HMS Lyme (1748-1760) by Landlubber Mike - bash of Corel Unicorn - Scale 1:75 (CLOSED TO START SCRATCH BUILD)

[ianmajor]

Mike,

 

It is good to see other Unicorns making an appearance. Joe V's seem to have quite a few changes in the rigging. The waist area also looks to have been widened to allow ships boats to be fitted side by side. Looks good.

 

I had followed Peter Visser's log, which contained some useful entries on the rigging, but sadly the log was lost with MSW 1.0. At least there are the photos in the gallery.

 

My ancient version of the kit did not have enough belaying pins to cover the Corel rigging scheme. Even if it had there would be nowhere near enough to cover full rigging. The Corel scheme is rather simplified.

 

I have been looking at the contemporary models and there seems to be a total abscence of belaying pins - the running rigging being (apparently) belayed on the rails of the open bulwarks. I going to have a look a Lees to see what his view is on this. In the middle of the 18th century there were a lot of changes. The Unicorn and the Lymm were first of their type - so who knows - they may have led in the "technology" changes.  

[egkb]

Re Joes first photo of Unicorn converted to HMS Fox.. interesting wee figurehead on her !  but I guess a Unicorn wouldn't be right !

Sorry for cutting into your build log Mike, but I couldn't resist

 

All The Best Guys

 

Eamonn

[Landlubber Mike]

Good to know about the rigging Ian.  I'll have to pay careful attention to all that.  I like Joe's build adding the two small boats side by side - I'm thinking of doing something very similar as well.  Glad to see that there is such a big Unicorn club

 

No worries Eamonn, I don't have pics of my build yet since I'm waiting on tools and materials, so I certainly encourage lively discussion and pictures!

Edited April 17, 2014 by Landlubber Mike

[Cristiano]

Hello Mike,

my though regarding the stern:

the crowned man on the left should be Poseidon, the god of sea. Theirs symbols should be three (or two) jumping fishes placed on the extreme left.

The naked woman on the right should be Hera, the sister of Poseidon, since effectively in mythology her simbol is a peacock, which is the bird on the extreme right of the stern.

Everything is more clear if you edit with Photoshop (or something similar) the drawing of the stern, changing contrast.

[jwvolz]

Ian/Mike,

 

I didn't use the Corel rigging plan, at all if that helps. 

 

Hate to keep posting my pics in your log Mike, but hopefully they help the other Unicorn builders. Here is the waist area with the ship's boats. 

 

I'm having a hard time recalling a lot of the changes I made since it was so long ago, 

 

 

 

 

[ianmajor]

Ah yes - I can see a lot of changes there. The waist is wider. The quarter deck rail is in front of the main mast. That along with the beams across the waist and the configuration of the rigging looks very like Petersson's description of frigate rigging (though there are differences on the rear edge of the fore deck). Nice view.

[Landlubber Mike]

Hello Mike,

my though regarding the stern:

the crowned man on the left should be Poseidon, the god of sea. Theirs symbols should be three (or two) jumping fishes placed on the extreme left.

The naked woman on the right should be Hera, the sister of Poseidon, since effectively in mythology her simbol is a peacock, which is the bird on the extreme right of the stern.

Everything is more clear if you edit with Photoshop (or something similar) the drawing of the stern, changing contrast.

Cristiano, thanks so much for your thoughts on this.  It sounds like I was completely wrong on the far left and far right figures (except to the extent that they are all animals and not people!).  I can kinda see the peacock on the right - I'm having trouble with the fishes on the left.

 

You mentioned using Photoshop to clean up the picture of the stern.  Did you use it on the picture in the link that I provided earlier?  If so, and if it is not too much trouble, would you mind posting what the cleaned up picture looks like or send it to me via PM?  I am not that good at this kind of thing, and when I tried through iPhoto, it didn't really make things clearer for me.

 

Thanks again!  This is very exciting, as I have been struggling with what the stern figures are for quite some time!

Edited April 12, 2014 by Landlubber Mike

[Landlubber Mike]

Joe, by all means please feel free to continue to post pictures on my build log.  Your Unicorn/Fox is gorgeous, and the pictures are really helping me (and I imagine others) get a sense of what kind of improvements can be made to the kit.  Please don't feel like you're hijacking my log in the slightest

 

I love the touch of adding the small boats.  Do you remember if you built them from scratch, or bought them elsewhere?  I have the AOTS Pandora book, and I believe that the plans show 3-4 small boats nested in the waist similarly to yours.

