wefalck

The darkening of light coloured threads is the same physical phenomenon as for wood: the pores filled with glue act as a sort of optical fibre, leading the light deeper into the material, with less light reflected from the surface and the inside of the pores. This is more or less unavoidable for deeply penetrating glues or varnishes. Low-viscosity varnishes applied sparingly do not fill the pores and, hence, lead to less darkening. I am using cellulose-nitrate based lacquer (Zaponlack in German), which is traditionally used to protect shiny brass and silver from oxidation. It is colourless and can be redissolved or made to penetrate more with a drop of acetone.

I never use CA or PVA on rigging above all for one simple reason: things cannot be undone, if needed. I always use a fast-drying solvent-based varnish. A drop of solvent allows you to loosen knots and adjust the lines, if needed - and often it is needed.

Kind of strange that the freeing-port cut through the rubbing strake. Never saw this before. It also means that the rubbing strake is not below the deck-edge, where the hull should be strongest, but above it, around the bulwark. Correct ? Keen to see the painted result of all these efforts ...

Depending on the size of the hole, when cross-drilling round material or when drilling at an angle into surfaces, I start the hole with an end-mill that cuts across the centre. There is no risk of slipping with the point.

My problem with dial-gauges on small machines is that they always seem to get in my way. The smallest commercially available these days seem to have 50 mm diameter. I think in the past they made it in 30 or 40 mm diameter.

I gather you are talking about the running part ? You would need a hitch that can be tied while keeping the running part taut. As Jan said, a half-hitch with another one for security on top may go, or a clove-hitch - which would be my preferred solution, as it can be slowly untied while still keeping its stopping capability. Nevertheless, some research into how thing are done on mediterranean ships would be warranted.

"Carbide is the only way to go. Lesser quality steel will become blunt quickly, ...". Carbides are not steels. Carbides are composite materials made by sintering together hard particles of mostly tungsten carbide (WC) with a metal in powder form, mainly cobalt. I would not dismiss HSS just like that. In fact, I found HSS much more forgiving even on my precision watchmaking machinery. Drilling deep holes below 0.5 mm with HSS is much safer than with cobalt due to the greater elasticity of the steel. When they become blunt depends on what you are doing with them and how often. In industrial applications, where one can control very precisely the conditions, today carbide is the material of choice, of course. What do you mean by coarsness with reference to colour coding ? I never use the colour coded ones, as the rings tend to obscure your view of what you are doing, but thought that the rings refer to the diameters. Why would you want to drill a hole with a round burr ? The cutting edges of burrs tends to diminish to zero in the middle, hence 'diving' in with a burr is a very inefficient way of their use and will dull them indeed very quickly. Burrs are meant for side-cutting. Hobby shops, indeed, are rarely a cost-effective source for tools. They only sell small quantities in comparison. Jewellery/watchmaking/dental supply houses are better sources with a wider range of choices. A new business area that has greatly expanded over the past ten years or so are manicure and pedicure supply houses - they supply the same kind of burrs and polishing tools to a much larger market and hence at lower prices. I believe one should buy the tools one can afford. However, drill-bits and burrs fall (almost) into the category of consumables. There is also a considerable risk of breakage. Therefore, it tends to be more cost efficient to buy twice at half the price, if there is a chance that I break an expensive drill with double the life before it reaches the end of its normal useful life.

I think we had such a discussion before. There is actually no 'best' drill, only approriate ones, appropriate for the material and the conditions of application. In industry drills are shaped for the materials they are supposed to drill. This concerns the cutting angles, secondary cutting angles, relief angles, the angle of the spiral, etc. However, unless you buy from an established manufacturer, you may not be able to get this information. This applies particularly to model supply houses and the hundreds of 'ebay shops' that are around today. There seem to be two major supply streams for carbide drills into the secondary market theses days. One is that from 'seconds', meaning these are drills that did not pass the high quality standards of industrial sppliers, but that are still good enough for occasional use by people like us. The second stream are used ones that have been taken out of manufacturing processes in a scheduled way before they become dull and could spoil a work piece. Also these are good enough for us modellers. However, the traders rarely know the intended application of these drills, so you might get some from an aircraft factory intended for use with high-strenght aluminium alloys, or some from a printed circuit board plant, intended for use on glass-fibre reinforced epoxy resin. As noted above by vaddoc, carbide is brittle and normally requires rigid machines and a rigid set-up for their use. They are unforgiving to wobbling in guiding the movement and to changes in feed. In drill depths that exceed 3xdiameter, I would use them only with a screw-feed, not with a lever feed. Having said that, these carbide drills can be an economic option in sizes below 1 mm diameter due to their relatively low price and if you don't mind to bin a part from which you cannot extract a broken drill. HSS or SS (not recommended) drills in sizes below 1 mm can be quite pricey, particularly for sizes below 0.5 mm and those with thickened shafts (which are much better and easier to handle). And: there are many different qualities of aluminium, brass and steel. Some are easy to drill and others are a pain. We modellers often seem to come across too soft qualities that catch drills. So a problem may not be a bad drill, but bad material.

