BLACK VIKING

While there was a pair of 30 cal guns mounted here, there was little to no way to swing the aim left or right, nor to elevate. Even the main gun had very small lateral movement or elevation. Maybe 15 to 20 degrees total I’m guessing. The main turret mounts a 37 mm gun that fully rotated.
 
 

Steady as she goes

Success! I've found upholstery thread that does the job in the right colour, plus some other kind of thread which I can't remember that's a tiny bit thinner, in off-white cotton (which can be dyed to match the existing thread). 
 
Just started replacing the tacks and sheets, and it looks good.
 
No photos so far.
 
BTW, thanks everybody for the likes and supportive comments.
 
Steven

Thank you. That’s right, Kevin. Upon completing the 3-D model, it could later provide all the necessary 2-D projections of each single part, assemblies or intersections. I have put a few quickly made samples below. Please note some strange lines may still appear, as many parts are not already cut to their final shape, masts are still a simple dowels, gunports are not yet pierced etc.
 

 

 
 
 

The vessel  “Święty Jerzy” (eng. “Saint George”) was an admiral ship of the Polish fleet in the 3rd decade of the 17th century, so it can be said she was an indirect opponent of the Swedish “Vasa” of 1628 in the struggle between the two then belligerent nations.
 
She took a major part in the battle of Oliwa in 1627, capturing by boarding the opponent admiral ship “Tigern” (eng. “Tiger”). The following year, in a retaliatory land-borne attack on the fleet base, led personally by the Swedish king, she was smashed, set on fire and eventually sunk by heavy artillery – large calibre demi-cannons (24-pdrs). Perhaps rather short operational story, nevertheless quite intensive (detailed descriptions of both epic fights have survived).
 
Ultimately, the intention is to build wooden scale model, and a 3-D reconstruction in Rhinoceros is currently underway. The starting point is the two extant fleet’s inventories and contemporary iconography of the battle, mainly a painting made only a few years after the battle.
 
While many details are sourced – of necessity – from various depictions and written works, I have also tried to retain the general layout of the ship as depicted in the painting of the battle, such as the large counter with a bas-relief (or painting) associated with the ship’s name and the low-lying gunroom (entirely below the gun deck). Given the rather low sternpost, this implies that the rudder must have been operated from the level of the gun deck, and not (as usual?) in the steerage located one level higher.
 

 
Swedish, Polish and Dutch ships at the Battle of Oliwa 1627; painting by Adolf Boy, contemporary resident of the fleet base
 
 
Local documents of legal nature suggest that the ship was built using a skeleton technique (as opposed to the shell method), and I have made efforts to shape the underwater body of the hull so that it could be achieved by most of the known skeleton methods (as can be derived from contemporary Iberian, French and English works on shipbuilding). At the same time the assumption was made no scale drawings on paper in the construction process were made, only true-scale tracing on the shipyard platform/ground.
 
On the other hand, it is believed that ships built in the southern Baltic area had many features in common (structural, decorative, rigging) with other ships built in the north of the continent, as exemplified by the Dutch built Swedish “Vasa”, Dutch manuscript (mainly on rigging) of around 1650 or the Dutch monumental work on shipbuilding by Witsen, so masterfully interpreted by Ab Hoving. As a result, in contrast to the conceptual features of the ship (hull shape), these are the main sources used for the reconstruction of structural and rigging elements, besides the Scandinavian early 17th century contracts for building men-of-war and the French works containing data on timber scantlings (largely Atlantic-oriented “Construction des Vaisseaux du Roy” of 1691).
 
Some visualisations of the 3-D model in the present (unfinished) state:
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
Cheers,
Waldemar

As I am going to be away from home for a month and not taking SR with me. I thought I would do a brief update. As mentioned before, I've been pondering the lack of access to the upper decks and have decided on a way forward which, for the poop deck, is in the picture below. It solves the problem of the guns being in the way nicely, I think, and is aesthetically pleasing (to me at least). I don't make any claims as to historical accuracy but that's true of a lot of the detail on this ship. I will be adding handrails to the steps. For the uppermost deck, I will have movable ladders stored against the bulwarks by the end doors.
I've also made a start on the masts, making the wooldings and painting them, and am taking my books and plans away with me to try and work out the rigging more clearly so hopefully when I get home I can order what I need for that mammoth task.
And I've decided that I will change the angle of the bowsprit, which I think is do-able even at this stage. Part of that will be to slightly reduce the height of the head rails at their terminus behind the figurehead which looks too high compared with the Berain drawing. Incidentally, the spar itself looks much smaller and frailer compared to that on the Saint Philippe. I wonder if the SR spar is another error.

