Mayflower Galleon 1:100 (The pilgrims journey)

[Vortex_4200]

Originally Posted by Zathros

That's pretty cool! Think of the money you saved by not having to go to one of those family lineage websites. I followed my lineage back to those times. It stopped at some guy named Acanorex Agüeybaná Cacimar Yacahüey N(cluck)gobo III. I asked for my money back.

What is funny and weird at the same time is that my wife's best friend and I got to talking and found out she too is related to Willaim Bradford, we compaired notes and discovered that he had 2 sons and I am decendant from one and she from the other and we both are exactly 11 generations so I have found a long lost distant cousin.

[RdK]

Hi @ all!

Thanks for the kind words! It is very encouraging to hear that you like the model!

@ Vortex_4200: wow...It is already 11 generations ago since that vessel conquered the oceans! Do you have any useful information/pictures about the Mayflower other than the one you can find in the internet??

Now,...I haven't been doing much except finding a way to make deadheads in a more or less convenient way. I tried to buy some, but there are no triangular ones in the shop here. But I ordered the blocks. I really do not want to make them myself.
Then I tried to make the deadeyes out of paper and even wood, but it all ended up in quite a disaster (see pic. 1)!

Then the idea came during an afternoon nap in a dream... Why not try to use the model clay? A word (or dream) and a blow. I made 6 prototypes of the "teardrop" deadeye and now I play around with coloring and attaching to the ship. It is the most right one in pic 1. The other pics show how they look like on the model. They are not attached yet, and I did not glued them in place yet.

All together I need 84 deadeyes of which 36 are somewhat smaller than the ones I made now. In the next post I will describe the method how I make them.

So much for now...

Rgds,
RdK

[Zathros]

Your deadeyes are "dead-on". Very nice!! I have something similar from a very old sailboat, but it is with a woven steel cable on a wooden pulley, it looks remarkably similar.

[Michael Mash]

Hello Radek,
Your deadeyes look good. I think there is a lot of information available here about how various sailing ship builders make those.
Mike

[jimkrauzlis]

Great job in creating the deadeyes from clay...a wonderful technique that produces superb results...thanks for sharing that tip with all of us!

Cheers!
Jim

[RdK]

Hi @ all!

@ Mike: Thanks for the reminder. Unfortunately all the techniques on how to make them out of paper/card did not worked out for me with my clumsy climberfingers...

I looked for a method to make reproducible results. And the clay comes in very useful here. I played a little bit around with it since my last post to make it a bit better. So here a little description how I make them as well as how I mount the chains to the channel board:

Material and Method:
First I took my hand drilling machine and used the tools depicted in the first pic for sculpting a deadeye out of a wooden strip 2X5mm. Therefore I needed to buy a 0.5mm drill.
I used then this wooden deadeye to make a template in the clay. I made actually two (see pic. 2):
-one with the marks for the holes (by simly press the wooden deadeye into the clay)
-one without (by removing the marks with the tweezers after pressing the wooden deadeye into the clay)
Then I used this templates to produce each 48 pieces of deadeyes with the clay as depicted in pic 3. The clay hardens by leaving it at 130centigrade (or 266 Fahrenheit) in the oven for about half of an hour.
After cooling (a matter of minutes) I cut the half-deadeye out (see pic. 4). The piece without the marks was then glued to a c.a. 0.3mm thick card/paper, cut out and glued together with its counterpart with the marks (see pic. 5).
Then I drilled the holes using the 0.5mm drill (you can see the shadow of the drill in pic. 6 ), grounded it with the black marker and painted with brown Humbrol email (see pic 6).

That way I have a somewhat softer part in the middle, where later the wire or thread will fit in. I have no picture yet, but I tried it out. It looks good enough, definitely better than my last prototypes.

The chain was painted with the black marker (pic. 7;I know, I shouldn't remove the cover with my teeth...) and a chain link was then cut and formed with the pliers to form a loop. the length was then determined and the other end - treated in a same way, just with a little bit shorter/smaller loop - glued to a little stripe of 0.3mm card/paper (see pic. 8 & 9). The position of the chain on the hull was then determined with a drawing of the shrouds on a sheet of card/paper (see pic. 10).

I had not so much time recently, that's why I am still working on the deadeyes and the channels. And now is holiday time which means "visiting family time", so I will most probably continue in the new year.

Happy Holidays to everyone!

Rgds,
Radek

[firdajan2]

Hi Radek,

as I can see, you´re producing deadeyes......I know your feelings...

Try to look here:

papermodelers.sk • Zobrazenie témy - Papírové kladky k plachetnicím

I believe you´ll find some ideas there

Jan

[RdK]

Thx, Jan!

I saw that already and tried it the same way. Doris has amazing finger skills and control!
Unfortunately I am not so good with scissors or I just do not have the right equipment. It just did not work out for me to do the deadeyes out of paper...clumsy fingers...

Rgds,
RdK

[firdajan2]

Originally Posted by RdK

Thx, Jan!

I saw that already and tried it the same way. Doris has amazing finger skills and control!
Unfortunately I am not so good with scissors or I just do not have the right equipment. It just did not work out for me to do the deadeyes out of paper...clumsy fingers...

Rgds,
RdK

Did you read the whole comments? there´s one of mine at the end. I imroved Dorisi´s trick a little and I used no scissors just scalpel or end cutter knife. The result you can see on pictures below.

And clumsy fingers...hahaha... then you couldn´t create this beauty

Jan

[RdK]

Hi @ all!

@ Jan: The deadeyes you made for the Mary Rose are excellent! Very beautiful work! I read also your comment, but my card somehow falls appart, and I do not want to use soo much glue to "harden" it prior to drilling and cutting.

Since there is not sooo much to cut out of paper anymore for the Mayflower, I started to make a parallel build of the beautiful and very detailed PANHARD AML20 model, which I got as a present from our fellow modeler Tapcho!
Thx again very much for that, Tappi!

But here some Material & Methods of what I've done recently:
I continued during the holiday time a bit with several little details, especially the cleats (see pic 1 to 3). Then I built the bowsprit (see pic 3&4). I used a 4mm in diameter wooden piece and sanded it into shape using my hand-drill (thx Tappi for the hint! ). I painted it by slightly applying brown and yellow HUMBROL email and then rub the paint off with my fingers, leaving only enough so that the wooden fabric is still visible. The bowsprit is not glued into place yet.
I also finished the chains under the channel boards (see pic 5 & others) and currently I am doing the masts and glueing the deadeyes in place. Unfortunately I can't make any pictures because my snapshot camera somehow does not work...

Oh, by the way...I played around with the clay and started to think: What are actually catheads without a cathead? So I tried to make some 2.5x2.5mm big catheads (turned out to be 3x3mm) as decoration for the catheads (see pic 6&7). Since there are no original plans for the Mayflower, I reasoned that in this era it was not uncommon for Galleons to actually have beautiful sculptures of catheads for this piece of wood. It is not sure, though, whether the name comes from the sculptures, or the other way around. Though they might look like "dogheads" or "bearheads" (especially the larboard one), I think it was worth giving it a try...

I hope you can see my progress so far in the pictures and I hope to post towards end of January more. But first I will visit my parents for about two weeks.

So much for now, friends,
Rgds,
Radek

PS: The last picture is just a thought-provoking one from my work on the deadeyes which I did not wanted to keep back from anyone here but rather wanted to share a laughter...