I'm back! I survived my recent overseas voyage, despite flooding, hydraulic ruptures, oxygen shortages, sharks, and more! Now that I've paid the bills and put food in the fridge, it's time to get back to the important stuff: building models! Not much has changed since last you saw. The hull is fiberglassed, and I began the process of filling in the large openings forward and aft of the water channel. Next up is the walls between the main deck and the gunwale, then sheeting. I also need to start on the upper-works, ie mounting the yards, making preparations for the running and standing rigging, etc. I have a couple weeks of stand-down, so it's time to get my shop back in gear and get building.
I'm afraid that trebuchet fires larger projectiles than the rules stipulate. Looking forward to see her on the water. I've been contiplating building a 1/48 Baltimore privateer for AOS. Would be a small ship as far as mounting guns go, but I doubt I'll be making it to a battle for some time so I could just build another larger ship. I've always wanted to build a sailing ship, so this idea is kinda pulling on me.
Apologies for the apparent lack of progress. I've been printing a lot Cannons for Consti, Deutschlands, etc. Only one rejected print so far, that's pretty good! I still have to do all the finishing work, but I'm waiting on springs, barrels, etc. that are on their way. I've also been waterproofing the hull, but there isn't much to show for that. More pictures when I have visible progress. Or working cannons, whichever comes first
It's a basic i3 design, same as what Tugboat and a few others have. It just took me this long to get it working nice. I am currently printing with Matterhackers 1.75mm ABS, I have several kg rolls of the stuff. After that, who knows?
I have one of those as well. Working on building a replacement for it. It worked great for a while, but she is slowly dying now. The linear bearing are getting sloppy and a few other thing aren't as they should be. I'm hoping she'll hold together long enough to finish printing the parts for a new printer.
Alack, alas! I just did a test-fit with one of the BICs, and they are too tall! While the cannons physically fit nicely into the gun-deck area, there is insufficient room for more than a few degrees of elevation change. That is far from sufficient range of motion to counteract expected heeling from the wind, so I guess these cannons will have to go into the Deutschland kits instead. Oh darn. Meanwhile, I am now printing a bunch of low-profile coil magazines, also designed by rcengr. Alas, I lack the skill to CAD these coils into nearly-complete cannons, so I will have to make my own T's, breeches, magazine caps, etc. the old-fashioned way.
Arrgh! More frustrations! My plans only show the yards in their bare, lowered position. Their actual ready-to-sail position is significantly higher. I will have to track down plans with the correct positions. I will then post an updated table of yard height data so the instructions can be updated.
After doing some test-fitting and trials, I am fairly certain now that I will have sufficient range of motion on the yards to properly work my way windward. BTW, I am now making yards. The method of attaching yards to masts is one aspect that is often glossed over in most builds. I found this quite frustrating, because I was entirely unsatisfied with previous methods used on my plastic conversions of Constitution and Victory. I wanted something much more rigid, but could find no details on either historical or model techniques. So I built this brass monstrosity. A short length of large-diameter tubing was intended to hold an oak dowel for the yard itself, with a brass wire soldered on to provide a hook to attach to the mast. This hook goes into a small tube. I initially thought to use 1/16" brass wire, but was dubious of its strength under the load of Constitution's massive topsails and courses. So I went with the next size up, a 3/32" wire with 1/8" tubing. The one yard I have mounted so far is a bit snug, but nothing a little polishing can't improve. Once it's time for rigging and painting, most of the brasswork will be tightly wrapped under heavy lines to conceal the crudity of construction. The assembly holds the course and topsail yards approximately 1" from the mast, giving it a little extra clearance to get around the standing rigging. As you can see from my test-fit, this extra clearance gives me a very wide range of motion. Perfect for pointing windward to steal the weather gage from frogs, lobsters, and corsairs alike.
After evaluating several other sets of plans and scaling measurements of yards with sails, here are the new measurements of the yards: Main Course Yard: 12.25" above deck Main Topsail Yard: 26.25" above deck (14" above Main Course) Main Topgallant Yard: 34.875" above deck (8.625" above Main Topsail) Main Toproyal Yard: 40.1875" above deck (5.3125" above Main Topgallant) Fore Course Yard: 11" above deck Fore Topsail Yard: 23.5625" above deck (12.5625" above Fore Course) Fore Topgallant Yard: 31.625" above deck (8.0625" above Fore Topsail) Fore Toproyal Yard: 36.875" above deck (5.25" above Fore Topgallant) Mizzen Course Yard: 11" above deck (note: Constitution did not carry a sail on the Mizzen Course Yard, that area was used for the Spanker sail) Mizzen Topsail Yard: 23.3125" above deck (12.3125" above Mizzen Course) Mizzen Topgallant Yard: 29.875" above deck (6.5625" above Mizzen Topsail) Mizzen Toproyal Yard: 34.3125" above deck (4.375" above Mizzen Topgallant) Spanker Lower Boom: 2" above deck Spanker Upper Boom: 10.75" above deck
