Henry Grace a Dieu (Great Harry) by Louie da fly - FINISHED - Scale 1:200 - Repaired after over 50 yrs of neglect

[Louie da fly]

Very nice, Backer, and explains the whole thing very well.

 

At first I thought the gonnar didn't have the nerve to stand to his gonne while firing, but the second run of shots using a slow match proved me wrong.

 

A very impressive display. I'd read that these breech loaders were rather inefficient because it was impossible to get a good seal between the cartridge and the barrel, so a lot of the explosive gases escaped instead of propelling the ball.  But maybe not, looking at this video. I certainly wouldn't want to be on the wrong end of something like that.

 

It seems to me though, that the gun wasn't built up from wrought iron staves, unless the finish is a lot better than would normally be expected. Maybe because of safety rules?

 

Steven

 

 

[Kikatinalong]

The Great Harry returning to its former glory, it's going to look fantastic Steven. And the cannons look really good from here.

[Louie da fly]

Here's the sequence I used in making the built-up cannons. Using a bit of 1.5mm brass tube set into my "poor man's lathe" - its main disadvantages are that you have to keep a finger on the start button (yes, I could bypass this but didn't bother) and that there's no support on the other end so bending of the tube is a risk. I overcame the second by sawing right up next to the jaws of the chuck, with just the combined thickness of the sawblade plus the reinforcing ring sticking out. Not so good either for the sawblade or the chuck, but I managed to get away with it. Then slide the tube out of the chuck by the same combined thickness of sawblade and reinforcing strip and do it again:

 

  

(I forgot to photograph the first cut, so the above is of the second.) Then the same thing again:

 

And again:

 

And again and again:

    
 

Last ring - full length of the barrel: 

And then the "magazine", using a file:

And cutting the whole assembly to length

 

 

 

  

Edited December 10, 2019 by Louie da fly

[Louie da fly]

And here are the completed barrels. The upper group are the first ones I did.

I later discovered I'd got my arithmetic wrong and they should have been longer, as are the ones below. I also didn't add magazines to them, but as only the ends of the barrels will be visible i decided just to forge ahead - any major differences will be hidden within the hull.

Note - I inadvertently cut the magazine off one of these, but I figure I can just put it on the carriage behind the barrel and it should be fine.

 

And I've cleaned up the "cast bronze" barrel I made back when I was 17, and I'll be casting a group of them which will be visible in the waist.

 

Plus one I turned on the electric drill for the gunports where only the end of the barrel will be visible. I think it's close enough to pass muster . . .

 

Steven 

[Kikatinalong]

Brilliant Steven,  and they look great. 

You might need to be careful or it wont be long before the Chinese start manufacturing your poor man's lathe and you will miss out on the royalties.

[Louie da fly]

9 hours ago, Kikatinalong said:

You might need to be careful or it wont be long before the Chinese start manufacturing your poor man's lathe and you will miss out on the royalties.

[Louie da fly]

Here is the first attempt at a built-up gun and carriage, based on one found on the Mary Rose in the 19th century:

 

 Barrel and carriage (carved from pear wood):

 

Wheels:

 

Wheels on axle, plus elevation mechanism (a vertical wooden beam at the back of the carriage with holes to put a pin into to adjust the elevation). 

Carriage assembled - note as this is a preliminary version I haven't cut the axle to length.

Barrel in place, (with magazine included as part of the barrel), and elevation mechanism cut to length. Axle cut shorter, but will have to be removed and cut to its proper length.

 

It became obvious that I'd put the wheels too far back - the elevation mechanism depends on the weight of the gun resting backwards, so the wheels should be a little forrard of the centre of gravity - and of course otherwise the thing tips forward, as it does here.

 

 

As I've glued the wheels and axle on with CA I'll need to dissolve it - am I right in thinking nail polish remover works for this?

 

And here is the "blank" for making the rest of the carriages. The holes will be cut in half to make the "beds" for the gun barrels.

This is really only for my own satisfaction - the carriages will all be pretty much hidden within the hull - but it's fun doing it. The guy across the road (he drilled the holes with his mighty drill press) thinks I'm nuts.

 

Steven 

 

Edited December 18, 2019 by Louie da fly

[BANYAN]

Nice work Steven, pity you have to remove some parts.  Nail polish remover is just acetone which you can get at Bunnings fairly cheaply (may save you some grief  'borrowing' it from your regular supplier   Not sure if IsoPropyl would be better but I think the latter is for PVA/Yellow glue not superglue/CA softening/removal.

