USS Ranger by mattsayers148 - FINISHED - Corel SM55 - 1:64 - 4th build, 2nd build log

[mattsayers148]

Hey Ken, I saw a list of it during a web search, looks like a good one.

 

Update: the ship formerly known as USRC Ranger is currently undergoing a lobodamy. I spent a good portion of the day preping the squirrels on my brainstormy ideas for a pirate ship and agreed to their singular request, bottomless nuts. Any time, day or nite, I will stock their nests with as many nuts as they request. So while they work up some blueprints, I shall meticulously remove the unnecessary wood with my trusty chisels. To be continued....

[mattsayers148]

Update: Squirrel Team 2 returned from a 24hr recon. The Pirates were not sighted. These images were taken and apparently they've enlisted mercenary beavers.

[mattsayers148]

Ya know, them little beavers, they used to shape America til trappers almost made them extinct

[Canute]

Matt, the Alert and Granado AOTS books have 1/24 scale drawings of 4 & 6 pounders. Might they be of some help?

[mattsayers148]

Thanks Ken, I'll check that out. I finally found a scaled plan of Cook's cannon, problem is you can't read it(too fuzzy). So I'll check out the books you recommended, Cook's cannon is a 4pdr as well, maybe between the two I'll get it. This pic is straight off CannonSuperstore.com, that makes these replicas.

[mattsayers148]

Update : ST1 has returned from a successful mission and has gained control of our ship. Apparently the beavers had abandoned their assignment and now the squirrels are running full speed to rebuild the watercraft from the inside out. No nations came to aid the squirrels, so they've vowed to make this ship the fastest of its class and rule the high seas as its own nation. The rebuild has begun.

The inside of the hull now measures at 50ft in length, 7ft at the highest and a comfortable 10ft wide.

Every attempt will be made to make the living quarters as comfortable as possible for the crew while maximizing its storage hold.

[mattsayers148]

George and Ken, understood. I think the squirrels got an itchy trigger finger now! CaptainSteve I considered a projection screen but the squirrels insist on a satellite dish to be installed and a small 55inch wide screen, I drew the line when they asked for lazyboys!

[mattsayers148]

I had some cedar shingles and thought they'd look ok for the lower decking. Now there's room to walk around on while working on more interior items.

 

This scales out to 2ft wide at the two ends, 3ft wide for the middle sections and about 31ft in length.

Edited March 7, 2015 by matt.s.s.

[mattsayers148]

The position of ships carpenter has been given to the brother of PFC Nutz, Woodreaux. Woodie, as he prefers to be called, has also picked 5 men that are skilled at handleing and shaping wood. As seen in the photos, they've made some progress, getting the ladder installed to hasten their building.

[GLakie]

I'm not going to say anything about what they were fighting over. 

[Canute]

I salute PFC Harrison Nutz and his merrie men for jumping on that task.   And the wood looks good in the hold.

 

Wow, I haven't fought over Bud and Old Style beer since Viet Nam!    I think my taste buds have improved since I was a young Leftenant.

[mattsayers148]

So I gave the squirrels a little mini vacation while I've been researching what type of armaments that would best compliment this pirate odyssey. As luck would have it, I worked down the road from Fort Vancouver in Washington today and decided to check it out.

 

The 3-pounders found at the Fort measure out to 3ft 6in, whereas the standard for the time was 4ft 6in. (For an in depth account on this search Armaments and Furnishings of the Fort Vancouver Bastion.) It's presumed that this variance may be that these cannons/guns were made by a private unnamed source. So this gives rise to the ability of a small deck to be able to carry a fair amount of firepower on board. So with the photo below and the information that I've gathered, I'm scaling out the lifesize measurements to convert to 1:64. I may go back there this weekend to do physical measurements because we all know what an inch or two can do when shrunk. If anyone wants an idea of the size here, my little knife on top of the barrel measures 7 and 3/4 in length. I'm going to draw up a scaled diagram to see how well it fits on the deck.

 

 

When I scale out the kit supplied carronade I came up with a 24pounder, is this correct? I've seen some other builds state its a 32-pounder.

[mtaylor]

Matt,

 

Measure the bore of the cannon at the fort.  That will tell the size... 

 

4 pdr = 3.0"

6 pdr = 3.4

9 pdr = 4"

12 pdr = 4.4"

18 pdr = 5.0"

24 pdr = 5.5"

32 pdr = 6.1"

Edited March 14, 2015 by mtaylor

[mattsayers148]

Hey Mark, thanks for the quick check on bore sizes. This is where I'm confused. They are listing the 3 pdr shot size of 2.77in plus .138 for windage for a bore size of 2.91in. Scaled off a known source(my knife) measures to this dimension of a hair under 3in. This gun was ordered from Britain as "3 pounder new iron gun 3ft 6in long about 5cwt 7lbs each."(563.25lbs each) however the length and weight of these guns are not to the British gov standard of 4ft 6in at 812lbs after 1764.

 

Now these guns were ordered in 1842(a bit newer than my pirate bash). After about 1820, the three pounders were only used on ships which is why these guns were fitted with training tackle. As to who made these unusual size guns and when are unknown and only speculations exist, but they are not of any gov patterns. No records are found after 1800 that mention 3ft 6in 3pdr guns, only 4ft 6in. There is a similar gun found in a Canadian museum.

 

So I did a 1:12 sketch of this gun(scaled to 1:64 is .73in end to end). The kit supplied carronade is roughly the same length just a lot fatter, which still leaves me wondering as to the size of the carronade. It scales out to a 24pdr but I've read its a 32pdr.

 

[CaptainSteve]

Meticulous research you are doing there, Matt. And Mark's table has some useful information.

