Roger Pellett

Joe, if your budget can stand it, I highly recommend West System Epoxy, along with the metered pumps that they sell. I have used gallons of the stuff building a glued lapstrake canoe and repairing sailboats and wood canvas canoes. Unlike some of the big box store auto body fiberglass resins I have never had a batch that did not cure properly when mixed in the proper ratio using the pumps. Roger

Below deck area were often whitewashed to better reflect available light. The white squares are the insides of the lids in whitewashed areas. Roger

Nice, clean workmanship of an interesting subject. Roger

Yes, I know who Ben was. I have been an NRG member for over 40 years and have read a number of articles by Ben. He also wrote a very good SNAME paper about the construction of the Navy’s wooden “Agressive” class Minesweepers (MSO). These are of particular interest to me as I spent the summer of 1964 aboard one of these, USS Loyalty MSO 457, as an NROTC midshipman. The intent of my post was not to criticize the drawings that came with the kit. Since I have never met a model builder that felt that he/she had enough information I was pointing out another source by a highly competent researcher. Roger

The model building techniques may be different (not necessarily better) but no one that I am aware of has surpassed Eric’s research on New England Fishing Schooner technology. Roger

Ouch Eric! It sounds like you had a nice trip otherwise. Hope that your shoulder heals quickly and that you can return to your model shop soon. Roger

Some time ago, I don’t remember when exactly, the Nautical Research Guild published a series of articles about Elsie by noted model builder and New England fishing vessel scholar Eric Ronnberg. I would estimate that it was during the 1980’s when Eric was the Journal’s editor. The articles should be on the NRG’s CD set. Roger

It is a sad fact of life today that the general population today has little appreciation of engineering accomplishment, present or past. In fact the very name of the discipline that engineers use to solve problems- technology, has been co-opted to describe electronic gadgetry dismissing the important work that many engineers do. This is true of maritime history. Few people have any interest or appreciation of the technology that these old ships represent. Where they exist they are relegated to “tourist attractions” that in the words of travel guides are “great for the kids.” It is no wonder that a supposed discovery of Bonhomme Richard without any sort of verification by qualified underwater archeologists gets the tourism people drooling. Roger

I agree with John’s post above. This sounds like someone trying to drum up enthusiasm for “funding.” I’m surprised that they didn’t find the rough draft of Jones’ “I’ve not yet begun to fight” remarks in the cabin. Sorry to sound so cynical but the underwater wreck hunting game seems to be populated with hustlers. LaSalle’s ship Griffon has been found many times here in the Great Lakes only to still be missing. Roger

Did you serve on the Polk? Roger

Interesting!! As a 1960’s era Naval Reactors engineer this brings back fond memories as I rode the James K. Polk SSBN 645 on a sea trial. I was not looking forward to this as I do not tolerate enclosed spaces well but the acctual experience was interesting. The food was great and the crew claimed that the whole ship was on a diet but I saw no sign of this as one wardroom lunch featured a soup bowl of butter pecan ice cream drowned in maple syrup for dessert. The boat was crowded with Several EB engineers and I was supposed to “hot bunk” with one but I found a pile of life jackets on a lower deck to sleep on. A highlight of the week long cruise was a test firing of the boat’s missle battery, although fiberglass sabots were substituted for the real thing. Admiral Rickover had a cut away model similar to yours of USS Nantilus in his personal office and I am pleased to report that the reactor plant was no more detailed than the one that you show. Roger

Alexander, In the photos that you posted above, an interesting detail is the stack of rollers on the mast to secure the mainsail instead of the wooden hoops that we usually see. I wonder if these were commonly used on Dutch Boiers or if this was an invention by the vessel’s owner. Roger

Vadodoc, A good reference discussing the gaff rig from a working sailor's point of view is Tom Cunliff's "Hand, Reef, and Steer." In this book the author explains how the different rigging elements actually work. I personally found it to be more useful than Leather's book.

Ronald, Take a piece of small diameter dowel rod and measure off a convenient distance. I use 1/4in. Place marks at the beginning and end of the marked distance. Wrap the kit provided thread around the dowel. Count the number of turns between the two marks. Divide the marked distance by the number of turns to determine the diameter of the thread. Roger

Longridge’s book is a wonderful example of the publisher’s art seldom seen today. The foldout drawings in my copy are embossed so each folds into its own pocket. Roger

