Roger Pellett

Back in the 1950’s A.J. Fisher listed plans of Wanderer in their catalog.  They are still in business owned by Model Expo?, anyhow if you google A.J. Fisher you should find them.  Maybe they can produce a set for you.
 
You might also wish to get a copy of the book “Whaleships and Whaling” by Church.  Great photos taken on board sailing whalers towards the end of the period.  Should be easy to find on used book sites.
 
Roger

Beautiful model!!!
 

I may live by the saying that goes, "less is more". Don't want to get too carried away scraping up the deck. What do you think?
 
 

Well, since The Plague has started, I've only spent a minimal amount of time out in the shop but more due to the inclement weather (damp/cold) than anything else. I've been slowly working around clockwise from the back on paneling the inside of the walls. I'm now working on the inside of the front wall and will probably be out there again tomorrow in addition to starting to plant some seeds in the raised garden beds. Today, visibly I was able to adjust the pulley & hook a bit to one side and installed my Americana Emblem on the front:

If possible, I'll try to get a shot or two of the interior to show where things stand, etc. 

Beautiful model!!!
 

Thanks, Bob!

I am resuming work on a project that requires a lot of soldering of brass.  I will post a build log soon.  Before suspending work several years ago I had a small Bernz-o-magic Propane hose torch that had a shut-off valve at the bottle and an adjustment valve at the torch head.  Unfortunately I no longer have it and it would seem to be no longer made.
 
I am willing to spend the money to buy a quality replacement and have been looking at the Smith Little Torch.  My concern is that they all seem to be combination Propane and Oxygen and I don’t want to deal with Oxygen and don’t need the extra heat. 
 
Does Smith make a Propane only model?
 
Can the Propane Oxygen Model be used on straight Propane by shutting off the Oxygen valve?
 
Can anyone suggest a quality Propane only mini hose torch with flame adjustment at the torch head?
 
Roger

In The recently published biography of Norman Ough, the author writes of Ough’s frustration of the wholesale destruction in the 1950s by the British Admiralty of a huge amount of pre WWII Royal Navy design documents.
 
The Company that I used to work for (Dravo Corporation) operated a large shipyard on the Ohio River near Pittsburgh, Pa where they built barges and river towboats.  They were also the “lead yard” for the WWII LST construction program. They operated another yard during WWII at Wilmington, DE where they built Destroyer Escorts and PC patrol craft.  All of the design drawings were stored in an inactive salt mine.  Both yards have long since closed and the Company no longer exists.
Somewhere there is a treasure trove of drawings, but completely inaccessible.
 
Roger

In The recently published biography of Norman Ough, the author writes of Ough’s frustration of the wholesale destruction in the 1950s by the British Admiralty of a huge amount of pre WWII Royal Navy design documents.
 
The Company that I used to work for (Dravo Corporation) operated a large shipyard on the Ohio River near Pittsburgh, Pa where they built barges and river towboats.  They were also the “lead yard” for the WWII LST construction program. They operated another yard during WWII at Wilmington, DE where they built Destroyer Escorts and PC patrol craft.  All of the design drawings were stored in an inactive salt mine.  Both yards have long since closed and the Company no longer exists.
Somewhere there is a treasure trove of drawings, but completely inaccessible.
 
Roger

In The recently published biography of Norman Ough, the author writes of Ough’s frustration of the wholesale destruction in the 1950s by the British Admiralty of a huge amount of pre WWII Royal Navy design documents.
 
The Company that I used to work for (Dravo Corporation) operated a large shipyard on the Ohio River near Pittsburgh, Pa where they built barges and river towboats.  They were also the “lead yard” for the WWII LST construction program. They operated another yard during WWII at Wilmington, DE where they built Destroyer Escorts and PC patrol craft.  All of the design drawings were stored in an inactive salt mine.  Both yards have long since closed and the Company no longer exists.
Somewhere there is a treasure trove of drawings, but completely inaccessible.
 
Roger

In The recently published biography of Norman Ough, the author writes of Ough’s frustration of the wholesale destruction in the 1950s by the British Admiralty of a huge amount of pre WWII Royal Navy design documents.
 
The Company that I used to work for (Dravo Corporation) operated a large shipyard on the Ohio River near Pittsburgh, Pa where they built barges and river towboats.  They were also the “lead yard” for the WWII LST construction program. They operated another yard during WWII at Wilmington, DE where they built Destroyer Escorts and PC patrol craft.  All of the design drawings were stored in an inactive salt mine.  Both yards have long since closed and the Company no longer exists.
Somewhere there is a treasure trove of drawings, but completely inaccessible.
 
