Ab Hoving

A model of a model? But the Utrecht is an actual sailing ship. It can even be chartered. It sails on the IJsselmeer, mostly from Muiden, but lately I spotted her in Volendam. She was fun to build.

You are absolutely right. Besides, you picked a real good kit, done by my friend Herbert Tomesen, owner of the Artitec company. There will be more goodies to come in the near future.

I lived in Amsterdam from 1989 to 2006. I love the old towns in the country. Like the one I was born, up North in Groningen. Is Paris an improvement?

I live there too. We could have met...

I missed this post, because it was way before I joined this forum, but it really is great. You succeeded in getting the atmosphere right. Chapeau! Ab

Piet, I hope the storm doesn't hit you too much over there. I envy your sharp eyes and steady hands that enable you to make such tiny models. Wefalck, Thank you very much for your elaborate reaction to my plea for help and information. As it seems there is a wealth of possible materials to make sails from. The point is what you aim to achieve. Through a former colleague at the museum I am in contact with a person who has an enormous collection of kinds of paper, all for restoration purposes. He gave me several sheets to practice. What seems most promising is a material that is called Japanese paper. It comes in several thicknesses and it is hand made. I will do some tests, but before I received the material I already had some sails ready from thin cotton and treated them in the usual way with starch and a hair dryer. The result is not too bad, but the whole discussion started because these sails are too neat. Staining them in an 'accidental' way is not what I am looking for. I will get deeper into this later, but for now I used the cotton, maybe to be replaced later by a better material. The best stuff in that aspect I ever obtained was a very fine linen, that was removed from the back of old maps. The paper was washed off and I never saw a finer cloth. It also beautifully bellowed when treated with hot air, as you can see on the pictures of the busses going home a few posts back. But my collection of it has come to an end, so another challenge awaits me. My main demand is that the sail should bellow in a natural way and I doubt it that can be done with paper. Your Japan silk might come more in the right direction of what I am looking for. For folded sails however I am sure paper is the right material. Your explanation for darker material for repairs of sails makes much sense. I can live with that. And in the end, the main purpose of modelbuilding is to have fun. If it all gets too complicated I'd better take a tour with my wife on our electric bikes :-). Here some pictures of the speeljacht. Not finished yet, but some things were in the way: a 143 feet long man-of-war, which suddenly crossed my path and had to be made for some reason (don't ask me why, I have very little with war ships. All dry fit on the shots, first a lot of gun carriages have to be made.), the hot weather lately (which has fortunately finished now) and the fact that I want to present the end result of the pleasure vessel together with the 3D drawings my friend Rene makes and which are almost, but not yet completely, finished. I also spent too much time on the crew, on which a lot of work still has to be done.

Absolutely top class.

Wonderful idea to make a paper Telecaster. But building a real one is not too difficult. I built this one for my grandson. In fact it is a cheap kit, with a new coat of paint, a corrected neck and improved hardware (better pick-ups and better tuners) I had still in stock from earlier days when I built electric guitars just as a hobby...

Thank you Max, this is a good tip. Perhaps I can find an address in Holland as well. But making a link to teabag paper is most useful. I contacted my old colleagues in the Rijksmuseum for a supplier and I'm sure they will come up with something.

Hi Jan, No, I don't have any plans for new books. Literally. The plans I use for my models are from various sources and are not so elaborated that anyone could build a model from them. There is a lot of guessing involved and I make a lot of mistakes. My 'speeljacht' for instance suffers from a floor that is laid too deep. In the case of this vessel real plans (with corrected hight of floor) will be the outcome, thanks to the cooperation with my magical Belgium partner, Rene Hendrickx. They are almost finished, anyone who wants to give it a try can ask me for a copy, I will gladly send it over. To write a book is not too much work. To fill it with plans, pictures, footnotes and tables of sources is killing. I don't know if I can or want to after the ten I did.

No Marcus, it's not a cat. It's a herring buss. A small three-masted vessel, built for herring fishing. There were thousands of them, fishing near the English coast, which is why they were often protected by war ships. You can find more information here: http://www.papermodelers.com/forum/ships-watercraft/36353-another-17th-century-dutch-workhorse-12.html I'm not really following the types in my book, it's just an ongoing process. Soon I will be out of small ship types and I will have to build the bigger ones. 🙂 I like to illustrate my posts because the founder of the Navy collection in the Rijksmuseum, Jochem Asmus, once stated that a model explains more than a thousand words. In my opinion a picture of a model explains at least more than a hundred words. Which keeps my postings short. 🙂

Praise the names of the creators of the internet and this forum. Way back in the 80s when I was struggling with the text written by a 17th century Amsterdam lord mayor to find out how he created an image of the 134 feet long pinas, there was no-one I could ask for help. Look how it is today. We are living in a blessed time! Thank you Radek an Tomek for sharing your thoughts and knowledge and thank you Tim for the reference to the videos (you don't have to thank me for doing my privileged job, I was well payed, but thank you fore the compliment). Thank you David for showing your results with paper sails. They are impressive and very disciplined. I'm jealous. I will soon find out if I can make paper bellow like these textile sails on returning busses: Thanks to you all I have a new task: finding the right Japanese paper (Silkspan is not available in Europe for as far as I have been able to establish. American sites won't help out, Radek) and finding my ways with it. This is a whole new inspiration for me. In due time I will bother you with the results. For now: back to work.

Can anyone help? I tried to find SilkSpan on the European market, but get no clues. There are several sorts of materials to cover model aircraft wings, but the basic materials differ widely, from textile to paper and plastics. Anyone who knows a European company that sells this stuff? Ab

Thank you Radek and David, this is very interesting. New options for an old man! David, I never worked with SilkSpan or any non-woven material, but I will surely give it a try. It sounds most promising and I will order it right away to do some tests. I'll keep you posted. Radek, your observations on the Van de Velde painting are very important, as they prove new patches do not necessarily have to look brighter (I wonder how come...). I like your sail, even with the totally out of scale stitches. They add something authentic to it so there is nothing wrong with them. I don't think however I would choose to use that technique, especially because I am notoriously lazy. All in all I will have to revise my method of sailmaking, by doing the coloring in an earlier stage. I am always interested in using new materials, so for now back to the work-bench for me. Thanks again.

Hello Radek, You are absolutely right, the sails are far too neat. The main reason is that I never discovered a satisfying way to do it. Doing it in Photoshop is a trick I detest. On my English warship Lennox I omitted to paint the yards black because I simply didn't know the English painted their yards. Emiel had a ton of work coloring them in Photoshop. I always dye the cloth for my sails in tea before cutting them. After that coloring is difficult. It would be nice if new repairs and patches could be suggested showing up with a lighter colour than the rest, but you can only paint the cloth darker, not lighter, unless you apply a thick layer, which is not really effective, because the sails lose their transparency. I tried powder scraped from crayons (not very effective), grinded charcoal (very messy) and water paint. A problem with water paint is that my sails are sprayed with starch to make them bellow, and water paint ruins the shape if applied later. I am a bit out of tricks in this aspect. If there is anybody with good results out there willing to share his techniques, speak up please. I will be very grateful for any good suggestion.

Hi Phil, I suppose you are referring to the pictures of the man-of-war I showed in the background in one of my previous posts? Ooops! The build of that model went so fast that I forgot to take pictures. For the upper gun deck I glued a length of wood 2 x 3 mm to both sides of the hull to support the deck. I made the decks from 1 mm card, which I gave its right camber and I glued some deck-beams underneath to keep the shape. Once all the deck items underneath the decks are ready, I simply glue the deck to the wooden supports. For the upper decks I can only produce photos of the last stages. I used strips of 2 mm thick card. Up to the stage of making details the work progresses extremely fast. This hull took me a little over two weeks. It is nice doing 'the big parts' before getting stuck in details like gun carriages, capstans, gratings, stairs and all the rest of the small parts. I can imagine many modelers will object against not detailing the inside of the ship, but I don't think it is very productive to make all kinds of details nobody will ever see, unless he will take the model apart. I am not against doing things that will be invisible in the end. On the contrary, I did that many times during my career. My 134 foot pinas which is in a museum even has all the deck-beam knees, I think they are over 40 and all the carlings and ledges underneath the decks. Nobody will ever see them. But for this sort of models, which only aim for a realistic outside look I take every shortcut I can think of. I know the construction of period ships, 'been there, done that'. It is all a matter of what you aim to get from your models. Nowadays I just want to make models that look real. Like on these recent pictures by my son: But perhaps this is a subject for another thread...:-)

Hello Heinrich, I don't want to intervene in your plans for building models or infecting your friends with that horrible virus, but my suggestion would be to let them start with a relatively simple ship, like the hooker I described here: If I see what you built so far, I guess you must have experienced that yourself. Looking at the plans you have, you must have a lot of time available. 🙂 Building a hull for a two or three decker isn't really complicated, it can be done in a few weeks time, but the rigging is a tedious job for the long term without any shortcuts and holds all the perils of getting fed up, resulting in premature 'abandoning ship', even for experienced builders. That would be a pity, because that means that they are cured from the carefully planned infection you aimed for. And Marcus, History is a never ending source of inspiration for the real ship loving model builder. At least in my experience...

It's a funny story. I was working together with a historian who found a specification contract in the archives for eight men-of-war which were built on private shipyards in Amsterdam in 1680 for the Spanish king. We did an article about that fact and part of it was the reconstruction of such a ship. We don't know the name, just that it was one of a series of eight. In those days it must have been quite normal that we built ships for a potential hostile nation. French ships built a few years earlier in Amsterdam and were fighting with our ships near Tobago. One of the Dutch-built French ships was captured, brought to Holland, repaired and... sold to France, even for a higher price than the first sale. History can be very funny sometimes.

Thank you gentlemen. The prospects are good, tissues were clean. We are optimistic again. But this shook me more that my own cancer adventure last year. It does not feel fair for a 42 years young women. Back to modelbuilding.

I start with a wire skeleton. Next is shaping a rough body without the limbs from a two component stuff called Magic Sculpt (Google that). After the body has hardened it can be handled and I add the arms, legs and head. Hands and feet are added once the crew is seated, to get a good connection with the floor and the oars. Here is a picture of the crew of a sloop I could not find commercial models for. I needed a sloop in the fore ground of a 'photoshop painting' by my son about an Anglo-Dutch war scene we were making. Hardly visible on this tiny picture, but necessary...

Impeccable ! My compliments.

Hi Marcus, The plans for the 'speeljacht' are progressing, but the model itself is a bit stuck, due to failures from my side and the sudden urge to build another hull, a 143 feet long man-of-war with 60 guns, which took me two weeks. I guess I could finish the yacht within a day, but several things withhold me. Private ones on one side (worries about my youngest daughter who had to go through some serious surgery), but also technical ones. One of them is the 1/44 scale. I have to make the 'crew' for this little ship from scratch and making a 17th century family is almost as complicated as keeping my real family healthy. 🙂 The man-of-war is about to be planked, after I make all the necessary parts for the decks. A lot of repetitive work and my head is looking for something to stay busy to keep the worries away. Too much of the same allows the mind to go astray... Good luck with your efforts.

Hi Jan, Yrs, this one seems to be a variant of the statenjacht, but they also appear on etchings looking like s small fluit. It is not so much a type as a function I guess. This one is from Van de Velde on vellum, the other one is by Reinier Nooms.

In the mean time work piles up on my work bench. An old project, a 160 foot VOC East India man waits for a long time to get finished, a late 16th century vessel, a vlieboot, has temporarily run aground as a result of my ignorance how to install a gratings deck all over the hull, another project, a 'wad-konvooier' ( a small armed ship to escort unarmed freighters over the inland seas in the north) got stuck because of doubts about the decorations and finally the pleasure vessel, for which I am making decorations and crew at the moment. Very little speed in it all, which makes me impatient.

If it wasn't so irritating it is quite an interesting event. They sometimes cover quite an area of the tree. Each caterpillar had millions of tiny hairs, which spread with the wind and only passing by on your bicycle is enough to get covered with itching swellings. I had it just on ly left arm, but my wife was covered with it. And the predictions are that it will only get worse with the warming climate. Other variants with a reference for other trees will follow soon. Good alibi not to go out anymore and stay in to build... 🙂