Vivian Galad

Ok, as promised, here comes the update:
 
The main document I´m using to build this kit, and bashing it a little, is Valenti´s dissertation for the Master Arts degree from Texas A&M University, 2009. His work is a reconstruction of the Nave Quadra based on Michael of Rhodes manuscript. He puts forth the origins of the ship type, the Cocca, coming from the Cog, turned vernacular on ship building on mediterranean lands about early 1300´s. The cocca gained room over the other types of ships due to its greater tonnage with fewer men to hand it - it is discussed also that after the plague, 1348, the lack of working force forced the shipbuilding culture from northern Europe over southern. The first cogs would have a main square mast, as those from the north, but soon got a second mast, lateen sail mizzenmast.
 

(Two-masted Venetian Cocha of 1366, Valenti, 2009) - disegno di Zanetti Girolamo
 
The Cocca is mainly a merchant vessel, usually not gunned. It could boast between two and four decks - at the end of the 16th century could have up to 10 sails "with two square sails hung from the bowsprit, three square sails on both the foremast and the mainmast and a lateen sail on each of the two mizzenmasts" (VALENTI - 2009).
 
The kit´s ship is a Cocca Veneta from around early 16th century, though, this type of ship continued to be used till the 17th. As my main interest are medieval ships, I would like to build a late medieval ship, from before 1490, maybe something between 1450/70. The Michael of Rhodes manuscript dates from that period, which makes me go through it a lot, at least, through other works about it. I´m well aware of the log from Woodrat, building the Nave Tonda and be following it from the beggining, since his ship is really a medieval one. Since I´ve found that the term Nave Tonda may describe not only a Cocca as a Carraca (or carrack) - meaning a round ship for commercial purpose - I´ve devised my plans to stick to the Cocca, traditionally following the line from the cog. The ship as it is will have the lines as the image that follows;
 

Corel´s picture shows us this:

Have to say I don´t like those white lines and will be searching if it would be changed. I´m still thinking on changing it to an earlier version, maybe taking out a mast among other things. I´ll be scavenging images, iconography and such. Meanwhile I´m starting to build since I don´t see any major changes on frames and planking - it´s a carvel type ship, rounded at the bow, which will make me have some work bending the wood to fit it. The kit seems to lead me there without too much trouble, but I´m always open to tips and discussing data (thanks again, Steven).
 
Now, here comes my progress, so far:
 
I planned first on opening my decks, always to give space for cabins and such, as I find the lack of details in kits a real pain. In order to do this, I mounted the pieces and searched for all interferences I could see; marked them on plans, marked them on the pieces and got some cutting.
 

 

 
 
After some glue, could see I would have to be more carefull with angles, since sanding alone wasn´t enough to give that edge. After the first frames were glued, I begun to work on the blocks that came with the kit to help planking the steep bow. That made my hands hurt, they´re still hurting - I tried two processes - to sand it from the start and to cut it before hand. Well, the second process went really faster, but got some minor imperfections due to my inability using the saw.
 

 
Then proceeded to glueing more frames till now. Last picture shows my workbench in it´s typical mess.
 



 
And that´s all, for now. ^^
 
 
 
 
 

Several years later I returned to this model and I did some "improvements" to it. Here is how it looks now.
Alexandru

Painted and ready for shading.

And I found places for my previous zombie helmsmen . . . pushing it a bit, but it would be a shame to waste them.


 
Steven

And they're done (except for thinning the legs a bit, and a bit of sanding and painting). I think the stance is wide enough. If not, too bad. I've spent so much time and effort getting them the way I want them, particularly the grip on the tiller, that this will have to do.
 
Roughed out:
   
And finished.
   

Separated, and hair carved:



And trimmed. I pride myself that my figures should be able to stand upright all by themselves, and usually I manage it. And two other crewmen I'd also carved (not sure if I posted them at the time) working on the rigging.
 



I need to cut a little bit away at the base of the helmsmen's feet. At the moment they look like they're from the 70's with platform shoes.
 
And then that's all the carving done.
 