[Cristiano]

Hello Mike,

glad to help you, if I can.

Below the stern.

I added colours, in order to exalt the differences in the various figures, but the colours are just to exalt the figures.

The jumping fishes (two or one?) on left should be dolphins, since a dolphin was a symbol of Poseidon.

I "completed" some line, in order to show better the figures.

So, basically the stern represent two mitological gods and their related symbols...

 

[ianmajor]

Mike,

 

On my trip to the Manchester Central Library I spent a happy afternoon reading through Lavery. On the ship's boats ( page 231) he says that during the  period in which this Unicorn existed a frigate of 28 to 36 guns would have had 3 boats being:-

 

1) 21 or 22ft longboat.

2) 28ft pinnace

3) 22 or 23ft yawl

 

Some interesting stuff to scratch build there!

 

As a subject close to my heart ( ) I also checked on the stove sizes. He has a table page 198 that gives the appropriate sizes for the different types of ships. For the 28 gun frigate the stove would be 4ft 6ins long and 5ft 3ins high (to the top of the hood). However yet another close examination of the Chapman diagram suggests the stove should be on the lower deck not the upper (main gun) deck ie totally out of sight. Oh well.  If this was so it must have been dreadfully difficult for the cook with the very restricted lower deck headroom on the Lyme class.

[jwvolz]

Mike,

 

The boats are plastic shells that Model Expo used to sell. Not sure of the manufacturer, but I think it was one of the European companies.

 

I hollowed them out further from their original form with my Dremel, and added details from wood. They came scribed with that planking pattern on the outside of the hull. 

 

 

[Landlubber Mike]

Hello Mike,

glad to help you, if I can.

Below the stern.

I added colours, in order to exalt the differences in the various figures, but the colours are just to exalt the figures.

The jumping fishes (two or one?) on left should be dolphins, since a dolphin was a symbol of Poseidon.

I "completed" some line, in order to show better the figures.

So, basically the stern represent two mitological gods and their related symbols...

Cristiano, thanks so much for this - this makes it really clear for me!  The pictures I was using really weren't helpful, but your modified picture really shows the four (or maybe five) figures!  The peacock is now completely obvious.  Funny how I saw a lion on the left and a unicorn on the right  I can't thank you enough for taking the time to clear this up for me, I really appreciate it!

[Landlubber Mike]

Mike,

 

On my trip to the Manchester Central Library I spent a happy afternoon reading through Lavery. On the ship's boats ( page 231) he says that during the  period in which this Unicorn existed a frigate of 28 to 36 guns would have had 3 boats being:-

 

1) 21 or 22ft longboat.

2) 28ft pinnace

3) 22 or 23ft yawl

 

Some interesting stuff to scratch build there!

 

As a subject close to my heart ( ) I also checked on the stove sizes. He has a table page 198 that gives the appropriate sizes for the different types of ships. For the 28 gun frigate the stove would be 4ft 6ins long and 5ft 3ins high (to the top of the hood). However yet another close examination of the Chapman diagram suggests the stove should be on the lower deck not the upper (main gun) deck ie totally out of sight. Oh well.  If this was so it must have been dreadfully difficult for the cook with the very restricted lower deck headroom on the Lyme class.

Thanks Ian, this is all good to know.  The Badger's resin boats took me forever to complete - I can't imagine how long these three boats are going to take me if I end up trying to scratch build them 

 

That's helpful info on the stove too.  It sounds like things weren't too cozy for the Unicorn crew does it?

[Landlubber Mike]

Mike,

 

The boats are plastic shells that Model Expo used to sell. Not sure of the manufacturer, but I think it was one of the European companies.

 

I hollowed them out further from their original form with my Dremel, and added details from wood. They came scribed with that planking pattern on the outside of the hull. 

Hi Joe, thanks for that info.  They came out really well.  I'll have to investigate whether I can use resin shells as offered by Caldercraft to give me a good base as a shortcut.

