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

[druxey]

The early carriages were very low, I believe.

[BANYAN]

Steven, that is some nice detail that adds a lot of visual interest to the model.

 

cheers

 

Pat

[Louie da fly]

I've stained the hull below the waterline, using a mix of black and dark tan boot polish. Worked quite well.

 

 

This is how it was before - just too light in colour:

 

 

and finished the breechings on the cannons - a bit of a problem with glue spread everywhere - I'll have to remove the surplus.

 

 

And working on the knight and the capstan for the main halyard. The capstan needs the rest of the cleats put on it before it's complete. It's based on the one from the Lomellina wreck of 1516 - nearest we have to the right time and place. I have an e-book which purports to show the Mary Rose capstan, but as far as I'm aware it was never recovered, so the e-book one must be based on speculation, so it's no more reliable than my own.

 

 

And here's the knight dry fitted. I won't glue it in place until after I've threaded the lanyards through it. Otherwise I'm just making my life difficult.

 

      

 

 

Steven

[druxey]

Stevern; have you tried using acrylic matte medium to 'fix' lines like breeching in place? It dries virtually invisibly.

[Louie da fly]

Thanks, Druxey. I haven't tried that.

[Siggi52]

Steven, I use clear nail polish for holing the ropes in place.

 

[Louie da fly]

Thanks, Siggi. That's beautiful work. Now I have two different media to try when I next want to have invisible gluing. 

 

I've changed my mind about the knight for the main halyard. The Lomellina was considerably smaller than the Great Harry, and for her a two-sheave knight was enough for the main halyard. But I think for a ship the size of the Great Harry, a three-sheave knight would be more appropriate.

 

 

The capstan may have had a bigger diameter to allow for more bars, but with the design I'm working from that would have needed three through-holes in the drum, which would have  made for problems with the height of the bars above the deck. So I've kept it at the same size.

 

 

It just needs the cleats to be trimmed and it's complete. 

 

Steven

[Louie da fly]

Added some uprights to support  a crossbeam for belaying points.

 

     

 

Capstan complete

 

 

and dry fitted, along with the three-sheave knight (funny, why does that phrase make me think . . . Momma told me not to come?)

 

 

Steven

Edited March 10, 2021 by Louie da fly

[Louie da fly]

Making a third figure - this time a common sailor - probably to stand on a yard holding onto a rope. Or possibly it's John Travolta . . .

 

    

 

    

 

 

And finally doing the railings for the main deck, one of which broke off short, and the other got lost.

 

Here I'm adding extra length at both ends to the broken one, using scarph joints.

 

 

      

 

And in place - just glued at both ends so far. Once that's dry I'll glue down the intermediate bits.

 

 

 

 

Steven

 

Edited March 13, 2021 by Louie da fly

[liteflight]

Brilliant carving at that scale!  And I was not sure where the little slivers were going to until they got their crosses on and became shields.

 

as an aside, I used to fly indoor models with Willard Wigan.  He used to bring examples of his sculptures to show us.  
https://www.willardwiganmbe.com/

if he had a gigantic match, I never saw it

[Louie da fly]

Oh dear, oh dear. I won't say I haven't been tempted. But that way lies madness . . .

 

Steven

[druxey]

I'm still impressed by both your ambition and level of achievement while you were still a teenager, Steven.

[Louie da fly]

To be honest, Druxey, so am I. I keep thinking "Did I really do this when I was that young?"

 

Maybe I don't give my younger self enough credit, but I seem to remember I was a bit of a twerp back then.

 

Or is it that if I could do that when I was that young, why haven't I progressed any further in all this time? 

 

Interestingly, I did carve three figures for the ship out of bamboo back in the day, but they got lost sometime in the interim. It would be instructive to be able to compare them. But I do remember they didn't have the level of detail the current ones do.

 

Steven

Edited March 13, 2021 by Louie da fly

[Louie da fly]

Well, I discovered that all those nice shields I made a while ago were ok for the rails on the tops but turned out to be too small to go on the railings at the sides of the weather deck. So I had to make a whole lot of new ones. So there's been a bit of a delay while I did that. But now I can happily say they are all finally in place.

 

 

 

 

And another small milestone. When I first made the model I'd put the lower starboard shrouds in place on the main and fore masts and added the ratlines (glued, not tied, in place) - but I hadn't done anything about the deadeyes - I'd put that off till later.

 

Well, now it's "later", and I find I really made problems for myself doing it that way. I've made deadeyes for the main shrouds and put in the lanyards. I've intentionally left the lanyards with some "play" in them so I can adjust them when I attach the deadeyes to the channels. It's all a bit (as we say in Oz) "a*se about face" and once these two sets of shrouds are done I'll be doing the rest more conventionally.

 

 

As I mentioned earlier in this log I'm not bothering with making chains - when I first built the model I didn't even know chains existed, and at 1:200 scale  I feel it's all a bit too much. So thick thread will take their place.

 

I've hit the wall a bit with knowing what to do next, so I made up a spreadsheet with a list of all the things I can think of that still need to be done, then shuffled the items around - obviously, the masts have to go in before the stays can be added etc etc - until they made a fairly logical sequence. I think this will help.

