KeithAug

So it's about time I made something to relieve the draughting blues. I am developing a habit of having go at the prop early in the build so here we go again. I don't have any photos of Germania's prop but I can get enough detail from the plans (shown earlier) to get an idea of the size and shape. From these drawings I think it is a 4 bladed variable pitch prop. I did a web search of variable pitch props and picked up a couple of images that were similar in shape (albeit they had 3 and not 4 blades). With the available information I drew and dimensioned the prop. I started the construction with a piece of brass machined to .385" width by .375 deep. This was to be the basis of the 4 blades. I machined one end to give a .040" web that would form the basis of a location / mounting pin. This web was off centre as per my design sketch. On to this I stuck the blade shape. I then shaped the blades with jewellers saw and files, leaving a small attachment web. Then it was on to the mill to slit off 5 blades - one spare in case of mishaps or workshop disappearances. I then cut off the web with the jewellers saw and feathered the blade edges with a needle file and emery cloth and then gave the blades a quick polish. At the base of each blade is a conical sectioned hub. I turned up a brass rod to .200" diameter with a .040" axial bore. I then cut a 45 degree chamfer on one end. This was then moved to the mill and the chamfered end was slotted with a .040" slot through the centre. I could have used a slitting saw to form the slot but thin slitting saws tend to wander off the desired line, so I made a single point slotting tool. This consists of a round bar which fits in the mill chuck and holds a tool made from high speed tool steel. The mounting pin on the blade was then inserted into central hole in the hub and the blade was soldered in place. Then it was off back to the lathe where the blade hub was parted off .100" long. More to come later.

John - yes I am keen to move on - I may however have a go at the prop first - as a reward for getting through the drawing and colouring in marathon. Wefalck - Thank you for the link - I have done a lot of internet trawling but I hadn't come across this particular build. The photos will be very helpful and any plan information would be most welcome if you could enquire on my behalf. Thank you for your help. Mark - I spent a long time wondering about this when I was building Altair. Here is by best shot at the answer: The worst case is the obstruction caused by the (fixed) stays that brace the fore and main masts. Clearly the topsails have to be rigged on one tack and they are unobstructed by the rigging on the tack they are hoisted on. When going about, one option is to take them down and re rig them. I think only the most dedicated of crews would do this - and then not often. Most crews seem to ignore the problem and just accept the loss of efficiency by letting the sails lie on the rigging lines. I have only ever sailed sloops so I'm not an expert and would welcome any other views.

Very smart.

I completed the final sections. I plotted them on a separate sheet to avoid the conflict confusion. As previously i have attached the PDF. Schooner 2.pdf The next step was to make the templates for cutting out the frames. Fortunately in these days of scanners and printers things are much easier. The scanner decided to scan the image at 94% so when I went to the print programme I adjusted this back 100% and checked the scale lines to confirm the accuracy of the print, all was well. I also needed the mirror image print as a half hull model wasn't my plan. After a bit of searching I fount the flip horizontally button and hey presto I had the other half. Then followed a large print run 46 of each - port and starboard. it took a while not least because of the hunt fort the replacement black cartridge. The halves were joined with a glue stick and then each frame was coloured up to identify it for cutting out. I did a lot of colouring in - just like being at school. Some time ago I had found some small scale plans on the internet. As plans go they lack a bit of detail however with the aid of many photographs I think they will be adequate. I need to do a bit of scaling up and printing to get the plans to a workable scale. My initial test on scaling up showed that the definition was reasonable.

Thank you Mark, I'll try to live up to your expectations and standards.

Paul - I hadn't thought about it and you are probably right that it would help. I am getting a bit fed up with draughting so I may short cut and go to cutting out the frames and then check what it looks like "in the flesh". I'll probably regret it and have to revert to your suggestion - oh hum!

Having completed the forward sections I moved to the aft end. The lower aft end of the keel is perhaps the most poorly defined area not only because of the loss of line definition in scaling up the original but also because of closeness of the lines on the plan view. This post covers the definition of frame lines negative 7 through to 11 (nineteen in total). Producing the frame lines required a degree of interpolation to get something that looked sensible within the frame and between adjacent frames. I enclose the PDF of the result for anyone interested. Frames4.pdf I found that drawing the keel bulb on frames forward of those being defined was helpful in getting my mind around the keel shape. The bulb lines in question are marked 15, 14 & 13 on the drawing. They can be ignored when I get on to cutting out frames as they will be covered on the fully defined frames later. Again I have defined the datum line, the building board alignment slot, the water line, deck edge line and rail line. Additionally I have noted the levels of the cabin floor as it rises in steps towards the bow. To complete the lines I now need now to define the frames 11, 12, 13 & 14.

