HMS Perseus by Thukydides - 1:64 - POB - Sphinx Class 6th Rate

[Thukydides]

8 hours ago, AON said:

I thought they weren't.

Also, I believe the fore and aft trucks (wheels) should not be inclined. The fore trucks are inboard.

I am not sure I understand what you are saying. Can you elaborate a bit?

[AON]

Darn auto correct on my phone.

Not incline .... in line.

Apparently age has tripped me up again. I am wrong. They are inline.

Apologies

Edited Monday at 12:09 PM by AON

[Glen McGuire]

This is from the USS Constitution Museum's website - Modeler's Resources page (https://ussconstitutionmuseum.org/discover-learn/modeler-resources/).  It's from a plan for a 32 pound gun/carriage.  It looks to me like the steps are perpendicular with the brackets and not the centerline.

 

Edited Monday at 01:45 PM by Glen McGuire

[Gregory]

To follow along, I could use some labels.

 

”steps, brackets”?

[AON]

hopefully these help

[Gregory]

That certainly helps, but “steps” have been mentioned a couple of times.

 

Is there another term that applies?

[Thukydides]

1 hour ago, Gregory said:

To follow along, I could use some labels.

 

”steps, brackets”?

Check out the below plan from RMG (typical of my question). No date is given but based on the design I am pretty confident this is a mid to late 18th century carriage.

I have labeled the elevation to indicate the parts I am talking about. The brackets are the big pieces that make up the sides of the carriage. Now if you look at the plan just to the right of this you can see that both the steps and the ends are drawn with straight vertical lines (perpendicular to the center line of the carriage). I have seen many plans that do this so this is by no means an oddity of just this drawing.

 

I would have thought that the ends and the steps would have been at right angles to the brackets themselves as opposed to how they are shown on this drawing. My question is was this just a drawing convention or were the carriages actually constructed this way.

 

1 hour ago, Glen McGuire said:

This is from the USS Constitution Museum's website

This is partly where my confusion comes from. Modern redrawing of these plans (as exemplified by your example and also Caruana's redrawn plans in his book on English Sea Ordnance) seem to depict them at right angles to the brackets. I am trying to understand why contemporary examples seem to in almost all cases use one convention, but modern examples another. Hence why I am wondering if this was just a drafting shorthand that was done.

Edited Monday at 03:35 PM by Thukydides

[AON]

I offer the two images below showing the end face of the steps were square to the bracket and not to the centerline of the carriage assembly.

On the Victory photo, the end face of the step would not be seen if it was square to the centerline, so it must be square to the bracket face.

the carriage construction photo... square to the bracket face.

 

I suspect the carriage drawings were simply easier to complete square to the centerline with a tee square... but easier to cut square to the bracket face.

They would have enough of a necessary challenge cutting the cannon pivot trunnion and the axle pockets square to the centerline so why make things more difficult then they need be.

?????

[Javelin]

I'd say they're square with the bracket rather than the centerline. 

At first I thought not, since the use would be for mounting those blocks and you'd want a flat face to touch the flat block face. Then I thought it wouldn't have been necessary when using a quoin? (wedge), but this picture seems to suggest both a block and quoin. (this one is in Rotterdam Maritime Museum).

 

But then I also had these guns:

 

This one is in Maastricht, here you can see the block, but if you look closely at the step below the block and the angles, they aren't straight compared to each other. Looking at the direction of the angle, I'd say the step is square to the bracket, while the block would be square to the centerline. 

The contact surface on the forward face of the block would also indicate a similar angle, but less visible. 

 

And then I have this one, close to my home:

It also seems to indicate square to the bracket. 

 

I do admit the last ones are not from that age and shore guns rather than maritime ones, but I hope it gives you an indication. 

[druxey]

I'm not sure whether any of the carriages in the photos are original, so are suspect sources. As to whether the vertical parts of the step were square to the centerline or the brackets does not affect their use. The horizontal steps were the essential part of the carriage for using to lever handspikes while adjusting the quoin and hence elevation of the piece.

[Gregory]

This is a contemporary(1775) drawing that has showed up in several discussions. 

 

An artefact from Thorsminde.

 

This is a 3D reconstruction of the artifact carriage.

[Javelin]

I would indeed say the Maastricht carriage isn't original, considering the trunnion size compared to the capsquare size.

The others, I don't know. 

[Glen McGuire]

1 hour ago, Thukydides said:

Hence why I am wondering if this was just a drafting shorthand that was done.

Given the detail of the plan from the Constitution Museum's website, I would be surprised if the draftsman took a shortcut with the steps.  Just my opinion though.

22130-GunCarriages.pdf

[Thukydides]

35 minutes ago, Gregory said:

This is a contemporary(1775) drawing that has showed up in several discussions. 

