wefalck

Whether plastics melt during mechanically working them depends on how much energy you put into them over what interface - or in simple terms: when you run the cutting tool too fast, you are putting too much energy into the cut ...

It all boils down to period and nation ... from around the middle of the 19th century on it seems that navies pretty much standardised their boats and the terminology. In each class of boats there may have been two or three different sizes, i.e. lengths. The standardisation made it easier to contract out their building and getting exactly what was required to fit onto the ships e.g. with respect to the distance of davits. Between the last quarter of the 19th century and the end of WWI both, the German and the Austrian navies used all three types of construction: clinker, carvel and diagonal-carvel. All three building methods have their respective merits. Larger boats typically were either carvel or diagonal-carvel. Clinker building makes for a heavier, but more sturdy boat. I gather one can discuss for weeks the etymology and use of the different terminologies ...

Before reading all the others' comments, I thought immediately the idea was to ensure that both, keel and false-keel were properly wrapped in copper. The false-keel was a sort of expendable item, meant to protect the actual keel from damage. In case it was (partially) ripped off by grounding etc., the keel still needed to be properly protected from this nasty digging animal.

A hand-held electrical drill with an abrasive cutting wheel might be another option.

Somehow it is a pity that all the brilliant wood-work gets buried in more and more brilliant wood-work ...

A general problem is that a lot of the mid-19th century books are re-editions of older issues and typally re-use the same plates for decades, that have been drawn based on earlier 19th century practices. There is a conspicuos absence of books that show iron fittings as became more common from the middle of the century on. I looked through some French and German sources, but when there are plates, they show the old-style wooden caps and upright masts, where the question does not arise (see comment above). I still have a Dutch, an Austrian and a German source to consult, when I have access to them again next week. The latter may not be so helpful, as it mainly deals with iron masts. Overall it seems that caps were perpendicular to their masts, while tops are +/- parallel to the sheer or the waterline. Pat, are you sure the caps were cast and not forged? I would have thought that wrought iron at that time would have been stronger than cast iron. As to the design, I would have thought that the outside walls, also for cast-iron pieces, would be parallel to the inside walls, i.e. of equal thickness. Mechanically it does not make sense to have a prismatic cap and put oblique holes through them, though it would be technically not a problem to cast such pieces. The extra material does not add strength, only weight a-top. A similar discussion arose a few days ago in a German, whether ratlines would be 'horizontal', i.e. parallel to the waterline, or parallel to e.g. the sheer. My response was also that 'horizontal' is relative and irrelevant, once the ship is at sea ...

Yes, it's these stanchions we are talking about. They seem to be of really good quality, etched from both sides with exactly aligned masks. They look almost like turned ones. Saemann is known for good quality and they have been in the market for many years. Unfortunately they don't do anything in 'my' scale (1:160).

Indeed, also looking forward to your new project ! I have a conceptual question: my understanding of 'shadow boxes' or 'real' dioramas (as opposed to just a base plate with something on it) is that a frame sort of hides the left, right and top margin of the scene. However looking at your drawing below it appears that margins of the 'diorama area' are the same size as the opening of the frame. So, you don't actually get the real diorama effect. Is my interpretation correct ?

Nice, crisp work indeed. Are the rail stanchions around the platform commercial pieces or did you turn/drill them yourself ?

I am working in 1:160 scale (= railway model N-scale in Europe), so very close to your 1:155 scale. My materials of choice are fly-tying threads, e.g. the Danish Veevus and others. They are available in a variety of colours and down to 18/0 for two-ply threads. This implies that you have to make your own 'rope' from these threads, which is not really difficult. Not sure, however, whether the commercially available kits for rope-walks (e.g. the 'rope-rocket' mentioned above) would be suitable for such fine 'ropes', but I have not tried them myself, as I built my own rope-walk from bits and pieces. As Allan mentioned above, the real challenge is not so much making ropes, but rather the correct sized blocks. I know what I am talking about, as I spent considerable time on trying out different methods. However, modern technology eventually will come to our rescue in form of 3D-printed blocks. For the moment sizes below two millimetres are not commercially available yet, but I am sure they will come in the near future, if there is sufficient demand (and there should be). Incidentally, Donald McNarry didn't go too much into detail on rigging in his books, but Lloyd McCaffery does. However, he works on scales 1/300 and smaller in general and uses NiCr-wire twisted in two strands throughout. He kind of 'fakes' blocks by punching out oval paper disks (with homemade punches) and attaches them to preformed wire tackles etc. To be honest, I don't think this is results in very realistic rigging in 1:160 scale, so I dropped this idea.

You cannot technically make ethanol at more than 96% at normal atmospheric conditions because it becomes hygroscopic and dilutes itself when left standing open. Many countries levvy a heavy tax on alcohol fit for human consumption, which is why such ethanol is expensive, though the production is very cheap. Methanol is another alcohol, but it is not fit for human consumption, it is rather detrimental to the health and can result e.g. in blindness or even death. For this reason ethanol is 'denatured' with methanol or other substances to make it unfit for human consumption and to give it an unpleasant taste and smell. It is added to a level of a few percent. This, however, does not change its technical nature and it remains a good solvent for shellac. If you live in a country without a heavy alcohol tax, it may be more pleasant to use the 96% ethanol, rather than methylated spirit. Blindness used to be an occupational hazard among 'french polishers' as cheap alcohols were used, where the distillation process was not carefully controlled to separate ethanol from methanol - the guys would take a sip from the bottle between using it to make their shellac solutions ... P.S. Jaager was a bit faster with his post ...

Yes, methylated spirit is denatured alcohol as useg e.g. in rechauds, camping stoves etc. and can be used to make shellac solutions.

I am not sure, what you mean by 'oxidised' shellac? Schellac does not oxidise to my knowledge ... Pure (96%) alcohol is the normal solvent for shellac (flakes). You can make any mixtures you want. For instance, I keep a small quantity of shellac with a thick honey-like consistency as glue. Otherwise you can dilute it to any consistency you like/need with alcohol.

I made several pieces of furniture with a simplified version of French Polish, using modern materials. Traditional French Polish would consist of rubbing a mixture of very dilute shellac solution and pumice into the pores of the wood in several sessions. I replaced this with organic solvent-based sanding filler, rubbing down the surface with steel-wool. For the actual polish I used a commercial german brand of shellac solution (Clou which is equivalent to Liberon, but somewhat cheaper). The application pad ('tampon') was made from a worn-out flannel pyjama that was stuffed with cotton wool. The trick is to have the pad well-soaked in the middle, but not trickling and then to apply parallel strokes in a jet landing and take-off movement (as noted above). Do not stop, or the pad will stick to the surface and leave fibres in the coating. If this happens, let it dry and and go over it with fine steel-wool. Also, if one works too wet and stays too long with the pad on the surface, the already applied coats will soften, resulting in an uneven surface. If something goes wrong, you can always rub down the surface with steel-wool and begin again. Having said that, on models I would not use French Polish, unless it was a model of a yacht. I would rather use a commercial solvent-based sanding filler or shellac and rub the surface down with fine steel-wool. Real French Polish just gleams too much for models. I reserve this for display cases.

'Unpainted' wood would have been treated with line-seed oil and perhaps grease in certain places. On a model probably the most apropriate treatment would be with a wood-sealer and then to rub it down with very fine steel-wool. This closes the pores of the wood and gives it a satin surface, very much like such masts and spars would have appeared in real life.

It seems, indeed, that the main effect comes from the heat, rather than the soaking. However, in full-scale practice and model practice it is difficult to apply sufficient heat without burning the wood. Planks were bend over open fires in the older days and doused with water, to keep the temperature sufficiently low due to the evaporating water. Later steam-boxes where used or boiling water (particularly in model building). Today, we have steady and high capacity heat sources in form of temperature controlled hot-air guns of varying sizes. I have, for instance, an electrical hot-air soldering gun, where the temperature of the air flow can be regulated down to around 100°C. With such an implement heat could be applied locally, while the planks is progressively bent onto a former without burning the plank or formers made from e.g. wood.

The problem is that such measure are typically taken in isolation, not based on a systemic assessment of all the consequences and impacts. The life-cycle impact of an entirely new plate may well be higher than using some not so environmentally friendly paint (whereby the main impact comes from inadequate handling and application, rather than production). We see this over and over again in political decisions that aim to solve one problem, but then create a host of other problems down the road.

The apartment I grew up in for the first eight years of my life had a large tiled stove in the living- and the dining-room respectively. Both were stoked from the corridor. The other rooms had individually stoked cast-iron stoves. These stoves had a lid on top that revealed a cooker-like plate on which one could put a kettle. The tiled stoves had a heating compartment which was useful for baking apples in winter 😋 While we had moved to centrally heated apartments in the mid-1960s, the early 1900s apartment house in which my maternal grandparents lived still had stoves when they died in the early 1980s. These stoves were oil-fired and one had to get the fuel from a large tank in the cellar, from where it was hand-pumped into cans (looked liked garden watering-cans, but with closed lids) and carried upstairs. I don't remember having ever burnt myself on any of those stoves ... rather I remember cold, unheated parts of the apartments. OK these are not 'dodgy' solutions as per the title of the thread, but were standard fittings throughout the 20th century and still are in many parts of the world.

Picture(s) ? 'Siglo xix' is Spanish and just means 19th century ... it's not the name of the ship ...

Yes, but they should have been mounted above reach. Us too had something like that and they are still being sold.

Let's keep fingers crossed that this wonderful model reaches its safe haven and that it's builder also stays safe !

I don't know what the practice on late 1800s american fishing schooners was, but jut going round and round, as in the left example, would put all the strain onto the end-lashing. The wind would tend to push the sail towards the claw like a curtain. The method on the right example seems more probable, although one would do a kind of half-hitch at each point. This has the effect of tying the sail to the gaff very closely. In the older days individual ropes were used, but a continuous rope is more convenient. This is definitely the method used on Dutch vessels in the 19th century.

Interesting topic. I noticed that in other cultures people were tradtionally not in that 6-8 hours sleep and the rest wake routine, but slept in intervalls. The question seems not so much when you sleep, but how much sleep you can get in 24h. Obviously on a ship, particularly in the sailing ship days, there are periods, when the men got very little sleep. From experience, I know that at some point one dozes off, wherever one happens to be. On the other hand, being in the mast in a storm should refresh you quite well ... they used to say that sailor can sleep anywhere any time ...

Lively discussion already here ... I'll keep an eye on that log for sure

Thank you very much for the encouraging words ! Jolly-Boat continued 6 For some family-related reasons the boat-workshop had been nearly closed for a few weeks. Nevertheless, I managed to apply a few coats of white overall. Then the real painting begun. According, to a 1874 ordinance, the boats where to be painted white outside and inside, the top two strakes black, while the rubbing strake between them was left natural wood, as was the top of the wash-strake. Natural wood were also the seats and stern-sheets. The rowing-locks were bronze and were left bare. The boat still has to be kitted out with some galvanised iron-work and, of course, all the equipment such as the oars, fenders, a water-cask etc. There is conflicting information, as to whether the mast and the sails would have been stowed in the ‘ready-boat’. Somehow, I am not really satisfied with my paint-job. I didn’t get the colour of the seats etc. right, they look too reddish. I hope a wash of light ochre will correct this. I also had great difficulty to paint the rubbing-strake from a 0.2 mm wire cleanly. I tried to do it freehand, but perhaps should have masked it … With this, the workshop will close for the holiday-period. To be continued ....