Steven
 
 
 

A-a-a-and - the hull is off the jig. I ended up having to pull the jig apart to get the ship out, but worth it. Then I had to do some correction. The pegs are gluing into the correct position some frames that were angled incorrectly (not perpendicular to the keel).




Then onto making stringers to make the structure more rigid, and deck beams. Here's my poor man's plank bender (a cheap soldering iron) to get them the right shape.

And here are the first bits of deck beam - or are they stringers? I've sort of lost track. (one of them is to be cut up to provide pieces of stringer for the bow or stern, which explains the complex curve).

Gluing complete - here she is without the pegs.



Adding stringers at the turn of the bilge. There'll be corresponding wales on the outside of the hull, and there'll be strengthening stringers and wales where the second and third futtocks join, and a wale in line with the clamp.

The mosaics seem to show a reasonable number of wales, as do the near-contemporary picture from the History of Genoa and the carvings on the Leaning Tower of Pisa.
 

 
  
 
View from the bow.

I'd miscalculated the length of the clamps, so they didn't quite reach the breast hooks. Because they didn't meet the rigidity of the hull was lessened, so I glued bits of wood into the gaps to make each assembly effectively a single strong unit.
   
Smoothing off the pieces that fill the gaps.
 

Still some tidying up and smoothing off to do. They won't be visible under the deck, but I'll know if I don't do it right.
 
And the stringers lined up with the join in the futtocks. They will be curved to follow the line of the join.

Like this . . .

And that's it for today . . .
 
Steven
 

A bit of an update. Still at the fiddly stage - I need to secure the frames so I can take the model out of the jig - at the moment they're held only at the keel. So I've been cutting and bending the clamps to take the deck beams. With clamps in place, the frames will be securely attached to the hull and connected to each other so they don't move.

But first, the frames at bow and stern. These were mostly shaped by guesswork, and I was prepared to take them out again and re-think the shapes if needed. And I did on the last two at each end.

This is a bamboo batten to see if the gunwale will work with the end frames.

Clamps bent and the larboard one temporarily in place.

 

Clamps bent to take the shape at bow and stern.

The piece of wood wasn't quite long enough for the clamp to reach the whole length of the vessel.

However, I'd forgotten I had to make breast hooks as well. And they will take the place of the clamps at both ends, so the clamps will be long enough after all.
 
I also faired the inside of the end frames - it was easier than I'd expected, just using fairly fine sandpaper. But I forgot to take photos of them. (The frames for the rest of the hull really didn't need fairing on the inside because the curve was very gentle.)
 
The breast hooks were made from a forked branch from a tree that died in the garden (an apricot, it was), so the grain followed the arms of the breast hook. There was quite a bit of trial and error getting them exactly the right shape to fit against the frames. But I must have done something wrong, because two of my first three attempts broke in half while I was working on them. I think I cut the fork at the wrong place. However, I finally made a couple that seem to be working ok. Here's the bow breast hook complete, and the stern one in progress.

And I had to duplicate Woodrat's strategy in putting triangular section pieces between the floor timbers and the stem and stern posts to follow their curve, so I can drill through and fix them securely. Not sure if the photos really show it very well. They're pretty tiny.
 

 

And finally, I've put in the filler blocks that create the slots for the mast steps.

That's all for now.
 
Steven
 

I've been working on jigs of various types to enable me to do the framing and keep it straight and square. There's been a bit of experimentation involved, some of which I cancelled because I'd found a better way, others because I hadn't thought far enough ahead and had to undo things because they got in the way of other things.
 
First, emulating Woodrat's 14th century round ship build, I made a cut-out template of the hull shape with slots for the ends of the frames, superimposed over a base to take the keel and the bottoms of the frames. Aren't photocopiers wonderful! Those scrawled figures are the overall widths of the frames, worked out by the mezza luna method (thanks, Woodrat!)

And here's how I intended to support the keel - version 1. The thin masonite strips ('packers' as used in the building trade) have nice vertical sides and are thin enough to let the keel stick out above them a little. The truncated triangles at the ends are right-angled, to keep the stem and sternposts exactly vertical.

