Roger Pellett

Buy a used copy of “The Baltimore Clipper” by Howard I Chapelle.  The book is loaded with plans.  You should be able to buy a good used copy for less than $10.

Niagara is not representative of vessels usually classed as hermaphrodite brigs.  She was a true brig.  In addition, any drawings that would be available would be for one of several reconstructions attempted over the years including the one presently sailing on the Lakes.  In other words they do not depict a real vessel from the early 1800’s.  All of the drawings in Chapelle’s book are based in authentic drawings or half models.

Roger

What you’ve done so far looks great!

Roger

Very nice work!

Roger 

That is why it is helpful to make up a table of rigging sizes ahead of time.  With an Excel spread sheet you can add a factor to each column and work your way across to the final scale diameter.  

I made a simple stepped gage from two sizes of dowel with marks at 1/8” and 1/4”.  For example, the diameter of line where 10 wraps touches the 1/4” Mark is .25”/10 or .025”.  Each available spool of line is marked with the number of turns per 1/4”, and the last column on my rigging table is also tabulated in the same way so at my workbench it is simply a question of using the spool marked with the correct number of turns.

Roger

Keith,

In 1990, master modeler Rob Napier published a series of articles in the Nautical Research Journal detailing techniques that he used to build a highly detailed model of the sailing vessel Sooloo.  The model had quite a bit of scroll work like you are faced with.  If my memory is correct, he started with a flat photo etched part that he “built up” with solder, then filed to its half oval cross section.  A variation of druxey’s suggestion.

I believe that you will find a description of his process in either No’s 2 or 3 of Volume 35.

Roger

Photo Etch?

Roger

A great project!  In 1964 I was attending the University of  Michigan studying Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering and also pursuing a USNR commission with the university’s NROTC unit.  This program required one summer cruise, the 1st Class one.  I received orders to an old WWII submarine in the Western Pacific.

It  turned out that the submarine was going “somewhere that I wouldn’t want to go” according to the boat’s captain.  Wherever they were going involved scuba gear and rubber boats which were stacked on board.  After considerable shuffling around and two more flights I found myself aboard the Ocean Minesweeper USS Loyalty (MSO 457) deployed overseas to Sasebo, Japan.  It was my first experience aboard a US Navy warship.

The captain was a hard-boiled sort of guy who was determined that the two midshipmen on board would become qualified OOD’s before the end of the cruise. As soon as we got underway, I was assigned to the pelorus and range finder on the bridge and told to keep station on another ship in the diamond formation.  As the ship was fitted with controllable pitch propellers engine orders were given in feet of pitch (all ahead four feet). I was assigned to a regular watch section as JOOD and when we began a mine sweeping exercise with the Japanese Navy we stood four on, four off.  We eventually got to the point where I was to stand an OOD watch by myself.  Upon reporting to the bridge, the fog was so thick that I could’nt see beyond the jack staff but I was doing ok using RADAR.  About an hour into the watch a signal came through to change formation.  In my nervousness about this maneuver which I had little idea how to accomplish I garbled the Radio Transmission.  The captain came boiling out of his sea cabin behind the bridge, pissed off.  I was promptly relieved in disgrace.  

Looking back, it was remarkable opportunity.  The combination of the small ship and old salt captain gave me wonderful experience that I wouldn’t have received elsewhere.  

After I left her to return to school, Loyalty deployed to Vietnam for operation Market Time and made several deployments after that.  During one deployment she fired her 40mm “main armament” (later replaced by a 20mm) in anger destroying a gun emplacement.

Roger

A two legged forestay ?

Roger

Another great portrait!  What used to be called the Cass Scenic Railroad and I believe is now a West Virginia State Park operates a fleet of these unique geared steam locomotives.  Many years ago my wife and I rode a train pulled by one of these up through a number of switchbacks to the top of a mountain.  For those traveling through the area this is not to be missed.

Roger

Thanks for posting this Eric.  “Keep em’ coming!”  Mother Nature always has the last word.

Roger

Remember, it’s just a ship model!  You are not trying to plumb up a new toilet on a Saturday night with the water shut off and your wife expecting company on Sunday.  Now that’s stressful!  If you have to rebuild something several times to meet your standards that’s ok.  Back in the good old days model kits were furnished with rough carved solid hulls.  These can be built into beautiful models and with your woodworking skills might a good choice.  Check Model Shipways and Bluejacket.  And remember, Bondo and Durham’s Rock Hard Water Putty are important model shipbuilding materials.

Jump in, make some sawdust and have fun.

Roger

Wonderful!

One of my favorites.

Roger

Eisenglass or Isenglass is  famous from the 1950’s Broadway song “Surrey With the Fringe on Top”- “With Eisenglass curtains you can roll right down in case there’s a change in the weather.”  It is apparently  is a chemical made from fish bladders used to do many things including preservation of “goldbeaters fabric.”  Goldbeaters fabric was made from abdominal membranes of cattle and was used for the gas cells in rigid airships.  It therefore makes sense that before the age of mass produced plastics an Eisenglass treated animal skin covering might have been used.

