wefalck

What red do you use ? Some reds are made up from dyes, rather than pigments. So whatever you do, they are more washes than solid coats of paint. This is not a question of manufacturer or enamel vs. acrylic, but a question of the ingredients used.

wefalck

Thanks, gentlemen, for the encouraging comments.

As noted at the beginning, the model will be presented in scenic setting. The ‚story-board’ for this reads like this: a botter from Marken (around the late 1800s) got caught out by ice and made it only into the port of Volendam, where it is locked up now by a solid sheet of ice. It is Saturday afternoon. The crew keeps themselves occupied with some maintenance work, while some Volendammer folk enjoy the cold, but bright winter weather during a walk on the dyke or on the ice. This story was inspired by a winterly visit to the Zuiderzeemuseum in Enkhuizen followed by a drive along the dyke down to Volendam. The Ijsselmeer (then Zuiderzee) was covered in pack- and pancake-ice.

I don’t the traditional costume of the women of Marken aesthetically not so pleasing – they had their neck shaved, while long temple-locks dangled from underneath their coifs or caps. The costume of the Volendamm women- and men-folk on the other hand is what we consider ‚the’ traditional Dutch costume. Volendam actually is rather atypical, as it is a catholic ‚island’ in largely protestant surroundings. However, the pictoresque setting and people as well as increasingly easy accessebility resulted in many painters coming here, so that the Volendam images became icons of the Low Lands. Later, the Dutch tourist board and other marketing organisations perpetrated these images. The above story allows me to show the Marker botter (Volendam mainly used a slightly different variant of it, the kwak, and the Artitec prototype was a Marker botter) in a Volendam setting. The winter setting allows me also Breughel citations of winter pleasures, albeit in a more modern environment.

Marker master-fisherman (© www.geheugenvannederland.nl)

Marker mate (© www.geheugenvannederland.nl)

In between the work on the botter model, I turned my attention to the botter skipper and his mate. To this end I obtained second hand a set of Preiser-figurines (http://www-preiserfiguren.de) ‚Various Occupations’, from which I selected two suitable personages. These were carved and sculpted so represent Marker fishermen in their traditional work-a-day outfit. This outfit consist of woolen or linen culots, worn with long dark-blue stockings. The upper body is covered by dark, woolen shirt with a low upright collar or a turtle-neck sweater. Over this in the winter a short, spencer-type or a pea-jacket was worn in the winter seaason. The fishermen appear to have been a hardy species so that one doesn’t see jackets too often on winter-photographs. But they also had woolen underwear. The feet were protected by the iconic wooden clogs. The shape of the clogs varied from village to village. When working the net or doing other wet work, the lower leg were protected by gaiters that reached over the clogs. The characteristic male headgear in Marken was either a black, round (often rather battered) felt-hat or small black képi with a narrow shade.

Scan of the Preiser box

The Preiser country-gentleman or whatever the figure in long boots is mutated into the skipper with the aid of a scalpel and putty. By the same method, an apron-clad drayman with a peaked cap mutated into a fisherman’s mate. The culots were sculpted using putty, while other features, such as shirt collars fell victim to the scalpel. The clogs also were sculpted in putty.

Fisherman ready to painted

Fisherman after receiving a base-coat

I haven’t done any figure-modelling for years so my arsenal of materials was a bit limited: I just had a 40 year-old tube of Britfix ‚customising body putty’, which to my surprise still was useable. A 20 year-old pack of Milliput ‚grey’ was not quite so fit anymore. The base-coat in terracotta acrylic paint shows up all the places that need to be worked over again. However, remember this is 1/90 scale and the figures are just about 2 cm high and hence appear on the computer several times magnified.

Fisherman’s mate ready to painted

Fisherman’s mater after receiving a base-coat

To be continued with the actual paint-job.

wefalck

I guess you are looking for end- or slotting mills. What widith is the slot ? End-mills at a reasonable price go down to 1 mm diameter, but are actually made for metal. There is a limit to the depth of the slot, as the end-mills usually have only a useable length of 3-4 times the diameter. There are also two-fluted carbide end-mills with a diamond cut at the sides, but I believe they are only made down to 2 mm diameter.

You would need an x-y-table to be able to do the milling. Pushing end-mills through by hand will sooner or later result in their breakage.

