Veszett Roka

15 hours ago, Ian_Grant said:

Victor J. had told me the catwalks were not flush with the decks (as somehow I expected) given the height of the support posts. He is right. It is quite a step down from the poop deck, but trying to raise it would screw up the boat beams. Maybe I will add a little step later.

 

Hi Ian,

are you sure about the catwalks height? All of  the windjammers i seen had levelled catwalks without any steps. I know the Presussen is unique, so i'm unsure, but i think the solution is the same. Unfortunately i found very few picture on board of Preussen. The models i see all sported flat catwalks.
But one, this is clearly shows how the forestays tied together, what we have discussed earlier.

No words Gary. Absolutely spectacular! i had to look onto any of my HO scale car to imagine how tiny those details are. Marvelous!

8 minutes ago, mikegr said:

Because enamel paint should be perfectly thinned in order to work easily with it without the risk of microdrips getting under the tape. An airbrush could help but still need experience about matching color thickness, spraying distance etc. A white thinned paint over dark paint would require several layers. A primer would have helped here.

Ah, it makes sense. I understand your concerns here, i would need properly thinned paints too. Especially because the old models have several layers of paint plus lacquer. Still don't know yet how to remove (or overpaint) the old colors. Also the fine pigmentation is important, i think Humbrol enamels is one of the best in this manner (disadvantage is their tendency to sedimentation, and you cannot know how long a paint bucket kept on the self).
Thank you!

12 hours ago, mikegr said:

I did some paintwork on the rear deck. I used brush. It was trickier than I thought. I also modified the bow making an "open" frame.

 

Why it was tricky? This seems quite simple for me using masking tape and brush, so i'd like to learn some technique for the future. Check out my Titanic here, it was entirely hand-painted by brushes. Also i'd like to restore and bash a lot my childhood models (Russian battleship Potemkin and ice breaker Lenin), both 1:400 and i think your tips will be needed there.

24 minutes ago, Bill97 said:

Thanks for the invite “rabid fox”  Veszett!  Will definitely drop a line if ever heading that way. Have watched numerous international travel shows. Have found it interesting about Budapest how it is divided Buda part and the Pest part, if I understand correctly. Each side different from the other? Is that correct?

Yes, you are correct. Buda is built on hills, Pest is flat. Although its a slope, and far points of Pest is higher than the Buda hills. Pest residents says that Pest is better because the skyline of Buda hills, but from Buda you can see the flat Pest only  

21 minutes ago, Valeriy V said:

Four pedals can get confused here.   

 

I remember when i drove a 1961 Skoda Octavia. The light switch was exactly the same position what the picture shows here, also the handbrake where the red arm on this pic. Everything was made from metal, very few rubber or plastic...

19 hours ago, Bill97 said:

Hello Veszett. Thanks for the photo. How goes he modeling world in Budapest?  I have been many places in Europe but not Budapest yet. My understanding is your city is beautiful. 

Thank you Bill, indeed it is a beautiful city. Pity the actual government goes mad and care nothing, thus the beauty slowly fades away. Not alone in the world i think. Just drop me a mail once you come here, surely we would pop a few (or more) beers together. Or bourbon if you prefer KY drinks

Shipmodelers here considered like "holy fools", the main community thinks we are sick because the tiny scales (their favorite is 1:48 because the planes and armories) and due the exhaustive works of rigging etc. However the finished shipmodels are very well appreciated, and the wow factor is high.

Anyhow, my name Veszett Roka means rabid fox in hungarian (veszett=rabid, roka=fox), i got this nickname when started racing. I love it!

Can i get the plans for the 3D printed cat over there? 😄

On 11/28/2021 at 9:20 PM, Bill97 said:

I was thinking earlier today that there are several of us that communicate and comment frequently on this build blog. As an old school kind of guy I like to put a face with a name. Fun to see how the face compares to what I imagine.  I saw Daniel’s picture on his blog. I am attaching mine. If any of you other guys would want to post a photo it would be great. 

 

AH, and not to forget, since i commented here: it's me. Although the picture is not too fresh, its been taken a few years back. Now i have more grey hair, and a newer model of telephone   

1 hour ago, dafi said:

The big beam is the slide for the beam of the gaff, the iron fitting can be seen on the starbord side. 

 

 

Here you can see that the column is not in touch with the big bar. This was while leaving the harbor under motor, so no tackles were used.

That big bar is the traveller of the main sail. Better not step on it when ship turns against the wind
I love the hidden engine controls in the drawer.

