jud

Guns are not rigged for firing, sponges, rammer's and other loading and firing gear is not to be seen, blocks with lines and other gear scattered about. Would suspect those are capstan bars, keeping them handy, yet out of the way and not gun equipment at all. Modern man often jumps to conclusions, in an attempt to group unrelated objects together in old photos or modern arraignments of unrelated old equipment and gear. Capstans are used for more than lifting the anchor on most vessels.
 

Having finished up a number of non ship model projects I’m ready to get to work in the new year.  I have two boxwood planks that are begging to be used while I still have my wits about me, so I decided to build a “natural finish” model featuring this beautiful wood.  Before starting I decided to overhaul my Byrnes Saw and get a better thickness sander than my homemade one.
 
Before writing an order for a new sander I took a second look at my old one.
 
The more that I looked at it, the less inclined that I was to replace it.  
 

 
 

 
It’s a heavy duty floor mounted machine.  The need to glue the sanding medium on is a pain but cloth backed belt sander belts last a long time.  I also like the 12in did sanding disc mounted on the left side.  The main thing that I don’t like is the gymnastics involved with having to get around the back of the machine to pull work out while not letting go altogether and launching a missile.  While the Byrnes sander looks like an excellent machine, I decided that before buying one I would try to add a feeding mechanism to my homemade sander.  This would let me feed material in from the front without the need to pull it out of the back.  I also enjoy the satisfaction of using tools that I have built myself.
 
 
I have a simple crank operated feeding mechanism roughed out in my mind and intend to post progress as I go forward.
 
Roger

I know this is a little late, but I am a model railroader who is building the Bluejacket Jefferson Davis. (Started before the MSW Crash.) In all of my years, I have never thought "I wish I had a lathe". But spar making made me look into it. I ended up with a Grizzly Industrial hobby lathe/disk sander. Kind of like a home made lathe, but better quality. And It is relatively inexpensive. Mine cost about $55 US, but it is now up to $89 US. Since I am incapable of using a plane of any sort, this was a lifesaver. (Modelsaver?) I start with square stock, put it in the lathe, use a Stanley rasp to cut it down to Octagonal shape. (Actually, I cut it pretty far down with the rasp) then use #80 sandpaper to get it round and tapered. I hand sand it with finer sandpaper to get a nice smooth finish. It is a pretty inexpensive way to get nice round (or whatever) spars.

These two drawings are from John Harland's "Seamanship in the Age of Sail."
 
John
 

 

Phil,
I appreciate your comments above re. CAD and tend to basically agree with your observations. While I wouldn't characterize CAD drawings as being "artistic" I would say that some very proficient CAD drafters have been able to produce 3D rendered drawings (and I include your OKY BOAT pix) that certainly could almost pass for photos. I think this is an exception and not the rule overall. You are IMHO, completely correct in that much of it depends on that individual's ability to produce a quality and professional drawing in the end. There is a talent and knack to this, it's not by accident!
I'll go back to one of my earlier comments regarding the 1935 drawings at NARA II that I found of BB-38 after her modernization. These wonderful "artistic" plans were more than likely drawn ink on vellum (at least the originals that I handled appeared to be such) and that particular draftsman had an extremely professional ability in his artwork. That's the main reason I wanted scans of those drawings. While computers can produce all sorts of colors, shades, tones, etc. they tend to lack a certain "artistic" aspect of drawing that manual drawings have - nuances, if that's the correct word for it, and I think a lot of this is due to the individual in the "driver's seat". I've seen quite a few recent 3D renderings of War of 1812 era combatants that are commercially available as "artwork" and I'm sorry, they simply don't have the same "feel" that the traditional water color or oil/acrytic paintings have. They tend to be "technical" rather than "artistic" in composition.
Along the way of 47 years of drafting/CAD etc. I can honestly say that I've met very FEW engineers who could produce a correctly scaled and accurate engineering drawing that was actually useful. The usual answer was "I'm not being paid to do drafting!" - and their resulting drawings showed that over and over again (down & dirty). But, corporate heads now have virtually eliminated the Draftsman and even Designer level positions to save $$.
However, in this hobby of ship modeling I think that anyone who is able to make their own drawings, whether CAD or manual, is certainly a few steps ahead of someone who lacks these abilities. The CAD drawings I've made for my various model projects were created to make parts, not to be "artwork" per-se, while at the same time "finished drawings" that I could share with others upon request, etc. Layout & composition, etc. being rule of thumb!
As a side note, while my PENNSYLVANIA model is still basically in the box, I have already drawn up brand new main mast drawings, deck equipment drawings, and a few other miscellaneous details for that model in MicroStation 2D CAD and have shared some with Steve Larsen (Model Monkey) in order for him to produce 3D parts. ARIZONA and PENNSY are NOT identical in several aspects. 
 
Hank

Here are a couple of comments related to these discussions.
 
1. I just had a great Christmas dinner that included barbecue ribs cooked up by my significant other's youngest son. He took home economics in school and learned to cook. He is a really good cook! So I guess I can thank his home ec teacher in part for the great ribs!.
 
2. I have several thousand blueprints for the Cleveland class cruisers on microfilm. I have scanned and digitized hundreds of them for making my USS Oklahoma City model. I scanned at the equivalent of about 9000 dpi on the film. This produced clear images of even the smallest lettering.
 
Each drawing has a title box with the draftsman's initials and I soon learned to recognize the draftsman by looking at the lettering. And different people had different ways to create drawings. The scanned images are so good that I can see the tiny pencil dots that were used for centers of circles and to evenly space guide lines for the text. I love looking at these blueprints and learning how the ships were built.
 
However, some of the lettering is very poorly done. One fellow made 3 and 5 almost identical, so if the microfilm image isn't really clear you can't tell these numbers apart. And some drawings have long sequences of comments documenting changes. These were made my multiple people and the lettering quality varies from good to horrible. Some of the draftsmen were better artists than others!
 
****
 
Now I take exception to the comments that all CAD drawings are alike or not artistic. Like the paper drawings, it depends upon the draftsman. At least all of the text is legible! But different people make CAD drawings in different ways. I have worked with engineers who did sloppy work, on paper and in CAD. And I have worked with some fellows who truly were CAD artists, who took pride in their work and added all the little details that distinguish a nice blueprint from a bad one.
 
Again, everyone has their own opinion. I have worked extensively with paper drafting and CAD. I appreciate nice work done either way.

I would clean all the under surfaces of my equipment daily.  I hated having to clean up smudges so I would make a complete corrected drawing then for making the final ink drawing I overlaid a clean sheet and would trace the work from top down so I would have less chance of smearing. 

Drafting by hand is an art form and the lettering is more noticeable than the line work on all forms of it. Other than Mechanical Drawing Classes in High School, my Professional experience was with Civil Engineering and Survey Drafting by hand. The trick to good usable drawings was the correct dimensions and accurate data in the tables used to support the drawing details. Someone had to provide that data or you did the Math Yourself, scaling was not good enough. We did our Survey Drawing by plotting grid points and connecting the dots, to do that we needed coordinates, we used Rectangular and Polar both and computed them by hand using Log and Trig Tables, 'not Slide Rules', then the HP 35 came along, beginning the race to computers using COGO. A good Coordinate Geometry Program, 'COGO', was a God Send, from it Cad developed and refined enough to be useful. Hand Drafting was a mighty tool for a long time, but it seldom stood alone. If you wish to design or build from your own plans, uses cad, or learn some Geometry and Trig to run and intersect vectors for dimensions, full size, your drawings with hand fitting oversized parts will work as it has for years.
 

As a child I took 9 years of art classes outside the regular school system. In these I learned about perspective, viewpoints and such, all for the purpose of making pretty pictures - what is called "art."
 
But I have always had the ability to create 3D perspective drawings on paper. For me it was fun. I made straight As in geometry in junior high school - it all came naturally to me.  In college my freshman roommate was majoring in engineering, and he had mechanical drawing classes. Like so many people he had no concept of perspective. I would look at the three-view (front, side, top) 2D images and just draw the 3D perspective for him by hand.
 
Years later I learned how to use mechanical drawing tools for work on drafting boards. I read through some drafting books and it was all pretty obvious. Again, it came naturally. I have always loved to draw (and still do), whether it is an artistic picture, a botanical drawing or an engineering plan for a house or machined part.
 
