Dr PR

What happened to Jersey City Frankie's posts?

JCF, Thanks for both posts. Are they both from Lee's Masting and Rigging?

Mark P, Here is the Mondfeld drawing. The text reads "Anchor fishing. In the 17th and 18th centuries a portable beam or fish davit was sometimes used instead of a secondary cathead or anchor davit for hoisting the anchor into position for fishing." It clearly is not the catheads he is talking about (pages 126-127 talk about catheads). The picture of the model of the Grafton 1679 that Allan posted appears to have the "English" style fishing davit (although I am not certain about this), and the others seem to have the "Continental" style. I think the idea Mondfeld is trying to show with the "Continental" style is that the fish davit is portable (not permanently fixed in place and moveable) and can be used either port or starboard. From several other sources I have read this was very common. Of course the inboard end would have to be fastened in some way. In the mid 19th century the fish davit was more like an ordinary boom, with lifts and vangs (guys), and tackle for fishing the anchor. But I suspect no two ships did things exactly the same way - there was a lot of discretion left to the master/captain of each ship, and they all had their own ideas of the best ways to do things. The entire history of sailing ships is a chronicle of change - slow, perhaps, but as people discovered better (easier or cheaper) ways to do things the ideas spread and were adopted elsewhere. It is the history of this spread of ideas that interests me. I have spent 15 years studying the Cleveland class light cruisers of the 1930s and 40s (and later conversions). I have the blueprints (about 12,000) and over 1000 photos. They were built in 4 shipyards, and even though they had the official blueprints showing how to build them, each shipyard built them differently, using what they thought were the best methods. Some of the differences were quite significant! And after the ships hit the water they underwent continuous modifications. No two ships were the same, and this was in the 20th century. In earlier centuries ships were built without detailed plans, according to the shipwright's ideas of how to do things. I suspect there was even greater variation back then. So not one picture, book or authority describes all the variations. I realize Mondfeld's book is just a sampling of some features in historic ships. I do not take it, or any other book (or anyone's opinions) as absolute truth. Like Mark T I use it for ideas or to confirm/challenge other things I have read or seen.

Anything new to report?

Allen, No problem! I am curious about the 1650 3rd rate. I know very little about ships of this period, but I did notice the anchor fish davit. Zu Mondfeld's Historic Ship Models (page 189) shows two styles, one spanning the entire fo'c'sle and extending outboard on each side, which he calls "English," and the other like the one on the model that was portable and extended over one side only, which he calls "Continental." Of course I would suspect that either type might have been used anywhere. I have read descriptions of anchor fishing in the US Navy in the 1800s that used the portable davit. Do you know the nationality of the ship model? The name? When the ship was built (the original, not the model)? When the model was built? This discussion has peaked my interest about when and where belaying pins were first used. I suspect at first they were just tapered spikes and later assumed their more elaborate turned/carved shapes. Similar "toggle" pins were in use for quick securing of two lines together. They would be simple things for sailors to carve during long idle periods at sea. As their usefulness became apparent I suspect their use became more common as the idea spread. I have been trying to learn if belaying pins were commonly used on late 1700s and early 1800s Baltimore schooners. Some model kits and reproduction vessels use them but they aren't necessarily accurate. I read one source that said they weren't used on early 19th century schooners, but there are a lot of drawings and plans of the era that show them.

The bottom sill of gun ports should be the same height above the deck for guns of a given type. For lower decks that aren't visible on the model this isn't critical. The ports should line up according th 0 the sheer and camber of the deck (curvature lengthwise and side to side). But for open gun decks it is important to get the height above the deck correct. You can really screw this up if you just tape a copy of the plans on the side and start cutting. I make a wooden tool that has the proper opening size spaced correctly above the deck. The tool is a bit tapered on the end. For an already planked hull I cut a small hole at the center of the port and slowly enlarge it, using the tool as a guide. Keep the tool snug to the deck while using it. I use files to remove the wood slowly until the tapered end of the tool fits into the hole. Then I continue to enlarge the hole until the tool fits in all the way and is a snug fit all around. One other thing to note is that the sills of the gun port (the framing around the port) are recessed a bit into the hull planking (the thickness of the gun port lids) to make a cavity for the port lid to close into. The opening in the planking is a bit larger than the port opening between the sills. I make another simple wooden tool that fits snugly into the opening in the planking but is a bit smaller all around to be used as a guide for placing the port sills. This will make every port exactly the same size as all the others. Also, be very careful when scanning and then printing a plan. Many printers do not print the scale accurately. You are certain to have errors if you use the "fit to page" option. Even if you don't a printer may enlarge or reduce the size several percent relative to the scanned original. You may have to experiment and calculate the scale to use with your printer.

