wefalck

I have a German sail-making book of 1887 that talks about cloth width from 60 cm to 70 cm. The width, I believe depends on the material and where it is manufactured.

Adding to the information overload and things that the shipwrights would have considered: - they had to balance between the width of the available wood and the need to have basically as few seams to keep tight as possible - too narrow planks at the ends are difficult to fit and you need 'meat' for the fastenings (tree-nails, metallic nails/bolts) - I am quoting from memory, but I think in Eric McKee's books on boats he gives a couple of rules-of-thumb, such that the fastenings should not be closer to the edge of a plank than its thickness to avoid splitting - this means that allowing for tapering there is minimum width for a given thickness that a plank must have before tapering - I seem to remember that there are also rules-of-thumb for the ratio between width of a plank and its thickness to avoid splitting and warping and in some navies such rules were written down, at least in the later 19th century - the available width of planks also depends on the type of wood chosen, the period (as already mentioned by Steven), and the geographic origin or location - oak planking in principle could be wider than soft-wood planks because oak trunks can grow thicker, but wide oak plans became increasingly scarce in Europe due to the massive ship-building activities from the mid-18th century on - for the same reason, massive pine trees in North America became less accessible after the middle of the 19th century, Baltic pine planks tended to be narrower - in many areas of Europe pine and related types of woods were imported by ship from the Baltic region (Finland, Sweden, Russia, the Baltic States, the eastern Provinces of then Germany and Poland; this put limitations to the size of timbers that could be economically transported - soft-wood was mainly imported sawn in Europe, which made stowage more economic than transporting whole trunks, which limited the choices to what was available on the market - certain ships built in SE Asia for European owners/navies may have had rather wide planks due to the availabilty there of large hardwood trees OK, that didn't really answer your question, I suppose, and doesn't help with the practical problem. However, the widths quoted by Steven and Allen are a good guide.

You are a dare-devil ! Cutting into the nice rail would have frightened me to bits ... However, it came out nicely. One tends to see a lot of these davits bent just from a length of round wire, but in fact, both diameter and cross-section actually change according to the expected stresses ... just going through that exercise myself - eight times and starting with a 1 mm brass wire

So the fore-mast sits in a kind of tabernacle ? How is it going to be locked against the 'baulk' ? Did you pin the cleats to the bearer ? Nice job overall !

When there is a deck-load of (sawn) wood, the shrouds would also be points to secure the load. On such quite small boats they probably would not have transported the kind of long logs and planks that came from Sweden and Finland on old barks, brigs and schoners to ports in Germany, the Netherlands, the British Islands and other European ports.

Perhaps the bulwark was too weak to take the pull from the shrouds ?

We probably don't know what the practice was at the end of the 17th century. On small scales I used a cow hitch as surrogate for the sewed-on eye-splice. Looking at your threads, I think it would be quite feasible to make a fake eye-splice and sew this on with a couple of turns of fly-tying thread.

I think John is right. The lower yards would not normally be raised and lowered, unlike the upper yards, where both, lifts and falls may be needed to move the heavy yards up and down.

I didn't realise that the chocks are wood. So, yes, you would have to have something metal and if its turning it doesn't have to be so heavy.

Did they have roller-fairleads at that time and on such rather improvised vessels ?

Yes, that could be. Some kind of glutin glue kept from gelling by adding salt. Or it could be a thick shellac solution, one with lots of shellac and little alcohol.

Every organic solvent has a smell and some of them smell quite nicely (no, I am not a 'sniffer' ...). It depends on how big the area is to which you apply the glue. The main point is, whether the glue does the job. And: traditional hide glue does not necessarily smell very nice either.

That could be. In Germany the classical polychloroprene glue is Pattex and in my youth it was sold in tins. However, it was much for 'stringy' thatn the stuff in the video.

Laser-cutting results in a slight kerf, but this doesn't account for the observed gaps here. Due to the kerf, forward bulkheads should face forward with the side that that was down during the cutting process and vice versa for the rear bulkheads.

As always, the answer to the original question depends on what kind of model you are thinking of (and on the scale): for a model that shows off your artesanal skills, blackening is probably the way to go, while for a model that depicts the real life appearance of the prototype, painting may be more apropriate, as this is what would have been done in real life. I agree with 'grsjax', that blackening provides a better key for paints, particularly also acrylics, than the bare brass or copper. And: if the paint chips during subsequent handling, this will not be so visible.

Keith, how is the attachment lock into the T-slot of cross-slide ? I don't seem to see any screw that pulls the fixed part down onto the table, against the T-nuts.

Ah, someone else, who got out the ball-turning attachment. Will be showing some results in my log soon. Would you mind showing your attachment to satisfy my curiosity ? Very nice anchors, indeed ! Will they stay in brass, or will you blacken them ? If the prototypes were galvanised, chemically tinning would also be an option.

Just discovered this log - beautiful wood- and metal-work indeed. Will keep following further progress !

Matching paints from different manufacturers really will be hit and miss. Not only will pigments be different, but as binders and solvents will be different, their levels of sheen will also vary. I think really the best strategy is one you already used, namely to decant a bit from the spray-can into a container. If you can find one with a tighly closing lid, then you may be able to store it for weeks or months, making the procedure less wasteful.

Follow Roger's suggestion of filling up the spaces between the 'bulkheads' with some scrap wood that is a tad softer than the plywood. Many kit-builders do this and make life a lot easier ...

?

Well, I am actually an expat from Germany, but my wife is French On a ship like that the helmsman would standing besides the tiller, not in front of it, as you may do on small sailing boat, in order to be able to steady the tiller with the whole body weight. So I would think that the tiller should be a tad longer than drawin on the plans, but not so long that it would touch the bulwark, when put over hard.

I think we had this topic somewhere else before ... Anyway, there are extremely fine silk fabrics for silk-screen printing. I gather one can get them in art-supply stores, but also in the famous bay. Haven't tried them myself yet, but I believe this was the main use of the fabrics also used for covering model aircraft.

Also did some googling and realised that my chemical/mineralogical knowledge crossed with what are marketed products. Today, TiO2 pigment is produced mainly from a mineral called rutile, which apart from being crystalline TiO2 can contain significant amounts of iron oxide. The iron oxide is removed by an acid leaching process, depending on how effective this process is, traces may remain, giving the pigment a slightly yellowish stain. It appears that some artists like this pale beige colour and it is marketed as such, as 'unbleached' TiO2. The purification process has actually nothing to do with 'bleaching', which is an oxidation process.

This wanders a bit off-topic, but I wonder what is meant by 'bleached' vs. 'unbleached' titanium ? Titanium oxide (TiO2) is one of the whitest pigments that we have. Also, due to the production process it is very pure and then very stable as a chemical compound. So, I wonder, how it can be bleached.