wefalck

The concern about the visibility of the grain aside, it probably depends on the scale and type of the model and whether you are thinking of bent or sawn frames ... otherwise, what works for you on the practical side and what pleases you visually should be the guide. Perhaps from trials to test the workabiliy and how it looks with the desired finish would be sensible before embarking on full-scale parts production.

Some people / navies like to have a rope-ring or something like this above the leathering to prevent the oar from slipping out of the thole. In other places this is frowned upon. I gather this is what Jerry was referring to ? Such a ring is usually a tight-fitting single or double 'Turk's Head' (well, today rubber rings are used). There are instructions for tying Turk's Heads on the Internet or in books on knots. At a 1/25 scale it should not be too difficult to replicate.

Difficult, if you are city-dweller in an appartment ... I once kept a branch from a cherry tree in my parents garden, but never found a way to have it cut up.

This putty has some weird rheological properties. If you deform it slowly it act like a putty, when say form a ball and let it drop to the floor, it bounces off like a rubber ball, but when you hit it with a hammer, it crumbles away. Perhaps, when you try to pry it out of crevices with some instrument it thinks it has to become stiff and doesn't move ... I think, I would have gone for some low-tack modeller's masking tape, such as that sold by Tamiya. Anyway, she comes along nicely !

These kinds of weathering techniques are not often seen in our realm ...

Actually, I think you would need one cleat only, one on the mast to belay the halliard for the sail. But not even that may be needed, as one could tie the halliard simply to the bench. Sheets on small boats are never belayed, so that you can let it go immediately in an emergency. However, a half-cleat on each side, or something like that, might be useful to lead the sheet around and ease the strain somewhat. There is no information on how it was done on the real thing ?

Ah, these stupid SSL-certificates are playing up again, when I am linking to my own Web-site. I directly uploaded now the image. Thanks for letting me know, Eberhard

The snow-rig seems to have fallen out of fashion around the middle of the 19th century and its prevalence seems to have been unevenly distributed across the European regions and North America. One reason, why one does not see many old models of snows is perhaps, that this is a rig largely associated with smaller merchantmen and not too many models of them were built at the time or have survived. On ship portraits, however, it is quite frequent. Here is an interesting arrangement on the snow ELISABETH (1839) of Altona (Hamburg). The model was built in around 1900 from old plans by shipwrights and rigged by real riggers etc. The snow-mast is actually stepped on the gaff and not on the deck ! More pictures from this model in the Altona-Museum here: https://www.maritima-et-mechanika.org/maritime/hamburg/altona.html

Doesn't it lift off the paint ? Or may be not, as it is supposed to be made from some kind of silicone.

Apropos the rudder: it had to be capable to be unshipped very quickly when the boats where beached, particularly, when there is any degree of surf. As the rudder extends below the keel, you would hit the sand and either damage the pintles or it might become unshipped by itself and lost. At many of the shallow coastlines from which these boats would (have) operate(d) there is a shallow sand bar about 50 m from the actual beach that may have only a foot or so of water on it. You wouldn't be able to pass the bar with the rudder shipped. Another reason is that the incoming surf would hit the rudder and swing the boat around so that its broadside would be hit by the waves - a dangerous situation ... Haven't seen magic putty for more than 50 years. Didn't know it still existed and that modellers use it to mask for spray-painting. May have to look into getting some.

Actually, the good old door locks, whether set into a mortice or screwed to the inside of the door are not too complicated. I found an image on the German Wikipedia that shows the inards (and the one or two locks that I took apart looked very similar indeed): The square hole on the top is the one for the door knob or handle. C is the template for the key - in this kind of lock the bolt can be moved with any hook that fits through the template, i.e. they are easy to pick. The key is inserted with the nose down, when you turn it up, it moved the notched bolt to the right and lifts it against the spring (b) loaded latch. You can turn the key twice, moving the bolt deeper into the mortice in the door-frame. The manual bolt (d) is not normally available in locks fitted into the door. For a lock terminology have a look here: https://www.timpsonlocksmiths.co.uk/locksmith-terminology/ I don't think it would be too difficult to reproduce a simple working lock as per above sketch in 1/12 scale. It would be probably about 12 mm high, 10 mm wide and 3 mm thick. The body would be two plates held apart by studs. You may probably get away without the springs, or make a simplified arrangement.

It all depends on the materials used. Perhaps the safest way would be to rub down the affected areas with steel wool and apply more varnish to blend the area in with the rest.

Not sure, I understand the problem well. There are three basic types of locks: - the kind of box that is screwed to the inside of a door and the latch runs into a U-shaped part that is screwed to the door-frame - my father used to call this cow-shed lock - the traditional style, where the box-shaped lock slides into a mortice in the door and is screwed down to the narrow side of the door, for which purpose the box has longer flat piece of metal attached to its narrow side; the latch runs into mortice in the frame that is re-enforced with a metal plate - the zylindrical security locks that a set into a bore of the door and the latch runs again into a mortice in the door frame. So what do you actually want to model ? The whole lock with its mechanism ?

Gentlemen, Thank you very much for your kind words and praise ! I think that not scale is the problem, but rather the limitations are due to materials availability, its workability and perhaps also skill, but certainly patience. If I was working at, say, a scale of 1/48, I would want to put roughly three times the amount of details in - which then would also take roughly three times as long. On the gun there were a lot more details that I could have added, based on the available information, but it was physically (at least for me) not possible. For me the material really is the limitation, there are vitually no wires of less than 0.05 mm diameter, and if so, they would be physically almost impossible to work with. I have drills down to 0.1 mm diameter, but drilling holes with less than 0.3 mm diameter is, depending on the material, a real challenge. I can turn short stubs down to 0.1 mm, but it is very difficult to make longer parts with less than 0.3 mm diameter in steel, let alone in the much softer brass. For such operations one would need much bigger machines with well-balanced, vibration-free spindels etc. The next update will look into ammunition for the gun and its handling ...

Why would you want to have vertical streaks on the copper plating ? There is no reason unless you are making a model of a dry-docked museum ship. Normally, the copper plating would have a fairly uniform dull brownish colour, with perhaps some whitish stains between the 'wind and the water'. If there were any streaks, this would be more likely plus or minus horizontal, following broadly the flow-lines around the hull. The greenish copper patina only forms, when the copper is exposed to the atmosphere, but not when it is immersed into seawater.

Protecting the top-ends of frames certainly is a consideration. Otherwise, I would start from those strakes that are most visible and have to be perfect, working towards areas that may be covered in paint later anyway. In theory, when the strake are carefully planned and marked out, it should not really matter in which direction you are working.

Whatever glue you are using, just make sure that there is no loose carbonised wood dust left. The discolouring of the wood should not have an appreciable effect. Personally, I stay away from CA unless it is a shape-locking bond and even then I prefer PVA. CA is easily sheared off, unless it really forms a structure that interlocks between the two pieces of wood.

I don't think so, but it is definitely true that there is a kind of resemblance between many boats in the Western Mediterranean, that is west of Malta.

Good to hear that you are safe. (More rural) Canada doesn't seem to be hit so hard (Canadian friends in Ontario assure me) compared to other parts of the world, but one never knows. I go a bit concerned, as there had been no updates here on the train project either.

Historically, the French coast and some of its hinterland from the Spanish border up to roughly the fortress of Salses belonged culturally to Spain, being part of the 'Kingdom of Mallorca', which included parts of modern Catalonia. The Pyrenees weren't quite such a cultural divide as one may think, particularly along the coast, where they could be easily crossed. If you search for 'Sorolla boats' you will get various pictures by the Valencian painter Joaquin Sorolla on these Catalan/Valencian boats, including them being hauled out by oxen.

Any progress on this front ? I also noticed that Michael seems to have last logged-in in mid-August. Hope everything is well ?

I love these small boat projects, the more so that we have a second home further down the coast from Catalonia. There, this sort of boat for beach-fishing was called 'oxen-boats, because they were hauled out onto the beach by a team of oxen, rather than a capstan. In France such boats were called bateaux bœf for the same reason. Just a question: as the boat is decked almost all over, why didn't you leave the bulkheads etc. in ? Less risk of breaking something and a more stable hull. You made just a passing reference to your sources. Could you please enlarge on them a bit ?

Not sure, what is going on there. The MSW seems to have changed the functionality of the site. I had problems attaching the pictures from my Web-site as I normally did. They did not show up with an http-link. As the system at some told me that http-links are not accepted anymore, I changed the link to https. However, my SSL-certificates is not valid anymore, as the provider changed their software and I couldn't renew it from my old browser anymore. I have to look into this whole story and probably need to change my DSP, as they also refuse to co-operate with my old browser (and I can't upgrade, because then I would need to upgrade the MacOS and then I would need to buy a whole lot of new program licenses and ... this become really a pain and we are getting trapped in the money-generating machinery of the software industry more and more. I will see, whether I can upload my pictures to MSW, which is something I normally don't like to do.

Thanks for the kind words ! ************************ Assembly of the gun Slow progress with steps forward and backward ... and a lot of sweat and bad language ... All parts temporarily assembled had to be taken apart for painting first. After selecting a green for the carriage, all the parts were given several light coats with the airbrush until a uniform colour and sheen was achieved. Not so easy on some of the complex parts. After letting it thoroughly dry, the paint was scraped off from those parts that are meant to be bare metal, but could not be masked off, due to being difficult to access. The assembly then proceeded from the inside out on the lower carriage. First the parts for the hydraulic recoil brake were installed. I decided to deviate from the prototype and not to install the protective tunnel over the piston of the brake in order to show the metal-work. I think this small bit of artistic license is permissible. All parts were put together with small blobs of zapon-lacquer, which dries up quite invisible. Next the spring buffers were installed. Putting in the tiny hexagonal nuts required a very deep breath each time. Flipping the carriage over the caster-wheels were put back, but this really taxed my patience. The wheels are held in place by little flat-head pins inserted from both sides. A simple through-pin would have been easier to install, but wouldn’t be quite prototype fashion. The lower-carriage was very difficult to handle due to the flimsy and delicate grilles and steps. One was broken off in the process, but luckily attached nicely again. The rail on which the upper carriage runs would be bare metal. Here the limitations of using cardboard as structural element shows its limitations. If I had used etched brass parts, I would have chemically tinned them before assembly and now could have just scraped off the paint or masked the area before painting to reveal the metal. Now I had to simulate it with paint and a soft lead pencil. I am not entirely satisfied with the result, but can’t do anything about it now anymore. Overall, I am somewhat ambivalent as to the merit of using cardboard. The surface and cut edges simply are not as smooth as those of metal or plastics, such as bakelite paper or styrene. Unfortunately, styrene could not be cut with my small laser-cutter. When proceeding to the upper carriage, I noticed a couple of mistakes I made years ago, when putting it together. Two of the transversal members were installed at a wrong place. The wheels of the carriage would have not touched the rails otherwise. When trying to rectify this, the whole assembly gave, but luckily I managed to put it back together without permanent damage. Another issue also arose: one should not work from drawings alone, particularly in a project that streches so long as this one. It turned out that the carriage was a couple of tenths of milimeters to narrow and would not fit over the lower carriage with its guiding plates. I should have properly verified this, when developing the parts for the lower carriage. With a bit of bending and tweaking it could be made to fit, but cobble-jobs like this leave parts behind that are not as crisp as they should be. Painting the gun barrel turned out to be a major nightmare. I did not want to prime the steel in order to not loose its metallic appearance. Usually, acrylic paints dry so fast that there are not serious issues with rust formation. When I first applied the first coat it looked ok, but the next morning it had developed a mottled appearance. The same phenomenon reappeared after each coat, but somewhat less. I attributed it to the fact that the bottle of paint was actually almost 25 years old and it had not been sufficiently mixed. In the end I cleaned off the paint and began again, but with the same result. Once more I took the paint off and then sprayed it, but without agitating the bottle, thinking that some of the pigment might have coagulated – same result. Finally, I decided to lightly prime the barrel with zapon-lacquer to isolate the steel. This forms a very thin and virtually invisible layer. This did the trick, but the priming was not done carefully enough and some spots were left bare – with the result that those areas appeared mottled again. I tried dipping, but this leaves a too thick layers in corners etc. Eventually, I managed to obtain a reaonably even layer – one has to work very fast and going over areas already treated is virtually impossible due to the rapid drying. It is also very difficult see, whether one has covered the whole surface. In conclusion, I think the pigment of caput mortuum, which probably is the mineral haematite (Fe3O4) has reacted with the steel (Fe0) leading to the mottled appearance. However, I managed to reproduce the appearance of the barrel of the demonstration model in Copenhagen reasonably well, considering the small scale. A few of the flimsy and easy to break off details have not yet been installed and some levers to work the mechanisms still have to be fabricated. The close-up photographs also show a lot of dust and fluff that need to be cleaned and that the paintwork has to be touched up here and there. To be continued ...

With a bit of 'photoshopping', you could probably blend her into the river ...