wefalck

What thread are you using for the ratlines? On the prototype they would be probably around 1/4" to 1/2" in diameter, so 0.002" to 0.004" mm in 1:120.

When thinking about ratline spacing, I am sure that contemporary books on rigging may have to say something about it, though this is more an artisanal question left to those in charge of rigging. However, if you try to lift your foot, you will find that lifting it in excess of 12" is quite a bit of effort, which is also why the distance between rungs on a ladder is around 9 to 10". So I gather a distance of 10 to 12" is ok. Whether there are ratlines on topgallant shrouds depends on the time and the way how topgallant and (perhaps) skysail yards were fitted. Concerns for safety (and convenience) at sea were certainly less developed until the early decades of the 19th century, which is why one apparently sees topgallant ratlines rarely. Instead, a knotted rope may have been fixed to the top for the men to hold onto. In later years ratlines often also were absent, when the corresponding yards were set flying, meaning that the yard could be lowered to be reached from the topmast top, or even lowered to the deck.

As a matter of fact the transition between varnish, sanding sealer and primer are rather flowing. A primer is a material that interacts physico-chemically or chemically with the surface to which it is applied and thus adheres well to it. In turn, the paint interacts with the primer and therefore adheres well to it. With the exception of certain oily wood species, there is normally no need to prime wood for painting. A sanding sealer essentially is a kind of varnish in which finely ground particles, often pumice powder are suspended. The idea is that the varnish penetrates into the wood and the particles fill up any surface structure and pores of the wood. There are many commercial formulation of sanding sealers available. While they were originally based on solvents, today acrylics based formulations with water as solvent are more and more sold for environmental protection reasons, though they do not penetrate so well, particularly into more resinous wood species. Sanding sealer is applied after a first sanding that has been rubbed down wet to raise the wood fibres. It is then sanded down in preparation for further steps. Sometimes a second application is needed. Rather than sanding, I prefer to either scrape (flat surfaces) or rub down with steel-wool (curved surfaces). A dye or stain is a coloured organic molecule dissolved in water, alcohol or an organic solvent. This means a dye can only applied to material that is capable to soak up the solvent you are using. It implies that you have to apply any dye or stain after a first sanding, but before applying sanding sealer. An ink, conversely, is a liquid, usually water or alcohl, in which finely ground solid particles (e.g. soot) or coloured organic partciles are suspended. The ink also contains a binder, that may be either water soluble or not - in the latter case it is referred to as permanent ink. A varnish is a lacquer dissolved in an appropriate solvent. A classical example is shellac, which is dissolved in alcohol, which gives it a good penetration into wood. Other lacquers and solvents may be used in commercial formulations, such as acrylic or polyurethane varnishes. The varnish would be applied to the surfaces prepared with a sanding sealer. One has to pay attention that the solvent of the varnish does not attach the sealer, otherwise you may destroy the effect of sanding. A paint essentially is a varnish that has a pigment added to it. Again, paint is applied on top of the sanding sealer and the same provisa as for the plain varnish applies, i.e. sealer and paint have to be compatible. In general, water-based acrylics are compatible with almost anything, as water is not a very agressive solvent.

Cast metal in most cases does not need to be annealed, because the cooling process is so slow that the metal atoms have time to disorder themselves. Having said that, non-ferrous metals cannot be hardened by heating. Therefore, what you find in a cast piece is usually the softest state. Non-ferrous metals work-harden by beating or rolling. Anealing softens them. I suspect that the cast piece you are referring to is white metal, an alloy containing inter alia lead, zinc, and bismuth. Compared to the pure metals it is quite hard and has a low melting point (which is why it used for such castings). Also, the temperature range for the transition from the solid to the liquid state is quite narrow, so rather than becoming soft as many other metals, it quickly melts.

What scale ? Ideally the fingers should be bent to grab either the ratlines or the shrouds, depending on how the hands are oriented in the figurine. Of course legs and arms need to be properly positioned, so that they touch the ratlines. Remember that the ratline would sag under the weight of the man. When the fingers are bent around the shrouds/ratlines then some matt varnish should be sufficient to secure the figurine to the rigging.

My library comprises hundreds of books - you never know, whether you may need/want a book (again) at some stage. Ordering through inter-library loan is a good strategy. I used to do this extensively with newly published books, as there is a system whereby a central German library has to buy a new book, when it is somewhere ordered in Germany through inter-library loan. Otherwise, it would have been not so easy to look at new English-language books, if you didn't have a suitable bookshop nearby. Not sure what the rules are in the USA, but in the EU a publication normally becomes public domain 90 years after the author's death unless someone else acquired the rights. Which means that most pre-WW1 publications are no free to copy or to distribute as ebooks. The amount of digitised books rises by the day and many small libraries are doing actually a better job on this than Google (which nor normally unfolds tables and such things, thus missing the key information). So before looking in antiquarian bookshops or physical libraries, I am checking whether a book is available as PDF somewhere. As to 'how to do it'-books, I have only a few and decided not to buy any other, because they mostly just copy from each other or repeat what is more or less common knowledge.

