Jaager

It is the circular stern that I am placing at the 1860 +/- and dismissing as being outside my focus era. I also kinda put circular in the merchant ship bucket. From the beginning, I have found the thought of iron and steel hulls, iron masts and yards , chain and steel cable rigging to be too intimidating to model.

I do not know how to write this so that it comes across in the way that I intend it. I mean this as one way to look at it. It may well be incorrect. But it is a vulnerable flank if you disagree I do not place much value in using the survivors from 1765 1799 1800-on as sources of information for how these vessels looked when launched. Especially "officers country" in the stern. They were "improved" - remodeled - rebuilt - about every 20 years. This was done by sequential generations who were hostile to the past and ashamed of and embarrassed by older practices. They were aggressively "modern" in their outlook. A new "modern" every 20 years at a time of profound tech change. Then, when GB or the US became wealthy enough to have surplus to preserve some of the past - it was done by strong personalities who were more driven by preconceived visions in their imaginations than what was left of actual past documentation. For the most part absolutist historians have been left with hodgepodge monsters too substantially altered to rescue back to their original iterations. They are probably more valuable remaining as what they are. But what that is - is far from representing their as launched versions. Zealous PR people tend to exaggerate if not outright lie about what they are selling. Almost everything in your examples are post 1860. I have to draw a line for the sake of my sanity. It is still far to broad, but 1860 is a hard limit for me.

Here goes a stream of consciousness tangent: I have the idea that an elliptical stern was considered as a significant improvement for frigates and corvettes starting early in the 19th century. I have been thinking that a circular stern happened around 1860 or later - and my focus ends at 1860. There was a famous - here - 1 to 1 frigate dual between HMS Shannon and Chesapeake. ( I thought it was fought off the Virginia capes where I live.) (Turns out it was off Boston.) (The Chesapeake captain was an amateur poseur idiot and got himself and a significant portion of his crew killed. The Shannon captain was a gifted professional.) I got Chesapeake plans from S.I. I had to dig for Shannon. HMS Shannon was a Leda class frigate. There were a lot of frigates in that class. They used the same plans: HMS Leda - probably traced - over and over - for every one of them. They even drew the improved "ellipicical stern" in different colored ink on the original 18th century flat stern Leda plan (as well as a more "modern" forecastle). The plan was so over used that there is a low contrast between the lines and the dark background. The NMM offered different sized prints when I bought it. I made the mistake of buying a reduced scale copy. It was easier to place on my home scanner - which is why I chose it. This was before I learned that commercial shops could scan a 4'x3' plan and give me a PDF copy on a USB stick. It was touch and go for picking out the lines from the background.

I was not thinking about being too "old fashioned" - anachronism from the past - because I mostly consider anachronism as referring to adding things that had not been invented yet. I am not sure if "anachronism" even fits as a definition for using outdated tech. If you want to include 17th century tech on an 18th century ship, you could always say that the captain was sentimental and it was there to honor his grandfather who was also a captain in his time. This is silly, but it is also possible. A 5 inch revolving gun is not possible. To be contrary and controversial - adding a 5 inch gun mount or wings from a DC3 to an 18th century warship was the sort of thing that "kit bashing" was originally meant to describe. I do not see how "to bash" can ever fit with the process of improving or augmenting parts that come with a kit. "semi-scratch" seems to be a more appropriated term - if you fabricate the additions yourself.

I did. and as I said, I have no answer. I just do not know. I think some speculation around the subject could be fun though. If there is no surviving data, then whatever you decide should stand. (as long as it does not involve something like an electric winch and a Honda generator 😉) I apologize if absurdist humor and exaggeration does not translate.

All of this looks to me like something that a team of ship's carpenters could alter on their own in an afternoon or two. I do not think that obsessing about there being a single "answer to it" would have a definitive solution. I see it as a moving target. Anything contemporary could be and probably is correct. Just avoid anachronism. It may be an artifact from the photography, but the holes for the pins look to have about twice the probable diameter.

Siggi, I have no idea. But if I was the noncom in charge of this operation, I would think seriously about having a dolly or truck at the inboard end of the davit and using my team to move the beam in/out/arc/aft as needed. I would also have rope handles at file intervals along the beam. A beam like that would be a bear to manhandle without some accessories. notches in the beam and hollow Mickey Mouse hat rope loops with rope handles instead of ears.

As I was doing yet another of my denken experimenten (slang from my German American major professor) about this I am seeing that something more involved than just loosing the end of a rope was involved in setting an anchor. I can see that the fluke could rip a chunk out the the channel or even the wale unless the anchor was swung out before letting gravity take control. A fish davit could have a two way function.

You may have better luck if the English word is spelled correctly not david but davit. I think that a rough definition using "fish" as a verb is: a fish davit would be a line with a hook on the distant end attached to the outer end of a pole to fish means hooking something in the water and pulling it up. a cathead crane can get a heavy anchor up and out of the water but it will hang like a bell to tie it down means rotating it ~ 90 degrees and securing it to the side of the ship so that it is not a wrecking ball. Given the weight of the anchor on a liner fishing and rotating the fluke end was probably a non-trivial chore. I wonder if the tool used to do it - the fish davit - could not be loose - a disposable item - not really a permanent part of the hull?

Ah, the place where an RN admiral was executed on his quarter deck for being too timid. A 22 gun is essentially a corvette (Sloop-of-War) not as bad as a frigate but it is still a formidable subject as a first wooden model - coming from plastic or coming in cold. I imagine it is a difficult read in translation, but you could read the "For Beginners-" post at the top of this forum If you do start with the 22 gun and it becomes too much - the beginners topic may show you a way to recover your ambition by taking a smaller bite and succeeding at it. Plastic is probably more of a negative stepping stone into wood and sail - assembly instructions (plastic) and fabrication plans (wood) are different things.

It all depends on just which products you are calling a stain. If it is a commercial product in the US and it is labeled as being a Stain - think surface product - a wood shade pigment in a binder that is thin enough to let some grain show thru. It may also include a dye component, but a commercial product = Stain - is intended to be used on a 1:1 scale object. This is not an especially favorable product to have in the way of a bonding surface. If it is a true solution. a pigment - in alcohol or water - or a dry powder that you get into solution - and a solution does not need mixing or shaking - it is a single unit that requires a physical action to separate - it goes into the wood - it becomes part of the wood - it does not affect a glue bond. We need to be on the same page as far as the definition of the terms. Chuck : a commercial STAIN - would probably have an unfavorable outcome if that is used before bonding. A dye has very little surface tension. it runs everywhere. if you have adjacent planks with different colors dying after bonding and avoiding bleed over would be difficult. OllieS : if the UK terms a dye as being a stain - you are correct - but noun stain and verb stain are causing confusion. Chuck : An oil finish - does leave layer on a primed surface. A primer can be a coat of half saturated shellac or half saturated oil. It fills the pores and voids in the wood. follow on coats stay on the surface. Unless the coat is too thick or the oil has deteriorated - it then polymerizes and is a layer - one big single unit. How thick the layer is depends - on the volume applied - which oil it is - I think the thickest is polyurethane - but then polyurethane is a true synthetic plastic - it might as well be polyethylene - polyvinyl - polypropylene - etc a better living thru chemistry sort of thing

You may wish you had done a test first. Take some scrap pieces of the same wood to the stain shop. Color the part that will be so treated on the model, dry. bond. After a time, test the bond strength as compared to a control of bare wood to bare wood. A strength over time test could be done but it is not worth the trouble - i.e. a chemical reaction rate doubles with every 10 degree C rise in temp. a low temp oven -

"Stain" can have more than one meaning as it is commonly used. it is often used to describe any product that colors wood. This comes from turning the verb "to stain", meaning anything that colors, into a noun. In general two different agents are used. An actual "stain" is a semi transparent paint. If you use this on wood before using PVA, there is a possibility of the pores and fiber irregularities being filled. A weak PVA bond is possible. If CA is used - it will bond to the paint layer. Its strength will be the strength of the paint to the wood. Some stain products advertise as being "penetrating". This probably means that there is a mixture of paint and dye in the product. A dye soaks into the wood. It is a clear solution of dye molecules in the solvent base, It does not affect the surface or the pores. There are two types of dye - water based and alcohol based. The water based dye soaks in more deeply. On a piece of furniture, this can make a difference in the quality of the look. At model scales, the surface is too small for a deeper color to be visible. Water base will cause wood to swell with the first application or two - sanding and or scraping is needed to fix this. Just water can be used first, sanded and then dyed - it may save a second dye application to hide what the sanding did to the color. Alcohol based dye saves all that. The wood does not swell and it dries more quickly. A stain product makes its living by turning cheap and poor quality wood into something that looks better - to partially hide boring grain - often on open pore wood species that need a thick pore filler. A dye is meant for high quality wood, where the grain wants being accentuated instead of being hidden.

In my head, I am seeing the wales as being Holly dyed black. All sides. So, I would have to plane the back to get the taper. Reducing the outside would be a routine process, but having to soak in more dye and keep it on just the wale. I am over seeing aqueous dyes as having any advantage at model scale, so by using alcohol as the solvent - there is no swelling of the grain. But the lower viscosity(?) of alcohol - more lateral spread - makes keeping just where it is wanted is more of a challenge. I do have a backup plan using steel wool dissolved in vinegar on tannic acid treated wood to get the black - from a traditional Tarheel furniture maker on PBS. It looks like knowing about the taper is another on of those art of the process things learned on the job.

Ouch! as far as accomplishing this.

It looks like the General pin vise that I bought when I started all this - the early "70's. It was/is better quality than the now stuff, the collets = two units - different bore at each end - there is a storage cavity at the swivel end. Still my go to- mostly. I have never been introduced to the Starrett version. A four unit set would probably be worth it if the buyer was young.

I would guess that it would be a tedious process, but to reduce the chemical acceleration back to ambient rate , would not a neutralization step be needed? A treatment with a dilute sodium bicarbonate solution and a couple of rinses with distilled water?

The first step is to seal the cut ends. What you use is not critical. Hot paraffin, shellac, old varnish, old paint - oil based is probably better. Thick - the object is to make it difficult for the water to get out at open ends of the tubes that are wood. Different rates water migration produce stress = splitting and checking Length: that depends on you - close to the longest that you use on your bench - a tad more to account for loss from seasoning. De-bark: now if you have the patience. It allows the water easier egress. It removes the eggs and larvae of wood borers. A draw knife or spoke shave makes a quick job of it if the branch is secured from moving. The old rule is one year per inch of thickness to reach water concentration equilibrium. I would aim at ~2" thickness and 2 foot length for my system. Seal the ends NOW. Wood can do ugly things as it dries, splits and checks ate the worse- bow and twist is not helpful - Protect for the elements - no rain or snow - direct sun = uneven drying good air flow around all sides = sticker the rick Serious downward pressure - weights on top of the rick may reduce twist and bow

There are models, yes. I do not believe that I said that models could not be built. But like every kit of a ship with a famous name and no complete plans from its time , that the result actually matches the original is wishful thinking at best. In the circumstance it is honest to make the label reflect the fact that it is one man's guess and thus a decorator model and not an actual historical representation. "The ship name if model makers name had built it." He made those two models - and as excellent as they may be - he essentially gave them any old name from an historical perspective.

Jules, I am coming at this from a particular bias as far as my attachment of relative values. That is POF model building. The English plans are often detailed enough for me to develop frame timber patterns with almost no traditional lofting (i.e. using XZ and YZ points to get the XY data that I need.) The Dutch plans would essentially be following the directions for a design that are in Deane's Doctrine. That is a lot of hands on lofting and the result is a best guess because of the number of choices that need to be made along the way. One minor advantage with the Dutch hull is that there seems to be s long section on either side of the deadflat that are a replication - sort of barge-like. The English started a slope change almost immediately on either side. Because Deane used arcs - a compass - something that I have taken as the core of whole moulding - there is a sameness with any design that follows the method. You are describing something similar. What Deane did using 5 data points per WL and a flexible batten on paper, the Dutch appeared to do in the yard using the actual planking. I think that the Dutch used too much "you just gotta know" in their decisions for me to even think about building a hull using what data that they have left us. I do concede that my long ago ambition to build Deane's Royal Charles 1672 - the one that came after the one that the Dutch stole - would be a fantasy rather than what the ship actually looked like. There are no plans, jut the data that Deane started with.

The "they" that I was referring to are the English. I was mostly doing a criticism of the English. The supposed advantage of a complete design on paper and the use frames at every station - frame first - is probably not all that significant. The design is still based on intuition and past performance. It is much better for us who wish to do a reproduction though.. Something scientific would have to wait for a test basin. Even then real significance would need the development of precise instrumentation and a way to record the results. I think a smoked drum was state of the art up until well into the 20th century. Identifying laminar flow and looking for eddies. I do not think we are disagreeing all that much. I just think we have different standards for what constitutes a sophisticated design document. I believe that the Dutch started with something on paper. It was just basic. What the English or French started with on paper probably produced a hull with less variability between what different yards would produce than would obtain between the various Dutch yards - if some new factor was introduced. The Dutch system probably selected for a degree of commonality with the shipwrights. Yes. But 10 foot sandwiches would be a bear for my method. But the corvette Falmouth of 1827 has three 16' sandwiches, and six 8'. The USN designer certainly did not over exert himself with those plans.

I don't wish to horn in on Bob Cleek's patch @Bob Cleek , but it appears that the expensive model specific brands and lines are subject to whim and fad. If you are serious, the convenience of water based paint and a synthetic binder may be an illusion when the equation has reached its final solution. A safer and more dependable route would be to go with enamel paint and go to the source. A tube of artist's oil from a quality line has the proper pigment particle size, can be easily diluted, used for brush or spray application, and be available when needed. Plus a long shelf life. This companies line has 4 greys = https://www.dickblick.com/products/gamblin-artists-oil-colors/?Size=37 ml (1.25 oz)& Doing a custom mix - it would probably be wise to produce a lot more than the estimated need. This is too late for your present project, but the next one..... Bob has some in depth directions on site that should come up with a search.

Jules, The first step in this is to define just what constitutes an effective design plan. I think that any controversy about Dutch ship design methods are caught up in a side eddy. Neither will produce an optimal hull. To be fair, the English method does not either. They run continuous experiments with no controls. They make multiple changes instead of just one. The main probable advantage is that by having a large three axis plan to start, there is documentation for replication if it is a successful design. If a design is a failure, they could only guess at which factors were the wrong ones. A comparison of a draftsman at work in Baker and what Rembrandt shows a significant difference in the size of the drafting table and the size of the compass as well as the size of the sheet. The two are doing different things, except for a few basic factors. Van Duivenvoorde describes a process that leaves too much open to chance. I think that relying on 'the natural shape that bottom planking would take' as the sole starting point would probably produce hulls similar to a Birch bark canoe. Jan Rijcksen is likely defining the deadrise and the breadth of the midship, fore, and after mould frames (as well as the stem and stern). They would come first. Then the planking. The basic type of ship is thus set. The shipwrights would not need patterns from a mould loft to assemble any of the five key components. It would be silly/pointless to do what Jan Rijcksen is doing after the hull is built. There is not enough there to get an exact repeat.

Jules, Are you proposing that the technical drawings were more than the deadflat, one fore, one aft, the shape of the stem, the stern "AP" cross sectional shapes? Or maybe a couple or three more than one at either end?

I just read - either in NRJ or here - that the scale was divided in 1/12 th's and not intervals of 4 like Imperial. 12 inches to the foot. And just what a foot was to begin with varies area to area. The different scales in Chapman's ANM make it obvious that having an interest in modeling ships outside the British Empire involves this additional per country difference in weights and measures.