Bob Cleek

I suppose the arrangement you describe would be sufficient, but I suspect you were never a Boy Scout. The friction at the tailstock center would likely cause the wood to burn. The smoke from pressure treated wood is probably poisonous, I sure wouldn't chance it. If all you are interested in doing is round and taper spars, the simplest technique is to place your drill motor upside down in a vise and mount your dowel into the drill motor chuck. Turn on the drill motor. (Most have a little button on the bottom of the handle that can be used to keep them running when you take your finger off the trigger.) Wearing gloves (because it will get hot,) run a doubled sheet of sandpaper up and down the spar, applying pressure with your fingers to both sides of the down. This will round and taper the dowel. Measure with a calipers to ensure accuracy. Wrap sandpaper around a flat block of wood and use the flat to taper the dowel to a straight section, if need be. Your hand holding the sandpaper will keep the dowel from whipping when it spins. It's always fun to consider these sorts of things, but I think one sometimes "over-engineers" it all. What you are contemplating building isn't much more than a very simple wood lathe, but it isn't even going to do that well beyond tapering spars. You would be far better off to invest in a real lathe and enjoy the vast number of things a real lather can do. I don't know how much your time is worth, but most people who have the option to put in a little overtime could save up for a really useful modeling lathe in as much time as they would spend reinventing the wheel, or lathe, as the case may be. 17" Lathe - Sherline Products $728 base price new, or $250 used:; sherline 4000 lathe | eBay SIEG C3 7x14 Mini Lathe | Miniature Lathe | LittleMachineShop $799 Expensive machines, to be sure, and you can easily spend as much more on tooling and attachments, but the lathe is the only machine that can make any other machine as well as itself. These are certainly overkill if you are only looking to taper spars, but if you plan to stay with the hobby for any length of time, you may start saving your lunch money for something like these.

Here, again, there's lots of information about wood sourcing in the forum section "Wood Discussion:" Answering "Where to find wood" depends upon whether you are looking for milled wood or not. If you are looking for "strip wood" and "sheet wood" milled to modeling sizes like that sold in a lot of hobby stores (usually low quality basswood,) you will have to purchase it from one of the few (and dwindling number of) specialty vendors, most all of whom are online. (Two of the best are listed on the right side of the forum homepage as sponsors.) It's expensive, relatively speaking, but if you are only purchasing small amounts, the purchase price and shipping may not be a consideration for you. You can expect that most of the wood provided in all but the top-end model kit brands (e.g. Syren, Vanguard, etc.) will not be of particularly high quality. For this reason, many serious kit builders will buy after-market wood to replace some or all of the stock provided by the kit manufacturers.. Most modelers who "go over to the dark side" and build from scratch to one degree or another, which is something of a natural progression if one stays with the hobby after a few kit builds, mill their own modeling lumber. This requires investing in a bandsaw (preferably a 14" model often available on the used market, a good modeling table saw, a thickness sander (e.g. Byrnes Model Machines products: https://www.byrnesmodelmachines.com/ ) and perhaps a small chainsaw. Acquiring the machinery is an investment, but the savings realized from being able to mill your own modeling lumber will pay for the machines over your years of modeling and if you or your heirs no longer have a need for these machines, they hold their value well, so some, if not all, of the purchase price can be recovered upon resale. Bottom line, good modeling wood is where you find it and it's usually easier to find it for free or at low cost and mill it yourself than to buy it milled off the internet. Finally, the ability to have the wood you need on hand can't be fully appreciated until you find yourself needing a half dozen strips to finish planking a hull and have to wait a few weeks to get some more by mail order, and praying it will match the wood with which you started the job!

A true masterwork! The level of detail you've achieved at this small scale is amazing! Thanks for sharing it with us.

Superlative job, Rob! Simply spectacular. I particularly like the "cleat" base. It's a clever solution and very appropriate. I presume the helm must be in the after deckhouse. Do you know how they dealt with that? Was there a speaking tube on deck that was used to yell commands to the helmsman below? Perhaps this was discussed before and I missed it. It's just something I'd never thought about until I "walked the decks" of this wonderful model.

