sheepsail

May be the best use of AI yet. I keep telling others that AI is like making a wax mold of an item. Lots of detail on the outside, but when you slice it apart the inside is empty. Now if AI could just tell me what material headerboards were made of (metal or wood.) and if wood was the wood pressed in a steam mold? Laminated? Since the boards are the same on all the ships? Ironically I could put the photographs from my question in the deck fittings topic. AI would then make me a header board with the design in relief. Of course I could do the same in lightburn tracing over the design after using the stupid 'apple preview' AI which keeps trying to enhance and remove the backgrounds of my photos. -julie

What materials were header boards typically made of? Many models seem to make this from PE brass. I notice in the Lumber ship photos, they all look identical. What makes the white part stick out even when these were in a derelict state? I also note that in one photo. of the Forester, I got from the museum where the headier board is clear. That the port side is upside down from the starboard side? Were these stamped out of something? It looks like they were mass produced and placed one way or the other depending on which side was needed. -julie

Most of the local coal mining done at the base of Mt Diablo was done by Welsh immigrants. I think they did some of the hard rock mining as well. One of my elementary school teachers was a descendant from the mining families. Would tell stories of the abandoned mining towns. So some of the localization may have percolated through. I myself visited Wales, and can see why they saw similarities in the east bay hills. There may be thin coal seams in the hill I live on which is sandstone. Usually though the cores of these hills are limestone with lots of shell fossils. When they took down a small mountain to cut the interstate through the west of town, we got a bunch of that spoil. I think the coal is under the limestone. One thinks of the pacific northwest as more volcanic. This area though is a mix of both. Something called Franciscan formation after the nearby city. There are quite a few hot springs in the area. The faults turn the stuff on it's side so the geology here is all wonky. I look out the windows to the north and see the dormant Mayacma volcano peaks of the Napa Valley on the other side of the straights. -julie

Yes that was the one. Wonder why my search could not find it?

