wefalck

Pastels may be a route to go. If you don't like it, you can wipe or wash them off (not so from bare wood though). They can be applied with a bristle brush or cotton swabs and the effect can be build up gradually. Finally, they can be fixed with a light mist of matt varnish.

P.S. the decades between 1850 and 1880 have been experimental years, during which the naval ship gradually evolved from sail-carrying wooden walls to something close to the modern steel battle-ships. Nations experimented with hull designs and gun arrangements. The French have been particularly inclined to come up with some rather 'steam-punky' designs looking back. Have you noticed also this interesting building log here: They have been particularly fond of excessive ram-bow designs, as here on the ill-fated aviso LE RENARD (1865): https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le_Renard_(aviso) Perhaps no accident that Jules Verne was a French, born in Nantes into a family with shipping background and that his main works were written during those decades.

I think there are several cottage-industry manufacturers in Germany that offer such bricks made from polymer-clay in model-railway scales. I can't put my finger on the company's name, but I seem to remember that there is also one that sells silicone moulds to make them yourself.

There is a German colleague, a retired engineer in Bavaria, who currently builds the BRETAGNE (1855) in 1:75, a massive model nearly 6 feet long. You can see his building log on our German forum (but you may have to register as guest): https://forum.arbeitskreis-historischer-schiffbau.de/viewtopic.php?f=16&t=1548. As an engineer, he uses all sorts of advanced techniques, outsources some parts, and recently mastered 3D-printing with UV-curing resin himself. The latter he uses to make masters for various hardware items that then are professionally cast and sold to others by these guys: https://elde-modellbau.com/epages/bd40fd5d-0ba8-443f-857a-537621b491ae.sf/en_GB/?ViewObjectPath=%2FShops%2Fbd40fd5d-0ba8-443f-857a-537621b491ae. The parts are in 1:75, but some of them you might find useful anyway. Don't know about having them sent to the USA. Before that, he built the NAPOLEON, another massive model at nearly 5 feet overall: https://forum.arbeitskreis-historischer-schiffbau.de/viewtopic.php?f=16&t=1523&p=15013&hilit=NAPOLEON#p15013. How are you planning to present the model, as 'builder's model' or realistic ? I always liked the way how these large models in the Musée de la Marine are done, with the armour in bright steel, the coppered underwater body, while the stern-post etc. is cast in bronze to avoid electrolytic corrosion of the copper-cladding.

Good choice. I have weak spot for those iron-clads at the transition from sail to steam ... Here is my collection of images from the Musée de la Marine in Paris in its old set-up, plus a few from the models in their Toulon and Rochefort dependances: https://www.maritima-et-mechanika.org/maritime/paris/frenchironclads.html. If you want copies of the original resolution images of SOLFÉRINO, let me know your email-address by PM and I can send them to you via WeTransfer. They will be unprocessed (for the lighting the poor lighting conditions) and you will need to brighten them up etc. They are also rather pixelated for that reason. I also have 'official' drawings of the armament she would have carried. If I know the type of gun, I can look up the drawings for the barrels and the carriages and make scan available to you. However, I have the feeling that not much of the guns will be visible and she carried little on her upper deck, I think. Of course, other navies of that time had also iron-clads and some of them are quite well documented, say the Spanish NUMANTIA, on which there are various books and kits also I believe: https://www.maritima-et-mechanika.org/maritime/madrid/madrid.html I will keep a tap on this project 👍

Oh, I am constantly looking for inspiration in other areas of model-making and new products also from other areas than modell-making ... Not sure that mould-making for 1 mm-blocks would actually work, at least not with silicone.

This problem has been nagging me for decades actually. So mentally at least, I probably have been through most of the ideas: - making a set of dies to shape a block from soldering tin around a wire - inspired by the lead seals you see on electricity meters and the like; could work for larger sizes, but it would be difficult to pull out tiny wires, even when you use tungsten or NiCr. - same idea but using the dies to shape a ball of two-part expoxy (Milliput or similar); same problem with releasing the wire when set or distorting the block, when pulling it out while the epoxy is still soft. - casting in some resin using silicone moulds with wires embedded to keep the hole open; again releasing the wire is the problem. The last two methods would allow to imbed internal strops relatively easily. Somehow, I came to the conclusion, that some rough-machining with good old hand-work in some reasonably hard and dense material (I prefer bakelite) is the solution - unless ... - I have tried to entice a colleague for some time now to design some blocks and print them in his UV-curing resin 3D printer, but he hasn't got around to do it yet. Even if the printing doesn't keep the space above the sheave completely open, re-drilling it is much less work. All the grooves for the rope strops etc. would be formed on already, of course. Making rope-stropped blocks is much less of a problem than internally stropped ones. However, one could 3D-print them, then add the wire-strops as per Wingrove's method and fill/seal the grooves with a tiny blob of UV-curing cement.

