ancre La Créole 1827 by archjofo - Scale 1/48 - French corvette

[archjofo]

Hello Greg,

You're right, of course, making the rigging elements takes longer.
I hope that I will soon be able to present the new mizzen topgallant yard ready and finished.

At the moment I'm still researching how to carry out the tyes for the royal yards. I originally thought that these would be done in the same way as the topgallant yards, but obviously these are designed to be simpler.
 

[archjofo]

Continuation: Equipping the mizzen topgallant yard - Vergue de perruche
After the small mishap, as reported, I have now made a new mizzen topgallant yard and fully equipped it. This means that the topgallant yard chapter can be put to bed until it is installed on the model.
Here is a picture of the finished mizzen topgallant yard. 

And another picture with the tye.

 
The next picture shows different yards of the French corvette in size comparison. In the center you can see the mizzen topgallant yard. Above it is the mizzen royal yard and finally the middle section of the main yard is shown below.
 
The next step is to equip the royal yards with the necessary rigging elements. Then I'll finally have finished fitting out the yards.
To be continued ...

 

[Thukydides]

Your rope work is an inspiration Johann.

[archjofo]

@Thukydides

Thank you for your nice comment, and everyone else for the many LIKES.

 

 

Equipment of the main royal yard – Vergue de grand cacatois
The royal yards are on the 4th floor of the rigging. Since these yards on the La Créole were obviously equipped with lifts and braces, it can be assumed that they were already an integral part of the ship's rigging. In contrast, until the end of the 18th century, the royal sails were often hoisted together with the yards and flown as fair-weather sails only when necessary, i.e. without braces and lifts.
To carry out the tyes for the royal yards of La Créole, I have photos of the original model at my disposal, which a restorer from the Musée de la Marine in Paris kindly photographed in the depot especially for me.
You can't see much in the following picture of a royal yard of the Paris model, except that the tye is somehow knotted and doesn't have a hook like that of the togallant yards.

 

Source: Musée national de la Marine de Paris – La Créole

 

1. 

Source: Atlas du Génie Maritime

In conjunction with the depiction of a royal yard from the Atlas du Génie Maritime and various other examples, the tyes may have looked like this.

 

 

My model implementation or interpretation of the tye ø 17 mm (ø 0.35 mm in model scale) for the main royal yard looks like this:

Next I made the parral. The royal yards receive a slightly simpler version of a parral, only served with ropes, without leather covering.

This was followed by the production of the single blocks for the royal yards. These were used to guide the clew lines - The clew lines for the main royal sail had a diameter of 11 mm (in the model scale ø 0.23 mm), accordingly the blocks were around 13.5 cm long (in the model scale approx. 2.8 mm) according to the table in the monograph .

After attaching the grommets as abrasion protection, the equipment of the main royal yard was completed by attaching the braces and lifts.

We then continue with the fore royal yard.
Sequel follows …

Edited May 22 by archjofo

[druxey]

Superb work, as ever!

[albert]

Hi Johann your work is fantastic.

[archjofo]

@druxey

@albert

Many thanks for your interest and encouragement, and thanks to everyone for the many LIKES.

 

In the meantime, the constant rain here in Bavaria is getting on my nerves.
On the other hand, I can spend more time building models again, so I can show you the latest results:

 

Equipping the fore royal yard - Vergue de petit cacatois
I continued with the equipment of the fore royal yard, analogous to the main royal yard. The fore royal yard still has a thickness of around 2.2 mm in the middle.
The first picture shows the attached tye and parral.

The clew line blocks that had already been produced were then fitted with served block strops and attached to the yard.

This was followed by the final fitting of the yard with the lifts, braces and clew lines. As already mentioned, I will not be attaching any sails to this model. Accordingly, I will later connect the clew lines of the royals to the sheets without the corners of the clews using the toggles.

Last but not least, a picture with the center section of the main yard for size comparison.

To be continued ...

 

Edited June 1 by archjofo

[archjofo]

Equipment of the mizzen royal yard - Vergue de cacatois de perruche
With the outfitting of the mizzen royal yard, the smallest yard of the corvette, this chapter - outfitting the yards - now comes to an end. 
The mizzen royal yard of the model has a length of approx. 11.3 cm and a thickness of approx. 2 mm in the middle. The tye has a diameter of 0.25 mm. For the block slings I used ropes with a diameter of 0.25 mm, which were served. The results can be seen in the two pictures:

I am currently researching the equipment for the gaff rigging. There are still a lot of details to clarify.

