Bob Cleek

This is pure conjecture, but I believe there is a rational basis for which running rigging is left aloft and which is not when sails are "sent down," rather than an "up for grabs" "to each his own" decision. The "proper" arrangement of running rigging when sails are absent comes apparent, it seems, when we contemplate the operation of a full-sized vessel. Whatever is aloft has to be carried or hauled aloft and once aloft, isn't likely to be "sent down" if it doesn't need to be. Consider a square sail which which is to be repaired and reworked in port and so is "sent down." The sail is furled and tied off in stops and then lowered to the deck in the form of a "sausage." When it's returned from the sailmaker's loft, it's hauled aloft as a 'sausage" again and the head is secured to the yard. It makes sense that a sheet, for example, would be left aloft by tying a figure-eight knot in the bitter end and letting it stop in the block, running the fall to the belaying pin below. There would be no need to sending down the sheets, buntlines, brails, and so on when the sail was sent down. They all could be easily reattached when the sail was sent back up. Cordage, particularly wet cordage, can get heavy in a hurry, so it's going to be left aloft unless it has to be sent down for some particular reason. Similarly, for example, a headsail would be lowered and removed and it would make no sense at all to do anything with the halyard but to tie the hoisting end off at the foot of the stay and the fall at the pinrail. On the other hand, It wouldn't be shipshape to leave the jib sheets laying about the deck if the jib was gone. The sheets would be coiled up and stowed on the rail or wherever was convenient. It's all about reducing the work aloft to the minimum amount necessary. If one keeps this in mind, what running rigging stays aloft when there are no sails bent on becomes a fairly logical determination. No?

But, there's always a catch... in this case, it's for "local pickup only." In other words, if you buy it, you have to come and get it. $50 is the starting bid, but he says 80% of the books are nautical titles. You have to look closely at the pictures, but there's a lot of model-building stuff in there, it seems. lot 2000+ Nautical books Mostly HB Ships/Boats/Sail/Steam/War/Navy/Models &c | eBay If I were anywhere near Independence, MO, I'd be there with bells on right now.

That depends on what you are using it for. I don't wish to be argumentative, but your comment leaves me scratching my head, Jack.

Yes, I found that the Panavise was a bit light for a lot of applications, but there really is a need for a range of vises in a well-equipped shop. I've got several from a big heavy six-inch jawed bench vise at one end, through an eight-inch woodworking vise, a couple of portable vises that clamp on the edge of workbenches, three or four machinist's vises of various sizes, an engraver's vise, a couple of jeweler's vises, a Black and Decker "Workmate," which is a sort of portable workbench that doubles as a vise, and a now somewhat-rare original (not the Asian copy) Zyliss "Swiss Army" vise, which is a wonderfully versatile patternmaker's style vise originally designed for field use by the Swiss Army.

The core of my shop, which I've built over a period of fifty years and three or four versions is "old 'arn,." Like you, I started with early 1950's "hand me downs" from my Dad. Every one of his old Craftsman stationary power tools is still going strong. One thing I learned is that mass equals stability and stability equals accuracy. That's why cast iron tools are still so desirable. And they are out there if you are willing to spend the time searching for them. Local auction and "for sale" sites are a good place to keep an eye on. Every time a craftsman shuffles off this mortal coil, there's usually a widow who can't wait to get rid of his "junk" for peanuts. I envy the British modelers. England seems to have something of a culture of "model engineers," much more than we do in the U.S., so you have a lot of good used stuff floating around over there, or so it seems. Get yourself a well-tooled Unimat lathe to enjoy while you are waiting to find a nice lightly used, well-tooled Myford 7.

A woodworking bench vise of that size is a severely limited tool when it comes to versatility. A wood vise should not be used for metal, while a metal vise can be used for wood. It has no swivel capability. If one is into collecting miniature tools, it may be desirable, but not for serious work. At the present time, based on current reviews on a variety of sites, the Stanley 2-7/8" Light Duty Multi-Angle Vise with Swivel Base, at less than $50 is the apparent favorite. I don't have one myself, so this is just hearsay, but I plan to remedy that shortly. Stanley 83-069M $46.95 2-7/8" Light Duty Multi-Angle Vise with Swivel Base | Zoro.com

You'd think so, but in my case, if they took one look at the white beard on this old phart, that would exclude me from the thug category.

