wefalck

I think there are couple of technical and stylistic reasons for not showing the caulking on the hulls of models. Technically, the caulking is done a bit different on the hull and on the decks. The most visible feature on deck caulking is the sealing with pitch and this is what most people model. The seams outboard would not be sealed in the same way, but worked over together with the surface treatment of the hull, being it painting or oiling or varnishing, e.g. with harpeus. The result is that the caulking is not very visible, even when the surface treatment is not pigmented. On old ships' photographs, when taken at a glancing angle, one can sometimes see the caulking. On shots taken perpendicular to the hull, the caulking normally is not visible. The stylistic reason is that many (if not most) shipmodellers actually do not build models of ships, but rather models of shipmodels. What I mean is, that they try to recreate an antique model as seen in museums and these not normally show the caulking, but rather have nice smooth and shiny wood walls. wefalck

As the hull probably is epoxy resin, I would use epoxy resin for glueing wood onto it. Expoxy resin is also used in full-scale. Cyano-acrylates can become brittle with time and the planks peel off. wefalck

I don't think they do a fixed steady. However, it is not so difficult to make one yourself. In order not to leave marks on the wood, I would use a thick and stiff cardboard disc into which a close-fitting hole has been drilled/punched. This cardboard can be held by three scews with washers against a piece of plywood into which a larger hole, say of 1 cm diameter, has been drilled. The three-screw-plus-washers-arrangement allows you to center the steady on the work. The plywood can be held upright on the bed of the lathe with a small angle iron that is clamped down onto the T-slot. wefalck

Since about the 1840s virtually all iron-work that is exposed to the elements, as well as iron fastenings, was hot-dip zinc-plated. In addition, the iron-work could be painted to suit the decorative scheme of a boat. While this anti-corrosion treatment is quite efficient, when not done very carefully, the plating can be porous, so that the iron can rust underneath. The corrosion products, iron(hydr)oxides, can diffuse into the zinc layer tarnishing it into a yellowish tint. Vice versa, a porous zinc layer can soak up e.g. tar-based paints, making it look yellowish, even when the paint has been removed. Seawater-resistant bronce would normally not be painted and is indeed not easy to paint, as paint does not very well adhere to this material. wefalck

One can mark the centre of square stock by drawing diagonals from one corner to the opposite one; then you punch-mark the centre and put it against the tailstock centre; now you put the tool-rest close to the chucked-up material and observe the gap between the tool-rest und the material (close one eye and look down onto the lathe bed); adjust the jaws until the gaps are equal on the edges of your stock. Voilà you material is centred. wefalck

I am inclined to think that structural metal-work would be zinc-plated iron that has been painted black. However, on yachts one never knows; the owner may have opted for bronce, though its mechanical strength tends to be lower than that of iron. My photographs unfortunately do not help to decide on this and now I am living several hundred kilometers further south. wefalck

Thanks, gentlemen ... Slowly the work on the Botter itself draws to a close. Small and unspectacular steps in which the previously made parts are assembled to give the ‚whole’. The rigging work is rather difficult to photograph – one’s three hands are already busy and there is no free hand for the camera. Net hauled out up the mast for drying The Botter is a fishing boat and a fishing boat needs a net. But just this caused me some headache. In accordance with the ‚story’ that is to be told in this scene, the net will be shown hauled out up the mast for drying. This can be seen on many old photographs. Detail of the net hauled out up the mast In these old photographs one also notes the fineness of the yarn from which such nets were made. There is not really any material that can convincingly represent a fishing net in the 1:87 scale. The second best solution are the finest ladies tights one can put one’s hand on. Unfortunately, these don’t have quite the reddish-brown colour of a tanned fishing net. In order to improve their resistance against the elements, fishing nets were ‚tanned’, i.e. they were boiled in a brew made from oak bark. Tanning of nets (in the Zuiderzeemuseum, Enkhuizen) An additional problem was, that I didn’t have any detail information on what kind of nets a Botter would have used in the winter fisheries on the Zuiderzee and how these nets were constructed – Van Beylen just devotes half a page to the subject. There is a book by Pieter Dorleijn, that apparently treats the subject in some detail, but I found it too expensive to buy this book, just for the one net I had to make. Therefore, I cheated a bit. Detail of the net hauled out up the mast As the tights didn’t have quite the right colour, I somehow had to dye them, which turned out rather difficult to do. First I pulled the tight over a round-bellied bottle to open the meshes. A try with mahagoni-coloured woood-stain failed, the material just didn’t take up the stain. In the end I stabilised the tight with thinned matt acrylic varnish applied with the airbrush. After cutting it out, the ‚net’ was coloured using Sepia-ink, again applied with the airbrush. The acrylic varnish allows the net to be draped in an acceptably realistic way. The net then was glued with solvent-based matt varnish onto the fore-deck. A few drops of this fast-drying varnish also kept the draping in shape. The net draped on the fore-deck The lee-boards were brought on board too. They are fastened with small round-headed nails. In reality the lee-board would have been secured on the pin with a wedge in a rectangular slot in its outboard end. As on the model this pin has a diameter of only 0.4 mm, I gave up on the idea to recreated this arrangement The lee-boards are raised by a simple tackle. A block with a hole, fastened to the rail, redirects the pulling force and acts as a stop. The lee-board halliard is belayed on the aftermost half-cleat. The raised lee-boards Also the various belaying pins found their right places. The pins, turned from steel, were heated using a hot-air soldering gun until they changed their colour to brown and almost blue. This, in my opinion, looks quite like forged iron that is slightly rusted. An overall view of the model Other fittings will follow suit ... wefalck

I think many J-Class and similar large yachts were composites. wefalck

I forgot that I had taken pictures of that in Chatham too … in the background you can see the furnace in which the bars were heated. The rails around the slab are a concession to modern visitors' safety requirements. If I remember right, the bars were pulled out of the furnace using tongs suspended from overhead rails and gantry cranes. wefalck

The iron frames etc. were not rolled, to my knowledge, but bent red-hot to shape on a special cast-iron plate. This plate had square holes in a regular pattern into which stops or dogs could be set. These dogs followed the shape as lofted. The iron profile is being forced against the dogs using levers and tackles. It is secured with more dogs and wedges until it has cooled down. As steel would loose its properties when heated to a red, this technique can only be used on wrought iron and is not used anymore in modern times. wefalck

I am quite sure that all decks on which people lived where scrubbed in one way or another for hygienic reasons, though bacteria etc. at the time of sailing ships were not recognised yet. For the same reason, sides and ceilings where white-washed. The lime solution has a very high pH and acts as a mild bactericide. wefalck

It is high time to report on some progress. The work progressed slowly, interrupted by various business travels and also a short hospital-stay. Head of the main sail from starboard The main sail was fitted out with the halliard and the throat-halliard and then attached. The imagined szenario is that the sails are set for drying. The shore of Volendam is exposed to the East, so that the sails are slightly filled by a light easterly breeze. The cold easterly breeze, that comes across from Germany and the Baltic was a winterstorm a couple of days ago and forced the botter to seek shelter in Volendam. The easterly wind brought with it the frost that is responsible for the Marker botter to be locked in the ice. The main boom has been topped a bit to provide better clearance in the workspace underneath. Head of the main sail from port In the meantime various ropes of different size were made from fly-tying thread. Then I also noticed that I forgot to make that special block with a half-cleat that forms the lower part of the main sheet tackle. This block was carved in the classical way from a strip of Pertinax and fitted out with an ‚iron’ band etc. Running rigging at the mast Running rigging at the mast The running rigging was attached by fake eye-splices. On the prototype, all blocks are attached to eye-bolts by hooks, which are secured by musings. The pictures do not show this detail yet. Owing to this way of rigging, all tackles could be prepared in advance and just hooked into their respective eye-bolts. The throat-halliard is made up from a short length of chain with an S-hook at its end. The S-hook is attached to the eye in the bolt-rope. The throat-halliard is hauled taught with a tackle that hooks into an eye-bolt in the mast. The S-hook was made from a short length of wire that was flattenend and provided with a hole in the middle for a chain-link. Stern with boom-sheet Stern with boom-sheet The halliards etc. were belayed prototype-fashion on half-cleats, which is rather difficult to do at this small scale in comparison to the same process on normal cleats. The rest was coiled up and stored at suitable places. I am not sure how this was done really on the prototype, as the half-cleat do not allow to suspend the coils in the usual way. The rope made from fly-tying yarn is relatively stiff. However, with a drop of flat varnish it can be persuaded to form more or less orderly coils. Hanging coils have to be loaded while the varnish dries in order to attain a natural shape. Shaping of the coils while the varnish dries In order to facilitate the work on the rigging the model was fixed on a small cast-iron stand. This stand can be turned and pushed around on the work-table at one’s convenience, yet is stable and safe. Model on the work-stand To be continued ... wefalck

Actually, for very thin yarn I often use the ratline-hitch. It tightens on itself and is very secure (which is why it used for the purpose the name indicates), but can be a bit fiddly to do with two tweezers in places. wefalck

I used to use for seizings this very fine two-ply silk/nylon yarn as used for mending ladies' 'nylons'. However, in our throw-away society, no one seems to bother with mending nylons anymore, so these yarns seem to have all but disappeared from the market. The next best thing is 16/0 size fly-tying yarn. I start the seizing by pushing the free end through the space between the block and the rope, fixing it to one leg with a half-hitch. I continue with a couple of half-hitches around the splice and then wind up as many turns as necessary. The sizing is finished with a couple of half-hitches, making sure that each turn is pushed tight against the preceeding one. For securing, I prefer matt varnish. If the the rope is supposed to be tarred, I may use semi-gloss black paint instead. wefalck

Pastels in black and white can also be used to good effect. Apply with bristle brush, a cotton stick ('Q-tips') or one of those small foam brushes that are used by the ladies to apply make-up. wefalck

I have a 1923 textbook on ship's joinery and this recommends 2" (50 mm) for the opening and the widths of the laths. The depths of one set would be 2"-2.5" (50 mm - 75 mm) and the other only half of that: modellers commonly notch both sets in comb-fashion, while in reality smaller laths were laid into the notches. They way modellers make gratings makes them self-locking, but on the prototype both laths types would be notched into the frame that provides the locking. wefalck

Of course, these are nice old-fashioned and very maritime looking tools. Would like to have one, but there is not much point investing somewhere between 50 and 100 EUR for a tool that in practices wouldn't have much use for me. A divider with lockable legs is a very useful tool for marking out equal distances and the likes and the proportionality function can be easily replaced by a vernier caliper together with a pocket calculator. For marking out equal distance along a curved line, such as along a frame for plank widths, I would prefer the paper-strip methods described by others above. It avoids the building up of errors by measuring from succeeding end-points. At the small scales I am working in the proportional dividers would also be far to clumsy. wefalck

Grit from sandpaper is poison to a (metal) lathe, try to avoid using it. Seriously, machine tools are good at straight surfaces, or surfaces that are bent in only one direction. As soon as you have to deal with surfaces that are shaped in the 3D-space, you are often better off with hand-tools. Nothing is as flexible for holding parts and guiding tools as your two hands. The amount of bevelling needed is usually quite small, so that it is quickly achieved with a few strokes of a sanding stick. The movement of a sanding stick has a sort of splining function, while using a rotary sander entails the risk of digging in and ending up with a wavy edge. wefalck

Bevelling is not just a cosmetic issue: if your plank closes on the surface only, but not on the inside, you will have small gap after sanding the hull … wefalck

I own a couple of milling machines, but I wouldn't probably use them for bevelling planks. One needs a stable, inclineable (to set the bvelling angle) jig that can hold the narrow planks securely - a lot of work to make one to fit your milling machine and then to adjust it. The other problem is that the usual model-maker's machines may have a too short x-travel to be useful. And another problem can be that the bevelling angle is not uniform over the whole length of the plank. I would probably use a simple bulldog clip. The edges may need to be filed down to ensure that it closes nicely. You hold the plank with it and work your way along it with a sanding stick, offering the plank from time to time to the hull to check, whether the angle is correct. wefalck

If it has to be white then … I would rather use a soft brush, at least for the first layer or two, to ensure that the paint gets into all those hollows. By definition, the paint from an airbrush flies on a more or less straight trajectory, so any obstacle in its way will mask the area behind; therefore, it may be difficult to spray-paint such sculpted surface adequately. To improve adherence you can paint it (after cleaning, of course) with a layer of pure acrylic (available in artists' supply shops), i.e. acrylic without any pigment. wefalck

The lower picture shows the sails set for drying while the ship is at anchor. They were draped sort of random on purpose so as not to push the ship in an uniform direction. BTW, in harbour, when moored to the quai, ship often tipped the yards so that arm facing out to the harbour almost touched the rails. This reduced the risk that another ship that came adrift or didn't calculate the distance right sheered off the yards. wefalck

I think all yards on one mast would be braced the same way. In fact some lines would be belayed on the same pin, so they would need to be cast loose at the same time. Also, taking in or setting sails would depend on the wind etc. and one would not want to waste time to brace the yards. Also note that yards are not braced up to the same degree, there is a certain 'twist' in them, i.e. lower yards are braced up tighter than upper ones. This has to do with the wind velocity distribution over the height profile - due to the friction over the water, the wind velocity is lower near the water; therefore, the apparent wind comes more from the front closer to the water. wefalck

MDF is extensively used these days in the furniture industry and by architectural model makers. I am using it for the bread-and-butter construction of a hull. Sanded and let in with quick-sanding filler it actually gives a nice surface and I have used it as workbench back and for similar applications. I quite like the material as it has no 'direction' and doesn't splinter like plywood when sawn. Also, it doesn't warp when used properly, i.e. access of humidity from only one side. wefalck

Actually, most model sails don't really look floppy or droopy enough, because the material used is far too thick and stiff - that is when there is supposed to be no wind. Billowing sails can also be made by working a wire into the seams or by making the bolt-rope from drilled-together and painted wire. wefalck