flying_dutchman2

After reading with much interest, this has been very educational. Philemon1948 "Is this true? Were drawings not used before they started building a ship in the seventeenth century?" The Dutch were well known for not putting anything on paper. The master shipwright had it all in his head and they taught the younger shipwright and he taught it to the next on and so on. Nothing on paper so when you read through books lets say the book "17th Century Dutch Merchant Ships by Ab Hoving and Cor Emke" , drawings/plans are from paintings, edgings, maritime archeological excavations and contracts from Witsen and other authors. Nothing like "we got plans from this and that. Unlike other Western European nations that put everything on paper and some of this has survived to this day. This makes it more difficult for the present model ship builder to built a model because it never is exact. Reading through these 2 books I have mastered the art of reading and understanding contracts. It did take several years and help from Ab Hoving. – A. Hoving, A. Lemmers, In tekening gebracht. De achttiende-eeuwse scheepsbouwers en hun ontwerpmetoden, 2001, – A. Hoving, Nicolaes Witsen and Shipbuilding in the Dutch Golden Age, 2012. I figured if I master understanding contracts I can built any Dutch Ship. Philemon1948 "The flute and the pinas represent two different ship types although they tend to have many features in common". On the site of De VOCsite : Scheepstypen van de VOC it discusses a "Hekboot", which is the best of both worlds. The bottom part of the ship is a Fluit and the top part is a Pinas. Dutch quote "Het is een soort mengvorm met als onderschip de kenmerken van een fluit en de bovenbouw van een pinas". Just my 2 cents. Marcus

I have the book and it is a great addition to my library. It has helped me with building my Dutch ships. My interest in building Dutch ships is the method and technique the Dutch used. Ab Hoving has written a good book about this and he has several articles on this as well. Marcus

As a frugal Dutchman, I have been making them for the last couple of years (I make almost everything myself, about 95%). I take a round dowel, clamp it, on a drill press put in 3 holes in a triangle. Use my crude home made lathe and put the dowel in the chuck from the drill and use an abrassive cord to make the groove. Cut off the deadeye a bit wider and sand both sides a bit round. As someone already said, if you only need a few, you can purchase them from any online store. Marcus

Beautiful book and the ships look very realistic. Marcus

@Meriadoc Brandybuck Large boat 18cm long x 6cm wide x 2cm high. Small boat 15cm long x 4.5cm wide x 2cm high. Planking on small boat 3mm wide x 1mm thick. On large boat 4mm wide x 1mm thick. The spilling is difficult on these boats. But I am trying that. Covering the boats with canvas is an option but then everything is hidden and wasn't really done around that time. Marcus

Thanks for all the likes, suggestions and comments. Between the little vacations, the flower and the edible garden I find time to work on the small boats. I have the most difficulties with the smaller boat. The shape is a tough one. I decided to build both boats with 2 layers of planking as I made many mistakes planking the small one. (I don't know how people work in scales of 200 and up, mind boggling). Both have the first layer of planking completed and have started on the second layer which should hide the mistakes I made on the smaller boat. It is good that the smaller boat goes into the bigger boat and when I add 2 masts, 4 sails and the rigging you don't see much of the smaller boat. I am not sure if I am going to add the mast, sails and rigging to the boats. This may look like someone left a pile of junk on the deck and forgot to clean up. What are the suggestions? Marcus

Wow, the transom looks awesome. The details alone are amazing. Just imagine you had to carve all that by hand. I am glad that the transoms of so Dutch merchant ships are so much simpler. The transom on my fluit is in 2 parts and was easy to carve. Marcus

Impressive. I like how you made the blocks and your sails. Marcus

I purchase most of my K&S strips of brass and copper which are wider than 1/2" or get the 4" wide sheets. They are always in stock somewhere and reasonably priced. When I just need one or two thin and narrow strip of brass I dont use the tablesaw. Instead I cut it with a #2 Xacto blade. This is what I do. I get a sheet which has the thickness I need for the project. Then I measure the width I need and do that several times just to make sure. I use a pencil and draw a line so I know the width. I clamp a metal ruler where the edge of the ruler is on the pencil line. (I clamp everything to the edge of the table). I insert a new #2 Xacto blade in the holder, and press on the blade and slowly cut the metal from left to right and right to left. This process is slow going but it works and the thin strip does not curl. Marcus

2 small boats. I have tried out several methods as well as what is described in the book of Mondfeld. I saw on the Dutch modelbouwforum.nl a method that I am using. It has been challenging. Lots of trail and errors. I find it about as difficult as building the hull of the model itself. My woodworkers club had reps. from Diablo and Freud. The Diablo rep showed us a new type of sanding technology. It is a net made of a ceramic blend and does not clog or tear. It lasts longer that regular sandpaper and made in Switzerland. Personally, it works great, better than anything I have used before. The 220 grit I use feels like the 100 grit regular sandpaper. Marcus

Thanks for all the likes, suggestions and comments. Now that my wife has retired I have less time to work on the Fluit. Went on vacation to Bonaire, Netherlands Antilles. Snorkeling, sailing and checking out the island. There is only one shipwreck, the Dutch Brigantine Sirene from 1831. We are doing a major house cleaning and donating many items to Salvation Army, Goodwill, etc. I worked on the deadeyes and the necessary iron work that goes with it. The tape with the lines under the wale show the angle of the iron work. Marcus

Check the following sites. It is where I get narrow brass strips. I go to K&S Metal site and check the SKU number of what i need. Than you can either do a Google search with that number and manufacturer. Example: "Flat Bars Brass 2Pcs 1/64 x 3/32, sku 815021" Or go to the below sites and compare prices. hobbylinc.com onlinemetals.com zoro.com micromark.com Marcus

I've read some books on Shackleton and when I read about the discovery of the Endurance I thought "Cool" what a find. Marcus

I agree with @popeye the sailor on this, too expensive for my budget. Marcus

WOW, never heard of the name. As I like building my ships in a large scale I am going to look into this. I would not have any room for displayi like the Ducati. Make them R/C would be cool. Marcus

Steven, Went through your complete built and got a good education about a ship from that time period. This ship has been beautifully executed. The plug you created worked out great and I love the lines of the planking, very sleek. Your carved figures look great as well. Putting figures on a ship feels like that there is something going on, like there is a story behind it. Ab Hoving did that as well on his pleasure yacht. On post #144 there are several pictures from Viking longships at that museum. I visited that museum (Copenhagen Viking museum) in 2017 and pretty much spent all day there and took lots of pictures. I especially liked the woodworking shop where they were building a Viking longboat with the tools from that time. They also had trees in pots In 2017, my wife and I flew to Amsterdam, hung out for a couple of days and then rented a car and drove through Northern Germany, Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Finland. We visited every maritime museum on the way. The Viking museum in Oslo has several complete Viking longboats and many artifacts that go into the burial mound one someone is buried (boat, artifacts and the Viking). Marcus

So I took the plunge and purchased Gutermann Mara 120, 100, 70, and 30 in the colors in Hemp (854) and Pine tar (696) at a cost of around $3.00 each, totalling about $33.00. I love the colors. Because this is the first time I am making rope I wasn't going to purchase the biggest spools. I need to fine tune my ropewalk and then I'll given it a try. I have a spool of cotton thread which I bought several years ago and it makes nice rope. Marcus

Researched more about cotton and linnen and many sites just have one or two weights. It is difficult to find sites except for (www.redrockthreads.com) that have anything in cotton or linnen but many sites with polyester and in all kinds of colors. Been reading some other ship model sites and on a Dutch site modelbouwforum.nl many people use Serafil which is polyester. I've seen a model of the Prins Willem and all rigging is done with Serafil. Looks just like rope. I asked several of the builders if they cooked there rope and the answer is a No. All they do is make the rope, stretch it and put on ship. So I am trying out the Serafil. Will also check Mara and others. btw, redrockthreads is a huge site that sells all types of thread. Marcus

@Jaager The Dutch fleet I built is the 17th century. I never thought much of dyeing the rope but that is a great option. Thank you for the suggestion. @BenD I am not ready for polyester. Chuck describes in too many steps of how to prepare this thread. I don't want to do that. To me it needs to be a simple process. Get thread, put in ropewalk, make line. Polyester maybe something in the future and I do like the many colors thet have. I will check the link and see what they have. What colors do you use? This is to give me a starting point Thanks Marcus

I want to start making my own rope and I've been reading as much as I can on cotton thread, it is what I want to try. Chuck mentioned that DMC discontinued there line of thread in most sizes and he is correct. I have scoured the Net and I can only find it in ecru in one or two sizes. So what is the alternative to DMC? Anchor? Mara? Is there anyone who uses cotton and what are the brand names? I am interested in only 2 colors and they are black and dark tan (or something like it). Any advice would be much appreciated. Marcus

@rcweir I know about this. I have seen those books in a bookstore somewhere. @Bob Cleek You are welcome. @Mark P The books from Michael Robinson are still available on Amazon. @druxey Thanks. @amateur I wish I was going to be in Amsterdam this winter, but that won't be the case so I have the book instead. Marcus

Willem van de Velde & Son Jeroen van der Vliet & Remmelt Daalder Publisher ‎Thoth; 1st edition (September 20, 2021) Language ‎English ISBN-10 ‎9068688421 ISBN-13 ‎978-9068688429 Item Weight ‎2.47 pounds Dimensions ‎9.33 x 0.83 x 11.3 inches Suggested retail price. $44.00 Black and white and color photographs. Review. One of the most informative and comprehensive book on these 2 Dutch marine artists I have ever seen. The chapters are well laid out, which gives the reader a good idea of what the van de Velde's did and their life history. Both van de Velde's have produced more than 2500 prints and 800 paintings. Every painting and drawing has a brief description of what it depicts and title, size and location of the piece. Both paintings and drawings are very detailed and have been used to create the many plans from Dutch ships that are sometimes included with books. If you like detailed marine paintings and prints, a piece of important Dutch art history, then this book is for you. Actually it is a book for everyone. The only thing I don't like is that there are not enough pages with paintings and prints. It should have been double the size and both wider and longer. I would have happily paid more for it. Marcus https://www.amazon.com/Willem-van-Velde-Jeroen-Vliet/dp/9068688421/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?keywords=Willem+van+de+Velde&qid=1636038075&qsid=145-9991687-9915549&sr=8-1&sres=9068688421%2C9059973143%2C0856673897%2C0905555627%2C1539956709%2C153995661X%2C1539953939%2C1539953777%2C1539861465%2C1539861325%2CB0157OZJLI%2C3782202546%2C1148178503%2C1376576562&srpt=ABIS_BOOK#featureBulletsAndDetailBullets_feature_div There is another book that I did not get and supposed to be very interesting as well. Van de Velde & Son, Marine Painters: The Firm of Willem van de Velde the Elder and Willem van der Velde the Younger, 1640-1707 Remmelt Daalder Thanks for reading, Marcus

@Jaager Thank you for the explanation. @Keith Black Thanks for the link and it looks promising. @allanyed Thank you for the method of making it black. Everyone else, the comments made me laugh. Marcus

@mtaylor Thanks @Roger Pellett I'll check the Ace store for the wire and thanks for the heads up on the over done customer service. @allanyed "better prices online"? Are you willing to share your sources, websites? "blackened by LoS in situ". Please explaine. Thanks. I have bought wood from hobby Lobby but never saw any k&s metals. Marcus

@Jaager Thanks for the link and will take a look at. Sounds promising. @druxey Thanks for the link and I have heard of that material. @Laggard I don't have access to that and was never planning to use it. @wefalck Thanks. Just for some wire your suggestion is pretty elaborate. @bridgman@bridgman Bob Great idea. There is an Ace store a town over and a TSC (tractor supply co.) couple of miles from here. Never knew they sell K&S metals. Good to know. I know it is a Chicago company and in the past you could not order from them but I checked that recently and it seems that now you can. I always purchased that from Micromark and they are still the cheapest around. Marcus