Roman Quadrireme Galley by Ian_Grant - 1/32 Scale - RADIO

[Ian_Grant]

5 hours ago, Bedford said:

Now you've got me worried, band saw, chain saw, circ saw, jig saw, scroll saw, super sharp model making saws and various hand saws and to date, no stitches in 61 years. What's around the corner!!! Mind you I have left a few drops claret in most jobs in one way or another.

 

Glad your injury wasn't too serious though!

That's an enviable record. I've had stitches twice now, in 40 years.

[Kevin-the-lubber]

Gosh, it sounds like your ED is just like ours Ian, painfully long waits if you’re going to live. Good that you didn’t actually detach any digits though.

 

Those rams will print fine in either FDM or resin. I couldn’t entirely understand the description of the hull development but, for what it’s worth, the most important lesson I learned when doing my little boats was to use the fewest stations possible.

[Ian_Grant]

I have a half-hull model for the business end. I did it in two parts, the u/w and above-water hull but when I wedded the two they did not meet so perfectly fair-curve wise. I had to glue on a couple of 1/8" thick strips along the join to plane down to suit. Anyway here are pics.

 

"Julius" is a 1/32 scale human outline. I have been searching for crew figures but it seems they will not be easy to come by. I've never done resin casting but apparently that is what people do - buy a couple then cast copies, perhaps with separate legs and arms to glue on for variety in the poses. Yikes!

 

The pencil line is the waterline, at the midpoint of the ram. Where Julius is standing there will need be to be a "fairing" angling up to the stem; plan is to skin the hull u/w and above then fill in this fairing with solid. Hoping to skin in 1/32" ply to avoid planking and fiberglassing. After all this is for R/C not scale display. 😏  The upward sweep of the bulwark at the stem is not represented here but of course will be built.

 

If ever I do this again, and I hope not to, I will glue up the blanks with thinner layers - I just slapped together standard 3/4" pine. While sanding I noticed that the joints between the layers give an indication of your buttock or waterline contours (depending on which way you glued up the layers) which could be used for fairing.

 

Now to the stern.......

 

ps - don't know why the extra blow-up image, can't seem to delete it.

 

 

 

Edited November 22, 2022 by Ian_Grant

[rookie]

is this what the bandsaw was for?  

Nicely done.  

[Ian_Grant]

On 11/22/2022 at 2:47 AM, Kevin-the-lubber said:

Gosh, it sounds like your ED is just like ours Ian, painfully long waits if you’re going to live. Good that you didn’t actually detach any digits though.

Yes, it was annoying but they probably had elderly stroke victims arriving by ambulance. It may be amusing to hear of the ER process I encountered; if not you can just skip this post.

 

On walking through the door I encountered a check-in desk of sorts. She asked what is the issue and I told her I'd cut my finger and needed stitches.

 

"Do you have your health card with you?"  (I pass it over).

"Are you still on xxxxxx Crescent?"  (I reply in the affirmative).

"Still at 613-xxx-xxxx?" (Yes, that is my number).

"Thank you. Have a seat until your name is called".

 

An indeterminate amount of time later I hear my name and approach an open door where another nurse awaits. She leads me to her workspace and hooks up a blood pressure sleeve and a finger tip oxygenation sensor. After taking my temperature, she asks:

 

"Do you have your health card with you?"  (I pass it over).

"Are you still on xxxxxx Crescent?"  (I reply in the affirmative).

"Still at 613-xxx-xxxx?" (Yes, that is my number).

 

She then unwraps my wife's guaze handiwork and quickly moves her garbage can under my dripping finger to catch the blood. She confirms stitches are needed and rewraps it. She then sends me off with "They'll probably want to see this soon to stop the bleeding. Have a seat outside 'til they call your name.

 

An indeterminate amount of time later I hear my name and approach intake desk #4 where a third nurse greets me:

 

"Do you have your health card with you?"  (I pass it over).

"Are you still on xxxxxx Crescent?"  (I reply in the affirmative).

"Still at 613-xxx-xxxx?" (Yes, that is my number).

"All right. They'll be with you shortly; just have a seat until you hear your name."

 

An indeterminate amount of time later I hear my name called along with three others. We all approach a large door and are ushered into the actual ER. "FInally" I think. It's been more than 5.5 hours since I arrived.