 

Steven

Edited March 23, 2021 by Louie da fly

[Keith Black]

Steven, she's really looking nice. The shields turned out great. Your childhood memories have a bright future. 

[Louie da fly]

Thank you, Keith , and thanks everybody for the likes.

Edited March 23, 2021 by Louie da fly

[Louie da fly]

Onto fiddly bits.

 

Here's the picture in Björn Landström's book The Ship I originally worked from, showing the dragon figurehead and the decorative crown and flagpole on the bowsprit:

 

 

I'd already carved the dragon-head - now I've painted it:

 

 

Very happy with the crazed look on his face.

 

 

And here is the flagpole/crown assembly

 

 

I made a mistake - the fore topmast had snapped off just above the top and I was intending to just glue it back onto the remaining stub. Then I forgot what I was doing and removed the stub. So I had to reconfigure the topmast by adding an extra bit of wood to replace the stub . . .

 

 

 

and carve it to shape.

 

 

 

 

I wouldn't have needed to do any of this, if I'd remembered what I'd originally planned 

 

Steven

 

 

 

Edited March 25, 2021 by Louie da fly

[Baker]

8 hours ago, Louie da fly said:

I wouldn't have needed to do any of this, if I'd remembered what I'd originally planned 

Nice work Steven

 

Tell your wife what you are going to do.
Women are very good at remembering what their husbands have to do.

The only disadvantage : Do this, do that, do this, do that (all day long)  😂

[Louie da fly]

I've been doing some more fiddly things. Funny, my list of things to do seems to expand - even as I'm crossing items off it more suggest themselves to me.

 

I had to dye some thicker thread for the halyards etc to match the thin cotton I'm using for the lanyards - a mix of brown, tan and green fabric dye. I've wrapped a length of the thicker thread around the reel of the thinner thread. I'm pretty happy with the colour match

 

 

And I decided the knight needed four sheaves instead of three, as the Lomellina (the ship I copied the knight from) was quite a bit smaller than the Great Harry. I followed the outline in The Rigging of Ships in the Days of the Spritsail Topmast. Though it deals with ships of maybe 100 years later, a lot of things seem to have already been in use considerably earlier. And also Wolfram zu Modfeld's Historic Ship Models.

 

   

 

 

 

Here is the knight and the "ramshead" block that goes with it.

 

 

          

 

 

And I added cheeks with hounds (sheaves) to the mainmast for the halyard ties.   

 

        
 

 

Again I'm in a bit of a quandary. The idea was to keep the restoration as close as possible to the original model, but as I hadn't bothered myself with the halyards it had no cheeks or hounds on the masts - in fact it didn't even have crosstrees and trestletrees to support the tops. And rather than being looped around the top of the mast, the tops of the shrouds were just glued to the sides of the mast.

 

So to put halyards on, I needed to make the ties and cheeks and hounds. And to add the cheeks I had to remove the shrouds that were already in place and I'll have to re-glue them in position - to the sides of the new cheeks.  I've stopped short of adding trestletrees and crosstrees - otherwise it just gets too far away from the original.

 

And here's the railing for the foretop, made out of a thin sliver of wood curved in a circle around the lid of a plastic bottle. I'll be putting it on in due course.

 

Edited March 30, 2021 by Louie da fly

[Louie da fly]

For the foremast I realised there just wasn't enough room on the forecastle for the knight and a capstan - so I've cut a hole in the forecastle deck to lead the ties down to a supposed knight and capstan conveniently hidden belowdecks.

 

 

Then the problem was to lead those ties down and fix their ends belowdecks. So, I led the ties as a loop through the hole in the forecastle deck and made a wire hook to grab the loop and pull it out through the "doorway" at the break of the forecastle. I got the inspiration for this method from C.S. Forester's  Lieutenant Hornblower (where a gunner uses it to repair an unbushed cannon).

 

 

 

 

And then I put a bit of wood through the loop and glued it in place.

 

 

Then slid the piece of wood through the "doorway" and glued it in place on the inner deck.

 

Next I put cheeks with sheaves on the foremast and threaded the ties through them.

 

 

 

Needs a bit of tidying up. You can see the hole in the mast where I'd originally intended to put a single tie - until I did some reading and realised they were always double. A bit of filler will fix that.

 

And I've been working on the stand. Not finished yet, but well on the way.

 

 

Dry fitted.

 

 

Steven

 

 

 

 

Edited March 31, 2021 by Louie da fly

[Snug Harbor Johnny]

Great work Louie.  I'm presently 'tied up' with home repairs (long neglected also) and I have to please the Admiral first, you know.  So my build is now on the back burner.  Johnny

[Louie da fly]

New stuff.

 

There were another 6 "bronze" and 4 "iron" guns to be put in place, but really not much to secure them to, as I hadn't put decks in for them to sit on. The best I could do was to shorten them and glue them to the hull planking, and hope the glue would hold. First I tried gluing a wooden backpiece to the barrel, to go hard up against the inside of the gunport. Didn't really work, so I took it off and just relied on the strength of the CA to hold the barrel in place. 

