Much like the lower deck fixtures / furniture, the upper deck fixtures are very prominent aspects of the build and easily visible even to the casual observers. Given that, I wanted to take extra care to add some additional accuracy to the build. The binnacle is a key element here. It’s essentially a large cabinet situation by the helm / ships wheel and provides navigation tools – specifically a pair of compasses and a lamp to illuminate them in the dark.
Here’s the thing – there are a lot of variations of binnacles out there even within the same time frame. I wanted to build something that’s accurate to the late 1700s, but it’s also a chance to add some ‘artistic flare’ to the aesthetic. Eventually I settled on a couple of options based on my research – the binnacle from one of the most famous British ships of the time, the HMS Victory, and a slightly more elaborate example from the book “The Sailing Frigate” by Robert Gardiner and an Amazon class vessel.
Actually putting the binnacle together was pretty basic using boxwood and added a little bit of ‘flair’ to the feet and edges. I went with two compasses (one open on the left and the other still in the ‘box’ on the right) and a lamp in the middle and the vent holes for the lamp in the rear. I used the kit’s pre-fab binnacle parts as a size gauge.
The “compass” on the left – that you’ll sorta-but-not-really see inside was part of some leftover brass photo-etched pieces from one of the Tamiya WWII planes I’ve put together. The “boxed” compass on the right is some random leftover piece from the San Juan Nepomuceno kit. The Lamp is a combination of a brass tube cut off and topped with some random piece I had lying around that kinda looked like a lamp with a wick. I literally have no idea where it came from. Contrary to the picture above, I didn’t actually use glaze for the windows because that jar was rock hard. Instead I used a little piece of plastic from a random container.
You can’t tell in the picture, you can actually see the lamp and other bits inside when a little light is shined through.
A subtle but key difference between this binnacle and the Victory’s is the vent on the top which wasn’t in practice until the early 1800s. Until then, the oil lamp inside the binnacle was vented through holes in the back or sides of the cabinet.
The Lehman Shipyard 