 

"Ian, you're in exam room #10. The doctor will be with you shortly".

 

Another hour passes. I stroll out and ask the ER nurse if she knows where I am in the line. She says "Fourth right now". I return to room #10 and my Sudoku book. After another half hour I ask again. She glances at a screen and says "Fourth right now". I return to room #10 and throw my crossword and sudoku books in the garbage bin - I've been through them and through them and done all that I can without looking at the answers. I doze off sitting and leaning back on the wall.

 

Half an hour later a doctor enters and startles me awake.

"Hello Ian, I'm Dr. xxxxxxx".

"Do you have your health card with you?"  (just kidding; she didn't ask about any of that).

 

Finally treatment is provided. It's been more than 7.5 hours since I arrived.

=================================================

 

Our family doctor is about our age and so is near retirement. When she goes, we'll be without an MD just as we enter our senior years. Not a pleasant prospect given the tens-of-hours wait-time horror stories recently in the news. One poor fellow waited in a stretcher in a hallway for more than a DAY to get a broken leg attended to!!!!   According to a recent CBC news report, they took the time to comb through the list of family doctors in Ottawa and found exactly three out of more than 1200 that were taking new patients. Everything in Canada seems to be falling apart at once.

 

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/ottawa-family-doctors-new-patients-shortage-1.6643412

 

 

 

Edited December 10, 2022 by Ian_Grant

[Glen McGuire]

OMG!  What an ordeal.  I admire your patience, Ian. 

 

An indeterminate amount of time later I am still thinking OMG!!  

[rookie]

Canada health care is ranked by UN as 26th out of 30 "advanced" countries

somehow we are ahead of US at 27?

 

it hit home during Covid when ICUs were stressed.   Ontario has 14 million people and 2400 ICU beds.

Our neighbor NY State has 19 million people and 24,000 ICU beds 

 

Old, decrepit system with layers of bureaucrats 

[Ian_Grant]

I made up a blank for the stern and carved it. This time I included a thin strip of cherry in the layers to mark the waterline. It was very painful to cut across all the end grain even with my low-angle block plane. Now that I have it I am re-thinking my plan to slice the two carvings up to get the sections; if I decide later I don't like the look then I am toasted. Maybe try a contour guage, which means buying one. Then I can always revisit planing the carvings if I want a change, and make new bulkheads......

 

Where Julius is standing this time is about deck level. The sternpost is not fully cut out of the ply, no commitments yet! Again, the upswept bulwark at the end is not represented.

 

Third photo is my bulked up midships section to get the needed displacement - looks like an iron windjammer 😬.

 

[rookie]

Nicely done

i like the cherry strip for waterline

 

thinking of buying you these for xmas. 😬

 

[Ian_Grant]

Or Lee Valley has these, intended for carvers. Don't really know if they would withstand a moving toothed blade; it might be bad news if a tooth hooks them.

 

I saw a TV thing once where a married couple of marine film makers were feeding sharks **by hand** 😜 and wearing gloves like these. Somehow the lady's hand ended up stuck in a shark's mouth and the glove came off! She quickly stuck her other hand in and wrapped the bare one with it.........the husband kept on filming......thankfully it was all ok.........

 

Edited November 25, 2022 by Ian_Grant

[woodrat]

Ian. I have used this device a couple of times to take sections off half-hull models and it works well. It is relatively easy to make but you need ball bearings on the cross -slide to reduce friction and jerking movement.

Cheers

Dick

[Ian_Grant]

Neat idea, Dick!  It only took a few seconds of internet browsing to find that I cannot buy contour gauges large enough or with fingers long enough to follow my hull's curves. It would require multiple measurements from different angles which would be difficult to re-align on paper. Because of that I had decided to just slice 'em up.

 

But your idea has my brain gears turning. Will have a think. Thanks for the post!

[Ian_Grant]

I decided to slice up my carved half hulls anyway. Traced those for the bow onto paper, scanned it, and imported into InkScape with the plan being to copy each trace then mirror and add as the other side (to guarantee symmetry), and then draw in the notches for stringers.

