wefalck

Had to do quite a bit of travelling recently and only had time to occasionally glance over MSW - so I missed the beginning of this new project. The subject is not really 'my' period and I am not a great fan of scallops either - however, I am looking forward again to a nice exercise in first-class modelling 👍

In principle NC existed since 1805, when the Jacquard-loom was patented, which uses control-cards ... the same principle was used in fairground-organs and pianolas from late 19th on. It is in interesting question, why this principle was not used earlier to also control toolroom machines. I gather automatic milling machines are more difficult to realise, because of the need to change the workpiece, which typically were cast items, rather than bar-stock, as in the automatic lathes. ... but we a veering off the subject of this thread.

In most cases the 'automation' only concerned disengaging carriage drives, but by the end of the century certain 'screw' lathes to turn small parts, such as screws obviously, were automated and controlled mechanically from templates cut from sheet metal. Mechanically they were quite sophisticated. Shapers and planers typically had automatic table advances using ratchet-wheels and ratchets driven by excentres. I am not sure that such features where ever installed in milling machines.

I didn't see the drawing before, but all these machines had such carriage stops, as they were intended for production work. My mill has little screws in the stops left and right, that allow a fine adjustment of the carriage movement. In other cases these stops acted on a dog-clutch that would disengange the carriage drive.

Not sure that this statement holds in general. It depends on whether you talk about square sails or fore-and-aft as well as many other design features of the rig. The main point of chafing between square sails and rig would be the shrouds. But here it depends on the parrels or cranes that would be used to support the yards and how far away they are from the mast. Overall, I don't think that one or two degrees more or less in rake does have a very significant effect on chafing.

Exactly, you don't want to red-design the hull, but only to develop intermediate bulkhead/frame stations. That's why I suggested the above procedure that only requires basic drawing tools. You can actually substitute the flexible ruler with a piece of stiff copper wire that you straighten first and then bend to the desired shape. Very thick soldering wire would also work. It has to be just some wire that is not springy.

The 'wet' look comes about because a film of water fills any surface-roughness and sort of directs the incoming light deeper into this roughness, much like an optical fibre. As a consequence, less light is reflected from a wet surface than from a dry surface and it appears darker. Glossy surfaces don't look 'wet' unless there are water drops on them. You can recreate this effect by applying a coat of clear varnish over the areas that you want to look wet. Depending on the situation, glossy varnish is not necessarily the best. Some satin varnish might be better. You don't want to look the area as rubbed with some lardon. The effect also depends on how matt or satin the surface has been to begin with. The glossier the surface is at the beginning, the less appreciable the 'wetness' will be (see comment above). On painted surfaces I have started with satin varnish, perhaps mixed in some gloss varnish at places to create variation and sometimes added acrylic gel to show some water running off. Move the ship around to watch the effect from different angles.

Mast rake (relative to the CWL) was pretty much a fashion fob, but at least on single-masted vessels can also change the sailing performance. Up to the early decades of the 19th century masts were only slightly raked as per Allan's example above. From the 1830s on a fashion kicked in, where mast were given much more rake, particularly on ships that were supposed to be fast and had to look fast. This fashion died out again in the 1860s/1870s. That said, there are many vernacular craft around the world, including Europe, that have wildly raked masts and not only backwards leaning, but also forward leaning (think of some Portuguese craft for instance). There was probably a good practical reason for this, but that may have been long forgotten, as similar craft in other regions may not have such rigs and still perform well.

In the later 19th century, navies and commercial surveying boards (say the Germanic Lloyd) established rules and recommendations for minimum(!) plank/strake widths and lengths for certain areas of the hulls. The underlying reason was that sufficiently large trees became scarce and, therefore, expensive. Builders and owners understandably tried to cut costs, but this was at the expense of strength. Also narrower planks means more seams to be caulked and, hence, higher risk of leakage.

It would be easy to include this as optional instruction into any kit-manual. There is a risk, however, that people less dexterous with sanding blocks screw this up and then blame the kit manufacturer. Providing such taper on kit-supplied materials would be rather costly and impractical.

As you have the drawings for the bulkheads and know where the 'stations', i.e. the locations of these bulkheads are, you can develop a body-plan for the boat from that. For this you have to arrange the bulkhead outlines on top of each other and against a reference plane, probably the keel in your case. Draw a vertical line that separates the two halves of the bulkheads. Then you draw horizontal lines (the projectsion of water-lines) across the bulkheads. If you opt for bread-and-butter construction, the lines should be at the distance of the thickness of the material you intend to use. Now you can develop the waterlines from this in plan-view. You draw the central line, the plane of the keel and vertical to this a line at each 'station' of the bulkheads. With a compass you measure along each waterline the distance from the center-line to the outline of the bulkhead and transfer this distance to the station of the respective bulkhead and mark that point. You repeat this for each bulkhead. Then you can join all these dots with a flexible batten or bendable ruler to get a nice smooth curve. Note that in places these waterline will probably be not only convex but become concave, particularly at the boat's ends. You repeat this process for all waterlines. Now you have a nice body plan for your boat and can proceed to draw additional stations to fill the gaps between the existing stations. The next step is to repeat the above process, but in inverse. For the new stations you take off the distance of the waterline from the central line and mark the respective point in the drawing with the bulkheads. Repeat this for each waterline that intersects this new bulkhead and connect the points with a smooth curve - and you have a new bulkhead! Repeat for each new bulkhead you want to have. There is really no magic in this, just some careful drawing with a minimum of tools.

Ah this kind of tools that are used in tailstocks or revolver-heads in 'Swiss lathes'. I have a sort of miniature version for my watchmakers lathe that works with bushings and is used to cut watch stems or screws without putting lateral pressure on slender parts. Some of the woodworkers' dowel-cutters are designed in a similar way.

