rybakov

Continuation: Equipment of the yards - Quarter blocks of the lower yards - Poulies d'ecoute et de cargue-point
The quarter blocks of the lower yards were equipped with double strops and lashed at the appropriate positions with rose lashings.
Other model building colleagues have successfully demonstrated that it is even possible to depict a rose lashing on a scale of 1:75 and smaller. It should be all the easier to do on a scale of 1:48.
In this context, I remembered Frank's contribution "Making rose lashings" (LINK). In it he explained very clearly and comprehensibly with text and pictures the step-by-step process of how to make a rose lashing. The tool he made from toothpicks makes the process a whole lot easier.
Thanks to these excellent instructions, I was able to try a rose lashing on a test yard relatively quickly in advance, after I had modified Frank's tool a bit. In this respect, I can simply pull it apart through the sockets and don't have to snap through the toothpicks later.

 
By temporarily gluing the aid to the yard, the required cross lays can be easily produced.

 
I like the result. So I will then do it at the appropriate positions.

 
I still have to think about the execution of the knot.
Sequel follows …

Hello,
the carpenters fished mostly the cabins and the painter painted them. They will get now some free days till Eastern, but the shipwright has to think about the galley. Some bricks are ordered, but there are some more questions to solve. 
 
If you want to find the dust, make a picture 😄 

Hallo and many thanks,
today the carpenters where fit Keith and started with the cabins. 😉

I personally feel the artist is still too much in the 18th-19th century mindset - somehow the proportions seem wrong. The same problem applies to the early (and to some degree the current) theoretical reconstructions of the Newport ship. Just somehow look wrong. For a better look, check out Carpaccio's carracks

Or better yet, as your ship is Spanish, these ones from the votive table of the parish of San Pedro de Zumaia in Spain https://zumaia.eus/es/noticias/la-tabla-botiva-de-la-parroquia-de-san-pedro-se-muestra-en-la-exposicion-sobre-elcano probably celebrating the victory of ships led by Juan Martínez de Mendaro, in 1475 in the Strait of Gibraltar, against the Portuguese and Genoese armies."The ship on the left bears the arms of Portugal, and the one on the right those of Castile."

and here's a somewhat better detailed version (for some reason it's been mirror imaged - it's actually the ship on the right in the picture above)

There's also the retable of St Ursula by Joan Riexach of Catalonia (now part of Spain, but then a separate kingdom) of 1468

Regarding the forecastle sheer, I believe many painters exaggerated it - I wouldn't make it any more than on the Mataro model.
'Blush'
 
Steven

Why nobody in the books talk about this subject? I think, we highly underestimate the enemy: the aggressiveness of the salt.
Why would a line be tarred and the next one untarred? Inevitably, by cross contamination, both lines would finish tarred.
 
Jean Boudriot wrote a letter about which lines are tarred.
One sentence is interesting: The rope for the ship rudder wheel is not expose to the salt, so tarring this line is unjustified.
Does that mean that the idea is very simple: If a line is expose to the salt, tar the line.

Hello and thank you Keith,
the bulwark is ready and fast    The workers got a free afternoon, I think they are now in on of the pubs around here.



And that is what you will see later from it. The next things to do are the cabins.

 

I just finished a clay maquette of the Bellona figurehead, at double scale, or 3/8" =1'-0".
Here is a filler showing location and fit with the cheeks:

Then taking the advice of David Antscherl's Fully Framed Models tutorial on carving, I used an artist's guide to dimensions of the female figure to get the right proportions of things, and initially modeled Bellona with no clothes yet:

It is a good thing I did this, because I discovered that the original figurehead on the first Bellona model had lower legs way too short for the torso, minuscule feet, and a head pushed too far forward from the neck. To me, she also looks too cherubic to be the goddess of war:
 

Since I had to add arms anyway, I looked at other artistic renderings of Bellona for a fiercer, more war-like look. I found a haunting image by Bertrand MacKennal of a sculpture in the Australian War Memorial https://es.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archivo:Mackennal_-_War.jpg.
 