And a piece to slide along the keel (it has cut-outs at the bottom to fit over the keel and the masonite packers) to ensure the frames are vertical and at right angles to the keel.

A jig to keep the frames vertical while I drill holes for pins to hold them to the keel (they'll be both pinned and glued). This is different from Woodrat's method, as I'll (hopefully - see below) be using a drill press to make sure the drill bit is vertical. I used bits of scrap wood but they have nice vertical edges.

The upper template held above the lower with long bolts. The sliding jig had to be cut down shorter to pass between the upper and lower templates.


A lot of mucking around in this procedure - on the first bolts I bought the thread didn't go all the way along the shank - something I hadn't noticed when I bought them. So I had to go and get new ones that did. But there weren't enough nuts with the bolts - I'll have to go and get some more to screw the tops of the bolts down on top of the upper template. I also found the triangles I'd made to keep the stem and sternposts vertical GOT IN THE WAY, so I removed them and discovered that the bolts were doing the job very nicely, so they weren't needed after all.
 
Now I have to wait for the rain to go away. My shed has a drill press but no power (can't fit it in the budget at the moment) so I have to string a power cord from the house to the shed if I want to use power tools. And electricity and water aren't a very good combination.
 
In between times, I've pencil-marked the locations of the wales and the deck beams on each frame, as well as the location of the proposed holes for the pins to hold them to the keel. I've also pencil-marked the locations of the frames on the keel itself, so I can do the corresponding holes for the pins.
 
There's quite a bit of drilling to be done before I can move on to the next step, but it's nice feeling I'm making progress, however slow.
 
Steven

Yes, I see them now you point them out! Naturally my question was prompted by wanting to do the floor timbers and get them right.
 
BTW, as far as strange ways of fitting mast steps, at least one of the Yenikapi ships had a mast step that was totally free-floating - not fixed to the hull at all! No idea how they made that work.
 
Now some progress on the model.
 
On coming back to it after several weeks, I decided the hull was too tubby and re-calculated the shape using the Mezza Luna method. You can see the new outline offset somewhat from the original. (sorry, it's a really rubbish photo).

Using My Precious, I cut a bunch of futtocks and then smoothed them off, as being very inexperienced with my new toy I cut well outside the lines:
 

Then I cut out the parts of the keel and stem and sternposts. And courtesy of the local Men's Shed I was able to smooth them down with their nice disc sander. (When you asked me earlier if I had one, I thought you meant a sanding disc, such as you'd attach to an electric drill. I've certainly got one of those, but the disc sander is so much better.) And yes, there's a very mild catenary to the keel.

And I cut and smoothed off all the rest of the futtocks. 

That still leaves the floor timbers, and the frames for the bow and stern to do, but it's good having finished this part of the project. It means I'm now free to go ahead with the next steps.
 
Steven
 
 
 
Steven

I finally got to use my Birthday Present  - My Precious. (We gots it on Our birthday, Precious).
 


And I made sawdust!
 


 
I hope to get more exact with my sawing, but I'm pretty happy with my first attempt. And I can always smooth the cut pieces down to shape.
 
I'm currently designing a couple of jigs - one to assemble the frames from the futtocks and another to put the completed frames onto the keel. The first one will blatantly steal the idea from Woodrat's 14th century Venetian Round Ship build log. Here's the second jig, drawn on Sketchup.
 


 
The keel and its supports are the white and yellow bits running across the drawing. The two yellowish pieces with the curved cut-outs are for the frames to rest against - they slide in and out between the purple guides  (to allow for the narrower frames as we go fore and aft from the master frame). And the Pink and brown things are the two halves of an assembled master frame.
 
 
More anon.
 
Steven
 
Steven
 
 

In the church of San Marco (Saint Mark's) in Venice is a series of mosaics celebrating the so-called "translation" of the body of Saint Mark from Alexandria to Venice, where he became the city's Patron Saint.
 
