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

[Glen McGuire]

4 minutes ago, Keith Black said:

Due to global warming green matches were/are engineered to be more eco friendly, to burn with less heat than the standard red matches.

That's pretty dang funny, Keith.  But since I bought that box of matches here in Austin, it's probably true!!  It also probably explains why they were so expensive.  😃

[Glen McGuire]

6 hours ago, Louie da fly said:

Green match-heads??? What kind of devilry is this?

Not only is it devilry, I think it's GIANT devilry.  I'm guessing the gridlines on your mat are centimeters which would make your matchstick about 4.5cm long.   My beastly green thing is 6cm. 

 

Maybe everything IS bigger in Texas.

[Glen McGuire]

There were some interesting and entertaining responses to the question I posted on the Tips and Techniques forum regarding size reference for pictures.  A #11 hobby knife blade and a Tic Tac seemed to be the most popular.  But I have neither of those, so for now I will go with the push pin.

 

I finished up with the scorpios.  And dang, those were the hardest things I've tried to make for any of my SIB projects.  My tweezers were acting like a hand-held ballista, launching tiny bits of wood and wire all over the place. I think I made 20 of them to end up with 6 that I thought looked acceptable.  

 

The shield part is made from some pieces of a walnut strip that was a hair over 1mm thick.  For the launching arm and legs, I started with 1mm x 1mm wood strips and sanded the 4 sides down a bit.  The arrow is a piece of copper wire that is 0.2mm thick and the bow is wire that is 0.25mm thick.  The bowstring is made from ultra thin fly fishing thread.  

 

        
 

Edited July 16, 2023 by Glen McGuire

[Ian_Grant]

Over here, waterproofed matchsticks for camping are generally green.

 

Glen, what can I say?  I'm running out of superlatives for this build. Your scorpios are Aaah-maaaaziiiing!!!!

Edited July 17, 2023 by Ian_Grant

[GrandpaPhil]

Incredible work!

[BANYAN]

Hi Glen, sorry have not commented much as I have been down and out with a flu of late - just getting back onto the horse so to speak.

 

That is an incredibly well detailed miniature which will make into a very fine diorama; everything appears very nicely to scale.

 

cheers

 

Pat

[Glen McGuire]

13 hours ago, BANYAN said:

Hi Glen, sorry have not commented much as I have been down and out with a flu of late - just getting back onto the horse so to speak.

 

That is an incredibly well detailed miniature which will make into a very fine diorama; everything appears very nicely to scale.

Thanks, Pat.  Sorry to hear that the flu got hold of you but glad you are on the mend.

[Glen McGuire]

I finished up the corvus and its associated mast.  I decided to give it the capability of rotating on its platform like the real ones appear to do.  Not sure if this will help get it in the bottle later, but it certainly won't hurt.

 

After dry-fitting everything, I'm pretty sure the castle, main mast, and corvus assembly will have to be added after the hull is inside the bottle and its 2 halves joined together.

 

 

Also, this will probably be my last post for a couple of weeks.  At the risk of further admonishment from @Javelin for doing something besides working on my model 😃, I'm heading to the Pacific northwest for a vacation.  It will be nice to escape the Texas heat for a little while!

 

 

 

[Keith Black]

 Enjoy the vacation, Glen. The ship is a marvel. 

[Javelin]

Somehow she looks large... Bulky is probably a better word for it (might be the macro picture of course). It'll be a challenge to get her in a bottle for sure... 

Great looking corvus, always thought they were shorter compared to the vessel. 

 

You're off to a well deserved vacation. Enjoy! 

[gjdale]

Great work on the Corvus Glen. Enjoy the vacation - we’ll leave a light on for you.

[mtaylor]

Have a great trip, Glen, the weather isn't a killer out here.... yet.    As for the model... just fascinating watching this come together.

[Keith Black]

 If folks want great weather this time of year, Michigan is the place to come for a vacation. It's in the high 50's/low 60's in the AM and low to mid 80's in the afternoon........plus we got lots of water. 

[Glen McGuire]

58 minutes ago, mtaylor said:

Have a great trip, Glen, the weather isn't a killer out here.... yet. 

Thanks, Mark.  First, I'm going to Washougal, WA for a motocross race.  High temps are supposed to be near 90 which sounds amazing considering we hit 109 in Austin this afternoon, something like our 10th day in a row over 105.  Then I'm headed to Olympic Natl Park where the temps are supposed to be similar to Keith's Michigan description, lows in the 40s and highs in the 60s.  This cold weather sissy will be packing my heaviest winter clothes for that!

[Louie da fly]

On 7/17/2023 at 8:08 AM, Glen McGuire said:

My tweezers were acting like a hand-held ballista, launching tiny bits of wood and wire all over the place.

I think we've all been there.

 

She's looking really good, mate.

 

Steven

[Glen McGuire]

Back from a wonderful week spent mostly in Olympic National Park where the temps in the 50s (F) felt like frostbite weather to me.  Back home and back in the Texas shipyard where the 180 quinquereme oars have been patiently waiting.  

 

Right off the bat, as I got back into the project, I made a big mistake.  I revisited @Ian_Grant’s build log for his quadrireme to check out his oars.  I really liked how his oars were two-toned with darker wood for the paddle and lighter wood for the shaft.  Even though it would more than double the time required for painting my little oars, I knew I had to have a similar look.  I also tried doing the reverse with a dark shaft and light paddle, but I decided the way Ian did it was better.  At the end of the day, I think it was worth the extra painting effort.  So thank you, Ian, once again!

 

The next step was deciding how long the oars could extend out from the hull and still fit through the neck of the bottle.  When I look at the illustrations of quinqueremes, the oars are very long and extend far from the hull. Unfortunately, I’m restricted significantly by the bottle opening, so my oars are going to deviate from the norm and look pretty blunt.

 

The following pics show some steps of the basic process:  paint, cut the shaft down to size, insert each oar into its oar port (one row at a time starting with the lowest row), bend the oar downward to its proper angle, go back and touch up the paint.              

 

And then a test fit for the port half of the ship.  It's tight (wouldn't want it any other way, right?) but it works!  Now on to the other side.  

 

Edited August 4, 2023 by Glen McGuire

[Keith Black]

 Welcome back, Glen. Got yourself a little nautical centipede, very impressive. The oars turned out great. 

[Knocklouder]

Awesome work , at least it going to fit in the bottle. Very nice  👌 👍🏾 

[Glen McGuire]

9 hours ago, Keith Black said:

Got yourself a little nautical centipede

LOL!  Had not thought about it that way, but it does kinda look like one! 

 

8 hours ago, Knocklouder said:

Awesome work , at least it going to fit in the bottle.

Thanks, Bob.  What I have yet to figure out is how I'm going to push the 2 halves together once they are both inside the bottle.  All those oars are in the way of the surface area I would normally use.  I'll have to come up with a custom tool of some sort.   

[Keith Black]

3 hours ago, Glen McGuire said:

I'll have to come up with a custom tool of some sort.   

Could you rig three nooses running between the oars at fore, mid, and stern and then draw the two halves together once you're ready to join the two halves?

[Glen McGuire]

5 hours ago, Keith Black said:

Could you rig three nooses running between the oars at fore, mid, and stern and then draw the two halves together once you're ready to join the two halves?

Hmmm.  That's an interesting idea, Keith.  I'm also thinking about a process like below where I drill holes in the bottom of the hulls, make 2 small platforms with upright dowels that fit into those holes, insert the platforms into the bottle, insert each hull half onto each platform, slide them together, then lift the joined hull off.  I'll have to do some test runs to see which will be easier.

 

[Javelin]

I was thinking along the same lines as Keith, but I don't think it will be practical. Outside a bottle perhaps, but sliding the hull halves through a noose (which you can't really hold open) will be very difficult, especially with those oars sticking out. 

 

Unfortunately I don't really have a better solution to offer apart from "regular" conical locating pins and pushing the hull halves together by the parts on top of the bow and stern. 

 

Perhaps a variation on Keith's idea by putting nooses around the stern, bow top and ram to pull together. Those nooses would probably be easier to loop around when the hull halves are inside the bottle, and they'd leave the oars alone. 

Edited August 5, 2023 by Javelin

[Glen McGuire]

Thank you Keith and Javelin for the assembly suggestions.  I was getting a little ahead of myself there so I will revisit that process after I get a few more things done.  First up was finishing the oars on the starboard side which happened without any real fanfare (yay).  I also made a small mast step while waiting for the oar paint to dry.

Next, I made a couple of gratings to fill up some of the deck space between the mast step and the archer's tower and corvus platform.  I don't know if the actual quinqueremes had gratings or not as half the pictures I see of the ship do and half do not.  But it makes sense to me that there would need to be some kind of ventilation for the rowers on the oar decks within the hull.  Here's a couple of pics with all the deck fittings placed in position (nothing glued down yet).

 

 

Next, I revisited the decorative tail on the stern post.  In previous post #102, Steven (a.k.a. @Louie da fly) suggested that the tail should curve upwards rather than just stick straight out like I had planned.  I liked his idea as I thought the flare would give the stern a little extra flair (ahem).  But when I started looking at quinquireme pictures to model it after, I found that some curved upwards but just as many, it seemed, curved downwards. 

 

So as usual when I find myself in a moment of artistic indecision, I turn to my dear friend and get her opinion.  I showed her pictures of 6 different quinqueremes - half upward curve and half downward curve.  She immediately said downward.  To her eye, downward was a natural extension of the curvature of the sternpost as well as the curved brass wire I'd already affixed to the side.  I know better than to argue with her, so downward it is!  Plus I think she is right, as she usually is!  But I must say thank you to Steven for his suggestion because ether way, up or down, it's better than straight. 

         

 

 

 

Edited August 7, 2023 by Glen McGuire

[gjdale]

59 minutes ago, Glen McGuire said:

I know better than to argue with her

 

You are indeed a very wise man Glen! And she clearly has good taste.

[Knocklouder]

Amazing work my friend,  and when we listen to our Lady friends how can we go wrong. Nice work my friend.     

Edited August 7, 2023 by Knocklouder

[mtaylor]

Best advice I ever heard came from the movie "White men can't jump"..... it was "Listen to the woman.

[Louie da fly]

That tail looks very good, and I think your decision was the right one.

 

Regarding ventilation, I spent a lot of time pondering this issue during my dromon build. Without a time machine we'll never know the right answer, but the research suggests that adequate ventilation was vital for an oarsman to produce the effort required to row the ship. I never settled the problem fully to my satisfaction, as there was a contemporary account of it being "dark and gloomy" below decks in a dromon. I compromised by having gaps between every pair of deck planks for a large section of the decking. 

But a quinquireme is not a dromon, and would ahve a had a different layout. IIRC the Olympias was very open for air to enter. 

 

Steven

[Glen McGuire]

48 minutes ago, Louie da fly said:

I compromised by having gaps between every pair of deck planks for a large section of the decking. 

I agree with you about the importance of ventilation and I believe you came up with a reasonable and interesting solution.  I also ran across a quinquereme illustration that took your alternating deck planks a little further.  So who knows, maybe they had missing deck planks rather than gratings?  Alas, that time machine...

 

      

[Louie da fly]

It's quite possible that quinquiremes were relatively open at the sides, just like they built the trireme reconstruction Olympias - see post #126 here

 

[Glen McGuire]

Water time!  Once again I'm using blue-dyed epoxy resin for the water in the bottle.  I'm getting better with my set-up, this time using a handscrew clamp to hold the funnel in place while I pour.  

 

And on to the sail(s).  I went back and forth on what I wanted to do for the sail or sails.  Most pictures of the reme ships feature a single mast and main sail.  However, some show 2 triangular sails above the main sail like in the picture below.  I decided I liked that particular look, so that's what I tired to replicate with a slightly different emblem on the main sail.  If anyone knows the correct names of those 2 sails, please educate me.

 

Here's some of the steps along the way.  I started out by overextending my limited painting skills.  I took a fine point brush with some Testors enamel and tried painting the emblem onto some muslin fabric.  The further you are from the sail, the better it looks!  But I was ok with how it came out.

   

Next, I used red shirt cloth for the 2 triangular sails and sewed a bolt rope around the perimeters.  Same for the bolt rope on the main sail.

 

Edited August 10, 2023 by Glen McGuire