What you have there is a "decorator's model" from the first quarter of the 20th Century, or thereabouts. It appears to be remarkably good condition. As of its one-hundredth birthday, it will be a genuine antique. Many of today's modelers turn their noses up at such models because they lack any historical importance (often being simply "impressions" of generic ship types) and, by today's modeling standards, are crudely built. That said, these models, built in Europe, often Germany or Spain, on a production basis for export as home decorative pieces, have become, or are now about to become, collectable antiques. It probably won't get you a starring role on Antiques Roadshow, but if you clean it up, taking care to preserve the patina it's earned over the last hundred years or so, you should end up with a nice example of this type of "decorator" model that anybody would be happy to display in their home library or "man cave." Mind you, it's not a six-figure museum piece, but in another hundred years or so, it should start to appreciate on the antiques market. I submit that the better examples of these "decorator" models, if they've lasted this long now, have earned the right to enjoy some measure of respect from the ship modeling community. They do have a certain "folk artsy" charm that should be appreciated. I think it should be noted that this is true of many ship models, dioramas, half-models and the like that are approaching the century mark. While they may not interest today's museum administrators, there are a lot of amateur and sailor-built unique scratch-built pieces from the first half of the 20th Century still in circulation that are, or will soon become, collectable in their own right.

Most definitely! Most any articulated bench vise will do the trick. Stanley makes one many have praised. You can add a shop made pair of longer jaws to spread the pressure on the keel over however long a distance you wish or add "fingers" to grasp from inside the hull to work on the hull upside down. This vise is pictured below laying on its side. The bottom clamp is for attaching to the lip of the bench. The vise is mounted on a captive ball joint which allows the jaws to be positioned in any angle desired. Shop around online for this one. Prices run around $50 to $65, depending upon free shipping or not and all the rest of the online marketing gimmicks. https://www.amazon.com/STANLEY-83-069M-MaxSteelTM-Multi-Angle-Base/dp/B079NBYRDK/ref=psdc_3021459011_t1_B000UOJF66 If you ever get a chance to score a Zyliss Vise (AKA the "Swiss Army Vise," It was actually designed for field use by the Swiss army.) it probably offers more versatility for modeling and many other uses than anything else. They come up on eBay regularly, but I don't believe they are manufactured anymore. (As always, beware of cheap imitations. If you buy on eBay, make sure you get the optional attachments, particularly the "turntable" that permits using it in any angle as a carver's vise. The original is a much better quality tool than the Asian knock-offs marketed as the "Z-vise," etc. but the later Asian made ones' parts are interchangeable with the originals.) A decent one probably won't set you back any more than a Keel Klamper and will afford a myriad of applications in a much sturdier vise.) See: http://www.homeshow.co.nz/accessories.html , and https://advanced-machinery.myshopify.com/collections/portable-clamping-system-parts. I've ordered parts for mine from Advanced Machinery and was happy with them. (Sorry about this fellow's Kiwi accent! ) How one deals with holding a model's hull while it's being worked on is a matter of personal preference. For next to no cost at all, I often make a holding base for a hull I'm working on out of a suitably-sized block of styrofoam packing material carved to fit or from foam tubes soled as swimming pool toys or split pipe insulation. These can be cut to length, formed into a suitably-shaped bundle, and bound at either end with duct tape. This creates a tight slot that the keel can be pushed into and the hull can then be worked on on the bench without the danger of it being damaged. There are many clever gadgets on the market for ship modeling. Some of the more expensive of these are often either of questionable practical value or far more easily and inexpensively made in the shop. As for the Keel Klamper, you've got to ask yourself, "Is this bit of plastic and lightweight aluminum worth a hundred bucks plus shipping?

Another story about the same phenomenon related how a fellow went up the mast in a bosun's chair on one of the J's with the intention of varnishing the mast on the way down. He had a block on his tackle or chair with a messenger line down to the deck so his assistant could haul a bucket up to him. He called for the bucket full of varnish and the brush, a fair amount of varnish, to be sure, and when the bucket got past the balance point on the way up, the bitter end of the line started accelerating down and the bucket accelerated up. It was going at a pretty good clip when it hit the bottom of the bosun's chair and sprayed the bucket of varnish all over the man aloft and everything alow ! Too bad nobody caught that one on film.

I believe the "solid bars" (green arrows) are supporting struts for the channels. The chainplates carry the upward strains of the shrouds transferred to the hull, while the channel struts bear downward strains on the channels. Some channels on larger vessels were quite wide and the compression of the chainplates and shrouds was not sufficient to support the channels which ofter served as platforms that had to carry the weight of crew standing upon them to perform various tasks such as casting and recovering the lead line when taking soundings.

At the risk of being keel-hauled for inciting "thread drift," let me give this observation a big "Amen!" I'm sensing it already. Much of the material modelers are interested in, and until now used to sourcing easily or relatively so, is produced in limited quantities (relatively) and sold on fairly slim profit margins. The usual suspects local specialty lumberyards are disappearing and the selection of those that remain is dwindling. We've all watched long-established specialty modeling businesses selling milled modeling wood, parts, and so on, go begging when their owners get too old and tired to keep at it and try to sell a going small business to a new owner. It just ain't penciling out in this day and age. Add to the long list of craft skills ship modeling demands the ability to source your own raw lumber, drying it, and milling it to your own specs.

