HMS Agamemnon 1781 by Michael P – scale 1:150 – 64-gun Third Rate - Ardent-class Man-of-War

[druxey]

Not too dissimilar to my Meccano ropewalk! However, mine is powered by a superannuated (and noisy) electric drill.

 

Lovely work on the hull and spars, Michael.

[Gabek]

Gorgeous work, Michael!

And you have my brain humming about making a mini rope walk.  Great idea!

Clear skies and sharp tools,

Gabe

[Michael P]

Lanyards and deadeyes. Some idle thoughts about the rigging, which I have now started (see photo below). I’m using black thread for the standing rigging, even though very dark brown would surely be more accurate. But black looks good, and I’ve got a good amount of it in. One of the issues is the colour of the lanyards for the deadeyes. This is clearly a matter of considerable controversy. I’ve gone for black, on the grounds that it’s unlikely that they needed to be adjusted very often, and they were very exposed to spray, so it surely made sense for them to be well-tarred. The evidence of pictures suggests that the lanyards were dark: they don’t stand out as they would if they were untarred or even lightly tarred. I do, however, know of just one  painting in which it looks as if the lanyards are pale - it’s the one by John Cleveley the Elder, of a Sixth Rate on the Stocks, which I referred to previously. The evidence of models in the National Maritime Museum is difficult as so many were re-rigged in the last century. But the rigging on that of HMS Tartar (1734) is contemporary, and the lanyards are dark. HMS Mars looks to have contemporary rigging, brown with very dark lanyards. At the end of the day, the colour of the lanyards surely has to be a question of individual choice.

Fitting the lanyards is tedious on this 1:150 scale. I bought the deadeyes from the excellent Cornwall Model Boats, which is a bit of a cheat, but never mind. There seems no option for threading them other than stiffening the end of the thread with glue, and pushing it through the holes. The first photo below shows that I’ve just managed so far to fit a pair of shrouds for each mast, along with the burton pendants (and lots of ends to cut off). However, in the mid-years of the last century I did it very differently. I don’t believe that you could buy deadeyes at that time, and I carved balsa rods, and cut the deadeyes from them. Rather than drill holes, I used a needle to thread them. They look to me almost as good as today’s bought ones - I might try the technique again one day. The second photo is of a model I finished in, I think, 1961, and shows the balsa wood deadeyes. Sorry it's a bit fuzzy - that's the effect of the case.

I am intrigued to find that people are making money from old rope - for you can buy small sections of actual eighteenth-century rope , salvaged from the wreck of HMS Invincible, on Ebay. I am so far resisting the temptation. The photos, however, are of some interest.

[Michael P]

Apologies - it’s been a long time since I updated this. Why? Christmas, helping 10 year old grandson with his Airfix Lancaster bomber (he’s much better at the fiddly bits than I am), and most recently getting a new computer. I can’t, incidentally, see much difference between Windows 10 and 11, except that the very old printer won’t work with 11. As for Agamemnon, the shrouds took ages to set up, with lacing the lanyards through the deadeyes proving harder than ever. There was no possibility of my knotting the ratlines on this scale. The knots would have looked too bulky, and would have pushed some of the shrouds out of place. Nor would I have had the patience to do it that way. So the ratlines are glued in place with PVA, darkened with black paint. I was a bit stuck finding a sufficiently thin thread for them, until I unwound some Gutermann sew all. As for the stays, the forestay was a bit of a struggle to fit properly, with an open heart over the jib-boom. Why did they do things in such a complicated way? And I have cheated with the mainstay, by simply lashing the collar under the bowsprit. Running it properly was just beyond me; my attempts looked much too bulky and awkward. I have not attempted to worm, parcel or serve any of the ropes - remember that this is at a scale of 1:50, and to have done so would be difficult and probably pointless. There is, incidentally, an interesting analysis of a stay from HMS Invincible to be found in a Bournemouth University thesis, The Rigging of HMS Invincible, by Tom Cousins. It was formed of four hawsers, with a core of loose yarns, heavily tarred, wormed and parcelled.

[Michael P]

One question about catharpins. I’ve always found them a problem to get looking right, but this query is about lower catharpins (about 1/3 of the way up the shrouds) which seem to be a rarity, though they feature on the National Maritime Museum’s model of HMS Ipswich (1730). They do, however, appear in Loutherbourg’s painting of the Glorious First of June (1794). I’m not inclined to add them, unless anyone comes up with more evidence for their use in the 1790s. They would be fiddly and difficult to get right. In the late 1950s I think I put them on a model of Centurion, but I can’t check as it’s currently languishing in daughter’s attic, having been replaced on display by son-in-law’s Lego Land-Rover.

