Prince Frederick’s Barge

scratch built ship model, scale: 1” = 2’

hawthorne, boxwood, lancewood, apple, holly, 24-carat gold leaf with carpathian elm burl and black walnut base

8” high x 5” deep x 32” long, 32’ long, encased: 21” high x 14 1/2” deep x 42” long

SOLD

When Lloyd McCaffery set out to build the Prince Frederick's Barge, he wanted to create an accurate scale model of the barge, as restored and on display in the barge house at the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London. To accomplish this he first flew to Greenwich to spend 1 ½ months taking measurements of the barge.

 All measurements are accurate to within 1/8". To do this, a base line was stretched along the port side of the keel. Station lines were measured out along this line. Vertical and horizontal measurements were then taken from the outside bottom edge of each plank. Additional measurements were taken of de­tails, such as thwarts, carvings and oars. A reference line was then stretched from bow to stern inside the barge above the thwarts as a datum line for measurements inside the barge hull. Several hundred photographs were taken of various parts of the barge, including hull structure, thwarts, and many of the carvings. Some shots included a scale for reference when making the model.

 In McCaffery’s model, the hull is of apple, planked over a solid wood former carved to the shape of the inside of the plank. Copper nails were used, as well as glue on each plank. The carvings are all of boxwood. For the fin­ish, the appearance of the barge served as a guide for the model. The rough, time-worn appearance of the hull was copied in the sheen and worn appearances on the hull of the model, particularly about the thwarts. The starboard side of the model was gold leafed, with the port side decorations left natural finished.

 It has been said that Lloyd McCaffery is building models that challenge the standards of the greatest ship modelers in history. Through a subtle balance of color and texture among hundreds of parts, McCaffery models truly appear to be ships magically shrunk.