Ab Hoving

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... 🙂

Hello Piet, (that sounds very Dutch, how come?) I couldn’t help seeing your birthdate. You must have very good eyes and a steady hand to build in a lightbulb. Many people Me amongst them) will envy you for that. Ab

Hi Radek, I envy you in Helsinki with such moderate temperatures. On top of the unbearable heat lately, we have another problem here. Momentarily there is a plague of a caterpillar (we call them procession caterpillars) on oak trees, spreading very little invisible hairs in the air, which cause itching swellings all over the body. You can get invected by simply riding your bike in the vicinity of oak trees. I prefer spring, winter and fall as periods that are most productive for me. It was nice meeting you and your wife in Amsterdam. Best, Ab

Hi Dan, Thank you for your comments. In order not to disappoint you, here are the latest pictures I took. As you see there is some progress, but there is also a lot to improve, replace and minimize 🙂. Trust me, it will all fall in place once I do the final round. The work on the drawings also progresses. Outside planking is done (of course) and most of the framing too. In the end every part of the vessel will be 3D. It has been hot here lately, so I spent too much time being lazy... Best, Ab

The problem with white glue is that it intrudes relatively deep into the structure of the wood. Sanding is hardly an option, the stains will stay. Epoxy two-components glue however is easy both to apply and to remove, because It does not go very deep into the wood. I can recommend it. Just mix a small amount of both substances. Because it takes the same quantity of both you will find out that you easily preparere too much, so take care. It dries in 5-10 minutes, holds very good and it is not much more expensive as white glue. It smells though and you will have to ventilate your room. Try it out.

Nice boat! I read in your report that you use white glue for the planking. White glue often causes stains that are very hard to remove and especially show up once varnish is applied. In the days that I worked with pear wood I used epoxy glue, which dries quicker, is easier to remove and leaves much less stains. Or do you have better results with other sorts of glue?

Fantastic work. One of Halinski's best.

Well, I happened to be one of the three people (together with Herbert Tomesen and the late Cor Emke) who were responsible for the present design of the 7 Provincien, the ship on the stocks of the Batavia wharf. Regrettably the built was stopped a few years later as a result of a lack of funds. It was decided than and there not to apply the shell-first method, but to use a more modern way for safety. This was because the first effort to build the ship shell-first failed as a result of a lack of experience with the method. No criticism about the volunteers on the ship-yard, but they are not always as well informed as could be hoped for. As a rule ships in the 17th century were built shell-first in Holland, although there are indications in literature of a different method of construction for the Rotterdam area. However no archaeological find has confirmed this so far, so about some aspects of this matter we are not quite certain. In the eighties, when I discovered the different methods described in contemporary literature, I tested both methods in model scale and both appeared to be successful. Maybe one day we are lucky enough to find indications of this deviating method somewhere on the sea bed. Like you I am proud to see the beautiful ships that were made in Holland, in spite of the simple tools and the tough materials that were used. Modelbuilding is one way to spread the word...

Hi Peter, In my opinion the best way to understand the shape of Dutch ships and the way they are planked is to study the method of construction. In many southern countries, including England, people used a way of building with pre-defined frames. Use of the mezzaluna was custom. Shipbuilders applied moulds and other ways of deciding the shape of the frames before planking their ships. In Holland that method never landed. Up to the end of wooden shipbuilding we built ships shell-first, laying the planks of the hull first and filling in the frames later. That method reaches back to the Scandinavian method of how for instance drakars were built. That and the obvious shallow waters in our region caused the flat-bottomed shape of our ships and I am always surprised to see how our shipbuilders succeeded in giving their vessels such a beautiful and flamboyant shape. That is something that will always intrigue me and my aim has always been to show that to other people, hoping they will see the same beauty. Hope this explains a bit of your question. Ab

You are welcome Druxey, those articles were not much of a burden to me, as I have liked what I was doing all my life. Original literature has always been my main inspiration, together with all the beautiful maritime paintings we have from that period. So it gives a good feeling that other people liked what I was doing. Very comforting for an old man like me....:-). So thank YOU in return.

