tkay11

That's great. Mystery solved. Thanks to everyone for chipping in. Special thanks to Gérard for the combined research, answer and photo. Welcome also to Sandra, to whom no doubt many of us will return in the future. Tony

Thanks everyone for the hazardous guesswork. You'll note that the tille (hatchet) , couteau (knife) and hausard are all linked by a bracket saying they belong to the barrelmaker. This makes it look very much like the hausard is a tool, rather than a report. Keep the ideas coming! Tony FUTAILLES ET USTENCILES DE TONNELIER.pdf

Thanks, druxey. I thought of that briefly, but it does appear as a single item, un hausard, in a long list. Tony

I came across the term 'un hausard' in the inventory of a French ship of 1766 under the list of items in the barrelmaker's store. I searched diligently through contemporary French dictionaries and books, as well as looking up old barrelmakers' tools, but could find no such word. Does anyone have a suggestion? Thanks Tony

Alexandru (@guraus) has his build log at You can also find plenty of builds on the web (some in languages other than English) by searching for "Machine à curer les ports". However, as I detect you are more interested in their functioning than in the building of the model, I can send you by PM a page from the English translation explaining how they work. I don't think this breaks copyright as it should only be for personal use and is an excerpt from the book. Tony

There are the photos I took of contemporary cutter models held at Chatham dockyard as well as other photos dotted around MSW. In addition there was extensive discussion around historical details based on the NMM plans of Sherborne (which had a variety of spellings with and without the u) in the build logs on MSW of Dubz, Stockholm Tar and Gregor. You can find these logs as well as plentiful discussion of the ins and outs of details in books such as Lennarth Peterssen's book on Fore and Aft Rigging (which I personally found very useful as an introduction to rigging) on this website. The books I found particularly useful for historical reference were: the Cambridge University reprints of David Steel's Elements & Practice of Rigging, Seamanship, and Naval Tactics (Vols 1, 2, 3) (Cambridge University Press Paperback) which provides details of cutter manufacture and rigging. 18th Century Rigs & Rigging by Karl Heinz Marquardt, Historic Ship Models by Wolfram zu Mondfeld. None of these were at all costly and the latter two are widely available as used copies. As an initial practical guide to the Sherbourne in particular, I was much helped by George Bandurek's book 'Super-Detailing the Cutter Sherbourne: A Guide to Building the Caldercraft Kit'. Most helpful of all were the intense discussions on this MSW forum where it soon became apparent that there can never be one exact replica of the Sherbourne as there was much variety in the ways cutters were built and rigged, and all we have are the basic NMM plans from 1763 which you can purchase if need be (and subject to much interpretation), but you'll see photos of the relevant parts of them on MSW. The particular plans of use are j7810 and j7809. You'll probably find the belaying plan the most useful to modify if you want to rig the model. The answer, as always, is build the model that you like the look of best, according to your skills, experience, temperament and tools available. There's no one who will judge you on your choice (except, perhaps, those nearest and dearest to you who no doubt will be amazed at your skill). Enjoy! Tony

The Amazon site just says 'feels like 1500 thread count", so not necessarily the real count. All the same, sounds like a good idea to try out, especially as you want a look that suits you -- something which most modelers aspire to. Good luck in your hunt. Tony

Thanks, @Chuck. I'll bear that in mind for the future. That stuff is unobtainable in the UK right now, but that may be due to export problems. Tony

I may be a bit out of my depth on this, but do the scarf joints need to be where you place them? A little further round might solve the problem without giving much work to those who had to cut the planks. Tony

The last I heard from him was some time round 2016 when he said he was moving on from modelling. I see he last posted a community map placement from Stockholm in November 2020, but his last posting was in 2017. You could try a PM. Tony

Thanks very much, Allan. I especially enjoy the idea of 'playing off against each other'. This is very helpful. I also appreciate the pdf, which adds significantly to other tutorials such as Wayne Kempson's 'Drafting ship's lines in CAD'. Tony

