17th Century Battle Station

[mrshanks]

Here are a few more pictures from today of all of the parts for Dave's model that will be shipping to him tomorrow. Also is a mock up of one of the final versions of the outer bulwarks with the various woods wiped down with mineral spirits. Enjoy.

 

[Uwek]

A beautifull set of Parts......Great work....-and most of the work is done....

 

[DocBlake]

Mike and I have our kits...Don will have his shortly. That means we'll begin our build logs soon. This is going to be fun!

 

[Uwek]

Mike and I have our kits...Don will have his shortly. That means we'll begin our build logs soon. This is going to be fun!

Does this mean, that we can expect three logs? Would be great......

 

[DocBlake]

Absolutely Uwe, 3 separate logs. I expect each will be a little different from the others.

 

[DocBlake]

Mike milled the frames before I could let him know of an option we could include. Looking at Goodwin's book "The Construction and Fitting of the English Man of War ,1650-1850" the frames would have been bolted together, with a prominent scarf joint just below the level of the weather deck . The first photo from Goodwin's book shows the layout. The second is what I plan to do with the exposed frames: a simulated scarf joint and bolts. The question is, how big would those bolt heads have been? Goodwin gives no clue, and I couldn't find the answer in Steel's book either. Anyone hazard an educated guess?

 

[DocBlake]

In the end, I'll probably just go with whatever pleases the eye. It's pretty much what I did for the scarf location

 

[mrshanks]

FYI... there are also a couple of bolts on the forward side of the lower deck beam where the Knee (Part K) attaches.

 

[Uwek]

In scale 1:48 I try usually to make the nail head between 0,5mm to max 0,8mm, sometimes for deck planking 0,35mm. The rule by Boudriot is, that the head should be max 1/4 of the thickness of the timber fixed......I would suggest to try 0,5 and 0,8 and decide what is looking best....

 

[Dave Stevens (Lumberyard)]

I have several drawings for bolts and drift pins for wooden ship building I will look through my archives and see if I can find more of the drawings dated circa 1800

if I remember correctly J. Humphrey may have given specs for the bolts in his day book

 

[Dave Stevens (Lumberyard)]

just a quick peek I found several references to bolts. Now I see why a scale or dimensions are not on the drawing it is because the specs are in the text.

if you read through all of the text you may find references to bolts and their sizes once you know the dia. then you can figure out the head and nut sizes off the drawings.

 

[Dave Stevens (Lumberyard)]

well it is better than just a random guess at least this is a historical reference to using bolts in wooden ship building.

if you want to go through this page by page Model Ship Builder has a transcribed version

 

[DocBlake]

Thanks Dave! I checked out Humphrey's notebook. For a vessel of 50 guns, 1-1/4" bolt diameter was specified. Base on modern bolt head to shaft ratios, the bolt head would have been about 2" in diameter. Answers my question!

 

[Dave Stevens (Lumberyard)]

happy to have been a help

 

[DocBlake]

I added the scarfs and the bolts to the two outermost frames

 

[DocBlake]

In looking at the frames above you notice the difference in the color of the cherry between the two. This is fairly typical of cherry. Since these two frames are a focal point, I want to make sure that they look similar. I use a special stain mix of standard and gel cherry stain on full sized furniture. It works great even on lighter cherry sapwood. I think I’ll give the frame on the left a swipe!

 

[DocBlake]

In view of our commitment to no paint or stain, I coated the pieces with boiled linseed oil which will darken cherry, including sapwood. Picture when dry.