rybakov

That's the  very same ship! The anchors I have made are based on the ones from that wreck. The only question is - are the anchors from a small commercial ship appropriate to a dromon of the same century? (I've assumed they are, but I could be wrong.)
 
The archaeological report on the Serce Limani anchors goes into considerable detail (pages 219-220) to show that the anchors were of standardised dimensions, both in the length of the shank:

. . . .

 
and of arms:
 

 
and that anchors were of standardised weights:



The units above are (Christos, please correct me if I'm wrong) βασιλικη σπιθαμαι (basiliki spithamai = Imperial spans) δακτυλοί (daktyloi = fingers/inches), ποδης (podes = feet), λίτραί (litrai = ?), παλαιστρη (palaistrai = ?), 
 
My only problem now is that the weights above seem to conflict with what I've noted earlier for anchor weights; I need to look over the report again and see if I can reconcile the two.
 
Steven

So, I’ve been focused on making this lowest tier of window lights, just above the false balcony:

I have my general layout, which I pasted to a piece of 3/64” sheet styrene, and then fitted into place:

The primary question was how to go about crafting the raised lip of the window frame.  I knew I had to create a series of layers; the base plate layer, the window frame layer, and the ornamental cartouche layer.
 
The problem is that cutting out the window frames before mounting would result in flimsy parts that would be difficult to shape properly, or glue in place without distortion.  My solution was to paste my layout to the 1/32” sheet and cut blanks to the outer line of the window frame, including the cartouche:


I then extracted pilasters from the stock kit stern plate because the bell flower carvings on these would be challenging to reproduce.
 
Before glueing these window blanks in place, using the pilasters as spacers, I pasted the cartouche layout onto a second strip of 1/32” sheet, and then very carefully cut these to their outline. After doing so, I glued the cartouches down to the frame layer, and then the frame blanks to the base layer:

Before removing the window waste, I thought it would be best to carve the cartouches, while the backing plate still had some structural rigidity.  These are very shallow relief carvings.  Once they are carved and all the remaining fuzz is removed, I like to coat the carvings with liquid cyano.  This serves to ensure that all the tiny tendril-like bits are fixed in place and the cyano smooths over any surface imperfections in the carving.
 
Now - rather than cutting out the window interior twice, I could cut once through the frame layer AND the base layer.
 
First, I drilled a series of relief holes to make material removal faster and easier:

Then I came in with the Dremel to hog out the middles:

Finally, though, it becomes a matter of careful paring with chisels and files:

What I like about this approach is that it affords me the opportunity to occasionally ignore my scribed lines, in an effort to balance out the stile widths, where necessary.
 
I will still need to fashion a pair of scrapers to profile the edges of the window frames so that they have a slightly rounded profile.  They are not a uniform width, all around, so I will have to make scrapers that only cut one edge at a time.  I’ll need opposite bevel scrapers so that I can get into and out of all the corners.
 
Later, I will get to making the glass panes from acetate.  This is all a fair amount of effort, of course, but the results far exceed what Heller provides for, IMO.
 
Thank you for looking in.  More to follow soon, as I frame in the next level of the stern to which this plate attaches.
 
Once again - sorry about the picture orphans below:

I've just been working on the anchors for the dromon. I've made 5 of them.
 
Byzantine ships seem to have had many lightweight anchors rather than a small number of large ones. This seems to be due to the limitations of manufacturing technology - they were made of relatively small pieces of wrought ir on, hammered out to remove the slag and them hammer welded in a forge to join them all together.  The dotted lines in the diagram below (one of the anchors recovered from the 11th century Serce Limani wreck) denote the welds.
 

Unfortunately, as the archaeological report on the anchors (by Frederick. H. van Doorninck Jr, illustrations by Sheila D. Matthews - see https://books.google.com.au/books?id=E6ZJ-05aC-sC&pg=PA237&lpg=PA237&dq=serce+limani+anchors&source=bl&ots=2cbB35RuzX&sig=ACfU3U1pE9YyddqSStaB-VdSDSQfXvc_nw&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjgq9yX_vfmAhWlyDgGHbYRCbsQ6AEwDHoECAoQAQ#v=onepage&q=serce limani anchors&f=false )  states,

The Serce Limani ship had nine anchors on board, of which six were spares stacked together in two piles on the deck. The ship had cast at least three anchors but was probably wrecked when one of them (probably the first to be cast) broke under the strain.
 
