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

[firdajan]

Steve,

 

I wish I ever had your patience......unbelievable what you can do on such a small scale..😮

 

Jan

[Ferrus Manus]

16 hours ago, druxey said:

Quite the spider's web now!

At times the jumping spiders come and make their homes in the rigging of my ships, usually the Cutty Sark or the Brigantine, as they have the most complex rigging. Basically a pre-made, fully furnished spiderweb. 

[Louie da fly]

Old fat spider spinning in a tree!
Old fat spider can’t see me!
          Attercop! Attercop!
               Won't you stop,
Stop your spinning and look for me?

Old Tomnoddy, all big body,
Old Tomnoddy can’t spy me!
          Attercop! Attercop!
                Down you drop!
You'll never catch me up your tree!

Lazy Lob and crazy Cob
are weaving webs to wind me.
I am far more sweet than other meat,
but still they cannot find me!

Here am I, naughty little fly;
you are fat and lazy.
You cannot trap me, though you try,
in your cobwebs crazy.

 

(Bilbo's song, from The Hobbit)

 

Some more cobwebs - main topgallant bowlines, running via blocks on the main topgallant stay to blocks on the fore topsail shrouds and belayed to the upper fore top. And sheets on the main topgallant sail.

Now I'm ready to add the main topsail.

 

Steven

[BANYAN]

That's looking really good Steven, the sails and increasingly dense web of rigging is really adding interesting detail to show her off.  Hat is 'doffed' for such great detail in such a small scale of working.

 

cheers

 

Pat

[Louie da fly]

On 3/7/2023 at 6:36 AM, firdajan said:

I wish I ever had your patience......unbelievable what you can do on such a small scale..

Thanks, Firdajan. Unfortunately when I first started the model I had no idea what problems the small scale was going to make for me later . . . 

 

Steven

[druxey]

Most, if not all of us, don't fully realize what we are getting ourselves into until long after committing to a project. This applies to renovations as well as models.

[Louie da fly]

Sounds like you're speaking from experience, Druxey. I fully concur, having done a very comprehensive renovation myself. Can of worms territory!

 

Steven

[druxey]

Oh, yes; indeed!

[Knocklouder]

Hey buddy, you were one of the first who help me open my can of worm's here on MSW and have always been impressed by your work today is no exception. All I can say when your done build a bigger one I know lol Something Four feet long maybe, lol.

 really  Impressive      

[Louie da fly]

Thanks, mate. But I have space limitations. Never going to do 1:200 again, but I've done 1:50 and 1:75, and I'll probably keep on with 1:75 as my "default" scale. And of course, if all the models are to the same scale you can compare them.

 

Steven

 

[Ferrus Manus]

1/96 and 1/100 is around my default, but as you know, i am doing the research for a 1/32 build.

[Louie da fly]

More rigging; now I've got the main topsail in place. I had quite a bit of trouble getting the original "parrel truck" (really made out of cotton thread) to fit back onto the mast - it got all mutant on me for a while and I had to pretty much force it into the right shape - not really what I wanted to do. But eventually it worked and I was free to start rigging.

 

First, the topgallant sheets now had a spar to hold them (sorry about the photo quality). The sheets run through a block on each topsail yardarm

then along the yard to a block near the mast

And down to the bitts

Then - disaster! I snapped the larboard topsail yard (they're VERY thin!) and at the same time the block for the clewline pulled away from the sail. Then the sheet pulled away from the sail as well. This photo was taken the next day; I'd already mended the yardarm with CA, but still had to fix the clewline block back in place - you can see the dislocated block in the top right of the red rectangle.

 

This took far longer than I'd expected - several failed attempts before I got it right. Here's the repaired assembly, roughed out:

And trimmed:

and I've added brace pendants for the topsails

 

A match to show how very thin the yards are - very easy to snap.

And the brace pendant on the starboard side (a bit blurry, sorry):

And trimmed to length:

And I've now started adding a two-sheaved block to the foremast to take the topsail bowlines. A lot of swearing at this point - I was trying to get the strop around the foremast past all the ropes that were already there. Absolute murder, and I finally gave up and just looped a length of cotton thread around the mast (not very visible I'm afraid - all you can see are the loose ends):

And added the block to the loop (in the centre of the red rectangle, just above the parrel truck)

Adding blocks to the mizzen shrouds to take the main topsail braces:

 

  

And trimmed off.

 

Lots of fiddly stuff. But slowly getting there.

 

Steven

  

 

 

 

Edited March 12, 2023 by Louie da fly

[Louie da fly]

Current state of play:

A new pair of blocks on the stay for the two maintopsail bowlines (the pegs are just weights, to tension it all till the glue dries)

And with the bowlines in place:

And just below the top you can see the two-sheaved block the bowlines run through to the deck.

I realised I'd misinterpreted Anderson's book for the topgallant sheets. In fact, they double as topsail lifts; there are only separate lifts on the topgallant yard. So I had to undo the sheets and add a new pair of blocks just below the topmast top to take the sheets/lifts, and run them through those. 

Unfortunately, I'd made the same mistake on the foretopsail sheets (though I'd added the extra blocks, I hadn't run the sheets/lifts through them).

But it would now be much too difficult to correct, so I'm going to leave it as-is, as a reminder to make sure I've really understood the instructions.

 

Steven

 

 

[Louie da fly]

Making fiddle blocks for the mainsail martnet tackles.