Mine is not as haunting, but as good as I can do, first go around:
 

Next, reducing this by one half, and doing another maquette. I might try to do it in Sculpey so I can take measurements from it for the wood carving version after it is hardened. Does anyone know if Sculpey shrinks when baked in an oven?
 
Mark
 
 
 

The breeches of the guns were often made from old shrouds, therefore, tarred, the guns in the great chamber had untarred breeches, in France, they were also painted with Spanish white

Continuation: Equipment of the yards - Quarter blocks of the lower yards - Poulies d'ecoute et de cargue-point
As already announced, here are the smaller quarter blocks for the fore yard.

In addition to the fully assembled quarter blocks, you can also see some eyebolts and thimbles for the jackstays here on this picture.

Hello,
we where all busy over the weekend and the shipwright is pleased. Some small spots he found, where the painter must rework his painting. But at least most of the parts are ready. Even the windows for the cabins. Tomorrow the blacksmith should come to installed the door handles. 

I finished the model base:

Deck repainted the correct tan colour.  Custom skid beams installed to hold the boats.  I’m now touching up the paint before applying clear coat so I can add the diluted black wash to the deck.  

Some good advice I received on using kid’s white glue as filler, add some talcum powder to thicken it, and add a couple of drops of the colour you’re going to paint over the glue.  Lastly, make sure you clear coat to seal the glue, as it will dry and crack over the years otherwise.

@Jimnclare
Thank you for your kind words.
Also thanks to all the others for the LIKES.
 
@JerryTodd
Thank you for your interest.
Correct. As seen in the Constitution picture, the jackstay is an iron bar and not served.
 
Continuation: Equipment of the yards - quarter blocks - poulies d'ecoute et de cargue-point
Next up is making the blocks for the lower yards. In the first step I placed the quarter blocks, which were arranged in the middle of the yard using a double strop. These single blocks were used to deflect the topsail sheets and were among the largest blocks on the corvette. These blocks are 8.7 mm long for the main yard of the model and 6.8 mm long for the fore yard.
The blocks were made in the usual way and real discs were installed for this size.
In the euphoria I accidentally made four 8.7 mm long quarter blocks, although of course only two are needed for the main yard.


To produce the discs, a brass rod was turned to the required diameter of 5 mm, axle holes were drilled and grooves were cut. I then sawed off the discs with the jeweller's saw.


Here you can see the finished block housing with the discs and axles.

 
In the last picture I have shown the finished quarter blocks for the main yard together with a single block. The block sizes for the model range within this range.

 
After making the quarter blocks for the fore yard, I'll send you a picture to see the size comparison.
In the meantime, thankfully, I have also received interesting information from G. Delacroix on the rigging of the yards
Up soon …

Hello and many thanks for your nice comments and likes,
the carpenters build today the columns and installed them to the middle part of the bulwark


later the painter painted them. I hope that when the paint is dry, it looked a little better, sharper. There are 4 columns left for tomorrow 🤭

little step:




 

Hello,
today was't my day. I made the first panelings, but I could do it better and I did it better.

Hello,
after a serious cold I'm back at the shipyard. I started now with the pillars. At the first picture you will see my method to draw the battens. At the last picture a prototype of a pillar. Just to see how the look and how wide they are, to plan the paneling. And tomorrow I have to change also something.

When all blocks were cut out they were aligned upside down on a flat surface covered with wax paper and glued together. Shaping was done with sanding blocks to match the frame lines. I traced the outline that would be the top of the boat on a scrap piece of maple, cut that with the band saw and glued the boat hull plug to that. I then discovered that by saving the cut off sections I could use those as clamps during the framing process.
 
Next, the keel clamps. The whole hull construction is 1/8" wide thin strips of Basswood. The keel was laminated to the proper thickness, When dry both sides were carefully block sanded. On the upper side where the keel meets the hull wood 1/8" spacer blocks attached.
 
