Trireme Olympias by Richard Braithwaite

[Louie da fly]

The problem (as I'm sure Richard is fully aware) is that there were several values for the Ancient Greek "cubit", and the designers used the wrong one - which they only found out in practice. Had they used a larger value for the cubit the problem probably wouldn't have arisen, and in fact the literature on the Olympias suggests this as one of (many) issues to be taken into account if an Olympias II were ever to be built.

 

I had originally intended to make a similar little man to test out the rowing set-up for my dromon but never worked out the problems involved in building it. Very impressed, Richard, that you've done so.

 

Steven

[Richard Braithwaite]

12 hours ago, Louie da fly said:

The problem (as I'm sure Richard is fully aware) is that there were several values for the Ancient Greek "cubit", and the designers used the wrong one - which they only found out in practice. Had they used a larger value for the cubit the problem probably wouldn't have arisen, and in fact the literature on the Olympias suggests this as one of (many) issues to be taken into account if an Olympias II were ever to be built.

 

I had originally intended to make a similar little man to test out the rowing set-up for my dromon but never worked out the problems involved in building it. Very impressed, Richard, that you've done so.

 

Steven

Just looked through your Dromon Thread. Great reconstruction. I see you carved individual oarsmen! I don't think I have the endurance to make 170 for my model!

I am thinking of three of my manikins to demonstrate a single triad or oars. I suppose one could make a CAD model and 3D print them? Has anyone tried that?

[Louie da fly]

15 minutes ago, Richard Braithwaite said:

I don't think I have the endurance to make 170 for my model!

I can understand that. I only carved 48 oarsmen (plus 16 others - grand total of 64) but I got very tired of carving the oarsmen in particular.

 

It's possible you could 3D print your figures - but I have no expertise at all in this field. Maybe others could help. You'd need separate figures for thranites, zygites and thalamians as they hold the oars differently. If you look at the Youtube video of Olympias' sea trials you see how they do that - but even on a given level, different oarsmen hold the oars differently - some forehand, others backhand. Very interesting.

 

Steven

[Richard Braithwaite]

Upping the tempo on the Thalmian beams, stretchers and seats.

Here a Jig for installing the stretchers between the thalmian beams:

The little wire clip is useful in holding the stretcher at the right height while the epoxy cures. Unfortunately this jig will only work on the starboard side. I think Ill have to completely rebuild for the port side. Would have preferred to come up with something a bit more ambidextrous (oh well...)

 

For the seats themselves, I'm building them in strip fashion so they can be cut off one by one and finished before installation...

[Brinkman]

On 4/30/2022 at 1:49 PM, Richard Braithwaite said:

[...]I suppose one could make a CAD model and 3D print them? Has anyone tried that?

Very impressive build! And I love your wooden mannequin!

 

Regarding 3D printing roars men one way would do something similar to what I did in my previous build. I built parts of the ship in CAD and imported it in a program called Poser. There one can manipulate the mannequin to any position you want so it interacts with the CAD of the ship and then export and 3D print just the human.

These mannequins are naked, but perhaps the roars men didn't wear a lot of clothes anyway so that would save you some time

[Louie da fly]

Just came across this video of a lecture by Boris Rankov - who was the rowing master on the Olympias -

 

 

Edited May 31, 2022 by Louie da fly

[Louie da fly]

Thought you might like to see this - Olympias and the frigate Salamis - both ships of the Greek navy.

 

 

Steven

[Richard Braithwaite]

On 5/12/2022 at 8:30 PM, silverman834 said:

Very impressive build! And I love your wooden mannequin!

 

Regarding 3D printing roars men one way would do something similar to what I did in my previous build. I built parts of the ship in CAD and imported it in a program called Poser. There one can manipulate the mannequin to any position you want so it interacts with the CAD of the ship and then export and 3D print just the human.

These mannequins are naked, but perhaps the roars men didn't wear a lot of clothes anyway so that would save you some time

Yes, I've tried some modelling of humans using a similar program that is freely downloadable (DAZ3D). I guess you could save in a file format readable by a 3D printer?

[Richard Braithwaite]

A Thalmian oarsman's view (looking aft) of the 21 seats Ive installed so far on the starboard side of the ship (149 to go...)

 

[Richard Braithwaite]

Completed the Thalmian seats on both sides:

[Richard Braithwaite]

Disassembled the model today for the first time in a very long time, to check that I haven't done anything to stop me being able to get at the bolts and that the main hull outfit assembly (which includes deck beams, support pillars, inner hull longitudinals, gangway, and now thalmian seating...) is still removable.

It takes me just over half an hour to assemble (there are 82 bolts to secure in total...) and I was quite pleased with how easily the main hull outfit assemble fitted into place with no flexing at all and all the bolts perfectly lined up with their holes.

I'll have to do it again to fit the mast steps (I know, I could have done that before I put the deck in...) and I'm hoping it will make it easier to get at everything when I finally come to coating the wood with something.

 

[BANYAN]

That's impressive work Richard.

 

cheers

 

Pat

[Ian_Grant]

Impressive is an understatement.....it's beyond the superlatives I know.....

[Louie da fly]

That's magnificent work!

 

Steven

[Ian_Grant]

Richard, is the plan still to install an oar drive mechanism? If so I look forward to it eagerly.

[Johnny.D]

Truly Master Craftsmanship Richard.

I admire your work closely and the quality is, as Ian said, beyond superlatives.

[Richard Braithwaite]

On 10/3/2022 at 11:36 PM, Ian_Grant said:

Richard, is the plan still to install an oar drive mechanism? If so I look forward to it eagerly.

Yes that is still the plan. However, at the moment I am concentrating on completing the model with as little concession to that as possible. I want the mechanism to be fully removable so that the model can stand with or without. That is on of the main reasons I have made it fully capable of dismantling.

[Richard Braithwaite]

Starting the installation of the second tier (Zygian) of oarsmen  seats. Again, my Manikin is helping to confirm that the seat is in the right place for the downward angle and sweep of the oar and that there is no interference with the lower (Thalmian) oarsmen. The oar blades ae resting on a block of wood placed to give the right downward angle for complete immersion of the blade in the middle of the power stroke (at the design displacement). One the inboard distance of the seat is established I constructed the jig for installing the oarsmen stretchers at the same distance from the tholes which can be seen in the next bay forward of the manikins position. Part of this jig holds the new stretcher in place, perpendicular to the deck beams and the other part is a simple "ruler" that fits over the thole pin marked for the correct distance inboard. I will need to remark this for the shorter oars at the ends of the vessel...

[BANYAN]

Love the time and effort you are putting into the oarsmen and their bench seats etc Richard; it will make for very realistic detail on the model.

 

cheers

 

Pat

[Louie da fly]

Agreed. I wasn't able to do this on my dromon as the scale was too small (1:50), but I would have loved to. Kudos for taking it to this level to get the proportions and angles correct.

 

Steven

[Richard Braithwaite]

21 hours ago, Louie da fly said:

Agreed. I wasn't able to do this on my dromon as the scale was too small (1:50), but I would have loved to. Kudos for taking it to this level to get the proportions and angles correct.

 

Steven

Yes, I am finding that 1:24 is about as small a scale as I can manage.  The main reason for the full scale reconstruction was to demonstrate that it was possible to arrange 170 oarsmen, each with their own oar, in a ship 37m long... So I wanted to be able to show that this could work on the model...

The clearances between the oar blades, and hence the geometric tolerances for building many critical areas of the ship, are necessarily very tight to achieve this even at full scale let alone on a model... 

[Richard Braithwaite]

The middle tier of oar seats are much more straightforward to install than the lower tier as they are not raked relative to the vessels centerline. This means I can align them easily with a straight edge. Here are 3 going in in one gluing operation:

[Richard Braithwaite]

Completed port side Zygian seats:

[Louie da fly]

Beautiful work, Richard. I'm loving following this.

 

Steven

[Richard Braithwaite]

My triad of oarsmen completed.

From right to left: Thalmian, Zygian and Thranite oarsmen holding their appropriate oars.

The oars shown are based on the original oars for Olympias which were used for most of the sea trials. The blades are designed with a different shape to account for the differing vertical angle of immersion for the three different levels.

A lighter version of the oar was later trialed (where all three levels used the same design).

 

[Johnny.D]

Absolutely beautiful work with the figures and oars. Now only 167 more to go!

[Richard Braithwaite]

For some reason its taken me a long time to work out how to install and jig the upper seats...

The jig ive ended up with at this stage is shown below together with a seat assembly (seat+ foot stretcher + support pillar).

The jig consists of two parts. The main part is intended to hold the seat level athwartships and at the 9 degrees rake to the centerline with a removable section that can be unbolted so that the jig can be removed after fixing the seat in place.

Here is the jig in place in the model:

 

And, finally with the seat assembly in place:

The seat is assembly is fixed to the seat forward of it by its foot stretcher (held in place by the steel clip while the glue dries) and to the beam underneath by its support pillar. The intention is that all the seats form part of the removable part of the model and so this seat assembly can not be glued to the sheer capping...

 

The lathe cutting tool is functioning as a weight to hold the seat down in the jig while the glue dries...

[BANYAN]

A very clever solution Richard; looks good.

 

cheers

 

Pat

[Richard Braithwaite]

First check on the ergonomics with my trusty triad of marines:

Still to fit their footrests...

[Richard Braithwaite]

Problem with ships having a port and starboard sides is that I need to make two jigs...

One benefit is that I can now work on both sides at once, which is speeding up production a bit (from my usual snails pace...)