wefalck

I am a totally urban person coming from totally urban backgrounds of all my ancestors 🤓. Perhaps, that is why I was always interested in such agricultural subjects ... The German (Technical) Museum in Munich has a replica of the first horse-drawn mechanical reaper of 1831 by McCormick: The basic operating mechanism for cutting has not changed much since. Anyway, back to the practicalities of modelling: for the leather driving belts I would cut narrow strips of thin paper of the apropriate width, lay them out on a (card)board covered with cling-film and give them a liberal coat of paint on both sides. When putting them around the sheaves, the seams can be hidden underneath the pulleys out of sight. On the prototype, the belts would be stitched together using metal clips not unlike paper staples. Sometimes they were also laced together. The belts were also treated to make waterproof, but I don't remember with what, as they shouldn't become slippery. Remember that the belts workd through the friction between the leather and the cast-iron and are not normally tensioned fully. The amount of pulley surface around which they wrap is more important. Such pulleys are actually not flat, but slightly domed - it may be counterintuitive, but this is what keeps them centered on the pulley. There are some videos on YouTube that show such belts in action.

I would toss those plans, don't look at what other modellers did, but go back to period written sources and perhaps period models (cum grano salis) in order to work out the proper lead of lines and a proper belaying plan. To me this seems to be the only reasonable solution. BTW, it is not uncommon that two lines that would have to be worked at the same time would go onto the same belaying pin.

Allow me to disagree. Unless everyone here misunderstood the question, I think all the answers are there. The problem may be that lines are not normally belayed on bits (see post #2 by @popeye2sea, unless the bits are provided with belaying pins. If that belaying point were correct, there may be a somewhat haphazard solution in coiling up the rope in a 'bunch' and wedging it between two lines coming down. That would be relatively secure. On yachts such bunches are commonly wedged between the mast and say its haliard coming down onto a clamp. Random image off the Internet of a rope tied up to a bunch. However, such a method would be more time-consuming to cast off, as first the bunch has to be untied. One would only use this for lines rarely moved.

'Just' rolling barrels at sea would be a major hazard ... all loads have to be securely fastened by wedging them in place, regardless whether they are stored upright or horizontal.

... that's why everything has to be tidied up as quickly as possible 😉 I would not call this 'extra' or 'excess' lines. Each rope has to be long enough to pass through the tackle in its most extended position, plus 'extra' (here it is justified) length for a sufficient number of men to haul on it. On a model, one would measure this total length, install it, belay it, secure it with a drop of varnish, and then cut off the length beyond the belaying point. This length then is coiled up appropriately and hung with one loop over the belaying pin. It is a good idea to wet the coils in situ with a bit of thinned varnish and hold it down in a most natural drape as possible, while the varnish dries. You can see this clearly on the right side of the fife-rail behind the mast of SAN DIEGO in the above photograph. In this way the line can be cast loose very quickly and many coils can be arranged next to each other.

I think ChatGTP is trying to humour you 😉 Joking aside, it is good to see that ChatGTP begins to be trained now also on niche subjects like ours. When I tried it a few months or so ago (I use it professionally from time to time ...), return on maritime history subjects were trivial and very generic.

I think the term 'sanding-sealer' doesn't really mean sealing the wood hermetically. It at all this could only be achieved with a glazing that is impermeable to water vapour. Also, I find the term 'finish' confusing or misleading, as it can mean different things, ranging from the material used to the degree of sheen. In classical French polishing one tries to achieve basically two things: the depth of colour that comes from the light penetrating into the pores of the wood and not being reflected from the surface, as described above, and a smooth, possibly glass-like and shine surface. Traditionally, this was achieved by rubbing the wood with blocks of pumice between the application of shellac in increasing 'cuts', i.e. shellac to alcohol ratios. That's how Roentgen or other known 18th century furniture builders would have achieved their glass-like surfaces. Today, one can buy suspensions of pumice or talkum in solutions of shellac (or some other type of varnish) as 'sanding sealers', which is good enough for many applications. And you don't need to take the process of 'French polishing' to the end, but stop at a point that is good enough for the purpose of the model. The fact that shellac will always be redissolved in alcohol can be used to advantage in various applications: you can use it as reversible cement for instance. Shellac simply dries by the evaporation of the solvent, while other materials, such as line-seed or tung-oil, polyurethane varnishes etc. undergo a polymerisation that makes it difficult to impossible to redissolve.

Coming back to the subject of modelling as such, I think I found a good solution for simulating blank cast-iron parts, such as the surfaces of pulleys, and also the steel tyres on cast-iron wheels : I first run them slowly on the lathe (or a hand-held drill) and smooth the surface of the plastic part with very find wet-and-dry sandpaper. For cast-iron I then spray the part in black and for steel I spray in some silver or 'steel' paint. The next step is to rub a soft pencil on the surface and burnish this with either a cotton-stick or one of those paper 'smudging' sticks artists use. I think the results are quite convincing: This is a Fowler Z7 ploughing engine in 1/72 scale on the basis of an old KeilKraft kit that I made some 35 years ago.

Today in Europe combine-harvesters are usually owned by contractors or by a cooperative of farmers. You need quite a few hectares to amortise one. In pre-War Eastern Europe there were often large land-owners (landed gentry) that farmed almost at industrial scale and had their own machinery, sometimes even narrow-gauge field-railways to transport the produce.

I suppose this depends on the circumstances: would it be full load or only a few barrels, how long would the trip be and in what kind of waters? Stowing barrels horizontally would almost certainly a better use of the space and safer on longer trips. The barrels would be wedged in place. It also depends on the size of the barrels and how many crew would be there to man-handle them. On the other hand, shipping a few barrels from one port to another in reasonable weather conditions may not require a lot of stowage effort. Turning over barrels from vertical to horizontal may be quite an effort, depending on their size. There are different techniques for getting barrels in and out of a ship, depending on the availability of loading equipment. Cranes were not very common in small Mediterranean ports, I think. In addition, a fee would be due for their use. A classical method for getting a barrel out of a hold and onto a quay would be with the aid of two ropes that are fastened on the quay at a distance a bit less than the length of the barrel; the rope would be then taken around the barrel and several men would pull on the ropes, effectively rolling the barrel out of the hold and up to the quay. A plank could be used to aid this process. If there was a crane or one could use the ship's boom, the drum would be attached either vertically with a drum-sling or horizontally with two griping hooks.

All over Europe, threshing contractors were going around from farm to farm (as were ploughing contractors), as buying threshers (or steam-ploughing sets) would not be economical for individual farms.

While searching for something else in my picture archive, I came across a couple of pictures of mechanism used for tensioning the shrouds on BELLE POULE. I took them some ten years ago in the museum on request by someone:

By coincidence, I was writing a journal review for the German LOGBUCH of SKYLLIS no. 23 (http://www.deguwa.org) and there is an article on how one can conclude from the type of barrel used in 17th century Netherlands: Oosterbaan, J. (2023): Identifying Content through Casks.- SKYLLIS, 23: 103-116. It seems that the Dutch guilds of coopers had gauges for each type of barrel and these gauges have been preserved in museums. The author focused on trade barrels for herring and beer.

Apologies for slightly disagreeing with the last suggestion. It seems tempting to use a tool to pull rigging line through a block. However, if a folded line can pass through the hole, the hole is too big for the line. If you look at prototype blocks, you will see that the sheave is only a fraction thicker than the rope it is meant for. There is very little clearance betwen the rope and the block. Thus, not really a tool but rather a material is some fast-drying solvent-based varnish with which one can stiffen the end of lines to fiddle them through blocks. The same varnish can also be used to secure splices and knots. Some people use CA cement for that, but I would advice against it, because it is messy and you cannot dissolve, if needed, afterwards. Knots secured with varnish can be unravelled with a drop of varnish, which you may find helpful.

Of course, there were different types and shapes of barrels for different purposes. The barrel shown, however, is not for storing meat in the hold, but for dispensing meat on a daily basis. Meat barrels would be periodically retrieved from the hold, opened and their content distributed to several of such casks. Each bench would collect their daily ration, put it into a net with their identification mark attached and then hand it over to the cook.

