Wütender Hund by ccoyle - FINISHED - Shipyard - 1/72

[ccoyle]

Got the various bits of the bow in place. This completes the basic hull structure. @Chuck Seiler The ladder turned out to be too wide to fit its spot. I had to disassemble it and trim about 1 mm from each step. I glued the sides in first and added the rungs afterward. Next task is to fabricate and hang the rudder.

 

[Chuck Seiler]

On 6/13/2020 at 8:05 PM, ccoyle said:

One issue to look out for, albeit a very minor one, is that the the last three interior frames at the stern had the left and right labels (L and P, in Polish) reversed. Not a big deal, since the parts are identical, but using them as labeled will result in the reverse side of the ply facing out, if that makes a difference to anyone

I am at that point now.  I was watching out for this, but found a different problem.  There is a part (135) in thicker cardboard, then there is a better quality but thinner overlay (135a).  So for each you have 135L, 135aL, 135p and 135ap.  In my case, some of the overlays are reversed so that 135aL covers 135P. 

 

As long as you are paying attention, it is not an issue.

 

Great work so far Chris!!!

[ccoyle]

The rudder is hung. Pintles and gudgeons consist of short bits of plastic tubing overlaid by faux metalwork made from brown cardstock and painted. Simulated bolt heads are daubs of glue.

 

 

 

 

EDIT: I just noticed in the first picture that the rudder is riding up a little bit. 😑  No worries -- it's not glued in place, so a little push will set it properly.

[ccoyle]

The last steps in completing the lower hull are to install the wales and beam ends. With those tasks accomplished, attention shifts to the upper works.

 

[Landlubber Mike]

Man that looks like real wood.  Really well done!

 

[ccoyle]

6 minutes ago, Landlubber Mike said:

Man that looks like real wood.

It is real wood! 😉  This is Shipyard's first foray into wooden kits. There is of course also the card version, which Chuck Seiler has been working on.

[Landlubber Mike]

Oooh I thought it was card, my mistake!

Really nice - excellent job!

[Chuck Seiler]

Chris,

 

    Outstanding!!!  Very crisp. 

 

    So, what is the deal with the rudder?  Did they have to untie and retie the rudder lines each time they altered course?

[ccoyle]

58 minutes ago, Chuck Seiler said:

So, what is the deal with the rudder?  Did they have to untie and retie the rudder lines each time they altered course?

Dunno. I can't even vouch that the kit mirrors actual practice -- I just build it the way the instructions tell me!

[CDW]

Just found your ship log, Chris. Beautiful model.

[Chuck Seiler]

1 hour ago, ccoyle said:

Dunno. I can't even vouch that the kit mirrors actual practice -- I just build it the way the instructions tell me!

    Since the model seems to be somewhat based on the Bremen Cog wreck, I'm thinking they did SOME research.  Maybe not.  Having driven a 12 foot sailboat and a 4000 ton destroyer, I find it hard to believe they would lock their rudder in place and good exactly the way they wanted to go without any minor adjustments.  I can't do that in my car.

[Chuck Seiler]

Chris,

 

    I am working on my inner planking.  I currently have the picture of the Roland von Bremen on my desktop as inspiration.  As I am installing the inner planks I am noticing things on the RvB.  Shouldn't the model have cap rails?  Nowhere in my instructions do I see cap rails. 

[ccoyle]

8 hours ago, Chuck Seiler said:

Shouldn't the model have cap rails?

Dunno the answer to that one, either. I know virtually nothing about the construction details of cogs other than what I have learned from working on this kit.

 

P.S. I learned something last night. I have been using 3M 77 spray adhesive for large wood-to-wood joints, as I would with similar card parts. I learned from experience that non-acrylic wood stain acts as a solvent on the 3M product. 😮 Hopefully, after everything dries the glue will reset. Hopefully.

[Chuck Seiler]

Doh!!!!

[ccoyle]

Well,lesson learned -- I had to peel apart and re-glue all the poop deck bulwarks, but other than that little speed bump, work is progressing nicely.

 

[Louie da fly]

23 hours ago, ccoyle said:

On 6/30/2020 at 12:43 PM, Chuck Seiler said:

Shouldn't the model have cap rails?

Dunno the answer to that one, either. I know virtually nothing about the construction details of cogs other than what I have learned from working on this kit.

Upper works on a wreck are usually the first things to be lost, unless the wreck happens to be lying in a position/inclination that preserves them for us. The Ijsselcog seems to have had had none surviving https://www.academia.edu/40371597/The_IJsselcog_project_from_excavation_to_3D_reconstruction and the Bremen cog also seems to have lost a lot of its upper works - https://www.ipi.uni-hannover.de/fileadmin/ipi/publications/wiggenhagen_04_istanbul.pdf 

 

But if we compare the two pictures below (from https://artsandculture.google.com/exhibit/the-so-called-bremen-cog/owKSqVwIBfJGJw ) it looks like the hooked timber for the anchor is still in place, so the top strake must be as well - in which case there seems to have been no cap rail.