Another German colleague just completed a model of a Zeesboot: http://forum.arbeitskreis-historischer-schiffbau.de/viewtopic.php?f=16&t=1538

The designers/engravers of plastic kits usually get the coppering wrong, as did many modellers in wood too in the past. Things are changing though through access to information. The moulded-on copper plates usually are far to thick with too prominent stepped seams. The nicety about using adhesive copper foild/tape is that you can closer to scale dimensions. The nails on coppering to do not protrude, but tend to pull in the sheet due to the softer layer of felt underneath. Look in other sections of the Forum for discussions on this subject. Depending on the scale you might either completely forego the nailing or slightly emboss it from the front before applying the tape. The protective paper layer is just soft enough to allow a light embossing. Having said this, it means that you have to scrape clean the underwater hull in preparation of the coppering. While you are at it, you might also want to remove the grossly out of scale plank moldings on decks etc., btw.

I wouldn't use cloth, as most cloths known to me would be too coarse for any of the usual scales of plastic models. However, the vaccum-formed sails may be a useful mould for sails formed from paper, particular, when the sails have not yet been cut out. I would apply a release agent, e.g. a Teflon-spray, and then arrange the individual bolts of sail cloths. They can be attached to each other with acrylic varnish or diluted white glue. Here on the Forum there are various discussions on how to make sails from paper. Otherwise, I would kit out the vaccum-formed sails with boltropes etc. These can be stuck on with plastic cement. You can then apply a base coat, pick out different cloths and re-enforcements in slightly lighter or darker shades etc. Just as you would paint a sail in 2D. If you are not familiar with the techniques of plastic modellers, it may be a good idea to have a look at how the guys do things there. There are really sophisticated painting techniques around that are partly based on the techniques of the Old Masters.

I gather the monograms, coat-of-arms and year of manufacture had the function to not only identify the pieces as royal property, but at the same time made sure that they were not confused with similar pieces, so that the right cannon balls and charges would be used. This is on land probably more important, than at sea. So the monograms must be readable without going around the piece, typically looking down. Hence, their maximum breadth would be probably somewhat under half of the circumference of the barrel, perhaps a third or so, considering the geoemtric distortion when looking down. This is just a practical guess and not founded on any further information.

I am not sure what you are heading for, a reconstruction of a particular ship ? With the hull dimensions you should be able to constrain the spar dimensions better. A lofty rig normally requires a deep hull or a very broad hull in order to give stability. So for a medium deep hull compared to length and breadth one would not expect the upper end of mast length. For your CAD-example my feeling says that the sail-plan should be somewhere between the two extremes - one is grossly over-canvassed and the other one too small for the ship. It may be also helpful to look not only at the proportionate dimensions, but to go a bit into the physics and compare the meta-centres of the sail-plan and the hull, the resulting levers and righting moments, and their relative position along the longitudinal section. The textbooks you quoted should give instructions for this. This would help to further constrain the sail-plan, though you will have an equation with perhaps to many unknowns/degrees of freedom still.

I am not a specialist on this, but a publications comes to my mind that could shed light on this question: MCCONNELL (1988): British Smooth-Bore Artillery: A Technological Study to Support Identification, Acquisition, Restoration, Reproduction, and Interpretation of Artillery at National Historic Parks in Canada.- National Historic Parks and Sites, Environment Canada – Parks, Publ. R64-178/1988E: 595 p., Ottawa (Minister of Supply and Services Canada). This is available on-line, if I remember correctly.

This is a Channel stoppen, Not at quick Release gear to let go. When a chain is under strain, it may be difficult to unfasten stoppers to pay out more chain, or to heave in the anchor. Hence a quick release hook that opens under strain.

Yes, that hatch-like area doesn't look too big. Nevertheless, it may be that the boat can be arranged in different configurations, depending on the type of charter, or if the owner is on board - but I I don't know anything about the actual ownership arrangements, of course. Perhaps some catalogue could tell you more.

I seem to have seen arrangements, where iron masses to correct the compass inclination were located inside the binnacle. They could be moved up and down. On a yacht this is probably not so critical, but on commercial ships with varying loads of different magnetic properties it can be important. On most roadsteads there used to be an area set apart, where ships could turn a full 360° circle before setting out on their voyage to check the compass movement against a set of landmarks. There is also a flag signal for ships doing this compass correction, giving them right of way, so that they can proceed without being disturbed.

