shipmodel

Marc - So sorry to hear that it got you, but glad you are not in the target population and should be OK. Joyce and I send our best wishes and we will see you at the next club meeting, whenever it is. Get well speedily and completely. And stay away from me !!! Dan

Ron - They came out beautifully. Well done. Dan

A very nice 'Dutchman' repair. Once the shrouds and stays are tensioned, there shouldn't be a lot of strain here anyway. Dan

Hi Ron - Just checked in and found you struggling with the headrails. Don't worry, we have all been there. But you may be making more work than needed. The head timbers do not straddle the stem, but are separate pieces to each side. Here is a page from zu Mondfeld's "Historic Ship Models". You can see in the lower right that they are paired support pieces and do not connect to each other. In this configuration you can make them separately to match what may be some slight variation in the headrails on either side. I cut the head timbers to fit the headrails instead of trying to match the headrails to the head timbers. I think this is an easier sequence. That said, in this little area under the bowsprit they will be difficult for anyone to see, so you can keep the ones you have with little down side. Hope that helps, and I apologize if it makes things worse. Best of success. Dan

Hi Marc - What model was that in your photo. I would like to take a tour. Dan

Hi Marc - Really nice work on the rudder. It will be almost overlooked in the finished diorama, but your dedication to detail will shine through to those who know. I have had a lot of success painting with the tiny metal tools that fingernail painters use. Not very expensive online. I would go with the epoxy. I find that cyano heats as it cures and could warp the plastic masts. I think of epoxy as being more flexible too. Be well - you and your entire family. Dan

Hi Ron - For cleaning out and smoothing miniature carvings, I have found nothing better than a good set of rifflers - curved needle files. She is coming along very nicely. Be well Dan

Hi Mark - So glad you are recovering from the aftereffects of your stroke. I know that it will take time, but mental exercises like model building can make the process as speedy and complete as possible. You have best wishes from me and, I am sure, the entire ModelShipWorld community. When you have a moment, I would love to see your helicopter. Be well Dan

Hi Mike - I agree with the others that you are doing a great job with the restoration. That's the good news. The bad news is that it is not likely that you will ever be paid a reasonable return for your work. Having done dozens of restorations, the most important commercial fact I have learned is that once the model is repaired, the repair cost is folded into the value of the model. Imagine that you have a wrecked 1975 Dodge Charger. You spend $10,000 worth of time and money fixing it back up. It then becomes just another used car worth about $6,500. Most times, unless the model itself is of high intrinsic value like a bone and ivory POW model, the repair will not pay for itself. Your model is a very nice example of an ocean liner model. But it has some simplistic details and is not a model of a famous ship. At this point in my career I do not repair models without a firm contract for the repair work itself. I leave any subsequent sale to the client. I'm happy to discuss this further if you contact me at shipmodel@aol.com or phone at 718-855-1720 You can even come to the next meeting of the New York Shipcraft Guild in downtown Brooklyn next Tuesday, March 10. Contact me for the details if you are interested. Sorry to be the bearer of unwanted news Be.st of success to you. Dan

Marc - Hubac's Humble Historian as always. Your work is much more than simply 'quite good.' Impressive, imposing, inspirational, and other words beginning with 'i' are much closer to the incredibly high bar that you have set for yourself and everyone else. Thank you for sharing it with us. Dan

Hi Ron - As always, I truly admire your perseverance, commitment, and craftsmanship. Please keep up the great work. Your carving of the scroll is beautiful, clean and crisp. I tried a complicated headpiece on my Oneida, but couldn't carve small enough to do it. I ended up just using a simple volute scroll. In any event, since she was built in the small undeveloped hamlet of Sackett's Harbor, and in a hurry to launch before the British, I'm not sure that she would have had anything complex. That's my story and I'm sticking to it. Dan

I should have known that your eagle eye would have spotted the curiosity already. Be well

Hi David - I was wondering what you were working on. Now I see, and seeing is believing just how excellent is the work you and Greg are executing. The framing is clean and precise, the carvings are artistic gems. I have signed up for a front row seat and have a full bucket of popcorn. One question - how will the anchor cable lead outboard with the hawse piece set that high? It looks like the aftmost support between the headrails will be in serious danger if the ship swings at anchor. It is probably the angle of the photograph, but it did catch my eye. See you in New London, if not before. Dan

Truly a tour de force, Keith. Bravo !!! (I'd put in more exclamation marks, but that might be silly.) Dan

Hi Vaddoc - This is an interesting project and I am enjoying following along. I am fascinated with learning what CAD can do - and not do. I have done several lapstrake boats/ships and I have a few suggestions, if I may - 1. The garboard should not come up higher on the bow. Bringing it up typically increases the bend required in the rest of the planks 2. Try to plan out all of the planks before cutting wood. You will certainly need to tweak the strakes as you install them, but it will give you a good starting point. 3. A 2mm overlap is good. I found that scribing the overlap on both sides of both edges of each plank kept me from wandering. Here are some photos of my Gokstad ship under construction. The overlap was just about 2mm and there were 16 strakes, so I hope it can give you some ideas. Best of success. Dan

Beautiful joinery, Michael - Love the spalted panel. Dan

Hi Michael - I left the soft iron wire in the hinges when I cut the slots on a Preac table saw mounted with a metal cutting blade. Leaving the wire inside kept the brass from collapsing or deforming as it was cut. It took a bit of experimentation with jigs and stops, but with them I could get a consistent depth and width to the slots. This was done as a long length of brass, like a piano hinge, which helped a great deal in handling the piece. Then the individual hinges were parted off and the inner wire pieces were pushed out. Hope that clarifies things. Dan

Hi Michael - Beautiful work, as always. Not just the metalwork, but the paneling as well. I used a very similar method to build the hinges for the companionway on the yacht America. To install them I used eyeglass screws, then filed down the heads. I like them because the threads can be bedded into epoxy for a really secure hold. (Also because, unlike an expert like you, I can't make my own . . . ) I am truly enjoying following along with you. Dan

I thought it was something like that. Looks like a good solution. Dan

Hi Marc - I was wondering why you had to make your windows 4 panes tall x 4 wide, rather than the 3 x 4 of the Berain drawing? Was this to keep the pane sizes approximately the same for the upper windows? Dan

Hi Marc - Well thought out, as usual. The a-symmetric sow's ear is looking silkier and silkier. . . When you come on Tuesday you can look through my collection of brass, aluminum and plastic tubing. Some goes down to 1/32" o.d., and I even have some hypodermic needles that can be cut up to form the gudgeons and pintles. Feel free to take what you need. Dan

Hi Marc - Once again your excellent carving talents are amply demonstrated. I look forward to seeing her in the flesh next week. When I am carving figures, whether human or animal, I also start with the eyes. Pretty much everything else can be adjusted or reshaped around them. As they say, the eyes are the windows to the soul, so they have the greatest visual impact of any facial feature, even more than Cyrano's nose. Dan

Hi all – and Happy New Year. Thanks as always for the comments and likes. I hope you will enjoy this final installment of the Leviathan build log. With the completion of the model itself, I turned to its display. Under the contract I was asked to set the waterline model in a seascape for exhibition in the museum. Here is how I went about it – The model was located on a board of ¾” furniture grade plywood that allowed about 4 to 6 inches all around. To help show a bit of movement, there was just a bit more space allowed at the stern than at the bow. The model was secured in place with several screws from underneath. Before being screwed down a long strip of kitchen plastic wrap was laid between the model and the board. The excess all around was folded up and lightly taped to the hull to protect it from the plaster sea. Around the perimeter of the board a ¼” lip was created with wooden strips. The space between the lip and the model was filled with premixed vinyl spackle from the hardware store. The tub of product can be seen in the left of the above picture. Three layers were needed to reach the full depth of ¼” since the plaster shrinks a bit and cracks when applied too thickly. The plaster was shaped to illustrate a moderately calm sea. In the middle layer a palette knife was used to impose some swells and waves, but nothing too choppy. The final thin layer of plaster was textured with a damp sponge as it dried to show the random small peaks and valleys of a moving sea. I used a piece cut from a large wallpaper sponge which has a lot more large open holes rather than a denser kitchen sponge. The texturing process was repeated several times until I was satisfied with the results and the plaster layers were fully built up. This process can be continued as many times as desired, and even removed and redone, all without danger to the model itself. When the sea was dry the model was removed, the plastic wrap discarded and the model replaced. Any gaps were filled and the bow wave was laid in with a small spatula. Now the coloring could begin. The first color was straight black, laid into the deepest hollows. Although most were generally parallel, random spots and lines were painted on as well. I took the opportunity to paint the lips and edges as well. Medium blue was painted over the whole surface, followed by dark green. The tops of wave peaks were left white, as was the wake around the ship. These rough colors were tempered by multiple coats of gloss Liquitex medium tinted with color. Dark blue was applied several times, and light green as well. Flat white highlighted crests, and even some deeper foam. These latter were ‘sunk’ into the sea with more transparent layers of blue and green. Along the sides of the ship there was little in the way of wake, the ship moving slowly as it approached harbor. There were some diagonal wakes shown where the pressure waves would have impacted the hull, but these were severely muted with green tinted gloss. Similarly, the water alongside the hull was lightened to show its disturbance by the ship’s passage. At the stern the chop from the four propellers was mottled with white, stippled with a dry brush and, again, toned down and ‘sunk’ with tinted glaze. The beauty of this method is that the colors and tints, and even the white highlights, can be altered and adjusted almost indefinitely until the desired shape, color, tint and reflectance is reached. With so many transparent and translucent layers, the water looks deep and changes hue with changes in light and viewing angles, just like the real sea. So here she is. Finished. The troop ship, port side. And the ocean liner with the photo reversed to show the same port side. The model’s bow showing the contrasting presentations. And the photo cropped and mirrored to show how each might have been seen as a whole ship. So now I bid a fond farewell as she sails off to her permanent home in the museum of the American Merchant Marine Academy at King’s Point, NY, on the shores of Long Island Sound. If you can, it is well worth a trip to this wonderful little museum. You can also book a tour of the school where you can view many more excellent models and even take the helm in a bridge simulator. Meanwhile, I have been working on the next project for the museum. It is a Great Lakes whaleback steamer called the SS James B. Colgate. It was a bulk grain and ore carrier launched in 1892 and sunk in a storm in 1916. I will post photos soon. Till then, thanks for following along. Be well. Dan

Thanks, everyone, as always. One of the best things about our community is all the support we give each other. Here are the finishing details for the ship. First, the 6 inch cannon. The 3-D printed ones from Shapeways are little gems and match quite closely the photos. On top of the flying bridge a square platform was built with angled sides. The history of the ship identifies it as the large rangefinder for the guns. This is the best photo, taken during the conversion to the troop ship. I believe that the long thin box on top was a wooden cover for the rangefinder, but I have no definitive proof. I did manage to locate a schematic for a contemporary rangefinder of the size that would fit the platform and which is just tall enough to rise above the platform sides. And here is how it came out on the model. I am not sure about the metallic ends, but I reasoned that paint might interfere with its operations, and when not in use the wooden cover would hide them. I cheated a bit by giving the rangefinder a complete base and pedestal rather than cutting it in half. As before, the red edges indicate that the structures were cut along the centerline. On the liner side the bridge deckhouse sported a wooden nameboard. It was computer printed on acid free art paper. The model sports several flags. This is the house flag of the United States Lines from 1929 The signal halyard bears the flags of its radio call sign, LHGD (thanks for this information go out to Richard Rabbett) They are mounted on a wire halyard that is bent as if by the wind. At the bow is the US ensign with 48 stars. Although this would not normally be flown at sea, I am picturing her moving 'slow ahead' and entering New York harbor. And at the stern the Stars and Stripes. This completed the model. Next, making the ocean, and final photos. A Healthy and Happy Holiday to one and all. Dan

Hi Michael - Yes, the stern windows will be an interesting artistic element for Marc. I'm looking forward to seeing how he decides. My mother, who was an American antiquities expert, once did a study of pre-colonial (around 1750) glass. If I recall her results, it was that most glass, except really low end stuff, was pretty clear and flat when made, But the composition of the glass meant that it would sag fairly quickly, which is what we see and value now. But I imagine that the windows of the Admiral's quarters would have been glazed with top quality glass So I would go with high gloss panes, initially. If they are too glaring, then satin/eggshell touch-up. Just one possible way to go. Dan