TJM

Yes, this is also what I conclude based on the evidence I have seen so far. And yes, no matter what, this build will not be a truly faithful representation of Christiania - it cannot be with me adapting the Sphinx kit. All of the deck furnishings will be 1:1 the Sphinx setup. So I guess I can take the liberties I want, but I still have to decide what I prefer 😅 The comment about the painting of the ships comes from Danske Orlogsskibe 1690-1860 (a fantastic book!): This translates to: In Gerner’s period, the painting of ships was introduced in the Danish navy. This came about almost through a private initiative, as the commander of Sophia Frederica in 1781, A. F. Moltke (1748–1820), at his own expense had his ship painted. The following year, the commander of the Indfødsretten, in connection with sailing to the Mediterranean, requested permission to do the same. The commander of Holmen had now come to the conclusion that painting was more preservative than the ordinary tallowing that had previously been used, and therefore had the painting of all Danish ships of the line carried out.¹¹ Previously, the ships had been “blacked” with a mixture of thin tar and soot, something that gave the ships a dark brown, almost blackish appearance. According to the regulations, this applied only to ships of the line, while the frigates were occasionally treated with pine pitch. When the blacking and pitch-coating took place, care was taken to cover tarpaulins over the “externally painted ship ornaments” in order to avoid blackening them.¹² Reference 11 is to a text by F.C.Kaas published posthumously in 1843 who recounts the work that was done while he was Chief of Holmen (the Navy shipyard in Copenhagen) from 1781-92

I think this contemporary model of Fyen (1736) shows how it would have been. Even if it is some 40 years earlier than Christiania: We know that the ships were not painted between the upper decoration and the lower wale until sometime in Gerner's period, so after Christiania was built - I did not know this when I decided to emulate the painted yellow band with the cedar. This is why I am now considering making it the main 'wood' colour for the hull instead, by using it for the wale as well.

@Arthur Goulart, thanks for the suggestion - in fact this issue had been increasingly been bugging me lately. My original plan was to have a colour scheme like this: This looks like two thin wales, painted black, which was the norm up until at least the 1720's or 30's. But i have become aware of the way the wales were made later in the 18th century that you point out, and it makes it difficult to decide what to do colour wise. As mentioned in this post, I am not sure I like the look if I continued the yellow cedar on the wale part. Though that may be the more realistic option! This is also the way the model of Gerner's Bornholm is depicted: However, I would like to keep as much of the hull natural wood as possible, so I would like to avoid painting the area between the wale and the waterline black, though this would probably be the most realistic. Instead I looked towards another model, of the hukkert Amager: This shows the black double wale, it is a ship by Krabbe like Christiania and the original drawing shows the same wale, blended into the planking: But I admit that I am not being consistent here, and that balancing the historical accuracy with the wish to show as much wood as possible is getting me into trouble! I am seeing a number of options here: 1) continue as planned, two thin wales painted black. It will look good, but will not be accurate for the time period - a bit of a pitty! 2) add three wale stakes in pear and blend it into the hull, no black paint at all. I think this may look a bit unfinished? And it might be difficult to get a nice transition when blending the lower part - I could leave a smaller ridge there as an easier transition. 3) add two or 3 yellow ceder and one pear plank as wale, and blend it into the hull. This would have the pear represent the part that is painted black, between the wale on many several depictions, incl. the Bornholm model. 4) build the whale from yellow cedar, blend it into the hull, and paint the area between the main wale snd waterline black. This is probably the most realistic, but it paints over the nicest part of the pear hull planking 😅! And this is what I wanted to avoid! It might have been better if I had planked the upper part either entirely in pear or yellow cedar, but I am not ripping it off now! I will have to find a solution based on wale planking and painting. Any suggestions, both on opinions on the above, or on other suggestions for a solution, would be much appreciated!

Log entry 33 - planking The second layer of planking is progressing relatively fast, now that I am making an effort to complete it. I am now missing only 7 planks on each side. And the final hull shape is now really starting to appear - the more french-style shape favoured in Denmark at the time is showing well I think. Here's the current status in images, one side have been rough sanded the other is still missing any sanding on the latest 6 planks. And here's a few shots showing the shape of hull: It is nice to see some progress on the build again, I have been procrastinating too long 😅. But now we are moving again! BR TJM

I am sure you are right! 😅 But thanks, I hope it will turn out good. I think it will, at least from a normal viewing distance. I plan to have it displayed over the stairs, so I won't be able to get too close once it is up. I think it will look all fine from that distance.