See you soon ...

 

[archjofo]

Completion of the gaff with throat halyard - Corne avec drisse de mat
As already announced, I am currently working on the gaff rigging. To do this, it is necessary to add additional equipment to the gaff. I already made these some time ago. However, in addition to the metal block (signal haylard block) for the flag line on the gaff peak, a sheave for the sheet of the gaff topsail had to be installed, as can be seen in the following picture.

I also had to fit the jaw of the gaff with a heavy eyebolt. 
  

This eyebolt, which is under tension, was secured from below with a wedge.
 
According to the information available to me (monograph, pictures of the Paris model), the throat halyard of the French corvette looked as follows:

 
The twin blocks required for the throad halyard have a length of 5.6 mm. As before, I use real disks for this size. I have also tried to reproduce the block axis as in the original.

 

I will continue soon ...

 

[druxey]

As impressive as ever!

[archjofo]

@druxey

Thank you for your interest and everyone else for the LIKES

Continuation: throat halyard – Drisse de mat

We continued with the manufacture of the block strops for the throat halyard. The hook was tied into the lower double block with a thimble. The halyard with a diameter of 0.46 mm (ø 2 mm in the original) was attached to the block strop of the upper block using an eye splice.
I then quickly attached the gaff to the finished throat halyard, as can be seen in the following pictures.

To be continued...

[Pirate adam]

Johann,

 

It continues to be an inspiration to see that this level of detail is possible at this scale.  I would think that was a digital rendering if I hadn’t been following along through the steps. Great work making every piece its own little model. 
 

Adam

[FriedClams]

What Adam said above, Johann.  Simply wonderful and inspirational work.

 

Gary

[archjofo]

 

@Pirate adam

@FriedClams

Thank you very much for your interest and the nice comments. Also many thanks to all for the LIKES.

 

Continuation: Peak halyard - Drisse de pic
The peak halyard of the French corvette led over a double block with iron fittings and was probably hooked to an eyebolt on the cap des mizzen mast, similar to a depiction in the Atlas du Génie Maritime.

 

Source: Atlas du Génie Maritime - detail

 

I made the double block with a length of approx. 4 mm in the usual method from service tree. The fittings were made in the manner already described from partially prefabricated etched and cast brass parts. The hard soldering of the hook is a tricky job, but I've managed it in the meantime with some practice. The biggest problem is destroying the part with too much heat from the torch. 

 
After adjusting the fitting to the block and soldering in the hook, the solder joint was sanded clean.
 
The next two pictures show the finished double block with the eyebolt, which will later be attached to the cap.

  
And last but not least, a picture of the hooked double block.

 
Now there are still a number of different blocks to be made for the gaff and the boom.
To be continued ...

 

Edited July 13 by archjofo

[Dziadeczek]

...The biggest problem is destroying the part with too much heat from the torch...

 

Probably fine resistance soldering would be helpful for these tight spots...

[Keith Black]

 Johann, every post is a threat and I'm amazed anew every time. Thank you so much for sharing.

[archjofo]

On 7/13/2024 at 10:17 PM, Dziadeczek said:

...The biggest problem is destroying the part with too much heat from the torch...

 

Probably fine resistance soldering would be helpful for these tight spots...

Hello,

Thanks for the tip,
I've heard of the process but don't know it in detail. Can you briefly explain to me how it works and what you need for it?

[Dziadeczek]

There are quite a few tutorials on the topic of Resistance Soldering on You Tube - just type the name on Google and find them.

Here are two of them:

 

 

Basically the principle is similar to the one of cutting  Styrofoam with a hot wire - you utilize the feature of a high electrical resistance - in this case a special NiChrome wire, which, unlike a copper wire, resist the flow of electricity and instead heats the wire red hot. 

For the Resistance Soldering  you use a bit different electric current. The transformer changes your standard household current - in your case ~230 V/50 Hz, or in America 110 V/60Hz, into a low voltage, typically 2 or 3 Volts but very high Amperage, >15 A or so, and this gets the spot you want to solder very hot, but the areas immediately outside of it remain quite cool. So, you can solder this hot spot without accidentally desoldering neighboring sections, or - in your case, burning the wood of a block.

The trick is, to use a smallest possible electrode, some people use special tweezers, connected to a foot pedal that actuates the current flow.

Factory made units are quite expensive, so some modelers make their own from old transformers and fabricate their own tweezers. Apparently, it is quite possible...