All the Serce Limani anchors were of the same type, with minor variations due to their being made individually by blacksmiths. This was a common anchor shape at the time, so I'm using them as a model for the dromon's anchors. I've made five of them - I don't have space for more on the ship. As it is, some will be stored under the forecastle. The best of them will be mounted at the bow.
 
   
I got jewellery chain for a couple of bucks from a hippy shop (with some trashy pendant attached, which I chucked away - but the chain itself is brilliant!)
 
Steven

Hello dear friends,

in the meantime I was able to find out in a publication " Takelung und Ankerkunde - Freiherr von Sterneck -1873 " that pushing the rungs through the rope ladder ropes represents the correct execution.
Quelle: Takelung und Ankerkunde - Freiherr von Sterneck -1873 - Bildband

However, there must be a clear passage at the shrouds.
This is not the case with the Paris model.

Now that the details have been clarified, I can start with the implementation for the model.

So, I’m three years into this project, and all of this time, I’ve been poring over imagery of Soleil Royal and her near contemporaries, and trying to make sense of it all.
 
As a gift for my wife, over the holidays, I took advantage of a 1/2-off framing sale, at BLICK, to have one of her favorite Broadway posters re-framed.  While I was at it, I had my Royal Maritime Museum print of Peter Monamy’s Burning of Soleil Royal framed.  They did a wonderful job, and I’d show you, but the whole thing is shrouded in protective plastic, at the moment.
 
But then, I considered framing my other print of SR, which is Bakhuizen’s Battle of Barfleur.  So, I took out the print, and for the first time in those three years, I really examined SR, in the portrait up close.
 
Now, I have written before about the many fictions and discrepancies of the Bakhuizen portrait, and none of those realities has diminished my appreciation for the spectacle and grandeur that his portrait conveys.
 
Nonetheless, I did take a closer look...

A little bit closer...

The first thing that struck me was that this is not Apollo’s horse-drawn chariot rumbling across the sky of the tafferal.  And the shape of the tafferal cornice is not the reverse-cyma curve of Berain’s drawing.  And those recumbent figures on the tafferal cornice are neither “Europe” with her horse, nor “Asia” with her camel.
 
On the other hand, Bakhuizen’s representation does seem to bear an uncanny resemblance to the better documented Royal Louis:

The tafferal shape is a central dome, beneath which are large reliefs of the triumphal Monarch and two shackled  slaves at his feet.

The posture of the recumbent figures is much closer to that of the winged angel figures, above.
 
And Bakhuizen’s squiggly banner?/rudder chain? beneath the transom moulding actually bears some resemblance to the swagged foliate garland of the Royal Louis:

And so, all of this, once again, reinforces for me that the marine artists, of their day sometimes were limited in their first-hand experience and knowledge of other Country’s ships, and so they made composite portraits from several different sources.
 
To this day, Hayat’s description of the Royal Louis is the best and most complete description of a French First-Rate, from this time period.  Perhaps it was this document that Bakhuizen used to fill-in the blanks.  Maybe the Royal Louis’s reputation as SR’s “sister ship” was reason enough for Bakhuizen to treat their allegories as interchangeable.
 
While, previously, I have posted what I hope may be an authentic description of Soleil Royal, prior to her refit - the specific contemporary correspondence from which the description, supposedly, originates is not made clear in “The Life and Times of Pierre Puget.”  Short of combing through the archives, myself, to find that correspondence, I will just have to take the author’s word for it.
 
Anyway, I just thought this was interesting and worth the mention.
 
As ever, I am greatly appreciative of everyone who is following along, as well as their likes and comments.  That people are interested in wading into the murky waters of the French 17th C. is a tremendous inspiration to me!

