shipmodel

@jdbondy
@SaltyScot
Thank you so much for your kind comments.
I'm very happy about that, and also about the likes from others.
 
JD, yes, that's the silk yarn I use.
I also use a silk yarn from KIMONO.
 
Continuation: Fore yard – Sheets and Tacks / Écoutes et amures
After some back and forth, I finally decided on the cable version and have now attached the sheets and tacks on the starboard side.
For the model cable version, I tried to lay the required ropes as loosely as possible. This resulted in a cable that wasn't too stiff.
The first picture shows the arrangement of the sheet, tack, and clew line blocks, which are connected by toggles, as I won't be attaching any sails.

The next picture shows the route of the port fore tack on the boomkin with shoulder block. The standing part is protected against chafing in the front area.

The standing part of the fore sheet, as can be seen in the last picture, is also protected against chafing in the rear area. The fore sheet runs over a sheave in the ship's side for securing to a cleat.

To be continued...

 

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I'm trying again.
If it doesn't work this time just put the URL into your browser and you should find it.

Dan

Cisco - 
 
It was great seeing you and your AVS at the show.  Your pics here are excellent, but she is even better in person.
Very nice work.
Thanks also for the compliments.  Glad you found that my talk was a bit entertaining and informative.
If you decide to do an Admiralty-style hull, feel free to pick my brain.  
See you in New London next year.
 
Dan

Hi again to all my friends here and, as always, mucho thanks for the likes and comments.
 
Yes, Keith, this will be a quick build log for several reasons.  Mostly this is because it is a retrospective of the construction rather than a day by day series of small progress reports.  I have detailed many of my techniques in earlier build logs, so there was little need to go over them again.  At least that was what I told myself as Covid malaise set in and I found myself not willing to stop to memorialize small personal gains amid larger world problems.  It just seemed a bit trivial.  Thankfully I certainly did not suffer any of the serious health issues or losses that so many have, like Doris in Czechoslovakia. 
 
Fortunately, I have climbed out of my depressive hole, and am working steadily again.  I have to credit my family and friends with most of the recovery, but model building made a significant contribution as well.  There is just something satisfying about looking at a well-crafted object at the end of the day and knowing that it only exists because of my hands, my head and my heart.  Long may it be so.
 
So, without further maudlin ramblings, here is the completion and launching of the SS James B. Colgate in its plaster sea. 
 
When the last installment ended the sea was mostly finished, although I looked at it every day and kept toning down the size and location of the whitecaps which I thought were still too bold and glaring.
 

 
Meanwhile I turned to finishing the ship.  After the hull was shaped the hatches were permanently installed.  Along the sides of the hull several reinforcing stringers were added according to the plans and photos.  These were made of half-round strip set over flat strips with rounded ends.  Fittings that would ultimately be painted, such as bollards and the bases for the railing stanchions, were attached to the hull.  Then the deck houses were removed and the hull was sprayed the deep red used by the Pittsburgh Steamship Company at the time.   Some, like bollard uprights and the anchor guides, were subsequently painted grey for contrast.  Then the deck houses, like this one at the bow, were built up and detailed before being secured to the hull
 

 
Most of the details are pretty simple and common.  Bollards, fairleads, winch heads and the capstan are Bluejacket castings.  The railing and ladder are photoetched brass from Gold Medal Models.  The nameboard is printed on my computer.  I’ll go over some of the others where they appear in later photos.  The one unusual fitting is the anchor.  McDougall, the designer of the whalebacks, also designed it as a better alternative for use on the boats.  It consisted of a heavy triangular frame with a shackle at the peak and a pivoting tongue in the middle of the base that would dig into the seabed of the Lakes. 
 

 
As can be seen on the model it lies much flatter on the hull than a conventional anchor and could be easily secured to the stanchion bases.  I made it out of two strips of thick brass bent to shape and soldered at the peak and at the base where a separate brass tongue was fitted.  I did not make any effort to have it pivot since this is a static model.  After blackening it was fitted with a ring and fine chain.
 

 
At the stern the deck house is much more complex.  The lower level has the two larger oval support structures with a smaller round support at the stern.  The forward two were made by sheathing oval wood plugs with styrene sheet.  Portholes were drilled and filled with small brass grommets from dollhouse electronics systems.  After painting handrails of iron wire were laid on with tiny supports inserted just underneath and clipped off close.  The upper works began as a solid wood block, as usual, but this was sheathed in wood veneer rather than plastic.  The window and door areas were left uncovered with the windows simply painted black and the doorways filled with printed 4-panel door appliques.  Upper railings and life rings are photoetched brass.  The angled stairway is a photoetched ladder with added side pieces cut from railing sections, secured with cyano and painted black.
 

 
At the forward end of the upper deck is the bridge which rises another half deck height.  It was built hollow with clear plastic windows on the front and back faces of the top.  Through these you can see the ship’s wheel that was installed and which no one, except in these photographs, will ever see.  The cowl ventilators are modified castings that sit on the top of cylinders that act as both structural supports for the decks and as ventilation ducts leading to the interior of the hull.  I took a bit of artistic license and simply drew on the paneling in pencil, relying on trompe l’oeil and the tiny scale to fool the eye.
 

 
The roof of the deck house is dominated by the large silver and black funnel.  It is built up over a plastic sheathed dowel, leaving a 1/8” rim at the top.  Reinforcing rings and a half-round lip at the top are made from plastic strip.  All of the plastic products are from Evergreen Scale Models, an invaluable resource when building steel hull modern ships.  The funnel is detailed with a steam whistle and pipe on the front face, and a steam release pipe on the aft face.  It is guyed by four wires running from small eyebolts on the upper reinforcing ring to brass tube turnbuckles on deck.  The Charley Noble galley stack has a cone shaped rain guard and a kink near the deck.  This last is either to get the stack around the funnel guy wire or as a trap for condensation, of maybe both.  It appears in the photos so it appears on the model.  A pair of liquid tanks, one for water one for fuel perhaps, bracket the funnel.  A pair of lifeboats with their davits and lifting tackles are tied down on cradles.  Eight small cast cowl vents and a pair of cylindrical exhausts run along the edges of the busy space.  At the aft end is a vertical pole, not for a flag, but for a lantern which would be fitted into the triangular shelf shown near the railing which could be hoisted to the top of the pole when visibility was limited.
 

 
At the stern the rear name plate was printed to match the one seen in contemporary photographs.  It shows up as a slightly different shade in this photo, but that is an artifact of the flash, and under normal light it is much less noticeable.  The railing on the hull could not be photoetched since the lines had to come to a point at the bow and stern.  I made the stanchion bases from 1/16” plastic rod and the uprights from 0.02” brass rod.  These dimensions are about twice what they should be, but when I made them to scale they almost disappeared, so I fudged the figures a bit.  The horizontal wires are 0.05” polished line.  Again, slightly too large, but they match the photoetched railings and do not draw the eye when the model is viewed without magnification.  The lines are tied under light tension to small eyebolts at bow and stern, then attached to the uprights with thin PVA glue painted on with a small brush.
 

 
Until now the ship has been simply placed in the opening left for it in the plaster sea.  Now it was secured with a pair of screws through the base plate and plaster carefully fed into the gap between it and the sea and shaped to a dynamic wake.
 

 
At the bow the wave was built up in several layers to match the wide froth thrown up by the blunt pignose bow.  The final layer is stippled with a stiff coarse brush.  Little wisps of white paint were dry brushed along the hull in the direction of travel.  This was all blended into the sea with more layers of tinted gloss medium.
 

 
Along the flanks of the ship wave crests rose up the side to the level of the railing and left subdued whitecaps on and under the water.  Here you can also see the minimal weathering applied to the model.  A thin wash of dark brown left spots and streaks on the hatch covers.  A similar wash discolors streaks that drip from the railing bases.  Wet patches of clear gloss finish glint on the hull.
 

 
At the stern the wake from the two propellers moving slowly was stippled onto and into the surface of the sea.  The sunlight reflects yellow on the water.  Looking carefully you can see where I have, at random locations, bent the metal railings to show a bit of hard usage over time.
 