That is a truly amazing virtual model! My sympathies to the guy who had to tie the knots in the netting - I hate making knots in CAD! I have a few questions. What program did you use to make the model? What is the file format? Do you need a special viewer program? If so, what operating system is it compatible with (Windows, Linux, Apple)? Is it resident on the thumb drive or does it have to be installed on the computer?

allanyed, Your last picture (3rd rate 1650) certainly appears to have a line of belaying pins along the transverse rail (between the catheads) at the top of the forward bulkhead. They seem to have replaced the timberheads on the rails on the other models to belay lines. So it would seem that some ships had belaying pins in 1650 and others did not as late as 1719. I wonder where belaying pins originated? Perhaps the use of pins spread over time so were used earlier in some nations and later in others.

Wolfram zu Mondfeld's Historic Ship Models (pages 219-223) shows two methods of attaching bibbs to masts. One method used a round mast with a square cross section below the hounds, with single piece cheeks attached to the flats. The Neophyte Ship Modellers Jackstay shows a similar method. Note: cheeks and bibbs are sometimes interchangeable terms. The other method had a round mast with "filling chocks" below the hounds that were shaped to fit around the mast in the inside and with flat outer surfaces that the bibbs attached to. Harold Underhill's Masting and Rigging (page 80) shows a round mast with flats on the sides below the hounds that the cheeks attach to. The cheeks were tapered, thin at the bottom and thicker at the tops. The cheek was a single piece and the mast appears to be carved with flats on the sides that the cheeks attach to. This was for mid to late 19th century clippers and ships. This looks something like the image you posted. I have also seen drawings showing a round mast that was tapered with flats on the sides that cheeks attached to, with the cheeks also tapered wider at the top. The flats on the mast below the hounds were conic sections - parabolas - with a curved bottom end. The cheeks were shaped at the bottom to match the curve of edge of the flats. Anatomy of the Ship Endeavor and some other AOTS books show a two-piece cheek/bib. The one on the left has the square cross section mast top with cheeks (14) attached to the mast and the bibbs (19) attached to the cheeks.. Hope this helps.

I have been plodding along with the gun rigging, which is very tedious and boring! I have also been studying the rigging on Baltimore clippers in order to determine 1) where the lines will fasten on the hull, and 2) how much rope I will need to build the model. The lengths and diameters of masts and bowsprit are a problem because no two "authorities" agree - and most formulas are given for full rigged ships and not schooners. I explained my rationale for mast lengths in an earlier post (#52). But the diameters were a problem. Some say the fore mast was larger diameter than the main mast on topsail schooners, and others say they were the same. Some say schooner masts are only 4/5 the diameter of equivalent length masts on square rigged ships. And it is likely that different builders used different rules according to their preferences. In my investigations I came up with a main mast diameter at the deck for this model to be between 0.34" and 0.43", with the fore mast being a bit smaller. I decided to make both masts the same diameter of 0.375" at the deck because this was within the range and 3/8" dowels are readily available. The bowsprit was another matter. In most schooners it seemed to be the same diameter at the base as the masts. Fincham's rules give lengths based upon the length of the hull on the water (Line of Flotation). For this model the Line of Flotation (LOF) is 64 scale feet or 16" and the bowsprit lengths are: Heel to cap = 0.33 x LOF = 5.28" Length outboard = 0.12 x LOF = 1.92" Jibboom = 0.4 x LOF = 6.4" with about 1/3 length overrlap with the bowsprit = 2.1" The angle (steeve) of the bowsprit to the waterline is given by the formulas as about 1:6 or 9.46 degrees. I examined drawings of 16 Baltimore clippers in Chapelle's book and found the bowsprit angles ranged from 4 degrees to 15.5 degrees, with an average of 8.375 degrees. Most were between 5 and 10 degrees. On the model as built the angle is 5 degrees - I can live with that. Now with these dimensions in hand I can start calculating how much rope, and what types, I will need for the model.

