10th-11th century Byzantine dromon by Louie da fly - FINISHED - 1:50

[MartinB]

Hi Steven,

Nice to learn that progress has been made. The first three photo's illustrate just how long and delicate the vessel is. Its amazing how planking puts everything into perspective.

Your words on planking echo mine, however, an excellent job given the delicate nature of everything. This working true to scale certainly has its challenges! Fair winds etc for the new job.

 

Regards

Martin.

[Louie da fly]

Finally, the planking is complete! (breathes sigh of relief). Funny, the ship seems rather taller than I was expecting while I was putting the planks on. But of course it includes the part of the hull which would normally be underwater.

 

 

 

 

Next I'll fill gaps and smooth off the hull, and cut the oarports, and then I'll be ready to take the hull off the plug.

 

 There's still a lot left to do, but there's quite a sense of achievement in getting this far (even though at times I felt it would never happen). Thanks to everybody who encouraged me with likes, comments and advice, and I particularly have to thank Woodrat for his generosity in cutting the timber sheets I made the planks from and sending them over from the other side of the continent. It's finally borne fruit, and I even have enough left over to plank the deck as well!

 

And I've also been working on the stand  - I've started carving the vines and leaves into 3 dimensions. One end piece is roughed out and I've just made a start on the second one.

 

 

 

 

 

Steven

[BANYAN]

Nice work Steven, a major milestone achieved.

 

cheers

 

Pat

[MartinB]

Hey hey hey Steven, 

 

Planking complete! After so much time and work, how do you feel? Blooming good I reckon. Excellent work, congratulations.

However, I must add that I am waiting for the plug release next..... 

 

Best regards

Martin

[Guest bearegalleon]

Congratulations!  It looks wonderful.  Very interested in the shape.  Would it have any runes scratched into the railings by bored vikings?  I think there are some in the Hagia Sophia.

 

Edited August 13, 2017 by bearegalleon

[druxey]

Good going, Steven. It's great to come back from vacation and see that someone has been working!

[Louie da fly]

Thanks for all the likes and the comments.

 

Bearegalleon said

Would it have any runes scratched into the railings by bored vikings?  I think there are some in the Hagia Sophia.

 

Nope, not on this one, though one of the guys I've carved to be part of the crew is a Varangian Guardsman (He's the tall one). I've been in Hagia Sophia and taken photos of the famous runic graffiti - it says something like "Halfdan was here". But there's graffiti everywhere in Hagia Sophia! Including some ship names and dates from the 18th century on one of the marble columns on the southern gallery, plus another of a ship I think is 15th century scratched on another column (I have photos!)

 

Steven

[Louie da fly]

I made filler out of sawdust and white glue, though in some places I was trying to build up the shape rather than just fill gaps. The planks are pine, and I could have colour matched using pine sawdust, but I felt it would be better for the filler to stand out somewhat so I could tell better where the sanding was needed. So I used plane-tree sawdust, of which I had huge amounts. It was all a bit gloopy, but sanding smoothed it down nicely. It's still not quite perfect, but I think  it's as good as I can realistically expect to achieve.

 

 

The very first strakes I put in pace were a bit mis-aligned so the carvel planking looked more like clinker, and I had to use the filler to build the hull up a bit to create a smooth surface after sanding. Here you can see the hull after filling and sanding. The darker areas are where the filler is.

 

 

And the gunwales at the "tail" were a little different from each other in shape, so I used filler to build up the one I didn't like, then file and sand it down to the same shape as the other. This is the "good" one, bent directly to shape: (there's a bit of filler on the sternpost, but that's just to fill a small gap between the post and the ends of the strakes)

 

 

And here's the other one fudged to the same shape with filler.

 

 

Yes, I know it's cheating, but I felt justified in doing it this way rather than trying to make another wale with as little likelihood of duplicating the other one as I'd had the first time. There were also gaps in various places that the filler helped fix.

 

I've finished shaping the ends of the stand and sanded them smooth.

 

And I've glued the stand together.

 

As well as white glue, I used a small escutcheon pin to hold each end to the connecting beam. Once the glue is dry, I'll paint the stand gold (there'll be gold on the model itself, so it will fit right in), and then I'll have somewhere stable to put the hull so I can (finally!) take it off the plug.

 

But there's another issue to solve when I do that. It's been a worry to me that the springiness of the frames has forced the gunwales outward by about 3mm (1/8") each side compared to the shape of the plug. At the moment I've got the gunwales held in place with temporary screws in the plug (see second photo above), but at some point they have to be removed. So I devised a set of temporary clamps to slip over the gunwales at strategic points along the hull. They are made of popsicle sticks with a bit of bamboo skewer through a hole at one end,

 

and there'll be another bit of skewer on each, in the right place to hold the gunwale in position at its particular location along the hull.

 

 

Naturally, I have to determine the correct width for each clamp, as the width of the gunwale varies depending on position. These clamps will stay in place until I can glue in deck beams, which will permanently hold the gunwales in their proper position.

 

Finally, after a lot of agonizing and soul-searching, I've come up with a simple, elegant jig to mark out the oarports for the lower bank of oars. Fortunately, a fragment of oarport strake has survived on one of the galleys discovered at the Yenikapi site in Istanbul, with one damaged and two intact oarports. I blew up the archaeological drawing of the strake to the same scale as the model and made the jig you see here.

 

 

Its operation is simplicity itself - just rest the jig on the wale below at the location of the oarport, and trace through it onto the hull with a (very sharp!) pencil. No need to laboriously measure up from the wale each time, or try to get a line exactly parallel to the wale. Just rest the jig in place, trace through, and bingo! you have a guideline to cut the port.

 

When it came to making the jig I discovered the oarports were quite a bit smaller in reality than I had believed. In fact the oars I'd made previously wouldn't fit through the hole in the jig. I thought I was going the have to re-make (or at least drastically alter) the 50 (upper bank) oars I'd made.

 

But using the only lower bank oar I've made so far, I discovered a very small amount of sanding of the blade would narrow it enough to go through the port, and an equally small amount of thinning allowed the loom to fit through the port in its proper location with enough room for full freedom of movement for the oar. And the difference is almost undetectable to the naked eye.

 

I can justify not altering the upper bank oars by telling myself that they are longer than the lower bank oars and subject to greater forces, so it's ok for them to be a little thicker in the loom (and they don't need oarports, as they are on the upper deck). And the difference in blade width - well, maybe the upper oars need wider blades to get more purchase in the water (a bit thin, I know, but what the hey - I really don't think it'll be noticeable anyway - this is just in case someone asks awkward questions . . .)

 

Steven 

 

 

Edited August 27, 2017 by Louie da fly

[druxey]

I know that with 18th century sweep ports the oar blade will only pass through the port on the diagonal. Is this the same case with your dromon?

 

Nicely 'fudged', by the way!

[BANYAN]

Looking good Steven

 

cheers

 

Pat

[Louie da fly]

Thanks everyone for the likes.

 

Druxey, it's a bit hard to know. The oars are based on very conventionalised pictures by monks from the 12th century AD, showing the blade almost indistinguishable from the loom - it just sort of tapers gently outward at the end. I tweaked them to make them a shape I thought more likely to have worked. But I have no idea how close they are to the originals, if at all.

 

All I have that I can rely on is the size of the oarports, and they are are roughly semicircular with a 2.5mm (3/32") diameter, which converts at full scale to 125mm (just under 5"). Check it on a ruler - in my opinion that's a very narrow oarblade to drive a 90 foot ship, even if you have 100 of them.  I expect the oar would go through the port more easily on an angle, but it still wouldn't be able to be all that much wider than 5". Perhaps the original pictures are closer to the reality than I thought.

 

Steven

[druxey]

Check the width of modern oar blades. I don't think that they are more than 5" wide. 18th century sweeps had a blade width of 3 1/2" to 6".

[Louie da fly]

Druxey, you may well be right. I don't have access to any oars at the moment (though Ballarat's Lake Wendouree has hosted and continues to host many rowing competitions - even the 1956 Olympics!).

To see the mutant looking oars the original mediaeval representations show, have a look at some of the pictures on the first page of this log.

 

Steven

[Louie da fly]

DROMON UNPLUGGED!

 

After two years and 5 months since I started planning it, and a year and seven months since I began building, the dromon has finally come off its plug. It was with heart in mouth that I undid the screws that held it in place and carefully jiggled it back and forth to free it up. I was concerned that the cling wrap might not have done its job properly, that glue might have seeped through and stuck the hull to the plug, with possibly disastrous results. But no ominous cracking or splintering sounds, and with a minimum of manoeuvring, the hull came away cleanly!

 

 

 

 

 

 

I had already completed the stand so the newly free hull had something to support it safely. I'd hoped that putting gold paint on the stand would make it look like it was made of gold, but it didn't. What it did look like was gilded wood, which in my opinion is just as good and just as typical of Byzantium.

 

 

 The plug formed a support and and helped protect her from damage. Now she's off it, I have to be a lot more careful to keep her safe from cats and small children (both are risks where we live!). 

