wefalck

This appears to be cart-mounted fire-pump - the engravings in the back corroborate this. They came into use in the 18th century and were finally surplanted by IC-engine-driven pumps in the 20th century (there were also two-wheeled steam-driven cart-pumps, but they were expensive). Every village used to have at least one, if they couldn't afford a bigger one or when the streets didn't allow access by four-wheeled ones. They were also common in industrial establishments and shipyards for rapid intervention.

To me it appears than that very little bending is actually required.

Are you sure that this should be a part bent into a U and not two parts that meet over the bowsprit in a seam that runs parallel to the bowsprit? I don't think I have ever seen the U-shaped solution on a real ship.

Ah yes, I think I have seen on or two of those movies, but did not memorise any character names 😁

Could you show a picture of the situation ? I suppose the material will be painted afterwards, so it doesn't matter what is underneath? In this case, you could consider cutting the piece from cheaper and easier to work material, such a styrene, or use styrene strip that can be formed with gentle heat from a hair-dryer around a former as mentioned above.

The stempost leans to port compared to the transom. The only solution seems to be to rip off the planking and hope that the ‘backbone’ straightens itself again.

Indeed the ration between thickness and width and radius of the curve are the key parameters. It is probably unavoidable to make some sort of jig. This jig would consist of a former for the inner radius of the finished piece, attached to a flat board. The forming would proceed with gentle hammering the strip to the former, interrupted by heating the part with a torch to red-hot to take out the work-hardening. Otherwise the strip will start breaking on the outside curve. The hammering and resulting stretching will make the strip narrower, so you need to start with a strip wider than the finished rail. Depending on the actual dimension of the part, it may be actually better to saw it from a piece of sheet brass.

"I only place ONE layer of planks, no second coats necessary." ... In POB kit-construction that depends on the spacing of the bulkheads that was chosen by the manufacturer. In many cases the spacing is too wide, resulting in 'kinks' in the first planking that needs to be evened out. A safer construction with less chances of distortion during planking would be to fill the spaces between the bulkheads with pieces of wood, which also makes fairing the hull easier ...

What means 'Mater from Cars' ? If it's Latin it would mean the 'mother' of cars, but that doesn't seem to make lot of sense !? I may confuse them, but I think these artillery-tractors were of a rather special design with diesel-electric drive: the power came from a diesel-engine (or maybe a petrol-engine, not sure) that drove a generator, which in turn drove electric motors in each wheel.

Very clean and crisp construction 👍🏻 And nice to see that someone else adopted also the method of building deckshouses and skylights around (solid) acrylic cores.

Yes, indeed, that looks like less trouble with the next planks 👍🏻

Happy New Year to you as well ! This will be become a true (retrospect) 'Builder's Model' !

Good job on what is usually the most difficult plank on a boat. Not sure, whether it is due to the perspective of the photograph or real, but there seems to be an upward curve between the last two bulkhead - I hope that doesn't cause you problems in the further planking, because I have the feeling that the next plank may end up having to have to be narrowed in that area ... or in other words the garboard plank should have gone higher up on the sternpost perhaps

Now only the probing valves are missing (just kidding) - the things looks very convincing at this small scale!

'Proper' carving or not, I think it turned out 'the' thing 👍🏻 The rush to get the dolls' house finished in time reminded me of a story my paternal grandmother used to tell of my grandfather trying to get some buildings for my father's train set finished (back in the later 1920s) and the oil-paint wouldn't dry in time for Christmas ...

I agree with the others, the boiler looks the thing! Is this going to be final disposition? Somehow I have the feeling, that the stokers wouldn’t have a lot of room to work - or was the boiler by chance oil- fired, I don’t remember what you wrote. Oh yes, and a good start into 2025 and continuation 🥂

I think there is not a really good translation for 'Stander' as in 'Vorstander' etc. The tackles are generally referred to as boat-tackles, I think. 'Manntau' I would translate simply as 'man-rope'. However, I stand to be corrected here. Good work. I know, you got the boats from someone else. How are they actually made, 3D-printed? The lapstrake planking looks neat, perhaps a bit too thick.

Incidentally Norbert Weismann, who is one of those who intensively researched Arab vessels, particularly those of Oman, over the past 30 years just started publishing a series of articles on the Sanbuq (albeit in German): WEISMANN, N. (2024): Der Sanbuq DHI'B.- Das Logbuch, 2-2024: 158-165. Weismann discusses the origins and characteristics of Sanbuqs. The kit seems to be based on a lithograph in PÂRIS's 'Souvenirs de la Marine', Plate 57 in the first volume, which in turn is based on a drawing by LeMasson of 1865 (preserved in the archives of the Musée de la Marine, Paris). This appears to be first detailed western drawing of a Sanbuq (spelling varies depending on the transcription into which western language). LeMasson was involved in the construction of the Suez Canal.

I make myself a drawing of the layout of the ratline and place this behind the shrouds. This helps to space them equally and also to detect quickly, whether the shrouds become distorted by the process. Prototype fashion, the ratlines are not tied to the first and last shroud, rather there would be an eye-splice that is lashed to the respective shroud. You can fake this by a modified knot, where the loose end returns back parallel to the ratline.

Now, with the successfully launch completed, I also switched over to this project of which I had been only vaguely aware up to now ...

What would worry me is that the boats are very close and hit each other and the rowers in the water. I gather life-vests would prevent the rowers in the water to duck through the surf, but on the other hand being knocked unconscious could be fatal ... I would rather watch this from a deck-chair on the beach!

That's a leeboard, there is one on each side. As the name suggests, when sailing the one in lee is lowered and the one to windward raised to prevent drifting. Very common on flat-bottomed boats without protruding keel. Mainly used in tidal waters.

On the topic of cheap vs. expensive: obviously you get what you pay for, but often it is also a question of fine-tuning and adjusting. It pays to delve into some old-time mechanics' instruction books that give tips for adjusting machines to increase their precision and performance. One should also not forget that lathes and mills are self-replicating machines, meaning that you can replace sometimes crudely made parts in a machine with more precise and improved parts made on the very machine ... there are lots of ideas and instructions for this on the WWW.

I believe the original one was made by the same guys that made the Unimat lathes and marketed from some time of the later 1980s on as UNIMAT 1. It was essentially meant to be an educational toy. It was all-plastic with a fairly weak 12V electric motor. All plastic means that it was not really suitable for metal work, though they did show examples of metal work. It is still made and marketed by https://thecooltool.com in Austria, near Vienna. Later a metal version, UNIMAT MetalLine, was brought onto the market, which is a more serious proposition and can be used for light metal work. Over the last decade or so plagiarised versions of Chinese origin also appeared on the market, which cost half or so of the original one. In a way such combinations sound attractive, as one needs only one motor unit and can put together a wide variety of machines, such as lathe, horizontal mill, vertical mill, coordinate drilling machine etc. with one kit. From experience, however, I can say that in a production flow in shipmoldelling it may not be very practical, as you may have to move a part between machines for several operations and by reconfiguring the machine you loose the original set-up and, hence, precision. It is also time-consuming. I cannot comment on the precision and rigidity, as I never had or operated one, but have the feeling that their claims are a bit exaggerated. These machines also seem to be quite expensive for what they really are.

I know from experience what is is like to try to bring a boat off the beach through the surf and I would rather not do it, if I don't have to ...