Roger Pellett

Rick,

I thought that you knew the answer and were testing our expertise!  I was expecting to win a valuable prize.  How disappointing! 😁

Brig Niagara?

Ian,

It just keeps looking better!

Purpose of the little huts:  I believe that the answer lies in determining what the ship was originally designed to do.  Merchant ships were and are usually designed with a particular trade or trades in mind.   What were these large steel sailing machines originally designed to haul.  

These Flying P liners often carried guano, a raw material for the German Fertilizer and Chemical industries. If the ship’s were originally designed with this trade in mind the huts could have been for ventilation. Cowl ventilators could have been inserted in the round holes.

While I am unsure of the details,  it is my impression that these large ships Often carried cadets in training as officers for the merchant marine.   If they were originally designed with this in mind these huts could have provided light and ventilation to the quarters housing the cadets.  The fact they are grouped on the raised midship structure with portholes in the hull below makes this likely.

Or, they could have been cargo trunk openings, passing clear through the midship house crew cadet quarters to provide access into the cargo hold below.  I have seen these elsewhere.  The Great Lakes whaleback Steamship Frank Rockefeller originally had a cargo trunk that passed through her coal bunker to provide access to a cargo hold below.   These then could have also ventilated the cargo hold.

Roger

I just finished reading the Odyssey.  It is a translation into English from available manuscripts, maintaining the hexameter poetic format.  Others can debate the accuracy of this particular translation.  In Homer’s time, galley navigation consisted of a series of short segments with vessels beached between each segment; usually overnight.  When beached the mast was unstepped.  Each time the galley resumed its voyage, Homer says that the mast was stepped and the plaited oxhide shrouds rigged.  Homer often uses adjectives to maintain poetic meter; Odysseus is often referred to as “God Like Odysseus”,  but he must have had some some basis for his plaited oxhide rigging.

LEAVE IT ALONE!!

Your instructions do not appear to march the hardware supplied.  whoever machined the part left way too much “beef” on the gun’s tail; particularly at the junction between the tail and gun barrel.  Even with heating, vice, pliers, tube, etc. if you manage to bend the tail, it’s likely to be an ugly kink, and you’re more likely to damage the gun barrel.

A ship of the era that you are modeling was built before the use of formalized drawings. The model kit, therefore, represents what the kit designer thought that the ship would have looked like.  If he was unusually knowledgeable and skilled, he might have used one of the known geometric algorithms available to Sixteenth Century shipbuilders to model a more or less realistic hull shape, but I personally doubt this.

I would, therefore, not worry about a detail like the tail of the gun barrel.  Finish the model, develop your skills, and select a better engineered kit for your next project.

Roger

Homer repeatedly says that ancient galleys were rigged with plaited oxide.

In my day, the girly calendars in demand were given out to customers by Rigid Tools.  Probably not found in a mechanic’s garage, as In those days Rigid’s principal products were tools for the pipefitting trades.

Technology changes over time but basic Newtonian Physics does not.  I am excluding Quantum Mechanics, Nuclear Physics, etc.  Sailing ships of old had to confront the same laws of nature faced by sailors today.  Sailors back then had to deal with corrosion and rot just like those of today.  The problem has not gone away, sailors just have better technology to fight it.

When the lanyard debate was originally raging a number of forum members were building rigged longboat models.  The rigging on longboats might be an exception as the longboats were only rigged as needed for trips away from the mother vessel.  The shrouds, stays, and pendants, would have been made up, served, tarred, and stored away when not needed.  The lanyards, rigged as needed, did not require tarring for short time use.

Regarding replicas:  I defy anyone to name one that is a faithful replica of an actual ship.  Possibly Bluenose II?  The rest are either modifications of known designs to meet modern passenger carrying regulations or complete reconstructions based on sketchy information.  When William A. Baker designed Mayflower II, the only known fact was her tonnage.  If someone is building a model of one of these replicas;  Pride of Baltimore, Brig Niagara, etc. the color of her lanyards in 1812 is immaterial.  If you want an accurate model, color them the same as the replica since you’re not building the actual ship.

Roger

A rabbit is required at the stem to receive the plank ends.  A cross section through your stem will resemble an arrowhead.

When a beam is bent, shear stresses parallel to the beam’s longitudinal axis resist the beam’s deflection.  Think of a stack of planks.  If you sit on the stack it bends.  Now, if each plank is glued to its neighbor the stack, even though it’s cross sectional area has not changed becomes much stiffer.

By laminating the two pieces of your keel together, the glue line between the two pieces will prevent the two pieces from sliding relative to one another.  If you have used yellow carpenter’s glue alcohol is s solvent.  You might have better luck if you first remove the top layer bend the bottom layer then glue the top layer back on.

Roger

Not sure where I read it but I think that it is generally believed that the. Confederate ironclad CSS Arkansas was red rust colored.  Built in a backwoods shipyard, she was not painted before being rushed into combat.

Although there was no reason why the Federal Gunboats would not have been painted, any bare metal resulting from wear and tear or combat would have immediately rusted in the humid environment of the Mississippi Delta.  I spent 20 years of an engineering career working in a business that fabricated steel pressure piping.  The plant was located in the Ohio River Valley, another humid environment.  Customer painting specifications required painting of bare steel surfaces within 8 hours.

That’s what the picture that you posted shows.

Roger

A good opthalmologist is important to keeping one’s sight up to snuff.  I recently have been complaining about lights in our house being dim, and assumed that it was time for cataract surgery.  After examining my eyes the opthalmologist reported that cataracts are not the  problem.  Droopy eyelids are.  She referred me to a plastic surgeon who specializes in correcting this.  I have a consultation with him next week.

Roger

I wonder if the tall vertical column is intended to aid the navigating officer to line up on a navigational mark;  lighthouse, church steeple, smokestack, etc.  Like a rear gunsight.  These inshore craft would required accurate pilotage in the shallow, waters of the North German sea coast.

Here in the US, vessels sailing on inland rivers and the Great Lakes used similar pilotage aids.  Riverboats featured Nighthawks, a vertical pole at the bow and the very long Great Lakes steam ships had a steering pole; a lightweight bowsprit.  Different solutions but the same idea.

Roger

They are not hypothetical designs in the sense that they are complete fantasies.  Generic vessel descriptions like pink, frigate, bark, cat, etc. we’re each understood by the shipping industry to possess certain distinct characteristics.  Chapman’s drawings are therefore his interpretations of these specific vessel types.  A vessel described as a pink would have been expected to have certain specific features but could differ in size, rig and details of hull form.

Roger

Meriadoc,

Good luck with your first scratch build.  It looks like. You’re doing well so far.

Chapman’ s book roughly contains two types of drawings.  Designs by him of hypothetical vessels, and examples of specific vessels that he found interesting.  He calls these later examples “Foreign Vessels.”

Returning to the former, hypothetical vessels, in many cases he appears to group several vessels of similar design on the same plate.  Sort of like variations on a theme in music.  This appears to be true of the pink that you are building.  You will note that your pink and the one directly both have very similar hull forms.

I have wanted to build a model of a pink stern vessel for a long time and last winter I developed plans for a pink stern English ketch using whole moulding techniques and data from Richard Endsor’s book The Shipwright’s Secrets.  I posted my drawing on this forum.  

There were several variations of the pink hull form depending on the relation of the transom to the rudder head.  I have not found any written explanation of the reason for the pink hull form.  Hopefully someone more knowledgeable will weigh in.  My own observation is that the basic round stern hull form appealed to owners wishing seaworthy vessels but didn’t need large stern cabin or want to pay for the more complex framing associated with the conventional square stern craft.  

The design might have also allowed the shipowner to reduce the vessel’s tonnage (legally defined internal volume).  Charges associated with shipping were often based on tonnage.  Tonnage was calculated by multiplying length, width, and depth, and dividing the result by a legally established factor.  Where tonnage rules defined width as that measured at the level of the main deck, tumblehome carried from bow to stern could reduce tonnage without reducing actual cargo carrying capacity.

The 175 or so Turret Ships built in England in the 1890’s were a much later example of this same scheme.  Their midship section resembled a Seventeenth Century Dutch Flute.  They were particularly popular with owners using the Suez Canal, as canal tolls were based on tonnage calculated on the width of the uppermost continuous deck.

Roger

It’s refreshing to see that things don’t always go smoothly even for the professionals.  It gives us amateurs hope.

Roger 

Beautiful. Work, and a nice demonstration of using the rotary table to mill circular shapes.  Well done!

Roger

Bill,

That’s Volume 1.   At that time since there was no volume 2, there was no need to label it Volume 1.  Mine’s coming apart too.  The spiral binding of Volume 2 works better for us.

Roger

For personal reasons, I prefer Volume I.  I have a complete set of Nautical Research Journals dating back to 1975 when I joined the organization.  Volume II is mostly a reprint of materials already published in the Journal during this time period.

Volume I includes information that was either written especially for the Shop Notes or predates the journals that I have.

Roger

Nicely done!

In 2018 my wife and I went on a wonderful garden tour of Devon and Cornwall.  We spent three nights in a seaside hotel in St Ives.  There were two lug rigged fishing boat replicas that looked just like the ones in your paintings.  It was interesting watching them beat into the Harbor, dipping the lug sails each time that they tacked.

Roger

Bill,

Beautiful work!  For my last model, I used the step method on my Sherline to turn belaying pins from brass.  It worked well.  My telescoping tube idea is a variation of this method.  I don’t like the Sherline’s system for turning tapers; rotating headstock.  With the headstock rotated, of course you can’t use the alignment key so the headstock doesn’t want to accept Sid loads from turning.

What is your experience trying to turn tapers?

Roger

When she sank in 1899, Margaret Oilwell was by Great Lakes standards, a new vessel- only 12 years old, but because of her wooden construction she was becoming functionally  obsolescent  

The Great Lakes was and to some extent is still a refuge for obsolescent vessels.  They are typically moved down to less competitive trades until that have no more economic value.  As this is written a 100+ year old Lake Freighter is being scrapped here in the Duluth Harbor. Prior to scrapping she was used nearby as a stationary bulk concrete storage vessel.

My guess is that Margaret Oilwill was on the same path at the time of her sinking.  In 1887 wooden ships were still engaged in hauling iron ore and grain; the premier Great Lakes trades.  By 1899 400+ steel hulled ships were state-of-the-art, and a few years later new vessels would be 600 ft long.

The short haul stone trade often featured vessels “bumped down” from other trades. I suspect that she was one of these at the time of her tragic loss. One these short Lake Erie trips sail assist was no longer needed.

Roger

I wish that someone would offer a kit for one of the US Navy railroad guns from World War I.  There is a real one on display at the US Navy Memorial Museum at the Washington Navy Yard.  I would buy that kit in a heartbeat.

Roger

I believe that 1:12 (1in= 1ft-0in) is a common doll house scale.  That’s a whole different world, but I believe a very active one.  You might try exploring sources for this hobby.

Roger

When I rigged my 1:32 scale longboat (photos on gallery) I decided to include furled sails.  The guy at the hobby shop asked if I wanted “Light” or the heavier grade. I picked light and was happy with the results.  I have no idea how to describe the difference in grades quantitatively.