 

cheers

 

Pat

[mtaylor]

What Pat said... just make sure the nail polish remover is acetone.   They are making many that don' t have it.   IsoPropyl won't dissolve CA.

[Louie da fly]

Thanks Mark and Pat. I'll make sure I get the right kind. I don't think I want the amount of acetone you can get in Bunnings, so it looks like I'll be perusing the health and beauty aisle at Coles . . .

 

Steven

Edited December 19, 2019 by Louie da fly

[Kikatinalong]

They look fantastic Steven,  it's a shame they will be mostly hidden. 

I think the acetone at Bunnings is a 750 mm bottle and very cheap so maybe it's a bulk buy for the leader of the opposition. 😁

[Baker]

Very nice little cannons Steven.
Acetone should work best.

[Michel Bénard]

Good work ! Be careful not to light the match near acetone .... 🤣

[BANYAN]

If not too late Steven, you can buy small amounts at Bunnings,  I have a 1 litre can but I think you can get even smaller.  

 

cheers

 

Pat

[Louie da fly]

Mass production of built-up cannons.

 

Gun barrels threaded onto a wire and painted black

 

The blanks for the carriages cut apart

 And trimmed down to make half-round "beds" for the barrels.

And separated into individual carriages

The third carriage under construction - As they won't be seen anyway, making full carriages was just to satisfy myself that I could do it.

   

So for the rest of them I just made blocks to take the place of full carriages.

 

 

 

More to come.

 

Steven

Edited January 7, 2020 by Louie da fly

[BANYAN]

Nice production run Steven (cheaper by the dozen  )

 

cheers

 

Pat

[Louie da fly]

I've had to make some adjustments to the ship to allow the guns to be added. For a start, the forecastle doesn't have any internal decks for the guns to sit on, so I had to think of some mans of supporting the gun barrels without having to take off the top deck. It occurred to me that I could put timbers through the relevant gunports and cut them off flush with the inside of the sides of the forecastle and just manoeuvre them so their top face was level with the bottom of the gunport, and that would form a support for the barrels. Here is the forecastle with the beam sticking out of the gunports either side, prior to being trimmed.

 
   

The timbers in the forrard gunports haven't yet been trimmed, while those of the aftmost gunports have - you wouldn't be able to see anything until the guns are inserted.

 

And here are the sternchasers:

 

As you can see, with the built-up cannons the barrel hardly sticks out past the front of the carriage at all, so it is only barely visible sticking out of the gunport, which perhaps explains the way they sometimes appear in contemporary pictures. 

 

     

 

Steven

[Kikatinalong]

Nice work Steven 

Your model is really transforming from what u built as a kid.

[BANYAN]

Good solution, a significant improvement of the model compared with what you started with.

 

cheers

 

Pat

[Louie da fly]

Not too much, I hope. I'm continually torn between repairing it to be the same as it was when I built it, and putting in improvements in line with what I know now. 

 

The underwater hull shape was based on Mathew Baker's late Tudor drawings while the gunport configuration is based upon the illustrations in the Anthony roll, both of which the Mary Rose discoveries have since shown to be inaccurate. The colour scheme is also based on Mathew Baker, but contemporary pictures of ships show a much simpler colour scheme for the time of the Great Harry.

 

However, I'm afraid I'm not terribly consistent with this. I'm re-using all the existing superstructure as-is despite knowing the colours, upper structure and number of gunports aren't correct. But I've changed the shape of the underwater hull and I've made these cannons in line with the Mary Rose discoveries (not available when I was 17). The model as it stood had only one cannon.  I was planning to cast a whole lot more of them but never got around to it, so I feel (somewhat) justified in adding new, more accurate ones.

 

And the (lost - to my very great regret; I was and am very proud of what I was able to do at the tender age of 17) longboat will be double-ended instead of having  a transom stern as in the original, as this seems to have been the way they were at the time.

 

At least as far as the hull is concerned it will be possible to see the old vs new work because the colour of the wood is different. However, I'll be making the upper deck of bamboo as I did at the time, even though I could do it far more accurately now.

 

So, it's not really Arthur or Martha - neither a pure repair nor a "renovation". Still, I'm not too concerned - it's my model after all, and I get to decide what I want to do with it.

 

Steven  

Edited January 9, 2020 by Louie da fly

[Louie da fly]

I've been working on the hatch cover. At 1:200 I don't feel capable of making the gratings using halving joints - my work is nowhere near that precise at the best of times. So I've made the grating the way I did on the original model, with one layer of thin  laths of bamboo in one direction, overlaid with another layer at right angles. Not perfect, but unless you really look hard it looks like the real thing. 

