wefalck

I gather that depends on whether you think that you'll need a rabbet there as well. Presumably yes. Also, typically, the keel is as wide or wider than the stem- or stern-post.

Allen, you should check the thickness of the stem and keel of your prototype. If the kit supplied one is too thin, you may want to double them up with thin layers of veneer. By making the inside profile smaller by the amount of the thickness of your planking, you can 'fabricate' a rabbet, rather than cutting it into the existing material.

I guess, when I was in my teens (back in the late 1960s/early 1970s) and did my first ratlines, these gizmos were not around or I was not aware of them. So I did it the 'right' way without asking questions about short-cuts

Personally, I can't see the advantage of putting the ratlines on off the ship. It is going to be messed up and pulled out of shape. Nicely install the shrouds and then with them securely and finally in place work your way up with the ratlines. Draw the pattern as it should be, shrouds and ratlines, on a piece of card that you hold/fix behind the shrouds for guidance. It shows you the correct distances and also, whether you are pulling the shrouds out of line.

The fairing will be an iterative process. The bulk of the fairing, particularly where the waterlines form a steeper angle with the bulkheads, is easier done on the bench, than when the bulkheads are installed. The final fairing, using a spline batten, should be done with the bulkheads firmly installed.

There were in practice many different ways of doing this and the numbers and names of the timbers involved seem to vary. There is normally a fairly massive piece running on the inside of the stanchions. Sometimes it has the half-round waterways cut out in the lower part. Sometimes the waterways is a smaller timber, about double the thickness of the planking and the same width that runs between the larger baulk and the planking. The space between the stanchions can be filled in, but more often there is a thin covering board that is notched out for the stanchions. This covering board may be set-in from the outside and forms a line visible from the outside, forming a sort of narrow shelf. The bulkwark may be raisde above the covering board by a couple of centimeters to allow water to drain outboard. This is often the case in smaller ships, where every second or third frame actually forms the bulwark stanchions.

You are now sufficiently practiced for the grandchildrens' doll-house The only attention our balcony required was the daily sun-downer ...

You are getting really into the specifics there ... can't give founded advice on the hounds, but wondered, whether the difference between the options would be discerneable on the model ? OK, this is our old plague, that we want to get it right, even if no one would notice the difference.

My father trained as doctor and I inherited a box full of them together with other chirurgical instruments. Was has to be cautious with the locking ones - when in the last step before release, they exert a lot of pressure and parts or threads can get crushed. Another name to look for is Castrovejo. He invented various eye-surgery instruments that can be useful.

Outside the US purchase of ammunition would be difficult ... You may also find wooden or styrene balls in architectural model or craft supply stores.

I roll short lengths of wire between two pieces of flat hardwood, which makes the laquer peel off and the wire comes out perfectly straight. I don’t know this particular boat, but thought they were only clinkered below the waterline. So the copper rivets would disappear under the coppering or the anti-fouling treatment.

A bit of targeted research and knowledge of the market ... I gather you have a copy of the commerce raider (Hilfskreuzer) STIER from Wilhelmshavener Modellbaubogen (Möve-/Jade-Verlag ? This one here: https://www.moewe-by-hd-m-verlag.com/stier-hilfskreuzer.html ? It is actually in 1:250 as all of their models. Most of their models have been designed before the 1970s I believe. As a small boy I built several of them. That would then be the standard of those days, which was quite good for the time. I found a building log on this site here, albeit in German: https://www.kartonbau.de/forum/thema/11685-hsk-stier-whv-im-maßstab-1-250/. You can try to follow with GoogleTranslator.

By 'securing' you probably mean 'holding in place until the glue has set' ? That may be only one issue. Or rather, if this is a serious issue then you may be missing the rabbet in the stem post ? Once there is a proper rabbet against which the planks can land, they may be already more or less locked into place, making clamping simpler. An additional strategy will be to water and heat the planks and then to clamp them until dry into a jig that has a similar curvature as the place where they are supposed to go. Such pre-bend planks will be easier to fit and require less force, when fitted finally.

I may be wrong, but I think Citroen used this kin of system for the rear suspension of the half-tracks that were used for the Sahara expeditions and the on-land trip from Paris to Pékin (Beijing) in late 1920s/early 1930s.

Well, the car was conceived in the late 1930s, when there were not too many other cars on the road and mainly for use in rural areas. That it became so popular in the 1960s to 1980s particularly with non-conventional urban young could not be anticipated. The lack of passenger protection was one reason, why it was discontinued. I have a late 1970s repair manual, which shows a lot of cross-sections of the parts of the suspension, but no GA drawing unfortunately, but I found this site with a lot of useful photographs (albeit in German): http://www.entmontage.de/fahrwerk.htm. And the animated graphic from that site:

Actually, the fabric looks very much the one on mine, but the stitching was different.

