Doreltomin

Small update, I have bent the mizzen sail to the yard and made the stand, which will eventually be painted and decaled. 
My solution for the mizzen yard and sail: 

The extant remains of the hull, presented in an otherwise very comprehensive and detailed monograph of the shipwreck (probably missing only an attempt to reconstruct the original design concept of the San Juan), are indeed not overly conclusive. This ambiguity also makes it possible to propose a slightly different, alternative master frame transformation for the fore half of the hull, different from the aft half. The difference is that in this alternative way, while rotating the master frame template, the boca points are not aligned to a single common horizontal line, as shown earlier, but to the corresponding 1st deck height, different for each individual frame.
 
This alternative method, firstly, seems to correspond even better to the archaeological material for the fore half of the hull; secondly, it makes it possible to pre-define (trace on the mould loft) practically all the frames up to the very extremity of the hull, while – importantly – maintaining the condition from the first point; thirdly and finally, it is compatible with written works of the period, such as Livro Primeiro de Arquitectura Naval, ca. 1610 by João Baptista Lavanha or Livro de Traças de Carpintaria, 1616 by Manoel Fernandes.
 
The thing is that both of these works describe and show master frame templates featuring integrated lugs determining the height of the decks (beam heights for one, two or even three decks, depending on the size of the vessel being designed). These integrated protrusions could only determine the height (or rather, in sequence, the rise) of the decks correctly if the boca points were aligned during the rotation of the master frame template to the height of the 1st deck (boca) line, the latter being at different height for each individual frame.
 
 
Diagram from a work by João Baptista Lavanha, Livro Primeiro de Arquitectura Naval, ca. 1610,
showing the contours of the master frame template featuring integrated protrusions marking
the height of the decks for all subsequent traced frames:

 
 
Diagram, showing analogous protrusions, from the work Livro de Traças de Carpintaria, 1616 by Manoel Fernandes:

 
 
Such a way of aligning the boca points, to the rising 1st deck (boca) line, could in practice be very easily implemented immediately on the mould loft by employing one of the variants of the mezzaluna, preferably the best approximating the geometrically correct arc of the circle (for example, the graminho de beesta, as it is called by Fernando Oliveira), or by successively measuring the individual heights of the 1st deck (boca) line for each frame on the drawing.
 
Later in this presentation, when discussing perhaps the most interesting issue of hollowing/bottom curves, the lines of the hull body proper of the San Juan will follow both of these ways, that is, for the aft half of the hull the boca points will be aligned to the one common horizontal line, and for the fore half the boca points will be aligned to the rising 1st deck (boca) line, as shown in the diagram below.
 

 
 

Now, I have a solution for the anchor issue. The issue is, last time I made this kit, I endowed the ship with an anchor system more befitting of a much larger vessel. So, for this version, I planned on keeping it simple- a single, stockless anchor that rests on the deck with a coil of rope and no rope locker. When in use, the anchor cable would be tied to the huge timberheads at the bow and would run between the stop cleat and the stempost. The windlass would be used to weigh anchor. 

I also used the kit-supplied barrel, presumably as a means of storing caught fish, and made my own main yard by turning two kitchen skewers. It is ever so slightly longer than the kit-supplied yard, and much thicker, in keeping with near-contemporaneous sources on Medieval lateeners. You don't want a flimsy yard, especially considering the huge forces the mainmast, yard and sail would have been subjected to when underway. 

The logical next step is to make and bend the sail to the yard, make blocks and toggles, and set the main. 

If there wasn't the messing around with the monomer resin. Hopefully, in couple of years or so I may have a dedicated workshop-room, but in the corner of the study in our apartment that is not such a good proposition 😞
 
The is also a steep learning curve to get to master the CAD modelling programmes, so I had some basic training in Auto-CAD a few years ago and regularly use my 2D CAD program.
 
On another forum I am following a couple of guys, who model and print whole ships in 1/100 scale. Wonderful stuff they do. I am envious. On the other hand I would loathe to replace my 'historical' lathes and milling machines because they have become obsolete by this new technology. It took me years to build it up and now that it is in full working order it has become kind of obsolete in a way 😲 Well, at least for building 'realistic' shipmodels, perhaps not for 'artisanal' style models.

