Elizabethan merchantman - photos

The hull is almost complete and its time to start rigging! The forward sheave post is inside the forecastle, with the fore halyard and lift rising out of an opening in the forecastle deck. It has to be set up before the deck can be installed.

Brian Lavery's rigging plan for Susan Constant shows the plan here, but I'm wondering how high the halyard would rise (half up the mast? not even out of the forecastle?) and what type of thread - maybe something sturdy, given its use?

[edit] Now I see - the lifts need to be at least long enough to allow the yard room to lower to the deck, so its calculation based on the mast size. But it does look that the "rope" size would be sturdy enough to support the weight of the yard, and it does not look like it would be tarred.

Here are some shots, thanks to my friend Marc, whose hosting them. Sorry about the light quality!

The masts are painted and dry fitted at this point.



Here is a detail of the stern, showing the new ribs where the poop cabin was. The deck has not been glued, and the leaded glass windows need to be installed.



Here is a detail of the bow. The plastic ship's bell was removed and a brass HO or S scale locomotive bell will be hung in its place. Then the cap can go on.



This is my first ship build, and I can see where I need to improve in a lot of areas, so thanks for all the advice and direction.

Woodburner....

Maybe looking at these will help?

http://gallery.drydockmodels.com/mayflower 

 

Jeff 

Oooppppsss....Forgot!

She looks fantastic!

I love the photos...Lighting is just fine IMHO! 

 

Jeff 

Great going so far. Can you tell us how you painted the hull,, did you use a stain?. It looks most conviencing.

Jeff, Thanks for the link and comments, the photos are really great!

Dick, the hull is painted with a yellow ochre (I used model railroad paints, since thats what I normally do) made from acrylic "depot buff" followed by a wash or two of acrylic Tester's wood mixed with reefer grey. Then it was given a turp and oil wash of burnt umber mixed with small amounts of black and white to grey it a bit. I wiped the paint off with a paper towel, and Revell's planking detail did the rest.

I discovered that acrylic paints put into still wet oil/turp washes will absorb pigment, giving a neat weathered effect, although I didnt really use it to good effect here.

The upperworks are mineral red, engine black and a greyish color made from reefer grey and wood. The yellow stripes are HO scale switcher safety stripe decals, with a clearcoat, and a very thin oil/turp wash afterwards to tone them down. The weathering at the lower part of the stripe is a grey felt tip art pen with a q-tip wipe. I also used the pens to mark iron work, etc., and you can mix colors to create rust, patina, etc. The masts are Tamiya wood deck tan, PollyScale engine black, and a washes and wipes of railroad tie brown, all acrylics.

I have a long ways to go and want to do a better, finer and less thick surface on the next ship, but this one is a lot of fun. The thing I have to get better at is decking

Thanks, Jim

Keep it up Jim...She's gonna be fantastic!

And 'More Pic's as you progress please!'

 

 

Jeff 

Nice work!

Jim

 That is very nice.Your wood effect is super.Keep us up dated on your build.

Rod

I had to look twice on that 'wood' hull- WOW! I look forward to seeing her finished.

I went to see which Mayflower model I had and found that it was an Arfix model.   Does anyone have an idea if this is a reasonable example of a generic, small galleon of the late 16th/ early 17th century?

 

Thanks for your comments,

 Richard

The Airfix Mayflower is a nice kit.  To my eye, at least, it's thoroughly believable.  It differs quite a bit from the Mayflower II, but Professor Baker, the latter's designer, would be the first to emphasize that any reconstruction of a ship from that period involves so much guesswork that there's no such thing as a "definitive reconstruction."

The term "galleon" is a little tricky.  We discussed the problem in another thread recently; here's the link:  /forums/1/723445/ShowPost.aspx#723445

As the term was usually applied, no reconstruction of the Mayflower qualifies as a "galleon" because she wasn't a warship.  The only plastic kits on the market that do fit the usual definition, to my knowledge, are long extinct:  the Imai "Spanish Galleon" and the two Airfix versions of the Revenge.  (One was a tiny little kit that originally was sold in a plastic bag; the other, about 18" long, is a basically sound one, though rather basic in terms of detail.  It's been out of production for quite a few years, but can still be found.)