Thks Alan!I am basically done with the shading little things here and there nothing major though.She starting to look like a He-111 now the sides of the fuse and tail are not done as hard as the areas exposed to direct light.

Starting to rig the fore course and topsail. I've been following Anderson, as he's the nearest thing to contemporary for this period - only 60-100 years too late. But is it just me or do others think he's really difficult to read? I find I have to have my wits about me to follow what he's saying.
 
First thing I did was the topsail halyard and tye, but Anderson says the tye went through a sheave in the topmast. There's no way I was going to try drilling a hole in that fore topmast (or the main topmast, for that matter) - look how thin it is! 

So instead I faked it - a short section of tye leading out from the front of the mast, and another, longer one from the rear, running down to a block just below the base of the fighting top - apparently the same bit of rope, but in fact each wrapped around the mast by a single turn, looking rather like a parrel. I decided to leave the parrel truck off - too confusing. 
 
       
 A "runner" goes through the block - the fixed end to the port side, the runner to another block with the halyard, which has its free end and fixed end both going to the starboard side.

I decided to do ALL the rigging for the larboard side of the forecourse, and once I'd done that do the starboard side. So far I've done clewline, sheet and tack, plus the topsail sheet (all left loose for the time being).

The sheet for the course is supposed to start from a ringbolt or eyebolt set into the side of the hull just in front of the main channel. I hadn't planned to bother with that - that would be pretty tiny, but then I though "Why not?" - so I got some thin wire, wrapped it around a sewing needle and actually made an eyebolt that looks right!
     
And I've found a good way to introduce "belly" into the sails. When I added the boltropes, the scale was so small that there was no way I was going to be able to sew them on - so I just ran a bit of PVA (white)  glue along each edge of the sail and glued cotton onto the edge to act as a boltrope. Now I find that if I dampen the glue and curve the sail (eg with a bit of thread holding up the clew) the curve stays in the sail when the glue dries.
 

       

But now I'm a bit stuck - I began by using cotton crochet thread, which was great for the shrouds and stays, but now I need something a bit thinner for sheets, tacks etc. Unfortunately the thread I have is either too thin (sewing cotton) or too thick (crochet thread). I'm going to have to look further afield and get something in between. I know there is good rigging line available but the sizing conventions for crochet thread are in numbers - No. 10 is thick, 20 is thinner etc. and they bear no relation to actual sizes in inches or millimetres, so if I want to order from a ship rigging supplier I have no frame of reference - I can't compare the stuff I want with the stuff I already have. I'm waiting till tomorrow to go to a specialty sewing etc shop to see if I can get finer crochet thread. Otherwise . . .
 
Steven
 

I busted out a box of pastels using a light white grey and an even lighter sand mixed started some blending.I had the airbrush set up with some flat I coat spray coat till I was happy....I think I am happy with the wings and the L/Tailplane.The build is starting to come together just longer than most for me at least it's getting artistic ATTM.

Coming along nicely, Javlin. Good weathering takes time and many layers. Don't rush. 😁

The response from the builder in regard to painting,
I painted the tug some 10 years ago and it was my first attempt at weathering any of my models! (I just winged it). From what I remember I used all humbrol enamel paints, the green was no2 gloss , I brushed this on fairly thick with a hap hazard fashion so as not to leave the brush strokes going one way or the other, I didn’t want a gloss deck so on went a coat of satin cote again in a hap hazard fashion. A couple of washes one in a very weak black and one in a rusty colour. I dry brushed the areas I thought would have more wear with a light grey or light green I can’t remember. I didn’t do anything really fancy but I guess it come out okay!  This was in no337 of marine modelling international April 2015

Well, after a lot of trial, and even more error, I seem to have sorted the problem out. The first problem to solve was getting the mizzen stay the right length - as it has a pair of deadeyes and lanyards as part of its length, what I did was to try attaching the two ends separately - one to the lower part of the mainmast, the other to the mizzen just below the top -and then add the lanyards. Bad idea. After many iterations and false starts I realised what I should have done is put the whole assembly together and pull the lanyards roughly to length, then attach the ends to the masts.
 
So I did that - in fact I only threaded the lanyard through a single pair of holes in the deadeyes to start with, to see if it would work - and it worked like a charm (relatively - I discovered when I had the assembly partly threaded that I'd run the lanyard through a gap between the deadeye and the strop instead of through the hole in the deadeye, so I had to pull it all out and do it again. This kind of thing keeps happening to me - I really dread doing this fiddly stuff with ropes - they don't seem to like me and tangle at the slightest opportunity. However, I am learning bit by bit about how the rigging works, so perhaps it's all for the best).

I finished threading the lanyards, and then of course I had to remove the glue from the mainmast, which had accumulated from the false starts. I think I've got rid of it all 
 
And then the same procedure with the lower bonaventure stay:

I'm not totally happy with the way the ends of the strops lie against the stays - I'm considering shortening them so they look tidier, but I might be better leaving well enough alone -they're not perfect, but messing with them might make them worse (worst case scenario I might accidentally cut through the stay and have to start all over again).
 
Then to start on the halyard, threading it through the sheaves of the knight and the block. Not all that easy - I didn't have all that much room - the knight was so close to the fore bulwark of the upper deck that it was difficult getting the tweezers in to grab the free end of the halyard - and I had to do that three times. Oh, and I'd got it through three sheaves when I discovered it was on the wrong side of the stay so I had to unthread it again and re-do it. Finally finished it, and I have to say it looks better. Apart from anything else, the knot at the end of the halyard (which holds it from pulling through the sheave) is now on the forrard side - which means it can't be seen - and what you can see is three nice parallel lines running between the knight and the block.

Not only that but I discovered that when I was putting the knight in place many months ago I had inadvertently put it about 2 millimetres off-centre - just enough to avoid the problem I'd been so concerned about - that the halyards and tyes would chafe on the mizzen stay. Funny how these things turn out, that an earlier mistake solves a later problem.
 
The mizzen stay and main halyard assembly in relation to each other. On the right hand photo you can see the free end of the strop on the lower deadeye isn't tied down properly.
    
In this photo it's now tied down, but not totally happy with the look. As you can see, I haven't pulled the halyards and lanyards tight. I think I'll leave this for the moment and do it when I'm sure it won't have the same nasty effects as last time.

On another subject, I've added all the ratlines to the lower bonaventure shrouds. This photo shows the ratlines in place and in the process of being trimmed to length (I've since completed them). Sorry about the photo quality - the automatic focus on my phone is very frustrating.

 
Steven

I was not as careful as needed to align the front armor plate on the hull, so an ensuing gap was filled with strip styrene. 
 
 

Finally got some shop time and got all the cannons mounted.  She has her teeth.  Part of the delay was one cannon disappeared.  I found it but the carriage was heavily damaged.  Repaired and replaced some wooden bits and all is well. 
 

 

Respect and love to all the Vets.
 
OC.

Not sure if this has been provided before, however I found it tedious converting the actual rigging size from admiralty tables (inches circumference) to scale diameters in mm so I could order and fit the correct size rope.
 
The table below is in various 'common' scales and the scale size is rounded to the nearest scale size.
 
I hope this is helpful for other modellers

Great idea -- and I love the precision "clamps"!

So very nicely done!

Let's continue, friends.
While there is an opportunity (before the mast), we decided to demonstrate to you
how the carronade could be moved  between the platforms on the launch.
💡By the way, a very interesting option to show on the model, if without a mast and sails.

Aquitania 
In her 'proper'colours
w/c 11" X 8"

Several things to take note of in this photo:
I decided not to glaze the windows behind the cockpit. There's nothing of interest to see in the compartment, and cutting out the printed "glass" panels would leave a very narrow and weak strip right next to where the sharpest bend in the exterior skin is -- that's a potentially deadly combination. Plus, the skin fit is very tight, and adding the glazing would make the fit worse. There's a slight alignment error, which you can spot at the place where the wing's trailing edge will eventually meet the fuselage. There was little to nothing I could do about this -- the dorsal and ventral alignment tick marks matched perfectly. The opposite side matches perfectly, too, so correcting this side would only throw off the other side. Oh, well. Worse than the slight alignment error is the fact that the colors on the next fuselage section, cut from a different parts sheet, don't match those on the previous section. You can see the difference in the photo -- it's not a trick of the lighting, and it's more apparent in real life. The blue on the forward section has a definite greenish tint, while the aft section is a truer blue. Since some of the fuselage skins are printed on one sheet, while the rest are on the second sheet, this mismatch will be seen elsewhere on the fuselage. It's kind of a bummer, and it's a printing error, so there's really nothing to be done about it.
 
Cheers!

Evening all,   my little pile up is finished  apart from an airbrush flat coat to protect it.
 
OC.

Aquitania In fancy dress