Trireme Olympias by Richard Braithwaite

[BANYAN]

Impressive finish Richard; looks great.

 

cheers

 

Pat

[Keith Black]

 Richard, I love a poly finish no matter how nontraditional it might be. IMHO the pluses far outweigh the minuses. 

[Richard Braithwaite]

Current stage of varnishing complete. Please to say, none of my fears materialised:

1. The older work didnt look any different from the fresh stuff.

2. I managed to avoid blocking up the threads of all the captive nuts

3. The lightweight structure didnt distort.

Composite image of all the main components after sealing:

As an aside Ive got myself a new umbrella reflector kit to use for flash photography. It came with 2 umbrellas. These photos were its first outing, so still getting used to it... Im alreadyquite pleased with the "soft" white one which seems to give quite an even illumination (when I point it in the right direction!) with nice soft shadows...

Edited April 13 by Richard Braithwaite

[Richard Braithwaite]

On 4/5/2024 at 1:42 AM, Keith Black said:

 Richard, I love a poly finish no matter how nontraditional it might be. IMHO the pluses far outweigh the minuses. 

In my case Im building a model of a modern reconstruction of a Greek Trireme (Olympias) rather than a model of a Greek Trireme. Early photos of Olympias sugest it was coated with some sort of Yacht Varnish, which was probably Polyurethane....

But the main reason I used polyurethane was because Ive used it before and Im used to it...

[Ian_Grant]

Yours is truly outstanding, beautiful work! Twenty out of ten!

[Richard Braithwaite]

Putting it all back together:

Som images showing how the main units go back together after varnishing.

The main deck unit is placed inside the main hull unit and bolted together using a couple of brass screwdrives I made for the purpose (some of the bolts are quite fiddly to get at now all the seats are in place... The photo shows one of these screwdrivers accessing one of the difficult to get at bolts securing the base stringer.

 

I made a couple of "Link Seats" to connect the thranite seats at the aft end of the main deck unit to the ones fixed under the quarterdeck:

 

Then its a case of securing all 12 Canopy Units:

 

The assembly with all main units in place:

 

There are a number of other loose outfit fittings, like ladders to go in:

Complete assembly takes me about 1 hour at this stage. Hopefully I wont need to take it appart again for some time...

[Scottish Guy]

I just found your LOG, really nice ship and looking great. Thank you for sharing.

 

Micha

[BANYAN]

A stunning build Richard; an exemplar of how to build such a model.  I have very much enjoyed this build log so far.

 

cheers

 

Pat

 

[Richard Braithwaite]

Left planking of the forward and aft platforms until after varnishing the main hull unit, in order to improve access (it was already difficult enough underneath the fixed quarterdeck structure...)

Plan 21, an estract of which is shown below (© Estate of John F. Coates, reproduced with permission) shows the planking of the forecastle planking stopping short of the port and starboard extremities (I guess, because there is no beam for the forward edge of any plank to rest on...). As you can see in the image below, ive gone along with this despite the obvious hazard involved with getting a foot caught up in the gap if the ship rolls at the wrong moment...

The aft moogin platform is shown in Plan 23 , an estract of which is shown below (© Estate of John F. Coates, reproduced with permission) together with my interpretation, which has ended up a bit wider at the aft end...

 

[Richard Braithwaite]

The design of the steering oars is not particularly well defined by the drawing pack (at least the drawings which I have copies of…). The best information is probably on the Stern Profile and Plan drawing (Plan 12), although this only shows one view and does not define the geometry of the tillers. The general Arrangement Drawing (Plan 1) does show another view, in low resolution which does at least help the overall tiller dimensions. Taken together with images of the completed Olympias, these form a reasonable definition of the design for my model (extracts of Plans 1 and 12 © Estate of John F. Coates, reproduced with permission:

The steering oar stocks were originally designed at a diameter of 150mm throughout and the design of the upper and lower bearings shown in Plan 24 sized for this diameter. John must have subsequently concluded that the bending stresses at the lower bearing would be too great and increased the diameter in this area to 180mm as shown in the extract of plan 12 above. The relevant parts of Plan 24 were redrawn to accommodate this increased diameter (Plan 24a). I built my rudder bearings to Plan 24 and so will be building my rudder stocks to a uniform 150mm diameter. It was a long time ago that I did this and Im not quite sure what my reasoning was… Ideally, I planned to build the model to reflect the build state of Olympias at her launch and original sea trials in 1988, but I must admit I have departed from that in some areas and built the model to reflect the design drawings (although even these contradict one another in some cases, as Ive discussed elsewhere in my build log…)

 

Another post build addition that can be seen in the above photographs is the friction brake (wooden upstands with a leather strap attached to the rudder slot framing on the quarterdeck). Again, I dont have this in my model - at the moment...

 

My lovely little Unimat 3 is just large enough for me to turn the stocks for the steering oars.

 

Here is a blank (Lime wood as usual, but a bit denser than used for most of the hull structure)

Ive roughly rounded one end, manually, to fit in my 3 jaw chuck and glued a 12BA brass nut in a recess in the other end to reinforce the center hole (first attempts, without this led to the center point tearing out…)

 

Here is the blank in position in my Unimat. As you can see I’ve even had to overhang the center point holder on the right hand side somewhat to accommodate the length…

 

Here is the blank turned down to 6mm diameter (150mm at full scale) with on end left square (and reduced in size using my Byrnes table saw – my other favorite tool in my workshop!) to accommodate the slot for the steering oar blade.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Chuck]

Really wonderful and well executed project.  I cant believe I did t spot it until now.

[GGibson]

On 4/14/2024 at 5:43 AM, Scottish Guy said:

I just found your LOG, really nice ship and looking great. Thank you for sharing.

 

Micha

 

2 hours ago, Chuck said:

Really wonderful and well executed project.  I cant believe I did t spot it until now.

 

Ditto here, as well, in not seeing this log previously!  Exquisite work, Richard!  And love your excellent work in posting the pictures with the text attached.  Can I ask what program you are using?  Seems quite technical, but very impressive!  And the work on the ship itself is awesome!  Will continue to follow, if you don't mind... 👍

[Richard Braithwaite]

21 hours ago, GGibson said:

 

 

Ditto here, as well, in not seeing this log previously!  Exquisite work, Richard!  And love your excellent work in posting the pictures with the text attached.  Can I ask what program you are using?  Seems quite technical, but very impressive!  And the work on the ship itself is awesome!  Will continue to follow, if you don't mind... 👍

The text on the photos above was created in photoshop, which is the progam I use for general photo processing. There are lots of lower cost alternatives available however. Ive even found Powerpoint as quite an effective solution, particularly for lower resolution images where you can simply take a screenshot of the annotated "slide".

[Thukydides]

48 minutes ago, Richard Braithwaite said:

The text on the photos above was created in photoshop, which is the progam I use for general photo processing. There are lots of lower cost alternatives available however. Ive even found Powerpoint as quite an effective solution, particularly for lower resolution images where you can simply take a screenshot of the annotated "slide".

GIMP is free if anyone is looking for a Photoshop alternative. And it does most of what Photoshop does.

[Paul Lipke]

As co-founder of the Trireme Trust USA, leader of Olympias' repair and modification team for her sea trials, and a friend of John Coates (note the spelling) I can say your work is extraordinary. Thank you so much for this. Keep us posted!

 

Lots of info and photos here: https://www.wolfson.cam.ac.uk/library/archives/trireme-trust

 

Respectfully,

--Paul Lipke

[Richard Braithwaite]

Back to work again after a travelling break...

Unimat setup for milling the tennon at the head of the rudderstock:

 

Edited June 3 by Richard Braithwaite

[Richard Braithwaite]

As mentioned above, the tiller is not completel;y defined in the John Coates drawing pack. The following sketch is my best guess at the dimensions from scaling from the drawings and photographs of the full size ship:

I originally thought I would turn this on my Unimat, but evantually decided to mill the tapers and then round it by hand using the general method for shaping spars.

The image belos includes a jig intended to hold the tiller squarely against the fence of my Byrnes Table saw for cutting the slot for the rudder stock tennon:

Then rounded by hand in the usual way:

Here are the components of one of the rudders (showing trial assembly on board) prior to fitting leather and metalwork:

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Richard Braithwaite]

Preparing the leather for the rudderstock protection in way of the upper and lower bearings. Ive started with some leather (cow hide) about 1mm thick and thinned it down to about 0.2mm (approx 5mm thick at full size). It took a few attempts to do this without tearing the thin, fragile material. In the end I found it was easier with a large steer furniture scraper rather than a scalpel due to the more even "scrape".  Now need to do some experimentation to find the best means of fixing (evostick or epoxy?) and final cutting to size (leather expands slightly when glue is applied to it).

 

Photo below shows original 1mm hide and finished pieces (for upper and lower bearings) alongside one of the scrapers used.

 

[Richard Braithwaite]

Making up some brass bands for reinforcing the tiller mortice. A bit of a refresher as I havent done any metalwork like this for some time. Process as follows:

1. soldered with a solder/flux paste in a syringe and heated with a small dremel blowtorch, which seemed relatively straightforward. although you end up with a silver line where the joint is (unsurprizingly!)...

2. made slightly undersize and lightly hammered on a mandrel until the right diameter to fit the tiller.