The word "galleon," however, was used so casually that it would be unreasonable to put too fine a definition to it.  I've run across the term "merchant galleon" more than once.

The two kits you definitely want to avoid, if you're interested in what the ships in question actually looked like, are the big Revell "Spanish Galleon" and "Elizabethan Man-of-War."  They date from the mid-seventies, a particularly dark period in Revell's history when the company was fighting to stay in business.  Those two kits, as Revell took pains to emphasize in its trade advertising, were designed for interior decorators rather than serious modelers.  (According to Dr. Graham's fine history of Revell, the "research" for them was done in the library of a Hollywood movie studio.)  They have identical hulls and many other parts - and neither, by most reasonable definitions, qualifies as a scale model.

Woodburner - that's a beautiful model.  The "wood grain" effect is spectacular, and the removal of the uppermost deck level gives the ship a completely different - but eminently believable - character.  The only suggestion I'd offer so far would be to come up with a different method to mount the finished model.  That stand provided in the kit just doesn't do it justice.

Thanks for all the comments, they are really encouraging especially since this is my first ship build.  I hope I can do a better job on the next one!  I'm away from my desk this week for business, and am looking forward to getting back home and going onto the next step, which will be rigging, starting with the fore halyards.

Professor, I'm glad you find the lower stern acceptable; because this particular kit had been badly stored and damaged, I took the opportunity to lower the stern, something I probably would not do on a kit in better condition.  It did turn out well, which is credit to William Baker - and a great relief, too. 

The planking detail credit is all Revell's - its beautifully done and the oil wash just lets it show up to its best advantage.  I'd really like to build this again, and work on my skills to do this really right. 

The Airfix Golden Hind, on the other hand, will need a bit more sugury and modifications.  I've already removed the carved hind, but now I see that the transom board above it is far too high and arched to be representitive of English ships in the 1570s.  I think Airfix looked to Vasa for inspiration here, a nice idea and thoughtful, but unfortunately the wrong era and national tradition.  So the high arch along with its "carved" coats of arms will have to go and a lower transom board with an additional rail and a low camber more like that on Matthew Baker's "fish drawing" will replace it.  The side rails along the poop deck arc upwards towards the stern  - I'm wary of that, maybe only from not seeing it in contemporary images.  I'll even out the rails so they maintain an equal distance from the rail below it, again like the Baker drawings.

 

Glad its all coming along - I could not have gotten this far without everyone's ideas, the Professor's knowlage and Millard's oil washes to look for for inspiration.   

jtilley wrote:

The only plastic kits on the market that do fit the usual definition, to my knowledge, are long extinct:  the Imai "Spanish Galleon" and the two Airfix versions of the Revenge.  (One was a tiny little kit that originally was sold in a plastic bag; the other, about 18" long, is a basically sound one, though rather basic in terms of detail.  It's been out of production for quite a few years, but can still be found.)

Airfix Revenge is still extinct Professor, but the Spanish Galleon is not. It's currently being produced by Aoshima from original molds, who bought them after Imai's last bankruptcy. You can see the whole range in http://www.hlj.com/hljlist2/?Maker1=AOS&MacroType=NavKit&GenreCode=Nav&Dis=2

and Jim, you are doing a fantastic job, keep it going !

That's good new indeed, Kapudan.  The old Imai sailing ship kits, in Aoshima boxes, seem to have been trickling into the lists of American mail order hobby shops over the past year or so.  The whole range doesn't seem to be available (yet), but there are some mighty nice kits on that list.  I particularly recommend the 1/120 Cutty Sark, which, in my opinion, is the most accurate replica of that ship ever in kit form - plastic, wood, or otherwise.

One that's conspicuous by its absence from the list is the Imai 1/200 U.S.C.G.C Eagle.  That appears to be the only Eagle kit ever that wasn't based on the wrong plans.  (We've discussed that curious situation on several other threads.)