 

Then there’s the issue of whether to fit a dolphin striker. There was undoubtedly none when Agamemnon was built, but it’s possible that one was installed in the 1790s, for they were officially introduced in 1794. The model of the 74 gun Mars (1794) in the National Maritime Museum has one. The fine model of Agamemnon at https://julianstockwin.com/2017/10/10/agamemnon-the-darch-model/ also features a dolphin striker. But I think I’ll probably take the easy option, and not add one.

 

One regret - I have found the modelships.de website interesting for the many photographs of, for the most part, kit models. But it has now vanished, and I can’t find any explanation.

 

Here's the relevant bit of the very dramatic Loutherbourg painting:

 

[Michael P]

An update is long overdue, not that there is that much to report. Rigging proceeds, all too slowly. The bowsprit presents interesting problems. A few more thoughts on the question of a dolphin striker, for I still don’t understand why this did not make it impossible to set the spritsail.  Longridge has a possible solution in his fold-out rigging plan of Victory, by bringing the martingale backstay close up to the striker. This would surely have made it much less likely that the striker could hold down the jibboom effectively, though making it possible to set the spritsail. In contrast, the NMM model of HMS Mars has such a complexity of ropes from the striker that it would surely have been impossible to set the sail (https://www.rmg.co.uk/collections/objects/rmgc-object-66538). As for a spritsail topsail, none of the  drawings of Agamemnon by Pocock in the National Maritime Museum show one on Agamemnon, and I’ll not fit one.

The main and foretops are just about ready to fit. I’ll need to fit the blocks that go under them, which means deciding just how much running rigging to include. I’ll go for overkill at this stage, as it’s easier to fit the blocks and remove them later if they are not all needed, than to struggle to add them after the tops are in place. One point about stays. I’ve noticed that a number of models on this website have euphroes and crowsfeet. Steel, however, says that these were not fitted to large ships of this period, and I’m not planning to fit them. I found it impossible, incidentally, to lace the stays to the preventer stays by knotting, so as you can see, I have glued the connecting lanyard. It’s a bit of cheat, but alternative methods just did not work at this scale.

Oh - in the photo you can just see the bow of one of the ship’s boats, and a bit of the hull of another. I’ll be reporting on them later, but it’s been interesting to experiment with possible ways of making them.

[Michael P]

Well, as usual I’ve not advanced as fast as I’d hoped. Late medieval English armies have got in the way, among other things. The garden has needed some work, even though most of it is now a swamp (is this the wettest spring since 1316, I wonder?). One question about tops. Steel states that ‘RAILS are made of wood or iron, and fitted across the aftside of tops, to prevent the men from falling’, and he also says that ‘The rail is supported by stantions let into the top, with a netting from side to side; the outside is covered with baize or canvas, and furnished with stoppers, to clap on in case a topmast shroud should be carried away by accident.’ This would fit with earlier eighteenth century models, such as that of HMS Centurion (in the National Maritime Museum), but I’ve not seen evidence for anything so elaborate at the end of the century. I have just fitted wire rails, without netting or covering. I might add netting later. Advice will be gratefully received. Another issue with the tops is how to do the deadeyes. Fitting them properly, with metal strops and slots in the tops, just looked clumsy at this scale. So, I have cheated again, and just tied them to the ends of the futtock shrouds.

 

Now, topmasts. The masts themselves are straightforward, of course. But the trestle-trees and cross-trees are not, and I’ve had problems with them in the past. I wondered about card for this model - it can bend awkwardly, but it won’t snap. Anyway, I  stuck with wood. The Bahia Rosewood I used earlier is very close-grained and tough, so I’ve used that. It even takes drilling holes to take the topgallant shrouds. I have cheated by simply glueing the cross-trees in place without grooving the trestle trees. I don’t think it really shows at this scale, and they were not fitted flush in any case. The picture makes them look rougher and clumsier than I think is the case. Anything slimmer would be very difficult to do at my age, with anything so small. But if anyone has ideas, they will be most welcome.

[Michael P]

Oh dear. No one has complained about this, but the trestle- and cross-trees really were just too big. I looked at the plans in Longridge’s book about HMS Victory, and they are shown as tiny. That’s not right either - I worked out the dimensions using Steel’s figures, and I needed to make them about 2/3 of the present size. That was possible, though the cross-trees are now too small to be drilled for the rigging. Anyway, the revised ones don’t look too bad to me, though of course a photo brings out all the imperfections. Please remember that the maximum dimension is three quarters of an inch. Despite them being small, they seem strong enough, thanks to the Bahia rosewood. I think it’s very important to avoid making things oversize if possible; I’ve seen too many photos of models where this is a fault. The topmasts are not yet fixed in place, but I put them in just for the photo. The view through the window does not, incidentally, reveal just how unbelievably wet the garden is.

On a different topic, I had asked earlier if anyone knew what had happened to the modelships.de site. I found the answer on the web, and it’s a sad one. The owner of the site died, and that meant the end of it.