Well, it has been very nearly a WHOLE week!  I was going to do one mega-post, in a few weeks, but then I realized that I had quite a lot to say about the transom wale and the motto banner.  I’ve been quite busy.  Anyone who may be bored by it all is, of course, free to pass this over in their email 😉
 
So, here is what I am trying to replicate with the transom wale:

For a somewhat clearer illustration of its profile, let’s zoom-in on this remarkable Puget (I am assuming this is his hand) portrait of Le Dauphin Royal:

As a side note, several people have expressed their opinion to me that this was not an ornamental program that was ever installed on the DR, anytime after her original appearance of 1668:

Their thinking is that this was merely a proposal for decor.  Personally, although I can’t yet say definitively, I think that this blue-tone drawing is an actual portrait of the DR, after her first refit.
 
There are several reasons why I think this.  First, while it is true that the Van de Veldes occasionally drew ships that were entirely fictional, the tradition for decor proposals, in France, was already pretty well established by the 1680’s:  proposals were minimally two-dimensional plan drawings of the stern and starboard quarter, with a third such drawing of the starboard bow.
 
As previously discussed, even among known sets from a particular time (signed and dated by the Intendant of the shipyard), there are often weird anomalies and discrepancies between what the quarter and stern drawings depict.
 
With this blue drawing of the DR, there are no such discrepancies.  It is a fully coherent, and three- dimensional drawing of photographic detail and clarity.  Even details that aren’t fully rendered, are clearly suggested - as with the faint representation of either carved or painted ornament on the stern counter, just beneath the lower false balcony.  Simply put, there is just too much specific detail for me to discount this portrait as anything other than a real representation of the ship as she was.  This drawing will soon prove invaluable to me as it so clearly  depicts the bombastic undulations of the quarter galleries, as well as what the amortisement’s likely composition may have been.
 
Continuing along, if we look more closely at the stern post, we can see the same shape for the transom wale more clearly:

As it is apparent that this is a moulding of some significant depth, and given that I am new to moulding profiling, I decided that it would be best to make up the transom wale as a series of layers.
 
My base layer is the widest piece - a shy 5/16” by 5/64” thick.  Fortified by Dan’s tutorial on moulding scrapers, I ground away the teeth and blacked a line on an old hacksaw blade, so that I could scratch in the first coved profile (on the left):

The scratched profile on the right was the second scraper I made for the middle layer of the stacked moulding.
 
So, first I scraped the bottom edge of the base layer with the first scraper, and lightly cleaned up any remaining chatter with the tip of a round needle file:

Then, I cut the second layer from thinner styrene, incorporating the camber, as before.  After scraping with the second scraper, the moulding looked like this:

So far, so good, but how exactly I was going to carve an ornamental profile into the third half-round layer - which is only 3/32” wide - became the subject of much trial and error.
 
As with any repetitive moulding, the essential aspect is a uniform layout.  Eventually, I arrived at spacing of a shy 1/8” for the eggs, and a shy 1/16” for the darts.  Using my steel rule, I ticked off the spacing and then came back with a simple coved tracing pattern to mark each half of the egg:

Adding a small dimple with the tip of a micro drill bit, gave some much needed dimension to the eggs - the edges of which were softened a bit by scraping with a short-sweeped gouge that I use for virtually all of my carved work;  just three knives, mostly.
 
Finally, I cut back the arrow sides, a bit, to make the egg shapes a little more apparent:

After a little clean-up and refinement with a triangular needle file, I glued sections of the third layer to each half of the transom wale, after first fitting the transom wales and profiling their ends, at the ship sides:




Suffice it to say, this was quite a lot of work, but the results were worth the effort.  I got lucky in that  the depth of the transom wale does not exceed the beveled break of the stern post.  The visual weight of the wale, IMO, is a pretty good approximation of what is show in the portrait of the DR, above.
 
Next up, was the carving of the motto banner.  This was where I started:

The important thing when carving something like this is a basic understanding of how fabric really swags because that informs where you scallop in your troughs, as opposed to your convex billows.  It is a difficult thing to describe, however maybe this early picture (in the process) will make it more clear:

Once your troughs are defined, it is a simple matter of scraping-round your billowing transitions, and looking for opportunities to incorporate subtle highs and lows.  This work can only be achieved slowly, and in a raking light:
 

And now, to get a sense of what this will look like in place, beneath the transom wale:


The lettering for the motto was drawn onto parchment with graphite, using a darkened copy of the outline of the banner, as a guide beneath the parchment.
 
