CapnMac82
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And, there is a US Patent for a "no tip" shipboard inkwell (had a very wide conical base) circa 1908. Ink was very much a part of maritime life. The Disbursing Officer had a knock-down desk with a double-acting drawer that was set up where appropriate. The Pay Book, showing earned pay and all debits against that pay listed out, per sailor. The Sailors, each in their turn, then approached the DO who pointed out the amounts for the concurrence of the Sailor. The Sailor then "made his mark" in ink, in the paybook. The DO placed those funds paid out on his side ofth drwaer, and the sailor then opened the drawer from his side and drew his pay. Since pay might be in specie or bullion, this is why the Disbursing Officer, at least until electronic debt/debit cards were introduced, wears a side arm as badge of office on payday. (They also accompany bullion or specie paid out to draw fuel or supplies in foreign ports.) -
Give you even odds that's a rack for heated shot for a shore defense cannon..
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Barrels
CapnMac82 replied to ross's topic in Discussion for a Ship's Deck Furniture, Guns, boats and other Fittings
Cooperage gets mired in language pretty quickly, too--along with national/cultural practices. The largest cooperage was the tunne (or tunn, tonne, tounne, etc) of about 210-252 gallons (Imperial & US, respectively) that was about 100 cubic feet (English, although I have read of them being in French pied) in volume. The 100 cubic foot measure of the wine tunne is said to be the origin of the cargo capacity "deadweight ton"--which is not a liquid measure but a volume one of 100 CF, about 2.83m³. Then there were butts, about 126 gallons; then puncheon, about 84 gallons; then hogshead, around 63 gallons; tierce at 42 gallons; barrels at 31.5 gallons, and rundlets at 15 gallons. These could be stacked in holds so as to use the full available spaces. The names change over the years as do the volumes, with Keg, Pony, Butt, and Barrel all getting different sizes attached to them (especially the Barrel, which had a wine size, an oil size, and a petroleum size). It's fascinating stuff, if like to give a person a headache reading through the differing sources (which is even more vexing when in various National units even more so than SI). -
If we look to the era of "trucked" guns, the wheels ("trucks") were made different diameters so that the carriage had an upward angle, so that the gun barrel could be parallel to the waterline as a general rule. "Proper" loading of cannon wanted a wadding (dry) over the powder, and again over the shot (greased). In the old texts you come across "load on the roll" to where the powder was loaded as the barrel pointed "up" and the shot as well. When the shots were touched off varied by ship and nation--somewhat. Royal Navy tended to fifre on the bottom of the roll, to put rounds into the enemy's hull. French practice was to aim high, into sails and rigging (both of those only in the most coarse sense, and neither absolute nor specific). Firing of guns in salvos, or "as they" bear varied by the Navy, too. The "downhill" camber of the decks helped hold the guns against the spirketting, which kept them somewhat fixed in place, or enough that the gun tackles could take up the slack while loading and firing.
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As a guess, that's a legacy of changing doctrine. During WWII, self-sweeping was considered a "must" for capital ships, especially those with deeper draft than their support craft.. This is why the shoe fitting is on the bow. When fitted up with the chains to run out the paravanes, the 'vanes need to be forward so that they can be streamed. When the DMS were introduced, with the ability to sweep to given depths (and the increasing use of "influence" mines) pretty much ended the need for capitol ships to stream paraanes. So, those could be moved aft, so that they were aboard, per TO&E, just not really use able. While a DMS can stream 'vanes from the stern, that's due to haing specialized gear (otterboards and downhauls and the like) and also because you can have several in the van to overlap coverage. Streaming fro mthe stern of a capitol ship would only be sensible in a line of such vessels, and would put the lead ship at considerable risk, too. Installing such things on high-value assets made sense when it was expected that they might cruise in solo fashion. The creation of battle groups (and influence weapons) made that obsolete. yet, did not remove the gear from ships' inventories--mostly as a "just in case." Now, the goofy thing is, looking at period photos, the chains leading to th ebow fai lead seem to be in place all the way to 1946 or so--even though that had to be a Deck Division headache to have to hoist out the chains ahd clean and repaint them on a regular basis.
