wefalck

Good points. A good book on the rigging of ships of the period and region of interest should be in everyone's bookcase. Also a copy of Harland's 'Seamanship' would be a must for every half-way serious shipmodeller. Personally, I find it rather difficult to model something that I don't understand. As for topping-lifts: the name itself may lead to the misconception and, hence, misrepresentation. The name seems to convey the idea that they serve to raise and lower the yards, while in reality the serve to stabilise them against swinging in the vertical plane. Although, for instance the German, French, Spanish and Italian do not convey the idea of 'lifting', modellers in these countries seem to fall into the same trap. Having said that, I was aesthetically and otherwise rather surprised last weekend to see several of these modern square-rigged ships that have been fashioned from old trawler-hulls and the likes and that go by the denomination of 'windjammer' to not lower their yards down to the mast-caps, when sails are furled: Images by S. Borgschulze on https://forum.arbeitskreis-historischer-schiffbau.de/

In the crate, she looked a bit like in the Canal of Corinth ... Job very(!) well done ... I can imagine this feeling of emptiness, both physically and emotionally, but I understand that you have a project to fill that space

Yes, chalk is an old mechanic's trick to prevent clogging by softer metals, such as brass and aluminium.

I would not use diamond-files on (soft) metal. In comparison to a good steel-file they leave fines scratches on the surface. Also, cheaper ones tend to loose their diamond studding. Files have oblique cutting ridges with a defined geometry that smooth the metal, while diamonds have an undefined geometry and may stick out more or less, hence the risk of scratching. There are diamond- or boron-nitrate-files for honing, but this is another story.

On the picture, the two lower sails are 'clewed up'. This is done in order to take the wind out of the sails, e.g. to slow the ship down. 'Furling' means that the sails are hauled up onto the yards and securely stowed there. It would be a lot of writing to describe the respective procedures and what part of the rigging would be involved. You may want to consult books such as Harland's 'Seamanship' for this. Most sails could be clewed up in one way or another. Sometimes the very light top-sails could only be lowered to be furled. On your type of ship I would expect all sails to be fitted with clew-lines, which are the ones that run from the lower corners of the sails to a point on the yard near its centre.

There are several native German speakers on this forum, including myself ...

Good points. I also found that we too often think in terms of yachting and yachting etiquette, rather than in workday marlinspike seamanship - though some yachting experience helps to understand the working of things ... with a bit of sailing experience the coiling becomes an automatic reflex and having to climb up a mast to bring down a loose end tells you about securing such ends and their length required

I gather it is all a question of what do you try do: to give the ship a workday look, or to turn it into a piece of artisanal handicraft. In the latter case polished real copper would be the thing, in the former case anything that can be given the dull brownish look of an old copper coin can go. In terms of durability: the bond between copper and the hull is more likely to fail, than the bond of a good quality, acid-free paper and the hull ...

Well, the Flying-P-Liner PEKING was transferred from New York to her origin in Hamburg and her restoration makes good progress I was told by the project manager - so there is hope for the FALLS OF CLYDE too ... such projects are possible

Plus - don't use silicones

Machining costs money, but still it is quite a bit of money compared to some other tools. One point I found irritating is that the graduation of the two fences is on their top only, while the reference mark is only on the surface of the cutter. This will make it impossible to really set the fences precisely due to the unevitable parallaxes. Likewise, it would have been good, if the millimetre graduation would extend down the sides of the fences. For the same reason as above it will be difficult to measure precisely stuff that is thinner than the fences are thick. Aaahh, and I don't like red tools ...

Any real resolution testing, i.e. what are the minimum wall thicknesses, minimum surface detail resolution and the like ? Realities are often quite different from manufacturers claims.

