rybakov

some details of the mast:

 

 

 

 

 
 
First bindings: bowsprit forks:

 

After adding the two ring bolts to the rudders spectacle plate, I moved onto the the gudgeons and straps. These were made in the same way as I did for the rudder.
 

The mill comes in handy for drilling the strap holes.
 

7 layers of masking tape give the right thickness to sand the gudgeon and strap down to 1/32" before tapering.
 

The only working hinges are at the top and bottom of the rudder. The other three are faked by gluing the pintles into the gudgeons.
 
Mike

Much to my surprise, Chuck was able to laser cut the rudder from 1/4" boxwood. From what I understand it took some experimentation with the settings in order to achieve a good result. I think that you will agree that he did a great job.

The black painted straps were first thinned down to 1/32” and then tapered aft down to 1/64”. 

The strap bolts were made from 20lb mono and are press fitted deep into the drilled holes, but not bottomed out. No gluing necessary. I added only two hoops at the top of the rudder. These were made from a thick, pliable cardboard type material that I found in a package for a mini miter box. They were wrapped around the rudder in one piece and the ends joined at the leading edge so as not to be seen. The uppermost hoop was omitted as it will be hidden by the rudder trunk.

I used a .010 brass strip to help in getting the bolts to stand proud consistently. I drilled an oversize hole in the strip. The hole was placed over the mono and then the mono was flush cut. Before removing the brass strip, I pushed down on the mono with a small dowel to make sure it was flush with the strip.
 
Mike

Hi 🙂

I have proceeded with gluing the cross beams in place. The cross beam are straight, and have a support that sits above the keelson. The cross beams are not well preserved in the find, so the reconstruction made some assumptions. No remains of the support exist, but holes exist which indicate that they would have existed.
 
I have deviated from the find and the reconstruction in one major way. The cross beams will have knees that go up on the planks as support. In reality one of the knees should be from naturally grown wood (i.e. a branch), while the opposite end has a loose knee nailed to the cross beam. The naturally grown knee should be installed alternately on port and starboard. I have made the simplification to make both knees loose parts.
 

The supports are tapered in both ends. In this i follow the boat builder that built the reconstruction. This detail is not documented in reconstruction report, but I think it looks nice.
 
Tapering in simplest possible way by sticking a tooth pick into my Proxxon rotary tool and tapering against a sand paper.
 

The finished result:

 
 
 
 

Before I continue with the rest of the cross beams I thought that it would be time to prepare the floor boards. There is no evidence for these in the find; they floated away, or they never existed, who knows. They where not part of the reconstruction drawings either. Remember that the original assumptions was to have ballast, and then they would have been constructed differently. I base my model on how the floor boards currently look on the reconstruction.
First I created cardboard templates.

Then I cut longer planks and built several at a time.

Now all the floor boards are fitted:

 
Note the space between the frames where the halyard is belayed, no floor there. It is also the area used for bailing the ship, so a floor would be in the way. (Note that the floor is not used to walk on, its for keeping the cargo out of the bilge water.) You walk on the rower seats, see the little girl in the film here:
 
 

Marc and John, thank you so much for your kind words.  And John, I am equally enjoying the work that you are doing with this fabulous Heller kit.  Your figurehead has me considering how I will color the other robed figures that inhabit my upper bulwarks.
 
It has been a bit of a hectic week, as I consider moving my family, yet again, in the never-ending quest for a reasonable three-bedroom apartment in NYC.
 
Slowly, I have been assembling the QG open walk and painting the stern.  It is fiendishly difficult to get into the recesses of this stern window plate, and I really wish I had painted it off of the model.  Slowly, though, we are getting there:
 


I’ve masked with blue tape, the footprints of the Four Seasons figures.  I also decided to extract as much recyclable detail from the two extra stern plates that members of this community have so generously donated.
 
On the forward end of the open walk, I thought that block could do with a little finishing, so I extracted the paneling detail from that same corresponding area on the stern-plate, turned it sideways, and now that looks a little nicer.
 
The bombastic form of this block, which I may or may not be interpreting correctly, is very curious to me:

 
I wonder how such a thing would actually have been made on the real ship.  would they have sheathed a light framework with thin deal planks, or would they have shaped a solid balk of lightweight timber, much like I have for the model?
 
The other interesting discovery, this past week, was Ronald Portanier’s dissertation on the evolution of French marine sculpture throughout the Ancien Regime.  He has a number of interesting insights into decorative styles, color and the use of Trompe L’oeil.  It is quite lengthy, but well worth the look.
 
There are a few gems in the Appendices, also, including a super detailed port quarter view  of the Monarque/RL’s stern - something I was just asking Chapman about, recently.  There is also a fascinating unfinished rough sketch for the stern of an early First Marine, first-rate ship.  If that weren’t enough, there are also several insightful LeBrun portraits that give a good sense for the colors that might be used to accentuate the ship’s carved figures.  Check the link below for a look-see:
 
https://spectrum.library.concordia.ca/984742/1/Portanier_PhD_S2019.pdf
 
As a side note, the BSI debonder does an excellent job of sloughing away the finished surface of acetate.  I think I will just live with the blemish.  It is small.

Hello,
before I start, I would like to show the mizzen topmast head with the standing backstays as a supplement to my last report.

 
Contrary to my announcement, I will finish all the standing backstays first. It makes more sense to finish the rigging on one level first and then go upstairs.
So I continued with the main topmast backstays. 

