Roger Pellett

Even today, there is a separation of responsibilities in building a ship.  Naval Architects determine the ship’s general arrangement, hull lines, and structural design.  Marine engineers select and design propulsion and auxiliary machinery.

Using this analogy in the days of sail, models were often built to show the ship’s naval architectural features, specifically general arrangement and hull shape.  Once it’s propulsion System, (it’s rig) rig was defined; ship, brig, ketch, etc, no further description  was necessary as riggers would use rules and customary practices.

Roger

Starting with a dowel is doing things the hard way.  Start with a straight grained piece of flat stock and lay out the shape of your spar.  Using your favorite method- plane, chisel, saw, cut the material to the correct shape with a square cross section.  Now make your square cross sectioned stick eight sided, then sixteen sided.  Your sixteen sided stick can now be chucked in a lathe or power drill and sanded round.

Ditto to Bill and Alan’s comments.  Aluminum cannot be soldered with conventional soldering materials.  It also melts at about 1200F making it hard to weld.  I use it for holding brass parts to be soldered as it doesn’t “stick” to the solder.

I have seen special solders advertised for aluminum but have not tried them. I am unaware of any solder that will fuze brass to aluminum.  Buy some brass tubing.  Brass is easy to solder to itself.

Roger

Glen,

Yes, exactly like what you show, except just a white strip, no actual netting. At the very small scale that you are working to, less detail is sometimes better.

Considering the high standard of workmanship that you are maintaining, I would suggest real wooden gratings.

Glen, 

Coming along nicely.

I hope that you will not mind a friendly suggestion.  I would remove the. Hammock netting’s; they are way over scale.  I would substitute a strip of wood with a rounded top; like a loaf of bread.  Painted off white it would simulate stowed, rolled hammocks.

Roger

Very nice paint job!

St Philip looks good!  Nice carving job.

A great job, Rik!  Not only machining but all of the fine tuning required to get it to run smoothly.  Some of the kinematic relationships are.hard to visulize.

The old timers injected lubricants into the steam line just ahead of the inlet to the engine to lubricate internal parts like the cylinder and valve chest..  Downstream of the condenser the condensate passed through a “feed and filter box” full of all sorts of pre-synthetic materials like horsehair in an attempt  to remove the lubricant.  I am the proud owner of a steam engine indicator that was used on a Steamship on the US Great Lakes.  This instrument still smells of the animal tallow injected into the steam.

Roger

It depends on the story that you are trying to tell with your model.  The anchor was (obviously) a massive object that if loose could cause huge damage to a ship in a seaway.  Furthermore, during most of a deep sea voyage the vessel did not carry cable sufficient to drop the anchor.  Therefore, once the ship left soundings the anchor would be securely lashed fore and aft  to a solid member.  The cable would also be disconnected and stored below. 

At the end of the voyage the process would be reversed, but the anchor would not be allowed to dangle from the Cathead until shortly before dropping.

A model with all sails set and an anchor rigged to the Cathead is, therefore, an oxymoron.  So is one with no sails set or otherwise rigged and the anchor rigged, as in this case the anchor would be on the bottom of the Harbor.

It would, therefore, seem that the anchors on models shown above by Alan represent modelers conventions instead of demonstrations of actual seamanship.

Roger

AlleyCat,

The better quality pin vices, Starrett and Moody, usually are sold in sets.  My Moody pin vices are a set of four; each covers a different range of sizes.

At the risk of setting off a storm; I don’t understand the angst that this topic has created.  The last time that I checked a set of four Moody US made pin vices delivered cost less than $70.  That would seem inexpensive compared with the cost of popular POB kits.  If you are comparing lathes, milling machines, bandsaws, etc. that’s a whole different matter.

Roger

Joe,

Sorry, I should have added step 9; Touch up with black paint! 😀😀. Seriously, I should have mentioned that I use Blacken It.  Apparently it works better than more recently available products.  Also, my surface prep with 220 grit sandpaper gives the brass some tooth.

