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Bob, I have tried the sawing method and it does not work for me. It removes metal which in the end changes the diameter of the ring, abeit not much, but enough that I then need to always have to figure out the size of a larger rod size to compensate, etc. When I snip each ring I intentionally do so at an angle as this leaves the beveled edge you mention which I want because it yields more surface area for the solder. Whatever works in the end, right? What I really want to know is if there is anything out there that will blacken solder as well as brass and/or copper. Allan

Great question. I have used high thread count cloth in the past depending on the scale of the model and would love to see that article if anyone can steer me to it as I never added lettering or numbers. Sorry I don't have an answer on the numbers application. You could silkscreen the numbers but that is a lot of work to set up for a only a couple passes. If you were using silk span it would be an easy solution in that you could print right on the sail with a stencil and paint marker or colored artist pencil, but for cloth, not sure these would work very well. Hope someone has a proven solution on this one. Allan

I use a soldering gun with this solder. Gas torch is great for silver solder but this paste has a very low melt temp and a torch could blow the solder off the part. I literally hold the trigger on the gun for 10 seconds and it does the job. Allan

Dave, I have gone from brass to copper when possible and making copper rings or eye bolts is quite simple actually. For rings, wrap an appropriate diameter UN-coated copper wire around a drill bit, the OD of which is the same as the ID of the rings that you need. I usually give about 10 or 12 wraps then remove from the drill bit and you will have a spring of sorts. Then with small snippers cut individual rings. Close the ends with small pliers or even your fingers so they are touching and then soft solder the joint. I like to use soldering paste for these tiny pieces rather than pieces of hard solder. Easier to apply to the joint without putting on too much solder. Once this is done they can be cleaned up with acetone or pickling solution and painted. You can blacken them with liver of sulfur as well, but it will not blacken where there is any solder on the wire based on my experience. If you can manage to keep any excess solder off of the ring, or clean it off after they are made, you can then blacken them while they are in place with liver of sulfur (for copper, not brass). See Ed Tosti's Young America build log as he gives good detail on copper work and using liver of sulfur. If the application calls for a ring in an eyebolt, make the rings and solder them, insert into the eyebolt before closing and soldering the eye, then close the eye and solder the eye. Allan

Don, For a good start, you might benefit from reading Wayne Kempson's article here at MSW on drafting, which includes square and cant frames. https://thenrg.org/resources/Documents/articles/DraftingShipPlansInCAD.pdf Allan

Hi Dave Are you talking about eyebolts or rings? Allan

An alternative is to spend the money on supplies that are starting to disappear and consider scratch building for a number of reasons from historical accuracy, the pleasure of researching and possibly working on drawings as needed, and the satisfaction of having built something that few others, if any, have ever built before. The money for a good quality kit will pay for a lot of materials and the occasional new tool. Even materials such as Castello, European box, holly and some others are getting harder to find and more expensive than ever. When I get the FOMO feeling I look for wood and tools and it feels like my birthday every time they show up at the door!! In the end, choose the route which will make you happiest. Some people spend hundreds or thousands on stamps or coins that will only be looked at once in a while and certainly never used, so doing the same with a kit, or supplies even, is really not so different. Allan

George Are the pictures of the smaller vessels with the name on the transom contemporary paintings or modern pictures? The reason I ask is that other than vessels in modern times, the only time there would have been the name on the stern of the vessel of the RN was between 1772 and 1782, started and stopped by order of the Admiralty. I assume your project is for the schooner Whiting 1805 so she would not have any name on the transom. Allan

Hakan I did bring up the point of the swinging door to the head with the yard along with a couple other places where a standard size wheel chair would not fit or be able to easily maneuver. This yacht is literally still on the drawing board so some design changes will definitely have to be made before construction actually begins. It is my understanding that for now the model is strictly for showing prospective investors what she will look like and the concept of having wheel chair access. Allan

