gak1965
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Everything posted by gak1965
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The thing that amazes me about McKay and his cohorts in the late 18th through mid 19th century is the degree to which they kind of intuited the kind of engineering concepts we get today through controlled experimentation and/or computer modeling. They were experimenting, but with the full size ship (or bridge, or building, or whatever). By the turn of the century, navies at least were testing models in large tanks (the US Navy built its first basin in 1896, and Robert Massie discusses how the RN designers tested a number of hull models when designing HMS Dreadnought in 1905 - finding a hull form that allowed for adding additional armor while keeping the powerplant and speed the same). But McKay, Palmer, Griffiths, and, heck, Humphreys, Pook, Eads, etc. had none of those advantages and still made great ships. I'm not saying we don't have people like that around now (I'm trying to restrain myself from moving into 'get off of my lawn territory' as I head into my late 50s), but modern engineers can model and have a much higher chance of finding the fatal flaw before they build the thing. Gotta admire their guts though. And McKay in particular, who I think bet the firm at least twice on his design being successful.- 600 replies
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Thanks for the likes and for following along. The hull planks are in place. The first three shots show the hull before any serious fairing work, the next photos are after the application of some filler and some elbow grease with 150 grit sandpaper (or at least I hope that is the order that they show up - I have a very hard time getting the files to load in the order I want, but I digress. Tomorrow and over the weekend, I will continue the sanding, fill in a couple of remaining gaps and then give it a nice sanding with 220 grit to get a decently smooth surface. Once that is complete, I'll get the stanchions and the bulwarks and the forecastle ceiling planks and it will be time to paint the hull. I like to put the hatch coamings and then plank the decks, so paint before deck. Two other quick observations. First, you can now get Tamiya tape again at my local store. Hopefully that means vaccinations and recovery. Second, it is interesting to compare and contrast the hull forms of the ships I've built over the years. Despite being a fast sailer, this has a really deep and flat bottomed hull compared to say, a Baltimore Clipper like the Pride of Baltimore, but very similar to Passat. USS Constitution has the deep draft, but is beamer compared to its draft and has a more V shaped bottom; Niagara is both shallower draft and way beamier, and has a less flat bottom than the Fish. It's not really surprising I suppose, since form follows function, but it is still interesting. Enjoy your weekend all, George K
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Yeah, it's an amazing story. The two halves getting smacked by a hurricane while it was at Ingalls was sort of the capstone. 'Hardluck Ironclad' indeed.
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Concur on the great work! For some reason the capstan bars seem to be an occasional plastic ship thing, they are on the Revell Constitution and United States too (although not on the Heller Passat, go figure).
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Same here. Your hull looks much better than mine does. Great start! George
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Fantastic job! This ship is special to me, because my paternal grandmother came to the US from Greece, third class, on the Normandie in late '35. She was a subsistence farmer on Rhodes, who in the space of a couple of weeks went from a part of the island with no electricity or running water to Piraeus in Athens and thence to La Havre and New York City to be met by my grandfather, a man she had not seen for several years while he saved up the money to bring her to the states. The culture shock must have been unbelievable.
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Thanks for the vote of confidence! I visited Vicksburg National Military Park when we were moving from Los Angeles to DC and saw the Cairo there. It is a great subject and easy to understand how it catches people's imagination.
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Ed Bearrs who wrote Hardluck Ironclad and was part of the recovery team just died last September (he was 97).
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This is an example of someone who did an amazing job on the Revell USS Constitution with the thermoplastic sails. WAY out of my league: https://modelingmadness.com/review/misc/ships/carcon.htm.
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And another brief update. Planking is proceeding apace. I've added a few steelers in the stern to reduce the amount of bend required. Should be done in another week or so, followed by an extended session with wood filler and a number of grades of sandpaper.
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I've seen people do good things with thermoplastic sails, but not me. I left them out of my Connie and there weren't any in the Passat.
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This is a bit late, but... There may be some records in the National Archives from the Army Quartermaster General's office with the receipts (in any case, Ed Bearss cited records indicating that Eads had submitted receipts. And, if you look at Hard Luck Ironclad, the Ingalls Shipbuilding examination of the Cairo listed the exterior as 'black', interior as 'white washed', with colored identification bands on the stacks. The ship looks great - and not convinced I would do anything about it.
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Are you planning to rig with sails? And if not, are you going to rig the bunts and leeches? Unlike Preussen, my Passat's instructions didn't include the bunts and leeches. I did put the blocks on - that gave it some visual interest without overly cluttering things up at 1:150.
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Hi Brad, For my future reference was the fit tight vertically, horizontally, or both? Either way, looking great!
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Better than the Passat instructions. I once used this: https://www.amazon.com/Line-Simulating-Wires-Charcoal-Black/dp/B00P2QVMJ0/ref=asc_df_B00P2QVMJ0/?tag=hyprod-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=309748512713&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=1081979806894319198&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9007783&hvtargid=pla-585644113181&psc=1 to make ratlines. It is rubber 'line' that is used by model railroaders to make telephone and power lines that 'dip' properly. Now, I don't know about longevity, and I used glue to hold them in place (I imagine knotting that could be problematic) but there is no question of fuzz.
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She’s looking great, and progress is being made. I’m still not convinced there is an inconsistency. The instructions for the MSW Charles W. Morgan point out that: ”The fore and mainmasts have royal yards, but the fore royal yard is sent down while the ship is on the whaling grounds. This is how Morgan is displayed. The main royal yard is rigged similar to the topgaleant. It has no bunt or leechlines, but it does have running lifts. Blocks are seized to the mast.” The original of the USB Niagara also had royals that were not just sent down when not in use but unbraced. If the lookouts are for spotting whales, and the royals were only set aloft under light winds in transit you could have both without conflict. In any case, it’s your ship and you choose what context to show it in. Best wishes for continued success. George
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Just a bit of an update. Progress is slow but steady. I have 10 full strakes on both the port and starboard sides, and the bulk of the knuckle is formed. I'm using a "5 bulkhead" scheme, but will likely move to a longer plank once I've dropped into the region that is going to be plated. One interesting (for lack of a better term) observation related to COVID impacted supply chains is that I can no longer get Tamiya tape from my local store. They have none, of any size. The store people tell me there is one factory and they are not producing at anywhere near the previous level due to COVID safety protocols My color test sections used conventional painters tape which doesn't work as well for me. I'm glad that they are following protocols and will get by, but just mention it for some color.
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Hi @Overworked724, I don't have an airbrush, so old school for me. I may try some Model Master colors. "Russian Marker Red" and "Gelb" worked well as the red and yellow on my Niagara and the finish was pretty flat.
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That brings back memories. Haven’t heard anyone talk about an IP in like 35 years...
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Coming along Brad!
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Great work, Ian she looks fantastic! I assume from your comments that you are not going to try to use the "ratline machine" that Heller includes with their kits, which is a good thing. I tried this years ago when I built my Passat and it was a complete failure. The good news was that the turnbuckle 'deadeyes' (which don't seem to be what you have here) were extremely sturdy, considering. Despite putting a fair bit of tension on them as I rigged the shrouds and backstays, I didn't have a single one break. How are the rigging instructions? Given that you have described every other problem I had with Passat, I'm curious how the instructions look. The Passat instructions were decent for the standing rigging, but really awful for the running rigging. It showed the clew lines and the braces (plus the running rigging on the jigger) and not much else. Also, the translations from French were all on the last page, completely divorced from their content; is that true of Preussen too? With regard to the ratlines, the Passat instructions suggested using all 5 shrouds, the real ship (as currently configured uses the 3 central shrouds, periodically extending to the exterior 2. I don't know if there are good pictures indicating how they were rigged on Preussen. I love the idea of a 3D printed Jarvis brace winch. At 1:150, they are a real pain in the posterior to rig up though. There are real detail limits at that scale. Good luck! George K
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Planking continues on the starboard side. While that is going on, I've been looking at some possible colors based on the note that McKay wanted to paint her green. From left to right, we have plain black with a white planksheer, Tamiya XF-26 (Deep Green), Tamiya XF-70 (Dark Green 2) and Tamiya XF-27 (Black green). While the colors are focused toward (frankly) 20th century military and cars, they are all consistent with colors described up to the mid-19th century. I presume so many greens were available because copper compounds provide easy pigments, but who knows. In any case, I am pretty sure I'm going to go with either the Deep Green or the Dark Green 2. If you were going to paint a ship green, I assume you would want a color readily distinguishable from black. Either way, I am going to put a black "boot stripe" between the cap row of the copper plates and before the start of the green (as shown below). I know that this is ahistorical, but I'm going for what he wanted to build, not what he did, so...
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What a great looking ship!
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