 

But I got lost in all the intricacies of path and node editing (don't ask!). Decidedly not my cup of tea. I went to the library with a couple of basic questions for the people there in the "Imagine Space"; a girl showed me a bunch of stuff with fingers just flying over function keys and mouse buttons. Whew! I think she could probably do what I want to do in half an hour but on returning home I found I was just getting angry at it. Even with a large book about InkScape at hand which I borrowed from the library, but the author just dives right in. It's more like a reminder for experienced users of functions and keys, than a beginner's primer. Plus I'm a computer idiot.

 

So I'm just going to draw my bulkheads the old fashioned manual way, and scan them in for the laser cutter, which will at least save me the trouble of jigsawing them all out and carefully sanding the contours. The laser will very accurately render any wobbly drawn lines of mine 🙄.

 

Here's a pic of the two-piece keel moments after gluing with some gussets, with the oar mechanism just sat beside it to enhance imagining the final ship. I'm putting lots of ribs at the bow and stern to allow skinning these compound curves in pieces of 1/32" plywood. The sliced-up bow and stern sections are in the background. Note that the oars are sitting far lower than in the finished hull. I didn't pile enough wood scraps under them to raise them to design position.

 

Oops I see I also missed cutting a little bit at the stem.

 

She'll be a big beast - just over 53" from the business end of the ram to the stern extremity - I'm getting excited now!!!

[Glen McGuire]

1 hour ago, Ian_Grant said:

I'm getting excited now!!!

Same here!

[Hubac's Historian]

Very impressive, indeed!

[gjdale]

4 hours ago, Glen McGuire said:

5 hours ago, Ian_Grant said:

I'm getting excited now!!!

Same here!

 

Me too!!!

[rookie]

nicely done Ian!

So the laser cutter is at the library?

 

[Ian_Grant]

Yes, the Ottawa Library and the US Embassy (??!) collaborated to open a makerspace which is a room called the "Imagine Space" which has two laser cutters and I think three 3D printers. It just so happens to be at the branch nearest us. The laser cutters handle max sheets of 12"x 24" and 18"x 24" respectively. I also saw someone using a pressing machine to make buttons ie the type with a metal back and a plasticized picture on the front that you pin to your clothes. Someone else appeared to be doing something with cloth material; wasn't paying attention.

 

Clarification:  the galley keel was manually jigsawed from my 1/4" plywood scrap.

Edited December 8, 2022 by Ian_Grant

[Ian_Grant]

Well once again I have to walk back previous comments. I scanned my drawn bulkhead for the "engine room" central portion of the hull and imported into inkscape. I tried to understand the node and path editing, I really did, but it was just too aggravating. The last straw - I noticed a 1/8" discrepancy in a dimension; probably the fault of the printer I used to scan but it decided me to just draw the bulkheads and cut them out without benefit of a laser.

 

The hull is a constant cross section from just in front of the first oar to a bit in front of the last oar. I was able to draw and carefully cut one bulkhead then use it as a template to gang bandsaw/router six duplicates.  All without cutting my finger😁.

By necessity, the "lower bulkheads" must end at the outrigger; they are spaced midway between the lower reme oars which means they are in line with those in the upper reme. "Upper bulkheads" start in the outrigger, spaced midway between upper reme oars, but can't do much more than define the slope of the outrigger top surface because if they extended further they'd interfere with those oars. I am making all bulkheads up to the level of the sub-deck so I can add a temporary wide brace along the top to hold everything in line while the hull is constructed.

When I first drew the full bilge amidships I was thinking how great, I can move the mechanisms much lower down to benefit stability; but in fact I am limited by the bilge curving inward and upward in that great arc at the stern, constricting the interior volume. The platform location  shown is the best I can do. At least it's 1/2" lower than the initial drawings.

 

So here's the keel with these central bulkheads and the first one forward of them, which is beyond the oars and extends up to deck level.

The rest of the bow and stern bulkheads will each be unique obviously. Looking at my traces for the stern I'm thinking I made it too much of a "vee" shape instead of a "u"; there is a fair slant at the top which if extended into the bulwarks would perhaps look odd. I will do the bow bulkheads next then worry about that.

 

My current plan is to have fixed bulwarks at the bow and stern, with the central bulwarks lifting off with most of the deck, for access., mainly because much of the mast rigging will be on cleats on the bulwark and I don't want to unrig them every time I open the boat. I presume there was a backstay too; it could be a problem.