[Cristiano]

Hello Mike,

I completed my hypotesis of the stern of the Unicorn.

Now the bodies are better defined.

I know that it is pretty useless to focus on such details, but that "mistery" intrigued me!

 

So I didn't want to leave the work unfinished.

 

In addition, I am working for myself, too, since the Unicorn lays packed on a my shelf.

I think the fishes (dolphins ?) are three (coloured in cyan).

It remains unsolved what is holding Hera.

She is holding "something that is spilling something", like a vase spilling water or a cornucopia spilling goods.

It is not surely a part of the clothes.

As said, this is my thought, not an absolute certainty!

 

 

[Landlubber Mike]

Cristiano, thanks so much!  That's really amazing work you did there.  I think you're exactly right about those figures.

 

Are the two gods, in particular, Hera, resting on anything?  That's one thing that seems a mystery, though it looks like they might be resting with one hand on the port hole, and one on the ground (or something else).  

 

Thanks again!

[Cristiano]

Hello Mike,

My evaluation is done considering the typical positions and actions of the decorating figures typical of the stern of the ships of those period.

So the answers IMHO are:

-they are resting on nothing, since usually there were not pieces of forniture or ambient on those decorations;

-one hand of both the gods probably is touching the porthole;

-the other hand is doing something, since usually always a figure do something, like indicating with fingers an object or handling an object.

-Poseidon has one hand near the third fish.

-Hera IMHO hold an object (I coloured it BRIGHT BLUE in the below image), that cover partially her body and fingers.

I think it can be a vase pouring water or a cornucopia pouring goods, but it is just a thought.

 

But beware!

Chapman was a naval architect, so it was focused on drawing the hull of the ships.

The drawings of decorations was not of main interest for him, so maybe some detail can not exist at all, because he maybe has draw only a draft of the stern decoration.

Since the symbols related to Hera ended with the peacock, the object she is holding depends by the author of the decoration, so it can be flowers, cornucopia, vase.

 

Well, with the above considerations I ended any possible additional informations that I can produce, at least without starting to flying to much with fantasy.

 

 

 

[Landlubber Mike]

Cristiano, thanks again for all your thoughts and help on this.  I really appreciate it, and look forward to your Unicorn build

[Beef Wellington]

Mike, will be interested to see how you progress on this Corel kit.  My perception has always been that these kits tend not be historically accurate (which may be very unfair) but seems you are walking in with your eyes open and a comprehensive plan.  You're doing some great research, looking forward to where you go with this.

[Landlubber Mike]

Thanks a lot Jason.  In a way, I'm wondering if I'm just causing myself more issues to work through by modifying the kit.  On the other hand, it's been a very interesting journey so far learning about frigates during this time period, and it should be good practice before ultimately moving to the dark side

 

I spent some time last night fitting the bulkheads to the keel.  The bulkheads and keel took a bit of filing to get the bulkheads to slide into the pre-cut slots in the keel.  Even though I'm planning on creating a new one, I wanted to get a sense of how the bulkheads lie, how the planking will proceed, and how the decks will be installed.  My new keel will be of plywood, but I need to modify it so that I can have the bow/stem and false keel in pear.  I also am thinking about reconfiguring the stern area (essentially scratching it to avoid the use of the cast metal parts, and getting rid of the flag locker) and angling the quarterdeck differently, so I'm trying to figure out now how all that will work going forward.

 

Ian, ZyXuz and my other friends, I'm curious as to your thoughts on a couple of things:

 

1.  Opening the waist and the upper gun deck template.  The upper deck template is one piece covering the forecastle, waist and quarterdeck.  With an open waist, there will be very little of the deck template that will survive at the waist for the waist gangways.  One disadvantage of keeping the template in one piece is that you will see the bit of the template under the deck planking (I think).  Since I'm going to use boxwood for the deck planking, the gangways might look like they have a dark line underneath.  Is it worth it instead to cut the deck template into two pieces (one for the forecastle and one for the quarterdeck), and do away with the template for the waist gangways (somehow just use the deck planking for the gangways)?  Hope that is clear 

 

2.  Stern post.  In going through the plans last night and thinking about the planking, I noticed that the kit seems to suggest that the planking extend all the way to the stern/end of the keel piece, and not butt up against a stern post (the kit doesn't seem to include a stern post).  I need to do a little more research, but my Caldercraft Badger had a stern post, and I'm wondering if the Unicorn would have had one as well.  If so, that's another piece that I will need to cut from pear.

