wefalck

BTW, Harland was quite a learned person and his 'Seamanship' usually give the terminology in several languages plus some etymology of the terms. Zu Mondfeld was a journalist, wouldn't trust him too much on the terminology, always cross-check.

There are so many different paper types with different names and availabilities around the globe that it would be difficult to make specific product recommendations. Rather it may be worthwhile to keep some criteria and possible issues in mind: - paper is rated not by its thickness, but by its weight per area, viz. in Europe g/m^2; the fewer grams the thinner the paper obviously. - ideally the paper should be acid-free, but it may be difficult to find thin enough paper that is guaranteed to be acid free. - bonded paper (i.e. that is soaked with some sort of glue and often additives, such clays or pigments) is smoother and gives a cleaner cutting edge; however, unbonded paper would stick better to surfaces, because the glue used would penetrate it better; one may need to find a trade-off. Having said this, I would probably look towards the kind of paper that was used in the old typewriter-days to make carbon copies ('cc.'); they seem to come in unbonded and slightly bonded varieties and are very thin - the paper that was used in model aircraft would be another option; this paper I would spread onto a piece of cardboard that is coverd in clingfilm; the next step would be to treat the paper with a very thin coating of wood sanding-filler; this coating stabilises the paper that now can be cleanly cut; it also somewhat waterproofs the paper so that it can be glued with PVA without shrivelling; the coppering strakes can be either glued on with the said PVA or, indeed, with more sanding filler; the latter would soften the pre-treated paper, so that the plate overlaps can be reproduced more neatly, but is more tricky in handling; I would attach a strake at one end, let it dry and then work my way along with diluted sanding filler, pushing the paper down with a not too hard bristle brush; such 'coppering' should stick very well to a wooden hull.

In Germany, the only time people like you and me can buy fireworks are the three days running up to New Year's Eve. Anything banging has essentially disppeared from public life. I remember that around Carnival time there was a lot of banging in the streets in the afternoons, as almost every boy had a toy-gun as part of his cowboy- or whatever outfit (for the North Americans: Carnival is the dress-up time in Europe, not Halloween). Nothing of this anymore. In our town we also had what was called a 'technical drugstore'. There you could buy anything short of poisons and explosives for which, of course, you needed a special license. Also every university town had a supplier for chemicals who would also sell to private persons. If I walked into a shop like this today and would ask for the things that I bought as a youngster, I would have certain not so gentle men in dark glasses on my back immediately. I remember me buying sachets of potassium nitrate, sulfur, and charcoal ... and concentrated sulfuric and nitric acids plus cotton wool ...

Also did the match-scraping thing The fuse would just stick out of the back of the canon. The barrel was about 3 cm long. I even shot with it in my room - mom was not amused 😳 These crackers used to have all sorts of names back in the 1960s/70s that would be totally politically incorrect today. I must add that my father was a biochemist and apparently did make his own fireworks before WWII. There were several textbooks on the subject in his library, which of course I discovered in due time ...

It's the common or 'trivial' name for potassium polysulfide, i.e. K2Sx with x = 2 to 6.

Had a small brass cannon, about 6 mm bore. It was meant to fire dry peas or something like this with a spring mechanism. Found this not interesting enough and removed the spring. Charged it with some powder recovered from 'china-crackers', a wad and some small lead balls, and then screwed it down onto a table on our balcony. Luckily, I had the good sense to not stand behind it - the shot was a real 'success': the cannon ripped loose and made a big dent into the door about a 1 m behind it and the lead balls went right through the 4 mm-Plexiglas cover of the balcony, leaving a hole of about 15 mm diameter over a distance of 1.5 m ... luckily there was a large backyard behind. Must have been about 13 or so at the time 😯 And just remembered that I also had a little field gun, a plastic barrel with an aluminium tube as a liner. It was meant to be loaded with a 'lady-cracker', these were crackers of about 3 mm diameter that were sold in strings of a 100 or so to be fired together. I gather these things are neither sold to kids anymore, nor are they politically correct ...

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: