Bob Cleek

That's true. I was hoping somebody wasn't using a Stradivarius as a paddle! If anybody in the world would know the back story on that paddle, it would be Ab Hoving.

The guy with the violin seems oddly out of place. There had to be a story there.

It would appear to be a simple enough process to tie in the reef before setting the fixed-gaff boom sail flying.

A properly laced luff should not impede lowering the sail at all. As the gaff boom is lowered, the tension on the properly laced luff will be released. A sail set on a fixed gaff boom would most likely be set "flying." (The sail is set by raising with halyards at the throat and peak.) Such sails are often not reefed at all, being light air beating sails rendered redundant downwind by the square sails.

There may be some confusion here in the use of the terms "reef," "furl," and "brail."

There's a tremendous variety in gaff rigs, not only between different periods, but also during the same period.. That said, most gaff sails, be the foot lashed to a boom, loose-footed, or without a boom at all, will be reefed from the foot up and the gaff boom lowered to accommodate the shortened sail area. I would say that a fixed gaff boom is a rather rare bird. In such case, the sail would be brailed when not set. The reefing arrangements varied "according to the needs of the service." Vessels which carried high deck loads, such as scow and lumber schooners, would "reef up" when carrying a high deck load, so that the lower boom would be raised to clear the deck load while the gaff boom remains at the previous height.

Yes. The triangular "architects'" and "engineers'" rules have grooves cut down the middle of each face. Their purpose was to hold a couple of purpose-designed spring clips that served as grips so the rule could be picked up and set down with the chosen scale always "face up." The spring clips could be set in the grooves so the scale face desired was instantly identifiable. I've only seen pictures of these spring clips in drafting manuals. They're scarce as hen's teeth these days, I suppose, but the grooves remain. As noted, the common spring binder clip serves as well.

The best way to be sure is to spend the money to purchase rules from one of the recognized quality manufacturers. Accurate rules are intended for use with the desired distances taken up with a pair of good dividers. The divider points make accurate measuring easier as small distances can be seen on the rule's markings. Rules should be handled with care and not used as straightedges, especially not for cutting. A reliable top of the line brand is Starrett. Their instructional bulletin is a gold mine of knowledge on measuring in the shop: tools-rules---bulletin-1211.pdf (starrett.com) . They have a separate catalog for rules: Precision Rules, Straight Edges & Parallels (starrett.com) Starrett's competition since forever is Brown and Sharpe. One of their six-inch pocket rules will run you around $23.00 at Walmart, but you'll know it's exactly six inches. Brown & Sharpe 599-313-603 Stainless Steel Stainless Rule, 6" Length - Walmart.com On the used market, another very high quality U.S. rule manufacturer to keep an eye out for is Theodore Alteneder & Sons of Philadelphia, which is no longer in business. Similar names from the past are Keuffel and Esser, Dieitzgen, Post, and Bowen. Modeler's will find triangular architects' scales handy. These have six scales, two on each face of the three sides of the triangular-section rule. The scales permit picking up the scale distance directly from the rule without needing to convert measurements to scale each time you take up a measurement. Top 10 Best Scale Ruler (topportalreview.com) Once upon a time, the manual drafting instrument manufacturers made a wide range of scale rules for architects and engineers. (Another type were "shrinkage rules" made for patternmakers, whose measurements had to take into account the shrinkage factors of various casting metals.) These rules weren't of the newer triangular pattern, but, rather, each flat rule had two scales, one on each edge. They were beautifully made of boxwood and came in cased sets. There are out there drifting around. If you ever see one for a price you can afford, grab it, because they aren't making these beauties anymore.

That would certainly be interesting. I expect there would be a wide band of green patina between the two waterline extremes. I'm not expert on the period, and I'm not sure one way or the other, but I wonder if the Admiralty would spend the money to put copper sheathing on a relatively small water lighter.

Yes, I think this is an excellent option. Small pieces of silkspan may be too fragile to work well, but a very thin paper laid in wet shellac, and then sealed with thin shellac worked well for me. The thickness of the thin paper should approximate the thickness of the prototype copper sheets and the laps should be quire subtle at scale viewing distance. In scales below a quarter inch to the foot, the tacks are not really barely visible at all at scale viewing distances. A very realistic appearing coppered bottom can then be crafted by airbrushing a basecoat of "tarnished copper penny brown" and adding then patchy accents of varying shades of dirty greens and dark browns to simulate fouling, together with a verdigris band at the waterline where the copper develops a patina as it is exposed to the air. (I've used color photos of coppered bottoms from Googled images for "inspiration.") It can be a tedious exercise in artistic "weathering," but it's very effective if you are showing the hull as it would appear shortly after it was hauled out. For an "as launched" bottom, I'd just use the "copper brown" and skip the weathering patina. I know there was some variation in the color of individual plates, depending upon how much weathering the plate got before it was hung on the hull, and some photos will show a "shiny copper" finish contrasting with the oxidized plates where a plate has just been replaced during a haul out, but, myself, I'd find attaching a patchwork quilt of separately colored individual plates at those scales truly crazy-making. I think it's fair to fudge a little on a hull below the waterline. It is probably the last part of a model to which the viewer's eyes are drawn and an "artistic impression" there is sufficient.

I've also become more aware of the "viewing distance effects" on paint colors. (As I recall, there's an excellent article on the subject in Volume II of Ship Modeler's Shop Notes.) That said, real gold leaf has remarkable reflective qualities which greatly exceed that of paint colors. Back in my classic yacht transom name painting days, I'd mix yellow "One Shot" with a touch of red to get a "gold" colored paint that was a presentable substitute, but it was never possible to duplicate the reflective quality of real gold leaf with paint. (To my eye, "gold" paint containing metal dust or flakes never really looks like real gold leaf.) Since we don't have any ships covered in real gold leaf these days, I had to go elsewhere to find an example of gold leaf viewed at a distance. After the 1989 Loma Prieta Earthquake in the S.F. Bay Area, the San Francisco City Hall was "earthquake retrofitted" with a total rebuild and restoration. My cousins' painting and decorating company won the contract for the painting on the job, which included gold leafing accents throughout the building and on the dome, which is larger than the dome of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, DC. That job is about thirty years old now and the gold leaf they applied appears to still be in excellent condition. Being the most noble metal, gold doesn't weather at all and, so long as the sizing adhering it to the surface remains intact, it is a very long-lasting finish. As can be seen from the below selection of Google images of the dome taken at different viewing distances and light conditions, the gold leaf "jumps out" remarkably, even when in the shade. Its reflective quality really makes it stand out like nothing else. When I gold leafed varnished yacht transom lettering, I'd lay down a few coats of clear varnish over the gold leaf so that the transom could be lightly sanded to key it for later maintenance varnish coats without damaging the gold leaf. This compromise had the effect of slightly reducing the gold's reflective qualities, but not so much that it impaired the intended effect. I think the fact that the color and brightness of gold leaf doesn't doesn't "mute" at the same rate as paint as the viewing distance increases, at model "scale viewing distances" "gold" paint or gold leaf should be muted much less than regular model colors need to be muted to compensate for the same scale viewing distance. Some experimentation is in order, but I'd expect a very light wash of a clear matte finish might tone down the gold's reflective qualities enough to yield the desired realistic scale effect. Parenthetically, I asked my cousin the cost of the gold leaf they applied on that job and he demurred, explaining that there was a non-disclosure provision in the job contract prohibiting their ever disclosing the price of the gold leaf because the politicians were afraid of the backlash they might get from their constituents who, if they knew the price, might think they should have used faux gold paint instead! http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3339/3313699165_3f0681016c_z.jpg?zz=1

I greatly agree with Harvey's observation. My primary interests also focus on post-Nineteenth Century small craft. I have accumulated a large library of books on the subject of all things maritime and, specifically, about ship modeling, but when building a model, I always "build it in my head" the same way I'd build it if I were building it at full scale, while also taking the liberties possible when working in smaller scale. I always find something interesting in any book about ship modeling technique, but I've found many technical books on other subjects as valuable, if not more valuable, than the ship modeling volumes. There is much for the ship modeler to learn from basic woodworking technique books, wood and metal staining and finishing books, jewelry-making books, basic metal machining books, and basic dental and surgical procedure books. I don't think there's any procedure in ship modeling that doesn't come from some other craft, but I've never seen a book on ship modeling which has covered every one of those procedures from all those other crafts between two covers. If you are interested in early to mid 20th century wood fishing craft, you may wish to consider the works of Howard I. Chapelle and the resources of the Smithsonian National Museum of American History which has available an extensive collection of your kind of boat. See: Ship Plans | National Museum of American History (si.edu) Historic American Merchant Marine Survey Records | Collection | SOVA (si.edu)

Certainly not! In every era, there were high quality models being turned out by master miniaturists who could produce an accurate model worthy of the term "fine art." I didn't intend the term, "folk art" to be a pejorative at all. (The top price paid for a Grandma Moses painting so far is $1,360,000.00!) "Trench art," for example, is an appreciating category of folk art at the present time and naval trench art is particularly desirable. In the case of trench art, its "folk art" aesthetic value is enhanced greatly by any historical provenance it may have. As we know, these shipboard-built naval curios have been collectable from at least the time of Nelson, the most well-known of which are the Napoleonic prisoner-of-war models most all of which are definitely in the "folk art" category artistically. Other than those meticulously researched and executed models which serve as significant contributions to the historical record and qualify as "fine art" (a classification of model which doesn't get near the respect it deserves in the fine arts marketplace,) I'd consider most all scratch-built ship models to qualify as "folk art" of one sort or another, although spanning a wide range of quality and value. Not to invite thread drift, but I'll mention in passing that a discussion of what the ship modeling community might be able to accomplish in terms of elevating the general public's appreciation of finely crafted ship models, and thereby the price such models command, might be a worthy endeavor.

I don't think they are "disciples of a single historical grand master" at all. At the time they were writing, the "average Joe" had a much higher level of education and experience in the manual arts. Boys grew up learning how to drive a nail, shape wood with saws, planes, and knives, and how to keep their tools sharp. Paint and adhesives were easily understood. Perhaps most importantly, many who built ship models in the days before Davis and Underhill (which brings us up to the middle of the 20th Century) came from nautical backgrounds in which they learned the nomenclature and became familiar, often on a first hand basis, with the ships that they modeled. To a boatbuilder, there was little new about setting up, framing, or planking in Davis or Underhill's books. That said, Davis and Underhill introduced amateur hobby modelers to structural construction methods which were previously not widely practiced in the amateur modeling community, to wit: the "built up" or "plank on frame" ship model, rather than the solid carved block hull ship model. The value of these two early authors was in their publishing works that synthesized between two covers the many diverse crafts that must be practiced in the course of building a high-quality ship model. Davis and Underhill, of course, were also pioneers in publishing and thereby making available accurate plans of particular ships drawn for the modeler's use, without which truly accurate models are not possible. The rather limited ship modeling literature prior to Davisi and Underhill, and for a while thereafter, suggests that the average amateur ship modeler in the twenties, thirties and forties was turning out what to our eyes were some pretty primitive models. Today, eighty to a hundred years later, some of these models have "matured" to where they are beginning to become noticed as valuable folk art. Obviously, there were extremely detailed and accurate "professionally built" ship models long before the 20th Century, but they were built by highly skilled miniaturists of their time, often working in teams, each with their own trade specialty; not hobbyists working singlehandedly, and the recognizable quality of their execution is what has contributed to their conservation and preservation over centuries. The contemporary models from the Age of Sail we see in museums today are only what we have left of the creme de la creme of models built at their time. Davis and Underhill were writing during a period in which there was a veritable explosion of "how to do it" literature, Following the First World War, Middle Class folks found themselves with greater leisure time. Modern technology eliminated much of the daily drudgery that previously attended simply living. (Imagine! Store-bought butter and sliced bread!) That leisure time, before radio, and particularly television, proliferated, was filled with hobby pursuits and this created a strong market for instructional literature on related subjects. Before the "DIY" era, craftspeople kept their skills close to the vest. They did not share their "trade secrets" because their trade skills were their "rice bowl." That knowledge is what they sold to make a living. When the general public sought limited trade skill information for use in the pursuit of their hobbies, enterprising authors like Davis and Underhill started writing books containing specialized information that otherwise would have taken their readers a tradesman's long apprenticeship to acquire. What Davis and Underhill, and many others on other subjects, were providing in written form were not the secrets of some single "grand master," but rather, in the main, rather basic instruction in a variety of existing trade skills of the time. Since then, the technology of ship modeling, as with so much else, has complexified exponentially, as would be immediately apparent from comparing the technological sophistication of the modeling discussed in this forum and the modeling technology discussed in Davis and Underhill.

Nils, I became curious about whether any of the movie film Tompkins took of Wander Bird's voyage around the Horn might have found its way onto the internet. I found this piece on YouTube, a newsreel clip that is, of course, dated and quite hokey to our modern eyes, but full of pictures of the deck details which may be hard to find elsewhere. Enjoy!:

For those who can't bring themselves to sacrifice a pair of needle nose pliers, or just love an excuse to buy another tool, "store boughten" "wire looping pliers" are now available from jewelers' supply houses in many different styles and sizes, permitting three or more different sized loops from a single pair of pliers. For really small eyes, I resort to using a drill bit of the desired size, bend a length of wire over the middle of the drill bit, and, holding the two ends of the wire, use the drill bit to twist up the wire ends. I then slide out the drill bit and snip the "pig tail" to the desired length. The twisted ends hold really tiny eyebolts better when glued into holes, too.!

In the US, it seems the jewelers call it "electroforming' (as opposed to the similar "electroplating.") There are many tutorials about the process, most for jewelers, on YouTube.

Crothers' The American Built Clipper Ship - 1850-1856 is the bible on American clipper ships. A bit hard to find these days and it can be pricey, but I see it is out in paperback as well as the hardbacked version. Amazon has a used one at a good price right now: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=9780071358231&i=stripbooks&linkCode=qs I'd ditto Rob's recommendation of Underhill's Masting and Rigging the Clipper Ship and Ocean Carrier but with the warning that Underhill was a British writer and his references are often to British rigging methods. I can't recall for sure, but I don't think he distinguished between the two. Underhill's drafting is a joy to behold. There are very few around these days who can equal it.

I know her well. She was on S.F. Bay for many decades, known as Wander Bird. She was a rig-less houseboat in Sausalito when I first met her in the early seventies, thirty years or so after she'd completed her voyage west around Cape Horn to San Francisco before the War. Warwick Tompkins had skippered her around the Horn with his wife, two young children, and a paid hand. Warwick was a well-known local yachtsman, as to this day is his son, Warwick "Commodore" Tompkins, who was four at the time of their voyage. Warwick M. Tompkins wrote two books about his family's voyage around Cape Horn in Wander Bird: Fifty South to Fifty South, 1938, W.W.Norton & Co., NY and Two Sailors, 1939, The Viking Press, NY, (a story of the voyage written from the perspective of the Tompkins children.) Both of these books are full of good photographs showing details of the vessel which would likely be very helpful to the modeler. Fifty South by Fifty South, contains together with the expected narrative of the voyage, an appendix containing many technical details on the vessel . Warwick Tompkins also made a 35mm movie of the voyage entitled In the Wake of the Clippers, which a modeler would probably be interested in watching. I've never seen the movie and I don't know if it is still extant. I'm sure "Commodore Thompkins" would know. I expect he could be reached through the St. Francis Yacht Club in San Francisco. Wander Bird was later acquired by Hal Sommer, a local tug boat skipper and acquaintance of mine, who spent years restoring "the Bird" to mint condition and sailing her on the Bay. Wander Bird was for many years the centerpiece of the classic yacht community on San Francisco Bay. I was fortunate to be able to witness a lot of the work done on her and I learned much about larger wooden shipbuilding by watching Hal, his son Ross, and other "old timers" working on her. Wander Bird was ultimately sold and moved up to Washington, I believe, and then returned to Germany as a museum ship. The restored Bird sailing off Yellow Bluff heading home to Sausalito, CA on S.F. Bay. Note the two crew aloft at the mainmast doubling. I have no idea what they are doing up there, other than "skylarking," but I doubt that. Hal ran a tight ship so I doubt they were up there for fun. They wouldn't have been raising setting a topsail in than wind and on that course and there's no evidence of one on deck, She carried a rafee topsail earlier in her life: I'm looking forward to your build log!

Absolutely! That's one of the biggest advantages of an airbrush. Also, if you are airbrushing with acrylics and you thin them with denatured alcohol , they will dry much faster because alcohol evaporates much more quickly than water.

Ah, but if you needed to know the time in order to navigate, I bet you would be!

Just a tip if you haven't tried it as yet: You can practice technique using water as a medium on absorbent paper, perhaps with a touch of watercolor or food coloring mixed in if your paper doesn't show much wet/dry contrast. Often, just plain water will show up quite well. Brown paper bag paper works well because it gets dark when wet. In this way, There's really no clean-up after practicing that needs to be done unless you've run some colored water through your gun and even then, all that's required is to just rinse it out.

I'll throw in one more technique pointer I learned from a professional painter. Be very careful to keep your roll of tape from laying down on any surface which is not dust-free. Easiest way to accomplish this is by habitually storing all your opened packages of tape in a zip lock plastic bag. (This will also keep the tape fresher. The adhesive won't dry out over time.) If a roll of tape is laid on a dusty surface (like a bench top right after sanding,) the adhesive on the edge of the roll will pick up all the dust and grit. It may not be visually apparent, but it's there. When the tape is applied, that dust and dirt ends up right on the edge of your tape and often gets under the very edge of the tape. This promotes paint bleeding beneath the edge of the tape and makes getting a sharp clean edge when the tape is taken up much more difficult to achieve. I second Keith's endorsement of 3M tapes. Cheap masking tape is penny-wise and pound-foolish. Regular blue painter's tape, even 3M, isn't really made for getting perfect masked edges at fine scale viewing distances. (It's made for house painting.) For razor sharp lines on models and a less aggressive adhesive that doesn't lift paint so readily, I'd stick to 3M or Scotch "Fine Line" tape (from the automotive paint supply store) which comes in a range of tape widths down to 1/4", or Tamiya's model tape, which I believe is pretty much the same thing packaged in a smaller quantity at a higher price. These tapes are specially designed to produce perfectly sharp paint edges on curved surfaces and are made of thin material that minimizes raised paint line edges. They'll cost a bit more more, but if you keep the roll in a plastic bag, it should last for years.

I noted that Aleksei Domanov recently moved from Belarus to Poland. I don't know what his reasons for moving to Poland were, but it would appear to be a plus for modelers in Europe and the Americas. From our perspective, Poland is definitely the more favorable environment for an international mail-order business because Poland is part of the European Union and Belarus is not.

It has nothing at all to do with Howard Chapelle. It was just a follow-up to your insightful "segue" comment that " Too many manufactures of kits grab a concept (no matter how wrong it is) and make a product. That product then becomes what many buyers will believe was the real thing." Sometimes thread-drift leads to unexpected flashes of brilliance. And sometimes not. In this instance, I thought your observation was spot on.