wefalck

I am using razor-blades, the ones with a reenforced back. And I am using them as they come. Seems to leave smooth, flat surfaces.

We had this discussion at a different place already not too long ago: different, very light-weight silk papers are available from art-supply houses. Very fine silk-cloth is also available as printing screen, again through suppliers for the art-trades, printers, or through ebay in fact.

For fine finishes, particularly after having applied sanding filler, I also use steel-wool of various grades. It gives an nice satin finish - but make sure to remove also the little steel splinters !

Such sails need to be shaped (mostly) during the process, not afterwards. Glueing on the bolt-ropes with either white glue or acrylic gel gives (initially) a somewhat flexible joint, so that the sails can even be furled. If the bold-rope comes loose in places, it can be easily attached again. I have been making sails like this for 30+ years.

I don't think the ship were actually sailing while butchering a whale. The drag from the carcasse would have been a lot of strain on the tackles with which it was worked. Apart from the fact that in the course of the 19th century labour became increasingly expensive and, therefore, crews had to be reduced and the sail plan of vessels adapated to this, one has to keep in mind that a whaler would have to be managed by a very much reduced crew while the whaleboats were out hunting. Not sure, whether there are any statistics, but I would assume that loosing a whaleboat and its crew was not uncommon - in the fight with a whale or when bad weather developed, while the boats were out. Therefore, the whaler would need to be able to be sailed with a reduced crew. As a matter of fact, a full rig does not seem to have had much advantage over a barque rig and only on certain points to the wind. On most points the square sails would blanket each other and be ineffective. This is why the last big square-riggers were almost always barques.

Thanks for the link. I am slowly scrolling through that log, very interesting to see the master being built.

Can one see the original somewhere on the Internet ? A Google-search only turned up model pictures of other builds from this kit. I am curious as to what kind of boiler was used. There must have been some way of checking, whether enough water was in it. Once could also use test-taps at different levels - perhaps the vertical row of the four taps? These fire engines had boilers, where most of the water was in water-tubes, which ensured quick heating up, but still there is a minimum level of water that has to be kept to prevent the tubes from burning through.

Are there no water gauges at the stoking platform ?

Things are coming together nicely ! It shows how fragile and spidery the engineering designs were at that time. I gather today one would make this much more compact. The suspension system (the 'shock absorbers') is actually quite interesting and I wonder how it really worked. Somehow it looks as if it were just a stack of leather discs. Most steam-fire engines I have seen in preservation have the boiler suspended from a ring, which in turn is supended on leaf-springs above the axles. However, looking at my pictures of the one preserved in the Stockholm technical museum, it seems to have a similar arrangement of 'shock absorbers', but in wood:

I gather various museum have models that were submitted together with patent applications ...

Thinking about it, and as the lowest hook is actually at the level of the hearth, the hooks may also serve to install/store a 'couvre feu' (curfew), to prevent embers from falling out. These would have been probably just sheets of iron. Amalio will know probably more ...

Presumably for a roasting spit. In the Danish Rigsarkivet they have numerous drawings of galleys, not only Danish ones, and some show mechanisms for a mechanical turning of the spits. The galley is a major fire-hazard on a (wooden) ship and seems to have preoccupied significantly the navy responsibles, judging by the numbers of drawings and contemporary models that have survived.

OK, as I am not going into commercial production, I am staying with my shop-made manual mill - but laser-shaping of the sheave would be nice.

I gather you’ve used some kind of jig that allows you to zero-in each, the mill and the laser, for the consecutive operations. I understood that you index the billets manually in order to mill the four sides, correct? The milling wouldn’t be difficult with a ball-nose mill. Laser-cutting the sheave certainly lets you go down one almost order of magnitude in size.

Well, I missed this thread since last summer. Don’t have a suitable laser-cutter, but thought by adding a 4th axis, i.e. an indexer, and modulating the laser power, one could do exactly that … You don’t have to worry about breaking milling cutters and could down to dimensions, where it would difficult to find suitable cutters. I am thinking of 1 to 2 mm blocks …

This is going to be a brilliant model and the 'fake' metal looks really good. OK, with hindsight, but I wonder, whether it would have been possible to 'joggle' the vertical joint in the boiler-lagging. In this way, the outside diameter would have not increased due to the extra thickness of the overlapping material. I had to check the imperial thread sizes, but to me they are not actually that small at 1.2 mm and 1.8 mm diameter. Anyway, it may have been a good idea to re-thread the cast parts with an appropriate die to remove any flash or distortions. In theory, one can also use a very fine triangular file to remove flash and burrs, but it is not so easy to find a fine-enough file for these fine pitches. The problem is that you do some sort of pressure-forming, when screwing the nut on and that requires a lot of force to move the material.

It's the 5th painting in the list: https://www.invaluable.com/auction-lot/arr-frank-j-h-gardiner-british-b-1942-20-c-c0040f1930 BTW, I just saw that it was auctioned by Charles Miller in London. He is a nice knowleagble and helpful guy (ex-Sotheby's if I remember right), you could send him a picture of yours and ask his opinion.

This method certainly results in a quite accurate copy of the curve. However, it appears to be rather elaborate. In effect what you do is, you trace onto a rough-cut template a line that is parallel to your target curve. So, there may simpler methods to do this. Boatbuilders fitting planks use parallel scribers for this: they clamp the new plank into place and then trace the edge of the already fitted plank onto the new one below. Perhaps a compass where the legs can be locked in position could be used: at each frame location you draw an arc onto the template and then connect these arcs with a tangent line, which should be an exact image of the target curve. Or take a short, rectangular piece of wood, put a short piece of dowel as a handle on it, hold this against each frame and draw a short line onto the template on the opposite side. Finally, connect these lines to get the image of your target curve.