A Dutch 17th century pleasure vessel Pleasure vessels’ penpainting by Willem van de Velde. Sailing with no other purpose than pleasure is probably of all ages. But it is a remarkable fact that the Dutch were the first people to design ship types especially for that single activity. Early in the 17th century in certain circles wealth grew so high that pleasure yachts appeared on the Dutch waters. Vessels especially designed for fun! The Amsterdam lord mayor Nicolaes Witsen presents a drawing in his book Aeloude en Hedendaegse Scheepsbouw en Bestier (Old and Modern Shipbuilding and Managing) from 1671, together with a simple specification contract. Witsen’s text Witsen’s drawing Over thirty years ago I was very interested in methods of shipbuilding and reading the old literature it gave me the conviction that the data in the contract for this relatively simple vessel were enough to do an experiment. There are no frames on Witsen’s drawing, but my theory was, that for building a ship shell-first, which was the method used in Holland at that time, a body plan was not necessary. In that system the builder starts with the hull planking before adding frame parts. I was quite confident that I could do that trick in model-scale and I wanted to record what I did to compare the results with another building method, partly frame-first, which was described by a second contemporary Dutch author, Cornelis van Yk in his book De Nederlandsche Scheepsbouwkonst Open Gestelt (Dutch Shipbuilding Unveiled) from 1697. Here the builder starts with some frames before planking. Nobody ever noticed that both writers described different methods of how to build a ship. For historians the texts are too technical, for professional shipbuilders they are too historical and no longer interesting within nowadays construction systems. I wanted not only to test both methods, I also wanted to show the difference for scientific purposes. Shell-first building method. Planking before frames. Another stage in shell-first building Frame-first building. Frames before planking. Splines help the builder to find the shape of the futtocks It took me several efforts to produce a model that could reasonably withstand the comparison with the few sources I had. Due to the fact that my camera repeatedly let me down I even had to go through the process three times, which taught me a precious lesson: building shell-first without plans, needs experience. The third time I built my model I did it in far less time and the shape of the model improved a lot. I ended up with giving a presentation about the two ways of construction at the International Symposium for Ship and Boat Archaeology in Amsterdam in 1988 and the immediate result was that I was offered a job in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam as head of the Restoration Department of Dutch History. This little pleasure vessel had changed my life forever. The finished model, built in 1988. Looking back at the impact of this model on my life I am surprized that I never cared to make a lines plan of this little yacht. As I am planning to give it a new try, this time in paper, I can finally correct this deficiency. Of course Rene Hendrickx, my faithful Belgian help in 3D constructions did me the favour of helping me out with his magical command of the free shipbuilding program Delftship. It all started with a free hand sketch, which I based on the specifications in Witsen’s book. Freehand sketch based on the specifications in Witsen’s book. Soon enough it became clear that working drawings of this vessel might bring a lot of pleasure to many ship model builders. Therefore we executed every part of the vessel in 3D, making it possible to make any kind of model, be it static, big, small, or even (with some improvisation by the builder) as a working radio-controlled variant. The rig is extremely easy to handle, with only sheets to control the sails and halliards for the leeboards, so it won’t cause any technical problem. But building radio-controlled vessels is not my trade. I am happy when I come off with a good-looking paper craft nowadays. Anyone interested in the draughts in pdf. or in dxf. can send me a PM and I will send the plans over for free as soon as they are ready. The scale I use for all my models is 1/77. For a 42-feet long vessel (11.89 m) that gives an overall length of 15,5 cm., which is a bit small for me and I chose a 1/44 scale for this project. These scales might look odd for anyone who does not know that the Amsterdam feet (28,3 cm) consisted of 11 inches (2,6 cm), so a 1/44 scale means that every inch at the model stands for 4 feet in real life, which gives a total length of 27 cm for the model. The old well known system of building (see my previous threads) has to be adapted in this case, because the deck in the middle of the vessel is extremely low, leaving a big part of the hull without sufficient support during building. So we have to think a bit more in advance and prepare both the longitudinal spine and some of the frames. Elevation view in Delftship, drawn by Rene Hendrickx Bodyplan in Delftship, drawn by Rene Hendrickx I did not make too many pictures. Partly because I forgot, partly because I have become a bit shy presenting the various stages of my efforts. Too many people show their progress here with unfinished models that look like a million bucks. Mine always look sloppy, with fluffy edges, stains and overlapping parts. I know that in the end they mostly show up quite well, but during construction I have the impression that the main reason why I go over to a next stage in building is to hide the mistakes I made in the previous ones. But anyone who is interested in my methods can find them in my tutorial about building with card in: https://modelshipworld.com/topic/19467-fish-hooker-after-chapman-by-ab-hoving-finished-how-to-scratch-build-from-paper-card/ and threads like http://www.papermodelers.com/forum/ships-watercraft/35441-17th-century-dutch-fluit.html, http://www.papermodelers.com/forum/ships-watercraft/36353-another-17th-century-dutch-workhorse.htmland more on the Papermodelers forum. I have built in wood for most of my life and now I am getting old I go for the easy stuff, building in card. Once the hull has its shape I cover the outside with self-adhesive plastic foil. If a hair-dryer is used the strips can be bent in every possible shape. The rest is painting. I’ll keep you informed about my progress. First stage in building in card. The parts outside the compartments have been doubled. Ready to be covered with plastic strips The hull below the upper wale is covered and painted for the first time.

Hi Phil, I never saw this thread until your question about mast tops came in yesterday. Congratulations with your build. I'm proud to read that I have inspired you to give paper as the main material a try. You did not make it easy for yourself, choosing a sharp ship with very stretched lines. As you can see on several places the hull looks a bit wobbly. Next time you build a ship like this I advise you to use some extra materials to avoid dents and bulbs. In this case you might consider to use some thin (2 x 2 mm) pieces of wood to support the outline of the deck over its length. Or you might consider to use plastic card to paste your deck-planks on. These materials might help to get sharper hull lines and flatter decks. Don't feel a prisoner of the material you chose. Not everything in a paper model needs to be made out of paper. I want to compliment you on your detailing. A stunning result for a first try. I'm sure your next paper model will benefit a lot from what you have learned in this build. You are an example of a model builder who is open for new challenges, prepared to take risks and keeps improving his skills. Good luck with this build. Ab