wefalck

One should live in the right place ... for building as well for sailing a beauty like her ...

I think the main point is that the yard is safely suspended from the toppng-lifts. If you were to achieve the same thing mechanically when the yard is in the raised position, the top-mast would have to be a lot higher in order to keep the angle between the topping-lifts and the mast reasonable. In this case the topping-lifts would need to be 'running', as one has to slacken them while the sails are set. All this would add weight to the top without adding any real advantage. I never looked into this issue, but I would think the height of the centre of gravity would also be an issue in 17th century ships - think WASA. Also, anything that can be lowered reduces the strain on the rig, when the ship is rolling and pitching, as the length of the fulcrum is reduced.

Yes, these are Bronze Age. Probably skin-boats, but science is not of unified opinion, as no remains have been found yet, as far as I know, There are also Viking-Age petroglyphs of ships, on rune-stones.

... and the yards were safely and squarely suspended from the topping-lifts in the lowered position, which eased the work of the men aloft. In general, these topping-lifts were standing to simplify the rig. See the recent discussion on EdT's YOUNG AMERICA. Also, it would be difficult and dangerous to step out onto the yard of a top-sail in a hoisted position. The ratlines get very narrow up there.

1100 BC ? I gather this was a typo and you meant AD ? The Viking period is generally set around the late 8th century to the end of the 11th century, I believe. These anoxic conditions in the Black Sea led to the preservation of organic materials, just like for the Viking ships in the bogs. It would be difficult, however, to excavate these ships, as they are all below 200 m depth, were you can only access them using submersibles or diving robots - at least with current technology.

I've tried yarn as well, but it doesn't look as smooth as wire. A possibility would be black monofilament, but it is not so easy to knot in knots that don't open again and into equal knots.

I have also been battling with the subject of very small chains (actually chain rails in 1:160 scale) and found a (for the moment at least) reasonably satisfactory solution by twisting together two strands of wire of the scale thickness of the wire from which the chain would have been made - as you did, but then twisting two strands of these twisted wires together in the opposite direction. Looks reasonably close to a twisted chain ... no pictures yet, as I did only some experiments.

Don't seem to remember having seen any brackets for patent windlass handles, but in any case they would require to be lashed down so as not to become dislodged in a heavy sea - they are far more difficult to replace than the old wooden ones.

When I 'google' for LUXO-lamps I get articulated architects' lamps, not gooseneck lamps. That's something else. They can be bought everywhere, at least here in Europe. There are varieties with ordinary sockets (E27 in Europe) and elongated ones for fluorescent tubes (IKEA made a nice one, which I have, but it is now useless as they had a very unusual fluorescent tube in it - marketing so that you bought from them). I am still using the architects lamp that I got as a teenager in the late 1970s for my writing desk, but have fitted a large LED-globe to it to give a lot of quite uniform light that still can be directed to where I need it. One problem with this kind of ariculated lamp is that it needs to be fixed usually to the back or the side of the table/desk. My work-table is framed-in by shelves on three sides, so I had to be somewhat inventive to mount the lamp. The magnifying lamps on articulated arms have usually the same problem, as you cannot pivot the lens sideways - the link at the end of the arm only allows to tilt and turn the lamp head. So you must mount it somewhere opposite to where you are sitting. I have one mounted to my lathe work-stand and again had to be inventive, as the workstand is onyl 30 cm deep, while these lamps are designed for tables 60 to 70 cm deep. BTW, I found the magnifying lamps with rectangular lenses more useful than the ones with a round one.

Goose-neck lamps are very useful, indeed, as a concept. However, I found that some products, e.g. the one from IKEA, just does not give enough lumens. They are not designed for our purposes. If you find a model with standard sockets - shy away from models in which you can't change the bulb, you can replace the bulb with more powerful LED ones. There is no worry anymore over overheating. Personally, I prefer a warm (3200 K) light colour. Multiply the wattage of the LED by 8, that gives you the equivalent to an incandescent bulb.

I may be stupid, but it isn't to me, sorry. Is the pin with the wire inside the tube and you form the sharp corners with it ? Perhaps also the term 'spin' is confusing, as it normally implies serveral, if not many turns.

Can you post a picture, Dave ? I don't seem to understand what you do with the tube, once you bent the wire around the pin etc.

Double top-sails already in 1854 ? This must be then a very early example. I thought that they were only introduced in the early 1860s - or maybe this applies to Europe only.

Have a look at the other recent thread on eye-bolts ... the can be made very small.

