Dutch Fluit Schwarzer Rabe, 1627 - Shipyard 1/96 by catopower

[catopower]

Thanks for all the tips on building the next hull, guys. We'll see what I end up doing after this. I'm primarily a wood ship modeler and I do a fair amount of scratch building. When I build a kit, it's mostly so I don't have to do a whole lot of research. Also, I build kits to study them and write about the experience, since I do some work in the industry. So, I'll plan on sticking with kits here for now, unless I get too frustrated with their design.

Of course, that doesn't mean I can't make modifications, as long as they aren't too complicated. I do that with wooden ship model kits all the time.

Ab, I'm curious about your gratings comments. Given that this model has 8 cannons on the lower deck, wouldn't they need some additional ventilation to clear out the smoke during battle? Of course, if gratings were never used, it would make sense to replace them. Then, how did they deal with the lack of light and ventilation below the main deck during combat?

Thank you both for the comments on the chesstrees. I think the term is appropriate. The kit is made to represent them with sheaves. But, there's no reason I have to make them this way. In fact, it's far easier to make each with a simple hole than to try to include a simulated sheave.

Bob, I really didn't have any trouble with the hull of the Alert. I think the extra layer of clinker planking really made a big difference in that build. Here are some photos of mine. I really enjoyed this build. Again, the kit isn't perfect, but the model seemed to turn out quite nicely. I used brass barrels for the cannons and Swiss pear blocks. I had the model on display at a ship model conference, and everyone kept asking me what kind of wood I used to build the model.

[Bob Hunt]

Your Alert looks great Clare. I'll get back to mine, someday that is.

I'm not in total agreement with Ab on the item I called a chestree. Ok, if if looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it must be a duck. If the kit says to put a sheave in it, then it's a chesstree, plain and simple.

From a practical standpoint, a rope just passing through a hole in a piece of wood does not sound like a good idea. Considering that the piece of wood is always exposed to the rain, splashing seawater, swelling up from soaking the water and shrinking from being in the sun all the time, I don't think it would be reliably usable. That's why they invented sheaves because those ropes have to move and move freely. You can call it whatever you want but to me, I'll call it a chesstree simply because it has a sheave in it. Ships changed over the years as new ideas and new technology came along.

Take care,

Bob

[Bob Hunt]

I found this information on Dutch Chesstrees on agesofsail.net:

Chesstree: A timber fitted on the outside of the hull, just below the gunwale. It had one or more holes with internal rollers or pulleys through which the main tack or sheets were hauled from within board.

Here's a drawing of a Dutch fashion chesstree ornamented with overlapping scales. Notice that the image appears as a hole through the chesstree but the reference says that there were internal rollers or pullieys inside, i.e. an early form of a sheave.

Here's the link to the website: Ship & Shipbuilding Terminology - Advanced Search: chesstree

Bob

[Michael Mash]

I don't have the sail vessel construction expertise that Ab and Bob have . . .
But I can tell you this really looks wonderful.
Mike

[catopower]

Hi Michale, thanks for the supportive comments. It certainly makes building the model more enjoyable!

Hi Bob, I'll leave you and Ab to the crosstrees question. As for this model, I'm guessing that the ones in the kit may not be correct for the ship type or era. But, that's okay. I'm satisfied building the kit mostly "as is" but learning what was correct and not correct as I go.

With wooden ship models, I can't leave kits alone and am always having to "improve" on them. I haven't reached that state with paper models, and perhaps that's one reason I consider them so fun to build – I don't have strong desires to "accurize" them, at least not yet. That will probably change in time. Then, I might be more apt to try some paper model scratch building.

[abhovi]

Clare: About the gratings: The basic question is how the internal arrangement of fluits was worked out. Basically the type was designed as a freighter. Taking many guns aboard diminished the loading capacity, for which reasons most fluits (if armed at all) carried no more than 4 guns. The lower deck, in men-of-war a real living space, was in the fluit just a low compartment to store goods that had to stay dry. Gratings were useless there. Of course often times the type was adapted to the purpose it was used for. An example is the heavily armed fluit we see in my illustration in post #39. probably the drawing was made because of the exceptional ordnance of the ship. Looking at the Schwarze Rabe I don't see much logic in the spreading of guns. But enough is said about the reliability of the kit.

Bob: as usual I base my comments on the available literature and on original models. To the left the only drawn example of a chesstree we have, made by Witsen (1671). This is an illustration from my book, with my 'modern' interpretation to the right.



You are right about the obvious lack of practical use without a sheave, but hey, the same thing we can say about the absence of an engine. Not very practical, hm? :-).
The subject becomes even more mysterious if we look at the rope, the tack itself. It was made in a way that the thickest end was at the sail and the thinnest end entered the ship. Don't know how they made such a rope or why it was done that way, but we have sufficient proof for the correctness of this observation.
Modelbuilding will always bring up questions. That's why it's such an interesting hobby.

[catopower]

Well, I finished attaching the last of the thick strakes, and am much happier with the appearance of the model with these in place. The next steps will be to add the lapstraked bulwarks planking near the stern. Here, I ran into a slight snag.

I had built these planks up to 0.5mm thickness, like most of the planking parts, but it turns out they are only supposed to be half that thickness. In fact, they didn't need any backing layers at all. I considered some options, including just mounting them as is, thick and all. But, wanted to stick as much as possible with the model as designed. I actually managed to remove the backing layers on one set of pieces, but kind of ran out of patience to do the other set.

I considered copying them, but my all-in-one printer is B&W. Another alternative was just to get another kit, being that these kits are cheap in comparison to the wooden kits I'm accustomed to. Then, I realized that these parts were likely just printed on a color laser printer and there's a FedEx Office about 3 blocks from my house. So, I went over there this morning, bought a couple sheets of 60lb paper and copied the necessary parts. They look perfect, and I'm ready to proceed.

But, in the meantime, there are some after-market laser cut and etched decorative parts that I figured I'd get ready by painting them. The kit shows these as gilded carvings, but it seemed more correct to paint them some shade of yellow. I ended up taking equal parts of yellow ochre and cadmium yellow, and the result is fairly bright yellow color, but the yellow ochre tones it down a notch. More on this later.

[Philip]

What wonderful artistry you possess, Clare.

[catopower]

Hello Philip, very kind of you, sir!

So, I started planking those upper strakes near the stern and I was on a roll, so I didn't end up stopping until I was done with that step. The new parts worked very well

I love the way these ships had lapstraked planking in certain areas.

Anyway, I also included a photo of the beakhead where the scrollwork is that I just painted. That's the color I figure on using for all the decorative work. It's not too bright, which I think goes with the scaled look of the model.

Next steps, based on the instruction sheets is to add the bow cheeks, then some of the port covers and mouldings onto the hull. After that, there are the timberheads, railings, and catheads. That's as far as the step-by-step photo instructions go. After that, it's kind of a free for all!

At that point, I assume I'll be following the general sequence of the part numbers, as well as logical steps.

[birder]

Very nice hull, great