Thanks Ronald! I don't so much mind planking the 'normal' way - I did Elben quite quickly an painlessly. But this one with the weird shapes (my own fault! 🫣) is not that fun!

Just a quick update: I have finally managed to move on with the second planking layer. It is a pain to work with the maple and it is extremely time consuming to make the heavy shaping of every single piece of planking, with my silly idea of how to make an 'artistic' all-wood-finish hull below the waterline - this is not something I expect to repeat on future projects 😅. Here's the current state of affairs: 21 planks to go, but they are getting significantly easier now, closer to the keel. I hope to push through in the next couple of weeks snd get the planking completed. BR TJM

@Waldemar, are you aware of this publication: Ældre danske Metal og Jern Stykker : et Forarbeide til Artilleriets Historie, Otto Blom, 1891 https://www.kb.dk/e-mat/dod/130024096859-color.pdf It is quite a bit later than the previous work we have been discussing by Blom. I have only just found it, but it seems clear to me, that Blom knew very well the difference between the Nuremberg 'talstok' measurements, and the 'nyvægt' (new weight) numbers used in the 1700's. He is in many places cross referencing numbers reported in the old ledgers with those taken of the same pieces in later times, where the measurements were more certain. He can also corroborate this with measurements of pieces that were still in existence in his time. He also references the Swedish drawings and comments on the differences between the numbers where these look strange. I am not saying he did not occasionally draw a wrong conclusion, but it seems unlikely to me, based on this text, that he would have made a systematic error throughout. He was well aware of the different units used etc. Our 42 pounder from earlier is given a treatment in this one as well. Comparing specifically the Swedish drawing and shot weight 😉. BR TJM

This is looking really nice!

Very nice Arthur! Hvide Ørn is a very pretty ship indeed! Here's a slightly more detailed image of the figurehead that I took at the Danish National Archives: This particular copy of the original had not been scannet yet. It is designated H18.

Hi Arthur, I am quite impressed - I have yet to sit down and actually understand how these constructions were made from mathematical principles, but would love to get into that some day. I passed by the Krigsmuseeum the other day and tried to grab a few shots of Wildmanden - It is very dificult to photograph it, as the model is small, the prow is facing the frnt of the display case, and the case is very large, so it is hard to get a proper profile shot. I am not sure these will really help you, but perhaps there is somthing to be seen on them still 🙂

I have been spending the past few days using all of my monthly Meshy tokens in generating a bunch of assets for the cannons we have been discussing in this thread 😁 I am so happy this technology is coming right now - in my opinion, this is the perfect use of AI. So here's a bunch of images of the cannons I have prepared - I will post the STL files (those that are not too enormous) later, with a bit more detail and showing the drawings they are based on as well. As you can see, Meshy has also provided me with my very own versions of Christian IV for scale, inspecting the pieces that has arrived from the foundry 😅 These are based on portraits or statues of the King and are a remarkable close likeness for a 40 second AI generated model! First, two very different 4 pounders: Then a few 12 pounders, one of them very short, the others quite long: And last, but certainly not least, a series of 'Nye Konger' ("new kings") 24 pounders and a 'Løvekonge' ("lion-king" - also shown a few posts back). I believe this larger cannon is a trekvart kartove of around 5000 pounds weight as opposed to the other 6 which were 3200-3500 pounds halv kartover, and so would have been a 27 pounder. (and I think the King drank a bit from the fountain of youth for this session...): I know that the tiny text on the 'Nye Konger' would have been recessed, not protuding as I have it, but these are made to work at 1/64 to 1/32, and I don't think I can print recesses that small at these scales. I think this is a resonable compromise. The letters will be 0.32 mm tall at 1/32 scale... 🫠. I think they will at best be tiny bumps at 1/64 scale... time will tell, when I get to print some. I did 6 of the 'Nye Konger' as I just couldn't help it with the great reference material Waldemar has been providing: I thought it would be fun to have a few different options - in reality, they were all unique, I think! BR TJM

