Surabaya by Piet - 1/80 - Mid 17th-Century VOC ship

[dgbot]

Looking good so far Piet.

David B

[NenadM]

For REAL carpenter ants ... I had them in roof ... I used something known as "etiol" (active supstance is malathion) and all of them dissapeared after two days. Apply in all their paths, nest if you can find, and attacked wood pieces. It smelts very bad, strong and long, but it successful converted all carpenter ants to virtual friendly shipworking ants

Edited November 27, 2015 by Nenad

[Bluto 1790]

Hi Piet,

 

I'm just catching up with your build log here. I'm also trying a build at the same scale as yours, but at 1:80 I'm finding it difficult to re-create many of the small items with any amount of reasonable accuracy. (Maybe if I had started about 50 years earlier I might have been a bit better! )

I'm very impressed with what I've seen here on your log!

[ianmajor]

Piet,

 

Lovely work.

 

I am impressed that you are rigging all the cannon simultaneously. I only did mine in opposite pairs knowing that with my agriculturals any more in one go would have ended up in a mare's nest!  

[Piet]

Thanks again everyone for the likes and your comments, it's all appreciated.

 

Yeah Nenad, carpenter ants - - and mean also.  Fortunately they live outside the house, for all I know.  Our house is build with concrete block on a concrete slab with plastic tubing inside the wals where insecticide can be blown in.  This is done every six months.  However, this does not guarantee no ants or termites can enter.  They'll find the minutes cracks, so we check the walls once a year.  We do have, what they call them here "ghost ants," they are very small and more of a nuisance then the carpenter ants.  They come in through the roof vents.

 

Hello Bluto Jim, good seeing you back in the shipyard.  Yes, this scale of 1:80 is rather small and poses several disadvantages and problems.  I originally planned on 1:50 but the problem with that scale is where to put it. My next model will be a 1:50 though, my father in law's ship he sailed as captain, the Musi.  

I am trying to stay as close to scale as possible.  The smalles pulley blocks are a real challenge.  Even at 4 mm I have made for the cannon tackle come out to 12  inches but in real life that may already be tad too large.  For the rest of the rigging I'll try to make them at 3 mm but with only one hole.

 

Hi Ian, it's likewise good to see you here and thanks for your nice words.  It's actually not much of an effort though, doing them all together.  This way I get into a rhythm and before I know it they are all rigged.  Fortunately my fingers are quite thin for a male and still not hurting too much.  I need to get the part done before I can move on and make the anchor capstan, which 'll be installed on the same deck.   I do have some arthritis in my index fingers but try to slow it down by taking supplements that seem to help a lot.

 

Cheers to all, 

[Piet]

Yesterday I completed coiling all the gun tackle ropes on the starboard side I have been working on.  There is some collateral damage to be taken care off.  Nothing that some 360 grit sandpaper and poly brush-on can't handle.

 

I had to coil the forward rope behind the forecastle ladder because there is no way to put it right in front of the ladder.  The sailor's union would never approve it 

I understand that this may not even be the way it was in real life, too many obstacles on the deck, unless the sailors walked over the gratings.  But it's just to show how the guns may have been rigged.  But then again, they could have easily unhooked the pull-back tackles and stowed them under the gun carriages.

 

After everything is touched up I can rotate the build dock and do the same thing on the port side.

 

 

Cheers,

Edited November 29, 2015 by Piet

[*Hans*]

Thanks everyone for your comments and for all the likes, it's much appreciated. 

 

Actually these are carpenter ants REALLY!  They are all over the place, under my palm trees, inside the palm fronds and these I picked from a dead palmetto bush in the vacant lot next to us.  They are as fears as fire ants but much larger and we have to keep tem away from the house! 

 

 

 

prepping for coiling tackle ropes.jpg

 

How I make the tackle rope coils.jpg

Here you see how I plan to make the rope coils.  

 

Cheers, 

Althoug these ants are a nuisance I appreciate it you gave them a nice and decent sailor funeral, tight in sailcloth, with a "één, twee, drie, in Godsnaam..."

 

(but why did you use blue sailcloth?)

