druxey

These "naval" hood descriptions definitely pre-date cast iron hawse pipes which negated the need of such wooden reinforcements. When we refer to "navel" hoods, we are not introducing our own term for these structures, which have no relation to the old fashioned "naval" hood. We're merely requoting a term used by Scottish sailor and journalist Duncan McLean. Here are several examples of large American sailing ships and their bow treatments. Note that they all feature a cutwater which extends beyond the bare stem. All have a sheerline molding that advances beyond the bow and terminates below the bowsprit and in the case of figureheads runs up to about the shoulder.Great Admiral has an impressive carved, gilded cutwater, while her sheerline molding extends up above the figurehead, note there's no navel hood. In a similar way, Barque Amy Turner has a sheerline molding that extends up to the shoulders of her graceful female figurehead and she has a carved cutwater. Again no navel hood.  The third merchant ship is another large sailing vessel, that I couldn't find identification for. She has a no nonsense billethead, which is at the end of her thin navel hoods which have some carvings on them too. Note how the navel hoods adhere to the hull before curving out and extending to the billethead. The ends of the navel hoods terminate at the billethead, while the modest base joins the hull just above her iron hawse hole. Meanwhile it appears like her sheerline molding has been extended in a straight line to the billethead as well. From three cast rectangular shadows it looks like she also had an old fashioned grid between her cutwater and the sheerline pole. Now compare these typical American vessels to what Rob and I now refer to as the unique McKay bow. While the sheerline molding extends to the tip of the navel hood, it's less noticeable due to the large sized navel hood below. Rob and I calculated the base depth to be about 3 & 1/2 feet. From this ultra close up of her November 1869 Glory of the Seas scene on the ways we realized how large these devices were. We know that the graceful Athene figurehead is documented as being exactly 7 & 1/2 feet tall. From her starboard bow scene we were able to determine that she projects at least 8 feet forward from the bow. Meanwhile the entire length of this structure is close to 16 feet, since it adheres so tightly to the  curving bow. Beneath the Grecian goddess figurehead, where her feet are resting is the cutwater. It too projects about 8 feet from the bow. Having a cutwater extend that far outward would normally leave it vulnerable to being washed away by heavy seas. That's why McKay's solution is so ingenious. By essentially extending the strength of the bow and sandwiching stem and cutwater between these massive devices makes for a very strong prow. In addition the massive 24 foot long bowsprit mounted and lashed just above gets about 9 feet of added support at the base. So, while her lovely figurehead gets some shelter and a very strong mounting bar which attaches through her back, her feet get added support from a sturdy cutwater beneath. Now compare and contrast this eminently sensible, thought out bow arrangement to the many sad examples of McKay models with just a bare stem and figurehead awkwardly tacked on almost as an afterthought. I know which prow I believe makes far more sense. The only other example we have of an actual McKay bow is the 1854 Champion of the Seas daguerrotype. She was noted to have a full sized sailor with his hat in his right hand and his left extended in a friendly wave. Again we can see a razor sharp bow. The image is of an imposing, large clipper with a very sharp hull. Since the photographer had to be at a great distance from their subject in order to capture the entire vessel, much detail isn't so easily distinguished. Still, the sailor figurehead is inclined and there's a substantial gilded, carved device immediately behind and slightly below the figurehead. Rob and I immediately recognize this as the same massive navel hoods supporting a carved, embellished cutwater beneath. That means a McKay clipper from 1854 and one from 1869, 15 years later both had the exact same bow treatment.
 

In the most famous version of the painting, Icarus is just a pair of legs sticking out of the water - typical Breughel humour! There is another version of the painting floating around that also shows Daedalus flying off in the distance...that would be much harder to render realistically! The model looks really nice! As small as it is, it has a grandness to it.
hamilton

And, in British ships, the names, when painted (this would be the 1760's to about 1790) were simply painted on, never in 3D. This is a conceit of kit manufacturers.

Continuation: Attaching the fore yard - Vergue de misaine - with running rigging
Following up to my previous post, here are two more pictures and a brief explanation of how to make a seizing for the sling directly on the model.
The first picture shows me holding and securing the two sling ropes together with tweezers on the left. Using the tweezers on the right, I then wrapped the yarn (spun yarn) around the two ropes. I then pulled the yarn through twice between the ropes, perpendicular to the winding. Finally, the end was tucked under one of the two yarns and pulled tight in the middle. I only soaked the free end of the yarn with a tiny amount of superglue. Thin superglue penetrates the yarn well, so that even after trimming off the excess yarn, it is still sufficiently secured.

The goal is to make the superglue completely unnoticeable, which doesn't always work perfectly. It's very important not to get the superglue on the seizing itself. Otherwise, the superglue will negatively affect the appearance of the seizing.

The result can be seen in the second picture:

I hope I made that clear.

To be continued ...

@albert
Hello,
First of all, I would like to thank you for your interest in my model building.
 
Let's continue with a small detail:
 
Continued: Running Rigging - Seizings
Before I continued rigging my French corvette, here the lifts of the fore yard, I asked myself the fundamental question of how and with what I should perform the required seizing of the running rigging.
In my search for an example of original rigging, I found what I was looking for in the replica of the L'Hermione. This appears to be the fore topsail halyard, a similar situation to the one used to attach the tackles for the lifts.
As discussed several times in another forum, the running rigging was also lightly tarred, as was the spun yarn for the seizing.
In the following picture, I have compared three possible seizings for my model with the example from the L'Hermione.

Accordingly, I'll opt for the top option, as I believe it's closest to the original.
As already mentioned with the standing rigging, the need for thimbles for a sailing ship model is enormous. This, of course, also applies to the running rigging. Therefore, I'll have to make some more thimbles.
To be continued...

Made my first attempt at printing flags on tissue paper and couldn't get the paper to not jam up in the printer ☹️
 
I was able to print on regular paper and thought about folding them over, but I know how thick that ends up. Decided to see how good the alignment consistency is on my printer. Turns out, if I'm careful and have the images perfectly centered, I can print one side, flip the paper over, and print on the other, and it's pretty darned close.
 
I have three usable flags done this way now, and just the pendant left. I don't have any artwork for that flag, so I'll have to draw it up from scratch. Pretty basic, so it shouldn't take that long to do.
 

I only folded the flag above. I didn't try to wet it at all. I'm not sure of the colorfastness of this ink. I'm using some cheap third-party ink, so I think I have to spray this with something to keep the colors from running. But, I'm not sure if that's just going to make the whole flag itself waterproof, and prevent me from using water to shape it. It probably doesn't matter, as I think the flags will shape nicely, even without wetting them.
 

 
The one thing I forgot about is the white edge of the paper. It's just like paper modeling, one needs to color the edge to take off the bright white color. 
 
Note that I tried to give the above flag some texture, but I made it a bit too wrinkly. I'll keep that in mind for the final flags.
 
 

The planking of the hull is complete.

It required lots cutting, but all of those "arched" openings give it great character. 
Nice work.
Mike

The bulwarks are installed, as is the front bulkhead of the aft castle. The bulkhead of the forecastle will have to wait a bit longer, as some of the interior still needs to be added. Still missing are the lower planking on the hull and the uppermost decks of the castles, as well as the whales.
 
It's turning out quite nice and already shows significant differences from the painting, especially in the shape of the lower bow.
 
I'm looking forward to the rigging. Hopefully, I'll be able to capture the character of the sails. (Although the depiction of the mizzen seems illogical to me.)
 
Best regards, Alvb

QUOTE:  “In my analysis of the painting, it has become increasingly clear that while the depiction appears to be perspectively correct, it is not.   The optical foreshortening and the vanishing point perspective, as well as the perspective of the bow and the stern, cannot be reconciled.”  ALVB
 
 
Hello ALVB,
To me, it is fun to see this attempt to create the carrack in this painting, despite the fact that the image in the painting does not have the correct perspective.  There are many details on the painting that will need to be corrected to produce a realistic model.  I think the important point is the “inspiration” this painting provides to inspire the builder to create the best rendition his skills will allow.  You are entitled to some artistic license with this project.  I hope you have fun with it.
Mike

One of my favourite paintings of all time and the subject of a lecture I give on technology and ethics - will be nice to see that lovely ship come off the canvas!
hamilton

Hello everyone,
 
As already mentioned in the other thread, I've started building a Breughelche carrack.
 