The binnacle discussion almost makes me going back to my 30 year old model ... It seems to me that the Flinder's Bar is still there. One can vaiguely discern the brass capping in front of the wooden body. These fancy skylight were not necessarily permanent installations, but could be removed and stowed before rough sea-passages. There would be the coamings left and a simple cap that could be made watertight with a canvass cover like any other hatch. It looks, as if there was a removable section in the deck planking. I quite like these Victorian or perhaps one should say here Wilhelmenian structures with the panelling and brass bars.

There is no other way.

It is tempting to show this, because we are used to see this on modern windlasses/capstans, but the hawsers would only be taken around it, when heaving-in the anchor. For letting go, the hawser would be arranged in long bights on the deck, with the end secured appropriately (you don't want to loose the hawser ...). The bights would be tied together at intveralls with light rope. The hawser would break these ropes, which would reduce the speed of running out. Depending on wind, sea and space around 3 to 5 times the water depth would be payed out. The hawser would be stopped appropriately by taking it around bitts. Alternatively and as noted by others, the anchor can be rowed out and dropped a the desired location. In any case, the ship has to be let drift for the anchor to securely bite. It is always wise to have two anchors out, particularly when anchoring over night. An anchor can come adrift easily. Normally, the two anchors should not prevent the ship from swinging with the wind or tide, if there is enough space. The two anchor cables would be tied together with a lashing just in front of the bow to prevent their uncontrolled crossing. I think there is picture of this Lever's book. If there is not enough space for the ship to swing freely with wind and tide because there are other ships in the anchorage, because of nearby reeves etc., one will have to put out one or more stern anchors. This is a less desirable situation, as the ship will ride harder on its anchors, putting more strain on the cables and risking to break loose an anchor. Only when taking in the anchor(s), their cables would be taken around the windlass/capstan (or a messenger be use). Neither on the old-time windlasses nor on the more modern 'patent' windlasses there is a way to hold the pawls in a disengaged position. On patent windlasses the pawls on the levers aren't even easily accessible. On (sub-)modern hand-cranked or power-driven windlasses the motive power is applied to a lay-shaft that can be disengaged from the shaft with the drum(s) through a coupling. Such windlasses have band-brakes on the main shaft to control the running-out of the chain that is permanently taken around the drum. Their pawls can be arrested in a disengaged position, if they act on the main- rather than on the lay-shaft.

Very well done ! Dressmaker pins, that's what I used too. In the unpainted state and with the brass collars, they looked a bit like Christmas-tree ornaments ...

But private ebay-sales are transported via the postal services to a good deal. The volume of parcels has multipled over the past 20 years, so shipping rates should have come down according to the teachings of classical economics ...

Putting it into the checked-in luggage will you get around this, but beware that customs can open any luggage they find suspicious. I did bring back piles of Sherline equipment (including drive units) from USA trips that way. You will have a maximum worth of goods that you can import as a tourist coming back that depends on your country of residence. Beyond that you will have to go through the 'red' channel and declare your purchases. How your goods are assessed can be a bit of a hit and miss - customs officers are not always sure how to categorise 'exotic' articles. In most cases you will have to just pay the VAT though. It is a good idea to keep invoices and also documentation material, e.g. catalogues, to show customs (and security) what the strange equipment is being used for. The main culprit for the exorbitant shipping costs from the USA is the US Post Office, who decided around 2004 to abandon 'surface' shipping as an economical option. You may have had to wait for your parcel two to three mounths, but it was way cheaper. Mr. T. would do the US retailers and customers in the rest of the World probably a favour, if this was re-introduced ...

Good points by Jaager. One needs to understand the mechanism of bonding of glues/cements and different types of surfaces. There are two fundamental types of fitting: - the parts are held together by interlocking; an example are screws, where the male and female thread interlock; this is usually the strongest joint. - the parts are held together by a force exerted on them: an example are nails, where the friction from the compressed wood fibres keeps the nail in. If the surfaces are sufficiently rough for the PVA to key-in, the glue will form an interlocking joint. Cementing metal to metal or other surfaces with CA, mean to largely rely on physico-chemical interactions with certain parts of the CA molecules and the atmospheric pressure that pushes the CA onto the surface. Particularly with shear-forces, it is easy to peal off the cement. For this reason it is always a good idea to provide for some interlocking. Wooden dowels combine all the different actions. Glued carpenters' joints are another example of combining the different types of actions.

This looks like an elaborate procedure ! The idea of milling both brackets of the regulation spheres in one piece sound like a good idea - makes the whole thing more solid. I gather you will have to slot the binnacle then for this. I remember me struggling with this part in the days before I had mill ...