wefalck

Nice model of this colourful Mediterranean craft !

Which silkspan are you referring to, the fabric or the paper?

I was wondering what 'stump cutters' were ... I gather they are called 'burrs' around here and in the jewellers trade. The carbon-steel ones come in dozens of different shapes and sizes. There are also carbide ones, but the size and shape range is smaller. It can be worthwhile to also look into the dentists' and related range. They come from the same manufacturers, e.g. Busch in Germany.

That is indeed a very nice bit of sheet-metal work set into excellent carpentry. Really like the look of the sink 👍

Indeed, I think the re-working of the water worked out rather well and it now looks rather realistic 👍

To begin with: in the meantime, I have completed the chain-rails around the barbette: This was a straightforward operation with the experience gained previously and only one corner to go around. Anchor-Buoys A fairly conspicuous detail on warships of that period were the buoys for the bow-anchors that were lashed to a convenient place near the anchor-davits, when not in use. Their purpose was to mark the location of the anchors. It was important to know, where the anchors were laid out in order to detect, whether they may have shifted and to indicate their location to newcomers, so that they don’t throw their anchors across yours, which could cause trouble, when you have to raise your anchors. At the time of SMS WESPE, the buoys were made from galvanised sheet-iron and had the shape of two cones joined at their base. A web of served wire-rope gave two attachment points, for the rope with which they were attached to the anchor and for a fishing-lanyard. Instruction leaflet from 1909 for the construction and fitting out of anchor-buoys of the German Imperial Navy. Source: https://forum.arbeitskreis-historischer-schiffbau.de/download/file.php?id=19837&mode=view. As per the official instruction sheet from which this illustration was taken, the sheet-metal was supposed to be painted in red lead-oxide primer. There is, however, no clear information in what final colour the buoys were to be painted. Typically, modeller chose green for the starboard anchor-buoy and red for the port one. There is a certain logic in this, because in this way the anchors can be identified, even if the boat may have swayed around them. There is a picture taken on board of S.M.S. HERTHA around 1876 that shows seamen working on such anchor-buoys: Seamen at work on the deck of S.M.S. HERTHA in around 1876, Source: https://sammlungen.ub.uni-frankfurt.de/kolonialesbildarchiv/content/pageview/11408859. There are two buoys visible, one on the left in a quite light grey and another one, almost covered by the seaman at the front, which is a lot darker. Considering that the glass-plate negatives of the time were less sensitive to red than to green, which would appear darker in the positive print, one can conclude that the buoy on the left was probably painted green, while the other one was probably painted red. This is so far the only evidence from the period in question for them having been painted in different colours. While the shape is seemingly simple, it is not so easy to produce and to manipulate. The two cones have to be turned separately and then fitted together. I choose Plexiglas for ease of gluing the halves together. Turning proceeded in steps: first the diameter for the wooden caps was turned and a groove to mark the overall length, then the top-slide was set over at an angle of 28° to turn the cone. As per prototype four notches were cut into the caps using a pointed cutting tool set with the cutting-edge vertical. Finally, the cones were parted off. The two cones were glued together making sure that the notches for the rope-web were offset by 45° at each end. The unpainted anchor-buoys Another consideration was how to reproduce the carefully spliced web of served wire-ropes. I decided that tightly twisted 0.1 mm diameter tinned copper-wire would be the best route. Four strands of twisted wire with a loop at the end were produced and slipped over a ring of twisted wire which then was soldered closed. The four strands were distributed equally around the ring and fixed with a tiny amount of varnish. The arrangement was slipped over the buoy, gathered together at the end and secured with a short winding of thread soaked in varnish. One of the strands was bent into an eye and secured with a half-hitch of thread. Finally, all the ends were trimmed down to the binding. The buoys then were sprayed red and green respectively and once the acrylic was dry, the wire-rope was picked out with a sepia artist’s marker pen (which seemed to give more control over the paint flow than my brushing technique). I did not take any pictures of the manufacturing process, as each step was actually quite straightforward. Finished anchor-buoys On several photographs one can see that the anchor-buoys were tied to the chain-rail near the rear anchor-davit. I don’t know how long the rope was with which the buoys were tied to the anchors, but I would think it would in the order of 20 m, accounting for typical anchoring depths. A thin ‘rope’ was produced on the rope-walk from slightly brownish material, assuming that such rope would be heavily tarred to resist its permanent exposure to the elements. A ring was formed and tied together with the buoy to the rail. Stowed anchor-buoys To be continued ....

That's somewhere near the Dolomiti ... an area that saw intense action during WW1.

... I wonder, where in Italy this could be then? Only on one of the lakes in Northern Italy.

Is the plane supposed to be sitting in ice? I was wondering what the white thingies on the water were ...

I think the ripples are too much in parallel lines. They should probably appear as shallow intersecting arches. I tend to do this in several sessions, first marking the centre of the arches and then working outwards. Also, the white foam around the posts is not in line with the calm sea. Wave would lap up to them and then be diffracted probably in form of more or less circular ripples the intersect with the other waves.

Pat, yep, such lows in motivation happen in long-term projects. Glad to hear that you are back on it !

Pat, I noticed a veeery long hiatus since your last post on VICTORIA. Any idea, when work will resume?

On photographical records: archival losses due to the various wars that effected many European regions over the past 150 years are certainly an important factor. For instance, in the 1950s the current members of the most prominent ship-photographer family in Kiel (Germany), who had recorded the development of the Imperial Navy from its beginnings lived next door to my grandparents in a small apartment. Their previous apartment, like that of my grandparents, and their workshop including their archives was lost due to bombing. Decades later, I visited the last photographing family member, who was a bit older than me, in his shop and he confirmed that to me. Perhaps also there was an excitement in the USA about all these new developments and achievements and people felt that they had to documents and show it around proudly, while in Europe everyday life slowly evolved and people felt no need to document these gradual developments. Back to the project: looking forward to further developments ! A solid hull seems to me the obvious choice for this kind of ship and size of model. Gives you a solid base to attach superstructures to.

Edge-joined construction with dowels and mortices is a very old principle and was used over here in the Mediterranean area by the Phoenicians and the Egyptians for example. It was occassionally used also in Northern Europe for certain parts. The disadavantage is that like in clincher-planking it is virtually impossible to replace damaged planks. Are you sure the planks were only 7 mm thick (which is tad over 1/4")? That seems too thin for edge-joining. I had the feeling earlier on, you mentioned 7 cm, which is pretty massive, but could explain the absence of internal structures. For the wicker seats, you could have also glued together triangles of balsa to form a square, so that its grain runs towards the centre. Painted in some light beige, this may give a reasonable look of wicker? As this is 1:32 scale, it would call for converting some commercial figures into some 'Mariachis' or whatever bands would have played on them 😉

Well, that's probably the same as artists' acrylic gel, but more expensive 😁 Over the years I have used various 'substrates' for water, ranging from sculpting in plaster of Paris, sheet acrylic, layers of acrylic gel, to thick water-colour paper sealed with sanding sealer. Below is an example using blue fluorescent sheet acrylic, which is probably closest to your cast water. It tries to evoke the water in a shallow lagoon off Kiribati (Micronesia): Scale is also 1:87.

I am always amazed at the number of good pre-1900 photographs available in the USA. For such subject in Europe I would struggle to find any images ... Will follow this project!

I would know only French or German brands that may not be available 'down-under'. I think any artists' acrylic gel will do. It is sold over here in wide-necked plastic bottles of 100 ml and above. The 100 ml lasted me a couple of decades ...

A colourful project indeed and good research! I am just wondering, whether these 'punts' wouldn't have had any internal structures, such as floor-timbers - or were the boards so thick that this was not needed? Without time-constraints, I personally would taken up the challenge and simulate the wicker, perhaps with thread wound around 😉

Unless it is suppose to be one of those leaden, dead-calm summer days, I would add some texture to the surface. I normally do this with acrylic gel, 'stippled' on with a bristle brush to simulate light wind-ripples. I also may play with some gloss acrylic varnish in places to show calmer areas. Similarly, the acrylic gel can be used to simulate some small waves lapping up the beach.

I am wondering, what footprints this girl tries to hide: Photographed last Sunday in St. Pancras station, London.

From late 1977 on for several years I was on the committee that organised the annual university ball of the ETH Zurich - a 'business' with a turnover of several million Swiss Francs and organised accordingly, but by students only. That first year I joined, the theme was 'Goldrush'. Various halls, gyms etc. were decorated in theatre-like decorations that took a good part of the winter-term to prepare and build. In one hall my colleagues put up some veritable rail-tracks and constructed a working draisine on which visitors could move forwards and backwards a few metres. Unlike the rest of the decoration, the draisine was not scrapped after the ball, but we were able to store it in our workshop for further use ... sometimes we would take it out at night for rides on the local tram network through the city after the end of service. We got stopped by police, but they couldn't say anything, as it was not a motorised vehicle and didn't need a license ... 😇

Ahh, a flying boat has been on my list for a long time, but I was rather thinking of one of the earlier Dorniers, but that would be scratchbuilding, as no kits are available. What engine used the Macchi? I took some pictures of Italian aero-engines in the technical museum in Milan a few weeks ago. I am not so familiar with the market, but there seems to be a lot of after-market stuff around for WW1 aircraft. However, I have the feeling that it is mainly for the 1/48 and 1/32 scales. There seem to turnbuckles and lugs in etched brass available.

The problem is that, if kids don't learn risk awareness at an early age, it will hit the adult even harder and potentially fatally ... you should learn respect of moving things at an early age.

I gather the design of the model followed the full-scale industrial design practice - there, all parts would have been machined in special jigs and the tolerances would be a factor 10 less stringent probably. The design is a bit overconstrained for individual machining, because you have to hit the feed-nut at the right place and the right angle. On my watchmakers lathes, which would be of similar size, but with very close tolerances, the round feed-nuts are floating in a close-tolerance bore. This gives you two degrees of freedom: for vertical float and angular misalignment. They are also slit, allowing them to be tightened for compensating wear. Most of this is, of course, not relevant on a model.

They existed still in the late 1950s and I don't remember any brakes. When you hold the rocker arm tight the rear driving wheels are blocked. Of course, it would be so clever to use this downhill ...