Winchelsea Nef 1274 A.D. by Louie da fly - FINISHED - 1:75

[AnobiumPunctatum]

It's a pleasure to follow your log.

[Louie da fly]

While researching flags for the nef, I came across something rather weird - the town seal for Melcombe Regis (now part of Weymouth, on England's South coast) shows the coat of arms of Castile and Leon - in Spain! Except that it's a mirror image - but that might just be a mistake on the part of the seal engraver who may not have spotted that this is what happens when you make an impression from a seal (though he did get the lettering the right way around)

 

     

 

I have no idea why - there's not very much info about Melcombe Regis on the internet (even Wikipedia has let me down!), let alone anything about a Spanish connection.

 

Strange.

 

Steven

 

 

[AnobiumPunctatum]

It's a seal. If you put in on paper only the lion shows in the other direction.

[Louie da fly]

Exactly - but this seems to be an impression from the seal - look at the text around the outside of the seal; it's the right way around.

 

Steven

[Keith Black]

 Speaking of seals, I found this site interesting. 

 

https://www.cs.cmu.edu/afs/cs/Web/People/lkb/seals/aboutseals.5.html

 

 

Edited November 16, 2021 by Keith Black

[Louie da fly]

Thanks for that, Keith. Very interesting.

 

Steven

[Louie da fly]

Thanks everybody for the likes and comments.

 

Next is the crewman climbing a shroud to get to the yard and unfurl the sail. This is perhaps the most difficult figure I've ever had to carve - a very awkward shape, with the hands and feet all having to line up along the shroud. I'd been getting a bit short of pear wood, so I decided to try using some wood from an apricot tree that had been removed from the garden maybe a year or more ago. It's nicely seasoned and the grain turns out to be even better for carving than pear wood. And there's LOTS of it!

 

   

 

 

   

 

 

     

 

 

    

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

    

 

And finally, painting.

 

    

 

 

 

The anchor stock turned out to be too thin and I couldn't get it consistently shaped.

 

 

So I started again with thicker bits of wood. The first "insert" was just cut to shape so it fitted beautifully, when it leapt out of my fingers and into another dimension. So I had to make another one. Surprisingly, and in flagrant violation of one of the fundamental Laws of the Universe, the missing piece didn't turn up as soon as the replacement was made. Curiouser and curiouser . . .

 

Fortunately, no further mishaps of that sort.

 

     

 

 

On the other hand there was a mishap of another sort . . .

 

 

 

Fortunately, a bit of white glue and it was as good as new. Here are the completed stocks.

 

 

Fitting the stocks to the anchors: 

 

 

 

And my thanks again to @henrythestaffy for 3d printing the anchors themselves [advertisement].

 

Making the rings:

 

     

 

 

Rings fitted . . . and painted:

 

      

 

And now the second crewman for the windlass. (After the previous problem, I made a plasticiene (modelling clay) figure as a "draft" to get his hands in the right place. I hope I get it right this time.)

 

 

 

 

That's all for now.

 

Steven

 

 

 

 

Edited November 19, 2021 by Louie da fly

[Old Collingwood]

Amazing.

 

OC.

[mtaylor]

16 hours ago, Louie da fly said:

So I started again with thicker bits of wood. The first "insert" was just cut to shape so it fitted beautifully, when it leapt out of my fingers and into another dimension. So I had to make another one. Surprisingly, and in flagrant violation of one of the fundamental Laws of the Universe, the missing piece didn't turn up as soon as the replacement was made. Curiouser and curiouser . . .

 

Fortunately, no further mishaps of that sort.

 

 

So that explains that small piece of wood that flew into my shop and then out again.  It must be making the rounds of all of us.

[Keith Black]

 Must be the mating season because one of my small bits is hot on its trail.  

 

 

Edited November 19, 2021 by Keith Black

[druxey]

If anyone sees a shackle about 3/16" long coming through....

[Keith Black]

 Dear God, the tiny bits are starting to swarm. Quick, women and children into the tents! 

[Old Collingwood]

2 hours ago, Keith Black said:

 Dear God, the tiny bits are starting to swarm. Quick, women and children into the tents! 

Model builders first.

 

OC.

[Louie da fly]

More work on the crewmen. Here's more progress on the second windlass-man. Note he's wearing a "hoodie".

 

 

 

    

 

 

 

 

And beginning the first crewman hauling in the anchor. (I'm using the windlass man as a handle to hold the anchorman as I work on him. When both are complete I'll separate them.)

 

    

 

 

     

 

 

Steven

[Louie da fly]

So here are the two crewmen cut apart.

