druxey

Thanks Siggi52 for the info and useful discussion by private message. He suggested that acquiring and using the most recent plans made by the National Museum in Copenhagen may produce a more upto date model.  A recent replica was made from these plans. An excellent model would be made from these plans were they available from the museum.
IHowever
However, I have proceeded too far along a particular line namely the Akerlund plans to go back to scratch. In addition, Akerlund is the only reconstruction to show a practicable solution to the problem of hogging and twisting of the hull and hopefully I can test his concept in a model. The Nydam Tveir replica shows no evidence of a hogging solution.
 
The next step, having started the building board, is to carve the keel plank , stem and stern post.
At the end of the day , if I finish it, the model will be my modification of Akerlund's concept. I do not pretend it will be a "replica" of the original boat as I don't think that can be done.
Cheers
Dick

Thanks, John. The Hjortspring vessel was reconstructed with and without a hogging truss and the crew said it handled much better with the truss.
Also this Nydam replca seems to have some sort of anti-hogging device rigged.

Cheers
Dick

Very interesting, Dick. I'm certainly no expert on this era or of the development of early Scandinavian craft but given the relative proximity of the discovery of the Hjortspring vessels to the Nydam finds, it would seem reasonable to suppose that the hogging truss technology was handed down until a better sollution was found.
 
John

I have now received the monograph of Harald Akerlund 1963

It is in swedish but does have a useful english abstract and the plans are well printed.  I have looked at the original reconstruction by the excavator Engelbrecht 1863 and by Shetelig and Johannesen 1929 and it is my opinion that Akerlund's reconstruction is the most likely to approximate the true shape of the hull. He also cogently argues that the present display of the hull is inaccurate as the stern has been displayed as the stem and vice versa. He concludes that the rudder was installed on the port side.  The retrieved rudder seems to support this as well as some holes in the sternpost (as he calls it) which may well be supports for the rudder. I am not convinced of this as I think he may have put the aerofoil rudder back to front. Nonetheless, the rudder side need not be starboard as in the later viking vessels. Indeed, there evidence from stone carving from Gotland of both a quarter rudder at the rear and another one at the fore quarter.
 
In any case, I will go with Akerlunds lines and orientation although I may put the rudder to starboard. He also justifies the presence of a sophisticated central strengtheing frame and hogging truss. Otherwise the extreme thinness of the hull planking would lead to failure of the hull, I think his reconstruction of this is good and explains the profusion of unexplained carved wood pieces found with the hull. I will include the hogging truss as I did with my mycenaean galley.

Dick

The earliest vessels which have yet been excavated in Scandinavia and Northern Europe are not the Viking sailing ships we all know but are rowed vessels without the capacity to sail. Apart from small paddled boats known from grave burials, the earliest major excavated vessel is the Hjortspring vessel which dates from the 4th century BCE and is a sewn vessel propelled by paddles and having a keel plank.

The use of sail is thought to have occurred late in this region and the reasons for this late adoption are far from clear. The earliest accepted archaeological evidence for sail in Scandinavia and northern Europe comes from picture stones dated to the 6th century CE at the earliest. The earliest excavated sailing ship is the well known and frequently modelled Oseberg vessel of the early 9th century CE.
Before the Viking era, large vessels for transport of men or goods seem to have been rowed vessels lacking a true keel and a mast. It is not till the Kvalsund boat, a rowed vessel of the late 8th century, was found do we see a true keel and it is from this vessel that the viking age is said to begin.

The famous longships of the viking age were often ship burials but in the pre-viking era the boat finds are sometimes found to be bog sacrifices. These vessels were deliberately sunk or broken up in bogs together with weapons and armour similarly broken, which suggests a deliberate sacrifice to a beneficent god to celebrate a victory or as part of religious rites. No human remains have been found with the vessels.
The most important bog finds were the Nydam boats. These were excavated in 1863 and, of the three vessels found, only one has been preserved. This is the Nydam B boat, a rowed vessel 23 metres in length with only a keel plank and no mast step. There were 15 thwarts and probably 28 or 30 rowers. A quarter rudder was found with the boat. The boat was constructed from oak and a large part of the vessel has been preserved.
There are similarities of Nydam B with the Sutton Hoo saxon ship burial and suggestion has been made that the Nydam B boat may have been the type of vessel that the Frisians, Saxons and Jutes used to reach southern England. However, the Nydam boat is built for coastal or riverine travel and would have had great difficulty with the open ocean so exactly how this crossing was made remains unclear.
The lack of a true keel and the construction of the hull make it likely that hogging of the hull would have been a problem. Found in association with Nydam B were many staves and wooden devices which have been interpreted (Akerlund 1963) as being remnant of the mechanism of a hogging truss. This has been questioned by other authorities and remains a possibility.
I plan to attempt a model of the Nydam B boat at 1:20 scale using the dimensions estimated by Akerlund who has allowed for 14% wood shrinkage over the century since excavation. I am still considering whether to include the hogging truss in the reconstruction.
 
I cannot start yet as I am awaiting receipt of a publication from Germany on the boat
Cheers
Dick
 

Good morning. 
Just a little insight into how the drawings are created.
I use Fusion360 Hobby Home version. 
The plans were imported and scaled to the correct length at the waterline.  Then there positions were adjusted to match together so that when you rotate the drawings it looks and reacts as it should in 3D.
All the Components then have Drawing plane's on all X Y and Z planes added(Just a habit encase I need them latter on)  
Each part has its own drawing so that I can use Origin Shaper add-in to export the SVG files in the next stage.
The parts are drawn one at a time in the correct order so I can see them to check on the fairings and assembly alignment. 
A few screenshots.

The Keel is made using a bread and butter construction. This gives me a true shape and is easy to fare when it comes to the sanding. Used dowels to get the alignment spot on. The layers are 4.2mm in thickness. and the bottom one is 6mm thick.

Sternpost is made up using 4 parts and and I used 16mm thick timber. All the parts were marked with a laser and also marked the rabbet line at the same time. parts were cut with correct grain direction.
Final fitting with file and chisel to get the fit.

The stem was done using the same method as the Sternpost. Using 14mm thick timber and the mast step was 21mm timber. 

The assembly matched together. 

Assembly with Frame drawings. Showing the lines very nicely. 
The frame drawing were put onto a sketch which is the size of my laser. this made it easy to manipulate the parts ready for Shaper to do its magic. 

The inverted building Base. 
 
That's it for now.
 
Regards AntonyUK. 
 

Glad to see that you snugged up the rudder, Clare!

Glad to see that you snugged up the rudder, Clare!

Glad to see that you snugged up the rudder, Clare!

A minor update, but fairly significant for the model. 
 
Today, I got sick of the enormous gap between the sternpost and rudder and I clipped off the pintles and just pinned the rudder into place. I think it makes the model look a whole lot better!
 

Yes, it's not perfect, and you can see one of the pins if you look closely. But, I'm not striving for perfection here. I'm just going for a better appearance, and I think this works.
 
Now, I can move on to other things, as this is the last item that just bugged me!

I think the problem with using CA glue on painted parts isn't so much that thee CA won't hold them together, but more so that the weakest part of the joint is not the paint adhering to the wood. I suppose it depends on the application. Some attachments would be a lot safer than others.
 
 
Quick update on painting and progress:
There was some slight paint bleed onto the white areas, but I was able to clean it up using an X-Acto knife — worked well for sharpening the edges. I also used a stick sander to remove paint from the contact points for the floorboards and thwarts, which I’ll be working on next. I’m thinking of using a combination of CA and PVA glue: PVA for the frame supports, and CA on the sides. Part of the reason is to avoid the tedious (and risky) job of scraping paint off the sides and potentially messing up the finish. But it’s also a learning project, and I want to test how well a painted-to-painted CA joint holds up.
 
I find most beginners around here aren't new to modeling and are typically coming from plastics. Me being completely new to modeling, the painting is a whole new thing as well so I'm learning just as much about it than anywhere else. 
 
This was before some cleaning:

 
The edges aren't perfect, but it turned out decent enough

 

 

 
 
 

Time to install the canopy! But wait -- don't forget to add the gun sight first!

 
Then you can install the canopy!

