Jaager

I doubt that it has any relevance for lower Florida, but if I was back in central Kentucky, younger, and had the tools I have now, I would see about trying to accumulate a warehouse size supply of Apple billets. Anthony, That Castello is dear in both price and the vanishing prospect of obtaining more. A thought - you might consider reserving it for making blocks and deck furniture - . I suggest getting some Hard Maple to get practice on ripping. It is as close as you are likely to come to being as hard as Castello, you can get as much as you want and the cost is reasonable. Get lots of practice using the Maple. And who knows, you may come to like it. Save the rare expensive wood for a magnum opus .

Mike, I have no problem at all with you disagreeing about this. You are offering an alternative to becoming a solo sawmill for Europe. I have the hope that by waving the home sawmill red flag, a similar alternative for North America will make an appearance and refute me. This is an often asked question, here. I do not recall reading an easy answer to it. I am expressing what I feel is a realistic view of what is involved with scratch POF - at least here in North America. I totally support the ambition for scratch POF. I wish the that the barrier into it was a low one. I find the wiederholen Sie das , (or singing Kathlene over the ship's intercom) aspect of kits to be ....wearing. The whole solo sawmill option is really a distraction from our primary goal. The advantages are an increase in the number of species of wood that can be used and that after several hulls, the investment in tools is recovered - as long as you leave your man hours expended out of the equation. It also offers some comfort to those of us who are driven to be as self sufficient as is possible. But, it is impossible to be compensated at an hourly rate that is commensurate with that for the necessary skill level to do this. Including that factor would probably keep any recouping of expenditure impossible. But, since the alternative use of that time would not likely be a money making activity, it probably should be excluded. You have access to one of the first line species and in a form that is readily usable. From some build logs it seems that Pear is not difficult to source in Europe. I trust that you appreciate your good fortune with that. And also value those who do the work to mill it for you. In North America, it is fast becoming a situation where it is rare to source any milled stock other than the totally awful Balsa or the merely terrible Basswood. Its cousin Linden/Lime is about 100% better, but that is not really available here. Pear in any form is difficult to find and the price is prohibitive.

That is not an economical choice. POF in scales 1:72 or larger will require stock of species that are almost never available precut. The degree of waste is relatively high and thus expensive. The required thicknesses are often several or many different. If you are doing it Hahn style - gluing up the frame stock, fixing the frame pattern to that and cutting a complete frame from that, the waste will exceed the fraction actually used. The practical way is to be your own mill. A quick search of your area found this example Wood-Chip Marine Lumber & Supplies They advertise three appropriate species Black Cherry 4/4 and 8/4 Hard Maple 4/4 and 8/4 and for hidden or painted parts Yellow Poplar 4/4 and 8/4. This is rough cut, so the yield is higher than finish planed. You will need a Byrnes Thickness Sander (or equivalent). Getting from rough to something that the sander can use requires a saw. A 14" bandsaw is much much better, safer and more efficient than a tablesaw - If you do not have a big boy bandsaw, look for a cabinet shop, trade school, or local wood worker that has one and work a deal. If it is a civilian, bring your own blades of the required size. Lenox Diemaster 2 bimetal 1/2" 3 TPI are the sweet spot for blade life and quality of cut surface. If you are doing miniature scales, unless you luck into an affordable supply of Castillo or Pear, you probably have to harvest your own stock. Fortunately you are in citrus country. Orange and probably Lemon should work well as also should Loquot.

I think all of the mechanical ratline tools get a "useless junk" rating. Better is a thick paper background with the line spacing on it. Also a square cross section batten that is the dimension of the spacing and has a bubble level is a sort of idiot proof method of keeping spacing across uniform. Jumping around - up/down/middle will help counter the inevitable accumulative/ creeping error if you work from the bottom up or top down.

Bob, I remember reading a negative review of the Franklin (Titebond) Liquid Hide Glue here. A different product Old Brown Glue got higher marks. A problem with a premixed hide glue is the relatively high water concentration. I used the Franklin product as a temporary bonding agent, but it did not do what I wished. It was mostly because of the way I applied it. I was too through with the application. It held too well. Spot application probably would have held. I totally covered both surfaces with a thin layer - the same as I do with PVA. A wicking spacer of newspaper to allow the ethanol debonder to penetrate the frame thickness probably would have helped. Charles, Hot hide glue is probably the wise choice for an archival case. PVA is very acidic. I think it is a strong acetic acid solution. The acid concentration is higher in the water resistant bond product. It is high still in the waterproof bond product. The agent forming the bond is poly vinyl acetate. When the polymer bond forms, acetic acid is released. As the water evaporates, liquid acetic acid is left behind. It has a degree of volatility at room temp, it is just much less than water. The polymerization reaction probably continues over time - possibly years. That is probably part of the source of its continuous outgassing of acetic acid. I think this means that the bond gets marginally stronger over time but it also probably becomes more rigid as the degree of crosslinking increases. This means that a properly made ship model case needs adequate ventilation to evacuate the acetic acid gas as well keeping it from becoming an oven. It also means that castings with any lead content are doomed with a PVA bonded model.

You could check The Wood Database. The factor that is pertinent is: shrinkage. Ambient air changes in moisture content are probably only a small fraction of what the moisture concentration would need to be to match what green wood would have to be. For the most part, change in length is too small to be significant. A house framing involves intermittent timbers with nothing to push against. Any plywood or OSB sheathing has any length or width changes subject to being cancelled out because of the alternate orientation of layers. The thickness does probably change with the environment. As for planking in a model, I am thinking that planking size changes would be subject to some restraint if any tangential increase due to increased moisture was met by a resistance force that was greater than the force that internal water can exert. Side by side planks pushing against each other may keep a limit on how much water could enter. It may not move as a unit. In POF, the frames that the planks are bonded to are longitudinal to the direction that the planks "want" to move. This would resist any movement. Edge glue between planks may be subject to being squeezing, but a tight bond would have very little glue to be squeezed. It was a material used well before my time, but would hot pot hide glue not be an even more archival favorable bonding material than even PVA? I suspect that it is way more trouble to use than any advantages it would offer. It is easily reversible by exposing the bond to hot ethanol. The protein that forms the bond is it not dissolved. It is completely denatured, forming small balls that are easily removed. I consider CA to be a completely no go material because along with its chemically toxic vapor, questionable half life, and weakness at resisting sheer forces - in my very limited experience with it, I found that once opened, a bottle quickly dried out. I am also somewhat dismayed by the apparent popularity and enthusiasm for wipe-on poly. To my eye, it is too plastic looking as well as tending to produce a layer that is too thick.

Pear is indeed an attractive wood. It usually is somewhat expensive. Covering it up seems self defeating. The conundrum of planking, frames, or copper is more intense with scratch POF. The model will involve a series of complex and complicated surfaces. Not protecting it by mounting it in a case, invites a relatively short life for it. A case will limit how it can be handled and viewed. One solution to the hull finish question is to do one side finished and the other with all wood on display. In any case, to my way of thinking, you really made the choice to go with an all wood display by going with Pear to begin with. The representing a real ship: First, by beginning with a kit, with most mass market offerings, you are on broken and floating ice as far as any obsession with historical accuracy is concerned. There have been compromises made that would not be necessary with a scratch build. So, the realistic option is to do the best with what you have and not obsess over a standard that was given up with the initial choice of subject. Eugenio, you are doing quite well working within the limits that the kit allows you. You are pretty far beyond many of the barriers that defeat a beginner who is building a very complex vessel. If the individual who suggests that you punt is a also a kit builder, consider his suggestion GIGO. Your work has a strong flavor of Art to it, and that is not a bad thing. An absolutely accurate representation of HMS Victory is not really all that beautiful. While not as homely as mid 19th century warships that were purely functional, it was getting there. Now as for coppering in general. Pretty much any kit supplied method kicks you right out of any pretense to accuracy or historical integrity. Getting a material that thin enough but works is difficult at best. A coppering job that involves the new penny shine and or out of scale bumps that resemble nothing so much as an old photo of a case of severe Smallpox, is far into the realm of modeler's convention. The overall look is mostly hideous to my eye.

There are definitive threads here covering sail making in scale. Also about the fabric or paper that have been found to simulate sails as well as is possible - given the limitations in scaling the material both in weave and in thickness. As far as furling the sails. The consensus seems to be that the depth of the sail should be 1/3 - to avoid a bulky look. The material should be as light as possible. It is just my feeling, but white sails are probably a conceit of painters. I doubt that the canvas was bleached. Tabling and attachment of bolt ropes and rigging are also discussed. Polyester, ugh!

As far as Underhill, Davis, Petrejus, Longridge, Frolich are concerned as regards POB, the great danger is that you will be seduced over to the dark side = scratch building. But once POB reaches a first layer being planked stage, everything from there on - the actual hull planking, decks, furniture, etc - it is all the same irrespective of what the underlying hull structure is. The goal of books that focus on scratch building is excellence and historical accuracy. It is better to learn from the best. I am pretty sure that the build logs here in the POB kit forum have in total way more useful instruction than can be found in books that focus on POB. Why I think this is inherent in how and why POB books come to be, is probably best left not expressed.