When you take it out of the frame and look at it at an glancing angle you should be able to see some texture in the paint, particularly in those areas that appear to have been worked over indeed in gouache (e.g. the blue bulkhead panels, the coat of arms, the white heads of the waves, etc.). Gouache form a matt layer on the paper. If you go down this list of paintings in past auctions by the same painter: https://www.invaluable.com/artist/gardiner-frank-joseph-henry-bz4rerv65l/sold-at-auction-prices/, you will see in Lot 20 a very similar landscape in the background. You could also compare the style of the sea and other features. This painter is not be confused with the better known Derek Gardner, who paints similar subjects.

The stems / ram-bows of iron ships are quite pointed actually. I would guess that the outer edge was not more than perhaps 4 inches wide, which means that it would be only 1/16" in 1/72 scale. Not sure that this will be stable enough in plywood. I would cut the profile of the stem from aluminium and glue it into a slot cut into the plywood. As matter of fact, it may be worthwhile to make also the stern-post in that way. With such a big model, you have to think about the stability of the 'backbone'. These ram-bows became very fashionable after their use was partially successful in the Battle of Lissa between Austria and Italy and the Italian Re d'Italia was sunk in this way. Until the end of the century virtually every naval ship was given such bow, even small units such as torpedo-boats.

As a matter of fact, Penzo discusses several of the boats, not only trabaccoli, moored in the canal of Cesenatico. Unfortunately, I have never been to that part of the italian adriatic coast (yet). I only made it to Chioggia, were they also have a couple of old boats in the harbour.

A couple of week ago I happened to be again in Venice. My wife has a good friend there and we try to spend a few days in this wonderful city every two or three years. Whenever I am there, a pelerinage to various maritime spots is obligatory for me, while the ladies are chatting or shopping. This pilgrim's tour include the (work)shop of Gilberto Penzo (www.veniceboats.com), one of the experts on the Venice region boats. This was the opportunity to buy his latest book directly off himself again: PENZO, G. (2020): Il Trabaccolo.- 230 p., Sottomarina (VE) (Il Leggio Libreria Editrice), Price 45€, ISBN 978-88-8320-179-0. The trabaccolo was once one of the most important ship-types that transported goods up and down the Adriatic. Today only a few specimens have survived in a more or less well-preserved condition. Penzo's book is a comprehensive account of this type and its history, based on a systematic evaluation of the available sources. It begins with a critical evaluation of pictorial representations from the early modern period to the drawings in Pâris’ Souvenirs de la Marine. Models of trabaccoli from different eras were also examined. Penzo then deals in detail with the various design methods of the shipbuilders of the time and the instruments used for it. Some still existing trabaccoli, albeit in a modified form, or their remains made it possible to take off their lines and make other measurements using modern methods, such as 3D-laser scanning and generate virtual 3D-models with it. The book contains a number of elaborated lines drawing in A4 format, which are perfectly suitable for building small-scale models. The author also offers large-scale drawings for sale (www.veniceboats.com). A separate section is devoted to the shipbuilders and their building sites. Naturally, this then leads to a discussion of the materials, techniques and tools used in construction. The latter in particular are shown in great detail with photographs. This serves as an introduction to a detailed description of the construction itself, based on structural analyses of still existing trabaccoli and wrecks. Further sections deal with the external appearance, especially the apotropaic elements, such as the ochi (bow eyes) and pelliccioni (the 'fur caps’ on the stem-post). Of course, there is also a large space dedicated to masting and, above all, the sails. The sail-plans have changed significantly over time and the cuts and making of the sails are discussed in detail. Even if the construction sites were simply equipped, as everywhere during the times of wooden shipbuilding, a short section is devoted to them, as well as to the maintenance work that was also carried out there. This then leads on to the last section, that is the restoration of the last remaining specimens. Thanks to the wealth of illustrations and drawings, this well-founded and comprehensive book is also accessible to those who have little or no command of Italian. Drawings with the names of the individual components in Italian are very helpful in this respect.

This depends on the circumstances. I would assemble a model (from scratch or kit) as much as possible before painting with two provisa: - when two colours abut to each other, it is better to paint first and then assemble - gives a cleaner colour separation line - that all surfaces that need to be painted must be accessible afterwards If two painted surfaces are glued together, the joint will only be as strong as the paint adhering to the surfaces, this is one reason for assembling first. Small parts are easier to paint when in place. Leaving it on the sprue would solve that problem, but handling during separation and subsequent clean-up may damage the paint again. I rarely prime, as any additional layer of paint tends to obscure surface detail. On the other hand, a primer makes imperfections very visible. Also, when brush-painting plastics and metals without priming it may be difficult to achieve an even first coat. I am mostly spray-painting and here the first thin coat effectively acts as kind of primer.

Do you have any machine tools, specifically a lathe ? Here is building log of a colleague of mine, where he shows step by step how he makes a similar windlass: https://forum.arbeitskreis-historischer-schiffbau.de/viewtopic.php?f=16&t=2230#p28040 (not sure, whether this is visible without registering. Apologies in this case).

Brian, I didn't look over the two logs in detail again, but from what I also remember, Eric used the pastels mainly for weathering or toning, not as body colours. Of course, if you add a binder, e.g. lineseed oil or shellac to pastels, you would use them just as pigment. Below is an example from my own production of weathering over acrylics - salt stains and general grime, done mainly with white pastel: