Bob Cleek

As I expect Bill will attest, the Emco Unimat DB/SL and Unimat III models are great little modeling lathes but, unfortunately, they are no longer in production and have developed a strong collectors' cult following. I have a DB/SL that I bought used and refurbished it to "as new" condition, but, I must regretfully admit, that while I obtained the basic lathe for a very reasonable price, I probably spent more on eBay for used parts for the rebuild and for the required basic tooling than I would have to acquire a decent used Sherline, Taig, or Sieg lathe with equivalent tooling. (E.g. On eBay a used DB/SL collet holder and collet set goes for more than a thousand bucks and a dividing head and dividing gear set for around five hundred bucks on eBay, so, no I don't have either!) The lesson I learned was that when purchasing a lathe, models which are "in production" or which have still have strong after-market parts and tooling availability are the best choice.

I corresponded with Ten Pound Island books about that set some time ago and they told me it was no longer in stock, explaining that they hadn't had time to update their catalog listings. Being a book collector (or hoarder, according to my Dearly Beloved,) I've tracked on line the availability of this set of HAAMS drawings for years. They do come up now and again but seem to take a long time to sell, if at all. As the material they contain is readily available to researchers directly from the Smithsonian, libraries don't seem to consider them worth acquiring due to the initial cost and shelf space required for a secondary-source reference work. (They are also exactly the sort of books from which vandals rip pages!) The 90 pound weight and large size of the volumes adds hundreds of dollars in packing and shipping costs to the base cost of the set, as well. (I believe the size of the volumes precludes application of the USPS "book rate" postage.) Given the broad scope of the HAAMS project, covering the entire United States geographically, much of the content is surplus to the interests of any given reader. (It's very common for sets coming on the market to include their original wooden packing crate and have all but one or two volumes still unopened in their original cellophane wrappers.) This limited edition printing of 300 copies (at $3,000 a pop, as I recall) was advertised at the time as a "great investment," but from the sets which have appeared on the secondary market (sometimes in multiple copies "still in the packing crate" offered by apparent "investors,") such has not proven to be the case. It's a set that anyone interested in American vessels would love to own, but it seems very few have found the expense of acquiring it justified and the attendant packing and shipping costs limit the geographic marketing area significantly. I'd drop two or maybe even three hundred bucks for a set if one were to come along within reasonable driving distance, but I don't think there are all that many nuts like me around!

One of the period wonks may be better able to answer with respect to the specific vessel in question, but, generally speaking, boom-less fore and aft sails are tacked by connecting the tack to a cleat or eyebolt on the aft side of the mast or on deck at the aft side of the foot of the mast, usually with a downhaul tackle for adjusting the tension on the luff. The sheets are attached directly to the clew, frequently with blocks attached at the clew where a purchase on the sheets is desired. The sheets are run to suitable terminations at the quarters, often with a purchase or turning block on the quarter to permit the bitter end's being hauled inboard. Sheets and tacks are always required on all fore and aft sails.

I buy mine pre-mixed in quart cans, which last for years. I've never had any show any indication of "going bad." Maybe they put some additive in the canned shellac to give it shelf-life. Shellac will thicken if the alcohol is allowed to evaporate. That's easily fixed by adding a bit more alcohol. I've used a lot of "old" shellac and I've never had any bad results doing so. Sometimes I suspect that "shellac going bad" is just disinformation spread by the shellac manufacturers to increase sales.

And a basic machine shop course isn't a REALLY IMPORTANT SUBJECT? Go to your room!

You may have already come to this realization, but, if not, I'd suggest you continue saving until you have enough to buy a decent used metal-working lathe instead. A wood-turning lathe isn't as easily capable of repetitive pattern work such as making cannon, nor of turning long, thin, tapers such as for spars. Also, hand-turning very small pieces of wood is not as easy as it looks. It doesn't take much to break a 1/16" piece of wood when shaping it by hand. A metal-working lathe's cross-slide permits applying the cutting tool to the material with great accuracy and delicacy. Metal-working lathes are far more versatile and accurate and will shape metal, plastic, and wood, while the wood-turning lathe will only handle wood. I would guess that if you kept your eyes open, you'd be able to find a nice used Sherline or Taig lathe for about $500 or a used Chinese Sieg 7X for even less. The metal-working lathes will hold their value over a long period of time. Wood-turning lathes not so much. Once you have a decent lathe, you can add additional attachments and tooling to it over time. A good lathe should last longer than you if it's well cared for.

To this sage advice I would add that the tolerances operative in working with epoxy, i.e. the proportion of resin to hardener and temperature and humidity, become increasingly critical as the amount of epoxy mixed gets smaller. With the relatively small amounts of epoxy generally mixed for modeling purposes, the amount of tolerable error becomes smaller as the amount mixed becomes smaller. Measuring small batches has less margin of error. Additionally, the use of measuring pumps is advised, but a single stroke of the pumps, the minimum amount measured by the pump is more than is often needed, which contributes to the waste of an expensive material. For mixing "dime sized" or "quarter sized" amounts of epoxy for modeling purposes, one would be well advised to use graduated hypodermic syringes or a suitably sensitive scale.

The two-pint kit from Smith's directly is $68.00. Yes, that may be costly, but you get what you pay for. For a much less expensive sealer at $21 a quart, shellac works very well. Zinsser Bulls Eye Clear Alcohol-Based Shellac (1-Quart) in the Sealers department at Lowes.com Others sell "thinned" epoxy for "rot repair" products, but Smith's CPES(tm) was the first and claims to have a unique recipe. It's been around for almost fifty years now and it seems yet to have been equaled by imitators.

I have used a lot of epoxies over the years and, as others here before me, would not advise thinning epoxy. They aren't all the same, chemically speaking, and you've got to carefully experiment when deviating from the manufacturer's directions. There's nothing worse than a partially-cured coat of epoxy resin. For the application described here (i.e. we're not talking about epoxy and glass cloth sheathing,) I would suggest using a product called Smith's Clear Penetrating Epoxy Sealer, also known in the trade as "CPES." . This an epoxy sealer, not an epoxy adhesive base as are the products mentioned here above. This is an epoxy sealer carried in a volatile solvent. It mixes easily with a 1:1 ratio of "Part A" and "Part B" and is sold in kits as small as a quart of each part. It's not cheap, but has a long shelf life. A (2 part) "quart kit" would serve to coat many models inside and out. It has the consistency of water and penetrates the wood surface easily. It soaks in and does not build up on the surface. It has some flexibility to it when cured which resists cracking when the wood expands and contracts. (No epoxy resin is moisture proof, actually.) It cleans up easily before curing with acetone or vinegar. Oil based or acrylic paint and varnish may be applied over it. It sands reasonably well. It can be purchased at most chandleries or from the manufacturer. Clear Penetrating Epoxy Sealer (smithandcompany.org) (It's also repackaged at a higher price by "the Rot Doctor." CPES™ - The Rot Doctor ) Or... you can also consider applying a generous coat of thin shellac ("two pound cut" out of the can.) Shellac is probably one of the most effective moisture barriers that exists. It's also completely safe to use and is thinned with alcohol. ( It's safe enough to eat. "Food grade" shellac is used to impart a shine to apples and jelly beans.) Shellac also soaks into the wood well and does not obscure detail so long as you don't put too many coats on. I dries very quickly and any paint or varnish can be applied over it without any problems. It's also a lot less expensive than epoxy of any type.

Of course. What I said was that an inshore craft had a greater need for a compass. I didn't mean to imply that a sea-going vessel didn't need one at all! I suppose the better way to have put it was that every vessel needs a compass (okay, except maybe canoes and dinghies.) A vessel would have the same problem at night with an overcast sky as it would in a thick daytime fog. You can't steer a vessel with any efficiency without a reference point, which the compass provides if you can't see the shore or the stars. While a binnacle may be moveable and not seen on every contemporary model, the helmsman would have a hard time steering a straight line without one if they had no point of reference.

Actually, based on my own experience, inshore craft have far greater need for a compass than do sea-going craft operating off-soundings most of the time. A vessel that routinely operates close to shore regularly becomes engulfed in fog. This is a circumstance that is hard to describe, but anyone who has ever had the experience can attest that it is totally disorienting. (If you are not familiar with fog, it's about like turning off the lights in a windowless room.) You have little or no sense of direction, save perhaps the wind and the set of the sea. When inshore, particularly against a lee shore, there are few things more terrifying than not knowing where the breakers, reefs, shoals, and rocks are and having no point of reference against which to steer. It is then that a compass is essential. A sea-going ship is less concerned because they aren't concerned about running into anything when several days' run off any shore. I would expect compass redundancy was the order of the day. One compass for the helm, of course, which was necessary if there was to be any sense to giving the helmsman steering commands, plus a spare for the helm, and then secondary compasses used primarily by the captain, sailing master and other officers to enable them to monitor the course from their posts other than on the quarterdeck. There are actually "upside down" compasses, properly called "tell-tale compasses," designed to be mounted on the overhead above an officer's bunk so that they could immediately note the ship's course while they were off watch in their bunks. Tell-tale compasses have been commonly used in European vessels from at least the Fourteenth Century that I know of. Some were refined examples of the instrument makers' art and are highly valuable collectables today.

