Dr PR

We used to make multi-stage rockets with ordinary fireworks rockets (before Estes and hobby model rockets were a business). Two stage rockets were easy. The largest we made was a four stage monster. The first stage was four of the largest rockets wee could buy. They were wrapped with masking tape and the fuses twisted together. The second stage was three slightly smaller rockets taped together. Again the fuses were twisted and then inserted into a hole we drilled in the clay plug at the end of one of the first stage rockets. The third stage was one of the smaller rockets with the fuse in a hole in the top of one of the second stage rockets. The fourth stage was a tiny bottle rocket sized thing with a plastic nose cone and metal fins. It whistled loudly when it burned. The whole thing was about 1 1/2 feet (0.5 meter) tall. We used a spark gap in the leads from a neon sign transformer to light the fuses. The transformer was plugged into a long extension cord that was plugged into a switchable wall outlet. Just flip the switch - ZAP - and away they went. We launched a bunch of two stage rockets this way. That is how it was supposed to work. But gak1965 named the problem with the four stage monster. One of the four first stage rockets ignited before the other three. Unlike all the other rockets we fired that left the launch pad in a hurry, the four stage rocket rose slowly - just like the Saturn 5. As it rose it tipped over and was about horizontal when the other three rockets fired. Whoosh! Crash! It hit the side of a neighbor's house and fell into a rose bush where it thrashed around until the motors burned out. The neighbor kid was watching at the fence between the yards and the rocket just missed him. The rose bush was toast! **** We did recover the second, third and fourth stages. After some reassembly we launched them successfully as a three stage rocket.

Look at Wefalck's S.M.S. Wespe build. He used very thin wire twisted together to simulate small chain. https://modelshipworld.com/topic/8957-sms-wespe-armoured-gunboat-1876-of-the-imperial-german-navy-by-wefalck-–-1160-scale-when-first-commissioned/?do=findComment&comment=977727

More fiddly bits. The fore course sheets led back to midships. The fixed end was attached to a ring bolt outboard. The running part passed through a single block attached to the sail's clew and back to a sheave in the bulwarks. Inboard the fall was secured to a cleat on the bulkhead. I made the blocks for the bulkhead sheaves from a 0.125" x 0.125: x 0.25 inch (3.2 mm x 3.2 mm x 6.4 mm) piece of scrap wood. The long slots were cut out with a 0.039" (1 mm) drill and finished with a small file. The slots were 0.15" (12 mm) long. The 0.125" (3.2 mm) diameter sheaves were made by soldering 1/16" (1.6 mm) and 1/8" (3.2 mm) concentric tubing together and cutting off thin slices. These were filed/sanded down to 0.035" (0.9 mm) thick. A toothpick was trimmed to a 1/16" (1.6 mm) dowel that served as the pin for the sheave. The inboard and outboard edges were beveled to leave a surface about 1/16" (1.6 mm) wide, the thickness of the hull planking. The sheaves were fitted into holes cut through the bulwarks a bit below the cap rail. A cleat was fastened to a frame just forward of the sheave position. It was a lot of work for just two small details. If I do add sails to the model I probably won't install the fore course, so these sheaves and cleats won't be used. But they do add another small bit of detail to the model. I also added "chains" in the channels for the fore and main mast tackle. Originally I just had one eyebolt through the channel, but this didn't provide a place to secure the fall, and it wouldn't have been strong enough to take much pull from the tackle (there shouldn't be much load because this is just stowage for the ends of the tackle). I originally made the port side gunport lids closed with the cannons stowed, and the starboard port lids open with the cannons run out. However, the open lids were often bumped, the hinge straps were bent, and the port tackle lines broken. It was a continuing nuisance so I decided to close the starboard side lids. I will need quite a few eyebolts and ringbolts for attaching rigging to the hull and deck so I started making these. I have posted my method for making the eyebolts and blackening them here: https://modelshipworld.com/topic/19900-brass-black/?do=findComment&comment=991402

I have just used a common modeling knife and lightly scraped with the blade perpendicular to the surface. Just go slow and be careful to nhit only the high spots along the edge of the paint.

Wolfran zu Mondfeld's "Historic Ship Models" (Sterling Publishing Co. Inc, New York, 1989) shows a variety of gunport lids on page 177. He discusses the variations on lid design and hinges from the 16th century through the 19th century.

I have asked several times if blackening compounds will blacken solder - with no answers. So I decided to experiment to see how well it works. I have been soldering since I was a kid, and I like working with brass. On my current build I will need a lot of eye bolts and ring bolts. I can bend the brass wires into shape, and they will hold against light forces, but thin threads can slip through the gap. I prefer to solder the gap in the ring, as much for aesthetic purposes as to increase the strength. Up to now I have been painting the brass fittings with flat black enamel, but this is easily chipped when handling the parts. And the paint does add significant thickness to small parts. So I wanted to try blackening the metal to see if that gave a more durable finish. Here is a photo of some eye bolts with soldered gaps. The wire is soft brass, 0.025" (0.635 mm) diameter, and the hole is 0.035" (0.889 mm) diameter. This is a good size to work with Syren's new 4 mm plastic hooks. I used a liquid water soluble flux, and the solder was tin/lead 60:40 with a resin core flux. After soldering there was some flux residue. First I washed in water to remove the water soluble flux. Then I washed in acetone to remove the resin flux and grease. It only takes 10-20 seconds for the flux to dissolve completely. Next I placed the parts in Birchwood Casey Brass Black diluted 50:50 with water. I let it stand 10 minutes, at 67F (19C) stirring occasionally, and then washed with several water rinses. You can see from the photo that the solder blackened just as much as did the brass wire. Hooray! This was very important to me because there is a lot of solder smear over the wire and I don't want this shiny silvery surface to show. But is the blackening just a thin film on the solder, or is it actually blackened metal? The photo shows some pieces straight out of the blackening solution (after drying) on one side and some that have been rubbed with soft cotton on the other side. Which is which? Those on the left have been polished, and the parts on the right have not. A small amount of the black did rub off of all the pieces onto the cloth as others have reported. However, the blackening didn't rub off the solder any more than from the brass! For small parts like these eye bolts the process I used is adequate. But you can see some bare spots, perhaps from flaking. The pieces turned dark almost immediately after I placed them in the blackening solution. However, it seemed the solder took longer to darken than the brass. Perhaps five minutes in the solution would be enough? For larger surfaces it might be a good idea to etch the brass with Sparex before blackening to get a more uniform finish and avoid flaking.

I lived on the top of a hill, and we (the other 14 kids in the neighborhood and I) rolled or slid everything we could come up with down that hill. We made our own "go carts" out of scrap wood and whatever wheels we could find. One just used the wheels and axles from a wagon. The wheel base was very narrow and it had a tenancy to flip and roll, so it had a seat belt, high seat back and crash bar. The front axle was on a board that pivoted on a bolt for steering. We rigged a steering wheel that worked like the steering drum on a ship's wheel. However we initially rigged it backwards so when we turned the wheel to the right the cart turned to the left. Most of us got used to it, but there were a couple of kids that never learned to steer. So I re-rigged it to work right. It had "brake" that was a board that hinged on a large nail. The top end was the handle and the bottom dragged on the pavement. Pull up on the handle to jam the other end into the road surface. It worked to hold the cart in place on the hill, but there was no way it would stop or slow down much if the cart was rolling. A later version used four foot long 2x6s for the axles, with the wheels at the end. The front axle hinged on a bolt for steering, and we just pulled on a rope that connected to the ends of the steering axle. This was much stabler and would not flip or roll, no matter how hard we tried - and we did. However, one time when I tried to do a 180 spin at speed the front axle swung all the way until a wheel jammed into the long 2x8 that was the cart frame. That put the two front wheels more or less in line with the cart body, giving only a triangular footprint on the road, and really putting on the brakes! The cart stopped suddenly and tried to flip, launching me over the front. Fortunately I was wearing a high school football helmet that belonged to one of the kid's older brother. Unfortunately, the helmet broke when I hit the pavement, but I came out of it without a scratch on my head. Then we had to explain how I managed to break the helmet! **** When we got a good snow we raced our sleds down the hill in the street. We also sledded down the hill in the lawns, slaloming between tree trunks. The driveways to the houses made natural "ski jumps" and we built up snow ramps to make them even higher. Half the time we parted company with the sleds in the air.

I am working on details on deck that need to be finished before I can start the rigging. The binnacle was finished several years back. I have fastened it to the deck with lashings to eye bolts. The binnacle was "portable" furniture. Portable means not permanently built into the ship's structure. I also added handles for the doors in the companionway. The lazarette hatch is in place. A lazarette is a storage space in the stern of a ship. I have seen a reference that said the space was used to store bread. I added hinges for the skylight openings. I suppose this is getting down to knit-picking, but ever since I built this skylight I have thought I should put some hinges on it.

I used Fiebing light brown leather dye to stain some castello boxwood blocks. The parts were dipped into the dye for about a second and then rubbed with cloth to remove excess dye. The sides of the smaller blocks are a nice light reddish brown, but the end grain is almost black! On the larger blocks the sides came out a mottled light and dark brown. I used a paint brush and ethanol to redistribute the stain, but they still look pretty awful! Where the blocks were too dark I dipped them in alcohol until the stain started to bleed and they came out much lighter.

Wefalck, Unfortunately I live in an area with very few nautical resources. I really can't afford (or don't want to) the exorbitant costs to travel across North America or to Europe to research these things. So I am limited to what I can find on the Internet and local libraries. That is why this and other ship modeling forums are so important. You and I are having this conversation from opposite sides of the planet! You are sharing your knowledge with me, and all the others around the world, on this forum. Thank you and the others who participate in these discussions!

Wolfram zu Mondfeld (Historic Ship Models, Sterling Publishing Co, Inc, New York, 1989, page 148) says the ship's steering wheel was introduced early in the 18th century, superseding the whipstaff. Bjorn Landstrom (Sailing Ships, Doubleday & Company, Garden City, New York, 1969, page 161) says the same thing. George Campbell (The Neophyte Shipmodeler's Jackstay, Model Shipways Co. Inc., Bogota NJ, 1977, page 26) also says the wheel came into use in the early 18th century. None of these authors gives a reference.

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 affects 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 *********************************************************** UPDATE I have been working with these hooks for a year and a half now and for the most part they are OK. But several have broken and had to be replaced, sometimes in hard to reach places. 1. The plastic is not very strong. If you give a hard pull on the line, or accidentally bump into the rigging and cause a sudden jerk, the hooks will break. 2. Another way to break the hooks is to try to fasten them to eye bolts or other features that are too large diameter. This will cause the hook to spread open, and if forced too much the plastic cracks or breaks outright. Pay attention to dimension "C" in the drawing above and don't hook onto anything much larger that that. I suspect some of my failed hooks were due to first being cracked by hooking them over something that was too large, and then pulling lightly on the attached ropes

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!