An isue with most of the books quoted is that they combine proposals for resolving technical problems with some historic context. In most cases they dive not deep enough into the historic context to be really useful. Underhill is an exception as he deals specifically with the last half century of commercial deep-water sail and clearly states so. Hence, if you are interested in a specific period, you certainly will need addtional literature in order to understand what was going on. This is a point perhaps not made clear enough in these books. BTW, we didn't mention Frölich, B. (2002): The Art of Ship Modeling.- 303 p., Nice (A.N.C.R.E.). yet, which is both useful and aesthetically well done. He doesn't say so in the title, but his subjects clearly span the mid-1700s to early 1800s, a period short enough to provide a reasonable amount of historical detail. Plus the book uses contemporary models from the museum in Paris for illustration. @SaltyNinja, what country/region are you looking at? There are quite a few in-depth books on fishing vessels around.

In the German-speaking world, it was the translation from Italian of Orazio Curti's book that was most widely available and that covered the subject in breadth, using also many contemporary illustrations. The first rudimentary books specifically on ship-modelling, however, were already published in the years before WW1. I also have a small and probably not widely known German book of 1948, that already describes many of the 'standard' techniques. Most books I know, are concerned with simplified methods, rather than describing methods to reproduce parts as closely to the prototype. Unfortunately, it seems that such methods then were perpetrated as 'this is how things are done'. Instructions in kits also often follow this idea.

Honestly, I do not believe too much into 'grand masters', teachings, schools and such. There are few basic carpentry, metal-working and similar techniques applied to a specific subject, that is ship models. Each of the authors quoted uses different short-cuts for one reason or another, such as what they tried to achieve, what tools where available to them, their respective manual skill level, etc. It's a long time since I read Davis and I did not check again before writing here, but seem to remember that his objective was to indicate to the reader techniques that would allow an averagely skilled person to turn out a ship-model without getting too desperate. I seem to remember that the book was written in the early 1930s. At that time most of the speciality tools (hand and machine tools) were available in the UK in principle - Clerkenwell Road in London was a dream of precision tool-shops and -manufacturers at the time, but it would have been much more difficult for the average person outside London at the time to put their hand on them. By coincidence I just finished re-reading Underhill's volume on rigging. He wrote his book just after WW2, when again it was not so easy to find tools and machines (and money) as the UK was recovering slowly from the war economy situation. Underhill is much more pre-occupied with accurate reproduction of the 'real' thing, but also with showing ways to do this without a big tool-kit. His focus is, as stated in the titles of his books, on later 19th/early 20th century ships. This does not mean that many of the techniques he describes would not be applicable to other periods, though there would be less emphasis on iron-work, of course. When looking at such books, one has to make a distinction between the artisanal techniques they describe and their description of representing actual shipbuilding techniques. Underhill, does not claim to be an universal text book - unlike some more modern publications, who make such claims and then fail, because the authors just do not have apparently the necessary breadth and depth of knowlege and the space provided by their publisher.

Hasn't almost everything, apart from a few 'organically grown' veggies, that reputation By that standard I should be dead already - in the lab we rinsed our glassware with acetone p.a. to dry it faster and that over the sink ... the lab technician was always very concerned about H&S, but in the early 1980s it may not have been on the black list yet. Anyway, I always have the bottle of acetone on my bench for all sorts of cleaning and degreasing purposes. But the quantities used are really small, I had this 500 ml bottle going for almost 15 years now.

Why? The quantities used would minute and it actually smells quite aromatic.

I think many of us just like to create 'things' with their hands and working with hand-tools. So this manual creation process is part of the hobby, not only the finished product as such. There are also others, like me, who are spending a good deal of their wake hours in front of a computer screen and are afraid that becomes even worse, when getting in CAD/CAM beyond the mere creation of the 'blue-prints' (which have become obsolete with CAD) for their models. Having said that, about a couple of years ago I bought a low-power LED-laser, which is compatible with my working environment (not having a separate workshop with water connection and forced aeration) and I have used it quite a bit on my current project. I have been pondering 3D printing since the mid-2000s, but it took a long time, before precision and resolution came into a range that is useful for my ambitions - not talking about prices. Again, a resin-printer is not quite compatible with my current working environment. I gather that the logistics involved in running high-end machines are quite demanding and therefore prohibitive for many people.

Liberon is the champagner among the suppliers ... but that't the thing. I use it all the time, also as fast-drying cement and to secure splices and knots etc. in rigging, because it can be easily dissolved with acetone.

Love all those details - unfortunately my project's scale is too small to go down to that level 😠

thanks, that would be good news, as I already have a 4 mm shaft, 5/32" = 3,97 mm ...

Traditionally, a varnish called zapon-lacquer is used to prevent tarnishing on silver or brass objects. Easy to in Germany, but I don't know about Finland. Another option is Minwax, a commercial product, a solution of micro-cristalline wax in alcohol, I believe. The latter is used also by museums to protect metal objects. Both varnishes can be removed, if needed. And both varnishes are almost invisible. I wouldn't use matt varnish, as the matting agent probably will leave some sort of veil on the parts.

Thanks, David, I always forget to put my Euro-Cent into the pictures for scale. The funnel has a diameter of 9 mm. What is the shaft diameter for Meccano? Meccano seems to have been better in gears than Märklin. I remember that it has been always my chagrin that I didn't have enough gears in my Märklin set, even though at some stage my father got me some extra ones and worms. Looking at the prices of new gears, some old Meccano gears might actually be a cheaper option. I am contemplating cutting my own gears. I do have the equipment (mill, dividing head, mod 0.5 gear hob), but it's quite a bit of work. Also getting a piece of brass of the right diameter is quite expensive - almost as much as getting some ready-made gears fro China. Unfortunately, the stuff in my stock was either too small or too short. I like the idea of brass gears, but POM would be easier to machine and sufficient for the load and number of applications. Have to ponder a bit. Yes, Chris, sources and paintings from the time indicate that 'yellow' of the tropical livery was actually rather orange. I don't know the reason. Perhaps one would find something on the rationale behind in the files, if they survived. Unfortunately, the Admiralty archives were partially looted or burned in a bunker, where they were stored - after WWII ended, during the chaotic days in May 1945 in Berlin, when governance broke down.

Do you think that glueing the handle bars will provide a sufficiently strong bond ? Not that anyone would hang onto them, but glues may fail over time. Perhaps (hard)soldering would have been a more durable and (almost) invisible option. The coach continues to come on nicely!

Yes that looks like the tape I've got. Somehow, that 'flaking' is a bit strange. With real copper one shouldn't have flaking, but a whole sheet coming off.

That's what I was implying ...

Did this foil tape have a paper backing, or just an adhesive, but on a paper carrier? From the first photograph it appears, that there is some paper from which the copper has been flaked off, correct? I am curious about this, as I have some very thin copper tape, but it is self-adhesive on a protective paper-backing. There are probably different varieties, but there is also one that is used in making stained glass windows or 'Tiffany'-work - the pieces of glass are framed with the tape and then soldered together. So the adhesive should be pretty good. It looks now that the very reason of the overlapping on the prototype - to prevent ingress of water and nasty beings, defeats your ideas of infiltrating the material to re-enforce the glueing. Metal objects are traditionally coated in a special varnish to prevent tarnishing, which at least over here in Europe goes under the name of zapon-varnish. It forms a very thin, continuous, practically invisble layer. Minwax has a similar effect und is also used by museums. After patching up the bad places, you could apply a coat and this should prevent at least for some time the flaking. The varnish can be dissolved easily with acetone and Minwax dissolves in alcohol I believe, making this procedure reversible to a degree.

Yes, the copper seems attain this dull reddish-brown colour under water. Another example here from HMS GANNET: The greenish colour seems to be more in the area of changing exposure. I don't have a picture at hand, but on ships taken out of the water, the dull reddish-brown colour of oxidised copper seems to extend over the bottom. However, it also depends on the environment in which the ship is kept. HMS GANNET is in a dock of Chatham dockyard and I don't know how saline the water is - the salinity would change during the tides, as it is located at an estuary. Unfortunately, there are not too many operational ships with coppered bottoms around anymore, so that one can have look, how the operational environment effects the appearance of the bottom. I remember having seen the 'Stockholm Briggen' (a replica built some years ago), laid up for winter in Stockholm harbour and as she was riding quite high, one could see that the waterline was marked by a green-greyish corrosion layer, while the copper above and below had this dull reddish-brown colour. However, the salinity of the Baltic in Stockholm is quite low. To the contrary this is what happens when a coppered ship sits in a dry-dock for a few years: As the Fragata DON FERNANDO II E GLÒRIA had been moored off Lisbon in the Tagus river before beeing restored, perhaps one can find some pictures that show her bottom, when she was taken out of the water. However, this would again reflect what happens to the copper in a brackish environment and when stationary. BTW, CUTTY SARK's bottom is covered in Muntz-Metal rather than copper.

I agree with Allan, that you did a pretty good job at the coppering as such! The question now is, what material did you actually use? This would determine how to repair it short of stripping and re-doing it. The flaking you observe means, that the bond between the 'copper' layer and the backing is failing. Now, whatever you will put on that, be it paint or metal leaf, will come off again, as this bond seems to fail. So that needs to be investigated firs. I have to disagree with Allan over the colour of ageing coppering. The green colour one sees on old coppered roofs is due to copper-sulfates, where the sulfur is derived from the sulfur contained in coal fumes and the likes. Seawater contains sulfate, but it appears that the copper immersed into seawater is rather first oxidise. It forms a very thin reddish-brownish oxide layer that 'passivates' the copper and protects it from turning into copper-sulfate. In the area between wind and water, however, the copper-sulfates may form. This, at least, seems to be my experience. Some ships have been sheathed in Muntz-Metal, which is a copper alloy close to brass, but contains proportionally more copper. One has to check on the Internet, but I think it has not been available before middle of the 19th century, so may not be appropriate for your ship. If you can satisfy yourself, you could try to touch up the areas that have lost the coppering with some rub-on copper paint and then give the whole underwater body a washing in dilute brown paint to blend in those areas. I first would experiment with that off model, of course.

Funnel and Boiler-Room Ventilators Not really much to write about, as the parts had been built quite a while ago. Just a bit of assembly work and painting. Unfortunately, I forgot to take a picture of the assembled parts before painting. Just before painting, also the turning handles for the ventilators were glued on using shellac. These are made from 0.1 mm wire flattened at the ends using a specially made die in my little jewelling press. They are extremely delicate. The colour of the funnel and the boiler-ventilators may be debatable. Research on possible colours arrived at nothing. The 1874 ordinance states that funnels should be ‘yellow’ or ‘mast-colour’, but I could not establish what this yellow actually looked like. A colleague recently discovered an 1890 ordinance that specified that the ‘mast-colour’ should be mixed from 460 g dry white-lead and 260 g dry light ochre pigment with 300 g varnish, to be diluted for application with a further 310 g of varnish. The ratio between white-lead and light ochre suggests a rather light yellow hue, but we do not have a real clue to its actual hue. Circumstantial evidence, such as paintings, seems to suggest that in those early years of the Imperial Navy the yellow was indeed lighter than in later years. Preserved models from the later 1880s show a darker and murkier yellow than one might expect from the above recipe, while the strong yellow of the late tropical livery of the Imperial Navy had a decidedly orange tint. The buff/yellow of the RN seems to have undergone a similar development, while the French navy used a rather murky beige. The first photograph of S.M.S. WESPE of 1876 must have been taken either on a wet collodium or on a dry gelatine plate. Both of which have little red sensitiveness and, therefore, represent colours at the ‘warm’ end of the visible spectrum darker than one would expect from an panochromatic film. The funnel thus appears considerably darker than the white of superstructure. After some colour testing, I finally decided on Vallejo Model Air 71.107 ‘US interior yellow’. Bow view of the assembly of funnel and boiler-room ventilators The boiler-room ventilators show the same level of grey as the funnel and are decidedly darker than the other ventilators. This indicates that they were also painted yellow, while the 1874 ordinance prescribed white for ventilators. Given their closeness to the funnel it does make aesthetic sense to have them painted yellow. Another issue is the interior colour of the ventilators. We seem to take it for granted that ventilators are red inside mostly, but it is not clear when and how this fashion came about. Perhaps they were painted red to resemble the copper that was frequently used in their manufacture in earlier years? On the early photograph the interiors appear very dark, but due to the limited red-sensitivity this is not conclusive evidence that they may have been painted black. Nevertheless, in the end I decided on black for the interior of all ventilators. Stern view of the assembly of funnel and boiler-room ventilators To be continued ....

I think you are getting there, Keith! As I say, patience and perseverence are probably the most important tools in our box Concerning very small seizings, it is of course diffiult to reproduce them at very small scales, but one can fake them using some very soft thread that is not twisted together. Over here in Europe, one can find such thread in the sewing department, where it is sold for repairing ladies' stockings - but it becomes harder to get by, as few women seem to bother with repairing them. Another source are shops that cater for the fly-fishing fraternity and that may be a more realistic proposition in North America. You only take one or two turns around the shrouds etc. and then go around the middle and make a knot in the back, so that it is not really visible.