18 hours ago, Ian_Grant said:

Interesting photo, like nothing I've ever seen. Questions: Is that the steering gear? Does the big beam slide side to side through the bulwarks? Does it move twin rudders? Why a tackle on one side only? Questing minds seek to know.🤔

From the picture, yes, this is the tiller, and i don't think it moves twin rudder. Also i don-t think it reaches the bulwark at any side, however it has plenty of space there. The tackle is on windward side only since the ship is trimmed to go windward a bit (and due its hull shape - it is designed this way) - dutch people call this 'luvgierig'. Hence the helmsman need to pull the tiller always to the windward side a bit, and the tackle helps him.

Daniel will correct me if i'm wrong.

I can smell the grease and oil looking the torpedo tubes. Very nicely done Kev.

36 minutes ago, Bob Cleek said:

Yes, but that really has nothing to do with the subject being discussed. The best anyone can do given your analysis is to build a replica of the ship which was found and it will be accurate only to the degree that the original artifact was intact. Building a replica of one of the Viking grave ships is possible because some were well preserved, as, you note, was Vasa. My point, however, is that one ship doesn't prove a whole lot beyond that one ship. I really don't know how many more "accurate" model kits of Nina, Pinta, and Santa Maria, or Mayflower, Golden Hind, Half Moon, and Noah's Ark will be sold before folks realize we have no historical record of what these vessels actually looked like. 

This side-thread came from discussions of modern replicas colors, which could be authentic or not - i cite the longship replicas as authentic source, as they are built by same method and materials like the original.

We are all agree that one ship cannot represent a whole era. However, like Mary Rose, can add tons of data to our existing knowledge. Connect those puzzle pieces together we can model the typical ship of the era. Think of Thor Heyerdahl's Ra1 and Ra2. But that model and its color wouldn't be an authentic, just as far as we can model the original. Don't mention the kits here, those are subject of a massive business, and kit producers easily sacrifice the historical accuracy for higher profit.

So back to the lanyard colors. I think we can say that impregnate the standing rigging was necessary. If we are sure in that period the ancient shipbuilders were used pine tar, we should check its color (which is dark brown). I did produce pine tar in my teenager age, and cover some ropes. As thinner, some clean alcohol was fine. As far as i know, animal grease (whale fat) was also used for cover the ropes - it is white at first, then turns to olive drab.
Cut the long story short, i believe all lookalike color can match. We cannot pinpoint how all those ships were built, how long the sun shaded their threads, how the sea saltness lighten the ropes, and how rotten were the hemp ropes when we model them.

Ah, and a remark at the end: during restauration of Peking in Blohm und Voss, the lanyards were impregnated by thinned oil based tar. It is black for sure.

1 hour ago, Bob Cleek said:

This may be true... or not.

 

While archeological research can provide a lot of information, finds are far and few between and the flaw in your reasoning is that finding one, or even a few, ships of a given type still leaves us with little or no idea of just how representative the ancient vessel that was discovered is of the general class of such vessels. This phenomenon is quite frequently encountered, even with more modern vessels. In the U.S. in the 1930's, the government conducted the Historic American Merchant Marine Survey ("HAMMS".) Researchers were sent out all over the country to locate existing examples of old vessels of all types and record their lines and construction techniques. This archive, now in the Smithsonian Museum in Washington, D.C. is an extremely valuable resource for those researching now-extinct working watercraft. However, as every researcher who has ever accessed this resource quickly discovers, questions frequently arise as to whether the vessel recorded was truly representative of the type. Where did it fall in the size range of the type? Was it's construction representative of the type, or was this example unusual in some, or many, respects. Does it represent the best of the type, or the worst, or somewhere in between? 

Look at my avatar. Thats me sailing a soling class on 2003 World Championships. This is a strict one-design class sailboat. How strict the rules are? For example if you put the mast horizontally onto a table, it's top must weight 10.35 kgs, +/- 2% if my memory serves me right - not less, not more.

So can we say that solings are identical? Not.

Not just because the different colors, decorations, but because the rigging solutions and methods. It depends on what the skipper prefers. Going to the stays, ours were bowden type, others like the monoline (wire). Our tiller was made from stainless steel. Other solings had wooden one.

If you find a sunken soling (you can do it in Lake Geneva for sure), how far it is represent its type? Even this is an one-design class, what is the true tiller: the metal or the wooden one? Therefore we cannot rely on typical ships. We will have dimensions (they must be identical for all soling), materials (almost same), solutions (some typical, some totally different). But hey, a tiller is still a tiller. If you find 4 sunken soling and all have tiller, some metal some wooden, can you say that all solings were steered by tiller? Yes. If any exception, you didn't find it yet.

Anyhow, you will be able to recreate the sunken soling at all way. You can see her materials. You can see the methods the materials put together. You can see her colors. You can see the rigging solutions and their purpose. At the end, you can sail the newly built soling like the sunken one ~40 years ago.