Denis, I don't think 'scratchbuilding' is so much more complicated than working with a kit. It's question of doing things systematically. Didn't the proposal of bread-and-butter construction come up in earlier discussions? One of us may have mentioned it as a method for making a core from which to take an empty hull using GRP. It can be relatively materials- and cost-friendly, as one can use insulation foam-board for the core that is to be discarded. Fairing the core between the template stations can be done by eye. However, you have to learn working with glassfibre mats and polyester resin.

I have used it mainly for mast-making from steel rods, up to 4 mm I think.

I made for my watchmaker's lathe a smalled fixed steady: https://www.maritima-et-mechanika.org/tools/attachments/attachments.html#Micro_steady, but the same concept could be used for a travelling steady somehow attached to the cross-slide. The principle is similar to the one you showed earlier, but instead of bushings of various size, a V-notch is used. Travelling steadies are difficult to install on a watchmaker's lathe, as the longitudinal slides sits on the cross-slide, so that the steady would move out, when you feed in the tool.

I know of this technique, one puts the masking tape, where the inside strakes will be and the fills the space in between to represent the outside strakes. I have never used the technique myself, but would be concerned about the edges of these 'strakes' - they could be quite vulnerable to damage such as chipping. These automotive putty do not have a lot of cohesive strength in order to allow for easy sanding and in their intended application, there would be no exposed edges.

Naive question: what are 'roller boxes' ? A fixed steady with rollers (a lot of people nowadays use roller bearings for this)?

I am wondering, whether it wouldn't be worthwhile trying to develop a lines plans with more stations for frames from the rudimentary one that you have. It is really not too difficult and can be done basically with a ruler, a compass and a flexible batten or one of those pliable rulers (that have a lead-core). I think it will safe you a lot of frustration. If you don't have a big enough drawing board, it can be done at half the size or so and then upscaled. I am sure that it will give satisfactory results more quickly and with less materials wastage than the trial-and-error method.

At least there should have been a shut-off valve just after the T-junction. Having the gas-pressure on the hose is not a good idea at all ☠️ ... and nothing to prevent the flame from going back into the hose 🫣

It appears the German National Archives/Military Archives have a copy of a draft of 1913: https://www.archivportal-d.de/item/WEHKZZSMAUE3JZGYZHVH4HNR33ZNBEON?lang=en As well as a copy of the 1911 version: https://www.archivportal-d.de/item/QZXZLRGQESUACWL5IDGVTJYGXRXXYPYN An overview over the different German siganl codes since 1800 is given in this (German only) publication, for which an overview is available in PDF: https://dmkn.de/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/Signalflaggen.pdf I didn't see (so far) any digital copy of the code-books themselves. P.S. The code-book in the British National Archives presumably is the one offered to the British on 31 October 1914. It was found on board of SMS MAGDEBURG which ran aground at the coast of Estland. The crew attempted to blow her up, but were only partially successful. Two code-books were found on her, after the remaining crew were taken POW, and a third one that was thrown overboard with some lead attached to it was recovered by Russian divers. These code-books allowed to the Russians and the Western Allies to read the naval communication throughout WWI I think - the loss of the code-books must not have been reported properly to the Admiralty, as all the officers were taken POW (Source: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/SMS_Magdeburg_(1911)).

These whaling boats were sort of consumables in fact. They were built in early versions of production lines by specialised builders in New England. They were very lightly built boats to make the easy to row and manoeuvre, but also to create as little waves and noise so as not to startle the whales when approaching them. This made them quite vulnerable to physical damage and the whaling-ships always carried a couple of spare boats and material to repair them. As in the old days, tools typically were the property of the workers themselves, a system that made sure that they cared for them and kept them in a good working order. However, harpoons were also a sort of consumable, because they could easily bend or break in use. Lances less so. The ship would carry a good supply of spares including shafts, as the commercial success of the voyage would depend on their availability. There was also a smithy and a smith on board to help maintain and repair these tools.

Good (hard)wood is only to some degree a renewable resource - it takes obviously centuries to replenish it not just decades ... we have taken out too much over the past two or three centuries.

Interesting project and nice rendering of the boats! In summer 2019 I took quite a few pictures of her in the museum in Oslo, focusing on various details. If you need them, I could email them to you. One has to ignore the strange colours, as the museum guys chose to dramatice the exhibition with variously coloured lights 🤨

The method to be used surely also depends on the size of your model spar/mast. Planing something only of a few millimetres in diameter may be physically difficult. I gather a starting dimension of 4 mm across would be about the minimum for planing. Starting with a square stick allows for easy 'indexing' during work. People use a jig in which the stick rests on a corner so that one work down the opposite corner. This leads you quickly to an octogon. Resting the stick now on the corners of the octogon allows you to work it down quickly to a 16-sided stick (hexakaidecagonal stick). Turning long, slender pieces requires a steady to remove flexing. Travelling steady are difficult to use on wood, because they may leave marks, but a fixed steady is easy to contrive for a wood-lathe. In fact a thick piece of cardboard with an appropriate sized hole in it will be sufficient and was often used by old-time machinists. Old lathes did have sometimes a steady to which such cardboard pieces could be clamped. In fact, I have used the flexing in order to produce spars that taper in both directions.

I gather, the classic source on whaleboats is ANSEL, W.D. (1983): The Whaleboat.- 147 p., Mystic, Co. (Mystic Seaport Museum Inc.). It has plenty of drawings based on examples in Mystic and on original drawings. If you are building a whaler, this book probably is a must. The ready-made models are probably not based on whaleboats as used in whaling (which were of very light construction), but on the naval boat-type called whaler, which is a double-ended, quite sturdy boat, that was used mainly as a surf-boat, i.e. for accessing coasts without harbours and a strong surf.