On a less optimistic note, I see that, on the Japanese site to which Kapudan kindly linked us, all of the ex-Imai sailing ships are marked either "out of stock" or "back-ordered."  I wonder just what's going on here.  It looks to me like anybody who's interested in acquiring any of those kits had best grab it in a hurry.

jtilley wrote:

On a less optimistic note, I see that, on the Japanese site to which Kapudan kindly linked us, all of the ex-Imai sailing ships are marked either "out of stock" or "back-ordered."  I wonder just what's going on here.  It looks to me like anybody who's interested in acquiring any of those kits had best grab it in a hurry.

Don't worry professor, it isn't another closing of production line As you see, their price is fairly high and considering how limited is the sailship builders community, they don't have the level of admirers as Tamiya or Dragon 1/35 series do. As this is the case, hlj staff don't stock them in their regular depot, instead they order one or two right from the company when an order is placed. It usually gets ready in a couple of weks. İndeed, the backordered Spanish Galleon you see on the link is a result of my latest order

I would be interested in 2 or 3 "Sprues of the 1/100th figures!" that they had.

Would go great with my 'Heller Victory'.

Sad to see any line of models go out of production.

 

 

Jeff 

 

I'm amazed at how you've made the plastic look like wood!  I'm bookmarking this thread so I can try what you have done here.

Great job!  Can't wait to see it finished!

Back on the Imai kits again - I see Squadron Mail Order (www.squadron.com) lists about half a dozen of them (under the Aoshima label).  The "Spanish Galleon" and Cutty Sark are among them.  Go to "search," then specify "ship models" and "Aoshima."

All of them except one are priced at $136.00 apiece.  (The exception is one of the big Japanese sail training ships, which is even more expensive.)  If you're actually going to build such a kit and really do it justice - which, in the case of something like the Cutty Sark, would mean over a year's work - that's not a bad investment (compared to the prices of other leisure-time activities).  I have to say that for me personally, with a mortgage, car payment, kid's student loan, etc., etc. to worry about, and in view of the fact that I wouldn't get to the it for a long time, it's out of the question.  But I'd urge any real, scale sailing ship model enthusiasts who can afford it to grab at least one of those kits while you can.  There's just no telling how long they'll be available.

Oh heavens...To much on my plate now. Cant' really put any more there.

I just remember they(Imai?) used to sell those " 1/100th scale sailors" seperate.Those I have room for. 

 

Jeff 

I've built the fore halyard and lift, since it goes beneath the forecastle deck and is a great place to make mistakes before I go onto the others, which are visible on the decks. I used two sizes of thread per Anderson's recommendation, and did a test rig of the lifts in a way to suggest sheaves on the mast.

Now its time for all the tiny stuff on the masts and yards - parrels, etc. It seems logical to do this before the shrouds go on, and while the masts can lie flat on the workbench. My question is this - do the parrels fit within the yard cleats, and if so, do they go inside or outside of the lifts? I'd like to get all of this done before the masts are fitted into place.

The only other thing worthy of note so far is that I painted the "ropes" with water-thinned acrylic paint to tone them down and see if it "scales" them, and it does seem to help. Since nothing is fitted tight yet, its hard for me to see if they will shrink and tighten up as I've read elsewhere in discussions here.

Its amazing - rigging really seems to breathe life into this build.

Thanks for the ideas and suggestions, Jim

I'm having trouble understanding the questions.  I think there may be a vocabulary problem - perhaps a confusion between the words "lift" and "tye."

A yard normally (there are plenty of exceptions) has three pairs of cleats on it.  (The "cleat," I'm referring to, in this case, is a shaped chunk of wood that's nailed to the yard - not the T-shaped fitting that rigging lines are secured to.)  Two big cleats, usually referred to as "sling cleats," (that's the term James Lees and Brian Lavery use to describe them) are nailed to the front of the yard near its center, the distance between them being equal to 1/4 the diameter of the yard.  (Mr. Lees is talking specifically about warships, but it seems safe to assume that a merchant vessel's yards would be similar.  Mr. Lavery seems to have made that assumption.)  The "yardarm cleats" were nailed to the fore and aft sides of the yard, one pair at each end.  (The word "yardarm" is one of the most frequently misused in the nautical idiom.  A yardarm, or yard arm, is the outermost portion of a yard.  Mr. Lees says "the yard arm during all periods was one twenty-fourth the length of the yard."  I think it may have been a bit more complicated than that, but the point is that each yard has two yardarms - one at each end.  And the inboard end of the yardarm is defined by the yardarm cleat.)

