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

[Louie da fly]

After a long pause when family matters got in the way, and the model sneered at me whenever I went past, I've been able to do some more on the build. 

 

I discovered a major problem - the wood I was using for the keel and frames was not properly seasoned - I'd picked it up from the roadside after the street-tree trimmers had been past and hadn't left it long enough before I used it. That didn't matter for the frames - they're so thin they can take any shape. But I discovered that the keel, which had been straight when I made it, had warped dramatically.

 

 

 

I first thought of making another keel, but none of the other pieces I had were straight enough to use as they were - and I had the keel just the shape I wanted it (except for the warp). So I put it in my trusty bending jig made out of a plank and some nails (see pics in previous log entries), wet the keel under the tap and steamed it straight again with a heat gun. It took a lot of trial and error, steaming and bending, checking against the hull, and steaming and bending again, but it finally worked!

 

FINALLY, I've been able to glue the keel to the frames, and remove the line of push-pins along the keel.

 

I held the keel in place with a number of rubber bands.

 

 

 

 

Once the glue on the main frames was dry I was able to remove the rubber bands. 

 

Most of the frames are in a single piece and I could glue them directly to the keel where they pass over it, but the curve at the bow and stern is too acute, and the frames had to be made in two pieces - port and starboard. I was able to end-glue these frames to the keel and it seemed to work.

 

 

 

 

I clamped the ones at the extreme ends to the keel with bulldog clips because push-pins couldn't go in at the correct angle to hold them against the keel properly (not shown in photo).

 

So now all the frames are on and I've started on getting the wales shaped exactly (again by repeated trial and error bending and steaming) so they will give the hull some proper structural shape of its own - currently it's only held in shape by the plug. I'd put up some photos, only my camera has chosen this time to commit suicide. When it's fixed I'll post some.

 

Steven 

[druxey]

I can only hope that the various forces tending towards warping cancel each other out. If not, you'll have a gondola!

[Robin Lous]

I can only hope that the various forces tending towards warping cancel each other out. If not, you'll have a gondola!

 

Negative waves....

 

[Louie da fly]

I can only hope that the various forces tending towards warping cancel each other out. If not, you'll have a gondola!

That's my major worry, Druxey. I'm doing all I can to minimise any warping tendency, but only time will tell.

 

If I'd  used properly seasoned timber and built the model on good solid bulkheads - or even heavier frames - the problem wouldn't have arisen. However, I'm confident the keel is now ok and I'm steaming and bending the wales so they're symmetrical about the keel and lie as close as possible to their true finished shape without having to be forced there. I've pre-bent all the frames and they are so thin that no individual one will impose much warping force, but collectively they might. But if I've been careful enough it will all come together.  

 

I've probably bitten off a bit more than I can chew trying to do more than my current skills allow, but I wanted to try this out. And if it all works - well, I'll feel I've really achieved something. If not - it's a learning experience.

 

Robin - I've always loved Donald Sutherland in that movie. "Have a little faith, baby - have a little faith".

 

Steven

Edited January 15, 2017 by Louie da fly

[druxey]

It's always good to push one's limits. Then they aren't the limits any longer!

[Louie da fly]

The keel is now in place and I've taken away the rubber bands. It seems to be nice and straight, and no problems.

 

 

 

 

After that I went on to glue the lower pair of wales to the frames. I'd previously steam-bent them to the closest approximation I could of their final shape. I got them closer and closer to the right curve, but I was never able to get them in contact with the frames all the way along - there were always a couple of places where they were about a millimetre off. In the long run I decided to screw them down into contact with the frames and hope that I'd got them close enough to maintain a natural shape for the hull. Who knows, the wales might have a smoother curve than I'd managed when I carved the plug.

 

 

 

And this is a theoretical reconstruction, after all. If the hull is a millimetre wider than I'd planned, it shouldn't make much difference overall. Nobody knows for sure exactly how wide dromons were anyway - I had to guess the beam when I first did the drawings. So I've resolved not to worry too much about it. If it comes out a little skewiff, I'll just have to accept that as the price of pushing the outside of the envelope. 

