Rik Buter

Thanks Ronald

Next is a short update, the cathead supporter. Here a zoom-in on the construction plan. First I made a paper jig. Then I took a piece of wood and made it slightly thinner than the cathead itself. the port side one best regards

Oh wauw, that is great! What a weird looking model, it looks pretty experimental. I wonder what the story behind it is. Thanks Rutger.

I don't know, it could be. It could also be that the model was of Dutch design but was build somewhere else. And if the exact position of the coamings was not specified, the modelmaker did not execute it according Dutch fashion. I spoke to Ab a few weeks ago and he told me something similar about the model in the Rijksmuseum that is also linked with van Zwijndregt. It is a mix of Dutch design and British interpretation... By the way, do you have a picture of that model in Vlissingen? I am very curious.

Thanks Chris. Actually the Dutch marine painting is what got me into modelmaking in the first place. As a big fan of that category I used to study all the books on that subject. Some of the books were also about sailing and sailing ships and contained construction plans. So one day I tried and see if I could build one. Here is one of the early models, build with black and white cardboard. I think it is a Gloucester schooner.

the Skylight The construction plan of this hooker ship does not feature any deck furniture. There was a deck plan though, so I could at least determine the exact size and placement of all the hatches. I already put all the coamings on the deck. The area of the ship right underneath the rear hatch, was probably used as living space that would need ventilation and light. So I think the hatch cover was build as a skylight. But because it was a fishing boat, it can't have been very fancy. A butterfly-skylight with plain wooden covers. Best regards

Hi Paul, I was at the National Maritime Museum in Amsterdam last Saturday and they had a model on display that reminded me of your sharpie. Of course there are a lot of differences and it doesn't have the straight sides like a sharpie has but it did have a very shallow draft. Anyway here is a picture: greetings

I am afraid it doesn't. But by all means Keith, apply the paint thickly.

Thanks Rutger, I 'm glad you like it. How are you doing with that Twikkelo? For finishing or colouring the wood on this ship there's a very simple product that I use all the time. It's a dark brown, almost black acrylic paint. But there are three different ways of applying the paint that makes it so versatile. The first one is to apply the paint very thinned down with water and immediately afterwards wipe it off again with a piece of cloth. That is what I used on the deck planks. With larger areas you have to be careful though, because the paint has to be wiped off before it dries. With the deck for instance I only did two rows at a time. The second one is to apply the thinned down version and let it sit. An example would be the doors of the companionway. The paint is used as a glaze. The third way is to use the paint as a covering finish. That one is being used on the side of the companionway and the coamings for instance. I still dilute the paint considerably though. And it might be obvious but I would like to add that the quality of the brush plays an important role in this process. I only use the two at the bottom. They are brushes ment for painting with watercolour or ink. It doesn't have to be top quality but the brush needs to be soft. The one at the top is very useful for painting on canvas but definitely not on a ship model. It is made out of pigs hair or it can be synthetic but it is too stiff to make a smooth coating. I hope this is somewhat useful.

Thanks Keith. I think you are not doing so bad yourself with that floating steam donkey. The only thing I would suggest, if I look at post #230, is to apply the paint much thinner.

the Companionway The companionway, like most of the deck furniture, was not on the construction plan. However the location and the exact size of the hatch were. So I had to come up with a shape. After scanning through a bunch of paintings and drawings and models of roughly that period, I sketched a few of the possibilities. In order to get a bit more specific, I took the plan that Ab Hoving used for his fishing hooker by Fredrik Henrik Af Chapman. It is a bit hard to discern but there is a faint dotted line describing the shape of the structure. After I subtracted that small shape from the Chapman-plan, I made it fit on the side-view of the van Zwijndregt hooker. After that I modified it slightly into an arched roof (blue line) without deviating too much from that original shape. In the search for contemporary companionways I came across pictures of a wooden sailing ship called 'the Phoenix' which had a version with an arched roof I thought would match the hooker ship nicely. The reason I used the Chapman-shape as a base, was that by now I knew that hardly anything on a sailing ship is designed randomly. The companionway on the Chapman hooker is much lower than the one on the Phoenix. Probably because the bowsprit starts at the main mast in this type of rigging so everything in front of the mast had to stay under it. best regards, Rik

Thanks guys for your response. Andrew, about that detailing I 'll have to say I wished I had done the build in a 1:48 scale in stead of 1:64. All the elements get really really tiny. And the camera on my telephone can see them much better than my eyes can. A phenomenon probably most of you will recognise. Thanks Keith! Thanks Doreltomin, yes 'pawl' would be the word I was looking for. Thanks Jacques, I used lime wood for the deck planking. I have a dark brown, almost black wash that I apply to it. But very briefly. Before it dries I rub it off with a piece of cotton. This is to accentuate the fibers of the wood and gives it a light grey hue. Here is a traditional ship in the harbour where I come from. It is called a 'botter'. These are the colours I trie to emulate. The deck is not made out of oak and it is not varnished like the rest of the hull. Thanks Rich.

Then onto the windlass. In the case of this hooker ship, the windlass does not show on the plan but from pictures, like the ones in post # 41 above, I knew it had to be there. I had consultation with Ab Hoving about it and he assured me the ship would have had one and he advised me to take a look at his building log of a similar ship at this forum. In the pictures as well as in Ab's log I noticed the riding bitt was sort of integrated with the bulwark. That 's probably why it wasn't drawn in the van Zwijndregt plans (while on other occasions he does include the riding bitts). Ab told me that the curved shape of the bulwark at the bow was filled up with pieces of wood which are called cheeks. The next picture shows you a piece of the deck plan and where the winch is supposed to be located. Based on this I could determine the length. For the specific shape there are a few great examples of windlasses at the Rijksmuseum. Here is one of them. I read somewhere there are even differences between windlasses from place to place. Apparently the Dutch ones often had a slight curve, like the one in the next image. That is not surprising since everything on Dutch ships seems to be round and bulky. Like it is their style. If you look at the grain of the wood, it looks as if it is made out of one piece instead of being composed out of eight parts. So now that I had an idea of the size and the characteristics, I made a test version from a piece of oak. Here you can see it with the ratchet wheel and square wholes for the bars. Then I installed the cheeks to the bulwark and did a test run. I decided that the test version was actually good enough and I made it the final version. Then I made the peg that stops the winch from rolling back (I couldn't find the proper term for it, please fill me in if you do know it) and its casing. Here are the pieces that lock up the windlass. There is probably a name for them too (once again don't hesitate to fill me in). And here is the whole assembly mounted on, including catheads. best regards, Rik Buter

Here are two photos of the mast wedges in place, for the main mast and the mizzen.

Hi Rich, thanks for your explanation, very useful. I had a feeling I was skipping a few steps. And does the matte finish come from a spraycan?

The next thing I did, was making the chainplates for the dead eyes. I put them in an oxidizing liquid to darken the brass. However after I rinse the parts the black patina does not seem to stick everywhere to the same degree. On some spots it is easily brushed off. So I was wondering, does anyone know the cause of it? Maybe the parts need to be better cleaned or degreased before putting it into the liquid? I still fitted them onto the boat though. I also made the wedges for the mast.

Thanks guys for checking out the building log, I'm glad you like it. And thanks for all the thumbs, I appreciate it.

A short update. In this photograph the planking of the deck is almost complete. After that I wanted to finish the bulkhead or the front piece of the cabin. Maybe bulkhead is too big of a word for that. Traditionally the Dutch ships used clinker built planks for that area, like in this drawing of van de Velde. That was about a 100 years earlier than the hooker ship, however you see the use of clinker building often return in the cabins they put on galiots and 'kofschepen' and other types of vessels in the 18th century. Like on this beautiful model of a 'smak' built by Willem Vos. So I tried it on the hooker as well. It is just a small element. I also finished the entrance of the cabin and fit the waterways and the mast partners of the mizzenmast. greetings

I build some kind of main mast bitt. Often you see there are belaying pins in there but I am not sure if they are always suppose to. There is not much information about deck furniture on the drawing. The bitt might be a little too wide. View of the bow at this stage. Preparing the upper wales for the channels of the main mast. As I mentioned before, they were placed backwards on these type of vessels so the crew had more space along the bulwark to do the fishing. Each individual fisher was reeling in a long line with hooks attached. I decided the main hatch is going to have a grating. I am not sure if fishing boats actually did have that. It was a good exercise though. With the ledges and the battens. I did not add camber to it nor to the coaming. I placed the coaming right onto the beams and carlings according to a construction drawing I found here on MSW. Later on I found out that Dutch practise is different. They first do the deck planking, and than put the coaming on top of the deck. So this Dutch boat is going to have an American deck. Here you see the beginning of the deck planking with the coamings put in first and also the mast partner of the main mast. Best regards

By the way, is that the guy from IT sitting there in the pleasure vessel, but then when he was younger?

Yes, they are boat hooks.

Thanks Yves

the Rudder Here is a close-up of the rudder on the construction drawing. At first I had no idea what the piece on top of the rudder was. I mean what it was supposed to represent. It turned out it was a 'roerklik'. 'Roer' is the Dutch word for rudder, but 'klik' I have no idea. I once had an aunt with the word 'klik' as a nickname. Also in her case the origin or meaning of the word is unbeknownst to me. Her first name was 'Ko' so it did sound rather catchy. On a visit to the 'Fries Scheepvaart Museum' I found out about these 'roerklikken'. It is a decorative element on top of the rudder. The three cylindrical shapes are barrels in the colours red, white and blue of the Dutch flag. Together with the stalk-shape it forms a three-leaf clover. As I understand it, the three-leaf clover motif was used for fishing vessels. Hooker ships that were going to be used as merchants had the head of Mercurius on their rudder. In Roman mythology he was the god of trade and profit, so that makes sense. Normally he is portrayed wearing a winged helmet. On the Dutch rudders however, he also wears some sort af animal head. Here are some examples of 'rudderheads' at the Fries Scheepvaart Museum. Especially the one in front is very well sculpted, I think. I wonder why they wear those animalheads though and also what kind of animal they tried to sculpt. I know that Hercules is often portrayed wearing a Lion skin. Here is a beautiful example of an engraving by Goltzius. Now the names Mercurius and Hercules are not that incredibly different. Back then all the instructions to the executive personnel were given verbally. I can easily picture a situation in which the ever resourceful sculptor, upon a visit by the master shipwright to examine the progress of his work, having to turn manes into wings. That might explain the ambiguous features of the animal cap. After that a tradition was born. Speculation of course but there must be some kind of explanation for the creation of these decorations, the 'roerklikken' as well as the 'roerkoppen' because they are applied very consistently. I'm wandering off. For the rudder of the hooker I started with the hinges because I didn't know what they exactly looked like and I didn't have much experience with soldering. I came upon a very helpful video of Kevin Kenny on this topic. Thanks Kevin Kenny! I started with the gudgeons. Then the rudder itself. Pintle. The tiller and the clover decoration. Best regards

Thanks Mike!

Thanks man! And I noticed you are using a proxxon, would you recommend that one?