wefalck

My nitrocellulose-based sanding-sealer dries in a couple of hours or so, but it also depends on how much of it soaked into the wood. It dries faster on hardwood, than on softwood. Normally, the sanding-sealer is the primer. A primer is used, when painting on certain metals or plastics, where some paints do not adhere to very well. Acrylics adhere well to sanding-sealers. So in your case no primer needed. The only preparation you can do on wood to be stained is to wet and sand it a couple of times before applying the stain. The stain may raise the grain again though. Staining softwood, such as basswood, is difficult, because the grain may keep rising. This then can lead to a mottled appearance after sanding it again. Hardwoods are easier to stain. BTW, I usually do not sand after the second application of sanding-sealer, but rub the surface down with fine (0000) steel-wool. This results in a satin and very smooth surface and reduces the risk of sanding through to the bare wood. Make sure to remove all swarf from the steel-wool or it may rust under your acrylic paint. I use an old clothes brush or a magnet for this.

Ad 4: Sanding acrylic paint is difficult and can only be done really successfully after several weeks of drying. When you apply the acrylic paint, the acrylic molecule begin to form an interlinked network that actually traps some water, this is the reason, why acrylics stay a bit rubbery for a long time, which makes sanding so difficult. When sanding painted surfaces, it is easy to sand right through the paint. Don't use paint as a filler, but rather prepare the surface carefully. And yes, the purpose of the wood-filler is to prevent other things from penetrating. Hence, wood has to be stained first. However, it is not so easy to sand stained three-dimensional surfaces without sanding through the stained part of the wood. As to wetting or not, it really depends on the wood. Some woods barely react to water, while others really swell. It also depends on the direction of how the wood is cut. The use of gesso (Italian for plaster of Paris) is a traditional method of preparing wood sculptures, picture frames and the likes for painting or gilding. It was used, however, mainly in order to add additional features, such als mouldings to picture frames or to save time in preparing complex wood surfaces, such as those on sculptures. Real gesso is quite brittle and breaks off easily. Today, acrylics-based 'gesso' is sold by arts and craft suppliers, which is more robust, being essentially 'filled' acryl gel. For a 'technical' project, such as a boat, where the shape is well defined, I would not use gesso.

Druxey is absolutely right! Another aspect to consider is, whether you want to replicate a period model or a period ship. On models, due to their representational value and often intended as expensive gifts, more expensive materials and pigments were used, which give us today a false impression of the ships of the time. So, when replicating a real ship, the duller earth pigments should be used. Ochre is an interesting pigment, as it can vary in hue from almost blue to quite bright yellow, depending on the chemical composition (which depends on the source) and impurities. For this reason, it is very difficult to determine with any certainty the actual colour for a given ship or period. Also, the ochre often was mixed with the even cheaper chalk, which brightens it and makes it lighter in colour. The lineseed oil as binder in turn makes the paint darker thant the original pigment. I gather any 'average' yellow ochre will be close to reality and no one can prove you wrong with a good justification ...

Water-based paints, such as acrylics, will raise the fibres of particularly soft woods like basswood. For this reason the wood must be 'sealed' before applying them. Wood-sealer is a functional term and various concoctions may go by it. Tradtionally, wood-sealers or sanding-sealers were either nitrocellulose-lacquer or shellac 'filled' with pumice. The pumice settled in the pores and the hard lacquer made for easy sanding. Today, also acrylic-based wood-sealers are sold in order to phase out organic solvent-based materials, but they don't penetrate as well. So look for some solvent-based sealer. The typical procedure is to sand the wood, wet it to raise the fibres and sand again, when dry. Then apply the sealer and when hard sand again. If needed, repeat the last step. Then you are ready for painting. There is absolutely no problem applying acrylic paint over nitrocellulose or shellac sealers, they don't react with each other. Depending on what surface (sheen) you want, there is no need to put any additional varnish or crystalline wax-solution ('Minwax') over the paint. In fact, I would not mix two paint systems. If you want to make the acrylic paint dull matt, use a matt acrylic varnish. Likewise for high gloss.

👍🏻👍🏻

Before you modify the guns: what ship and period are they supposed to belong to? Their shape is quite strange and look almost like early Paixhans-type guns. Some guns of the 1830s or so seems to have rings for the brook, rather and the ealier cascabels. It may be worthwhile to confirm the exact shape of the gun needed first. The carronade seems to be generally ok.

I gather two sources of information will be needed, something on generic rigging practices and the other on how this particular type of boat was rigged. I don't know from which period this boat actually is. This would determine the generic rigging practices, which quite significantly changed over the last quarter of the 19th century to the first quarter of the 20th century, which I believe brackets the period of this boat. In particular (galvanised) iron- and then steel wire-rope began to replace the tradtional hemp. With it the practice of what ropes would (need to) be served changed. At 1:24 scale you have to change to almost completely replicate full-scale practice. Having said that, unfortunately, I cannot point you to more specific sources.

There are a couple of old-time wisdom for wanting-to-be machinists: - Think about the maximum size (length/diameter) of piece you want to make and then buy a lathe with twice the capacity - you will most certainly underestimate the space you need for mounting etc. - Tooling and accessories you will need/want will double the price of the basic lathe. The good news is that you don't need everything immediately. You can buy tooling and accessories, when the need arises. You can turn wood and plastics on a metal lathe, but turning metal on a wood lathe is difficult to impossible (depending on what you try to do, of course). I would go for a metal lathe. Look for a lathe that can be equipped with collets and not only three- or four-jaw-chucks - much safer to operate, when working on small parts.

You may also want to consult relevant textbooks on the subject that are available digitally on the Internet: DELAUNEY, J.F., GUITTARD, A.C.A.J. (1889): Historique de l'artillerie de la marine 1692-1889.- 328 p., Paris (D. Dumoulin). LAFAY, J. (1850): Aide-memoire d'artillerie navale.- 721 p., 50 pl., Paris (J. Corréard). VERDIER, M. (1837): Nouveau manuel complet de la marine. Seconde Partie. Manoeuvres du Navire et de l’Artillerie.- 288 p., Paris (Librairie Enciclopédique de Roret).

There is a German film of the 1960s that emulates Jerome K. Jeromes novel and is much more like your own experience, Keith. The guys nearly went down the Fall of the river Rhine in Schaffhausen ... (actually one can't, as there is a very low bridge in the way, but being pushed under the bridge by the strong current isn't very healthy either).

Looking forward to the results of the roofing experiments and the weathering ... Talking about heating: we just came back from a business trip to Italy and found that the apartment had only just above 16°C - the heating in the condominium doesn't come on until mid-October, regardless of conditions 🤨 The funny thing is that southern Europeans seem to be much more tolerant to cold apartments because they are rarely home and outside day-time temperatures are quite tolerable. In Italy heating is not permitted until 1 November, regardless, whether you live in Sicily or around the Alps. My apartment in Bergamo in 1991 didn't have any heating, except for the kitchen 🥶. Likewise, when I was looking for an apartment in Nottingham in January 1987, one was advertised as having 'central heating' - it turned out it had 'central' gas heater in the living room ... The apartment in Germany, where I first grew up in the 1950s/early 1960s had stove heating and remember my mother firing up the stove first thing in the morning and I also remember pushing ice around the window pane in the childrens' room.

Some people use wet-n-dry sanding paper of an appropriate grade and paint it a dark grey to resemble tar-paper.

Home-made?

I have done a bit of colour adjustment in Photoshop to get rid of the yellow tint and the murkiness: I think the flag looks red-yellow-red ...

I would modify this summary a bit: if you can put the part under a (quality) drill-press and hold it safely, this may be a good option for even the smallest drills. Otherwise, use a pin-vise or similar.

I gather, if you live in central to northern Europe, you are less likely to annoy your neighbours, as in general, houses are more solidly build - unlike say in Spain, where walls are really paper thin and most houses are build with concrete pillars and beams, which are ideal for transmitting body-sound. Over the past fifteen years I have been living in a Parisian building made from concrete slabs and so far no one has complained. On the other hand, you are not going to work with your machine tools continuously for 12 hours a day. Just stick to the rules of the building/community and do maintain the quiet hours at mid day and evening and perhaps the weekends.

To me it appears like a Spanish commercial schooner from somewhere around the 1830s to the 1840s, Although the according to Norie & Hobbs (1848) the merchant flag at that time should have had several red and yellow stripes (see https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/94/J._W_Norie_and_J._S._Hobbs_-_Three_hundred_and_six_illustrations_of_the_maritime_flags_of_all_nations_(1848).pdf). I didn't check, whether any of the Spanish colonies of that time used the red-yellow-re ensign.

Perhaps you want to post some pictures of your luthier excursion in the 'Non-ship/categorised builds' section? Not that I intend to build any musical instruments (which I wouldn't be able to tune and play anyway), but the tools and materials of that trade are also of interest to us shipmodellers.

A roller-fairlead would make indeed a lot of sense, when the purpose is to extend the space for working certain ropes by numerous men. The cable on the first picture looks a bit too thick though for being comfortably being pulled by hand. It looks more like a mooring cable or something like that.

The wooden crate looks good!

... I was just about to ask for something to judge scale 😁 You follow an interesting procedure for the rigging, sort of completing one mast and then proceding to the next. I am curious to see, how you will manage to bring the stays for the mainmast to the foremast and the deck in front of it without breaking other things 😲 You also need to attach the sails to the yards still.

Looking good! I like this attention to details. Casting these nets requires quite a dexterity, a bit like working with a lasso I could imagine. Below is a shot of a guy using such a net on the Niger river that I took nearly 20 years ago:

Yep, wooden clothes pegs of various sizes and ladies' hair clips are very useful to us too ... I also shape their front for various applications.

No, the OLYMPIAS together with the armoured cruiser AVEROF and some other ships are on display in a sort of museum harbour a few kilometers to the south, outside Piraeus.

A couple of weeks ago I had, during a business visit to Athens, the opportunity to visit the Hellenic Maritime Museum in Piraeus. They have a 1/50 scale model of the ARES on display: I think your small model compares quite favourably with this model, which is three times the size!