 

Some time ago I had a small accident and the stern "tail" broke off the keel at the weakest point, the scarph joint holding it to the sternpost. This didn't affect things while I was working on the keel, but the second pair of wales will have to be glued to the "tail", so it was time to put it back on. I extended the clingwrap the plug was wrapped in so it went past the join and added another piece of clingwrap to make sure of things. With a bit of luck it will prevent the glue from sticking the "tail" to the plug so it won't cause problems when I remove the hull from the plug. I used a rubber band to hold it in place and alignment. Fortunately the push pins made good anchoring points for the rubber band to exert the forces in the right direction to keep the tail lined up.

 

 

 

 

My next task is the second pair of wales. It takes quite a while to get them properly, so I might be away for some time . . . (like Captain Oates)

 

Steven

Edited January 25, 2017 by Louie da fly

[druxey]

Unlike the unfortunate Captain, I hope you return! She looks to be taking shape quite nicely now, Steven. You seem to have cornered the market for push pins.

[Louie da fly]

Thanks for the compliment, Druxey. The push pins are currently taking the place of the gunwale. They'll have to stay till I put it in position.

 

I think it's interesting how much more elegant the ship looks with the 'tail' in place. Without it, she doesn't look bad, just a bit ordinary. With it, she has style!

 

Steven

[Louie da fly]

End view of the first pair of wales in place, with the screws removed. I'm pretty happy with it - seems to have worked well, and good symmetry.

 

 

I've bend one of the next pair of wales to shape, but will have to wait till the weekend to do the other one. In the meantime I'm smoothing it off, firstly with a file and then with wet and dry sandpaper.

 

Steven

[Louie da fly]

Back again after far too long. Work and family (baby sitting the daughter's 20 month old, and a new one almost here) have meant I couldn't spend anything like the time I'd like to on the ship.

 

My last post had a photo of the lowest pair of wales just attached. Unfortunately, though the port one was good, I've had to carefully slice through the glued joins between wale and frames almost all the way along the starboard one, re-position the wale and re-glue it - it was in place on the ends, but rather wrong in the middle - even though it looked pretty good by eye. It became blindingly obvious when I tried to place the next pair of wales.

 

I realised that I'd been making it hard on myself when bending the wales. Firstly, instead of bending them all the way along to roughly approximate the line of the ship and then 'tweak' them at the ends, it's much better to start at one end and get it perfectly in line bit by bit until it lines up from end to end. Secondly I've been using a single piece of wood for a 30 metre (90 foot) wale, instead of making it in sections as I'm sure was done in the day. Well, the most painful lessons are the ones that stick in the mind.

These are the second pair of wales. Note only one wale has been smoothed off in this photo and I've used a mix of white glue and sanding dust to fill a couple of flaws in it.

I've now filed and sanded off the rough filling and it's nice and smooth.

 

The second wale took a lot of getting right. Here it is in the jig for heat bending. I wetted it a bit and put it in the jig and played a heat gun on it. Prior to that I was trying to bend it by putting it between two nails and bending it with my fingers while using the heat gun. Too painful. For future builds I think I'll get a proper bending heater as shown here. It looks much better than what I've been doing.

 

 

The second wale is now smoothed off and both are ready to glue to the frames.

 

 

And I've been painting up some of my crew members. As well as a very good tutorial on the MSW site I found another for 1:35 military figures at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=no2zBike6Q0 that was very helpful. I think I still have a long way to go with carving figures, particularly faces, but I'm learning all the time.

 

 

 

 

 

Steven

 

  

[druxey]

Those figures are much nicer than many I've seen, Steven, although the gentleman seated on the bench seems rather grumpy! Perhaps the musician is off-key? And yes, every model is a learning experience.

[Louie da fly]

Well, he is the captain - he's probably got a right to be grumpy. On the other hand, I'm thinking of replacing him on the bench with Emperor Alexios Komnenos and have a few courtiers as well, and perhaps some bodyguards, so I can indulge my obsession with Byzantine splendour. If so, I'll have to make a new (standing) captain - he can't very well sit down if the Emperor is present. 

 

Steven

[Louie da fly]

I've now made and fitted all the wales, including the gunwales, which are currently in the process of being glued in place.

 

I just hope the cling-wrap enables the hull to come away from the plug smoothly when the time comes, and that there aren't any pieces glued to the plug itself.

 

Here is the ship with all the push pins removed (except one, which was being used to hold a vagrant frame in place) and the starboard gunwale fixed at the bow.

I've replaced pushpins with large-headed screws which hold the wale in position. 

 

I'm pretty happy with the symmetry of the wales and the line they take. A good ship should look beautiful - the lines should be attractive to the eye. Funny, till I saw the end-on photo I hadn't notice the slight inequality in the line of the keel and stempost. I think I can live with it, or perhaps change it a bit. (On looking at it again, it turns out to be that the keel and the stempost are a bit too big in the vertical direction where they join - I've trimmed down the join and it looks better now).

And here she is with both gunwales dry-fitted and held in place with screws (the bulldog clip is holding yet another vagrant frame in place while the glue dries).

 

You can see from the bow view that the starboard gunwale is just a little too short. I cut it to length then discovered that the wale was a little out of place in the middle. When I adjusted it, the length was now too short. I've put in an extra piece of wood to fill the gap, which I'll carve to follow the shape of the gunwale. As I'm planning to paint the model, it won't be visible when she's finished.

 

The gunwales are in two pieces - one runs most of the length of the hull, the other is not in place yet -  the "tail" which is a tight curve as can be seen at the stern and will be fixed to the main part of the wale with a scarph joint.

 

An interesting thing that I thought might happen - when I released the push-pins holding the ends of the frames to the plug, their natural springiness pushed the gunwales outward, even though the frames are only 1mm square in section. But after all, the wales are only 3mmx3mm, so they're not all that resistant to being bowed.

 

I've worked out how I can fix this. The ship is to be fully decked, so the deck beams will act as transverse braces to pull the wales back into place (I'll have to make a jig to hold the hull in shape while the glue dries). But I don't want to put the deck beams in until I've done some work inside the hull - in particular making a framework to hold the lower bank of oars in place and putting in the mast step(s). The extra bow is only about 3mm (1/8") on either side, so it's not as serious as I feared, and may not affect the work I need to do before the deck beams go in. If I'm worried about it, I'll make some temporary braces to hold the gunwales in place while I work inside the hull.

 

Overall I am very pleased with the way she looks, particularly with line of the stern. I think she's going to be a very beautiful model.

 

Steven
  

 

 

[Louie da fly]

I'm currently working on shaping the "tails" of the gunwales so they fit smoothly with the gunwales themselves and with the "tail" of the sternpost (I really don't have a worthwhile name for them). Photos shortly.

 

In the meantime I thought I'd put up these pictures of the Emperor on board a galley (perhaps a dromon, even though it only has one bank of oars - the picture may have been simplified by the artist - as far as I know there are no contemporary Byzantine pictures of double-banked galleys).

 

The Greek text in the first picture says the ship of the Emperor.

 

 

These are from the mid-12th century illustrated copy in the Biblioteca Nacional in Madrid of the chronicle of Byzantine history written by John Skylitzes. Almost all the  illustrations of Byzantine galleys in the Skylitzes Chronicl, show them with black hulls, but both of these, with the Emperor and his courtiers aboard, show them in red and yellow. So perhaps this colour scheme was reserved for the Emperor's own ship. Also, though many illustrations show double-ended "banana boats", the first shows a ship with a bow suitable to take a ramming "spur" (and very similar to the intended shape of my dromon) and the second shows one (admittedly a banana boat) with what may well be a spur.

