CDR_Ret

Thanks @wefalck and @popeye2sea.
 
I had already begun leaning toward blocks shackled to eyebolts on the deck under and inside of the fife rails. One belaying plan even showed the eyebolts. in that location.
 
Most of the iron/steel rigging elements aloft were all but eliminated by the second survey cruise (1907) to reduce the vessel's magnetic constants to the smallest magnitude possible. However, some items simply couldn't be removed because they were irreplaceable.
 
Terry

Not to make things more confusing, but chain was not used for the entire length of most lines. A topsail sheet, for example, would be chain for the portion that would see the heaviest wear from the clew of the sail through the sheave at the yardarm and then to a point below where it turned through the cloverleaf block at the center of the yard. From there it was shackled to wire rope to lead down to near the deck where a rope tackle was shackled in for purchase.
 
Regards,

On the sheaves vs. blocks question: I have the feeling that the sheaves went out of fashion in the later 19th and were replaced by blocks bolted to the deck. The idea is turn the run of the rope by 90°, so that more men could work on it. If you pull straight down on a rope you can use your whole weight, but you could have only two men working the rope.
 
Blocks were commercial items by then that would be mass-produced, while a bitt with sheaves would have to be made by the shipyard and would have been more expensive. Also, the sheave-holes weaken the bitts.

Hello new friends and comrades, I am new to forums but the Facebook group I joined wasn't cutting it. To post my own cautionary tale, you don't know what you've gotten yourselves into letting me join this group. I am like a five-year-old who just learned the words "why" and "how", luckily I am actually an adult.... and being the responsible adult I am trying to find the rules/restrictions page to save mods time but alas I am adrift. 
 
The first thing I read was "how to use forum" with a large "Absolutely No modeling posts" directly under it. Well shoot! Isn't this a modelers group? I had to recheck the group and read quite a bit until I understood you meant none of that content ON THAT THREAD. Lol I can learn... slowly.
Second thing I read, "start a build log" with no instructions on how to do that, I have looked it up and looked at my account page, and briefly through the forum and I'm blind- help meh! 😢
Also point me in the direction of what I can and cannot post or guaranteed I'll post it, it's the Murphy's law of my existence. Thanks!!! Nice to meet you 😄😄😇

Hi Everyone - thanks so much for your very kind remarks about my first few attempts!  You are overly kind but very encouraging!  I look forward to talking with all  of you and getting lots of advice.  The thing I miss most about having dad around is that I have no one to talk to for help and encouragement.     I am so happy to have found a group where I can share my success and failures.  Thanks again everyone.
 
Mary
 

Thanks to everyone for your warm welcome and condolences.  I miss my dad so much, having been a finishing carpenter he knew about how to handle wood, what you can and cant expect from it and how to make it do what you want.  I dont have either the experience or the innate ability so I need to read alot and look at what others have done.    Here are three little boats I completed Please dont look too closely!
 
Mary

Thanks for these inputs, everyone. And thank you Alan for the files you sent today.
 
I wasn't planning on getting into rigging at this point in the plans reconstruction process, but figuring out the fife rails sort of dragged me in. Even with this information, I'm afraid, as the good doctor said, it will be a coin toss as to what was actually the case.
 
The DTM photos show a lot of lines belayed to the bulwark pin rails; fewer lines leading to the foremast fife rail. So I will try to do my best and find a logical place for every line of running rigging when the time comes.
 
To make things even more difficult, this ship was originally rigged with wire standing rigging, and chains for a lot of the sheet and halyard pendants. All that was removed for the magnetic expeditions to reduce the magnetic constants of the ship. The crew even cobbled together some additional foremast back stays because the channels weren't positioned properly for rope stays.
 