 

    

 

Forecastle guns in place
 

 

And here's the stand with the nameplate half painted. I found that gold didn't show up properly agains the wood of the background, so I filled in with black letters, using the gold as a border around them.

 

 

I had to re-do the stand three times - the two supports weren't really in the right position and I had to move them and also raise the forward one so the keel was approximately horizontal when the ship was in place.

 

 

 

 

I've put the railing on the foretop and fitted the pavises (big square-ish shields).

 

      

 

 

Making the anchors. I'm useless at soldering, so I'm making them out of pear wood, which I feel much more comfortable with.

 

 

     

 

 

 

    

 

This is the first of the two anchors. I'm pretty happy with how it's turned out so far. Next to make is the stock and somehow figure out how to make and fit the ring.

 

 

Steven

Edited April 14, 2021 by Louie da fly

[End Of The Line]

I’m in awe at the level of detail you are achieving at such a small scale.  It is equally impressive that you built the original model as a teen, and now get a chance to restore and improve by applying all you’ve learned since then.

[Louie da fly]

Thanks everybody for the likes.

 

Thanks in particular to End Of The Line. I've noticed you've been proceeding through the build log bit by bit, and your attention and 'likes' are appreciated.

 

Steven

[Louie da fly]

Anchors.

 

 

Making the rings for the anbchor cables.

 

    

 

The stock and ring made, and the anchor ready to assemble .

 

 

First anchor assembled, second ready to go

 

 

Anchors painted and complete

 

 

On the first anchor, before I cut and carved the shank I should have drilled the hole in the top of  it  (for the ring) , as the shank split when I drilled the hole. Fortunately I was able to glue it back together. Apart from that, the first was relatively plain sailing.

 

But the second was a real trial - this time I drilled the hole for the shank before I'd completed carving the flukes - big mistake - while finishing the carving I pressed too hard and broke the arms. Then once I'd fixed that (using CA as it's not as flexible as PVA) the tenon at the end of the shank broke off as I was putting it in the hole in the arms. Had to re-carve the tenon - fortunately I'd made the shank slightly longer than it was supposed to be, so I had a bit of wriggle room to do so.

 

But they're done!

 

I might put black paper "reinforcements" around the stock as shown in the reconstruction picture in Landström's book - I haven't decided yet.

 

Steven

Edited April 16, 2021 by Louie da fly

[BANYAN]

Nice job Steven, the finish looks just like an iron casting.

 

cheers

 

Pat

Edited April 17, 2021 by BANYAN

[Louie da fly]

Yes, amazing what can be achieved with wood.

 

Steven

[Louie da fly]

I've made a railing for the steps leading down from the upper deck.

 

     

 

    

 

And after a lot of faffing around trying to drill perfect tiny triangles of holes for my deadeyes, I decided I should really make a jig. I used galvanised iron strap, as used for cross-bracing in house construction. Took me about 10 minutes to make one, with two (not perfect, but acceptable) triangles of two different sizes and spacings, for different sized deadeyes. Should have done it ages ago.

 

 

And I've finally added the starboard foremast shrouds and started work on adding the deadeyes for them. Four lower deadeyes in place and two to go. Then the upper ones and the lanyards. And it looks like I'll need to add a couple of ratlines at the bottom end of the shrouds.

 

Slow but steady progress.

 

     

 

Steven

 

 

 

 

[liteflight]

Love the anchors, Steven

They look like forged iron and the rings look suitably distressed as well.

On 4/16/2021 at 6:46 PM, Louie da fly said:

might put black paper "reinforcements" around the stock as shown in the reconstruction picture in Landström's book - I haven't decided yet.

I think that the stocks might look better with bands nailed around them.  If you are not sure you could try the look with dark paper applied with glue stick so that water or alcohol would remove it if it offended your (excellent) eye.

 

Good work with the jigs, they do the trick.  I remember seeing a deadeye jig made from a steel hinge, with the deadeye located in a hole in the lower leaf, and the lanyard ‘oles in the upper leaf.  Since you are drilling into virgin stock it would be even easier.  Come to think of it a brass hinge would be even easier to make and more pleasant to work with.

 

Please tell me and the rest of the watching world how you keep your cutting board so pristine!  Mine looks less than clean as I use it as a table protector, and all cutting, glueing and some painting activities leave their mark.  Even with a weakly clean ( I have trouble summoning the energy) it remains more than a little “used”

Or do you have a “photo” mat which lives a pampered life in cellophane and replaces the working mat?

[Louie da fly]

Thanks everybody for the likes, and Liteflite for the comment and suggestions.

 

I'm not in any hurry with the anchors - there's plenty of other stuff still to do before I even think of putting them in position.

 

That hinge idea sounds good.Maybe I'll try it, but currently I just drill the holes and then cut around them in a triangle with a (sharp) craft knife.

 

31 minutes ago, liteflight said:

Please tell me and the rest of the watching world how you keep your cutting board so pristine!

 

Pristine! Pristine? You've got to be kidding. It's got great blobs of CA and remnants of white glue, the surface is impregnated with sawdust from sanding, you name it! And there are places where the lines have been worn away - it was just a cheapie I got from a junk shop. Nice that it looks pristine in photos, though .

 

Steven