 

I intend to use these two as models to draw from for the colour scheme of my own dromon, and also for such details as the banners etc. There are certainly differences between these pictures and my own proposal - for example both of these galleys have two "wings" at the stern rather than a single "tail"  - but from what scant information is available the double wings appear to have been a development of the 12th century; the only picture of a Byzantine galley I know of dating to the 11th century (from the Cynegetica of Pseudo-Oppian) shows a single "tail", which is what I've based my own upon. I've also taken from this 11th century illustration such details as the shape of the oars and the side rudder, though the 12th century ones are very similar anyway. And unlike any other picture I know of, this one shows a tiller on the side rudder of the ship on the left. 

 

And these two galleys are multi-coloured - not only are the bow and stern different from the rest of the hull, but the main part of each is green with a red stripe. Even allowing for artistic licence, this may perhaps indicate that other Byzantine galleys were brightly painted.

 

By the way, the third figure from the left is the archetype for my carved flute player. 

 

 

 Steven

 

 

[woodrat]

Steven, great progress and looking fine. I would be careful about extrapolating colours from a mediaeval manuscript to the model. The monk was probably using whatever colours were in the scriptorium. I take your point that it does suggest colours were used. However, most hulls were probably paid with tallow and hair to above the waterline so colouring would be used sparingly above this level. Sailors have always liked their ships pretty.

Dick

[Louie da fly]

Very true, Dick. If the Bayeux Tapestry, for example, is to be believed, the Normans had blue and green horses.

 

However, I find it interesting that out of the dozens of pictures of ships in the Skylitzes Chronicle, only these two are red and yellow, and both have the Emperor on board, and in one of them it is even labelled as the Imperial ship. Of course it may mean nothing, but the model has to be some colour, and these manuscript illustrations are the only evidence available. If I don't use them I have nothing to work off at all. I suppose I could paint it black as the other ships in the Skylitzes are, but the same criticism applies to doing that.

 

I can never know for sure if it's correct (without a time machine), but this artist has got many other details right (in such things as costume) and I'm prepared to give him the benefit of the doubt.

 

Here are some progress pics of adding the "tail" to the gunwales. The first shows the two tails - one fully shaped and smoothed off, the other still incomplete.

 

 

Here is the starboard "tail"held in place with flat headed screws and tiny pegs.

 

 

And both in place. The tiny peg was too small to span the thickness of keel and both gunwales, so I had to use a normal clothes peg.

 

 

Before I put the tails on I'd been sweeping the table to get ready to take photos and in a moment of inattention I broke the tail off the keel. Not a happy camper. I had to carefully glue it back in place (I use white glue) and hold it in my fingers till it dried enough to stay put. But it came good, and now the two gunwales brace the tail of the keel so it's not likely to snap off if a similar accident occurs. As I'd feared there is a very slight asymmetry between the two gunwale tails, but I'll be able to fix this with a little imagination, trimming and gluing.

 

The next step is to make the frames more uniform. Currently they don't form a smooth curve for the planking and I'm slowly remedying this. Another lesson in patience and in technique. I should have used even more push pins than I did and held each frame against the plug at more points of the curve. But I'm confident that I can make it good with patience and care.

 

 

Steven   

[druxey]

Persistence will pay off, eventually! Sorry about your sweeping incident, though. I hate it when that sort of thing happens.

[Louie da fly]

Thanks everybody for the likes.

 

Druxey, if I'd had the accident the next day with the gunwale tails in place, I'm confident there'd have been no damage at all. But up till then the tail was just an accident waiting to happen. And I'd been SO careful with it up till then. Just goes to show (but I'm not sure what . . .)

 

Now I'm reading up on planking, using the MSW tutorials and McCarthy's book Building Plank on Frame Ship Models. The only time I've previously done any planking was with the Great Harry when I was about 17 (more years ago than I care to think about) and though that didn't turn out too badly,  I'd like to do it right this time. Preferably no stealers, no drop planks, just elegant, beautiful strakes.

 

I'll be using pine, cut to 0.5 mm thick on the table saw belonging to the guy across the road. Unfortunately it's not a very exact saw, so about half the slivers it cut were the wrong thickness and can't be used, and all of them are a little thicker at one end than the other. I figure I can overcome this by just ignoring the problem till the strakes all in place, then sanding them all to the same thickness.

