Roger Pellett

Thank you, Wefalk! It brought back memories when, as a five-year old child, I was fascinated by the moving eccentrics and connecting rods in the open engine room. The smell of hot oil.... This was on a Vierwaldstättersee steamer. I think a model of one of those would be a very interesting subject..

Indeed the SAVOIE (1914): https://www.cgn.ch/en/savoie.html. We had an extended Sunday-lunch cruise.
 
Warming up the engine:

Getting ready to put to 'sea':

 
 
 
 
 

Thank you very much, gentlemen, for your kind comments!
 
Last weekend I did some field studies on Lake Geneva on flags moving in the wind:  ...
 

Just an additional note on the hammock cloth, and historical accuracy, since you don't see this black cloth depicted often.  Usually you see some diagonal netting, and some folded over hammocks contained within.   The netting is problematic for me.  Whatever you can get "ready-made" is plastic and seems out of scale, and would be difficult to fasten realistically.  So I liked Glenn Greico's black cloth--much simpler (I reference his model for the Institute of Nautical Archeology in Austin, Texas of the USS Brig Jefferson often, and in that context he HAS to be as historically accurate as possible.).  But I am now realizing that I have seen it other places.  A recent photo in archjofo's La Creole log led me back to post #783 where he shows his version of the black cloth.  Very interesting that he used balsa (or similar soft wood) for the underlying form!!  And then I remembered a black cloth in photos of Frolich's models of Swan and Cygne.  
 
I (we) look at so many sources for these details that I lose track of where I saw them, or even forget I even saw them.
 
So I am feeling good about the approach.  The bigger question of whether this ship would have even HAD hammock cranes is unanswerable.  We don't know much about Oneida beyond the basic lines.  I wish I was building an Oneida that I know is accurate, but I will continue on building an Oneida that I hope is plausible, and in the end for me, is a beautiful model.   
  

A few more deck beams added. I got a consistent curve for the beams by drawing a pair of concentric circles with a protractor onto a piece of shirt board. The distance between the circles would be the ~thickness of the beams. 

I would tape pieces of timber, milled to thickness in the path of the arc - sounds like the eclipse. Put the sharp end of the protractor into the small hole in the center of the circle and draw the pair of concentric circles onto the wood. Rough cut and sand to the line. Or until the line disappears. 

Here’s the ship yard with RIGEL as the center of attention. You can see the pattern cut for the elbows that will support the side decks.
 
Not shown are my Proxxon chop saw, table saw and drill press which I picked up second-hand from a man whom used them for doll houses. Also not shown are the big box brand band saw (say that 5 times fast) and drill press. Here’s the “jig saw” a neighbor gave me. It was a tool from a local high school’s wood shop. 

I’ve started using this more and more. I will likely put it to more use when I begin building models at 3/8 scale. 
 
What follows are a bit of a digression: some images from my recent trip from the Glen Cove area of Long Island to Newport.
 
First are photos of a New Haven style sharpie that the preservation shipyard at Mystic Seaport has been working on for some time. It was more impressive then I imagined it would be. I always pictured that they would have a daintiness about them, given the drawings I have seen, but this boat is very substantial. 


The next images are from the International Yacht Restoration School in Newport. They are of the launch RESOLUTE, designed and built by the Herreshoff firm around 1916. Here’s what Maynard Bray, small craft historian has written about this design. 
 
“Five of these double-cockpit launches were built after they were designed by Nat Herreshoff for possible use by the U.S. Navy during the First World War. (Destroyer Tenders?) Legend has it that because the Herreshoffs wouldn't allow other builders the use of their design, the navy went elsewhere after obtaining only one boat. Two boats that were built to this design by the Herreshoff Manufacturing Company ended up at the Seawanhaka Corinthian Yacht Club on Long Island…”

The boat is the property of the Mystic Seaport but is being restored by IRYS, likely by instructors and volunteers this summer. 
 
Finally, a few pictures from Building J in the town of Oyster Bay, LI. I was there last week to borrow their Wood Mizer to mill two large, knot free holly trunks that were part of a tree removed from the church property. They are working on a large cabin launch - with quite a sordid history - built in Alabama in the first quarter of the 20th century. The ship saw was recently restored by the some of the few professional shipwrights, and some of the many volunteers, who help in this amazing shop. 
 


Holly planks. Between 1” and 2.5”. Stickered and strapped and ready to go into a kiln this week. 

Thanks Peter. It has a long way to go, but there is definitely something fun about designing it yourself. In my case, it probably means I'll do a lot of stupid things, but hey, we learn through our mistakes.
 
Isn't that the truth. The bass knightheads were way softer. The good news is that the stern is going nowhere; it will be a nice solid platform to build on.
 
On the update side, I haven't had a ton of time to work on the ship - there have been some things at work and my wife and I have been doing a major declutter associated with our 15 year anniversary at this home, and based on the fact that I'm pretty confident that we are truly, truly empty nesters (the younger child is going to be leaving her job in Boston to start graduate school in nursing in Philadelphia at the end of the summer, so I am not anticipating her moving back in anytime soon). As part of that, I'm moving my work space into a different location, so we can better use the rec room that I currently work in, etc., etc. However, the move is more or less complete, so back to making sawdust.
 
I did finally finish the filler blocks, so she is ready to start the process that will generate the hull. I've designed her more or less as the Flying Fish kit I built was designed. On the Fish, I laid the waterways on the bulkhead tops flush with the outer edges of the bulkheads, and then the planksheer (cut for the bulwark stanchions) was laid on top of that. The nibbing strake was flush with the waterways and on top of the bulkhead, and the deck laid directly on the bulkheads. This ship is designed slightly different. If you look at the below
 
you will see that the planksheer is kind of integrated into the planking itself, and in addition to the waterway (angled plank), there is a fairly significant timber that is mounted against the frames. As it happens, at 1:72 that timber, plus the extension into the frames works out to 1/4 wide and 1/8 inch tall, a nice, even size that is readily available in bass. So, my plan is as follows:
 

 
I will build the timber that abuts the waterway and the extensions to the outer edge of the frames from a piece of 1/4 x 1/8 bass, cut to allow a bulwark stanchion to fit (they are spaced about 0.7 inches at scale center to center between the stanchions). This is the blue box on the diagram and it will be aligned with the outside edge of the bulkheads. I will run it for about 22 inches, until the curve becomes too great to efficiently bend, and then will cut out the stern curve with my scroll saw from some 1/8 inch thick basswood. The two layers of planking (red and green) will be added as normal and then a 1/32 inch piece of square bass (purple) will be added on top. Finally I'll make the bulwark stanchions (yellow) out of 3/32 bass and fit them into the slices I cut out of the large 1/8 by 1/4 x 22 piece.
 
One thing that I will need to be careful about is ensuring that the bulwarks have the correct angle, because the ship 
 
I think that will work, and produce something that resembles the real thing as below:
 

Photo by Michael Garlick, retrieved from Wikimedia Commons (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:RRS_Discovery_Dundee_Main_mast_rigging.JPG) under license CC-BY-SA-4.0)
 
One thing to note is that the Discovery in common with a lot of other ships of that era has "floating" bulwark extensions, that is, they were separate timbers that were not extensions of the frames. Since the bulwarks tended to rot faster, it was simpler to seal and maintain them if all you needed to do was pull a single timber out and not have to mess with the frames. That will not be obvious from the model, but it is the way that the ship was built.
 
Also interestingly, I had assumed that the extension that I am modeling as the 1/32 square plank was where the white stripe was painted, but looking more carefully, the stripe is actually painted just below that plank, and it points to something I need to be careful about - the angle of the bulwarks. If you look at the photo below, you will see that the ship doesn't really have channels where the chain plates are, so making sure I have adequate clearance to drill the holes for the chainplates is going to be important.
 

Photo by Magnus Hagdorn, retrieved from Wikimedia Commons (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/55/2007_-_Trip_to_Dundee_(4000147227).jpg/1024px-2007_-_Trip_to_Dundee_(4000147227).jpg) under license CC-BY-SA-2.0 generic)
 
Anyways, as always, thanks for looking in! Please let me know if I have mangled the terminology somewhere.
 
Regards,
George

Continuing the work on the pumps. First was the fabrication of the suction manifold for the condensate pump. This was followed by the dry fitting of the condensate system.

 
My soldering attempts.
 The finally dry fitted on site the suction piping to the condensate tank in the engine room. Need a little more work on the squareness of the pipe elbows.

Then the Mason boiler feed pump followed.

I have to say I love working the lathe. I am not as good as I used to be in my younger years but it is a pleasure to see the cuttings fall.
 
This are some of the parts.

Then the dry fit assembly

And the final product.
 

Thanks for following
 

I am really not happy with the octopus. There is no iconographic evidence for its use on galleys or any other ship, so it is gone. I have gone instead for a more austere look. I am happy with the figurehead. Prof Wachsmann has published his thesis that these figureheads reprsent birds' heads and that may be so in most cases but in the case of the Tragana ship the backward curved protuberances on the "beak" resemble no bird I know but would be consistent with a crocodile.

