bridgman

So this is a pretty complicated question. It sort of depends what you are looking to achieve. However here are a few things that might help you:
As others have suggested there are lots of youtube videos aimed at all skill levels. I would suggest searching for "intro to miniature painting" or something similar. Airbrushing is its own thing, with its own set of challenges and skills to learn. You can get smooth transition with no brush strokes with a brush. They are just different tools and mostly airbrushing allows you to save a bit of time if you are trying to do a whole bunch of stuff at once, but there is a significant investment both in money and time to learn how to use them properly. I did a presentations at MSON and MSWWNY talking about how painting can be used to enhance ship models earlier this year, if you are interested send me a PM and I can send you a copy of it. It is aimed at trying to broadly introduce painting to those not so familiar with it. If you are interested in the detailed application of painting to ships there are a lot of logs (particularly in the modern section of the build logs) where people are painting plastic ships. Alternatively if you want to see some up close pictures of painting applied to an 18th century vessel, I cover a bunch of my work and painting philosophy in my Alert log.

It’s important to distinguish the difference between a build ways and a drydock. A build way is typically sloped to the water’s edge, and while the ship is built, it doesn’t actually rest on the slipway until just before launching.
 
A drydock is constructed below the level of the water, and does have a flat bottom. It might have some sloped drainage towards the centerline, or to wherever the drain valves are located. Where pumps are not available, drydocks can make use of natural topography to fill and empty. For example, by locating the dock some ways up a river, after closing the gate, the water can be drained to sea level (helps also to do the draining when the sea is at low tide). There is a drydock in Port Weller, Ontario, that is located above the first lock in the Welland canal. It doesn’t use pumps at all. The water is allowed to drain down the 40’ drop into Lake Ontario. 
 
Things haven’t changed too drastically over time so some pre-modern ship launching techniques are similar. Prior to  launching, the slipways (usually a pair of flat beams laid astride the keel (you can see these in the picture of the shipyard model you posted), are well greased with tallow or other lubricants. A pair of special launch cradles are constructed fore and aft. These cradles will bear the weight and balance of the ship when it comes time for the launching. These will slide down the slipway, but are held static by a series of chocks and braces. Once the launch cradles are built and braced in position, the ship is then slowly lowered from its build staging (usually by knocking out the keel blocks) onto to the launch cradles. Any remaining staging is removed, and when the time comes for launching, the chocks are knocked out and the cradles (with the ship) slide down the ways into the water. Typically hawsers or anchor cables are used to arrest the movement of the ship once waterborne.
 
Hope that helps.
 
Andy

Do things always have to have names? Sometimes people just make something that seems useful to them, without thinking that someone else wants to 'classify' it.
 
It's an unusual rig anyway, with a lug that has boom etc.

Micha, et all:
 
Some thoughts from a modeler who doesn’t use CAD.  CAD is not necessary for building ship models.  There are 1000’s of lovely accurate ship models built before CAD.  
 
The basic scratch ship modeling drafting task is to convert archival information into patterns that define the shape of the hull.  This information comes from a drawing, a half model, or a table of offsets.  For Nineteenth Century vessels and ships built to about 1970 hulls were not designed using simple geometric shapes.  Curves are the result of two different drafting techniques; ships curves, and splines.  Splines work by the rules for deflection of beams; a cubic equation.  Ships curves are standardized drafting tools created using different mathematical functions.  How well a particular CAD program mimics these manual drafting tools well determine the accuracy of the model.  As a Naval Architecture student a long time ago, I watched a visiting Professor from a Major Japanese university test several hull forms modeled from simple trigonometric shapes, sines, cosines, parabolas, etc. in our large towing tank.  They looked nothing like real ships.
 
All ship hull lines drawings are “faired” at one time or another.  In other words, plotted points often do not line up to allow a fair curve to be passed through.  Manual drafting requires the draftsman to use his judgement to correct this.  CAD requires either manual intervention or a mathematical algorithm.  There is therefore, no definitive example of an old ship’s hull, only different interpretations.
 
To me CAD is just another ship modeling tool.  If you enjoy working with computers and are willing to spend the $$$ and especially time to learn the program that’s fine.  On the other hand, beautiful models can be built using manual drafting techniques, or purchased plans.
 
