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

[Baker]

Very nice deadeyes (indeed amazing ) 👍

I urgently need to learn 3D printing 

[BANYAN]

Hi Steven, for fly tying threads do a quick search online as there are a couple of decent fly fishing sites online that are quite helpful once you call.  I cannot remember the name but there is one guy based just out of Geelong that may be handy enough?

 

cheers

 

Pat

[Louie da fly]

Got the finest available fly-tying thread from Rehfisch's huntin' & shootin' & fishin' shop in Ballarat. SO many ways of killing things up on the wall and in the shelves!

And Lo! and Behold! The mass produced deadeyes printed by Paul (HenrytheStaffy) arrived in the mail! To say I'm gobsmacked is putting it mildly. Here are the two sizes he 3D printed and sent me - 2mm on each side (for the lower shrouds for the mizzen and bonaventure masts and the main fore topmasts)

 

 

and (for heaven's sake!) 1mm on each side (for the upper mizzen and bonaventure shrouds and the main and fore topgallant shrouds).

 

   

 

 

There's no way I could have made even one of the smaller ones by myself, let alone mass-produced them. And even the larger ones are a real trial for me and never completely successful.

 

And here is the finest available fly-tying thread going though one of the holes of the larger sized deadeye ;

 

 

 

Unfortunately for me, even that thread won't go through the holes in the smaller deadeyes - they're just SO tiny! Just a matter of modern technology outpacing the materials (and hand-eye co-ordination, for that matter) available. I'm afraid my expectations were a little unrealistic - not of the 3D printer, but of the rest of the resources available to me. I may not be able to get thread through the holes of these tiny deadeyes, but I think I'll be able to set them up in place and glue the thread in front of them so it looks like it's going through the holes.

 

My heartfelt thanks to Paul. You're a legend, mate. You really produced the goods, and exceeded the capabilities of this mere ship-modelling guy. All I can say is WOW!

 

Steven

 

 

 

 

[Roger Pellett]

Steven,

 

How about very thin wire?

[Louie da fly]

5 hours ago, Roger Pellett said:

How about very thin wire?

 

 

Hmm - might be worth considering, Roger. Probably the stuff you get in electrical cord, that gets its flexibility by being made up of large numbers of very fine wires.

[henrythestaffy]

Thanks Steve, glad to be able to help. A couple of thoughts come to mind about the 1mm deadeye holes. I could make them a little bigger or, as Roger said, there are some very fine wires on the market. Places like eBay have a large range and give you some idea of what is available. After making the deadeyes on Fusion 360 it has spurred me on to creating a culverin from the Mary Rose. I have almost finished apart from the loops shaped like mermen near the centre. I never realised how amazing the world of CAD is. It was one of those things that I planned to do but never got around to it. Your problem with the deadeyes was the catalyst for me to get moving, so I thank you for that. Let me know if there is anything else I can help with and I will look at enlarging the holes to see whether it is practical for your purposes. 

By the way if any other forum members reading this would like some help with 3D printed objects then drop me a line and if I can help then I certainly don’t mind.

 

Paul

 

[druxey]

That is a very generous offer, Henry. I hope that you aren't swamped with requests!

[Louie da fly]

Thanks, Paul. I'll check out the wire situation first - It seems to me that those holes really can't get too much bigger without encroaching on the integrity of the deadeyes themselves.

 

Glad you're having fun with the 3D thing in general and the culverin in particular. Is it that amazing one with the helical faces around the barrel? Any chance of some pictures?

 

Steven

[Baker]

https://www.conrad.com/p/thin-thread-mbz-92034-005-mm-658146

 

Found this very thin wire 0.05mm for use on scale railways.
But will it be delivered in Australia?

 

I also found a review in Dutch 

For scaled telegraph cables : apparently not good
For rigging ships?? dont know

 

Ik had naar aanleiding van het tekstje op de site verwacht dat het een draad is die keurig gaat hangen, aan bijvoorbeeld telegraafmasten. Ik wilde het gebruiken voor spoor N telegraafkabels. Deze draad krult echter alle kanten op, en is ook niet door te knippen, want dan wordt het echt een plosje haar. Dus verdunde houtlijm geprobeerd op een stukje. Ook niets. De draad zuigt geen vocht op en blijft krullen. Dit is dus totaal niet bruikbaar voor dit doel.

English :

I wanted to use it for track N telegraph cables. However, this thread curls in all directions, and cannot be cut, because then it really becomes a floppy hair. So tried diluted wood glue on a piece. Also nothing. The thread does not absorb moisture and continues to curl.