Then along came CAD in the late 1980s. We used AutoCRUD at first and it was awful! What we called a VERY user unfriendly program. One day one of the engineers tried a CAD program called ProDesign. One look at the user interface (the best I have ever seen on any program) and AutoCRUD went into the trash. We have used the same program ever since, although the program has changed hands from company to company several times. Today DesignCAD is considered to be a "hobby" program, and it lacks some of the bells and whistles of more expensive programs. But it is still a very capable 2D and 3D drawing program. Considering it costs about $100 with free bug fixes and technical support, and it has a great free user Forum where you can ask experienced users how to do things and solve problems, it is a tremendous bargain.  Some of the "professional" CAD programs I have also used ($15,000 per seat with $1500 per year fees for technical support and access to user forums) can't do some of the things the $100 DesignCAD can do!
 
So I have experience from both sides. I still do preliminary "back of the napkin" sketches on paper with pencil. I love working with wood and building wood ship models. But the ability to rework a drawing in CAD without messy erasers and whiteout, or just redrawing the entire thing as you do on paper makes CAD the ONLY way to go for a large complex drawing. If you have any doubts, just ask yourself how you rescale the size of text on a paper drawing that was created with a Leroy set? You start over and create a new drawing sheet - all of it. In CAD you click on the text and say I want it 25% larger, and while we are at it let's use a different font. And I can take an old CAD drawing and modify it to create new things without starting over from scratch.
 
But is it art, and can you use it for ship modeling?  And do you need 3D?
 
First, some people will never understand 3D drawing. One of their greatest handicaps has been familiarity with 2D drawing techniques, and even 2D CAD. In 2D you draw an image of something in the real world. In 3D you create an entirely new world. It is not drawing, drafting or anything like it - it is modeling, as if you were creating something out of modeling clay, only it is virtual clay. Very few 2D drawing techniques apply to 3D, and 3D CAD programs have a different set of tools. Instead of a pencil you have to learn to use a virtual chisel or drill. I know a fellow who has been using a 3D CAD program for years and still hasn't developed an understanding of 3D. He just doesn't get it when it comes to turning 2D sketches into 3D models. He cannot create the 3D image in his mind, and you have to be able to do this for 3D CAD. I think it would be better if he didn't try! But I was doing 3D perspective drawing with pencil on paper in grade school and instantly understood 3D CAD. So you should keep this in mind before you take the 3D CAD plunge. Like any program there is a learning curve, but if you understand 3D modeling it will be a lot easier to learn how to use the tools in the program.
 
Can you use CAD for ship modeling? Someone commented it was good for creating new designs, and that certainly is true! But I have seen a number of CAD models of historical ships, even wooden sailing ships. There CAD has a great advantage in some ways. For example, after you have created a double sheave block you can replicate it endlessly and even resize the copies with a few clicks. With a true CAD system you can control dimensions precisely, and that is important if you are copying the design of an historical ship.
 
Is it art? That depends upon what you call art. What is the purpose of the model? Any model, either wood or CAD? Is a chair art? I have seen a few that were exquisitely crafted, but in the end they are chairs, with a functional use.
 
Is this art?
 

 
These are images of a CAD model of the USS Oklahoma City CLG-5 as it existed in the summer of 1971 (when I was aboard). It was created from the original 1959 blueprints with hundreds of modifications that were made over the years. It is a 1:1 scale model, 610 feet long in the CAD universe. You might rightly call me a "rivet counter" because I modeled all the nuts, bolts screws and rivets (everything) that were 3/16 inch (4.76 mm) across or larger in the real world. About 1/3 of the 1+ gigabyte file is nuts, bolts, rivets and screws (however, I did not model the threads - that would have made the file 50-100 gigabytes). There are several hundred thousand individual parts. It took 14 years to acquire the plans and photos of the ship and the equipment on board and convert them into the 3D CAD model.
 
It is not a CAD model of the ship like ship builders use. It only contains the exterior. None of the internal structure is included. But it is a model of an historical ship that was produced in 3D CAD. Perhaps I am boasting, but it may be the most accurate model of a ship ever created. However, it is certainly "too accurate" to be correct for its dimensions are  precise to thousandths of an inch, and for the most part the shipyards certainly didn't do that accurate work! And dimensions in the real world change with temperature and time.
 
