wefalck

OK, different peoples, but do they relate to the Haida dug-outs in some way?

It is effectively a matt varnish. It is called a 'medium' in artists' vernacular because it would be mixed with the paint in tubes to change its consistency or sheen. Any varnish can be used as a 'cement', as long as the solvent can evaporate, which requires at least one porous surface.

I think it doesn't work, when you don't have a FaceBook account (like me).

I believe tiller extensions were something that came into fashion on racing boats in the early 20th century, but would not normally be found on cruising boats like this one. Option 1 is probably less likely to be found on a boat of this type for a couple of reasons: one it is very difficult to put the tiller over hard, the aft bench gets in your way, even if you make the tiller longer. The second is that typically you would have a storage space under the decking in the stern, which would be more difficult to access. On a sailing boat you would be spending most of the time sitting on the edge of the coaming (as was pointed out above), so a bench in the stern is not very useful. In fact, I remember from my practical sailing days, we usually sat on the windward decking with the feet on the benches, rather than sitting on the benches, that were only used at anchor or when motoring.

One question: how could you fit the second plank 'correctly' without permanently fixing the garboard plank? It is quite likely that, once the garboard plank is in place, you will need to make further adjustments to the next strake up. Otherwise, it is always advisable to work symmetrically, to avoid distorting the frames. Also, it is easier to judge symmetry, when you alternate between starboard and port.

Thanks for asking, Glenn, in the signature line there is a link to my own Web-site 'Maritima-et-Mechanika'. There are not that many ...

The dockyards supplied the annual allowance of pigment to the ships and ships were expected to repaint twice a year according to: Vale, B. (2020): Pitch, Paint, Varnish and the Changing Colour Schemes of Royal Navy Warship, 1775-1815: A Summary of Existing Knowlege.- The Mariner’s Mirror, 106(1): 30-42. So they had to use the pigment given to them, but the coloured pigment was usually mixed with e.g. lead-white to increase the covering intensity and to make it cover a larger surface area. Within limits, captains were allowed to deviate from the colour schemes as long as they stayed within the allowances. Any extra material they had to pay for from their own pockets (or squeeze out of the food allowances for the crews).

I often often give the actual paint coat a make over with acrylic varnish to pull everything together and to adjust the sheen - not every surface has the same sheen (as some small-scale modellers seem to prefer), depending on what kind of paint was used on the original. Vallejeo, for instance offers, gloss, satin, and matt acrylic varnish, which behave slightly differently, whether applied by paintbrush or airbrush and one can also adjust the sheen by mixing them. This would work for other brands too, of course.

In the 18th century various yellow pigments were available also in quantities that would have permitted to paint ships with it: Naples Yellow - Pb(SbO3)2 or Pb3(SbO4)2 - which is a very bright yellow, e.g. Vallejo 70.953 (or RLM4), Lead-tin Yellow - Pb2SnO4 - also a bright yellow, and Yellow Ochre - FeOOH (but contains a mixture of differen iron oxihydroxides) One would need to find some information, what kind of pigments the Admiralty actually prescribed. Vallejo, btw. was originally a manufacturer of artists' paints and then branched out into offering modelling paints. I found the pigment in their 'Model Air' range, pre-thinned for airbrushing, extremely finely dispersed.

It seems that these pirates really had been a plague in the western Mediterranean until the 1840s or so. They frequently attacked the Spanish and French coasts and had even strongholds on what is now the French Riviera, parts of which are still called Côtes de Maures, after the French term for Moors. Ships from ports with lesser naval powers had to pay tributes to get safe passage, while naval powers such as Britain, the USA or France were able to force treaties on them to give safe passage. The newspapers were full of reports on pirate attacks well into the middle of 19th century, which also prompted the small Prussian navy to launch a first amphibious attack on one of the suspected safe heavens in North Africa.

Will that be built over a former or templates? I suppose these boats had bent-in frames to make the hull light, perhaps with couple of sawn ones as templates? Will make a nice show-off woodworking project I think. And you are right, sometimes we make plans for new projects for years and then we come across something that catches our interest ...

These spacing cards are a good idea, I use them also, when rattling down. Also draw the shrouds, then you will immediately see, when you are pulling them out of shape. Don't fix them with glue until you have finished the whole set - this allows you to make final adjustments. Another practical thing to consider is to position the model so that you can work in a comfortable position on it, this is particularly important for the topmast- and topgallant-ratlines. If you have to constantly keep your arms suspended above mid-chest level, this becomes very tiring and you will get sore muscles in the back.