No real progress. Still figuring out how to do the aft section so I can finish and glue the forward section. I have some technical questions which need some more thought in how to present them. Not to mention finding the photographs and noting the details I want to ask about. (Eidetic memories are good for recall, and information overload, not so great when things change faster then you can remember them...) Wednesday mornings there is a neighborhood walk to the marina. I have been taking time out to go on these nature walks, and interact with others in person. And even listen to what they might have to say. This morning the tide was out. Could not resist this photograph of the wreak covered in seabirds. I am also not too fond of Apple insisting to AI enhance my phone photos. What I see on my screen is not what is being uploaded. All the subtle contrast is lost. There was also mention of the shipwreck in the local paper (San Francisco Chronicle.) this week. Not sure most readers pay attention to such comments. The real trivia is the Martini was named for this town Martinez on the other side of the straights where the Napa river (Mare island and wine county oligarch resorts are.) The only question is what bar did it happen. Here or in the city that calls it self San Francisco. Since we do not drink friscos (a town in texas) obviously the drink comes from Martinez. It is also curious as to why the Wawona was shredded like 1600 Pennsylvania ave. In the dry dock. Granted the timbers were rotted. So are the remains of the forester. I looked at another timber a week ago. Was still there in the pile this week. This is what is called a regional park. Which is sort of connected to the National park, but not a state park. The boundaries cross county lines, so these are not city parks either. Have their own administrative and tax districts. (I stole a rotted 2x4 from the tide a couple weeks back and waiting for it to dry out and cut it into blocks. 'beach cleanup') Next week we are going kayaking in the Suisun marshes. (which look pretty much the same with similar birds.) Now according to the paper 'investors' want create a new shipbuilding center in Collensville. An AI generated 'city' called California Forever. The infrastructure has already started with some widening of HWY12. No there are no desires to re open the old ship yards since the old ones have historical baggage. And the workers are on the dole. Who are lazy and could have jobs if they really wanted them. These oligarchs want to pave over the uncontaminated marshes and write their own history and local laws. Currently lands are held through land trusts coincidentally were recently repatriated to the 'Natives' Who still do not have federal representation 'as they would probably build a casino on it.' (LOL) 'All in the name of national security.' Plus luxury resorts. Like the Blue lagoon in Iceland. (yeah let us build a spa inside an active volcano that has been dormant for 800 years.) Sea level rise anyone? Oh and these Islands are covered with wind farms and have been for nearly 50 years some of the oldest modern power generation in existence. It is also interesting how the 'Narrative' gets written. Much more interesting hundreds of years in the future looking back. A week before the shutdown I got NPS contacts for volunteering. Perhaps I might get a chance again down the line. Weeks ago I could find videos scrapping the Wawona, Now my search profile gives me something completely different. I did find a PDF (not sure it is one I have found before) what gives the arguments relating to the choice as to which of the two ships was saved (Wawona vs Thayer.) I guess these are choices that has to be made. Difficult as it is. The difference between an archivist and a librarian and a museum curator. The librarian weeds out and destroys books people are not reading. Archivists and Curators are both hoarders. Archivist keep everything including the trash which they re bury. Curators like to hide stuff the closed off basements and store rooms that they do not agree with lest someone steal it. I think there is a joke here somewhere, do not know what the punchline is. I must be a hoarder as I keep making stuff for my model. When one does talk to the public about the history of shipbuilding and famous ships, the question gets asked. Why can they not simply put it were people can continue to see and enjoy it? A reason I have been sloughing off on the model is this is fall TV season. So the new documentaries on Pompeii Cleopatra and Egypt are airing. I wanted to go back and watch the old ones as they made it look like stuff discovered say 20 years ago was found months ago. When I looked for the old stuff it was no longer available due to rights issues. Scholars pretend that the people they stole from did not exist because they are old and dead. And it is stupid when the AI says Pompeii was Named for Pompey Magnus (whom Cleopatra's brother executed. Caesar preferred the sister.) If anything it was the other way round. Curiously I had a book that said history ended at this point in time with the assassination of Caesar. So none of this is relevant to model shipbuilding. Other than it is what one thinks about gluing 100s of planks into position. And the Nemi Ships is high on my list. I just ordered a copy of the book on them. If I get there that could be an interesting log. Seagulls are pretty to look at. They are also nasty rat with wings. Feeding on the refuse of what others find disgusting. I once saw one take out a pigeon. Guess this is the natural order of the world. Egypt needs tourist. So they are opening a new mega museum and closing the old one. This also happened with the Viking ships. In France they just do the pink panther heist thing. (do people really believe the stuff on display is or should be fake?) So there is the argument we can not put things on display because it might get stolen or used for the wrong 'Narrative.' So we are being constantly distracted and like egyption workers sold over priced watered down beer and sugar water while smoking and ingesting things that makes us see the golden lamassu in the king who is a living god and must be worshiped. So now one has to make the choice to watch TV or work on the model. -julie (who should probably stop being distracted and create an automatically inserted signature profile.)

Chomp Chomp shred shred. Actually in my search profile it takes me to the Yosemite redwood grove. I looked for it again but could only find this link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TnE8AM35Fvc&t=20s I think the video of the Wawona in the chompers is on Fakebook. Pretty sickening. Looks like the same contractor who is working with the same tools on 1600 Pennsylvania avenue. Even more scary is I do not have a Fakebook account, but they still have a profile on me and show people I know stuff I am interested in. To forward and share with the heathen sheep.

I was afraid the small scale would not show any detail. Learned a lot from your (@Keith Black) build of the hard coal barge. I am leaning for doing the other ships I want in this scale. The C.A. Thayer and Galilee would be nice additions down the line. The thin strips flex easy. Having access to the laser really helps. Will be interesting what the fiber laser does with the fittings. Of course we will see how I still feel when it comes to the rigging.

Still pretty much rince and repeat on the planking. Most of it is covered apart from the keel which is being dry fit. Also cut out a rudder. May need to fit some of the lower stern decking. Cut some out last week, since the bulwarks extend over the edge and the rear may be a bit oversized there is quite a bit of gapiness. In the photos, the cabins are set back a bit from the rail, so the top view of the cabin may reflect that setback. I need this deck, to place the rudder hole. I am liking the texture effect of the planking. It is what shows in the old photographs. I noticed that I may have used old growth redwood heart for the planking. In looking at the cut sections of the board it looks pink now. There was some discussion in the NPS booth at the Maker faire, if redwood was used in these ships, They did have samples of wood from the C.A. Thayer reconstruction. One of the blocks does have a pinkish hue. To me that looks more like the eastern red colored wood that comes from what they call red eucalyptus. The western tree though is usually called blue gum in the southern hemisphere. Wurlitzer used this wood in pipe organ valve blocks. My understanding is that shipwrights were fairly conservative in the woods used. Hence the controversy over the use of laurel in the Saginaw. There is also debate if this was imported laurel from the southern US, Or the local bay laurel what grows like weeds in the local live oak forests. To me importing wood thousands of miles (before rail) makes no sense, when there are local old growth forest locally. Since most of these forests were clear cut, it is hard to say one way or the other.

Amazing to think this was a San Francisco landmark for many years albeit before my time. Such things are so underappreciated outside the local cultural context. Similar things happened to the cities clock and watch collection, which no longer fit in with the Academy of Sciences desire to teach the fear and hate of technology. At least that collection is still complete in the national museum in Lancaster PA, but it is a bit difficult to visit. One has to learn to enjoy such things while available. The Vaillancourt fountain is next on the deacquisition list. Really need a ♥️ emoji in the likes. Looking forward to following along on this one. I like ships with a local connection.

Doubt I I would be in the market for more card models. Although I would not mind if I could find a card model of AE 33 Shasta which was a Kilauea class ammo ship. We have a few souvenirs from that. My dad used to take the kids out on it for shakedown cruises under the gate. I never got to go on any as these were at risk kids under county care. Have a number of photos he took.

At the Maker Faire over the weekend on Mare Island the park service was handing out this volvelle. When you rotate the window, it shows things like the difference between a bark and a barkenteen. Usefull as I keep running into the term sloop. I pretty much know what a schooner is, since those are my favorites. The flip site show some rigging. Still learning the names of the sails. I have an old 19th century textbook which also gives some of this info. Looks like the card might also be capeleble of being used as a binnacle. By chance I have been re reading the Sea Wolf. The brutal sadistic Wolf Larsen makes such a thing in a moment of calm. These were quite popular in the 18th century for doing some of the trigonometric calculation. Tricky though to use as such things are variants of an astrolabe, which require the understanding of stereo projection. Without a good watch Or other timekeeper, they are also somewhat awkward on the rolling deck of a ship or boat.

I just noticed that I somehow uploaded the wrong PDF. That one uploaded is a link to a thread. Part 1-DELFTship_Bkgrd_Images.pdf Part 2-DELFTship_Bkgrd_Images.pdf Part 3-DELFTship_Bkgrd_Images.pdf Part 4-DELFTship_Bkgrd_Images.pdf Part 5-DELFTship_Bkgrd_Images.pdf It is interesting that when I copy the file name, it creates a link to it. Does save searching for it. I think these are buried on the NRG pages. I print these out as I find the hardcopy is easier to use when I am on the WIndows machine. Once I correct the fencepost errors in the Saginaw model, I plan on writing it up in more detail. I got more involved with the physical Forester model which I never imported into DELFTShip. -julie

There is a really good tutorial I downloaded. The title is Modelling a ship's hull with Delftship - CAD and 3D Modelling_Drafting Plans with Software - Model Ship World™.pdf When I pasted the title it looks like it attached a link to this thread as well. This is a bit dated, the basics remain. Most of the changes are to the UI graphics. My workflow is to use Lightburn, the laser etching program, which works much like Adobe Illustrator. This is to clean up the drawing. I then export Illustrator. Sadly apple remove support for Postscript and Illustrator in the latest OS. So I have to use an old copy to convert it to PNG. I like PNG as it is not frequency compressed like JPG. DELFTShip has no trouble importing PNG file. There are three background images, which move around to the 6 sides of the cube as the model is moved, so sometimes they are mirrored. Sadly DELFTShip does not import SVG or PDF vector images, only bitmaps. DELFTShip also only runs on Windows, so I have to sneaker net the graphics to a windows machine. The workflow is a bit strange in DELFTShip. It does not use the normal English based verb action syntax. I suspect it is closer to dutch grammar. There are no menus, only Icons. Each Icon group has functions. I also find that there is a lot of keyboard activity using the control rather than the shift key to select things. The three buttons on the mouse, work a bit different as well. Right is used for dragging, rather than pressing down on the scroll wheel. There is also a lot of flipping between the icon ribbons. For some reason one has to edit in the station locations rather than click and drag them. Even though they are highlighted. One really needs to write down the table of offsets. I think the program can import these as a CSV spreadsheet. I have not tried that as yet. Scaling is done either when the images are imported, or in the parameters section. It is easy to get a fencepost, where the model is off by a foot, as the scale starts at zero. I like to number the scale on the drawing. -julie

Started planking the hull this week. The hot hide glue is working really well. I find that if I place a few drops into an old plastic spoon. Upper right. I can use a tiny paintbrush to apply a small drop or line to the thin planks which are about 1/32 inch square. Unlike other glues, I can let the blob of unused glue dry and throw it back into the pot. Only minimal clamping is needed. The push pins only need to go in about a milimeter or so. Mostly around the curved parts. On the bulwarks I could use tiny binder clamps. Setup time is fast.

Contact cement creeps and stuff shifts about. Has no torsional strength. Can be sort of twisted apart. Does work on stuff like Formica and foam rubber. Not so great on wood to wood joins. I think most people use the casein white glues, such as the Elmer's brand. Had a friend attempt to use gorilla glue for cabinet veneers. Total disaster, humidity caused excess swelling and de-lamination. CA glue is best at gluing skin together. My personal preference is for hide glues, which have been around for centuries. Steep learning curve, and not really the norm anymore.

I have a small drum thickness sander to thin down the wood to 1/32. The laser has no issues cutting 1/32 inch sheets. Xacto knifes and micro planes cut through this stuff like butter.

Applying the under supports to the Bow. Feels a bit like more of the same. I borrowed some ideas from the planking section to use push pins. The hull wood is soft enough to press them in. Does leave a big hole. This will all get covered with the "planks." There is a bit of overlap at the stem. I based this grid on the top plan view, and projected it back. The rough kit suppled hull feels a bit undersized when compared to the plans and photographs. The planks where made by tracing some lines off the plans and extending them. The plank wood is about 1/32 thick, which might be a bit large for scale which is 3/32 so that would make the planks 1/3 of a foot or about 4 inches. Ship timbers do seem to be fairly thick, so this might be close. In the lower right, there is some texture for the lower capstan chain winch. This is set next to the ubiquitous coin, which in this case is a penny. For some reason Apple messed up the color calibration in the latest version so the image looks washed out on my screen on the web page, but not in the preview app. If I leave the default settings uploads come out too dark. Ironically I tested this sort of thing for Apple back in the 1990s. The system does work, if one stays inside the walled garden. I left the ends of the planking strips uncut, They still came apart as even the marking pass cuts almost 1/2 through at the lowest setting. Most likely I will need to extend the lower part of the stern. There should be enough material to cover the bulwarks down to around the water line. Below the waterline the planks are pretty much cut and paste. Sorting this stuff out can be a challenge. I probably should have marked the back, like one does piano or organ keys to reposition them. At least this time they did not warp up, so the laser did not shred them. I used an old 2x4, which I think was from a project about 8 or so years ago. Seems pretty dry. Grain is courser than the century old wood. Those blocks are not long enough to cut the full lengths of the planks. This all gets painted.