@Waldemar, thanks you so much! This does make sense - at least it is completely systematic and, which is more important, practical from a real-world use perspective. And while your numbers vary from Blom in the outer ranges, as you mention, they are close enough to still 'fit' the known nominal calibers for bore and shot weight. The table you made is really useful 😁

@Waldemar, where do you find these?: When I search on digitalmuseum.se, I can only find the Thelott drawings, not these. And these are interesting, even though they may be less fine and often have folds. As they carry the poundage designations we have been discussing. How do you search to find them? BR TJM

Thanks, @Lieste! It is interesting that this mixing of bore and shot weights is not that uncommon. I wonder why? Likely due to very confusing and mixed listings, also combining different pound standards in the sources. I believe that the most reasonable is that the Trefoldighed carried 12 pounders measured by the bore, which would mean 10 pound (Nuremberg) shots, even though the 24 pounders are listed by shot weight - they would have had a 26 pound bore acc. to the tables in Blom's work. It does not seem like the 14 pounders (16 pound bore) were really used as upper armament on the large ships - these were used as main armament for the lighter sub-40 gun vessels. BR TJM

There are still some very puzzling things about these weights, actual and nominel. I am looking into the Armament of Christian IV's last main ship, the Trefoldighed. This is the one he famously commanded in the Battles of Lister Deep and Kolberger Heide. It had 22 gunports on the main battery and 22 on the upper battery and then a number of smaller ports on the qarterdeck poop deck and forecastle. The lower deck ports were dimentioned for 3/4 kartover and the upper deck ports for 1/2 kartover. People have therefore assumed, that since a hel lartove is 48 pounds, the Trefoldighed must have carried a massive armament of 22 36 pounders and 22 24 pounders. This would have made it incredibly powerfull! You can find this kind of lineup reported on the Danaih Wikipedia. It is not true though. One of the most capable Danish naval historians of modern times, Niels Probst, writes in Marinehistorisk Tidsskrift in vol 3 1984 that Trefoldighed carried four 3/4 kartover and 18 1/2 kartover on the lower deck and 22 12 pounders on rhe upper deck, and a few 4 pounders on the castles: He is quoting P. Holck for these numbers and it also agrees with what Blom writes: only three ships in 1652 carried 3/4 kartover, one of them was Trefoldighed with 4 pieces. The same is quoted in Marinehistorisk Tidsskrift vol 1 1981: But this it where it stops making sense. Probst calls the 3/4 kartover 36 pounders (this was why I was looking for at 36 pounder!), but it is clear from Blom that by the time of Trefoldighed, the 3/4 kartover was 27 pounders. I am not comfortable with what seems to be an error on Probst's part! Also, he mentions that the upper deck carried 12 pounders, but 12 pounders were not present in the armoury if we go by the nominal weights!: There are many cannons with a 12 pound bore though! They would nominally be 10 pounders. Would Probst mix bore and shot poundages when specifying the armament? That does not sound credible. Again, I am not happy suggesting that Probst got this wrong! He surely must have known Otto Bloms work! Then there is the possibility that he was quoting not nominal shot weights, but bore or actual shot weight in Danish pounds? But this does not fit either! It would mean the largest 4 guns would be hel-kartover, and Blom clearly says these were 3/4 kartover of 27 pounds. There is simply not one set of measurements that support 36, 24, 12 and 4 pounders! The most reasonable to me is 4x27 pounds, 18x24 pounds and then either 22x10 pounds or 22x14 pounds. How to settle this? I normally trust what Probst writes, but I cannot make it fit. Is there something combining the Swedish and Danish sources that can make this make sense? If anyone has any insights or suggestions, I would very much appreciate it!

