Bob Cleek

Back before manual drafting instruments became as collectible as they are now, I was able to "stock up" on LEROY (they always spelled it with capitals, but nobody knows why) pens, scribers, templates, and other accessories. I was also able to secure a good selection of the "unusual" templates. The ISO font templates are plentiful, but the old pre-ISO fonts were hard to come by and are now practically impossible to find on eBay anymore. I also stocked up on Koh-I-Noor Rapidograph technical pens, which can be mounted in the LEROY scribers. If you can get the right accessory scribers, you can alter the size of the fonts and the slant angle of the fonts, which greatly expands the range of the templates you have. LEROY sets are a bit tedious to use, but easy enough once you get the hang of it. I don't have a lot of occasion to use mine, particularly since I have a trained freehand lettering "fist," (as they used to call it in the trade.) The last time I had to do any manual drafting for reproduction with a lot of lettering (text specifications in the margins,) I actually printed it out from my wordprocessing fonts in the formats I wanted and did a "cut and paste" job onto the drawings. That worked fine. There's still a fair number of ISO-font LEROY sets listed on eBay these days: https://www.ebay.com/b/Leroy-Lettering/14017/bn_7023237212?_pgn=3

1. Paint on melted parafin (wax - available in supermarket or hardware store under "home canning supplies.") 2. Best option, cover entire framework with plastic cling-wrap.

I was referring to using the table saw for slicing 3" sheets off of billets. The greater kerf waste on a table saw is a given, of course. For edge-cutting guide slots for resawing on my table saw, I always use a tenoning jig for safety. Then there's the old-fashioned way with a bandsaw. Run a line down the edge of the jointed piece you want to resaw with your marking gauge and then just run it through the bandsaw following the marked line. Or you can avoid buying a bandsaw entirely and do it using hand tools. All that's needed is a marking gauge and a shop-made frame saw or hand saw.

Now that is the Rolls Royce of disk sanders!

It's a cold day in hell when a model perfectly portrays its prototype and doubly so with historic models whose prototypes don't exist anymore. There are always compromises, extrapolations, wild-assed guesses, and conjectures along the way. We all set our own limits on our models. Horsefeathers! You're already well beyond half an expert at the tender age of 40. Keep at it and you'll be twice as good at 80!

Very nice model ! The addition of the detail really makes it come to life. Now, with a bit of trepidation, but in the spirit of helpfulness, seeing the care you've taken to research and to ensure the accuracy and quality of this interesting and important build, I'd like to offer a couple of comments, which you are, of course, free to ignore. They aren't offered as a criticism, but only to share some knowledge and experience which may be helpful. 1. Masking tape isn't an archival material. The stuff has a bad habit of drying out and, well, just going to crap, sometimes in surprisingly short order. If it's well sealed and painted, it might survive, and it might not. 2. While the use of masking tape, nicely painted and weathered, may well represent "tar paper," the fact is that "tar paper" wasn't likely to have been used as a roofing material in Arabia's construction in 1853, or even later. The first historically documented use of rudimentary tar paper was during the California Gold Rush which would place it sometime in the early to mid-1850's. It was used as a temporary water barrier on temporary buildings which weren't expected to survive beyond the time it took the surface mining in a given area to "play out." These were basically shacks, and nothing more. Being exposed to the elements, it did not last long and was frequently replaced as needed until needed no more. To my knowledge, it was never used alone as a roofing material on any vessel. Keep in mind that asphalt or bitumen, available only from surface deposits such as the La Brea Tar Pits in Los Angeles, CA, was a somewhat limited commodity at that time. Some was locally available in California then, but it was not until 1859 that oil was extracted from a drilled well in Titusville, PA. (Spelling the end of the whaling industry and the beginning of the petroleum industry.) Oil did not really come into its own as an industrial material until after the Civil War. "Roofing felt," however, which came along at the same period, was used as an intermediate water barrier on small boat decks and cabin tops of not only vessels, but also, quite commonly, railroad passenger coaches. It was never, however, the exposed surface of the roof to be covered. "Irish felt" (also called "ship's felt") was not a paper, as "tar paper" was, but a true felt, made of linen rag material. It was laid over a wooden tongue and groove roof or cabin top. It was then covered with canvas duck bedded in white lead paste spread over the felt which was copper tacked at the edges and then shrunk in place with boiling water. The wet canvas was then painted. This created a lasting waterproof surface which only required regular painting to maintain the watertight integrity of the system. Properly maintained, this sort of roof would last for twenty years or more before requiring replacement. The appearance of a canvassed roof or deck would be that of a smooth surface with the texture of painted canvas. (The more paint that was applied over time, the more the weave would be filled with paint and the smoother it would become, although it retained some texture because the paints of the time would chalk in the elements and slough off.) The canvas would be stitched in panels before being tacked down and, IIRC, the standard bolt width was 54", which would yield about a 48" panel, allowing for three inches on each side to permit a doubled, rolled stitched seam. 3. While the archaeological artifacts may prove me wrong, I would hazard to guess that the cabin tops would never have been painted black, or the color of tar paper, but rather would have been painted light grey, as was the custom of the time and long afterwards. (Black and white were the two least expensive paint pigments at that time. when paint was mixed by painters from raw materials at the time the paint was applied. Colors, more expensive, were reserved for trim.) Grey would be preferred over white, as white would create a glare from the sun that would be hard on the helmsman's eyes and actually can create a type of "snow-blindness" for crew working on it. Black would not have been used because of its heat-absorbing quality. They had cabin stoves to keep warm in the winter, but there was no such thing as air conditioning and a black cabin top would have rendered the accommodations below uninhabitable in the summertime. Note the "color" of the cabin top in the below photos. Take it for what it's worth, or not. Hope it's helpful.