 

A long time ago I said I'd extend the bow a little to increase space for electronics. Ultimately I didn't because it just looked wrong. Not sure how much space I will have now. The sweep servos may end up installed between the beams too, along with the lift servos AND I'd like to have a sturdy handle midships, attached near the keel, to help me lift what will be an awkward model with all the oars sticking out.

 

Sorry, another wordy post. 😔

 

 

Edited December 15, 2022 by Ian_Grant

[mtaylor]

Don't worry about being wordie, Ian.    You're doing a one of a kind project and making progress.   I feel you'll have a good model for sailing as you are being thorough.

[rookie]

You are moving at a brisk pace now.

Looks great!

Cant wait to see it in operation.    

[Ian_Grant]

Roughed out the bow bulkheads; just their outlines without hollowing out their insides. I, umm, may have overdone it as regards their spacing. They're pretty close together. 🙄

 

In these pictures they're just stuck into their keel slots. Most are nice and snug, a couple a bit loose. There seems to be an alignment issue with deck level at the very front. Haven't examined it in detail.

 

The frame as is seems quite heavy, though there is quite a bit to cut off bulkheads yet. With all the bandsaw cutoffs from sawing these out, I tried some narrow bits for strength. This baltic ply is pretty incredible, I can't break a six inch long 3/8" wide strip with hand force, so there seems to be lots of scope to make the bulkhead webs skinny and thus lighter. But now I'm worried about being able to press pins or whatever into the edges to hold ply skin down while glue dries. 😬 These bulkheads will be a bitch to fair, they're so hard. Maybe I should have used ordinary ply?  Too late now.

 

Once I figure out this alignment issue I will hollow out the bow bulkheads and see how much internal space is available for electronics. I'm now thinking battery and Arduino and possibly one sweep servo up front, lift servos and one (or both) sweep servos between the oar mechanisms, rudder servo at back. Battery up front makes sense since it only connects to the Arduino daughter board. The humpback-style NiMH pack might be better than the flat one, in this location.

 

 

Edited December 17, 2022 by Ian_Grant

[Ian_Grant]

11 hours ago, rookie said:

You are moving at a brisk pace now.

Looks great!

Cant wait to see it in operation.    

I decided I spend WAY too much time reading news on the internet, and wasn't making any progress on the ship working in dribs and drabs. I actually spent a solid afternoon making the lower bulkheads. My new year's resolution is to cut back on computer surfing time and do something more useful. Almost anything would be.😄

[Kevin-the-lubber]

On 12/17/2022 at 2:29 AM, Ian_Grant said:

I spend WAY too much time reading news on the internet

I found I was doing the same Ian, I was spending too much time reading and responding to build logs, which was often much more entertaining than the task at hand, until I switched to a weekly summary instead. That did the trick though it does mean I often miss stuff. 
 

The galley is coming on nicely, looking forward to seeing it evolve.

[Ian_Grant]

Made a strongback to assemble this thing straight and true. Working to finish the ribs. Hollowed out those at the bow and stern; still trying to decide on through-deck access. Thinking I will have the foredeck removable without the rest, just to access on/off switches. The boarding bridge can conceal the joint. The extreme forward deck will be fixed, back to the point at which the "artemon" (a sort of bowsprit) is fixed.

 

Will be weighing the skeleton soon, just to see where I stand on the weight limit given the 4.2kg estimated limit for the wood hull in its entirety. Nothing glued yet, until I finalize the stringer notches. And cut the bulwark stanchions to width.

 

I made slight alterations at the stern to eliminate the extreme "flare-out" at the bulwarks. I expect there will be problems as I just winged it. We'll see how fairing goes when I get there.

 

That's the Arduino and a dummy sweep servo sitting on the foredeck.

 

Happy new year to everyone!

[Glen McGuire]

Happy new year to you too, Ian.  So fascinating to watch this thing take shape.