Terry

HM is awake.
Here is the image from Wofram zu Mondfelds "Historic Ship Models page 310

I will post the one image showing the sheave in use later this morning when the noise of the scanner will not wake up Her Majesty.
Also, I just sent you a PM regarding the other information.
Alan

Harold Underhill's "Masting and Rigging the Clipper Ship and Ocean Carrier" (Brown, Son and Fergusin, Ltd., Galsgow, Scotland, 1946 to 1972) was mentioned above. It is the absolute best reference I have found for sailing ship rigging. The 11 page index has about 1500 entries - every term he uses is indexed. It is heavily illustrated and he shows how everything was rigged! Perhaps the only shortcoming is that is is for vessels of the late 1800s, making it less useful for people modelling earlier periods. But it sounds perfect for what you are looking for.
 
He talks about British sailing vessels of all sorts, not just clippers. By the late 1800s most ships were rigged in about the same way - the most efficient way.
 
I have been studying rigging for some time now, and when you do not have an authentic rigging plan for a ship you are left with guesswork. But there are a few general "rules" that were followed, because they worked.
 
First, most lines that led in to blocks on the mast or mast heads ran down to the deck at the foot of the mast. This was especially true of lines coming from lower points on the mast. Sometimes lines from the higher points were led down to the bulwarks.
 
Second, lines from lower points were belayed forward of lines from higher points.
 
Keeping these "rules" in mind, rigging was also positioned for the least chafing between lines and sails. Usually it is apparent how the lines lead down to the deck so they don't cross or foul each other. And when ships were rigged they started with the lower masts, spars and sails and worked upwards. So the upper rigging was worked around the already positioned lower lines.
 
Where they were belayed is another story! Fife rails, knightheads, pin rails, cleats and several other things were used. Just about anything you can tie a rope around. And sometimes lines were led through eyes on other lines, and even belayed to cleats tied to shrouds! If there were any "rules" for belaying points I haven't found them! I think individual Captains or mates just had their ways of doing things.
 
When a line led down to the deck it might have been belayed directly, or it might lead to a tackle of some sort. Lines that had to pull a load. like haliards that hauled up spars, or sheets that pulled against the force of the wind, often had tackles. But others likes like clews and brails that only lifted parts of sails that were being reefed just belayed directly to a pin or cleat. Often clews and brails for a sail were belayed to the same pin.

Terry, at the period you're interested in, a tye was shackled to the centre of the yard and led up through a sheave in the fore side of the mast at finished in an eye on the after side.  The halliard ran through the eye and ran down to the deck on each side.
 
John

Actually, I think you were correct in the first place. Halyards lift spars and sails, while sheets are attached to the sails and booms to control the angle of the sails. I haven't rigged a ship model since I was a teenager when I built Revell's USF Constitution back in the 1960s. And I was briefly certified to sail boats loaned out by the Navy Rec Facilities over 30 years ago. And submarines don't have running or standing rigging! I have forgotten more sailing terminology than I remember these days. I've been so involved over the past six or seven years trying to simply sort out the structure of the Galilee that I haven't been too concerned about the ship's rig..
 
Terry

Alan, I really do appreciate your input. In fact, if those sources show an association between a particular line of running rigging and the fiferail sheaves, that could be useful information.
 
My concern, which was also echoed by John, is that rigging evolved so quickly during the latter 1800s, that trying to make a comparison between ship rigs separated by even two or three decades would likely be a problem.
 
What I need to know is, if fiferail sheaves were used, what parts of the rigging were involved, how did the lines run, and were these common on particular kinds/and or sizes of ships?
 
Terry

@AON and @Jim Lad, thank you for your responses.
 
Alan, the references you cited are both several decades prior to the Galilee's construction and for ship types that probably don't apply to the smaller hyper-efficient/economic vessels late in the age of sailing merchants. (And I do not have any of the books in my library in any case.) Galilee herself was replaced by steam merchants on the San Francisco to Tahiti run before she was converted to a fishing vessel, so we are talking about the very last gasp of the age of sailing merchants.
 
John, you bring up very good points regarding potential line handling options. Sadly, I have no photos and no plans showing how the halyards for the lower spars were rigged. If there are any diagrams available of latter 19th-century rigging practices, those would be particularly valuable. The ship had only 10 crew, 8 of which were ABS, so she would have been rigged for maximum efficiency.
 