 

It was interesting to find that many of the frames had fragments of a thin skin of glue adhering to them, where it had been pressed up against the inner face of the clingwrap and dried, and I needed to crack them off to tidy the inside up. I'm not going to bother with being too thorough getting rid of them, as they'll be hidden by the deck planking anyway.

 

Turning the ship right way up for the first time without the plug and its supporting substructure makes evident for the first time the slim elegant shape of what is effectively a bloody great 90 foot rowing boat.

 

 

 

Removing the clutter at the top by trimming the frames that were sticking up above the gunwales made the shape more elegant still.

 

 

 

And to give some idea of just how thin the planking is, here is the ship with the light behind it - you can see right through the planks! (Note; this also made evident some gaps I hadn't seen when it was on the plug, so I have some more filling to do. But it's really not as bad as it looks in the photo - the light shining behind makes even the tiniest gaps look enormous). And she's so light!  - 70 grams, or 2.4 ounces. I know that there's more to add to her before she's complete, which will make her somewhat heavier, but she will still be very lightweight, as is appropriate for a vessel powered only by human muscle.

 

My temporary (or perhaps I should say one-time) clamps work a treat counteracting the springy frames' tendency to push the sides outwards. The clamps are just held there by friction so I can take them off and put them back on as I work on the rest of the ship. 

 

I won't be able to take them off permanently till I have glued at least a reasonable number of deck beams in place to hold the sides of the hull in, but first I have to do a fair bit of mucking around within the hull, as otherwise the deck beams will get in the way of what I want to do.

 

My next task is to put in a new frame between every pair that are currently in place - due to lack of space I'd only been able to put in every second frame while she was on the plug, so now she needs the rest of them installed. (I've got the new frames already made and bent roughly to the correct curve. But if as I plan to, I soak them before gluing and clamping them in place, I think they'll lose whatever shape they previously had, and will take on the shape of the vessel itself as they dry. So I suppose I might as well not have bothered to bend them in the first place. But that's all part of the learning experience.)

 

Then I have to put in the mast steps, plus the frames to hold the lower oars in position (and I'm still not certain how I'm going to do that). And on and on after that. There's a lot in the sequencing, to avoid painting myself into a corner. 

 

But I'm very pleased with how she's turned out. She's just beautiful!

 

Steven

 

 

[usedtosail]

She looks great Steven off the plug. Nice job!

[druxey]

Congratulations on reaching this milestone, Steven. De-plugging (if there is such a word!) is always a stressful moment.

[goetzi73]

Really magnificent Steven. I like the carving on the stand also.

Looking forward on the next steps in your build.

[BANYAN]

Looks great Steven and a tribute to your efforts.

 

cheers

 

Pat

[Louie da fly]

Thanks for the likes, everyone. Much appreciated.

 

 

 

Well, I was right; the in-between frames straightened out when I put them in water. So all that work at the beginning of the build went to waste. I'll know better next time (if I'm ever misguided enough to try this kind of build again!).

 

But it made them flexible enough to bend to shape and clamp in place with the tiny clothes-pegs I once bought from an art/craft shop on the off-chance I'd use them one day. So here are the first two in place.

 

 

And another few. I had to leave some spaces blank for the time being. The one-time clamp got in the way for two of them, and another broke when I bent it (so I have to soak another one to go in its place - but I have several extras I set aside in case this happened.)

 

 

 

Tomorrow's Father's Day - the kids will be over, so I may not get any shipbuilding done - but I've got a whole lot of frames in soak for when I next get the time. In the meantime I'm listening to Paul McCartney's Ram album which my lovely wife gave me as an early Father's Day prezzie.

 

Steven

Edited September 2, 2017 by Louie da fly

[druxey]

I note that you live in Oz. I have some small plastic coated bulldog clips that my wife brought back from Australia. They are really useful for model-making in situations like you show. Unfortunately I can't get them here in N. America, but you should be able to find them easily.

[MartinB]

You are correct, Steven. The dromon is elegant. Your excitement and pride justifiably shine through your commentary. Congratulations on reaching this milestone.

 

Regards, 

Martin

[Louie da fly]

Thanks everyone for the likes and comments. They're greatly appreciated.

 

I got some time free to work on the ship after the family get-together. Making good progress. Here are a couple of photos with all the pegs in use at once.

 

 

 

Once the glue is dry I'll be free to re-use the pegs to clamp the rest of the intermediate frames in place. However, it looks like I'll have to make more of them - I've had a larger breakage rate than I'd expected when bending them into position.

