Oseberg Viking Ship by liteflight - Billing Boats - 1/25 Scale - 9th Century

[KrisWood]

I just did the math, I was wrong.

 

The land on the original ship was 40mm, so at 1:25 that's 1.6mm.

[liteflight]

Thanks,  Kris

 

I’m going to think of that as a large 1mm.

Tonight I made two versions of a “marker of lands” having discovered that the compasses I have are not accurate with their jaws so close together.

[Cathead]

How are you coming along?

[liteflight]

Hi, Eric and other shipbuilders

The ship has progressed quite a lot, but the build log not at all

My lovely Admiral, who bought me the ship as a Christmas present, died in my arms in November.

 

i have not felt able to post since then, indeed my brain has turned to mush.
 Recall has become elusive, concentration brief and typing has become difficult as I am dyslexic and rely on a photographic memory for the images of words.  

To me all words are images and I just type letters till it looks like the image.

 

Added to this is a huge workload of paperwork as Executor and the obvious loneliness without Bette

 

I WILL return to the blog and bring it up to date with the build.

just not now

[Cathead]

Andrew,

 

Thank you for sharing this shattering news. Although it's not the same, in November my wife and I lost her father, who died while we sat with him, and to whom we were both very close (he was another father to me). We, too, are buried under a mountain of paperwork and bureaucracy, while helping a mother in law with cognitive challenges.

 

 I had to pause while typing this as I broke down. I say all this simply to note that, in some small way, we recognize your grief and struggle and will be thinking of you and wishing you well. I wish I could offer more. 

[Balclutha75]

Andrew,

 

I'm so very sorry to this tragic news. My deepest and heartfelt condolences to you. It's a beautiful photo of you guys.

 

I have really enjoyed following your build log, filled with your wit, intelligence and humor, and I look forward to your return when you are ready.

 

Nelson

[EricWilliamMarshall]

There are not words. We are here for you and will see you when the time is right. You are in our thoughts.

[liteflight]

Thank you very much Eric, Nelson and EricWilliamMarshall for your kind and thoughtful messages, and to all the “likes”

I hesitated before posting as I feared that I would be over-communicating.  But it seemed right to let you all know what I am wrestling with at the moment.

 

This corner of Australia is gradually opening up again after COVID ( still possible that more waves are on the way) and the indoor model flying organised by our Mens Shed is beginning to happen again.  My wife strongly encouraged me to go whenever it did not interfere with owt medical.

So I feel encouraged to build and fly again!  Photo attached of Connie, my pelican whose beak is Velcro-attached for evident reasons and she flies sedately round a basketball court.

This will not slow the progress of the ship; quite the contrary.

Wanting to do any activity is good, and leads to more doing in other fields

[liteflight]

For anyone interested Connie is an Australasian pelican ( pelicanus conspicillatus) and the ruff at the back of her head is a piece of cockatoo feather

 

The model has Platz planform and is controlled only by differential motor thrust.  Her big feet give a bit of stability in yaw

 

 

Edited January 6, 2021 by liteflight

[Louie da fly]

Connie looks very good, Andrew. I once saw a tv programme where some paeontologists built a full scale model of a pterodactyl and tried to get it to fly (as a glider). It kept on flipping backwards (stalling, I suppose)  - at the end of the programme they were going back to the drawing board, and I never found out whether they got it working properly. But its shape was very reminiscent of Connie, with no tail to speak of. Maybe you could have given them lessons.

 

Steven

[liteflight]

I didn’t see that one, Steven, but in the 80s? Paul Macready ( who had already won all the man-powered flight prizes) made a pterosaur.  It had radio control, was a glider launched by a stonking bungey , and I remember most the rudders which were the two feet and also the casque on the head coupled into the rudder function

Ah, got it

http://calteches.library.caltech.edu/596/2/MacCready.pdf

Paul Macready was a well known aero modeller before being an academic, and his team, pictured in the article includes Martyn Cowley ( I am close to throttling spellchick) another international competitor in model gliding.

 

i love the name of the fossil pterosaur they were resurrecting:  drum roll:-

Quetzalcoatlus Northropi

Named after John Northrop cos it’s tailless,   So he AND the pilot of his YB-49 are immortalised.  (We all know the pilots name, but most of us don’t know that we know)

(On Discworld there is a god called Quetzalovercoatl.  I thought you might like to know that)

[liteflight]

1 hour ago, Louie da fly said:

Maybe you could have given them lessons.

And no! 
I stand on the shoulders of giants to better see over their shoulders and learn from them

To tell a secret, when I am trimming a weird plane and I have no idea where the centre of gravity (CG) should be - I don’t fit the G/G for the first flight until I see how it behaves.
(and I love C/G in German which is, I believe Schwerpunkt )

This is what I was flying and trimming on Wednesday- a lifting body tailless.
 Two sizes, this one weighs about 25 gm, just under an ounce
And it’s little brother is 66% of the size and flies at 11gm

[EricWilliamMarshall]

On 8/9/2020 at 10:44 PM, liteflight said:

Dendrochronology would identify the area.

Not as much as you might think! 
A couple of points: 
The reason dendrochronology works is due to the variations in tree growth. There is great differences in growth and shape within the same species. The species can be identified but most of the species in question would cover a wide area and some species can't be easily differated. Red Oak can't be distinguished between the New World and the Old World origins, for example. Oxidation plays a great role in color as does finish and weathering.

I also assume the average ship builder would be less picky about species than functional use and proximity to the build.    
All that aside, as a model builder, oak isn't a friend. The gain is pronounced, the pores are huge  and has rays. Also the colors of oak are so many, depending on finish, use, compression, weathering, etc.

Long story short, as long as you can match the look and feel you want, most of the usual woods will work. I suggest trying different stains or similar on scrap wood to find your approach. 

Edited January 21, 2021 by EricWilliamMarshall

[Dcook65]

Hope I am not jumping in at the wrong time! I really want to do this build. I have never built a wooden ship. Been building plastic models over 60 years. How would you rate this in difficulty. I feel intimidated by the planking.

[liteflight]

5 hours ago, Dcook65 said:

Hope I am not jumping in at the wrong time! I really want to do this build. I have never built a wooden ship. Been building plastic models over 60 years. How would you rate this in difficulty. I feel intimidated by the planking.

 

Welcome to the ranks of honest humans, DCook65

The planking essentially is the ship and is probably the most difficult single task in this or any build

Its not the wrong time to be jumping in; do you have the same kit?

If so the way to build confidence is to read the build logs of everyone else who has built this or similar kits and map out in your mind the next few steps

Then do them 

[EricWilliamMarshall]

7 hours ago, Dcook65 said:

I feel intimidated by the planking.

I just crossed the hump on my first tiny planked hull in the last few weeks. It is doable. I have direct messaged you a few ideas (so as not to hijack @liteflight 's log). The one that was most useful for me, was bending a number of flat wooden coffee stirrers using a number of the techniques found here at MSW to get my 'sea legs'.

Edited January 7, 2021 by EricWilliamMarshall

[Louie da fly]

On 1/7/2021 at 11:37 PM, liteflight said:

On Discworld there is a god called Quetzalovercoatl.

 

Oh, yes. I'm a big Pratchett fan, too. Have you seen the short movie of his short story "Troll Bridge", starring Cohen the Barbarian, made here in Oz?

 

 

[liteflight]

Thanks Steven, I have now!  Thank you for that.

 

Warm thanks, too, to everyone who contacted me with messages of sympathy and support.  Much appreciated and very valuable to me at a difficult time.

 

So, as I was saying.......

I have reviewed Oseberg as she is and I find good news and less good news.

I had commenced the clinker planking, having decided that “my” overlap would be a thick 1mm

Easy decision, but how do I do that precisely and repeatable?
+

   
the current state of play:  both garboard strakes fitted with scarf joint between the two ( precut) parts of each strake

(just for reference, the clamps are  merely parked where they are)

i have added a second full strake on one side, using a method which I have not seen before, so probably worth describing ( even if only to give you a larf)

I aimed to scribe my fat 1mm overlap on the garboard strake.  
 