Michael - My time in the Rolls Royce Draughting Training School was a long time ago (1969 / 70). I am very much worse than I was then. The last time I drove a drawing board was in the RB211 Design office in 1977. Which leads me into a story. I had been asked to work overtime one night and was sitting alone at my stool in front of a long line of vacant 6x4 feet drawing boards. I was engrossed in designing a new style of combined engine oil feed and scavenge pump and quite oblivious to the rhythmic clanking of the bucket and mop as the cleaning lady worked her way steadily down the office. Suddenly as she came level with my station she stopped and spoke the following words that, in their irony, have lived with me to this day:- She said "Sorry to bother you but don't you get board just drawing stuff all day". I looked at her mop and bucket in amazement incapable of making sensible reply. Unfortunately I moved into management before the advent of CAD and never bothered to learn.

Dan I am only as far as November 6th but by the rate you are progressing I need to get a move on lest you finish it before I catch up. A fascinating build. I found it interesting / surprising how much photographic evidence you found given the era she inhabited. A great project which I look forward to following.

Hi Dan One of the high priorities on my catch up list was to see how Michelangelo turned out. I have to say she is beautiful and only bettered by you detailed log of the build, very well done. I'm now heading off to have a look at Leviathan.

Patrick. I just enjoyed catching up. She is a weird vessel, however as usual, your ability to work the detail at this scale is most impressive.

Happy new year Pawel. Hope you are keeping well. Lovely gun.

Mark - Looking good-----steady as she goes. Try splicing the mainbrace - I always find it makes things look even better.

Just a bit more draughting progress. I finished the forward section frames - 15 through 38. I was pleased with the result although these are the most easily defined frames because the are reasonably well spaced and don't conflict with one another. I also marked the waterline, deck edge lines and the rail lines on the sections. Additionally I have included the upstand and datum line that will be used later for mounting the frames (inverted) on the building board. The slot in the up-stand will form a cut out to align the frame centre line on the building board - this will come clearer later. I have included below the PDF file of these frames for downloading. I have also put x and y scales on the PDF to allow scaling when printing. I found that in my case the scanned PDF came out at 93% full size and I had to adjust the size in the print programme back to 100%. I checked the printed scales measured 6 inch as original drawn as a check on the reproduction accuracy. Schooner 1.pdf

I started plotting the frame section lines. The drawing numbers the frames with frame 0 at the steering position. Frames 1 to 38 are forward of the steering position and frames -1 to -7 aft of it. It's a bit slow going but I am making progress. I have commandeered the dining room table - somewhat warmer than the workshop at present and my wife can find me more easily. The Christmas table cloth hasn't been removed yet. My draughting arrangements are somewhat basic, MDF for drawing board, my woodworkers square, dividers, french curves and a much overused eraser. Oh! and a laptop to give the impression of sophistication. Never the less it seems to work and the bow sections are coming out well. I will publish PDF's of the sections in a later post. .

Richard I emailed the builder but didn't get a reply - probably a victim of their spam filters. I not too worried as I think I will get a decent result from the image I have. The instruments are Staedtler. The large compass has a nifty collet arrangement on the adjustment screw to give fast action as well as fine adjustment.

I have made a start on defining the frames I started with the small web image. This was originally in a magazine and probably scaled about 6 inches long. I had a play with it in the Mac iPhoto package basically whitening and sharpening the image. The plan and side elevations improved more than the image showing the frames. This wasn't a big deal as the frames were only for the fore part of the yacht and anyway I thought plotting the frames from the plan / elevation was likely to be more interesting. I printed the plan / side elevations at 1:36 and 1:72 scale. 1:36 is the upper 2 sheets in the next photo, the lower 6 sheets are 1:72. Scaling up to 1:36 produced rather wide / poorly defined lines. 1:72 was somewhat better. As I was going to draw the frames at 1:36 the scale of 1:72 worked well as I could measure across the matching plan section lines and use this dimension as the centre line to hull dimension on the 1:36 frame sections. I felt the urge to check that the plans were reasonably accurate as I was worried that length / beam scales could have been distorted. Hence the following check calculations:- The error line (red) shows the maximum error to be about a third of a percent which I am happy with. It is probably worth stating that the frame section lines are spaced at 1 meter (full size) or circa 1.1 Inch at 1:36. For building I had to consider how many frames to create. 1.1 inch spacing gives 46 frames and of course 2.2 inch gives 23. I decided to go with the larger number.