[Ian_Grant]

Finished hollowing out the bulkheads, and faired stanchions at the bow and stern thus allowing me to cut their inner faces at the appropriate angles and positions too. Almost ready to start glue-up!  😃 🤪 🤙 🤞

 

Drilled holes through bulkheads in the central portion partly to save some (paltry) weight but also for wire fore-aft routing safely out of the way of the moving parts. I sized the holes to pass Tamiya connectors on the main battery leads. Likely it will be amidships after all; I'd prefer to locate the sweep servos under the fore deck beside the arduino, as opposed to between the oar beams. On the other hand, the hump-pak version of the battery fits nicely under the fore peak, provided it's not too much weight too far forward. Will have to wait for ballast testing on the skinned and painted hull.

 

Oh, also glued small pieces of 1/16" plywood each side of keel at the stem and stern, just to beef them up a bit. They were then routered to match the shapes. Looks better now to my eye.

 

Bow view:

 

I'll be cutting that "ram" rectangle off sometime; planning a flat face at the extreme stem with a dowel sticking out to attach a prefabricated ram. Likely 3D-printed.

Stern view:

Detail amidships:

 

Edited May 31, 2023 by Ian_Grant

[Ian_Grant]

Hull skeleton glue-up is complete. Thanks to members who posted shots of Lego used to square up bulkheads to keels! 😃 Fantastic idea and the Lego doesn't get stuck to the boat by the carpenter glue.

Once bulkheads were all in I added the inner wales and bilge stringers, first using a rasp to fair the notch inner faces. Rather than hassle around with steaming or heating I laminated them - for first layer glued the notches in the ribs and used my 23ga pin nailer to fasten strip, then once dry glued on other layers using paper clamps to squeeze together. Those pins that came through the rib walls were then pulled out from the inside of the hull. The wales consist of a 3/32" cherry first strip, then pine. The stringers are all pine.

When adding the first wale I found to my dismay that the strip didn't want to follow the notches I'd cut in the bulkheads at the stern; I'd maintained a constant "y" location above reference line but of course since the strip twists as it approaches the stern it wanted to curve in and up to follow the hull contours. Not news to those who plank models and I should have known better but oh well. Abandoning all pretense of finesse, I chucked a straight bit in my 1-1/4 HP router and cut new notches where I had marked. My reasoning was that the router base spanned several bulkheads so it would follow the convex hull contours, which it pretty much did. Still need to patch the unused notches.

 

The hull was removed from the strongback to add the bilge stringers. It's now very rigid, although the reinforcing strap along the deck is still present. It and the upper portion of the midships bulwarks will be removed once the hull is skinned. I haven't quite worked out yet how to then frame in the sides above the oar outrigger.

 

Today I got a 25" x 50" sheet of 1/32" plywood for skinning and some vellum paper to make patterns. Midships is a constant cross section so that should go fairly easy. It's only the first and last 14 or 16 inches which will be a chore probably requiring special words. 😆

 

The deck height is a nice straight line but somehow the elevation is 1/16" higher at the stern than at the bow. I noticed some sort of error at the bow originally but couldn't seem to pin it down. No one will know.

 

Next: fairing everything; skinning; filling extreme bow and stern with solid. Just pushing a strip against the bulkheads they don't look too bad apart from #4 which needs a strip added along pretty much the entire port side for some reason. We'll see how it goes. Not much experience in this for a few decades.....🤪

[Ian_Grant]

Fairing completed, apart from a lingering wobble along the starboard stern bulwark which I will fix later. I added pieces of pine between bulkheads bow and stern, at deck level, before fairing.

 

First two pieces of the ply skin glued in place, without a single cuss word 🤙. These were the easy two, wale-to-wale on the lower hull where the cross section is constant, requiring bending along only one axis.

 

Plan is to do bow and stern in three bands: keel to wale, wale to deck level, bulwark. Horizontal seams will be covered by the outer wale, or trim pieces. Next pieces of ply midships will run from wale to outrigger bottom and contain holes for lower oars. Then I'll need to build the outriggers and a ventilation course above them. Not sure how to do that, yet.

 

I wish now I hadn't made the keel quite so tall in section. Would have saved some weight and made more space.

 

I expect many cuss words will be employed during bow and stern skinning.

 

Edited January 20, 2023 by Ian_Grant

[Glen McGuire]

11 minutes ago, Ian_Grant said:

First two pieces of the ply skin glued in place, without a single cuss word

Congrats on the accomplishment, Ian!  That gives you more cuss words in the bank that you can use later!

 

What are you using for the ply skin and how thick is it?