 

Holes drilled in blank

Cut to shape

Glued and clamped after it split  Note the tiny plastic pegs (available from craft shops)

And with tackle going through both holes (temporary - just to demonstrate).

 

Steven

[Louie da fly]

Here's the mainsail with the bowlines added (I had to pull them out sideways so they'd be visible).

And far too late I realised I needed knights for the mizzen and bonaventure mizzen lateen halyards. I had to somehow drill holes in the deck past all the shrouds and other rigging.

Here are the knights dry fitted. I'll need to run the lanyards through them before I glue them in place. It won't be feasible afterwards.

But I have no idea how I'm going to do the halyards for the  lateen topsails. And Anderson's The Rigging of Ships in the Days of the Spritsail Topmast, for a change, is no help at all. I'm sure I'll figure something out.

 

Steven

[Glen McGuire]

What a challenging (and interesting) project!  But I know you are up to the task, Steven.

[Alvb]

What exactly is your question for the halyards? 

 

Alvb

Edited March 19, 2023 by Alvb

[druxey]

Wow! You certainly deserve a medal for persistence, Steven.

[Snug Harbor Johnny]

1 hour ago, druxey said:

Wow! You certainly deserve a medal for persistence, Steven.

   Some say that Domenico Scarlatti was the most prolific composer for the harpsichord, having written over 500 sonatas.  Others say that he was the most PERSISTENT composer, having written a harpsichord sonata over 500 times.  This may also apply to doing ratlines ...

[Louie da fly]

I love Scarlatti's harpsichord sonatas - I have a CD of Wanda Landowska playing a number of them, recorded in Paris during WWII. She was brilliant. (Oh, and you can occasionally hear the crump of artillery in the background.)

 

Steven

[Louie da fly]

On 3/20/2023 at 3:35 AM, Alvb said:

What exactly is your question for the halyards? 

These are the halyards for the lateen topsail and topgallant - Anderson couldn't find any information at all on how they were arranged, where they were belayed etc. If he couldn't find anything, I doubt I'd be able to. So I'll just have to make it up as I go along , (using educated guesswork, and based on what happens on the other halyards) 

 

Steven

Edited March 21, 2023 by Louie da fly

[druxey]

Another good composer to listen to while modeling is the prolific Musio Clementi. Hours and hours of early piano works.

[Louie da fly]

While I'm waiting for glue to dry, or planning my next step, I make blocks . . . I find it quite restful.

And though all the flags are complete, I still have to make the pennants. Here's the first one.

Main martnets. This time I'm doing double martnets, instead f the single ones I did on the foresail. It's going to be very difficult getting everything to line up.

  

 

Steven

 

 

 

Edited March 21, 2023 by Louie da fly

[Snug Harbor Johnny]

10 hours ago, druxey said:

Another good composer to listen to while modeling is the prolific Musio Clementi. Hours and hours of early piano works.

   Don't forget Georg Phillip Telemann - great baroque small-ensemble stuff.

[Louie da fly]

Yes, very fond of Telemann. And of course Vivaldi . . . and then there's Bach . . . not quite so light . . .

 

Thanks everybody for the likes and the comments.

 

More progress today. After a lot of preparatory work, I've finally got the main course in place. As it's an early period ship, the mainyard is quite a distance below the top. I held the yard in place temporarily with a big green peg and sewed it loosely to the existing parrel truss (rescued from the original build).

Tyes (the thicker thread) loosely tied (sorry!) until I got everything else lined up.

Overall view.

Tyes finalised and glued in position. The sister block on the left is for the mainsail martnet tackle (there's another one on the other side if you look carefully).

Martnets, sheets and lifts (sorry about the bad definition - it was the best I could get).

Lifts and clewlines, plus martnet tackles partly done

Martnet tackles; larboard: The martnets go through a deadeye on a pendant that goes through a block, which in turn is itself on a pendant that goes through the aforementioned sister block. As there are going to be two sets of martnets for each side of the sail, another deadeye will be at the other end from the first - you can see it just glued to the pendant on one side.

 

and starboard - you can see the second deadeye almost fully glued in place.

More in due course (sorry!) It's been a long journey, and it's very good to see it all coming together at last. 

 

Steven

 

 

 

 

 

Edited March 22, 2023 by Louie da fly

[druxey]

Visually, a great leap forward, Steven. I only ever had to do martnets once, and even at a much larger size (1:48) they were tough enough. I'm amazed at how well you've managed them at such a small scale.

[ChiefClanker]

Your efforts are pay off, Steve!  Your model looks very good.  You are doing great detailed work.  Keep it up!

 

Mark

[Alvb]

Can you give me the dimensions of the mainsail so I can get an idea.

 

Alvb

[Louie da fly]

Thanks everybody for the likes.

 

Druxey, of course these martnets are currently left loose until I get everything worked out. I discovered on the forecourse that they shouldn't be tightened until everything else is finalised, otherwise they go slack and look bad. In fact once everything else is done, I'm going to revisit the forecourse martnets and see if I can't improve them.

 

Chief Mark, thanks for the comment.

 

Alvb - it's 170mm wide x 115mm high (including the bonnet) - that's 6.7 x 4.5 inches for our American cousins.

 

Steven

Edited March 22, 2023 by Louie da fly

[mtaylor]

More and more impressive work with every post, Steven.