So is it art? What is the purpose of a model? Can models be art? If the only way to truly appreciate the model is to view images, how is this different from looking at paintings of historical ships? Each of us has an opinion, and no one's opinions are any better than anyone else's' opinion. But I have enjoyed making this CAD model as much or more than any painting, photograph or wooden model I have made. It was fun!
 
If you are interested in this model and how it was built:
 
 
For a lot more more information about the ship see:
 
www.okieboat.com
 
 

Drafting by hand is an art form and the lettering is more noticeable than the line work on all forms of it. Other than Mechanical Drawing Classes in High School, my Professional experience was with Civil Engineering and Survey Drafting by hand. The trick to good usable drawings was the correct dimensions and accurate data in the tables used to support the drawing details. Someone had to provide that data or you did the Math Yourself, scaling was not good enough. We did our Survey Drawing by plotting grid points and connecting the dots, to do that we needed coordinates, we used Rectangular and Polar both and computed them by hand using Log and Trig Tables, 'not Slide Rules', then the HP 35 came along, beginning the race to computers using COGO. A good Coordinate Geometry Program, 'COGO', was a God Send, from it Cad developed and refined enough to be useful. Hand Drafting was a mighty tool for a long time, but it seldom stood alone. If you wish to design or build from your own plans, uses cad, or learn some Geometry and Trig to run and intersect vectors for dimensions, full size, your drawings with hand fitting oversized parts will work as it has for years.
 

Drafting by hand is an art form and the lettering is more noticeable than the line work on all forms of it. Other than Mechanical Drawing Classes in High School, my Professional experience was with Civil Engineering and Survey Drafting by hand. The trick to good usable drawings was the correct dimensions and accurate data in the tables used to support the drawing details. Someone had to provide that data or you did the Math Yourself, scaling was not good enough. We did our Survey Drawing by plotting grid points and connecting the dots, to do that we needed coordinates, we used Rectangular and Polar both and computed them by hand using Log and Trig Tables, 'not Slide Rules', then the HP 35 came along, beginning the race to computers using COGO. A good Coordinate Geometry Program, 'COGO', was a God Send, from it Cad developed and refined enough to be useful. Hand Drafting was a mighty tool for a long time, but it seldom stood alone. If you wish to design or build from your own plans, uses cad, or learn some Geometry and Trig to run and intersect vectors for dimensions, full size, your drawings with hand fitting oversized parts will work as it has for years.
 

Nice work. Keep some of your hull finish on hand, going to need some touch up when you modify the Gudgeons and Pintals so the rudder will swing.
 

Probably thousands of different ways to secure the small boats different vessels carried as long as they are secure. Stowed with the keels down, I would expect a cover to be secured and vented to protect the interior from water and damage from the sun, would not find it amiss if the keel was up to be covered. There are many hitches using loops to create a tackle to draw tension into ropes, what most call the truckers hitch is one many use today.

Schooner iced up. A particular danger in sailing vessels, not just extra top hamper, but running rigging tends to seize up so sails become unmanageable. W/C 16.5” X 11.75”

Don’t forget, a boat exists to float!  Therefore, if a heavy sea fills up the well deck formed by the forecastle, poop deck and bulwarks whatever is holding the boat down is subject to the full buoyant force of the water surrounding it.  I would suggest a couple of beams across it athwartships, secured by lashings of several turns sequired to ringbolts in the deck.
 
A more likely scenario would be Welflack’s comment that the boat would be stored upside down.  While the ship was on a voyage the boat would not be needed.
 
Roger

Unfortunately, the gun drill, as performed by the USS Constitution crew, is not very accurately portrayed.
 
Regards,

Fletcher Class Destroyer USS Nicholson with Oiler 
W/C 16,5” X19.75”
Jim

We had this discussion some place else, I think, already ... anyway, it seems that the friction in the gun tackles also transform a considerable amount of the recoil energy into heat. The breech rope was sort of the ultimate stop, as also the movement of the gun depends on the movement of the ship after the gun is fired. In later times, when slide carriages with different types of recoil brakes were introduced, the breech rope lengths were reduced to a minimum. There is a balance to strike between the maximum allowable strain on the parts of the gun and the breech-rope on one hand and the space for the movement of the gun on the other hand. Also, the further the gun moves away from the bulwark, the more difficult it becomes to control and bring back into loading and firing position.