 

 

And their legs trimmed to shape.

       

 

You wouldn't credit it - after all the time and effort I'd spent to get the windlassman's hands lined up with the windlass bar, when I checked it against the ship his hands were far too high. The only way I could fix it was to cut a wedge into him and lean him over further - well, that was the plan, but  he split apart.

 

 

Then glued him back together and painted both him and the anchorman (not Will Ferrell).

 

      

 

    

 

 

      

 

And now I've glued the removable deck planks on, and the crewman putting them back in place.

 

 

 

 

Steven

[BANYAN]

Very nice work Steven; the use of your very nicely carved crew really puts a lot of 'perspective' (and colour) into your builds.

 

cheers

 

Pat

[Keith Black]

 Steven, that is really sharp! Very realistic. 

[mtaylor]

The little guys look great as always from you.  And as others have said, it brings things to life and adds detail to the model.

[Louie da fly]

Thanks for the likes and comments.

 

I find it interesting how much difference in someone's height a change of 1 millimetre makes at 1:75 scale. I did some research - though it was declining by the end of the 13th century, the average (male) height at this time was 5 ft 8". That's 23 mm at 1:75 scale. A figure 25 mm high is 6 ft 2". So 2 mm difference in height brings someone from average height to very tall.

 

Of course, the average height isn't everybody's height - now or in the Middle Ages. I've given my figures a fair range of heights, but it's a bit weird that this range which looks completely normal just walking down the street, somehow looks very wrong on a model, where for some reason we seem to expect everybody to be the same height.

 

However, it's also interesting that if one of my figures turns out to be, say, 6 ft 2" (which though unusual at the time was by no means unknown) I just have to shave off 1 mm (take off a bit at the top of his head and a bit from the soles of his feet) and he's only 5 ft 10".

 

Steven

[Cathead]

This fits into a long-running theory of mine, that accuracy is not the same as realism in model-building. In other words, what is right isn't always what looks right. For example, a bright shiny railroad locomotive model almost never looks "real" even if the actual loco was that shiny. Making a model look "right" generally requires some concession to the human brain. Fantastic figures, as always.

 

I forget if you've answered this, but what's the basis for the shoes? I've read accounts of sailors going barefoot at times, and wonder what you know about practices in this period.

[Louie da fly]

I agree that "looks right" isn't always the same as "accurate". Regarding the shiny locomotive, two points. One is the obvious one - we don't often see bright shiny locos - they're usually a bit weathered. But also the "accurate"paintwork on the model doesn't take into account the light and shade that plays on the real loco. Look at the difference between a Napoleonic model figure painted in perfectly correct colours, and the amazing ones in (for example) Old Collingwood's "Attack on La Haye Sainte Farm" in MSW's non ship/categorised builds section. I'm nowhere near up to his standard, but I do try to do a bit of that with my figures. I think I'm probably a bit overcautious in case I waste all that carving work by doing a crap paint job  .

 

5 hours ago, Cathead said:

I forget if you've answered this, but what's the basis for the shoes? I've read accounts of sailors going barefoot at times, and wonder what you know about practices in this period.

 

I don't have any written evidence, but I do have contemporary pictures to work from. For example this one shows shoes

 

But this one shows a sailor climbing the rigging not only with no shoes, but no clothes either! Though I note that the guys helping him are stripped down to their braies (underpants), as is the fellow stoking the fire. Maybe it's a hot day.

 

 

Town seals, which are my major source, unfortunately don't show enough detail to tell whether they crewmen are wearing shoes or not.

 

Other contemporary pictures I've been able to get hold of are a bit equivocal - for example, are the guys in these pictures wearing shoes or not?

 

 

 

So, as I've got at least one clear reference showing someone climbing the rigging wearing shoes, I'm going with that.  Not to say I reject the possibility that sailors could have been barefoot - they probably were on occasion - or perhaps often. But no proof either way.

 

Steven

 

 

 

Edited November 24, 2021 by Louie da fly

[mtaylor]

Barefoot seems to a common practice but not everyone did it.   I've seen more than few paintings from the 1700's/1800's of sailors barefoot and the guy next to him has shoes.  

[Louie da fly]

And quite a large number of shoes were recovered from the Mary Rose - but that's over 250 years after the date of this ship, and of course we don't know who wore what shoes. Most ships had a large number of "idlers" (cooper, carpenter, etc etc) who they may have belonged to. Or the topmen wore shoes when not aloft - we just don't know.