Thanks for explaining this in detail! And what a further complication with a shift of scale right then! I totally see the arguments, but I can't reconcile the conclusion on the 42 pounder with the other images as well. If the poundage designations on the Swedish drawings were following the 1686 post-reform convention, then all the 24 pounders would actually be nominal 26-27 pounders in the Danish Nuremberg klassification system, firering actual 24-25 Danish pound shots. And this just does not fit with the known poundage of these comon calibers: we know these were nominal 24 pounders (Nuremberg 'talstok' wise) with a 26 pound bore (again, on the Nuremberg talstok), firing 22.4 Danish pound shots. It seems to me, that the measurements on the Swedish drawings for poundage must be from the old Nuremberg scale, which is identical to the one used in Denmark. I see it this way because we have the full inventory from 1649 with confirmed dimentions - not just infered from the Swedish drawings (with a potential uncertainty on the scale used), but based on measurements on actual cannons which confirms these - Blom mentions this in the text. Does this make sense? I may well be wrong! But this makes the most sense to me right now 😅. And i truly appreciate your continued inputs to this @Waldemar, and I am afraid I may seem ungrateful for challenging your well argued/researched points! I am just trying to make sense of it all! 😄

I truly appreciate this @Waldemar, thank you for taking the time to dig into this and help me out! I had not come across Otto Blom's book - for reference, it can be found here, all out of copyright and free to use or reproduce: https://www.kb.dk/e-mat/dod/11342801000A.pdf I had not before seen the point about the Nüremberg pounds, which are the basis for the measurement of the guns bore and shot sizes. even if this is in Danish, it is 150 years old and hard to read due to the long and complicated sentences - much more like modern german i think - and because of the rather unstructured way the arguments are put forth - more like a strain of thoughs than a well planned text. I will try to give a brief recap of some of the most important points I have found: The cannon's bore size and the shot size was based on a so called 'talstok' (number stick), showing the diameter of the various bore/shot sizes. However, this was based on the Nüremberg pound, not the Danish pound! The bore of the cannon were naturally larger than the shot diameter, to allow for some windage and Blom suggests that the nominal bore was rounded up to the nearest pund park on the 'talstok', where the shot size was rounded down. This meant that it was common to have a cannon with a 26 pound bore ("pund udi høiden" = pound in the height = the bore diameter) that fired a nominal 24 pound cannon ball. Now, to complictate things, the daily measurements of shot weights were done using the normal Copenhagen pound ( 1 pund = 0.498 g). Blom suggests that they clearly new the difference between the Nüremberg pound used for the bore and shot classification and the actual nominal shot weight in Danish pounds, but that it was simply not a difference that was taken into account in practice! The following is a nice little table showing the difference between bore, nominal shot weight and actual shot weight: So, a 24 pounder (halv kartove) would have a 26 pound bore (5"8'0IV diameter) and fire a 22.44 Danish pound shot (on average!) with a diamter of 5"6'2IV. This difference between Nüremberg and Danish pounds can be seen from account lists where the nominal shots are listed, but the total is also weighed. A delivery in 1683 is quoted for a total of nominal 114440 pd, but weighed in at 99736 Danisg pund - a difference of almost 15%. Now, let's have a look at the common sizes - these are sorted by nominal bore sizes: While there are many strange sizes, the eight from the previous table are by far the most predominant: 30, 26, 16, 12, 10, 8, 5, and 1, corresponding to nominal weighs of 27, 24, 14, 10, 8, 6, 4 and 1 pounds. The first two are the trekvart kartoves and halv kartoves respectively, though the kartove designation refers to the size and weight of the gun, not the shot weight, so there are quite som vararity within the kartove klasses - but by the 1630's and definately here at the end of Christian IV's reign, the 27 pound trekvart kartove and the 24 pound halv kartove was the common ones. With regards to the 42 pounder from the Swedish and Grunth drawings that we have discussed previously, this particular piece is mentioned specifically in the text: This is described as a hel kartove with a Nüremberg shot weight of 42 pounds, and likely a bore caliber of 45-48 pounds. Here, Blom mentions that the Swedish drawing is presumably using the Nüremberg measurment as well, which might seem surprising! But he mentions in other places that this system was also used in Sweden for the nominal cannon/shot clssification! But I also think that the Swedish and Nüremberg pounds are almost identical - it seems to be not the 369 g, but rather a 424 g Nüremberg pound that was used - one that is 15% smaller than the Danish pound. I guess this means that a cannon mentioned as a 24 pounder (or, as here a 42 pounder) on the Swedish drawings, is also a 24 pounder in Danish terms, as they use the same scale (Nüremberg) to classify the guns, but then use the local weight units when they weigh off the cannon or balls. But as mentioned, a nominal 24 pounder, would have fired a 22.44 pound shot (or anything between 22-23 pounds, really...). This also explains why all the well known 'Nye konger', that are known to be (nominal) 24 pounders, are also labelled as such on the swedish drawings. So my interpretation is that, yes, the 42 pounder hel-kartove is a 42 pounder, in both Danish and Swedish terms - it would have fired a 36 Danish Pound shot, but it would have been called and classified as a 42 pounder. In Swedish terms, it would actually have fired a 42 Swedish pound ball. I will look into more, as there are still some strange things when looking into the armament of certain ships, and I will be back with more soon. BR Thorbjørn

