Roger Pellett

A number of years ago I bought a set of these. They were supposedly carbide drills for manufacturing printed circuit boards. For someone used to using steel twist drills, these were so brittle to be unusable. Roger

I second Vossiewulf’s suggestion above for Naval Warfare in the Age of Sail. It is an excellent book. Be sure that you get the book by Brian Tunstall. There is a similarly titled book by a different author. Roger

Very nice work, Lupo The hull lines of the two vessels that can be reproduced with a fail degree of certainty- Mary Rose and the Red Bay Galleon San Juan show a “boat like hull” below the upperworks with a relatively fine lined bow. Your model nicely captures this. Roger

A friend of mine, ex professional pilot told me that the reason for the gull wings was to provide ground clearance for the large propeller swung by the huge engine. As a youngster growing up near Akron, Ohio I remember seeing flights of these passing overhead during the Korean War. It is my understanding the Goodyear Aircraft in South Akron built some. Roger

Jim, Since you live in the UK if you are adventurous and perhaps well connected you might be able to find some prime boxwood. The true boxwood is used in ornamental landscaping throughout the British Isles and sadly some very old trees are dying from some sort of asiatic pest. During a visit to one such garden in Yorkshire I asked the gardener what is done with dead trees. They are cut down and burned. Maybe you could recycle some? Roger

Beautiful work! Roger

For a luxury yacht like this what marine engineers call “hotel loads” could be quite large, perhaps larger than the load required by the auxiliary engine. As we know air conditioning gobbles up a huge amount of energy. By splitting generating capacity between two units, one could be shut down when demand is low, more efficient than runnng a large unit at low power? Since the yacht is of German construction would the electrical system be DC simplifying synchronization problems with two units? Roger

Looks like a nice solidly built piece of machinery that should work fo most applications. In my opinion tilting blade is subject to the law of dimishing returns- a lot of money being spent on a feature that is seldom used. Roger

Mark, You might further qualify your post to say “Ships of the Royal Navy” as the practice for At least one other major naval power, the Dutch was much different. Roger

Citric acid- lemon juice??

When I was taught to draw hull lines, pre-cad the preferred method for drawing the long sweeping curves for the waterlines involved the use of splines, not ships curves. Ships curves were used when the curve was too sharp to use a spline. If you go to the previous page, you will find a post by Druxey describing the way to draw a fair curve with a curve. Splines can be easily ripped from straight grained construction lumber. Where I live, this is SPF (spruce, pine, fur). Spruce is best. At a lumber yard or big box store, it is the lightest of the three, the whitest, and does not have the nice resinous smell of the other two. The spline can be held in place by driving small thin brads into the drawing board. Roger

Have you tried soaking the parts in acetone or lacquer thinner? Unlike varnishes that cure, even after it has dried lacquer dissolves in acetone. Lacquer based coatings are popular with manufacturers due to their quick drying time. If K&S gave their brass a quick coating of lacquer, acetone should work. Acetone is toxic and gives off a smell that does not appeal to other members of the household. I keep a supply of very small containers on hand so that I can use very small quantities. If K&S is using some sort of water based coating to comply with VOC rules then using the air eraser to clean the raw material before fabricating your parts should work. Roger

If you have acompressed air source an “air eraser” works great for preparing a metal surface for painting or blackening. I got a very inexpensive one from Harbor Freight that works fine. Roger

Some windlasses had a sort of arbor that ran above. This allowed the cable for the Anchor not intended for use to be hung from it in large loose coils around the windlass but not in contact with the barrel. Roger

A major task assigned to ships’ boats, particularly longboats and launches was the job of setting out and weighing the second anchor. Once the first Anchor was dropped, the ship’s mobility was obviously limited. The second anchor would be lowered and lashed to one or more boats. The boat would be rowed or sometimes towed to the selected location and dropped. When the ship got under way the procedure was reversed. Ancre’s recent publication on longboats details French practice for doing this. There is also an extensive discussion of handling anchors at the end of the age of Naval sail in Luce’s Seamanship. Those interested can find this reproduced on line. Anchor handling had a major influence on the design of the larger ship’s boats. In the 1700’s British and Dutch tended to handle anchors over boat’s bows so they had wide flaring bows to gain buoyancy. French practice was to handle anchors over the stern hence wide sterns. Later in the 1700’s the British Royal Navy began to substitute wide sterned launches for the narrower sterned longboats allowing handling over the stern. Roger

