druxey

Just imagine where any rub or wear points might be. Edges of the gunwale would be an obvious area, for instance.

Exactly so Andy. The string line is currently within 1/4" of being parallel to the keel. Close enough not to worry at the moment but I will keep an eye on it as I get closer.
 
Thank you John, Pat, Andy and druxey for the feedback.

Just imagine where any rub or wear points might be. Edges of the gunwale would be an obvious area, for instance.

Just imagine where any rub or wear points might be. Edges of the gunwale would be an obvious area, for instance.

OK, there has been a little progress as I'm still waiting on supplies and tools.
 
After looking at some pictures online, I noticed some tillers had a more ergonomic shape. So I decided to make one from scratch. It has the same overall dimensions as the original for the most part. It might be completely inconsistent with this time period or boat. If so please let me know.
 

 
 
Then I decided to try my hand at some weathering/wear marks. I'm not really sure where these should be so I made what I hoped was an educated guess after looking at photos online. I can't find a lot that describes this boat.
I'd love your opinions of my work and suggestions for what else to do. I'm thinking the boat should have more wear and rub marks but I don't know where to put the wear! (see what I did there?)
I'd like to add a slightly dirty wash to the hull. Would that be appropriate for this time/boat? I'm not sure if these boats sitting out of the water was a common sight or not?
 
I did this with watercolor paints. I'd like to try my hand with some dry pigment soon!
 

 
Thanks again for stopping in!

Chris

Thanks everybody for the likes.
 
Druxey, thanks for that. I'm still heart-in-mouth about dampening and shaping the sail. I'll try it with the mizzen (the most disposable and easily replaced) before I try it with the other two.
 
Certainly the 14th century representations seem more reliable
  
I'm inclined to go with the longer shank - and the flukes. Interestingly, neither of the examples above show the stock (perhaps it was only put in place when they were planning to drop anchor, as otherwise it would get in the way?), and both have a ring at the lower end (presumably for fishing the anchor). But the stock on the San Marco example is definitely there, so I'll be following that.
 
My thought exactly.
 
Steven

Well, two weeks after placing the order, everything arrived safe and sound. You can add Seahorse to the list of conscientious shippers -- all was securely packed.
 
First glimpse inside. I believe Tomek has described his mast sets as something like "just sticks," but they are reasonably priced, and I like the fact that I don't have to source dowels of the right diameter and cut them to length. They will need to be shaped, obviously.
 

 
Pre-printed sails. These include suggestions for dying, reinforcing, and adding boltropes.
 

 
The kit itself. Believe it or not, my knife slipped while slicing open the protective plastic sleeve. Fortunately, I only damaged the back cover. Whew!!!
 

 
Some parts . . .
 
   
 
. . . and diagrams.
 

 
And, of course, laser-cut frames.
 

 
Looking forward to starting soon

Hi photo Victory 1765.

I still think that the helm port transom would only tenon into the sides of the stern post. Is there any argument against that point?
 
And here's another heretical possibility: was there a helm port transom at all in this ship's configuration? Or are there simply chocks to frame in the helm port? I suggest this as the wing transom is so close to the helm port and upper deck transoms I can't see that it would add much to the overall structural strength. In Gary's model, the transom at least has the function of forming the upper border to the chase ports.
 
I await your brickbats, gentlemen.

I apologise for the tardy response ( to post #409), Steven, but I've been under the weather for most of the past month and am only just now catching up with you. You figured out what I used, I see; acrylic matt medium. If you need to dampen the sail to shape it, the bolt rope won't come undone like it woudld if you had used PVA.
 
Great progress since I last looked in, and it was nice to see a civilised discussion and gentlemanly disagreement, unlike some other threads I've seen elsewhere!
 
As for anchor design; would there have been much if any change between the 12th and 14th centuries? My instinct is to use the slightly later design as your starting point.

Next is to cut stock a scale ¾" square. This is next to impossible without a zero-clearance table and a slitting saw blade. So I made an insert of aluminum sheet and raised the saw blade through this, as shown (upper left). Note that, on this saw, I have an Accuriser II fence. I attached a secondary scale measuring in inches at 1/48 scale. This avoids having to translate from thousandths of an inch (actual) to scale inches.
 
I cut several sheets of 1/64" Castello stock and rubber cemented them to a sacrificial piece of softwood. In this case it was simply a paint stir-stick (upper right). This was then run through the saw and the pieces separated and cleaned up, giving the 1/64" square section required for the frames (below).