I don't know if anybody's done the research, but I'd bet cutting watermelons is one of the highest risk kitchen cutting jobs around. I always use the biggest knife I can find. The problem is the watermelon is so heavy it wants to take control in the middle of the cut. Somebody must have posted a how-to-do-it video on YouTube.

If a copy can be located, I expect scanning it in PDF format and posting it on the "Articles Database" would be a great service to everyone.

It's my impression that fences, and to some extent miter gauges, are a relatively new thing with band saws. I was taught the same as above: If the blade is wandering, you need to check tension and tracking. (The guides should not be touching the blade unless it's being pushed out of line.) I can't claim to be an expert on bandsaws, but I can't imagine doing re-sawing on a bandsaw with anything less than a 14" bandsaw. If I were cutting slabs off of a three inch piece of wood, I'd be using my tablesaw. If I wanted to cut curves in thin stock, I'd be using my scroll saw or old "jigsaw," a Craftsman/King Seeley cast iron beast, not the modern hand-held "jigsaw." It seems that people in this thread, and others, are looking for small bandsaws, perhaps for price, or perhaps due to space considerations, but they expect the small "toys" to tackle work the standard 14" and larger bandsaws are meant to do.

The easiest way to go would probably to make your patterns out of "dental" or "jewelers'" wax. The wax is easy to work and a mold made from a wax pattern can be used to make a run of identical pieces. Ask your dentist who does their dental lab work, or find a jeweler who casts jewelry. Make friends with anybody in those two fields and they can do the mold making and casting for you pretty reasonably, I'd think. It's no different than making a tooth crown, although you'd use a less precious metal. The problem with wood patterns, especially small ones, is getting them out of the mold. With wax, a ceramic material is poured all over the wax pattern (which would have a sprue and riser, as need be, and when the ceramic material was fired in the kiln, the wax pattern would simply vaporize and you're left with a good mold for casting. That said, cutting an anchor out of sheet brass with a jeweler's saw and silver soldering the palms on isn't really any big deal.

Yes, it was a technological evolution. The "folding" metal stocks came into service in order of size with the smaller ones being first. It was difficult to build the bigger ones until foundry equipment to handle it came on line. Weight was another consideration. A large ("bower") anchor with a wooden stock would be much lighter than a folding stock anchor of the same size. As on-board anchor-handling gear became capable of handling the weight, the folding anchors replaced the wooden ones because they were far easier to stow.