Hi Matthias, At some point, I will definatly print this - likely also in 1/32 for a display model! I am deep into researching the artillery of Christian IV's time in preparation for a future project, but unlike the later artillery the measurements are all over the place, as the current conversation with Waldemar clearly shows! But I am slowly getting the hang of this and at least i can read the sources! All of these cannon depicted by Grunth are bronze. At the time, they called these 'metal' pieces as opposed to 'jern' (=iron) pieces. Ther heavy artillery at the time (the first half of the 17th century) were genrally bronze, Iron only really becomming prevalent in the late 17th century and only took over completely by the 1750's or so.

Thank you for looking into all of the @Waldemar, it is really interesting. I am not sure what to make of it, and while what you say makes sense on it's own, there are some things that does not fit what we otherwise know: We know that the most common shot weight for the larger warships of this time was 24 pounders - most common second battey armamament was 12 pounders with 6 or 4 pounders on the castles and/or cabins. We also know that some of the larger series of 'halv-kartover', 24 pounder, were 'De Nye Konger' (the New Kings) of 24 pounds shot weight (as oposed to the 'Gamle Konger' - Old Kings' from 1603-1607 which were 14 pounders) and the Apostles which were 12 pounders. Many of the 'Nye Konger' are in the collections, your second to last set above is a so called 'Løvekonge' - a lion-king - which are known to have been a Danish 24 pounder, but it is also labelled as a 24 pounder in the Swedish drawing! We see many cannon labeled as 24, 12, 6 and 4 pounders here which lead me to believe that these are the original Danish shot weights, not the Swedish ones. Otherwise, everyone from Grunth to modern experts like Barfod and Probst would have it wrong! If the poundage was Swedish, these would be strange Danish measurements of 20.5 pounders and 10 pounders, not calibres we find very often in the sources! I agree that it is strange that the Swedish drawings would quote the Danish weights, so there is mystery to be solved here, but if the measurements were Sweedish, I would have expected numbers like 28 pounders and 14 pounders to be prevalent, not 24 and 12, which look like the original Danish weights! I am truly not an expert here, and I am just trying ro reconcile the sources I have, mainly N. Probst, "Christian d. 4.'s Flåde" and various writings of his in Marinehistorisk Tidsskrift. Incidently, I actually made the 3D model of the aforementioned 'Løvekonge' 🙂 : Meshy did a fine job of making assets from the Grunth drawings 🙂

Very nice information, thank you! This makes your theory quite plausible, I think!

I am not sure the logic holds. I agree that this is a possibility, but it relies on the assumption that Grunth copied the Swedish drawing. Do we know this is the case? Grunth's drawing fits perfectly with a 42 pounder, from a bore size PoV. But of course that would be the case if the calibre is the only unit of measurement used to make the drawing. And he just assumed the 42 pounds was the Danish measurement. Regarding the weight, I end up with close to 2500 kg based on the volume of a 3D modelled version. That is closer to Grunth's measurement for the weight, but somewhere in between your two calculations. I am not sure how to settle this definately. Mind you, I am not saying you are not right here, I am just saying that I cannot prove it with the volume calculation.

@Waldemar, it seems the canon is actually a 42 pounder: it is also depicted in the Grunth collection: It is extremely short, only 13 calibres. Even a 24 pounder at 17-20 calibres would be longer overall, like it's neighbors on the page above. But it seems the 42 pound designation on the Swedish drawing is actually the Danish poundage. The search for a C4 36 pounder continues! 😅

Welcome!

Fantastic,thank you so much! Where is this image from? Is it a physical book, or do you have a link to the source?