The plug was sprayed with a couple of coats of clear lacquer then waxed so nothing would stick.
 
Assembly was pretty straight forward. I centered the keel and taped it down fore and aft. Starting from the center thin strips, extra long were soaked in water for about 30 seconds. I did some pre-forming around a 1" wood dowel. I inserted the piece between the keel spacers with a small drop of glue and with smaller dowels rolled pressed to the hull and keel then attached the ends on both sides with a couple dabs of glue. Taped it in place with some blue tape, fit up the outer clamps, added another 1/8" spacer on each side of the frame. Repeated same until complete. Planking was done in the usual manner. Cutting hull loose along the sheer line established by the upper strake was pretty easy with a sharp No.11 Xacto blade.
 
More sanding, primer, painting was next. I mixed a warm white with a touch of yellow and deck tan for the hull. Pure white is too bright for a scale model. As in a painting white should be reserved for that super white sparkle reflected by the Sun.

We’ve caused problems, and solved those and others.   I found out why my deck colours didn’t match - obviously I used the wrong paint!  When I bought the kit I also bought buff colour paint intending to mix with yellow to paint the hull sides.  But then I bought Yellow Ocre for the sides, putting the Buff paint away for future projects.  But then it came time to paint the upper decks and I grabbed the Buff instead of the Deck Tan I’d used on the lower deck.
 
But it all ends well, since my cannon ropes frayed (see cannon below), requiring me to rip out the cannons.  Thankfully the kit has an extra sprue of cannons, and besides I’m replacing the forecastle 12 pounders with vacuum formed 32 pdr cannonades a friend in my model club made for me - so the destruction of a few cannons in the removal process isn’t so bad.  And, since the deck is now scratched up from canon removal I can repaint with the proper Deck Tan paint, clear coat and add my diluted black wash to match the lower deck.
 
My friend above from the Toronto model boat club (I highly recommend joining such clubs) also made me oars for the boats, and gave me better string for the cannons.  See below, note the oar in the boat.  I’ve also made the skid beams from 2.5 mm square styrene strips, to hold the boats. 
 
And a reason for joining clubs is advice when all seems lost.  The starboard (larboard) forecastle deck edge would not meet up with the hull side, no matter my clamps.  The club recommended I used children’s white craft glue to fill the gap.  And it worked perfectly, see below.  I took the opportunity to glue over gaps in the stern gallery and quarterdeck to hull sides.  Once the glue dries I’ll paint all with the Deck Tan and then restring the cannons and get back to it.

After completion of the quarter deck and poop deck it was time for a side excursion of a one off small project... the Admiral's barge. The design I chose was a carvel planked Pinnace single bank rowing platform. The oarsmen were staggered fore and aft with longer sweeps for speed. The crew was twelve at the oars plus the coxswain at the tiller. These boats were long and narrow. The barge on 1765 model of Victory scales out close to 40 feet.
 
Using Photoshop I elongated the the profile by adding two extra rowing stations amidships then made multiple copies of the frame stations to paste on the Renshape blocks for cutting on the jigsaw.

@wefalck
Hi,
thank you for your interest and the nice note.
Also thanks to all the others for the many LIKES.
 
Here it continues with a small update:
Continuation: Equipment of the yards - among other things Jackstays - Filière d`envergure.
Petrejus writes in his book "The model of the brig of the Irene" on page 207, that around 1811 yards were equipped with jackstays for the first time. By the early 1820s, these were in general use on larger square riggers, Petrejus continues. This is also consistent with statements in the Journal of the German Maritime Archives on the Hamburg Galiot Mary Ann on page 413. Initially these were made of cordage of natural fiber, and later these were made of wire rope or iron rods.
As can be clearly seen in some of the pictures of the original Paris model of La Créole, jackstays made of stiffened cordage were also used there. I have not found anything on the plans of Jean Boudriot's monograph on the La Créole itself. Under the illustration on p. 170, however, there is a short description of the jackstays. Accordingly, the sails should only have been attached at the lower and topsail yards by means of jackstays, if I have understood it correctly. The topgallant sails and the royals were obviously attached to the yard in the conventional way by means of a lashing.