Another method would be to drill several holes along the slot and then to chisel out the material in between. You would need to grind your own chisel from a piece of tool steel or modify a small cheap screwdriver. The blade of the chisel should be the width of the slot.

wefalck

The classical surgical/laboratory stainless still is 18/8, which means 18% Cr and 8% Ni. The variant of steel alloys is legion and there are many more alloying metals in use, such as manganese (Cr-Mn-steels are in addition to Cr-Ni-steels used make armour plates for ships).

There are also Ni-Cr-alloys without iron, which are used e.g. as resistance wires and in electrical heaters. The wellknown miniaturist modeller Lloyd McCaffery swears by them for making standing rigging - they don't corrode and don't sag like copper.

The oxidation behaviour of copper alloys is quite complex and depends on the environmental conditions and the history of the oxidation process. So the effect of blackening agents is difficult to predict. However, the trades supporting sculptors working in bronze do know very well how to control the process of patination and there are textbooks and recipies available (also in the Internet).

Nickel silver (also called German Silver, Alpaka, Argentan, Maillechort) is an interesting material (60% Cu, 20% Ni, 20% Zn) that has similar machining properties to brass. Unfortunately for us modellers, it is not available in the same variety of shapes and sizes as brass. It would be very useful for parts that have to stay silvery. Otherwise it is used in large quantities industrally, mainly as the base metal for silver-plated cutlery. Because it tends to be harder than brass, very thin photoetched parts are often made from nickel silver rather than brass.

wefalck 

Bronze is the 'unknown' for most of us. It falls between brass and copper in composition ...

Well, not exactly. Brass is an alloy of copper and zinc, while bronze is an allow of copper and tin. While brass usually only contains Cu and Zn in varying ratios (tombak is a high-Cu brass), bronze may have additional components, such as silicium (Si), aluminium (Al) or mangan (Mn) to enhance its corrosion resistance or its properties as bearing metal. In general, bronze typically is more corrosion resistant than brass, which is why it is used e.g. for propellers. 

Hardening or annealing brass is just the reverse of that for steel: quenching it after heating will soften it, while letting it cool down slowly will harden it. Particularly bronze can be hardened by hammering  (see bronze age weapons) or pressing it (the Austrians used hardened bronze for their guns, while everyone else switched to steel).

wefalck

Both, gravers and woodworking chisels/gouges, these day tend to made from HSS. The main difference is the cutting angle and the way how they are offered to the work. The cutting angle of gravers is about 45°, while that of woodworking tools is much smaller. Woodworking tools are offered to the work normally with the bevelled side towards the material, while gravers are used the other way round. In fact, the angle with which gravers are applied is similar to the clearance angle on a lathe tool. If one applies a graver to wood, there is a high risk that they dig in.

I am not a woodcarver, but noticed that gravers would be useful, when cleaning up convex surface, where it might be difficult to find the right angle for a wood chisel. With caution gravers can also be used as scrapers on wood. The more homogeneous a material is, the better it can be worked with a graver, so bone or ivory are good natural candidates, as are synthetic plastics.

Apart from diamond and square shaped gravers for lathe work (traditionally watchmakers mainly worked with gravers) I have engraving gravers of varying width.

It is important to have an absolute flat cutting face, which is not easy to maintain, when grinding/honing by hand. There are various devices on the market that are intended to keep the face flat on the stone or the diamond pad.

wefalck 

Thanks for the kind comments. Actually the sails are rather stiff and water wouldn't do anything on them, as the tissue paper is now impragnated with varnish and covered in acrylic paint. On the other hand the original sails also would have been quite stiff, at least stiffer than untanned sails.

I think we are mixing here two issues, what was done in real life and what to do for models. Garward, you were talking about models, while dafi was talking about the real thing.

Yes, some of the 'quick blackening' agent contain selenous acid.

wefalck

Contemporary to whom ? To us or the time of the prototype ?

Actually, I don't think that bronze (not brass) guns where painted as the material is quite corrosion resistant and develops a protecting patina.

Cast iron and steel corrode differently, due to the graphite content in the former. I believe cast iron was often painted on an artificial patina. The controlled 'rusting' means a passivation and a better key for the paint than the bare iron.