Edited July 16 by Dziadeczek

[jdbondy]

This could be a game changer for me! Ordinarily I hate soldering because...well, I guess I just am not good at it. But the process has always felt so coarse. This is much finer!

[archjofo]

@Dziadeczek

Thank you very much for this interesting information.

[wefalck]

In jewellery-making and clock-making (for soldering the distance-feets to the dials) this is a fairly common process. Sometimes such resistance soldering units pop up on ebay et al.

 

Making a resistance soldering station is indeed quite possible and would involve winding a suitable transformer. However, its layout should be checked probably by a qualified electrician. Fires or blasting fuses in your domestic wiring system due to such home-made equipment may make your home insurance void otherwise.

 

One has to not confuse resistance (or spot) welding with resistance soldering. The tweezers to hold parts mentioned above probably pertain to resistance welding.

In resistance soldering, the parts are placed on a conductive pad or held with conductive clamps and a carbon-electrode is brought into contact with the part. The resistance at the contact between the pointed electrode and the part is high enough to heat up the contact point sufficiently to melt the solder. All the usual preparations for soldering, such as cleaning and fluxing are needed.

 

[Dziadeczek]

I might be wrong, but I think that if you use a solder wire, you are doing "soldering", but when you just heat the parts to join them (like for plumbing), you are '"welding " or "spot welding"...

Also, the units for welding are beefier than those for soldering, and so are the "tweezers".

Micromark sells the units for resistance soldering - quite pricey though!

 

Here is another video on fine resistance soldering:

 

Edited July 17 by Dziadeczek

[wefalck]

Soldering is joining two pieces of metal with the aid of another metal that has a melting point well below that of the pieces to be joined.

 

Welding is heating (punctually) the two pieces of metal (or plastics) to be joined up to their melting point and then pressing them together.

[tlevine]

For example "silver soldering", which fuses the metals by heating it almost to its melting point.

[archjofo]

Hello,

after a break I would like to continue with my construction report.

First of all I would like to thank you for your interest and especially for the important tips on soldering. Through this exchange of information we all learn and develop our model-making skills. Thank you!

 

Continuation: Equipment for the gaff and boom - boom sheets / Écoute de gui
etc.
In the meantime I was able to make the blocks required for the gaff and boom. The single blocks for the mainsheets were given brass discs. For the block axles with the square heads I made two smaller versions, the smallest of which was used because of the better scale, as can be seen in the following picture.

The next picture shows a compilation of the blocks that are attached to the gaff and boom using strops.

For the design of the mainsheet of the La Créole I based myself on the Paris model. There is one special feature to be mentioned in this context.
The Paris model of the La Créole is not a mainsheet as one usually knows it. In principle, this mainsheet of the French corvette consists of two tackles, the standing parts of which are attached to the end of the boom and thus also contribute to stabilizing the boom in the form of boom strops (see photo).
Apart from this model, I have never seen or heard of such a mainsheet, neither on contemporary models nor in the relevant specialist literature.
To be sure that this form actually existed, I tried to find it in the contemporary specialist literature in the book "Manuel de gréement" by F. A. Coste, Paris 1829. And in fact, on page 147, in addition to the usual versions, exactly this special type is described.

 

Source: Musée national de la Marine de Paris - La Créole

 

The following rigging elements were then required, manufactured and attached to the boom:

The next picture shows the partially rope stropped brail blocks, each double, for the gaff:

Below is a picture of the rigging elements that have now been mounted on the gaff:

The vangs are still missing, which will then be attached to the model when the gaff is assembled. As far as I know, these are placed around the gaff with a clove hitch.

 

So now all the yards and spars of my corvette are equipped and ready for the final rigging.

To be continued...

[dvm27]

Congratulations on this significant milestone Johann. Having the discipline to fully rig all the yards will be paid back by rapid rigging of the rest of the model.

[druxey]

Exemplary work as ever!

[archjofo]

@druxey

Hello,

Thank you for your interest and positive response.

@dvm27

Hello Greg,
Thanks, yes, now it's the final stretch.
Now I'm taking the corvette out of the dust cover where I stored it almost a year ago.

Here you can see part of the yards again:

 

Hopefully I'll be able to show more interesting pictures of the ship model again.

At the moment I'm still wondering whether I should start attaching the yards and thus rigging from the back or from the front?

I'd be open to tips!

 

 

[dvm27]

I always rig from the front to back and bottom to top.

[druxey]

Whereas I've rigged from back to front, bottom to top! Take your pick.