jbshan

Golly, they're loud! Only 11 days to black Tuesday. I guess having the canal opened didn't help very much.

Sorry, Chuck. He lost his 2 inch ruler. druxey, what is going on under the keelson? Are there notches for the frames, do they pass under the keelson or do they butt into it?

---You wrote: 99.9% of the people I know who may see my model, won't care one whit whether the color is perfectly historical or not, neither will they know the difference. Especially if they just glance at it while riding past on a galloping horse. ---end of quote--- Don't put the bar deeper into the house than your model. Then they won't break the sound barrier as they go by. Just after the coat room seems about right. Once they get their bevvy, they can peruse the models at their ease.

Those look OK, Mike, if a little uneven. You could perhaps make them a little darker. Tight enough to hold the gaff to the spencer mast, loose enough to slide. As the gaff is lowered the angle to the mast will change, so check that as well, to make sure it won't bind, though as a static model that's not as important.

I looked through the little 'hardware' box that came with my Niagara, but saw no beads, worse luck. Art and craft shops, certainly worth a try, Bob, also tackle shop that has stuff for tying flies or making up lures.

Where you have 'bead parrel' circled, there are two dots on the jaws of the gaff. Those are knots at the end of a line on which are strung the beads, literally beads, balls with a hole through the middle. The other view labeled 'what is this?' shows the beads below the jaws in a horizontal alignment and the line on which they are strung passing through the jaws to the knots on top. The boom has the line through, but no beads.

Mike, I think the circled item is a side view of the bead parrel. You could certainly make the stop cleats, etc. a bit smaller. They are to keep eyes in the rigging lines from slipping down the spar and if the eye is tight enough, it wouldn't take much of a cleat to do that. Also, the plans call for 'all black' which would make them visually smaller compared to the white they are in the pics.

The walnut ink I use is labeled 'walnut drawing ink', it comes in a square bottle with a white plastic cap. The label gives the manufacturer as Tom Norton Designs, Cambridge, Mass. I googled it, Dick Blick's came up as one source. I got mine at the little local art shop. I don't want to post a picture because of possible copyright complications. A few ounces goes a long way, why spend your modeling time making something you can go out and buy?

The pawls are the indicator as to the turning of that windlass, yes. You would put in your bar and pull toward the viewer, so forward on the vessel is to the top of the picture. The cable would go to the cable tier through the corners fo the hatch cover that were 'left out' when the cover was made. The cable would have been lashed with eyebolts and stoppers to both the standard knees of the windlass and to eyebolts in the deck, all forward of the windlass. The port side cable is loosened and held off the drum with lashings. It too would be lashed with stoppers to keep its anchor from running out if the anchor broke free.

Most interesting, Wayne, as you note, that there is no red pigment listed. 'Verdigris' is a pigment name, though as an artists' color it is not very saturated and is fugitive with exposure to light. It is green. The Prussian Blue listed just after is a strong, permanent blue-green pigment that will stand much mixing with other colors and white. It becomes, with white, a sky blue or robin's egg blue, just as a guide. With white and yellow ochre it would become green, but not very bright, because the yellow is dull.

Milo, the fly tying scissors, if I recall, were in the sub- $20 range. I got one straight pair and one curved, one is Dr. Slick, the other isn't. I got them at an Orvis store, but I see Cabela's also has fly supplies, just to give you some options.

The NRG also published an article (by Merritt Edson?) with descriptions and color swatches of paints used on merchant ships of the 19th century. What color was 'stone color', for example? It was at one time available online.

One theory to this crazy thing is that the model is only the support structure for a coat of paint.

Any time you see 'all ships' or 'always' be careful. One US Navy ship was painted green on the inside bulwarks, Constitution. Were others painted similarly? Probably. Were others painted differently? Probably. She also had different paint schemes on the outside in her career. Common colors for the outside or at least port bands were white, yellow and red. Common colors for the inside bulwarks were probably lighter blacks (grays) greens, blues and of course whites. It seems certain that some port lids were painted red, especially those with lions' heads. The less expensive pigments were probably more common, iron oxides for reds and browns and yellows, Prussian Blue, a chemically derived pigment available from the first quarter of the 1700s for blues and greens (mixed with yellow oxides). Some of the oxide reds apparently could be fairly bright. Gold color, as opposed to gold leaf, was done with yellow oxides and whites. Blacks were bone black and lamp black, carbon from burning bone and the soot from lamps. All of those pigments are permanent, so you got good value for money; the weak link would have been the medium, probably fish oil. I don't know if linseed oil would have been too expensive for the quantities needed. The more limited the use, probably the more expensive the color could be. The carvings done in appropriate colors, 'proper' as it is called in heraldry, see the coat-of-arms pic above, against a solid background color were perhaps most colorful, as also the scrollwork and other limited decoration of late 1700s ships. Obviously, the larger and more prestigious ships had more both of carvings and garish colors, for that read expensive.

The roundhouses nor quarter galleries are in use today or the outlets would be pungently obvious. There was a discharge pipe to carry the effluent past the body of the ship, I believe. That scroll below the quarter galleries hid the end of the pipe. Unless at anchor, the bow wave would probably have kept too much of a buildup from the heads.

druxey, is the lap feathered, that is, does the hull appear smooth midships and show the full depth of plank at bow and stern? That method has always bewildered me. Perhaps I should take notes as well.

Soooo... you plank right on the plug, remove keel and plank in one unit, then add frames, etc.? Slightly different than the set of boats I watched you build a few years ago. Hopefully there will be no heart-stopping 'CRACK' when the disassembly comes.

WEST coast of NH, Mike. Check a map. The glue (white glue) has soaked pretty much all through the paper by virtue of being wrapped tightly on itself. You could paint to seal it, certainly. The shank and flukes of the anchors are from the kit, I made the arms with wood as I think Lever shows. The rings have puddening added, again as in Lever, but simplified.

If you can get to the plugged hole with a drill, drill the epoxy out of the hole. I would have used printer paper wrapped around the mast a few times with an eyebolt in the appropriate place. I dampen the paper with glue before wrapping and it softens enough to follow the shape as I do the wrap. Glues itself, too. You can paint after or use black paper. I know some people swear by it despite many cautions, but I would not let CA anywhere near a model. Metal to wood, use epoxy. If you can, heat it (you said above you were getting a torch soon, yes?) so it can form without spring back. The bands on these anchors are paper. It stretches enough when damp to go around the non-parallel sides of the stock.

You certainly wouldn't want to put any weight forward in those. It might get very wet quite quickly.

Bolts were clenched over a rove or washer. This may take place in a countersunk hole, especially on the exterior or where there is another piece to be added on top, above the keel, below the keelson, say.

I think a butt plate would be used when the frames were too thin or narrow to take the fasteners, or provide proper landing area for the two butts. Steam bent frames over moulds come to mind. A butt plate also should be a tad wider than the plank width and could provide some support for adjacent strakes or take support from them.

Isaac Newton (listed on your chart) was trying to find the 'ideal body' for a ship or other object in water. Like Einstein's search for a further law of relativity, he never found it.

You want to watch out that the filler isn't much different in hardness than the wood. You can wind up sanding too much on the softer material trying to get the harder material to match.

Mark, I'm not sure where I found it, but perhaps in one of the ship of the line series by Lavery.