Quarter-deck v4 While the wooden quarter-deck previously produced (v2) was not entirely bad, it lacked the crispiness I had wished for and also the colour was somewhat murky, more like oak, and not like the teak it was probably made from. In addition, I found a mistake in its shape that could not be corrected. This quarter-deck is somewhat unusual in lay-out, as the planks are radiating with the gun-pivot as centre. This lay-out probably was chosen to minimise the effect of the certainly considerable blast from the 30.5 cm-gun. Apart from the fact that most wood-species would be too coarse at 1:160 scale, it would also be a challenge to produce such deck with tapering planks only 0.4 mm thick. A painted version renders more likely a realistic representation, is technically easier to achieve and more in line with the style of the model. The shape of the wooden deck was cut from a 0.4 mm thick sheet of bakelite-paper and carefully fitted to the hull of the model, which was quite a bit of work given the multiple curvatures. The caulked seams were indicated by narrow engraved lines as described earlier in this building log. The holes for all the fittings were also drilled at this stage. In between, I had tried using black styrene, rather than bakelite-paper as a basis for the decking (v3). The rationale was that I would clear out the engraved lines after painting down to the black plastic. This strategy did not work for two reasons, namely the styrene (Evergreen™ sheet) is much softer than the bakelite and the acrylic paints form a kind of quite soft skin, which tends to rip in flakes when trying to re-engrave the lines, so that I dropped this idea. The wood character of the quarter-decking was to be achieved by giving each plank a slightly different colour, imitating the natural variability of wood. The piece was given a base-coat of Vallejo Model Air 71075 ‘sand (ivory)’ using the airbrush. In a next step single planks were randomly given a light wash with Prince August 834 ‘natural wood transparent’ or Vallejo Model Air 71023 ‘hemp’ (which turned out to be a bit too dark actually). In a next step randomly selected planks, particularly those ‘hemp’ ones were given a very light wash with Vallejo Model Air 71288 ‘Portland stone’. Another very light wash with Vallejo Model Air 71041 ‘armour brown’, toned down with yet another very light wash using Vallejo Model Air 71132 ‘aged white’, pulled everything together. Painted quarter-decking before sealing it with varnish To facilitate the picking out of the caulking seams, the decking was given a sealing coat of acrylic glossy varnish. The definition of the caulking seams was enhanced by running the back of an old scalpel along them, making impressions, rather than cutting through the paint. The caulking was imitated using a 0.05 mm marker with pigmented permanent (hopefully) ink. After each line was drawn, the ink was allowed to dry for a few seconds and the excess wiped off with a barely humid finger. This leaves the ink only in the incisions, resulting in a very thin black line. In spite of the glossy varnish, a haze of the ink is left on the planks, darkening them somewhat, but this effect was calculated in, when setting out the original paint scheme. The surface was lightly rubbed down with an abrasive foam block (as used in mani-/pedicure) to thin down the glossy varnish without damaging the underlying paint. This rather complex procedure was concluded by applying another very dilute wash of Vallejo Model Air 71132 ‘aged white’ and finally a sprayed on coating of Vallejo matt varnish. Finished quarter-decking ready for final installation To be continued ....

Ulitmately, its your decision, of course. Personally, I regret short-cuts I took and mistakes made in ignorance decades ago when looking at my models ... don't complete something to just complete it, be patient, until you have the right information - that would be my opionion for what it is worth.

Ball-bearings are a good idea, also, when working with metal. Mechanics of old sometimes made make-shift steadies just from a piece of thick cardboard into which a suitable hole has been punched or drilled. As the diameter decreases, you will have to use a new cardboard with a smaller hole. This makeshift 'steady' could also be screwed to the follower steady.

Wow ! ... even if it didn't get the right results. It's quite impressive, how these stamped holes hold up in the Castello-end grain. I have been, indeed, thinking of making gratings like that, but was afraid that they would just crumble away.