A "halyard" (or "halliard") is a heavy line that's attached to the center of the yard, and is used to haul the yard up and down the mast.  (Strictly speaking, in the case of a large yard the job is usually done by a tackle consisting of two ropes.  The one that's actually secured to the yard is called the "tye."  It has a block of some sort in its lower end; the "halyard" connects that block with another one on the deck or in the channel.)  A "lift" is a line leading from the yardarm to the masthead.  (Each yard has two lifts - port and starboard.)  The purpose of the lift is to keep the yard horizontal, or, under certain circumstances, to tilt, or cant it.  The end of the lift (or, in the case of a large yard, the block through which it leads) is slipped over the yardarm, and is prevented by the yardarm cleat from sliding inboard.  If there's a sail above the yard in question (i.e., in the case of the lower yard), the lift block is usually stropped together with that sail's sheet block.  (Mr. Lees suggests that, up to about 1660, there were in fact two pairs of cleats at each yardarm - one pair to keep the lift and sheet blocks from sliding inboard, and one pair to keep them from falling off when the yard was canted, as it frequently was in those days.  That arrangement is shown in Mr. Lavery's book on the Susan Constant - p. 107, drawing I7.  On p. 110 of the same book he shows the lifts; they're numbered 2 and 7 in drawing J7.)

The tye, or halyard, is secured to the middle of the yard - between the sling cleats.  In some variations two lines, or both ends of the same line, would be secured there - both inside the sling cleats.  They're shown in Mr. Lavery's drawing J7, though that drawing is a little hard to follow.  Drawing J1 shows the tye and halyard arrangement pretty clearly - with both ends of the tye secured to the yard.  Put J1 and J7 together and you've got it.

The parrel is a simple gadget that holds the yard to the mast - as shown in Mr. Lavery's drawing J6.  (To my eye the ribs in that drawing are too thin, but the principle is clear - bearing in mind that the trucks are omitted.)  The locations where the parrel ropes are attached to the yard are determined by the diameter of the mast.  They have to be set up in such a way that the parrel trucks roll on the mast.

I've whined more than once about the failure of Heller, in its large-scale sailing ship kits, to represent the parrels.  (The Heller H.M.S. Victory and Soleil Royal kits make no provision whatever for fastening the yards to the masts.  Apparently they're just supposed to sort of hang there.)  In fact the parrel is a crucial part of the ship's propulsion machinery.  The wind fills the sail, the sail pulls the yard, and the yard uses the parrel to pull the mast.  The mast, by way of the standing rigging as well as its own connection to the fabric of the hull, pulls the ship.

Off the top of my head I can only think of one plastic kit that makes even an effort to represent the parrels accurately:  the Airfix Wasa.  Revell usually used "snap rings" or other simple devices to hold masts to yards.  (At least they were fastened together somehow.)  It strikes me that molding a parrel, with individual ribs and trucks, wouldn't actually be at all impractical on any reasonably large scale - but to my knowledge no plastic kit manufacturer has tried it.  The aforementioned Wasa, as I remember it, has passable representations of parrels molded integrally with the masts.

I guess every modeler has his/her own preference when it comes to the sequence of rigging.  My own usual preference is to set up the masts, then the standing rigging, then the yards - but that's certainly not the only way to do it.  What is important is to rig the standing rigging - specifically the shrouds, stays, topmast shrouds, and backstays - before installing any parts of the running rigging that depend on the masts being lined up right.  If you install much of the running rigging before the shrouds and stays are in place, the running rigging will go slack when the standing rigging is set up.