Yes and no - as always. There are acrylics and acrylics. I have no practical experience with Tamiya paints, but indeed understand that they contain inter alia alcohol as solvent. I know from experience with pieces of furniture that I built that shellac finishes turn milky when you put a wet cup or, worse, a glass will alcohol on the outside on it. The problem, however, is not necessarily the water or alcohol itself, but the way how the paint is applied. When brushing on paint, you bring a lot of solvent onto the surface that then has a lot of time to interact with the surface, while it is evaporating. Airbrushing here is the solution. Also, when used as a sealer, the shellac should be rubbed down, e.g. with steel wool, so that it does not form a layer on the wood anymore. Then, even brush-painting should have less effect on the sealer. Several thin coats of paint are also less likely to interact with the shellac, as the little solvent from the first coat will evaporate quickly and then protect the shellac.

A variant of the adapted needles mentioned by @Dziadeczek would be crochetting needles. These days the really tiny sizes don't seem to be available anymore commercially, but I enherited a small collection from my grandmother. Perhaps a more advanced investment would be so-called Castrovejo micro-scissors as used in eye-surgery. They are very sharp and should only be used on fine threads. Otherwise, as for all tools, it is a good idea to wait until a challenge arises and then buy the tool for the job, even if that interrupts your work, rather than kitting oneself out with tools that one perhaps never uses.

The colour will depend on the kind of shellac used, there are orangee to almost white variations and the number of coats. I keep small amounts in old film-jars (wisely collected them over the decades ...) and they keep for years. I make different dilutions for different purposes. The good thing is, that you can just add more alcohol to dilute the solutions again. You can actually use denatured alcohol, if you don't mind the smell. Some of the nicest surfaces result, when you rub the shellac treated surface (after a good drying period) with very fine steel-wool (0000) and then polish it up again with felt-wheel in the hand-held drill.

Because you really want something with less surface tension and something that is neither water- nor oil-repellent. Shellac is made up with alcohol and alcohol has a much lower surface tension than water. The same applies to nitrocellulose-based wood-sealers that use some organic solvent. The latter work better with more resinous woods, as the solvent attacks the resins, while a water-based acrylic sealer would be repelled. The effect of oxidising oils or shellac is that they fill the pores and act quasi like optical fibres: the incoming light is guided deeper into the wood pores and absorbed deeper in the wood. This is why wet wood or treated wood looks darker. On dry or untreated wood, the light is reflected already at the pore entrance, which is why it looks lighter. So for a good deep glow of the wood, you want something that penetrates deep into the wood and fills the pores.

Another constraint towards the lower end is, that ropes of less than about 10 mm that move any kind of load are not normally used, as they become difficult to hold on to. Flag-lines and such, of course, would be much thinner and would have proportionately sizes pins, if not belayed on cleats.

Nice progress! Looking at the chains, from which the boat is suspended, I think there should be a third one, leading to the stem- and stern-posts respectively. These chains are intended to limit the boat swinging forward and backward, when suspended from the davits. I think at that time the KM also used slip-hooks to attach the chains to the lower block of the davit, but this may be difficult to reproduce at this scale. The slip-hooks are there to ensure, that both tackles are releases at the same time, as otherwise the boat might be turned over in a sea. If you don't have it yet, you should perhaps get hold of a copy of BRIX, A. (1911-1929) Praktischer Schiffbau - Bootsbau (reprint 1982).- 394 p., Norderstedt/Hamburg (Egon Heinemann GmbH). The 4th to 7th editions would be more or less relevant to the period of SMS KARLSRUHE. Some of the editions are also available in digital form.

A polyurethane formulation, I suppose, that is not brushed on, but wiped with a cloth, as was traditionally done for shellac.

I haver never used tung oil, but understand that is an oxidising one (like lineseed oil). As the colleague said before, acrylics don’t like oily surfaces. So, there two options: either use oil-based paint, or use shellac or a sanding sealer instead of the tung oil. The latter two are compatible with acrylics.

I believe barrels were branded with references. Otherwise, the stowage plan would tell where to find what.

If one can, one avoids exposing plank ends to the water, because this is where rot starts. So, the sternpost has a sort of rabbet into which the planking runs. The construction would be like that, that the sternpost has a notch cut out on which the transom rests. The planking runs across the transom, but as soon as it hits the sternpost, it runs into its rabbet instead.