The pictures now make it clearer what the issue is. I thought we are talking about a working-boat, not a pleasure-boat. Is she sloop- or cat-rigged? On a sloop-rigged boat, the forestaysail sheets are often belayed on cleats on the deck near the helm. How is the main-sail boom-sheet led? I suppose there is a block attached with a traveller to the horse and another block to the boom above. Sometime these are double-blocks and the fast part of the sheet is attached to the block on the boom, goes down to the traveller, back up to the boom, down again and from there to a third, single block above the cockpit, so that it can straight down into the cockpit. This avoids chafing on the coaming. However, the boom-sheet on such boats would rarely be belayed while sailing (too risky), only when stationary. If I understood you correctly, you would like to have benches inside the cockpit? I think that cockpit is far too smal for this, there would be no space to work the sails then. I don't know the practice on these boats, but on European pleasure-boats of that kind, there were often slatted seats on the deck outside the coamings, along the cockpit. This would also bring the 'live'-ballast further out.

... and you can't use normal optics with glass-lenses, they absorb too much long-wave radiation. Not sure that is still done, but 'traditionally' lenses made from salt were used, I believe. What do they use in night-vision optics? Or may be the modern photomultipliers are so much more sensitive than old IR-films.

Not sure what you are actually doing there - colourising/filtering your images in an image processing software with a filter that makes them look like IR images? True IR images would actually be B/W, as IR is not visible. So the software filter just transposes certain colours and deletes others.

I think the first two items are quite useless, as it is difficult to transfer the necessary dimensions exact enough - it is better (and easier) to work in situ. Not sure what the thingies with the blue handles really are, but probably tools from guys working on circuit boards or something like that. I think an useful rule/guidance is to start work with the tools you have and than at some point, you will discover that you would need to do a certain operation, but cannot do it with the tools you - that is the moment to look for the right tool. Of course, it is always a good idea to look left and right how others do a certain job and what tools they use. Many rigging tools one can make oneself. Sometimes insert for pin-vises are sufficient, which is why I have a hole collection of them.

I buy them off jewellers' supply houses and depending how much you push them down, sooner or later they get distorted. For steel ones it takes longer, of course. The wires are essentially clamped between to metal discs, perhaps they are also fused into some plastic in the middle, but essentially it is just friction that keeps them in place, so 'hair-loss' is normal. And yes, I would use gravers/scrapers first on the solder and then finish off with the wire-wheel ...

On small boats it is pretty much up to the owner, how it is/he has it kitted out. However, on specific types local habits may be the prevailing rationale. In this case, not only how it is worked during the actual sailing, but convenience during working fishing gear, sailing when heavily loaded and other consideration that are not immediately apparent, when one does not know how the boat was really handled may be relevant. Also, when having to move a cleat from its usual place, other devices for belaying could be considered instead, such a belaying pin in the rail etc.

Looks really like thing - ignoring for the moment the 'brassy' appearance of the roof.

I think the different aspects of colours and details as a function of viewing distance is an old dilemma for 'realistic' modellers. A modell will be viewed from a wide variety of distances and angles, unless it is set into a diorama-box that fixes these variables. If you design the model to be viewed from a certain distance, it will look cruede, when oberserved close-up. Have a look at e.g. a painting by Caneletto: paintings are normally designed to be viewed from a distance of about the length of the picture diagonal - from this distance his paintings give a vivid impression of life in 18th century Venice. However, when you put your nose on it (or as close as the security measures in the museums permit), you will only see some pretty shapeless blobs of paint. So, we have to build our models to be viewed from close-up or prevent this by the setting in which a model is to be displayed. Concerning the question of ochre vs. gold, this also depends on what kind of model your a building. If it is going to be a 'realistic' one then you will have to take the above considerations into account and also follow the full-scale practice, where indeed parts may not have been gilded, but painted in ochre or a similar yellow paint. Sometimes, just a few highlights were picked out in gold or certain elements were emphasised by using gold. On the other hand, if you are building a sort of 'artistic' model, replicating e.g. the prestigious display models of old, you may well use gilding, as this is what was used then for models.

I gather this depends on what was used on the prototype. In Valery's case, these are not sail-carrying masts I believe and at that time, indeed, iron bars or wooden battens were used as rat'lines'. In Keith's case this is a traditional sailing rig with (probably) metal-wire shrouds and hemp ratlines. It is rather difficult to tie knots into wire (I tried repeatedly ...) and wire kinks easily, which then are difficult to remove. If anything, I would use twisted wire for the purpose, as twisting two or three wires together makes them more flexible and less prone to kinking. Still, I would look for the thinnest fly-tying yarns that you can get hold of. The thinnest I found was Veevus 16/2. Caenis also makes very thin ones. Avoid the monofilaments, because knots dont't hold in them very well and they look unnatural, because they are smooth.