Roger

My “Nobody” was an exaggeration.  Of course there are steam ships still operating today.  There’s about half a dozen still sailing here on the lakes although one fleet (Interlake) has been converting their’s to diesel.  And was earlier pointed out to me, there are special situations such as LNG vessels where Steam make sense by utilizing otherwise vented natural gas.  If I remember correctly, the ships in the MSC reserve fleet include high speed steamships “inherited” from US Container operators who found them to be uneconomical.
 
The bunker C comment is that of Marine Engineering experts at the University of Michigan.  It’s cheaper because it’s a residual fuel left over from the refining process. As such, it has a lot of undesirable pollutants, notably sulfur.
 
A factor not discussed is engine room manning.  World War II Navy ships had large crews, and I would assume that this would include those in the engine rooms and fire rooms.  25 years ago, there was a move by two Great Lakes Steamship operators, the ex US Steel Great Lakes Fleet and Interlake to automate the 1950’s vintage steam plants in their ships.  I had some very minor involvement in this effort.  I met one of Interlake’s vessels when it arrived at Two Harbors, MN to load ore in order to figure out the piping changes that would be required.  I believe that one ex US Steel Ship, The Calaway? was converted.  Interlake, chose instead to convert to diesel.  Great Lakes vessels have one fire room and one engine room.  United States has several of each.  Her operators would, therefore, be faced with either a huge automation project or sailing with a large engine room/ fire room crew.
 
With the exception of special situation vessels, the question is would anyone invest a huge amount of money to build a new steamship or revive a 1950’s era one sailing under US Flag rules to compete with foreign flagged passenger vessels.  I don’t think so.
 
Roger

The bulkhead spacing on many  kits has a much bigger spacing of the bulkheads (deck beams).    In the case of Polaris from OcCre, as mentioned above there is no such ship in real life so maybe it's best to go with what feels right to you as it is a beginner kit.   See post #5 in the topic https://modelshipworld.com/topic/34238-occre-polaris-is-there-a-real-role-model/      For example if this was a multi deck ship the upper deck beams are about 4 feet asunder.  The forecastle and quarter deck beams are closer to 2 feet asunder.   For your single deck vessel it is probably a guess, but two feet to three feet asunder would probably be OK.   
 
Give careful consideration to the hull planking which is usually much more of a challenge.   Study the tutorial by David Antscherl here at MSW in the Articles Database and the four part You Tube video by Chuck Passaro as it will serve you well in the future.  
 
Allan
 

I receive a quarterly magazine from the Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering Department at the University of Michigan. As might be expected published by a university it is heavily slanted towards current issues and  research.
 
Advances in Naval Architecture are often incremental.  Marine Engineering on the other had as undergone a series of distinct changes:
Introduction of Steam Propulsion
Compound Steam Engines
Steam Turbines
Diesel Engines
Unmanned engine rooms/ direct bridge control
Gas Turbines (Naval Vessels)
Nuclear Power (Submarines)
 
Each of these technologies did not emerge fully developed.  For example, the first steam turbines were connected directly to the ships propellers.  A machine that operates best at high speed was attempting to drive one intended to run at low speed.  It took 15-20 years to adopt the geared cross compounded system used by the US Navy during World War II.  The machinery in United States is the end point of this mature steam turbine technology.
 
When I went to school, Marine Engineering involved designing a unique steam plant to fit within the confines of a hull designed by the Naval Architects.  The switch to diesel engines for propulsion of much of the world’s merchant vessel tonnage and gas turbines for naval vessels changed all this.  The Naval Architects sometimes joked that marine engineering had become a “catalog punching job.”
 
Marine Engineering I now back in the news with a lot of questions to be answered.  Among these are:
 How to eliminate residual oil fuels
How to best utilize hydrogen as a fuel
Electric propulsion and hybrid electric propulsion
Even Nuclear merchant ship propulsion and sail assist
 
These ideas are obviously not all applicable to large ships traveling long distances and some are maybe just Pie in the Sky, but the point is that United States’ machinery is seriously out of date and pollution from shipboard commerce is now considered to be a major environmental problem.  Even if her owners could strike a deal with KFC to burn their used frying oil in their boilers, major changes to her machinery would be required with the possibility of completely new power plant.  This alone would probably preclude her return to service.
 
Roger
 

@Roger Pellett, 
 
Although I understand and agree to most of your post, there is one note. Steam Turbines are still used today. Up to 2012, new LNG carriers were still often built with steam turbines. That particular type of vessel required the boil-off gas to be burned in order to control the cargo tank pressures (and not vent it to the atmosphere, which they routinely did in the past). In order to burn that gas, a dual-fuel solution was needed and steam boilers provided just that. Each boiler has/had multiple burners with the choice for each burner to burn either natural gas or fuel. The equipment was generally Japanese, Mitsubishi Boilers and Mitsubishi or Kawasaki turbines. Generally a large turbine (one High Pressure, one Low Pressure and one Astern turbine mounted together)for propulsion and 3 turbo generators for power supply (backed-up by a diesel generator). Another advantage of this set-up was that, when not underway, a steam dump could be used, this steam dump allowed to burn gas, although there was no demand of steam. The steam would then simply be condensed and the energy given to the sea. 
With the advent of the much more efficient dual-fuel piston engines, the steam turbines went out of fashion. In order to get those piston engines working, they did need a way to control the tank pressure and that came in form of reliquefaction (very inefficient energy-wise) and Gas Combustion Units (GCU = basically a big flare in the funnel of those vessels). 
That said, the steam vessels are still around, although they come much cheaper (and therefore not very attractive for the owners) and are only used when the gas tanker market is tight. You also see them increasingly being used as storage units nowadays. 
In the past I actually did some operations with very old US built LNG tankers of the Aquarius class. All in all there are still quite some steam engineers around, although of course nowadays they are increasingly rare. 
 
Of course United States tech is indeed way behind on technology and renewing it would cost an arm and a leg. As you mentioned business and legal wise, it's probably not the best idea to even try this. 

Looks are however deceiving. Her appearance may not be too good now, but given a good sand blasting and coat of paint she'll look the part in no time. 
Perhaps she can be turned into a hotel. I recently slept on SS Rotterdam, an old liner in the port of Rotterdam. Part of the vessel was converted as a hotel, machinery spaces etc. can be visited (paid tour of course) and part of it simply off limits. I assume they try to reduce costs by limiting the amount of the vessel that is used. All in all an economical exercise, how many people do you expect to accommodate at any time and which features do you want to maintain. 

There is an old expression about a boat being a hole in the water into which you throw money.  Unfortunately, United States is just a bigger hole to fill.
 
IMHO there are engineering, business, and legal reasons preventing her from sailing again:
 
Business:  The passenger ship business seems to be aimed at two different demographics; at one end those that want to join 4999 others aboard a floating theme park/ 24-7 floating casino and at the other end those wanting a quiet experience aboard a small ship.  United States would seem to appeal to neither of these groups.  The United States, while a big ship carried 1000-2000 passengers. Fares would, therefore, be high, so she would have to tap into the small cruise ship market.  Would ongoing demand be high enough to allow her to book profitable passenger loads?
 
Engineering:  She is a steam ship!  Nobody, operates steamships any more.  She has a 900psi US Navy plant.  The only steam plants operated today in US Navy vessels are in nuclear powered vessels; different animals.  Her boilers, if they can even be brought back to life are equipped to burn bunker c oil, a nasty pollutant that the rest of the world is trying to eliminate from their merchant marine fleets. The state of the art today in marine engineering for passenger carrying vessels seems to be an integrated system where electricity from one source is distributed to both the propulsion system and the system supplying on board hotel services. This also allows use of electric driven trainable pods to improve maneuvering.  Even if it could be brought back to life, United States’ machinery is 70 years out of date.
 
Legal:  She is an American Flagged ship.  The Jones act would require her to be manned with an expensive American crew.  She could be reflagged under a flag of convenience; Liberia, Panama, Bahamas, etc. but would she then be the United States?
 
Better for whoever owns her to admit defeat and as Bob Cleek says turn her into razor blades.
 
Roger
 
 
 
 

Use canned clear shellac (about a 2 pound cut - Zinsser Bullseye brand or equivalent) to cause the line to stiffen. Shellac is dissolved in alcohol. As the alcohol evaporates, the shellac soaked into the line will begin to harden and the line can be formed into any shape. Once the shellac has dried (within minutes) the line will be stiff and hold whatever shape you have given it. If more working time is needed, simply apply additional alcohol and the shellac will soften again. 
 
Results example below. Coils made on a form consisting of map pins placed into a wooden base around which the coils were wound. Coils were installed on the model, softened with alcohol, and formed in place to depict normal hanging behavior of full-size line.

