The San Marco mosaic ship c. 1150 by Louie da fly - 1:75

[Louie da fly]

Here they are with a bit of shading. Not sure if you can see the difference between these and the way they were in the earlier post, but to me they look more realistic.

And I had neglected to post photos of the hatch covers up to now, so here they are. A pair for the stairs up from the owners' cabin

 

And covers for the cargo hatches - one in place, the others not yet added (so I can see the mast steps to locate the masts when the time comes).

I've weathered the hatch covers and added a bit of "rust" to the hinges, so she looks like a ship that's see a bit of use.

 

Currently I'm trying to chase up some  'acrylic matt medium' on Druxey's advice to glue the reinforcing strips to the silkspan sails. But I'm in a bit of a quandary as to the difference between  'acrylic matt medium' and  'acrylic matt pouring medium' (considerably cheaper, but perhaps not right for the job).

 

Steven

Edited March 26 by Louie da fly

[liteflight]

Steven

 

If your travel plans included Melbourne* in  the foreseeable future, I have about a pint (imperial) of Matt Acrylic Medium, and you are welcome to a dollop ( as well as a box of box)

I believe that the pouring medium is relatively very runny, and so contains a lot of acrylic solvent.  The Matt medium is more pasty than liquid, and for the application of seams to sails would have to be diluted a bit ( acrylic thinners) or applied with a weeny roller

 

Fwiw, I use a satin acrylic varnish as an adhesive for tissue/cloth, etc, .  Most probably it comes as a matt version as well

 

* As far as I am aware the only State Capital named after a vegetable.  I exclude Brussels as that was t’other way about

 

andrew

Pumped from looping a Concord model today, indoors and by accident!

Edited March 27 by liteflight
Para. on pouring medium added

[Louie da fly]

Thanks, mate. We must see if we can get to your place in the not-too distant future. A bit difficult at the moment, but certainly haven't forgotten.

 

Steven

 

* Sorry, straight over my head. I thought Melbourne was named after a famous foul-mouthed opera singer , or perhaps a dessert (Aussie joke - google Dame Nellie Melba) .

Edited March 27 by Louie da fly

[liteflight]

Amusing; close, but no cigar!

Named after lord Melbourne (?) Brit foreign Secretary, who took his title from the village of Melbourne in Derbyshire.  
Melbourne means the place of Melde

Melde is Chenopodium Album, commonly known in UK as  Fat Hen, and was cultivated in the Middle Ages as a vegetable and eaten a bit like spinach.  Note:  there are dozens of Melbournes in Britain, as the stuff grows everywhere

 

It could have been worse.  He might have taken the title of Lord Fat Hen!

 

sorry to have hijacked your thread, Steven.  I’ll climb back under my flat stone

andrew

 

[Louie da fly]

Well, you learn something new every day (if you're not careful!).

 

Steven

[Baker]

On 3/19/2024 at 11:06 PM, Snug Harbor Johnny said:

Fair dinkum.

 

I'm following an interesting build log, great work Steven 👍

learn Australian (i think 😉)
And history (👍)

[Thukydides]

On 3/26/2024 at 9:25 PM, Louie da fly said:

'acrylic matt medium' and  'acrylic matt pouring medium' (considerably cheaper, but perhaps not right for the job).

pouring medium has a bunch more additives for helping the paint to flow. If you are using it as an adhesive I would stick with the matt medium. You could also look into acrylic matt or ultra matt varnish. I use that as a fixative sometimes and it works well.

 

Look for a hobby store in your area (somewhere that sells Warhammer or other miniature related products). They will definitely have some sort of small bottle of matt varnish that won't cost that much.

 

Your build is looking awesome.

Edited March 28 by Thukydides

[Louie da fly]

I've temporarily placed the two steersmen in their positions on the poop deck, to work out where exactly the tillers should come to.

  

And I've been working on providing floors for the tops - up till now I'd left them open at the bottom except for a couple of beams each to support the framework of the top. The thing is, the halyards pass diagonally through the tops, so they can't have a full floor. But the poor lookouts need somewhere to stand. So after a bit of thought, I've come up with a solution - plank the floors, but with a gap for the halyard.

 

But first I had to work out exactly where they pass through, lining them up with the sheaves of the calcets and the knights on the deck.

 

 

Planking begun

And complete

 

 

Very fiddly, but finally got it done. Pretty happy with this solution. It may be nothing like what was really done back in the day, but it is workable.

 

Steven

Edited April 2 by Louie da fly

[Ian_Grant]

Crew looking great! And the ship too, of course.....

Edited April 2 by Ian_Grant

[Louie da fly]

I've been doing test runs with the silkspan, gluing it together with the matt acrylic varnish that was recommended. Not too bad. And trying out for painting the crosses on the sails. I've tried various ways of doing it, but still not really happy with the results. From the left - acrylic painted directly onto the sail, a band of different acrylic, painted onto the sail and then outlined in pencil, painted onto a separate piece of silkspan and glued onto the sail. This seems to be the least worst version.

Heart in mouth, I've started gluing the reinforcing strips to the edges of the sails.There's a bit of transparency to start with due to the varnish, but if the test piece is to be relied upon, that seems to fade after awhile as the varnish matures.