 

18 hours ago, druxey said:

I note that you live in Oz. I have some small plastic coated bulldog clips that my wife brought back from Australia. They are really useful for model-making in situations like you show. Unfortunately I can't get them here in N. America, but you should be able to find them easily.

Hi Druxey,

 

One of the problems with wooden pegs is that they get glued to the frames if you're not careful. Plastic coated bulldog clips sound worth getting - could you post a photo so I can know what to look for? Does your wife remember where she got them (what town/shop)? If I can get hold of them, would you like me to buy some for you as well?

 

Steven

Edited September 3, 2017 by Louie da fly

[mtaylor]

Sweet work, Steven.   She looks very elegant.

[Louie da fly]

Five frames to go - well, half-frames really, as they're at the extreme ends of the ship.

 

The new frames have made the hull much firmer and stiffer. It really feels like she has some strength to her. I still have to add the keelson and a couple of stringers, which should add further to the hull's integrity. And she looks a lot better with all the frames in place.

 

I used the "one-shot" clamps to keep the hull ship-shape (sorry!) while I glued in all the extra frames. But now the glue has dried, the hull has retained the shape the clamps pulled it into. So I won't have to rely on the deck beams to pull the sides in. I'd hoped this might happen, but I wasn't relying on it.

 

 

Next step, add the last few frames, then some tidying up - sanding the hull, repairing a few frames that broke off while I was working on the hull (VERY easy to do!), cleaning up glue residue, and trimming the tops of the frames flush with the top of the gunwales. Then I'll be able to go on and cut out the oarports.

 

And now I'm looking ahead to where exactly the deck will go, where to put the platforms for the steersmen etc etc . . .

 

So much still to do. This hobby is certainly teaching me the value of patience . . .

 

 

Steven 

 

 

Edited September 7, 2017 by Louie da fly

[MarisStella.hr]

Hi Steven ... Great thing ! Really good ...

Regards, Zoran

 

[Louie da fly]

 

According to the thesis by Mark Geanette (Mast Step and Keelson: The Early Development of a Shipbuilding Technology) mediaeval Mediterranean lateeners didn’t have a separate mast step. The keelson performed that function, being fixed more firmly to the keel where the mast was, as can be seen in the 11^th century “glass wreck” of Serce Limani.

 

Now that it’s almost time to put in the keelson I need to start thinking about whether the dromon should have one or two masts.

Unfortunately, the available evidence is equivocal – some points to a single mast, some to two masts.

 

One Mast:

1.       When writing of dromons, Leo VI in his Navmachia Leontos Basileos (On Naval Warfare by Emperor Leo) refers only to “the mast”, never “the masts”.

2.       The inventories for the Cretan expedition of 949 have survived, and they specify that for the 20 dromons of the fleet, 20 chalkisia (masts with sheaves at the top), 20 psellia (“rings” - probably some equivalent to parrels) and 20 sails must be supplied.

3.       The only contemporary picture of a Byzantine warship with mast raised (the well-known picture from the Skylitzes Chronicle) shows a single mast. As it is using Greek fire, it’s almost certainly a dromon. Interestingly, the mast seems to have sheaves at the top.

 

 

 

Two Masts:

1.       An 11th century Byzantine document on siege warfare in the Vatican library (MS Vat. Gr. 1605 fol 40r) contains a contemporary picture of flying bridges being used to attack and cross the seawalls of an enemy fortification. These bridges are supported by two ships lashed together, each with two masts (see picture). It seems unlikely that without the support of a second mast a bridge of this sort could be kept from sagging forward too far to be of use.

 

In his definitive book Age of the Dromon, Professor John Pryor has come down in favour of two masts, on the basis that a single mast would be insufficient for a vessel of this size, which would luff up and be uncontrollable.

 

I’m not an expert in the balance of forces involved in the mechanics of sailing, but there are any number of contemporary pictures of galleys even larger than my dromon, with only a single mast and sail. They date to the 16^th century, not to the 11^th, but I don’t believe there would be any difference in the sailing capabilities of a 16^th and 11^th century galley. If anything, because the later galleys had up to four or even five men to an oar, their crews were considerably larger, increasing the weight of the later vessels.

 

There is other evidence, but it’s also either confusing or equivocal.

 

One quote (in Greek) from Leo VI text refers to a wooden castle “around the middle of the mast”. Though this initially sounds like a fighting top, galleys fought with their masts lowered, so it can’t be.

 

On the basis that this passage was wrongly transcribed by the copyist, Professor Pryor suggests that with only slight alteration it could be read as “around the middle mast” or “around the middle (i.e. half way between) of the masts”, or “around the mast of the middle” (a term used to describe a mast shipped amidships, no matter how many masts the ship had.) The first two would mean the ship definitely had more than one mast, and the third could also be interpreted that way. But there is another possible “correction” – “in the middle, around the mast”, which takes no more liberties with the original Greek than the other three passages.

