wefalck

It's good to see another project progressing in 'our' small scale! How will you do the glazing of the windows, sheet or some acrylic glazing fluid as the railways modellers use? The pilot house is round, but I would assume that the window panes were flat for cost reasons.

Good to see your progress. Making these bits and pieces 'bolted' to booms and gaffs from wood is always fiddly and requires real high-quality dense wood. In the past I have used paper-thin styrene sheet for such bands on wooden booms and gaffs because with liquid cement you can kind of 'melt' them around. However, they turned out to be quite brittle when drilling for the ring-bolts etc. I think today, I would also make them from paper soaked in varnish. However, in really small scales I now turn spars from steel rod and actually turn the bands on as far as possible. For the bands around the jaws this is obviously not possible ... I wouldn't mind to see a picture of VICTORIA in her current whole state of beauty 😉

The shipyard re-opened in early September after a long summer-break that I spent away from the workshop, but it was followed by various business and private travels. So, producing the small detail below took an awful lot of time … Some ‘clutter’ on the deck-house I found producing the stanchions for the awnings too much of a challenge at this small scale and didn’t like the look of them anyway. So, I did not install them on the model (and even omitted their sockets, as I did not have any information on how these really looked like). My excuse was that the model will be shown in a semi-battle-ready gun-exercise situation, where the stanchions would be stowed. Photograph showing awning-stanchions in a storage rack on the deckhouse There are quite a few stanchions, which are tapered and slightly curved at the upper end with the ring. The upper section is round, while the lower section that fits into the sockets is square. According to one picture available, it seems that the stanchions were stowed in sort of racks along the rails of the deck-house when not in use. The same applied presumably to the wooden beams that formed the centre ridge of the awnings. Mass-producing these stanchions that would be barely seen, when stowed in the rack, from brass-wire seemed a disproportionate effort. Hence, I decided to laser-cut them from card-stock. They are very flimsy and were stiffened in varnish before proceeding them to paint them with acrylic paint. The paint was applied quite generously to have a sort of rounding effect. The two racks ready for installing on the model I could not find any picture that showed the stowing racks, so I had to invent something that seemed reasonable. Somehow the racks seem to be associated with the rail-stanchions. I devised a sort of cage with a laser-cut base and uprights made from thin tinned copper-wire. The racks also accommodate the (foldable) wooden beams that support the awnings amidship. In addition, it seems that the mops etc. for the gun were stored in these racks. The racks installed To be continued ....

Glad to see that the show goes on! Keep strong!

I know myself all too well that real life gets in our way with our model building activities. I sincerely hope that the long silence does not have any serious reasons !

These 'colonial' sternwheeler have captured my imagination since childhood and one day I should build one ... In Germany, one yard specialised on such vessels was the Meyer-Werft in Papenburg (who also produced the famous steamships in kit form for the East African lakes that formed the background for 'African Queen'). On a German forum a colleague presented his project for such a steamer: https://forum.arbeitskreis-historischer-schiffbau.de/viewtopic.php?f=30&t=1288. Apart from the hull the model is mainly build from brass, given the fragile superstructure: Going through the building log is well worth (with Google translator). Good luck for your project!

On these small ships typically every second or third frame ran up to the level of the main rail and served as stanchions for the bulwark. On larger ships the stanchions were separate timbers that were attached to the top of the frames. The 'monkey-rail' serves to heighten the bulwark in parts or all along the ship. Short stanchions were set into the main rail where the top of the main stanchions were. These stanchions carry a rail that is thinner and narrower than the main rail. The outside can be planked or the space between the stanchions left open.

I didn't check against my photographs, but it is probable that the 'shelves' inside the bulwarks are actually the pin-rails. These rails took up the belaying pins on which various rigging lines would be fastened. There were various ways in which these pin-rails were constructed. Sometimes they were bolted simply in front of the bulwark stanchions and sometimes they were notched for the stanchions. A third version, which I think was not used on GJØJA was to widen the main rail to take up the belaying pins. If a monkey-rail was fitted, this may look like a shelf that runs down the whole length of the ship. However, I think GJØJA had simple bulwarks without monkey-rail.

Perhaps you should post your question here: https://www.segelschiffsmodellbau.com/ I used to live in Berlin, but since leaving in 1999 the shop-landscape has changed dramatically ... in any case, you have to be prepared to move around the city, there is nothing in the Museum Insel area. There is a sort of materials warehouse, mainly catering for architectural model building: https://www.modulor.de. It is very good for all sorts of materials, but less so for the sort of woods shipmodel builders are looking for.

It seems that the term 'holy-stone' came from the fact that the RN obtained their stones from a quarry on the Isle of Wight that also supplied the local cemeteries. I don't recall the exact date and source, but around the middle of the 19th century the RN greatly reduced the 'holy-stoning' as it was found (obviously) that it wears the deck-planks thin prematurely and thus adds to the cost of upkeeping.

Who would maintain the guns, the sailors or the marines? Cast-iron guns at see need constant maintenance to prevent them from becoming rusty ...

Ripped ladies' stocking would make reasonable fishing nets. I have also used various seeds to represent, after painting, different type of fruit. Pepper-corns could make a basis for melons (not sure about the size/scale in your case).

Fort Boyard cannot be visited by individuals, as far as I know. However, there may be excursions from Rochefort to the Île-de-Aix by boat that take a tour around the fort. The Island itself has various fortifications that can be visited freely. In the context of the great model show in Rochefort in 2018 we made such a tour, but this was not a regular boat.

