wefalck

Druxey is absolutely right! Another aspect to consider is, whether you want to replicate a period model or a period ship. On models, due to their representational value and often intended as expensive gifts, more expensive materials and pigments were used, which give us today a false impression of the ships of the time. So, when replicating a real ship, the duller earth pigments should be used. Ochre is an interesting pigment, as it can vary in hue from almost blue to quite bright yellow, depending on the chemical composition (which depends on the source) and impurities. For this reason, it is very difficult to determine with any certainty the actual colour for a given ship or period. Also, the ochre often was mixed with the even cheaper chalk, which brightens it and makes it lighter in colour. The lineseed oil as binder in turn makes the paint darker thant the original pigment. I gather any 'average' yellow ochre will be close to reality and no one can prove you wrong with a good justification ...

Water-based paints, such as acrylics, will raise the fibres of particularly soft woods like basswood. For this reason the wood must be 'sealed' before applying them. Wood-sealer is a functional term and various concoctions may go by it. Tradtionally, wood-sealers or sanding-sealers were either nitrocellulose-lacquer or shellac 'filled' with pumice. The pumice settled in the pores and the hard lacquer made for easy sanding. Today, also acrylic-based wood-sealers are sold in order to phase out organic solvent-based materials, but they don't penetrate as well. So look for some solvent-based sealer. The typical procedure is to sand the wood, wet it to raise the fibres and sand again, when dry. Then apply the sealer and when hard sand again. If needed, repeat the last step. Then you are ready for painting. There is absolutely no problem applying acrylic paint over nitrocellulose or shellac sealers, they don't react with each other. Depending on what surface (sheen) you want, there is no need to put any additional varnish or crystalline wax-solution ('Minwax') over the paint. In fact, I would not mix two paint systems. If you want to make the acrylic paint dull matt, use a matt acrylic varnish. Likewise for high gloss.

👍🏻👍🏻

Before you modify the guns: what ship and period are they supposed to belong to? Their shape is quite strange and look almost like early Paixhans-type guns. Some guns of the 1830s or so seems to have rings for the brook, rather and the ealier cascabels. It may be worthwhile to confirm the exact shape of the gun needed first. The carronade seems to be generally ok.

I gather two sources of information will be needed, something on generic rigging practices and the other on how this particular type of boat was rigged. I don't know from which period this boat actually is. This would determine the generic rigging practices, which quite significantly changed over the last quarter of the 19th century to the first quarter of the 20th century, which I believe brackets the period of this boat. In particular (galvanised) iron- and then steel wire-rope began to replace the tradtional hemp. With it the practice of what ropes would (need to) be served changed. At 1:24 scale you have to change to almost completely replicate full-scale practice. Having said that, unfortunately, I cannot point you to more specific sources.

There are a couple of old-time wisdom for wanting-to-be machinists: - Think about the maximum size (length/diameter) of piece you want to make and then buy a lathe with twice the capacity - you will most certainly underestimate the space you need for mounting etc. - Tooling and accessories you will need/want will double the price of the basic lathe. The good news is that you don't need everything immediately. You can buy tooling and accessories, when the need arises. You can turn wood and plastics on a metal lathe, but turning metal on a wood lathe is difficult to impossible (depending on what you try to do, of course). I would go for a metal lathe. Look for a lathe that can be equipped with collets and not only three- or four-jaw-chucks - much safer to operate, when working on small parts.

You may also want to consult relevant textbooks on the subject that are available digitally on the Internet: DELAUNEY, J.F., GUITTARD, A.C.A.J. (1889): Historique de l'artillerie de la marine 1692-1889.- 328 p., Paris (D. Dumoulin). LAFAY, J. (1850): Aide-memoire d'artillerie navale.- 721 p., 50 pl., Paris (J. Corréard). VERDIER, M. (1837): Nouveau manuel complet de la marine. Seconde Partie. Manoeuvres du Navire et de l’Artillerie.- 288 p., Paris (Librairie Enciclopédique de Roret).

There is a German film of the 1960s that emulates Jerome K. Jeromes novel and is much more like your own experience, Keith. The guys nearly went down the Fall of the river Rhine in Schaffhausen ... (actually one can't, as there is a very low bridge in the way, but being pushed under the bridge by the strong current isn't very healthy either).

Looking forward to the results of the roofing experiments and the weathering ... Talking about heating: we just came back from a business trip to Italy and found that the apartment had only just above 16°C - the heating in the condominium doesn't come on until mid-October, regardless of conditions 🤨 The funny thing is that southern Europeans seem to be much more tolerant to cold apartments because they are rarely home and outside day-time temperatures are quite tolerable. In Italy heating is not permitted until 1 November, regardless, whether you live in Sicily or around the Alps. My apartment in Bergamo in 1991 didn't have any heating, except for the kitchen 🥶. Likewise, when I was looking for an apartment in Nottingham in January 1987, one was advertised as having 'central heating' - it turned out it had 'central' gas heater in the living room ... The apartment in Germany, where I first grew up in the 1950s/early 1960s had stove heating and remember my mother firing up the stove first thing in the morning and I also remember pushing ice around the window pane in the childrens' room.

Some people use wet-n-dry sanding paper of an appropriate grade and paint it a dark grey to resemble tar-paper.

Home-made?

I have done a bit of colour adjustment in Photoshop to get rid of the yellow tint and the murkiness: I think the flag looks red-yellow-red ...

I would modify this summary a bit: if you can put the part under a (quality) drill-press and hold it safely, this may be a good option for even the smallest drills. Otherwise, use a pin-vise or similar.

I gather, if you live in central to northern Europe, you are less likely to annoy your neighbours, as in general, houses are more solidly build - unlike say in Spain, where walls are really paper thin and most houses are build with concrete pillars and beams, which are ideal for transmitting body-sound. Over the past fifteen years I have been living in a Parisian building made from concrete slabs and so far no one has complained. On the other hand, you are not going to work with your machine tools continuously for 12 hours a day. Just stick to the rules of the building/community and do maintain the quiet hours at mid day and evening and perhaps the weekends.

To me it appears like a Spanish commercial schooner from somewhere around the 1830s to the 1840s, Although the according to Norie & Hobbs (1848) the merchant flag at that time should have had several red and yellow stripes (see https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/94/J._W_Norie_and_J._S._Hobbs_-_Three_hundred_and_six_illustrations_of_the_maritime_flags_of_all_nations_(1848).pdf). I didn't check, whether any of the Spanish colonies of that time used the red-yellow-re ensign.

Perhaps you want to post some pictures of your luthier excursion in the 'Non-ship/categorised builds' section? Not that I intend to build any musical instruments (which I wouldn't be able to tune and play anyway), but the tools and materials of that trade are also of interest to us shipmodellers.

A roller-fairlead would make indeed a lot of sense, when the purpose is to extend the space for working certain ropes by numerous men. The cable on the first picture looks a bit too thick though for being comfortably being pulled by hand. It looks more like a mooring cable or something like that.

The wooden crate looks good!

... I was just about to ask for something to judge scale 😁 You follow an interesting procedure for the rigging, sort of completing one mast and then proceding to the next. I am curious to see, how you will manage to bring the stays for the mainmast to the foremast and the deck in front of it without breaking other things 😲 You also need to attach the sails to the yards still.

Looking good! I like this attention to details. Casting these nets requires quite a dexterity, a bit like working with a lasso I could imagine. Below is a shot of a guy using such a net on the Niger river that I took nearly 20 years ago:

Yep, wooden clothes pegs of various sizes and ladies' hair clips are very useful to us too ... I also shape their front for various applications.

No, the OLYMPIAS together with the armoured cruiser AVEROF and some other ships are on display in a sort of museum harbour a few kilometers to the south, outside Piraeus.

A couple of weeks ago I had, during a business visit to Athens, the opportunity to visit the Hellenic Maritime Museum in Piraeus. They have a 1/50 scale model of the ARES on display: I think your small model compares quite favourably with this model, which is three times the size!

The pedigree of the Canadian/US American fishing dory is quite obscure. However, there were many flat-bottomed boats with more or less straight sides all around the European coasts. They are simple to build, with a minimum amount of skills and tools. The type probably came with French settlers to N-America, as around the British Isles keel-built boats dominate. It was then, presumably, that the Franco-Canadians sort of standardised the design and construction. The French and Portuguese Grand Banks fishermen adopted the type for its obvious advantages in this type of fisheries. It is quite well-adapted to long-line fishing, where its initial low stability does not matter so much, but the stability increases, when the boat is loaded with fish. The flaring sides also make for a good loading capacity. This design is less useful for net-fishing as practiced around most of the European coast, due to its said low initial stability. The standardised design and absence of structural traverse timbers makes ths dory most suitable for stacking, hence space saving transportation. The big three-masted topsail schooners sailed from French and Portuguese harbours with huge stacks of dories to the Grand Banks. They also carried spare boats as 'flat-packs' IKEA-style, that could easily be assembled at the fishing grounds. Fecamp at the coast of the Canal and Paimpol in Brittany were the big French Grand Banks fishing ports and had their own dory industry I believe.

That gives a very American look to the coach ...