Dr PR

First, that little bit of short plank would never have been noticed by anyone else if you had never mentioned it. Your "repair" came out very nice. Don't let it nag at you. There are more important things to "worry" about! Second, you can bend just about anything that is flexible over the bulkheads to see how the fairing is coming along. A thin strip of plastic will work as well as a plank - cut a strip out of plastic packaging or some other scrap. It just needs to be thick enough to be a bit "springy." Even heavy cardboard will do. If you rub a pencil over the edge of the bulkheads you can see the results of sanding. Be sure you do not sand away the pencil from the "high" edge of the bulkhead. You don't want to take away too much wood or you will end up with a "dent" or low spot in the planking. Although it is nice to get a wide flat surface for planks to glue to, you really don't need the entire width of the bulkhead. So leave the little bit of the pencil mark on the high edge to reassure yourself that you haven't sanded too much. When you bend the test strip over the bulkheads is should fit "naturally" against every bulkhead. Play around with it and you will see what I mean. If the edge of a bulkhead is too low you can always glue a scrap piece of planking to the edge and repeat the fairing. Put extra time and effort into getting the bulkheads faired so the test strip fits with a nice smooth curve. After you start planking it is too late to get it right!

Mark, Bad news! Rest up, sit back, relax and enjoy spring. It's gin and tonic time, and you only need one hand for that! Tendons can do strange things. About 15 years back I was tucking a cover between pillows in the couch when there was an audible "snap" and a finger in my left hand stopped working. The tendon broke and I couldn't control the outer two digits. I could feel the broken ends beneath the skin. Bummer! I looked in my medical books and several on-line medical school hand medicine sites and they all said the same thing - splint it and wait. I bent some sheet brass to make a frame for a splint and wrapped it in gauze. I taped it to the finger and changed the bandage every day. A couple weeks later the finger started working again! The broken ends of the tendon grew back together. It is still working as good as new - except for a slight lump under the skin where the ends grew together. So give your hand some rest and it will recover. And then get back to the Lynx! We all would like to see it finished!

I am working on the ship's boat. It is a Vanguard Models 1:64 scale 18 foot cutter. At 1:48 it will be a 14 foot cutter. It is just the right size to hang from the stern davits. Rather than post the process in this thread where many people won't see it I am posting the build in a separate thread: https://modelshipworld.com/topic/38319-18-ft-cutter-by-dr-pr-vanguard-models-164/?do=findComment&comment=1095898

Planking is continuing. I am tapering the planks to try to get fairly uniform widths at the bow and stern. So far it has been pretty easy. If the wood seems to be especially dark at some places it is because I am using my planking tool to shape the planks in place on the hull. The tool is hot enough to scorch the wood, but this will sand off when I do the final finishing. I wet the planks with water and then heat them with the tool. They bend and twist to the exact shape of the hull. Then when I glue them in place I don't need to clamp them except at the very bow and stern to hold them while the glue sets. After the glue has set I reheat the planks to melt and reflow the Titebond glue. It hardens again when the planks cool. It is this process, when the planks have not been wetted with water, that the planks get scorched.

I have only used water to clean brushes with the acrylic "hobby" paints that I use. I have been doing this for years and there is no paint build up on the bristles. Of course, I never allow the paint to dry on the brushes. I wash them immediately after painting. But as Wefalck says, there are different types of acrylic paints, and some may need a solvent other than water.

Mark, Apparently it was common practice to nipper the parts of the lanyard together - see Lever page 9 Fig. 76. He says a round turn might be taken over the lanyard between every cross turn. This could give the appearance of a seizing around the parts of the lanyard. Nippering and alternate round turns would be pretty complicated at small scales, so just a series of round turns (like seizing) could be used. This was early 1800s American practice. I don't know if it was common elsewhere and at other times. Petersson (Rigging Period Fore-and-aft Craft, pages 23, 82, 85, 90) shows examples of the end of heart and eye lanyards being wound around the bulk of the lanyards a few turns between hearts/eyes with the ends of the lanyards secured to one strand of the lanyard with a seizing. These things would occasionally need to be tightened, and winding the end of the lanyard around the parts between the hearts/eyes provides a place to stow the extra length of the lanyard.

I found this discussion interesting. I began painting (artistic) seriously about 65 years ago. I was a student for years with artists of our local art guild. I learned from them how to care for brushes. I used oils mainly, with some watercolors and tempera. For my models I used lacquer/dope and enamel. More recently I have been using acrylics. I have always used sable brushes with all types of paints. I have some camel hair but I don't like it. For throw-away jobs (glues, etc.) I just buy cheap whatever brushes. Never leave brushes standing in solvents. NEVER! The liquid will wick up inside the ferrule. This causes the wood to swell, and that opens the ferrule so eventually it will fall off the handle when the brush dries. I wash brushes with the solvent used in the paint. I have never used a detergent or soap - not even with acrylics. I wipe as much paint off as possible with paper towels. Then I dip the brush in solvent and wipe it on a paper towel. I repeat this until no pigment bleeds from the brush. Then I let the brush air dry. Many of my brushes are at least 50 years old (some maybe more than 60 years) and are still in good condition.

Tim, The MSI was very crowded. It was quite a change going from a 112' ship with a crew of 22 to the 610' cruiser with a crew of about 1200!

Why?

Tim, Thanks for the tip. I had noticed that the transom wasn't very strong. In fact, the first time I glued it to the keel I used a minimal amount of glue. It came loose (only the glue failed, no wood was broken) while I was fairing the bulkheads. I reattached it with a substantial amount of Duco Cement. It should be a bit stronger now that the top planks are glued to it. But I will use care while working around it. While I was fairing the bulkheads I placed a piece of wood between the last 2 mm MDF bulkhead and the 1 mm pear C14 bulkhead to prevent the thin bulkhead from twisting and breaking. I'll see if I can rig something similar to support the transom.

I started fairing the bulkheads in preparation for planking the hull. This was pretty straight forward, and bulkhead C14 faired in with the transom and other bulkheads. At the bow the filler blocks were shaped to match the first bulkhead. Next I started planking the hull. The hull planks are laser cut in the 0.6 mm pear wood sheet. There are 11 planks per side and that should be just enough, with no spares. The first planks to be installed rest on the shoulders on the bulkheads. These are the upper most planks when the hull is right side up as it would float in the water. I immediately encountered another problem. I shaped the forward end of the first plank so it would fit into the rabbet groove cut into the keel at the stem. I finished shaping the entire plank with no problems. Then I put drops of Titebond glue above all the bulkhead shoulders and put the plank into position, pushing it into the rabbet. I wasn't pushing hard, but the thin pear wood broke. I was wary of this thin wood, especially at places cut across the grain. I knew this was prone to breaking along the grain. Obviously I wasn't careful enough! When I make things of wood this thin I use plywood. The alternating grain layers makes it much stronger and less likely to break. The solution was to glue the broken pieces together with Duco Cement, wipe off the wet Titebond glue, and wait for the Duco to harden. Fortunately it sets pretty quickly. But in the mean time I had supper. After a couple hours I started adding the first planks again. The planks were shaped to fit the hull by painting a drop of water on the planks and then holding them in place on the hull while I heated them with my plank bending/quilting iron tool. These thin planks bent mostly to shape with a single pass. I repeated the wetting/heating two more times just to be sure. Then the planks held their shape without any additional force. I put a drop of Titebond glue on each bulkhead above the shoulder. The plank was longer than necessary and the end protruded beyond the transom at the rear. I used a small rubber band to pull the aft end of the plank tight against the transom until the glue dried. The rubber band wasn't very tight - only a slight pull was necessary to keep the plank in place. The forward end was held in place by the rabbet groove in the stem. The garboard strakes were the next to go on. I filed and scraped the inboard sides to fit to the keel. The planks were wetted and bent with the planking iron to twist the fore and aft ends to conform with the curvature of the bulkheads. Again, after heating the planks held shape. I painted Tightbond on the bulkheads and along the keel piece. Clamps held the ends to the keel. In the middle I used another clamp to hold the plank against the bulkheads. The assembly was pretty strong. I removed it from the base and painted more Tightbond into the inside space between the planks and the keel. I made no attempt to taper the forward end of the garboard strake before attaching it to the hull. When the glue dries I will place another plank alongside and mark where it curves over the garboard strake. Then I will trim the garboard so the plank fits tightly to it.

John, Things are pretty small at 1:192 scale! I have had difficulty with the small pieces at 1:48! You are doing a good job.

This morning I decided to begin fairing the bulkheads on the cutter as a way to avoid having to tie more ratlines on the schooner. What started off as a simple task turned out to reveal a problem. I installed the 1 mm pear bulkhead C14 according to the instructions. You can see in this photo that the bulkhead tabs fit into the holes on the MDF base, with no gap between the bulkhead and the base. But when I started fairing the bulkheads part C14 was far out of alignment with the other bulkheads and transom. There was no way that the surface of C14 would align with the inner surface of the planks. This would be very visible in the finished model. The first plank is supposed to fit against the "shoulder" on the bulkheads. The red line marks the line of these shoulders, and the shoulder on part C14 is obviously way out of alignment. You can also see how the notch in bulkhead C14 does not fit into the notch on the keel, and the gap is about the same length as the difference in alignment of the shoulder. Not as noticeable is the misaligned angle of bulkhead C14 and the notch in the keel. C14 should be tilted back a bit more for the keel to fit deeply in the notch in the bulkhead. Fortunately the Titebond glue is water soluble. I "painted" a couple drops of water on the joint between C14 and the keel, and in a few minutes the glue softened and I was able to remove C14 from the keel. You can see from the glue residue (left arrow) that the bulkhead had not fit all the way into the notch in the keel. The slot in the bulkhead (right arrow) is long enough to allow it to fit deeper into the notch in the keel. This problem really is "much ado about nothing!" With a minor adjustment of procedure the parts fit together perfectly with no modifications. First I fit bulkhead C14 into the notch in the keel as far as it would go (upper left arrow). I had to remove the assembly from the base to do this, but it plugged back in place easily. When the assembly was plugged back into the base the tabs on the bulkhead rested against the surface of the MDF base (lower arrow). The tabs were not aligned with the holes in the base. The bulkhead also fit onto the keel at the proper angle. The shoulder on bulkhead C14 now aligned perfectly with the shoulders on the other bulkheads (red line). When the glue sets on C14 again I can resume fairing the bulkheads (in the meantime I guess I will have to tie more ratlines). Initial results show the surface of C14 where the planks will attach is in correct alignment with the surfaces on the transom and other bulkheads. Problem solved! I hope any other problems that may arise are as easy to fix!

Here is part two of the cutter build. The 2 mm MDF board contains a base for the assembly and the bulwarks. I used a hobby knife to cut the small tabs that hold the laser cut pieces in the carrier board. They came out easily. Each piece is labeled so it can be identified in the instructions. The instructions are clearly written and easy to follow. The first step is to assemble the bulkheads on the base. The bulkheads have tabs that fit snugly into holes in the base. The positions on the base are labelled with the corresponding bulkhead number. THE BULKHEADS ARE NOT GLUED INTO THE BASE. Most of the bulkhead pieces will be removed after the planking is in place so you don't want to glue them to everything! Next you must remove the keel, transom (stern bulkhead) and bulkhead C14 from the 1 mm pear sheet. I departed from the instructions a bit here. They say to put the keel in place on the bulkheads and then glue the transom onto the keel. But I could see there would be a restricted work area for gluing the transom in place if the keel was positioned on the bulkheads. I wanted to attach the transom at right angles to the keel, and the laser cut pieces fit together a bit loosely. I glued the transom onto the keel first, clamping it in place until the glue set. For this I used Duco Cement because it forms a very strong bond with wood and sets fairly quickly. I ran into the first problem when I was fitting the keel onto the bulkheads. Each bulkhead fits into a notch on the keel. The slots in the bulkheads that fit over the keel were a bit too narrow and did not want to slide into place. The MDF has very little strength and can fragment easily so I did not want to force things. The pear keel measured 1.06 mm with my calipers, and I just happened to have a small file that also measured 1.06 mm! I pushed the file edge on into the slots in the bulkheads to clear out some of the char and get the slot sides parallel (the laser cut is actually somewhat "V" shaped, and that is probably why things were a bit too tight). After a little shaping with the file the keel fit into the bulkheads slots. Things were still a bit tight but that is good. The instructions tell you that you will have to "joggle" the pieces a bit to get everything to go together. You must start at one end and fit the keel into each bulkhead one at a time. I found that rocking the bulkheads fore and aft a bit helped the keel find its place. Eventually you will get all the bulkheads in place on the keel. Each bulkhead has a rectangular cutout. The bottom of this cutout will line up with the top surface of the keel adjacent to the bulkhead (top and bottom relative to normal boat orientation when floating). Keep working the keel into the slots on the bulkheads until all of the surfaces are lined up. After the keel is in place the instructions say to paint the joints between the bulkheads and keel with glue. They recommend Titebond I or II wood glue. I have Titebond Original Wood Glue - I don't know if this is type "I" or not. I have never used Titebond before but it is the choice for many of the members of the Forum. I have been using SigBond aliphatic resin for much of the schooner build and for my MSI build. While the glue was setting I removed the two bow blocks (C11) from the MDF sheet and shaped them as shown in the instructions. Then they were glued in place at the bow. These will form a surface for the planks to glue to at the bow. These steps prepare the framework for planking. Next the bulkheads will have to be faired (shaped) to the run of the planking.

I need a small boat for my Albatros topsail schooner build. I have made small boats from scratch before and it is a lot of fun. But back then it was the only alternative - there were no small boat kits. This time I decided to use one of Vanguard's small boat kits. The 18 ft cutter is the smallest they make. Rather than bury this kit build in the log for the schooner where most people would never find it, I wanted to start a log just for this kit. I asked the forum administrators where to post this build log - there is no section for general small kits like these boats and boat fittings. I was told to put it in with ship kit builds, in the appropriate period. I asked Vanguard what period this boat would have been used and it was used from about 1785 to 1815. So it could have gone into the 1751 to 1800 log. My schooner model is 1:48 scale, and I need a boat about 3 to 3 1/2 inches (76 to 89 mm) long to hang under the stern davits. The Vanguard 18 foot cutter is about 3.4 inches (86 mm) so it is the right size. At 1:48 it will be a 13.5 foot boat - think of it as a 14 foot cutter that has shrunk a bit over time. I looked in W. E. May's The Boats of Men-of-War and the basic cutter design appears to be the same for all cutters of the 14 - 18 foot length. So I don't plan to try to rescale any of the pieces. The kit comes in a small plastic bag. You have to go to the Vanguard web site to find the instructions in a PDF file. It contains a 2 mm MDF board, a 1 mm pear sheet and a 0.72 mm pear sheet. These are laser cut. A 0.36 mm brass photo etch sheet contains many small detail pieces. After reading through the instructions I decided to prepare some of the photo etch parts first. Four of the pieces are deck and gratings The instructions tell how to make simulated wood grain paint for the deck boards but I painted them with the same brown I used on the bulwarks of the schooner. Two small pieces fit together to make the boat anchor. The instructions say to glue them together but I soldered them. They make a very nice anchor! The mast bracket is a very small piece that must be bent to fit one of the thwarts. I used Birchwood Casey Brass Black to blacken the anchor and mast bracket. I will be building this a bit at a time to take a break from rigging the ratlines on the schooner.

I use small spring clamps to hold blocks, hooks and lines. They are about 2 inches (50 mm) long and have rubber coated tips - you see them in a lot of builds here. I have a two-arm gadget with rotating alligator clips, and I clip an arm of a clamp in each alligator clip. This allows me to position the ends of the clamps close together the right distance. For stropping a block to the rope I first wrap the rope around the block and add a small amount of diluted white glue to glue the rope strop around the block. Then I clamp the block and rope into one of the clamps. I pull the two ends of the rope into the other clamp to hold them in place. I tie an overhand knot around the rope with small thread to pull the rope strands together tightly. Then a small drop of Duco Cement (or CA if you prefer) is worked between the rope strands with a needle point. The thread is wrapped around the rope strands for a few turns and tied off with another overhand knot to create a seizing. I usually wet the seizing coil with diluted white glue. After the glue dries I trim the loose ends of the thread and rope. To strop a hook to a block I first put the block with the rope strop around it in the clamp as before. The hook is placed in the other clamp with the eye facing the block. I pull both ends of the rope through the eye of the hook, fold them back over the clamp holding the block and tape them there. Then I make a seizing between the hook and block as described above. I make eyes in the ends of ropes the same way as I strop blocks, but without the block. NOTE: If you are using polyester rope the seizing alone will not hold the rope and prevent the end from pulling back out of the seizing. White glue or shellac will not glue the polyester rope strands together. You can use a drop of CA (cyanoacrylate) to glue the rope strands together, but it dries too quickly and creates a lumpy seizing. I prefer Duco Cement (nitrocellulose in acetone) because it cures more slowly (20-30 seconds), allowing you to wrap a tight and neat seizing.

Murphy is always standing by to give us another leaning experience!

Jo, You are learning! Welcome to the club!! I found it easier to install the waterways/margin boards all around and then nib each plank/margin board as it is installed. https://modelshipworld.com/topic/19611-albatros-by-dr-pr-mantua-scale-148-revenue-cutter-kitbash-about-1815/?do=findComment&comment=605072 You also need to decide what the planking pattern will be before you start planking. Planks end at frames, so you need to know the frame spacing. Then you need to decide on the planking pattern - how many planks cross the frame between the places where plank ends meet. Sorry, but this is a simple idea that is hard to explain. If you have the ends of two planks butted together at a frame, how many unbroken planks are laid down on that frame until the next two planks butt together at the frame? One in three? One in four? Nibbing is pretty easy until you get to the outer most planks - these are long and tapered between ends and require careful fitting.

It is coming along nicely!

I started work on the ratlines, First I measured the distances and angles of the starboard forward shrouds and entered these dimensions into my CAD program. Then the pattern was printed. As you can see, I started by tying every fifth ratline. This helps keep the proper spacing between shrouds and spacing between ratlines. I am spacing the ratlines 0.25 inch (6.35 mm) - 12 inches 1:1 scale. My plan was to tie a clove hitch around the center shroud, and then use cow hitches for the ends as suggested by someone on the Forum. However, when I looked in Lever to see how to tie one there was no "cow hitch." I looked in my "knot book" (Knots & Splices, Percy Blandford, Bell Publishing Company, New York). No cow hitch! So I looked on line and discovered that a "cow hitch" is a "lark's head knot" by another name. Presumably by any name it ties just as tight. Much of our nautical terminology comes from the Royal Navy. I guess they didn't have many cows on their ships, but the sailors would have been familiar with larks. After all, Shakespeare wrote that Romeo and Juliet argued whether it was the nightingale or the lark "that pierced the fear-full hollow of thine ear." So the English knew of larks. But I can't see how the larks head knot resembles a bird's head in any way! The ratlines are Syren 0.012 inch (0.30 mm) brown polyester rope. This wasn't the best choice but it is what I have on hand. The polyester caused several problems. First, the ends unraveled quickly while I was trying to tie the knots. I had to treat every end with Duco Cement, placing a drop on the rope and twisting it between my fingers to secure the ends of the rope. That slowed things a bit. I thought I could tie them off quickly and then use shellac to hold things in place. But when I put a drop of shellac on the cow hitch knots the rope sprung open and loosened the knots. As fast as I pulled the knots tight they sprung loose again. Some sources caution against using the larks head/cow hitch because it comes loose easily. That certainly was the case here. After the shellac dried just the slightest tug on a line caused the knot to loosen again! So scratch that idea! I decided to use Duco Cement on all of the knots, placing a tiny drop in the loose turns and then drawing them tight. The cement dries in a few seconds and does keep the knots tight. It can be loosened with a drop of acetone. However, it leaves a white film on the dark rope, so I had to paint each knot with flat black paint. But the dry paint also helps hold the knots tight. I tied about half of the ratlines on the starboard forward shrouds and took a break from that frustrating effort. After the glue and paint had dried and loose ends were trimmed I installed the anchor buoy for the starboard anchor. This is a more or less "standard" way to hang the anchor buoy in preparation for deploying the anchor. The buoy rope (0.025 inch, 0.63 mm) is not a full 18 scale fathoms, and I will bunch the loops together more tightly after all the glue dries. I am not sure how I will rig the anchor buoy on the port anchor. I have the anchor rigged hanging from the fish hook, as if it has just been hauled out of the water. I suppose the anchor buoy would be hauled in and lying on deck while the anchor was being fished. So it won't be tied to the shroud, with the buoy rope neatly coiled.

ANCHOR BUOY Here is a drawing of an anchor buoy and anchor from zu Mondfeld's Historic Ship Models. The buoy could be anything that floats. Some were made of layers of cork, some layers of wood, and some were made with staves like barrels. One reference said they were covered with canvas and tarred to make them watertight and resist the effects of water exposure. The length of the buoy was 1/4 to 1/3 the length of the anchor shaft. The buoys were fastened into a rope "cage" made of slings and hoops. Every reference I found showed this same arrangement with four "arms" for each sling, all gathered into an eye. However, for small boat anchors there may be only two arms for each sling. Each arm of the sling had an eye. The rope hoops passed through the eyes and the ends of the hoop were spliced together to form a circle. When the hoops were pulled tight the slings were stretched and tightened to hold the buoy securely. The upper eye on the buoy was attached to a lanyard that aided in retrieving the buoy and fastening it to the foremost shroud. The lower buoy eye was attached to the buoy rope. Several references said the buoy rope was 1/3 the diameter of the anchor cable and a minimum length of about 18 fathoms (108 feet or 33 meters). The buoy rope was tied around the anchor crown with a clove hitch. The end of the rope was laid out along the anchor shaft and tied to it with seizing. There were usually two seizings near the end of the rope, with a buoy knot at the end of the rope. Most references show another seizing around the shaft and rope close to the crown and clove hitch. The buoy rope was coiled and lashed to the forward shroud at the deadeye. For modeling purposes the rope doesn't need to be a scale 18 fathoms. Several posts on the Forum tell of clever reuse of beads, toy footballs and other similar objects for the buoy. I just carved my buoys out of a round dowel using a hand drill and files as my "lathe.". One reference gave the dimensions of a "typical" buoy, but it must have been for a "typical" ship, whatever that is. It was much too large for my 1:48 scale schooner model! I used 1/3 the length of the anchor shaft for the long axis, and that came out to be 0.572 inches (14.5 mm). The diameter is 0.318 inches (8 mm). Of course these are approximations. What I ended up with is what came from carving the buoy from a 3/8 inch (9.5 mm) dowel. I coated the buoys with shellac to seal them. When the shellac dried I painted the buoys with burnt umber (dark brown) acrylic to simulate a tar coating. The next step was to make the slings from eight lengths of 0.025 inch (0.63 mm) rope with eyes at each end. I made a tool by driving two pins into a scrap piece of wood, then cutting off the heads of the pins. The spacing between the pins was a "guestimation" based on measurements around the buoy bodies with extra rope for the eyes at the ends and an eye in the middle where the slings will come together. The only way to know for sure if the length was correct was to make one of these things - if not I get the pleasure of making more slings. I tied off the end eyes with small black thread but you could just glue the two strands together. These things are pretty small and the seizing is not that noticeable. Two of these pieces were tied together in the middle, with an eye loop in both, to form George's "4 legged spiders" or what I called "quadropuses." The next problem was to figure out how to control the eight ends of the slings while trying to wrap them around the small buoys. This looked pretty tricky and I was prepared for "the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune" (pardon the pun, with apologies to Shakespeare) to befall me. Fortunately Murphy took the day off and what I had imagined to be a trying exercise turned out to be pretty simple. I placed a small drop of Loctite CA (cyanoacrylic) gel glue at the point of the buoy, and another on the sling below the central eye. I held the sling in place until the glue set. Then the buoy was inverted the the second sling was glued to the other end. I don't like CA, primarily because I have always had bad luck with it. Every tube I have used hardened almost immediately after I first opened it, so I usually got only one use from each tube. I prefer Duco Cement (nitrocellulose dissolved in acetone) because it sets pretty quickly (20 to 30 seconds) and I have had tubes last for decades. But for this job I wanted instant gratification when I placed the slings on the buoys. As my luck would have it, the cap of the CA bottle was glued permanently in place. But the entire top of the bottle screwed off so I got a few more drops from it. I didn't have any of George's small cocktail umbrella rubber bands - actually they reminded me of the little bands dentists place on kid's braces. Instead I cut thin strips of blue painter's tape and wrapped them around the slings and buoys. This actually worked pretty well. I could reposition the ends of the slings under the tape to get fairly even spacing around the buoy. Then the hoop ropes were threaded through the eyes on the sling arms and pulled tight. Looks like I guessed correctly for the length of the sling ropes! I only wrapped the ends of the hoop ropes around each other with one turn, and no knots. I put a drop of Duco Cement on the junction and worked it in with a needle point. There should be no strain on these ropes so the simple glue joint should be strong enough! Here are a finished buoy on the left and another in progress on the right. The CA cement left a white blob at the ends of the buoys and the Duco Cement leaves a shiny film. I will need to touch up these areas with burnt umber and flat black paint. After everything is dry I may coat the entire buoy with dilute white glue to hold the slings and hoops in position. I will have to wait until I have finished the ratlines before I can tie the buoys to the fore shrouds. My anchor cables are 0.065 inch (1.65 mm) diameter. The buoy ropes should be about 1/3 as large, so I will use 0.018 inch (0.45 mm) or 0.025 inch (0.63 mm) diameter tan rope.

George, Thanks for the information. The file about anchors is well done. I have found most of the information, in bits and pieces, in several of the books I have. I was wondering how to tame all those loose ends and your idea of using a (very) small rubber band is good. I don't think I have any here, or if I do I don't know where to find them! I will try a thin strip of painter's tape. But I expect Murphy to be right there to "help" me!

Dowmer, Thanks for the link for the flag. I don't know if my printer (Brother LED printer) will print on paper that thin. It is a laser-like printer with a very hot fuser, and I can't run anything through it that might melt (would destroy the fuser). That rules out taping the tissue to a heavier sheet of paper. I'll try hand feeding the tissue paper - the worst that can happen is a paper jam. Farther down in Chuck's post he shows how he makes the anchor buoys. The longboat buoys are a bit simpler than what all the books show.

I have been doing a bit of calculations for the anchor buoy and ratlines. ANCHOR BUOY Marquardt (p 192) says a "normal" anchor buoy was 54 x 30 feet (1.37 x 0.67 meters). At 1:48 scale this is 1.125 x 0.625 inches (28.6 x 17 mm). This is almost as long as the shank of the anchor on my model! Marquardt does say smaller anchors had smaller buoys. I looked for photos of models showing the anchors and anchor buoys. I found four. A = length of anchor shaft (head to crown) B = length of anchor buoy Photo A B A:B 1 0.938 0.3215 3.00 2 0.319 0.109 2.93 3 2.78 0.922 3.02 4 0.328 0.147 2.23 So actual anchor buoy length is about 1/4 to 1/3 the anchor shaft length. Since my model's anchor is very close to actual scale for a schooner of the model's size, and the anchor shaft length is 1.716 inches (45.2 mm), the anchor buoy should be about 0.57 inches (14.5 mm) long, and (using Marquardt's proportions) about 0.318 inches (8.0 mm) wide. RAT LINES (Ratlings) Lever (p 25) says ratlines were spaced 12 inches (305 mm). Marquardt (p 172) says 12 to 16 inches (305 to 406 mm), with 13 inches (330 mm) most common. Lees (p 44) says 13 to 15 inches (330 to 381 mm). Mondfeld (p 288) says 15 to 16 inches (381 to 406 mm). Chapell (Fishing Schooners p 586) says 16 to 16.5 inches (406 to 419 mm). So there you have it. Ratlines were definitely spaced just about any distance you want! For my model, an American schooner, I will go with Lever, Marquardt and Lees 12-13 inches, or about 0.25 inches (6.4 mm) at 1:48 scale. I would rather use Chapelle's 16 inches because I would have to tie a lot fewer knots!

I have printed the flag, and the flag halliard is already in position. I am trying to figure out how to fold the flag so it hangs "naturally." I need to print it on lighter weight paper. I never visited the NROTC building at OSU. It used to be a Quonset hut down by the railroad tracks. I don't know where it is today.