I'm not sure whether I've answered the questions or not - but I hope all that helps at least a little.  Good luck.

I know I will probably get this wrong....But here goes....

"Now its time for all the tiny stuff on the masts and yards - parrels, etc. It seems logical to do this before the shrouds go on, and while the masts can lie flat on the workbench. My question is this - do the parrels fit within the yard cleats, and if so, do they go inside or outside of the lifts? I'd like to get all of this done before the masts are fitted into place."

I think this what you meant?

 

 

Jeff 

CODY614 has provided a good, clear shot of a parrel, taken from the aft side.  It shows how the parrel ropes are attached to the yard - the distance between them being slightly greater than the diameter of the mast.  The sling cleats aren't visible in the picture because they're on the forward side of the yard.

The "hook" shape of the sling cleats (prominent in Mr. Lavery's drawing G19, p. 98) accommodates the parrel ropes.  They go around the yard between the sling cleats. 

In CODY614's photo, the parrel ropes seem to be a little slack; the yard, suspended by the halyard (which isn't visible because it's blocked from view by the mast), is a little higher up the mast than the parrel is.  When the halyard took the weight of the yard, the parrel sagged a little.

The lifts and their blocks aren't in the photo; they're way out on the ends of the yard, to the right and left of the photo.

The ship in the photo has a feature that isn't right for an early-seventeenth-century vessel: a pair of footropes.  They hadn't been invented yet.  I suspect this replica vessel (I gather it's the Mayflower II) has had them added as a safety feature.

I am surprised by Dr Tilley's observation that early ships had no footropes. How did they ever work on the yards without them? I am not questioning his veracity, it's just that my poor mind can't conceive of a yard without footropes.

It does indeed seem remarkable - but there's not much room for doubt about it.  There's some room for debate as to exactly when the footrope made its appearance, but it pretty clearly wasn't until sometime well into the seventeenth century.  Dr. Anderson and Mr. Lees both discuss this point in some detail. I don't have either of those books in front of me at the moment (I can look them up when I get home this evening), but as I recall they agree that the footrope initially appeared on the lower yard - with no stirrups - and later showed up on the topsail and topgallant yards.

Old master paintings from the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries show men crawling out along the yards to handle the sails and rigging.  (Quite a trick - but those guys were in the habit of doing things that were otherwise regarded as the work of circus performers.) 

I think part of the explanation of how they did it is also connected with the configuration and proportions of the sail plan at the time.  Remember that, in the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuriess, each yard typically was only half as long as the one below it.  I've talked about this with a friend of mine who's in charge of the three replica ships at Jamestown (all of which do have footropes, as a safety feature).  In the biggest of those three ships, the Susan Constant (which, admittedly, is quite a bit smaller than a navy galleon of the period), the main topsail yard is so short that a person standing in the top can almost reach the end of the yard with an outstretched hand.  And the fore topsail yard is extremely skinny; I'm not at all sure it could take the weight of more than two men - and if the ship were rolling, thereby changing the effective weight on the yard with each roll, even one guy might manage to break it.  In those days it the operation of furling the topsails consisted largely of gathering them up into big, vertical bundles that were lashed to the topmast doublings.  The guys who man the Susan Constant routinely do that without bothering to go out on the yard. 

All that notwithstanding, it does seem strange that it took so long for somebody to invent the footrope.  The idea would seem to be utterly obvious - but apparently it wasn't.

Jeff, you got it right, thats a beautiful shot of parrels - and it has five ribs instead of the the nine shown in Brian Lavery's diagram, which is good news for my clumsy fingers. Looking at it, it appears the parrels are fitted to the yard within the space of the ties, and definitely within the center yard cleat on the Revell model. Thanks!!

Professor,

Many thanks for your replies and thoughts - I indeed meant to say "tie" instead of "lift." I think I confused the terms in Brian Lavery's book on Susan Constant, which shows topmast yards held up with lifts on page 108, diagram J2, which perform the same service as the ties in diagram J1. Of course I'm at the stage of diagram J1 . . . . . . . and far from J2. . . and learning not to take for granted that the same name will be used on all parts of a single mast. (But thinking ahead, it also appears that the topsail halyard and tie is only used on one side of the mast, which is good to know.)