 
The final detail was the burgee of the Pittsburgh Steamship Company.  An image was located on line, dropped into PhotoShop, sized to the model and had the color saturation slightly reduced to mimic the effects of distance and haze.  The image was skewed down a bit to take into account the way gravity affects wind-driven cloth.  The image was printed onto acid-free tissue paper which had been sealed with clear finish before printing.  This prevents bleeding into the paper fibers and gives a clean edge to the colored areas.  After fixing the colors with more clear finish the flag was cut free, attached to a halyard and tied to the flagpole.  A few curls with the back of a small paintbrush handle and it was done.
 

 
The model is now complete and chugs realistically, I think, though a choppy but fairly calm sea.
 

 
As part of the commission I built a display case from 2” x ¾” cherry, mitered at the corners and fitted around a ¾” plywood baseplate.  A UV-resistant plastic case was sourced from a local plastic shop.  It fits into a slot between the case and the base and is secured from accidental lifting with two small brass screws on the short ends.  A bit of air movement is provided by small holes drilled up through the bottom of the baseplate and into the gap under the plastic case.
 

 
The model now resides in the MMA museum in the Great Lakes area.  Once we are all vaccinated and this pandemic is behind us, I hope you can find the time to visit this small but interesting maritime museum.
 
Next, for something completely different, I will detail a repair and restoration of an antique bone and ivory POW model from the late 1700s that I am working on now.  This will be more of a blow-by-blow exposition since the techniques and materials require some inventiveness to match the unusual nature of the model.
 
Until then,
 
Stay safe and well, and get those shots.
 
Dan
 

Cisco - 
 
It was great seeing you and your AVS at the show.  Your pics here are excellent, but she is even better in person.
Very nice work.
Thanks also for the compliments.  Glad you found that my talk was a bit entertaining and informative.
If you decide to do an Admiralty-style hull, feel free to pick my brain.  
See you in New London next year.
 
Dan

Cisco - 
 
It was great seeing you and your AVS at the show.  Your pics here are excellent, but she is even better in person.
Very nice work.
Thanks also for the compliments.  Glad you found that my talk was a bit entertaining and informative.
If you decide to do an Admiralty-style hull, feel free to pick my brain.  
See you in New London next year.
 
Dan

Cisco - 
 
It was great seeing you and your AVS at the show.  Your pics here are excellent, but she is even better in person.
Very nice work.
Thanks also for the compliments.  Glad you found that my talk was a bit entertaining and informative.
If you decide to do an Admiralty-style hull, feel free to pick my brain.  
See you in New London next year.
 
Dan

Sorry, the picture did not come out last time.
I'm trying again.
If it doesn't work this time just put the URL into your browser and you should find it.

Dan

Hi again to all - 
 
Thanks for the likes and interest.
 
My next segment was going to be the development of my scaled and measured working drawings.  For the illustrations I need to include the copyright materials, for which I have only partial permissions.  So instead, this will be part 3, a discussion of Egyptian construction methods, moved up to part 2.  The sequence numbers for the images are therefore out of order, but they are all from open source websites.
 
Before cutting wood, I wanted to look into historic Egyptian shipbuilding.  I made a commitment on this model to build it by relying on the original Egyptian techniques, at least as closely as possible for only one workman building a miniature.  So here is a quick dip into the original techniques might have been in use at the time that the Khufu ship was built. 
 
I was fortunate in this regard with information from a remarkably preserved tomb which has a series of wall carvings that show boats under construction.  In the cemetery at Saqqara is the tomb, or mastaba, of Ti (or Ty).  He was a long serving senior official and royal architect during the Fifth Dynasty, only 100 years or so after the Fourth Dynasty, the time of Pharaoh Khufu.  The tomb was discovered in the late 1800s by French archaeologist August Mariette and has some of the best bas-relief carvings of daily life from Egypt’s Old Kingdom.  In one of the outer chambers is a unique carved wall showing five boats under construction and two side panels with men working on planks for the boats. (Figure 21). 
 
It is a shame that I could not find a color image of the wall, just some smaller sections, since the carvings and even the polychrome pigments have survived for all this time. (Figure 22 – ti wall detail).  
 
Ti is known to have been in charge of the decoration of the tombs of several Pharaohs, so he must have had a long career where he was perfectly placed to assign the best craftsmen to work on his own tomb.  In this close-up you can see that even individual fingers were delicately carved.  You can certainly see what the workmen are doing and the strange tools that they are using.  (Figure 23 – using adzes)
 
Here are a selection of the actual tools.  At the top is a large axe, with two different saws below it, while at the bottom left are several small awls and chisels.  In the middle is a bent wood bow for a drill.  The largest tool, the one the workmen are using, is an adze, like a plane blade mounted on a bent handle. (Figure 24 – tools).
 
In Figure 23, above, three workmen are using adzes to trim wood and to smooth the outside planks of the hull, a technique called dubbing that is still used today.  The quality of the carving is so high that you can see the subtle differences in the shapes of the adze handles to do the two different tasks.  In the hieroglyphics there are representations of several tools.  Above the upper worker is a short handled axe, a hatchet.  To the right of the feather is an awl or chisel.  Maybe the rest of the symbols are talking about that tool, but I have no idea.
 
In the next scene a man is doing some sawing with a weighted stick and rope that is holding the kerf in the workpiece open (or closed, it is not clear).  Two others are sitting on an upended plank and chiseling mortices into its edge.  Above them seem to be carved images of the two types of saws and another chisel. (Figure 25).
 
In the third detail image the first man is, I believe, using a two-handed sledgehammer.  A similar type of hammer is still used to drive in fence posts.  The second man, who seems to be left-handed, is holding an awl or a marking tool, it is impossible to tell.  In the carvings the only thing that might be a tool is the twisted rope at the top left.  But what the paired faces of the monkey and Alfred E. Newman are supposed to be saying, I truly have no idea. (Figure 26).
 
What does all this mean for my project?  That the ancient Egyptians built their boats with the same techniques that we would use if all the electricity were turned off.  They were not stupid or unsophisticated, and didn’t need the help of aliens to build boats or pyramids.  I feel confident that my use of similar techniques, but with a few power tools, will not compromise the historic accuracy that I am working to achieve.
 
More soon when I can post drawings.
 
Be well
 
Dan

Hi again Marc - 
 
I am away from my library, but I did an internet search and found this image of an earlier breech block naval cannon.
Note the bucket with two linstocks in it to the right of the picture.
 
Dan
 
https://th.bing.com/th/id/OIP.DCqIP8t7t0Um7Df-krV_egAAAA?rs=1&pid=ImgDetMain

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Dan

Hi Marc - 
I agree with Henry that this is a tub for holding the butt end of the linstock staff during action stations.
I believe that I read, perhaps in one of the Hornblower or Aubrey/Maturin books, that the top was open and it was filled with sand.
You just had to ram the end of the staff into it and it would be held upright.
The upside down conic shape has the wider base to prevent tipping over, like using an upside down paper cup on my workbench. 
 
I also agree that they are pretty crude as is.  I wouldn't use them unless I was fitting out each gun station in detail.
If you do, you could scribe some stave joints and barrel rings into them.
 
Dan
 
 

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Dan

Aaaah, okay - perfect!  Thank you, Dan. Sand makes perfect sense to me, as it would provide extra ballast, keeping the cask firmly planted upright.
 
So, with this in mind, I can cut away the linstock staffs, drill out the centers, scribe staves, add barrel bands and a lanyard.
 
The other thing I’ve been debating is the feasibility of the profusion of single knight-heads.  The French, at this time, do seem to like lashing blocks to an eye in the deck, as a fairlead to a cleat on the deck.  I could do that.  I could.  However, the single knights are sheaved, combining both functions into one.  I will probably use these knights, as I can’t find any argument against them.
 
For the fore and main braces, though, I will employ the block/cleat configuration to each side of the gratings.

Sorry, the picture did not come out last time.
I'm trying again.
If it doesn't work this time just put the URL into your browser and you should find it.

Dan

Sorry, the picture did not come out last time.
I'm trying again.
If it doesn't work this time just put the URL into your browser and you should find it.

Dan

Hi again Marc - 
 
I am away from my library, but I did an internet search and found this image of an earlier breech block naval cannon.
Note the bucket with two linstocks in it to the right of the picture.
 
Dan
 
https://th.bing.com/th/id/OIP.DCqIP8t7t0Um7Df-krV_egAAAA?rs=1&pid=ImgDetMain

Hi Marc - 
I agree with Henry that this is a tub for holding the butt end of the linstock staff during action stations.
I believe that I read, perhaps in one of the Hornblower or Aubrey/Maturin books, that the top was open and it was filled with sand.
You just had to ram the end of the staff into it and it would be held upright.
The upside down conic shape has the wider base to prevent tipping over, like using an upside down paper cup on my workbench. 
 
I also agree that they are pretty crude as is.  I wouldn't use them unless I was fitting out each gun station in detail.
If you do, you could scribe some stave joints and barrel rings into them.
 
Dan
 
 

Hi Marc - 
I agree with Henry that this is a tub for holding the butt end of the linstock staff during action stations.
I believe that I read, perhaps in one of the Hornblower or Aubrey/Maturin books, that the top was open and it was filled with sand.
You just had to ram the end of the staff into it and it would be held upright.
The upside down conic shape has the wider base to prevent tipping over, like using an upside down paper cup on my workbench. 
 
I also agree that they are pretty crude as is.  I wouldn't use them unless I was fitting out each gun station in detail.
If you do, you could scribe some stave joints and barrel rings into them.
 
Dan
 
 

I finally started using a tool I've had at home for a long time - a beautifully crafted Rope wrapping machine..💥
 
https://www.rcmodel.com.pl/rope-wrapping-machin/


It works perfectly, tightens the threads beautifully when adjusting the spool resistance. 👍 And it doesn't matter at all that there is no motor.




 

Cisco - 
 
Coming along very nicely.
Looking forward to seeing you and her in New London.
 
Dan

Cisco - 
 
Coming along very nicely.
Looking forward to seeing you and her in New London.
 
Dan

Cisco - 
 
Coming along very nicely.
Looking forward to seeing you and her in New London.
 
Dan

I removed all the rubber bands and go-sticks and got a better photo this morning.  The raised panels have a bit of a rustic look but I'll take it and moving on to the roof decking.

Happy Sunday all
 
Cisco

Hello again to all in this strange new year.  Fortunately the Wayback Machine in my shop is set for 2500BC along the banks of the Nile, and I use it to escape the madding crowd.   
 
In the boatyard we left off with the center bottom planks of the Khufu boat cross section being shaped and laced.  But before finalizing them I did some more forward planning for the model.  To get to the final measured shape I went back to Paul Lipke’s excellent drawings of the vessel as printed in his monograph.  Figure 52 has both a longitudinal cross section as well as a horizontal cross section drawn at the midships point looking aft towards the deckhouse. (Figure 1)
 

 
I separated out the horizontal cross section drawing and compared its dimensions against those recorded by Dr. Mustafa (Lipke pp. 97, 103).  When the beam at the sheer line was set to the recorded dimension I found that the draft was too deep and the deckhouse was drawn slightly too small.  I’m sure that this was caused, in large part, from Lipke not having the actual boat to measure, rather than just Mustafa’s 1:20 scale model.  Whatever the cause, in PhotoShop I adjusted the drawing to the dimensions and ended up with a plan that seems to match the shape of the hull and deckhouse as seen in the photographs.  The flattening of the hull curve will be especially significant for the model’s final look.  I’m sure that there will be a few additional tweaks, but this is my starting point. (Figure 2).
 

 
In discussing the reconstruction of the boat Mr. Lipke provides further detailed information on the plank shapes.  He notes that the joints between the planks are slightly open to the inside of the hull, but fit tightly at the hull’s outer surface.  He speculates that this was so that “as the rail lashings shrank and the wood swelled (when wet) the hull would be drawn in on itself.  With the inboard part of the seams cut away, the outer edges would be free to be crushed together all the more tightly.” (Lipke, p.105).  These seams are all covered on the inside by over 300 battens which Lipke describes as “hemispherical.”  It is unknown if the seams were filled with any type of caulking or packing material held in place by the battens, though that is certainly a reasonable possibility.
 

 
For the model the edges of the planks were beveled at approximately 2 degrees, making an open top of about 1mm while the outer seams of the planks are as tight as I could make them.
 



 
With the planks shaped and all the lacing tunnels cut, I turned to the lacing itself.  Dr. Mustafa tried several types of rope and ultimately settled on linen line as being the most resistant to stretching.  Fortunately, I have a large supply of laid up linen line with a diameter of .75mm (0.03”).  This scales out to just over ¼ inch (for us American types) which may be a little skinny, but certainly in the right range.  I laced every other set of tunnels across all three planks, doing six for the model.  Each consists of five 36” lengths of line with the ends held together by layers of tape.  Excess line was coiled to each side until additional planks are fitted.
 

 
The lacing lines are held tightly in place with wedges in each outer tunnel mouth.  Although they are not mentioned in any of my sources, such a simple solution is, I believe, very likely to have been used in this manner. Looking ahead I think that securing the lacing like this will allow me to ‘hang’ subsequent planks without having to rely on an internal framework or external shoring.  But that is an experiment for another time.
 

 
Now I could do some testing with this planking and lacing setup.  The planks are joined with only the four small tenons sitting in vertically snug mortices along each of the two plank seams.  Without any lacing the planks can flex up or down quite a bit before the planks start to separate.  This would not be a good thing for a boat on the water to do.
 

 
With the lacing in place the downward flex is substantially reduced.  Here the center plank is supported on a 2”x4” while the outer planks carry two pounds of brass weights each.  To increase the flex the lacings would either have to stretch, which the linen line resists, or slide through the tunnels, which the wedges prevent.
 

 
However, the lacing does not interfere with an upward flex.  Here the outer planks are supported while the center plank carries 3 pounds of brass.  The lacings have simply loosened as the planks flex upward.
 

 
Dr. Mustafa ran into the same problem.  According to Lipke, even using linen line he could not get the planking to set up as firmly as seemed necessary.  Ultimately he fashioned a few battens from scrap wood and worked them under the lashings over the plank seams.  Lipke recorded Mustafa as saying:
“Immediately that section of planking was much stronger and more stable.  And then I laughed.  I realized that I’d come up with precisely the ancient Egyptians’ technique in an independent way. . . Even skipping every other set of lashing holes, with these battens we got the hull much more rigid than before.” (Lipke p. 79)
 
But these are not the narrow hemispherical battens shown in earlier drawings and models.  As seen in the Primary Photograph they are considerably wider than would be needed to secure packing in the seam or otherwise reduce leakage.  As measured in that photo they are approximately 16cm (6 inches) wide and appear to be no more than 3 or 4cm thick.  Similarly, in this color photo of Dr. Mustafa in the fully reconstructed and laced hull, the battens appear to have about those same dimensions, or perhaps in places are even wider.
 

 
So how do these battens stiffen the seams?  To test this on the model I made up some wood pieces 16mm wide and 3mm thick.  The lacings over the plank seams were loosened and the battens slid under them.  The lacings were hauled tight again and secured with the wedges. 
 

 
Now, when the planks try to flex upwards the increased angle between them presses up on the edges of the batten and tries to lift it off the top of the planks.  But this is prevented or reduced by the tight lacing.  So here, with the same setup and weight as in the earlier photo, the amount of upward flex has been substantially reduced by the battens.
 

 
Yes, this is a simple experiment done under not-so-controlled conditions.  Nonetheless, the various pieces are all to scale and the principles, I believe, are sound.  The conclusion that I draw here is that wide battens are important to the structural integrity of the hull and that this is their primary purpose rather than the prevention of leakage.
 
Having investigated how the parts of the structure work together, I removed the test battens and replaced them with final stained ones that match the shape and sizes of those seen in the Primary Photograph.
 

 
Next time I move on to the two garboards that will sit to the sides of the center bottom planks.  Since the drawings of these planks are somewhat questionable they will take a good deal of photographic analysis to get them right.
 
Till then, be well.