 

Though most of the information above suggests a single mast, I’m leaning towards two, but I’m not certain – the evidence is just too indefinite. But I like to think of my dromon under both sail and oars, before the wind, with the two great lateen sails “goose-winged” – one to starboard and the other to port.

 

 

Any comments or suggestions would be very welcome.    

 

Steven

Edited September 12, 2017 by Louie da fly

[Louie da fly]

Interesting what you see even when something is really familiar to you . . . After years of looking at the ship with the Greek fire, I've only just noticed that she has what are almost certainly TWO banks of oars! So she IS a dromon!

 

Steven

[Louie da fly]

I've been doing some trimming and tidying up. I've gone back over the frames and straightened the majority of the crooked ones. I still have a couple to do, plus restoring a few which had the ends break off.

 

I'd made an initial cut of the ends of the frames (with a big pair of cutters), but they were still sticking up a little past the top of the gunwale. First I tried cutting them off square with a scalpel blade, but this was very laborious and slow (the blade REALLY doesn't like doing it). Then I got out my trusty fretsaw blade (broken off short so I could hold it between my fingers) and that worked more quickly, but it was still a pain in the neck.

 

But then I bethought myself that I should look back at the archaeological remains of the Byzantine galleys found in Istanbul, and it turns out the frames are actually cut off on the diagonal. This turned out to be MUCH easier to do just using the scalpel. Took a few hours to cut them all off (132 of them) so they looked neat.

 

 

Unfortunately, as can be seen above, the amount of glue that sneaked in past the plug and the cling wrap is still something of an eyesore. I've decided to ignore anything that won't be visible in the final model (hidden by the deck, for instance), but I still have more work to do getting rid of the vestiges that will be in plain view. I've used the scalpel to get the worst of it off, but now the surface is rough from the scalpel blade and still looks pretty ghastly, so I need to have another go at it, perhaps by scraping or sanding.

 

I've been experimenting with cardboard cut-outs for the prymne (poop deck). It has to be big enough for the captain (or at a pinch the Emperor and a few of his courtiers), with a tent for shelter, plus two steersmen. The first one I made, which was the size I'd drawn originally, was far too small - it would barely have room for the steersmen.

 

 

The second was better, but really still a little inadequate.

 

 

 

Finally, the third seems to be big enough for the purpose - there should be room for a reasonable number of people, a tent and the steersmen.

 

 

 

 

I'll have to extend the tent as my cardboard cut-out doesn't go far enough back. I'm thinking of having the side walls rolled up so you can see the people inside.

 

Using this final form of the prymne, I was able to work out where the steersman would stand, and so where the steering oar would pivot against the hull.

 

Then, using as my basis an 11th century Byzantine picture of of a hull being scraped (or possibly caulked), I started working up a shape, size and position for the structure protecting the steering oar mechanism. There are certainly other shapes for this structure (mostly rectangular) but this one appeals to me.

I note also what may be two periboloi (catheads) at the bow. I'd been wondering what shape they might be, and this picture may answer my question. And are those tholes sticking up from the gunwale? 

 

The first protective structure I made was too big and the not quite the right shape.

 

Going back to the picture I made a another one that looks right when held against the hull. If you look carefully you can see a line across the gunwale and the word "pivot" about level with the centre of the triangle.

 

There will be enough space between the poop deck and the main deck below it for the two transverse beams that will support the steering oars. I've marked their approximate position on the hull with circles as can be seen in this photo. 

 

Below them you can see semicircles accurately marking the final positions and size of the oarports of the lower bank. They are four frames apart and I've made sure they won't clash with any the frames.

 

Steven 

 

 

 

Edited September 16, 2017 by Louie da fly

[druxey]

I apologize for the late reply, Steven: I was away. The clips from Oz are seen in the photo. No idea where my wife picked them up, other than an office supply type store. I imagine you should be able to find them. 

 

As for removing 'extra' glue from the interior of the hull, if you used white or yellow glue, it should soften with a careful application of rubbing alcohol.

[Louie da fly]

Thanks everyone for the likes.

 

Thanks for the info Druxey. I'll try the rubbing alcohol and see if it does the job. I've been using white glue (PVA). I'll have a look for those bulldog clips. I don't think I've ever seen them before. 

 

On reflection I think I'll have to move the transverse beams back just a little, to make sure there's no clash between the side-rudders and the aftermost oars.

 

Steven