wefalck

Yes, this is a 1:60 scale model: I had some trouble keeping the boltrope in place, due to the furling, but I think today I would overcome this - the model was completed around 1995.

Sorry, I always thought that silk-span is the American expression for the light-weight silk fabric used for model airplanes ... I was talking about the fabric, not the paper. I have used silk-paper too.

That's why I was looking towards fabric ...

Same problem as for rope, thickness is not easy to define and measure the thickness of fabric. That's why the gauge is usually given in weight (grams or ounces) per area (square metre or yard, depending on where you are). One can make a rough estimate for threads, knowing the density (g/cm^3) of the material and the number of metres per g (given e.g. by the dernier number). Similarly, one can make an estimation of fabric thickness based on the weight per area and the thread-count and a bit of math, assuming that the threads in the fabric are perfect 'rods'. I looked at the silk-screen on ebay a while ago, hoping to find something thinner but more densly woven than my 14 g/m^2 silk-span and more tear-resistant than my silk-paper. I did study some art history at university for the fun of it and also collected a few books on art materials and techniques (before the age of Internet), so I am quite familiar with the variety of them. Useful knowledge for modelling.

I have not used or touched this, as I still have a life-time supply of silk-span that I bought in about 1978, but silk-screen for screen-printing might be another source of very fine silk.

Over the past 30 years or so I wrote/co-authored/edited probably a couple of dozen of books of various sizes for work. I also served on the editorial board of an UN organisation. And I am proof-reading/correcting four times a year the journal of the German equivalent of the NRG of which I am the legally responsible editor (not the technical one) ... Producing a decent book is hard work, though greatly facilitated by modern Desk-Top Publishing (DTP) systems. Getting all the formal stuff right, such as bibliographic references, credentials, permissions, etc. is indeed time consuming and tedious. I can fully understand that someone wants to spend his/her time with more sexy things ...

Actually, the silkspan sails are quite tough. I have used the technique since the late 1970s (in 1980 an article I wrote was published in a German shipmodelling magazine: http://www.maritima-et-mechanika.org/maritime/tips/FALCK-SM-5-80.pdf, see Figure 8 - 10 on the second page). As new materials became available, I switched from casein paints to acrylics. Depending on how much I wanted to have the structure of the silkspan visible, I choose the dilution of the paint. For the grommets I used paint thickened in addition with acrylic gel to give it more 'body'. For metal grommets I just made dots with a soft pencil to simulate the zinc-plated steel. This booklet of David Antscherl, were was it published or is it available as an electronic document ?

Thank you very much indeed for your kind comments ! These boats were not very stable gun-platforms and presumably very wet in any kind of weather up from dead-calm. Both, the North Sea and the Baltic tend to have short, choppy seas. ************************************ Display case – completion The display case was given a wooden plinth or frame from four strips of wood with 10 mm x 20 mm cross section. They were carefully cut to length with a mitre-saw and glued together ‘in situ’ to obtain a close fit. The wood was sanded, slightly watered, sanded again and then stained in a light mahagony colour. I decided to follow a simplified French polishing procedure. The wood was given a coat of sanding sealer and lightly sanded, so as not to sand through the staining. Shellac was applied twice with a soft cotton ball and the surface lightly rubbed in between with 0000 grade steel-wool. A short while ago the mail-ordered brass profiles arrived. I used a 2 mm x 4 mm rectangular cross-section for the bottom frame and 4 mm x 4 mm x 0.5 mm L-profiles for the corners. The bottom frame was first cut to size and the 45° mitres ground on my micro-grinding machine. These allows to achieve a perfect fit at the corners. The four stiles were polished bright with steel-wool and degreased with acetone before glueing them into place using ordinary craft glue of the UHU-brand (it’s solvent-based general glue). The next to go on are the four upper corners. The L-profile are sawn to length, the corners cut away with a side cutter and the precise mitre ground on. During the fitting and re-fitting the stiles are held in place with short lengths of low-tack tape. After glueing these into place, the four vertical corners can be tackled. First the two mitres are fitted into the existing corners, but each stile is cut a tad too long to have material for fitting. It is easier to grind them to length on the square lower end, then on the mitred one. The finished display case The Plexiglas and the wooden frame had been pre-drilled on the two narrow sides for a couple of brass screws that will eventually hold the case to the MDF-bottom. The seascape will be tackled just before painting the hull, so as not to damage the paintwork while sculpting the sea around the hull. To be continued ...

Reminds of the old joke: what is better than presence of mind in the case of an accident ... absence of the body. Sometimes guns can be more dangerous to the crew than to the enemy. Nice project btw ...

Too much work going on the last couple of weeks or so and not much time to look at the progress of colleagues ... the tracks have come out well, though I was wondering, like the other Keith, whether they really have been (wrought) iron and not bronze. We had a discussion on this forum a short while back about exactly that subject. I agree, that the photographs are not very conclusive. Personally, I would probably go over them with a soft pencil to give a kind of metallic look, but this depends on the intended style of the model.

The line-width in a (real) CAD system is zero. It is different, however, when we are talking about pixel-based drawing programs, where indeed a line (particularly if it does not run parallel with the axes of the system) can be several pixels wide. It would be bad practice to draw something on a CAD system, print it out and then take measurements from the print-out. Even in the old analogue days I would draw an item in 10:1 or 20:1 scale to reduce the effect of drawing inaccuracies and the problem of line-width. In the CAD-age the drawing itself is only something to orient yourself, the measurements are taken from the information stored within the system. Adding measurement bars in my CAD (EazyDraw) is a little bit awkward and makes the drawing rather 'busy', so I tend to make a print-out and note the relevant distances by hand. This then is the drawing from which I work on the lathe, the mill, or by hand. Lehmann is right in saying that proportions are what matters. That's why one should work 'outside-in' from the overall dimension, as I noted earlier. For many details there are handbooks (now also on the Internet) that give you typical dimensions. The human being hasn't changed that much over the past few thousand years or so, hence the 'handy' diameter of handles, rails etc. hasn't really changed, because hand-sizes haven't really changed. In fact ergonomics as such haven't really changed (though behaviour and use of people may have changed), so that modern dimensioning more or less gives you an indication. In most cases, for our kind of models the 'look' is what counts. If you are into working steam-engines and the likes, of course, exact dimensions to specifications are most important, otherwise the engine may not work. So, in our case we probably don't need measurements to 1/100 of milimetre ensuring the right kind of fit. Therefore, digital calipers are usually an overkill (though you can buy them from 15€ upward nowadays). I find them also too bulky most of the time and it is another item to maintain, i.e. making sure it has a working battery in it. My preferred caliper is a small vernier of only 15 cm length that can be easily used to control the work on the lathe or mill, but also on the bench. It has a 1/20 mm vernier, which is probably better then the working tolerances of most of us. You can estimate 1/60 mm easily, as thirds between two engraved lines can be guestimated. This, however, is better than the mechanical precision of the measurement, because of varying pressure you may apply on the part.

I noted something interesting on above picture: first I thought they didn't fit the floors/frames very well - but then I realised they left a gap between the floors/frames and the upper edge of the strakes so that no water collects in these corners and causes rotting ... Nice progresss !

Nice work on the sails !

Excellent ! I like the scenic setting ! I gather the boats sits on the ground between tides ? Or how is it otherwise hauled out ?

I have a natural science background and grew up in a natural science-househould. So, the natural thing for me was to make measured drawings, cut pieces according to the dimensions on the drawings and then assemble ... but often this did not work, perhaps due to poor manufacturing tolerances. I learned from watching craftsmen, who tend to cut pieces somewhat oversize and then fit them. Not the most efficient way in a production process, but very effective in an artisanal context - and shipmodel building is an artisanal process.

Paper drawings, as commonly used by shipmodelers, are not very accurate, so taking precise readings may not help you in the end, because errors of several measurements tend to end up. There are couple of strategies to overcome this: - always take measurements working from the largest outside dimensions, working inward and make sure that subsequent measurment add up to the total of the outside measurement first taken - redraw the parts in a 2D CAD or similar program from the readings taken from the paper copy; the result should look like the one on the paper and you can take the precise dimensions off the computer without having to worry about line thickness; you can add dimensions to your drawing as in a normal technical drawing, which is helpful for machining. - a variant of the above is to scan (parts of) the paper drawing and copy this image into your drawing program; in another layer you can trace the outlines of the part you want to make and correct dimensions so that all parts fit together; this is today my usual method. If I am working from paper drawings the old way, I am using an analog vernier caliper. I have very small one that is only 10 cm long and comes very handy for working on small parts.