However, you have forced me to look more closely to the lines in the photo in my last post, and there is, indeed, a block attached to a port (right-side of photo) line that obviously is connected to another block/sheave below it. So perhaps we are making some headway here!
 
Terry

This is a research question on the structure and arrangement of fife rails constructed in smaller American merchant ships of the late 19th century. This question specifically pertains to the 1891 American West Coast brigantine packet ship Galilee, which is the subject of my topic found here in the Model Ship World forum.
 
I specifically wish to understand the basic structure of a "partial" fife rail. Galilee’s original forecastle was constructed just aft of the foremast and so close to it that the sides of the mast’s fife rail evidently were attached to the forward bulkhead and were spanned by a transverse rail forward of the mast. Two corner posts evidently supported the forward section of the rail. No details as to the number of belaying pins or other features of this structure were provided. The following image was taken from the plans of Galilee produced by G.C. Berger of the former Pacific Marine Research Society* in San Francisco sometime during the mid-1930s or later.

The foremast fife rail in the brigantine Galilee from the plans of the ship produced by G.C. Berger some time after  the mid-1930s. I obtained this plan through the National Park Service in San Francisco
 
One feature often seen in online photos and illustrations of fife rails is the presence of sheaves in the corner pedestals. Were these sheaves associated with specific types of running rigging that would be applicable to the square-rigged foremast in a brigantine? Would they have even been required for a relatively small packet ship?

Cropped photo of the mainmast fiferail sheaves in USS Constellation, Baltimore Harbor, April, 2012. (Photo by Joel Abroad via flickr. Some rights reserved.)
 
The following is the best photo I have of Galilee showing the various halyards, etc., that were evidently secured at the unseen fife rail. Since I am not really conversant about the kinds of running rigging such a ship would have, I can’t tell what each of these lines would go to. Would any of these have required sheaves in fiferail pedestals?

Lower foremast of the brigantine Galilee showing the few lines of running rigging leading to the fife rail at its base. Most of the upper running rigging lines ran down to the main pin rails through thimbles(?) attached to the shrouds. (Courtesy of the Carnegie Science Library, c. 1906)
 
Any assistance finding illustrative examples of such a fife rail would be appreciated. I have already done due diligence in trying to find examples on the Web and within the MSW site using keyword and image searches, but there is very little information on this topic and virtually nothing showing the kind of fife rail I am looking for.
 
Thanks.
 
Terry
 
*The "Pacific Marine Research Society" was formerly called the "Pacific Model Society," whose founding was "to encourage the preservation of Pacific Coast maritime lore." ( From the Senate committee record Maritime museum; Stones River National Battlefield; Western Historic Trails Center; and Pinelands National Reserve Visitors Center: hearing before the Subcommittee on Public Lands, National Parks, and Forests of the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, United States Senate, One Hundredth Congress...Vol 4; GPO, 1988.) This is the only reference I could find to the organization itself on the Internet. Some records from the Society remain.—RTE

This is a research question on the structure and arrangement of fife rails constructed in smaller American merchant ships of the late 19th century. This question specifically pertains to the 1891 American West Coast brigantine packet ship Galilee, which is the subject of my topic found here in the Model Ship World forum.
 
I specifically wish to understand the basic structure of a "partial" fife rail. Galilee’s original forecastle was constructed just aft of the foremast and so close to it that the sides of the mast’s fife rail evidently were attached to the forward bulkhead and were spanned by a transverse rail forward of the mast. Two corner posts evidently supported the forward section of the rail. No details as to the number of belaying pins or other features of this structure were provided. The following image was taken from the plans of Galilee produced by G.C. Berger of the former Pacific Marine Research Society* in San Francisco sometime during the mid-1930s or later.

The foremast fife rail in the brigantine Galilee from the plans of the ship produced by G.C. Berger some time after  the mid-1930s. I obtained this plan through the National Park Service in San Francisco
 
One feature often seen in online photos and illustrations of fife rails is the presence of sheaves in the corner pedestals. Were these sheaves associated with specific types of running rigging that would be applicable to the square-rigged foremast in a brigantine? Would they have even been required for a relatively small packet ship?

