Glen McGuire

Adding well wishes to all the ones above, Roger.

Wow! A beautiful model indeed! I did see the boarding bridge in this one. I also noticed that the fan tail curves downward in this one as opposed the the upward curve that Steven @Louie da fly shows in his post above. Hmmm. Looks like I've got a decision to make there. I may have to consult my dear friend to see if she's up for providing artistic guidance again. Thanks for the correction. I should be referring to a scorpio rather than a ballista. And yeah, the scorpio is even smaller than the ballista so it will indeed be a challenge at this scale. But the goal is just to produce something that bears a resemblance. Here's the diagram I'm using as a reference. My version won't be near as detailed since it will maybe be 2mm tall, which is enough to peek over my bulwarks. Possibly. Are you talking about this product: https://sigmfg.com/products/sig-silkspan-tissue?variant=465592156169

Thank you, Ian! Great video and model. Things I saw in the video that I plan on adding are the castle (archer's tower), an oculus (decorative or intimidating eyeball), several ballistas strategically mounted behind the bulwarks, and of course the sail. I'd love to put an eagle on the sail like I've seen in so many pics, but I don't know how I'd do that on my sail cloth at the small size required. One thing on my list of deck fittings that I did not see in the video is a corvus (bridge) mounted between the mast and the bow. I'm working on the castle right now, then probably move on to the ballistas and then the corvus.

I appreciate the nit-picking, Steven! It always helps make these builds better. Whether I can pull it off remains to be seen, but now I'm gonna try! Also, those are fascinating pictures of the old ram they dredged up. Thank you for posting that.

I rifled thru my bins of spare metal parts looking for something suitable for the rostrum, finally settling on some small brass nails that are 1.2mm in diameter and about a centimeter long. To get them in a shape resembling a rostrum while also being able to attach them to the waterline protrusion at the bow, I cut the heads off, pressed the round ends flat in a vise, bent the flat portions at opposing angles to fit the bow protrusion, and soldered them together. The sequence is shown below. Next it was time to add some more bling to the boat. There are conflicting references about whether or not the quinqueremes had shields mounted on the bulwarks. Naval-Encyclopedia.com says the quinqueremes did not have shields on railing. Rather they had real bulwarks decorated with "pseudo-sculpted shields". Since I've got real bulwarks instead of rails, I believe it's appropriate to go with the pseudo-sculpted shields. Now, what the heck can I find for those! After scouring the aisles of Hobby Lobby for longer than I care to mention, I found a container of round glitter containing 2 sizes. The smaller circles (slightly > 1mm in diameter) were almost exactly the height of my bulwark. Perfecto! I chose a container of copper and black colors. Alternating colors, I spaced the 2mm apart on the bulwark above the slanted roof above the upper oar deck. They were a bit too shiny, so I painted them with a flat black and flat silver. Here's the ship with the rostrum glued on, the pseudo-shields painted and in place, and some bling added to the stern post. I am going to hold off on attaching the fan tail to the stern post. It's pretty fragile, and I've still got to handle the boat quite a bit, so I don't want to risk screwing it up.

Now to make some of the decorative elements for the boat. First, a simple gold line (0.5mm brass rod) that articulates the volute on the prow. Next is the, uh, I have no idea what it is called and cannot find a name for it anywhere. So if anyone knows what the decorative, fan-tail extension of the stern post is please educate me. I'm trying to make something that resembles either of these 2 examples: Here's my effort using 0.35mm diameter eye pins soldered together. Next up is the rostrum or battering ram. The terms seem to be interchangeable for these Roman warships based on what I've read.

Looking good! Glad to see you have not lost interest like you mentioned in an earlier post. Such a cool and unique ship.

Uh, I think I will be learning a lot from you based on that picture in your post!! Welcome to Model Ship World, Jesus,

Hey Javelin, yes to both of your questions. I did consider it but, as you said, the oars would prevent the wider half from fitting thru the bottle opening. Also, since there's now real way to mask the split line of the deck once the hull halves are joined inside the bottle, I'd rather have it running down the middle for a symmetrical look. There will be some items on the top of the deck that will rest on the centerline - the mast and mast step, a corvus, and an archer's castle. What I'm thinking for those is to secure them to one of the deck halves (likely the display side) to where half of each item hangs over the edge of the deck. Once I join the 2 hull halves, the items will be centered on the deck, but will not actually be glued to the other deck half. Although I guess I could put a spot of glue on the other half of the deck where the items will connect for additional security. Kind of thinking out loud here.

Since Javelin has apparently grounded me until I make further progress, I figured I'd better get busy. There's a new Mission Impossible movie coming out in a couple of weeks and I want to go see it. So here's the latest. Next steps were painting the 7 hull layers and gluing them together. That's another reason I like doing laminated hulls - when I want layers that are contrasting colors, I can paint them before gluing and avoid having to do pinstripe painting afterwards. While the glue was drying, I finished construction on the 180 oars (actually 190 for some overage). I take 0.5mm brass rods and cut them into 5/8" segments. Then I use vise-grips to smash down the end for a paddle. Here's the hull glued up. And then the nerve-wracking job of splitting the hull down the middle and hoping I don't slip with the saw and have to rebuild the hull. I also added alignment dowels to aide with joining the hull halves inside the bottle. Next was carving the bow and stern shapes and adding them to the hull. The final step of this update was cutting and adding the bulwarks. The mast is dry-fitted for now. Once again I'm using @John Fox III's genius hidden hinge method of mast construction. I figure I'd better get this whole thing finished by September or Javelin won't let me watch any football games!! 😃

Your carving of Buono and Rustico is incredible. Wow.

