Roger Pellett

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

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

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

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

Unlike a lot of movies using models this really looks realistic.  Without getting into technical details the viscous effect of the water varies with the size of  a floating body.  The models used in movies often look that they are traveling in molasses rather than water.

Roger

Unfortunately it’s an expensive place to get to if you are not driving.  Our friends living in major airline markets are astonished at the air fares in and out of Duluth.  Otherwise, we have a great selection of places to stay, some really unique conference venues, two and possibly three museum ships, a nice maritime museum and a working waterfront.

Roger

Does anyone know what Wood species Briar is?

Roger

I would vote for that too.  It’s the mid west’s turn.  My first choice would be at the largest port on the Great Lakes- Duluth, Minnesota but since I don’t think that that is going to happen, I would get behind Kansas City.  I used to travel there on business and it’s a great city.

Roger

It is a beautiful house and garden.

Roger

‘This is from “Standard Designs for Boats of the United States Navy” (1900) by Chief Constructor Phillip Hitchborn, USN

For a 14ft Dinghy oars to be either 9ft-0in or 10ft-0in length overall.

For a 9 foot oar:

blade-  3ft long x 5-3/8in wide at the tip

loom dia at leather- 2-1/8in

handle- 5in Long x 1/3/8in dia

The loom tapers to 1-3/8in at the junction with the blade.

The blade is 1/2 in thick at the tip.

My information from Steele was taken from information printed in the NRJ and is now filed away.  I’ll try to find it tomorrow.

Roger

Rules for Oarmaking are published in Steele. These include a table for length based in boat size.

Roger

Dave,

A nice project!  I am concerned with your fan if you plan to use solvent based paints as it does not appear to be explosion proof.  

Roger

Mike,  

I have a Badger 350 airbrush powered by an air compressor.  

The Badger is a well made rugged inexpensive unit that is easy to keep clean. With it I have been able to produce acceptable paint jobs on wooden models.  My last model was painted exclusively with acrylic paints mixed from artists acrylics.

You will be frustrated without an easy to use dependable air source.  My first efforts many years ago were with canned air.  I then rigged up an air system by hooking various components to an ancient farm air compressor.  A couple of years ago I scrapped my system for a compact air compressor/ tank combination bought at a big box home improvement store.  This is equipped with a pressure switch that stores air in the tank at 125psi.  Downstream is an adjustable regulator to limit pressure to the air brush.  THIS IS IMPORTANT!  The Badger air brush body is cast resin.  The air inlet is a brass fitting pressed into the resin body.  If the air brush is over pressured, the fitting can be blown out of the body and it’s time to buy a new one.  Your air brush budget should definitely include purchase of one of these integrated compressor with built in adjustable regulator.

Roger

Glen,

Beautiful work on the steam plant.  Minirature marine engineering!

I reread the chapter about the Charleston attack in Rowanna Reed’s book last night.  The timing of Wells’ letter that you quote would indicate that he was telling DuPont, “Either you use the ironclads or I’ll send them to someone who will.”

Roger

It looks like I got some of the same stuff that you did.  I bought mine from a supplier in Baltimore in the mid 70’s too.  I do not know the exact species but it is sure nice stuff to work with.  I should probably either tackle some large project to use it up or include it in my will, otherwise when I am gone it will end up in someone’s fireplace!

Roger

Here are two pieces of Boxwood, not Costello Boxwood.  The wood is yellowish in color, and quite heavy.  The grain is very tight, and when cut holds a clean, crisp edge.  When sanded with fine grit it takes on a nice polish.  I find it to be more brittle than either pear or holly.

Roger

Yes, that’s right I didn’t think of it in that context, and it would have been 1863 as in April of 1862 there was only one monitor, the original one. The Western Gulf Squadron was responsible for waters from Pensecola, Florida to the Rio Grande River.  It’s headquarters were in New Orleans. By the fall of 1863 there were only three major ports connected to the South’s rail network not either captured outright or sealed up-  Charleston, Wilmington, NC and Mobile and the idea was to attack Mobile after Charleston.  In the event, this didn’t happen as the Passaic Class Monitors remained at Charleston, and the Mobile attack was delayed into 1864 when the Canocus Class Monitors became available.

