wefalck

I seem to remember that the Roman ships were more heavily built than the Punic ones (or the earlier Greek ones in any case), as the Romans were not a seafaring nation at all and wanted to transfer their land-battle tactics to the sea. Hence they manned their ships heavily with soldiers, fitted them with a sort of drawbridge to grab enemy ships and deploy those soldiers in hand-to-hand fighting. This probably means more ballast to keep the ships stable. Also, I believe, the Roman ships were rowed by slaves, who were kept on board at all times, so that infrastructure for sustaining them was needed. Not sure about the Punic ships. The Greek ships were rowed by free citizens of the respective communities and typically disembarked in the evening, as the ships would be pulled up on the beaches. Greek tactics mainly aimed for ramming the enemy ships or at least break their oars. Very few extra soldiers were on board. These tactical requirements would have resulted in comparatively light ships only.

I have been to the Hellenic Maritime Museum in Piraeus/Athens a couple of days ago. And there, on the room dedicated to the ancient Greek warships, it was noted that the captains of a trireme etc. were obliged to salvage the ram in case their ship went down. It was also noted that the construction of the galleys would mean that they float on the wood and not sink, once pierced, which would explain, why no rams so far have been found at the sites of major seabattles, such as Salamis. Obviously, this did not apply to Roman or Punic ships.

Yes, but these are secondary sources with specific temporal and/or regional focus. One should not forget this.

Thanks, I was aware of this work. Interestingly, their terminology differs in places from the one used in maritime circles - but this is rather a discussion for a German forum (where we already had it, I think).

I have put together a lis of published literature specifically on masting and rigging. There are some more titles in addition to those already mentioned: https://www.maritima-et-mechanika.org/maritime/maritimebibliographies/masting&rigging-bibliography.pdf Those marked with 'E' are available in digitised form, but you would need to look for yourself for a link.

When I serve splices etc. I start with either a clove-hitch or an overhand-knot and continue with half-hitches. The half-hitches make sure that the turns stay tight on the served area. To secure knots, splices and servings I use a fast-drying varnish, similar to nail-varnish, but the old, solvent-based variety, not the modern acrylic ones. In this way, everything can be loosened, should the need arise.

Yes, alloys can be deposited galvanically. It’s regularly done for objects such as furniture or lamp fitting. The electrode should be brass of the copper to zinc ratio that you want on the final product, which determines the colour, ranging from reddish (high Cu) to yellowish (high Zn).

I gather areas, were the load would be high, e.g. from the pivoting and firing guns, could have closer spaced frames, dito., where boilers and machinery are located. In the bow, the cant-frames are spaced closer to better take up the stresses from diving into the sea. On the other hand, uneven frame spacing would also cause uneven stress distribution along the hull, with some areas being stiffer than others. This should lead to higher stress on wales, stringers and the hull-planking in these areas. By then the spacing is already quite close, so that there may not be a quantitatively significant effect. When you say 'bent' frames, you mean they really steam-bent such big timbers, as you would in boat-building?

A sort of transition solution between the ruling pen and the modern Rotring etc. lining pens was something that is called a 'funnel pen' (not sure my translation from German 'Trichterfeder' is correct). This is essentially a tiny funnel with a capillary at the end of defined diameter (to conform with the standardised line widths in technical drawings). A thin wire runs in the capillary to regulate flow and keep it clean. They are still used in porcelain-decoration for applying gold suspensions. I inherited a couple from my mother's hobby kit and have one or two antique ones I think. The problem is that they may clog up quickly when used with paints, as they are meant of use with inks. In principle they are easier to use then the old-style ruling pens.

It this seems that a lot of table-ware was made from silver-plated Britannia metal in the old days. So it may be worthwhile looking for Internet-resources on restoring such pieces. Otherwise, jewel-makers use a lot of electroplating and 'tampon-plating' (meaning the electrolyte is held in a wet piece of felt with which the workpiece is touched, rather than immersing it in the electrolyte) for repair purposes. The respective supply houses offer hand-held kits for that purpose.

My sound like a stupid question, but have you consulted any shipbuilding textbooks of that time? There is a variety of English language mid-19th century texbooks available on the Web.

"Step 6 was to create a tool to cut the slots. I had decided on a slot width of .040" and I ground a single point milling tool and machined a tool holder to facilitate the cutting of this width." I was wondering, why you didn't use just a slitting saw? Maybe you didn't have one of the right thickness and diametre?