What is the topic of this thread? By the way, my dad loved tomatoes, but the "toxins" finally killed him at 98. Mother ate tomatoes too, and they killed her at 106. And that's the truth!

I have a cast iron skillet that is at least 70 years old. I wash it with soap and water and sometimes scour it with steel wool. After washing I put it on a burner and heat it momentarily to evaporate the water. It has never rusted and foods come away freely without sticking. I also have a large steel wok that I wash and scrub. I have always been told not to wash them and never scrub them. But I have always wondered if these aren't old wives tales, repeated by people who have always done things one way and never tried another. That reminds me of another tale. The first European settlers in North America found tomatoes growing here. They are in the nightshade family (as are potatoes), and some European nightshades have poisonous red berries. So the folk lore said to never eat red berries, especially in the nightshade family, because they will kill you. But someone failed to get the word and ate them anyway. He tried to tell people that they were edible, and quite good, but they didn't believe him. So he stood on the courthouse steps and ate a tomato in public! And he didn't die. I have been eating tomatoes and scrubbing my cast iron for nearly 75 years now, and neither myself nor the pans are dead and rusty.

Be careful using super glue on cloth or cords! It releases a lot of heat when it cures. I once used it to treat the unravelled ends of 1/8" drawstrings on a sleeping bag - mistake! They soaked up a lot of glue. After a minute or so the cords became very hot and started to smoke. I dunked them into a glass of water to avoid a fire.

The Young Sea Officer's Sheet Anchor describes how to raise masts. Page 17 tells how to step a mast. You need two poles (spars) longer than half the length of the mast. The poles are secured to the deck on either side of the mast hole and tied at the top to form a triangular "crane" (shears). This is then lifted and hoisted vertical over the mast hole and secured with lines. Blocks are attached to the top of the crane to be used to lift the mast using tackle attached to the mast above the center of the mast length. When the mast is vertical the foot is lowered into the mast hole and then stepped on the keel. After that the stays and other rigging are attached in the normal ways. This could be done underway with fairly calm seas, but it would be a lot easier in port! The lower mast is used to hoist (swaying up) the topmast. This is shown on page 26. A lifting line is run through the fid hole at the foot of the topmast (small masts) or is run through a sheave near the foot (larger masts) and then back up to the top. The topmast is lashed to the lifting line with ropes. The running end of the lifting line is passed through a block at the top of the lower mast and then back down to tackle. Then the lifting line is used to haul the topmast up through the crosstrees and the hole in the top cap. When the foot is clear above the crosstrees the foot is stepped in place in the top and secured with the fid. Hoisting new spars on the mast is trivial by comparison.

Here is how to drill a square hole. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rjckF0-VeGI My Dad loved cornbread and thought the "pie are round, cornbread are square" joke was funny. But Mom made cornbread in a cast iron mold that made sticks that looked like an ear of corn - really corny!

If roots can be square, why not dowels? The real question is how you make square holes to put the dowels into? I saw a drill once that claimed to make square holes.

See post #4 in this link for an excellent animation of the process for using contour/waterlines for detecting imperfections in hull surfaces.

Beck, Thanks for posting your animation! It does a much better job illustrating what I was talking about than my words. Now remember my caution - you can spend a great deal of time trying to get everything perfect (I speak from experience). Personally, I am a frustrated perfectionist because I know perfection isn't possible. At some point you just have to stop and say it's good enough! If you are planning to build a real model you will probably end up using filler, files and sandpaper to eliminate the last imperfections.

Like Wefalk, I have used the back side of the saw teeth on occasion with thin brass and aluminum. Another trick is to angle the saw blade very low near the surface of the metal. This way you will have several teeth cutting at the same time and the saw behaves a bit better. But when you get near the end of the cut you have to angle the blade perpendicular to the cut and it might not cut as smoothly. I have also used the broken tip of a #11 blade, dragging the back side (not the sharp edge) against brass tubing to "worry" a cut lengthwise along one side. Surprisingly, this worked pretty well for short cuts!

Look at post #9 for ideas about how to get a smooth hull surface. You are right that you don't get a perfect hull shape from lines drawings, and even working from a Table of Offsets can produce some significant errors. One problem you seem to be seeing is that sudden/drastic changes in the hull surface may result in "wrinkles" around the transition points. It is OK to use multiple surfaces for the hull, keel, stem post, stern post, etc. This can also be a problem at "knuckles" in the hull surface - these are places with sharp bends or "kinks" in the surface. With a fairly coarse grid mesh the grid facets cannot bend over the knuckle. A solution is to create two separate surfaces above and below the knuckle. This all depends upon how much control your program allows for these sorts of things.

Nice build. The clippers were beautiful ships! You mentioned the "Underhill book." Did you get "Masting and rigging the Clipper Ship and Ocean Carrier" by Harold A. Underhill? It has very detailed descriptions of the masting and rigging of clippers. However, one thing about it really bothers me. He has excellent drawings, but the publisher has scattered them more or less randomly through the text. And the references in the text refer to "Plate ??" and do not give the page numbers! It does have a list of plates after the contents, so you can jump back and forth and eventually find the drawing the text is referring to.

Vaddoc is certainly right about one thing. If your intention is to make a real model just getting close to the right frame/station outlines is good enough. When you plank the model hull (assuming you plank it with wood) you will end up sanding it to get a suitably smooth surface. You can fiddle with a CAD drawing forever trying to get it perfect. You need to decide what is good enough.

Tony, The first time I tried to create a hull I used cross sections (frames/station lines) and discovered the port and starboard sides weren't perfectly symmetrical. Now I create half hulls and mirror the finished piece, with assured symmetry. I tried to follow Kris' procedure and I have to say is seems to be about 10 times as much work as I do with DesignCAD! Once you have a station/frame curve why do you need to start over with all the many points and splines? In DesignCAD any line/curve can be used as the template line for creating surface grids. From my experience fewer points is better than a whole lot of points. I use only the minimum necessary to cause the curve to fit. The reason is that when you start refining the frame/station curves using the method I described above, lots of closely spaced points make it difficult to reshape the curve. Phil

Working on the half hull will likely be a lot easier. Once you get the station/frame lines done and start adding the skin you may discover some irregularities in the hull surface. Even when working from a Table of Offsets this can happen. Adjusting only one side to get the properly faired surface is much easier than trying to correct two sides. After the correct lines are created it is simple to mirror them to get the other half. You can examine the hull surface in a shaded view by rotating the view point and lighting to show up any irregularities (high or low areas). But after you discover these (and you will probably have a few in your first hull surface) it can be frustrating trying to adjust the frames/stations to eliminate the problems. Here is an example: The hull appears to be pretty smooth, but you can see a bit of irregularity in the highlights. So how do you fix this? One trick I use to get a smooth surface is to create contour/waterlines at regular elevations on the hull surface. Your CAD program may have a function to do this. Or you can create a horizontal plane, position it at a desired elevation and generate the intersect line between the plane and hull surface. Create these intersection/contour lines on a separate layer and hide the hull surface. Then rotate the view to look down the length of the hull. If there are any irregularities in the hull surface they will show up as wavy contour lines. Even the slightest irregularity will be pretty obvious. You can clearly see this in the lowest waterline in the image above. The fifth and seventh frames are too low where the lowest waterline crosses them, creating "waves" or "wiggles" in the water line (frames are blue and waterlines are red). To correct these problems I draw a separate curve/spline along the contour/waterline by snapping to the line at the frames where the curve is correct, and allow the curve to shape itself over the irregularities. Then I reposition points on the relevant station/frames to snap to the new curve. After the station/frame curves have been corrected I delete the old hull surface, the contour/waterlines and temporary curve. Then I generate a hew hull surface and repeat the process, over and over until the contour/waterlines all come out to smooth curves. In the image above you can see the frames have been corrected so the lowest waterline comes out smooth. Still a bit of work needed on the 3rd and 4th waterlines farther aft. With all of this in mind you can see why it is much easier to just work on a half hull until you have a good hull surface. Phil

Back in the mid 20th century many (most, all?) kits supplied sheets of wood with the part outlines printed on them. You had to cut out the pieces one by one. Looks like someone started cutting out the center/keel part.