Chief, There are number of issues to consider- First there are loadline rules established by international agreement. These rules assign a freeboard to a vessel based on its design, with the ship presumably in good condition. The Plimsoll mark painted on the side of the hull defines the vessel’s minimum freeboard under different situations: Winter North Atlantic, Summer, Fresh Water, etc. Unless the basic design of the ship were to be changed there would be no reason to change the freeboard. Freeboard could be changed by making what might seem to be minor changes. For example making a deck previously open to the weather watertight by permanently closing openings might allow the load line to be changed but this would depend entirely on the vessel’s design vs the load line rules. Second, most ships are insured. To obtain insurance the owner must have the vessel surveyed by a “classification society.” In the USA the society is ABS, The American Bureau of Shipping. They will review the vessel’s design and its construction, and will publish a rating. A less than A-1 rating will cause insurance underwriters to set high rates or possibly refuse to insure the vessel and its cargo. Each classification society publishes its own rules that would cover the repairs needed to correct the condition you describe to allow it to pass a survey. Third the US Coast Guard is charged with ensuring that vessels sailing in US waters are seaworthy. They have the authority to enforce rules published by others such as the freeboard organizations plus those that they publish plus those issued by various other governmental agencies. As they say, “it’s complicated,” but the short answer is I don’t see how repairing a vessel can allow its freeboard to be reduced. Roger

For general use in my shop I keep a can of Durham’s Rock Hard Water Putty on hand. This comes as powder in a can and mixes with water to the desired consistency. It is odorless, foolproof, and sands well. It is stocked by my local big box home improvement store. I see no reason why it would not work for you. Roger

I agree with Mark. if you are using fine toothed blades with the Byrnes saw if the blade does not clear the cut it can trap sawdust between the teeth. Like Bob above I have made two half cuts with my full sized table saw but it has much more power and the gap between teeth in the blade is much wider so it tends to throw off the debris. Roger

Beatty also failed to use his most powerful ships effectively. The fast Battleships of the 5th Battle Squadron that had been substituted for several of Beatty’s battlecruisers were capable of engaging the German Fleet and had the armor to take its punishment. Warspite was hit numerous times reversing course at “windy corner” yet survived. Instead of deploying these powerful ships where they were most likely to meet the enemy they trailed the battle cruisers. Roger

Very Interesting Lou! Most of the WW 2 accounts that I have read seem to focus on the big picture and don’t discuss the techniques that were actually used to win the war. Thanks for your post. Roger

A great job building a fascinating model. Now you need to build a 1:32 scale USS Akron to suspend it from!! BTW I never cease to be amazed at what these pilots were expected to do. If launching and recovering these small planes in the slipstream of the huge Zepplin were not enough imagine using one of these primitive radio sets (I assume still Morse code at that time) while flying the plane and navigating so you could find your way back to the mother ship. Roger

Someone a while ago on one of the threads, I don’t remember which tried using expandable urethane foam. Anyhow, it was not possible to judge how much material to use and the stuff expanded beyond expectations resulting in a mess. Roger

With the money spent on Germania Nova I’ll bet that her hull has been faired too. I have always wondered what happens to the Bondo if the boat hits a dock. Wefalck is correct that high class riveted yachts were built by backing joints between plates with backing strips thus substituting butt joints for lapped ones. Of course, a good bit of cosmetic finishing would still be required. Roger

A friend of mine has been restoring a very large steel hulled motor yacht originally built by Berger in Manitowoc, WI. The boat is now located in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. As the hull plating is welded to the frames by fillet welds as these welds cool from welding temperature they cause dimpling of the plating known as “oil canning.” While this is noticeable on some Naval and commercial vessels it is unacceptable on a luxury yacht. The solution is to cover the hull in marine grade “Bondo” and then fair the entire hull by sanding with longboards. This cosmetic coating lasts about 10 years after which it must be renewed. A lot of backbreaking labor .which is apparently available in South Florida. Perhaps Germania’s builders somehow avoided this problem and the Bondo but on the other hand, the poured epoxy finish might be closer than we realize. Roger

Keith, This has worked for me: Select a piece of brass tubing of the required diameter. Turn a mandral to a snug fit inside the brass tube. Center drill the mandrel to fit a small pilot drill Assemble by sliding the brass tube over the mandrel leaving a length protruding beyond the end of the mandrel. Slide the pilot drill into its hole. The brass tube and pilot drill can be secured by epoxy or CA glue. File a set of teeth around the circumference of the protruding brass tube and debur. You now have a small brass hole saw, not something for use on metals but good enough to drill holes through thin wood. You can also accurately drill the small pilot holes first and then use the pilot drill on your hole saw to just guide the tool. Roger