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The Great Republic 1:48

Several questions....first...it is great to see you are back at it.
First point. Are you building her after her rebuild...after she was burned....cuz...she didn't have gunnels....she had a *flush* weather deck with stanchioned railings.
Second point. She originally had an elliptical stern...nearly round. Your version appears to be a bit curved only.

I'm not trying to be critical, but these are issues...if you are modeling the original prototype.
What a big model she is going to be.....:eek:

Rob
 
Hi Rob good to hear from you. I'm building the GR as it was built and before the fire. That's the way Mr. Crothers plans are and there is a lot of info as to how it was originally built so I went with that. As for the stern, I had the devil of a time finding out how the stern was built. I finally found some "typical" plans on line and the plans for the composite ship (wood and steel) is what i went with. It does have an elliptical stern in my opinion but it probably looks round in some of my pictures. However I will check it again to be sure. You have a good eye there for stuff like that but I hope you don't start looking too close. There are way too many discrepancies on this model to start looking too close at this point. Working on the interior cabins on the second deck now. It's getting very interesting.
 
Norgale said:
Hi Rob good to hear from you. I'm building the GR as it was built and before the fire. That's the way Mr. Crothers plans are and there is a lot of info as to how it was originally built so I went with that. As for the stern, I had the devil of a time finding out how the stern was built. I finally found some "typical" plans on line and the plans for the composite ship (wood and steel) is what i went with. It does have an elliptical stern in my opinion but it probably looks round in some of my pictures. However I will check it again to be sure. You have a good eye there for stuff like that but I hope you don't start looking too close. There are way too many discrepancies on this model to start looking too close at this point. Working on the interior cabins on the second deck now. It's getting very interesting.
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Glad you are enjoying your build...she surely is coming along for sure. I have to object to the idea Great Republic had gunwales or bulwarks before she was burned. She emphatically did not. She had a fourth weather deck that was lost in the fire, and it was removed during her rebuild. She had a stanchion supported railing around her entire weather deck....no gunwale. Please review my thread on her in Model ship world if possible. I'll post images to help.



Rob

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Well, as usual, you are absolutely correct. The fantail is round and there are no gunwales at the top deck. What I should have said was that I had covered the outside of the top deck with planking and included the plank sheer and the main rail in that planking. The inside ceiling has been partly installed and I'm waiting for my next order of planks to finish that. The monkey rail will be on the stanchions around the spar deck but that won't get added until the hull is planked first since I will flip the hull over for that. I don't want to be knocking the top railing loose while planking.
As for the fantail I think I can sand the elliptical shape into the stern cants as they are pretty thick and have some extra meat on them. I'll try that first so I don't have to take the whole stern assembly apart. The glue is cured by now and will tear that whole thing up if I try to remove it. The main rail on top of the frames will give it the right form I hope. This whole project has become a lesson in hiding defects rather than being an actual scale model.
As you can see I have started adding the cabins onto the upper tween decks. Took a couple pics of this for you to examine. I have no idea how the walls of these cabins should look. My book only refers to them generally as being horizontally or vertically planked or paneled with fancy work on them. All kind of vague info but maybe you have more info on that. Need to get doors for the rooms too but I don't know what they would look like. Looking for doll house furnishings too and by the way, where are the stairways that go down to the lower decks? I don't seem to have anything on that.
In the pictures nothing is glued down yet except the walls at the stern. You can see the ceiling on the tween upper decks hull walls.The top deck beams will go over the top of the rooms and the deck on top of that.
One other thing, is there a hatch of some sort over the top of the water tanks? The tanks end under the upper tween decks but is there access to the tanks through the upper deck?

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You can build -up your stern timbers to correct for the elliptical stern. No need to rip anything out. I would assume the iron water tanks tops were at the second decks level. where the decanting pumps were. See the drawing I provided. Moving along.

Rob
 
Norgale said:
You're right again. My mistake about the top of the tanks. So is there a hatch over the tanks?
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That data is unknown, but it can be accurately assumed the water was vital and needed to be protected from contamination.....so there must have been a capping lid, an access hatch/port with a pump to decant the water. However you want to model this is most likely going to be a close proximity. It surely would not have been an open tank, with rodents and the like running amok.
 
My plans show a small clean out hatch on each tank but I was thinking more about replacing the tank if it was ever necessary. Most likely the tank would have a cover over the top as part of the tank but I was thinking more about the deck above the tank than the tank itself. Now that I think more about it there would have to be a cover over that spot on the second deck and the top deck to remove the tank in one piece. I see no reference to such a hatch cover so I guess it wasn't there. They would have just cut a hole if they needed to replace the tanks. Maybe I'm over-thinking the situation. Ha! Pete
 
These tanks would have been made from rolled wrought iron plate. Wrought iron is quite corrosion resistant in contact with fresh water. The tanks would have lasted longer than the ship.

Roger
 
Roger Pellett said:
These tanks would have been made from rolled wrought iron plate. Wrought iron is quite corrosion resistant in contact with fresh water. The tanks would have lasted longer than the ship.

Roger
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I think you're right Roger. Like I said I'm probably over thinking this. However in this case they all went down together.
 
May has come and is mostly gone so another five months of GRing has passed. I'm up to finishing the bow now and I have the bowsprit in place but not glued. I now have to fit the jib boom in but I find no specs for that piece. Here are a couple of pictures to go with this question. I believe that the piece in place is called the bowsprit and the piece that goes over it is called the jib boom.(not shown) However I can find a mention of there being an inner jib boom and an outer jib boom. I decided that the part that sits back of the top rail is the inner boom and the part that protrudes beyond the top rail is the outer boom. Is that correct? Now the bowsprit extends 30 feet outboard which this piece does. The jib boom looks in the picture (posted by Rob) above to be about 90 to 100 feet long beyond the bowsprit. Is that correct? Looks pretty long but it is a long boat so it doesn't look out of place. My last question is what would be the diameter of the jib boom at it's base.

