wefalck

Happy New Year to all !

Two hours and forty minutes to go for us

Wasn‘t it particularly used to obtain weather reports and when getting close to home to get orders to which port to go?
 

Completed the rigging on the masts. I will not glue the masts. They will have a tight fit.
I used diluted white glue for the rigging. Takes time but better than CA which is too stiff and probably not durable. 

Zu Mondfeld or not is a question of what you are looking for, information to a specific period or a general introduction? In his later years he tried to stylise himself as the guru of shipmodelling, but a single person can hardly cover all the periods in sufficient depth. So, one has to take what is written in the books with a pinch of salt and corroborate the information against period books for instance.

Zu Mondfeld or not is a question of what you are looking for, information to a specific period or a general introduction? In his later years he tried to stylise himself as the guru of shipmodelling, but a single person can hardly cover all the periods in sufficient depth. So, one has to take what is written in the books with a pinch of salt and corroborate the information against period books for instance.

Zu Mondfeld or not is a question of what you are looking for, information to a specific period or a general introduction? In his later years he tried to stylise himself as the guru of shipmodelling, but a single person can hardly cover all the periods in sufficient depth. So, one has to take what is written in the books with a pinch of salt and corroborate the information against period books for instance.

Curious. I've never known real Silkspan to tear like that. It is, in fact, very strong. Are you sure that this was, in fact, SilkSpan?

Zu Mondfeld or not is a question of what you are looking for, information to a specific period or a general introduction? In his later years he tried to stylise himself as the guru of shipmodelling, but a single person can hardly cover all the periods in sufficient depth. So, one has to take what is written in the books with a pinch of salt and corroborate the information against period books for instance.

Zu Mondfeld or not is a question of what you are looking for, information to a specific period or a general introduction? In his later years he tried to stylise himself as the guru of shipmodelling, but a single person can hardly cover all the periods in sufficient depth. So, one has to take what is written in the books with a pinch of salt and corroborate the information against period books for instance.

There have been several threads quite recently discussing the various, closer-to-scale materials and methods for making sails.
 
Silkspan and modelspan can mean different things in different parts of the world: it can be long-fibre paper originating in Japan (going down to 9 g/m2 weigh) and it can be a relative loose-woven light-weight fabric (as low as 14 g/m2). The original use of the latter probably was for serigraphy or silk-screen printing. There was a time, when both material were readily available from model shops, but have been replaced by various plastic films, I think.
 
I first had the idea of using the fabric some 45+ years ago, when working in 1:60 scale. I saturated it with casein-paint (in those pre-acrylic days) and cut the sails from this. Later, I did the same with fast-drying varnish, cut individual panels from them and mounted them to give the sails. Douplings were also glued on using varnish. The assembly was then spray-painted with acrylics. Putting the sail together from individual panels just gives a hint of the seams due to the light shadow along the edge. The sails are not translucent though,
 
In smaller scales (say 1:100) the fabric is too coarse and still too thick, so I used the same method, but with the paper. Although the varnish makes for a relatively strong bond, this method is more suitable for set sails, rather then brailed or furled ones.
 
In all the cases the bolt-ropes were glued on after the sails had been painted.
 
In my new project at 1:160 I will try @druxey's method with seams drawn-on using a bow-pen, as the sails are to be displayed hanging loose and being draped over stays etc. for drying. Sails made from individual panels would be too stiff for that purpose.
 
I think the general consensus these days is that, unless you are building a working model, sewn fabric sails are just out of scale in most cases and modellers should abandon this age-old idea.
 

Brian,
 
Thanks!
 
This type mechanism was common for life jackets on US Navy ships. The top is a lid that hinges up, allowing life jackets to be tossed in after use. The bottom is a door that hinges down, allowing the life jackets to tumble out on deck. I have studied the blueprints on the Cleveland class cruisers of WWII and the MSI blueprints of the 1950-60s. One thing they have in common is that the lever that pulls down to open the bottom door was held in place by an ordinary US Navy issue 1/2 inch (12.5 mm) fuse clip. Two of these were used in electrical circuits to hold a cylindrical fuse. Just one was used to hold the 1/2 inch diameter life jacket release handle.
 
The MSI lifejacket locker had to be located above a place on the main deck that was open and easy to get to but not in a passageway. As you will see as the build progresses almost the entire main deck was covered with equipment or stowage lockers. About the only place suitable for the life jacket locker was above the fire hose station at the rear of the main deck cabin. And there was nothing else attached to the rear of the stack which was directly above the fire station, so that was a convenient place to mount the locker.
 