When steel came into use in the second half of the 19th century, gun had become precision instruments that required a more controlled protection. The browing with vinegar etc. is not just throwing the acid over it, but it was applied carefully, sparing machined surfaces that had to retain their dimensions, such as seats for sightings, elevation mechanisms, or the rifling. However, some navies seem to have also painted their steel guns. In fact towards the end of the 19th century, when grey became ubiquitous, this became the general practice.

wefalck

Thanks for the praise 

I am a bit apprehensive as to how they will stand up to being folded and crumpled when in a half-lowered state. As I said before, billowing or furled sails are not so much of challenge compared to limp ones, just hanging there to dry ...

wefalck

Don't know. Would depend on the brass. I also don't know what colour solid copper-acetate (which is what you probably would make) has. 

To be on the safe side, I would use a commercial browning or blackening product. I do have an old-time recipe book for such concoctions used to create patinas, but in most countries, due to health and safety regulations, the chemicals needed cannot be obtained easily by private individuals anymore. In consequence the traditional technical chemist's stores have died out. You can also search the Internet for 'patina'.

I have not tried this on gun barrels, but a good way of simulating the 'browning' could be to chemically blacken the parts and then give them a wash in 'burnt umber' mixed with a drop of 'gun metal'. I have done this on black paint and it looks quite convincing. The chemical blackening also provides a good key for acrylic paints (if you don't touch it with greasy fingers).

wefalck

The vinegar for internal cleaning of brass and cast iron barrels was used to dissolve the residues of black powder. Normally, it was a three-stage procedure: vinegar, (sea)water, grease/tallow.

wefalck

Personally, I don't like sewn sails. Particularly the hems tend to be grossly out of size, as the cloth thickness is way overscale.

Anyway, if you do insist to sew, it is helpful to pin (or glue) the cloth down onto a piece of silk paper (the type used to make carbon copies in the age of the typewriter). This prevents the cloth from being pulled out of shape by the machine. It also facilitates sewing a predetermined path (not always straight for sails !), because you can draw the pattern on it. The paper can be ripped out easily after the sewing has been completed.

On the same line, I have simulated in the past boltropes by reducing the stitching step to almost zero, i.e. to the diameter of the thread, stitching effectively a beading onto the cloth. The sail was cut out after the paper backing hat been ripped out. The beading can be stabilised with a bit of clear varnish to prevent it from becoming undone.

wefalck

Frome a late 19th century German source for steel guns: rub down the barrel repeatedly with vinegar. Once a firmly attached brown iron-oxide layer has developed, paint in lineseed oil. To be rubbed down with a cloth soaked in lineseed oil for maintenance. Be sure not let the vinegare etc. into the barrel (particularly in the case of rifled barrels).

This seems to implicate that the barrels were of a satin brownish colour, which is also evidenced by contemporary paintings.

Cast iron guns, according to the same source were to be painted in oil paint.

wefalck

And the show continues ...

The next thing to go on was the bolt-rope. The rope was made on the miniature rope-walk from 8/0 size tan fly-tying yarn (UNI-Thread). According to the authors cited above, it was left to the individual sailmaker whether the bolt-rope was sewn to the port or starboard side of the sail. I attached all doublings to the port side and decided on the starboard side for the bolt-rope. Again it was glued on using the wood-filler.

Applying the bolt rope

On the prototype the bolt-rope does not continue all-around the sails, but rather ends at the respective head in spliced eyes. The mainsail is attached to corresponding eyebolts in the gaff with hooks or shackles in these eyes. Owing to the springiness of the fly-tying yarn, I found it impossible to recreate real eyesplices. I took some artisanal license and bound the eyes, pretending they were served eyesplices. The eyes at the other corners of the sails were fashioned in a similar way. To increase the stability of the sail, the corners of the bolt-rope were 'sewn' to the tissue paper using 14/0 size fly-tying yarn (Sheer).

Fake eyesplice

wefalck

We are metric here in Europe, so the mat has markings with 10 mm distance ...

Based on the information in BEYLEN and DORLEJN I made the individual cloths 6 mm wide (in 1/90 scale).

wefalck

First of all, thank you very much to all well-wishers 

With many parts of the boat actually now completed, I turned my attention to the sails. I did this before painting the model, as various fitting and shaping actions will be required that may damage the paintwork.

The plan is to show the sails in a sort of semi-set stage, as they would be when the boat is in harbour, in order to allow them to dry. This going to be a much bigger challenge to represent convincingly than fully set or furled sails. As the boat will be shown in its winter rig, there will be only two sails.

The raw material is a very thin tissue paper that I found in my stock. The first step was to draw a sail plan 'as built', i.e. with the actual dimensions of the mast, boom and gaff.

Sail-plan ‚as built’

Sail-plan ‚as built’ (detail)

The shape of each panel of sail-cloth was pencilled in also with the help of a french curve. The drawing then was backed with a piece of stiff cardboard and covered in clingfilm. Based on this pattern the individual sail-'cloths' were cut from the tissue paper with the addition of 1 mm for the seam. This is rather wide at this scale, but inconsequential as the sail will not be translucent, being tanned and dressed (i.e. soaked in a broth from bark and smeared with a concoction of tallow, oil and ochre) on the prototype. This treatment prevents the formation of mildew and permits one to furl the sails when still wet.

The ‚cloths’ of the mainsail.

Using the drawing as a template, panels were stuck together using wood-filler (CLOU Schnellschleifgrundierung) as glue. The tissue paper soaks up the filler, turning it into a sort of compound material. I prefer wood-filler over diluted PVA-glue because it does not swell the paper and the joints can be loosened and re-adjusted by applying a drop of thinner. After completing the basic sails, outside margins and doublings were added in the same way, based on the detail drawings in VAN BEYLEN, (1995) and DORLEIJN (2001).

Glueing together the sail cloths

To be continued ...

wefalck

First I sand down these much to thick rings ...

Actually, depending on period and circumstances the hoops may not have been made from iron at all, but rather from split twigs of hazelnut or birch (I believe). There is a special technique to hook the ends together without nails or the likes. Such barrels would not contain any ironwork, but would be constructed entirely from wood. I have seen photographs of such barrels being made well into the 20th century, e.g. for shipping herring.

wefalck

Jules van Beylen (I think he was the conservator at the museum in Antwerp) has written many books on Dutch/Flemish boats and ships. There is also a monograph on the hoogars:

BEYLEN, J. VAN (1978): De hoogaars, geschiedenis en bouw.- 184 p. (De Boer Maritiem). 

Most of the books cited above are packed with drawings. Van Beylen's books are actually written for modellers and have very detailed description for building a model in a 1/20 scale. Full size drawings seem to be available separately. Dorleijn's book contains also folded plates, but seems to have become extremely expensive over the past. I have almost all of the books cited in my library.

wefalck

Yep, got a copy, but it doesn't have a date in int.

wefalck

Garward, liked your Estwing geologist's hammer ! Bought one like this in my first year at university ...

wefalck

Here a couple of interesting books on botters and boeiers, albeit in Dutch:

CRONE, G.C.E. (1926): Nederlandsche Jachten, Binnenschepen Visschersvaartuigen en daarmee Verwante kleine Zeeschepen 1650 -1900.- 309 p., 85 Abb., Amsterdam (Swets & Zeitlinger, Nachdr. 1978 bei Schiepers, Schiedam). - with English translations.

BEYLEN, J. VAN (1985): De botter - Geschiedenis en bouwbeschrijving van een Nederlands visserschip.- 223 p., Weesp (De Boer Maritiem).

DORLEIJN, P. (2001): De Bouwgeschiedenis van de Botter. Vierendertig voet in de kiel.- 168 p., Lelystad (Uitgeverij Van Wijnen ).

KAMPEN, H.C.A. VAN, KERSKEN, H. (1927): Schepen die Voorbijgaan. Een verzamling Afbeeldingen en Beschrijvingen die de Nederlandsche Binnenwateren bevaren.- 351 p., Amsterdam (A.N.W.B. Toeristenbond voor Nederland).

OSTROM, C. van (1988): Ronde en platbodems schepen en jachten.- 144 p., Alkmaar (De Alk b.v.).

SOPERS, P.J.V.M. (196?): Schepen die verdwijnen (bearbeitet von H.C.A. van Kampen).- 162 p., Amsterdam (P.N. Van Kampen & Zon).

VERMEER, J. (2004): De Boeier. – 528 p., Alkmaar (De Alk & Heijnen Watersport).

wefalck