Hello, all the best wishes for everybody on 2025! Well, the thread may look hairy in a close-up photograph, but your rigging looks both period correct and good enough from a normal viewing distance and I honestly doubt if you were using copper wire instead (absolutely not hairy) you could achieve a better look in 1:75 scale! So relax and enjoy it!

Nice touch, @Ferrus Manus! Also @Steven: unfortunately, the hatches are the first to pop up when a ship sinks as air from inside the hold pushes them out, so all the wreck footage I have seen so far including the promising "Okänt Skepp" which is from the "right" century to this  topic here have just an empty hole with no traces of cover! 

Hi Ferrus Manus, are you sure about the cloth thing on the Mataro model? I agree with you that on the real thing there certainly would be a tarpaulin secured above some carefully trimmed planks, but on the model I would daresay there's no cloth there, only a piece of wood!

You bet it's an extremely sleek and elegant hull form!
 
It may not seem evident today, but during the15th century the Basques were the most advanced in terms of hull design and navigation onto the unfamiliar (for other Europeans) waters of the Atlantic, and one of their most advanced boats was called a "txalupa" - that's precisely from where our name "shallop" comes in all languages!
 
Also trying to answer your question about "a small carrack". I have been long been puzzled by this name, which sounds so distinct of any common European language, be it of Romance or Saxon origin. It was only later when I accidentally stumbled upon the name of a Crusaders' stronghold that I came to guess the origin of the word. The place was  called "Krak des chevaliers" and was given in 1142 to the Knights Hospitaller by Raymond II, Count of Tripoli and it fell in 1271 to the Mamluk Sultanate after a 36-days long siege. The name "krak" itself comes from the Syriac language (Has nothing to do with today's Syria except of the geographic area; it comes straight from the language used by the old Phoenicians and, while called "Aramaic" it was precisely the language used by Jesus and all his disciples).
 
So in this Syriac language the word "krak" means a fortress ready to withstand a siege therefore my own theory is that after the fall of the said fortress into the Muslim hands, which actually ended any dream of European domination in the area, instead of calling krak a fortified city, they slowly started to call krak a fortified ship, prepared for war. Remember at the time the distinction between warships and merchants was muddled and probably if need arose, they could have taken any merchant available and prepare her for battle.
 
So in some respects, to my eyes a krak/carracca/carraque/carrack is what we would call today a warship and not specifically a type of ship, as the ships at the time were called nao/nau/nave/navire (all coming from the Latin navis) in the Mediterranean area. So what we have here, being a Basque whaler, I would daresay would not be properly called a carrack as it is not intended to go to war.     
 
Waldemar, sorry for my digression, but I felt it had to be told! Now bringing it back to our sheep, that is going to be another VERY interesting journey which I will follow with much interest!

Plexiglas (acrylic glass) is much harder and stiffer than polystyrene. It machines very well in comparison and keeps a keen edge. It can also be polished, unlike styrene, which comes handy when building skylights etc.
 
I am kind of partial to Plexiglas, as I sort of grew up with it. My father worked for the pharmaceutical subsidiary to the parent company Röhm GmbH, the original manufacturer of Plexiglas. So we had easy and cheap access to it. In fact most of my supplies were acquired before my father retired in 1986, so the material above is probably more than 40 years old.
 
A problem is that Plexiglas is not available in thicknesses of less than 0.8 mm. So, the 'structural' parts of the model will be made from Plexiglas, while the planking will be styrene - not ideal, because I would have preferred something stiffer. I could use bakelite-paper, which works very well for the purpose, but I want to engrave some of the planks (as one will see later on in the building-log) and that does not work very well with the brittle bakelite. Also, I would have to glue everything with CA, which I don't like too much. 
 

Recently found your new project log and have read through it in its entirety.  Excellent research and an interesting read.  Question - did you choose acrylic glass over polystyrene because you had a readily available cache of it, or does it machine and hold edges better?  As you know styrene is a favorite of many model makers for its available thicknesses, workability and solvent welding.  Not questioning your decision of course - simply curious. 
 
Looking forward to following this project and watching you perform your tiny scale magic!
 