Source: Monograph La Creole by J. Boudriot, p. 170
 
Since the jackstays, except for the head cringles, had to take the whole tractive force of the sails, I am of the opinion that massive eyebolts with collars were used to fasten them to the yards. In this respect, I am guided by a drawing from the Atlas du Génie maritime, which shows a massive forged eyebolt. Whether these eyebolts were also used for this purpose, I could not determine. However, this possibility does not seem to me to be completely absurd.

Source: Extract from Atlas du Génie maritime
 
Therefore, I made scaled test pieces and mounted them on a yard, which was a scrap from the yard production. After pulling in a served rope of the appropriate thickness, I think it looks quite passable, as can be seen in the following picture.


The jackstays were set on top of the yards in the forward area.
A served rope was first placed around the yardarm with an eye splice and then passed through the eyebolts, which were attached to the yard at intervals of about 3 m, towards the center of the yard. There at the rope end of the jackstay a thimble was tied in. With the thimble of the jackstay end from the other direction and a lashing tied in, the jackstays were braced in the center of the yard.
I will soon start making and installing the jackstays.
At the same time, there are still a number of questions to be clarified regarding the equipment of the yards, such as:
- Sequence of ropes to be attached to the yardarms (jackstays, lifts, braces, footropes, yard tackle etc.)
- design and fastening of the stirrups
- number and size of yard blocks
- yard hangers and fastening
etc.
The extent to which the French, like the English, had yard tackles permanently attached to the main yard and fore yard, or only when needed, also needs to be clarified. On the Paris model, however, there are no yard tackles to be seen. However, I miss corresponding hangers on the yardarms to attach them when needed. As described by Petrejus, it would be conceivable to have strops around the yardarms to which the pendants including tackle could be hooked if necessary.
Would be very grateful for hints and suggestions on the open questions.
 

Thanks for your interests and "Likes" everyone.
 
Some more shots from 5-22.

Thank you all for the likes and the kind comments.  Chapman, yes, this print has been quite fascinating to me.  I suspect that it is directly connected to or derived from the “Gilded Ghost” portrait.  While this engraving is often labeled Soleil Royal, there is not enough specifically detailed information to make that connection.  The only detail that seems to hint at this possibility is the figurehead.
 
What is more interesting is the caption note that explains that this is a Levant fleet ship, which would make it more likely a representation of the Royal Louis.  In any case, I like the crossed fish tail ornaments on the upper bulwarks, and I will attempt to incorporate this idea into my decor for the SR 1670 project.
 
This weekend, I painted and installed the upper balcony support pillars:


I definitely think that beefing these up was a good idea.
 
I also finally managed to glue-in the starboard headrail.  Before doing so, I decided to add  a small support that attaches to the middle main wale.  This is a small detail that I have observed on various models and portraits:

I had an extra pair of cathead supports, so I used these to fashion these small supports:



I like the continuity of this small addition, as now all of the ornamental pilasters of the headrails are supported.  It is well in keeping with the spirit of the kitbash.
 
Now, I can prepare the figure carvings that are placed just aft of the headrails, and which bridge the bellflower garland between the main deck guns and the headrails:

Prior to installation, I pad the backs of these carvings so that the carving can seat just above the drift rails:

Little by little, we are getting there.  There is a  continual process of paint-retouches and weathering that is happening simultaneously. Next, I’ll secure the port headrails, so that I can fill-in the intermediary headrail support timbers and begin filling-in the head grating.
 
Thank you for looking in.
 

Hello Marc,
As always, your model is making great progress.
Here is a link to a well-known image of a French first rate. The information about the print is particularly interesting here.