 
I made these backstays from a rope with ø 0.81 mm (8 x 3 jap. silk YLI). The dead eyes have a diameter of 4 mm). 

 
Here you can see the main topmast with the backstays.

 
The double blocks for the shifting backstays are already installed on the channel of the main mast.

 

@archnav
@Mic.fr
 
thank you both for the kind comments. Thanks to the others for all the LIKES, of course.
It is always a pleasure to receive such feedback. It motivates me and gives me strength for monotonous work.
 
I have now finished the mizzen topmast backstays for the starboard side. For these standing backstays, two on each side of the ship, I made the lanyards from Japanese silk 4 x 1, which gives a diameter of 0.30 mm.  

 

 

 
 
 

The next step is to attach the shifting backstays for the mizzen topgallant.
 

I've always liked this image found on the third volume of the 74 guns; so I want to represent my Venus with this arrangement:
 

 

 

 

the stern light. It is not exactly very precise, I did not realize that during the welding the two planes have probably moved, but it is already a lot to be able to do it!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
 

Hi 🙂

My name is actually not Håkan, it’s Tobias 😁 You must be confusing me with wintergreen, who’s name is Håkan.
 
The branch extension on top of the keelson is common in finds from Viking age and medieval times. It think it provides a kind of stop for the mast when you raise it onboard. On the reconstruction we use a mast crane to raise the mast, so I’m not sure how the exact process would look like.

I guess that either adding a sacrificial piece, or replacing a part of the keelson are both possible. The latter being much harder. It has taken 35 years to wear down the groves. Even if considering that the reconstruction hasn’t sailed as much as the original, I think that it’s unlikely that wear would eat through the keelson before the service life of the ship had reached its end.

The keelson of walnut turned out well, so I proceeded as planned.

Note the peg and the wear on the underside of the keelson.

The groves are from the halyard which is led under the keelson and belayed with support of the peg. Every time the yard is raised or lowered the rope eats away at the wood.

 
I have also installed the first cross beam and tested the mast in place.
 

My usual evening pics :
 

 

Hello and many thanks for your likes and comments
now the last scrolls are done 😅
You may also notice, that I painted the underwater ship new. The dark areas in the pictures are shadows and noise. So don't worry, it's now mostly white with only a little weathering at the hull and a dirt ring around the ship where is normally the water surface. But at the pictures it looks really dark 😕
 
The next things to do are the steps
 

 

 

 

Following the structural works (fatty or beefy, nothing glued) :
 

 

 

 

All frames done, but not glued :
 

 

 

 

In the meantime I have finished the mizzen topmast shrouds.

 

 

 
I have made the preparations for the mizzen topmast backstays. The implementation will take place soon.

Here I show how to determine the diameter of a rope relatively accurately (13,6,41 mm / 20 = 0,67 mm).


The picture shows a dead eye with a diameter of 2.8 mm for the tackle to be attached to the mizzen topmast backstays on the channels.
You can also see a rope with a diameter of 0.67 mm for the mizzen topmast backstays.

 
 
 
 
 

the stern light:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I have finished laying all the candlesticks:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ok, looks a bit better now 🙂
 
The sailers will be able to pass in between the flaps and do not have to jump them 😉
 

 

 
Now the support fold in the coaming, so that the flaps do not swing down, the plug holes for the iron corner posts of the guardrail, the stairs correctly aligned and good it will be.
 
🙂
 
XXXDAn
 

Anyone ever hear of Captain Charles Noble?
 
The amount of brightwork (metal) on a ship depended upon the crew and the officers. I was Engineering Officer on a small minesweeper - the "flagship" of the squadron. The crew kept all the brass piping, engine valve covers, gauges and such in the engine room polished. It was their doing, not mine, because they took pride in their engine room. Of course, since we were bolted to the pier most of the time, polishing brass was about all the watch crew had to do.
 
When I went aboard the cruiser (another flagship) most brass was painted. The Captain was a no nonsense man who was commanding a ship of war. After 12 years on cruisers he could drive the 15,000 ton ship like a sports car! The awnings were gray and the metal was painted gray. We got a new XO who wanted to polish all the brass and paint the piping in a rainbow of colors (not the standard navy engineering colors). I was on the bridge when the XO was explaining his plans to the Captain. "Rodney," the Captain said, "you want to turn my ship into a circus boat!"
 
Then that Captain left and we got a new Captain who had spent most of his career commanding a LMD (large mahogany desk). I'm not sure he knew the difference between the pointy end and the blunt end. I don't think he ever took the conn. The XO talked him into making changes, and pretty soon our circus boat was decked out with white awnings, McNamara's lace, and polished brass. The XO went around with a pocket knife scraping paint off of everything looking for brass. Woe be it to the Division Officer who had painted brass!
 
So, to be "historically correct" you would have to model a particular year and know how the officers and crew wanted the brass to look.
 
PS: Ever been in port after a bunch of ships "blew stacks to clear out the soot? White awnings don't stay white very long. There is a reason they were usually gray.
 
PPS: Captain Charles Noble insisted that the brass galley stack on his 1850s English merchantman stay brightly polished. To this day the galley stack on ships is called the Charley Noble.

I can tell you from personal experience that every piece of brass on my signal bridge was polished all the time.😧
 
Regards,