Gary

The swarf from acrylic glass is quite crumbly and brittle, so it is easy to remove with a bristle brush.

A very interesting approach to small-scale modeling.
 
Your machine file system is interesting. How do you keep the file teeth clog-free?

There won't be any wood on this model. On the prototype only part of the wale, the deck, mast and spars would not have been covered in paint. At this scale, even the grain of box-wood would difficult to handle and Plexiglas keeps much crisper edges.
 
More details on the planking etc. at its time 😉

I hope everyone here had a good start into the New Year 2025!
 
***************************************************************
 
Continuing with the bulkheads
 
Progress over December was slow, due to a couple of travels and a visitor over Christmas, but quite steady. All parts of the backbone have now been cut out and sanded/filed to shape. Dimensional accuracy was checked by placing the parts over a drawing on a LED-backlit board. The cant-frames, however, can only be finished, when the bulkheads have been glued in place.
 
Collection of finished bulkheads
 
I was happy to see that the Plexiglas-sheet is dimensionally very accurate and fitting tightly into the milled slots in the base. This means no particular arrangements need to be made to ensure that they sit perfectly perpendicular on the base.
 
Milling a chamfer on the inside of the stanchions on micro-milling machine set-up as router
 
The bulkheads still required a bit of work. I thought it would be a nice detail to give the future bulwark stanchions a light chamfer over part of their length. This kind of edge-treatment was very common on many ship parts for both, aesthetic reason and to reduce the risk of splintering in case of an impact. It is not seen very often on models though. To this end I had made the router table last autumn. A 0.5 mm drill in a collet served as guiding pin and a small conical burr was used as router. The length of the chamfer was marked on the stanchions before milling it freehand. The result is difficult to photograph on the clear Plexiglas, but will become visible, once the model is being painted.
 
Filing notches for the wales on the shop-made filing-machine
 
Another operation was to cut shallow notches for the wale. The top-edge of the wale is marked in the original drawings and its width was taking from a table of scantlings of a similar ship. Having the wale fixed in that way will give a guidance for the later planking.
 
The shop-made filing-machine in action on the bulkheads
 
The notches were cut with a 1 mm x 1 mm fine machine file on the shop-made filing machine (https://www.maritima-et-mechanika.org/tools/diefiler/diefiler.html). I was lucky to have been able to find on ebay some years ago whole boxes of unused machine files in various shapes, dimensions and cuts. A life-time supply of a tool that is not made anymore.

Collection of finished bulkheads 
 
To be continued

Transforming the master frame – forming the hull body proper
 
To shape the hull body proper of the San Juan, a trivial, perhaps the simplest possible procedure of master frame modification was employed (and at the same time producing the desired results), the essence of which is shown in the diagram below. Apparently, it has not been recognised before and is not yet described in available works, including modern ones.
 
The master frame transformation, which was performed to obtain all the successive, predefined frames of the ship (i.e. almost all, except for the most extreme), was carried out in two separate steps on the mould loft: first, the master frame template was shifted according to the coordinates taken from the intersection of the relevant station lines with the line of the floor. In the second step, the master frame template was rotated in its entirety so that the centre of rotation was the centre point of the bilge sweep and, as a result of the rotation, the boca point was returned to the original level of the boca line, that is, aligning its level with that of the boca point on the master frame.
 
Basically, the method of transformation of the master frame was the same for the central and end segments, except that for the central segments, the shifting of the frames was done according to the geometrical devices of the mezzaluna type shown in the previous diagram, while for the end segments the shifting was done according to the coordinates measured on the ribbands already physically mounted or, alternatively, measured according to the lines in the draught, the latter being more likely in this very case.
 
 

 
 
 

Line of the floor (refers to diagram above)
 
This is the most important design line determining the character and properties of the vessel. In a manner very characteristic of the Mediterranean method, it consists of four geometrical segments, that is, two central and two end segments, including the three conceptual frames separating these segments (see diagram). This particular configuration is a relic and is closely related to the non-graphic moulding of the shape of the frames (that is, without drawing them on paper beforehand), immediately traced to actual scale on the mould loft.
 
