Roger Pellett
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Help with Proxxon MF70
Roger Pellett replied to Bluto 1790's topic in Modeling tools and Workshop Equipment
I have only bought one or two things on EBay and each time that I did so PayPal accepted my credit card. I don’t have a PayPal account. Roger -
Hubert An excellent post!! Can you expand a little on what you mean by welding? Do you mean soldering? Roger
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Very small two bladed propellers can be made by twisting thin wire into a figure 8 shape, skewed to represent pitch. The two lobes can then be filled in with modelling putty or even thick paint. Roger
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Can someone give me a run down of Santa Maria kits?
Roger Pellett replied to a topic in Wood ship model kits
Susan, Before investing in an expensive kit, all representations of Santa Maria, full sized or models are conjectural as very little is known of the actual vessel. Therefore, such fundamental things as the shape of the hull are only guesses. In addition kit manufacturers are notorious for “jazzing up” their kits with anachronistic details to add marketing appeal. Building a Santa Maria model from a kit may provide many hours of enjoyment but cannot with the present state of knowledge result in historic accuracy. Roger -
The old Hotel Lafayette Hotel, an icon on the bank of the Ohio River in Marietta, Ohio used to have an 8ft diameter steering wheel from a tow boat in its lobby. Roger
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Help with Proxxon MF70
Roger Pellett replied to Bluto 1790's topic in Modeling tools and Workshop Equipment
Assuming that the seller received your payment what is preventing him from sending you the item? If by wire transfer directly to the seller, eBay has been “cut out of the deal” I can understand why they would ban the seller from future transactions. Roger -
Book found home! Roger
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I still have the book and and am willing to send it free to any forum member with a US address who wants it. Send me a PM. Roger
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Chapelle’s book includes 130 full page plates of fishing Schooner plans (hull lines drawings) including one of Benjamin Latham, but the real reason why I think that the book would be helpful is that the last 300+ pages are a reproduction of Chapelle’s notebook detailing in minute detail the construction and fittings of these interesting vessels. This information was taken from actual vessels and contemporary marine equipment catalogs. BTW any of the 130 plates in the book should be available in a larger sized format from the Smithsonian Institution. Roger
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If you plan to build any of the New England fishing schooners you should invest in a copy of Howard Chapelle’s American Fishing Schooners. Roger
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The US Navy used to copper its launches (ships boats) in the Nineteenth Century. A SNAME paper from 1900 describing the first generation of standardized boats says that as of 1900 launches were no longer to be coppered. I don’t know when this practice started but Navy Ordinance manuals published in the 1850’s show coppered launches. Launches were large and seaworthy enough to make extended voyages away from the parent vessel so the Navy apparently considered protection necessary. Smaller boats were not coppered. Roger
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Shop Fire Extinguisher
Roger Pellett replied to Roger Pellett's topic in Modeling tools and Workshop Equipment
Thanks Kurt -
In the process of renovating my shop I took my 5lb ABC fire extinguisher in to be serviced, only to learn that it is too old (1973) to be legally serviced? Can anyone suggest a quality replacement? Roger
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The attached rather crude sketch shows my setup and shows how the third turn is “sewed” around the first two in step 3. Step 4 is tightly sewing a thinner thread around the grommet made in step 3. To serve it. It’s easier to do than to describe. Try it.
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True strops for blocks are easy to make: 1. Using a piece of soft wire strop the block and the thing that you intend to attach it to. Straighten out the wire, measure the length and divide the result by three. This is the diameter of the strop. 2. Find a short piece of dowel close to the calculated diameter. 3. Wrap three turns of thread around the dowel- using a needle, the third turn should be a series of overhand knots “sewn” around the other two. Tie off the ends of the thread around the three thread turns. 4. Thread a piece of thinner thread to a needle and serve the twisted rope turns around the dowel, and tie off the ends of the serving. A dab of clear nail polish is good for securing knots. 5. The finished product will be a served grommet. This is then slipped over the block and seized as Frankie shows above. 6. It is easy to add a hook by passing each wrap in step 3 through the eye of the hook. This procedure is easy and quicker than it sounds. It provides a much mote realistic appearance than a tied knot. Roger
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A dissenting opinion- Leave it alone! From your photos it doesn’t look that bad. Assuming that you intend to reattach deck houses, hatches, etc, they will break up the pattern. This appears to be a nice piece of folk art. Much nicer than the decorator models we often see. The somewhat haphazardly scribed deck is in keeping with the folk style of the model. Roger
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Micro-Mark Sand-It
Roger Pellett replied to RichardG's topic in Modeling tools and Workshop Equipment
Bob, It was not my intention to give MicroMark a pass. Actually since I have belonged to the Model Ship forum I have bought a lot less from them as I am now aware of other sources for the same stuff. I have never purchased any of their proprietary tools as they appeared to be something that I could rig up myself. I was pointing out that they have been able to use a well financed marketing campaign to offset other shortcomings, a common business practice. We are fortunate here in Duluth to still have a well stocked old fashioned hobby shop that I would like to support. The proprietor is, however, such a @#$& that I hate going into the place. Roger -
Micro-Mark Sand-It
Roger Pellett replied to RichardG's topic in Modeling tools and Workshop Equipment
As the old slogan goes, “It pays to advertise” and this is one thing that Micro Mark Does in spades. It seems like the only organizations that out advertise Micro Mark are the Cruise Lines. I must get at least half a dozen Micro Mark catalogs a year, some on the heels of the previous one for no apparent reason. On the other hand I don’t know who NorthWest Shortline is and therefore, have never bought anything from them. A business needs to grow to a certain “critical mass” to be able to advertise extensively which rules out small shops. On the other hand, the MicroMark catalog for many is a one stop shop, and the Chinese issue is overlooked because buyers are used to things coming from China. In the case of propriety items like the Chopper, If it is in the MicroMark Catalog many would not recognize it as a knockoff and look for it elsewhere. Micro Marks stuff is not inexpensive. They just have reached a Volume that provides the revenue to fund their ad campaign. Roger -
Bruce, I checked Ed’s post and was unable to find his description of building his POB hull. As an alternative check Backer’ series of posts for building Golden Hinde. He uses the same technique with excellent results. Roger
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I agree with Kurt’s posts above. The reason for the double planking is economic. It allows kit manufacturers to provide more widely spaced bulkheads, reducing material and shipping costs. It also provides a marketing bonus- “you get to build the model just like the real thing” which of course is untrue. Since you you are building from scratch a better system would be to fill in the spaces between the bulkheads with easily carved wood blocks. The hull is then carved in the usual manner. You now have a solid, fair base for planking. Ed Tosti demonstrates this method in his build log for Young America. He actually built two hulls, a plank on bulkhead one and a plank on frame one. Roger
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Why worry about painting with copper paint. If your sheathing plates are scale length and you have done a careful plating job which it appears that you have the results should replicate the real thing. Roger
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I own both Lee’s rigging book and Sieele’s Masting, Rigging, and Sailmaking Book. For fore and aft rigged vessels Lee’s book is of little help as it focuses on large square rigged vessels. Steele provides details for rigging a cutter which is useful but dismisses anything smaller only stressing that they are lightly rigged. My interest is building 1:32 scale warships boats. I just finished my third boat in the series, a rigged longboat. The book that I found most useful was Tom Cunliffe’s Hand, Reef, and Steer that deals with traditionally rigged fore and aft sailing craft. While this does not give explicit directions for rigging a longboat, it does explain in detail the various lines required to control a flying job, jib foresail, and gaff mainsail, the way that these sails and their controlling lines work, and practical advice for handling the rig. This was a great help in achieving what I believe is an accurate representation of the rig. BTW- I have a paperback edition of Peterson’s Rigging Fore and Aft Rigged Period Craft. If despite the legitimate criticism posted above, you still feel that you must own a copy, send me a PM and I’ll pop it in the mail to you. US addresses only. This way it will be worth what you paid for it! Roger
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Can you identify this feature? 19th century 1st Rates
Roger Pellett replied to Martocticvs's topic in Nautical/Naval History
Many years later, but perhaps useful. The whaleback steam ship Meteor is fitted with sheet metal scoops that fit into the cast brass porthole housings to direct air into the living quarters. Maybe the same idea? Roger -
The English ships that fought the Armada were a hodgepodge of “Royal ships” actually owned by the Queen’s Navy, privately owned vessels chartered by the Navy, privately owned vessels sailed by individuals who were not part of the Navy, and some of which could have been owned by the Queen privately. It is likely that Mayflower was a privately owned ship impounded or chartered for the crisis. Roger
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I think that the answer to this is “it depends what you are building.” Royal vessels intended to enhance the ruler’s prestige or to intimidate a rival were painted, Vasa being a prime example. Paints, were, however, expensive and would have been used sparingly on less important ships. The expensive ingredients in paints were the pigments because many were made from finely ground semi precious minerals. While the King could afford these, colors for less important craft tended to be those made from readily available pigments. Black could be manufactured from “carbon black”- ordinary soot. Red, which could vary from dull “barn red” to reddish orange could be made from iron ore bearing rock or clay. Iron oxide paint is still used as a cheap construction primer and the barns disappearing from our countryside were painted red for the same reason. Large surfaces of bare wood could also be treated with tar distilled from the resin of pine trees giving a translucent brown color to hulls. In Mayflower’s case there is no documentary evidence either way, but there would have been little reason to spend money decorating a small undistinguished merchant ship. Roger
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