Time to frame the canopy. A couple of tips may be helpful. First of all, I usually do not attempt to glue an entire frame piece in one shot -- it's messy, and the glue I use (Evergreen canopy glue) doesn't give a lot of working time. Normally I tack one part of the piece in place and then do the remainder as several small sub-steps. Second, do everything you can to make sure the first piece is aligned on the canopy correctly -- it acts as a kind of keystone for the remaining bits, and if it is off-kilter, then what follows will be off as well
 
I opted to start with the front panel, because its location on the molded canopy is fairly obvious.

 
For the next piece, you can see how I tacked the top section, making sure to align the tic marks on both pieces. BTW, on the aft portion of this piece there are two stub pieces of framing. The closed canopy should fit inside these pieces, but I didn't discover that fact until after I had already glued them down. That made it necessary to trim the next piece slightly to accommodate the stubs.

 
Make sure you allow plenty of time for the glue to set. If the glue is still white instead of clear, as seen here, you're not ready to move forward.

 
And here's all the framing attached. Let the glue cure well -- some flexing will occur when the canopy is freed from its sheet, and improperly cured bonds may pop loose as a result.

 
That's it for now!

Armament installed, plus shell case ejector ports. Nothing special to watch out for here -- just fiddly parts. Use something like styrene rod to help roll the gun shrouds. The kit includes paper barrels, but it's wise to substitute styrene rod for these, too. Also, pay attention to the orientation of the ejector ports. I glued one on backwards and didn't notice it until the following day. 😑
 

 
Moving to prepping parts for the canopy. If you chose not to add the cockpit interior, then you'd use the opaque windscreen parts provided in the kit. I'm using a molded canopy, so the framing parts will need to be cut out and edge colored.
 

 
Start by cutting out the interior portions of these parts. Don't cut the parts all the way out just yet. Leaving them like this makes coloring the interior edges easier.
 

 
The backsides of the frames will be visible, so they need to be painted. I made no effort to match the cockpit interior gray -- I just used the closest AK color in my set. The main thing is that the backs are not white.
 

 
Now we can cut the parts all the way out and color the exterior edges.
 

 
In the next installment: Framing the canopy! 😬

A Tale of Woe . . .
 
Before adding the vertical stabilizer to the fuselage, I first added a strip of scrap card to fit inside the stabilizer -- recall that the stabilizer's framing doesn't sit on the fuselage. This gives some more gluing area.

After this, the stabilizer was added.
 
And here's where I ran into some problems. Sometimes the little parts of a model can cause the most trouble. On the MiG-15 and its derivatives, there is a small projection of the fuselage that juts out past the exhaust outlet and forms the base of the vertical stabilizer. Here's the parts for that bit:

 
At first I thought the little joiner strips were supposed to go from this structure to the insides of the stabilizer. I also thought it was weird, if that was the case, to not glue the joiners to the stabilizer first. So I went ahead and did that.
 
Whoops!!
 
I later determined that the joiners were supposed to mate the aft structure to the stabilizer fillets, i.e., they go on the outside of the stabilizer! Since I had already glued the kit parts to the wrong area, I had to make new joiners from scratch. I also needed to trim the cone-like tail structure to get it to fit in the gap between the exhaust outlet and stabilizer.

 
Then I added the fillets -- or rather fillet, singular, since the two sides are all of one piece.

The finished assembly is not particularly tidy.
 
And here's where we are now.

 
Until next time!

Continuing on with the vertical stabilizer.
 
After prepping the skin and folding it (don't make a hard crease -- it should be slightly rounded at the leading edge), one side of the frame was glued in, then the remaining side was glued down separately, making sure to align the slots for the horizontal stabilizers.

 
There's a couple of things to look out for. First, for whatever reason, the lowermost frame is supposed to be 0.2 - 0.5mm shy of the edge of the skin. In fact, none of the framing is flush with any edge, which makes positioning the frame a judgment call.