The Cape had a crew of 19 enlisted and 3 officers. The life jacket locker held 25 CO2 life jackets and 3 "fibrous glass" life jackets. I guess the three fibrous glass life jackets were for the officers. They didn't need a charged CO2 cylinder. There were 6 spare CO2 life jackets in case some didn't work.
 
The ship also carried two 15 man inflatable life boats and a 12 foot (4 meter) "wherry," a small boat with an outboard motor.

Thank you for the likes and for the comments.
 
 
 I'm calling the boxes that Capt. Engel built for the dummy stacks to sit inside, stack boxes. Pretty stinkin' original, huh? 
 
 
After a couple of months of trying to recreate Engel's work I have a pretty good feel why he did some of the crazy things he did but these stack boxes really puzzle me. The port side one looks unfinished and the starboard side one looks like Elgel ran into something. I'm going to build the starboard side box just like the port side with the dummy stack straight. 

 
The boxes are six sided measuring 0.30" x .030" x 0.50".  

 
 Sorry for the lousy photo. 

 
 It took 19 pieces to make the finished box not including the stack. With the stack and the three eye pins for the stays each box will consist of 23 pieces.in the assembly. That packing crate aft of the port side box will not be repeated on the starboard side. We'll see what interesting bits I can come up with to add aft of the starboard stack box.  

 
 I'm leaving railing 2.0 as is, the more I look at it the less it bothers me. 

 
 I was hoping this post would find me finished with the boiler deck, the next post for sure. That will leave adding three pieces of pipe and the paddle wheels. Billy is getting close to being finished. 

 
  Thank you for your support and for following along.
 
    Keith
  

10a part way through the deck furnishing

Before sharing progress. I want to share a news clipping I received just recently. A local retired Shipwright passed away and donated his library to the local library book shop. The volunteer there helps us at the historical society, She knows I am doing a multiyear study of our shipyards as well as the study of the Northwest passage and other related stories.  She showed me this clipping knowing it would fascinate me and here we are.
00  The online record states that the San Francisco park had suspended the repairs to Gjoa in 1939 but resumed them after the war, and completed the effort in 1949.  The clipping here is from 1957 and has a great photo of the deck.  This image agrees with a one other [ I posted it earlier] and I have followed it. The forward anchor windless assembly is black and the mid or Main windless is dark here, and green in a museum image.  So along with the enjoyment of hearing about unsuccessful engine pirates, we gain a tid bit of info to either use or not  I understand today much more of what is on board seems to be white. There are not however comprehensive images I have found and for a few issues, I hope to be more successful. Specially how did they rig the tillar?

The working progress including a snowy New Years

This partial update is to cover some of the fiddling to get the deck furniture done. When scratch building, we get to rummage through our stash of unused stuff.  Either unused kit material or surplus buying that now fills many plastic tubs. We also get to build stuff, and it can be a real learning curve.
A.    First up the anchor windless.
1 -2 here I have taken an unused kit supplied windless that will need to be extended both for winches and gears for the drive chains.  In view 2 I  drilled holes for short extension shafts. 3-4. here I am used sheet pear wood to make up the windless stands. 5 and here we are finally set in place. I do openly admit the diameter of the barrels is a bit undersized, sorry……  Ice Bucket 

I have a question that I plan to ask Harvey….if the ice bucket is suspended as it is shown on the drawings all by itself.  I assume hung on some of those many mast rings. However, I ask……, with no extended climbing means, how did the crew get there if the wind and sea are a mess?
6-7 show two images of the ice bucket on the schooner Bowdoin.  It sits on a spreader, and the ratline takes you right there.  Just a comparison and the basis of my rhetorical question. 8-9 to build the bucket, [ it has sloped sides] I took the inside lines from the plan and shaped a plug.  I then covered it with saran wrap and over a few days glued piece after piece.  I then sliced off the bottom of the plug and glued it in for the floor.    10-11.  here is an overall view showing the anchors and some progress on the bowsprit. The second view shows the anchor winch with chain leading to the boxes and ice bucket sitting on the deck waiting for me to figure out how to attach it to the mast. The main winch pieces are waiting to be assembled with the pumps too. Cheers 
 

Yep, I knew these aftermarket offers. I made myself a ring-light for my mill many years ago on the basis of so-called 'angel's eyes' that are used in cars: https://www.maritima-et-mechanika.org/tools/attachments/attachments.html#Ring-light.
 
The problem I have with these angel's eyes is that they cold-white, which does not go well with my prefered warm-white workshop lighting (it's a hobby-setting, not an industrial one, and should be comfortable and relaxing). A yellowish tinted acrylic glass cover instead of the clear one would have solved that problem ...

Yes, after reading through it diagonally, it appears that Miller deals with making scale drawings of ships, which are indeed 2D-'models', but not models in our sense.
 
So the call is open again, for early books on building(!) shipmodels.

Hello Wefalck,
 
With the busyness of the holidays, I somehow missed this update to the log.  I’m just seeing this now.  My apologies for such a late reply.
 
I hear what you are saying about the fretwork panels, and ordinarily, I would agree with you.  The problem, I have found is with the material, itself.  Fretting out styrene - especially such small parts - is very difficult to do without introducing un-intended deformities to the perimeter of the parts;  the material is just too flexy.  This is why, I like to leave it in-sheet while I fret it.  That way, I am much less likely to break these fragile pieces, as I did with the trailbord, when I first tried doing this the more conventional way.
 
For assembly of these breast rails, I will place the central panels first - the belfry and the name plaque for the QD - which are bracketed by their stanchions to either side, and then I will build the breastworks out from the center.  I have already glued the peripheral breast panels to their corresponding outboard stanchions.
 
This way, I can bevel the stanchion knee bases to the port/strbrd camber of the deck, while ensuring that the top edges of each panel align in a fair arc.  The beauty of this approach is that I will have firmly established stanchion head locations to accurately pierce the breast work caprails.
 
Or, at least, that is my theory 😜
 
Happy New Year to All!
 
Best,
 
M

"...  as using seal skin would land me in federal prison." ... and I suppose it would be difficult to rope-in female family members to 'tan' the skins be chewing them 😁
 
I didn't realise you were that H. Golden 👍🏻   I haven't updated the literature list for quite a while, basically since I left that institute, I think. They have a master-course on artic studies (pretty broad) on which I used to teach and as a sort of extra I also gave a lecture on arctic boats. The director of the institute also is the director of the Malaurie Institute of Artic Research in Monaco (https://miarctic.org) that takes care of Jean Malaurie's legacy. 
 

Very pleasing run of the planking and nicely executed!

Yes, after reading through it diagonally, it appears that Miller deals with making scale drawings of ships, which are indeed 2D-'models', but not models in our sense.
 
So the call is open again, for early books on building(!) shipmodels.

"...  as using seal skin would land me in federal prison." ... and I suppose it would be difficult to rope-in female family members to 'tan' the skins be chewing them 😁
 
I didn't realise you were that H. Golden 👍🏻   I haven't updated the literature list for quite a while, basically since I left that institute, I think. They have a master-course on artic studies (pretty broad) on which I used to teach and as a sort of extra I also gave a lecture on arctic boats. The director of the institute also is the director of the Malaurie Institute of Artic Research in Monaco (https://miarctic.org) that takes care of Jean Malaurie's legacy. 
 

These kayaks look very realistic 👍🏻 I don't remember, did you already describe how they were made?
 
Since I worked for some years in one of the French arctic research instutes (long story how this came about), I got interested a bit in traditional skin-boats and began to collect literature on them: https://www.maritima-et-mechanika.org/maritime/maritimebibliographies/skin-boat-bibliography.pdf. I had a Greenland kayak lying in the corridor in front of my office.
 

"...  as using seal skin would land me in federal prison." ... and I suppose it would be difficult to rope-in female family members to 'tan' the skins be chewing them 😁
 
I didn't realise you were that H. Golden 👍🏻   I haven't updated the literature list for quite a while, basically since I left that institute, I think. They have a master-course on artic studies (pretty broad) on which I used to teach and as a sort of extra I also gave a lecture on arctic boats. The director of the institute also is the director of the Malaurie Institute of Artic Research in Monaco (https://miarctic.org) that takes care of Jean Malaurie's legacy. 
 

"...  as using seal skin would land me in federal prison." ... and I suppose it would be difficult to rope-in female family members to 'tan' the skins be chewing them 😁
 
I didn't realise you were that H. Golden 👍🏻   I haven't updated the literature list for quite a while, basically since I left that institute, I think. They have a master-course on artic studies (pretty broad) on which I used to teach and as a sort of extra I also gave a lecture on arctic boats. The director of the institute also is the director of the Malaurie Institute of Artic Research in Monaco (https://miarctic.org) that takes care of Jean Malaurie's legacy. 
 

These kayaks look very realistic 👍🏻 I don't remember, did you already describe how they were made?
 
Since I worked for some years in one of the French arctic research instutes (long story how this came about), I got interested a bit in traditional skin-boats and began to collect literature on them: https://www.maritima-et-mechanika.org/maritime/maritimebibliographies/skin-boat-bibliography.pdf. I had a Greenland kayak lying in the corridor in front of my office.