More proof that our kids are way smarter than we ever thought about being! We need some pics or a video of the boat in the water!

OK, Keith. In the first few minutes of the film, before you've barely even started on your popcorn, they just might mention another ole dog named Archimedes!

Heaven forbid that this build log should ever go off on a tangent, but are any of y’all fans of Indiana Jones movies? I’m a big fan and just went to see the new one (Dial of Destiny) with some folks. I won’t give any spoilers here for those of you that plan on seeing it, but I will say that it’s quite obvious Disney has been trolling Model Ship World for script ideas! In fact, there’s one build log in particular (AHEM…AHEM) that contains a lot of things mentioned in the movie. I’ll leave it at that! 😲

Good luck ever topping this thing, Grant! But I can't wait to see you try!!

Such an elegant way to ruthlessly insult your peers! Reminds me of the way our US Supreme Court justices will basically call each other complete idiots in their dissenting opinions, but they do it in the most polite and professional language!

Does it involve one of these...... 🐧???

Thank you, Keith. That's my goal - to try and get better with each build. The biggest help is being able to follow the build logs from so many master craftsmen here on MSW. I am forever getting new ideas and learning new techniques from all of y'all. Thank you, Ian and Javelin. About halfway thru I was cussing the Romans for not attacking Syracuse with a fleet of uniremes. 😬 @Ian_Grant and @Landlubber Mike, very interesting comments on the Galapagos - particularly the Post Office Bay tradition with the unstamped letters!

Now the more challenging step - carving out the upsweep on the bow and sternpost. I'm using a couple of different pictures as a guide. I want the bow to have a scroll-look like the first pic, and the stern to have the fishtail look like in Ian's Olympias plan. Here's the work in progress. Everything is dry-fitted for now and the extended bases of the bow and stern carvings will be cut back to join with the bulwarks when added. With the basic shapes carved out, time to go cross-eyed and drill 180 tiny holes for the oar ports. 😵😵😵 And finally, a little test fit for a few of the oars. I would prefer to make the oars out of wood, but I can't get them that tiny, so 0.5mm brass will have to do. Plus, the flexibility of the brass makes it easy to bend them to their proper angle towards the water. I will smash the end of each brass oar to resemble the paddle.

Exactly what Keith said, Grant!! This has been such an amazing build to follow and pleasure to read. Your detailed description of each step in the process was like a well written instruction manual. I have learned several things from you that are helping me immensely in my own projects, so thank you for that as well. Well done, sir!!!

Hope you don't have allergies, Phil. I hate to think what a hard sneeze might do to your pile 'o parts!! 😃

@Chief Mark Thank you so much, Chief.

Do you have a picture of the effect you are trying to get? In the first pic below, you get the overall impression of parallel lines from a gentle breeze, but the lines themselves are not so uniform. Personally, I really like what you did in the bottom right corner. I think that looks quite realistic so close to shore in a somewhat confined area like a shipyard. Just my 2 cents though.

Welcome to the best site on the whole interweb!!

Work on the hull continues at a snail's pace. Shaping the hull is the part of the build I struggle with the most. I have a hard time getting the contours right and then getting them symmetrical on both halves. I know when the ship is in the bottle, you can only see 1 half at a time, but I still want to get it right, or as close as I can within reason. The first couple of pics are what I'm trying to mirror. I'm using @Ian_Grant's plan for the Trireme Olympias as my guide for the ship's basic outline and profile. I know Ian said it was a Greek trireme and not a Roman one, but at my SIB scale, I don't think there's a material difference in the outline and profile. The 2nd pic shows the 7 "layers" of the hull that I will construct. Layer 1 - bottom part of hull that sits mostly below waterline Layer 2 - lowest oar deck (flush with bottom part of hull) Layer 3 - spacer (I think it's more of a decorative line than actually part of the hull structure) Layer 4 - middle oar deck (protrudes out from main hull profile) Layer 5 - upper oar deck (protrudes out like middle oar deck) Layer 6 - slanted roof (extends back to main hull profile) Layer 7 - deck Using my usual laminated hull construction process, here are my corresponding layers 1 thru 7 from bottom to top. Respective thicknesses from layers 1 - 7 in mm are: 2.5, 1.5, 0.5, 1.5, 1.5, 1.5, 0.5. Add a 1.5mm bulwark for a total of 11.5mm and I should have plenty of room to add the bow and stern decorative upsweeps and still easily fit inside the bottle opening. One thing's for certain though. I will have to split the hull and rejoin inside the bottle to accommodate for the outstretched oars. All 180 of them! Still got a way's to go on the hull construction, but slowly getting there.