Some drawings show stations near the dead flat in brackets, some don't. Some show letters forward and numbers aft, other show just numbers. In place of brackets, some show the letter O in front of the station number or letter. (Attached example of Litchfield 1695- Note that the first example is the 1695 version, NOT the rebuild of 1730 which was a completely different ship.-- - second drawing) Depends a lot on the era, but not always. Whatever the case may be, the body plan station identifications match with those on the profile drawing. Allan

The rabbet is at the top of the keel only and is basically the same depth it's entire length. The bottoms of the frames at the deadwood are above the rabbet and rest in steps or in some cases along a curved bearding line that is cut into the deadwood. There is tapering vertically and horizontally along the length and height of the deadwood. Look at the various scratch build logs here at MSW and you will find how this is done. Not sure if your project has steps or a curved bearding line, but the tapering is present for either style. It can be done with a mill, chisels or assembled as a sandwich of three laminations. The photos below show individual laminations for a 50 gun ship of the late 17th century and the assembled laminations in the second photo. It is pretty easy to cut and then taper the outer laminations and glue to the center lamination. The bottom of the assembled deadwood will rest on the keel where the rabbet is. I know the jog was pretty much standard, but I don't recall the reason for it being there. Allan

Don, Look at the profile plan as well. There is only one dead flat. On contemporary plans the "station" marked with a + or X within a circle is the dead flat. On the profile It is sometimes shown as a single line or sometimes with two lines within which a floor timber could fit. For the Dorsetshire 1757 example below, there are two lines. In this case the lines are 14 inches apart.

Keep in mind, that whatever material you use and you are looking for realism, the flags are not normally flying, especially if there are no sails or the sails are furled, but rather are draped as Jim has shown in the photo in his post. I never really thought about printing my own flags until reading the posts above. I just tried a sample on silkspan and it worked!!! I taped the silkspan onto a plain white page before printing. Once done, Silkspan is easy to drape if wetted with some matte medium. BUT, keep in mind water proof versus non-waterproof inks. Laser printers are the way to go for this feature. If an ink jet printer is the only choice, matte medium is not a good follow up for draping, but rather some other medium that will wet the silkspan and not cause the ink to run. My little test print on silkspan follows- about 2.5X3.5" I would be interested to see if anyone has more info on draping a flag without ink running . Allan

Some good ideas for those that prefer Xacto knives are given above. I do like to use the Xacto handles for keyhole and other small saw blades, otherwise, when it comes to cutting blades such as the all around Number 11, Swann Morton is far superior in a sharp cutting edge as has been reported here at MSW numerous times. Allan

Good find Sticker I am OK with my Swann Morton scalpel handles as they are flat which is one of the reasons I went to these and gave up on Xacto, the handles for which are round and therefore can roll. This can be a bit treacherous should it roll off the work bench as it seems to always falls blade first and usually right at a thigh, knee or foot. Using this Polymorph on the Xacto handles to make it out of round or some such that it will not roll could be a useful safety thing. Allan

Don, To confuse things even more, the curve of the deck beams in the scantlings of The Elements of Naval Architecture (Steel), the Shipbuilder's Repository, individual contracts, and the Establishments is called rounding, round up or is said "to round " rather than camber which I believe are pretty much the same thing. I have not seen any of these contemporary sources use the word camber , so if you are looking for the value look for round or rounding. These sources give the rounding for each deck which varied from deck to deck as well as rate to rate. Allan

For blackening copper, liver of sulfur works very well and can be applied to parts that are already attached to the model without staining the wood. See Ed Tosti's Young America clipper build log as he goes into some good detail on doing this. I have not found it to work on brass though. Allan

It should return to the same dimension. I would still consider "borrowing" the iron in the laundry room and using heat. Takes a few minutes versus waiting hours or more for a soaked piece of wood to dry completely. Chuck Passaro's planking tutorial will give you a lot of great information. One other way to find out is do a test piece and see if the the plank does wind up at 4.5mm. Allan

