wefalck

I have to remember that idea of quartering a round piece of wood to get the radius of the corners right 👍

A bit further up you asked about that vertical stick the seaman is holding with his hands and I don't think the question has been answered yet. This thing is a 'Kolderstock' in German/Dutch and 'whipstaff' in English. It acts as a kind of fulcrum for the actual helm on the rudder. The staff rests in an olive-shape bearing in the deck: From: http://www.sailingace.com/segellexikon/d/kolderstock/kolderstock.htm Well into the 19th century the steering wheel was not all the common and used only on large vessels. Smaller vessels were steered with the helm directly, often aided by tackles. The kolderstock went out of use towards the end of the 17th century. I gather this vignette is meant to depict a part of the Brandenburg frigate BERLIN. The elector of Brandenburg started to build up a considerable fleet in the 17th century using Dutch know-how. 'Ponte' is Italian and just means 'deck' or perhaps here 'poop'. Perhaps you may want to change the title of your thread accordingly. Looking forward to progress on that nice vignette.

Michael, all the wheels are ratched wheels in fact. There are a couple of pawls inside the levers that are made from two hollow castings and that are retained by a groove turned on each face of the wheels. There is somewhere a drawing of this Armstrong patent windlass on the Web. The GEMMA drawings don't seem to be quite correct in this respect.

We didn't hear about this for a month now, I hope everything is ok ?

This is exactly what I had in mind doing, before spending the 150€. My screen resolution might be just about sufficient for my miniature 512 dpi laser-cutter.

I think it would be very interesting for the tool-junkies among us to have a presentation of your workshop - see the thread 'Where do you do your's then ... ". Do you do a sping-cleaning every time you take pictures ? I don't see any saw-dust whatsover 😯 Very crisp work on the patent spill and the pump indeed. Just to pick a bit at it (apologies): it shouldn't actully be spur wheels with straight teeth (see image below), but rather a 'ratched' wheels ...

I will be interested to see, how you will tackle the ventilators ...

Personally, I prefer simple, trusted products over industrial formulations of unknown composition. With nail-polish one has to be aware of that this trade increasingly also uses acrylics due to the fear of acetone. The acrylics break down, when treated with solvent, while lacquers such as shellac and nitrocellulose dissolve and then harden again. Acrylic varnish cannot really be removed from rope. With the lacquers there is no need to remove them, if you want to adjust something.

If have used wood-filler on the frames or the solid core and then a good coat of Teflon-spray.

Thanks for the further comments. In the meantime I had a look (again) at Delftship. It does actually allow to 'develop' plating/planking diagrams even in the free version. The glitch is that you can only export/print it from the 'pro' version which costs a moderate 150€. My problem is that they only make a MS Windows version. Have to try the free version under Parallels on my Mac. Would have loved to have an iPad pro version, as the pen is very useful for editing such things. In the past I have used, of course, the method of marking out the runs of planking on the hull and then taking of the shapes using tracing-paper templates, However, the clinker-built ship's boats I will have to make are going to be only 23 to 50 mm long, so that this is not really practical.

As a confessed tool-junkie I am always freaking out, when I see theses jigs and stuff ! These kitchen implements are marvelous and impeccable metalwork. Would you care to show us how you did them ? I gather the copper soup-pot is a piece of metal forming ? The stove is made from etched parts ?

Thanks, that was the kind of thing I was interested in. I will have to investigate and then overcome a very steep learning curve

The path is the goal !

The keyword is patience. Don't rush, don't try to go for quick results. Work slowly and controlled, control the urge to finish something just to get it finished. You are not paid to produce as many parts as possible in the shortest time possible - instead you have all the time to produce the best result you can.

Thank you, Gahm ! Keith, I just re-read the technical description in the contemporary textbook on German naval artillery (GALSTER, 1885): he explicitly states that each crank was worked by six men. This description is indeed very helpful for the interpretation of the complex drawings.

Not all 'shellac' formulations contain pure shellac and alcohol. Some unrefined shellacs may also contain waxes that could account for the tackiness. Still it is quite strange.

Is there a piece of software that allows to take planks off a body plan and spread them out flat, i.e. to construct a planking diagram ? I am thinking of developing a planking diagram for a clinker-built boat so that the planks then can be laser-cut.

Have a look at archjofo's log on his CREOLE: https://modelshipworld.com/topic/1029-la-créole-1827-by-archjofo-scale-148-french-corvette/page/55/. I am too lazy to look for the right page, but when you start backwards, you should get to it pretty soon. He shows how it is properly done with an eye-splice and all the serving. In any case, the whole log is well-worth going through. One can get taps and dies from watchmaking supply houses down to 0.3 mm diameter, but they come at a price. Watchmakers also used screw-plates, i.e. a steel plate with various cutting or forming dies for threads. They are largely obsolete, but still can be found.