Roger

In The recently published biography of Norman Ough, the author writes of Ough’s frustration of the wholesale destruction in the 1950s by the British Admiralty of a huge amount of pre WWII Royal Navy design documents.
 
The Company that I used to work for (Dravo Corporation) operated a large shipyard on the Ohio River near Pittsburgh, Pa where they built barges and river towboats.  They were also the “lead yard” for the WWII LST construction program. They operated another yard during WWII at Wilmington, DE where they built Destroyer Escorts and PC patrol craft.  All of the design drawings were stored in an inactive salt mine.  Both yards have long since closed and the Company no longer exists.
Somewhere there is a treasure trove of drawings, but completely inaccessible.
 
Roger

Thanks Edward
Some of our kids are also grown up, although not really gone. Two of them live within walking distance of our house. It oldest one who just turned 50 lives about 800 miles away. In reality the two we have at home now are actually grandchildren we adopted years ago and while they still call us grandma and grandpa we still consider them just two more sons just like the others. After 50 years of continuous children I doubt we would know what to do if it was just the two of us. Probably end up shooting each other.
 
Well you were all warned. Here come the pictures! Like I said I had hoped to get more done than I have but at least there is some progress. Part of the reason is the amount of detail work that is needed in the cockpit area on this model. Once all of this is done there is almost nothing else to this kit of any significance. So without further due here are the pictures:





I have some chores to attend to again today, but I will try and get some more build time in and make a little more progress in this incredibly slow part of the build so I can continue to torture your sensibilities.
 
Thanks for looking in.

In The recently published biography of Norman Ough, the author writes of Ough’s frustration of the wholesale destruction in the 1950s by the British Admiralty of a huge amount of pre WWII Royal Navy design documents.
 
The Company that I used to work for (Dravo Corporation) operated a large shipyard on the Ohio River near Pittsburgh, Pa where they built barges and river towboats.  They were also the “lead yard” for the WWII LST construction program. They operated another yard during WWII at Wilmington, DE where they built Destroyer Escorts and PC patrol craft.  All of the design drawings were stored in an inactive salt mine.  Both yards have long since closed and the Company no longer exists.
Somewhere there is a treasure trove of drawings, but completely inaccessible.
 
Roger

Thanks to all for the nice comments, I really do appreciate them.  And thanks for the likes and taking the time to visit my build log. 
 
It has been a while since my last posting and I hope you are all well and staying safe.  After finishing the trawl winch, I tired of working on the model and dropped it like a dirty sock.  Now after several weeks away from all modeling, it’s calling me back.  
 

Otter Boards
 

Commercial fish trawling on its face seems like a static and unchanging technology, but it has evolved greatly over time.  One of the most significant changes came with the invention of the “otter trawl".
 

Otter trawling was developed in England and came to America around 1910.  It derived its name from the otter board which was the name given to a sheering device that was being used for “hook and line” lake fishing in Ireland.  This rectangular wood board would skate laterally across the waters’ surface and away from the direction it was being pulled.  To some, the water disturbance caused by the board must have called to mind the activities of an otter.  In commercial fishing, two otter boards are used together below the surface of the water to horizontally hold open the mouth of a trawl net.  Like underwater kites, the otter boards are setup to push outward, away from each other, as the hydrodynamic pressure of moving water acts upon them.  This was a major advancement over the “beam” trawl, which as the name implies requires a beam of some sort to keep the mouth of the net spread open.  This beam arrangement severely limited the size of the trawl a single boat could tow.
 

Otter boards used in ground fishing actually skid along the surface of the seabed.  The noise this creates attracts fish and the turbidity helps to conceal the oncoming net.  The fish become fatigued swimming out in front of the nets' cavernous mouth and eventually begin to fall back past a point of no return and end up in the “cod end”.
 

The graphic below is from Seafish with text that I added.

Otter boards are commonly referred to as “doors" and their design has been greatly improved over the years, but in the 1920s they were typically flat and made of wood.
 

The doors in a trawling system work in equilibrium with drag from the net and pull from the boat.  The doors have to be the right size and weight for the trawl net gear used, but the available horsepower of the towing vessel limits the size of the doors and how much hydrodynamic force can be applied to them.  The doors end up as the pivot point between competing forces and have to accommodate both.  It has been estimated that the doors account for about 1/4 of the total drag on the vessel.
 

Because I have a boat of known horsepower, I can use the formula below from CIFT to determine the maximum square foot area of a single otter board based on tow HP.
 

S=0.105P+4
 

This 45’ dragger is powered by a 100 HP engine, so...
 

 S = 0.105(100) + 4  =  14.5 sq ft.
 

The rectangular ratio of 2 length x 1 height is commonly used to define the boards’ actual dimensions.
 

Doing the math and rounding up gives dimensions of 5’5” x 2’8”.  This is surprisingly close to the ballpark dimensions I estimated from photo scaling.
 

W = 2.7P determines the optimum weight of a single wooden door based on tow HP.  W=2.7(100)  = 270lbs.  Heavier perimeter strapping and a beefier iron skid plate can be added to increase the weight if required.  So if I ever build a full-scale dragger in my back yard - I'll keep this in mind.
 

My drawings below are based on documents from the 1940s and any photos of trawl doors I could find.  The two doors will be identical except that they are mirror images of each other.

 

 

I also draw part cutting and locating templates.

 

The wood part of the doors is made from 1/16” basswood, providing a 3" scale board thickness.  The wood is a single piece scribed to imitate individual boards.

 

I’m using aluminum beverage can sidewall for the strapping and tin for the skid plates.  This allows me to simulate seabed scraping by exposing the bright metal.  I find this easier than trying to replicate bare metal with paint. 
 

To create the section of strapping with the radius that follows the forward edge of the door, I use a laser printer to transfer that shape to the aluminum.  I first separate out the pieces in CAD to be used as templates.

 

The image is printed on regular copy paper and ordinary cellophane tape is placed onto the templates.  The sheet goes back into the printer and this time the image is transferred to the tape.  The only reason for the first printing was to know where to place the tape.
 

I peel the tape from the paper and stick it to the metal and cut it out.  The tape transparency allows me to take advantage of the clean straight edge and square corner of the material.  Clear laser printer labels would work great for this if you happen to have some lying around.

 

All strapping and skid plates are glued on.

 

The rear rings are made up from thin slices of .120” OD brass tube, which are held captive by a loop of annealed .014" brass wire.  The back plate is cut from 1:87 rivet plate material and the diameter of the rivets are approximately tiny.  I’m pretending that the rivets are actually the heads of bolts.


 

The fore bridle is .032” brass rod and the rear chain is 15 links per inch.  The paper clamps as you can see are yet untrimmed.

 

Channel iron is glued into place using the drawing templates as a guide and injection molded nut/bolts are added.  The channel iron is styrene strip “I” beams with one side sanded off.  The rear rings are placed and some first attempts at color is added.

 

The fore and rear bridles are placed along with the associated bolt plates.  Thin CA is trickled down the chain links to help keep it from slumping.  The rear ring plates are also glued on.

 

Holes are drilled around the perimeter of the strapping and square nut heads are glued in.
 

The wood was weathered with chalk and alcohol and the strapping is pigment over a base of flat black enamel.  If I had to do this over, I would use blackened brass rather than the aluminum, as I’ve had to touch up the black enamel several times due to tiny flakes popping off from the constant handling.  So once I finalized the color and was happy with the look, they were over sprayed with a clear flat coat to stabilize everything.
 

A couple of items were intentionally left out for simplicity but mostly because of laziness - flat head screws holding the skid plates on and the tiny bolts for the thin upper strapping.

 

I have never set foot on a commercial dragger, but building this model has given me a greater appreciation into how much skill and know-how is needed to bring in a catch of fresh fish.  Describing what an otter board is and what it looks like is one thing, but being able to set it up and trim its attitude to work efficiently underwater is an art learned through years of experience and hard work.
 

Suddenly, I’m hungry for fresh baked haddock with a slightly browned topping of panko and parmesan . . .
 

Thanks for stopping by.   Stay healthy.  
 
Gary  

Thanks everyone'
It is not really a big thing but it has added some constant workload to my day that has not been there prior to the shutdown. I think the part that makes me the most upset is that there are plenty of programs in the country that are already in place that teach children on line and have been used fore years by home schooled children to good effect but, are being ignored by at least by our local school system. By the time they cobble their makeshift system together the shutdown will be over and the children will be back in school but missing months of potential education. Meanwhile 2/3rds, (66%) of my tax bill each year goes to the schools! What made me blow up was the idea that we as parents are considered just somewhere to house the children outside of the school environment and that school issued pass words and such are considered the private domain of the school and the child assigned to them.
 
Oh well, rant over and time to get on with life, just did morning inventory and time to try out the new shopping service and see it is performs twice in a row. Also late morning class duties, then it's building Huey's time. At least I think it is.   

Another option, which I have started using for Stay Brite soldering, is a small pencil butane torch, which is refillable.

Very nice!

To be honest I have not done much on my Huey the last couple of weeks. Although I’m retired and it would seem that with this “Stay Home” order I would have nothing but time on my hands, it seems like nothing but extra work.
 
First off, as both my wife and I would be considered as poster children for catching the virus I had to try and find ways around everyday simple needs. The biggest of these was finding a way to limit our exposure in the grocery store and still keeping the two of us and our live-in Velociraptors supplied. I had to learn to do this simple task on line and ended up going through three considerably different store systems before finding one that seems, (So far) to work.
 