The run of the central segments of this line, or more precisely the co-ordinates for the central frames, i.e. between the quarter frames, were the result of the use of the geometrical devices also shown in the diagram. For the shaping of the remaining frames, at both ends of the hull, the use on the mould loft of these geometrical devices (normally any of the numerous variants and sub-variants of the mezzaluna) was no longer possible, because these end segments were no longer tangent to the horizontal keel line, as is the case for the two central segments.
 
This particular inconvenience eventually led to the introduction of more and more complete plans drawn on paper, incorporating more and more design elements, such as the longitudinal design lines in their entirety, as well as 'all' frame contours. Nevertheless, until then, the role of the end segments of the longitudinal design lines, which were the guides for the erected frame timbers, was fulfilled by wooden battens or ribbands, yet this was only at the stage of the actual construction of the vessel. These physical ribbands had to be tangent to the elliptical lines thus extended from the central segments (of the mezzaluna type), and in addition, by natural bending, they were given the shape of circular arcs or curves very close to them. As a result, they can also be approximated quite well in this way on the reconstruction plan.
 
Apart from the above, the division of the longitudinal design lines into a larger number of geometrically simple segments (in this case four), gave more freedom or flexibility in shaping the run of the entire design line, actually even necessary for the correct implementation of the design intent.
 
* * *
 
In a rather surprising way, almost the entire length of the two central segments is below the top edge of the keel. This was arranged so that a longitudinal concavity with a profile corresponding to these segments, about two inches deep, was cut into the upper surface of the keel along this length. This procedure meant that for the central frames fitted into this concavity it was not necessary to add hollowing/bottom curves, as was already necessary for all the other frames, i.e. with the individual deadrise more or less distant from the keel.
 
* * *
 
The width of the line of the floor (at the master frame) is very large. It amounts to as much as 2/3 of the width of the base design deck (boca), well beyond the range categorically recommended, for example, by Fernando Oliveira (ca. 1570–1580), that is, of 1/3 to 1/2 (alternatively, the width of the line of the floor in the San Juan can also be equal to 3/5 of the maximum breadth of the hull, which gives practically the same value as 2/3 of the width of the boca). In doing so, Oliveira specifies that different values in this range are appropriate for different types of ship. On the other hand, the author of the so-called Salisbury Manuscript (ca. 1620–1625) is content merely to state that the optimum width of the line of the floor is half the breadth of the hull, without further explanation.
 
It is this large width of the line of the floor that makes the San Juan have such an unusually sharp entry and run, especially in the lowest parts of the hull. Reducing this width would result in increasingly full hull ends (with the same shape of the transformed base master frame).
 
 

What means 'Mater from Cars' ? If it's Latin it would mean the 'mother' of cars, but that doesn't seem to make lot of sense !?
 
I may confuse them, but I think these artillery-tractors were of a rather special design with diesel-electric drive: the power came from a diesel-engine (or maybe a petrol-engine, not sure) that drove a generator, which in turn drove electric motors in each wheel.

Eberhardt,
  It’s a character from one of Disney Pixar’s movies “Tow Mater”.  It’s a play on words of the term Tow Motor which refers to a fork lift.

The three additions to the model in the new year are the mizzenmast, the mizzen shrouds, and the two fore timber heads. 

These timber heads will be important when we discuss the anchor arrangement later. The only other part of the bow that needs to be made is the stempost, which will come next. Apart from that, the only other pieces of deck furniture that have yet to go on the ship are the windlass, ladders, and mizzen halyard/parrel block arrangement. 

That's pretty much exactly what I did. The lip balm I use to wax line is derived from beeswax. 

Happy New Year to you as well !
 
This will be become a true (retrospect) 'Builder's Model' !

Happy New Year to you too VAleriy. Nearing completion. Looks great (and clean 😬)
👍🏻
 

I welcome everyone to the new year!  
Installation of cargo handling equipment for holds No. 1 and No. 2

'Proper' carving or not, I think it turned out 'the' thing 👍🏻
 
The rush to get the dolls' house finished in time reminded me of a story my paternal grandmother used to tell of my grandfather trying to get some buildings for my father's train set finished (back in the later 1920s) and the oil-paint wouldn't dry in time for Christmas ...