To my knowledge, shellac has unlimited shelf-life, it lasts forever. I remember finishing off on my projects a bottle my father had bought at least a decade earlier. The problem may be, however, that the solvent, alcohol, evaporates from not perfectly closing vessels, but this is easy to replenish.

The man-powered training gear was actually quite sophisticated with the gun-captain being able to turn the gun left or right with a lever without the men needing to change the direction of cranking. I don't know how many were needed, but one can estimate the number from the length of the cranks. I will have to measure it.

Thanks, gentlemen ! The work continues: ****************************************** The lower carriage of the 30.5 cm gun The lower carriage of the gun was a rather complex construction from rolled L-profiles and thick steel sheet. Unfortunately only the drawings in GALSTER (1885) and the coloured synoptic drawing from the Admiralty have come to us. Many construction details are superimposed onto each other with dashed lines, so that the interpretation of the drawings is rather difficult in places. As aids to interpretation with have one close-up photograph, the large demonstration model in the navy museum in Copenhagen, and the preserved guns of Suomenlinna Fortress off Helsinki. The carriage for the Danish iron-clad HELGOLAND, however, differs from that of SMS WESPE in some details, being actually a turret-carriage. The carriages in Suomenlinna are Russian copies of Krupp fortress carriages, but they allow to verify certain construction details that are not clear from the drawings. Synoptic drawing of the 30.5 cm gun (from http://www.dreadnoughtproject.org/) Originally I had planned to construct the lower carriage, like the upper carriage, from surface-etched brass parts. To this end I produced some time ago already the needed detail drawings. Surface etching is a very good process to simulate rivetting. In the meantime, however, I had purchased the laser-cutter, so that laser-cut parts would be an alternative. I had hoped to cut the parts from bakelite paper. Various trials with different cutting parameters unfortunately were not very successfull for the intricate parts. The 5 mW laser ist too weak to burn the material fast enough. Burrs of molten and partially carbonised resin form. Therefore, I fell back onto Canson-paper, which is a bit over scale with its thickness of 0.15 mm. Base-plate and races laser-cut from Canson-paper The drawings for the etching masks had to be reworked for laser cutting. It turned out during assembly that I had made several mistakes or misinterpretations. If I had send them off for etching this would have been costly, as both masks and etching would have to be redone. When cutting paper with a laser such corrections can be made quickly and easily – and the material costs practically nothing. The basic frame of the lower carriage from the rear The laser-cut parts were soaked in nitrocellulose wood-filler and once dry rubbed with very fine steel wool. To double up parts and for assembly zapon lacquer was used. This dries so fast that no special arrangements for fixing the parts are needed. The basic frame of the lower carriage from the front I did not take pictures of the different steps of assembly, as this would have rather impeded the process. First all parts to be doubled up were cemented together using zapon lacquer and weighed down to keep them flat during drying. The longitudinal parts of the carriage had slots cut into them, so that the transveral parts could be positioned exactly. The frame assembly then was cemented to the base plate (which in reality was not a plate, but rather the frame was put together from L-profiles and steel sheets). The racers, again in one piece, where glued on top of this assembly. Underneath the base plate the housing for the training gears (which will be very much simplified as they will be barely visible upon completion of the model). The basic frame of the lower carriage from underneath with the housing for the training gears One can see on the laser-cut parts marks for the rivets. These will be added as tiny spots of white glue. More details will be added in the next steps, but have not all been drawn yet. The basis frame of the lower carriage with the upper carriage and the gun put temporarily in place To be continued ...

How did you do the handwheel on the valve, an etched part or from wire ?

👍 "I think what I am looking at is odd bits of strapping/sailcloth wedged in place to prevent damage to the bowsprit." - Could these be velcro-strips to hold the fore-sail(s) on top of the bowsprit when furled ? Given the diametre of the bowsprit, it might be difficult to pass a rope around it for that purpose. Concerning the stay, I have the feeling that it still runs around the roller, but they just have added some leathering to prevent shaving - but of what ? There isn't much beyond that point. Otherwise, clean work as always

Many of the historic works are also now available in digital format on the Internet. Some of the PDFs are searchable, which comes handy at times. Don't always trust Google, when they tell you that no digital version is available, keep searching. I noticed that Google often does not link digital versions, when someone offers reprints. A very useful dictionary is Paasch's 'From Keel to Truck'. It was written at the end of the 19th century, but many of the basic terms and designs have not changed a lot over the past two hundred years: https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_pT4IAAAAQAAJ/page/n6/mode/2up

This looks a bit like a high-tech operating theatre The swing-through cradle with integrated gantry drilling-jig is an excellent idea !