More framing and gun ports

[Don Case]

I'm getting close, I can feel it. I've got all the frames made and and I'm fitting them in and getting them faired. I took a quick look at the gun port layout and the forward two fit nicely between frames. Then I have a triple frame at the dead flat and the next port fits nicely. Then it goes wonky. Since I'm the shipwright and there are no plans is it OK to slip a single frame in amongst the double frames to make the gun ports work out closer rather than offset some. I think one or two oddball singles would do it. I've looked at plans and can't seem to detect a solid repeatable system. to me it looks like the frames are just shotgunned in where they're wanted. What say ye?😉

[mtaylor]

I don't see why not.   Many of the builders doing POB scratch and kits do that.   I'm doing on my Belle Poule even.

[ERS Rich]

When building anything, there is the plan....then the modification of that plan with “as built”....  

 

How can anyone know with absolute 100% certainty what a wooden ship from over a hundred years ago looked like at one point in time?

 

A modern plan of a period ship is just an approximation of the real thing based on impressions, compromise, research good or bad, taste, and bias.  

 

The state or configuration of a ship is never static.  Skippers changed the rig, the location of cannon, ballast, paint color, just about anything to suit themselves.  The captain of the ship is god.

 

To sum it all up, you are the skipper, it’s your ship, feel free to do it as you like.

 

Have fun with it....

[Jaager]

It would serve your purposes to explore the various framing plans on the NMM site.  It is my premise that the English were singularly unique in their obsession with having a whole Top timber be the sides that frame the gun ports.  There are examples of frames undergoing rather convoluted jogging to determine this result. Below the main wale it is still pretty much regular.  But above the waterline, where it does not really matter, some rather curious things were done. 

In France, North America and the Low Countries it appears that the Tops were made thicker, and or supplemented and notches were cut into the tops as needed.

[SJSoane]

The first model of the Bellona (ca. 1760) shows a proposal on the starboard side to keep the upper frames as continuous as possible to the top. The port side shows the more conventional framing.

 

Mark

 

 

 

 

[Don Case]

Thanks Mark, you explained what they may have done when they wanted to offset a frame and there was another in the way. That had me stumped. 

The way I have the frames now is just all double except for the triple at dead flat. In the first picture you can that the gun port fits nicely between frames. The second picture shows one that doesn't and offsetting one or more frames just means(copying Marks picture) that I would have to shorten half a frame and then offset the next frame into the now vacant space. The Discovery was not originally a military ship and that makes me wonder if they would have worried that much about gun port position. The drawings I have do show the ports and they are not evenly spaced. There are seven ports per side and I think the aft two are windows. The distance between them varies from 11' to 6'. I could solve my dilemma by moving the ports a maximum of 6" but I have so little info about this ship it would be a shame to change one of the things I do know. I suppose I could write it off to the drawing stretching or something but when John McKay drew up his version he followed the same spacing.

I'm including a couple of pictures of the way it is now. It's kind of hard to see but maybe someone can spot something I've done that I shouldn't have or vice versa.

[SJSoane]

Hi Don,

 

Others may know better, but I believe the Bellona model with the canted frames on the starboard side probably was not copied much, or even followed on the Bellona itself, because the crooked wood was becoming increasingly scarce and expensive by the mid 18th century.

 

I know how it is to decide which evidence to follow when trying to reconstruct an old ship. I decided that the port locations, if drawn, as are accurate a bit of information as you going to get, and so other things are going to have to adjust to make this possible. Having said that, my original admiralty drawing of the Bellona shows the upper ports towards the stern with three different locations dotted in; they were clearly trying to reconcile the conflicting needs of the internal arrangements, the desire to avoid cutting frames, and so on.  No one perfect solution.

 

One idea I have seen in contemporary models is that the frames get thinner fore and aft, or the upper futtocks or top timbers are offset a little on the lower part of the frame, to avoid ports. Since you already made the decision to keep the frames a constant width fore and aft all the way to the top, this option is not available to you any more.

 

If your framing will be covered by planking, you might just let the cut frames disappear into their plank coverings, and no one will be the wiser!

 

Mark