I have an Xacto micro plane, which seems to do the job. Also a wet grinder. Would be nice sometime to find a new blade, although the existing one still works well. -julie

The bottle says 'Plaid' located in Norcross Ga. Label says craft paint. Materials indicate water base acrylic. The grouping is called Apple barrel colors. The gloss says it can be heat set in the oven. They would probably have come from Michael's or Arron Brothers. They are a bit old so could be a bit passed the best buy date. I had to add a bit of water to the brush. Here is a shot of the latest progress with the bottle in the photograph. I had to use stronger clamping on the starboard side. Since the center deck is in place. The deck stringer and forecastle beams are just set in place. There is a bit of a gap as the hull block is a bit wider, or the notches not cut as deep as they should have been. This affects the angles where the forecastle beams attach. Not quite sure how I will compensate for this. I need to wait for the main glue to fully dry and see if I can steam and clamp the bulwarks rail. The deck template is in place as I wanted to see how the shadows work. There probably should be something to represent a locker on the port side. The winch probably should be suggested. May be some time before I get to the deck house. I want to plank the outside of the hull first. Was a bit afraid the bulwarks might be too fragile, The tabs did chip a bit where the laser scored marking lines. Once glued things feel surprisingly strong. Even so there will be no more tossing it into the box with the rest of the sticks. I did glue some of the water ways in place. Not sure yet what to do with the scuppers. These are marked with simple laser lines. The scale and photographs indicate these might be about one meter square. The 'Commerce' has haws pipes in these location. The Ron Cleveland, Rigging of West Coast Barkentines and Schooners, has some stuff on loading which shows how the milled lumber was stacked and chained so the water could align and run out of these holes. One of these holes can just be made out in the rub rail on one of the ref photos I copied in the museum with my phone. As noted the Thayer has a series of slots near the deck level. This was something seen in person, which is probably not too noticeable in photographs. These are large ships. It is hard when working at a small scale to get a feeling for how large some things should be. Probably why they have people in the photo. The deck stringers are over 100 feet in length. According to my scale these are nearly 1 and a half feet on each side. -julie

I really can not speak to how well hide glue works in ship modeling as I have no real experience with the more traditional kits and methods. I painted the bulwarks. Not having access to miniature four dimensional dock yard workers, I figured it best to paint things before gluing. My dad had some old paints from various projects. Since I am making this up as I go, using them seemed like the simplest option. The top of the hull, where most of the gouges are was painted with a flat black graphite color. I may make some of the hatches open. The area under the forecastle, behind the galley and crew quarters should disappear in shadow. I am still contemplating modeling some blocks to suggest the capstan winch. Will see what it looks like when I get things together. The milled down sheets from the pipe organ swell shade blades, are not wide enough to cover the whole deck. So I did them in sections. I cut separate thicker pieces for the long deck stringers. Since I had the graphics for some deck stringers. I cut some more without the knee braces. This should help with the installation as there is warping of the decks in three directions. Interesting that when glued up, there are optical illusions which make the straight lines look curved and the curved ones straight. There is a large photograph on the door of the museum to the Forester room. I took a shot of it with my phone. (there are some reflections on the glass.) This shows a bit fuller bow than the model was carved. The station templates do allow for more thickness in these parts. This also shows the ship stripped of most of the fittings. What it looked like shortly before it burned. In the photos, and my recollection the decks were covered with all sorts of junk. The owner at the time was the sort who did a lot of itinerant jobs about town. For the most part hide glue does not need a lot of clamping. I did find that where the forward parts do need to wrap around the bow, that the wood tended to spring back a bit. So I used some telephone wire scrap from a pipe organ relay. When I pre-bent the end of the bulwarks they broke at where I joined the cross grain rails. So I clamped this back after installation of the side and deck structure. Some of this will get filled and sanded so the planking can be laid. The width of the deck was trace from the top view well for shaping these parts. I did cut some test planks from scrap. These feel a bit thicker than scale. For the most part I am finding the parts to align with the traced plans. -julie

Thanks for the correction. I could not remember all of the acronym. I posted this yesterday when working with the machine, and did not bother to look it up. Here is a link to the extinct Mediterranean plant. It is quite fascinating Must have tasted good, as it was eaten into extinction. In the end it was worth more than gold.

