Ab Hoving

OK Bruce, here it comes: Start a new project Insert measurements and control point. Choose front view wireframe Open body plans and find your chosen draught Click to select your draught to become yellow. Click and drag the draught to the centerline and base line. Click and drag the top right corner of the draught for the right dimensions. Click and repeat the last step until a perfect fit it reached Click on image red arrow and control net black arrow. Now you can drag the control net points until the frames of both drawings are identical. This takes some exercise. Extra example hulls can be downloaded from the Delftship site, where they are selected by ship type. Hope this helps, good luck from Rene. Ab

Patience Bruce, Rene is preparing another tutorial. Ab

Just my 50 cents.... I like sails on models. They add expression and function. But if it is done, it has to be done well, as several of the shown examples clearly demonstrate. Too many people make yards without sails hoisted to the tops of the topmasts. I hate that. No sailor will ever take the trouble of hoisting an empty yard. Still, if a museum ship like the Constitution is modelled, or a navy board model is done, the absence of sails is right and logical. I always make sails on my models, furled or not. But if added, to my opinion they should express the conditions under which they are used. Therefore the choice of sailcloth is vital. After many efforts with various sorts of unbleached cotton I came to a fabric called 'voile cotton'. Almost transparent, but it can be colored well and if applied with a spray can of starch and a hairdryer, the result can be quite satisfying: I usually prepare my masts separated from the model as long as possible to save my poor back. Once the sail is modelled the way I want it (in this case almost no wind, drying the sails) the mast can be stepped and the final cordage is done. Almost finished now: The model (1/77) is scratch-built out of paper, so a very logical step would be to also use paper for the sails. In the case of clipper ships paper can be very well used, as shown above, because of all the yards, keeping the narrow sails under control. But for my type of rigging with large sail areas I never succeeded in applying paper sails successfully. The idea remains tempting though.... One of the drawbacks of making models with sails in a calm is that the ropes will have to 'hang' in a natural way. I use shellac for that. Just take a length of rope, hang it with a weight for half a day after treating it with shellac. The stiff rope lets itself easily bend into a natural curve. Just a hint, for what it's worth. Ab

I did try SilkSpan, thank you Druxey. You are absolutely right as for the furled sails, as you clearly prove with your pictures. For hoisted sails I think it gives a too 'boardy' result. It may work for others, but I want a different look. The material I found seems to answer my needs, we will see how it all develops.

It has been a while since we had the short conversation about the material to choose for natural looking sails. I jumped into several experiments after wefalcks suggestion of using paper for sails and I managed to get all the paper I needed. However, I never succeeded in creating the result I was looking for. So I went on searching for the right kind of textile. Thanks to one of my former collegues at the museum I managed to get some stuff called 'voile cotton' that answered my needs. Since the hull of the man-of-war I referred to earlier in the thread was finished, I decided to try my hand on an experiment with almost windless conditions like on this Van de Velde painting in the Rijksmuseum: Because I don't want to hurt my back too much I prepare my masts, including blocks, sails and lines on the table. In this picture sails and blocks are in position, lines still have to be added. Here the sails are sprayed with starch and dried with a hair-dryer, while modeling them in the shape I want. Purpose is of course to get natural shapes, expressing the weight of the sails together with the little wind that furls them. Hard to explain I'm afraid. All the lines are temporarily belayed at the mast-foot, they will be attached at the right locations later. And this is how it will all look after completion. The main mast still has to be done. The shrouds and stays of the foremast can be fixed now, after which braces, bowlines and tacks follow. Sorry for my lousy photography techniques. By the way, my pleasure vessel experiment, the subject of this (a bit confused) thread, has led to a kit, produced by Kolderstok (http://kolderstok.nl/speel-jaght.html). Kits are not my cup-of-tea, but this one is unusual in the sense that the traditional egg-box system with its terrible straight-planks-method has been replaced by a sort of shell-first technique. Because Rene Hendrickx, my super-Belgian partner-in-crime, created the shapes of all the planking for the boat, the kit is built by using a pdf-mold, used to temporarily support the laser-cut planking. Thus an empty shell is created after lifting from the mold, which can be finished like a real hull. A new development in kits in my (limited) vision for a very reasonable price. Sorry if I overlooked kits which followed the same method, as I said, kits are not really a point of interest for me. Here a page from Kolderstock's three language manual, showing what I mean.

Don't you think it would be wise to mark the lines of the bottom, the bilges and the lower wale on the hull before applying any strakes? That way you can monitor the various widths of the planking to avoid nasty corrections higher up the hull. The bottom is roughly 2/3 of the total width, the top of the bilges were mostly reached with three (sometimes 4) strakes. The position of the lower wale is there already, but has to be fine-tuned to ensure a fluent line. This is essential!

For the time being you get the benefit of the doubt. If this really works it would be a fantastic system. But how to deal with ending planks in the bow and extra planks in the stern? Like here: You really got my attention, Marcus.

Very smart idea, but I have some doubts. In real life not a single plank in a ship is straight. How will you follow the lines with straight planks?

Not really complicated. The ship is 120 feet. Over that distance 4 1/2 planks are needed to go from fore to aft (of course you get away with shorter planks because you don't have to cover the entire 120 feet, but that is all marginal). So 120 divided bij 4 1/2 is 26, 6 feet, which equals 7,75 meters. Of course these are not specific measurements, just estimations with a wide margin. Clear?