"According to legend, Saint Mark’s body was taken from Alexandria, Egypt, in 828. Two Venetian merchants travelling in Alexandria, obtained the relics of Saint Mark from Priests at the church of Saint Mark, where the saint’s body was interred. The Priests feared Saint Mark’s relics might be damaged or destroyed by the Saracens during the persecution of the Catholic community in Alexandria. Promising to safeguard the Saint’s relics, the merchants convinced the Priests to allow them  to return to Venice with the body of Saint Mark.
The body of Saint Mark was taken out of the sarcophagus and unwrapped from its silk shroud, the relic being substituted by another and less eminent Saint. It was then placed in a chest and taken on board the Venetian ship, the merchants first ensuring, that the Saint’s remains were covered by a layer of pork and cabbage. When the Muslim officials asked to inspect the chest, they cried out ‘Kanzir, kanzir’ (Oh horror) at the sight and smell of the pork. . . . Thus the Evangelist was safely conveyed to Venice but not before a number of miracles eased his passage across the Mediterranean.”
 
There are five mosaic panels showing the ship itself at various stages of the voyage. They are all very much the same - three masted, lateen rigged, with two side-rudders - but with minor variations in the shape of the aftercastle, the stempost, the line of the gunwale etc. Some of these variations don't make a lot of sense and I am going to have to reconcile them and come up with a version that I'm happy with.
 

 
 

 
This is a rather difficult ship to get a good concept of, but I was inspired by a couple of sketches on a Facebook forum by Wagdemar Lookomsky (I hope he doesn't mind me posting them here) which finally suggested a configuration for this ship that made sense. 
 

 
 

 
I'll be using these as a basis for my own reconstruction, but I won't be copying them exactly.
 
I will be basing the hull shape mainly on that of the 14th century Contarina ship which Woodrat has already used for his 14th century Venetian Round Ship (see https://modelshipworld.com/topic/17991-venetian-round-ship-13th-century-by-woodrat-132-scale-fully-framed-completed/ ) and I will be shamelessly copying much of his technique in building my own (though at a smaller scale).
 
However, this is at the research stage at the moment. First I want to get a lot more done on my Great Harry restoration, which as languished while I built my nef.
 
But this is a bit of a heads-up for those who are interested.
 
Steven
 

Summary of the Construction of the Hull
On a  building board with the plan of the ship glued, the keel was erected.

Stem and stern posts were scarfed onto the keel.
At this stage the shape of the master frame was determined by geometric technique of the manuscript Libro de Navigar.
 
The master frame is fixed to the keel

 
A special jig was made to allow assemblages of frames with different amounts of floor narrowing

Tail-frames and every fifth frame attached to the keel.

Intermediate frames are inserted to complete the main hull framing.
 

Ribbands between the hull, stem and sternposts are used to fashion the bow and stern frames.
                                 
Internal stringers and deck clamps are installed and longitudinal wales.
This completes summary of the framing of the hull
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
The Quarter Rudders
Mediterranean vessels of the 13th century followed the ancient practice of having two rudders on each of the vessel’s quarters. The shape of these rudders is well known from contemporary pictures and recent discoveries in the Black Sea and elsewhere have confirmed the accuracy of these pictures. In essence, the quarter rudders need to have a mechanism to allow raising and lowering of the rudder. For instance, when heeled over under sail it was a common practice to raise the weather rudder and to steer by the lee rudder. A tiller was slotted into the upper end of the rudder. In addition, because there is considerable lateral force on the rudder, this must be resisted. In order to allow raising and lowering and resist lateral force, a system of curved rudder guides was built into the quarter of the ship and rigging designed to achieve this. The rigging is shown diagrammatically and the rudder guides as constructed on the model::
                        
 
The rudder in raised position:
The timoneer’s position is  in front of the sterncastle
The Deck furniture
 
The Pumps
These ships were probably fitted with log pumps. So called because the longitudinal element was made from a single log hollowed out by large augers . The pump mechanism was and expanding leather cone lifted by hand and predating  chain pumps by centuries.
This example was found in the Newport ship 
These are the pumps in the model
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
The Windlass
The use of simple windlasses is well attested but probably not capstans. I doubt that pawls were installed at this early stage.

 
 
 
 
Masting and Rigging of the Round Ship will be summarised in the next post
 
 
 

I have made a new home for the vessel whom I now name La Serenissima

 

 

 

 
Cheers
Dick

I have decided not to bend sails at this time, although I may reconsider this at a later date.
I will have to make a display case for it.
Dick

The following is the construction of the maintop (or crow's nest if you like)
 
The construction of the base. Note the access aft for the jacob's ladder to allow ingress to the top and the entry of the halliards. for ward of the mast will be the exit of the halliards.

 
The side frames for the top are made by laminating thin strips of wood and sawing them to thickness required
 


the position of the frames is located using my Emco dividing attachment (Unimat 3)



The circular rail for the top is turned on the lathe. Note the crane arching over the rail. This is for lifting objects such as ammunition etc from the deck to the maintop. It has a pulley.

The frames are strengthened by bracing timbers


Temporary positioning of the maintop on the mast



Almost ready for the mainsail and yard. Still have work to do at deck level.
Dick
 
 
 
 

I have fitted the rope Jacob's ladders for access to the "crow's nests". I have positioned them so that they would not foul the running rigging . This was before ratlines appeared on the shrouds, at least in the Mediterranean.
 



Cheers
Dick

Thanks Steven and Carl and all others for the likes. I have largely completed the running rigging and all that now remains is to decide on the sails. Should I leave it with bare yards or bend sails which may obscure a lot of detail in the rigging or maybe not. I have a cunning plan to do the sails in Silkspan to reproduce the bellying of the sails ( see my carrack build for a similar technique).
 


 



Cheers
Dick
 

Mock-up in balsa for the side rudders, based on one in the mosaic pictures.


And the roughed out rudders. I discovered too late that one of them was too thin at the handle end, so I glued another layer of wood to thicken it up. I'll post a pic of the completed ones when they're finished.

The deck for the aftercastle under construction:
 
And my first experiment in curving timber really tightly - to form the top. Worked fairly well, but the wood started to char - I can't lower the temperature of the soldering iron. But I have hopes of a vegetable steamer that I have permission to use outside the kitchen.




 
Steven
 

Hi Vivian!
 
Good to hear from you again. I'm looking forward to seeing you back on the forum when your ships arrive.
 
Steven

And time for an update so you don´t think I´ve vanished again.
 
First of all, sorry for the low quality pics - I´ll have a new cam next month and be posting better ones.
 
As I said, I got a plan on changing the stern and, instead of making a new one (which would be a lot better), cut pieces from plywood and got rid from that steep curve - As it is now, well, not good looking I would say, but, I´ll cover it with a sheet cut and designed as a real stern should look - that said, my keel will be from the same wood, so, I´ll be changing the kit´s wood destined for it.
 

 
I´ve been planking decks. After I finished them I realized I could´ve done it other way, close to what it should be - following beams and such, but, then again the ship have no beams and I would have to create them - and I´ll try at least to reproduce something like them. Of course pictures won´t show, but pin holes were made - caulking coming soon.
 

So, I´ll show some cargo hold - don´t know if beams would be visible but decided to try some over the cargo hold - Not quite sure how I´ll make them - but I´m into reading so many things about and seeing so many pictures that I´ll figure it out soon enough. Still don´t know if I should plank the hull inside at the visible parts, so, I´m reproducing some more frames.
 

 



I´m using plywood, but will cover if needed.
 
It´s a small update, hope to be showing more soon.

Hull planking, pt. 1
Fairing the outer hull was fairly straight forward. There is plenty of extra meat on the frames which gave me lots of wiggle room. The fairing cap edge should remain untouched, if at all possible. Easier said than done! Final sanding was done with 400 grit. Btw; I totally forgot to take some photos of the outer hull after the fairing was completed. Sorry!
 
Once everything looked good I added the first strake (the upper wale). This was done with three planks. I did my best to eyeball the run as I added each plank and not to strictly rely on the drawn line which I made from Chuck's hull template.

From there on it was just a matter of adding the two remaining wale strakes and a few more strakes above the upper wale. I also added the small filler piece which goes between the lower wale and the square tuck.