Ah, I understand now. This is tea-bag paper sold in sheets for use by artists. This paper is obviously not disintegrating quickly when wet, which has advantages in our case. Perhaps we should stop using the term 'silkspan' because it refers to different materials in different countries and originally was a marketing term. The best way to talk about such materials would be to refer to their weight per sqm or sqft, to the kind of raw-material used, and whether it is a fabric (i.e. woven) or paper (i.e. more or less short fibres arranged in an irregular fashion). The lightest and, hence, thinnest paper I was able to source in France comes from Japan and weighs 8 g/sqm.

What are 'artists' tea bags? Some teas are sold in a kind screen-printing fabric-bags. Screen-printing fabrics come an a wide variety of thread thicknesses and 'meshes' and can be easily obtain via the usual routes, e.g. ebay et al. I have used this kind of fabric sources from tea-bags to simulate metal grilles in small scale (1/160). It was easier to work with than the comparable metal fabrics used in sieves.

I have used silk-paper and silk-fabric (as used to 'span' model aircraft wings etc.) for decades. The first time I made the sails up from individual panels was in the mid to late 1990s, I think. Below is the sequence for making some 'tanned' sails in 1:90 scale. Because the prototype sails were tanned with a mixture of tallow and ochre, I was not concerned about translucence: A computer drawing (above) from which the individual panels were separated was taped to a board onto which the silk-paper was taped. The panels were then drawn onto the silk-paper and cut out with an allowance for the seams: The original computer drawing was then taped to a board and covered in clingfilm. Onto this the first panel was taped and painted with a fast-drying varnish. The next panel was treated in the same way and so forth. Then doublings etc were added and when complete the sail was removed and trimmed to size: After this step the sail was returned to the clingfilm-covered drawing and lightly taped down so that the boltropes could be glued on: Also cringles and other ropework was added: In the final step, the sail was spray-painted to simulate the tanning: This method works very well for set sails, but for gathered up sails and so on, there is risk that the glued seams open and also the various coats of varnish and paint make the rather stiff. Therefore, for my next project, where the untreated flax/hemp sails will be hanging limp for drying over stays and spars, I might try the method suggested by druxey. The lining pens druxey uses were a standard feature of technical drawing sets. I got my drawing set when entering secondary school in 1967 and still have it. I remember trying to use it with enamels during my teenage years but that didn't work very well. I can imagine that with acrylics pre-diluted for spray-painting (e.g. my favourite Vallejo ModelAir) it will work very well.

I think what was meant was, that the longitudinal seams between the planks in the second layer should be in the middle of the planks of the first layer, not overlapping within a layer. Personally, I think that POB construction where the spaces between the bulkheads are filled in makes for much easier and successful fairing. Any fairing errors not corrected before a first layer of planks will transmitted to the second layer, so that there is no real advantage. Of course, when you are working from a pre-cut kit, where the dimensions of the bulkheads assume two layers of planking, you cannot avoid this extra work. When the bulkheads have not been cut already, you could add the thickness of the layer by drawing a parallel line and saw to this line.

Yes, life it too short to build the same ship twice ...

I have never travelled 3rd class on any railway - this had long been abolished in my part of the World. However, trams used to have similar seats (on some older trams e.g. in Vienna they are still in use today, I believe) and I found them more comfortable than many modern plastic seats, particularly when the latter are formed like the negative of your bottoms and only allow you to sit in one position. I gather, the 2nd class seats are only better than the wooden ones as long as they are not sat through ... I am not a railway expert, but would agree that bogies look rather high. I wonder, whether there are not any drawings of these coaches to be found on the Internet for verification.

I think a water barrel or tank would have been there. The water in the boiler gets consumed quite quickly and one needs to keep a certain level in order to not burn out the flue-pipes. Otherwise, I would think that the operators of these pile-drivers would have had either a barge for coal and water at hand or would have carted the supplies to the drivers (as did the operators of steam-rollers and traction engines). The buffer barrel/tank could be filled by hand-pump, while the coal could be carried on board in sacks (on the back of hired men) or in wheel-barrows. In those dark ages before HSE, a simple plank would have been sufficient to be laid to the land.

