Roger Pellett

One of these sunken vessels, the Schooner Dot, was apparently a “Canaller,” a specialized ship designed to navigate the restricted lock dimensions of the Welland Canal around Niagara Falls.
 
The current issue of the Nautical Research Journal includes the first of a two part article about building a model of one.
 
Roger

Hello,
now the lids at the gun deck, at the star board side, are also ready 🙂 Now with more experience I also repaired some of the hooks for the rings at the inside of the lids at the port side. 
 

 
The rings have a inner diameter of 1 mm and the wire is 0,4 mm thick and you may have seen at my last post that some hooks are much larger then these.
 

Yesterday, the book landed here from Pen and Sword.   The core of it is the  SeaWatch volume - old wine in new bottles.  The brothers do a pert fair job of photo documenting their models in this version.

Fantastic! Thanks for explaining the considerations regarding weight vs. volume in the holds, something I'd given little thought to with regard to ship design.

In his excellent book, Hand, Reef, and Steer, Tom Cunliffe discusses Flax sails and provides instructions for tanning them as Wefalk mentions.  He also explains in his droll manner, that waterfront rats consider flax sails to be an important part of their diet so precautions need to be taken to protect them.  (The sails, not the rats!)
 
Roger

This guy pounces as soon as I come through the door.  It doesn’t matter what I’m wearing.

My Lionel train catalog is called Sherline.  Every time I think that I’m fully equipped, I find another accessory that I gotta have!

My models get built in the shower,  while I am drifting off to sleep and while sitting in a comfortable chair waiting for my wife to decide whether the 18th pair of black pants she is trying on really fits.  Talbots has the most comfortable chairs.
 
Seriously, this is when I figure out a new approach to remaking the part that I ruined the hour or day before.  The worst thing that you can do when you mess up is to keep working to Force a Solution.  Much better to stop working, clean up your bench, and start fresh another day after having time to think things through.
 
Roger

My Lionel train catalog is called Sherline.  Every time I think that I’m fully equipped, I find another accessory that I gotta have!

CHAPTER 8 (continued)
 
The Rabbit hole:  in late July my wife and I visited a fellow model builder and NRG member and his wife who live nearby in Wisconsin.  I was astonished by his collection of beautiful scratch built models, several of Lake vessels.  I was intrigued by the way that he had added interest by giving viewers a peek of the ship’s machinery through an open door, hatch or skylight.  Returning home, I decided to add the same feature to my Benjamin Noble model.  I will show the engine room skylight open revealing the top of the triple expansion steam engine below.  I also decided to show the coal bunker partially filled, visible through the open coal bunker hatch.
 
This all required an examination and reconstruction of the ship’s internal arrangements.  I was able to do so with reasonable accuracy from the structural drawings that showed the rectangular trunk passing from the engine room to the deckhouse roof.  This same drawing also showed the coal bunker and located the two boilers.  I was surprised to discover that the layout of the coal bunker and boilers differed from the usual layout of Great Lakes ships- see drawing below.  Instead of locating the coal bunker at the forward end of the deckhouse, the bunker wraps around the boilers with the hatch behind the smokestack.
 
Why did the Noble’s designers do this, and why not use the generally accepted arrangement?  Answer:  by doing so they increased the volume of the hold by the 7000+ cubic feet that would otherwise be taken up by the bunker.  So then, why did the designers of other Great Lakes ships favor the more common arrangement that cost them hold volume?  
 
For every cargo that can be conceivably be carried  aboard ship there is what’s called a “stowage factor” that lists the volume required by one ton of cargo.  The principal American Great Lakes cargo was and still is iron ore.  In the early 1900’s, coal was a secondary cargo, loaded when the opportunity presented to avoid returning back up the Lakes in ballast.  The stowage factor for iron ore, a very heavy cargo, is about 20 cu ft per ton.  When hauling iron ore the ship would be considered to be fully loaded well before her holds were full.  Sacrificing hold volume for bunker space, therefore, did not affect the carrying capacity for vessels built to haul iron ore.
 
Why did the Noble’s designers need the extra hold space gained by her unusual and costly bunker arrangement.  She was designed to carry a very light cargo: pulpwood with a stowage factor of over 140 cubic feet per ton.   When she sank, she was carrying railroad rails, stowage factor 12 cubic feet per ton.  There was a lot of empty space in her hold that was subject to flooding if her hatches failed.  
 
The subassembly in the second photo below fits into a space chiseled into the poop deck.  Parts of it will be visible through the engine room skylight.  The other part is the coal bunker.  The two boilers would have been underneath.
 

CHAPTER 8- A Major Milestone and a Rabbit Hole
 
Since my last progress report almost three months ago, I have been working steadily on the model.  A couple of weeks ago, I reached a major milestone, I fastened the two hull halves together.  Before I could do this, I spent considerable time adding necessary hull openings; hawse pipes, mooring pipes, porthole linings, the propeller shaft tube, and piping inlets and outlets.  Once the halves were fastened, I added the keel plating and the propeller boss reinforcement plates.  The final keel plate aft awaits installation of the lower rudder support shoe, that first requires installation of the rudder and propeller.  The White supports utilize the female threads embedded in the bottom of the hull but the supports themselves are temporary.  The grey color is  primer.  As usual, the digital camera shows areas that need to be cleaned up.
 

