wefalck

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 ....

What is the microwave-oven supposed to do? It doesn't do anything to metal swarf and won't burn away wood. There are special file brushes made from stiff brass wire, but as captainbob observed, they don't really work on the fine cuts of files, the diameter of the wires being larger than the teeth are wide. Don't even think of using acid on a file, that would be the death of it. You can soak it in (used) tea-leaves for a while to remove rust. Make sure to dry it quickly with a hair-dryer afterwards. Files shouldn't really be used on wood, this actually dulls the teeth. Rasps are for wood. Or diamond files. Of course, sometimes one has no choice, when cutting narrow slots and the likes. Remove the mass of the material with a saw and only use the file to create crisp edges. Professionals would keep different sets of files for different types of material.

I don't have one of those CNC-embossing machines, but thought it might be useful for exactly that purpose. Many years ago, I built an early iron tug-boat and simulated the plating in the traditional way, using a taylor's copying wheel. Then I wanted sharp positive rivet heads and did the embossing on a piece of linoleum. This surface is quite tough, but flexible. The embossing tool pulled up cone-shaped depressions, but I put the copper sheet on a harder surface and then rubbed it lightly on the back with a piece of round wooden dowel, which pushed the cones back in, leaving clean rivet heads on the other side. Want I wanted to say with that is, that it may be worthwhile experimenting with materials of different hardness/toughness under the copper being embossed in order to control or modulate the shape of the embossed marks.

I suppose it depends on how trusting you are in your rope and how quickly you want to strike the rigging. In ships' boats this usually has to be done fast and in perhaps rough conditions, so minimal rigging would be of advantage. On the other hand it looks, as if the set up of the forestay would not be so easy to loosen, there is a lot of friction in the deadeye and the holes in the stem. But then, it may be only necessary to lift up the mast by a couple of inches in order to get it clear of the mast-spur. Then it could be laid down.

Yes, but going down to the keel. Not sure how it would be made fast there at that time. Perhaps a single block and then a belaying point at the shelves?

If the flux is just citric acid, chances are that you have it already in your kitchen as de-scaler for coffee-machines and the likes. Over here in Europe we buy it in 500 g boxes in powder form in supermarkets. Just dissolve the crystals in distilled water (preferably), as the carbonate-hardness of the tap-water would consume some of the acid.

I don't know about 18th century practices, but in my late 19th/early 20th century boat reference books such stay were taken to floor. However, the yards then were much steeper and would clear the stay and the foresail had no boom. One option is to set it flying, so that it can be cast loose, when tacking etc.

It indeed evokes the feeling that the crews on these little ships crossing the oceans were all on their own ...

How were they launched in the US those days? I know of several European paintings of the same period, where the ships were launched fully rigged with sails on etc., I mean new ships, not ships hauled out for repair. May look unusual to the modern eye, but would allow one to show the rig too.

Oh yes, I forgot about her wheel. That makes perfect sense to show it with a mirror underneath ...

The museum's model is barque-rigged. Shown below in the old setting, before the museum was closed for refurbishment.

The AAMM plans for LA GLOIRE are based on the large-scale model in the museum's collection and various contemporary plans.

Looking very impressive indeed 👍 I actually thought that she would be sitting directly on the board, evoking muddy waters around her, as someone was hinting at above.

Sounds like a nice and unsual idea - curious now to see how it looks ...

I suppose in your area the local softwood, such as pine or cedar would have been used, as it was abundant and easy to cut into planks.

Ausgezeichnet ?

Things evolved differently on both sides of the Big Pond and in the various European countries. I was quite astonished to see, when I first started to go to England in 1972, that even young office clerks and the likes would wear three-piece suits - mind you they often were in dark green, brown, bourdeaux and with (slight) bell-bottoms at that time. Also ties were of the 'plaice' style and colourful. At the same time the suit had almost disappeared almost everywhere in my home country, Germany. It had a brief revival in the early 1990s, but generally badly cut with too long sleeves and hanging shoulders ... When I moved to the UK in the mid-1980s, many (if not most) 'white collar' workers above 30 or so wore ties in the office, however shabby they might have been dressed otherwise. My father to the very end normally wore white shirts and a tie. Allowance was made during vacations, when travelling, when the shirt could have been grey or blue, but jacket and tie were always there. Sic transit gloria mundi ... or as Karl Lagerfeld seems to have put it: "Them, who wear track-suits, have lost control over their lives". As to workplace-safety: when working with machinery, my father always rolled up the shirt-sleeves inside. Apparently, he was taught this by his father, who was a trained locksmith and mechanic. And: What is the difference between the UK and Germany? British men, when sitting down in a meeting room take off their jackets and loosen their ties; later, when going to the pub they straighten their ties and put on their jackets. In Germany it is the other way around.

Carbon-tetrachloride production has been banned worldwide since 1999 (Montreal Protocol).