wefalck

McCaffery actually describes quite in detail, how he makes (or perhaps simulates) blocks. In fact, he assembles the tackles made from twisted wire and then sticks paper discs onto the places, where the blocks are. The hitch is that he makes his own oval punches, which requires drilling and filing of silver-steel rods, which then have to be hardened and quenched. I have tried a similar method for 1:160 scale, using 'real' rope and laser-cut paper-discs, but the result was not very satisfactory. I think McCaffery's method with wire might be the best option at 1:300 scale. In my experience, twisting more than two wires together does not really work, unless you can really ensure that the pull on each wire is absolutely equal. Unlike for 'rope' the individual 'strands' (i.e. wires) cannot move against each other to give you a smooth rope. If you twist the wires tight enough, it is not easy to see, that there are only two wires.

Rather than boat-hooks (because they actually do not have hooks at the end) I think these are poles for 'poling' the boat along canals or to push it across shoals (of which are a lot in the Zuiderzee and the tidal waters around). The fork at the end would suggest this. Such poles can still be found on Dutch craft.

Cute little model she is and well done 👍🏻 When you referred to 'pencil work', did you mean shading with a pencil around details?

Not sure, how this was done on a 'speeljacht', but usually, there was a solid block of wood (in German: Schwertpoller), a bollard, through which a heavy pin ran ('Schwertnagel') on which the lee-boards pivoted. On later boats/ships there was an iron frame going over the bollard, which held the pin. The side-views that you showed, don't show the bollard above the rail, so it may be inboard. However, a solid piece of wood would be needed to hold the lee-board. There is also a lift attached to the lower edge of the lee-board, that allowed to raise it above the water. The lift was belayed on another bollard or cleat inboard. In order to get a clean line along the waterline, you could use white decal sheet. Cut a thin stripe and apply it along the the desired line. With acrylics you can paint over it to almost touch the edge. The acrylic paint will also cover up the lower edge of the decal strip. I also tend to play with different grades of glossiness/mattnes. Some people like their small-scall models all matt, but I think the different grades enhance the appearance of different materials or surface treatments. At this scale, the project is going to be quite a challenge and I will follow with interest.

There is a 90+ year old gentleman in Munich, who is really an artist in metal-work. The parts for the wheel are photo-etched.

How is the hammer released on those pile-drivers? I seem to remember that (at least on the ones over here in Europe) there is a sort of tripping mechanism, that releases the hammer (in German we call it 'ramming bear'), which then drops down in free-fall. The halliard then is lowered and clicks automatically into the hammer.

Apart from the fact that it may have been knocking about in your workshop, but why did you use plywood? Plywood, of course. is designed to resist curving in two directions ...

Just out of curiosity: is this actually a real fire-engine harness? They used to have special harnesses that were suspended from the ceiling in the fire-station and could be sort of just dropped onto the horses that were taken from the stables and reared up against the engine. I think they were able to get the engine on its way in a couple of minutes or so. Most horse-drawn fire-engines I have seen were designed for a single team of horses. This makes a lot of sense, because it is quicker to get under way and more manoeuverable on the streets. Perhaps the situation in the USA was different with longer distances to cover in the cities and wider streets. There is a short video on Youtube that shows a complete Paris firefighting team on its way to a fire: Sorry, I didn't want to drift away the thread from its real topic ...

Similar boats were still built by the 'Marsh Arabs' in southern Iraq in the middle of the 20th century I think (see Wilfred Thesingers book on the 'Marsh Arabs').

I would think that the steam-plant and the machinery would provide sufficient counterbalance? Unlike for a crane, the load and the distance of the load from the barge does not change so much on a pile-driver.

It really depends on the purpose and what kind of effect you try to achieve. Any of them can work. However, I am not sure about bitumen on a model … the same effect can be achieved with dyes or washes of paint.

Artists pastels are good for such weathering. White, grey, black and some olive green for around the water-line. The originals would have treated with a solution of tar, but your wood resembles already that.

Fixing one end (with hoops) and then the other is indeed full-scale practice in barrel-making.

Joining in into the chorus! Any crew or passengers foreseen? There should HO-scale figures suitable for conversion, if needed.

Soldering is joining two pieces of metal with the aid of another metal that has a melting point well below that of the pieces to be joined. Welding is heating (punctually) the two pieces of metal (or plastics) to be joined up to their melting point and then pressing them together.

In jewellery-making and clock-making (for soldering the distance-feets to the dials) this is a fairly common process. Sometimes such resistance soldering units pop up on ebay et al. Making a resistance soldering station is indeed quite possible and would involve winding a suitable transformer. However, its layout should be checked probably by a qualified electrician. Fires or blasting fuses in your domestic wiring system due to such home-made equipment may make your home insurance void otherwise. One has to not confuse resistance (or spot) welding with resistance soldering. The tweezers to hold parts mentioned above probably pertain to resistance welding. In resistance soldering, the parts are placed on a conductive pad or held with conductive clamps and a carbon-electrode is brought into contact with the part. The resistance at the contact between the pointed electrode and the part is high enough to heat up the contact point sufficiently to melt the solder. All the usual preparations for soldering, such as cleaning and fluxing are needed.

