Roger Pellett

Wefalk, I like your grooved board idea. This could be used in conjunction with my Sherline lathe to taper a stack of telescoped tubing. The two masts for my lake freighter Model will be thin in relation to their length. The trick is to avoid whipping of the stick while getting a smooth taper. This problem is is at least a year away so I still have plenty of time to mull it over in my head. Roger

This looks like a huge job! Well done.

Gary, These tiny LED lights open all sorts of new modeling possibilities. Having been disappointed by all of the Out Of Order signs on mechanized exhibits in museums, however, I am concerned about longevity. I would assume that these are battery operated, and I know that LEDs are very efficient. What kind of batteries are you using and what do you expect their lifetime to be? Roger

I have thought about this since the model that I am building has steel masts, and for some reason modeling a metal object from metal always looks better. My idea would be to stack telescoping sizes of brass tubing soft soldered together, and then taper them. I am not nearly to the point where I need to try this. 1:700 scale? That’s a whole different world! Roger

Beautiful model Sascha. I particularly like the linoleum decking. Roger

I continue to make progress on the Benjamin Noble. I am currently working on the poop deck, a silly term, but that’s what it’s called on the drawings. With its open curved bulwark, I have not been looking forward to tackling it. I will post pictures soon. Since he has not posted a build log, I will wander a bit from my topic to comment on Feathermerchant’ s build of Margaret Oilwill, another Lake vessel. In the late 1800’s, there were three painters who have left us with visual records of Great Lakes vessels; Vincent Nickerson, Howard Sprague, and Asa Whipple. As each specialized in selling paintings to the vessels owners, their work is considered to be accurate. There are a number of paintings here in Duluth by Howard Sprague, as he was commissioned by the American Steel Barge Company to paint pictures of their whaleback ships. Two of his pictures hang in Duluth’s historic Kitchi Gammi Club, a great place to hold a future NRG Conference 😏. My painting of Western Reserve was painted by Vincent Nickerson in 1890, and sometimes when I have nothing better to do, I surf the web in search of other Nickerson paintings. The other day, I found a painting by Nickerson, of Margaret Oilwill, Feathermerchant’s subject that had recently been sold by a Cleveland, Ohio art dealer. I found it by googling Vincent D. Nickerson. Not exactly a Van De Velde, but an exciting find neverless. Roger

Claire, Very nice work, and an interesting subject. What wood are your models made from? It certainly results in a crisp, clean appearance. Roger

While I don’t doubt that the Archimedes drills are not intended for use with standard twist drills for the reasons given by Wefalk, I have not had a problem using small wire sized twist drills in mine to drill hard woods like pear and box. I have also used it to drill holes in brass. In all cases, holes drilled have been thin materials where the drill bit does not bind. Roger

I was given this kit as a Christmas present in 1964. It is the 1 :144 version. It is the only kit that I ever built. Although fine details do not stand up to close scrutiny, it looks great in its case sitting on top of my bookcase. William H. Webb’s folio of plains, published in their entirety in a 1990 issue of the Nautical Research Journal includes a detailed drawing of a nearly identical vessel named America, sold to the Russians. It could be used to add detail to this nice kit. Roger

I am happy to defer to others who might like to have the book as possible future modeling projects do not include Golden Hinde. If, however, no one else wants It, I would be happy to have it $5.00 s&h. Thanks for offering this Roger

Cold that have been the mass market Admiralty model? The Eighteenth Century equivalent of the priceless models now offered on EBay?😁

There is a huge difference between science, academic engineering, and practical engineering. For example, science describes the behavior of materials under tensile loads, academic engineering might teach advanced analysis methods for determining the strength of wires twisted together and the practical engineer who will understand the theory describing the strength of wire rope, selects the actual wire rope to be used from a manufacture’s catalog. The amount of high end analysis performed also depends on the application. A Naval Architect designing a mass produced day sailer can avoid expensive engineering analysis by over designing, as the slight loss in performance is less likely to be as important as the final cost of the boat. On the other hand, when designing an America’s Cup Yacht, budgets usually include state-of-the-art engineering analysis as performance is all important. Loading on sails is completely dependent on rig. The square rig is intended for downwind or reaching performance so loading is mostly direct impingement of wind on the sail cloth. The sail fails when the fabric tears; The sail blows out. Modern sailboat rigs are designed for optimal upwind performance. In this case the sail acts as an airfoil and eventually the sail cloth stretches to the point where the sail loses its shape and must be replaced. That’s why sails on new high performance racing yachts are often black. The cloth fibers are Kevlar. Roger

Old shipbuilding and seamanship texts often had oversized drawings that folded out or were included in an envelope attached to the book cover or even as a separate volume. In scanning the book for reproduction the person doing the work often doesn’t bother to unfold the drawings, or leaves them out entirely. The University of Michigan has one of the largest academic libraries in the US, and since they have taught Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering since the late 1800’s their library includes many books of interest to us. They were also one of the first US Universities to begin to digitize their collection. I have bought two books from them: an 1866 US Navy Ordnance Manual and a Naval Architecture text from the same era. Both were of far better quality than the usual imported offerings, and I will continue to buy more, but even these each omitted a drawing. Roger

Garrett Wade tools $11.50

I call that an Archimedes screw drill. I bought mine many years ago (1980’s) from a jewelry tool supplier that came to an NRG Conference. I suspect that you might find one on EBay under jewelers or watchmakers tools. Also check suppliers of new tools for jewelers. Rio Grand comes to mind. Roger

Feathermerchant: I just reread Dwight Boyer’s account of the sinking of the Margaret Olwill. People that don’t live near the Lakes, may not realize that these ordinary Lake Freighters often carried passengers; family members of crews, owners and their families, important customers, and guests of all of the above. The Benjamin Noble had a large owner’s suite in her forward. Deckhouse. A shipwreck with loss of life is always a tragedy but even more so when these “civilians” are killed. In the very early 1890’s the Western Reserve, one of the first steel ships on the Lakes sank on Lake Superior during an August storm. There was only one survivor. Unfortunately the ship’s owner, Peter Minch, was on board with his entire family plus guests. The Minch Family was from Vermilion, Ohio.

