SJSoane

Thanks, Alan, this is very helpful. Thinking through a detail, it is nice to understand how the sailors would have viewed it, not just in practical, functional terms, but also in their sense of what is right. Also, it occurred to me that the later idea of running the rope through a ring cast in the cannon would most assuredly have anchored that breech rope to the cannon more thoroughly than just a seized turn around the button. Moving cannon must not have been a main priority with the detail. Unless someone comes up with a contemporary drawing, I am going with the seizing and turn as you and druxey have been suggesting. Thanks for your great observation! Mark

druxey, I would love to read that steampunk novel. Would the time traveller have focused on ships? Maybe the novel could answer all of these questions definitively, and in a few generations it would all pass down as absolute truth. No more historical worries for our successors. Plus, I want to see your design for the steampunk nautical outfit...😊 Mark

I tried turning ropes with three strands, then mounting these again in the ropewalk and turning them together with the drill running in the opposite direction. This makes a a Z, or right turned rope, which I believe would be a hawser? I did not get the tensions quite right, so there are some blips in it. It sets up powerful forces; trying to keep the headstock from unwinding was quite an experience! I had to unwind and then wind again, which probably did not help this rope much. As I measure things, Chuck's supplied thread is .017 in diameter. Three of these turn up to .032, or a factor of 1.9 times the original thread diameter. And three of those three, or 9 threads altogether, turn up to about .059", again a factor of 1.9 times the diameters of the ropes in the second stage. I have yet to try 3 threads in each eye, or 9 threads in one turning session. Will it be the same as turning the 9 threads in two sessions? It obviously changes the lay of S or Z. Mark

Pretty amazing, I cannot find any contemporary drawings showing how this breech rope is rigged. I found a photo of a section model of a 3 decker ca. 1760 in Brian Lavery's Ship of the Line vol. II, p. 156, and it shows the breech rope just draped over the top of the button, not even wrapped around. Of course, the rigging on that 18th century model could have been redone any number of times before its current state. I guess the 18th century draftsmen were not keen to draw draping ropes. I think the logical idea would be as Alan showed and druxy suggests with a seizing running in a vertical direction. This direction of seizing would be much easier to install, going with the lay of the ropes. But perhaps it would not have a seizing at all? It would be time consuming to move a cannon, first needing to cut the seizing to get the breech rope off the button. Or, would the breech ropes move with the cannon? Or is it seized loosely so that it can be slipped off the button? I can see why they cast a ring over the button towards the end of the century, because this earlier practice is not a very elegant way of retaining the gun, the more I look at it. Ah, where is that time machine when we need one! Mark

Hi Russ, Even as I looped the rope around the button in the photo above, I saw the need for some kind of seizing; otherwise, it would just fall off when the gun was pulled back to the side after firing. I will keep looking around. Thanks again for pointing this out; a new topic to research! Best wishes, Mark

Fascinating. I enjoy seeing your experiments and problem solving. Mark

Hi Russ, thank you for your kind comments about the Bellona build. At the rate I am going, it will likely be the only ship model I will make in my lifetime (except for a kit when I was 16), so the journey itself is very much the point of it for me. I hope my journey and the Bellona build will finish at about the same time! Interesting question you ask about the breech ropes. I did a quick look at some resources this morning, and did not find anything about the direction of the seizing. I also saw a secondary source drawing showing the breech rope with a full wrap around the cascable button and no seizing (see below). Do you recall where you saw something, or do others have a source they could direct me to? Best wishes, Mark

druxey, Like this, with a better seizing? Mark

Thanks, Chuck, all credit to your great machine! I posted a few more comments on my first efforts (questions about how to tie off with even tension) at:

I have finally received the last supplies for casting (delivery is slow in rural areas, I have found). While waiting, I purchased Chuck's Rope Rocket ropewalk, and tried making the breech ropes for the 32# guns. I still have much experimentation to do with different threads and combinations, but the first efforts look pretty good. (this barrel was an old casting; but it was darkened and so shows the final effect). Mark

I am now a proud owner of a Syren Rope Rocket, and just made my first lines on it. I initially had a problem in the first stage of winding up the individual threads. They sometimes curled back on themselves in places, leading to little bumps in the finished line (see below). I am guessing that I was not holding the headstock tight enough to avoid sagging of the lines, or perhaps the tensions were not the same in the individual lines when I first tied them up. A subsequent effort, when I adjusted for these mistakes, worked much better (see below). A challenge for me is to tie the lines with the same tension. I am using a simple overhand loop at the headstock, to form a strong knot that can be slipped over the eye rings. At the tailstock I am using a ring hitch, because I can adjust the tension after tightening up, and then a half hitch to secure. Have others found more efficient knots for this? Great product, Chuck. My previous efforts at ropewalks (purchased and handmade) did not work nearly as well as yours. Mark

I will be very interested to see how this compares to Fusion. Thanks for the step by step tutorials! Mark

Hi druxey, I will happily leave high production to others. I will be very happy never to cast a cannon again after I get 74! Mark

