wefalck

Sure, he is still active, but indeed hasn't made much progress in recent years on the bone-model. Perhaps, because he is rather busy as the editor of the LOGBUCH, the quarterly of our German equivalent to the NRG.

These boats/ships must have been very wet, think also of rain. So most goods would have be very carefully protected. Bales of skins could be an option. However, bales of cloth would have also been stored in barrels. Life animals might be another option.
 

Can't respond on possible figurines. There may be something in 1/24 that could be converted with some effort.
 
As to any goods, this would depend from where to where the ship was sailing and in what mission: trade or loot (I gather the border between the two might have been a bit muddled at times ...)
 
Right up to the 19th century, perishable goods and those, where humidity either had to be kept in (say pickled fish, beer, wine, etc.) or out (metal ware, dried fish, cereals/flour, etc.) where stored in closed barrels, the containers of the time. A typical good of a ship sailing to Island or Greenland would have been wood, pitch and all sorts of provisions. Ships sailing from the Eastern Baltic would have carried inter alia pine-tar, pitch, wood, hemp etc. There were some major trade-hubs, such as Haithabu and Birka, where everything from agricultural produce, metal ware, luxury goods to slaves were traded.

Sure, he is still active, but indeed hasn't made much progress in recent years on the bone-model. Perhaps, because he is rather busy as the editor of the LOGBUCH, the quarterly of our German equivalent to the NRG.

Sure, he is still active, but indeed hasn't made much progress in recent years on the bone-model. Perhaps, because he is rather busy as the editor of the LOGBUCH, the quarterly of our German equivalent to the NRG.

I am not an expert on kits, but it seems that the laser-cut kit by Master Korable are setting standards as far as the precision and ease of building is concerned, judging by the various building logs here and on other fora. They apparently also require a minimum set of tools only.
 
I cannot speak from experience, as I grew into this hobby since my childhood, but it may be advisable, when diving into the deepe end, to takle a boat-kit first, rather than a ship-kit as ones mentioned in your post. Ships are quite complex 'beings' and it is easy, even with a good kit, to get lost, when you don't have a good feeling for how a ship is actually constructed. And once you get lost, you may become frustrated and give up, which would be a pity. Also, one should not underestimate the challenge of rigging and you may actually spend more time on it than on building the hull (particularly with laser-cut kits) - there are very few short-cuts for rigging-job well-done.

At long last I have finished this model. After all the cutting, grinding and reshaping I have finally managed to put the pieces of this jigsaw together (approx 150 hours). 
I would NOT recommend this kit to anyone unless you are good with metals as many of the pieces simply don't fit and you have to settle for second rate joins or try and modify the diecast and PE pieces.
Looking at the images, it has come up reasonably good as it is difficult to see the problem sections!

Can't respond on possible figurines. There may be something in 1/24 that could be converted with some effort.
 
As to any goods, this would depend from where to where the ship was sailing and in what mission: trade or loot (I gather the border between the two might have been a bit muddled at times ...)
 
Right up to the 19th century, perishable goods and those, where humidity either had to be kept in (say pickled fish, beer, wine, etc.) or out (metal ware, dried fish, cereals/flour, etc.) where stored in closed barrels, the containers of the time. A typical good of a ship sailing to Island or Greenland would have been wood, pitch and all sorts of provisions. Ships sailing from the Eastern Baltic would have carried inter alia pine-tar, pitch, wood, hemp etc. There were some major trade-hubs, such as Haithabu and Birka, where everything from agricultural produce, metal ware, luxury goods to slaves were traded.

Sorry, I indeed missed the point with the carpenters' glue. So once trimmed to shape, you lift off the assembly, apply the glue and put it back, right?
 

I quite like the look of the 'painted canvas' decks. My concern, however, would be how long it stays attached to the decks. These masking tapes are designed to be not too tacky and I know that ordinary painters' masking tape becomes quite brittle with time.
 
Good luck with your lecture and make sure that the audience watches with their eyes and not their fingers 😉 

That  would have been a job for my shop-built filing machine ...
 
I like the strategy for arriving at a solid round boss. Instinctively, I would have tried to silver-solder the boss on, but the large brass-piece might have drawn too much heat.

Absolutely. Here my personal selection: https://www.maritima-et-mechanika.org/maritime/madrid/madrid.html
 
The building inside is also congenial.

I gather the postman was well-paid for this 🤑 ... shipping cost from everywhere have exploded - except the for the Chinese, who are state-subsidised.

In my experience, acrylics are better applied by airbrush. Somehow, the self-levelling is not as good as for organic solvent-based paints. They also dry too fast to be able to equalise them well. Or may be, I am not that good a painter ...

I'll tell you a good model to start with that many on the forum may agree with ...

Just a little bit of further progress before the Easter-weekend …
 
Stern anchor-crane
 
There are drawings as well as the photograph below that show the anchor-crane in some detail.
 