I have a 'normal' airbrush only and would venture the guess that, while it looks neat, it would not be very handy for detail work, given the bulky air container. I wonder also, for how long the battery charge would last.

The site of the Musée de la Marine is a good starting point: https://www.musee-marine.fr

It is not unusual for small craft to have no capping rail at all, particularly, when they were clinker built, where the longitudinal strengthening provided by it would not be needed. The strange thing however, is to have a capping rail that actually does not cover the frame-heads. It may well be that they added this plank to provide better seating, when sailing, as you would like to balance the boat with your body. Who knows? The builders may not have been aware of the various boat-building techniques and just build something simple that did the job. As many of us are sort of rooted in the naval or yachting tradition, where everything had to be 'ship-shape - Bristol fashion', we tend to forget that such craft were built for plain functionality and not following any established traditions in craftsmanship.

Gratulations to all involved !

OK, photographic evidence has precedence, but this construction appears to be rather unconventional. A capping rail is called a capping rail, because it caps the heads of the frames. In addition to adding longitudinal strength it also protects the end-grain of the frame-heads from deterioration. Handcoloured photographs typically reflect the expectations or conventions of the colourists. It would be interesting to know, whether these boats were painted outside or tarred. In many regions of the world, boats are just repeatedly given light coats of tar. With the weathering, this would take on a mottled, greyish-brown look as in the coloured photograph above. However, whoever coloured the photographs may have been guided by the visual image of boats e.g. in the USA or Europe.

Indeed, paper is a living object and shrinks/expands in different directions as e.g. a function of humidity. The only way to verify dimensional accuracy is to compare measurements against the drawn scale with data given numerically, either on the drawings themselves or through other sources. This requires that the measuring points of the numerical data can be uniquely identified in the drawing, which often is difficult. "... exact data at each station" - this actually looks as if you were using chain measurements. Are you checking the overall accuracy then against any total length taken off the body plan etc. ?

Bob, you are absolutely right, when it concerns 'modern' engineering drawings or builder's plans. Here, the dimensions (incl. tolerances and surface qualities) indicated are the reference for laying out parts. I was referring to the 18th/19th century ship's plans or modern reconstruction drawing. There you normally find a scale drawn on the bottom of the drawing. The classical method would be to take off lengths with a compass and read the dimensions on the scale. For many years now I am using a sort of digitised procedure: I import a scan of the drawings into my 2D CAD program, where the internal scale is set appropriately. I then redraw what I need in a different layer and can read the dimensions at model scale directly on the computer. I always work 'outside-in', rather than concatenating parts in order to avoid cumulative errors. For machining parts, I print out the part in a larger scale and note down the micrometer readings needed, based on the data in the CAD.

The coverage is a bit uneven across Europe, but there are hundreds of (scientific or semi-scientific) books or papers with plans. These are reconstruction plans based on documented evidence and not edited for modellers. Concerning the Iberian Peninsula, the coverage of Portugal is pretty good (thanks also to the museum in Bélém/Lisbon), while the coverage for Spain seems to be a bit more patchy - there is no 'national' maritime museum, only the very good naval museum in Madrid, which however does not cover vernacular craft. It may be a bit tedious to go through all the 178 pages of my literature list (https://www.maritima-et-mechanika.org/maritime/maritimebibliographies/maritimebibliography.pdf), but you can find there references to literature on boats across Europe and worldwide.

To be honest, I never understood why one wants a ruler with different scales. You take a measurement off your drawings and transfer it to your material. If the scale of the drawing is different from the scale you are building in, you take your pocket calculator (or your smart-phone today) and multiply/divide with the appropriate factor. These days I work in my 2D CAD from scanned-in drawings or my original drawings. Both, the scanned drawings and the original drawings, are scaled so that I can take direct readings of distances on the screen or get the dimensions, when clicking on a drafted item.

Again my 1910 German textbook on iron shipbuilding states that wooden deck-planks laid onto iron decks are either screwed down from underneath using wood-screws (cheaper method for smaller vessels) or bolts. The bolt-holes are drilled through holes pre-drilled into the plating near the beams - not through the beams - and then the hole is opened up from above for the plug. When the iron deck is not built flush, either the edges of the outer plates are thinned out with a shaping machine or thin gap-strips of wood are used underneath the wooden planks. The rivets would be countersunk in any case.

Off-topic, but still with maritime relevance: my father's family comes from northern Germany and while researching the family tree, we stumbled onto two serious obstacles: - In Prussia a mariage license was 20 Goldmark, a significant sum for a poor sailor (as many of my ancestors evidently were), so they started a family, saving up for the time, when this could be legalised; however, it seems that my biological great-great-great-grandfather was lost at sea and his son was therefore registered under his mother's maiden name; she subsequently married another man, who adopted this child. In addition, many church records have been lost in the aftermath of WW2. - In Eastern Frisia church records are quite complete, but there the old Germanic tradition persisted until around 1870 to not have family names per se, but to denote a son by adding -son to his fathers first name. Plus the range of first names was quite limited, so that we have church-books full of Xxxxsons, but we don't know who is who.

Seems that people now can have several 'gender reveal' parties ... everything is in flux ... The German government just put in a new legislation that allows you to change your name once a year (if I understood correctly) - this is the end of genealogy. It was already a mess, when men were allowed to take the wife's family some 40 years ago. I think the (western) world lost its compass and bearings.