 

  

 

One thing that really gets me is how short the strakes seem to have been. I wonder if there was a reason for it?

 

Sorry to hear about the speed bump, Chris, but the model is looking very good.

 

[Chuck Seiler]

13 hours ago, Louie da fly said:

One thing that really gets me is how short the strakes seem to have been. I wonder if there was a reason for it?

    The strakes or the planks in the strakes?  Are you basing that on the above picture and other representations or of the wreck?  I don't think the planks are small, I think the people are too big.

 

    The planking pattern on the above picture, and other representations I have seen, is similar to the Wunterhund model.  I think they LOOK short because they are wide.  The above station master is 5 scale feet (5 feet 1 inch).  The plank 3 strakes above him is 14.5 feet long and about 2 feet wide.  I believe the representations show the cog as they see it, but the people are much larger...artistic license.

 

    Whadya think?

[Louie da fly]

That makes a lot of sense, Chuck. Without a sense of scale it does appear that the planks are short in comparison to their width, but apparently it's the other way around. (And with planks that wide there would be serious spiling problems if they were any longer.)

[ccoyle]

Got the trim work on the stern castle done. These are very delicate, and the task went much easier after cutting the longer pieces into smaller parts.

 

[Louie da fly]

Nice crisp work. From personal experience I know how hard these castles can be , so - kudos.

[ccoyle]

The stern castle substructure is now complete. A dry fit to the hull revealed a couple of things: First, don't hang the rudder until after the stern castle is on the hull! Second, it will take some very careful fitting work to get the stern castle to sit properly on the lower hull. But before I do that I need to construct the windlass, and before I do that I have to get hold of some dye for the kit's white cordage.

 

[druxey]

Looking very nice, Chris! The late, great Dan would approve.

[Louie da fly]

Just out of interest, Chris, what does the kit have in the way of fixings for the lower end of the shrouds? I've just been looking at this in relation to another "cog" build at 

Rather interesting. It appears deadeyes didn't evolve until sometime in the 15th century.

[ccoyle]

The kit includes wooden hearts that are attached to wooden posts along the hull side. The posts function as chainplates, the hearts as deadeyes. Other than that the shrouds are pretty much set up in the usual fashion.

[Louie da fly]

I was wondering what they might have done about it. As far as I know this isn't something that has received a lot of attention, but there's been very little information available. in most images of cogs which show the shrouds (unless the fixings are just left off by the artist) they seem to end inboard, such as in the ones below:

    

 

1329 Seal of Stralsund                                                                                                                    Seal of Ipswich - the date given is 1200, but I find that hard to believe.

 

  

 

Royal MS 10 E IV Folio 208v c 1300-1340

 

 

A 15th-century illustration from Marco Polo’s Travels, held by the Bodleian Library, Oxford,

 

However, the seals below seem to show something like what's provided in the kit. The first two are the seal of Elbing in Germany, at different magnifications. The third is the seal of Southampton, early 15th century.

 

        

 

The whole subject of cogs is very interesting - it's just a shame that so little information is available about such things as the rig, and we are reduced to "best guess". It looks to me as though the solution provided in the kit is as good as we're ever likely to have unless another cog is found, but with the rigging intact. We can only hope. 

 

 

 

    

                                                                                                             

 

 

 

[ccoyle]

Just a quick update. I have hit a bit of a mental snag. Before I can glue the stern castle to the hull, I need to dye some of the rigging cord. I have the dye on hand (not literally -- that would of course be messy). The problem is that the kit does not specify how much of each diameter of rigging line is included in the kit, nor does it specify how much of each line needs to be dyed for each color (i.e. tan/taupe/natural for running rigging and dark brown/gray/black for standing rigging). So that's something that I will have to figure out. In the meantime, I have been working on a few bits that follow later in the build sequence. Will post pictures once I get the line dyed and stern castle mounted.

[ccoyle]

Okay, I got it done. I calculated how much of the dark line I needed, stained it, dried it, completed the windlass, and mounted the stern castle to the main hull -- hooray for me! It took quite a bit of shaping of the forward stern castle to get it to sit properly, and I hope that doesn't come back to haunt me when I get around to attaching the remaining hull siding. Getting the stern castle actually onto the hull was another challenge, because it needs to be glued down in several places, and also the tiller handle has to be put through the aft framing prior to finally positioning everything, and of course all before the glue sets. But it's done. Whew!

 

 

[Louie da fly]

Looking very good, Chris. This is turning into a very attractive vessel.

[ccoyle]

20 hours ago, ccoyle said:

I hope that doesn't come back to haunt me when I get around to attaching the remaining hull siding.

It did. Pics later, but basically what happened is that during the lower hull construction, I didn't get the sides flared outward enough. I'm not sure why that happened or what I could have done about it. The lack-of-flare is not much, probably less than 2 mm, but it creates a problem with mating the upper hull sides to the lower hull sides at the stern castle. I will have to think about how to best resolve this issue. Think, think, think ...

[druxey]

So, what would a shipyard worker of the time have done? "Ach, das war dumm!"