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@Norgale
To clarify your questions about the spars which project beyond the bow, here's how they're described: the single large one below the jibboom is the bowsprit which terminates at the cap. The slimmer spar above is divided as inner jibboom before the cap which mounts into the bow and outer jibboom beyond the cap. Then if there is one, the flying jibboom extends beyond that.
Our investigation of this area on Glory of the Seas resulted in some fascinating discoveries. About the best images that confirms this are the 1900 port view and 1913 starboard broadside scene of the Glory of the Seas bow. Note how both round bowsprit and inner jibboom become rectangular a few feet before entering the hull. In addition the inner jibboom also slims down in order to fit into the monkey rail. That modification can best be seen in the second image. It's slightly hidden behind the sail sitting on it but it's definitely there. This design is consistent on all ships. It makes sense too. Making both spars rectangular as they enter the ship's hull prevents them from dangerously rotating and reducing the inner jibboom profile allows it to fit into the space of the monkey rail. Rob @rwiederrich can confirm all of this, if you have any questions.
Norgale said:
May has come and is mostly gone so another five months of GRing has passed. I'm up to finishing the bow now and I have the bowsprit in place but not glued. I now have to fit the jib boom in but I find no specs for that piece. Here are a couple of pictures to go with this question. I believe that the piece in place is called the bowsprit and the piece that goes over it is called the jib boom.(not shown) However I can find a mention of there being an inner jib boom and an outer jib boom. I decided that the part that sits back of the top rail is the inner boom and the part that protrudes beyond the top rail is the outer boom. Is that correct? Now the bowsprit extends 30 feet outboard which this piece does. The jib boom looks in the picture (posted by Rob) above to be about 90 to 100 feet long beyond the bowsprit. Is that correct? Looks pretty long but it is a long boat so it doesn't look out of place. My last question is what would be the diameter of the jib boom at it's base.

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Norgale said:
My plans show a small clean out hatch on each tank but I was thinking more about replacing the tank if it was ever necessary. Most likely the tank would have a cover over the top as part of the tank but I was thinking more about the deck above the tank than the tank itself. Now that I think more about it there would have to be a cover over that spot on the second deck and the top deck to remove the tank in one piece. I see no reference to such a hatch cover so I guess it wasn't there. They would have just cut a hole if they needed to replace the tanks. Maybe I'm over-thinking the situation. Ha! Pete
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@Norgale
In his illustration of twin packets Star of Empire & Chariot of Fame Donald McKay includes two water tanks. They mount in the base of the vessel, extend though all decks and end at the main deck. This can seen from light blue vertical lines in the sheer profile and corresponding half circles on the deck profile below. This answers your question about ever needing to replace these massive tanks. They could just be lifted out and replaced if the need ever arised. It most likely means their would have been hinged lids in the main deck to access them. They're positioned in between fourth and fifth vertical stanchions behind the fore mast as well as third and fourth sets behind the main mast.

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That's great stuff Clipperfan. Too bad nobody took pics like that of the GR back in the day. I can still make the rectangular parts of the bowsprit and the jib boom as what I have at the moment still needs to be sanded down to the proper dimensions and nothing is glued in yet. I scaled the jib boom off the picture above and it looks like the jib boom is 72 feet longer than the bowsprit with 22 feet as the inner jib boom. Actually my bowsprit goes further back inside the hull since bowsprits and jib booms always seem to get bumped into and broken. I'm hoping mine will be good and strong. I took a few pics today of the masts and bowsprit in place to get an idea of what the model will look like. I think I'm on the right track for the moment.However with only the mast bottoms in place I'll have to figure out how to do the tops since the masts are already up to the ceiling in my shop. Have to lower the whole thing quite a bit to finish the rigging. Thanks for your help and the pictures.
Does the jib boom look big enough in diameter?

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@Norgale
Thanks for the compliment. There's a couple well known pictures of Great Republic but they're after she had been relaunched as a three decked razee. To answer your concerns about accurate spar dimensions here's a specific list from McKay's shipyard as she was originally rigged (courtesy of Scott Bradner's well researched site). Bowsprit is 44" in diameter, 30' outboard from hull. In our Glory of the Seas research, we learned that each iron band was 3' apart, with 18" ends. That would mean 10 bands for 9 spaces equaling 27" and 18" into the hull and another 18" to outer cap for 30' total. The cap itself was 3 pieces each 6" for 18" in total. Two iron banded ends with a 6" inner piece. Inner jibboom would match 30' is 22" in diameter and extends 18' with a 4' end (add 4') Flying jibboom is 14' long including 6' end. Total for both outer jibboom and flying jib outside the cap is 36'. Counting the 30' inner that means this spar extends 67'6" including cap.

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Clipperfan; What is the "cap" and where is it located? I think I am confused with the names of all these parts. When it says " 18 feet outside the cap with 4 feet end," what does that mean? Also at the top of the chart above it says the fore mast is 44" diameter, 130 feet long and 36 feet to the mast head: what is the mast head? I thought it was the top of the mast. Apparently that is wrong.
 
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@Norgale the piece at the outer tip of the bowsprit through which the jibboom passes and below which the martingale, also known as a dolphin striker mounts is called the cap. The mastheads are similar devices at the top of each mast. The lower mast lengths for all 4 masts include the lengths below deck. There are typically two mastheads: lower mast through which the topmasts mount and top masthead through which the royal masts pass. Doubling where there's briefly two sections of masts are also referred to as hounds. Rob can recommend a good book for these old fashioned nautical terms.
 
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