Dr PR

Allan, I have spent quite a bit of time trying to find reliable period references for the colors on ships - with little luck. There are some general guidelines for British and French vessels, mainly derived from period paintings. But the exact colors probably will never be known. Artists mixed their own paints and they were, therefore, their renditions of the colors, not what was actually on the vessel. And colors change with time (fading, oxidizing, etc.). In many cases the actual colors would have been up to the Captain's whim and what paints/pigments could be had on a particular day. In other words, the colors could have been anything. And the anti-fouling mixtures probably varied with each vessel. It would depend upon the type and age of the tallow, what solvents were used and how it was all mixed and applied. Again, just about anything. In my opinion, you could use any off-white, slightly yellowish mixture and be just as accurate as anyone else could come up with. So don't sweat the small stuff. Make it appear pleasing to your own eye, and let the beholders form their own opinions. Opinions are like noses - everyone has one. And none will be better than yours (except mine, of course).

Craft stores carry stainless steel multi-strand beading and jewelry wire. I have some 3 strand and 7 strand 0.012 inch (0.30 mm) and 7 strand 0.015 inch (0.38 mm) and 0.018 inch (0.45 mm) wire. At 1:87 scale these would be: 1:87 diameter 1:1 diameter 0.012 "/0.30 mm 1.0"/26.1 mm 0.015 "/0.38 mm 1.3"/33.1 mm 0.018 "/0.46 mm 1.6"/40.0 mm Pros: It looks real and is very durable. Cons: It is OK for straight runs, but it is VERY springy and I wouldn't want to try it with blocks or winch drums.

There are seven species of hawthorn in the northwest (Oregon): https://oregonflora.org/taxa/search.php?search=hawthorn English hawthorn is the most common - it is a nuisance weed. It has pretty flowers in the spring and lots of red berries in the fall - that the birds spread everywhere. I don't know if the wood is any good for modeling, but there is one in my neighbor's yard that I would happily cut down to see. None of the seven hawthorns is known as "fire thorn," at least today by modern botanists. Common names are not reliable. They are often applied to several different species. Apparently "firethorn" is a totally unrelated species to hawthorns: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyracantha We have these here also, and they too are a nuisance weed.

I have only a few small details to report. I am preparing the masts for installation into the hull. For this I want to be sure I get all the necessary rigging points on the masts while they are still free to work with on the table. On the main topmast (left below) I added the topmast shrouds and blocks for the main gaff topsail halliard near the truck and lower down the block for the main topmast staysail halliard. The main topmast stay will attach directly above the strap for the block. On the main top cap are blocks for the fore topsail yard braces, main top staysail sheet and fore course yard braces, and on the aft side of the mast itself is a block for the main gaff peak halliard. The fore topmast (above right) is a bit more complex because of the square topsail rigging. Above the topmast stays near the truck are blocks port and starboard for the topsail yard lifts and the topsail buntlines. Below this is a block for the flying jib halliard. The flying jib stay will attach above the block strap. There is also a sheave for the topsail yard halliard on the port side. On the mast cap are blocks for the fore course yard lift and buntlines (port and starboard). On the aft side of the mast top are attachments for the main topmast stay, main topmast staysail downhaul block, and the peak halliard block. I had a choice for placing the sheave for the topsail yard halliard. One method would be to install the sheave in a pocket cut into the topmast. I have done this is several other places, but these were near the ends of the jib boom and main boom. In these positions the spar will not be stressed significantly. But cutting through the topmast below the attachment points for the shrouds and stays would create a weak point where the mast might be stressed. The option is to attach a sheave to the side of the mast with a cheek block. Here you can see the cheek block on the left side of the mast (the halliard belays on the port side of the fife rail at the base of the mast). Above it are thumb cleats to support the flying jib halliard block and the flying jib stay. It looks to me as if the flying jib halliard block is a bit too close to the mast. I may redo this to give it a long strap (strop). In this instance I have turned an eye into the strap but I think this is unnecessary. Looking at several references I see it was common for the standing part of the tackle to simply loop between the strap and the block. Lever says an eye in the standing part may be attached to the strap on the block with a short piece of rope. It will be simpler and neater to just splice an eye around the strap on the end of the standing part of the halliard.

Neptune, I thought this ship looked familiar. Good to see it being finished! The plumbing, cables and walkway railing work is especially nice.

If you don't already have it, Harold Underhill's "Masting and Rigging the Clipper Ship and Ocean Carrier" is an indispensable reference for clippers. He describes everything in detail, with hundreds of illustrations and full page plates, and appendices telling how to calculate the sizes of everything. The book has the most inclusive index I have seen, with page numbers for every part of the rigging. It is a joy to read and learn about ships of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. I'll be watching this one to see how it develops!

John, Thanks!

Here is another small detail. Two hatches have gratings, and the books say this was common on warships (merchantmen usually had solid hatch covers). They had to have a way to cover these hatches in heavy seas. On mid-20th century US Navy ships we had small metal hooks called "lady fingers" welded in places where we needed to secure tarps and such. However, I have never seen these mentioned for 19th century ships. I looked at a number of references and a couple suggested there were eye bolts around the hatch above the coaming that canvas tarps could be lashed to. On some vessels metal bars with slots to fit over the rings held the canvas down, and wooden pegs were driven into the rings to force the bars tight against the canvas around the hatch. I spent the day making very small ring bolts. They are made of 0.012 inch (0.3 mm) brass wire with 0.025 inch (0.64 mm) holes in the rings. After the loops were soldered closed they were blackened with Brass Black. I needed 28 of these ring bolts and made 40. While handling them for soldering five disappeared into the void (12.5%). Another broke while I was inserting it into a 0.013 inch (0.33 mm) hole in the hatch. This was a significantly worse attrition rate than any I have had in past production of quantities of small objects, probably because these things were much smaller than other parts on the model. But the real culprit was a pair of tweezers with tips that can suddenly twist to the side, launching parts into orbit. I need new tweezers! Here are photos of the hatches in place on the model. This is the last detail on my list for the deck fittings before I start working on the rigging.

Kieth, I'm really glad to hear you are recovering well. My eye doctor says cataract surgery is in my future in about 10 years. Last year I had growths called pterygiums removed from both eyes (too much UV exposure from hiking) - six months apart. They cut out chunks 1/4 inch (5 mm) diameter from the eyes and I never had any discomfort! I took some ibuprophen the evening after the surgeries just in case, but it wasn't needed. Everything mostly healed up in two weeks, and my eyesight was improved greatly. How can they cut on the eye like that without causing discomfort?

One user on the Forum cautioned about steel wool. It can leave tiny pieces embedded in wood that will eventually rust. So be sure to clean thoroughly after using it. I love #0000 steel wool for producing a fine satin finish.

I grew up in Hot Springs, Arkansas, and a few miles east of there is Bauxite, Arkansas. It is a very geologically interesting region with many different minerals in what was once the roots of an ancient mountain chain that has eroded flat by now. I have been told that for much of the early 1900s this was the only source of bauxite/aluminum in North America. We had three lakes and hydroelectric generating stations around Hot Springs to power the aluminum plants at Bauxite. ALCOA and Reynolds both had aluminum mills there. When in high school I went to one of the plants for a meeting. It was about a mile square and extended many stories high. We drove into this machine for some distance and went to the meeting in a building embedded deep into the plant. It was quite an experience. I think the bauxite has played out now, and only a series of huge craters remain, filled with water, with housing developments around them.

Valeriy, I seem to recall that after aluminum was discovered in 1825 the Czar of Russia had a helmet made of aluminum that contained almost all of the purified metal on Earth. Aluminum was valued at many times the cost of gold and the helmet was said to be one of the most valuable things on Earth! At first small specimens cost about US$160 per pound, Then new techniques for separating the metal were discovered. In 1855 Aluminum cost US$90 per pound. Then in the late 1880s mass production of aluminum began and the cost dropped to US$2 per pound. Then the modern electrolytic separation method was developed in 1889 and the cost per pound dropped to US$0.20, and was cheap enough to use in ship building. The value went from the most valuable substance on Earth to a fraction of a dollar in a little over half a century. Now that is deflation!

John, Thanks. I could have omitted the swivel guns but I liked the guns on the Lady Washington. When the Syren parts turned out to be the right type and size I couldn't resist.

Another detail to be added before starting rigging was swivel guns. Some references say some early 1800s schooners carried them. So I thought I should add a few at the bow and stern. I ordered a package of "Resin Swivel Guns (13/16") w/handle and Yoke" from Syren Ship Model Company. The package included six molded resin guns with yokes and round plates for mounting them. It also included a handle for the back of the guns. However, you have to drill a hole in the rear end of the gun below the cascobel to mount the handle (not a problem). I looked in Chapelle's "The History of the American Sailing Navy" (1949) and on page 89 he has drawings of swivel guns just like the Syren product. Furthermore, the dimensions of the Syren guns are perfect for a 1:48 scale 1 1/2" bore 1/2 pound shot swivel gun like those used in the American Navy! The Syren mounting parts are OK, but I wanted to replicate something like the yoke on the swivel guns on the modern Lady Washington replica. These swivel guns look exactly like Chapelle's drawings and have the "U" shaped rest to hold the gun in position for loading. They also have a wooden handle attached to the rear end, and Chapelle says this was common, along with several other styles of handles. I thought about adding a wooden handle to the Syren parts, but I like the handles supplied with the guns and decided to use them. OK, how was I going to fashion the yoke and the "U" shaped fitting? Since I don't have a machine shop to make these pieces it would have to be pretty simple. I decided to use brass wire. The yoke was made from 0.025 inch (0.64 mm) wire as shown in the picture below left. After making the small loops for the gun's trunnions at each end of the wire I soldered the loops closed. Then the wire was folded double and the upper "U" shape bent to the proper width. Then the doubled part was soldered. These were cleaned up later with a file to remove excess solder. The "U" shaped rest was made from 0.012 inch (0.3 mm) brass wire as shown in the picture above right. The wire was bent around a 0.125 inch (3.2 mm) drill bit (the cannon is 0.115" (2.9 mm) where it fits into the rest). Then it was folded back double to finish the "U" and the support arm was created as shown. The wire ends of the rest piece were then wrapped around the shaft of the yoke and soldered in position. This was the only difficult part of the assembly. The two wire ends of the rest needed to wrap tightly around the shaft of the yoke, and the support arm of the rest should be aligned with the shaft of the yoke so the "U" was positioned correctly for the gun to fit into. But as I added solder to fasten the rest in place things wanted to move around. Eventually I worked out a way to keep everything in place while I soldered it. You can see how things fit to the gun on the right, but the rest arm should be a bit lower and horizontal, and the "U" bent up a bit to cradle the gun. After a while I had six yoke assemblies, six trunnion pins and the six guns. I drilled holes through the guns for the trunnion pins. The brass parts were blackened with Birchwood Casey Brass Black. After the guns were assembled I clipped off the excess length of the trunnion pins and touched up with a bit of flat black enamel. I decided to duplicate the arrangement on the Lady Washington and add thin wooden blocks to the rails where the guns would be mounted, and a thin metal plate for support. After these were glued in place and painted the swivel guns were installed.

I had to fix the error in the ringtail boom iron position! I put the second boom iron about 1/5 of the boom length from the boom iron on the end of the boom, and the separation should be about 1/3 the boom length. I have several hours work in the existing boom, so I wanted to repair it if I could and reposition the forward boom iron. This photo shows where the original boom iron was positioned (old), and where it should have been placed (new). The original boom iron was a bit undersized so I filed a reduced diameter area where it was located. Some wood was also removed closer to the end of the boom so the iron would slip into position. Now I needed to build up the area (step) where the wood was removed. The solution (I hoped) would be to use my old Stanley miniature plane to shave a thin strip off a square dowel and use this as filler to be glued around the boom in the repair area. I had no idea if this would work but it seemed a better option that starting over on a new boom. The wood shaving was 0.009 inch (0.22 mm) thick. I wrapped it around the boom one turn, trimming the ends to overlap slightly. I used a liberal amount of Sig-Bond aliphatic resin to glue the shaving in place. I wrapped the shaving around the boom as tightly as possible - but of course the shaving wanted to spring back out. I wrapped some blue painter's masking tape around the shaving to hold the shaving tight around the boom. Then just to be sure I wrapped some carpet/button thread tightly around the tape to be sure the whole thing was compressed. After about eight hours I removed the tape and thread and started filing and sanding the wood shaving into shape. I forgot to take a photo before starting, so the picture on the right above is after a bit of reworking to shape the shaving. After sanding the shaving to shape it was coated with shellac (left). When that dried I used some Squadron White Putty to fill in some low spots (right) I also shaped the boom so the new boom iron could be added at the correct position. I should have used a more homogeneous wood for the shaving. The dowel I used had pronounced grain, and the softer light colored growth ring material sanded away faster than the darker growth rings. I sanded it carefully and with the shellac managed to get a fairly smooth surface. But this was another "learning experience." After two coats of paint, with sanding between the coats, the result looks pretty good. But just don't look too closely! There are some very slight "ripples" where the harder growth ring wood stands slightly proud. But all in all, I'll keep it. It is a lot better than starting over with a new boom! Two steps forward, one step back!

Note: I made an error in post #211 about the spacing of the ringtail boom irons. The spacing should be about 1/3 the ringtail boom's length, and not 1/4 to 1/6.

Roger, Thanks! Cook's 1773 folding anchor certainly predates Steve's revenue cutter. And clearly they came into use before the 1770s - at least for small anchors.

"I still think she is 21." Well, just remember, if there are a few new wrinkles they are a sign of improvement. My Admiral complains she is getting older, but I still think she is beautiful!

Kieth, I understand your concerns. When my elderly mother had cataract surgery I called her up that evening to see how she was doing. I'm OK" she said, but I could tell from the tone of her voice that something wasn't right. When I asked what was wrong she replied "I didn't know I had so many wrinkles!" But she could see a lot better.

I got that dual rail "Bellows PB-4" decades ago (~1990) at a local camera store. I think it was out of production then, but someone found a bunch of unopened boxes in a warehouse in Portland, Oregon, and the local store bough a couple. I used it with a Nikon F3 and the old manual 105 mm macro lens (that lens is the reason I switched to the Nikon system). Fortunately the bellows was made way back in the manual film camera days (nothing automatic) so it just has the simple Nikon bayonet mounting ring. This is fortunate because that mounting ring doesn't interfere with all the electrical contacts inside the mounting ring on newer digital cameras. Of course there are no mechanical or electrical connections to the lens, and none in the bellows unit. So the lens has to be focused manually and the diaphragm has to be set manually before taking a photo. The diaphragm control ring between the lens and bellows allows the diaphragm to be controlled with the cable release. The diaphragm is normally open full to allow through the lens focusing. You just set the f-stop on the lens and when you push the cable release it closes the diaphragm to the setting. Be careful buying an older bellows unit (extension tubes or lenses) to work with modern cameras, because some of the older units have early electrical contacts that may damage the contacts in the latest digital cameras. I think Nikon doesn't make a bellows unit any more, but someone may. That old Nikon dual rail bellows unit has three gear driven moving sections. The base is a tripod mount, and this has a knob that runs on the loser rail pair to move the entire bellows unit back and forth on the tripod mount to move the whole bellows, lens and camera back and forth closer and farther from the subject. On the upper pair of rails are the two frames that support the ends of the bellows, the camera mount and the lens mount. Each of these has a knob to move them back and forth on the upper rails to allow the bellows to be opened and closed. All three movement knobs have locks to prevent the movement from moving. Lastly, the lens mount rotates around the vertical to provide the "tilt shift" feature for the lens that modeller_masa was talking about. This allows some pretty neat depth of field corrections for subjects with greater depth. I don't use it (or the old macro lens) much any more, but it is such an exquisitely machined, extremely high quality piece of equipment (Made in Japan) I can't bring myself to part with it! I love working with it so occasionally I will hunt for something really tiny to photograph with it. For the even smaller things I have a Leitz laboratory microscope with a Nikon camera body mount. Again, it is a very old film camera body mount that works with modern digital cameras because the simple bayonet mount doesn't interfere with all the electrical contacts in the camera body. And like the bellows, the microscope mount is top quality made in Japan (I purchased the microscope adapter in Japan in the early 1970s). It allows me to go down to 1000x magnification for bacteria and such - about the limit for optical resolution.

It occurred to me that I should check the anchors that came with the Mantua Albatros kit to see if they are anywhere near the correct size for this model. Kit parts tend to be whatever was on the manufacturer's shelf and can be relatively random scale sizes. For the long convoluted saga of calculations of anchor sizes see this post: https://modelshipworld.com/topic/27410-small-ship-anchor-handling/?do=findComment&comment=1015834 Amazingly, the kit anchor with my 1980s Mantua Albatross kit has a shank length of 1.94 inches (49.3 mm)! I am building it at 1:48, with a beam of 19 feet (5.8 meters), so the kit anchors are just right!

Hey, isn't CA supposed to be able to fix anything? OK, so the anchors bit the dust. Now what? I have been looking for the formula for calculating the size of a ship's anchors. Most references say nothing more than that a ship had an anchor, and several more of several sizes. Occasionally an author does say how large an anchor is on a particular ship, but in totally obscure terms. For example, Roding says: "... the weight of large ships anchors is equal to the square of the ship's breadth ..." And he goes on to give an example: "The sheet anchor of a ship which has a breadth of 49 French ft and of which the weight is7653 Livres ... for a sjhip of 20 feet breadth. 492:202 = 7653 Livres : x Livres = 1331 Livres." French feet (1.06 English feet), Livres (489 grams), Livres x Livres??? That's as clear as mud! Marquardt's The Global Schooner is the only reference I could find with meaningful dimensions for anchors, and that is not simple. In England in the 1800s the anchor weight is the ship's tonnage divided by 20 in cwt. CWT? 1 cwt = 50.8 kg = 112 pounds (today's weights). But that is only for ships, and if you have read many texts small vessels like schooners really are not ships and not worth mentioning. Marquardt does give this guidance for smaller vessels based upon a table by anchor manufacturer Young and Thompson at Sutherland, England (my calculations for anchor weight): Vessel weight tons Tonnage divided by Anchor weight English tons 5-15 10 0.5-1.5 25 12.5 2 40 13.33 3 60 17 3.5 100 19 5.26 >100 20 The AL model does appear to be based on the 1815 revenue cutter designs of William Doughty. But he designed vessels of 30, 51 and 80 tons, all with about the same deck layout and proportions. So which was it? Let's assume it was the 80 ton design (which is similar to the revenue cutter kitbash I am making). The 80 ton Dallas revenue cutter of 1816 was 69' 6" length and 19' 6" beam (Chapelle The History of American Sailing Ships, 1985, page 192, 194). So it would have an anchor between 3.5 to 5.26 tons. The average is 4.4 tons. But how large is that, and what scale was an old Artesiana Latina Dallas kit (if any)? Mondfeld's Historic Ship Models (1989, page 184) gives example of bower anchors (what the ship would have it if had only one or two, but some ships had three or four different size anchors) in cwt. CWT (hundred weight - C for 100 in Roman numerals) = 100 modern American pounds, but it was 112 English pounds in the 1800s. There are 20 cwt in a ton, both British and American. So a 4.4 ton anchor weighed 88 cwt. But Mondfeld says an 80 cwt bower anchor is what a 100-110 gun ship of the line would carry, and schooners were just a fraction of that size! PUNT! This is typical of the quagmire I run into every time I try to figure out any dimensions for historic ships! Any two authors rarely agree on anything, and each uses his own calculations and speaks his own language (with no glossary)! Nothing is simple!!! **** Let's try again. Marquardt says a schooner's anchor dimensions are: shank length = 4/10 of a ship's breadth shank width = 1/27 - 1/24 shank length So with the 80 ton Dallas' beam of 19' 6" (234 inches) the shank length would be 93.6 inches or 7.8 feet (2377 mm). At 1:48 scale that would be an anchor with a shank 1.95 inches (49.5 mm). Amazingly, the kit anchor with my 1980s Mantua Albatross kit has a shank length of 1.94 inches (49.3 mm)! Mantua has sold it as 1:40 scale but I am building it at 1:48, with a beam of 19 feet (5.8 meters), so the kit anchors are just right!

Roger, Good point! Kit anchors are rarely to scale - they are just what the manufacturer has on hand in an approximate size. Also, Steve's Dallas kit anchor is an iron shank type where the iron stock can be slipped through the hole in the shank and folded beside the shank. When did this type of anchor come into use? Mondfeld's Historic Ship Models (page 186) shows the Admiralty pattern from 1840 and Trotman's anchor from 1850. I looked in other references and could find no earlier references for this type anchor. The small revenue cutters were built early in the 1800s, probably before this type anchor was introduced. For small vessels the anchor was probably stowed on deck lashed to bitts or timberheads.

BB, You are quite correct. Sorry I misunderstood you. I do use a rail for what I would call extreme macro photography. This is a Nikon two rail bellows unit. It is very sturdy. The older manual 105 mm macro lens is attached to the front of the bellows unit and the camera body is attached to the rear - using an extension tube here because the hand hold projection on the digital camera body would otherwise contact the bellows unit frame (the modern digital camera body and ancient film camera bellows unit weren't designed to work together). Because there is no communication between the camera and lens a manual diaphragm control (between bellows frame and lens) and cable are necessary. The lens diaphragm is adjusted manually. The camera body is set to Manual mode (which I always use anyway). This assembly allows the compensating focus/ frame control you are talking about. But the primary use for the bellows is high magnification macro photography. As shown here it allows the distance between the camera and lens to be varied. The greater the distance the higher the magnification. The macro lens produces a 1:1 scale (life size) image on the photo element (most lenses create approximately 1:4 scale images, or 1/4 life size). This is called the reproduction ratio. With the bellows fully extended I have produced 5:1 scale images (5 times life size) on the photo element. It is useful for very tiny flowers (1/8 inch or 3 mm and smaller). However, such large magnifications aren't necessary for photographing ship models where the life size object is many times larger than the photo element. For whole model pictures I use a f 2.8 16 to 80 mm zoom lens (0.25 x reproduction ratio) that will focus to about 14 inches (350 mm) from the film plane (about 9 inches or 229 mm from the end of the lens). For smaller parts of the model I just use the newer automatic 105 mm macro lens (1:1 reproduction ratio) that will focus to 12 inches (314 mm) from the film plane (about 5.75 inches or 146 mm) in front of the lens). In both cases I just mount the camera on a sturdy tripod and adjust the focal point with the lens without moving the camera body. This is a lot easier and simpler than messing with the rails. The picture in my post above looking down the deck of the model was made this way.

I agree. We were told to not lean on the life lines (chains between stanchions). Life rails (pipes) were likewise not to be trusted. Both served to mark the edges of decks at night and provide something to hang on to when the deck was pitching and rolling. In the case of the revenue cutter model the stanchions appear to be oversized and probably strong enough to support the anchor under "normal" conditions. But I doubt that the anchor was attached to the real stanchions on these small vessels if they were going into any rough seas or high winds.