My workshop is located in my basement so even though Northern Minnesota is not a particularly high humidity location, I have had problems with light rust bloom on tools in the summer. In my past life, I was involved with the fabrication of large piping assemblies for industrial applications. These were often internally cleaned with abrasive steel grit, then capped with sheet metal end caps taped in place. The assemblies might be stored for some time before field installation, so rusting of internal surfaces would occur. In an effort to deal with this problem some of our customers specified adding bags of dessicant before capping the assemblies for shipment. While this seemed like a good idea, if the dessicant was not removed promptly it would become saturated and leave pools of water inside the pipe causing more serious corrosion. The next approach for fighting rust involved use of vapor phase inhibitors VPI and actually worked. VPI’s work by sublimation. They are a solid that “off gasses” a vapor that provides a protective surface on otherwise unprotected metal surfaces. One commonly used VPI is sold here in the US (on Amazon) under the name ZRust. Several years ago I bought a package of ZRust strips and put some into enclosed tool storage cabinets. They seem to work. Roger

Can you tell us about the Virginia V? Roger

The hull in the photo is painted with modern copper antifouling paint. There is no reason to sheath underwater ships on the Great Lakes, and Commodore Perry would not have had access to copper sheathing or the need to use it. Perry’s ships underwater hull sections would have been most likely tarred or perhaps coated with tallow although pine tar might have been more plentiful in a frontier area. Perry is supposed to have told builder Noah Brown that the construction of the Lake Erie brigs needed only to be good enough to survive one battle. Keep in mind that looking at your model from a distance of one foot is the same as looking at the real from a distance of 64ft. What detail would you see at 64ft? Roger

The first power tool that I bought was a full sized bench mounted drill press. Almost 50 years later I still use it and find it useful on almost a daily basis and have never regretted buying it. Like the Harbor Freight one that you are considering it was a “no name” brand. As long as your’s has ball/roller bearings and a minimum of plastic parts I don’t see how you can go wrong. You may also want to buy a quality set of pin vices as the Jacobs chuck may not handle very small drill bits. Roger

Articles from past issues can be downloaded from the NRG’s website and the website includes an on line index. If the articles in question are not listed, Kurt Van Dham, a contributor to Model Ship World May be able to help you. Roger

I believe in one of Roger Cole’s articles mentioned above about his clinker built Cutter model he talks about using tapered softwood sheathing below the waterline to allow application of copper. Roger

There is a series of articles in past issues of the Nautical Research Journal by Canadian Model Builder Roger Cole describing the construction of a lapstrake built RN Cutter. If my memory is correct, and at the moment I don’t have access to my Journals, there is discussion of coppering a lapstrake hull. Roger

During the war of 1812 the British built two schooners on Lake Huron. One was named Tecumpseh. Remains of Tecumpseh have been investigated by the Nautical Archeology Department of Texas A &M University. See their website. Their excellent book Coffins of the Brave also documents archeological evidence for both British and American vessels built during the war of 1812 on the Lakes. A determined researcher can also find most of this information on their website as many graduate thesises are available for download. I do not have access to the information at the moment but I believe that I have seen a planking drawing prepared by the RN for Tecumpseh’s construction. Roger

Mark, I am not suggesting that you rebuild your model! I am posting this for builders like you that may be looking for accurate information on Sixteenth Century Spanish ships. For some time I have been collecting information on the subject. First is “The Underwater Archeology of Red Bay” published by Parks Canada. This five volume set describes the mid-Sixteenth Century Galleon San Juan crushed in the ice in Labrador. The entire ship, originally built by Basque shipwrights, was disassembled, each part recorded, and a 1:10 scale model built. This report is a great book buying bargain. It’s five volumes that take up about a foot on by book shelf cost about $60.00. Another useful resource is “Vanguard of Empire” by Roger C. Smith it is aimed at late Fifteenth/ early Sixteenth Iberian built vessels. A well done book about Galleons of the Armada era is Peter Kirsch’s “Galleon”. In this book, the author uses primary source material to reconstruct an Armada period Galleon. The Red Bay Archeologists considered this book to be sufficiently authorative to use it in their work. I recently received “Six Galleons for for the King of Spain” by Carla Rahn Phillips. The author, a Professor of European History at the University of Minnesota uses archival material to discuss the 1625 procurement, construction, and life of six Spanish Galleons. Not a modeling book per-se but lots of interesting background information. By looking up Parks Canada Research Reports on the Internet I found a preliminary report on the Red Bay Galleon. This led me to a number of reports on other Iberian wrecks that have been investigated by archeologists. I hope that forum participants wanting to build a Spanish Galleon from a kit or from scratch will find this useful. Roger

It seems to me that excluding power tools, MicroMark has two kinds of stuff. First, Specialty tools that they have either invented themselves or copied from someone else that are mostly junk. Many of these appear to be aimed at modelers with little no no experience, and could easily be fabricated at home from a few pieces of wood and some nails. On the other hand, they do have some tools that are useful and “good enough” for the intended service. For example, a good friend of mine just gave me a cordless Dremel tool that I would like to use for drilling treenails on a POF hull. MicroMark sells a chuck to adapt it for wire sized drills. I have also gotten good use from their needle files. Some get pretty rough usage such as cleaning solder from a joint. i have never bought any of their power tools. Roger