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.
 
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