Vol. 64, No. 4 winter 2019 352


2. The Royal Oak scene, the centerpiece of the stern carving, as it appears assembled in ZBrush. I made the king, wyvern, and horsemen (one being pulled off his horse by a triton) as separate pieces to facilitate painting.


positions are given for the top and bottom of the taffarel. Incidentally, I am with those who believe that the enormous baulk of timber seemingly shown as the taffarel in many drafts actually includes the space into which the sculptures had to be fi tted. This is like the loop that one sees in many drafts, into which the fi gurehead must go.


I found the next decision diffi cult. Of course one would want to make every detail perfect from the false keel up. However, time is so precious, especially when one is 79, that I decided to make everything


3. The stern part of Marshall’s painting of Royal Oak. It provides magnifi cent source material. By convention, the stern is turned toward the viewer, so that the port side too can be seen. Enough detail is shown for one to be able to supplement it from Classical and contemporary sources. Courtesy of The Science Museum/Science and Society Picture Library.


which would be visible on the model as authentic and precisely to scale as I could. Everything that would be hidden would be designed to facilitate construction and future conservation. On the other hand, I am happy to paint whatever was painted in the prototype.


My model is consequently unusual in that it will always be possible to divide it along the centerline, having fi rst removed the stern as a unit and likewise the beakhead bulkhead, deck, knee of the head, headrails, and so on. I am not modelling the gun deck, but the upper deck and those above can be removed and laid on my bench for planking and detailing. The upper deck divides just to port of the hatchways so that the guns with their gear can be fi tted before the hull is assembled. In addition, it will be relatively easy to plank correctly the visible parts of the inside of the hull, with hook and butt spirketting, and other details.


4. The two halves of the hull before the top timbers were added.


Because they will be permanently hidden, I made the futtocks of my frames touch each other fore and aft, paying attention to the grain in each futtock. They are now glued together and have not moved at all in the fourteen years since I began work. Initially, each of my frames was held precisely in place by pins made from aluminum tube with the diameter of


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