17th Century Frigate 1:64 scale Plank on Bulkhead

[AllanKP69]

The quarter gallery design was worrisome as the plans did not match the drawings of the ship which Van De Velde made after the ship was built. The drawings in The Master Shipwrights Secrets by Richard Endsor shows the quarter galleries as drawn by Van De Velde. In the end I went with this design versus the plans which are design drawings rather than as-builts.
Allan

 

[AllanKP69]

In no particular order, some of the details that may be interesting to some. The port stops/ linings were very thin, about 1.5 inches and set on the bottom and sides of the port, not the top. A lot of models show the stops flush with the outside of the hull planking rather than recessed the thickness of the port door. They should be installed after the outer planking is installed so it is easy to align the outboard edge even with the inside edge of the hull planking. Conversely the spirketting should not be installed until after the port stops are installed as the inboard edge of the stops are covered with the spirketting.
Allan


Moldings were made by hand using home made cutters. Old hacksaw blades can be used but I have gone with stiff back razor blades over the past few years. Some examples of my cutters are in the photo below.

 

[AllanKP69]

Deck furniture can be like having a bunch of fun little projects.

Capstans and windlasses varied in design over the years. There are a number of contemporary drawings so it is not too difficult to draw up and then make the pieces for a realistic model. Two examples are below.



Pieces cut and ready for assembly

Once the parts are glued in place I chuck the unit in a drill or lathe and file and sand to end up with a nicely rounded piece. A finsihed double capstan can be seen in the photo below.
Allan

 

[Webber007]

Hello. Are you sure this capstan is from the 17th century? The drawings you provided are 100 years later.
This one is more suitable for that time

 

[AllanKP69]

Hi Webber007
The capstans in the photos are from another model as this was meant as more of "how to" make one. The ones I made for the friggot were based on those of the contemporary models of the Mordaunt and St. Albans , (below) and drawings of Tyger all from the 17th century.
Allan

 

[AllanKP69]

The older ships often had knightheads on top of the bitt pins. Note that there are no holes in the cross pieces or any other place for belaying pins as British ships did not use them until the second half of the 18th century. The gratings are made as close to the sizes on the plans as possible followed by making the head ledges and coamings rather than making the assembly of the head ledges and coamings first. This assures that the gratings have no openings up against this frame work. The battens always run fore and aft.

 

[AllanKP69]

One of my pet peeves is seeing models with cannon and carriages that are either the wrong pattern for the era of the vessel or worse, look nothing like any cannon or carriage ever seen on a ship. The Commonwealth pattern was used in the last half of the 17th century so that is what I needed. No kit maker or after market supplier offers these so I had my own made and the price was less than half what the kit makers and after market suppliers charge for the few choices they offer.
I started by making a 2D drawing then had a friend prepare 3D drawings from these as I have no skill in preparing 3D renderings These were sent to a small 3D printer service in the US via email and I had 20 cannon that were perfect in a couple weeks for $15 including freight. Note the cypher for the time and the shape of the trunnions. NB: I have a number of 3D drawings of various British and a few Spanish patterns if anyone is in need. STL and similar extensions cannot be posted here. (at least I have not been able to )


The carriages varied greatly over the years and I tried to be attentive to the design used in the late 17th century. One of the best sources I found was a drawing of a carriage recovered from the wreck of HMS London as well as information from Brian Lavery and Adrian Caruana in their books.


Unfortunately I did not take any photos of an individual cannon or carriage before the finished model was shipped. The photo below is the best I can offer.

 

[Webber007]

Hello Allan. Do you think I drew correctly (circled in red)?

 

[AllanKP69]

Hi Anatoly
Sorry to ask ---- What year, nation, size gun is this? Train tackle was not used until sometime in the 18th century. Your drawing looks like a Commonwealth barrel but the carriage looks like one from some years later. If it is indeed in the era of the Commonwealth pattern there would be no train tackle at all as it did not come into use until about the time the Borgard or even the Armstrong pattern in the 18th century. The running out tackle and train tackle (when it came into use) were normally pairs of single blocks. According Caruana in The History of English Sea Ordnance Volume 2, page 386 only 32 pounders and above had a single and double block for both the running out tackles and for a single train tackle. not two. If this is smaller than a 32 pounder, the rigging blocks should be changed on the drawing.

The securing of the breech rope at the bulwarks varied with time as well. For the breeching, prior to about 1750 it went through a ring bolt (you show an eye bolt) in the bulwark. It was secured with a round turn and two half hitches. The tail was then seized to the standing part. If it had been secured solely with a seizing it would have torn loose when the cannon was fired and reached the end of its travel.
If you have not seen it, you might find the following interesting--> https://shipsofscale.com/sosforums/threads/making-cannon.14545/
Hope this was helpful
Allan

 

[Webber007]

Thank you. End of 17th century England. Cannon 7" (42 pounds). I will redo the drawing I realized that sliding hoists were not used in the 17th century.

 

[AllanKP69]

End of 17th century England. Cannon 7" (42 pounds).

Sounds like a Demi Cannon. This may have had two double blocks for the running out tackle. I have no doubt there were variations from ship to ship regardless of regulations.

In doing a little more research I found the London carriage shows two holes presumably for ring bolts on the rear of the carriage which would lead one to think there were two train tackles. Caruana did state that the dates surrounding the use of train tackle was not completely clear. He partially based the timing of the use of the train tackle on the Proportions of Stores which did not include train tackle in the lists he reviewed until the 19th century. But, Volume 2 that has this information was published in 1997 and the carriage from the London was brought up in 2015. If he had not passed away I am sure Mr. Caruana would have edited and commented on this information.

Photo of the London carriage below
Allan

 

[AllanKP69]

The details for me are a large part of the fun and a major cause of agita at times. At the time of the Charles Galley it was not uncommon to see lion heads painted on the inside of the gun ports. I made these starting with a lion photo that I inserted into my CAD program and then "painted" over the photo. I drew up one then used different colors to see which looked best. I printed them on silk span then glued them to the ports using matte medium.
Allan

 

[AllanKP69]

Another detail on the gun ports are the hinges. These varied in shape over the years so the pattern was the first thing I studied. Making dozens of these that are exactly the same at our scales is not easy and can be tedious so I did some 2D drawings then had 3D drawings done for these parts and had them printed in black resin

 

[Alexander74]

Another detail on the gun ports are the hinges. These varied in shape over the years so the pattern was the first thing I studied. Making dozens of these that are exactly the same at our scales is not easy and can be tedious so I did some 2D drawings then had 3D drawings done for these parts and had them printed in black resin
View attachment 457210
View attachment 457211

Not too thick? How thick is it? and on a real scale?

 

[AllanKP69]

Hi Alexander

I used the dimension for thickness based on the drawing on page 188 of Goodwin's The Construction and Fitting of the English Man of War, 1.5" At 1:64 that is 0.02" These were not tapered in thickness as described in other books. I could not find any information on the thickness tapering for ships of the 17th century, but this could have easily been done with a jewelers file or sanding stick if appropriate. To me, they appear to be a little bit too thick. For the future I would go with a 1" thick plate as called out by David Antscherl in The Fully Framed Model, Volume II, page 147 then taper the lower end by hand if it could not be done as part of the printing process.

Allan

 

[Alexander74]

Hi Alexander

I used the dimension for thickness based on the drawing on page 188 of Goodwin's The Construction and Fitting of the English Man of War, 1.5" At 1:64 that is 0.02" These were not tapered in thickness as described in other books. I could not find any information on the thickness tapering for ships of the 17th century, but this could have easily been done with a jewelers file or sanding stick if appropriate. To me, they appear to be a little bit too thick. For the future I would go with a 1" thick plate as called out by David Antscherl in The Fully Framed Model, Volume II, page 147 then taper the lower end by hand if it could not be done as part of the printing process.

Allan

Allan, good afternoon. Can I turn to your personal page with some questions about equipping the English fleet, given your knowledge of this?

 

[AllanKP69]

I look forward to your message.
Allan

 

[AllanKP69]

Making the anchors is a relatively straight forward project. I usually include the bower to the port, best bower to the starboard and if requested the two sheet anchors. For sizing them I used the proportion of weight given by Mainwaring in 1625 as this continued to be used until 1809 which would fall in line with data from Sutherland's Shipbuilding Unveiled. The weight of the largest anchor was 1/500 the designated ship tonnage. In the case of this frigate the weight was 546 tons X 0.005=21.84 cwt. I then proportioned the various parts to the chart given by Sutherland which includes ships of 625 and 364 tons. David Steel also has a user friendly chart for sizes of all parts and sizes of bower, sheet and kedge anchors for various rates of ships, which can be found at https://maritime.org/doc/steel/part3.php
I have made anchor assemblies with cast metal shank and arms as well as wood. Next up might be 3D resin printing. Cast metal anchors are in the first two photos. The anchors in the third and fourth photos are made of wood. The straps around the stock are black construction paper. I have not compared all the sources for information on anchors but in addition to Mainwaring, Sutherland and Steel, there is a wealth of information on anchors in Architectura Navalis 1768 by Chapman. One page is posted below as an example.
Allan

 

[dockattner]

Cool anchors! Very nicely done Allan!

 

[AllanKP69]

Cool anchors! Very nicely done Allan!

Thank you very much Paul, your post is sincerely appreciated.