 

This isn't really a ship; it's a giant rowing boat 90 feet long. It's built as lightly as a rowing boat, and the frames are so thin on the full sized ship that it was impractical to join planks end to end with a butt joint -there's not enough "meat" in the frame to hold two butt jointed plank ends. So they used a very beautiful curved scarph joint (an "S" shape instead of a zig-zag), stretching across several frames. The situation is the same in the model and I'll be using the same joint myself. It'll take a little time and care to get it all to marry up but I believe it'll be worth it.  

 

 

 

Steven

[druxey]

Perhaps one of your Aussie model compatriots with a miniature saw could volunteer to cut planking stock accurately for you? (I know that Oz is very strict about importing wood or other vegetable matter).

[Louie da fly]

And having caught the carving bug (and with an Emperor and his courtiers to carve!) in between times while I waited for the glue to dry I've been working on extra people for the ship. Here is Emperor Alexios and one of his courtiers. I've cut out the courtier's outline with a coping saw, but the Emperor is still just a piece of paper stuck to a bit of pear wood.

 

Now I've cut the Emperor's outline out, and made a start on carving the courtier. I've placed the Emperor badly - I would have been better putting him higher on the piece of wood so I had something to hold onto while I carved.

 

 

The philosophy of getting a rounded figure from a squared off chunk of wood is to think of it as a series of layers. Leaving the layer nearest the outside face - in this case his arm - cut away wood from all around it, leaving the arm standing proud. You have to estimate how thick the arm is - it's often more than you think -and cut away that deep behind the arm. In this case all the detail of the head is lost as you have to cut it back to let the arm stand out. I've cut away a bit below the arm, but as I haven't yet sorted out the hem of his gown I've left it alone.

 

 

Now I've trimmed down further to begin to give the body some shape. Still thinking in terms of layers, the shoulders are the next nearest thing to the surface of the wood, so I've cut away everything around them. I've also trimmed off somewhat so the hem of the gown is in about the right place. Next I'll have to put a couple of saw-cuts across the figure to give the hem of the gown some definition and cut back to the layer of the front of his feet.

 

I've roughly re-drawn his face and arms to give me some orientation for further carving. I'm still trying to work out what to do with his strange hat - it leans forward over his head like a smurf's hat and I need to get it right; but all in good time. I've left myself enough leeway to come back to it and shape it  more carefully later.

 

Here he is from the left side . .

 

 

And from the back . . .

 

 

and from the right.

 

 

More progress pictures in my next post.

 

Steven 

[woodrat]

3 hours ago, druxey said:

Perhaps one of your Aussie model compatriots with a miniature saw could volunteer to cut planking stock accurately for you? (I know that Oz is very strict about importing wood or other vegetable matter).

I could do this with my Byrnes saw if you let me know dimensions and wood type.

Dick

[druxey]

There you go! Thank you so much for offering to help Steven out, Dick. This is another wonderful way in which MSW can work. 

[Louie da fly]

Thanks everybody for the likes.

 

Thanks for the idea, Druxey, and for the offer, Woodrat. Currently I'm going ok - the different thicknesses at the plank ends shouldn't be a problem - the difference is very minor. But I might take you up on it later, Dick.

 

To be honest, the timber is just radiata pine that I got from Bunnings. It's the nearest thing I have to the black pine that the original ships were planked with, and I'm trying to approximate as closely as possible from Australian sources the types of wood, thicknesses and weights of the original timbers, to get some idea of how heavy the hull would have been in the original by making it to scale. Once I weigh the hull of the model I'll multiply by the scale cubed (i.e 50x50x50) to get overall tare weight. It might be off by as much as 100% or even more due to the inaccuracies in the method, but it'll give me some idea of the ballpark we're working with. Not for any particular reason except personal interest and satisfaction.