Don't forget that MSW is "Open" 24/7.  There are people who visit this site at all hours of the day and night.  There are also members who browse without logging in, so you don't see them, but they are there.  They have to eventually log in to see certain parts of MSW (the build logs, for example).  I think I've seen as many as 500 people logged in at once, but usually it's between 200 and 300.
 
Mary

Unfortunately, that color chart on the box is as good as it gets.   There is such a wide variation in wood color, a third party chart will not be any better.
 
If you are trying to identify the wood within the box, the amounts provided my be your best help to match it to the box chart.
 
In this case the lighter wood should definitely be the maple.
 
 

Ok, further with self-taught engineering. Many if not all concepts below are well known in the model sub world, I did not invent them! I want to have a final design of the water-tight compartment (WTC) and its connections to propellers and rudders because only then can I plan and make the required holes in the wooden hull and finish the hull.
 
The WTC will consist of three connected PVC pipes connected with 3D printed parts
- aft: 44mm ID with the motor, motor controller, and two servos for the rudders and diveplanes, 
- middle: a 69mm ID pipe with the  dive tank (a 60mm PVC tube), the receiver, the pump, a self-made valve as well as the ballast tank controller.
- bow: another 44 mm ID pipe with servo for front dive planes and the batteries.
 
These components will be housed in a techrack which is pulled out of the WTC. I’ve been designing these in Fusion360 and printing them on my 3D printer. The techrack will be mounted on four M3 rods to give it strength.

here on the left the aft WTC , connected to a printed bajonet (located on the “cut” in the boat in background), and then to the right the beginnings of the techrack and dive tank 

The dive tank (here left) has a water-in and air-out brass connection. The resistance between these is measured by the dive tank controller to determine if the tank is full. The pump is a 500ml/min gear pump, and since gear pumps are not closed, I’ve re-purposed a mini-servo to pinch the air-out tube closed so no water leaks in when pump is idle. A 40 MHz 8 channel receiver will be mounted here as well.

the rear WTC with motor axle sticking out (through a seal) and two o-ring holders for the pushrods to the planes and rudder. The motor drives a gearbox “in the wet” which drives two shafts and 30mm Raboesch props. The white printed part will be glued to the PVC pipe, but the motor can be unscrewed from the outside so that the rear techrack can be removed for maintenance. The screws must be sealed.
 

here the tank again with its controller forward. Many electrical and signal wires will pass over the tank (which will be inside the 69mm ID WTC).
 
finally, I did manage to do a little woodwork, the main rudder consists of two 0,3 mm brass sheets soldered to the 3mm shaft, and then covered with two layers of 1 mm boxwood on both sides. then sanded in shape. Also the future mount of the diveplanes is visible.

sorry for the technical stuff - subs are a technical game, but I will get to the nice part of making the conning tower later!

I find that an easy way is to scroll down to "Who's on line"   set the cursor on a red or pink? name.  A window should open.  Click on message, filling the blanks and type the message.
 

Unlike steam railroad locomotives, marine engineering practice required use of condensing engines for two reasons.  First, high pressure boilers did not tolerate salt water.  Scaling from salt deposits impeded heat transfer causing failure of  the boiler tubes.  Second, the development of the triple expansion engine, increasing thermal efficiency, required steam in the low pressure to be exhausted well below atmospheric pressure.
 
New York City harbor craft, however appear to be an exception to this rule.  In his excellent book, Tug Boats of New York City, (Photo caption page 85) author George Matteson writes:
"The white vapor emanating from the tug is exhaust steam, which indicates that it is equipped with a noncondensing engine.......  Most small harbor tugs were equipped with noncondensing engines to save expense and because clean fresh water was always available from city hydrants."
 
Railroad locomotives are subject to height restrictions from tunnels, bridges, etc.   These harbor craft were not.  the easiest way to increase boiler draft was to increase the height of the smoke stack with steam vented separately.  As with railroad locomotives, as steam technology matured, marine engineers worked to utilize every last BTU from fuel bought and paid for.  For sophisticated steam ship designs this lead to all sorts of waste heat recovery devices often located in the smoke stacks.  These harbor craft traveling very short distances did not require these complicated steam plants.

I agree that holly is indeed limited as to where it can be used effectively, but one of the things I love to make from holly are frames for ships boats and sometimes the planking as well.  If soaked for a few minutes in water, they bend like paper and hold their shape once dry.
Allan

 

All things to nothingness descend,
Grow old and die and meet their end,
Man dies, iron rusts, wood goes decayed,
Flowers fall, walls crumble, roses fade …
Nor long shall any name resound
Beyond the grave, unless 't be found
In some clerk's book, it is the pen
Gives immortality to men.                     (Author anonymous) 

Everything you need to know about gondole and other Venetian boats: https://www.veniceboats.com. Gilberto Penzo also has a little shop in Venice, where he sells his books, the plans and the kits he has designed.
 

Actually, in the 1960’s there was quite a bit of, for its time, high level Naval Architecture performed to optimize these towboats.  Propeller/Kort nozzle combinations, flanking rudders, and even tow sizes were all studied.
 
The University of Michigan operates the second largest experimental Naval Architecture Towing tank in the USA.  At 450+- feet long it is about half as long as the US Navy’s 1000’+ long tank.  As a student in the early 1960’s I remember a model towboat with various numbers and arrangements of barges being towed.  This would have been an expensive project and I don’t remember who the client was.  It could have been US Govt Maritime Commission.  Someone, however, spent a lot of money determining the optimal way to make up a tow.
 
Roger.

Yes, thank you for mentioning this! More exactly, every build log should have the member's exact username in the title. But some of our members are more "free-spirited" than others. 😉  Our build logs are currently getting some long-overdue attention to their formatting and tagging issues. There are thousands of them to check, so the task will take a while to complete.

Comparatively speaking, a container is fairly light. The heaviest containers are generally stowed low down, in the hold, rather than in the deck stacks. If the bridge was that vulnerable to collapse from a hit from a heavyweight container, I’d be more concerned every time a semi-truck jack-knifed (which happens waaayyy more frequently than a ship strike).
 
Andy

The axle goes through from side to side and should be flush with them.
 
I am not sure when this was instroduced, but sometime during the 19th century the bearing area was reinforced by diamond-shaped brass plaques that were recessed into the side (cheeks) of the blocks.
 
If the blocks were externally strapped with iron bands, these bands became the bearing surfaces.
 
Around the middle of the 19th century internally strapped blocks were introduced, where the wood just became a shell to prevent the metal from chafing rigging and sails. Internally strapped blocks have a higher load-bearing capacity than externally strapped ones, because the axles are supported right next to the sheaves.
 
In the course of the 19th century it also became less common for blocks to be made from single chunks of wood, but were built up from layers that were rivetted together using metal rivets. This made their mass production simpler, because no specialised machinery was needed. In 1802 the RN had adopted the complex block-making machinery invented by Brunel (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portsmouth_Block_Mills). Some of the machines are preserved in the NMM and the Science Museum in London. They are the first examples of curve-controlled production machinery. 

I have a 4” Jarmac sander too and have encountered the same problems mentioned above plus both the “cross cut guide” and the sanding table are flimsy and require constant adjustment, but it works and I use it.   The Jarmac tools (there were Jarmac mini table saws too) were standard equipment in model shops in the 1970’s when large engineering firms made models of industrial installations.  These 3-D models made from project drawings were effective at checking for interferences between piping, equipment, and building structure.  3-D CAD modeling eliminated the need for these physical models.
 
There was nothing wrong with the Jarmac tools in their day.  Rather, the new tools are an indication of how things can improve overtime if someone has a goal to offer an improved product.  
 
Roger

Thank you for asking, Gary. 
 
 She's slowly getting better. It's not fast and furious but at times she's walking about the house independent of her walker and she's gaining some mobility in her left hand. Her mouth on the left side is still not cooperating like it needs to and seems to be that which is lagging the furthest behind in improvement, this affects her eating and speaking.
 
 Whereas with myself, life is moving at a fast and furious pace. It's one thing or another from 8 AM till 9 PM everyday. I wish I was younger, I wish I was a better cook, I wish a lot of things but it is what it is and one gets through this one hour at a time, one day at a time. 
 
 Thank you again, Gary and thank you to all of you for your continued prayers. The answer to prayer is the only reason we've made it this far!
 
 Keith

I've decided to pause my other projects since as a result of my stroke my memory has failed in some areas.  Mostly it's working but some things are gone forever like "how to plank" while other things are coming back to me.  So, after much thought, I've ordered the NRG Planking Project.   I've downloaded the manual and am reading through it.  The kit should be here this coming weekend.