To celebrate the 400th anniversary of the sailing of the Pilgrim Fathers (and mothers and children and animals) on the Mayflower and Speedwell from Dartmouth UK a few of the senior citizens of Dartmouth town have volunteered to create a 1/12 scale model longitudinal cutaway of the Mayflower.
We've been supported by a grant from the Dartmouth Town Council, a huge shed loaned by the Royal Navy and lots of free or discounted tools, benches etc to equip our workshop from generous suppliers. Plus, equipment, materials and time have been contributed freely by the project volunteers.
We are working from drawings of the Mayflower II, obtained from MIT. Mayflower II was built as a thank you present to the people of the United States, in the fishing town of Brixham, which is just 10 miles along the coast from Dartmouth.
We are building mainly in Mahogany and Oak.
I did not discover SOS until very recently, so sorry for not reporting the build from the start.
- Robert
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The frame for the after castle. We first worked out the dimensions of the upper half-deck by measuring key points from the plans and calculating the ratio of the new deck width against the actual model main deck width at various points. However that didn't look right at all so we relied on getting the angles of the uprights correct. That worked.
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The top deck is now finished. Made in three long sections and two small ones. Now to be fixed together with beams beneath. We've also built the skeleton of the forecastle.
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Main deck beams in place. Note the curvature in each beam. It was an act of simple genius to number the ribs and the beams - that saved lots of confusion. On the drawing note the position of the capstan and the structure of the aft castle.
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The gun deck showing the floor planking made with Mahogany planks with neoprene strips between. Note the Gun ports and the knees supporting the main deck beams. Due to the compound curvature of the hull, each knee had to be custom shaped.
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Gun deck on the workbench. The gratings were made with 10x10mm square section oak longitudinal beams into which we glued hundreds of 10mm cubes.
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Ceiling planks sanded and stained. Gun deck beams in place.
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Clamping and gluing the oak ceiling planks in place.
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Overview of the 12ft hull. At this stage we were fitting the internal ceiling planks. Note how the model is mounted on a heavy beam and board which can be tilted to enable easier access.