I also have seen that one. It is from Robertson's Mathematical Instruments. The carriage in question likely dates from somewhere between 1755-1766, but as carriages didn't change much from 1732 to 1787 (with the introduction of the Bloomfield gun) the dating is not super relevant. The funny thing with that one is that the top bracket (in the plan view) clearly has the steps perpendicular to the centerline, but the bottom it is less certain (though this may be due to distortion from the scanning).

 

The Thorsminde example does seem to show the steps as perpendicular though it is pretty worn...

 

3 minutes ago, Glen McGuire said:

Given the detail of the plan from the Constitution Museum's website, I would be surprised if the draftsman took a shortcut with the steps.  Just my opinion though.

22130-GunCarriages.pdf 375.51 kB · 0 downloads

I suspect your are correct, I would just like to be a bit more definitive than "suspect" :). The drawings in question I believe were all drawn in the early 1900s documenting the ship as she existed at the time right before they started a major restoration. One would imagine that the gun carriages would have changed little, but it is not definitive enough to make me comfortable.

 

Most model examples I have found from the period seem to be perpendicular to the brackets (though it is hard to be sure from the pictures). That being said this is a pretty minor detail so it is not out of the question that they were just simplified when making the model.

 

 

Thanks everyone for all the suggestions. I think I will have to do some more digging. Every now and again I find definitive answers, but so much of this research is sorting through numerous historical examples, evaluating them and then justifying the conclusions on the basis of preponderance of the evidence.

[Gregory]

A detail I like about the Thorsminde artifact is that the eyebolts are countersunk.

we don’t see them modeled like that very often.

[druxey]

The Constitution pdf shows a style of carriage of about 1800 or later, as shown buy the protruding 'bumper' at the front of the carriage.

[AON]

Glen

Unless my eyes decieve me, your 22130 gun carriage plan pdf is odd.

The top sheet, top left corner, top view of the carriage.

The top bracket has steps square to the centerline and the bottom bracket has steps square to the bracket.

I wonder why they depicted them both ways.

Alan

[Glen McGuire]

2 hours ago, AON said:

Unless my eyes decieve me, your 22130 gun carriage plan pdf is odd.

Well Alan, you made me go back and take a closer look!  I drew some vertical lines on the plan and the steps for both brackets do appear to be off the centerline, but just barely.  However, they do not appear to be exactly perpendicular to the brackets either.  So I think Thukydides is right and further investigation is required to get a definitive answer.

  

Edited Monday at 10:44 PM by Glen McGuire

[Thukydides]

Log #13: A Research Rabbit Trail

I have been casting my net a bit wider in an attempt to reconcile some of the issues we have been discussing here regarding gun carriages. As I mentioned one of the main goals with this log is to bring those of you following along on a journey through my research, I thought I would open the door a little on what this looks like for me on a practical level.

 

Having exhausted (at least as far as I can tell for the moment) all of my leads that deal directly with guns and carriages, I decided to start looking for sources that might incidentally mention / show them. I started by searching for paintings from the period which depicted deck scenes. In doing so I came across the following very interesting painting (I have cropped it to the parts I am interested in and increased the exposure a little):

The painting is of Lord Howe at the Battle of the Glorious First of June 1794. Now I have to do some more research to confirm this fact, but the RMG description says that the painter:

Quote

Mather Brown travelled to Portsmouth to sketch the 'Queen Charlotte' and the officers. He made careful drawings and measurements, and studied the captured French ships.

 

This implies a degree of care and accuracy about the scene which makes it very interesting for research despite the fact it is about 15 years after the time period I am concerned with. In particular you can see the following interesting details about the gun:

1. It appears to be a Bloomfield 12pdr based on the breeching loop and the label on the stool bed. The Queen Charlotte carried 12pdrs on her quarterdeck confirming this detail.
2. The name of the ship is written on the quoin, this may be an extra embellishment added by the painter, but given the care he took to get everything just right it is possible this writing did exist on the gun.
3. The carriage is painted a brown/yellow color similar to how the current carriages on the Victory are painted. This is in contrast to the bulwarks which can just be made out in the background as being a brownish red.
4. The breeching rope appears to be hawser laid.
5. The tackle at the rear of the gun is a double block. This matches what I have found in my research (12pdrs and up had single double combos), but runs counter to what Caruana says. It is a similar colour to the carriage.
6. The strop for the block appears to be served.
7. The stool bed has a slot which the quoin fits into allowing it to slide along. This makes a lot of sense to me from a practical perspective, but I have never seen this in any of the plans or other drawings.
8. Edit: I also just noticed how the eyebolts are countersunk like the example Gregory posted.

The next step is then to carefully go back through all the other primary documents/pictures/plans I have acquired to see if any of these details are mentioned or implied. Often I find when I go back I notice things that were just mentioned in passing that I missed the importance of. These other sources in combination with more research into the artist will allow me to judge how reliable I treat these details as being. Then comes the question of if there are accurate, do they also apply to the 1780s?

 

Edited 4 hours ago by Thukydides