[Bluto 1790]

Hi Piet,

 

As for the rigging of the guns on the upper deck (of my ship) I've "copped out" somewhat and opted for a much simplified installation for 2 reasons:-

1) Unlike your ship, the guns in the waist of mine aren't 'open' as there are the gangboards above them and the guns will therefore be partially covered and obscured from view;

and . . .  2) because of the gangboards I could foresee that it was going to be a very tricky (if not near impossible) task for me to rig the guns as they really should be.

You'll see from the photo below that although my guns aren't in position yet, a very rudimentary 'system' of rigging has already been put in place. In fact these ropes have been there since even before I carried out the secondary planking of the hull and also before the gangboards were in place. Before I did the final hull planking I planked the inside of the bulwarks in the area of the waist so that I could drill and fit the rings to which I attached these crude rigging ropes.

 

So, when I look at your rigging I am definitely very impressed !!!

 

 

 

[*Hans*]

Hey Jim,

 

And then you show a glimp of your ship - but I am (we are) eager to see the whole of it. Do you have your own topic? Or could you post an overall picture here?  I bet Piet won't mind.

 

Edit:  I first did not see your autograph but then I did and found your topic. Impressive!

Edited November 29, 2015 by *Hans*

[Piet]

Thank all of yuns for clicking the like button and your comments Hans and Bluto Jim.

 

Yes Hans, the ants were properly disposed of and I like the color blue, matches the ocean

 

I understand your dilemma with the guns on your ship Jim but they could have been rigged before the gangboards were installed.  I'll show you what I did for a similar situation. The Surabaya has two gun decks, the lower or orlop deck has sixteen 18 pounders that are hidden from view, thus not rigged.  I did put the gun carriages on the decks and cemented the guns to them.

The upper gun deck has fourteen 12 pounders, six are under the quarter deck and then the eight on the waist I am now working on.

 

The part under the quarter deck  is open in the front thus visible and I rigged them before the quarter deck was put on.  I had plenty of space to work with because there was nothing yet behind the main mast.  I wanted people to be able to see the guns and their rigging tackle.  

 

Some parts of this build has been a challenge for me, specially at this scale.  I am an airplane guy, maintenance and engineering with over 12 certificates in the machinist trades but I have always loved ships and the sea.  I understand the basics of ship design (part of my educational background) but it's the details of these 17th century ships I was lacking.  Thanks to Amateur Jan, Amazon Dirk and now Hans I'm spooling up to that too.

 

When I started this build I didn't have much of any info, like books and line drawings, just paintings and copies of old prints.  Not much to go by.  In the meantime I have increased my library and have a lot more confidence.  Besides, I love fiddly stuff, it's a challenge.

 

Unfortunately my introduction to this build and many posts after that were lost with the crash of version 1.0 of MSW.  I explained why I am building this ship and how.  

 

Your ship is certainly looking very good and doing a partial gun rigging should work okay.  Too late to install the full gun tackle now.

 

In any case here are a few pics of the guns being installed under the quarter deck way back in September of 2012.

 

This shows one of the gun carriages being dry-fitted for the tackle.  I made the gun trunnion bands from paper and cemented them to unpainted parts of the carriage cheeks.  That way the guns could pivot a little.

 

This shows all six guns under the quarter deck installed and rigged.  That stump is a dummy where the mainmast will be.

 

Cheers,

[ianmajor]

Gosh Piet, that view along the quarter deck looks impressive. Lovely work.

[Omega1234]

Gosh Piet, that view along the quarter deck looks impressive. Lovely work.

 

Yep. Definitely agree!!!

[Piet]

Thanks everyone for hitting the like button and thanks Ian and Patrick for your comments.

 

Yeah, when shining a flashlight under the quarter deck it looks rather real with the cannons nicely rigged.

I should have put a few lights in there too but didn't think about it.  Oh well, with a mirror and a light we can still see everything.

 

I ran into a snag yesterday with my computer.  When I tried to add comments to a few of the build logs I found that the letters i and k did not work.  This morning I couldn't even log on to my computer because these two letters are in my password.  I tried to fix the MAC keyboard but no dice. 

I have a PC type keyboard and plugged that in and wonders above wonders I got in    I spend a lot of time trouble shooting so not much work was done on the Surabaya.  

 

After attaching the pull-out tackle to the cannons and bulwark I saw that the pulley blocks were just too close together and thus not acceptable.  I decided to move the eye bolts on the cannons one step further back on the carriages.  

Hmmm, easier said the done.  I was afraid of causing damage by removing the existing eye bolts and lifting the carriages from the deck.  But I was lucky and the tackles came off okay as well as the previous eye bolts. 

Now I had to make 8 new eye bolts, drill new holes in the carriage cheeks and cement the new eye bolts in with epoxy.  I started this process yesterday after noon and got it almost done today, two more cannons to go before I can tough-up paint and poly on the bulwark. 

It's looking much better now even the coiled ropes look okay.  Nothing like two steps forward and one back.

 

When it's all done I'll make a few pics for my archive and post them here.  After this I'll tackle the anchor capstan.

 

Cheers,

[dgbot]

How many stiff ones did you have during this operation?  I must have been a nerve wracking experience.

David B

[Omega1234]

Hi Piet

 

I agree with David

 

Your commitment to accuracy and details is nothing short of commendable. Together with your epic O19 model, you've got every reason to be pretty chuffed with yourself!

 

Well done

 

Cheers

 

Patrick

Edited December 2, 2015 by Omega1234

[Piet]

Thank you Dave and Patrick for your comments and thank you all who clicked the like button.

 

Well Dave, a cup of hot green tea with a fresh orange to suck on calmed the nerves   With a pair of small long needle nose pliers I twisted the eye bolts some to brake them loose from the epoxy and they came right out.  I only dislodged one cun carriage and with a dab of epoxy they are again rock solid.  

 

Thank you Patrick but I just found an error that will be extremely difficult if not impossible to rectify at this stage in the game.  I'll look into it and see if it's even worthwhile to do without creation some major damage.   Yeah, the O19, sits on the shelf on my right side and steal a glance at her so once in a while 

 

 

This day was almost a total loss as far as work on the Surabaya is concerned.  Gwen and I had to bring the Buick to the dealer in Daytona Beach for warranty work and while in town I planned to go to BestBuy and pick up a new Mac keyboard.  Well, the dealer did not have the parts in stock and failed to notify Gwen.  She was on T'd off lady - - spitting fire, smoke out of her ears and that sort of thing      Resced for tomorrow, same time, same place.  I did go to get my keyboard and am happily pounding away on it   

 

After lunch I "quickly" made a big batch of guacamole.  Gwen likes the tuff and it's healthy.  But then I mozied into the garage and managed to finish the cannon work, including the touching up things.  It looks much better this way and I'm satisfied with the results.

 

Here is the result of all that tedious work.

 

 

Cheers, 

[Piet]

Dear friends, I have two questions and need your honest opinion and ideas.  As I am going to change the green paint color as suggested by Jan and Hans I thought to also paint the railing posts in the same color. Looking at the photos of the Batavia replica it kinda looks very attractive and cuts down the blond looking railings.

I will appreciate your input on this very delicate issue - - - well, not that delicate but just your opinion. 

The next question  is that looking at the bow with the same stark blond looking railings for the head I think that making them a darker color would be closer to the original way.  I cannot stain them anymore because they are already painted with clear poly.

This is more of an issue to me because I really don't like this attention getter glaring me in the face all the time.  Other then removing these and replacing them with maple or stainable wood and stain them in either maple to match the hul planking or walnut to match the wales.  I could also try to match the color with paint, not an easy task.

 

Here too I will really appreciate your thoughts and don't hold back, I do value you your input so I can mull it over.  

 

Here are two pics to help you in forming your opinions.  

 

 

 

Cheers, 

 

 

[Omega1234]

HI Piet

 

I would hate to be the person that let Gwen down!!!!!   I would think that he would probably never do it again, that's for sure!

 

All the best with the rest of the build.  She's sure looking good.

 

Cheers

 

Patrick 

[dgbot]

If you feel comfortable painting them go ahead.  I think they would look good.