A touch of CA on the end of the thread is definitely a good way to stiffen the line. Using hemostats and needle holders to handle the thread will be found a big help. Check out the many instructional videos on YouTube about surgical instrument suture tying. Doctors don't use their fingers to stitch you up. It's all about using the instruments. Learning a bit about how surgeons handle thread will give you a whole new perspective on model ship rigging. For fine off-the-model rigging tasks like block stropping, I've also found the "QuadHands" line of tools much better than the old ball and clamp articulated "third hand" holding systems. "QuadHands" holders come in a variety of configurations and their alligator clips come with slip-on soft plastic sheathing tubes for the jaws, too. ("QuadHands" is the original U.S. made quality version of this device. The internet is flooded with near-identical Chinese rip-offs. The real deal is just a few bucks more and, as always, you get what you pay for. See video: QuadHands® - Helping Hands Tool

Read this article from the "Articles Database" drop-down menu at the top of the forum home page: https://thenrg.org/resources/Documents/articles/MakingAMastFromSquareStock.pdf It should get you started off on the right foot for tapering spars with hand tools. From there, use the forum search engine to read the many threads on turning spars on a lathe, e.g. and this:

Excellent post! Full of good information. Today's "coatings" are far more technical than plain old paint.

The fellow in the video will likely soon discover that it is impossible to tie ratlines to stainless steel cable rigging without applying a serious serving to the cable and securing it with a good soaking of paint, shellac, or tar or the like at the points of the ratlines attachments in order to enlarge the diameter of the shroud sufficiently to provide a good friction grip for the ratline knots. This practice, however, raises the concern that the serving may produce a "hard spot" on the cable at the point of the serving which may cause localized metal fatigue or create conditions favorable to anaerobic crevice corrosion beneath the serving, either of which can result in a catastrophic failure of the cable. Total failure risks may be overlooked by many amateur riggers, but they certainly realize quickly the impracticality of trying to tie a polyester ratline to a length of quarter inch stainless cable! For this reason, modernly rigged small craft rarely carry ratlines. Seventeenth Century ships" shrouds, being made of fiber, were quite thick, often as thick as a man's arm, and wormed, parceled, served, and tarred well. A much thinner length of ratine cordage tightly fastened would easily hold fast with a lashing at either end and clove hitches in between the lashed ends.

Actually, no. Pine tar was used on wood to protect it from the weathering effects of water and sunlight. In earlier times before copper sheathing came into vogue (~1750), tallow and matted hair was applied below the waterline to prevent damage from marine borers, which it never did do very well.

Standing order of the day: "If it moves, lube it. If it doesn't move, paint it!"

The modeling tool catalogs like MicroMark, while always fun to peruse, are just chock full of "impulse purchases" that you thought you really needed and then discovered you never used. It's a pitfall for those entering the hobby. (Tool kits promising "everything you'll ever need to build your model" are almost always full of bottom of the barrel junk you don't need.) In many instances, the tools you need will be found in other places at higher quality and lower prices. Far superior medical, dental, and jewelry-making tools can be found on eBay or from supply houses at a lot less expense than from places like Model Expo or MicroMark. Remember the tool-buying maxim: "Never buy a tool until you need it and then only buy the best quality you can afford." I'd place this OcRe workshop in the category of "stuff you'll later wish you didn't waste your money on." You can get a whole lot more lower cost useful storage at places like Harbor Freight, "Bed, Bath, and Beyond," Walmart, and so on. Think "Tupperware." If you have to "go mobile" due to space considerations, get yourself a suitably sized sheet of plywood and put lip around three edges and a couple of handles on either end. When company comes, you can pick it up and slide it under the bed until you can get rid of them and back to your modeling! Harbor Freight, twenty bucks, 40 Bin Organizer with Full Length Drawer (harborfreight.com):

It certainly can be. It's just another way to "slice the bread" in a "bread and butter" construction. That said, I'd expect that "slicing the loaf" along the waterlines or buttock lines would involve a lot less tricky scroll saw work than cutting sections and working down the slices with a chisel, plane, or spokeshave with the grain rather than across the grain would be easier as well. No?