Frolich in his book 'The Art of Ship Modelling' describes in detail how he converted the Boudriot drawings for a fully framed model. He used the station lines, as well as the half-station lines, as reference points and placed double frames on either side of these. Boudriot does have a fairly full list of the scantlings which include moulded and sided dimensions of the frames. I am not sure if copyright prevents me from showing pages from Frolich's book, but it is very interesting. Of course, he had to design the stern timbers and fashion pieces as well as the bow cant frames himself using the Boudriot drawings as a base, and with reference to ships of the period and type. My initial puzzle was how he could have designed the frame outlines without buttock lines as that is method suggested by Underhill and Bodnar as well as others in referring to creation of drawings, but this thread very quickly made me realise that I had completely overlooked the utility of waterlines. Frolich used a solid mould on which to place the frames, with a space in the mould for the keelson, just as one would for a small ship's boat. It really is a beautiful model. He says it was just to fill time between builds, which rather took my breath away when I first read it several years ago. My initial aim was to see if I could draw the frames as well, but then realised that at the scale I wanted, and given my mediocre skills, it would be safer to do plank on bulkhead. However, I am drawing moulds for stations 2.5, 3.5 etc, and that is quite easy to do as well. For me it's more an exercise in draughting and using another way of approaching a build from plans. So Michael is correct about my initial purpose, it's just that I altered direction as a result of the wonderful input from you all. Tony

Thanks, @Jaager and Michael (@bricklayer). Good comments. I have already created the station lines which I will use as reference points for the moulds or bulkheads, and will determine the sided width of the moulds before determining their outlines. I hadn't known about the origin of the use of the misleading term 'bulkheads', so am thankful for that bit of explanation. All the same, as it is now common usage, I will continue to use it, a bit more cautiously perhaps. Thanks also for drawing my attention to 'sirmarks' or 'surmarks' -- the latter making the etymology clearer as marks made on the moulds of a ship to show where the angles of the timbers are to be placed. It made me read up about their use. This is very nicely described in an article on the web site Boats & Builders, where they look at whole moulding and quote Erin Mckee from his book Working Boats of Britain: Their Shape and Purpose (1983). I understood that Boudriot was using the top of the moulds to act as beams, but the problem is that he drew these to the top, not the underneath, of the planking. So the layer of planking he placed on top of them is far too high as well. I've had to correct that in re-drawing. You can easily check this for yourself with a pair of dividers by comparing them to the sheer view. As Michael suggests, the dotted lines below the beam camber are the camber of the deck in the adjacent paired mold or bulkhead. The deck goes down from the stern, then upwards again from about bulkhead 3. I love such discussions that deepen my knowledge! Tony

Thanks, Christian, for reminding me about your Triton build. A really great undertaking. I really appreciate your plans reconstruction. How is it getting along? Have you yet decided to get back to a build? Tony

My scanner/printer only takes 8.5x11ins or A4 max! So I'm happy to work at that scale, especially as I want to work at smaller scales which still allow some definition of the rope to be seen. My smallest rope at this size will be 0.2mm diameter, for which I use Skala 360 at 1 thread per strand and 3 strands in all. Tony

Thanks, Jaager. That;s what I have been doing. I am taking the measurements straight off scans which are embedded in TurboCad. I put them into a spreadsheet, and then use the measurements to draw each of the bulkheads (rear, centre and fore for each one). This process is far quicker than I thought it would be, now that I have some kind of work process established. I now don't use the bulwark outlines, just the sheer and half-breadth plans. I'll follow the process suggested in the monograph for frames 1 and 11. The bulwark side outlines in the original plans are accurate, but their deck outlines are too high. So I'm adjusting the top surfaces accordingly. I've also added bulwarks between each of the existing ones to form a stronger build. I'll be doing plank-on-bulkhead rather than making frames as I plan to work in 1:79 rather than the 1:48 of the plans. Why 1:79? Just because the basic longitudinal bulkhead fits on a sheet of A4! Again, I'm just experimenting with techniques, so this may never get to be a build log. Tony

Thanks, Christian. There is no body plan, so I am making one using the cross-sections super-imposed and then joining the top edges. I take the point about making the buttock lines, but these are not shown on the half-breadth plan (other than for the last two frames). Tony

Thanks again, Thomas and Jaager, for your advice and support. For Thomas' point, the reason I was hung up on buttock lines was that this was the way Underhill showed how to do it (using compass and paper) in his book 'Plank-on-Frame Models'. So I had completely overlooked and did not think of, the fact that I could use waterlines with equal effect, until PietFriet's comment at the top of this post stimulated me to think about it. More to my shame, your mention of Gene Bodnar's article reminded me that I had in fact downloaded this in 2014 but had totally forgotten it. So it looks as though I'm breaking one of the primary principles of MSW which is to do my research first! All the same, thanks very much for jogging my memory in this way. For Jaager's point about inconsistency in the Ancre plans, I admit having been very puzzled about the approach to the plans as at first I could not make the measurements on the cross-sections tally with those on the sheer plan. It took me a while to realise that whereas the plans show a layer of planking above the cross-sections, Boudriot had in fact drawn the cross sections to the top of the planking and must by oversight added an extra layer of planking on top. In fact this mistake of his could work in the modeller's favour as they could then choose the thickness of deck planking to suit and just deduct it from the heights of the frames shown in the cross-sections. Of course, this problem would be entirely overcome should I continue to develop the frames in the way you suggest by just using the sheer and half-breadth plans as reference. You are right, Jaager, about the lines for the rabbet and keel all being correct. And I take your advice about cutting the rabbet into the top of the keel. I have not had much success with rabbet-cutting before, so I'll be practicing it first. Thanks to everyone who has commented so far, and I hope it hasn't been too much of an irritation to those who feel I should have put a bit more thought into it before posting. I suppose I'm getting old! Should I continue with this as a build, it may well be interesting to go into the details of the plans to help others who come across similar difficulties. This discussion has been very helpful in clarifying what needs to be done. Tony

Thanks, Dziadeczek. This is exactly what I have been doing. However, if you compare the heights of the frames shown in the cross-sections, they do not seem to match the heights on the sheer plan. It seems he took the heights of the cross-sections from the bottom of the keel but the heights then don't all match the heights of the deck on the sheer plan. This left me in a quandary as I feel the only solution is to re-draw all the bulkheads as shown using the sheer plan as the reference for the heights. I was intending to add only the bulkheads between the shown bulkheads, so that would fit in with your suggestions. Thanks again Tony

Thanks @druxey. Yes, I've been doing it on the basis of waterlines, but have had a problem determining the upper margins where the deck meets the edge. I'm overlaying all the half-bulwark drawings so I can get an idea of the line of the deck, and hope that will help. I can see the buttock lines helping at the rear. This is something I've been meaning to do every since reading Underhill's books some years ago. It's quite satisfying by very time-consuming. Still many frames to go! Tony

Thanks, @Dziadeczek, I've started just with the station lines, and, as you and @PietFriet suggest, this may work out ok. I think I've been too fixated on buttock lines. Tony

Interesting thought, @PietFriet. Thanks. I'll have a look and more of a think. Now that I've tried matching the bulkhead drawings to the sheer and half-breadth plans with waterlines, there's a lot of discrepancies to work out as well. I can see 3D modelling may be the way to go. Tony

Thanks, @PietFriet and @druxey. I think I might have got by, had there been a body plan as well as diagonals. Unfortunately there are neither. The plans only show the half outlines of the fore & aft sections of the bulkheads. Could I prepare diagonals from these? One thought I had was to make outlines of hypothetical frames from a combination of two adjacent bulkheads, but that would result in fancy that I am not sure would work. Tony

I have seen a few builds of La Jacinthe (including Frolich's) with full framing. However, I don't see how to develop the frames without sufficient buttock lines. I have a feeling I am missing something dead easy, but can't remember it or think of it. The attached drawing is part of the sheer plan drawn up by Boudriot. It shows a few buttock lines, which don't extend much further than bulkhead 10. There are of course buttock lines shown on the half-breadth plan, but these don't cover the full width of the hull. I'd be grateful for any hints or suggestions to put me back on the right path! Tony

I definitely appreciate the need for layering the ModelSpan. Thanks for laying out the steps. Very useful. Tony