Roger

Looks good!

IMHO Jagger’s post and Bob Cleek’s response is right on.  I do have one historical quibble.  In the 1930’s and 40’s A.J. Fisher located in a suburb of Detroit, Michigan did produce high quality kits based on, for the time, accurate historical information; much from HAMMS drawings.  Hulls were solid wood. I don’t know if they were machine carved or perhaps they furnished band sawed lifts to be laminated.  

Fittings were very high quality, mostly machined brass, to scale, and looking like real ship fittings; no bowling pin belaying pins.  Other fittings like ladders and rigging blocks were fabricated from tiny pieces of real boxwood.  Even the white metal castings have aged well without lead disease.  The two models built by my father are almost 80 years old.

Roger

Tim,

I have been following your build with interest.  I saw Mikasa many years ago from am distance while my ship was docked at the. Yukouska Naval Base.  I have long regretted not making an effort to go aboard.  You will have a spectacular model when finished.

I hope that you will not mind a friendly suggestion.  Those bumps around the deck edge of the steam picket boats are shipboard made canvas covered rope fenders.  Your boats will look much better, and Mikasa’s First Lieutenant will be happier if the fenders are each painted a different color than the rail.  Perhaps a light grey?

Roger

Our electric supply system here in the US is 110v AC.  These dimmer switches do successfully control temperature of inexpensive soldering irons within acceptable limits for soldering.

I would like to add to Jagger’s excellent post.  Many years ago, I was on a business trip to Taiwan and decided that I wanted to bring home some Teak Wood.  Teak is not a good ship modeling wood, but it makes nice ship model display cases.  After some persuasion my business contact took me to a small woodworking shop who sold me a nice piece of teak and cut it into two pieces so I could check it with my luggage for the flight home. I still have some in my stash.

I would visit small woodworking shops where you live.  These will almost always be out of the way sort of operations.  They should be equipped with a power saw to break down lumber.  The guy in the shop in Taiwan had a bandsaw.  A decent sized table saw will work too but it will produce more waste.  I would first see what sort of woods that they have.  There are probably excellent woods in India that we are unfamiliar with.  You are looking for close grained woods without a pronounced grain structure.  Your shop should be able to saw the wood into billets or slabs.  If you can get to this point perhaps you can work with your shop to produce more finished sheets.  Otherwise you will need to invest in the miniature saw and sanding equipment that Jagger mentions.

Roger

Jagger is referring to a dimmer switch sold to control the brightness of incandescent household lights.  There are common here in the US and are inexpensive.  These are Rheostats, variable resistors, and soldering irons heat by resistance so plugging a soldering iron into one. Of these allows control of temperature.

When all else fails, (1) Form follows function, and (2) what technology was available when these vessels were active.

(1) ash disposal was a routine and constant job for crews on all vessels fueled with solid fuels.  The boilers could not wait for a convenient time to dispose of ash.  In preparing for action the black gang would likely clean fires and dispose of ash.  Removing hurricane deck ventilators every time furnace grates were cleaned would seem to be doing things the hard way and could expose the crew to unnecessary hazard.

Fine ash particles would fall thru the furnace grates into the ash pit.  These were unlikely to require immediate disposal.  The problem was the larger clinkers that plugged furnace grates and blocked combustion air.

The ash disposal openings on coal fired Lake Freighters are small, 6in +- round holes in the side of the vessel. Indistinguishable from other openings.

(2) By far the most convenient ash disposal solution was a hydraulic ash gun that lifted a slurry from the boiler deck to a level above the waterline, and over the side.  Ash guns used on coal fired Lake Freighters were capable of using HP water to eject large clinkers.  When were these simple machines invented and first used?

We know that these gunboats had an unlimited supply of water, direct from the river, and powerful steam pumps to pressurize it.