Cropped photo of the mainmast fiferail sheaves in USS Constellation, Baltimore Harbor, April, 2012. (Photo by Joel Abroad via flickr. Some rights reserved.)
 
The following is the best photo I have of Galilee showing the various halyards, etc., that were evidently secured at the unseen fife rail. Since I am not really conversant about the kinds of running rigging such a ship would have, I can’t tell what each of these lines would go to. Would any of these have required sheaves in fiferail pedestals?

Lower foremast of the brigantine Galilee showing the few lines of running rigging leading to the fife rail at its base. Most of the upper running rigging lines ran down to the main pin rails through thimbles(?) attached to the shrouds. (Courtesy of the Carnegie Science Library, c. 1906)
 
Any assistance finding illustrative examples of such a fife rail would be appreciated. I have already done due diligence in trying to find examples on the Web and within the MSW site using keyword and image searches, but there is very little information on this topic and virtually nothing showing the kind of fife rail I am looking for.
 
Thanks.
 
Terry
 
*The "Pacific Marine Research Society" was formerly called the "Pacific Model Society," whose founding was "to encourage the preservation of Pacific Coast maritime lore." ( From the Senate committee record Maritime museum; Stones River National Battlefield; Western Historic Trails Center; and Pinelands National Reserve Visitors Center: hearing before the Subcommittee on Public Lands, National Parks, and Forests of the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, United States Senate, One Hundredth Congress...Vol 4; GPO, 1988.) This is the only reference I could find to the organization itself on the Internet. Some records from the Society remain.—RTE

I wanted to feel under the hand how the hull surface is running. I made "waterlines" 6 mm thick and glued them together. In right order of course. The holes in the waterline are here for accurate positioning the pieces.


 

While resting of my first scratch build, I am planing to start another ship of the same type. During the building of the previous ship I learned something about it. This time I will not start with real works until I completely finish the drawings.
I started with modeling the hull using DelftSHIP Free.
 

 

 

 

 

 
This is, at this moment, the idea how the ship will look like. It will be changes until I choose final version.

As I said earlier, I am a novice at 3D printing, having started after last Christmas when I received an Anycubic Photon Mono printer as a (totally unexpected) gift. The Admiral's youngest son gave it to me, and he readily admitted that he did it because he has one, and wanted me to figure out how to use it and be his tech support!
 
I have been into digital photography for decades and had a pretty good idea about pixel density and image quality. But with 3D resin printing there is another dimension, the vertical step size. And there are a few complications due to this third dimension that I hadn't thought of and learned the hard way.
 
First let's consider the basic 2D pixel size. This is what the LCD display produces, and is the fundamental limiting factor in print resolution or surface smoothness. You might think more pixels in the LCD display is better, and basically it is. But there is a catch. Larger displays tend to have more pixels, and they allow larger things to be printed. But more pixels does not automatically mean better resolution or smoother surfaces.
 
Consider a 3" x 2" display with 100 pixels per inch (300 x 200 pixels). Each pixel is 0.01" x 0.01" (0.25 mm x 0.25 mm). Now imagine a 4" x 2.6" display with 100 pixels per inch. There are 1/3 more pixels but they are still the same size. It is the number of pixels per inch/cm that determines resolution, not display size. If you had a larger 4" x 2.6" display with the same 300 x x200 pixels, each pixels would be larger, and the resolution/surface smoothness would be less.
 
On the Photon Mono the pixels are 0.05 mm x 0.05 mm and this determines the minimum horizontal resolution for the printer. Here is a picture showing how pixel size determines resolution:
 

 
The "circle" on the left has pixels 1X the grid spacing, and the one on the left has pixels 2x the grid resolution, or an area 4 times as large as the one on the left. It is clear that the larger pixels cause larger "jaggies" than the smaller pixels. But it may not be obvious that the smoothness of vertical surfaces is limited by pixel size. If the circles are extruded (printed) vertically, the resulting cylinder on the right will have deeper grooves in the sides than the one on the left. So smaller is better, and this may be more important than the total number of pixels.
 
Less obvious is the effect the vertical step size has on surface smoothness. Of course the smoothest surfaces are either perfectly horizontal or vertical flat surfaces. But with non horizontal or vertical surfaces things are different.
 

 
The smoothest angled surface you can get is at a 45 degree angle to horizontal with the horizontal pixel width and vertical step size the same. Again, you can see the 1x pixel/steps create a "smoother" surface than the 2x and 4x pixel/step sizes, so again smaller pixels produce smoother surfaces. But not perfectly smooth because pixel size will always be finite, producing finite sized steps. So to get the smoothest angled surfaces the part should be oriented as close as possible to a 45 degree angle from horizontal. For the Photon Mono with 0.05 mm pixels the step size would be 0.05 mm.
 
But this one to one pixel/step size smoothness rule applies only to 45 degree slopes. For shallower slopes the step size is all important for getting smooth surfaces.
 

In this picture the red line is angled at 10 degrees from horizontal. The horizontal "pixel" size is 4x, and the vertical step size is 1x, 2x and 4x.  Clearly the 1x vertical step size produces a "smoother" surface. It has more jaggies, but they are smaller. On the Photon Mono the minimum vertical step size is 0.01 mm (0.0039 inch), about the thickness of a sheet of printer paper.
 
This isn't just a theoretical conclusion. Look at these pictures:
 

 

 
In both images the capstan (above) and wildcat (below) were printed at 0.05 mm and 0.01 mm vertical steps.  The 0.01 mm vertical step parts (right) are clearly smoother than the 0.05 mm parts (left). This is most apparent on the near horizontal surfaces. Of course, you can't get something for nothing. You have to print 5 times as many slices at 0.01 mm step size as with a 0.05 mm step size, and that takes 5X as long for the exposure process. However, as described below, this does not mean 5x as long total print times.
 
Things aren't as simple for vertical surfaces.
 

In these three examples the red line is angled 10 degrees from vertical and the vertical step size is the same, 1x. But you can see the surface smoothness is very different for the three examples. The vertical step size has no affect if it is smaller than the pixel dimension. The reason is simple - no matter what the vertical step size is, the horizontal "step" size is determined by the LCD pixel dimensions, and smaller pixels are better. You can print as many steps as you want (smaller or larger vertical step size) and the jaggies are still determined by which pixels are turned on or off in the LCD display. However, using vertical step sizes larger than the pixel dimensions will produce rougher surfaces. So for objects with vertical surfaces angled 45 degrees or greater from the horizontal you should use a step size equal to the pixel dimension.
 
Again, this is not just a theoretical conclusion:
 

 
Again, the chock on the left was printed with 0.05 mm vertical steps and the one on the right had 0.01 mm vertical steps. You can see the near horizontal surfaces are much smoother in the 0.01 mm print on the right, but the edges of the vertical supports are about the same roughness because the LCD pixel dimensions were the same.
 
If you have mixed near horizontal and near vertical surfaces, use a smaller vertical step size to make the near horizontal surfaces smoother.
 
There are a few more things to keep in mind. First is total print time. The actual exposure time for each "slice" is a fairly small part of the total print time. More time is spent raising and lowering the print stage. I have been using the recommended lift speed (4 mm/second) and retract speed (6 mm/second) for the Photon Mono. So for each slice that is printed 10 seconds expire while the stage is moving. I have used 5 second and 3 second exposure times for each slice. So the exposure time is only 1/3 to 1/4 of the total print time. Smaller step sizes do increase total print time, but not as much as you might think.
 
Another thing to consider is the effect of exposure time on the surface smoothness of very small objects. This is tricky! The resin I have been using is the Anycubic Basic Grey. In quantity it looks opaque, but for very thin layers/slices like 0.01 mm it it translucent - some light passes through it. And this means that any resin that accumulates on top if thin horizontal surfaces may be exposed even if it isn't a part of the slice that is being printed. I have noticed that very thin horizontal cylindrical objects (0.05 mm or less) tend to print thicker in the vertical direction than in the horizontal with 5 second exposures. Reducing to 3 second exposures reduces this over thickness (the minimum recommended exposure of the Basic Gray resin for the Photon Mono is 2 seconds).
 
A third thing to fiddle with are some "advanced" features in Chitubox. These are in the "Settings/Advanced" tab. The "Anti-aliasing Level" is an attempt to minimize the jaggies effect. It has three settings 2, 3 and 8 that cause the pixels at the edges of objects to be shades of grey instead of black or white. 2 is the grayest and 8 is just black and white. The result is that you get less exposure of the gray edge pixels than for the white interior pixels. This seems to harden less resin on these outer surfaces and it pools in the grooves, making them less noticeable. But this is a very subjective thing!
 
The other "Advanced Tab" feature is "Grey Level."  It ranges from 1 to 8, and as far as I can tell it works just like the "Anti-aliasing Level." Step 1 is the grayest and step 8 is black and white.
 
I have been experimenting with 3 second exposure times, 0.03 mm vertical step size and an Anti-aliasing level = 2 and Grey Level = 4.
 
There is also an "Image Blur" option, with "Image Blur Pixel" sizes of 2, 3 and 4. $ blurs the edges of the surfaces the most and 2 the least. I haven't experimented with this yet.
 
Finally, exposure time affects the hardness of the printed slices, and that affects the success or failure of your prints. That is the subject of the next post.

I was given a piece of advice, (and a demonstration of it) back in my tech school days that has always served me well.... My instructor, a retired toolmaker, told me that it isn't the tool that the craftsman uses, it's how he uses it.... Then, he took a 4 inch dia. bar of 4130 and cut a perfect #2 morse taper on it.. The lathe he used was a 150 year old South Bend that was converted from overhead belt drive....  It had 1/8" of lash in the cross slide lead screw.... 
 
What he said after the demonstration was it isn't the tool it's the operators knowledge of the tool and his skill in using it... The 3D Printer is a tool, the software is a tool.... WE need to learn how to use them correctly....

Welcome aboard. Working ships as opposed to warships have their own alure.They have a certain dignity which is far different than the swagger of a warship.

Hello! Thank you all for contributing to this absolute treasure trove of information. Perusing the forum with the myriad builds, techniques, skill, and charm is near enough to be a hobby in and of itself. 
 
I come back to attempting ship modeling after at least 12 years. Life has a way of happening, and there have been quite a few location changes due to both myself and my wife's careers. But! I think we have finally landed somewhere reasonably permanent.
 
My interest has never waned in most things nautical, and a Zoom/Skype distance build of the LEGO Titanic (of all things) with my nephew this year has been the proverbial straw--and the space in the basement needed to be cleaned up. The shipyard is humble, but is still above what my skill level can accommodate.
I find myself drawn to working vessels (whalers, fishing, tugs, etc.) for reasons unknown to me, but apparently not my eye.
 
That's more than enough for now I think--my time is much better spent learning and reading from the incredible build logs and other information here.
Thank you again, and I look forward to seeing more from all of you--and eventually: sharing some of my own.
Cheers,
Grey
 

I may be wrong but I don’t think it would be that difficult to model that propellor blade in F360.  Provided you know the angle of twist and dimensions, it should be fairly straightforward via lofting through a series of profiles on offset planes, using splined rails to maintain the constant curve along the blade length. How true it would be to the genuine thing would be down to how accurately it’s dimensioned in the modelling, but I’ve done comparable shapes recently without too much trouble.
 
I hadn’t heard of delftship until now, one to look at when I’m back on a pc.

The ones you don't ask because you don't want to look dumb.......But in the end you look dumb for not asking?

Sorry, but we only have one guy who can do the editing and then posting to the website.  He's got a full time job and has had some critical work to finish before posting the video.  I think it will be posted very soon.