But maybe I should have made the sails a bit bigger and folded the edges over, rather than glue on separate strips. I think it would have been easier.

 

I'm also researching rope ladders for the masts. I'd hoped to avoid them, as they often don't appear in contemporary pictures and several pictures show crewmen shinnying up shrouds, not using ladders. Unfortunately, a Genoese round ship from a few short decades different has an undeniable rope ladder, though the top end isn't in the picture.

So I've been checking out other rope ladders - I have two questions: 1. Where is the top of the ladder fixed to and 2. Are the rungs rope or wood? Here are the pics I've been able to find that are vaguely similar in time period (by "similar" I mean no more than two or three centuries apart!).

  

14th century Chest of St Simeon, Croatia                                                           1360ish St Ursula by Paolo Veneziano

   

1422 from  north doors of the Florence Baptistery by Lorenzo Ghiberti                    1430 approx. St Augustine Departing from Africa by Master of Osservanza

   

Boccaccio by the Maitre des Cleres Femmes du duc de Berry, 1403                                  British Museum Egerton 943  f. 63  Dante embarks on a ship 1st half 14th century

   

Dante on shipboard. Date unknown, but looks 14th century                 Siege of Damietta - frescoes in Palazzo Comunale, Mantua,(1220-1230)

   

From church of San Eustorgio Milan 1336 to 1339                                        Unknown ship - maybe 13th century

 

                                                     

Detail from Icon of Virgin and Child, Church of St Kassianos,                         Martyrdom of St Ursula from the Belles Heures du Duc de Berry                                   

Nicosia, end of 13th century                                                                            1405-9 Met Museum BH Lg19v 178v   

 

Surprisingly, most of them seem to come only up to the bottom of the "crows nest" (I couldn't call it a top - too confusing) or even lower, leaving the sailors to clamber up over the sides of the thing to get in - unless there's a lubber hole in the floor of the top, but they seem too small to allow for that.                                                      

 

Steven

[woodrat]

Just a couple of points about Jacob's ladders in latin ships. Make sure the ladder doesnt foul the yard or its tackle on going about. On my round ship I positioned the rope ladder (with rope rungs) side on to the mast. Anyone who has seen circus performers use a rope ladder knows that they clamber up the side of the ladder. This minimises "bellying out" of the ladder which would be worse if the ladder were climbed face on.

Cheers

Dick

[Louie da fly]

Thanks, Dick. I had been puzzling over this very issue and hadn't come up with a workable solution - apart from perhaps having the ladder going off to the side! (Perhaps great minds think alike.)

 

Certainly, the contemporary pictures are quite equivocal - they could be interpreted as having the ladders either behind or to the side of the mast - except that some show two ladders, one on each side of the mast, each leading down to the relevant gunwale. I don't know if I'm prepared to do two for each mast - I'm still thinking about it.

 

As far as what the rungs should be made of, I know you used wood, and that would probably be easier to make than rope ones, but I'm still not certain which way I'm going to go.

 

Steven

[Mark Pearse]

Is it possible the ladder was integrated with the stays?

[woodrat]

3 hours ago, Louie da fly said:

As far as what the rungs should be made of, I know you used wood, and that would probably be easier to make than rope ones, but I'm still not certain which way I'm going to go

I  actually used rope rungs but either way would be OK. I did use wood rungs on my carrack. The lower ends of the ladder are attached to rings in the deck.

Dick

Edited April 10 by woodrat

[Ian_Grant]

Dick or Steven - do either of you know whether those blocks with the "T" on their end for stropping would be used in Roman times or did they have the now conventional stropping system? My plastic Zvezda galley came with the "T" versions and I'm wondering whether to make some for my big galley.

 

Thanks,

Ian

[Louie da fly]

Thanks, Dick.

 

Ian, do you have a picture of one of those blocks?

 

Steven

[Ian_Grant]

Sure, here is one:

Now that I've photographed it in microscope mode I see that the block is indeed stropped, with toggles like on a duffel coat seized on. The attaching ropes also seize to these toggles. Pretty exquisite molding at this scale. The block itself is about 4mm.

 

This double-ended design is the upper block for the shroud tightening; one end is the shroud and the other is the lanyard which reeves through another double block (with toggle at one end only) lashed to the rail with the running end on a cleat mounted on a rail post.

Edited April 11 by Ian_Grant

[woodrat]

Ian. I dont know this block. Where did you come across it? I dont know of any archaeology to back its use in greek or roman craft? Happy to learn more.

Dick

[Ian_Grant]

1 hour ago, woodrat said:

Ian. I dont know this block. Where did you come across it? I dont know of any archaeology to back its use in greek or roman craft? Happy to learn more.

Dick

It's from the Zvezda plastic kit #8515 "Roman Trireme".  I only have two or three books on galleys through history and can't find any such details as to their rigging in them.  It looks cool and suitably "ancient" but really I'd rather not have to fiddle with little wood sticks when rigging my galley.

 

Sorry Steven, for digressing from your fine build!

[Tony Hunt]

I love your builds, Steven. They are so interesting, archaeology in action!