Just a couple of additions to Ed's well-reasoned response: - here and on other fora there has been a repeated discussion of what actually 'tar' is. To summarise: in the pre-industrial ages this was a destillation product from resinous tree-bark, namely that of pine-trees; the Eastern Baltic area was a major source, due to the prevalence of such trees there and considerable amounts where shipped through Stockholm, hence the stuff became know as Stockholm Tar; this tar varies in colour, but is essentially dark brown. The two main byproducts from coal destillation to obtain town-gas were coke and various tars; these are chemically different from the wood-tar and essentially black or very dark brown in colour; their smell is also different; due to the large quantities of town-gas produced from the 1840s on, also large quantities of tar became available and began to replace Stockholm Tar, being a lot cheaper. Both products have different properties and, hence, different applications. Stockholm Tar stays sticky, unless whethered at sea, while some of the coal-tar solidify and become quite dry, one volatiles have gassed off. - hemp is a natural fibre and changes its property with humidity content mainly, even if the strands of the rope had been tarred originally; so adjusting the rigging is mostly likely a need over a period of months or years; covering the lanyards in thick Stockholm Tar would make this more difficult, covering in thick coal-tar almost impossible. - the sailing properties of ship depend on many factors, including the trim, the draught, and the rake of the masts; it is known that masters optimised the rigging for given conditions in order to improve the sailing performance; so lanyards stuck in the dead-eyes would not help. - we should not be mislead by the appearance of static museum ships; there compromises have to made for the lack of the continuous and intensive maintenance a working vessel would see; so on such ships you are likely to see a lot of paint and tar slapped onto parts that are prone to deterioration. - also on modern ships rigged with steel wire supporting steel masts you are likely to see many more parts being virtually immobilised with thick coats of paint or tar, because there is no need for adjustment.

Why buying something that can be made for next to nothing ? If you don't have needle-nose pliers, or if they are too big, just put a nail with a diameter a tad smaller than the internal diameter of the eye needed into a piece of wood. Wind soft brass or copper wire around and cut off the excess. Adjust with a normal pair of pliers - you will never run out of eye-bolts again, if you have a reasonable stock of wire (which a shipmodeller usually has).

Ball-bearings can be bought rather cheaply today in any size you want/need from ebay. Once you have the steady-rest for your Unimat, you may consider converting the brass fingers to ball-bearing supports. I don't know, how the fingers on this steady-rest look like, but it should be easy to fit a small ball-bearing on each. Opt for the closed-type of bearings to keep dust out. The fingers then can be adjusted to any desired diameter and re-adujsted as you take off material. Another, old-time mechanic's option is to make a simple hole into a thick piece of cardboard and to fix this on the lathe bed as a steady-rest. It's kind of a disposable rest.

The story about taking the slack out of shrouds probably comes from the pre-wire rope days, when ships on long equatorial passages stayed for weeks on the same tack. This may have stretched the windward shrouds and slack had to be taken out of the leeward ones because, if a sudden change of tack for whatever reason would be needed, the mast would come over like a whip, risking to snap it. With wire rope this is not an issue.

A lot of us get rid of their kids and then get the workshop space

You must have a very small car then Azzoun 😏 Good collection of tools and a lot of bench-space 😡 Jim, I will not invest into this arrangement anymore. My wife and me will have a 'library' (to take the tea in 😛) in the new appartment - one day.

That computer I still keep for handling legacy documents and for running my CANON slide-scanner that has a SCSI-connection only 😳

Thanks. Not so good for the books actually, because of the workshop dust. That's one of the reasons, why I want to separate out the workshop. I also envisage to have the tools, models, etc., as much as practicable, behind glass-doors to keep dust away from them, though the models are all in glass-cases.

How do you mean that ? Pictures of my workshop ? Quite a while ago someone did start a similar thread and I posted pictures there. Some years ago I stitched together an animated 360° panorama of my study. The actual workshop is an area of around 6' by 8' separated off by bookcases from the study, where I earn my living. The furniture is from IKEA, bought almost 30 years ago, when I had to furnish an appartment from scratch. Since then it has moved with me across Europe and now the study/workshop is the 4th incarnation in the 4th country. The bought furniture was successively supplemented by cabinets, workkbenches etc. built from similar mahogany-faced chip-board to match. The idea was to give the feeling of an old-time workshop with wooden-top workbenches, cabinets with drawers etc. Since the pictures were taken, some more shelving and wooden wall-cladding was added. And here the workbench for the lathe in a previous incarnation: We bought an appartment earlier this year that probably will be our retirement-appartment in a few years time. The plan is to have a little workshop squeezed in and to have this kitted out with fitted shelves, cabinets and workbenches. I really need some more feet of workbenches for the machines to have them all set-up ready for use. BTW, I really liked this Victorian officer's cabin-style workshop of 'mitbok'. When making old-time shipmodels, I would like to be surrounded by a congenial environment and antique tools as well ...

I did not notice before that there was a kind of snow-mast to support the spanker. I gather this is unavoidable for a sail where the gaff is lowered and the actual mast is 'built' with iron hoops. This seems to indicate the spanker is indeed taken in by lowering the gaff and not by gathering it up to the gaff and the mast. Correct ?

Possible, if you have the right license, but dynamite is not much used anymore these days. Did a course in blasting back in the early 1980s at my university's department of tunnel engineering, but never got round to take out the certificate. We also had a hands-on demonstration of how to blow up boulders in a field that would bother a farmer - plus a range of other interesting things ...