I read somewhere that the original Model Shipways company purchased surplus gunstock duplicating milling machinery after WWII and put it to use milling solid hulls for their ship models. Obviously, this was not CNC technology. There are custom gunstock makers who do such work, but they all seem to primarily use mechanical duplicating machinery, not CNC. This machinery will work fine for duplicating hulls, such as for kit production, but to do this a master pattern is required. If you only want a single hull, it will have to be hand-carved. If you wanted someone to produce a one-off carved hull for you, your best bet would probably be a old-school foundry patternmaker. For a model the size you are contemplating, a hollow "bread and butter" lift hull is the easiest, and best, method. I can't imagine why anybody would want to do it any other way, given the challenges involved in building a plank on frame model of that size. (It's not like you will be building an exposed-frame Admiralty Board style wooden ship model.) This three-part YouTube video gives a pretty good explanation of the "bread and butter" hull construction method. He stacks his lifts with the seams vertical. It can also be done by stacking the lifts with the seams running horizontally. The horizontal method employs the waterlines as patterns for each lift. The vertical method employs the buttock lines as patterns for each lift.

I sure can't see any flaws in that paint job. It looks great! Nice work! If you have some very minor flaws, such as a dust speck or three, you can always rub them out with rottenstone and pumice. These are very fine abrasive powders that you apply to a soft, damp cloth and rub on the surface. The longer you rub the better the finish. They should be available in powder form at any paint store. Auto parts and paint stores carry it premixed in a creamy liquid form, as well. These hand rubbing abrasives permit you to "fine tune" your finish from a flat matte to a high gloss, depending upon how much elbow grease you want to apply. The whole point of hand-rubbing is that it permits you to address a small area of a larger paint job and repair a flaw without having to repaint the entire piece. Hand rubbing is a technique that has a bit of a learning curve, but it's more about practice than information. Try it on a test piece before going at a finished workpiece. Once you get the hang of how to vary the level of gloss, you'll be able to easily match spots you want to deal with. Here's a video that covers the subject of getting a perfect hand-rubbed finish in a lot of detail, but is well worth taking the time to watch.

Yes. the Gibbs and Cox model shop which built so many fine models in its time did that model of Missouri. I believe it was built to Naval Sea Systems Command's specifications for USN ship models which prohibit "plank on frame" models of metal ships: Hulls shall be built up in lifts of clear, first-grade mahogany or basswood; doweled and glued together with water-resistant glue. The wood shall be completely free of knots, checks, and sap pockets and shall be thoroughly seasoned. Models over 12 inches beam must be hollowed for reduction of weight The hull shall be composed of the least number of parts necessary to achieve the proper shape. An excessive number of glue joints shall be avoided. On models less than 12 inches beam, hull lifts shall be cut to the full body shape: lifts shall not be cut in halves, thereby creating a glue seam along the vertical centerline of the model. The lifts shall conform accurately to lines of the vessel as shown by the plans. A stable, durable, flexible body putty may be used in moderation to fill gaps. Nautical Research Guild - Article - Specifications for Construction of Exhibition Models of U.S. Naval Vessels (thenrg.org) As can be seen, metal hulls are made from carved solid blocks or "bread and butter" lifts with hollow centers. The USN specifications are worth studying and attempting to emulate. The Navy knows what it takes to build a ship model that will last. Their models travel frequently, relatively speaking, and they want them to "take a licking and keep on ticking."

Sometimes it takes a lot to get a perfect finish.

It might sound like a smart aleck response, but, seriously, the offset on the frames has to be the thickness of the planking or plating if the body section lines are drawn to the outside of the planking or plating. If the frames are drawn to the inside of the planking or plating, you just have to make sure your model's planking or plating isn't any thicker than the scale of the section lines. If your planking or plating has to be thicker than scale for "engineering" purposes, then that additional thickness has to be factored into the equation. It all depends first on the thickness of the planking or plating. On most models of iron and steel hulled ships, the model's planking will be much thicker than its true scale because that will be required for sufficient strength. On models of ships with wooden hulls, the deviation from scale may be less so, depending on the scale. When considering hull skin thickness, be it planking or plate, one must first consider whether the lines are drawn to the inside or the outside of the plank. This should be indicated on the plans, but plans for full scale construction may not indicate this by notation and the builder will have to determine that from comparing the construction and lines drawings. Details of the rabbet line may make it obvious. A section drawn to the inside of the frames should be obvious at the garboard seam where the deduction can be seen. Plans drawn for modeling may differ from the full scale drawings of a given vessel as they are often simplified for modeling purposes. (This is frequently the case with solid carved block hulls and half-models which are usually drawn to the outside of the planking or plating.) In order to get the correct dimensions, a modeler has to 1) know whether the plans are drawn to the inside or outside of the planking or plating and 2) how thick (and likely out of scale) the planking or plating they will build is going to be. A modeler who has reached the level of accomplishment in their work to recognize the issue you have would find spending some time studying lofting practices a big help. There are many treatises on lofting. Alan Vaiteses' Lofting is one of the best. Your question is addressed and explained at 5:25 in this video:

Yikes!