Roman Quinquereme and Claw by Glen McGuire - FINISHED - 1/500 - BOTTLE

[Glen McGuire]

Thank you, Bob, for your prayers!  

Thank you, Mark, for your prayers too.  And your are absolutely right, my friend is a one of a kind jewel.

Thank you Ian, Pat, Keith, Grant, and Phil for your well wishes for my friend.

I appreciate all of y'all so very much!

 

Now on to the build!  The first thing I decided to work on is the seawall because, uh, why not start with something I’ve never tried before!  There are a lot of youtube videos on how to make rock-looking walls out of styrofoam, cardboard, and other soft materials.  I wanted something sturdier and more realistic.  I couldn’t find any stone bricks made out of actual rock at the size I needed, but I did find some small bricks on Amazon made out of pottery clay.  Close enough!  So I got 500 of them for about $25.  They are 18mm x 9mm x 4.5mm.

Turned on their side, the bricks were a good height (9mm) and good width (18mm).  But I needed them deeper for the wall thickness I wanted.  So I glued 3 together to make a single wall brick.  I also glued some doubles that will be necessary for the end pieces.  I’m still not exactly sure what I’m going to do for the top of the wall, but I will figure that out later.  

 

During my research, I could not find out what the seawalls of Syracuse were actually made of.  But pictures of the wall ruins look like limestone to me.  Also, I did read where limestone is plentiful throughout Sicily, so I figure there’s a good chance the walls were made of limestone.  With that in mind, I wanted to give my wall a limestone look.  Coincidentally, the walls of my house are made of limestone blocks (also very plentiful here in Austin) and I’ve also got a bunch of extra blocks I’ve used for borders around the yard.  So I grabbed a few, some all white and some with the common orange patina.  I want to have some variation in the color across the entirety of the wall.  

 

 

 

Once again, I borrowed @gjdale's “chalk method” of adding color and texture to objects from his amazing Shipyard at Foss' Landing build.  I took a rasp and ground out a bunch of limestone chalk dust and separated it into 3 cups for white, off white and orange(ish).

 

 

But I'm not ready to add the limestone dust to my bricks yet.  I decided I'd build the wall first.  So how do I put these little bricks together and make a wall?  Having never done any actual masonry work in my life, I wasn't quite sure what to do, but I knew I needed some type of mortar.  I tried a few things (including grout for mosaic tiles) but nothing worked very well until I tried caulk.  It was easy to spread and adhered to the bricks very well.  The only problem was that it was too white and too smooth.  So I tried adding some of the limestone chalk dust to the caulk, which turned it slightly off white and added a bit of grit to the texture.  It turned out exactly like I wanted.

 

 

And here's the first couple of rows of bricks.  They will get some cleanup later, but I think they look ok for a start.  Maybe. 

 

If any of y'all have actually done real masonry work, please hold your laughter!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited June 17, 2023 by Glen McGuire

[Glen McGuire]

@Roger Pellett - Going back to your comment about the article in Scientific American speculating that these ancient galleys might have been catamarans.  I was looking at my siege picture again this morning and saw something I had not noticed before.  The 2 attacking ships in the foreground do appear to be catamarans while the 2 in the background look like single hull vessels.  Interesting.  So thank you for your comment.  I doubt I would have noticed that otherwise!

 

I wonder if the Polybius "Histories" book that @Ian_Grant just ordered will shed some additional light on the subject.  Ian, you will have to let us know!

 

Edited June 17, 2023 by Glen McGuire

[Ian_Grant]

1 hour ago, Glen McGuire said:

 

I wonder if the Polybius "Histories" book that @Ian_Grant just ordered will shed some additional light on the subject.  Ian, you will have to let us know!

It came yesterday. It's a pretty dense book, no illustrations at all except for a couple of maps of the ancient Mediterrenean. Thank goodness, it's not like reading the Iliad with all its repetition;  "he fell, and his armour crashed around him". I guess because Polybius is a historian not a poet.