At first, I drew this, and I liked it, but something seemed wrong:

A couple of days later I realized that I had jumbled my Latin.  This is what I was going for:

With that settled, I sprayed the parchment with matte medium, in order to fix the graphite and stiffen the parchment for cutting.
 
I sharpened a #11 blade to a gleaming edge and very carefully extracted the letters.  Finally, using the tip of that blade to pick up each letter, I dragged the backside of each letter through liquid cyano and very carefully placed each letter on the banner:

Once each letter was fully conforming to the shape of the banner, I sealed the whole thing under a wash of liquid cyano.  I will probably spray prime these banner sections before glueing them in place.
 
Next up - the rudder head.  Using Frolich’s L’Ambiteaux as my main guide, I arrived at the following:

At first, I had exaggerated the outboard widening of the rudder, so I revised that taper a bit, and am now ready to profile the rudder head.  It is over-long in both directions, so that I can place it where I need to on the model.
 
Looking back at the DR, though, I wanted something ornamental for the rudder head and thought this ornament would be a sensible choice:

So, after I have shaped my rudder head and cut in the aft taper, I will make up a carving blank based on this drawing:

So that’s where we are at, for now.  Enjoy your Holidays, all, and thank you for looking in and following along.

After the 2016-slice was rather in a ship shape Bristol fashion, I would like to go another approach for the 1805 slice.
 
In the times when there was no RAL, Pantone or DIN color scales, I would suppose that each barrel of paint had a slightly different shade depending upon its provenance, batch or age. Also each barrel from each batch could have been given a different shade depending upon the intermix of the content or the fading stage as of sun and salt or the rust and dirt sitting on the surface. Also given the accounts that the Vic was painted several times being upon high seas, I would rather expect a nice patchwork of 50 thousand shades of yellow ochre. Yes it´s alive!
 

 

 

 

 

 

 
And did you discover it? Even the new todays "seamon-pink-hello-kitty" can be found, yes down there, in the left bottom corner, just around the rigol 😉
 
Enjoy, XXXDAn
 

Hello,
many thanks to all for the continued interest and your nice comments.
Today I uploaded a video about the standing rigging.
I hope that you like it.
Please follow this LINK.

 

The rope colour depends on period and region - plus the treatment and grime as mentioned above.
 
Hemp was the main raw material until cotton was introduced from the US. Hemp has a pale yellow to beige colour, while cotton is more whitish.
 
Stockholm (pine) tar leads to a darkish brown colour, while coal tar makes the ropes black. With age and weathering, both tars become more greyish.
 
If you work on an 'artisanal' style model, you may want to have only two colours, for tarred and for untarred rope. When you want depict a real life ship, you may want to use several slightly different colours to represent different makes and ages of the ropework.

Hi Marc . . . and Marc - 
 
I believe that the rudder hole was rectangular because the tiller (in blue) went through it, not the rudder.
The tiller, in turn, was connected to the whipstaff (in red) that pivoted through a rowell or rowl (in green)
Here the rudder head is housed in a closed off box, but many that I have seen end just above the tiller and below the counter.
This from an illustration by Phillips from around 1690.  I'm sorry but I have misplaced the full information on the illustration.
 
Dan
 
 

I hope that everyone enjoyed their Thanksgiving.  We certainly did.
 
My transom planking continues, and at this point, I am planking across the opening for the rudder head.  Before completing the last few strakes, leading into the stern counter, I wanted to pause and see whether I could modify one of the kit’s stock ornaments, in an attempt to present a more faithful representation of Berain’s stern.
 
What I am focused on, here, is the pendant ornament that drops from the lower false gallery and conceals the rudder head.  For all practical purposes, I suppose that this ornament’s intended purpose was to limit the intake of water, through the rudder head opening, in a following sea.  I’m not sure whether that is the truth, but it’s a theory, anyway.

What is interesting about Berain’s drawing is the way in which the Palladian shell backdrop recesses, up into the lower false balcony.
 
The stock Heller ornament is intended to mount beneath a walkable lower stern balcony, as seen here, on Tanneron’s model.
 
Heller reproduces this detail quite faithfully.  It’s nicely done, and would be difficult to carve from scratch, in a way that suits my purposes.  I do have two of these ornaments, though.
 