Although he was probably being somewhat glib, Nader said that the compulsion for a drawing to be perfect would make finishing one next to impossible, He would keep doing it over until it was perfect. What startled me about what he said was that it seems to me that a brain capable of success in science or engineering would go absolutely starkers if trying to seriously deal with something as mushy as Law or related fields.There is no reliable foundation. It is all too silly and arbitrary. As for CAD, it is one thing to use it to generate something new. That is its purpose. It is something else to use it to replicate something that already exists. It seems to want to do its own thing, its own way. With a board and battens, you can massage the data.

Tim, In school, we were tracked. Mechanical Drawing and Shop were not even options for my group. They were skills that could have used. I still can't draw a neat straight line, being self taught. A smooth curve is right out. I have always been a Gordian Knot solution sort, so the neat imperative on a school drawing would have blown my GPA. Ralph Nader said he was too OCD neat freak to stay with engineering drawing and went into Law, where that sort of OCD was pointless. My OCD is there, but neat or clean is not involved. I could have also used a typing class, but that too would have wrecked my GPA. Taught myself what I needed to know to be able to loft Kate Cory from Eric Ronnberg's 1/4" plans for POF framing. Boy was that a time consuming and no fun experience! The take home lesson was to try to find a better method. I also went a fair ways into designing HMS Royal Charles 1673 following Anthony Deane's directions. I used the drawing board and it worked for it. I lost him with the Body plan. The directions were not clear. I mistakenly thought that each of the stations was individually designed. Trying to find a way to avoid the sort of extracted point plotting that was so awful in traditional lofting could be avoided. I now understand that only about 3 Stations are designed. The waterline are drawn using those few points. Battens are used to get the curves. The stations for the Body plan being back extracted. There are many proof curves needed to assure that the waterlines are proper. This leading to no joy as far as avoiding the plotting tedium, I switched to a computer based solution. It was early DOS. Still, I was having a hope that 3D CAD was a shortcut. My explorations have lead to the following conclusions - CAD is for design. It is not an easy or pleasant tool for POF lofting of existing plans. It would be useful for design using Deane's directions - except - the tools in TurboCAD - I could find no way to do an arc by inputting the center and the radius. And some of Deane's arc centers are on Mars. So a drawing board seems to be it for anyone insane enough to try to design a 17th century 1st rate. Now I can do what I need for lofting frame timbers from existing plans using a raster based drawing program. The way I do it saves at least 80% of the work and time. So, I can't reinforce your affinity for a drawing board. I suspect that your rant on the loss of skills as generations progress, has always been expressed. It probably started at least when the skill of chipping flint into sharp projectile tips was lost. So, I understand where you are coming from

Clicking the focus to a lens with a wider angle, it would probably serve you well - to read the cautionary tale post pinned to the top of the new members forum. Although, not as overwhelming as a first rate, a super frigate is still a major opus.

I keep a fine edge by stropping. I am using FlexCut Gold on my leather, but green is probably just as effective. Strop after every few cuts and a visit to a stone should be a sometime thing.

I own several and they do the job. I think the company went thru a major generation change. Not that long ago, they offered a wide variety of widths and L/R options on an individual tool level. Last time I looked, there was no longer that wide of a variety of choices. They are a useful size for ship timber shaping in the 1:48-1;72 range.

Before you jump to a mass market sort of mill, you may wish to visit littlemachineshop.com and at least look at the $800 Sieg. A wider view of the field can be useful. Also, expenditure on accessories may be greater than that of the original machine.

If you do not contemplate manufacturing your own metal tools, then neither a mill nor a lathe will prove to be an economical expenditure. The parts of a hull that they will produce are relatively few. If you are going with a larger scale and mostly leaving the outer planking off, there may be more work for a mill. The probability is that both tools will mostly sit, looking for a job, if it is only wood that they will be used on. For fabricating metal tools, both are vital. A Byrnes table saw, disk sander, and a drum sanding table and an accurate drill press come far ahead of these two tools. Serious POF probably means that you will have to be your own sawmill. In which case - a big boy bandsaw and Byrnes thickness sander slip in ahead of them.

Bending the planks: wood is a bundle of cellulose tubes - cellulose is not soluble in water ( I am not sure it is soluble in anything that leaves it useful when precipitated out. ) The glue that holds the fibers in position is lignin - It is soluble (or affected) by pure hot liquid ammonia - the explosive industrial stuff, not the household cleaner -which only mars any wood exposed to it. Heat will loosen the lignin bond. Steam is a more effective way to transfer heat into the interior of a piece of wood. Dry heat, if too high, can degrade or char the wood. If you keep in mind what is going on at the cellular level, it is easier to evaluate the methods in use to bend the wood. Keep a thought on this factor: - that you fighting Nature. Given any chance, she will reverse your efforts. Spilling the planks is working with Nature, even though it is more expensive - in time and materials. I admit that I am in foreign territory with POB and two layer planking. However, it seems to me that the looks of the first layer is not important. It is probably counter productive or a waste of effort to go much deeper than medium grit for sanding it. If brass pins are are nipped close and treated to a warding file, there is nothing there to affect any sanding material. If the outer layer is to be bamboo trunneled, then the pins under it could affect any drilled holes. But, the basic POB method is not really compatible with this (unrealistic, but fun modeler's convention.).

Davis has a drawing to these. His name for them is hutchocks. If the scrap is fairly thick, there is room to insert the tip of a curved Kelly clamp to grip the pin after the scrap is split out. rotation usually breaks the glue bond. A buffer under the Kelly to protect planking, it makes for an effective prise. The chock is a good idea in any case, but since the planks are to be covered by a 2nd layer, the pins could be flush nipped and filed flush. There are museum models from France that have brass trunnels showing. There are also recent photos of model restoration where iron (steel) pins where used. After a hundred years or three the nails were oxidized and gone, leaving a black stain on the planking. So, anywhere there is any danger of a pin being not removable, it is wise to only use brass or copper pins.

There was a time when sails were made using a drafting medium that was a very fine cloth. The "starch" binder was extracted. I have never encountered this material. It could be this. If you consult a museum conservator, a save way to clean may be suggested. It sounds like it the material is hardy. I am imagining that repeated rinsing repeatedly with distilled water would remove water soluble concretions. The likely contributor to the yellowing is the condensed volatile products of tobacco combustion. This is really nasty stuff to remove. When done, it needs its own case.

A quality SS steel single edge razor blade does a far job of fine scraping. An attempt at producing a burr could be tried if you have a small carbide rod.

To add to this topic I am posting - with Guild permission as copy of the data provided to NRJ subscribers in 1979. It is from USN Standards 1900 oars.pdf

The length of oar per boat type and the number of them are in a table in W E May. It is from 1886 but should provide realistic data. I f you do not have a copy, list the various boat types and their lengths and I will extract the specific data.

The situation is complicated. As for tools, although enthusiasm often leads to wasted money as far as tools, even your father probably does not realize which tools he needs until he needs that specific job done. It may be wiser to get: A gift certificate to a special tool vendor: Lee Valey Japan Woodworker Lie-NielsenToolworks or A subject specific book: The 100-Gun Ship Victory (Anatomy of the Ship) by John McKay The Anatomy of Nelson's Ships Hardcover by C. Nepean Longridge But for something unexpected but better than what he is likely to know about: Japan Woodworker #156382 1/8" double bevel Blue Steel knife It also needs a piece of scrap leather and a fine honing compound like Flexcut Gold Compared to Xacto type #11 blades - both will do the job, but the knife it like having Lamborghini instead of a Ford or from StewMac Item Price Qty Total Japanese Super Fine-Cut Saw Item # 3617 $39.48 1 $39.48 Japanese Curved-edge Mini Saw Item # 3612 $28.30 1 $28.30 StewMac Ultimate Scraper, Mini Item # 0632 $28.07 1 $28.07 The curved-edge saw works a trick in crosscutting

Which just fortifies my compulsion that joints should be clamped as tightly as possible, but no crushing of wood fibers. Planing and scraping produces a clean surface - good for gluing. Sanding fills the pores, which is not all that good. I think it was an old Sci Am, or the short lived popular edition of Science article about either Stradivari or Guarneri that noted that their violins were probably scraped - the pores were free of wood flour under the clear finish. Take home was that scraping was a good thing to do as a final step.

Gregory, An otherwise excellent planking job is somewhat marred by a species choice that could be replaced by a better one. Walnut, especially Black Walnut (Juglans nigra) is a much preferred wood for most any full size project. But for scale work, I stay away from species that are open pore. If the surface is magnified a bit, it resembles corduroy. The linear grooves do not show on closed pore wood - like Hard Maple, AYC, Black Cherry, Yellow Poplar, any fruitwood. A dye can get many species having the Walnut shade. It is to fill the grooves - that sanding sealer was developed. It is a produce with no purpose if a closed pore species is used.