Great attention to details!

Was the prototype hull actually wood or steel?

Oops, Keith, you beat me to that subject ... a floating pile-driver (or a floating derrick) with a donkey-engine or a portable steam-engine (locomobile) has been on my project list for decades. I have collected quite a bit of civil engineering literature from the 1860s to 1890s on that subject. There have been quite a few configurations in use, probably depending on availability: vertical boiler to supply horizontal engines, vertical engines attached to vertical boiler, and the classical portable engine configuration with the steam-engine sitting on top of a horizontal locomotive-type boiler (either on a kind of skid, or with the wheels wedged tight). I think the 1881 date refers only to the design with a skidded engine with vertical boiler and winches in one frame. The principle has been in use at least since the 1860s to power cranes, derricks and pile drivers, both on land and floating. I remember seeing and hearing(!) pile drivers as a little boy in the early 1960s, when they extended the quays for the Scandinavian ferries in Kiel (Germany). They drove sheet-piling though. BTW, 1/120 is an established model railway scale over here in Europe. There werent too many manufacturers in Western Europe, but it was a popular scale in Eastern Germany. After the Wall came down it saw a kind of renaissance due to people hankering after the good(?) old times of GDR. Now there are several manufacturer catering for this scale. Figures are also available at that scale. In HO-scale there would be various white-metal kits for donkey-engines on the market, I think. Dito for portable steam-engines. Perhaps you should get yourself a small lathe to do justice to all the working parts of the engine etc. I will follow that log with interest too 👍🏻

The Crew boards S.M.S. WESPE With all the crew members being painted, they were place at their foreseen duty stations. They were attached with tiny drops of Vallejo acrylic matt varnish. The pictures below show their disposition. Final touch-ups In case I had to remove the model from its base for whatever reason, it had only be screwed down, but the slight gap between the hull and modelled sea had not been filled with acrylic gel yet. Now with the model almost completed, this was done. I also gave it a very light weathering at certain places. For instance, the top of the smoke stack was lightly dusted with black pastel. White and grey pastel indicated the areas where the ash would have dropped out of the ash-chutes into the sea. Some grey pastel was also applied to certain parts of the hull to break somewhat the uniform black and enhance the visibility of surface structures. Raising the Ensign Now, being ready to go to sea, the ensign was raised, meaning the flagstaff was installed. This being extremely delicate, it was left as very last step. With this the model is in principle finished after a journey of nearly 18 years. I just checked: the first photographs were taken on 1 October 2006. There have been considerable interruptions, such as the move from the Netherlands to Paris. I also built the model of the Zuiderzee-botter in between and spent considerable time on constructing workshop tools and machinery. However, before screwing down the glass-case the above photographs also serve to check the model for any imperfections that can still be addressed at this point. Paint may have to be touched up etc. This is more visible on 2D images, than on the real thing. Once this is done, some ‘glamour shots’ will be taken before the glass-case makes this more difficult. There are certainly things that I wish had turned out better. This includes the rigging, which is taught or following catena-curves as I had planned. Making things to scale-size also makes them at the chosen scale rather flimsy with limitations to adjustment possibilities. This is even more the case with ‘modern’ ships in metal and with metal parts, where parts have to be thin and small, compared to those on wooden ships of old. Sometimes, these problems also arose due to a lack of foresight on my side. What next? Well, the follow-on project is mentally already almost completed (one of several), but the workshop needs first a good tidying up, cleaning, and re-organisation. Something that had been neglected actually for several years during the drive to complete SMS WESPE. Some machinery also needs a bit TLC to be ready for the next project. There are also a couple of small tool projects that I want to undertake, but I may start those only, once I have started the new ship project.

It's good to see that certain old-school techniques, such filing buttons, find new applications, here to get the shape of the prop tube right 👍🏻

It will be almost a shame to hide all this wonderful metal work under paint ...

Soldering is joining two metal parts with another metal that has a lower melting point than the parts to be joined. There are some low-temperature solders with a melting temperature less than white-metal (which I assume are your parts). Some railway modellers solder their white-metal kits and there are some hints on the Internet concerning fluxes and solders. You also need a temperature-controlled soldering iron to make sure you stay below the melting point of white-metal. Given the risks involved when trying to solder these kits, it seems that railway modellers in general prefer epoxy cement. CA does not have sufficient gap-filling capabilities.

It will also depend on the top-gear of the vessel, i.e. how many men one needs to bring into the mast quickly to take in sails. On some ships the first or last shroud may also have been slackened in order to allow closer bracing-up of yards or to let booms swing out further. However, I doubt that any useful information can be found for 16th century ships. Perhaps there are some paintings, but at this time painters were rarely that well informed about such details.

It was used throughout the days of gaff-sails to quickly take out the 'draw' of the sail. One can see this on many paintings, particularly of smaller boats with gaff-mainsail. It reduced the power of the sail wihout putting in a reef, which is a rather complex procedure. On some ships the tackle to the tack was led to the boom, while on others it was led to the deck at the mast. It was also an early use of chain, rather than rope.