And I got a new toy, an LED ring lamp. She is good for working , and taking pictures through it. But that I think only at a short distance. You could dim in 10 stages and change the white temperature from cold, white to warm. And she is amazingly light.
Hello
and many thanks for your nice comments and likes. I'm overwhelmed 😮
I finished the fore mast port side and started with the main mast.
And that are the bolts who hold the chain plates in place. But today wasn't my day. So I stoped working. There where a 0,8mm bold should fit, I tried a 1mm bold and for the 1mm bold I drilled 0,8mm holes! And all ready with CA saturated 😬
Thank you for your great contribution to this topic. Of course I was referring to your work when I mentioned 'other methods'. I could also have referred to Tomek from Poland (Seahorse) with his method of glueing pre-shaped planks, using only glue on the frame locations, with which he gets wonderful results too. But these are 'academic level methods', while I am presenting some high-school tricks, trying to lure newbies into working with the wonderful versatile material paper is.
About you question: do older ships get darker? I'm not sure. Maybe someone on this forum can answer that. I do know that getting older the ships become more and more interesting. I have seen shipwrecks literally covered with repairs. Very tempting to try. I think we should abandon these shining, gold-covered, sterile, clean ship models and show ships like they were: messy, bruised, stinking tools that were worn out to make as much money with them as possible and more...
Back to the show. Here comes
Part IV
Rigging a ship model is mainly a matter of preparation. You have to make masts and spars, sails, deadeyes and blocks all in advance, so while the paint on the model needs drying anyway we have plenty of time to do the necessary things.
Chapman was kind enough to draw all the necessary masts and spars on his drawing (see the first picture of this thread) and on top of that he also presents a small picture of the hookers rigging on the last plate of his book.
Now we discover that he undoubtedly was a great shipbuilder, but he was not a rigger. Two things strike while looking at his sketch. The royal topsail was a flying sail, which means that it was hoisted from the deck in cases the weather allowed. Flying sails have no braces, but Chapman draws them anyway. Of course I left them out on the model.
Another subject where he seems to miss the point is the jib. This is the sail attached to the top of the jib boom. Chapman draws quite a large sail. This sail should however be small because it is only meant to be a steering sail. Of course I missed the point until I put the too big sail on the model. A strong suspicion that this could not be true struck me while looking at the result. The construction of the jib boom simply did not allow for such a large sail. The function of the long jib boom is to help the ship to make sharp turns. Because of its long keel, tacking is a bit hard. So a small sail as far forward as possible helps out if necessary.
Groenewegen shows us how small the sail actually was and a contemporary hooker model in the Rijksmuseum delivered proof: the jib was just slightly bigger than a handkerchief. So I made a new jib, much smaller this time.
All that said, the rigging of this model is quite a straightforward process.
The dimensions of masts and spars can be taken from the Chapman draught. Of course the masts of the model will be a little bit shorter as they are stepped in another way than the original mast. A slot in the foot of the mast ensures that it will stay upright.
I always make my masts from square pieces of wood, shaping them on four sides to the right dimensions with a small Stanley plane, then proceed by making them octagonal and finally filing and sanding them round. I use a soft wood, mostly fir, but if the structure is too evident abachi or lime are good replacements. I use matt picture varnish with a little bit brown oil paint in it to give them their final look.
I always prepare my masts up to a stage that everything necessary has been mounted, including crosstrees, tops, yards, sails, blocks and all the rope work.
The rope I use is Irish linen. It is hard to get. I have some leftovers from my time in the museum and with my miniature ropewalk I can make any size I want. But nowadays there are many sorts and qualities on the market and you will have to make your own choice. Rope that is a bit fluffy can be improved by pulling it over a wax candle. The wax flattens the fluff and makes to rope better to handle. It the rope needs coloring I use aniline dye on an acetone base. They sell it here as leather paint, it comes in brown and black and it can be diluted with acetone. It dries immediately.
For my sails I mostly use unbleached cotton, which is very cheap and comes in different qualities. Of course you need the thinnest one you can find with the finest structure available. Linen is another option, but more expensive. Silk however is no good, because it has too little substance. It may be useful for flags, but the sails I tried to make from it did not turn out to be what I wanted. The color can be adjusted in a bowl of strong tea. Make sure the cloth is soaked before you dip it in the tea, otherwise you will end up with very irregularly stained sails. The more often you repeat the process, the darker the sails.
I take a piece of cloth and tape it to the table. I glue the bolt lines on with white PVA glue and cut off the excess cloth. The top boltline is glued on separately, which allows us to make the ‘ears’ on both ends. On the lower corners of the sail nooses are made to attach sheets and blocks. With a soft pencil I draw the lines of the cloths and if necessary reefs are made. I don’t have pictures of making the sails of this specific model, but the process is the same for other models. With everything prepared the sail is marled to the yard. All necessary blocks must be attached now. I like my sails bellowing, so I usually spray them with starch used for ironing laundry. It is sold in spray cans and by blowing them dry with a hair-dryer you will get nicely bellowing sails. In the case of this model however I omitted that stage as I had other plans, as you will see later.
Deadeyes can very well be made of paper. I use two kinds: the solid picture-frame sort and the 0.5 mm box sort. I use a nice punch set I bought from a Belgium firm, which can be reached at: hvbuynder@skynet.be
The 1 mm one is slightly smaller than the other two. With some PVA glue I roll them between my fingers to get the middle disk in place, while squeezing them together with a pair of tweezers. Once dry they are soaked in diluted varnish and with a sharp pin I press shallow holes where the drill will do its work. Preferably I use a drill-stand, to make sure the locations of the holes are identical on both sides.
A thin wire around, twisted with a small pair of pliers make the chain plates. If large shackles are wanted a simple mold will do the job. The twisted part will be invisible because that’s where the deadeyes are located in the channel and the end can be pressed in a drilled hole in the wale below, secured with a drop of CA glue. This method never failed on me even with the tightest shrouds.
For blocks I use an old ruler. This is a close-grained sort of wood of which I saw strips between 2 and 3 millimeter square, cut grooves on all four sides, drill the holes and cut and file them into shape, keeping them on the stick as long as possible. A few drops of teak-oil finish the job.
With all the preparations done we can finally start rigging. Square-rigged ships are always a lot more work than sprit and gaff rigged types, due to all the blocks and lines needed to manage these sails. The building of the hull cost me less than a week, rigging took twice as long.
Usually the standing rigging is done first, but with my method op preparing the masts with everything complete, it is a different story. What has to be done anyway are the shrouds and their ratlines. The shrouds were mounted together with the sails, so all we need to do is strop their deadeyes. Both for the lanyards and the ratlines I use white line. It is better for my eyes, but they have to be stained afterwards. Some people keep their lanyards white because they are part of the running rigging, but I don’t think that is correct. I studied paintings and original models and never saw any white lanyards. So I paint them after they are done with acetone based aniline.
The ratlines should be done with the appropriate knots, after which every knot is secured with a drop of CA glue. It is a good idea also to secure every block with glue as soon the right setting is reached. This prevents endless trimming afterwards and it hardly shows. For the right and even distances between them I use a piece of card on which the lines are drawn.
This vessel was given some additional swivel guns and placing personnel on board is a matter of taste.
So here is the result. As you can see, there are no bellowing sails this time. My inspiration came from an etching by Gerrit Groenewegen, showing a hooker, drying its sails. Emiel translated this piece of art in a photographic impression that speaks for itself. The model was built, to be used as a prop for this plate. It was a lot of fun.
This was my story about the light version of modelbuilding. I am sure many members of this forum can do a lot better than I did, so why not give it a try?
To complete the construction of the bottom of the hull. Get ready to move to the next level, because some of the parts need the upper beams to be positioned, so parts of the structure need to be pushed back.Thank you for your attention
I needed to make a slope on the upper side of the wale, so water does not collect there. You see the masking tape against damaging the planks and the small grinding blocks I had been using.
Continuation of the construction of the floating warehouse.
Next level will begin. The larger open place, in the middle, will be the amphitheater, a place to care for the sick and wounded..
One of the goals, in this small project... is to limit at the minimum the decks planking to maximize the interior view.
Things seem to have gone ok with the making of the solid piece that fits under the transom.
I did the usual of cutting out templates making sure that the grain was correct before roughly shaping the parts and gluing them together. The angle between the transom and the last frame is slightly under 90 degrees; I don't know how everyone else takes the angles from either the ship or plans but I use a sliding bevel. I transferred this angle to a face sander and cut the top edge first but I forgot to take a photo of this step.
I then I had to think about how to cut the taper at the rear keeping it square to the face. In the end I used double sided tape and fixed it to a metal block. This did the trick nicely and worked out the shape by taking measurements from the plan and scribing it as I went along.
It's made now but I just need to rough shape it a bit first on the outside and also cut the recess on the inside.
Saludos compañeros ... sigo con la construcción y montaje del "mascarón", representando a Miguel que junto con Rafael y Gabriel, eran los tres arcángeles de la "Santísima Trinidad" (Paso imágenes)
Liberto
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