Again, excellent paint-job !

Been down that road, but it turned out to be a cul-de-sac ... when you are working on 1 to 1.5 mm long blocks, this means that the strop is 1/10 the diameter, i.e. 0.1 mm. If you flatten that not much of substance is left ...

The idea is that the solder fills any gab between the wire and the slot, so silver soldering may not be ideal and one may actually burn away thin wires …

Thanks, Roger, that gives me indeed some more ideas 👍 Internally stropped blocks are particularly difficult to make. I think I would mount the rod excentrically in the lathe, as the sheave sits a bit closer to the bottom end of the block. However, grinding such form-tools is probably the most difficult part. The key idea probably is to wrap the wire around in a groove, solder it in and then file the cheeks of the blocks flat. Could be perhaps also done with (super)glueing, using some highly-viscous CA. As I said, gives ideas.

I love this filigree and intricate appearance of such small-scale models. Good job !

A tank is a must for a useful compressor - otherwise you will have constant pressure fluctuations.

As Roger said, when contemplating on of these air-erasers, one has to carefully consider the modelling environment. They were developed originally for professional draughtspeople, so a sandblasting-booth is not necessarily needed, but the resulting dust would not be welcome in a domestic environment. There are, however, also shoebox-sized sandblasting boxes that are sold together with them. Railway modellers seem to use them quite frequently to prepare their etched-brass kits for painting. When buying a compressor to use in a domestic environment, particularly in an appartment, the noise and vibration generated can also be an issue. Cheap models may be a problem in this context. Also, an air-eraser needs more pressure to be effective, than an air-brush.

That's kind off-topic, but during the first colonoscopy I had (in Austria they do without general anaesthetics, unlike here in France), the doctor asked me, whether I would care to look on the screen at what he was doing - provided me with completely new insights into myself

That looks all like rather complicated pieces of hardware - I hate these parts that stick out at oblique angles that can only be determined on the object itself - difficult enough in full-size and a challenge on a model. Well done !

As an add-on: delicate parts often cannot be treated mechanically and the application of acetone might dissolve glued joints in composite parts. Brush-painting using acrylics typically is not successful, put building up thin layers of spray-paint works without de-oxidising etc.

The subject has been covered indeed in several threads in recent times. In a nutshell: brass forms a sort of 'greasy' oxide layer with time to which paint, incl. primer, does not adhere very well. Brass should be brightened before painting. This can be done mechanically, e.g. by rubbing it with fine steel wool, using rubber-bonded fine abrasive wheels, etc. Pickling is also a solution, as discussed in a quite recent thread on pickling material, the availability will depend on your region. In any case, I would wipe the pieces with acetone before painting to remove any possible traces of grease and not touch them again with bare fingers.

I am rather surprised to read about double-planking for a kit of an open boat. The rough first layer of planking would be very visible on the inside, doesn't make much sense.

Good to hear. Take your time and don't give in to forum pressures I hardly dare to say that we are just back from tasting Italian food in Italy ... spent a few days in Venice. Took also the opportunity to visit again Gilberto Penzo (http://www.veniceboats.com) to get a copy of his latest book: http://www.veniceboats.com/libro-Il-trabaccolo.htm.

This is indeed a dilemma that makes me shy away from kits, as attractive as they may be: I am afraid that I would throw away half of the parts ...

... however, in fair weather, they were left open to aerate

On the topic of replacement parts: I was actually wondering, whether it would not be better to replace parts that would have had machined surfaces on the real thing with machined parts - thinking of axles, piston rods, bearings, bushings, the crankshaft parts etc. I would have probably done that, as the machined surface is so much more precise than the cast surface. Oh yes: the model is coming on very nicely !

Actually, I have seen quite a number of models with hammocks in their boxes/netting and people discussing ways to make them, from rolled toilet-paper to epoxy putty ... The hammocks were tightly packed against each other - storage space was precious and not the whole crew's hammocks could normally be stored that way. Here is an image of a contemporary model of the French BELLE POULE (1834) in the Musée de la Marine in Paris, as fitted out to retrieve the remains of Napoleon I:

The 1847 edition is available on-line, the 1860 one not, as far as I know: https://archive.org/details/elementssailmak00kippgoog Didn't have time to check on the issue ...