 

Thanks for your thoughts!

Edited April 14, 2014 by Landlubber Mike

[jwvolz]

Mike,

 

I would definitely just use the forecastle and quarterdeck portion of the deck template. I made deck beams myself to support the narrower gangways I made in the waist area. 

[Landlubber Mike]

Thanks Joe, that seems like the best approach to me as well.  At this rate, it will take me another 2 months to figure out how I'll need to modify everything for the hull

[ianmajor]

Mike,

 

I agree with Joe on using just the fore deck and quarter deck part of the deck template. Two reasons.

 

1) The piece needs to sweep/curve upwards fore and aft but curve downwards from beam to beam (for the camber). This puts the centre line of the piece under compression and the side edges try to stretch. It doesn't work well.

2) As you noted you will get a thick piece of plywood showing under the gangplanks - which should be quite delicate looking. Since mine was already in place I chamfered the edges to hide this in the hope that nobody would notice (or were too polite to say anything). You can also have the gangplanks at a slightly lower level than the fore and quarter deck which seems to fit in with all the contemporary models.

 

When I cut the middle out of mine I used the leading edge of the existing waist hole as a datum line across the ship, and made all my measurements back from there. This seemed to work OK.

 

On the hull planking, as you say, the plans show the planking extending right back to the rudder. I think this is meant to simplify things ie avoiding a rebate/rabbet for one thing. Though my (ancient) kit supplied mahogany strip for the second planking and it was the devil's own job around the buttocks to get it to twist from near horizontal to vertical in the distance of an inch or less to achieve this. If you can fit a stern post it will look much more the part.

 

I notice on some renditions of the Unicorn the builders have planked along the edge of the keel piece to hide the exposed plywood layers. Your proposal will fix this.

 

ZyXuz's point about checking the fit of the bulkheads is a good one. Certainly if you look at the photos of mine you will see there is hardly any keel showing along the bottom below the planks. As a result I can't hold the hull in a clamp to work on it. Some of my bulkhead parts extended below the keel when the tops were lined up - this has hopefully been corrected in later kits since mine was one of the first batch.

 

On the subject of bulkheads you will note the ones that extend above the front and sides of the fore deck curve quite sharply outwards towards the top. I am not convinced that this is right - but I might be wrong in that view. It certainly makes life very difficult in this area.

Edited April 14, 2014 by ianmajor

[Landlubber Mike]

Hi Ian, thank you very much.  This is all very helpful and confirms a few things that I was thinking.  Thank you so much for sharing the benefit of your experience with the kit.

 

So far I've managed to open up bulkheads 1-10 and dry fitted them to the keel.  I'm going to try and get the rest opened tonight, and will post a photo to show how the bulkheads fit.  Hopefully they have remedied the problem from the older kits as to the bulkheads fitting too low.

 

Do you know how the masts are installed?  The Caldercraft Badger's keel had slots for the masts to fit through the deck and into the slots.  That helped to lock the mast in position, at least front and back.  It doesn't look like Corel has taken a similar approach.

[Landlubber Mike]

I spent a little time this evening and opened up the remaining bulkheads a bit to dry fit them on the keel.  A couple of the bulkheads are a bit out of alignment and need to sit down a little lower.  I'll check them against the plans and modify the keel a bit, then use the keel as a pattern to cut a new one out.

 

The lower deck sat very nicely amongst the bulkheads.  The upper deck was a bit tricky.  Ian, I think I see what you are saying about how the upper deck pattern is supposed to lay - which is probably asking a bit too much to ask one piece to cover all three areas (quarterdeck, waist and forecastle).  The quarterdeck area in particular is not sitting correctly, with a gap of a good few millimeters to where it should sit on the bulkheads the fore area of the quarterdeck.  Since I'm thinking of changing the angle of the quarterdeck to open up the portholes, I'll need to make some modifications for the quarterdeck bulkheads anyway so I'm not too disturbed.