By separating the Louis head and its shell backdrop from the acanthus leaf cheeks, I should be able to set the head so that the counter planking of the false stern balcony abuts it, flush all around.  I would then remove the head and shell from my spare ornament and mount the acanthus cheeks just behind the head, once I’ve completed the counter planking up behind the head.
 
This is a difficult thing to describe, but hopefully the following few pics will make it clearer where I’m headed with this.


The head isn’t glued in, just yet.  I’m not sure whether the new angle that I’ve filed into the back of this piece, accurately follows the run of the counter planking.  That will become clearer when I make the bulkheads.  This new angle that I’ve ground into the back will tip the shell background and Louis’s cherubic face up into the visible portion of the counter.  I’m still not entirely sure this will work, but it’s worth the experiment.

This is where the stern window drawing is at.

It was a lot of re-drawing to get these cartouche ornaments equally scaled, but overall I like the size and shape of the windows.  No matter what, they are an improvement over the stock kit windows.
 
As ever, thank you all for your interest, your likes and your comments.

An update on the painting of the pseudopation:
Masking:

Masking taken off:

 
It does look better to the naked eye than on a close-up photo, but I'm still not totally happy with the precision of the decorated border. However,  I think I can improve on it before I finalise the whole thing, add the lower oars and close up the upper deck. 

Good morning.

The mast is stepped. Note that in round ships with latin rig the masts are sloped forward the main (forward) mast more so than the mizzen  (after mast).  Long staves which are chamfered as are barrel staves are used to wedge the mast into the mast partners. Then the staves are woolded to the mast . Note that these staves project much higher above the deck thean those in later ships such as carracks. Perhaps this is necessary to compensate for the lack of a forestay in latin rig.
 



Cheers
Dick

Hello friends,
here is the continuation to the production of block strops with splice:

Paintwork not finished yet, but coming along.
 
It's a bit frustrating because I really can't go ahead with anything else till I've finished the decorative painting. What I'd like to do is get on with finishing the upper deck and then add the upper benches which I've already made. But I can't do that yet because I've made angled marks below decks to get all the oars at the same angle and I have to be able to see down there to line them up.
 
And if I put the lower bank of oars in first they'll get in the way and make painting the hull and forecastle very difficult. So to finish the decking I have to (1) paint the hull and forecastle and (2) put the lower oars in.
 
So, here's current progress with the painting.
 
Xylokastra (side castles):
 
        Still some more tidying up to do on the decorative paintwork, but one relief is that I've realised that as they aren't yet in place I don't have to do it  till later if I don't want to.
 
Here is the pseudopation (forecastle):
 
  

Oh, and I've straightened out the wobbly white lines at the edges and for the blue lines I've done some masking - which I should have done before - to overcome much of the problem caused by my shaky hands. (Here's hoping it works!)
 
Steven
 
 
 
 
 

Hi,
thank you for the positive comments and the many LIKES.
After a short break I continue with the double blocks 4.5 mm long. These were fastened along the bulwark at the height of the waterway.

Source: B. Spinnen, Pariser Model
 
So far I have glued the block strops.

But that does not correspond to the original.


So I tried to make the block strops with a splice.
Here's the first try:

Hello and thanks to everyone, certainly Allan, when you come to Italy, send me a message so we can meet.
Other photos.

 

 

 

 

 
Un Saluto.

The pics:
 

The false deck construction  continues. After the aft part and the front part, comes now the front middle part. The last part will be int he next post, the middle part.

Okay, I'll bite. No, I wasn't actually there back in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries, but I've used enough pine tar on enough cordage, blocks, decks, and other wood not to feel like I have to add the disclaimer, "IMHO." I know firsthand how it looks and how it weathers. There's several options.
 