Then there are the two aforementioned Velociraptors. The schools sent them home two weeks ago and told us not to bring them back! So both the school system and myself have been going back and forth on how to get the kids to study and to get some kind of useful scholastic content while at home. You would think that this would be fairly easy as children all over the country have been home schooled for years with little or no issues. But the public school teachers are acting as if they just landed on an alien planet and are at a complete loss. There have been at last count by me, four different “Lession” systems introduced by teachers by each school my two boys attend. I have not had to do too much for my High School aged boy, he has some computer skills of his own and all I need to do is kick start him now and then to do the work instead of hiding out in his room pretending.  But my twelve year old is another matter. While he has been pretty good at attending the class hours I have assigned to him, his teachers have been all over the map on where to locate the work he has been assigned and that seems to change daily. Plus he has been assigned school logins that are apparently top secret need to know only information and parents are NOT on the inside loop. They are sending me the information of what they expect him to do, but neither he nor I have enough information to get there.
 
As an example,  today I ended up emailing one of his teachers to tell her that he would not be able to do the assignment as after spending the morning trying to  access the site he and I were no longer on speaking terms. She said that we were not the only people with location and login issues,(SURPRISE) and  I agreed to a telephone call where SHE tried to walk him through the location and login procedure. I had the whole conversation on speaker phone and was also following the procedure on my computer, so I would know how to do it tomorrow when it would be needed again. When he reached the inevitable unbreachable hurdle I chimed in and asked for his school email and was told that I was a parent and had a different way of entering the site! Needless to say I pretty much went ballistic and handed her over completely to my son and told her good luck. She lasted about another half hour and said she would call back in an hour or two but would be emailing me with added instructions. My wife was also angry with me for losing it so I forwarded the emails to her and told her that she should deal with it then. I had been doing it for the last two weeks and was pretty tired of it. She made a feeble attempt at working with my son and the instructions for about fifteen minutes and then badgered me into taking the chore over again. At that point it was either leave the house and find someone that was contaminated and end it all, or go ahead and tackle it yet again. This time after combining tidbits from four separate emails from the teacher I was able to get him into the required site. I tried to explain to him how I did it but I have my doubts that much of it sunk in as he pretty much had that deer in the headlight look on his face.
 
So along with trying to deal with all of the other things that this time of year brings me, this is pretty much how my life has been going and to be honest I have done almost no work on the Huey. Certainly nothing worth documenting. So tomorrow I have a couple of more financial matters to try and clear up and of course the obligatory school session, but I am making it a point to get over to the working space where the Huey has patiently been waiting and get some worthwhile work done. So fair warning to the forum members to look the other way, here comes more of the Huey.         

Very nice!

Very nice!

Thanks, Bob!

I am resuming work on a project that requires a lot of soldering of brass.  I will post a build log soon.  Before suspending work several years ago I had a small Bernz-o-magic Propane hose torch that had a shut-off valve at the bottle and an adjustment valve at the torch head.  Unfortunately I no longer have it and it would seem to be no longer made.
 
I am willing to spend the money to buy a quality replacement and have been looking at the Smith Little Torch.  My concern is that they all seem to be combination Propane and Oxygen and I don’t want to deal with Oxygen and don’t need the extra heat. 
 
Does Smith make a Propane only model?
 
Can the Propane Oxygen Model be used on straight Propane by shutting off the Oxygen valve?
 
Can anyone suggest a quality Propane only mini hose torch with flame adjustment at the torch head?
 
Roger

The Smith Little Torch runs on oxygen and propane, acetylene, or MAPP gas. (I believe they also run on natural gas, which is about the same as propane.) I don't know of any small propane-only torches. Propane-only torches seem to start with the regular "plumber's torch" sizes which are too large for small modeling work. (These aspirate air into an integral combustion chamber.) Small non-oxygen torches seem to be limited to the small butane torches. 
 
Running straight propane through the Little Torch will get you a flame, but it won't be hot enough to be of any use. Think "butane cigarette lighter." It's the oxygen that causes the intense heat.
 
I don't think you can go too far wrong with the Smith Little torch with oxygen and propane for modeling work. The disposable Bernzomatic oxygen bottles are priced comparably to the Bernzomatic disposable propane, acetylene, and MAPP gas bottles. These sizes last for a long time doing small work and are compact and easy to store. If you are a gas cutter and welder, you can use large oxygen tanks, of course, but the Bernzomatic disposable bottles are the least expensive way to go if you aren't already "cookin' with gas."

one more photo of the reinforcements...
 
Drazen