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You probably needed a finer tape (like Tamiya) for the explicit line, then the blue tape for the bulk of the masking. The blue painte3r's tape is meant for paint with much coarser pigments than used with modeling paint. For where it has run over, there are a couple of approaches. One is to mask the red (I'd try a clear packing tape not stuck down over-hard, and not burnished) then sand the red away with well-used medium grit sandpaper (note the idea there would be to only barely remove material--a slow process). The other way would be to go get a pint of Kilz or Benjamin Moore Binz primer, mask the red with a sharp thin tape (like Tamiya), then brush paint the primer over. Note that both of those primers will not look like they are covering up the paint, but they actually do. Note that the lacquer-based paints cover better, but are less nice to be around; they are also much harder to find at the home improvment store than the water-clean up version, which might want two coats. I have ued all four of those products as a professional painter--lacquer Kills can cover black, purple, maroon and the like in one coat, and allow a single coat of white over top--good stuff, if better suited for airless sprayers or HPLV sprayers than the average airbrush; water clean-up Binz will run through an airbursh if set very coarse, but will want two coats, well dried in-between. That's my 2¢, spend it well
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The chimney for the galley stove was called, in English use, the "Charlie Noble." Rather a lot of those were able to rotate, so that the wind over the deck improved the "draw" of the chimney (having the exhaust end face into the wind would push air back down to the stove--these chimneys were often quite short, so the draft was important). At anchor, the wind would generally be over the bow. At sea, the wind would be through an arc of around 200-220º centered on the stern. Some Charlie Noble will hae a handle on them above deck to be able to turn them down wind. Others will just have a handle under the deck beams to the same end--sadly, the plans often do not tell us of these fine details (which were often left to the preference of the shipyard building). This is one more case where the people of old crassly and meanly focused on what was important to them, utterly without consideration of the minutae we modelers might require centuries later. The meanies 😀
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I am familiar with such accounts. I have also read German accounts in such seas wher the bridge hatch was left open, but the conning tower hatch was left only loosely closed. Most of those reports tend to focus on what happens when the induction valve and conning tower hatch seal up while the diesels are running--severe pressure drops in the boat. The German accounts, too, focus on how that bridge hatch was the only route to safety for the 3-6 people on the bridge in the event of air attack. Not an easy career at sea in the best of conditions.
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If you have the time, "Cap't Ted" at eModel.uk did a video series on this kit (and before a lot of the AM was available). (Note, there's about 11 hours of content spread over 10? episodes. He is a former submariner and brought a panache to the kit, if not a lot of additional details. There's a build of this kit, also without AM parts, over at Fine Scale Modeler. Yves' rendition will be quite spectacular, with one of the better lighting schemes, I feel. The lighting inthe battery compartment, and the fuel tankage being particularly excellent--tres magnafique! Trumpter did do an odd thing, though. If the boat was surfaced, the hatches from the control room to conning tower and the bridge would all be open to help ventilate the boat. A small detail, but an important one when the intake aire is otherwise limited to the engine induction vent.
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Ah yes, the old demon: "Water does not scale." Please do take the advice above, you were well on your way to an excellent "plug" mould for the hull. This can seem backwards until you wrap your head around it. You make up a plug, which represents the interior contour of the hull. You can use all manner of material to build that up as long as the seams are pretty tights. It gets slathered in a release agent, than you lay up resin and fibreglass cloth over the plug. Repeat resin and cloth as needed to get a solid hull form. Do remember to mark off index lines o nthe plug, so you can transfer things like waterlines and centerlines back. Note that you already have some ready-made forms to gin up interior bulkheads to isolate batteries, radio receivers and the like.. The project is in the realm of the possible, it just might warrant bulding a smaller project first, to get some of the details sorted.
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Now, for some of the smaller caliber, e.g. those used on upper or spar decks, some would be of a given length, and others could be "shasers" with longer gun tubes. So, a given vessel might have a dozen 8 pounders with 6 or 7 foot barrels, and have one or two pair with 8-9 foot barrels. As the chasers were meant to be fired either fore or aft, they had more room to recoil, and might not be constrained by a deck above as well. The tradition of measuring guns by caliber length was used as a way to standardize things which bore diameter started replacing solid shot weight descriptions. But, that seems to be late in the muzzle-loading era.
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Wooden warships are somewhat unique. They are often assembled from various parts fitted together, and adaotable to other uses. Also, all the parts were subject to battle damage and replacement. While, it is perfectly reasonable the carpenter was called out and bored a hole, and the blacksmith hammered an iron eye with clenched rivets to hold it. But, i nthe case of hatch beams, particularly spar deck one that might need t be moved for any number of reasons, a rope strop with an eye would be much faster, and non-destructive to the wooden timber, as well as being adjustable to differing needs (lost boat, expended spars, etc.) A strap could then be made up to go over the boat, and the two eyes siezed together P & S. Being able to draw thimbled eyes together also means being able to tighten thing up ahead of a blow, too. This is not definitive, just musings based on being around sailors, and sailing out at sea. It is fascinating, considering the amount of detail found on contemporary models, that so little detail exists for the boats. SO, maybe it was all just "sailor stuff" and the Bo's'n just sorted it, or there was some other reason to skip over that detail. Dunno, I'll spot you 2¢ for t'pence in return
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There are a number of "holes" in wooden sailing vessels. So, you design the vessels to collect that water and drain it away. A small vesel, like a cutter or sloop is likely to have the lee rail be very wet when tacking upwind. Pretty common, in contemporary reports, to show the bilges were sounded once per watch, and pumped as necessary.
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May depend on how soft the pencil lead used was (a 2B is going to leave a lot of waxy graphite i nthe pores and fibers. You might just need a lightly mor eaggressive sandpaper. Alternately, if you can find a suitable office-supply joint that has the two-colored erasers, the non-pink side is often a harder rubber composition which can get stubborn lines out. Barring thar, see if the store has an "art" section that has what is known as an "art gum" eraser. This is a soft and maleable product that will lift charcoal and well as grahite lines. You knead it back to gray to keep using it. My preferred lead for layout is 6H, as it holds a sharp, precise, point, and makes a crisp faint line (and, also, because I have a lot of those to spare having converted over to CAD decades ago ). Note that you probably want to lay out the deck furniture as well, as the planks were only laid up to the combings for those structures. As to plank length, 24 foot lumber was available for a long time to American boat builders (still is, somehat, if not in the exuberant widths of old). That's 9" long, to scale. But, that is likely only going to be found in the planks outboard of the deckhouses, and that with a sizeable stagger (around 4 frames worth) and butt joints not aligning but 3:1 or 4:1 (either three planks staggered be for another land on the same frame as the first, or four). 1:32 scale (3/8" = 1'-0") can be unforgiving. That's because it's 1/32" (0.03125" [0.79mm]) = 1", so you can "see" things to as fine as 1/2" out of scale (more or less).
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A well-known thing in both the furniture and the casework trades--contact dermatitis can result from contact with the sawdust, esepcially from the really fine-toothed veneer blades used in those trades. Now, getting a "runny nose" is probably more due to the particulate size, than a histamine (allergy) reaction per se. Factory workers are genrally OSHA required to have breathing protection related to the airborne dust (and for having 8 hours' exposure, too). Actual ship-building woods, like teak and cypress can be really irritating (the latter I can personally attest to from my 1:1 boat building, at least with the "swamp cypress" I was using). Sme of the South American hardwoods can be irritating, as I learned doing some display bases. Goncalo Alves has gorgous figure, but it dulls tooling in an eyeblink, and the sawdust can burn. Cocobolo has even more figure, and is equally hard on tooling, and it kind of burns. Ipé is the most benign, but still irritating (it's a lot more uniform in figure, too, and stains beautifully). Not that any of the above have a thing on working with ACT treated softwood; that stuff will give chemical burns on unprotected skin (the stuff is corrosive to zinc).
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Pertinent to the U-505 capture photos, that's late war paint, which would not have been to pre-war or early war standards. It's peeling, but the primer is preventing really obvious rust (which is its job). Now, for 2¢ it might be worth drybrushing some primer red, and some surface color over the rust. Let the rust be an under-coat, but under state it a bit. But, it's not my model. Do what makes you feel best. And, it's paint, not stone, you can undo amlost anything you do that feels "too much.".
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Since this is 1/96 (1/8"=1'-0") scale, thnigs get tiny. Like 1" to scale is 1/96th inch, or 0.0104" (0.264mm); not large stuff. So, if you want to put reef points in, my dodge is to take a suitable thread diameter, and tie a knot--like a figure of 8, with another on top of that. Repeat thr process about 3/4" (20-25mm) apart until your eyes cross (or several dozen). Tie off one end of the thread, and put just ehough weight on the other end to keep the tread pulled straight-isih (large paper clip, teeny binder clip). Then, coat the knotted thread with very dilute water plus PVA glue, and leave to dry. Once dry, nip the thread right at the knot. Trim the tail to around 1/4" (6-7mm) long. Mark off the sail for location and glue the knot to the point on the sail with an appropriate glue. Note that by glueing the knot, you can get the reef point to "hang" off a sail in the correct orientation. For 1/96, my preferred material is 100% linen rag paper (often referred to as "résumé" paper here in the US), as it's very thin (only slightly more thick than scale), and seams can be scribed or drawn (6H pencil) directly on them, and they will starch (with laundry spray starch) into shape if you want them "wind filled."
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That would be a "club" spar. It's bent to the sail, not to the mast. it will have a halyard near its mid point (as a bet, the spar will have an eye, and the halyard will be bent to that eye with an appropriate hitch). I want to recall that that a line was passed around the mast to act as a parrel. The whole thing has to be lowered to change tack, and the parrel rope (if I'm remembering right) helps you fetch the club back up to the mast on the correct side of the mast on the new tack. "Club headed" topsails are a way to increase the sail area beyond the limits of the mast.
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Given the number of flame wars on the topic, just wanted to be sure. And, given the level of online grief the venerable Revell kit sees, a not unreasonable position. And, it's fiddly details, like, if BatDiv Five had formed, would Texas' 4th, or 5th turret been red? In the spirit of the thing, probably turret 5, but, tray and find definitive proof. We build models for ourselves.
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Yes, the 1.1"/75 anti-aircraft gun. Also known as the "Chicago Piano." Nearly universally hated in service for it's propensity to jam. The need to supply water for sooling jackets on the barrels , oin a rotating mount, was less than endearing, too. Refer here for reasonably dry write-up: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1.1"/75_caliber_gun Was also rather limited by the range of the weapon, in both slant range and horizontal fan. So, a 5 ton gun with only a 4x150rpm rate of fire (nominal) and only a 7000 yard range with a slow traverse--what was not to dislike. Which is why only 1000 were made.
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The 3 to 1 rule (or circumference of line) bending rule has a long history in maritime use (as in pre-dating the 1st edition of Knight's Modern Seamanship). So, a 7" lnie really "wants" a 22" bitt crossbar to not damage the rode. For perspective, a 7" diameter line if a bit bigger than most of our thighs, and, typically made up of individual lines laid against the lay of the rode. This is not a casual thing to take hold of and fetch up a loop into. Probably even more so in the limited room of a forepeak. As to bending off the rode before letting go, that suggests hauling up and flaking out a lot of rode. In a 10 fathom anchorage, you are asking to flake out 50 fathoms of rode--300' [91m] of 7" [17-18cm] line. Which is rather a lot of line to get out on deck, to let run freely. (everything I have read of RN practice is that 1:3 was considered short scope, and that 1:5 was considered more prudent, if on ground that was "well holding.") I also have a lifetime of being aroun Bos'un' and CPO (people would would have been Mates, back i nthe day). A s rule they are a frugal and conservative bunch. Suppose the tide goes out and you need to take in 5 or 6 fathoms of rode, or lay out another 10 as a storm brews up. Far easier to cast off a stopper lashed to the bitts and make the adjustments as opposed to figuring out how to take the strain off the rode snubbed on the bitts. But, then again, I might just be crusty and old and garrulous (I rather hope not, but, still . . . )
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Remember, too, that USN scaled the size of flags used by a ship, by the ship's size. This as by numeric designation, Size 1 through 7, largest to smallest. This is why the locker (flag bag) dimensions varied. The flags were made up wit ha toggle at the top, and a pendant that was at least the hoist of the flag, or five feet (152cm), whichever was longer. The signal would come down from the bridge, and then be broken out into groups of four flags, which would be laid out in order on the correct side of the ship (occasionally both sides ). When ready, the signal was hoisted up until only the last pendant was out of the box, so that the Signals LPO could check it. It then went to half-mast, this was known as Preparatory, The rest of the ships in the signal group (squadron, usually) would then match the flags they could see At the Half. With all the ships answering, the lead vessel then hoists to two-block the signal indicating Execute. The remaining ships repeat that, two-blocking the signal to indicate execution. To really make the signalmen's day, just Dress Ship, where the signals are laid out (in a prescribed order) from jack to tore top to main top to aft to the flagstaff. This emptied the lockers (mostly). It also exposed all the signals to the XO's eye, who might call for extensive washing of the signals (since they are stored somewhat in the weather). Although some larger ships had a stowed set of signals already made up to dress ship.
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The other issue on stoppering the rode was that natural fiber roe has a minimum radius it can be bent through/around (wire rope also has such a radius, too). So, the larger dimension cables could not actually be bent around the bitts for the diameter being too small to not damage the line. (There's a concurrent issue of just how you pull enough slack in the rode, while it riding, to bend it around the bitt.) Large circumference cables also have considerable weight as is (with a bit more when wet). There's considerable expense in making up a cable, too, so there's a financial incentive to keep it attached to the ship. So, it's my supposition that it was probably common practice to pass a Sling (a rope made up in a loop with a long splice) around the rode and lash that off to the nearest bitt, knighthead, or similar structural object to hand. And, that this was done both hoisted or set. Hoisted/housed because you'd not want a random wave to "grab" the cable and start it up out of the cable tier. Now that's just my 2¢ If informed by personal experience sailing vessels and Naval Service (and just a fe Sea and Anchor Details).
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Somewhere--can't remember where--there's a build of Eugen as IX-9 (?) "USS Eugen" in her fitment for the Swordfish testing at Bikini. Would be a fascinating paint scheme. However, some of the fiddly bits would be complicated as she was fitted out with some odd weapons for the test--like a flakvierling and some Army howitzers, if memory serves. Which might be hard to source in 1/350.
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