 

 

 

 

[Bill Morrison]

Wow!  I just noticed this thread and am extremely impressed with this labor of love!  Your commitment  is inspirational!  I will follow it until you are finished.  Great job.

Bill

[Louie da fly]

Thanks everybody for the likes and comments. Patrick, that sounds interesting, but as you say, might not be suitable. I'm sure there's something available in Oz - in fact, almost certainly in Ballarat - that will do the job.

 

Steven

Edited August 2, 2021 by Louie da fly

[henrythestaffy]

Here is my first print of a culverin Steven. I didnt put dolphins on it yet and i think some of the embossing on the tudor rose needs to be a little more defined. Otherwise i think it looks ok.

[Louie da fly]

That's VERY cool, Paul!

[henrythestaffy]

Thanks Steven

[Torbogdan]

Amazing thread! Building the model half a century ago (well almost...), keeping it and then disassemble it and build it again, amazing. Excellent work!

[Louie da fly]

Just thought I'd post this picture of the model with dry fitted masts, while I waffle on and summon up the courage to get onto the upper shrouds with the tiny deadeyes. I realised I hadn't taken any photos from the bow, so here they are.

 

 

 

 

 

 

PS: I WILL get onto the shrouds, I promise . . .

 

Steven

 

 

[druxey]

Looking good, Steven!

[mtaylor]

1 hour ago, Louie da fly said:

Just thought I'd post this picture of the model with dry fitted masts, while I waffle on and summon up the courage to get onto the upper shrouds with the tiny deadeyes. I realised I hadn't taken any photos from the bow, so here they are.

 

 

 

 

 

 

PS: I WILL get onto the shrouds, I promise . . .

 

Steven

 

 

I think we'll hold to that.    Looking very good.  No one would ever know this model had been beaten up and needed rebuilding.

[Hubac's Historian]

This has been a very impressive restoration, LDF!  It has been a while, since I checked-in, but you have made tremendous progress.

[Louie da fly]

Well, the poor old Great Harry has been languishing while I've been working on the nef, but now I've been able get back to her. I hope she's not too upset with me.

 

I've been puzzling over whether it's best to add stays first, or shrouds as all the texts seem to say. Seeing as the shrouds aren't standard anyway (when I first built the model I didn't know they looped around the top of the mast, so I just glued them to it just under the top and I also didn't know about cross-trees and trestle-trees),  whatever I do will be a sort of bodge - but not visible unless you're really looking for it.

 

There's some uncertainty about whether the stays were each kept tight with a pair of deadeyes, or pairs of blocks or hearts - I went with deadeyes. In fact I'd already made two pairs of way back when I built the ship - one pair for the main, and one pair for the fore - and I was planning to re-use them. Comes the time - I can't find them no matter how hard I look. Turned the whole workshop over - nothing! It must be those aliens again.

 

So I decided I'd have to make new ones.

 

 

And wouldn't you know it, just as I finished, the old ones turned up!

 

 

But the new ones were nicer anyway, so I kept on with them.

 

However, for the main I might as well put the stay on now and add the shrouds later. I drilled a hole in the floor of the top each side of the mast, then looped the stay through them. (I did the same for the foremast as well).

 

      

 

At this point I made a mistake that I later had to go back and correct on all the masts. I tied the stay off in a loop at the top. What I should have done was to leave it loose for the time being, and only tie it off when I had the lower deadeye in place, and could work out the right position for the upper one. Fortunately I had enough loose cord that I could cut it and start again.

 

So here's the lower deadeye for the forestay.

 

 

 

For the mainstay I had to make a wide  "loop" that passed each side of the foremast with the deadeye at the after end. I drilled two holes in the front face of the upper forecastle to take the loop, just above where the bowsprit comes out.

 

 

And here's the loop and the lower deadeye:

 

        

 

 

 

 

The loop passes under the bowsprit (not sure if this is correct, but it seemed to be the right thing to do) and the two ends joined together with a fake splice. The splice would probably be at the other end in the real world, but no-one will ever know - except you guys, of course.

 

And here, finally, is the forestay with its deadeyes (lanyards not yet tightened up).

 

       

 

And this is how I made sure the upper fore shrouds were taut - again, no room in the floor of the top for holes to do it properly, so I glued all four together at the upper end and glued the assembly to the mast just under the top. Once the glue was dry I threaded them through the railing of the lower top in the most appropriate places and hung a miniature clothes peg from each one to tighten it and glued it at the lower end. Then cut them to length once the glue was dry.

 

     

 

Unfortunately, despite all the wonderful work henrythestaffy did 3d printing tiny deadeyes for me, after a lot of thought I've decided that trying to add them here is just too fiddly to be feasible. They would be minuscule and there's no way you could thread a lanyard through them, so I'm leaving them off.

 

I'd also been agonising over how I was to do the futtock shrouds, but reading through R.C. Anderson's The Rigging of Ships in the Days of the Spritsail Topmast 1600-1720 I discovered that although from about 1620  "the deadeyes were connected to the lower shrouds by means of ropes called "puttocks" (later called futtock shrouds)" this was because "as soon as topsails began to be relatively large sails, it became impossible for the tops to stand the strain which would come on them if the deadeyes were fixed to them and them only." 

 

But in the early-mid 16th century, the time of the Great Harry, topsails were quite small, so there was no real need for the reinforcement provided by futtock shrouds. And checking on the only two contemporary pictures of her - from the Anthony Roll and the painting The Embarcation at Dover 

 

 

 

 

there's no sign of them! So I won't be fitting them.

 

Steven

Edited January 25, 2022 by Louie da fly

[druxey]

Well, welcome back to this thread, Steven! Nice to see progress again. Of course the 'old' stays showed up late to the party. 'Twas ever thus.

 

If you don't mind my mentioning it, those laniards look awfully pale. Are you planning on coloring or toning them down?

[Louie da fly]

1 minute ago, druxey said:

If you don't mind my mentioning it, those laniards look awfully pale. Are you planning on coloring or toning them down?

 

Nah, just bad lighting. They're quite a decent light brown colour, not dissimilar to the colour of rope.

 

 

Steven

[Keith Black]

 Steven, good to see you back to working on the GH. She's becoming quite the tidy little keepsake. I smile every time I think of her journey from boy to man. 

[Baker]

Nice work.

And welcome back 

[Roger Pellett]

I always look forward to your progress on this old girl!  Nice work

[BANYAN]

Welcome back to this restoration Steven,  I have been missing these updates.

 

cheers

 

Pat

[Louie da fly]

So I tried tightening up the lanyard on the deadeyes and for some reason they didn't tighten - then I looked at the bowsprit and discovered I had a problem. Way back on the first page of this build log (17 October 2018) I had to glue the bowsprit together.

 

 

 

Trouble is, I used PVA (white) glue which is flexible. When I tightened up the lanyards, the bowsprit bent at the join.  Wish I'd taken a photo - but here it is after I removed the lanyard.

 

 

I cut a chunk out of the bowsprit each side of the join and inserted a piece of wood to support it (using CA, not PVA).

 

 

I got the best colour match I could, but it wasn't perfect (though not as bad as it looks in the photo).

 

And here it is with both sides joined

 

 

 

Smoothed off

 

 

It droops a tiny bit at the join,

 

 

 

but I can't see I could have done a better job with all the constraints involved, so I'm satisfied enough with it.

 

The only problem is that when I sanded it smooth it took the dark "aged" surface off the bowsprit. So I'll have to get clever and do a bit of colour matching. I'm currently thinking of using water colour paint.

 

Steven

[mtaylor]

Good repair and recovery, Steven.  

[Louie da fly]

Bowsprit repair disguised with dark tan boot polish.

 

   

 

I've added the fore topmast and topgallant mast stays with a block on the bowsprit for each, in line with Anderson's "The Rigging of Ships in the Days of the Spritsail topmast" (as there are no worthwhile texts on rigging for ships earlier than 1620, I've taken the simplest of Anderson's examples as being the most likely for 1545).

 

And now the bowsprit doesn't bend when the lanyards are tightened.

 

 

 

The two upper stays are taken through a hole in the front face of the forecastle, which acts as a fairlead.

 

    

 

The stays pulled tight by weights hanging from the ends.

 

      

 

They are tied off (glued) to bitts in front of the mast (which I'd put on the model way back when but never really thought of what I'd use them for). I won't be adding coiled ropes for the ends of the stays - I'm already going much further than I did when I first built the model, and I certainly wouldn't have done that back then.

 

 

And starting on the ratlines for the fore topmast and topgallant shrouds. No clove hitches - to keep it all consistent I'm just gluing them on, as I did when I first built the model. I'm thinking of brushing the ropes with dilute PVA glue to remove the fuzziness.

 

 

Steven

 

 

Edited February 1, 2022 by Louie da fly

[Keith Black]

 Steven, great recovery on the bowsprit, very tidy work at this scale.