David B

[mtaylor]

I agree with Crackers... what looks good to you.  However, you indicate that you're not happy with them the way they are.  Then paint them by all means.

[Remcohe]

I'd say go ahead and paint them.

 

Remco

[amateur]

Hi PIet,

 

As alsways, different people different opinions.

I woud say: paint, but not green.... You'll have to paint the caprails.

With repsect to the gallion: the upper rail is  often combination of  black and red, the lower ons are just a background for the more colourfull carving work

 

 

Edited December 3, 2015 by amateur

[GLakie]

Hi Piet.  Nice work on the carronades.  The paint scheme is, of course, captains prerogative. It would be difficult to get the rail stanchions painted without getting paint on the rails at this point.  Staining would be an option, maybe a couple different shades starting with the lighter shades first, provided they aren't already varnished. Those head-rails, I would stain as close as you can, to the cap-rails, stanchions, or planking, again, if they haven't already been varnished. It'll be tough sanding the varnish off.  I'm sure whatever you decide will look great though. 

[flying_dutchman2]

Piet;

Again, Beautiful work. The details are amazing. Finally did read through it all.

 

No wonder you mentioned lighting in my Catboot. You do it as well. Again, your attention to detail is amazing. Green curtains, windows in doors. But how do you power all those lights? Batteries? Where do you put them or long wires to outside the display case?

 

On post #6, 2nd picture, you have a very small planner on the table. Where did you get that?

 

Thanks

Marcus

[JesseLee]

I agree with amateur. Paint them but not green. Maybe the same yellow around the gun ports & Green on the caprails?  Or like George said, stain them darker?

 

Jesse

[Burroak]

Piet your ship is beautiful. WOW! I don't have the confidence to do a scratch build yet. Maybe in 10 years! I will be following your build.

 

 

Greg H.

[pete48]

Looking good Piet,  I would go with the color that looks best to you ( I would agree with you on the Green ) 

 

Best Regards,

Pete

[Piet]

Hello again friends and my thanks to David B, Anthony, MarkT, Remco, Jan, George, Marcus, JesseLee, Greg H and pete for your input.  Of course also my thanks to those who clicked the like button.

 

Yes, I understand that it's ultimately the owner/captain and shipwright, me in this care, who is responsible for the final decision. I am taking all your input under advisement and mull it over.  There is no haste in  the final decision.

 

As mentioned before, staining is no longer possible because the railings and stanchions have already been varnished.  It's either paint or leave them as is.

 

All of you have given me some valid input and I truly appreciate that very much.  

 

Jan's picture of the Batavia replica shows red painted railing stanchions but my initial thinking of green is because my paint scheme is different in that red already borders at the stanchions.  Yes, the cap rail can be painted and the color will be decided on later.    

 

I like Jan's idea about gallion railing but here too, my ship does not look the same as the Batavia model and I won't add many carvings there, being the cheap Dutchman owner    

 

Painting the stanchions would not pose a problem for me, I have some tricks op my sleeve not to put paint where it doesn't belong   Look at the paint job of the railing at the waist.  

 

Gold colored cap rails JesseLee?  Really now     Hey, this is a working vessel owned by a cheap Dutchman     Hmmmm, frugal, frugal 

 

What color Remco?

 

Well, let me think about it some more and also ask Gwen what she thinks about your suggestions and take it from there.  

 

Marcus, I believe you mean that little brass block plane?  I really don't remember but it's what you can pick up at Harbor Freight or American Science or some other mail order outfit that sells cheap tools.  They come in a set of three and are really junky tools but with some care in sharpening the blades and adjustments they are useable enough for me.

 

Cheers to all and thanks again,

[Remcohe]

Piet, given your current scheme the post should be green and not red, as the last band below the post is already red. The caprail yellow and if you can pul it of a thin yellow band below the posts. Or if you are opening the paint cans anyway you can alter the whole scheme to something like the Batavia.

 

Remco

[mobbsie]

Hi Piet,

 

Just to add my two penneth worth I would paint the posts green and go with something slightly darker than a yellow, more like a yellow ochre.

 

Good luck with your decision mate, whatever you decide will be right for you.

 

Be Good

 

mobbsie