 

Druxey, I'm very fortunate in Ballarat that we have lots of European street trees - elm, ash, oak, plane - as well as fruit trees, particularly pear and apple, growing in people's back yards or even self-sown on the side of the road. We have two plum trees in our yard and I've even got a whole lot of walnut from when the neighbour's tree died and he gave me the timber. When the council workers come around and trim the street trees, or there's a big storm (we just had one which split several elm trees in two just down the road from me), I manage to get a fair bit of timber. 

 

 

 

Steven  

[Louie da fly]

Next step in the carving process. What I call the Megatron stage - because the figure's face resembles some kind of Transformer. I've roughed out the face and given the arms more definition, as well as slightly trimming the body a little closer to the size and shape I want it to be. From this point on, I get very careful about shaving off more wood and only take off a very little at each time, have a look, compare it to how I want it to look, take a little more off and look at it again etc. It's easy to take wood off, but if you've cut off too much you can't put it back.

 

At this point I move from a Stanley knife

 

 to a scalpel with a No. 11 blade for the finer work. 

 

 

Now I put a lot of effort into getting the face right. Once that's ok I go on with the body. If I mess up the face I have to throw the figure away and start again. I might as well do it now, rather than do all the work  getting the body perfect and then have to throw the figure away because I messed up the face - it's just wasted effort.

 

 

 

 

Still somewhat Megatron, but looking a bit more like a human's face.

 

And here he is from the side

 

 

Unfortunately, the next photos in the carving sequence came out all blurry, so I've had to skip a step. Here's the figure almost complete. 

 

I'm afraid he looks a little like a Tolkien dwarf, but when he's painted up he should look more Greek and less dwarvish - the "dwarf's hood" is really some kind of turban, and I think a good paint job will point this up. And I have the chance to show the Byzantine splendour of the clothes.

 

Oh, and I only realised from looking at the photos that his pedal extremities are colossal - his feet's too big. I'll trim them down and I think this will reduce the dwarvish look as well.

 

 

 

 

I'm pretty happy with those fingers . . .

 

 

Steven

 

 

[Louie da fly]

At a quiet point on the build and (all right I admit it) I've got rather fired up by the carving bug.

 

So, the Emperor needs bodyguards, right? Well, here's the first one (not quite complete, but well on the way). He's wearing full Byzantine lamellar armour except for his helmet. He's loosely of based on one of the illuminations from the Skylitzes Chronicle, but I've put him in armour instead of court costume.  

 

This took about 5 hours, I suppose (I wasn't counting).

 

I'm afraid the picture quality isn't the best.

 

I didn't take photos of the first stages. He's quite a way along when the photos start . . .

 

 

Next stage:

 

 

 

Finished for the day . . .

 

 

 

 

 

 

He's still got to have his armour carved into the torso, sleeves and skirt - you can see the pencil lines - and the whole thing needs to be smoothed off, cut off the piece of wood and painted. The spear is just a sliver of wood I had hanging around. I'll have to make him a proper one.

 

I think I'm getting better. I'm pretty pleased with the face, for example. And I'm certainly taking on more adventurous and difficult projects. Lots of "negative space" (openings), especially around the shield.

 

Steven

 

 

[BANYAN]

Hi Steven, just found your log and found myself very impressed and immersed in your development for this build.  You have made a great start and will follow with considerable interest.

 

I have some celery top pine that may answer to your needs for pine planks - let me know if interested.  I can also mill, or assist you milling, as I have a bandsaw and JB 4" for final cuts.  I see Dick has already offered and I do not wish to step on any toes   

 

I am heading off on a one month holiday next week but happy to catch up on my return.

 

cheers

 

Pat

[druxey]

Your carving skills are improving, I see! Nice work.

[Louie da fly]

Thanks for the compliment, Druxey. I think they're improving, too.

 

Banyan, thanks very much. It's greatly appreciated. I'm pretty gobsmacked at the generous nature of the people on this forum.

 

I did take Dick up on his very kind offer and he's going to be cutting the pine for my planks, for which I'm very grateful.

 

I've been wanting to get together with other ship modellers in Victoria - just don't get the chance. I'd love to compare notes with others of like mind (very hard to talk ship modelling with normal people - they don't understand the obsession).