If your planks are going to be 7,5 meters in a scale of 1/37,5 you have to divide 750 cm by 37,5, which is 20 cm. The butts should be a littler bit over 2,5 cm long. It's elementary, my dear Watson...:-) By the way, the list of ship's parts I was referring to is only in the Dutch version of my book (page 296), not in the English one.

Here is a picture of the butts. It is from a 90 feet long wreck (E81) from 1660.

Excellent question Marcus, In Witsen's book there is list of parts needed to build a 120 feet long fluit. He specifies the planking needed as 4 1/2 for every strake for this length. That means that every plank is about 27 feet, which is roughly 7,50 m. I don't see any reason why that should be different for deck planks. Don't forget that the butts of the planks overlap each other for the width of three frames, which is more than a meter.

Seems to me that the operation was a success. Maybe you should try to get the opening a bit rounder, so that it can be finished with carvings. Not really complicated. Well done, Marcus.

Yes? And the end result?

Yes, it's definitely water based, probably some methyl alcohol as well. At least it does not smell as sharply as the car fillers. Don't think you can use other fillers though. I tried a lot and this one works the best, but the others weren't too bad either. I read on the tube: mixture of 5 chloor-methyl-4-isothiazolin-3-on [EC no 247-500-7] and 2-methyl-2H-isothyasol-3-on [EC no 220-239-6](3:1). Now, if that is clear to you I would be surprised, it does not ring a bell for me. But it's great stuff! :-))

Hello Terry, My compliments for your research and vast report on your activities. You are doing great. I am afraid you estimate me higher than I am. As for Delftship I have never had the intention to work with the program, having already so much help from my talented and enthusiastic friend Rene Hendrickx. So in a technical way I am not the one who can add something to your considerable efforts. I will send this thread to Rene though, but don't expect too much of it. Not because Rene is unwilling, but because being Belgian his command of English is at a lower level than his Dutch (or Flemish) and French. Maybe he will pass some remarks about your work through to me and in that case I will certainly keep you posted. Keep up the good work, Ab

Hello Tony and Tony... Funny how a thread from a year ago suddenly appears to be alive.:-) The question about the right kind of filler is a very good one. It does make a difference which type is used. That is because some kinds are quick drying, but only at the surface and they shrink when at last the lower layers have dried too. I am afraid you have to test some brands yourself, because I wonder if the type I use is available in your country too. The stuff I like most, because it does not shrink, even if a layer of 2 mm is applied is: Houtplamuur (wood filler) Universal by Alabastine. It does not dry as quick as for instance the fillers that are used in car repair, does not smell at all and can be sanded after an hour, provided you did not smear too much and too thick. Use thin layers of filler and allow to dry as long as you can. You can get information at: info@alabastine.nl Hope this helps. Ab

OK Marcus, here you go... Remember that lousy sketch I drew you? Grab that batten you screwed to the sternpost and place it where you had it. Now you have the right position for the taffrail. Make it from card first to get a good fit and then glue your wooden version between the ship's sides, tight to the front side of the batten. Now you can remove the batten and the excess of the planks sticking out backwards. Then show me a picture again. Best of luck, man.

He sends you his best wishes and if there are any questions...shoot.

Show me a view from behind. We should be able to solve this.

It is really a pleasure seeing that Rene's lessons did lead to beautiful results. Well done!

You are really capable of creating a tremendous mess, Marcus.:-) Can't wait to see the rest... Ab

Just because you asked, Bob: Shellac seems to be a product we forgot. That's a pity because it is a most versatile means of protection for many materials. I once read somewhere that the characteristic 'helmets' of the English Bobbies were made of velt soaked in shellac. Don't know if it is true. My experience with it as a varnish is that it works fantastically on wood. Many late 18th and 19th century models in my depot were done with it and only in cases the models were exposed to a lot of water, for instance as a result of a leaking roof, the material flaked and showed up white. Mostly because the wood underneath worked. It was also easy to replace. Alcohol removed the old remains almost immediately. Bringing on new layers was another story. All remnants had to be removed completely or they would show up very nastily after drying. That indicated that it was hardly possible to touch up an existing layer with some damage. If it had to be repaired, all had to come off. Bringing on the first layer was never a problem. But a second layer could end up in a disaster if the first one was too thick and a third layer almost always was a no go, unless you worked very quickly and never touched areas for a second time with your brush, otherwise you most probably ended up with a nasty slippery looking result. It could be sprayed though, but the result was (in case you did not have a spraying box with air suction) that in a matter of seconds you were standing in a thick fog of dried floating particles of shellac. For french polishing it was great too, though very time consuming. I have used it occasionally for securing knots, but always from a container that was deliberately left open for a couple of days. The material became more condensed and spreading through the textile was limited much more than when using the freshly diluted stuff. To be honest, I don't use it any more after I retired, although I do have a few bottles of it standing on the shelf and sometimes I look at them with a vague feeling of home-sickness. I use anything I can lay my hands on, even CA, to force my materials to behave the way I want them to and I don't care much about the longevity of my products. We are not here to stay forever and the same is true for my models. I'm only interested in their looks, not in their age :-).

You Eastern European guys are so extremely neat in your work, which almost makes me jealous. You are years ahead of here in Western Europe.

This is probably a copy of an older image. The spritmast dissappeared after 1750.