bruce d

Many people look upon the Navy Board style models of Donald McNarry and Philip Reed as works of art. I am one of those people. Here is an example of the ‘Philip Reed Navy Board style’ in 1/192nd scale: In his book ‘Building a Miniature Navy Board Model’ he tells what is necessary and shows the often counter-intuitive steps in a logical order. It was only when I considered building one that I recognized his skill as a modeler is matched by his ability to describe and demonstrate his methods. After I read, re-read and generally immersed myself in his process I was impressed with his brevity in explaining an intricate process. For better or worse, I decided to attempt building a model in this style. - Subject: HMS Berwick 1775, an English 74 gun third rate of the Elizabeth class designed by Slade and built at Portsmouth. She fought at Ushant and Dogger Bank, was captured by the French in 1795 and served them under the name Berwick. She was re-captured by the Royal Navy at Trafalgar and three days later foundered in a storm while being returned to England. J2632, one of the HMS Berwick NMM plans: Length on gundeck: 168’ 6” (51.36m) Beam: 47’ (14.3m) Scale: 1/192, which is 1/16th inch to the foot. This gives a length on gundeck of 268mm and beam of 75mm, a.k.a. 10.55 inches and 2.95 inches. Material: Hull main components are Swiss Pear, upperworks will be lime, contrasting woods where appropriate. Plans: There are several plans of Elizabeth class ships in the NMM collections, including Berwick, and there is also the contract for sister ship Bombay Castle. I used the hi-res plans for the framing of her sister-ship HMS Resolution in the Wikimedia.commons site (Category:Ship plans of the Royal Museums Greenwich - Wikimedia Commons) as the basis for the hull. The Danish Archives also have an alternate view of the same ship in hi-res and the two agree. I am indebted to MSW member Martes for generously sharing his digital renderings of an Elizabeth class ship. Digital tweaking was carried out with PhotoSuite on various plans to incorporate features needed for the model. The side view is too large for my home printer so two sets incorporating the full hull were produced to scale at a local reprographic company; the 27 hull stations and everything else were produced on my printer. If you have Philip Reed’s book, please refer to it. If not, here is a bare-bones explanation: the idea is to carve the hull out of slices of wood glued face to face. These ‘slices’ from which the model is made are cut to the appropriate profile for the hull station before assembly. Once the collection of slices is glued together the basic shape of the hull is revealed. Each slice then becomes an individual frame/futtock by a process of assembly, un-gluing and reworking, re-gluing and fairing and so on. During one of the stages, while the shaped frame sections are disassembled, the inside line of the futtock shape is drawn on each piece and the waste wood in the centre is removed. After this step is complete and the pieces re-assembled, the beginning of the ‘navy board’ look begins to emerge. The keel, deadwood and deck beams all have equally oblique paths to completion but that comes later. One more look at his work before I get onto my build. Here is a glimpse from midway through the construction of Philip Reed’s Mordaunt: The first hurdle quickly becomes obvious. The ‘slices’ which started as solid pieces of wood became futtocks after they are first assembled. The thickness of the slices is crucial to the outcome because their size must exactly match the scale thickness of the timber on the original. If too thin, the model will be short; too thick and the model will be too long. To amplify, if the model requires for example 100 timbers then you need 100 vertical pieces of wood (let’s stop calling them slices now). When glued face to face, if the pieces are 0.1mm too thick then 0.1 x 100 = 10mm too long. That’s nearly a ½ inch to my friends in North America. Whether metric or Imperial a 10mm/ ½ inch error is a bad thing at 1/192 scale. So, as Philip Reed says in ‘the book’, you have to establish this dimension by trial and error. It is simply not an option to rely on a calculation and procure wood based on that figure but you can’t check without wood to perform the test so … clearly the final milling of the wood to the finished dimension can’t go ahead until the trial and error test is successful (photos below show the test process). This complicates matters if ordering wood from a supplier and I had no practical solution other than to mill the wood myself. To test, mill a piece of wood to the desired thickness according to your best guess. Ten small sections of this wood are glued together face-to-face and lightly clamped in a vice. When cured, the combined thickness is compared to the scale plans of the framing. It is either right or wrong, no half measures. After four attempts, it turns out that the correct thickness for my purposes is 2.2mm (.087”). I was able to achieve this +/- .1mm consistently so I felt confident but took one extra step to keep things within spec: all blanks were graded and the thick, the thin and the spot-ons were sorted. More on this later. The actual milling of the wood is a major part of this build but it feels right to keep the two subjects apart so I will start a separate thread on my milling adventures. For now, I will skim through the milling and get to the model-making. Warning: sawdust ahead. Bruce

https://www.kentonline.co.uk/medway/news/girl-8-finds-what-could-be-100-year-old-letter-in-a-bottle-288063/?utm_source=newsshowcase&utm_medium=discover&utm_campaign=CCwqMwgwKioIACIQRJjtI_FXZlsdOcT1rBcrRSoUCAoiEESY7SPxV2ZbHTnE9awXK0Uw77DYATDcje0B&utm_content=bullets

They are also on FB and Twitter. Here is their email (taken from the website today) ... sales@cornwallmodelboats.co.uk WORKING DAYS/HOURSOnline 24/7 Office Monday to Friday 9am - 5pm

Hi Dave, all working for me. For the record, this is the link I am using: Cornwall Model Boats - Static display and radio control model boat kits including period wooden model ships.Model Ship fittings, Caldercraft Boats

What Allan said. ⬆️ It's a big subject and easy to overcomplicate. Ask the people who look after Cutty Sark. Regards, Bruce

Oh boy, what a subject!

Hello Sam and welcome to MSW from Sussex. Bruce

As this thread has become an interesting sounding board for observations, here's something I found about colours. Almost all early powerboat racers were green below the waterline. I am referring to around 1900 to the 1930s. It was a convention, not a rule, and other colours were available but shunned. Several manufacturers made 'hull green' paints, especially in the USA. So, at least in the early 20th century, superstition did not keep green off of these boats. Perhaps quite the opposite.

Hello Nils, I'm a little late but will try to keep up. A nice subject, it will be impressive at this scale. Bruce

Huh?

Ahhhh, the old 'herd disguise'! I wonder what is the collective noun for moonshiners?

9

Wicker?

Thanks Steve, he has chosen some interesting examples.

Hello John, First, well done for your choice of subjects and execution: secondly, your five year 'pause' makes me feel better about a certain project of mine. Looking good. Bruce

John, that is a real beauty.

"Russian Nagant M1895 revolver with an attachment slot for an axe, developed in 1905 for the Russian Navy as a specialized revolver-axe combination for boarding enemy ships - the axe could be used as a shoulder stock for more accurate fire, or just as a regular axe." I'm glad I was never in a boarding party.

Where do I begin? HARDWARE Journal, 1897:

Lovely!

Popular Science, January 1920.

And of course to enhance the quality of the fruit.

Same issue of Popular Mechanics as above:

Popular Mechanics, October 1936. Perhaps the Hindenburg disaster was due to fumigation before those pesky customs inspectors?