 

PS: Love your HMCSS Victoria.

 

Steven 

[BANYAN]

Thanks Steven, I'll give you a PM when I have returned.

 

cheers

 

Pat

[Louie da fly]

I’ve finally started the planking on my dromon. It’s been a long time coming.

 

I’m very grateful to Woodrat who heard I had no proper bench saw of my own so he cut sheets of pine half a millimetre thick and sent them right across Australia for me to make my planks from (the guy across the road had cut some for me, but though I appreciate the gesture they were 50% thicker at one end than the other and really weren’t usable).

 

I did a lot of reading on planking techniques, because I really wasn’t confident I knew what I was doing. I decided to use the planking guide I found on the MSW site but I had trouble working out how to go, and after a lot of thought I worked up a template that suited my style of working. It may not suit everybody or every ship, but it seems to work for me. Following the method I got from MSW, I made up strips of paper to determine the width of each plank where it crossed a frame, dividing the distance between the keel and the first wale by the number of strakes  (in this case 8, including the garboard strake).

 

 

But then I went off on my own – I made up a template that covered the whole area between the keel and the wale from end to end of the ship and using the strips I marked the strake widths where they crossed the frames, and then joined the marks to draw the strakes on the template (along with placing the scarph joints).

 

There are three planks in each run, and they are joined end to end with a long S-shaped scarph joint based on those of the Byzantine galeae found in the silted up Harbour of Theodosius in Istanbul (the Yenikapi ships). This kind of joint is needed because the frames are so thin it would be impossible to butt-join planks at a frame. So the joint is spread over several frames, with fixings at each frame. Surprisingly, on the Yenikapi ships these joints aren’t spaced as far apart on adjacent planks as we’d normally expect. But that is probably compensated for by the strength of the scarph.

 

Then I photocopied the template and glued it onto card. I cut it into three sections – to make the three planks in each run.

After that I could cut out individual plank templates from the card and transfer them to the wood of the strakes.

Then it was a matter of trimming the edge of the strake so it fitted exactly against the keel (for the garboard strake) or the edge of the next strake. Very fiddly.

 

After that I used my strips of paper to check that I had the width of the strake right. It was always too wide – maybe the pencil wasn’t sharp enough - so then I marked the right width at each frame and drew a freehand curve to join the marks and trimmed the strake to width.

 

Checking the strake width with the guide.

 

 

I used push pins to hold the planks in place. This meant I had to drill a whole lot of 1mm diameter holes in the plug (with a hand-held drill, so always running the risk of breaking the drill) to hold the pins. I put glue on each frame (just the width of the strake) and glued along the inner edge of the strake and along the scarph joint.

 

I started with the garboard strake – not the starboard garboard; it was the larboard garboard. So far I have both garboard strakes and three planks on one side . It’s very fiddly and demanding work and takes much more time and effort than I’d expected. But it’s very rewarding.

 

Here's the first plank dry fitted.

And glued down.

Here's the garboard and the first run of planks  (the pale blue rectangle is the packet of pine sheets Woodrat sent me). 

 

And the second run of planks fitted and glued in place.

 

I’ve also been working on the Imperial guardsman to accompany the Emperor on board the ship. I’ve done the detail work on his armour and his hair. He just needs a bit of sanding and painting and he’s complete. Matchstick included for scale.

 

I made him taller than everybody else – he’s going to be one of the Emperor’s Varangian (Russian Viking) guards. The Vikings of Russia were described by the Arab traveller and chronicler Ibn Fadlan as “Blonde-haired, ruddy and taller than date palms”.

 

I think my carving’s getting better. Unfortunately, this makes me a little dissatisfied with my earlier efforts and want to re-do them. But that way lies madness . . .

 

The detail of these figures is sufficient for the scale they’re in, and anyway they’re just accessories for atmosphere - they’re not supposed to distract the attention from the ship itself. Currently I’m at the limit of the detail I can put in just wearing my normal glasses. If I wanted to improve it I’d have to invest in a super-duper magnifying glass, which I’m not prepared to do.

 

Steven