Dick

It might be worthwhile getting a larger piece of brass and machine the part you require. Saw and files or power tools if you have them. I think this method would be more easily controlled and offer you a better chance of success. Brass is quite soft and files to shape quickly.

Good Day All,
 
I carved the mid-ships pack, the top surface of which is at an angle as shown.

 

Then I made and glued on the hands.....he is happy to have his hands!  The right hand is hollowed out to accept the paddle.

I cut the rudder out of aluminum with a tin snips, and then sanded the sharp edges smooth.  I cut a slot for the rudder using a thin-width blade in the hull for the rudder and then installed the rudder with super glue.




 
And now for the final piece....the paddle!


Next I wrote out the words on the bottom of the canoe and then etched them into the wood with an awl.  Sanding the wood and the cast metal worked grey metal dust into the wood grain.


Now time to get some paint!  I will do some painting before final assembly of the parts.....in fact I wish I would not have glued in the aft pack already.

 
 
 
 

Well, that's where we are at the moment.

I think the books have some errors...
Standard 81T0833

This arrangement is therefore not correct at all.

And is shamelessly copied in the next book.

And this is what it actually looks like in the drawing.
A channel or rigging rail a little bit lower.
The Calderkraft model also follows this arrangement. Thanks @Mr Pleasant 
 
 
And so does our Russian colleague.
https://www.shipmodeling.ru/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=45&t=71379  thanks @firdajan

next
horizontal planking or curved straight
Most from this period seem to go for horizontal.
The curved straight ones are starting to become a bit old-fashioned in this period, it seems to me

Thanks for following

Simon,
 
You do have a drawing board,  the plywood sheet that you are using to cut the bulkheads.  I would suggest that you visit an office supply store (Stationer?) to buy an inexpensive French curve.  You can use this to draw your bulkheads without “jiggles.”
 
On a broader note, you are trying to transform a 2D drawing into a 3D object.  250+- years ago shipbuilders developed the system of “Lofting,” to solve this problem.  Lofting involved redrawing the ship’s entire lines drawing full sized on a large flat floor.  The purpose was to check all views to ensure that everything matched.  This would ensure a fair hull; one with smoothly flowing lines.  Full sized patterns for the various structural elements could then be developed from  the lines drawn on the floor.  Note that every time that the lines drawing is redrawn, including the lofting process, subtle changes in the hull’s shape occur, as the draftsman or loftsman adjusts things to ensure that the 3D hull will be fair. There is, therefore, no “definitive” model of an old wooden ship as each draftsman’s interpretation will be slightly different.  CAD does not eliminate this issue.  It just means that the computer is making these adjustments.  In your case, you are making bulkheads without doing the lofting.  This will likely cause problems throughout your build.
 
So, what to do?  First of all, start with a good set of drawings that you are not trying to expand with a computer printer.  A set of lofted drawings exists in the MacGregor archives.  I believe that they can be bought from the SS Great Britain People.  If CAD is your thing, get the drawing scanned and lift and print the bulkhead shapes.  If like me, you are not interested in using CAD trace the bulkheads directly from the drawing using your French curve.  Tracing half a bulkhead and folding it to cut it is fine.  An architectural printing house that makes contact prints, not photographic prints can make copies and even change the scale.  Making smaller scale copies from large scale drawings is preferable to going the other way as minor drawing errors are reduced rather than expanded.
 
Roger

A suggestion for building the hull of this demanding model.  I would add carved wooden blocks to help define the shape of bow and stern.  At the bow,  the planking can run over a carved block at either side of the keel.  The stern is more problematic.  You might want to terminate the planking by running it into into a rabbit at the forward end of a carved stern block.  
 
Roger

Unlike steam railroad locomotives, marine engineering practice required use of condensing engines for two reasons.  First, high pressure boilers did not tolerate salt water.  Scaling from salt deposits impeded heat transfer causing failure of  the boiler tubes.  Second, the development of the triple expansion engine, increasing thermal efficiency, required steam in the low pressure to be exhausted well below atmospheric pressure.
 
New York City harbor craft, however appear to be an exception to this rule.  In his excellent book, Tug Boats of New York City, (Photo caption page 85) author George Matteson writes:
"The white vapor emanating from the tug is exhaust steam, which indicates that it is equipped with a noncondensing engine.......  Most small harbor tugs were equipped with noncondensing engines to save expense and because clean fresh water was always available from city hydrants."
 
Railroad locomotives are subject to height restrictions from tunnels, bridges, etc.   These harbor craft were not.  the easiest way to increase boiler draft was to increase the height of the smoke stack with steam vented separately.  As with railroad locomotives, as steam technology matured, marine engineers worked to utilize every last BTU from fuel bought and paid for.  For sophisticated steam ship designs this lead to all sorts of waste heat recovery devices often located in the smoke stacks.  These harbor craft traveling very short distances did not require these complicated steam plants.

Really nice work Melissa!  The deck structures can be tricky on these small craft as they often slope.  This means that a conventional three view (orthographic) drawing provides a distorted view of the shapes.  While there are manual drafting techniques and of course CAD that can provide a "true view,"  modeling in cardboard will work too and of course then you wind up with patterns.
 
Roger

Had time today to look at my David Mac Gregor books for info on Thermopylae; results:
 
Merchant Sailing Ships 1850- 1875   Two references to Thermopylae but no drawings.  Says that builders drawing (hull lines) does exist.
 
Fast Sailing Ships- Their Design and Construction 1775-1875
Includes:  Hull Lines Drawing ,  Reconstructed Deck layout, Sail Plan
The Book also includes several pages of text about the ship
 
I believe that the people who manage the SS Great Britain in Bristol own David MacGregor’s Drawings and sell copies.
 
Roger
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Thanks Glen, 
have no fear, I have obtained quite a collection of interesting bottles nowadays, each one screaming for me to put something inside. 3 of them actually have a very long body with a short neck, ideal for putting and manipulating a ship inside. I've been making plans for this and one of them will likely be a sailing vessel, following your lead. 
 
Next phase of this build was the filler. After many builds I've given up on trying to do this in 1 go. It's a dirty job, mixing the epoxy filler and applying it, so I'm always postponing this and trying to do it in 1 time, mixing decent amount of filler. However after sanding, I always end up with spaces requiring more filler... In any case, here was the first coat of filler pressed on and around the frames.

 

 
And after a first rough sanding, to determine where more filler will be needed.

 
And the white blob slowly starts to look like a ship. 

 
And after more filler, I decided to get going with spray filler. Something I had used on one build before, but that has become a standard practice on my builds by now. It fills up small gaps etc. while making any deficiencies pop out and it allows for smooth sanding. 

 

 
In this build it also showed some areas that needed improvement, so it was definitely not ready yet. It did start to show the typical voluminous tanker shape. 

 

The railroads that serviced facilities on the Harlem River, the waterway between Manhattan and the Bronx, had tugboats with lowered stacks and the carfloats were shorter. The wheelhouses had to be high enough for the captain and helmsman to see over a loaded car float secured to each side of the tug. There is a good website here http://members.trainweb.com/bedt/IndustrialLocos.html

There are two types of commonly used small drills; High Speed Steel (HSS) and  Carbide.  You don"t tell us which kind you are trying to use.  Carbide drills are extremely fragile and are intended to be used in some sort of mechanical drilling device.  Any side force will cause them to shatter.  HSS drills are old fashioned but forgiving.  Good quality ones will drill any of materials that we encounter. 
 
Roger

The model is finished. I entered it in the Downeastcon IPMS show in Sanford ME on April 14th, and it placed 1st in its category, and also received "Best Ship" of all ship categories.

I have seen historic and contemporary films on YouTube that show the use of English Wheels and there may be one or two that show the construction of shop-made ones.
 
To be honest I don't really see a need for such a gadget in ship-model building. In the automotive sector they are used to reproduce complex and tightly curved panels with beads or similar features. If you use single copper-plates or even whole strakes in most cases no particular shaping apart from pushing it snug against the wooden hull would be needed. In the worst case you could gently rub on it with a round wooden dowel or something like this on a soft and thick cardboard.
 
In boat-building the vertical iron panels for so-called Francis-patent boats were hammered to shape over wooden formers. The same later in the early years of the car industry, before mass-production.

Once again, Thank You for your kind comments !
 

Again, real life including (business) travels got in the way of progress on this project. In addition, while I was having dinner in a restaurant together with colleagues, suddenly some ‘floaters’ appeared in one eye. I went immediately to the eye-doctor, who checked my eyes thoroughly. Luckily the floaters are harmless, but annoying signs of age. No retina-detachment or something else serious. Apparently, they can spontaneously disappear or the brain sort of ignores them after a while – keep fingers crossed. For the moment they are quite bothering, when working on really small things … so on to the ensign.
 