Using another's planking measurements is rarely a good idea. It only works if their hull is exactly the same shape as yours, which is rarely ever the case. If you'd "bothered ticking off the bulkheads," you'd have generated the shape of each plank. This is a critical step in hanging plank. Each plank has to be fitted individually to it's mates. "Within a millimeter or two" is a large distance when things are supposed to fit flush and errors compound as the number of your planks increase.

Ditto. I came across it the other evening.

I've read that it's a good tone wood for lutherie, but not widely used for that because of its lack of reliable availability. It's considered a good wood for fine carving. It seems some woodworkers like it: https://www.woodworkingtalk.com/threads/ode-to-avocado-wood.230319/

Because running rigging "runs," and moves, the "bitter end" always has to be tied off to something. It's belayed to belaying pins, generally, during the period after which belaying pins came into use, but also sometimes to cleats and cavels and occasionally posts. Standing rigging is generally fastened permanently, shrouds at their lower ends to chain plates or sometimes pad eyes on deck and to bowsprit irons. There really aren't hard and fast rules, though. There are many different rigging arrangements which can vary from ship to ship, and even vary on the same ship from time to time in the ship's life. Standing rigging did not go to Samson posts, actually. Samson posts are for towing the ship or making an anchor cable fast when the anchor is set, or to belay mooring lines when alongside a wharf or quay. Here again, things can vary from ship to ship and time to time. You really can't say for sure what general rigging practices were without specifying the type of vessel, it's nationality, and the time in history that's applicable.

I've been told there are still things that ducks and battens do that can't be done on a screen, particularly on large drawings. I bet you'll find a use for them within a week of getting rid of them. Isn't that always the way it goes?

You'd get your hand slapped for doing that in an old-school apprentice training program. In professional practice, measurements are never lifted from the drawomgs. (Many plans bear the notation, "Do not measure from drawings.") The distance notation on the plan is taken off an accurate rule with dividers and transferred to the workpiece using dividers. Even in modeling practice where one might be tempted to "cheat," with 1;1 plans, the better practice is to use dividers to take the distance from a plan, rather than using a rule. This insures accuracy. With a sharp eye and a good rule, measurement can be laid out far more accurately than by measuring from the plans with a rule. (Which is why good machinists' rules and dividers aren't cheap.)

Look for some drafting scale rules on eBay. They come in all scales and "quarter-inch" is pretty common. In the U.S., triangular scales as pictured above commonly have a "quarter-inch" scale on one side. I've never seen one here with a combination of Imperial and Metric, although some engineer's scales (as opposed to architects' scales) will have inches divided into tenth's. Alternately, 1:48 scale is equivalent to "O" gauge model railroad scale. You should be able to find a 1:48 scale rule offered for sale on a model railroading website. See also: Triangular Scale Ruler for 1/12, 1/24, /1/32, 1/35, 1/48, 1/72 (L: 17cm) | eBay

Not coincidental at all. "Getting your ducks in a row" is a direct reference to fairing a line with a batten and ducks.

My Unimat SL lathe had a 220 VAC motor on it when I got it from a fellow who had bought it in England years decades earlier. It had the same two-pin plug as the one in the picture. When I was in England 30 years ago, my electric razor power converter plug was also the same double round pin plug shown. I suspect this plug is the British equivalent of our two-prong plugs and has been largely supplanted by three prong grounded plugs, as have our two prong plugs here.