Aviaamator Yes - that's how I do it and I also brake off the pins at the neck - usually when tapping them with a pin hammer?

I will be interested to see how you get on with shaping the sail Mark. I have tried suspending a horizontal frame, attaching fine cotton cloth at the edges and wetting with dilute PVA. The result never seemed to be stiff enough to counter the stresses induced by rigging. I did lay up some cloth once with 2 part epoxy mixed and then painted on (used to repair a radio control car body). This was wonderfully stiff but i did need the car body as a former to lay it up on. I was thinking about moulds for forming snails a while ago and came up with a plan to create a frame the shape of the sail and then tacking styrene sheet on to it. Then with the frame horizontal softening the styrene by pouring boiling water on it. hopefully once the belly starts to form the "bowl" will collect the boiling water and add to the shaping effect. I haven't however tried it yet so it may be a rubbish plan.

Valeriy, I have always found the transitional warships of the pre-dreadnought era to be most interesting. if you don't mind I will follow along with great interest.

John, Yes, as dinghy's go it is quite spacious. No I don't have that book, I have had a quick look on the net and it does look interesting. I think I will add it to my birthday list, or buy it sooner if I find a good deal. I do have a very tatty copy of The Gaff Rig handbook by John Leather which I find very useful from time to time.

Chris, Michael, Paul, Dan, Richard and GL. Thank you all for your comments - its good being back among friends. Richard - metric is fine but I am an old Imperialist at heart. I just love the way that 3ft becomes an inch, it avoids much use of the calculator when making parts. In fact I'm even trying to convince my daughter-in-law of the merits of £sd (pounds shillings and pence). Although she has a Phd she just doesn't get it.. Kids these days just want an easy life!!!!! Chris - Sometimes I miss the last boat too (often - according to the wife). Dan - Hoping I wont need the optiVISOR for this one. Michael - You seem to have had news about my Knighthood before me? Paul - Thanks for the wood supplier advice.

I have just started catching up Paul. Nice progress and some interesting build techniques. I think it will take a while to digest it all. Where do you get your exhotic wood please?

I have neglected ship modelling for too long and my New Years resolution is to get started on a new build. So here we go. I wanted to build another classic early 20th century schooner but found sourcing decent plans very difficult. This in part was the reason for not starting a build earlier. After many hours spent on the web I decided I could get together enough information to build a decent representation of Germania (either in her original form or as the recently built reproduction). So Germania sort of chose me rather than me choosing her. Because I found getting early 20th century plans so difficult I though would document (through this log) enough information for others to build her should they so wish. So I will include PDF files and dimensioned sketches as I go. And so to a bit of background:- The first Germania (designed by Max Oertz in 1905) was conceived as a racing yacht and built for Dr Gustav Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach, a German businessman and industrialist who used her to promote his steel business among the social elite. In her first year she won Cowes Week with a new course record and often raced against Kaiser Wilhelm’s Meteor IV, although, rather diplomatically, that was one yacht Germania never beat. In one year alone, she won more than half of the regattas she entered and her winning streak only came to an end due the outbreak of World War I. Seized as a prize of war, she was sold on several times, ending her days in the US. In 1930 she foundered in a storm off Key Biscayne; she now forms Florida’s Seventh State Underwater Archaeological Preserve. Germania Nova is 60 metre gaff-rigged schooner : a replica of the classic 1908 Germania, using the same hull lines, deck- and sail-plans. She was built as a super yacht by Factoria Naval Marina in 2011. The two yachts look identical with the exception of modern electronic / navigation equipment. Fortunately a lot of photos are available which I will insert in the build as I go. Here is a taster:- Plenty of opportunity here for nice wood and metalwork. This has the potential to be a big model. I like larger scales and in choosing a scale I was minded to do a comparison with Altair (previous build). Hence the following chart:- I'd really like to build at the same scale as Altair but I don't think the house controller would put up with it. So 1:36 it is. It is still however some 16 inch (30%) longer than Altair. I will enter sizing negotiations once it is too late to change. I won't be cutting wood for some time as the next image is the best I can do for hull lines. It does not look too bad at this scale but when blown up the lines lack definition. It will take some effort to convert this into cutting templates for frames. So I now need to find my drawing implements - bought for my first post apprenticeship job in the Rolls Royce Design Office in 1975.

Happy new year John. I had a break from ship building so missed your trials and tribulations. Im very pleased you came through it all. my very best wishes.