HMS Bellona 1760 by SJSoane - Scale 1:64 - English 74 gun, as designed

[mtaylor]

2 hours ago, Beef Wellington said:

So the next obvious question is how does the figurehead get into the roundhouse?

Had to clean the monitor when I read that.   I guess the answer would be.... very carefully.

[Louie da fly]

Mark, it's important to remember when this statue was carved. Knowledge of Roman artefacts was very limited and mainly confined to antiquarians. Bellona's equipment would almost certainly be more influenced by Renaissance and Rococo "pseudo-Roman" than by actual Roman examples.

 

No pilum, no Roman gladius. The spear, I'd suggest, would be very much like the one in your last picture. As someone who's used a shield in (re-enactment) combat, I'd recommend she hold it higher, to cover the chest. On the other hand, the guy who carved her wouldn't have had the benefit of that kind of experience, and I'd think he'd be more interested in an artistic-looking composition than belligerent (there's that root-word again!) practicality. I'd say where the figurehead on the 1760 ship model can't help, the Straub statue would be a good model to follow as it's very closely contemporary with the ship itself.

 

Steven

 

[Louie da fly]

By the way, I agree with Druxey about having the shield off to the side somewhat - it'simportant not to hide the fact that Bellona is female.

 

Steven

[Hubac's Historian]

Any of Bellona’s crew, at the time, would certainly have agreed with you!

[SJSoane]

Here is one more variation, with the shield to the left side. It will have to await the construction of a maquette to visualize exactly how this goes.

 

For an image of Bellona and shield location in a 1906 sculpture by Bertram Mackennal, see:

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mackennal_-_War.jpg

I understand this is on the grounds of the Australian War Memorial in Canberra.

 

Mark

 

[druxey]

That looks pretty nice now, Mark.

[Louie da fly]

I agree - that's going to look very good.

 

Steven

[garyshipwright]

Looking good Mark.  Keep up the good work sir. Gary

[Gaetan Bordeleau]

I compared the front of your 74 with the one of a french 74.

the french apparently are much more elongated.

[Gaetan Bordeleau]

[SJSoane]

Thanks, druxey, Steven, and Gary for your kind comments. And Gaetan, that is fascinating to see the two ships overlaid to see the differences. I had understood that the Bellona was largely copied from a captured French ship, but it must have been the hull lines and not the details. The French ship does look more elongated, whereas the Bellona like many English ships has an abrupt sweep up, even back, just behind the figurehead. This is a good example of elegant French taste!

 

I have spent the day figuring out more of the head, now looking at the plan. I had no idea how little I had worked things out until I drew this. Keeping the gammoning between two  head rails, making sure the seats of ease did not discharge onto the middle and lower rails, keeping the seats of ease away from the bumpkin, on and on it goes.

 

There sure are a lot of things to figure out, and good to draw it before making mistakes in wood. I discovered today that 15 years ago when I cut a slot in the gammoning piece when making the keel and stem assembly, I put it in the wrong place. One of the head timbers is right in the way, so the bowsprit gammoning could not be installed as I have built it so far. Thankfully, the trailboard  will cover the mistake. Don't tell anyone!

 

Mark

 

 

Mark

[druxey]

Your secret is safe with us - for a price! It is interesting to see the relationship between all the components making up the headwork. 

 

May I suggest that there is no seat of ease that far forward? Any gratings there rise steeply with main rail. There would be one as you have it (or even twinned ones) ahead of the middle head timber and another, as you've drawn it, in the aft outer corner between the roundhouse and main rail. I've even seen a two level two-holer in the corner like stadium seating!

[SJSoane]

Hi druxey,

 

I thought for a long time that these two seats of ease were on opposite sides of the center line, therefore just two forward of the knight heads.

 

But after boosting the exposure in this photo and looking more carefully at the chutes below, they seem to be both on the starboard side, hard up against the second and third head timber respectively, and discharging between the middle and lower rail. The foremost one is definitely on a steep incline, and really exposed; it could not be the first choice if others were free!

 

There is also very little clearance between the two rails in plan for the chute of the foremost seat, making this a messy detail if I read it right. My plan as currently drawn does not seem to align the sides of the chute as nicely with the lower rail as we see in this picture; maybe my parallelograms need to get a little more acute for this to work right. If they do indeed lie flat both on the head timber and the rail, then that is a sturdy means of fastening these in place, rather than just hanging free below the grating.

 

I also notice a large disparity in the size of the hole for the warrant officers in the roundhouses, and the size of the hole in the seats of ease for the less fortunate sailors. I don't know what conclusion to draw about this...

 

I welcome further thoughts on how this is all fitting together! 

 

Mark

[druxey]

Those chutes in your photo seem to be either side of the second head timber, not forward of the third (foremost) one. And yes, the headwork is in the line of 'drop'. However, at sea I'm sure this was washed clean! In harbour it would be a different story....

[Mark P]

Good Afternoon Mark;

 

See below a few photographs of the model, taken while she has been on display at the NMM. Unfortunately this meant that I was not able to photograph the port side or the stern. These will be invaluable in working out the location of the seats of ease, though, and much of the other detail. The discharge chutes seem to be sitting on the headrails, which presumably gave them the support they needed. The final photo is from 'Endymion', a 44 gun ship, but shows the location of the chute clearly.

 

 

All the best,

 

Mark P

 

[SJSoane]

Mark, Thank you, thank you! This is invaluable. So much guesswork without this.

 

I see there are a few places to fall through on a dark night...

 

Best,

 

Mark

[Mark P]

Good Afternoon Mark;

 

Here is another one, taken from directly abeam. 

 

 

All the best,

 

Mark P

[druxey]

Nicely shown, Mark P! These show all the intricacies of the headwork clearly. I have similar photos that I took years ago, but all on 35mm slides, unfortunately.

[SJSoane]

Thanks again, Mark P, these photos were invaluable. I saw a number of things I did not understand before. For example, the head timbers underneath the main rail are fore of the beams on the grated deck. I had assumed they were aligned. I could not make spacing work out until I realized this.

 

I remember spending a long time many years ago at the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich making notes on this model. I assume it is now put in storage, or is it on display at Chatham now?

 

It is now painfully clear that the foremost seats of ease discharge directly onto the lower rail, as we can see in the lower half of the plan (light blue is the lower rail). There simply is no way around this, because the discharge tube could not cut in the inward face of the middle rail (darker blue). And it could not move inboard at all, because it would get in the way of the gammoning for the bowsprit. As druxey points out, this is probably washed well while at sea, but in port it would be messy indeed. I imagine some poor shlub was assigned latrine duty to clean off the lower rail every few hours...

And here is a drawing working out the shape of the aft most head timber, in order to locate the middle and lower rails. Fascinating, complex geometry!

 

Best wishes,

 

Mark

[Mark P]

Good Evening Mark;

 

Look again at the second photo in my post, looking up from below. the inner face of the discharge chute is resting on the top of the lower rail, but the chute is not at all obstructed by the rail. Something must be still a bit amiss.

 

Both seats of ease sit on the headrails, but without obstructing the holes. Certainly, the rails will get some splash, and the bosun's pet whipping boy probably got the happy job of swabbing it clean in harbour.

 

All the best,

 

Mark P

[Hubac's Historian]

This is what I love about MSW - someone, out there, always seems to have the perspective you are searching for.  Nice work, Mark P!

[druxey]

"Fascinating, complex geometry" you say? Just wait until you get to the head timber geometry - your head will spin! The notches for the head rails get progressively angled as you go forward. It's a challenge.

The aft end of the lower rail may need to be a moved little more toward the centerline? Would that solve the discharge tube issue (pun intended)?

[Mark P]

Good Evening Mark;

 

See photo below from a different perspective. It does look as though the foremost discharge chute (by the way, good pun Druxey!!) is set so that the lower rail is protruding somewhat across the exit, but only a couple of inches at most. Also, the cuts in the head timbers for the rails look much smaller than those on your section, which would weaken them quite a bit, I suspect.

 

All the best,

 

Mark P

 

[SJSoane]

thanks, Mark, this are so useful!

 

I was inspired to redraw the middle and lower rails, to find out if I had something wrong. I did indeed. I ended up drafting very accurately the first and third head timbers, and where the lower and middle rails would be cut into them in section:

I then plotted the distance of these rails from the center line in the plan, and extended the lines aft to intersect the hull and forward to intersect the main rail as it sweeps up. I discovered that the aft ends moved more inboard than I had drawn before.

 

 

So now, knowing these are in the correct location, how would the seats of ease fit? Looking at Mark's photos, the one thing that seems inarguable is that the foremost, outboard corner of each seat of ease sits on top of the middle rail, looking to me like it is just flush with the outboard face of the rail. This means it would have to be cut away for the thickness of the middle rail. It could maybe be a little more inboard, but looking at the foremost seat, it cannot move much more inboard without encroaching on the gammoning which is directly behind it. So I think these are the right location athwartships.

 

There just does not seem to be any way that the fore seat avoids fouling the lower rail for the inboard half. Maybe there was a sloped bottom to the seat, directing things away from the rail?

 

Mark

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[druxey]

Mark: try this modification of the middle rail placement and repositioning of the seat/chutes. 

[SJSoane]

Hi druxey,

 

Thanks for the idea, I was able to move the rails outboard by about 4 inches, by reducing the outboard curvature of the aft-most head timber. This helped with spacing looking more like the Bellona model in a number of areas. But there is a limit to how far this outboard curvature can be flattened out before it no longer looks like the Bellona model. And changing the curve moves the middle and lower rails in a set relationship to each other, since their outboard faces align with the outer curve of the head timber. So I can't get that much greater clearance between them.

 

This results in the following rail locations. The location of the seats athwartship is based on my reading of Mark P.'s latest photo, which shows the fore-most outboard corner of each seat sitting on top of, but not projecting beyond, the outer face of the middle rail. And as I read the photo, the fore-most seat does indeed discharge onto the top of the lower rail, by about its thickness. I think through a great team effort here, I have located these as well as I can until I start building and get another perspective entirely!

 

Mark

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[druxey]

I suppose that you could move the lower rail aft end inward a little more to increase the curve of that aft head timber.

[Mark P]

Good Evening Mark;

 

Maybe you could taper the discharge chutes slightly, which would help. Only a couple of inches or so.

 

All the best,

 

Mark P

[Hubac's Historian]

Hi Mark,

 

Unusually, I’m at a loss for words.  However, I was looking at my favorite model of La Belle on Pinterest, by Olivier Gatine, when I saw the following picture:

This picture reminded me of your earlier discussion, concerning intersecting mouldings from stern gallery to stern edge.

 

I really don’t know what to say about this picture, other than it is an interesting illustration of the problem.

 

Much as yourself, that Olivier Gatine is a sharp executioner of the details.

 

ATB,

Marc

[SJSoane]

Thanks, Marc, that is a delightful moulding detail. It is still amazing to me how almost every craftsma-before architectural Modernism took over after the Second World War--knew how to execute traditional Classical mouldings. Almost a lost art now.

 

I needed to do a fair amount of refining on the head structure. The line and angle of the main rail is a given, as is the line and angle of the top of the upper cheek. The head timbers have to align with these top and bottom, but the curve in between is somewhat flexible. I discovered, once I projected up the locations of the middle and lower rail, that these curves had to move in an out a bit to align properly. I had to adjust the angle of the rails in plan a few times before everything line up in all three dimensions.

 

 

I also learned from David Antscherl's Fully Framed Model book (vol. II, p, 227) that the slots cut into the head timbers are not parallel to the ground, even though the tops and bottoms of the rails are parallel to the ground. This is because the inner face is rising faster than the outer face when it cuts at an angle across the head timber. Very hard to visualize at first, but I confirmed this is indeed the case. Here are the three timber heads:

And as you can see in the second one, the discharge tube does fall onto the lower rail. The only two sanitary ideas I can imagine, are Mark P.'s slanting tube, or here a  sloping shelf. I will go for the sloping shelf for now...

 

And here is a cross section just to the port of center, showing some of the construction. I think I will have to refine the upper edge of knee to align with the lower rail. Those two lines should be more fair to each other I am thinking.

 

 

I think I am tired of working on the head drawings, back to planking!

 

Mark