 Basically, the dimensions are the same as that of the boat-davits, so that I was able to use a spare one that was left over. The ball at the end was drilled for the ring into which during service the anchor-tackle would be hooked. When not in service, the davit was steadied with two chain-stays.

 
The set-up is very similar to that of the boat davits and the same processes were used.
 
Gun-sights
 
Gun-aiming technology didn’t significantly progress until towards the end of the 19th century. Just very basic front sights were used that sat on the trunnions, while the rear sights were adjustable in height for different distances and laterally for lead-angles. The rear sights used on the 30,5 cm gun a clearly visible on photograph below. Galster (1885) gives a detailed description. Basically, it is brass-tube of about 4 cm diameter that is set into a whole drilled vertically through the rear of the gun. In this tube runs a graduated brass-rod for setting the elevation as a function of the type of projectile used and the size of the powder charge. Firing tables were provided with the gun. On top of the rod is a cross-piece that runs in a dovetail-slot and allows to pre-set the lead-angle. The lead-angle was calculated inter alia on the basis of the estimated relative speed of the target and its distance. There was the usual V-notch on the top of cross-piece. 
 
It took several tries to produce these tiny pieces. In the end their dimensions are slightly over-scale due to the limitations of machining brass. Starting from 0.8 mm brass-nails, which are slightly harder than the usual brass wire due to the forging process, a 1.5 mm length of 0.2 mm diameter was step-turned over short lengths successively. Then a 0.2 mm long length was turned down to 0.7 mm diameter and this ‘rod’ with a disc at the end parted off. Luckily, I have a 0.2 mm collet for the lathe, so that the part could be inverted and the parted-off end cleaned up. With a pair of cutting-tweezers the disc was clipped down to the size of the cross-piece. Burrs were removed with a fine file.
This part fits into a 2 mm long section of 0.3 mm OD brass-tube (from Albion metals).
 
When I made the gun-barrel in about 2008, I did not have really the technology to safely drill to any depths the 0.3 mm holes for the sights, I was glad to be able to mill the flats with a broken drill that I had ground flat at the end. With my micro-milling machine and the dividing head this would not be a real issue anymore. Unfortunately, I forgot to do that before painting the barrel. Therefore, the sights had to be simply cemented onto the flats with a tiny drop of shellac.
Before doing that I also added the protective frames over the sights using some 0.007 mm diameter silver-wire.
 
Also installed were the last two of the ventilators for the officers’ mess.
 
What remains now is the flagstaff and the ensign. I have already found a suitable technique for the complex ensign of the Imperial German Navy, but have to still get the right red for it.
 
And then on to the crew …
 
 
To be continued ....

I can only speak about German naval boats, but I think it would be more or less the same for all navies: The bow-oars were indeed shorter than the others, as the boat would be much narrower at the first bench.
 
Some 30 years ago a colleague of mine, who unfortunately died prematurely a couple of years ago, wrote a series of articles on the naval oars of the Imperial German Navy that summarise the knowledge pulled together from various books, naval instruction manuals etc. that are difficult to put your hands on. Although, I do have some of these sources, these articles were extremely helpful, when I worked on my current project.
 
He gives as a rule of thumb the following dimensions/proportions:
 
Length = 3 times largest breadth of the boat, 2/3 outside, 1/3 inside the boat.
Max diameter = 0.017 times the length at 1/3 of the length
Handle = 0.8 times the larges diameter and about a foot long
Length of the blade = 0.27 to 0.3 of the total length of the oar
Max breadth of the blade = 1.5 times the max. diameter.
Min. thickness of the blade = 0.16 times the max. diameter, at the end.
 
In fact, there are tables with detailed dimensions for all the oars of the Imperial Navy, which were standardised to nine different sizes and matched to the different boat types, which were provided in different size classes. In fact, there were some 20 different boat types in the navy.
 

Good morning.

Wooden bulwarks on the bridges of a steamship.

Thank you all for your kind reviews and likes!  
 
I continue making wooden parts for the model.
The photo shows the cargo hatch cover.

Nice progress indeed !
 
Just wondering: where the pilot-houses open to the rear?

Sorry, I indeed missed the point with the carpenters' glue. So once trimmed to shape, you lift off the assembly, apply the glue and put it back, right?
 

I quite like the look of the 'painted canvas' decks. My concern, however, would be how long it stays attached to the decks. These masking tapes are designed to be not too tacky and I know that ordinary painters' masking tape becomes quite brittle with time.
 
Good luck with your lecture and make sure that the audience watches with their eyes and not their fingers 😉 

Sorry, I indeed missed the point with the carpenters' glue. So once trimmed to shape, you lift off the assembly, apply the glue and put it back, right?
 

I quite like the look of the 'painted canvas' decks. My concern, however, would be how long it stays attached to the decks. These masking tapes are designed to be not too tacky and I know that ordinary painters' masking tape becomes quite brittle with time.
 
Good luck with your lecture and make sure that the audience watches with their eyes and not their fingers 😉