 

But it occurs to me that, if you are actually aiming for a "pirate bash", then you may want to consider that a rag-tag bunch o' murdering scum probably would not have been too worried whether all of their guns were the same size/bore.

 

Indeed, far more than on a navy ship (of any nation's fleet), I would think that a privateer would most likely have a mix of gun types and sizes, depending on what they had managed to salvage from captured 'prizes'.

Edited March 15, 2015 by CaptainSteve

[mtaylor]

My sense is that Steve is right about a mix of guns.  The privateers created a market for cannon of all shapes and sizes.

 

As for your cannon questions... You might try asking it here:  http://modelshipworld.com/index.php/forum/15-discussion-for-a-ships-deck-furniture-guns-boats-and-other-fittings/   I'm not sure.  Are those actual British cannon?  or reproductions?   Any markings on the trunnions or casabel area?

[mattsayers148]

I couldn't agree more with you both. My eyes wandered here as well.

As for whether or not they're from Britain I'm not sure. My guess is that they are reproductions, but I'll try and find out for sure. There were different military personnel that did inventory lists for several years and none of their notes jive with the others. There's notations in the 171 page booklet that refer to the cannons possibly were intended for somewhere else.

Edited March 14, 2015 by matt.s.s.

[Canute]

Matt, I'm thumbing thru my copy of "Arming the Fleet" by Spence Tucker, Naval Institute Press. (What do you expect from a Weapons Officer?). Has such exotica as carriage dimensions.

 

Anyway, apparently in the 1770s, the 3 pdr went from a size of 4'6", 7 cwt-1 qrs-7 lbs to 3'6" 3cwt-3 qrs-o lbs. Found it in Table 10 on page 88 of said book. That was sourced from John Muller's Treatise of Artillery, Whitehall, 1780.

 

That being said, I'd expect the privateer/pirate to ship whatever guns they could get their grubby paws on, so the Cap'n  thoughts are a bulls-eye!

[mattsayers148]

Great info Ken, thank you. After reading the info at Fort Vancouver, chatting things around(squirrels get chatty too) with you guys and concrete evidence like you've shared, and I see a glimmer of light. A pirate has no rules, accept what's yours is mine and the sort.

 

I feel like I'm in an episode of Mythbuster falling towards the plausible items. So I think it's time for me to set aside the reality for a bit and swim around fantasy island....is that the blue pill or the red one?

 

So I fiddled around with some brass tube bits, CA and a lot of fileing to come up with a carronade that looks a little better than the kit supplied one. I'm going to build a slide carriage instead of mounting it on the circular rail. For that railing I'd like to put a much more impressive and powerful gun, something to be feared. Now that some of the basic have been learned about cannon size I can move forward with the necessary changes that will be handed down to me by my superiors, the Nutz brothers.

[GLakie]

A fine looking gun there Matt! With all that fire-power, she'll instill fear in the hearts and minds of any man! (And squirrel) 

[mtaylor]

Now that is a find looking carronade.  The pivot would have a slide on it as I recall.  The advantage of the piviot is field of fire.  So this is secondary armament then?  

[CaptainSteve]

So I fiddled around with some brass tube bits, CA and a lot of fileing to come up with a carronade that looks a little better than the kit supplied one ...

 

Serious ?!?!?! You made that from bits of brass tubing and wire ??

It looks far better than any kit-supplied ones I've seen. A fine job, indeed, Matt !!!

 

Now .. it be off to Kit-Basher's for you, my friend !!

Edited March 15, 2015 by CaptainSteve

[mattsayers148]

You are right Mark. The front side is held by a pivot point and the rear trucks are sideways. This would make an excellent sweeping defense for the rear end.

Here's the tubes CaptainSteve before and after they are CA'd together. The innermost pieces are a tube up front and a solid piece for the rear. Then it's locked into the dremel and filed into shape.

[Canute]

Matt, guns look good.

To add, you might look at tiny bolts, say 00-90 or 0-80, for elevating screws for the carronades. I've been digging into the MS USN Picket Boat and got the 4 article series from Ships in Scale by Kurt Van Dahm. For the 1:24 launch's 12 pound Dahlgren cannon, he used a 2-56 threaded rod for the screw. Check in a model railroad shop, if you can find one, for these bolts.

[mattsayers148]

Thanks Ken, I've been diggin for screws small enough to work. My eyes were dartin around the room when my wife asked what the heck I'm doing. "Come on, really, I'm looking for something to tear apart in here that may have some tiny screws that I need." Needless to say, all items in our room remain untouched. So I did what I could on the slide carriage, still got a ways to go, but it's a starting point.

[CaptainSteve]

Lookin' real good, Matt !!

 

Re: Tiny screws.

Have you got any old eye-glasses/sun-glasses that could be sacrificed to the Gods of model ship-building ??

Edited March 16, 2015 by CaptainSteve

[Canute]

Matt, carronade looks really good!

Steve and Matt, those screws are a good resource, although they may not be long enough for the elevating screw on the carronade.

[Salty Sea Dog]

Do an eBay search for "tiny screws". There's a 1000 pc set with plastic compartment case for $5. The sizes are metric but are listed.

[mattsayers148]

I decided to try the wire screw technique that I had used on my launch. I used much smaller wires, experimenting to get proper size and look. I Lina like the copper one especially after it's blackened. The copper is .028 and the other at .021.

 

[GLakie]

I can't really tell how big that unit is over-all Matt, but I think a really tiny screw would be better, considering all the rest of the great detail.  Maybe send ST 2 out for a daylight raid to a dollar store for a couple pair of plastic rimmed glasses (per Steve's suggestion)? The plastic ones have thicker and wider arms, hence a longer screw. Dollar Tree has them for a dollar. Just a thought.