   

Steven

 

[Louie da fly]

After a long hiatus while I worked on the dromon, I've come back to the Great Harry to give me a rest from the never-ending carving of oarsmen.

 

Before I can add the upper deck of the aftercastle, I had to put in the cannons below it. As I didn't add lower decks when I first built the ship, I've had to get a bit clever and put in narrow "false decks" along the sides of the ship to put the guns on.

 

I've turned some gun barrels from 1.5mm brass tube. A bit rough and ready but at this scale they look pretty good. As the carriages won't be seen I made them pretty basic. I glued the barrels to them with CA, which I don't usually use. (PVA doesn't stick brass very well). I rested them on a sheet of paper so they didn't stick to everything in sight/each other, and I could peel/sand it off later.

 

And here they are on the false decks:

and from outside:

 

Steven

 

 

 

 

 

Edited April 5, 2020 by Louie da fly

[BANYAN]

Not too much grizzling from this 'baby' as she gets her teeth I hope?

looking good Steven

 

cheers

 

Pat

[Louie da fly]

Thanks for the likes, everyone.

 

Pat, it was like pulling teeth in reverse, but I've finally finished that part of things. Unfortunately two of the gunports were right in line with a couple of the balsa frames, so I had to drill holes in the frames and force the barrels into them. It worked, though. 

  

And I've been working on the masts. Here's the lower mizzen. 

  

I'd planned to have a mast step, but when I came to position the mast I discovered that one of the frames was right in the way, so I stepped the mast into the frame, and cut a sort of "channel" out of the crossbeams for the mast to go through, after first gluing a reinforcing piece to each. 

 

 

The bonaventure mizzen (these ships had two mizzen masts - the bonaventure fell out of use in the following decades). I've followed Landstrom in making this mast out of a single spar.

  

Here are the two mizzen masts together

And I ought to know the name of this spar but I don't - it's to control the bonaventure lateen.

And the mizzen topmast (I forgot to take a final photo, but the procedure was the same as the lower mast).

 

Here are the masts dry fitted, including the original mainmast which I currently have in storage, to put in place when the time is right. I'd have done the same with the foremast, but I couldn't get it out of the hull without breaking it, so I let it stay.

Steven

 

 

 

 

Edited April 7, 2020 by Louie da fly

[Louie da fly]

Some more progress. I really don't like fiddling around trying to get a mast to go down into the mast step once the deck is in place, so I made a sort of "channel" for the mizzen 

As the bonaventure doesn't go down so far I just put in a set of mast partners for it.

 

 

Bonaventure dry fitted:

And both mizzen and bonaventure

Constructing the fighting top for the bonaventure mizzen:

A hole drilled in the bottom for the mast to go through. When I first built the model I didn't know about crosstrees and trestletrees. The other (existing fore and main) masts don't have them, so I'm not putting them on the new ones.

 

And a disc on top. I'll be carving out the middle to form a ring as the upper surface of the top.

 

Reinforcing ring at the bottom - great gobs of glue, I'm afraid. Wiped off later:

And around the middle:

More photos when I've completed it.

 

Fighting top for the mizzen:

 

and I've made a "master" to get it circular. I'm hoping it works. That other disc will have the middle carved out to form the ring around the upper surface of the top.

More to come as I make more progress.

 

Steven
 

 

 

 

Edited April 9, 2020 by Louie da fly

[BANYAN]

The base of the mast is hidden below the deck planking anyway Steven, so won't be seen - your solution will work well for the model (and keeps it within the theme of staying true to your earlier efforts).

 

cheers

 

Pat

[druxey]

Ayieee! Those tops are small!

 

It's interesting how you need to make things up as you go along to get around structural obstructions. What, I wonder, are you saying to your younger self?

[Old Collingwood]

Very nice work   - so much involved.

 

OC.

[Louie da fly]

1 hour ago, druxey said:

What, I wonder, are you saying to your younger self?

Mostly - how on earth did you  manage to do that at the age of 17? If I could do it then, why can't I do it now?

 

1 hour ago, BANYAN said:

The base of the mast is hidden below the deck planking anyway Steven, so won't be seen

 Perzakerly. Otherwise I'd have had to come up with some other solution.

 

Thanks for the likes, everyone.

 

More photos in due course, but today my wife and I are working on paving a parking space beside the house, so ship modelling has to take a back seat (though I managed to set up another shield for the dromon before we started - I've got it down to a fine art now - it takes maybe 5 minutes tops). 

 

Steven

 

[mtaylor]

Steven, you are master of the obscure and fiddly parts.