If anybody is game to try to rewire what is most likely a cheesy snapped together handle heating unit from 220 VAC to 110 VAC, they're a better man than I, Gunga Din! The "head" of the device is held simply in the soldering tip socket of a common inexpensive light-weight electronics soldering iron with a single set screw. It's attached no differently than a replacement tip for a standard soldering iron made for printed circuit board work. Buying the unit at a low price would permit simply swapping the head from the 220 VAC iron to a 110 VAC iron in about two minutes' work. In case anybody unfamiliar with the Aeropiccola plank bender wonders how it works, it has a bail, as shown, which can be mounted in either of the two holes in the head. The bail has a spring loaded roller which holds the planking strip firmly against the curved head. The strip can be fed under the bail progressively to heat a specific length of the the strip. The "French curve" shaped head permits bending arcs of varying radii and is much easier to use than the currently available round-headed electric plank bender that requires the use of a forming block to define the curve. To bend a plank wider than the Aeropiccola bending head's bail will accommodate, the bail can simply be removed, the iron placed in a vise, and the bending accomplished against the hot head using both hands to hold it. If one already has one of the below pictured currently manufactured models with a round head similarly fastened to the heating handle pictured below, you can swap heads by simply loosening the set screw. https://www.walmart.com/ip/Model-Shipways-Electric-Plank-Bender/983938564?wmlspartner=wlpa&selectedSellerId=16284&adid=22222222222000000000&wmlspartner=wmtlabs&wl0=e&wl1=o&wl2=c&wl3=10352200394&wl4=pla-1103028060075&wl5=&wl6=&wl7=&wl10=Walmart&wl11=Online&wl12=983938564_10000017062&wl14=electric plank bender&veh=sem&msclkid=5314eb852e0711a5e45388b1e5759f87&gclid=5314eb852e0711a5e45388b1e5759f87&gclsrc=3p.ds

From the eBay photos, it appears to be a British plug, so that would be 220 VAC. I doubt it will sell for as little as a pound. I've seen them go for some pretty amazing prices. I don't know why nobody makes these anymore. They are definitely a great tool. Finestkind! I don't know of another plank bender that allows the user as much control as this one.

Correct. For a considerable time, steamers carried sail, not only in case the engines failed, but also to extend the steamer's range, particularly in the trans-Atlantic trade It took a lot of coal to cross the Atlantic and the wind blows for free. It was not until 1892 and 1893 when Cunard launched RMS Campania and her identical twin sister RMS Lucania, that trans-Atlantic steamers abandoned their sailing rigs. Note in the photo below, Lucania still carries her masts and was capable of setting a headsail or three in an emergency, but never did. Her masts also served her cargo derricks fore and aft. They also came in handy in a few short years for radio antennas when Lucania became the first ocean-going vessel to be equipped with the new Marconi wireless system. Lucania took the Blue Ribband from her sister, Campania on her second voyage and held it for five years until the Germans built faster steam turbine powered vessels. When launched, these sisters were the largest and fastest passenger vessels in the world. It wasn't just the "belt and suspenders" redundant engineering of steamships with sailing rigs that was common until the maritime industry finally came to trust steam in the 1890's. Campania and Lucania were also the first ships to be equipped with electrical lights throughout. Note that just above the rail on the side of the bridge superstructure are two running lights, one above the other. One was electric. The other was an oil burner. One of the very few ships ever so equipped. Not only didn't they not trust steam, they had their doubts about electricity, too!

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Like many large steam ships in the age when steam ships also carried sail, it appears that Great Eastern flew her fore and aft gaff-headed sails from semi-permanently rigged gaff booms. The sails were furled by brailing them to the masts and gaff booms. When the sails were struck and sent down, the gaff booms remained rigged as if the sails were set, with the gaff peaks raised to the same angle as when the sails are set. The gaff booms could be unrigged and sent down for maintenance and such, but at all other times, the gaff booms stayed rigged with the sails brailed to the gaff booms and mast. In port with gaff booms raised and sails sent down.

1. The ensign is flown from the aftermost gaff peak when a ship is under sail. The halyard is lead down to a convenient cleat on the boom inboard (or sometimes at the mast) so that the halyard belaying point is easily accessible from the deck. In this fashion, the halyard moves with the gaff sail as it moves across the centerline of the vessel. 2. The ensign is flown from a staff on the centerline at the stern when the vessel is not under sail. When not under sail, the aftermost boom is secured slightly to port or starboard of the ensign staff. The ensign staff is struck and and stowed on deck when the ship is sailing. If your model will not have sails set, the ensign should be flown from the ensign staff. If the model has sails, the ensign should be flown from the aftermost gaff peak and the ensign staff should be stowed on deck. When the ensign is flown from the ensign staff, the ensign halyard and its block remain rigged at the gaff peak with the halyard belayed at its cleat. At present, photos indicate that Victory secures her aftermost boom to port of her ensign staff. I can't discern the ensign gaff peak halyard in the below picture. It may be that because she is in a dry dock and never sails, they haven't bothered to rig a gaff peak ensign halyard at all. (I don't see the boom topping lifts, either, perhaps for the same reason. The ensign in the photo is much smaller than the ensigns flown in earlier times, which were much larger for better visibility at sea.) On the other hand.... I expect the duty signalman found himself on report the day this photo was taken! Large ensign flying from the ensign staff while the ship is anchored. A spectrum of various sized ensigns were carried for various occasions.