The hull is slowly taking shape. (I'm afraid it doesn't have much in common with the original anymore... never mind.)
 

 

 

 
Greetings Alvb

I haven't posted for a while, but I'm back working on the model. The sailing trip in Tassie is posted in another part of this forum, linked below if you're interested.
 
Back to the model, I've been working on the cockpit area, starting with the toe rails, just visible on the upper deck forwards of the cockpit. The toe rails were delicate, about 1.5 x 2.5mm & maybe 300mm long. Then the timber strips that visually complete the hull step-down alongside the cockpit. The timber is Blackbutt, from the same floorboard offcut I used for the gunwales & sponsons.

 
Then the small cupped strip aft of the previous photo, to fit in this curve:

 
I had a piece of round acrylic tube about the right diameter:

Then some more sanding:

 
I picked up an error in that strip of side decks, on one side I'd clearly been daydreaming while sanding....so I added on a filler piece of timber, then undercoat, paint etc.:

 
I painted the two-tone deck (or scuppers area) around the cockpit seating. On the yacht it's painted in a more modern style, where there's an edge strip with the deck paint set in, & in different colours. Tamiya have masking tape in 2mm width, which helped get a constant gap, plus some 6mm masking tape to help stop overpainting onto the adjoining finished paint.

Then glueing the timber strips on - as per the previous timber, I really prefer shellac for scale varnish, the thin viscosity helps the finish to look right at scale. Not to say you can't get other finishes to look right at scale, but this works for me & it dries quickly...& I like the way you can matt it with steel wool & gradually buff it back to satin with some cotton rag.
 
Then carefully fitting the little curved pieces...

And one side done.

Then both. Some details fixes will be required to the paint, but I'll do that all in one go later.

The deck will get painted soon, so I started shellacking the cockpit stormboards, made earlier.


 
I'll paint the deck next I think, then start on the weathered teak cockpit seats & other details.
 
Thanks everyone
 

Here's what the model looks like with the propeller unit in place:

Return piping for the coolant to make it back from the radiators was also added today. I'm waiting on some resin spark plug boots to see if they will make the ignition harness wiring look better than what I could do on my 14bis model. Then some rigging...
 
 

Congrats on completing a very nice model.

Thank you all!
 
I think I've decided on going with Syren as well. Mostly because I would also like to get some better sheave blocks and ropesofscale doesn't have those haha
 
That makes perfect sense!
 
Good! You're so close and it looks amazing!

Really, really nice: Well done!
 
And you're inspiring me to finish mine.
 
In a loose pile at the helmsman's feet. There's no chance to keep it neatly coiled, as it is hauled in and veered out with every gust of wind. Then again, in a little boat like the pram, a tangle when you need to let the sheet out will set you swimming, so one of the skills a small-boat sailor must develop is keeping that loose pile free of tangles. It comes with experience, reinforced when necessary by a dunking in cold water or (far worse) a dunking in cold water that you share with your non-sailor wife.
 
Been there. Done that. 🥲
 
Trevor

Whelp, a big day today. Just finished everything up!!
 
Started with getting the back stays. With the fore stay done I used a rubberband to hold the mast back and to help it from moving. I then used a knot that can be easily tightened and holds under tension (knot 1472 is closest I could find quickly. Instead of both ends doing the same knot, just doing one with the loose end of the back stay). Once this is done, it's incredibly simple to tighten both sides equally. This also made it easy to lash the loop under tension.
 
After this was done, it was just a couple more things. Hoisting the sail and main sheet. This was pretty simple but tying them off on the small cleats was annoying. Not sure if it is because the quality of the cordage or bad technique haha. I was following Trevor's masterclass on belaying to a cleat here:
 
I ended up just doing a loose coil of the sheet on the floorboards. I just imagine it is used often and wouldn't be in a fancy pinwheel. Not sure how it would actually be stored while in use.
 
All in all, I had a ton of fun building this and have learned so much. I just couldn't stop working on it in all of my free time 🤣 I've got the smack instructions out and have started reading them and I've already ready many a build log on it. Look forward to starting a new log and thanks everyone for the comments and likes on this one!