Dougal, If no one posts the information for you maybe try a search on the RMG Collections site for longboats and you may find what you need. There are scantlings and drawings in W.E. May's book Boats of Men of War as well. Not a lot, but at least some information including a photo of a contemporary model from RMG of HMS Medway's 28 foot long boat which is cutter rigged with spike type bowsprit, mast, boom and gaff. Allan

Dave If the mast is the correct diameter where it pierces the deck, file the ring. If the mast is larger in diameter than it should be, sand the mast. I have no idea what the mast diameter is supposed to be, but lacking information for colliers launched in 1784, you might be close using the formulas in Lees' Masting and Rigging for Royal Navy vessels launched between 1773 and 1794 on page 183. Allan

My head hurts after reading the last question 😁 1. When the wood is wet it indeed does expand. When you bend and heat it (heat is what makes the bend hold well, not water) it will be the same width. BUT, the planks are not the same width from one end to the other. They would be tapered from the dead flat forward and widened from the dead flat aft, so there is more to be concerned with. 2. The strake is heated and thus dry before putting it on the hull so I would think that no flat spot should be there. 3. Your concern makes sense and I am not sure because as mentioned in number 1 above, the strake needs to vary in width along its entire length other than in the dead flat so if the beveling has an effect, it should not be a concern as each strake needs to be shaped therefore it can be adjusted. Even so, the amount and direction of the bevel is dynamic along the entire length much like the shape of the rabbet is dynamic along its entire length. Allan

If you are going to use wood, you might want to consider something close grained in place of the type of walnut found in kits which will likely fall apart before you are finished. American black walnut is an exception in my experience. Even a softer species such as basswood or poplar will work, but any close grained hard wood is probably a better choice. You can start with a small block that is perhaps three or four times larger than the OD of the ring. Clamp it in a vice and drill a hole to match the diameter of the mast at the deck. Then take off a slice that would be the right thickness of the ring above the deck. Then you can cut a circle with a scroll saw close to the OD or take of individual sections with a hand saw and then round it with sanding sticks. Another thing you can do is sand and taper a small piece of dowel rod that will fit snugly into the ring you just rough cut once it is close to the final OD. Chuck the dowel in a drill and sand the OD while it is spinning. Once it is to size you can remove it from the dowel and cut the slits and voila, it is done. If you are going to have it represent the canvas cover, you can forgo the slits and paint it gray. Allan

Dave, The above recommendations are good ones. If you want to leave off the canvas to show the wedges you can make a wooden ring and then with a very thin coping saw or jeweler's saw blade cut slits to represent individual wedges. There are some excellent photos of this method on one of the current build logs, I just cannot remember which one. A search of wedges should get you there or a member here may recall where this is. There was no metal ring and as said above is just a cheap and easy way out for the kit builder, ornate or not. The rings really have no bearing on what the cannons look like. If you are shooting for historical accuracy the advice above should be something to seriously consider. Allan

To name a few others, The Fully Framed Model, Volume I, Naiad, Volume I, and Euryalus Volume I all show the boxing joint. Pages 39-42 in Naiad go into a lot of detail on how make this joint with hand tools. Even on a model, especially if a POF, if there is a keel and a lower stem piece, the boxing joint really is something you need to make. If you make some other joint, it is liable to be a weak spot and twist and turn and maybe even break when adding the frames, hawse pieces and subsequently the planking. Plus, this joint is exposed and will be noticeable on the finished model. Allan

Rick, In the 1780s British ships gun tackle went to 3 inch diameter for guns above 24 pounds and 2" for 9 pounders and below. (Lavery, Arming and Fitting, page 141) NB - 3" diameter rope for running tackle seems awfully large. I am pretty sure this could be a typo and was meant to be circumference. He does not mention 12 pounders or 18 pounders but presumably they would be about 2.5". Lees states that the lengths for common blocks were about 4 times the size of the rope and his rope sizes are always given in circumference. I don't know of any sources for high quality blocks over 1/4" as you asked so making them yourself may be your best option. As you will only need a few, making them out of wood with brass or other material for the sheaves should not be too difficult. Allan