With the added support given by these strakes, I decided to fair the inner hull. This ended up being more time consuming than I thought it would be. It took me several days to complete the work. Working the bow timbers, even with a Dremel or 80 grit, was slow. Once I was close I switched to a miniature curved scraper to smooth out the work.
 
You can see just how thick the wood was in places.

When fairing the area around the lower gun port sills, I found that a simple depth gauge came in handy. Including the 3/64" outer hull planking, the width of the sill should be 3/16” or maybe a hair less. I made this simple “T” shaped jig that I could place against the frames and then mark the width of the sill from inside the hull.

Ready for the keelson

Mike

I've spent the last few days marking out the strakes which is pretty time consuming.  I wanted to stay as close to the plans as possible and try and achieve a nice even look too.
 
I like to use automotive lining tape as it's nice and flexible - the only issue with this sort of tape is that it doesn't stick very well to the wood.  So after using tick tape and a planking fan to mark out the master frame I started the job.  My planks work out to be 9.9mm wide on this frame so I'll cut them to 10mm as my measurements are probably out a bit.
 
Lining the stern



Then the Bow

I have one stealer in the stern straight off of the garboard plank and one drop plank towards the bow.  So it's just as the plans suggest.
 
I had better start cutting some planks now and get on with the job
 
Mark

Very nice work Vivian!! It will inspire me to construct my Red Dragon!! 

Welcome to my new build log of the HMS Victory. 
     This journey has a special meaning for me. All my life I wanted to build a ship. Not just any ship, but a highly detailed model, but as with most things life gets in the way. I built many models as a kid and teenager, but nothing like this. I grew up, went to school, got a degree in electronics, then became an engineer,  worked at many trades, became a master machinist,  a tool and die maker, traveled the US, Canada, and Mexico as an engineer for a CNC machine tool manufacturer.  My lifelong hobby was wood working. I retired at age 48 due to medical issues. Now, at 68, I  am working on goals on my bucket list. I desire to build this ship while I still can. I  don't know what time is left .... one year .... 5 ... 20, it's unsure,  but I  have life threatening issues along with other issues.  Enough about me, now let's build a ship.



I  recieved the Mantua Sergal 782 kit of the HMS Victory this morning.  This was not the kit I  wanted. I wanted the Billings Boats  kit, but due to the difficult times now with this virus they are closed temporarily and my order could not be filled. The distributor was very helpful in getting this kit to me as a substitute.  My reason for wanting the Billings  was it provided the basics at a good price and I  could replace the lesser quality parts with aftermarket and make the ship better detailed.  I will be doing the same thing with this kit. I did have to pay an extra $72 for this kit. The Billings was $397. I have been studying McKay's book , The 100 Gun Ship, and finding sources for upgrades while waiting 2 months for the kit to arrive. I figure another $300 in aftermarket pieces will accomplish my goal, still being less than the Caldercraft kit.. and hopefully better.
 
 
 
Mark Frazier 
 

Thanks, BrianC.
 
Brian, I should´ve better explained that. The false keel will be apparent. As with my other ships, I like to age/darken them - before planking I darkened the false keel with 2 coats of bittumen wax, that way I won't risk damaging the thin planking with a latter waxing. The planks will receive a coat of bittumen wax too and all the hull will be later varnished to attain an even darker hue. I could use a stain, but till now the bittumen wax for darkening wood and giving that old look is the best I´ve tested.
 
Jack, thank you. I´m already drawing the pattern for the scroll work. Scale is my main problem - it´ll push my skills to the limit.

False keel was attached to the stand, first picture shows the before first modification:
 

 
Second picture shows the after, as I cut the tail off. As I intend on building an engraved cover, that part had to get out of the way.
 

 
I waxed the false keel, then and started placing the bulkheads. They were glued and fixed to the block I made for 90° aligning. I took pictures only after they were already glued and I could verify they were rightly fixed.
 

 

 

 

 
As the ship seems too fragile at this point, I decided to place beams between the bulkeads to assure they wouldn´t bend while planking.
 

 
And that´s it for now. Hope to be posting more pictures soon. :D