We are capable to rebuild the Vasa. We have the ship, our researches gave us excessive amount of data to build an identical ship. Down to her colors. The only question is whether we want to build her. I'm pretty sure the new one would capsize too if we'd follow the original, but we still able to do.

In other hands, there is no reason to seek the 'typical' ship. Even we have good written sources about the know-how, same shipyard will not build two identical ship, and those ships will change in the years.

Back to viking replicas. Modern archeology can pinpoint the country where the trees cut. Skudelev2 what Eberhard mentioned above built around 1042, and her trees cut from Glendalough, Ireland. Quite impressive to know, especially because this is the least preserved longship ever found. Comparing her to the Gokstad ship, they share the planking, keel, stem and in general hull design, even Gokstad ship is some 50 years older. Looking to other viking ships we found, we can say that all steered by steuerboard, if any exception we didn't find it yet.
So if i will use same oak, tar, hemp etc. and build a ship exactly same dimensions, methods, tools etc. will this ship be authentic? I vote yes.

20 hours ago, wefalck said:

 

We interpret, in the above case, archaeological finds, with our modern knowledge and logic. But then the knowledge was different and the logic probably as well - we have some archaeological evidence of what people in a particular case may have done, but we don't know what they have tried to achieve and why, and what was the 'normal'. With the exception of one of the Skudelev wrecks, I think, all longboats finds were dressed up for funerary purposes, so we don't know, to what degree they reflect actual practice. Even for many 19th century practices there are no records and we need to back-interpret with our 20th/21st century knowledge.

Disagree again. Careful archeological researches can tell how the ship built. Even those longboats were caskets, they were seaworthy once. I don't think (and the archeologist community doesn't so) the shipbuilders had two concurrent practice for funeral ships and another for real seagoing vessels. So in this case the archeology proves the method and technique of the age. We are able to understand the full flow of building the ship, and our modern devices can prove if the rope was impregnated by animal grease or pine tar - or neither. Oak is still an oak nowadays, as like tar, iron, hemp. This is our advantage, and 21st century knowledge: the understanding the past times. Therefore building a replica ship identical as far as possible to the elders did is possible. Even our modern logic could do better 'interpretations', we follow the original, because this is the task. There is no speculation, because we have the original ship. We know her materials. We know the tools. We know the dimensions, where the joints placed, where the nails knocked. We know the rigging, and we even know the colors of them due our 21st century knowledge.

Of course, if we'd like to sail the modern replica (still longboats) we must meet the modern rules. So the crew must have life jackets, inflatable dinghy, medicines, EPIRB and so forth, but we are talking the colors of the shrouds and not colors of the modern equipment.

7 hours ago, John Ruy said:

Still trying to find out what the yellow balls are all about.
 

They are lightning rods?

Good luck Kev! You have another follower

45 minutes ago, wefalck said:

modern examples are not helpful, as they only reflect the modern interpretation of others and perhaps modern seaworthiness regulatory requirements ...

Although usually i agree with you Eberhard, but not this time. We must look closely the modern example first: what its main goal? Modern longboat replicas are built EXACTLY the same method than ancient vikings were used, including the trees, tools and materials down until the natural paints they used to color the dragon heads. The nails were produced by blacksmiths one by one, next to the shipyard, along with the axes the shipbuilders used. So i can tell they are identical to the original. Their lanyard color will match the original too.

I'm continously amazed by this precision and complexity.

Hi Keith,

i don't know Germania in detail, hence asking. Didn't the crosstrees were riveted to the ring in the middle (red mark)? As crosstrees purpose to straighten the mast in close hauled courses, when the sails had lower force attack points than the stays have and leeward stays loosen a bit. Without the middle fixed point it will roll a bit in vertical, but will not give the spanning force to the mast. Just thinking, maybe the builders had other solutions?

3 hours ago, FriedClams said:

 I’m guessing that you, like most of us, enjoy the physical act of modeling and not the completion of it.

 

I do certainly enjoy the creation. It is very satisfying to look at the finished model (and be pride), but it will be a 'thing' soon. Hence we need, we must build a next ship.

6 hours ago, ccoyle said:

 

Mostly it's because bedtime is approaching. Sleepy modelers tend to rush and make mistakes -- it's best to know when to quit for the day.

I hate to suspend the build. Mostly because i hate to clean all the brushes, close the paints, clean the workbench for next time. However, stomach is a good judge when to quit. Mine is a corrupt one, i can pay with a glass of liqueur 😉

+1 vote for needles, i'm using them for drilling. They're extremely sharp.

I started following the thread, as i have a couple of childhood ships to be restore and improve (a lot).

(and sorry for remark, but i laughed when read Prince of Whales - if it was intended pun, then brilliant!)

Looks like the frames fit very well.

Welcome here, fellow sailor I love your Dragon, bring back some great memory when only soling and dragon were the match race participants.