A few other note about the machines. For the most part these are industrial machines. They require an industrial space, with active ventilation flues. Why most of them are placed in shared workspaces or libraries. It takes a fairly powerful laser to cut through 1/4 inch of wood. In addition to the ventilation, there is active cooling involved. Even after cutting the parts tend to outgass from the burned edges. The stuff I cut last night smells a bit like toasted Christmas trees this morning. I have been typically spending 3 or so hours per session. Of this the actual cutting is perhap 10 to 15 minutes. The rest is prep and set up. It probably took a month or so to create the base drawings in lightburn. When actually cutting one has to plan how it fits onto the material. There is also time needed for cleanup. Be ware of the smaller machines. The ones what use small diode lasers and DVD type mechanisms. Even these have large heat sinks. I have a few of these that were popular a decade or so back. Typically they only have about 2x2 inch work area. Sometimes these diode lasers are installed on 3D printer frames. Some of these only will move the laser head in a raster pattern. The resulting accuracy is only as good as the lead screw or syncro/servo belting. -julie

Check out my 'Forester' log. I am using a large format engraver in the local Makerspace. I use lightburn and DELFTship. There is stuff on this in the 3D forums. BYTW: I think lazar was a now extinct plant used for food in ancient Rome, till it was all eaten. Laser is Light Amplitude Stimulus Energy Radiation.

Dolomite balls were used to make the pyramids and other large megalithic structures. Bang two stones together and one does not need iron or steel hammers and chisels. It has been shown that working sitting in quarry trenches can cut through anything using similar stones. In a leather sling, they also work well for catapult ammunition. Such things also make good ballast stones. They pack well. -julie

Setting up the workspace in preparation for gluing. My preference is for using traditional hot hide glue. On the Mechanical Music and pipe organ forums, glue is a sordid topic, what was known as the 'glue wars.' The short of it is that in the 1970s restorers started using the PVA and PVC glues. Several companies went out of business as the resulting instruments were seen a ruined due to early failures. Hide glues have been around for centuries they have known lasting properties. One is that with heat and moisture they are for the most part reversible. They are also easy to clean. Usually only minimal clamping is needed. After a few moments the glue forms what some call a death grip. The main disadvantage is that due to the organic nature, It has a distinctive smell. Basically it is expired gelatin. Add sugar and you get gumi bears, which do actually work pretty good as a glue substitute. Gumi candy also makes great printing transfer rollers. I personally have nothing against CA glues. I use them a lot in other things. I find though that it tends to not have much torsional strength. One can usually break the bond by twisting. Resin glues and epoxies have their place as well. Since I am working with century old wood I figured to stay traditional. It is what I am used to working with. So here is the first part glued. And the second ... The first part is about the size of a toothpick. I was able to trace over the plans. which only show a couple of cross sections. This was used to create the beams for the upper deck, Which I think is the one called a forecastle but never pronounced that way. It looks like this is around station 3. For some reason the plans show a hawse pipe. The photographs actually have a large rectangular opening, which I think is what they call a scupper. I noticed on the C. A. Thayer, these were a series of holes at the deck level. The Commerce, does have this haws pipe structure around station 3. I think these holes were also used for the mooring lines to pass through. Photographs of the forester bulwarks show clearly visible timberheads. The plans call the the rails, the Rail stringer and Ceiling. Since they are different thicknesses I cut them as two different pieces. That makes for one long toothpick. what looks large in the plans is only a few millimeters when cut out. Here is the port side glued up and half the starbord side. The resulting structure is quite strong while remaining flexable. There are a few places where the laser cut a bit deep into lower tabs at the top of beam line. These broke off. Since I had everything ready to glue, and I also have the tabs, I figured to glue the back once things are together. I still have plenty of other parts to cut. Next up will be to paint these rails. I do not want to get paint on the nicely etch deck pieces. I also want to pre bend the forward parts where it starts to curve. -julie