Roger Pellett

Prior to the mid 1800’s most colors were derived from pigments that occurred naturally in nature. Bright, vivid colors were rare and expensive. For example, the bright colors found on the Vasa are believed to be a deliberate attempt by the king of Sweden to flaunt his wealth and even then they were used only on decorations. Most ships would have been painted much more modestly using common pigments, the most common being dirt, or more specifically earth bearing iron ore. Two common earth tone pigments were a dull red and a “dirty” yellow called yellow ochre. This is still used as a basic artist’s color today so should be easy to find. If it is too bright, try mixing it with a little grey to tone it down. I wouldn’t worry about the colors on the kit’s box as this is more about marketing than historical correctness. Roger

Objectively, the term “best” should refer to how well a ship fulfilled the specifications that its designer attempted to satisfy. In the case of a capital warship this is closely tied to the foreign policy objectives that the Navy was required to uphold. This however ignores the fact that these objectives change over time causing ships to be used in roles not intended by their designers. While it could be argued that the French could afford to build light scantling vessels because they were not expected to remain at sea for long periods of time, 74’s were intended to be heavy weight sluggers and if their light scantlings allowed the British to knock them to pieces in battle then they cannot be considered to have been well designed. Likewise, events did require them to remain at sea for long periods as much of the French fleet’s operation (at least in the 1700’s) was spent defending lucrative possessions in the Caribbean. Speed was also an overrated characteristic in a line of battle ship as their name implies these ship were intended to be an element of a fleet that moved at the speed of its slowest vessel. At the time of the American Revolution the British were able to gain a significant speed advantage over the French by coppering existing ships. This had a significant effect on the American Revolution as during the Yorktown Campaign the coppered British ships sailing faster than the uncoppered French reached the American East Coast first after both sailed from the Caribbean. Not finding DeGrasse in the Chesapeake the British sailed on to New York and the French ducked into The Chesapeake behind them. While by all accounts USS Ohio was a beautifully designed ship, she really served just as a powerful warship, not a line of battle ship as the US Navy never succeeded in establishing a battle line. Roger

This has been on my to do list whenever we visit my daughter., son-in-law and granddaughter in Brooklyn but I have never gone in part as I am unsure of public transport on Long Island. Can this be reached by subway, train, or bus from Brooklyn Roger

Even though your model is large it may still be too small for this technique but I offer it for what it’s worth- Rolling and Tipping, I have used it on several wood canvas canoes where I had trouble with brush marks. It involves rolling enamel on and then very lightly stroking it with a dry brush to level out the paint. A small foam roller would probably work. I have used it with standard semi gloss alkyd boatbuilding enamels. With these,enamels a drop of Penetrol also helps to eliminate brush marks. Roger

Terry, You may also want to look into the C. A. Thayer, also at the San Francisco museum. A smaller vessel than Balclutha she was recently rebuilt so detailed HAER drawings must exist. Roger

In times past, naval architects attempted to deal with paper distortions by the use of a graphic scale on the drawings. All of Chapelle’s drawings include such a scale allowing measurements to be picked off the drawing. As real ships built in the later Nineteenth Century were lofted, drawing distortions would be likely picked up and corrected then. This lofting process means that when we build a model from a design drawing we are building an approximations of the real thing as we usually don’t know what changes were made in the mould loft. For example, the depth of the Great Lakes Schooner Clipper City was increased 18in during lofting. Many of Chapelle’s drawings were drawn from lines lifted from half models in the Smithsonian’s watercraft collection that may be different from the real thing as hull lines could have been changed during subsequent lofting. Roger

Larry, Try gluing the wood that you are going to carve onto a heavier strip of wood. Use a glue that can be unglued with a known solvent. The PVA (yellow) glues can be unglued with alcohol. The heavier strip supports the piece that you are carving. Roger

Very nice! Roger

The real answer to this question is “it depends.” First the standardized framing shown in the NRG monograph is a stylized model making convention as no one knows how the Lake Champlain row galleys were framed. Like most war vessels built on the lakes during wartime these were built in a remarkably short time and were considered to be expendable so shortcuts would have been taken. I personally believe that these galleys may have been built by erecting widely spaced mould frames with filler frames added as planking progressed. These filler frames were probably semi detached segments- quick and dirty but the galleys held together long enough to delay the British. Framing practice was highly dependent on location and the methods that the shipbuilder was able to use to translate the hull shape in his mind into a finished hull. The Swan Class Sloops, and Niad Class Frigates being replicated in detail on this forum were built for the British Admiralty where a clear record exists. Similar documentation exists for vessels built for the French Navy. Documentation for large American ships built for the US Navy and for merchant vessels built to classification standards in the second half of the Nineteenth Century also exists. Similar information may exist in the archives of other countries, but if you are trying to build a vessel built before the mid 1800’s in a location other than a government yard you are pretty much on your own. The book Coffins of the Brave includes Archeology evidence for a War of 1812 American Row Galley. Roger

No, the hand operated windlass driven by the capstan above is not interchangeable with the steam driven one, but the capstan itself shown on my drawing is likely to be the same, or at least similar. Roger

The exact Hyde Windlass/ Capstan arrangement was housed in the fore turret of the Whaleback steamship Frank Rockefeller built in 1896, now the museum ship SS Meteor. The worm geared steam driven windlass still exists but the capstan that sat atop the turret was removed, probably around 1905 when Great Lakes steamships changed from hemp to steel wire mooring lines. Fortunately, I have a copy of the Hyde drawing for the capstan / windlass. Send me a PM with your address and I’ll send you a copy. Roger

Joe, Please forgive me if you already know this but the Civil War mortar schooners with dimensional data, build location and date are listed in Paul Silverstone’s Warships of the Civil War Navies. There are a number of two masted coasting schooners described in Chapelle’s National Watercraft Collection. To build a plausible model your modeler could to try to select a vessel from the collection that has been documented that best matches the characteristics listed in Silverstone. I noticed that one of the mortar vessels was built at Mystic, CT. There is a paper in the Internet by Maynard Bray listing drawings held at the Seaport. Roger

Sorry, I have no idea. I would hazard a guess that they might be fabric. Roger

See also “A Maritime Archeology of Ships”, Chapter 5 for a more recent (2013) discussion of rather meager archeological evidence of evidence of the hulk. Roger

The ships in Steven’s post above appear to be hulks or “hulcs” These are sort of the “missing links” of ancient naval architecture. There is a conjectural reconstruction of one of these in The Evolution of the Wooden Ship by Basil Greenhill. Roger

The Sherline also has a hollow spindle, so with the right chuck you can incrementally turn very long pieces. Roger

Yes, that’s right, I like to think that I have built my present effort at least threw times! Roger

The typical response is often “I wouldn’t have the time or patience to to that.” This totally ignores the research that went into the project, the ability to figure out the ways to fabricate the various parts, or even with a well equipped workshop the skill required to use the tools. Great work! Roger

I am about to rig my longboat model and while the rigging is simple, I would like to do a good job of it. There has been discussion on the forum about the use of fly tying thread thread and some mention of fly tying tools. Can anyone who has used fly tying tools comment on which tools they have found to be useful and how they are used? Thanks, Roger

A generation issue. I don’t own a cell phone, smart or otherwise, so I prefer a stand alone calculator. On the other hand, my current modeling activities involve building models at 1:32 scale which is really easy to calculate in your head- 1/32in is 1in at scale. Roger

As an engineer, I used calculators of one sort or another all of my working life and for many things I find them much more convenient than firing up a computer. When I retired I owned a fancy Hp calculator which unfortunately died. You can still buy inexpensive calculators at big box and chain drug stores for $10 US or less. I have one on my workbench and consider it to be an essential modeling tool. In this example, knowing only two facts: 1in = 25.4mm, and the scale of the model, 1:60, height of the scale figure becomes a simple calculation. Roger

Working craft of Brittany are covered in the book Les bateaux des cortes de la Bretagne Nord by Jean Le Bot. The book includes a chapter on the St. Malo Pilot Boats that appear to be the boat that you are researching. The book is in French, but plans are plans. Used copies are available on Amazon, but make sure if you buy a copy it includes the large scale drawings included in a pocket. Roger

What exactly are you looking for? Do you have access to tools to convert blocks of wood or do you need exactly dimensioned pieces? Roger

Thanks Kurt for the reference. To get Ken this info I would have had to dig through a stack of journals several feet high. Roger

In the late 80’s or early 90’s Eric Ronnberg published a series of articles in the Nautical Research Journal about researching and building a model of the Boston pilot Boat Hesper. In these articles he discussed the design of the pilot “yawl” used to transfer the pilot from to and from the vessel to be piloted. Look it up on their data base of articles. Trying to bring the much smaller pilot boat along side a much larger ship would be dangerous in a seaway. Roger