Metal wire of many kinds can be found in stores that carry beading supplies. I suppose it may be a regional thing, but in my area there are a few "bead stores" that carry nothing but supplies for "hobby beaders." They have lots of types of wire and beads that can be useful for ship modeling. Also, I've found some electrical parts are wound with salvageable copper wire, often in very fine gauges, which may be useful. You often have to clean off insulating coating, sometimes simply shellac, which is soluble in alcohol. The wire can be stripped by running it through a draw plate.

That's odd. I'm always looking for a clerk to tell me where what I'm looking for is located. Try dressing like you were going to church and see if that helps. Definitely do not wear a hoodie! You may be the victim of "retail security profiling." Is it possible you're setting off the "shoplifter alarms" every time you walk into the store?

Lee Valley... The Franklin Mint of tool companies?

I remember the rats going crazy for shaft gland packing made of flax and tallow on a tug. They made a hell of a mess. I think it was the tallow that attracted them, not the flax. I expect they'd also have a taste for old-fashioned tallowed canvas tarps and oilskins.

Do you think the experienced guys turn them out all that much faster? A half hour to make a deadeye and chainplates isn't all that bad at all.

1980's, 1880's, 1780's, 1680's? In London, your best bet for any of the above would be the Royal Museums Greenwich - National Maritime Museum.

Absolutely! A bit of thinner, turpentine or mineral spirits, or a bit of acetone if I'm spraying, which allows building up a coating without waiting so long for it to dry, a tiny dash of flattening paste, if needed, a tiny dash of Japan drier to speed up drying even more if needed, a bit of raw linseed oil to slow down drying if need be. pour it into an empty pill bottle with a half dozen bee-bees and shake her up good. Getting in touch with my inner mad scientist. Life is good! Big tubes of some high quality colors can seem a bit pricey, but I sure don't miss paying eight bucks for a third of an ounce of pre-mixed paint anymore, that's for sure.

Hey, Roger, I can save you ten bucks. Check out this free interactive online color wheel: https://www.rapidtables.com/web/color/color-wheel.html You just click on the area of color you want on the color wheel or type in the Hex, RGB, or HSL code and you get a "chip" of the color in the large square to the right of the color wheel. The colors on either side of the color you pick are the colors that yield the color you picked when mixed together. Red and yellow make orange, yellow and blue make green, blue and red make purple, and so on.

What Jaager said. However, be sure to buy quality artists' oils, which have finer-ground pigments, not cheaper "student" or "hobbyist" grades. These will have "purer" colors which are more likely to blend as expected. Sometimes, non-primary colors are a combination of colors which don't behave exactly as expected when mixed with other colors. Given the usually limited palette of ship models, It only takes a few tubes of colors to give one the ability to pretty much everything they'll ever need. However, if you really want to stick with premixed paints, check out Tru-Color Paint. I've not used it myself. It's a relatively new company and isn't as widely distributed as some of the other brands, but it is getting really good reviews from the railroad and armor modelers. They will mix custom colors, I believe. That said, their color selection is so broad that I don't think you will find it all that difficult to get a match. Check out their color charts. See: https://trucolorpaint.com/

Wow! What a selection of "jewelry!" It looks reasonably priced, too. This one went right into my "Favorites - Modeling" file. Thanks a million for sharing it, Kurt!

Excellent question! I wondered the same thing the other day. Vossiewulf was a valuable member of the forum community. He's a very accomplished modeler. I've learned much from him over the years. Perhaps the Admin could give him a ping.

"I have scratch built turnbuckles but I found a source for very well made brass turnbuckles at a very reasonable price and will not scratch build another turnbuckle. These are for more modern boats than steam riverboats where I will still have to scratch build them." Did you forget to post the link to your source, or are you just trying to play hard to get? I've always had problems with turnbuckles. Reasonable facsimiles can be made, but I've never been able to replicate the working turnbuckles on a 4' long live steam working 1900 steam yacht model I extensively restored years ago. The model was built in the early 1920's. Four inch-long open body turnbuckles with properly opposingly threaded forked arms supported the deck-stepped signals mast. I've looked all over for tiny reverse-thread taps and dies to no avail. Even regular tiny taps and dies are very hard to find and quite expensive. I expect the best that can be done is to have but one end threaded and the other a "dummy." On that model, the ability to loosen the turnbuckles and unhook the shrouds from the chainplates made it possible to remove the mast when transporting the model, a feature that came in very handy. If anybody knows where opposing-threaded micro-taps and dies can be found, I'm all ears. (I wouldn't be a bit surprised if wefalck doesn't have a complete set of right and left-handed micro-taps and dies in his collection of watchmaking tools! )

I did not know that. Very interesting. It makes perfect sense that they'd not be too worried about antifouling paint there. I have not idea what the local regs are, but there are lots of rust-inhibiting coatings available now, so red lead isn't needed. (They can even spray molten zinc, which results in the equivalent of hot dipped galvanizing.) They come at a cost, though. In my neck of the woods, they stopped painting the Golden Gate Bridge with red lead paint years ago. They now use another coating of the same color.

Maybe I'm missing the color to which you refer. Red lead primer is used to prime iron and steel because the lead oxide bonds well to iron and steel. It's not an antifouling hull coating, however. Traditional antifouling coatings are generally the same a reddish brown color as some red lead paint because they contain a fair amount of cuprous oxide. There's a wide range of colors which one might describe as "red lead." Red lead oxide pigment has a color range from bright orange ("International Orange") through scarlet to brick red or brown depending on the composition of the lead oxide. That's the problem when it comes to matching it. Because red lead oxide was the cheapest paint pigment at one time, they painted everything with it where appearances didn't matter, from ship bottoms to boxcars to schoolhouses, to barns, and in every variation of the orange to brown range. This is probably why none of the paint manufacturers market a specific "red lead" color. Artists call the bright orange colored version of red lead tetroxide "minium," which was what the Romans called it. You can find artists' oil paint called by that name: Minium (Red Lead) Oil Paint Minium 50Ml (artistsupplysource.com) You'll find many premixed shades of what you are looking for in the "railroad colors" section of model paint manufacturers' chip sheets. Minium-232908 - Minium (mineral) - Wikipedia Or, you can buy lead tetroxide powder from Firefoxs' Home page--for fireworks making supplies, pyrotechnic chemicals, color smoke, composite propellant kits, electric igniter kits, Igniter Heads, Paper Caps & Plugs, 37/38mm insert materials, fireworks fuse.... (firefox-fx.com) and mix up a batch of the real stuff in your basement at home: Makes one gallon: 20 lbs dry red lead tetroxide powder** 5 pts raw linseed oil* 1/2 pt turpentine 1/2 pt Japan drier* *If using "boiled" linseed oil, the Japan drier should be omitted. **If cost or weight is a consideration, cabosil or talc may be substituted for up to half the red lead tetroxide powder to maintain paint consistency. Or for small modelmaking amounts, you could just take any clear matt finish coating and however much red lead tetroxide powder you need to color it to your taste.

Thanks for posting this conversion chart program. It's one of the most extensive I've ever seen and a welcome addition to my "favorites" collection. I especially like the convenient feature of just clicking on the brand and then the color and getting the whole range of equivalents. It's more than just a "chart," it's a program. While the variation in computer screen color settings render these "online paint chips" less than perfect, they are an excellent start for those of us who mix our own colors, or run out of our "stash" of the old-time premixed "good stuff" in the middle of a build. For those who may find it useful, here's an additional color conversion chart for the now out of production Floquil colors: Floquil Color Chart.pdf (microscale.com) Here also is a link to a PDF copy of Floquil's instruction booklet on another website. It contains a lot of good painting tips for miniatures: Floquil Painting Miniatures (paulbudzik.com)

While quality model kits, as Roger describes them, serve to inspire and educate beginning builders and those who, for whatever reason, want a model a particular kit yields, "going over to the dark side" of scratch modeling is the inevitable outcome of one's developing modeling confidence, if not skill. You don't need to be a Passaro or Tosti to build from scratch. As Roger sagely notes, there is an unlimited supply of plans for just about any type of boat and they can often be had for "beer money," if not for free. Freeing one's self from bondage to the kit manufacturers opens the entire world of nautical subjects to the modeler who is thereby no longer bound to building models of ships that have been built hundreds, if not thousands, of times before. Chapelle famously addressed this over fifty years ago (I think,): Nautical Research Guild - Article - Ship Models that Should Not be Built (thenrg.org) and Nautical Research Guild - Article - Ship Models that Ought to be Built (thenrg.org). I think the question that should be asked by serious modelers more often than it seems to be is, "If, by some strange twist of fate, my model were to come to light two or three hundred years from now, would studying it tell people in that far distant future anything they didn't already know?" We don't have to build to the amazing levels of technical quality to which only a few are able to achieve, either. Some of the most academically valuable models we have today were actually quite crude, but they are all we have to see what ships of their times looked like. We are all capable of building "museum quality" models, if we just give them enough time! Mataró – the oldest Museum Ship Model | Professional Model Making (wordpress.com)

When we were young, it was beer! But, alas, we are no longer young.

Tools get you through times of no love better than love gets you through times of no tools!