Good Afternoon Helge;
 
If you have a completed drawing on paper, I assume of a large size, the  usual course would be to have the drawing scanned at a printer's works or by someone with a large-format scanner. The output will then be in a digital format, ideally png file, which can then be sent anywhere in the World by email, and loaded into a CAD drawing as an underlay. This underlay will have to be traced over using AutoCAD generated lines, arcs or curves, though, before it can be 'seen' by the CAD software.
 
I am not aware of any software which will reliably convert a paper drawing, or a digital scan of a paper drawing, straight into a usable CAD drawing. There has been  some discussion of this on this forum, and the outcome seems to be that there is, as yet, no reliable way of making a straightforward conversion, despite some programmes claiming to do this. 
 
All the best,
 
Mark P
 
 

If you have ever chased anything massive that has came adrift at sea, you will understand why the large Breaching Rope was in place, not to stop recoil, but to stop the gun from becoming a massive ram powered by gravity. Would only expect the guns to make the breaching taught if the gun was fired on the up-roll and gravity was assisting. Much of the forces of recoil would be consumed in getting the mass moving, once that was done, all the recoil forces would be expended and coasting to a stop would be the norm. Putting a gun crew down from a near hit, would place that gun out of control and depending on the seas, on it's wheels or not would have little effect on it potential travels, hence the heavy breaching keeping that gun from taking others out. The length has been well defined and explained above

Messis
Water squirting up especially in a following sea was indeed a problem.   There was often a rudder "coat" made of tarred canvas or perhaps leather around the hole where the rudder passed through the counter.    In addition, the head of the rudder was housed in a removable box, often octagonal in shape so if water did come up to that point it was contained and could run back down and out.
Allan

A bit of Engineering geekiness...
 
32 pounder, weighing 5500lb, firing at say 200m/s (guesstimate), would cause the gun to recoil at ca. 1.16m/s.
 
That translates to a kinetic energy of 1,682Joule.
 
To absorb that energy over a 1.5m recoil (just over 5ft), a constant force of ca. 1100N would be required, i.e. ca. 110kg force.
 
Now, those guns were ca. 2.5te and the carriages had small diameter wooden wheels on wooden axles with fairly primitive bearings. I make the friction factor 0.1 or so, for a friction force of 250kg.
 
Which means the gun would be very unlikely to ever recoil enough to get the breeching line violently taut, as the wheel friction alone would have stopped it a couple of feet before that.
 
My guess is the breeching lines were probably an assurance. 

Looks like a good model from here. There have been some well researched Endeavour's done on this Site, suggest they be reviewed and perhaps some modifications made topside. One I like was the crossover at the Tiller, not being merely a convenience for old stiff seamen but with all the mapping done by Cook was, infact, a platform to place a Plane Table and Alidade used for mapping, that would require more fore-aft distance than the model currently is equipped with. I have used a Plane Table and Alidade to run miles of "P" Line, ( preliminary Line), for road designed using aerial photos and the design printed on mylar for field use running the Centerline on the ground, also have used it to create Topographic Maps where precision was not critical so understand how Captain Cook might have used that space to his advantage. That experience and having made my living as a professional Land Surveyor makes that research more valid than other explanations for that crossover, these were active men and did not need  the thing for crossing from side to side. Sore back and burning eyes from glare when using. 
 

Depends on the hatch board and the intended method of lifting. The most common mistake made by modelers when creating lifting hardware for hatchboards, is that they an not made to rest flush  with the surface of the board. Hatches are battened down after covering with an old tarp or two or three, then the top weatherproof cover is put in place and battened down, don't want lumps to trip over or to wear a hole in the tarps, so flush with the lifting hardware, regardless of type.
 

Those who served aboard the Fletchers and served with the WW2 Vets and Korea Vets who rode those ships in combat are entitled to find fault with the details, including the acting.