Real pine tar ("Stockholm tar") is dark brown, almost black, colored, The more coats you apply, the darker it gets. (It's much like orange shellac in this respect.) 
Straight pine tar on new wood: This with bring out the figuring and darken the wood, as might be expected of any "oil."
Straight pine tar on old wood, multiple coats: Dirt and dust will make it darker still. Mold will often grow in and on the wood surface beneath the tarred coats and make it darker still. So, depending upon how many coats of tar have been applied, it will eventually look darn near black, or sort of a charcoal grey eventually when in use.
Color of blocks and shells when tarred: This depends upon the species of wood used. At the top of the list was lignam vitae, which was always hard to come by. It's a dark brown color. Locust, another dark wook, was another favorite, As mentioned above, tarring the wood makes it darker. Weathering makes it darker still. It ends up black or charcoal grey eventually.
Pine tar with lampblack on wood: I'm not sure of the date this started, but was a pretty common thing eventually. They say it made the tar last longer, which it probably did, slowing down the UV degradation. This was not used on running rigging cordage. Only on served standing rigging.
Painted wood: Pine tar and lampblack early on. Later pine tar, lampblack, and a bit of Japan drier. Ultimately, linseed oil and lampblack with a bit of Japan drier. All thinned with turpentine. The color of this was black, obviously. Pine tar and lead oxide with a bit of drier made white paint. White's reflective qualities made it even better than black for withstanding sun damage.
 
Most cordage was hemp and hemp cordage must be tarred to preserve it in the marine environment. Running rigging is tarred with thinned pine tar, turpentine historically being used as the thinner. When manufactured, the yarns of the larger diameter cordage were run through heated copper troughs of thinned pine tar, then spun. They were able to run the yarns through rollers that, by squeezing the yarn, could regulate the amount of tar on the yarns and in this way vary the qualities of the cordage produced. "Small stuff" was spun first and then dipped in thinned pine tar. When tarred, new hemp cordage is a fairly dark golden bronw color, but it darkens with use (picking up dirt.) Weathered, it's a grey-ish brown color. Manila cordage isn't really suitable for the marine environment because it shrinks when it gets wet and, if tied, and gets wet, the knots are very difficult to untie.  Light straw colored running rigging wasn't used on boats and ships. (It was sometimes called "Manila hemp," but that was because all cordage was called "hemp" back in the day. It's not made of hemp at all, though.) White colored cordage was never seen until the advent of the synthetic fibers after WWII. While frequently seen today, white or other light colored lanyards run through deadeyes is a glaring inaccuracy on any ship model prior to circa 1950 or so. Hemp production was once a huge industry, but was pretty much rendered obsolete by synthetic fibers, not to mention a "certain prejudice" against hemp that arose in the 1930's when marijuana was outlawed. It's rare to come across a length of hemp line these days, but well broken in hemp line is wonderful stuff. It's soft and supple, yet very strong.
 
As for other colors, forgedaboudit! The only blue pigment available until 1704 was ground up lapis lazuli, which was hugely expensive. Artists used it. Nobody was painting ships and boats blue until a German guy discovered how to make Prussian Blue. In 1828, a Frenchman created another blue, French Ultramarine. Yellow was not as expensive, but pretty much the same. It wasn't until 1820 that Chrome Yellow was available at a reasonable price. Until mid-Nineteenth Century, the world was pretty drab, at least outside of artist's colors. Lots of blacks, whites, yellow, red, and brown ochres and rust oxides. (The "red barn" wasn't a fashion statement. It was just a cheap color, as was "red lead" used in marine construction.) Those rainbow colored Mayflowers, Ninas, Pintas, and Santa Marias... no way!
 
Nobody's going to go wrong coloring standing rigging black, running rigging medium to dark brown, or deadeyes black or dark brown. Remembering "scale viewing distance," it's pretty much going to look black or charcoal grey with a touch of brown on a model. Given what we do know of the history of the maritime trades, many of which are still practiced today by some, I don't see any argument that can adequately justify the "oak colored" deadeyes and "white" or "straw colored" lanyards we see on some models today. Except of course that is the was the model maker felt like doing it for who knows whatever reason.
 
Real pine tar:
 

 
 

Hello,
thank you for the nice notes and the many LIKES.

Before I continue with the ratlines I have to do the following:
Along the bulwark of the French corvette, a series of blocks, serving for diverting, for example, halliards and other ropes, were hung in eyebolts.
These blocks had iron fittings and hooks. I made them in a proven way.
 

Hello Phil,
thank you for your interest and the nice comment.
Thanks to all the others for the many LIKES.
 
For a change, I make in between blocks with fittings
for the fore topsail sheets. These blocks are 32.5 cm long; in 1:48 scale, this is 6.8 mm.

@aviaamator
Thanks!
 
Hello friends of model making,
that is the current state of my model:

 

Good morning.