Hi everyone, Slowly moving along with the cannon, in between long bouts of shoveling snow. I built all of the boxes for making the moulds. I will be putting the cannon halfway into clay, as seen in David Antscherl's Fully Framed Ship, and in the excellent tutorial here http://modelshipworldforum.com/ship-model-casting-and-resin-techniques.php I learned from last time to make the box only the height of the clay at first, and then I will add another box on top for the first pour of rubber. I made the box the full height the first time, and then found it quite difficult to level the clay and work the clay against the master while reaching down into a tall box. This way, I can work the clay to the top of the box. I will have a sleeve to hold together the two levels of boxes when I am ready to pour the rubber, as seen in the sketch. While I was at it, I also made the boxes for casting the plaster of Paris around the rubber moulds. With four masters and five boxes per master, it turned out to be a lot of box construction. I did discover that the Byrnes tablesaw worked beautifully for cutting the foam core, as opposed to a ruler and scalpel. Everything was kept perfectly parallel and perpendicular. I epoxied the trunnions into the barrels, using the jig below to ensure that they projected equally on each side. And then best of all, Chuck's Syren cyphers arrived today. They are the perfect size for my cannon--thanks so much Chuck--and they look terrific on the barrel. It is a tiny detail that eventually eluded my own skills and tools, and I am sorry to have learned one of my limits. But looking at Chuck's exquisitely detailed laser cut cyphers on my barrel masters has convinced me that high quality done by someone else should take priority over not such high quality done by me (my wife very kindly described one of my efforts as looking like bird droppings on the barrel; painful to hear, but true). While I was at it, I ordered the mould clay from MicroMark. The clay I had previously purchased at an art store in Denver was stiff and difficult to press up against the master; hopefully this will be better suited to the task. Mark

Well done, looking good! Mark

Astounding work. It is hardly conceivable how you work in so much detail. And you must be creating gigantic digital files! Mark

Thanks, Ed, good advice. the bottom vent is going in. Mark

welfalck, that explains very nicely the difference between the metal and wood workers regarding this clocking idea. Thanks. Mark

Thanks, druxy, that makes sense. I have made my gunheads ⅓ the length of the barrel, with a 70 degree angle on the sides of the gunhead. I expect that should give enough mass? For my first effort, I used a conical gunhead shape that I saw in the David Antscherl Fully Framed Model section on gun casting, and had no problems with the voids. Then I got too clever on the second effort, and made a gunhead like I saw in an 18th century contemporary engraving, with a narrowed neck at the top of the gunhead. That is when I got into the void problems. So I am back to the Fully Framed Model idea, which is where I should have stayed. But I learned why the gunhead needs to have greater volume! One learns more from mistakes than from first successes; when it is successful right off the bat, you don't know what variables you got right and yet are sensitive to change. Mark

Paul, you would sure want to know if anyone was planning on running out the cannon, before choosing that seat of ease! But then I guess no one would be allowed forward if the ship was coming into action... Mark

Michael, nice idea, using plexiglass for the shooting board. Mine is baltic birch ply, and the surface the plane slides along is starting to get pretty grungy from the metal of the plane. Works, but unsightly. I forgot to ask: did I read somewhere correctly that "clocking" screws means lining up the slots with each other? Best wishes, Mark

Thanks, druxey. I added more dimples in a second version of casting when the first version slipped around a little, leading to some offset castings. But I notice that my second set of dimples was a little deeper, which may have been the reason for greater alignment the second time around. I was also thinking that dimples closer to the master itself would help ensure alignment where it most matters. In both cases, I had enclosed the mound in a plaster shell. Ed, I welcome your thoughts on a vent at the bottom. Neither of my previous casting efforts had a vent at the bottom, and the button filled without voids. But I did have problems at the muzzle end, of long, thin voids just on the surface (see below). I assumed that my gunhead was not big enough, and the pour right at the top was cooling before the last metal got in. But could it be that venting the bottom would have helped avoid this problem at the top? These were done with my original pewter, which I now know melts at a temperature much higher than the rubber mould likes. Maybe this was part of the casting problem, in addition to degrading the moulds. Mark

Doris, you are the master! Mark

Michael, lovely new detail! Did you make the metal shooting board? Very nice. Mark

Hi everyone, I went to the mountain top to reflect on 18th century cannon cyphers (view from the top of Whitefish Mountain ski resort, just west of Glacier National Park, looking towards the Canadian Rockies). The mountains told me to stop spinning my wheels on the cyphers. Despite my usual perseverance, I discovered a limit to my tools and skill for making such tiny parts at the same standard as the rest of the build. So rather than compromise the rest, I am gratefully using Chuck's cyphers, made to the right size, for the master moulds. Maybe next spring, when the sun shows up again down in the valley where my shop is, I can try photo etching using the sun rather than an incandescent bulb (the mountains told me this was the problem, since the resist kept washing away even where the exposure was supposed to harden it). I really would like to find out what was not working. But I need to move on or I will never get this ship done. I am proceeding to create the moulds for the cannon. I turned the gunheads using the Sherline compound angle device. I also added a little collar between it and the cannon; this appendage on the cast cannon will temporarily be clamped in the tailstock drill chuck of the lathe, to center the casting before drilling the bore and cleaning up the face of the muzzle. The diagram shows two ways to vent the trunnions in the mould, one straight and the other curved. The curved one in "A" would allow the location dimples (the round circles) to sit closer to the muzzle, while "B" has a straight vent to the top. Experienced casters out there, do you see any strong reasons one way or the other to do "A" or "B"? Best wishes, Mark