Glen,

in your historical analysis above, did you mean to say that after the Charleston attack, the Ironclads were to be sent to Mobile (rather than New Orleans)?  By the time that Charleston was attacked New Orleans had been under Union control for over a year.

Most historians fail to realize that the Monitor class of warships and Keokuk were designed to counter the Confederate ironclads being built, and that they lacked offensive power to engage forts.  The Passaic class monitor Weehawken demonstrated the ability of the monitors to do what they were designed for by convincingly defeating the ironclad Atlanta.  Unfortunately Keokuk never got the chance to do so.  In attacking Charleston, the Union Navy erred in not placing its vessel with the most offensive capacity- New Ironsides,in a better position  to attack the forts.  In her excellent book Combined Operations in the Civil War, author Rowanna Reed makes this point.

Roger

Learned this the hard way!!  In finishing your baseboard to minimize warpage you have to “balance” it.  Whatever you do to the top surface, do to the bottom.   You therefore need to seal both the top and bottom against moisture.

My personal opinion is that this ship would not have been heavily weathered in service.  The ship was a prestigious command, with a large crew to keep busy when not in action.  Like the old navy expression goes “If it doesn’t move, paint it.”  And remember, a warship was judged by the condition of its boats.

I am enjoying your posts.  I am not a plastic modeler and am amazed at the detail that you guys are able to incorporate into these small scale models.  Nice work!

Roger

No, I think more likely like the drawing below.  In this case there were three wheels in the pilot house of this vessel.  The smaller metal wheel operated the steering engine below while the double wooden wheels could be used to steer the ship manually.  Sorry, my IPad insists on turning the picture on its side.

Roger

All wooden wheels were also used on some Great Lakes steamships.  By the 1890’s these vessels were often steered with steam steering engines- little more than winches that drove steering chains running back to the rudder quadrant in the stern.  The wheel was just required to open and close valves on the winches.

This is important because this wheel looks to be too lightly built to stand up to forces from hand steering a sailing vessel.  Also by the second half of the Nineteenth Century cast metal steering wheels were readily available and widely used on sailing vessels.

This does not make this artifact any less interesting.

Roger

I agree with Bob’s post above.  The underwater Archeology people have published a lot of new information since this book was published and much of it can be found on the internet.  The bad news is how much is still unknown. In most cases information is limited to mast steps, floor timbers, and many a few first futtocks.  Virtually nothing exists for upper works.  It would be even be impossible to determine which of these vessels, were fitted with square transom or round sterns.

The Newport Ship currently being conserved in Bristol, UK is one of the “better preserved” examples of a ship of this period, probably built in Spain.  The reconstruction is based on a remarkably small fragment of the hull with the rest, such as the square transom inferred.

Roger

Keith,

Have you ever visited Isle Royal National Park?  It’s the large island on Western Lake Superior.  Accessible only by boat, it gets about 35,000 visitors a year.

Roger

The basis for any good model is a good set of lines that define the vessel’s hull.  Rigs could and did change to suit circumstances.  Chapelle’s Baltimore Clippers Book was originally copyrighted in 1030 so it is one of his early works.  Many of the drawings reproduced in it the were traced from takeoffs of hull lines for vessels acquired by the Royal Navy.  This book also includes copies of drawings redrawn from those produced by the French Naval constructor Marestier who visited the US in 1820.  I don’t know of a better source of information for these vessels unless you are willing to travel overseas.

My copy of the book book was printed by Tradition Press in 1965.  It is about 11in by 8in so the drawings show up well.  I believe that copies of this same edition are available.

If you want a later source I recommend Chapelle’s “Search for Speed Under Sail,” but my copy of the Baltimore Clipper produces the material in a larger format.

Roger