I’ve never paddled up or down it, but now that I don’t live there anymore, I wish that I had.

Woods are like fish, they have different names depending on where you live. The poplar that Jaager mentions is called a Tulip Tree in Ohio, and I agree that it is a nice wood for modeling. Here in Northern Minnesota “Poplar” refers to wood from the Aspen tree, or locally referred to as Popple. These trees take over logged areas and are fast growing but don’t get very large. The wood is used for paper pulp, but is now being stocked as poplar in the specialty lumber department of our local Menards store. It is very soft and unsuitable for quality ship model work. I have never built a POB kit but suspect that the wood supplied is not true Walnut. American Black Walnut is my favorite wood for ship model cases. It is a nice wood to work with, but not for the models themselves.

See the current issue of the Nautical Research Journal for more about this Shipyard and a model of a ship built there.

Sorry to hear of your eyesight problems and your need to give up modeling. 21 years ago I could have just paddled up the Muskingum to take this stuff off your hands; We lived in Marietta. Not so today.😒 Roger

As requested, a brief description of the Hahn Method: This method was an outgrowth of Charles Davis’s Built Up Ship Model Book and is based on an assumption, not valid for all real ships. The assumption was that real wooden ships were built with two layer (sistered) frames, regularly spaced, known as “room and space.” Hahn also had access to a full sized table saw (8in) and plenty of lumber. As a professional model maker, he continued to use his method even after switching to more expensive Boxwood. He was not limited to buying precut sheet stock from others. The Method: 1. On the sheer view of the lines drawing draw a straight datum line above the highest point of the vessel’s sheer. The datum should be perpendicular to the vertical stations on the sheer view. Project this same datum, at the same height above the top of the body plan. 2. On the body plan extend the top of each station (section) vertically until it intersects with the datum. These vertical extensions will be parallel to the body plan centerline. 3. Loft and vertically extend per 2, additional body plan sections as needed to satisfy room and space. 4. Plot the point where each body plan section extension from 2 and 3 meets the datum on a plan view. Pass a curve through these points. Glue the drawing to a flat board and cut out the shape bounded by the curve. You will use the area outside of the curve. 5. Eyeball the body plan sections and draw standard oversized patterns for the the frames represented for the lofted body plan sections in 2 and 3. These patterns allow the rough frames to be made from straight pieces of framing material with mitered joints between sections. Each rough framing section is constructed in two layers glued face to face. The mitered butt joints in the top layer should be staggered from those on the bottom layer. 6. Rubber cement a copy of each lofted frame onto the rough framing section. Cut out the finished frame. 7. Use the board with the cut out plan view to build a jig to hold the cut out frame sections in the upright position with the frame extensions flush with the bottom of the jig. 8. Glue the frames into the jig. You will be building the model upside down. 9. Add keel, stem, stern, etc. Fair framing, and stabilize hull structure with planking. 10. Cut hull structure from jig along sheer line. As Jaager has posted, an investment in NRG’s Shop Notes is well worth the $35 cost and includes a complete description by Hahn of his method along with drawings to build a model. He has done all of the lofting for you. Besides, you support NRG and the forum. Roger

For those looking to rig models originally rigged with steel wire cable, McCaffery twists his own from nichrome wire. I recently checked on Amazon and this stuff is available down to .001in diameter. Metric experts correct me if i’m wrong, but I believe that’s .012mm! Roger

The Port of Duluth, MN provides the best long distance rail access to the tar sands oil fields near Edmonton, Alberta Canada. For that reason, during the past twenty five years there have been several heavy lift shipments of very large oil refinery reactor vessels into the port for shipment to the tar sands. Some of these reactor vessels were heavy enough to require shipment via Schnabel car. The Schnabel car was developed in Germany and used during WWII by the German Army to transport very heavy guns. The car transporting the Thor gun above is an early version of the car. There are several of these heavy lift railroad cars in the US, the largest designed to transport Westinghouse nuclear reactor vessels. For several years, this particular car was parked at the Port of Duluth to handle tar sands heavy lift traffic; there were no longer any nuclear reactors to deliver. In July of 2005, the company that I worked for received a contract to fabricate special components to modify the car for an upcoming shipment. It required welding some very high yield strength steels. I remember investigating HY80 submarine hull steel. The heavy lift ship arrived at the port in late summer, with the vessel loaded directly from the ship to the car, but shipment from the Port to Canada was delayed until ground had frozen in the winter. Roger

It’s shaping up nicely, Ras! (Pun intended.)

Thanks, That’s probably the same guy that I found. Even today, the second T at the end of the name Pellett seems to be optional! Thanks for looking it up. Western Lake Erie is familiar country for me. When I was very young we sailed my father’s home built L. Francis Herreshoff H23 sailboat that he kept at Vermilion, on the Lake. Typical trips were to Lorain, Sandusky, and the Islands. I was mostly wet, cold, and seasick but somehow gained a lifetime love of the Lakes. In the last few years of my father’s life, my parents moved from the Medina, Ohio area to a home in the Vermilion Lagoons. We were living in Marietta then and used make the drive up to visit, so my Great Lakes interest was passed down to my children. It is remarkable how different the various lakes are. Lake Superior is completely different from Lake Erie and what I have seen of Lake Michigan is different still. I have little familiarity with Lakes Huron or Ontario. Roger