23 foot Launch by allanyed - Bounty?? - late 18th century

[allanyed]

When scaling both drawings to full size actually the keelson in ZAZ 5814 is exactly 3.4" and it is 3.1" thick on 7356.   Go figure!   The draftsmen were really good at what they did, but the keelsons MAY not be based on scantlings.   Is nothing straight forward in this hobby of ours??

Allan

Edited December 30, 2022 by allanyed

[oakheart]

10 hours ago, allanyed said:

scaling both drawings to full size : The draftsmen were really good

When I worked as a design draftsman many, many moons ago we always put a CAPITALISED reminder 'DO NOT SCALE FROM THIS DRAWING'

so that the people on the shop floor using the drawings only used the dimensions given.
The drawings they got had been dye line printed from masters held on microfiche film so could be very distorted.

 

Was this the case when the 18th C boat builders worked from the drawings they had to work from. I assume that copies were traced or redrawn.

 

Should we only be using the 'scantlings' not scaling from the drawings, which by now are probably very distorted by reproduction of  the originals from 17xx

 

Tim

 

 

[iMustBeCrazy]

15 minutes ago, oakheart said:

Should we only be using the 'scantlings' not scaling from the drawings, which by now are probably very distorted by reproduction of  the originals from 17xx

Well, yes we should. However, like the guys on the shop floor we haven't been given all the dimension/s we need. So we have to work with what we've got.

 

We are working from two nearly identical drawings, the one from the books and ZAZ7361, these have different values for some of the scantlings given. Which do we use?

And for those not given we either work from the drawings or from may's book, either could be wrong for this specific boat. So we take a punt.

 

 

[oakheart]

15 minutes ago, iMustBeCrazy said:

So we take a punt.

 

 

I agree with that : taking dimensions direct from the reproduced drawings will give us a model that may be longer, wider or distorted in some way but will look similar to that drawing.

So taking advice from both Allan and Craig, I have picked the ZAZ7361 and having traced it in Illustrator, will build from that drawing.

 

Let's see how it comes out

Tim

[allanyed]

There are also contracts for boats available from RMG and the NA in Kew.   An original for a 30 long boat of 1691 and a transcribed contract for yawls in 1690 follow.  It may not be possible to find a contract for the same type, size and era of boat one wishes to build, but there are a lot of details to be gleaned from many of these contracts right down to the number of bolts in the fixed thwart knees as one example.   

Spelling in the below is as found in the original contract

Contract for two Yawles Contracted this 24th July 90 with the Honoble Thomas Willshaw, Esqre one of the Principall Officers & Commrs of their Majties Navy, for & behalf of their Maj ties, by me Robert Smith of Langstone Shipwrts and doe hereby oblidge myselfe to build & deliver into their Majties Stores at Portso : free of all charge by the latter and on Augst next ensueing the two Yawles undermentioned of the Dimensions and Scantlins & each fitted with the particulars folling (viz) Long Broad Deepe Yawles of 23ft: ----- 5ft: 7:ins ------ 2ft: 5ins ------- Two Railes of the upper streakes to be made out of the wholewood up and downe Gunnels stuck, 3 Thwarts bound with Iron Knees and ye Transome wth two Iron Knees, the Stateroom stuck an O:G. & planshier for the Gunnwales with two pannells on each side of the backboard, a locker under the after bench and lynings under the bench, Keel, thwart ships 4: ins. up and down 4½ ins. & 4 ins. Keelson 6: ins. broade of 1½ inch plank, timbers of 1½ inch wth 13 ins room and Space, & 10: in. Scarphs to the floor, timberheads to naile to the lower Edge of the binding Strake with bottome boards & Scarr Boards Keelbands & Iron bolts & Rings for Stem and Sterne to row wth 6: oars each to be grav’d and primed to the Waterline and pid in stuff in the inside to the rising at ye rate of 12 s per foot I doe oblidge myself that these boats shall be wrought wth good dry well seasoned oak board of ynch thick in workmanlike manner for wch I am to be paid readdy money at Portsmouth when a bill is made out and signed by the Officers at ye yard as useable.

[allanyed]

Going back a step are making the gunwales.   To make them perfectly symmetrical I laminated two pieces of wood of the proper thickness then used the planked boat to trace the outline of the gunwale.  They are glued together near, but not on where the gunwales will be cut.  When cutting them out they are exactly the same.  This will cover any MINOR discrepancies between the shape of the port and starboard side.   The below are the gunwales before finish sanding and the laminate from which they were cut.  Note: The drawing on which they rest is an earlier version before the platform beams and proper steps were drawn.

Allan

Edited December 30, 2022 by allanyed

[druxey]

That contract is a nice find, Allan! 

 

Do you ever use rubber cement for things like the gunwales? I find that, while cutting paired pieces, they stay together but come apart easily after. It also means that the scrap part is reusable as a pair or as single leaves.

[allanyed]

Thanks Druxey.   Next stop at Home Depot or Amazon.   How do you clean the cement.  With PVA I use IPA but will give the rubber cement a try.

 

The contracts are courtesy of fellow member Mark P. 

 

I have put together all the high res plans on the Wiki Commons site by size of ship, boats, et al and including contracts where they are appropriate for the category.   HOPEFULLY, MSW will set up an article with all of these and where additional HIGH RES plans and contracts and such can be added by a mod as they become available.  It was discussed over a year ago but other priorities come into play which I totally get.

 

 

Happy New Year to you and everyone!!

[oakheart]

2 hours ago, allanyed said:

Wiki Commons site by size of ship, boats,

do you have a link to those files.

 

Thanks

 

Tim

[allanyed]

Tim,

My files are over 40MB and I do not have them on a website or some such.  The site itself has both high and low res drawings, just takes some getting used to with the searching.   There are a few pages in alphbetical order, then a lot more pages starting in alphabetical order again with different ships.   The pixel numbers are under each drawing.  When you open a file of a high resolution plan, it can be opened in several resolutions so you can choose which you want.   Take the very first one for example, Africa (1761).  Click on the words below the plan and it shows

Size of this preview: 800 × 262 pixels. Other resolutions: 320 × 105 pixels | 640 × 209 pixels | 1,024 × 335 pixels | 1,280 × 419 pixels | 2,560 × 838 pixels | 19,291 × 6,314 pixels.   If you click on the plan itself it automatically opens in the highest res.

 

There are several thousand plans, but only about 800 in high resolution which are extremely clear when enlarging.  I usually load it onto a CAD page then use the scale on the plan to enlarge to full size,  Once my drawing is done, it can then be reduced to whatever scale I want.  You probably know all that, but that was more for those that do not.

 

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Ship_plans_of_the_Royal_Museums_Greenwich

 

Allan

Edited December 30, 2022 by allanyed

[oakheart]

1 hour ago, allanyed said:

There are several thousand plans

 

Thanks for the link, what an amazing collection of plans.

 

Tim

[shipman]

Rubber cement.

 

Spread some on card and let it dry thoroughly.

Rub/roll it off and form a ball.

 

That's your eraser!

[allanyed]

So one would use rubber cement to remove rubber cement.  Sounds too easy, but I will give it a try.   

Thanks  

 

[druxey]

A piece of crepe rubber does the trick nicely.

[Bob Fraser]

Hope this may help with the plans. Apologies if this is a hijack.

 

There used to be a program called Imker that would batch download images from Wikimedia but Wiki broke that when they changed the compression type for downloading.

There is a way of downloading but it downloads them all. - I have no affiliation with these sites, it's just the simplest free solution I could find.

I used this to download them last night to make sure there were no issues and that it worked properly,

 

Install FreeDownloadManager, an open source free downloader program. - no ads, no malware, no adware.

Use Wikimedia list generator this to make a single list or multiple smaller list of images in the category you want to download.

The plans category is "Ship plans of the Royal Museums Greenwich"

This downloads a list, or lists, in a zip file that needs extracting, containing the URLs of each individual image, currently 3680, as a text file which can be edited to remove ones you don't want.

Run FreeDownloadManager and click on the three lines in the top right.

Click "Paste URLs from File" and navigate the file explorer to your list. Select it and click "import"

This then loads all the URLs - can take a while! - and then downloads them  to a specified folder and creates a sub folder if needed.

There are close to 78 Gigabytes of plans in all

Unfortunately you'll have to sort them yourself ☹️

Edited December 31, 2022 by Bob Fraser

[allanyed]

Hi Bob, thanks for the post.  No worries on highjacking, I opened up this can of worms.

42 minutes ago, Bob Fraser said:

There is a way of downloading but it downloads them all.

I am not sure I understand what you are saying.  I downloaded all the high resolution plans and categorized them into folders as shown below.  Within the folders are subfolders for each class, such as the 18 gun below.  Within the subfolders are each of the plans for that particular ship as well as contracts if available.

 

 

Edited December 31, 2022 by allanyed

[Bob Fraser]

Hi Alan.

Your work is an achievement that will benefit many now and in the future.

This was just a quick and dirty method for getting hold of the plans in the interim. In no way is it a replacement for your work!  I apologise if it came across as that, it was not intended.

 

I originally used it a few years ago to get plans for ships some distant, but interesting, relatives sailed on to create a family history, rather than have to search the RMG individually and filter, with the idea of maybe one day being able to scratch one. Highly unlikely as my skillset really isn't up to it, although I have bought some plans.  Turned out most are already available as models.

 

But I do enjoy and really appreciate the reading, watching and learning from others, and the time and effort they have taken to produce and log what they have done.

And maybe after that then I can incorporate a few tweaks into my waiting models when i am able to restart.

Best wishes,

Bob

[allanyed]

The aft platform beams are in place.  I was not sure how these were supported, but as I don't think they would have rested directly on the planking I made clamps on which to have them rest.  The beam scantlings were taken from drawing ZAZ7455, 3 1/8" wide X 4" deep.   The pin blocks have been made longer than originally planned so as to rest on frames, not the planking.

Allan

[allanyed]

Can anyone tell me what this small rectangular object is? 

 

One thing that seems a bit unusual on this plan is that the davit does not pierce the platform as shown on all the other contemporary launch drawings I have seen (so far)

 

Allan

Edited December 31, 2022 by allanyed

[shipman]

15 hours ago, allanyed said:

So one would use rubber cement to remove rubber cement.  Sounds too easy, but I will give it a try.   

Thanks  

 

Yes, use the 'eraser' to remove DRY excess rubber cement. It just picks it up!

 

Druxey, what the divil is crepe rubber?

[allanyed]

8 hours ago, Bob Fraser said:

In no way is it a replacement for your work!  I apologise

Absolutely no apologies needed.  I was just curious if you had found some easier way to navigate the Wiki Commons archives of plans and I thank you most heartily for contributing to this discussion.

 

8 hours ago, Bob Fraser said:

Your work is an achievement that will benefit many now and in the future.

I truly hope so, but the only way I can see this happening is if MSW will put this in the Articles data base or some other convenient place for all members to access all the files, as well as to allow it to grow as new contemporary high res plans become available.   If you have a way to improve on what I have been able to do so far PLEASE PM me as I am all ears!! Hopefully we can make it better and easier for everyone to access.

Allan

[druxey]

Crêpe rubber is a firm, pale yellow rubber often used on the soles of shoes or boots. It's also found in small blocks called 'rubber cement erasers' in craft, art or stationery stores. It relies on the property of rubber to adhere to itself/

Edited December 31, 2022 by druxey

[iMustBeCrazy]

17 hours ago, allanyed said:

One thing that seems a bit unusual on this plan is that the davit does not pierce the platform as shown on all the other contemporary launch drawings I have seen (so far)

So far, you're obviously expecting this. See ZAZ7371 to 7378. Also check out ZAZ7380, it shows something you might like.

[allanyed]

7380 shows it perfectly.   Also note that not every thwart is fixed and with knees.  Some drawings show no knees so it is difficult to tell which, if any, are fixed.

Thanks Craig.

Allan

Edited January 1, 2023 by allanyed

[allanyed]

Aft platform planked. 

[iMustBeCrazy]

8 hours ago, allanyed said:

Some drawings show no kees so it is difficult to tell which, if any, are fixed.

The "rule" is for the 'fore', 'main' and 'aft' to have knees and sometimes the thwart forward of the 'main'.

 

7 hours ago, allanyed said:

Aft platform planked. 

It seems way to square to me.

 

This is what I get at the height show.

 

 

[allanyed]

1 hour ago, iMustBeCrazy said:

It seems way to square to me.

 

Me too.

Allan

[druxey]

Something is off-kilter. Also, it looks as if your construction of the platform shape on the plan is to the inside of plank , not inside of frames.

[iMustBeCrazy]

1 hour ago, druxey said:

Also, it looks as if your construction of the platform shape on the plan is to the inside of plank , not inside of frames.

It is, it was just a quickie to check on Allan's. I haven't decided on a final look yet.

[allanyed]

 

13 hours ago, iMustBeCrazy said:

Also, it looks as if your construction of the platform shape on the plan is to the inside of plank , not inside of frames.

Druxey,  turns out that is one part of the issue of the shape, but there was another problem in the platform shape that I found when checking this out after seeing Craig's really nice drawing.

When I marked the lines for the clamps it was from the top of the gunwale to the top of the clamp.  I then made and glued the clamps such that the bottom of the clamps where on the marked line.  This put the clamps about 6 inches too high and resulting shape.   I have removed the platform, beams, and clamps and will hopefully have them remade and replaced in short order.   I could have left it as is but the distance from the benches and platform would be 1/8" too short and look pretty bad.  Better to have a do-over in this case.   

Allan

Edited January 2, 2023 by allanyed