Roger Pellett

Bob, Welcome to the club. I have peripheral neuropathy in both my hands and feet. I have had it for some degree for almost 20 years. Oddly enough, I believe that ship modeling is actually helpful. My brain seems to keep rewiring itself as I use my hands going forward. David, I agree that building larger scale small craft might be a good choice for you. Chapelle’ History of American small craft provides a wealth of ideas. I have long been interested in building a series of related small craft to a standard scale of 1:32. I chose Warship Boats. I have finished three examples: a 1900 40ft Standard Steam Cutter, a 26 ft motor whaleboat, and a 32ft Early Eighteenth Royal Navy Longboat. A caveat; Small Craft have thin planking and very small scantlings. This sort of defeats the idea. My three models are not POF they have hulls carved on the outside and hollowed out on the inside with frames added. IMHO they are still quite convincing. So, I second Bob’s idea of building “dugouts.” The NOOTA with its bold colors is a great idea. Or, if you want to build a model with some rigging how about a Chesapeake Log Canoe? Roger

I am not on the NRG board and never have been. I didn’t learn in kindergarten how to play well with others! Next month, I will, however, celebrate my 48th anniversary as an NRG member. This means that I have read and in many cases remember the content of 48 years of Nautical Research Journals. Members that have joined recently may not be aware of the rich trove of the information available in issues of the Journal published prior to about the year 2000. While the Shop Notes from these old journals are largely available in the bound volumes that NRG sells (a worthwhile purchase by themselves) the many very detailed build logs of projects published therein are not. These include the work of talented builders who have sadly passed on such as Harold Hahn, or are no longer active NRG or MSW members such as Eric Ronnberg and Rob Napier. The $99 flash drive with the discount, two if you are an NRG member is, therefore, a real bargain. For kit builders, this is a fraction of what you would pay for that next POB kit and a chance to become inspired by the research performed and masterpieces built by the Old Timers in the days before CAD, CNC or 3D printing. Don’t miss it! Roger

An originally ballyhooed reason for buying POB kits instead of solid carved hull ones was that they were like “building the real thing.” So, try doing what real shipwrights did BC (before CAD). Make a planking expansion drawing! On a sheet of paper, draw the profile of the hull. Next draw lines perpendicular to the keel upward at the location of each bulkhead. Next cut a handful of paper strips. Wrap a strip around each bulkhead from the keel rabbit to the sheer line and make a mark there. This will measure the girth of each bulkhead half. Plot these girth’s on your drawing at the bulkhead location lines, and connect the points with a curve. This is an accurate picture of the area that you have to cover. Next, plot any known planking lines such as the Wales on the drawing. You can now play around on the drawing with different planking schemes. CAD users can easily erase schemes that they don’t like. Otherwise, make several copies. Roger

I agree Michael. Many years ago Eric Ronnberg, a model maker and historian who I greatly respect wrote that jigs and fixtures should not be too nicely finished as they risked being kept and for something that they were not designed for later on. I find them indispensable. Roger

Freeing Ports: Scratch Building is a series of small models within the overall model. Each of these small models involves the following thought process: 1. Identify the item to be built as a small model 2. Determine what the item looks like or in some cases what did known items used on this other vessels in this same time period look like. 3. How do you plan to represent the item at the required scale; ie how much detail to you plan to include. 4. What materials and techniques will provide a quality reproduction. The following project completed during the past several weeks illustrate this process: Bulwark Freeing ports The bulwarks are pierced with eight freeing ports. These are rectangular, each closed by a flapper plate hinged from the top so a head of standing water on the deck would push the flapper open and drain the deck. Gravity would also open the flapper if the vessel heeled. At 1:96 scale, these flappers are quite small 7/16” x 3/16”. The plates were made from .010” brass which was temporarily glued to a piece of craft plywood. They were then easily cut on my Byrnes Saw. At the small scale, I could only simulate the hinges. I decided to show strap hinges. The straps were made from 22 gauge square copper wire. The two straps needed to be precisely soldered to the flapper plate. Once located they had to be rigidly held in place while being soldered. I therefore made the fixture shown below from a block of wood. The large groove was cut with a 3/16” milling cutter in the Sherline mill. The strap hinges were to be 5/16” apart so two groves spaced at this distance were cross cut on the Byrnes Saw. The plate and straps were then dry fitted in the fixture and the plate was shifted until the spacing from the strap to the plate edge was exactly the same on each side. A wooden stop to register the plate in the groove was then glued in place. The square wire strap material was tinned with solder. When heated with the soldering iron I got a sound joint. The copper straps will be trimmed to length when they are finally soldered to the bulwarks.

The basis for any ship model worth displaying is a correctly shaped hull. Correctly shaped means that it reproduces the “lines” of the actual vessel in miniature. The noted Naval Architect L Francis Herreshoff once wrote an article where he noted that models representing particular named vessels with misshapen hulls are evil things. If Revell used the same mold for both Kearsarge and Alabama one is not worth buying, at any price. Roger

Congratulations on the new baby Keith. My wife is the official cute baby evaluator in our house. She awarded your new grandson 5 stars. Roger

Spectacular models! Alabama’s straighter stem and small radius forefoot would produce finer forward hull lines. Roger

Pam, Sorry, but it’s hard to help you without more information. Who built the model? To what scale was it built (this should be on the name plate). Can you post some photos? And as Mark has posted, where is the model located? Roger

There is a lengthy series of articles in the Nautical Research Journal, perhaps 20 years ago of the research that went into the construction of a model of Kearsarge. Anyone wanting to build a model of this historic would definitely benefit from these articles. I recall that it was not a straightforward process. Roger

Yes, Steel’s book is English but it details rigging practices for large warships in the late 1700’s- Early 1900’s. It Is a Primary Source as it was actually written at the time that you are concerned with. The Anatomy of the Ship book mentioned above is a Secondary Source. It was written a few years ago by a German author living in Australia. Chances are, he based any rigging details on Steel or a book like it. I am unaware of any book written in the late 1700’s- Early 1800’s that details American rigging rigging practices. Nail Polish - just go to any store selling cosmetics and buy the cheapest lacquer based clear nail polish on the shelf. Roger

More random thoughts: Your model building plans involve building three very different models: A late Eighteenth Century warship, A mid Nineteenth Century whaling ship, and a late Nineteenth Century merchant vessel. The rigging of each of these will be different. First, like everything else, rigging was affected by the industrial revolution. Cutty Sark will have much more iron rigging elements than Constitution. Cutty Sark’s owners also had a financial incentive to operate their vessels with small crews, unlike Constitution that required large crews to fight the ship. This resulted in changes to the rigging, the most obvious being splitting of the large top sails in two on merchant vessels built in the second half of the 1800’s. And, of course, as a specialized vessel, Charles W. Morgan would have rigging peculiar to her trade. Unfortunately for you, there is no one rigging book that will work for all three projects. Underhill deals with later Nineteenth merchant ships. I would recommend Steel’ Masting and Rigging for Constitution. You should be able to find an affordable reprint. There has recently been an ongoing discussion (maybe you?) on MSW about rigging sources for Charles W. Morgan. I would call, not email, the Mystic Seaport bookshop to see what they might have. Underhill can wait until you actually tackle Cutty Sark unless you can find a used bargain somewhere along the way. If building accurate ship models is “your thing” books are a lifetime investment. I personally like lacquer, not acrylic, clear nail polish for a rigging adhesive. It comes in a little bottle with the brush in the top. It is cheap convenient, and quick drying. Actually, CA is an abbreviation for Crappy Adhesive! 😀. I don’t use it. Roger

If you have shakey hands like I do, try to minimize the number of moving parts. I made a simple vice similar to those used by fly tyers. It used an alligator clip to hold blocks, dead eyes, etc. while I stropped them. Roger

Special rigging tools are not difficult to make. Take the plunge and you’ll discover your limitations, then make a tool to overcome them. Most rigging tools can be made from needles, wire, dowels, and alligator clips. A trip to Your local fabric or sewing store might have some inexpensive tools that you could use too. You might eventually want to buy a serving machine; see Syren’s Serv-O-Matic. On the other hand, if you have some plastic gears, one of these is also not hard to make. Roger

Rick, If you go to the Scratch Build Logs, 1801-1850 you will find a build log for the American Ship of the Line, USS New York. By his own admission, the builder uses the system for planking espoused by the American Comedian Larry the Cable Guy: Git er done! It’s pretty rough. He ends up, however, with a spectacular model. Roger

You are building a model of a steel hulled vessel. That means showing a beautifully executed planking job is silly and historically inaccurate. Goop is your friend. Durham’s Rock Hard Water Putty comes to mind. Spread it on with a putty knife, let it harden and sand it down until you get a smooth hull. Roger

As usual it would help greatly if we knew where you lived. Both Ace Hardware and Menards have large selections of odd ball screws, nuts, and bolts. Menards selection includes Minirature sizes. Roger

Not exactly what you are asking for but this might be helpful: In November 1966 the 600ft long ore carrier Daniel J. Morrell broke in half and sank during a gale on Lake Huron. Of the crew of approximately 30, there was one survivor; Dennis Hale. He has written two books about his experience; Sole Survivor and Shipwrecked: Reflections on Sole Survivor. Both are currently available on Amazon. Roger

Just stumbled onto this. Wow! A spectacular model. Roger

Beautiful work!

I agree with CPDDET’s post above. Rub the old finish down with FINE wet/dry sandpaper. Try 400 grit. Once the glossy finish Is dull, wipe down with a soft cloth and repaint. Chemicals are unnecessary and you don’t know how they’ll react with either the old paint or the plastic hull material. Roger

Thanks Jaager. I was at our local Mernards Store and bought solvents that I keep on hand in my shop. They have Xylol. Roger

Unfortunately for model builders, Booklets of General Plans do not include hull lines drawings; essential for scratch building. There is an Anatomy of the Ship book for HMS Camperdown; one of the 50 Four Stack Destroyers furnished to Great Britain under Lend-Lease that does include hull lines. This could supplement Borchers’ Book. Roger

For those of lucky enough to have access to Floquil paints what thinner is used? They used to sell a thinner call Diosol (?) but does anyone know what it’s active ingredient was? Roger

My professional career involved engineering of piping systems mostly for large power plants. These were huge assemblies, prefabricated in our shop and shipped to the field for erection. Chicago area members may be familiar with the Chicago Bulls Red bridge spanning the Chicago River, next to the Vienna Beef wiener plant. Each arch was shipped in two pieces over the Lakes by barge. The arches were made from large diameter pipe (approximately 1 meter diameter) and bent in our shop. The pieces had to fit exactly. Practice in our engineering department was to only use known dimensions on drawings or to calculate dimensions based on known drawing dimensions. Scaling and Slide Rule calculations were not permitted. Instead, piping engineers and draftsmen used Smoleys Tables. These were logarithmic based tables that shortened calculations. As part of my training, I spent some time in the estimating department. My boss, an old timer, expected the same degree of precision as the engineering department; Smoleys Tables and all. Later, when I ran the estimating department, and later the Engineering Department, electronic calculators were available. I also allowed and used architect scales for cost estimating. Their accuracy was good enough for this purpose. The bridge above was drafted using CAD, that we began to use in the early 1990’s. Naval Architecture presents some special problems as hull lines are not necessarily regular geometric shapes. Given the same table of offsets, different Naval Architects using manual drafting techniques will each produce slightly different lines drawings. This happens because of the need to produce “fair” lines. When plotting offset dimensions, very slight differences in technique will produce slightly different curves. Strictly s peaking there in no right or wrong answer as long as all curves are fair and all points match in the three views. While CAD might seem to be a solution to this problem, all CAD programs do not necessarily I use the same algorithm for fairing offset dimensions. One Naval Architect has observed, “No matter what I feed into the computer, the hull comes out looking like a J-24. Roger