Once ash was lifted above the waterline either hydraulically or mechanically is could be sluiced overboard with readily available HP water.  The ash disposal opening in the hull or casemate would be small enough not to show up on old photos.

Roger

Broadly speaking there appear to be two styles of transoms; one where the sternpost runs inside the transom (Medway Longboat) and one where the sternpost is all or partially outside the transom (French Launch above). In each case the last hull frame would be sloped parallel to the sternpost. I have seen drawings that refer to this as the Transom Frame.

In the Medway style transom it was a simple matter to horizontally plank across the transom.  The planks would have been fastened a three points; the  transom frame on each side and the sternpost in the middle.  Plank widths would have been limited by the availability of correctly sawn lumber.  Wide flat sawn planks would be subject to warping.

The French style is more interesting.  If the sternpost were already erected, planking in the  Medway style would require fitting the planking between the sides of the transom frame and the sternpost.   Another option would be to rabbit the sternpost and plank in two pieces.  This would seem to cause a weak joint where the planking met the sternpost.  In this case the planking could have been run diagonally like a c1500’s Galleon.

It is also possible that the sternpost was fitted in two layers with the transom planked across conventionally.  An outer sternpost to support the rudder would be added after the transom was planked.  Do the Ancre drawings clarify this?

Roger

Steele provides detailed written information about some smaller British types.  For example for single masted vessels he provides detailed information for cutters. For sloops, he says something like:  Rigged as cutters except much lighter.  For longboats:  What little rigging they have is Iike sloops. He does provide detailed scaled drawings of individual sails for several small vessel types.

In rigging my Longboat, I used two rules of thumb.  First the rig had to work; Newtonian physics hasn’t changed since the 1700’s.  Second, technology, the way physics was applied, had to be that Available when the boat was built.  I also found Tom Cunliff’s Hand, Reef, and Steer to be very helpful as well as entertaining.  Cunliff is a practical sailor who has made long distance passages on traditional fore and aft rigged rigged sailing craft.  He analyzes each sail discussing rigging necessary as well as handling.

Another well regarded book is John Leather’s “The Gaff Rig.”  Of the two, I prefer Cunliff’s book.

Roger

My “highly scientific” 😏brass blackening system.

1. Completely rub down surfaces with sandpaper. 220 grit regular paper works fine.

2.  Put sanded parts in a small tin of acetone or lacquer thinner.

3. Using tweezers, take parts from acetone and drop them into a small container of blackening solution.

4. Wait a while. 10-15 minutes

5.  Carefully remove parts and dunk into tin of clean water.  Let them sit a while.

6.  Put parts on a piece of paper towel and let dry.

7.  Spray part with a coat of matte varnish. I like Dulcote.

8.  Pour blackening solution back into bottle.

Works every time.

Roger

As a bibliophile of long standing, I have Lee’s rigging book, Marquardt’s Schooner book and two Ancre books; both about longboats.  My modeling interests tend towards smaller, less well known vessels.

Lee’s book is well done, and authoritative with sources well documented.  Unfortunately, it is limited to large, square rigged British ships.  If it includes information about small Schooners, ketches, cutters, sloops, I have yet to find it.

I have to admit that I “don’t like” Marquardt’s book.  Perhaps because a European Author is trying to describe an American Sailing ship type.  I know that this is chauvinistic but...   I’ll have to give it another look.

The Ancre books do provide rigging options for French rigged longboats.  Unfortunately, the rigging often appears overly complicated and heavy for such small craft and there is little or no explanation about where the author got his details.

Roger

Byrnes or similar miniature table saws can be used to rip narrow brass strips.  A problem when ripping thin material occurs when the brass sheet slides under the rip fence.  This can be solved by gluing the brass material to a piece  of craft plywood.  I use Ambroid cement for this.  After sawing, the brass is easily peeled from the plywood.

Roger

A nice suit of sails, beautifully set!  1960’s- I assume that this was still a Woody.