Roger

The directions for the epoxy that I often use say to mix the two parts for a full 60 seconds.

Roger

Eric,

The Car of Commerce photo shows four vertical white stanchions protruding thru the deck in way of the paddle boxes.  If you wished I believe that it would be accurate to show the same arrangement on your model with the transverse chains supporting the paddleboxes running above the deck.

Roger

I am no expert but as an engineer, strongly believe that for good engineering design form is driven by function.

If these alerion pulleys were not enclosed by some sort of cover fastened to the wing top they could become inoperative from chinks of dirt, sand, etc. kicked up by prop wash during takeoff.  Therefore, an “eisenglass” transparent screen would make sense.

I love these old aircraft and built balsa/tissue models of them in my teen aged years.  Many years before I was born my father and mother attempted to supplement their income by manufacturing and selling model airplane kits designed by my father.  Growing up there was a beautiful large scale 1930 era Curtiss P8 Hawk hanging up in my closet, all that was left from my father’s Viking Model Aircraft Company. Unfortunately it did not survive.

I am tempted to try to build another one but I know that I cannot duplicate the craftsmanship of the original or that you guys show so I will try to stick to boat models.

Somewhere along the way my father obtained an original propeller from a WW I Thomas Morse Scout.  It’s now hanging up in my basement.  I have no idea what I will eventually do with it.

Roger

Heinrich,

I have seen no evidence that red/brown sails were common on American sailing craft.  Americans in the Nineteenth Century had access to cotton canvas which is slightly off white.  The red/brown color associated with European small craft sails results from the “tanning” of sails made from flax to prevent rot.

Roger

This is interesting!  First of all it is obviously a warship.  The round stern excludes ships from the war of 1812 period.  I would hazard a guess that it is a mid 19 th Century sloop of war.  Possibly one of the large sloops that served throughout the Civil War.  You do not say if the hull includes a propeller aperature.  If so, the modeler might have been trying to replicate USS Hartford.  AJ Fisher used to offer a USS Hartford kit.  They were bought by one of the current American model companies but the last time that I looked they were on the web.

Roger

That brings up a chicken and egg question.

Was someone on the Seinfeld show a closet ship modeler who co-opted the Vandalay name, or is the guy that owns Vandalay Industries a Seinfeld fan?

I suspect the latter.

Roger

The longitudinal  load distribution on the hull of a ship is determined by subtracting the upward forces of buoyancy from the downward forces of weight at each point along its longitudinal axis.  For sternwheel vessels, the paddle wheel represented a heavy weight at a point where there was little or no displacement and therefore buoyant force to support it.  This would produce a large hogging moment required to be offset by the chains.  

You are modeling a sidewheel vessel.  The heavy side wheels and engines are located at a point along the hull where the shape of the hull provides a full upward buoyancy force to offset their weight which is probably why the steamer in the photo that I sent you does not show longitudinal chains.

Transverse chains are a different matter, as they would have been necessary to support the paddle wheel’s outboard bearing.

Chains were only effective in limiting hogging forces as compression forces caused by sagging would cause them to buckle.  Sagging forces in the calm water environment of the River could be limited by hull shape.

Roger

Eric,

I hope that you find the attached helpful.  This is from a digitally remastered daguerreotype photo taken in 1848 of the Cincinnati, Ohio waterfront.  The remastering was done by the Cincinnati Public Public Library.  The steamer in the photo would appear to be a typical Ohio River boat intended fou use in shallow water.  The vertical white posts are for the transverse chains supporting the paddle boxes.  The vessel does not appear to be fitted with longitudinal chains.

Roger

Dave,

Another interesting variation of the Sopwith Camel would be that used by the Royal Navy- either as a very early carrier plane or as one launched from a platform atop a battleship.  The Sopwith Camel was used in both capacities.  When launched from a battleship they were disposable as they were ditched at sea with the pilot supposedly recovered.

Roger

I remember when the Israelis agreed to return the Sinai to Egypt several analysts likened it to the sea in that it could be controlled by fleets of tanks without having to actually garrison it with boots on the ground.  The US Navy’s great strategic writer Captain Mahan would have approved.

Gallipoli seems to be an example of a concept sound in strategy but ahead of its time as the technology did not exist to allow it to work-  ships’ boats instead of landing craft, and especially inadequate communications to allow effective command and control.  I just read the first volume of Admiral Turner’s biography and even with voice radio, the US Navy badly underestimated communication requirements for early WW 2 amphibious landings.  Like we did with the Japanese prior to WW2 the Turks were badly underrated as a competent, tough fighting force.  In my opinion, once the initial assaults failed and the fighting settled into the same trench warfare as the Western Front, the troops should have been withdrawn sooner rather than later.

Roger

How about a brass spittoon? 

Roger

Beautiful work, Eric!

Roger