 

Steven

[Louie da fly]

And the final crewman carved. He's one of the two raising the anchor.

 

      

 

 

And painted:

 

        

 

 

I did a bit more shading this time. I think it's turned out pretty well. I'm not brave enough to go the whole hog with the shading like Old Collingwood (https://modelshipworld.com/topic/24995-battle-of-waterloo-attack-on-la-haye-sainte-farm/page/53/ - (nothing like a bit of cross-promotion) - but unlike him I have to carve each figure from scratch before I paint it, so if I stuff up I've wasted all that extra work. Still, I'm getting braver. . .

 

 

I'd already tied the sail to the yard with robands, but they were too scruffy and there was too much shiny glue on them. And I then I saw Backer's example (see link below) to show how it could be done. Plus a little research into contemporary pictures convinced me that the robands should have been twice as far apart anyway.

 

So I took them all off again and re-did them, shamelessly copying Backer's technique https://modelshipworld.com/topic/14188-pelican-later-renamed-as-golden-hind-by-backer-scale-145-galleon-late-16th-century/page/22/#comments

 

First, sewing on the bolt-rope. Not as good a job as Backer does, but a lot better than I'm usually able to do.

 

 

 

You may have noticed that the bolt-rope is only at the top of the sail, and that in fact it's pretty scruffy below there. That's because it's going to be furled, so any further fine work would simply be wasted because it won't be seen.

 

Adding the robands:

 

 

Gluing the free ends down with CA so they appear to be hanging due to gravity,

 

 

 

and trimming them to length.

 

 

I furled the sail and put the gaskets on. Not happy - too bulky, even though I'd intentionally made the sail shorter to avoid that problem.

 

 

Still, it's really not possible to obtain, let alone work with, fabric 1/75th the thickness of real sailcloth.

 

So I removed the gaskets, cut some more off the bottom of the sail

 

 

and did it again.

 

 

 

Better.

 

Steven

[Baker]

5 hours ago, Louie da fly said:

shamelessly copying Backer's technique

No problem 👍 always welcome

My Pelican spritsail is also furled. 

And also more shortened at the bottom something like this(see the red line on your sail)

[druxey]

Good progress, but had you considered using SilkSpan instead of woven material, however fine? It's much more amenable to furling.

[Louie da fly]

11 hours ago, Backer said:

And also more shortened at the bottom something like this(see the red line on your sail)

 

That looks like a good idea. Makes the furled sail narrower at the ends.

 

8 hours ago, druxey said:

had you considered using SilkSpan instead of woven material, however fine? It's much more amenable to furling.

 

Yes, I'd thought of it but never got around to it. I'll probably get some for the next build. But a sail can be trimmed in depth till it looks ok furled - and this stuff (an old pillow case) was free! 

 

Steven

[Baker]

I also used colorless shoe polish to treat the cotton. Then it is less frayed and the texture is less rough
I don't think you will find this brand of shoe polish in Australia. But there is beeswax and carnaubawax in it.

[Louie da fly]

Not as problem - I have a HUGE store of beeswax. Great chunks of it. 

 

Steven

[Louie da fly]

I've just (finally!) made a stand for the model. Should have done it a lot earlier.

 

 

And now, co-ordinating the positions of the the rudder, the tiller, the steersman's hands and the castle over the steersman.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Everything has to line up together - getting the hands to sit just on top of the tiller, and allow the steersman some headroom and "wriggle room" to manoeuvre the tiller without clashing with the arched supports for the castle etc.

 

Adding the "leather" brace for the upper half of the rudder (actually a bit of cardboard from a cereal packet).

 

 

And the ladders for access to the castles -

 

 

Adding the hearts for the shrouds. Though there is some indication that deadeyes may have been invented by this time (the Husoy wreck dated somewhere between 1160 and 1284 AD had fragments of what might have been deadeyes) I decided to go simpler and just use hearts.

 

 

 

Landström in his book The Ship interprets the Winchelsea seal as showing four shrouds only - two on each side,

 

 

but I believe (given the difficulty of accurately showing 3 dimensions in a side view) that it shows four on the near side, so that there are another four on the other side. Looking at other seals that show shrouds "each side" of the mast, they always seem to have at least three each side.

 

     

 

 

 

    

 

Temporary wire jigs to fix the distance between upper and lower hearts.

 

 

First two shrouds in place

 

 

And more

 

 

 

And I've given the buisiniers their buisines:

 

 

That's all for now. Next I'll be adding the forestay and a pair of backstays (one of which will have a crewman climbing up it to unfurl the sail).

 

Steven