The diagrams of halyard and tie rigging are extremely useful. I used two sizes of thread here, since its shown in the diagrams and Anderson mentions halyards as generally 2/3 the size of the tie. Its also good to see how the halyards are attached to the knighthead, which was a trick I didnt figure out on the first one - fortunately its below the forecastle deck and not visible.

Revell's cleats on the yard centers are a single peice, which requires threading through. The yards themselves are mounted to the masts with either large sections of plastic that fit within the mast (and hold the yard away from the mast by about a scale foot or two), or semi-circular rings which sort of snap onto the topmasts. I had to ream out the latter in order to set the topsail yards lower down for a furled sail position, and even here they are not as low as they might prototypically have been. I attached them to the mast in bare plastic prior to painting after some thought, mostly since being a newbie, I had enought basic stuff to worry about without wiggly yards.

Thanks for the advice on the order of rigging!!! I thought it would be good to get the stuff closest to the mast done, but after reading what you wrote, I wiggled the foremast slightly and boom, the ties went slack and looked terrible. They are not permanently attached yet, so I'll take them down and wait until the shrounds, etc. are on.

It would be great if the kits included the parrels, I wish they did. Blue Jacket has beads, and ModelExpo has bead & rib sets, but at five dollars a pop for the latter, I'll just make some of my own.

The blocks are taken from a "Bougle" (bounty/beagle) kit I got last year and put aside in disgust when I realized it was a total fraud. I'm stealing parts from it for various things and it does have some decent blocks which are small enough to fit without causing much mischief. There is only one hole, but the Revell knighthead has only one hole as well, so any hope of accurate sheaves is pretty much moot. Running thread around two or three times does give the impression, which is good. The Bougle blocks also have a eyebolt type thing on the top, similar to what Brian Lavery shows in his diagram, which is a huge relief. I have thirty of them (well actually 29 now) but I know I'll have to break down and get real blocks sooner or later.

The absence of foot ropes is a very distinctive feature for this period of time, and the Texel diorama shows sailors swarming over the yards without them, sort of scooting along the yard tops.

I do believe we've discovered a small, but potentially confusing, typographical error in Mr. Lavery's book. Drawing J2, on p. 108, is titled "Topsail Halyard and Tie."  But the numbered key doesn't include the word "Tie."  If "2. Lift" is changed to "2. Tie," everything makes sense - and the drawing agrees with the terminology on pp. 34 and 35 of the text.  (Both spellings, "tie" and "tye," seem to have been common.)

My usual practice is to secure each yard to its mast with a short piece of stiff wire, superglued into holes running most of - but not quite all - the way through the yard and the mast.  That arrangement holds the parts together firmly, and when the parrel and other gear are in place the deception is completely invisible.

If you're thinking in terms of buying aftermarket blocks eventually, you'll probably be happier if you start buying them now.  (There's no need to buy the ship's whole outfit at one time.)  The Revell blocks look a whole lot different from anything offered by the aftermarket firms; if you use Bluejacket blocks (my personal favorites) for some of the rigging, the Revell ones will stick out like sore thumbs.  This sort of thing is, of course, entirely up to the individual modeler, but it seems a shame to give such a fine looking hull anything less than a first-rate job of rigging.

When I got home from the office I looked up "footropes" in Dr. Anderson's book.  He devotes about three pages to the subject, and frankly admits that he doesn't know just when the footrope initially appeared - or how widespread its use was at any given moment prior to the late seventeenth century.  Dr. A. says the first evidence of their use dates from 1642.  He then describes how they're rigged on several contemporary models dating from various times in the seventeenth century, and coming from several countries.  The bottom line seems to be that footropes were unknown prior to the 1640s, became increasingly common through the rest of the seventeenth century, and were in common, if by no means universal, use by 1720 or thereabouts.  One wonders how many seamen were lost overboard prior to that time who might have been saved if somebody had thought up the idea of the footrope sooner.