From my memory: Yes, I was going to comment, that on the first Venice bird's eye view the Arsenale is discernible on the right and can be recognised by the galley building and storage sheds that face the Canale di Arsenale. The merchant port, Il Bacino, is in the centre and stretches from the Doge's Palace to the canal that leads up to the Arsenale. The stretches of embankment in between are named by the nations who had their warehouses behind, say the Riva degli Schiavoni refers to slavonic traders from further south in the Adriatic. The Arsenale still is military territory and cannot normally be visited. For some years a waterbus line ran through it, but caused too much damage to the historical slipways and was discontinued. The boat collection of the Naval Museum is in an annex building just in front of the entrance of the Arsenale. For 18th century paintings of Venice check out Canaletto, he painted dozens of very detailed ones. The French Government commissioned in the middle of the 18th century a series of very large canvasses of French arsenals and naval ports. They were on display in the Naval Museum in Paris. The painter's name escapes me right now. May be it was one of the Vernets. There have been several NEPTUNIA articles on naval ports, their history and organisation in recent years. Also in NEPTUNIA there was a two part article on the Turkish naval port in Istanbul, I think last year or the year before. From my bibliographic reference list: COAD, J.G. (1989): The Royal Dockyards 1690-1850. Architecture and Engineering Works of the Sailing Navy.- Studies in Naval History No. 1: XXVI+2+ 399 pp., Aldershot (Scolar Press). DEGGIM, C. (2005): Hafenleben in Mittelalter und Früher Neuzeit.- Schriften des Deutschen Schiffahrtsmuseum, 62: 416 p., Hamburg (Convent Verlag). DICKER, G. (1969): A Short History of the Devonport Royal Dockyard.- 69 p., ? (?). MACDOUGALL, P. (1989): Royal Dockyards.-Shire Album 231: 32 p., Aylesbury (Shire Publications Ltd.). Nevell, M., George, D. [Eds.] (2017): Recapturing the Past of Salford Quays. The Industrial Archaeology of the Manchester and Salford Docks.- University of Salford Archaeological Monographs, 5: 140 p., Salford (University of Salford). Peters, D.J. (2009): The Use of Brickwork for Dry-Docks in Germany.- in: 400 Years Anniversary Symposium on Historic Dockyards in Japan and the Netherlands, 28-29 November 2009, Tokyo: 51-56. RITCHIE-NOAKES, N. (1987): Old Docks.- Shire Album 199, 32 p., Aylesbury, Bucks. (Shire Publications). WILLIAMS, . (1984): Docks and Ports 1: Southampton.- 96 p.

"It was used in nuclear reprocessing plants, buried deep inside highly radioactive equipment behind 6 feet of concrete, not to be seen again for a thousand years." ... not so sure, at some stage Sellafield and Dounreay will need to be decommissioned and dismantled ... I have been working for the past 34 years on safe disposal options.

Looks excellent ! How did you score the stones in the MDF, with a router ?

And UV-curing acrylics ...

The beauty department has a lot of interesting stuff and typically cheaper than the modellers' stuff - it's a mass market. These blocks are also sold for woodworkers etc. Got some in 150 grit quite a while ago - ebay etc. is your friend. Unless yours are soft, I would rather call them foam sanding blocks. Mine are rather hard and the shape is stable, allowing to sand flat surfaces.

I can see that the back edge of the sanding disc is relieved, but I don't understand what it is used for. Perhaps you can hold a workpiece against the disc to illustrate the purpose ? Of course, superbly engineered, as always !

You won't need a rope-walk as such, but of course, you can do it on it. Unlike threads, each wire does not need to be twisted in itself, just the wires need to twisted together. So two hooks are sufficient, one of them spinning. Some years ago I constructed a rope-walk (according to the proposal of Frölich, with two spinning heads) from an old bakelite optical bench that I inherited from my father. It does not allow to adjust the tension steadily, so it turned out not to be so suitable for making twisted wire. I think I will now use the lathe and devise something to exert a steady pull on the hand-lever tailtstock. I only need short lengths of wire-rope, so it should be ok. Just ordered some of the 0.007 mm silver wire as I will need soon some light wire rope in 1:160 to stay the funnel and the signal mast on my current project. Should arrive here sometime in December. Let's see how that goes.

These phone repair guys have lots of interesting stuff. There is also silver wire at 0.007 mm diameter. When trying to make my own 'wire rope', I found it quite difficult to twist up more than two wires, because it is difficult to to get equal tension on all the strands and when you pull to tension them, these thin wires easily snap.

I don't know about the US, but over here in Europe powering boats began with semi-diesel IC engines on the commercial side, while amateurs put petrol engines into boats already at the turn of the century. The semi-diesels were hefty chunks of cast iron. The Danish were pioneers at that, followed quickly by the Dutch and the Germans. These semi-diesels would eat anything from rancid butter (there was often a fuel pre-heater on top of the cylinder-head to reduce its viscosity) to petrol. They had a glow-bulb (similar to aircraft model IC engines) that had to be heated with a blow-torch before the engine could be started. Similar engines were used as agricultural power-plants and tractors. They ran at relatively low speed (perhaps as low as 100 rpm empty), but had a high torque - torque is also a function of cylinder displacement and mass inertia in the system. Even at that low speed you would probably need at least a 1:20 to 1:40 ratio in the worm-drive.