First attempt was using compasses, of which as a former Engineer I have a modest plethora.  None of them were designed to work or be rigid with a 1 mm gap.

Most were designed to use a lead about 2.5 mm dia, sharpened to a chisel point by arcane methods known (only) to draughtspeople.  However sharp the lead it gave a bad result!

 

I then remembered cutting thin styrene sheet using a hard pin pushed through a balsa sheet with a ply edge guide.

So postage stamp size bit if hard 1/8 balsa with a length of thin ply sticking down 2mm to slide along the edge of the plank to be marked.  
Lay it on its back and put a strip of fat 1mm width against the shoulder.  

Push pin through touching the strip

replace pin with 0.5mm drawing pencil lead and adjust till it barely protrudes ( or if you prefer - till it sticks out a wee bit)

Viola! You have a cunning device which marks a fat 1mm from an edge

 

And yes, it works only when the curvature of the edge is very gentle.
And also yes, this concept can be developed to work with sharper curves, both concave and convex - but no need here.

 

So the  edges of both garboard strakes are clearly marked with the overlap.

A cardinal principle of my build is that I don’t want glue anywhere but in a joint, because it would require clean-up.  IMHO even a careful clean up of a wood glue is likely to afffect any subsequent finish, so I aim to avoid that by removing the possibility of glue being squooged out of joints.

 

My strakes will be fixed by heat-activated wood glue.

I believe  it would be helpful to know Exactly where the glue is, so I mixed acrylic paint with  neat PVA wood glue ( I seem to remember it was an umber)

Like this

 

i had masked to the pencil line with fine masking tape and applied two coats of the coloured glue

 

Reason for that type of colour - the future holds dark staining of some sort - and any accidents of a generally wood-like hue should be unobtrusive.

 

The less good news

On careful inspection, I found that a part of the glued strake is not stuck.  
I’m not downcast, however because:

• I activated the heat sensitive adhesive with a full size family steam iron
• I cannot be sure that these areas were ever stuck - this was nearly 18 months ago.
• I have since been given not one, but two neat little devices intended for applying delicate heat shrink film to model aircraft ( airplanes to American friends) photos to follow

Please feel free to guide me in matters of technique or writing style.  
I have written at length in this post to catch up with where the ship sits today, and because the PVA/ acrylic ( or watercolour) trick may help someone else.

 

andrew

[liteflight]

I am in the middle of a major tidy and sort of the entire house and garden, triggered by the death of a modelling buddy.  He died leaving a VAST air-conditioned modelling shed packed with 40 years of many fields of modelling hardware.  I and flying colleagues have sought to clear the shed, convert the contents to cash, and return the proceeds to his widow.

 

Among the relevant items are two electric covering irons, photos attached, which I expect to be a neater and more manageable heating tool.  Both of these are sealing irons used for the smaller corners and seams of heat- shrink covering for model aircraft.  Normally they would be temperature-controlled, but these may be the “economy” models.  Easily rectified with a mains dimmer in the supply.

 

I included the household iron Originally used for the first strakes.  Not easy to use among a line of clamps!

 

Now to make progress!

 

1) Test the new heat sources on scrap materials

2) Obtain dimmer if required - the household iron was set to “max” if I remember right so dimmer may not be required 

3) clamp up and carefully reheat the strake which is not fully stuck down

4) Prepare next half- strake, scarf end where it joins existing strake

5) Mark, mask and apply coloured PVA ( carpenters) glue to the fat 1mm overlap

 

I think five steps is sufficient for now

 

andrew

 

[Cathead]

I'm so sorry for your loss. Sounds like you're doing a good thing helping the supplies find new homes and helping out the widow.

[Louie da fly]

Sorry to hear that, mate, but you're doing the right thing by your mate and his wife.

 

I'll be interested to find out how those irons turn out.

 

Steven

[Balclutha75]

Sorry about the circumstances, but nice to see you posting.

[ChiefClanker]

Your long boat looks great!   It looks like you haven't posted for quite a while.  I hope you get back to it soon.  

[ChiefClanker]

Or, maybe, I didn't look at the last page of your build log!!!  🙃