[Louie da fly]

Ian, that block looks like an ordinary block with a toggle each side. Those toggles have been found in archaeology as far back as the 11th century, though I don't know if they've been found from the Classical Roman period. They are very useful for quick attachment and release of different parts of rigging on Mediterranean lateeners - for an example of the toggle in use see my post #1217 at 

Tony, thanks for your nice comment. Much appreciated.

 

More progress on the San Marco ship.

 

Grab rings for the hatch covers:

Hatch covers in place and with grab rings (now blackened) in place. I had to wait until the masts were glued in before I could finalise the hatch covers, otherwise I wouldn't have been able to see the mast steps to guide the masts into position.

Shrouds:

Foremast starboard shrouds in place:

All foremast shrouds in place. The port shrouds are loose because the lateen sail was within the shrouds - if the leeward shrouds were kept tight they would interfere with the sail as it bellied out with the wind. 

   

Getting ready for tomorrow's Modelling Exhibition! while I'm sitting there keeping people (and their precious little darlings) from touching my models with their sticky fingers I'll probably be working on positioning the halyards and their tackle, and adding the blocks for the tacks to the yards. 

 

Steven

 

[Glen McGuire]

Really coming together nicely, Steven!

[tartane]

Steven

 

Why do you make latin sails on your model? In all the images you show from antiquity, I only see square-rigged ships. To make these drawings more vivid, the draughtsmen used sails that were not quite quadrangular, and therefore they look like Latin sails. But they were quadrangular.

Ships with latin sails never have crow's nests, which would make it almost impossible to convert the sails to port or starboard. If a latin rigged ship tacks, the rod and sail had to be  turned around the front of the mast. That was a major operation in which all the shrouds were removed and all the ropes that were attached to the rod and sails. I have made several Latin-rigged ship models and did a lot of research on them beforehand. Also, latin-rigged ships did not have rope ladders and stays, which also had to do with the conversion of the sails and rods.

The rigging of your ship most closely resembles the rigging of a cog. There I would also make so-called Knevels, I don't know the English word. They ensured that the shrouds could be removed quickly. By brassing the sails, cogs could sail quite sharply to the wind, and that is also the case with your model, for that you needed those knevels. I'll show you a picture of a cog I built from 1240, there you can see the knevels and also that the shrouds on the leeward side (here starboard) have been loosened for half, they hang along the mast. On the windward side you needed all the shrouds. This allowed the sail to rotate sharply without touching the shrouds. So far we know cogs had no rope ladders.

See also   https://modelshipworld.com/topic/36314-kogge-van-tartane-schaal-by-tartane-finished-187-reconstruction/

 

 

I'll also show you a drawing of a knevel, as they are still used on Latin-rigged ships in the Gulf of Oman to this day. I have made that construction on all my Latin rigged ships and also on the cog

I don't want to interfere with your ideas about the construction of the model, but I'm a bit afraid that you will get stuck when you start making latin sails. You make a very nice detailed model!

Constant

[tartane]

Something went wrong and I had not the opportunity to place a second picture, but here it is. This is a knevel.

 

Constant

[Mark Pearse]

Hi Steven

 

The weathering you did with the timber decking & elsewhere really looks great, it's very credible.

[woodrat]

18 hours ago, tartane said:

Ships with latin sails never have crow's nests,

 

18 hours ago, tartane said:

In all the images you show from antiquity, I only see square-rigged ships. To make these drawings more vivid, the draughtsmen used sails that were not quite quadrangular, and therefore they look like Latin sails. But they were quadrangular.

I am sorry Tartane but you are wrong on both counts. There is ample iconographic evidence from the Mediterranean middle ages for lateen sails  since at least the seventh century CE and there were indeed observation baskets just as Steven has modelled them. The baskets were positioned aft of the masthead so as not to foul the yard when going about.

18 hours ago, tartane said:

Also, latin-rigged ships did not have rope ladders and stays, which also had to do with the conversion of the sails and rods.

Beg to differ. They certainly didnt have ratlines till much later.

 

Cheers

Dick the Woodrat

 

Edited Wednesday at 10:10 AM by woodrat

[tartane]

I'm going to stop this discussion because I'm not going to talk to anyone who says I'm dead wrong. Now there is no room left to talk about it. The message I sent was for Steven and I would like to hear his opinion. I wish Steven the best of luck with the model. He is building a nice model and I'm looking forward to him managing to make a working latin rig out of it.

Constant

 

[woodrat]

I am happy to remove the word "dead". The rest I leave to the moderator. This is an open forum and disagreement is allowed as long as it is polite so maybe dead wrong is a poor choice of words.

Woodrat

 

Edited Wednesday at 10:48 AM by woodrat

[GrandpaPhil]

One of the things I really enjoy about Steven’s builds is the sheer amount of historical research from primary sources that is done, and the debates that interpreting those sources creates.

 

I have learned a lot from them and it is incredible to see the models take shape that embodies that research.

Edited Wednesday at 10:46 AM by GrandpaPhil

[Baker]

Before Steven builds something, a lot of research is done in advance.
There is always a lot to learn in his build logs.

And they are great to follow.