Dr PR

Deck planks or hull planks?

If you are using very small diameter wire just cut it with a hobby knife and a chisel blade (square ended). Fasten the drill bit in a vice and support the bit and wire coil before trying to cut. It really doesn't matter if the cuts run straight down the drill bit because all of the rings will be the same diameter in any case. For soldering use a tiny bit of liquid solder flux in the gap (use a small paint brush). Then put a tiny bit of solder on the soldering iron tip and touch it to the joint. The flux will pull the solder into the joint. You should be able to pull the soldering iron tip away and have it carry any excess solder. You may get a tiny "spike" where the tip pulled away, but that can be removed with a file. Or wipe the soldering iron tip clean on a wet sponge and touch the joint again to carry away more solder. I can't see a resistance soldering iron having any advantage in this case. You need two separate electrical circuits at the gap between the two pieces to be soldered in order to generate current flow and heat in the gap. The tiny ring is a low resistance loop between the ends to be soldered so there would be no potential difference between the ends of the ring and no current flow in the gap. The heat would be generated between the soldering tip and the metal ring, and not in the gap between the ring ends. This is no different from just using an ordinary hot tip soldering iron.

Kieth, Thanks for the explanation. This arrangement is new to me (as are a lot of things about schooner rigging). I understand why the leeward stay was slacked to allow the sail to catch the wind. And I see how your stays function as a backstay to transfer forces to the mainmast top. Marquardt (The Global Schooner, Naval Institute Press, Annapolis, Maryland, U.S.A., 2003, page 179) describes your fore and aft running stay that leads from the fore topmast down to the main masthead and then to the deck as a "schooner stay." However he seems to be talking about a stay the runs from the fore mast top to the main mast top, and not from a point near the top of the fore topmast. I was thinking of the running backstays used on some schooners where the stays were secured to points behind the mast and outboard at the bulwark. In this way the stay took not only the strain from the forward forces on the mast, but also some of the lateral forces. The stays usually had a tackle (luff tackle or gun tackle) at the bottom end. The windward stay was belayed to a point outboard and aft of the mast, and the tackle drawn tight to take the strain. The leeward stay tackle was slackened and the tackle moved forward to a point outboard the mast. This allowed the gaff sail boom to swing wide outboard on the downwind side to catch the wind.

Back in the 1970s or early 1980s I visited the nautical museum in Astoria, Oregon, and there was a huge model of the USS Oregon. Last time I visited it wasn't there. It looked like a builder's model. I wonder what happened to it, or where it is now.

Kieth, Your work is beautiful! But I don't understand why you ran the two backstays through the double block on the main mast. That seems to me to defeat the purpose of the two backstays. The geometry is all wrong. As you have it rigged it having two stays is no different than one. Both create the same triangle aligned along the centerline with the main mast. There is no support for the transverse forces acting on the mast, and that is the purpose of the stays. The idea behind running backstays is that the two stays lead to opposite sides of the vessel, creating a triangle on each side to support the mast and take the strain of the sail. The downwind stay is slacked to avoid interference with the gaff sail, and the upwind stay is tightened to take the strain on the mast. Shouldn't each stay end in a luff tackle belayed to a point on deck close to the bulwark, port and starboard?

Sam, Welcome! The Dungeness crabs are very good, but I also like the Yaquina Bay oysters! What models are you working on or planning?

The Young Sea Officer's Sheet Anchor (1808) (Darcy Lever, Algrove Publishing Limited,Ottowa, Canada, 2000) has good drawings and detailed instructions for catting and fishing the anchors on page 69. Pages 67 and 68 describe anchors, anchor buoys, and the associated lines.

I was an A student in chemistry in the 11th grade. The teacher created a 12th grade Chemistry II class for another student and me. We came up with projects that the teacher had to approve, and then set up and ran the experiments ourselves. We also served as lab supervisors for the first year chem labs. We decided to do some organic chemistry for a Science Fair project - creating an amino acid. It was really very simple, but it seemed exciting to us. The teacher gave me the keys to the lab (and supply room) so we could run our experiment on a Saturday. A friend, Henry, learned of this and asked if he could also set up his experiments for his Science Fair project - he was producing pure halogens. I said it was OK, so one Saturday morning we all met in the lab and got to work. Henry had already produced pure iodine crystals and some liquid bromine. His next step was to set up a chlorine generator. While he was doing that we were setting up the amino acid experiment. Henry had his generator going so I asked him to pour 10 ml of butyric acid - we were starting with that for the amination step. Up to this point everything was going according to plan. But as Henry was putting the cap on the butyric acid bottle he accidentally knocked over the graduated tube and spilled the acid onto the bench top. Fortunately he was working on a scrap piece of plywood, but unfortunately butyric acid has a very strong and vile odor. It smelled as if an entire infantry company had barfed in unison! We all rushed to the windows and threw them open. That diluted the horrible stench a bit, but then we started noticing the very distinctive smell of chlorine in the air. Henry's generator was leaking! We tried to find the leak but without success. Then I remembered that chlorine and ammonia reacted to make ammonium chloride, a white crystal. I poured some full strength 35% ammonia solution into beakers and we set them around the chlorine generator. We found the leak - chlorine gas is heavier than air and it flowed down into a beaker of ammonia. Cool!! They burned with a pale blue flame like burning camp stove fuel. Clouds of ammonium chloride rose into the air and began "snowing" onto every flat surface in the lab. Great! Now the lab stunk like vomit, chlorine and ammonia all at once. We were hanging out of the windows gasping for air when Henry opened the door to the hallway. There was a strong breeze blowing in the windows and when the door opened a gust blew through the lab. Fortunately this cleared the air a bit so we could breath again. Unfortunately, Henry had placed his tube of liquid bromine on a bench top and the breeze blew it off and it crashed on the floor. A small cloud of brownish bromine gas added to the other three obnoxious odors. The bromine bleached a white circle about a foot diameter (30 cm) on the floor. While all of this was going on the 400 voice high school chorus was practicing in the auditorium four floors below. It was warm and they had the windows open in the auditorium. The breeze blowing into the lab pushed the noxious gasses down the hall to the stair well that was open all the way to the basement. The stench flowed down the stair well and into the auditorium. As we were hanging out of the lab windows gasping for air a flood of kids came pouring out of the school entrance four floors below with everyone coughing and gasping. We managed to get the chlorine generator shut down and eventually the stench was reduced so we could do a clean up job to wipe up the ammonium chloride snow. We left the windows open all weekend. I really expected to get into trouble for all that. But the next Monday all that happened was the chemistry teacher catching me in the hallway and asking "Hays, what have you done to my laboratory!?" After that the lab always had a slight smell of vomit. I started college as a chemistry major, but switched to microbiology in my sophomore year.

Johnny's story abut the magnesium wheel brought to mind an experience I had. I was a Nuclear Weapons Officer in the Navy, and we worked with missiles with all kinds of nasty stuff in them - including magnesium. So the Navy sent me to many fire fighting schools. One was a flight deck firefighting school where we learned to do all sorts of impossible things. In one class they set off an aircraft flare (magnesium and an oxidizer) and told us to put it out with water. When an old salt Chief says to put it out, you put it out! We ran a high pressure water hose nozzle up the tail end and flooded it with so much water that the steam carried away the heat faster than it was being generated and it went out! Then they set an aircraft magnesium wheel on fire and we proceeded to put it out with water from several fire hoses!! Only a small spot on the wheel was burning but the heat spread through the entire mass. The entire wheel surface was flooded with water to carry away heat and eventually the fire went out. Then we went on to walk into a flaming pool of aviation fuel to rescue a "pilot" in a steel mock-up airplane. Of course, we had to do it from down wind with the flames blowing right at us! Here the trick was to use two hose teams. The lead team had a 2 1/2 inch hose with an ordinary two function nozzle - solid stream and high velocity spray. The backup team had a 2 1/2 inch hose with a "spud tip" (metal tip with a lot of small holes) on a long extension. They placed the spud tip over and just ahead of the nozzleman on the lead hose, creating a sheet of high velocity water fog from the spud tip. That sheet of water created a "tunnel" in the flames, blowing back the burning gasses so we could walk right up to the plane. Then a guy in an asbestos suit came in to rescue the pilot. It was scary but fascinating to see flames blowing above and to the sides of us! Those are only three of the impossible things we did in the Navy fire fighting schools (we also put out oil fires with water).

"Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors" (James Hornfischer, D. Murray, S. Sanders, M. Soffe, R. Steen, Dead Reckoning, Annapolis, MD, 2021, 200 pages) hardcover $29.95. This is a cartoon book, done in the style of cheesy Sunday comic soap operas!! Speculative dialog, speculative actions - the absolute worst type of fictional history! It is supposed to be a "history" of Taffy 3 at the Battle of Leyte Gulf. The comic book story is based upon that event, but it isn't non-fiction history. In my opinion it would be OK for a children's library, but it is pretty much useless for naval history. There was an earlier book by Hornfischer published in 2005 that apparently was a historical action novel. From the reviews there is some question about how much was fact and how much was fiction. However, many people enjoyed it as an entertaining story. Here is an example of the "historical" content in the cartoon version:

Jaeger, I do a similar thing with Word, but it is very tedious. I select everything on a page, copy and then paste into Word. Unfortunately only text is copied but not pictures, and web page tables may be scrambled. I have to copy every web page separately, but the copies are pasted into a single word file. I copy the photos to files and then paste them into Word at the appropriate places. Once all of this is done the file can be saved as a PDF. A problem with converting a web page to a Word or PDF file is the print page boundaries in the Word/PDF files. Some pictures will fall across page boundaries, and will be moved to a different position from where they are in the web page. This may require some reformatting in Word to get the picture close to the text that refers to it.

Use a primer with solvents that are safe for plastic. Test it first on an area that will not be seen on the finished model. I think plastic cement will probably bond brass to the printed parts. Epoxy will also work. It is more fuss than other single part glues, but (if mixed correctly) will bond just about anything to anything. I would use epoxy to glue wood to the printed part.

Jaager, I checked a can of Denatured Alcohol fuel I have for cleaning 3D resin prints. It contains ethanol and methanol, but the can doesn't give the concentrations. So they are still using methanol to denature ethanol and make it unfit for human consumption.

Jaager, Good points. We used 100% ethanol in the lab and had to keep that tightly sealed. In an open container of an ethanol-water mixture the ethanol will evaporate faster than water, so the concentration of ethanol decreases (the water concentration increases). Of course some water will evaporate also, especially in low atmospheric humidity conditions. I wonder if the residue (translucent gel) that you mentioned is oxidized shellac?

The actual size of rigging on a ship was determined by formulas based upon mast dimensions. A good source for this information is Wolfram zu Mondfeld's Historic Ship Models (Sterling Publishing Co. Inc., New York,1989), page 272. Other references may use slightly different formulas, but they all come out about the same. Be careful here - mast diameters are used for the calculations, but ropes are measured by circumference. Mondfeld is not clear about this! The first time I used his calculations I was getting lines (diameters) that were way too large - 3.14159 times too large. Then to confuse the issue more, modern thread, wire and such is usually sized by diameter. So after you get the desired circumference divide it by pi (3.14159) to get the diameter. Generally the size (circumference) of the main stay is determined first, and all other lines are listed as a percentage of the circumference of the main stay.

Bells were also used on moving vessels in fog or at night in areas where other ship traffic was expected. A position forward would be desirable for this, where a lookout would be posted.

Valeriy, I am happy you finished your beautiful model. I am even happier that you are safe and well. I am looking forward to your next build. I hope you have a happy new year!

This build is exquisite! It has been a part of my daily life for years to check for new posts. When it is done I guess I will have to find something else to occupy my time. Like maybe finishing my ship model!

Something I do not see often in weathered ship model hulls is salt at the waterline. It does build up at sea. Look at this picture.

Magnificent! It is a Christmas gift for you to have the finished model. Your pictures of it are a gift to us! Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

In the 1970s we had four on and eight off watches in Condition 2 (1 in 3 watch rotation) - which was what we kept in combat zones (Vietnam) when not at General Quarters (Condition 1). However, to avoid repeating the same watch periods every day we had a 2 hour mid watch from 0000 to 0200 and a "dog watch" from 0200 to 0400. Breakfast was at 0700, muster/Officers Call at 0800, lunch at 1100/1200 and dinner at 1700/1800. We also had regular jobs when not on watch. Add to that the necessity to rearm every other day and refuel/resupply once a week and we were kept pretty busy! Do the math and you will find that it was almost impossible to get more than 4 hours sleep at a time, and some days that wasn't possible. After six to eight weeks 1 in 3 without much sleep on the gun line in the south or MiG hunting in the north we were sleep walking when "awake." Fatigue was an issue!

I have wondered about shellac "going bad." I did find one reasonable explanation - the alcohol solution will absorb water from the atmosphere if left open in high humidity. Apparently the water clouds the solution or something like that, and maybe it spoils the finish. But these are only the "best guess" explanations I have found. However alcohol is hygroscopic and will absorb moisture from the air, becoming diluted with time. Manufacturers recommend using 95% ethanol to dissolve shellac flakes. I have also heard that the flakes will absorb moisture so they should be kept sealed. Manufacturers recommend storing them in a cool place. I have never had a problem with "old" shellac.

This is just a guess since I don't know what you are trying to glue together and what you want to do after that. How about shellac? You can glue everything together with shellac, work it as a single piece and later separate everything with denatured alcohol (95% ethanol). An added bonus is that the shellac will leave a good finish on the wood that can be left "natural" or painted.

I have used several types of epoxy for decades and have never had a curing problem because I am meticulous about getting the mixture exactly as the manufacturer recommends. I have used a thin two part epoxy "paint" that model airplane builders use to seal the wood on motor mounts so fuel cannot soak into it. It has the consistency of house paint (thicker than water but thinner than honey. I seal the interior of planked hulls with it. It penetrates into the wood, between individual planks, and between planks and bulkheads. This prevents cracks from appearing between planks years after the model was built. It makes a very solid hull! You can also find epoxy paints. We used them in the magazines on a ship I was on. They are similar to the epoxy sealer mentioned above. I also advise caution about thinning epoxies. The mixture ratio is critical for a good cure. Rather than try to thin a thick epoxy it would be much better to get the epoxy sealer or the model airplane epoxy.

Sometimes when in port the sails were partly unfurled and hanging loose to allow them to dry. This is another option for modeling.