************************************
 
The Imperial German Navy Ensign

This ensign was first conceived for the navy of the North-German Alliance (Norddeutscher Bund) in 1867, bringing together the colours of the dominant powers, namely Prussia (black-white) and the Hanseatic City States, Hamburg, Bremen und Lübeck (red-white). The design obviously was inspired by the British White Ensign and makes reference to various medieval symbols, such as the cross of the Teutonic Order, and the more recent Iron Cross from the Napoleonic War. After the proclamation of the 2nd Empire on 18 January 1871, this ensign became also the ensign of the Imperial German Navy and remained it until the end of the Empire in 1919. There have been, however, some smaller modifications over the years, thus the eagle was somewhat modified and in 1902 the arms of the cross were made heavier in order to avoid confusion at distance with the White Ensign of the Royal Navy.
Overall, it is rather complex design to reproduce purely manually. First, I had to find a correct image for the ensign, as it looked in about 1878 and was lucky, as the Internet furnished a digital image of sufficient size and resolution. The idea was to print it on both sides of very thin paper (the kind that was used in the old days for carbon copies on type-writer, of which I kept a small supply). Such paper, however, does not feed well through the laser-printer and aligning for double-sided printing is practically impossible. Therefore, I resorted to so-called transfer-sheets. These are a kind of waxed paper that is used to transfer laser-printouts to T-shirts, mugs and such things. Laser-printer toner is basically carbon-black mixed with some plastics powder. It can be remelted with a heat-source, such as an ironing-iron and thus transferred to another substrate. I also experimented with overhead-sheets, but the results were not as good. 

Printing layout for the ensign (as it would appear on the transfer sheet)
 
In a first step, the red stripe in the flag was eliminated from the image in Photoshop, as it would print grey otherwise. The ensign was then scaled to the right size on the basis of some trial-and-error, as the laser-printer prints a few percent undersize. I then added reference marks some distance from the image and duplicated this for mirroring. Several of these left-right-pairs were arranged on an A4-sheet and then printed onto the transfer-sheet using the highest quality print setting.

Preparing the pouch for double-sided toner-transfer to the ensign-blank
 
Using the best matching pair, I made a small pouch (as you would do for the masks, when producing photo-etched parts), aligning the images against each other for a perfect match on an illuminated board (they can be bought for a few €/£/US$ on ebay et al. and are powered through a USB-charger). An oversized strip of the thin paper was slipped in between and everything taped down onto a piece of thick cardboard.
I pressed down an ironing-iron set to the lowest temperature onto the package, which made the toner firmly stick to the paper and no residues left on the transfer-paper. And voilà, a double-sided printed flag with a very detailed eagle etc.

The toner is (almost) completely transferred to the ensign-blank
 
In the next step the missing red stripe was added using red acrylic paint. I also added colour to the legs and beak of the Imperial Eagle, to the Imperial Insignia and the crown using yellow-ochre acrylic paint. If one has a colour laser-printer this step would not be necessary.
The flag was cut out exactly to size, except for the rear, where it was left a tad longer to provide for a hollow ‘seam’ into which a thread with two loops at the end was laid The seam was glued down with some diluted white glue. This area also needed a bit of touch-up afterwards with black acrylic paint.
 
The ensign before adding the colours
 
Draping the flag is best done or least pre-arranged on the flag-staff. The paper was slightly wetted and the flag laid into diagonal folds in alternate directions. Toothpicks ensured that they became folds and not creases, which would be unnatural. Such a large ensign (2.9 m x 4.96 m) would fully unfold only in a moderate breeze and not in the light wind assumed in the scenic setting. So it flaps lazily in the wind, which I tried to reproduce.

The completed ensign
 
To the thus prepared ensign the halliard was attached as a loop. This loop was taken over the top of the flag-staff and a tiny laser-cut paper disc glued on as truck. There was no way to cross-drill the staff for the halliard. The halliard was belayed on the clamp. With this the assembly is ready for installation on the boat. But I will not hoist the ensign before the crew is on board. The recruitment process is still on-going …

Ensign wetted and shaped
 
Sorry, this was a rather lengthy essay on just and ensign, but the idea was to describe in detail, how to arrive on a reasonably realistic looking flag at such as small scale.
 
The ensign attached to the flagstaff
 
To be continued ....

There are two types of commonly used small drills; High Speed Steel (HSS) and  Carbide.  You don"t tell us which kind you are trying to use.  Carbide drills are extremely fragile and are intended to be used in some sort of mechanical drilling device.  Any side force will cause them to shatter.  HSS drills are old fashioned but forgiving.  Good quality ones will drill any of materials that we encounter. 
 
Roger

Really nice work Melissa!  The deck structures can be tricky on these small craft as they often slope.  This means that a conventional three view (orthographic) drawing provides a distorted view of the shapes.  While there are manual drafting techniques and of course CAD that can provide a "true view,"  modeling in cardboard will work too and of course then you wind up with patterns.
 
Roger