Dr PR

Wefalck, The tackle shown on the Levante model is similar to what I saw on the Lady Washington and some other ship models. It appears to be the "steering tackle" that Marquadt describes. However, it isn't the same as on the Lady Washington - the left (first) drawing is the Lady Washington rig, and the right drawing (second) is the steering tackle that Marquardt describes and appears to be on the Levante model. Now I guess my original question, when the Lady Washington rig came into use and how common it was, has become a question about both of these rigs. The Levante model indicates the steering tackle was in use in the 1830s. The mechanical advantage it provides for controlling the rudder is obvious. And it is easy to see how it was adapted to work with a steering wheel turning a drum with the rope wound around it. It is also easy to see how the steering tackle was modified to get the Lady Washington rig. But it seems to me that the Lady Washington rig gives the same mechanical advantage as the steering tackle rig Marquardt describes, plus it provides a simple way to secure the rudder at a desired angle. It isn't much different from the steering wheel mechanism. This is just another rabbit hole to fall into when trying to understand running rigging on ships of the past!

I have been looking through Marquardt's "The Global Schooner" and have found a few model photos and illustrations showing what appears to be this rig. Actually, on some earlier and smaller vessels the rig may have used only two single blocks attached to opposite sided of the deck by the bulwarks. The rope ran from the tiller through one block, through the other, and back to the tiller. On page 152 Marquardt describes "steering tackle." Two tackles were rigged on either side of the tiller. The rope was attached to the side of the deck. From there it led through a sheave in the tiller and back to a block attached to the side of the deck. From this block the rope ran forward where it was handled. The vessel was steered by hauling on the tackle on one side and letting out the line on the other. This is different from what I have described above. It was a simple modification to use a single rope that passed through both blocks and around a drum that was turned by a steering wheel.

Allan, Thanks. One of the problems (the major problem?) with trying to build a model of historic vessels is determining the small details, such as this rudder control rig. I can find descriptions of the whipstaff-tiller arrangement, and the more elaborate rigging from a ship's wheel to the tiller. But if a vessel had just a tiller attached to the rudder, that is all there is to it.

John, Thanks. Gregory, That's a good idea. I certainly don't mind that you posted it here. Maybe it will help others who face this problem. In my case I decided to mount the pinrails high against the bottom of the cap rail. This was not unusual, especially when you consider at the 1:48 scale of this model the cap rail is only about two feet high (1/3 meter). This gives a relatively large contact area for the glue.

Does anyone know the history or origin of this type of tiller rigging? When the tiller is moved rope pays out of the tackle on one side and is taken up in the tackle on the other side. The friction of the rope passing through the blocks serves as a "damper" to prevent the tiller from swinging wildly when waves crash into the stern in a following sea. The rope passes over the top of the tiller and the tiller can be fastened to it temporarily with the latch. This serves as an "Iron Mike" to lock the rudder at a desired angle. I am wondering when this type of rig was introduced? I have looked through my books and can't find anything like it mentioned I have seen something similar on at least one ship model. . I first saw this rig on the Lady Washington replica that sails out of Gray's Harbor in Washington State USA. Here are some photos of the tiller on that ship.

I use Duco cement for wood to wood. It (or something like it) has been around for as long as I have. I have wooden models that are 50 years old that were made with it and they are still firmly glued together. I do use PVA occasionally but I prefer Duco. Duco contains acetone so it does have a slight odor. But it isn't as obnoxious as CA (cyanoacrilate) in my opinion. The acetone evaporates rapidly, so parts will bond together in about 20-30 seconds if not under stress.

Take a good look at drawings and photos to see if there are any pieces that must go on the masts before they are installed - like mast hoops that gaff sails attach to. Boom supports, bells, etc.

I have pinrails! The pinrails turned out nice, and the bronze belaying pins look good. This is another case of doing things out of order - after all this build is a learning experience, and you need to screw up occasionally to learn how not to do things. I had planned to use small brass nails to pin the pinrails to the hull planking. But there are several problems trying to implement this idea. First of all, the fore mast and main mast pinrails are inboard of the channels. And I have already installed the channels and deadeyes, placing them in the way of getting a pin vise in position to drill holes. Next time install the pinrails first! The second problem is that the pinrails are made of 1/16" (0.0625" or 1.59 mm) thick basswood. The 8 mm brass nails are 0.026" (0.66 mm) diameter. The wood thickness is only about 2.5 times the diameter of the nails, leaving 0.018" (0.46 mm) of material between the holes for the nails and the top/bottom surfaces of the pinrails. Even on the best of days drilling a hole 8 mm (0.3") deep with that tiny room for error would be a problem. Doing it blind from the outside of the hull, with a handheld pin vise, really reduces the probability of success. Third, hand drilling 12 holes with a 0.026" (0.66 mm) drill bit has a pretty high risk of breaking the tiny bit. If * I had used 0.1" (2.5 mm) thick wood the odds for success would have been better. As I said, this build is a learning experience! So I am going to leave the pinrails as they are. They were glued (Duco cement) to the bottom of the cap rail and the outboard planking, so there is a pretty large glued surface. I just have to remember to not put a lot of tension on the lines that are belayed to the rails. **** *IF. OCUI Dave Woods (OCS A6904) told me his grandpappy once set him on his knee and said "Davy, if a frog had wings it wouldn't bump it's rear when it hops."

PINRAILS Now that I have the belaying pins and know the shaft diameter I have no further excuses to put off making the pinrails. The first thing I had to figure out was how to drill a straight line of evenly spaced holes. I have seen some pretty nice builds where the holes in the pinrails were unevenly spaced and misaligned. It was very noticeable and I do not want this on my build. There is no way to drill a bunch of evenly spaced and aligned holes with a pin vise. Inconsistencies in the wood diverts the drill bits out of line, and effects the spacing. A milling machine would make the job easy, but I don't have one (no room for it). So once again I have to make do with my ancient Dremel drill press from the 1970s. This thing has a long list of problems. The drill is fixed and the table moves up and down - with a lot of sideways slop. There is no X/Y adjustment. Worse still, at the maximum up position the table moves backwards. So it is impossible to get precision alignment of anything. I clamped a piece of wood to the table to work as a guide, with the edge spaced 0.1" (2.54 mm) behind the drill axis. A sacrificial piece of wood rested against the guide. The piece to be drilled slides along over the sacrificial piece and against the guide. This ensures all the holes will be in a straight line spaced 0.1" (2.54 mm) from the edge of the work piece. The thumb screw like thing under the front of the table is a limit stop. I set it so the table stops rising before the drill bit passes through the sacrificial piece of wood. Now I needed a way to evenly space the holes 0.22" (5.6 mm) apart. This is the spacing I need to get the right number of holes along the length of the pinrails. To do this I made an indexing tool. It is a flexible thin brass strip with a 10 mm brass nail alignment pin soldered into one end. About 3/4 inch (19 mm) from the end of the strip with the alignment pin I drilled two small holes. Then I positioned the strip on the wooden guide piece so the alignment pin was 0.1" (2.54 mm) from the face of the guide piece. Two 8 mm brass nails were driven through the holes and into the guide piece. This fastened the indexing strip to the guide piece. After that I just had to position the guide piece so the face was 0.1" (2.54 mm) behind the drill bit, with the index pin 0.1" (2.54 mm) to the side of the drill bit for this test run. You can see this in the photos. On a test piece of wood I drilled the first hole with the work piece pressed tightly against the guide, using a 0.039" (1 mm) drill bit. Then I lifted the end of the index strip and slid the work piece over so the point of the indexing pin (brass nail) dropped into the freshly drilled hole. Next I drilled a second hole, always holding the work piece against the face of the guide. The index pin was lifted, the work piece moved until the pin dropped into the latest hole, and the next hole was drilled, etc. The proof is in the pudding, as they say. Here you see ten evenly spaced holes all in a straight line the proper distance from the edge of the work piece. Now that I know this will work to drill the holes in the actual pinrails I can start cutting the pieces to fit in place along the bulwarks.

Having nothing better to do with my time (hah!) I decided to compare the new 9 mm bronze belaying pins with some older 8 mm brass pins I had. This yielded some surprises! The new 9 mm bronze pins are on the left, and the old 8 mm brass pins are on the right. You can see what I meant when I said the bronze pins were a darker brown color that needed no further treatment. The brass pins are much shinier and just wouldn't look right without painting them. But another surprise was the overall difference in size. The head/handle of the 8 mm brass pins is 4 mm high, with a 4 mm pin that is about 2 mm diameter. But the 9 mm pins have a head only 3 mm long and about 1.4 mm diameter. Furthermore, the "9" mm pins are actually anywhere from 8.05 mm to 8.47 mm long. However, the heads that are most visible are a consistent 3 mm long. It is the pin part that varies in length between 5 and 6 mm. For me this isn't a problem. Overall the Age of Sail bronze pins are much more consistent in dimensions than the older brass parts (that I bought in a hobby shop somewhere in North America decades ago). The pin part of the brass belaying pins is tapered and about 0.79 mm to 0.84 mm long and does vary a bit in length. The bronze pin is a consistent 0.88 mm for its full length. Both will fit onto a 0.035" (0.9 mm) hole, and that is what I needed to know to make the pin rails.

I have put off making the pin rails for too long. Before I could do this I needed some belaying pins so I could measure the pin diameter to determine the hole size. I have 40 8.5 mm brass pins left over from a previous project, but it looks like I need 44 pins! I thought about 3D printing the belaying pins, but they would be too brittle and would snap off with the slightest bump or tug. I ordered 80 9 mm bronze belaying pins from Ages of Sail (part #AM4101/09). They are packaged 20 pins for $9.12. They look really good! 9 mm is the right size for 1:48 scale. They are a scale 16.8 inches, and Chapelle's "The American Fishing Schooner" shows belaying pins to be 17 inches long. The bronze pins are darker than the brass parts and I think they will not need any further coloring. Some had a bit of turnings on the pin end, but this snapped off with slight finger pressure. A few had small points on the handle end but this will file off easily. If you recall your ancient history, the discovery of bronze changed the way people used metal. Bronze is harder than copper or brass and keeps an edge so it made good tools. Perhaps that is the reason these pins are made of bronze. They will be much stronger than brass or wooden pins.

I received the hooks and made a few measurements to determine the minimum size rings they would work with. Here are the results: https://modelshipworld.com/topic/19611-albatros-by-dr-pr-mantua-scale-148-revenue-cutter-kitbash-about-1815/?do=findComment&comment=988524

I ordered some of Chuck's (Syren Ship Model Company) new hooks. They come 90 per package (40 3mm, 40 4mm and 10 5mm). Here is a photo of the pieces just removed from the sprue, photographed on 1/4" (6.35 mm) ruled paper. They are black so they require no further finishing and I like the curl at the end of the hook for the mousing twine. Now the question is what dimension stropping rope can be used, and what dimensions are needed for ring bolts and other attachments. I measured several of each size and came up with these dimensions. A is the inside diameter of the ring. B is the thickness of the hook at its widest point. C is the width of the gap. 3mm 4mm 5mm A 0.023"/0.58 mm 0.031"/0.79 mm 0.037"/0.94 mm B 0.022"/0.56 mm 0.024"/0.61 mm 0.035"/0.89 mm C 0.021"/0.53 mm 0.029"/0.74 mm 0.034"/0.86 mm I measured these dimensions using a set of tiny drill bits (61-80 gauge) for A and C, selecting the largest bit that would pass through the opening/gap. I used a digital caliper to measure B. These things are tiny and I consider it almost a miracle that I didn't lose one into never-never land in the process! The hooks are a bit flexible, and they will slip over a wire that is slightly larger than the gap at C. So they will snap over a wider piece and then hold in place. I also tortured a few to see if they would break, and none broke using the tensions we normally put on things while rigging models - and a little more. The purpose of all this was to determine the size of ring bolts and other fittings these hooks will work with. The wire diameter should be less than the hook gap (C) width. The inner diameter of the ring should be greater that the hook width (B). 3mm hook 4mm hook 5mm hook Maximum ring wire diameter 0.019"/0.48mm 0.028"/0.71 mm 0.033"/0.84 mm Minimum internal diameter of ring 0.023"/0.58 mm 0.025"/0.64 mm 0.035"/0.89 mm

Jackie, Slow down and have a mental margarita! This is your first build? I won't be perfect! Get used to it. And think of this as a learning experience so your next build will be perfect - well, at least better, but that is for you to decide. One way to repair the hole in the deck is to make some fine sanding dust from the same type of wood the deck is made of. Then mix a thick paste using white glue (Elmers, etc.) and the dust. Work the paste into the hole and let it dry. Then sand it smooth. It will have about the same color as the wood. Another way is to shape a small piece of wood (the same as the deck) to fit tightly into the hole and glue it into place. One of the things I love about model building is looking at what I have done and asking myself "How could I have made it better?" Then next time I try to do better. Of course inherent in this philosophy is the assumption that nothing will be perfect and can always be improved, so I will not be disappointed. The problem is that I am a frustrated perfectionist!

Green certainly wasn't uncommon on US Navy ships in the 20th century, and I never heard any superstitions about it being unlucky. Our stateroom bulkheads and some passageway bulkheads were green and the linoleum tile on the decks was green. However, I always thought of it a "puke green." Possibly because I was seasick for much of my 3 1/2 years in the Navy. Some of the guys said I turned an interesting shade of green. So maybe it was like Pavlov's dogs. I go aboard ships, they are green inside, and I puke. A conditioned behavior? In that respect perhaps it was unlucky.

Some military vessels do/did have a boot topping. US Navy vessels have/had boot topping - a wide black band between the bottom anti-fowling paint and the grey above. The boot topping width depended upon the difference between light loading and maximum loading. Basically, both the minimum and full load waterlines were within the width of the boot topping. On ships like oilers where the minimum load and maximum load varied greatly the boot topping could be very wide - see the attached photo.

After a couple days drying the smaller blocks look OK, and I will use them as is. The 9/32" double blocks came out very dark all over. At least it is an even stain - the sides are just as dark as the ends. But I think I will try soaking them in alcohol to lighten them a bit. I used an alcohol wash with a paint brush on the larger 5/16" blocks and it helped a bit for removing the darker blotches, but they still look less than perfect. Like they were painted by a drunken sailor - and I was completely sober when I stained them! EDIT: After a few months I have come to accept the staining, and the blocks will look OK on the model.

Jackie, A problem with thin wire eyebolts mounted on decks is that even thought the hole is the same diameter as the wire, the eyebolt will pull out if you put much strain on the rigging - I speak from experience. The only glue I know of that will bond securely to metal and wood is epoxy, and it is a mess to work with on small holes. And you do not want to get epoxy (or any other glue) on the wooden deck planks, especially if you plan to stain it (it is better to stain/seal the wood before drilling the holes and inserting the eyebolts). When I put thin wire eyebolts into holes in the deck I bend a few slight kinks in the wire. This gives it a bit more "grab" in the hole, although it makes it harder to insert the part. I also put a bit of Duco model cement into the hole with a pin, and coat the wire with cement before I insert the eyebolt. This shapes the hole to the wire. I immediately wipe off any cement that accumulates around the wire. The most secure way is to install the eyebolt into the deck and bend the wire over under the deck. But you can't do this after the hull is planked (or on solid hulls).

Chuck, Looking for hooks was my next chore. You solved that. I just ordered some. Now I have a question. Does anyone have a reference that tells the proper size of hooks to be used with blocks? Looking at illustrations it seems hooks are 1/2 to 2/3 the length of the block they are stropped to. But this is just guessing. Using this ratio, hooks for 3/32" (2.5 mm) blocks would be 2/32" or 1/16" long, or about 2 mm. Or the 3mm hooks would be good for 4 mm (5/32") to 6 mm (1/4") blocks. 5 mm hooks would be good for the larger blocks. Can you make 2mm blocks, and would they be too fragile to work with? I know the 3D printed parts I have worked with would be very fragile, but maybe parts cut from a plastic sheet would be tougher.

Gregory, Your blocks look very nice. The hooks are nice too. Where did you get them? Chuck, I haven't given up. I'll try an alcohol wipe to remove some stain and redistribute the remaining stain more evenly. It is your large blocks that are the greatest disappointment. They make such nice assemblies! I'll keep working on them. The stropping will cover some of the ends on the smaller blocks. This brings up a question - were the strops the light color of the running rigging, or dark (tarred) like the standing rigging?

Ferrus is right about the nautical jargon. Much of it is meaningless today. It originated in old European languages that no one speaks any more. Or as one fellow said "Shakespeare is impenetrable to the modern ear." A good reference is Falconer's"Universal Dictionary of the Marine" from 1769. You can find it on line as a PDF. Most naval jargon meant something in the day. But not everything. For example, the ship's galley smoke stack is called "Charlie Noble." This is true to this day on modern vessels. A century or two back there was this English merchant Captain named Charles Noble who was an obnoxious twit about polished brass. Everything made of brass on his ship had to be polished, and the smoke pipe from the galley was brass. Polished brass and salt spray are not a good combination, and the pipe had to be polished regularly. So Charlie's name is forever linked to the galley stack and meaningless work. I can relate to this. We had an obnoxious twit XO (Executive Officer - second in command) with a fetish for polished brass on one ship I served on. He walked around with a pocket knife scraping paint off every piece of metal he found, looking for painted brass. Woe be to the bosun in charge if he found painted brass! The crew had to follow him around and paint over his scrape marks to prevent rust and corrosion.

We had nice (dry) weather and I didn't have other pressing obligations so I finally got around to staining the blocks. I wanted them to look darker and more weathered than the natural castello boxwood light color. Following the advice of others on the forum I decided to use Fiebings Leather Dye to stain the blocks. I looked at all the color options and chose Light Brown. I thought Dark Brown would be too dark. I tested the dye on a piece of castello boxwood and it came out a medium reddish brown that looked OK. I also tested the dye on a string of very small blocks and they looked OK. I have 677 Syren blocks and hearts in 15 different sizes, and I didn't want to dump them in the dye all together. So I strung each type on 0.013" (0.33 mm) brass wire, with a tag telling what size each is. I stained the test piece of boxwood for 0, 1, 2 and 3 minutes before wiping the stain off. There was a slight darkening the longer the stain was left on the wood, but not much difference. I decided the shortest staining period was good enough. I dipped the strings of blocks in the dye and immediately shook off the excess and rubbed them with a cloth to remove excess dye. Here is a comparison of the unstained blocks on the top and the stained blocks below. I am very disappointed with the results! I have little experience with stains - and even less success! I guess I should have known that dying the blocks was a mistake. The flat faces of the blocks run with the grain, and stained OK, but unevenly. But the ends are cross grain and more porous, so they took up far too much stain. The result is almost black! The small blocks are basically UGLY! And the large blocks are even worse! In many cases the smooth faces of these blocks stained unevenly. Definitely not good! I will let the blocks dry a couple of days and see if they look any better. But right now it looks like I have ruined $150 of blocks. I guess I could soak them in alcohol to remove as much stain as possible, but that might loosen the aliphatic glue I used to assemble the larger blocks. If all else fails I can paint them - what I should have done in the first place! I think the suggestion to stain blocks is perhaps the worst idea ever imagined!

There is very little information about how masts were painted/coated in colonial America (or anywhere else for that matter). I have seen one reference saying that masts were painted - Nelson ordered rope wooldings and metal mast hoops around masts to be painted the same color as the masts to help distinguishing British ships from French ships at Trafalgar. So the Brits must have been painting their masts. Unfortunately, the reference didn't say what color the masts were painted. However you can bet the masts and spars were coated with something to prevent rot from exposure to water. And whatever coating was used it had to be something common and cheap. Other than that it was probably painted according to the ship owner's or Captain's preference. So it could be anything or any color. Mast tops, spars and bowsprits were often colored black in the late 1700s and early 1800s, probably because black paint was also used on the hulls. In the mid 1800s tops were often painted white - again because white paint on the hull came into fashion about that time. I have seen a reference that early American masts were painted straw color, and I have used that on my model of an early 1800s American schooner, with black tops. https://modelshipworld.com/topic/19611-albatros-by-dr-pr-mantua-scale-148-revenue-cutter-kitbash-about-1815/?do=findComment&comment=930171 I coated the masts and bowsprit with shellac to seal the wood and then used acrylic paint over that.

With anything that is adjustable you have to allow for spring back, backlash, slop - whatever you want to call it. With the quad hands I bend the arms farther than I need and allow them to spring back before I try to position them. I also have a ball joint version as shown above, and it is a pain in the posterior to adjust. The problem is the cheap thumb screw set screws that press directly onto the horizontal bar and the alligator clips. When these are tightened that cut into the metal they press against, deforming it. This puts pits and dents in the metal so the next time you try to tighten the screws the bar/clip rotates so the screw fits into the deformities. After a few uses it becomes very difficult to set the position accurately. And then it isn't very firm so things slip out of place. So you tighten the set screws tighter, and create greater deformities that cause even greater problems later. Neither of these devices hold pieces firmly enough to resist much pressure from a soldering iron tip. It takes a lot of practice and patience to use them. But both can be useful.

One thing I have learned from studying sailing ships is that there often are several "right" ways to do things. I suspect how the cannon carriages were constructed varied from owner to owner, shipyard to shipyard and by nationality. For example, so far I have found at least eight ways to rig a schooner's main gaff topsail. One ship I was on in the Navy had an extra pair of bitts. None of the other 26 vessels of the class had them. If the ship's bosun decided he needed another cleat somewhere the ship fitters came up and welded another one in place. And that is in a modern navy that had "rules." In earlier times the ship's Captain could have anything changed to suit his preferences.