made 2 small frames which fit around the oars and press against the tapered part of the hull just short of the bow and stern.  Then I'll use 2 prongs to press against the frames pushing the hull halves together.  Strings are attached to help me retrieve them from the bottle after usage.  See below.

Next was adding the rigging.  With only 1 mast and sail (not counting the 2 little tringle ones at the top), the rigging is pretty simple - 2 back stays, 2 front stays, 2 braces, and 2 clewlines.  The 2 back stays are tied off to an eyebolt short of the archer's tower.  All lines run along the base of the bulwark, thru small holes in the bow, and out the bottle. 

I almost forgot to add the decorative tail pieces on top of the stern post!  They were the last pieces of the puzzle.  Here are pics of the complete ship with everything dry-fit in place.

And with that, the moment of truth is at hand!  This one will be unlike most of my previous SIBs where squeezing the ship inside the bottle without destroying anything was the make or break moment (literally).  The 2 halves of the quinquereme fit thru the bottle opening fairly easily.  The real difficulty comes from having to insert the 2 halves of the hull with all the rigging lines attached to each piece, while the mast/sail remain outside the bottle.  There will be a lot of slack in all the lines so when I push the mast/sail assembly inside the bottle and into the hull, it will be very hard to keep the lines from tangling up and/or pulling off the oars or ballistas.   

This has the potential to turn into a real mess.  Adult beverages will be nearby and ready for the result, good or bad!      
 

4 hours ago, Boccherini said:

I was going to ask about the fate of the penguins........you anticipated my query.

Yes, the penguins live on and somehow find their way into each project regardless of the subject!!

Excellent build!  The working lights are a very nice effect!

4 hours ago, Javelin said:

Does that mean you'll pour another layer or will you insert it with acrylic gel on top of the epoxy due to its limited draft? 

Good question.  I will not pour another layer of resin.  I will glue the ship directly to the resin and then add acrylic gel on top of the resin around the ship for water texture.

Thank you, Pat, Mark, and Bob for the kind words!  As for the last part of Pat's comment, I did give consideration to adding a "buffer" which is an ornamental piece on the bow.  In the picture below, you can see it in front of the eye, directly above the spikes of the ram. 

The buffers were usually some type of animal head.  Hard to tell from the picture above what animal head was used so I zoomed in:

Welcome, Boerscht!  Looks like you did a great job with the Goletta Elisabeth.  I hope you will start a build log for your Endeavour so we can follow your progress.

Hey Thierry!  I don't know what a Froggy is, but glad to have you on board here at MSW!! 

Water time!  Once again I'm using blue-dyed epoxy resin for the water in the bottle.  I'm getting better with my set-up, this time using a handscrew clamp to hold the funnel in place while I pour.  

And on to the sail(s).  I went back and forth on what I wanted to do for the sail or sails.  Most pictures of the reme ships feature a single mast and main sail.  However, some show 2 triangular sails above the main sail like in the picture below.  I decided I liked that particular look, so that's what I tired to replicate with a slightly different emblem on the main sail.  If anyone knows the correct names of those 2 sails, please educate me.

Here's some of the steps along the way.  I started out by overextending my limited painting skills.  I took a fine point brush with some Testors enamel and tried painting the emblem onto some muslin fabric.  The further you are from the sail, the better it looks!  But I was ok with how it came out.

Next, I used red shirt cloth for the 2 triangular sails and sewed a bolt rope around the perimeters.  Same for the bolt rope on the main sail.

48 minutes ago, Louie da fly said:

I compromised by having gaps between every pair of deck planks for a large section of the decking. 

I agree with you about the importance of ventilation and I believe you came up with a reasonable and interesting solution.  I also ran across a quinquereme illustration that took your alternating deck planks a little further.  So who knows, maybe they had missing deck planks rather than gratings?  Alas, that time machine...

Thank you Keith and Javelin for the assembly suggestions.  I was getting a little ahead of myself there so I will revisit that process after I get a few more things done.  First up was finishing the oars on the starboard side which happened without any real fanfare (yay).  I also made a small mast step while waiting for the oar paint to dry.

Next, I made a couple of gratings to fill up some of the deck space between the mast step and the archer's tower and corvus platform.  I don't know if the actual quinqueremes had gratings or not as half the pictures I see of the ship do and half do not.  But it makes sense to me that there would need to be some kind of ventilation for the rowers on the oar decks within the hull.  Here's a couple of pics with all the deck fittings placed in position (nothing glued down yet).

Next, I revisited the decorative tail on the stern post.  In previous post #102, Steven (a.k.a. @Louie da fly) suggested that the tail should curve upwards rather than just stick straight out like I had planned.  I liked his idea as I thought the flare would give the stern a little extra flair (ahem).  But when I started looking at quinquireme pictures to model it after, I found that some curved upwards but just as many, it seemed, curved downwards. 

So as usual when I find myself in a moment of artistic indecision, I turn to my dear friend and get her opinion.  I showed her pictures of 6 different quinqueremes - half upward curve and half downward curve.  She immediately said downward.  To her eye, downward was a natural extension of the curvature of the sternpost as well as the curved brass wire I'd already affixed to the side.  I know better than to argue with her, so downward it is!  Plus I think she is right, as she usually is!  But I must say thank you to Steven for his suggestion because ether way, up or down, it's better than straight. 

5 hours ago, Keith Black said:

Could you rig three nooses running between the oars at fore, mid, and stern and then draw the two halves together once you're ready to join the two halves?

Hmmm.  That's an interesting idea, Keith.  I'm also thinking about a process like below where I drill holes in the bottom of the hulls, make 2 small platforms with upright dowels that fit into those holes, insert the platforms into the bottle, insert each hull half onto each platform, slide them together, then lift the joined hull off.  I'll have to do some test runs to see which will be easier.

9 hours ago, Keith Black said:

Got yourself a little nautical centipede

LOL!  Had not thought about it that way, but it does kinda look like one! 

8 hours ago, Knocklouder said:

Awesome work , at least it going to fit in the bottle.

Thanks, Bob.  What I have yet to figure out is how I'm going to push the 2 halves together once they are both inside the bottle.  All those oars are in the way of the surface area I would normally use.  I'll have to come up with a custom tool of some sort.   

Back from a wonderful week spent mostly in Olympic National Park where the temps in the 50s (F) felt like frostbite weather to me.  Back home and back in the Texas shipyard where the 180 quinquereme oars have been patiently waiting.  

Right off the bat, as I got back into the project, I made a big mistake.  I revisited @Ian_Grant’s build log for his quadrireme to check out his oars.  I really liked how his oars were two-toned with darker wood for the paddle and lighter wood for the shaft.  Even though it would more than double the time required for painting my little oars, I knew I had to have a similar look.  I also tried doing the reverse with a dark shaft and light paddle, but I decided the way Ian did it was better.  At the end of the day, I think it was worth the extra painting effort.  So thank you, Ian, once again!

The next step was deciding how long the oars could extend out from the hull and still fit through the neck of the bottle.  When I look at the illustrations of quinqueremes, the oars are very long and extend far from the hull. Unfortunately, I’m restricted significantly by the bottle opening, so my oars are going to deviate from the norm and look pretty blunt.

The following pics show some steps of the basic process:  paint, cut the shaft down to size, insert each oar into its oar port (one row at a time starting with the lowest row), bend the oar downward to its proper angle, go back and touch up the paint.              

And then a test fit for the port half of the ship.  It's tight (wouldn't want it any other way, right?) but it works!  Now on to the other side.  

5 hours ago, Louie da fly said:

Do the members agree with my interpretation, or are there any other possibilities that come to mind?

I agree that the uprights look like frame extensions.  But the small loops hanging outside the gunwale don't look like rope loops to me, since the other rigging ropes are all dark.  The small loops being so bright, it seems to me like they were made to stand out, perhaps an illustration of some of the relics that were transported with St Mark's body?  Or maybe trade beads?  Certainly an interesting question to ponder!

Your painting skills are extraordinary!  Beautiful model.

Enjoy your vacation, Ian!  And I'm sure you won't think about your quadrireme while you are gone!!

Marvelous work, Bryan!

Such an intricate hull.  Fascinating to watch you piece it together! 

58 minutes ago, mtaylor said:

Have a great trip, Glen, the weather isn't a killer out here.... yet. 

Thanks, Mark.  First, I'm going to Washougal, WA for a motocross race.  High temps are supposed to be near 90 which sounds amazing considering we hit 109 in Austin this afternoon, something like our 10th day in a row over 105.  Then I'm headed to Olympic Natl Park where the temps are supposed to be similar to Keith's Michigan description, lows in the 40s and highs in the 60s.  This cold weather sissy will be packing my heaviest winter clothes for that!