Nice, Chuck, and theoretically foolproof!

That is unusual, but I am sure the result will be "precious".
 
Yves

I suppose that's how 'builder's models' in the old days often were treated.

Keith, almost all the fine detail on this model will not be covered with paint. Nickel plating or polished brass coated with varnish will be used.

I apologise for the tardy response ( to post #409), Steven, but I've been under the weather for most of the past month and am only just now catching up with you. You figured out what I used, I see; acrylic matt medium. If you need to dampen the sail to shape it, the bolt rope won't come undone like it woudld if you had used PVA.
 
Great progress since I last looked in, and it was nice to see a civilised discussion and gentlemanly disagreement, unlike some other threads I've seen elsewhere!
 
As for anchor design; would there have been much if any change between the 12th and 14th centuries? My instinct is to use the slightly later design as your starting point.

Nice, Chuck, and theoretically foolproof!

I've also had this problem to solve. I cut a blank, longer than the finished ellipse, and PVA glued it to a backing block. This reduced the chance of breakage cross-grain. I then very carefully scratch molded the section. After soaking the piece off the backing, I was able to cut the joints with the straight sections of the moldings.
 
If there are any 'tricks' to this, a really good piece of boxwood is needed and patience while running the molding along it.

Nice subject, Chris. And the prototype looks very impressive!

Nice, Chuck, and theoretically foolproof!

A nice rendering of Verne's original!

A nice rendering of Verne's original!

Adding the bolt ropes to the edges of the sails. Glued to the edge of the sail with matt acrylic varnish. Much more fiddly than I'd expected. I had to do a short section, let it dry and then do another until I'd gone all around the outside. I discovered the assembly would then stick to the cutting board, so I needed to peel the section of sail and bolt-rope off each time I did this, otherwise it would stick fast and tear as I removed it. And I had to go back over it to repair the places where the rope hadn't adhered properly to the sail.

Now that's complete, I've started adding the mizzen sail to the yard with robands made of cotton sewing thread, using a needle to pierce holes in the sail and then tying a reef knot in each individual roband.


It turned out that I needed to glue the first thumb knot together and to the yard, then come back later and do the other half of the knot and glue it in place. Otherwise it would all come loose and untie itself. And by that time I'd forgotten which way I'd done the first part, so I think I ended up with a decent number of granny knots. Not to worry, though. At this scale you can't tell anyway.

I used a cunning mechanism (a clothes peg) to keep the top of the yard facing upwards so all the knots ran along the top.

Still in progress. Once they're all done I'll go back and trim the free ends back close to the knots.

And I'm just getting into designing the anchors. Though there are plenty of contemporary representations of anchors from the 14th century, I've been able to find only a single one from the 12th - in another mosaic in San Marco which appears to have been done about the same time. It shows three anchors at the bow - the arrow is pointing to the foremost one. I've worked out how big they would be and their proportions, but the shank looks terribly short to me.
   
What do the rest of you think? Should I lengthen the shank? And also add flukes - it is, after all, pretty difficult to portray these on a mosaic - and for the same reason perhaps taper the stock as well?
 
Steven
 
 
 
 

Very nice looking sails, Steven.
 
As for the historical accuracy of the model - "based of the best available information at the time of building." 
 
John

Thanks Roger. That's my opinion entirely. A lot of this is educated guesswork based on (extremely!) inadequate source material. Of course we can't be sure it's all correct, but a lot of the fun is in the investigation of source material and speculation as to how it could be done, given the pictorial evidence (often affected by artistic licence), the archaeological evidence (often frustratingly incomplete) and the practicalities of sailing a wooden vessel.
 
And if later evidence proves one of the guesses wrong, one still has the satisfaction of having done the best one could with the information that was available at the time.
 
So, on to current progress. Shrouds and halyards in place, but only the foremast shrouds have been finalised.

I really do need to clear my workdesk before I take photos!
 
I made new silkspan sails - I wasn't happy with the first iteration. This time I made them oversize and folded the edges over instead of gluing strips of silkspan to the edges. The cross was painted on with Tamiya acrylic paint. I needed two coats for the "face" side and one for the other side. Considerably happier with the second version.
And I've added the blocks to the yards - for the tacks at the lower ends and the vangs at the upper.

Druxey, if I might pick your brains - how did you attach the bolt ropes to your silkspan sails (they look particularly good)? And the robands?
 
Steven