Design of the model The idea for the project was conceived back in around 1980, when I became aware of the 1934 book by Szymanski and the drawings therein. Unfortunately, the tracing of the original builder’s plan for the purpose of the book was done very summarily and all the usual details are missing. I could not locate the original drawing, as it must have been in the possession of the builder’s family at the time and is probably lost now. Lines and sail plan of a Rahschlup, drawn in 1852 by H.P. Steffen, Lübeck (from Szymanski, 1934) Then in the later 1990s I discovered the drawings by Joachim Möller in the archives of Rostock Maritime Museum, who kindly provided me with copies. After a lot of procrastination and detours I started the S.M.S. WESPE project, which took much much longer than anticipated. In between, I made several attempts to redraw the lines for the purpose of model reconstruction. My oldest files are still in ClarisWorks … As I am now trying to recuperate the work I did several years ago, I found it somewhat difficult to remember what I did at the time and what my intentions were for construction. The drawings by Joachim Möller allow to take off a few key dimensions, but it does not give the dimensions of the scantlings. However, the measurements taken by Nielsen (1973) off the jagt CASTOR (1867) give a basis for extrapolation. CASTOR was 48’ between the perpendicles, as opposed to 64’ for the Rahschlup. It is not known, which foot Möller used, it could have been the Mecklenburg or the Rhineland-Prussian, which was in widespread use and is identical to the Danish one at 314 mm. For convenience sake I assumed that it was that latter. Based on the (crude) assumption that all parts are proportionally bigger in the bigger ship, I developed a conversion table that shows the upscaled dimension and the dimensions in the chosen 1/160 scale. Conversion table that calculates the scale dimensions for the reconstruction The construction will be plank-on-bulkhead for a waterline model. Unlike for larger ships, the bulwark stanchions were not separate members, but every second or third frame was extended up to the level of the main rail. Such practice can be seen e.g. in Klawitter (1835). In terms of model construction, this has the advantage, that the hull shape up to the main rail can be easily defined. On the other hand, the body plan does not give all the necessary frame positions, which have to be lofted off the line plan. Likewise, the cant-frames in the bow that reach up to the rail have to be lofted. Contrary full-scale practice, I will also introduce ‘cant-frames’ towards the stern to avoid excessive fairing and bevelling and being able to use one thickness of material (see below). I did quite some lofting in my 2D CAD in the past and now have to go through my older files in order to understand what I did some years ago and how far I actually got. I tended to work on this during vacations, when I had no access to the workshop. I also realised that more lofting needs to be done on the cant-frames. The plan is to cut the bulkheads from 1 mm acrylic glass, which then will be slotted into a solid baseplate of 3 mm acrylic. The slots will be cut in the milling machine. The stem will also be 1 mm acrylic and its final thickness build up with outer layers of styrene in order to be able to create a rabbet without the need to mill it into the solid acrylic. The rationale behind using acrylic glass (Plexiglas) is, that it is isotropic, does not have grain, and holds edges very well. In addition, this material was already in my storage, while sourcing good-quality hardwood (e.g. boxwood) in suitable dimensions is difficult, where I am. Also, Plexiglas does not generate dust, when milled etc. and thus is more friendly in a workshop that is one corner of my study. That is how far the planning and the work have preceded to date. Now back to the drawing-board – or rather the CAD. To be continued

Did the bragozzo really have shrouds? In many cases with lateen rigs the haliards of the antenna seem to serve as shroud.

Sounds like a lot of hand-filing to come on the propeller blades ...

I gather vertical boilers were designed to raise steam quickly and don't need good foundations, as you would need for a locomotive-type boiler. And I don't think that fuel-efficiency was a major concern under those circumstances. To me the boiler actually looked a bit small, but then I don't know how many horse-powers sustained one needs to drive one of those pile-drivers. Good start on the machinery 👍🏻

I am always perplexed by the complexity of the shape of some parts. Do they use some sort of templates to (rough) cut the pieces and fit them then?

Nice sculpting indeed! Somehow I had the same experience with 'Greenstuff'. It didn't seem to stick to polystyren figures, which I used as a basis very well at all. Got some, as most figure sculpturers seem to use it and I have seen great results with it. Perhaps it is a matter of technique? I don't do sculpting very often. Some people use twisted wire armatures, to which the sculpting material should adhere a bit better. On the other hand, this means a softer armature.