US Brig Syren by Gahm - Model Shipways

[Stuntflyer]

Looks great, Thomas!

 

Mike

[fnkershner]

Thomas - I hope mine  looks 1/2 as good in a couple years.

[Blue Ensign]

Always look forward to progress shots Thomas, I so admire your work.

 

B.E.

[zappto]

This is pretty lady! Very inspiring build!

[Gahm]

Mike, fnkershner, B.E., Dirk, Zappto, thank you so much for your kind words! And thanks for all the likes! Unfortunately progress on my model currently is very slow due to too much other work and traveling. But as Dirk noticed I am creeping towards the status his Syren had reached months (or years?) ago. So Dirk, if you keep on running additional projects I may eventually catch up 

 

Thomas

Edited October 25, 2017 by Gahm

[Gahm]

As a next detail I added the rudder pendent. I built it pretty much as described by Chuck. Instead of serving the rope, which was used to form the eyes, I inserted blackened brass thimbles (image 1). I thought this more appropriate for a part, which is constantly in motion and where metal rubs on rope . . . and doing it this way was more fun, too .  The completed rudder pendent is shown in image 2. On the inside I added the corresponding rope coils (image 4). The jig to form these coils is shown in image 3. It basically consists of a block of wood covered with brass, several holes and a couple of bolts, which can be moved around. In this way I can form coils of different sizes and shapes. The brass cover makes it easy to clean the jig from diluted white glue with steel wool after its use.

 

Thomas

 

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Edited November 16, 2017 by Gahm

[Gahm]

Hello Dirk, thank you for your input! As always it is much appreciated! Where the rudder pendent solution is concerned I did a little research of my own. My findings agree to a big extend with what you are saying: big ships all seem to have a similar solution like what you have realized on your Syren. This also makes sense as chains are much better suited to hold a big rudder in case it is torn off in a storm than ropes. However, for smaller ships (e.g. brigs) beside the solution realized in your Syren I found a good number of images of historic models which show the chain/rope solution featured by Chuck in the Syren kit (see examples in images 1 and 2). It looks to me that both solutions are historically correct for smaller ships such as Syren, whereas for larger ships only the one featured in your Syren would work.

 

Thomas

 

Image 1

 

Image 2

Edited November 16, 2017 by Gahm

[kscadman]

Beautiful and crisp work as always Thomas!

 

[md1400cs]

Thomas,

 

Just discovered your log - Such amazingly well detailed work !!

I'll go back and review in the a.m.

 

Regards,

 

 

 

[John Cheevers]

OK, these photos were a real treat! Your work is first rate.

[cog]

Marvelous eye for detail!!!

[Gahm]

Dirk, Richard, Michael, John, Carl . . . thank you for the excellent input and your kind comments! And thanks for all the likes! They are all highly appreciated. I guess I need to research a little bit more the rudder pendent mechanism to determine whether some additional effort needs to be invested there 

 

Thomas

[Gahm]

As long as I still have easy access to the deck I added the anchor cable along with 2 stoppers on each side. The stoppers were built according to the description in Charles G. Davis ‘The Built-Up Ship Model’ consisting of an eye around a thimble (img 1) secured with ‘round seizing’ and with a ‘double wall with ends hitched’ as stopper knot (img 2) at the other end. Img 3 shows the finished stoppers. In img 4 the lanyards are attached (simulated splice). Imgs 5 – 7 show the anchor cable arrangement with the stoppers in place.

 

Thomas

 

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[Tigersteve]

This is an amazing Syren build! 

Steve

[Wintergreen]

Lovely detailing Thomas.

[cog]

Awesome detail ... a pleasure to see your updates as usual, Thomas

[glennreader]

The Charles G Davis books are filled with information for those of us who have never been to sea in a wooden sailing ship. An invaluable resource I would not hesitate to recommend.

 

Glenn

[rafine]

Wow, Thomas. The level of detail is incredible.

 

Bob

[Gahm]

Thank you all for your kind words, and thank you for the likes! As usual they are much appreciated!

 

Thomas

[Sailor1234567890]

Does anybody know how nippers were passed in those days? I know we do it differently now than what' you've got shown here and was wondering if anyone knows for sure how it used to be done?

[jjolls]

I just finished reading about this in John Harland's "Seamanship in the Age of Sail," a book, by the way, that should be in every enthusiast's library. It explains HOW almost everything on board was done through the ages... many drawings actually show these procedures in this book.

 

A heavy messenger was arranged in an endless loop around the capstan and lead forward to the anchor cable. Heavy deck blocks kept the messenger arranged. A series of Nippers (6' long lines) were attached to the cable (friction wraps), and the capstan pulled the messenger aft, bringing the cable along with it. As the cable came to the forward hatch, the closest nipper was detached, which allowed the cable to descend into the "cable tier." These nippers then passed forward to be attached again to the cable.The "Nippermen" walked along with their nippers, detaching them at the hatch and reattaching them to messenger and cable as the cable comes aboard at the hawsehole. Harland spends 4-5 pages explaining how this type of thing was done, along with many illustrations.

 

By the way, I thought I would contribute this as a way to pay back the many contributors to this forum... I've spent many enjoyable hours reading this forum, and am working on a first-time build of (what else) Syren. Fun stuff!

 

Thanks to all who contribute!  - John

[Gahm]

I started work on the hammock nettings. I changed the boarding panels so that the wooden rail could be attached to the back of the panels and not to the side. I also added a little ornamentation to the panels (img 1). I used the hammock cranes from the kit, thinned them down and mounted the whole arrangement as described by Chuck in the kit instructions (imgs 2 and 3). The netting itself was framed with a rope on 2 sides to give it a clear delineation against the wooden rail and the boarding panel side (img 4). Framing only 2 sides allows for easy fine adjustment of the final width and length of the netting when mounting it on the hammock cranes. The ‘unframed’ sides are then attached via black 100wt silk thread and CA glue to the rope which spans from the boarding panel to the last hammock crane. The last hammock crane is also used to attach the ‘unframed’ end of the netting. Images 5 – 10 show different states of the process.

 

Thomas

 

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Image 10

Edited May 8, 2018 by Gahm

[rafine]

Incredible work on the hammock nettings.

 

Bob

[JesseLee]

Wow!

 

Jesse

[Tigerdvr]

Your nail patterns on the copper plates are just outstanding, very well done.

Enjoying your build log very much.

Regards, Harley

[md1400cs]

Thomas,

 

Went back and spent  a great time going through your log - Brilliant level of skills ---- A beauty for the senses.

 

I will try to emulate (very loosely that is) some of your specific applicable details for my current build - still learning  I am. 

 

Respectfully,

[Peter Bloemendaal]

Amazing stuff Thomas.

I must admit, your log was my main driving force to choose the Syren as my first attempt at an advanced kit. I simply love the look of your model, the attention to detail and the perfection in the execution.

I regularly go back to you log for ideas only to shake my head and realize I better keep it simple. Your skill levels are just out of this world.

Hats off...

[Gahm]

Thank you so much everybody! These are REALLY nice comments! And of course they are highly appreciated. Thank you also for all the likes!

Dirk, if you build enough spaceships, houses and fleets I may at some day catch up with your Syren . At least I will try  . . . 

[Gahm]

Before continuing with the remaining hammock nettings I wanted to make sure I had a good handle on the hammocks themselves. Building an acceptable representation of a hammock at the Syren scale of 1:64 turned out to be a real challenge. One of the major problems was that all the fabrics I could think of did not scale well at 1:64. The fabric texture was always far too coarse. So after some experimentation I settled for the process documented in images 1 – 4.

First I cut a ‘kernel’ of 19mm length for the hammock from a 0.063” Syren rope. Both ends of the kernel were hardened with CA glue. The kernel serves two purposes: It helps to reproducibly determine the length of the hammock, and it prevents the hammock from ‘collapsing’ and flattening out when it is folded back to its final U-shape. The kernel was glued to the top end of a 30mm x 30mm eggshell colored Polyester fabric piece. I chose Polyester because of its super fine texture (which unfortunately was still too coarse to be used for the hammocks) and its high flexibility. This piece of fabric was roughly cut to the width of the kernel, wrapped around the kernel, the roll secured with CA glue, and both ends of the roll cut back precisely to the CA hardened kernel ends (img 1). To diminish the fabric texture I glued this roll to the top of a 30mm x 40mm (width x length) piece of very thin silkspan, wrapped the silkspan around the fabric roll, and secured both ends with 2 metal clips (img 2). These metal clips were then mounted in 2 vices and the hammock roll thoroughly soaked with water. Contrary to regular paper silkspan can be nicely processed when wet and it turns pretty translucent, which again allows to see the fabric roll and with that to have a reproducible measure for the length of the final hammock (img 3). The hammock was then formed by tying 7 double overhand knots (2 at the ends and five at equidistant intervals) using an eggshell colored 100wt silk thread, securing the ends of the roll with CA, cutting them to their final shape, folding the finished hammock in the middle to it its U-shape, and gluing both halves together with CA (img 4). Img 5 shows all the material needed to build enough hammocks to fill the first rack. Once all hammocks for one rack were made they needed to be arranged in the rack for the best overall impression. At that point the silkspan surface still showed a lot of individual fibers, which gave an undesirable ‘hairy’ impression. To change this into a smooth surface and to fix the whole arrangement in place all hammocks received a final treatment with a thin solution of white glue. The result is shown in images 6 – 10. 

  

Thomas

 

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Edited October 24, 2018 by Gahm

[cog]

Must have taken you a while, very nicely done Thomas. You set yourself a real endurance challenge ...