Roger Pellett

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

Ken, 

I hope that you get to build the LCVP.  Several years ago Paul Fontenoy published a series of articles in the Nautical Research Journal describing the restoration of an LCVP by the North Carolina Maritime Museum.  This article describes the research that the museum conducted (including original BuShips drawings).

Roger

Beautiful work!  If I understand this correctly, the yard truss allows the yard to swing in the horizontal plane and to rotate about its vertical axis.  Without lifts, what prevents the yard from uncontrolled rotation,  particularly when both topsails are furled?

Roger

If different bottles of the same paint shade do not match, the bosun simply could not exactly match the old color when mixing up a new batch!

Roger

I realize that you are trying to make this model as accurate as possible but these details may defy solutuon.  It would seem that two courses of action make sense regarding ash disposal.

To avoid misinterpretation by future museum visitors don't show any ash disposal system.

Or use Howard Chapelle's system of providing something in use at the time elsewhere.  In this case, a mechanical hoist and an overboard sluice like Eric shows on his Bertrand model could have been used.  The ash gun drawing that I posted comes from a drawing of the steam tug Essayons built in the early 1900's and I don't know if these were available during the Civil War era.

Incidently, the last coal fired steamship on the Great Lakes is the ex railroad car ferry SS Badger which ferrys passengers, cars, and trucks across Lake Michigan.  The people that own and operate the vessel have been arguing with the EPA about the obvious problems of operating a coal fired ship with 1940's pollution abatement technology.  To avoid dumping ash in the lake they recently installed conveyor system to move the ash to a shipping container on the car deck which can be removed and dumped ashore at the end of the trip.  Different technology to solve the same problem 250 years later.

Roger

I have some old Floquil paints too that I would like to use.  Does anyone know what solvent to use as a thinner as I assume that the “official” thinner is no longer available?

Roger

Ash and clinkers from the boiler fire pits would not have been stored on board due to the fire hazard.  The usual practice on coal fired steamships would be to periodically rake out the fire from one furnace at a time on to the floorplates in front of the boiler, separate the clinkers, and then rebuild the fire. This was necessary as the clinkers would plug up the furnace grates and kill the draft. The clinkers would be hosed down and immediately discharged overboard. Where boilers were located below the waterline hydraulic “ash guns” were installed lift this refuse over the side.  Illustration below.  

This is functionally how how things worked.  For the ordinary river steamer with the boilers on the main deck and the vessel’s sides open there is no reason why ashes could not have been dumped overboard from a wheelbarrow.  For these gunboats, I don’t know what technology was available.  I do know that the area in front of the boilers would have been plated over possibly on top of brick layer to withstand the heat from the hot clinkers.

Roger

In the coal fired pre-dreadnought and dreadnought eras coal was loaded from lighters into large cloth bags and hoisted on board.  There are photos of sailors using hand carts to wheel these large bags of coal to the coal scuttles.

Roger

If you have a small air compressor, an inexpensive “air eraser” (mini sand blaster) does a great job of preparing non-ferrous metals for blackening. It also adds some “tooth” to surfaces of metals that you plan to paint.  I got mine at Harbor Freight and it seems to be surprisingly well made.

Roger