 

Here are some pictures of the bulkheads and the deck patterns dry fitted to the keel.  Also I took a picture against the Badger for the size differential.  It's a bit hard to tell from the picture, but the Unicorn's hull is a good 50% longer and wider than the Badger's hull (even at 1:75 scale, versus 1:64 for the Badger).

 

 

 

 

[ianmajor]

Mike,

 

As you have probably now found the masts are only held in place by the holes in the quarter deck/fore deck piece. This allows a lot of "adjustment" in all sorts of directions.  

 

From your photos the bulkhead issue does seem to have been fixed in later versions of the kit. It certainly caused me pain - and was very much like Rafine's experience with his Essex.  

 

If you open up the waist in the same way that Joe did you will retain the original main mast hole. I cut the quarter deck to behind the main mast, so I had to re-establish a hole for the main mast on the upper (main gun) deck. This does drill in to the keel piece so care has to be exercised when drilling to stop the drill bit wandering down one side of the keel or the other. If you are going do do the same as me you could prepare for that now by cutting a slot in the keel piece and drilling a corresponding hole in the gun deck.

 

The question is - what diameter hole? The mast diameters and lengths as per Corel are somewhat bigger than indicated by Steel. I am trying to work these out for my ship! Would have used Dan Vadas' spreadsheet (in the MSW downloads) to work this out but my Excel does not support the macros used in it.

 

I will drop you with a PM in the next few days with the calculations that I have already done.

[jwvolz]

Mike,

 

Although a lot of my build recollection is foggy, I know I didn't use Corel's mast and spar dimensions on the build, referring at the time to "Historic Ship Models" by Zu Mondfeld. I would definitely use an outside reference when compiling mast and spar tables for the build..

 

The outward flare of the upper bulwarks as Ian pointed out, I agree is very likely wrong. If anything there should be an inboard tumble home. Never did address that on mine...

 

Deck beams for the waist area will certainly take away the issue that Ian mentioned of trying to accommodate both sheer and camber in one large sub-deck piece  that is already going to need to be made narrower through the waist. 

[Landlubber Mike]

Thanks very much Ian and Joe, this is all very helpful. I'll go ahead and plan to cut the quarterdeck-forecastle template into two separate pieces.  Since I'm planning on not including the flag lockers, I'll have to get rid of, or modify, the second to last bulkhead.  That will leave a gap (I think) where the template should meet the stern, but I can just cut a new longer template if need be.  The gap probably won't be all that big to give me a planking issue, but it might just be better to cut a new, longer one for added support.

 

Thanks also for the tips on the forward upper bulwarks.  I thought they seemed a bit odd, and I can only imagine how difficult that made the planking.  Looking at the plans below of its sister ship, the Lyme, it doesn't look like Corel has the line correct.  I'll plan on modifying it like you suggest.

 

 

 

 

You've also given me a lot to think about when it comes to the masts.  I feel like I should do something to help lock in the masts.  Whether I build a cradle on the decks, or cut a slot into the keel, I think spending the time now will make life easier for me later on.

 

Ouch, the list of modifications is growing longer by the day.  I'm going to have to start writing all these down to keep them all straight.  Yesterday, I started to wonder whether it makes more sense at this stage of my skill level to build the Unicorn next, which is a more basic kit but is going to require a lot of tweaking -- or go with the Pegasus, which I believe is a much better kit in terms of accuracy and components and can pretty much be built straight from the box (plus, I have Bob Hunt's practicum for that kit and the TFFM series).  After coming across Ian's log and buying the Unicorn for $130 on one of Model Expo's eBay auctions, I figured that the Unicorn would be a good learning stepping stone before tackling the more complicated Pegasus -- especially given the high standards set by Blue Ensign and other Pegasus builders on here.  

 

So, hopefully it's just a matter of getting a few things on the Unicorn's hull "corrected" and then I should have a fairly smooth journey after.     

Edited April 15, 2014 by Landlubber Mike

[ianmajor]

Mike,

 

I think the Unicorn would still be a good step towards Pegasus. If you are (in the unlikely event) going to make mistakes would it not be better to make them on the Unicorn?

[Landlubber Mike]

Very true Ian.  Plus, you've shown that if I don't like something on the Unicorn, existing work can be readily removed and rebuilt to good effect.