Roger Pellett

When I was growing up we had a farm where my father bred Aberdeen Angus cattle.  The farm was in tough shape when he bought it and over time we replaced all of the fences.  Woven wire mesh topped with two strands of barbed wire kept the cattle where they belonged.

Roger

Steven,  

Give yourself a couple of gold stars, or better yet a good stiff drink, for not damaging something else while you pared down the excess material.  I would have poked a chisel thru the aft bulkhead!

Roger

Good food in Bilbao-  Chipparones en su Tinta!!

Roger

Ship models are long term projects and it can be difficult to keep up interest.  In my opinion it is therefore important to work on something that interests you.  While I agree that the beginner’s kits are a good way to learn fundamentals, there is little point to buying a fishing boat kit if fishing boats don’t interest you.

I also agree with Jaager that steel hulled ships are difficult to model.   See examples in the scratch building logs 1900 and Later.  I am building a model of the steel hulled Benjamin Noble Great Lakes Freighter and it’s slow going!

So, if you’re interested in World War II, why not build a wooden hulled World War II vessel. PT Boats, small landing craft, warship’s boats were all wooden hulled.  This means that you will be scratch building but if you have basic woodworking skills and a reasonable understanding of geometric relationships construction of a PT boat using craft plywood should be doable.

Roger

I learned most of the vocabulary and was good at pronunciation.  I had real problems learning the grammar.  I am also good at relating Spanish Words to English ones. In 1972 the company that I worked for was working with a company named Stein et Roubaix in Bilbao.  I made 7 trips to Spain working with them to prepare bids for piping in power plants.

Roger

Alva,

I took two years of Spanish in high school 60 years ago.  Got a C my first year and a D my second;  bad grades. Fortunately the Engineering program at the University overlooked these!

Despite this I had no trouble understanding what you were trying to tell us with your Spanish sentence in your last post.

Roger

I have one of these and although I haven’t had a chance to use it, it is a nicely made tool at a more than reasonable price.  Buying it also supports the NRG.  It is an accessory that everyone who owns a miniature table saw should own.  I am about to try it out ripping square brass tube into angles.

For those using a full sized table saw, thin rip saw jigs for these saws are available from quality woodworking suppliers.  Price is considerably higher than $15.

Roger

Glues, like paint, are simply chemical compounds.  Despite what the marketers want you to believe there is no magic.  It is helpful to try to get beyond the brand names; read the fine print!

Before using it, try to categorize your glue by generic type; PVA, CA, Epoxy, Urethane, etc.  Chances are all brands of a particular generic type will behave pretty much the same.

Roger

Chris,

Tell her that you are checking the competition!

Roger

Someone must have forgotten to deploy them for Britannic, she was sunk by a mine.

Roger

I just stumbled on to this.  Nice work!

I am in the process of reading Shattered Sword by Piersall and Tully; a great book about the battle of Midway.  The authors go into considerable detail about the role that these cruisers played.  The Tone Class carried an unusually large outfit of observation aircraft- 4 or 5 per ship.  By using their aircraft, these ships were intended as the primary scouts for the carrier task forces.  This was to avoid having to use attack planes on board the carriers for scouting.  Unfortunately for the Japanese both Chikuma and Tone were late launching their planes at Midway affecting the outcome of the battle.

Roger

Google Flying Tern Sailboat and you will find a number of posts that will find to be helpful, including some drawings.

Roger

Very nice!!

I particularly like the color of the bottom painting.  It nicely reproduces red lead bottom painting used on many vessels.  What is it?

Roger

Very nice work!  I especially like the realistic hull plating.

A number of years ago there was a movie, I don’t remember the name, about a kid growing up in a coal mining town in West Virginia who like DrPr became interested in rocketry.  His father was the mine manager and he had access to the mine’s machine shop.  He went on to work for NASA.  Supposedly a true story.

A “compromise” might be resistance soldering.  In fact you might be able to use your spot welder as a power source for resistance soldering. 

Roger

It might have been dangerous but it was also creative!  

Roger

From your original post, I believe that you are not actually looking for bolts; a headed fastener with a shank threaded to accept a nut.  You seem to be looking for a nail that is small enough to go thru the hole in the photo etch.  You would like it to have a bolt shaped head.

Carriage bolts have dome shaped heads.  You might try making your own.  Here’s how:

 Get some brass wire that fits through the holes in the photo etch.  Solid brass, not brass plated.

Hold a length of wire with a pair of pliers vertically over a hot flame.  The end of the wire that is in the flame should form a ball.

After cooling, cut to length.

For added realism, drill a hole in a piece of steel.  The wire should slide easily into the hole.  After placing the wire into the hole, the round head should be sticking up, tap the head with a hammer to partially flatten it.

Roger

The boats constituted a significant fire hazard.  They were usually built from wood plus were fueled with either gasoline or diesel fuel.  In night actions the illumination from boat fires was a particular problem.  Accounts of the night actions around Guadalcanal mention the advantage that boat fires on US Navy ships gave to the Japanese.

Warship’s boats were utility craft intended to service the parent ship.  They were not primarily  lifeboats.  Imagine trying to handle a 40ft Launch from a damaged, listing vessel without electrical power.  Life rafts that could float off were a much better life saving choice.

The official US Navy model of the Iowa Class battleship on display in the Smithsonian Institute is equipped with just two 26ft motor whaleboats- no other boats.  It seems that by late 1943 the US Navy had access to large Pacific Fleet Anchorages like Ulithi Atoll.  These were equipped with a collection of small craft to meet the needs of the fleet when anchored there.

Roger

I have one of these MicroMark mixers and it works great.  When I bought it cost about $10.00.  Probably less than a Dremel attachment even if one were available and would work.

Roger

Between 1985 and 2001 I made a number of business trips to both mainland China and Taiwan.  Their culture revolves around fresh food.  On Saturday mornings, streets in Beijing would be lined with open air markets.  Some would feature cheap plastic kiddie pools with fish swimming about, and high class restaurants in Taiwan had tanks with live fish; both for decoration and dinner.

On the other hand, in November 1985, every corner in Beijing was piled high with Bok Choy..  People were buying piles of it and loading it on bicycle carts for delivery to their apartments.  Piled in unheated hallways, this would be their green vegetable for the winter.  Frozen green vegetables were apparently unavailable or financially out of reach.

So, maybe, the Ancient Chinese didn’t know any more about Scurvy than anyone else.  They were saved from it by their cultural norms.

Roger

The Evolution of the Wooden Ship s a great book.  While beautifully illustrated and easy to read, it is also a sophisticated analysis.

Roger

Why not just color the rat lines.  India ink or leather shoe dye.

Green Vegetables,  did the ancient Chinese know how to prevent Scurvey?

Roger

As Jaager points out, it does take a library.

If like many forum members, you are interested in Nelson era sailing warships, an oldie but goodie is Longridge’s The Anatomy of Nelson’s Ships.  The book is greatly enhanced with George Campbell’s excellent drawings.  The book describes construction of a model of HMS Victory so it blends modelmaking techniques with Victory’s anatomy.

Roger