At least on the later models the grills were stamped and pressed sheet-metal in a light grey plastic frame, independent of the colour of the car. Before the frame was also stamped and pressed from sheet-metal - remember very well, because at some stage I repainted mine. The very first models did not have a separate grille, but just slots in an inverted chevron-pattern stamped into the pressed bonnet. The Citroen inverted chevrons were chromed, if I remember correctly. Will you be adding still the connecting rods to the suspensions ? The 2CV had a rather unique suspension cum shock-absorber arrangement. The longitudinal pipes under the chassis are the spring cum shockabsorber elements. The arms on which the wheels sit are connected to these by long rods. In this way the suspension for wheels on one side is not completely independent. The suspension overall was very soft, but safe, even when taking bends at high speed (relatively to the 2CV that is) - one just had to get used to the swaying of the body of the car. One of the design criteria was that a farmer should be able to safely take a basket of eggs from his farm, across unmade roads, to the market town The first models were sort of painted in sort of satin oil-paint, I think. But since the mid-1950s or so normal painting procedures of the day were followed, resulting in a gloss finish. The quilted leather upholstery is rather posh for a 2CV. Usually they had a sort of velvety fabric, the same as used on the larger Citroens. The seats were rather soft by modern standards, but very comfortable - I could sit in it the whole day without circulation problems.

Colour can also matter. Lighter coloured ropes may appear thicker than dark coloured ones of the same diameter. We also tend to have modern ships in front of our mental eyes. There, even natural fibre ropes tend to be thinner than they would have been say 150 or 200 years ago. Since the 1880s or so techniques to quantitatively testing the breaking strenghts of rope have been developed and also quality control measures on the raw materials that go into them. In this way ropes can be made thinner than in previous centuries, where they had to err on the safe side.

Actually, the (ModelShip)World knows, at least those, who follow the project

Keith, that's a good question. I don't really know. As the muzzle is several metres beyond the rim of the barbette, I assume they could shelter behind that. There are contemporary pictures of deck-guns of this type (albeit only half the calibre) being fired, where the crew is lying on the deck, while the gun-layer is standing behind it, holding the firing lanyard. There was a gun-drill manual for this type of gun as official publication, but so far my searches through all of the German archives, museums, and libraries has been unsuccessful.

We are kind of crazy, arent't we ? Making things that no one ever (except perhaps a restorer in a 100 years time) will see. But it gives you a good feeling that it is there and the satisfaction that you could do it ...

Yep, what can I add ... ?

iron-oxide red and green are perhaps the most popular colours for anti-fouling paints because they resemble the colour of coppering under different circumstances. But this is only an assumption. A captain from Bremerhaven (Germany) invented in about 1862 an anti-fouling paint, that used shellac and lineseed oil as a binder, iron-oxide (red ochre) as pigmentmt, and arsenic and/or mercury as active ingredients. He received patents all over the world and the paint became very popular due its efficacy. It was manufactured in many countries under license and many other manufacturers tried to copy it. Its trivial name was 'patent paint' and also 'red-hand paint', as obviously you ended up with red hands when applying it. Shellac is expensive and was later replaced with other fast drying binders. The fast drying property was one of the selling points, as it could be applied onto a careened vessel between tides and it reduced docking times. The textboock of 1870 on iron shipbuilding by Steinhaus list various other colour options for this paint. In the 20th century mercury and arsenic were replaced by tributyltin (TBT) compounds. These are banned now also, as they are endocrine disrupting substances - leading e.g. to reproductive disorders and birth defects in snails and other sea animals.

Thanks, gentlemen ! I am only partially happy, as not everything turned out quite as crsip, clean and straight as I had wished. Macro-photography is unforgiving. The real moment of truth will come, when everything is painted, because of the clear lacquer used, imperfections are difficult to see. The painting will be done after the summer break. I have in principle the right colour, but it is a Tamiya paint that still needs to be thinned for the airbrush. I will have to get some Vallejo pre-thinned paint, but with the virus still lurking around the corner, we restrict ourselves to the only really necessary outings. I realise now that many of the little details will not, or barely, be seen once the gun is installed on the boat. I probably could have safely let them off. But then I wanted to prove (to myself) that it is possible to create them and also it is quite difficult to predict what will be visible from what viewing angle. Makes you feel good that the details are there

Thanks for your kind words ! ****************************** Attaching the gratings The lower carriage was now ready for installing the gratings. For this purpose some flaps had been foreseen on the supporting brackets. They were cemented to the carriage using the zapon-lacquer which resulted in a surprisingly strong bond. The stand for the gun-layer was put into place only temporarily for the photograph. The final fixation will be done, when the gun is being installed. It is rather exposed element that would make painting the gun rather difficult. The lower carriage with gratings in place from various angles The lower carriage put temporarily into the barbette To be continued ...