 

For ships much later in the 18th century for examples...toggles were used to secure blocks under the top.  They are also used in other places but are usually too tiny to make and have look good.   Even with 3D printing these 3mm toggles are a bear to make.   They just get all over the place and its impossible to keep them on the sprues at this size.  But I am getting the hang of it.
 
Chuck
 

 

 
 

While restocking rope I am trying to take advantage of the downtime to finally make some new stuff...
 
Belaying pins...9.5mm and 14.3mm
 
And some teeny tiny toggles.  3mm, 4mm, and 5mm long
 
To begin with just the boxwood color.
 
The belaying pins are in no way as strong as brass.  But they are plenty strong enough as long as you dont over-do the tightness....which you shouldnt be doing anyway.  The toggles are also quite resilient.  Pictured are some tests in 3 and 4 mm long.
 
So look for them on my fittings page when I reopen next week.
 
 
 

 

Ab: you have opened a large can of worms here! The plans for Fubbs are for the rebuild of the 1720's and differ somewhat from the earlier Stuart classic yachts.
 
As you may know, Effie and I are working on a book covering all the yachts of the Stuart era. There is scanty hard evidence of internal arrangements. The most detailed 'plan' (and perhaps showing artistic licence) are the Vincenzo Coronelli plates of Isabella that include a longitudinal section:
 

So pleased for you Chuck to have such a “first world” problem. Long may it continue!

Well, LOL...you guys actually managed to do it.   I thought it would have been impossible.   You cleaned me out...literally every package of rope and every package of blocks...swiss pear that is.   At 1:45 PM I had to call it, a $620 order for rope from a great customer in Germany.  He cleaned the shelves empty of what was left. Approx. 3600 linear feet of rope.
 
Unfortunately this means I have to close up the store to restock.   Otherwise they literally sell out as quickly as I can make them.  I need to build up some cushion in my inventory so I dont have a heart attack chasing orders while open.  Its springtime...its beautiful outside.  What are you guys doing cooped up in the shop buying so much ship model stuff?  Get outside in the garden and enjoy the great weather, LOL.
 
Seriously though, thank you so much....and sorry about the delay.
 
I am working on it!!  Lets see, I think I am working on 5mm pear deadeyes currently and .018 brown rope...a long way to go.  
 
I am not going anywhere and I am NOT going out of business, there is no pandemic...so I have no idea why or what seems to be happening.  Its mind-boggling to say the least.  Crazy
 

The current list of items can be found here: 
 
https://www.canada.ca/en/department-finance/news/2025/03/list-of-products-from-the-united-states-subject-to-25-per-cent-tariffs-effective-march-4-2025.html

A quick skim through the list and I found the following goods pertinent to model ship building are currently subject to 25% tariffs:

•Wood strip, various species exceeding 6mm in thickness 
•MDF
•Plywood
•Various tools, hand and power, knives, blades etc. (consult list linked above for specifics)

All other goods would be subject to the usual basic personal exemption in place prior to tariffs going into effect.
 
Since most of Chuck’s wares could be considered as “Toys or Toy Parts” they are not yet subject to any tariffs, as far as I can see from the list.
 
Keep in mind, as well, that the list applies only to goods originating from the US. Goods manufactured elsewhere, but subsequently sold from a US retailer would also not be subject to tariffs.
 
As Chuck said, more tariffs could be coming, but the Canadian government should publish any updates.
 
Andy

More engine work today - added the coolant intake manifolds and the lower coolant pump together with the connections between the two. I'm using one of the castings from the Model Airways engine kit for the magneto and associated gearing. I've drilled 16 holes into the magneto to accept the ignition wires. I also added the lower half-round connection between the radiators. 

Besides installing the ignition harness and adding some piping from the lower radiator connection going back and up to the engine, I think this will be the end of the propulsion system (short of installing the propeller). I think I'm now at the limit of what I can reasonably do on this part of the model.
 
Some rigging will be coming soon to wrap the project up for now - at least until additional relevant information on the Santos-Dumont No18 Hydroplane surfaces!
 
P.S. Yesterday's requested side project: