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

[cog]

How about lifting it back up ... or should I write pulling it in ...

 

Nice point Pat

[Louie da fly]

Good point, Carl. The dromon has a sort of cathead called, if I recall correctly, a peribolos, which wouldn't stand up to a chain being repeatedly pulled up over it - that's assuming that my interpretation of the contemporary picture is in fact a peribolos, and that it works the way I've made it.

 

   So, it looks like I won't be using chain . . . .

 

Steven

[cog]

Most wood doesn't react well to chains being pulled over it's edges

[KrisWood]

Hi @Louie da fly

 

I saw this paper today and thought you might find it interesting: https://www.academia.edu/9689593/Pulak_C._R._Ingram_and_M._Jones._2015._Eight_Byzantine_Shipwrecks_from_the_Theodosian_Harbour_Excavations_at_Yenikapı_in_Istanbul_Turkey_an_introduction._International_Journal_of_Nautical_Archaeology_vol._44.1_39-73?email_work_card=view-paper

[Louie da fly]

Thanks, Kris - yes, the Yenikapi wrecks (along with prof Pryor's book Age of the Dromon) are the major source of information I've been using for my dromon model. All of the structure and much of the hull shape and details are based on the galley wreck YK2 and YK4 on pages 65-68.

 

I've been in touch with Cemal Pulak who supervised these digs and he's been extremely helpful, answering questions and suggesting solutions to problems, and discussions of possible configurations for such things as the ramming spur at the bow, and the mast step (of which several have been recovered, but no-one's sure exactly how they worked). 

 

I've been amazed how helpful academics and archaeologists can be when a mere ship modeller gets in touch and asks for assistance. I think it's something to do with having a shared passion.

 

Steven

[BANYAN]

Hi All, I had the pleasure of seeing this model 'in the flesh' today , and photos do not do it justice - the paint work is very rich and the model, as a whole, is going to be a very fine example.

 

Thanks for hosting me Steven.

 

cheers

 

Pat

Edited January 26, 2020 by BANYAN

[Louie da fly]

Thanks, Pat. It was very good to meet you at last after following your Victoria build for quite a long time and being very impressed with the quality of your work.  Had a very good time just talking ship models. I'll be seeing you again for the Ship Model Society of Victoria meeting Wednesday week and I look forward to meeting the other members.

 

Steven

[Louie da fly]

Been adding the lower bank of oars, one at a time - I had to wait till the glue dried on each before I moved onto the next, because a whole lot of oars with wet glue would be too hard to keep aligned without messing each other up. So here we go:

 

To get all the oars at the same angle, I'd previously drawn parallel pencil lines on a long piece of wood below decks and aligned the oars to the lines. 

 

Note that the faithful cat-food container has again proved its worth:

 

 But I couldn't do it that way on the other side, so I came up with what turned out to be a better way.

 

  

 

 

Steven

Edited January 28, 2020 by Louie da fly

[druxey]

Impressive!

[Maury S]

Truly amazing alignment!

Maury

[MESSIS]

Its an incredible piece of work! Out of any aspect, historically, engineering wise (including  ecxellent model work) and last but not least, as an art work! So Steven, has as a fact and  by far, succeeded an extraordinary (dear to say scientific) achievement in our  hobby world, in the  fascinating world of model shipbuilding!

 

Congrats my friend. Looking forward for your end result.

Edited January 28, 2020 by MESSIS

[Louie da fly]

Thanks everybody for the kind comments and the likes. Very much a learning experience, but I'm pretty happy with the way it's going.

 

Steven

[BANYAN]

Add my name to the kudos, well earned!

 

cheers

 

Pat

[mtaylor]

With the amount of research and the workmanship, this vessel should end up in a museum.

[Mark Pearse]

Steven

 

that's beautiful, & such an amazing looking craft

[md1400cs]

Steven,

 

Been away the last couple of weeks – been following on my iPad, but forgot my login info haha – now back at home so I can post again to builds that I follow 🤔

Your work and log are allowing so much learning as well as following a beautifully done build.

[Kikatinalong]

Beautiful precision work Steven,  cant wait to see it again, hopefully soon.

[Louie da fly]

Thanks for all the comments and likes.

 

Mark, thanks for your comment, but I am very aware this model isn't "museum quality". With an undetermined number of years of extra experience I might one day aspire to that kind of level - if I ever do - but it's certainly not now.

 

Having glued in the lower bank of oars, I've now been free to complete the deck.

     

Those little clothespegs are very useful, but of course towards the edges there's no longer any room for them, so I had to weigh the last few planks down with whatever came to hand. It seems to have worked. Now to sand down the deck to make all smooth.

 

Then I have to face a problem I've been avoiding up till now. The original galley wrecks found at Yenikapi in Istanbul were single-banked and didn't have a deck. Accordingly they didn't have an inner planking - the inner sides of the frames were left open. There wasn't any need for an inner planking or a waterway to keep water from seeping down between the outer edge of the (non-existent) deck and belowdecks.

 

Unfortunately this is not the case with the dromon, and I've been debating with myself whether to install inner planking at least above deck level, so there isn't a gap in the decking between the frames and the side of the ship.  But if I do, the "wall" of the hull will be thicker than the gunwale is wide.

 

So - do I add another stringer at the inner edge of the gunwale, so the planking doesn't overlap (or is that underlap) the gunwale? I think I have to. Decisions, decisions . . .

 

Steven

 

Edited February 5, 2020 by Louie da fly

[Mark Pearse]

It doesn't have to be a stringer, & you already seem to have one in that area so it's hard to see a second one in the same close vicinity that doesn't really have a structural purpose. If we the assume the builders were careful with their prized long lengths of clear gained structural timber - & if the aim is just to cover a gap - it could be done with shorter & lower quality pieces of timber as an extension of the deck itself, either infilled & so flush with the deck, or overlapped & sitting on the deck.

[michael mott]

Beautiful work Steven.

 

Michael

[Louie da fly]

Thanks, Michael.

 

Mark, I thought of doing that and it still might be what ends up happening. But that involves a lot of fiddly work (there's over 180 gaps to be filled).

 

If instead I add inner planking, it would overlap the gunwale from underneath so I could extend the gunwale sideways (inwards) with another stringer which should (if I do it right) merge with the gunwale so they look like the same piece of wood. Here's hoping.

 

Steven

[druxey]

"A lot of fiddly work" he said: is this the man who just completed how many oars?

[BANYAN]

Steven, not sure if a waterway would be necessary?  If water was getting onto the upper deck, then would it not also flow down through the more central spaced planks also?  Yes,, if sufficiently heelied, it may take the water to one side but how often would that occur if being rowed?  If they had to cope with that, surely it would have coped with water from the edges also?

 

More experienced people will provide better / more appropriate answers, but this is just offered as a 'thought'

 

cheers

 

Pat

[GrandpaPhil]

Your dromon is fantastic!

[Louie da fly]

Thanks, GrandpaPhil.

 

Pat, yes I'd thought of that and it is still a consideration, but it seems to me that if there was a heavy rain or big waves (though rough seas would be strenuously avoided as endangering a ship so inherently unseaworthy - lots of incidents of whole fleets of galleys being sunk by storms) the "gratings" in the centre (my solution to the lower oarsmen's need for lots of air if they were to function efficiently) could be covered with tarpaulins.

 

As they tried to beach the ships every night if at all possible, to renew their water (oarsmen sweat a lot and need to drink a lot of water), they could pull out the bung and drain what water had accumulated in the hull. But they'd still want to avoid having to pump out more than absolutely necessary in between times, so they'd try to keep water from running down between the deck and the sides of the ship from the effects of spray.  

 

This is all highly theoretical of course, based purely on speculation on my part and I've no idea if that's what they really did. But till some archaeologist finds a dromon (maybe in the Black Sea?) who's to tell me I'm wrong?

 

Anyhow, I've put in the waterways and they look pretty good.

 

    

And now I've finally been able to start putting in the benches for the upper oarsmen.

    
 

Steven

[BANYAN]

Looks great Steven, and those oarsmen really set it off.  As to my earlier comments, I was referencing the lining not so much a waterway.  I think that a waterway as you have used it is the way to go.

 

cheers

 

Pat

[Old Collingwood]

As pat said  - lovely work.

 

OC.

[Louie da fly]

I glued all the oars into place. Looked good. A lovely line of oars, all at the same angle, with the blades all at the same height.

  

I'd had a cunning plan, as seen in the top diagram below. Each oar was to be glued as it passed through the oarport and the inner end glued to a beam running the length of the ship, making it all very secure.

 

But I'd made a mistake. I don't quite know how I came to do it. The first indication was when Pat (Banyan) asked me something on the lines of how I was going to make sure the oars were going to be kept in place when the ship was transported. I thought "no worries - I have already developed a cunning plan to deal with that". Unfortunately for reasons I don't recall (something to do with the angle of the bow-most oar) I only glued the oars at the oarport and not at the beam (as in the lower diagram), thinking "she'll be right" (Australian term for "I can't be fussed doing it properly - but what could possibly go wrong?").

Then AAARRRGGGHHH!  The oars started to droop, and many of them were easy to push out of alignment.

 

 After considerable angst (in which I considered pulling off all the decking above the oars, replacing the oars and re-gluing the decking, which I'm sure would have turned it into a dog's breakfast) I decided the best thing to do was to pull each oar out of the hull and re-glue it to the inner beam the way I'd originally planned. Very labour intensive.  Here it is with only a few oars re-done (note the base of a carved figure being used to push the oarblade up as far as it will go, to push the inner end down against the beam).

 

I made sure that looking from directly above, the oars are all at the same horizontal angle (the one exception is an oar I haven't yet fixed).

 

I've just finished doing them all, and for some reason despite the internal beam being nicely aligned, several of the oars are now a little too high or too low compared with the rest. Well, I've decided I just have to suck it up - the glue has set belowdecks and there's nothing I can do about it. And you do have to look pretty carefully to see it - as usual, the photos exaggerate the fault. And the alternative would have been much worse.

  

Sigh.

 

Steven

 

Edited February 22, 2020 by Louie da fly

[druxey]

However, the rowers were not a Broadway chorus line: the slight variation in oar placement makes the overall effect more realistic. Looks good to me!

[Baker]

I agree with Druxey.
Everything neatly in line is of course a challenge. But this is much more realistic.
If anyone has a comment.
You can always say that some rowers have just been recruited, and still have to practice