Egyptian Seagoing Ship “Byblos” - 1:32 [COMPLETED BUILD]

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I want to start with a new log. In other Forum I saw how one member started with a project related with an ancient Egyptian Seagoing Ship, dated 2500 years BC. It brought to me a lot of curiosity.... so I decided to start my own.....so many steps, documents to read, CAD to build my own plans an so.

Amati has the same model, but it comes with a lot of simplifications, and from my point of view, with some mistakes....

LET’S START !!!!!!!!
 
I want to start with a new log. In other Forum I saw how one member started with a project related with an ancient Egyptian Seagoing Ship, dated 2500 years BC. It brought to me a lot of curiosity.... so I decided to start my own.....so many steps, documents to read, CAD to build my own plans an so.

Amati has the same model, but it comes with a lot of simplifications, and from my point of view, with some mistakes....

LET’S START !!!!!!!!
Hi ,I am looking forward to this build
 
First we have to know, that there is a lot of literature about the Egyptian ancient ships. I tried to gather an read as much I could. Having in consideration all those that George sent to me, plus others that really brought my attention

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Must of all are regarding/related to “river” boats or even to funerary boats. But taking in consideration the era - Fifth Dynasty - and some information collected in all these article, I came to the conclusion that all construction methods are pretty much the same for all those boats, with some differences that make the Seagoing Egyptians ships more resistentes.
 
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In the book Ships of the Pharaoh, there is chapter dedicated to this kind of ships, where based in some draws found in Sahure king tomb, where we can see a lot of details, and will help us (as they helped George) to build it as much accurately possible.

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In the log, we will be finding and building as much elements as we can
 
We can not start to build this model without talking a little bit about history.

WOOD
The wood came pretty much from Byblos ( Coast city from Lebanon). The wood found in those tombs is Cedar from Lebanon, which is a kind of coniferous, and today there are a lot of questions about the transportation method. Ships, Barges or even towed in the water. Having in consideration the drying process they have, that was slow, in open space and with natural change of temperature (avoiding damages), did not make sense that the wood came to Egypt floating on the water.

HULL
By these times, the hull structure was very heavy. Planks were sewed with ropes no nails were founded

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The discussion about keel or not keel is another story. But for this era looks like that the keel was not existed yet.



Note we will going in more detail to the hull once we start to build it
 
Let’s see some other hull elements.....not without mentioning that these information has come fromBE4C5960-BB2D-4664-B810-6DEA7CB8786A.png

As I mentioned because the era, the hull construction is the same.

Above the frames, a stanchion that support the central girder........

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Here is where we come with the ¨keel¨!!!!!..... according with the documentation the ¨first¨kell in these kind of ships were these three girders.....

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My nightmare is ¨configuring my mid in order to achieve as much detail as I can to get these details !!!!
 
¨Nightmare number one........How the stanchions are fixed to the frames?

Here the answer......book Ships of the Pharaoh

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same picture is coming with details about my “second” nightmare......How the frames are fixed to the planks.....

”Nightmare” number three......how the planks are sewed one each other?...... Well.......

We can se some “V” channels (Number 2) in the picture above....those were used to pass through the rope...so....

HOW TO MAKE THEM? If in the scale I am working on the plank width are only 4.2 mm? (In scale 1:1 are 14 - 17 cm)....... well..... we will see.....
 
PLANKS
Something we as a modeler have been custom to see, are planks that go from stem to stern....... but here that is not the case. Even though some symmetrical “appearance” is between both sides, look like the forms are completely out of any logic......

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In the picture above we can see how the planks are looking like in the Khufu ship. Let’s remember that we are talking about the same era (Fifth Dynasty) so for our model, we will be taking the same idea.

Planks were very thick piece of wood. In this case, the bottom had 8 planks, up to 7 m long and 14-16 cm thick. The sides also 14-16 cm thick but up to 23 m long.

By this time, the ships belonged to the “SHELF-FIRST” tradition. Which meant that the lateral and longitudinal strength resided in the hull. Take a look about the scarfs.....the intention behind was to increase the length of the “joint” between planks increasing the strength of the hull.

Mortice and tennos were used to align the planks

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Let’s work a little bit in the real model.....

In the Ships of the Pharaoh I found a plan/picture related to this model.

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I took it, imported the PDF to my Autocad, scaled it to 1:32........

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Based in this final plan, I went to the “frames” picture I did the same......

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Then.... I built a “ship” with false frames and false keel........all puzzle pieces in three dimensions........

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I took them apart........

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and here we go.......

with 5 mm MDF I got it!!!!!! The “mold” to start with the real construction.. 17 frames

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Very good and informative start of your building log and of your ne project.
Thumbs-Up
Many Thanks for sharing with us your new journey - so very interesting to learn something about a not well known type of vessel (I guess for most of the members)
 
After studying, making questions... and thinking how to solve the “nightmare” “V” channels ( to hold the seams). I decided to “copy” some idea that a friend of mine from Spain Vladimir Herrero had when he built his Keops....

Well it sound very simple but.... believe me it is not...... double planking..... the interior is the one that will have “all” the work....V channels (2), battens (8) and frames.04E5F62E-D744-44B4-A722-D49C0A70EDB7.jpeg

The thickness for this scale will be about 4.2 mm. So I took to lumbers 2.1mm thick with double face tape.....to make “identical“ pieces.....

But first.....and after seeing how “strange” forms those planks had.... I made a sketch of it....

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Cut the templates (double lumber jointed with double face tape)

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Adjustments....


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Separated... and we have the identical twins....

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But...... after taking it to my sight.... I realized that the planks “sketch” was out of scale.... so decided to repeat it ...... this is the new comparing with the old one....

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I
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The new one is looking better....So I decided to move forward. Using the same methodology...... this the result...

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I made these littler channel in the joints to insert the battens and in the back side I made some other channels to ”hide” the seams at the time we have to install the exterior hull.

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Very good and informative start of your building log and of your ne project.
Thumbs-Up
Many Thanks for sharing with us your new journey - so very interesting to learn something about a not well known type of vessel (I guess for most of the members)

Completely unknown for me......:oops:. But here we go learning together. Thanks for been attentive
 
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