My Lionel train catalog is called Sherline.  Every time I think that I’m fully equipped, I find another accessory that I gotta have!

Thanks for all of the Likes and comments.
 
Keith:  No, no fruit trees.  There is a dedicated green space between our house and those on the next street over.  It's swampy and heavily wooded.  The trees seen the window are European Buckthorn, an invasive species.  Fall comes early here with colors peaking the first week of October.  Trees are now bare.
 
Roger

It looks like a great deal for someone, but It’s sad that you can’t finish it.  Therefore, no “Like” button.

This guy pounces as soon as I come through the door.  It doesn’t matter what I’m wearing.

My Lionel train catalog is called Sherline.  Every time I think that I’m fully equipped, I find another accessory that I gotta have!

I agree with the idea of showing a glance at the ships interior. As mush as possible, I have been adding details to the inside of my Fifie such as leaving the companion ways open to show the ladders going below, having the inside of the hold with floor planking and doors in the bulkheads and having the pilot house inside details visible from the windows and the partially opened door. This is in addition to the lot of deck details which will include boxes and crans full of herring. Good job Roge.r

Roger, nice detail on the subassembly. The hull is really starting to come together. 
 
 Did you lose some fruit trees out back this year?

Nice work Roger, and i really liked the workbench paint scheme.

I wish ours were bare, we still have about 50% of the leaves left in the trees. We'll be racking and mulching till Thanksgiving if snow doesn't stop us first. 

Thanks for all of the Likes and comments.
 
Keith:  No, no fruit trees.  There is a dedicated green space between our house and those on the next street over.  It's swampy and heavily wooded.  The trees seen the window are European Buckthorn, an invasive species.  Fall comes early here with colors peaking the first week of October.  Trees are now bare.
 
Roger

I'm going slowly on. Glued the rail made of 1mm pear strip and planked the forecastle.


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
 
 
 

CHAPTER 8 (continued)
 
The Rabbit hole:  in late July my wife and I visited a fellow model builder and NRG member and his wife who live nearby in Wisconsin.  I was astonished by his collection of beautiful scratch built models, several of Lake vessels.  I was intrigued by the way that he had added interest by giving viewers a peek of the ship’s machinery through an open door, hatch or skylight.  Returning home, I decided to add the same feature to my Benjamin Noble model.  I will show the engine room skylight open revealing the top of the triple expansion steam engine below.  I also decided to show the coal bunker partially filled, visible through the open coal bunker hatch.
 
This all required an examination and reconstruction of the ship’s internal arrangements.  I was able to do so with reasonable accuracy from the structural drawings that showed the rectangular trunk passing from the engine room to the deckhouse roof.  This same drawing also showed the coal bunker and located the two boilers.  I was surprised to discover that the layout of the coal bunker and boilers differed from the usual layout of Great Lakes ships- see drawing below.  Instead of locating the coal bunker at the forward end of the deckhouse, the bunker wraps around the boilers with the hatch behind the smokestack.
 
Why did the Noble’s designers do this, and why not use the generally accepted arrangement?  Answer:  by doing so they increased the volume of the hold by the 7000+ cubic feet that would otherwise be taken up by the bunker.  So then, why did the designers of other Great Lakes ships favor the more common arrangement that cost them hold volume?  
 
For every cargo that can be conceivably be carried  aboard ship there is what’s called a “stowage factor” that lists the volume required by one ton of cargo.  The principal American Great Lakes cargo was and still is iron ore.  In the early 1900’s, coal was a secondary cargo, loaded when the opportunity presented to avoid returning back up the Lakes in ballast.  The stowage factor for iron ore, a very heavy cargo, is about 20 cu ft per ton.  When hauling iron ore the ship would be considered to be fully loaded well before her holds were full.  Sacrificing hold volume for bunker space, therefore, did not affect the carrying capacity for vessels built to haul iron ore.
 
Why did the Noble’s designers need the extra hold space gained by her unusual and costly bunker arrangement.  She was designed to carry a very light cargo: pulpwood with a stowage factor of over 140 cubic feet per ton.   When she sank, she was carrying railroad rails, stowage factor 12 cubic feet per ton.  There was a lot of empty space in her hold that was subject to flooding if her hatches failed.  
 
The subassembly in the second photo below fits into a space chiseled into the poop deck.  Parts of it will be visible through the engine room skylight.  The other part is the coal bunker.  The two boilers would have been underneath.
 

CHAPTER 8- A Major Milestone and a Rabbit Hole
 
Since my last progress report almost three months ago, I have been working steadily on the model.  A couple of weeks ago, I reached a major milestone, I fastened the two hull halves together.  Before I could do this, I spent considerable time adding necessary hull openings; hawse pipes, mooring pipes, porthole linings, the propeller shaft tube, and piping inlets and outlets.  Once the halves were fastened, I added the keel plating and the propeller boss reinforcement plates.  The final keel plate aft awaits installation of the lower rudder support shoe, that first requires installation of the rudder and propeller.  The White supports utilize the female threads embedded in the bottom of the hull but the supports themselves are temporary.  The grey color is  primer.  As usual, the digital camera shows areas that need to be cleaned up.
 

That's odd.  I'm always looking for a clerk to tell me where what I'm looking for is located. Try dressing like you were going to church and see if that helps. Definitely do not wear a hoodie! You may be the victim of "retail security profiling." Is it possible you're setting off the "shoplifter alarms" every time you walk into the store?