 
Second, there is a dart to cut out near the top of the stabilizer. Frankly, I'm not 100% convinced the dart was necessary for the design, but it's there, so it needed to be removed. The resulting seam is supposed to lie along the uppermost framing piece, but for the life of me I couldn't get the framing and skin aligned in that fashion. This negatively impacted shaping the skin somewhat, and coupled with the fact that I didn't bevel the upper frame enough (it needs beveling, which isn't mentioned in the instructions), the resulting seam is not the best work I have ever done.

 
That's it for now!

More turnings these are tiny 🤪 but I’m getting better.
 

 

 

 
 

OK, I added the upper deck beams, all fine, and then added my one off special 0.8mm ply deck, ready for next stage of development.

Well, I worked all day today, continuing Surprise stuff.
 
This morning, I decided to make the templates for the fore and quarterdeck bulwarks, which are to be pre-cut. So first, the upper deck and beams were to be removed. My initial idea was to do the same I did for Indy, with most of the outer sides planked. 
 
However, I could not get the thought out of my mind just how nice the sides would look if they were pre-cut and engraved, with treenail detail - that would look great when painted ochre (or just varnished). So, with this in mind, I made a template for the whole of the hull side down to the top of the main wale line (or in Surprise's case, where the planks get thicker).
 
The pics show the end result of a day’s work, with many templates laser cut in white PolyBak, with each successive template (and there were many) tweaked a little more until, eventually, the final template is cut in the material that will be used in the kit, pear, shown in the pics. There was no warping to the undersides near the bow, and curved around very nicely on my disposable 'mule hull'
 
The downside to this, and the reason I initially dismissed doing this, is cost (0.8mm pear sheet needing to be 800mm long and 4 required just for the outer hull) and time. It will increase the overall cost to the kit. But it does mean planking, like on the smaller kits in the range, is relegated to the bottom half of the hull only, with all upper sides being completely pre-cut and laser engraved. It also means I can work slots into the bulwark sides for the fore, main and mizzen channels, these worked very well for the new Speedy and Harpy.
 
I hope I have made the right choice..
 
Oh, for the rudder fixing, I am doing the same as I did for Indy, with 3-d printed gudgeon and pintles that simply slot into the rudder and rudder post, I do very much like this method as it is both simple and looks accurate.
 

Every best wish on your knee replacement, Bruce.

Log entry 5 - first planking layer done!
 
Alright, the first layer is done! Here is the current state, before any sanding:
 

 

 

 

 

 
It was a very easy hull to plank, with quite gentle curves and relatively little tapering needed. This is my third time planking a hull, and this was definitely the easiest yet. Also the smallest, which helps.
 
It looks a bit rough now, before any sanding, but looking down the hull, I think it will be easy to sand it and the lines are very nice as you turn the hull in your hand (if that makes sense, hard to explain...).
 
I also dry fitted the keel, made from 3 mm pear, which fit in very nicely:

 
After sanding, I will glue this in, and then it is on to the second planking!
 
BR
TJM
 
 

Log entry 4 - more canon and carriages 
 
It has been a little while and it is time for a few updates.
 
I have almost finished the first planking of the hull, but I am missing the last two planks - I will show some pictures in the next update.
 
In the meantime, I tried to create a carriage as best I could from the drawings and Eckersbergs paintings and drawings. There is a bit of guesswork, but I am quite happy with this look. 
 

 

 

 

 

 
I considered making it from laser cut wood, but decided to try to 3D print it first.
 
However, in my excitement I forgot that I was actually modelling the short 18 pdr! So I didn't scale it down to 12 pdr size... But I decided to print some barrels at the same time, so I got a bunch of 18 prdr barrels and carriages that fit together:
 

 

 

 
I think it will work nicely with the 3D printed carriage when fitted out with eye bolts and painted, I just need to scale it down to 87 % size for it to be a 12 pdr instead!
 
Here is a comparison of the new 18 pdr and my previously printed 12 pdrs:
 

 
I will be back with another update on the hull planking soon.
 
BR
TJM
 

Thanks! That is a great input! 
 
I can make two engraving runs, one for the nails at much lower intensity. Or I can of course forego the nails entirely. I will run a few tests 😁

At scale, the deck plank fastenings would be all but invisible. Nail ends were usually covered by wood plugs that matched the planking.

Very nicely rendered, Mathias. Never make a thing simple if you can make it complicated!