 

I'll see if he mentions twin hulls. Even if he does, I'm not building one. 🙄

Edited June 17, 2023 by Ian_Grant

[Louie da fly]

Interesting - this seems to have persisted until at least the 11th century C.E. as a means of attacking fortifications from the sea - these pictures are of

 

(i) a battering ram supported by two ships

 

 

and (ii)  assault bridge supported by two ships -

 

 

from an 11th century  military treatise by Heron of Byzantium. Rome, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana MS Vat Gr 1605 (the second picture is from folio 40r. I didn't check what folio the other was from.)

 

Rather than being built as catamarans, I think it's more likely they lashed two single-hulled vessels together. But you don't have to build two hulls if you don't want to - it's your model, you're the skipper.

 

Steven

 

PS: Nobody seems to know what those gigantic heads on the ships are, or what they're for.

Edited June 18, 2023 by Louie da fly

[Keith Black]

1 hour ago, Louie da fly said:

Nobody seems to know what those gigantic heads on the ships are, or what they're for.

 Did they function as shields? 

[Glen McGuire]

@Louie da fly Those old illustrations are fascinating!  I will likely continue on with my plans for a single-hulled galley, but I reserve the right to change my mind later!  Very interesting discussion.

[GrandpaPhil]

This is going to be an awesome project!

I have a plan from the French Ministry of Defense for a Roman Trireme, drawn in 1861, in .tif format if you would like it.

[Glen McGuire]

1 hour ago, GrandpaPhil said:

I have a plan from the French Ministry of Defense for a Roman Trireme, drawn in 1861, in .tif format if you would like it.

Hey Phil, I would love to see the plan! Especially since all I've got to work with is a few google images.

[Mic_Nao]

 

They have charm these ships.

[GrandpaPhil]

Here is the trireme:

IMG_3431.tiff

It won’t embed normally because it is a .tif file, so it is not compressed.

 

It is courtesy of the French Ministry of Defense.

Edited June 18, 2023 by GrandpaPhil

[Glen McGuire]

Thank you, Phil!  That's an excellent image.

[GrandpaPhil]

You’re welcome, Glen!

[Ian_Grant]

That's a very fancy impression of a trireme, perhaps envisioned as an Emperor's personal ship. A more workaday impression is the trireme "Olympias" which was built around 1990-2000, was tested with 170 volunteer rowers, and is now on display near Athens. Here is the general arrangement drawing. There are several videos on youtube. I have many more detailed drawings of her if you are interested, but for SIB this might suffice.

 

 

 

[Glen McGuire]

1 hour ago, Ian_Grant said:

I have many more detailed drawings of her if you are interested, but for SIB this might suffice.

Thanks, Ian!  The sails and rigging shown will be particularly useful.  You are correct about that being sufficient for SIB.  That's about as much detail as I would ever need.

[Ian_Grant]

Glen,  I realized I had forgotten your intentions for this SIB.......that last post of mine shows a Greek ship not a Roman one.

There are a few drawings of Roman types at the following:

 

https://naval-encyclopedia.com/antique-ships/roman-ships

[Glen McGuire]

22 minutes ago, Ian_Grant said:

There are a few drawings of Roman types at the following:

Ah ha!  If you look at the the quinquereme in my powerpoint concept drawing at the start of this log, you will see that I grabbed the quinquereme pictured on the website you reference!!  Very helpful site indeed!  

[Ian_Grant]

By the way Glen, I think standard tile grout may be better as your wall mortar than caulk. The caulk will be hard to smooth out when dry, but grout is always just wiped smooth once partially set. No muss, no fuss.

[Glen McGuire]

7 hours ago, Ian_Grant said:

I think standard tile grout may be better as your wall mortar than caulk.

Well, Ian, you may be right.  But as the Toby Keith song says, "It's a little too late..."   Plus, I wouldn't know what to do if there wasn't a bunch of muss and fuss!  😃

 

Next is adding the top and then the limestone dust to make the all of them look like limestone blocks.

 

Edited June 19, 2023 by Glen McGuire

[Ian_Grant]

Actually, that looks great!

[Canute]

Glen, your masonry work turned out well. Very interesting subject, I'll slide in here to watch the build.

 

Hope the recovery of your S.O. is progressing well.

[Glen McGuire]

On 6/22/2023 at 7:45 AM, Canute said:

Hope the recovery of your S.O. is progressing well.

Thank you, Ken.

 

Now it's time for the real work on the seawall - turning it into a limestone fortress!  Limestone is very prevalent around here and is used in a variety of ways on many houses and buildings.  I found a house down the road that had a look I wanted to mimic.  The blocks are primarily white but there are random orangish blocks scattered lightly about (the orange coloring is caused by an impurity, iron oxide, present in some limestone).

 

    

 

Borrowing again from  @gjdale's “chalk method” of adding color and texture to objects, I ground out 3 piles of limestone dust of different shades.  Next, I mixed the limestone dust with Gesso into gritty pastes (thank you to @Landlubber Mike for introducing me to Gesso during my Oseberg/Kraken build).  Then I spread it on the surface of my clay bricks, working my way from bottom to top, adding slight variations in the whitish color to most of the blocks and random orangy to a scattered few.

 

After completing the limestone "veneer", I had to figure out what I wanted the top of the wall to look like.  I decided a castle-like top similar to my siege picture would look good and be simple enough for me to handle.  I did add a thin overhanging layer and then large blocks on top.

 

 

And here's the completed seawall below.  @Knocklouder said if I wanted to make it more realistic, I needed to have bird poop splatter on top.  But as the new emperor of Syracuse, I designated the airspace above my wall a no-fly zone and instructed Archimedes to aim his death ray at any birds that get too close.  There will be no bird poop on my seawall!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited June 25, 2023 by Glen McGuire

[gjdale]

That's a great looking sea wall Glen.

[Louie da fly]

Black stones are ok for Armenia, but for Syracuse, limestone is right.

[Javelin]

6 hours ago, Glen McGuire said:

to look like.  I decided a castle-like top similar to my siege picture would look good and be simple enough for me to handle.  I did add a thin overhanging layer and then large blocks on top.

 

 

And here's the completed seawall below.  @Knocklouder said if I wanted to make it more realistic, I needed to have bird poop splatter on top. 

He is right though... Or perhaps a greenish sheen near the bottom? 

 

In any case an amazing construction job. The stones really look like they are made of limestone rather than "painted" in lime....👍

[Glen McGuire]

Thanks to all for the likes and comments.

 

6 hours ago, Louie da fly said:

Black stones are ok for Armenia, but for Syracuse, limestone is right.

Thank you, Steven.  I was hoping I had guessed right!

 

4 hours ago, Javelin said:

Or perhaps a greenish sheen near the bottom? 

I like that idea.  I'm thinking something along the lines of the "rising damp" that @gjdale did for bottom of his fence on his Shipyard diorama.  

 

4 hours ago, Javelin said:

The stones really look like they are made of limestone rather than "painted" in lime....👍

Thank you, Javelin.  That is exactly what I was hoping to accomplish.  If I was in a hurry, I would not have used this process as it was very time consuming.  But the extra time was worth it to get the right look. 

[BANYAN]

Nice work Glen, that looks great!  Now all you have to do is add the seagull poo     (Sorry couldn't resist and I know you just love these challenges)

 

cheers

 

Pat

[Javelin]

Penguins are seabirds...

Might as well add some too, for realism 

Edited June 26, 2023 by Javelin

[Glen McGuire]

14 hours ago, Javelin said:

Penguins are seabirds...

Might as well add some too, for realism 

 

After @Knocklouder & @BANYAN's seagull poop suggestions, I knew it wouldn't be long till we got to penguins!  🤣🤣

 

So I did a little more research and found out that Archimedes' first line of defense was actually an army of penguins protecting the wall!!  Who woulda guessed??  

 

 

 

[mtaylor]

That's a new category... "war penguins".  How do they compare to "war dogs" other than have to keep them in fish.

[BANYAN]

2 hours ago, mtaylor said:

How do they compare to "war dogs"

Mark, best ask the 'war' dolphins    sorry Glen high-jacking your great build yet again.

 

cheers

 

Pat