Scott, not sure what you mean by 'particulars'. The technique(s) used I described in an earlier post. I should add that the base colour was applied by airbrush and the detail work was done with brushes. Acrylics readily diluted for the airbrush were used throughout. There is a building log for the model, a Zuiderzee-Botter, on this forum: https://modelshipworld.com/index.php?/topic/68-zuiderzee-botter-by-wefalck-finished-artitec-resin/ and it can alo be found on my own Web-site: http://www.maritima-et-mechanika.org/maritime/models/botter/botter.html

There are actually various official instructions, at least for the 19th century. As pointed out by mtaylor, the surface treatment indeed depended on the material used. Off the top of my memory, the following procedures were applied in general: - bronze guns were either left untreated and attained a greenish patina or where treated e.g. with sulfur-containing compounds to obtain a brownish or greenish-blackish patina; there are various recipes for this. - high-graphite cast-iron, does rust in patches, rather than uniformly, therefore, cast-iron guns were painted (usually) black; paints were made up from lineseed oil with lamp-black (soot) as pigment; guns would not allowed to become so hot that the carbon in the lamp-black would oxidise/ignite - at such a temperature the barrel would distort. - cast-steel muzzle-loading guns were carefully degreased and then rubbed with vinegar; this rubbing with vinegar was repeated until a uniform brown iron-oxihydroxide and -acetate layer was formed that attached well to the barrel; the barrel was then rubbed in lineseed oil, effectively generating in situ a redish-brown paint; care was taken to not touch the bore with the vinegar; the procedure was repeated periodically as needed. - cast-/wrought-steel breech-loading guns could not be treated that way or otherways the delicate lock mechanisms might become corroded, as it would be difficult/tedious to remove the vinegar from these parts; such guns were painted again in oil paints - often in dark brown to resemble the treatment of earlier steel guns, in black, in yellow, or later in grey, as appropriate to the colour scheme of the navy.

Apologies to those, who have seen this picture before. Below is an example that shows a 'resin' model painted to resemble wood and being 'weathered' as described above. The prototype would have been given a coat of wood tar all over during its work-days, hence the the brownish appearance. The lower picture shows the model after applying the primary 'wood' colour.

That report is a very good practical summary of the problems and solutions !

Actually, we had this topic several times here. You may want to flick through the various threads here. In a nutshell: - Get rid of all molded-on wood-grain, i.e. scrap it off. It is grossly overscale and neither appropriate for decks nor outside planking - a ship is not an old garden-shed. - Depending on the manufacturer, the plank seems are either grooves or raised - neither is really correct. Normally the pitch filling the seams is more or less flush with the planks. When the wood is dry, the seams may be bit sunk in, when it is wet or hot, the seams may be couple of millimetres raised above the planks. You can more or less live with the grooves, but raised seams need to be scraped down - which probably happens already, when you scrape off the wood-grain. - Even though the deck planks would be all the same wood, except for coamings etc., each plank varies a bit in colour. - There are various procedures now to simulate the wood and its caulking. Actually, there are some tutorials on the WWW, I believe. - I would paint the whole deck in a suitable wood colour, e.g. Vallejo Wood. I then would line out the seams with a very thin (0.1 mm) pigmented ink pen and seal this with light coat of flat clear varnish. In the next step you mix the primary wood colour with a minute drop of white and paint individual planks at random with this mixture; then you make another mixture with two drops of white etc., in the next round you mix the primary colour with a tiny drop of burnt umber and paint a random selection of other planks; then the same with two drops of burnt umber, etc. Once everything is dry and you are happy with the effect, you can seal everything with a light coat of flat varnish. In the next step you can blend in everything with a very dilute wash of white. This also has the effect of making the deck look a bit 'weathered'. Further weathering, accumulation of grime etc., can be applied with light washes of black in areas where water would accumulate. On a normal working ship, the decks would be scrubbed regularly, so do not overdo the weathering. This procedures sounds a bit complex, but really is fast and simple - you will literally see the deck coming to 'life' as you are working on it.

What do you mean by 'weathering' ?

A nice video of how Riva boats were built and of the restoration of one:

Many hobby-shops, whether real or virtual, just sell products at elevated prices that are available on the global market much cheaper. We are a small fraternity compared to the number of beauty parlors, watchmakers, tool-makers, dentists, dental technicians, surgeons, you name it. Hobby-shops often sell low-end products or 'seconds' at prices for which you might get the real thing at the right source. Browsing some of these 'cheap' shops that sell virtually everything may give you ideas - I pride myself of knowing quite a bit about trades and their tools, but came across things that I never imagined that they existed. This nail-'art' fashion, while of questionable esthetics, has resulted in a range of interesting tools and materials at interesting prices. Some of the tools and materials are not necessarily new, but the bulk market for them has brought prices down. OK, some of their tools come in rather garish and giriie colours to suit the taste of those nail-'artists' ... P.S. these brushes look interesting, as they have relatively short hairs/bristles, which is not so easy to find otherwise, even in specialist shops. P.P.S. about tweezers: I would rather not buy on-line, but check in person, how the points close; it generally pays to buy a good brand, such as Dumont; I don't remember how much I paid for my workhorse-tweezers HiPic size No. 3 in a watchmakers supply shop in Nottingham about 30 years ago, but it is still going strong.

I would ask myself two fundamental questions: 1. Am I interested in ships/boats or in the 'craft' 2. Do I have the patience to embark on a multi-annual venture with as many downs as ups ? Ad 1 - Sounds like a strange question to ask on a forum like this, but it can be crucial. If you are interested in ships/boats as such, you may be able to find a subject and material that is suited to your means and circumstances (i.e. plastic vs. wood, the latter requiring substantial more tools and room). Of course, as your experience grows, you may want to move onto more demanding subjects. If you are mainly interested in the 'craft', you may want to look for objects that can be tackled with less tools and that require less space etc. Ad 2 - patience is one of the most important tools in our trade, it can compensate for a lot of other tools. Our ancestors had a lot less tools and still were able to turn out superbe models, it just may take a little longer to do and a little longer to acquire the dexterity with the tools required.

In theory, files (with cutting ridges) are for metal and rasps (with individual cutting teeth) are for wood. Certain woods may dull quite quickly on wood or are too fine, so that they clog quickly and become ineffective, requiring frequent cleaning. Diamond impregnated 'files' are similar in action to sandpaper, i.e. they have many, but geometrically not very well defined cutting edges. Diamond files come in many different price ranges and qualities, but unlike their grading is not as well established as for the 'cut' of files. So, unless you can inspect what you buy, it may be difficult to know what you get. Diamond files typically also have less well-defined edges, so are basically not suited to work on sharp inside corners. In general, I am using cheap diamond nail-files (the first one I bought some 40 years ago and it is still in use) for working on flat surfaces, but steel needle-files for producing geometrically correct cut-outs etc. I found diamond needle-files less useful, except perhaps the round, rat-tail ones.

I gather the engineering solution depends also on the expected plank width, not so much on its thickness. For the above pictured solution, which is simple and neat, one would need to get sharp-angled profiles - many drawn profiles are appreciably rounded at the corners, which makes holding very narrow strips difficult.

White caulking/stopping was actually also used on larger yachts and some warships. Here the oakum was already soaked in lineseed-oil with white lead, rather than tar and the sealing was with the same compound instead of tar. It was not as effective and needed more maintenance than the usual method, but the ladies' and gentlemen's boat-shoes would not get these nasty stains ... Bristol-board can also work as simulation for this kind of caulking. Narrow strips between the planks and then a good coat of sanding-filler prevents the cardboard from becoming fuzzy when sanding down the deck.

Whether plans show the outside of the planking or the frames depends on the kind of plans. 'Real' plans are typically drawn to the outside of the frames, as they were used by the shipbuilder, who is not interested in the outside of the planking at this stage. Model reconstructions and the likes are usually drawn to the outside of the planking, on the other hand. It also depends on whether you talk about wooden or iron ships.