3. Pickled in acid and cleaned up with ultra fine wire wool.

4. Placed in a jar above some amonia for about 15 seconds which gave the brass quite a nice "bronze" look.

 

Resulting rings ready to install:

 

Here they are on one of the tillers:

Edited July 29 by Richard Braithwaite
spelling!

[BANYAN]

This build is a joy to follow Richard, your workmanship is exemplary.

 

cheers

 

Pat

[Richard Braithwaite]

Steering oar and tiller assembly with metal bands and leather bearings:

On Olympias they are fitter with lead straps around the steering oar blade to overcome buoyancy. I sourced some lead sheet of the right thickness (0.8mm equivalent to 18.5mm full scale...), which is sold for use as fishing line weights...However, reading about the disastrous effects of acetic acid on lead fitted to wooden models (Ref "Lead Corrosion In Exhibition ship Models, D. Wegner, NRG, Vol 43, No1), I decided against fitting. I will probably fit something made of brass at some point, but for the moment Im leaving as is...

 

Here they are installed on the model, ably demonstrated by one of my trusty marines:

 

On Olympias they are held up by ropes made off to the cleats either side of the helmsman, so that he can adjust the height of the oar (the hole for fixing these to the oar blade can be seen just behind the stock. I plan to fit thesee ropes once Ive made a decision on what rope material I am going to use.

 

[Richard Braithwaite]

Now turning my attention to the rig, I made the decision to model the rig as designed by Roberts (Ref The sailing Rig of Olympias, O.T.P. Roberts, The Trireme Project, Oxbow Monograph 31, Oxbow books 1993) rather than reflect the changes made to the rig during build and subsequent sailing trials. The most significant difference involves the shrouds. Roberts states that the masts of Mediterranean vessels of this type and period were without shrouds and merely stayed fore and aft (hence the substantial tabernacles fitted – see above). Pictures of Olympias, however, clearly show shrouds fitted but Roberts states that these were fitted because “Captain Dimitris Papadas…..took fright when seeing the tabernacles into which the masts were to be stepped and insisted that shrouds be fitted”. “Unfortunately, he fitted shrouds as in a fore and aft rig which made it impossible to brace round a reefed square sail”.

 

As an aside,  it is worth getting hold of these references on the Trireme Project (Olympias) for anyone interested in ships of this period and type. There were lots of papers presented by a lot of collaborators documenting the design and the trials, with a huge amount of information and discussion about all aspects of design and operation. I can give you a list of what I have (and what Ive found useful) , or you can contact the Trireme Trust archivist at Wolfson College.

 

So, I’m going to model the rig as designed by Roberts, rather than as built (it is also a lot easier for me to omit shrouds into my disassembling design…). Roberts design for the rig is documented by drawings MSR 1-10.

 

Starting with the masts drawing MSR 2 states that the head of the mast should be “tapered to fit the truck casting”, so it makes sense to make the truck casting before the mast…

 

Twin Halyards pass through the mast truck to hoist the main yard. In Roberts design these trucks are bronze castings that include fairleads for these halyards and a shoulder above them to support the forestay and backstay. The castings for both main and foremast are defined by drawing MSR 7.

 

I decided to machine these fittings from brass bar stock rather than cast them. It has been some time since I’ve done a significant metal machining project with my little Unimat Lathe, and this project enabled me to refresh myself with a wide range of its capabilities (including a first outing for the 4-jaw chuck that I just managed to get hold of on eBay!). The first steps are shown below (includes extract of Plan MSR 7 © Estate of John F. Coates, reproduced with permission):

 

Edited August 10 by Richard Braithwaite

[Richard Braithwaite]

Another source that may be of interest:

 

The Naval Architecture and Oar Systems of Ancient Galleys, J Coates, Chapter 9, The Age of the Galley, Conway Maritime Press 1995.

 

Contains J Coates interpretions and drawings of Helenic Pentaconters, Biremes, Trirmens, as well as later Roman Galleys (Liburnians, Fours, Sixes etc.), as well as a good summary discussion of the design drivers explored by the Trireme Project.

 

There is a particularly useful general arrangement and lines plan of a Roman Liburnian based on the Lindos relief and the ships on Trajan's column, which could be a good source for a simpler galley model, ("only" 50 oars, 20m long...).  I think it was prepared for a planned full size reconstruction at some time and would make a really nice model...

 

If anyone is interested it would be worth contacting the Trireme Trust archivist to see what else is available for this reconstruction.

Edited August 12 by Richard Braithwaite

[Richard Braithwaite]

Some images of the remainder of the machining operations for the main mast truck. The graph paper images illustrate a method I have for machining complex shapes manually turning the feed dials as a sort of poor mans CAM! Requires quite a bit of concentration to make sure I am turning the right dial the right way and in the right sequence! Particularly for the radii inside the halyard fairleads where I couldn’t see what is going on. After machining all the “steps” it’s a case of using files and sandpaper to smooth out the surface…

 

 

[tartane]

 

You mentioned the disastrous effect in the combination with lead and wood. I had experience with that too.

I do know that it mainly occurs when a model is set up in a completely closed display case. It is then the gases released from the wood that affect the lead. If the display case itself is sufficiently ventilated, the destructive effect will not be too bad. I notice it when I remove a display cover over my models, then you can smell the wood gases that are in it. And that has to be able to go. A number of models I've built are still without a display case, and nothing has happened to them for years, except that I have to remove the dust every now and then.

Do you know the book: "The age of the Galley, Mediterranean oared vessel since pre-classical times", written by Robert Gardiner in 1995. A fantastic book, highly recommended for anyone who is working with such ships.

Funny thing is that the writer was not aware of the existence of a Turkish galley ship from the beginning of the 17the century that has been completely preserved and that is now in the maritime museum in Istanbul. If he had known that, it would certainly have become a separate chapter in his book. I visited that ship and took some pictures of it. If you want to know more about that, let me know.

Rest me to say  that I follow your exellent  craftsmanship and thorough research closely with great admiration!

Constant

 

 

 

[Richard Braithwaite]

On 8/17/2024 at 11:48 AM, tartane said:

 

You mentioned the disastrous effect in the combination with lead and wood. I had experience with that too.

I do know that it mainly occurs when a model is set up in a completely closed display case. It is then the gases released from the wood that affect the lead. If the display case itself is sufficiently ventilated, the destructive effect will not be too bad. I notice it when I remove a display cover over my models, then you can smell the wood gases that are in it. And that has to be able to go. A number of models I've built are still without a display case, and nothing has happened to them for years, except that I have to remove the dust every now and then.

Do you know the book: "The age of the Galley, Mediterranean oared vessel since pre-classical times", written by Robert Gardiner in 1995. A fantastic book, highly recommended for anyone who is working with such ships.

Funny thing is that the writer was not aware of the existence of a Turkish galley ship from the beginning of the 17the century that has been completely preserved and that is now in the maritime museum in Istanbul. If he had known that, it would certainly have become a separate chapter in his book. I visited that ship and took some pictures of it. If you want to know more about that, let me know.

Rest me to say  that I follow your exellent  craftsmanship and thorough research closely with great admiration!

Constant

 

 

 

Interestingly I went to a talk, in Dartmouth, last week by a man who has been building lovely models of atmospheric steam engines since the 1970's (Home - David Hulse Steam Engines). The top of the boiler of one of his engines is made of lead and it has been in a sealed case together with Japanese Oak for 50 years. He says he has seen no deterioration at all...

[tartane]

Museums all over the world have more or less experience with lead corrosion. See the accompanying report where much is explained about this problem.

Naval Sea Systems Command > Home > Warfare Centers > NSWC Carderock > Resources > Curator of Navy Ship Models > Lead Corrosion in Exhibition Ship Modelsnavsea.nav

 

Constant

 

[Richard Braithwaite]

Ben from Ropes of Scale was kind enough to send me some samples of his excellent polyester and cotton ropes to help me decide on a way ahead for the rigging. Here is a picture of his 1mm polyester rope passing through the main masthead casting alongside an extract of drawing MSR 7 by Owain Roberts ( © Estate of John F. Coates, reproduced with permission) and a photograph of the full size ship. the polyester runs satisfyingly freely over my machined fairlead radii, which is nice... The photo of the full size ship shows shrouds in addition to the fore and backstays specified in the design by Owain (see discussion above). Interestingly while hemp was specified for the shrouds and stays, polyester rope was specified for the main yard lifts for safety reasons...

The next image shows images of Bens polyester rope and cotton rope made off onto the main bits.

 

I have some more experiments to do with sp;icing, rope coils etc. but I think I'm inclining towards polyester rope (although the slightly "furry" cotton, at 1:24 scale, looks quite like the full size hemp on Olympias in a lot of images...). Im also quite keen not to provide too much food for moths etc on my boat...

[Keith Black]

 These days poly is the only way to fly. The one caveat is poly stretches but you can pre stretch to avoid the issue.  

[Richard Braithwaite]

More experimenting with rope...

Ive never been much good at eye splices, so I had a refresher session with some full size rope (polyester 20mm diameter) and then tried with some of "Ropes of Scales" 1mm polyester. I got a few of my tucks out of sequence but it seems to be feasible at this scale (if a little fiddly..) - I just need some more practice!