Ouch! That really must put a dent in your potential customer base. Maybe it's time for the modeling specialty manufacturers like Model Machines, Syren, and, the US kit manufacturers to throw in together and fill up a cargo container to ship to an online retailer middleman in the EU every now and then. Or maybe airline personnel might be enlisted to "Smurf" in an item or two on each flight. I believe they get a free personal baggage allowance.

I don't know exactly why international shipping seems so much more expensive than it once was. Perhaps it's because everything is more expensive as time goes on, but it seems it's gone up more than a lot of other things. ( suspect it's what I call the "Amazon Effect." Everybody expects what they order to arrive on their doorstep in a day or two, so everything is shipped airfreight, which was always much more expensive. It used to take a month or six weeks to get something shipped from Europe to the US. That was when mail went by ship. I wonder if things can even still be sent "regular mail" instead of "air mail" anymore. It's the heavy stuff like books and heavier that really get crazy. Perhaps a request for something to be shipped by ship (Why do they think it's called "shipping," anyway?) might significantly reduce the delivery costs at the "expense" of a longer wait for it.

That was the sort of gem I used to go hunting for in the used bookstores and, occasionally, would find. Not any more. The "brick and mortar" bookstores are dying a slow death and most all of the used book outfits not just list everything they get on eBay and let it sit. There's still a "find" now and again on line among the Amazon listings, but they're far and few between on eBay.

Quite a score. I have a hardbound reprint of excerpts from the publication and it's relatively old, too. Lots of interesting items in there, although the techniques and level of research is somewhat dated compared to what we see today. They certainly are of historical value. Donating them to a maritime museum library might bring as much in tax deductions than selling them outright, if such a thing as tax-deducible charitable contributions exist in Australia.

Living a couple of blocks away from her last resting place, I watched the tides wash over Galilee's keel for many years. I should have taken a closer look, but it's too late now. (Her transom is (was?) preserved at Ft. Mason, Golden Gate Recreation Area, San Francisco.) I'll offer a few observations, 1. How could those DTM guys know the keel to garboard faying surface was pointed, unless they pulled the garboard, which they wouldn't have done because they had no need to do it if they were only looking to identify the fastenings. Turner's own yard built the ships he designed and he personally supervised the building. I would hazard to guess he did not draw any design details remotely close to what the DTM guys drew. His crew knew how he engineered his vessels and didn't need to be told how to lay out a garboard seam. Ergo: It's a pretty safe bet that aside from the placement of the keel bolts visible to the DTM surveyors, the rest of the drawing depicting what they couldn't see is likely some lubber's fantasy. 2. No self-respecting wooden ship builder would drive keel bolts any closer to the garboard seam than they absolutely had to. That arrangement looks to me like it's sure to leak in short order. It's clear from the DTM drawing that whoever drew it didn't know shipbuilding because all of the drifts were drawn as being driven straight down. Drifts are always driven at opposing angles so as to lock the timbers together. 3. It's very hard to believe any wooden ship builder of that time, and particularly one as practical as Turner, would ever find a justification for building a "pointed" garboard and rabbet. It would be difficult and expensive work for no benefit, for all the reasons you noted. For what it's worth, this old wooden boat guy has seen more garboard seams and rabbets than he'd like to remember, "in the flesh" and on paper, and I've never, ever, see one a "pointed" one. 4. With a nod to Howard I. Chapelle's tremendous contributions to the preservation of the American maritime heritage, the HAMMS lines are notorious for errors. Don't forget HAMMS was a WPA project designed to make work for unemployed architects, surveyors, photographers, and draftsmen and not all of them had specifically maritime trade skills. We can't be too hard on them, but we have to remember they are "secondary sources" and not primary historical records. I'd say you'd be safe in using "common practice at the time" to "fill in the blanks" where there are gaps or "inexplicables" in the available record. Chapelle was quite forthright about doing the same in his work. Sometimes one has to extrapolate.

You can keep adding coats without worrying whether it's dried or not until just before it starts to sag on the vertical surfaces. Sorry, I couldn't resist pulling your leg a bit there. It's generally a true statement, but, of course, how does one know when "just before it starts to sag" is before it's too late? The answer is "practice." Airbrush paint and ink drying time will usually be very fast. (Sometimes even too fast, with the fluid drying in mid-air. You don't want that.) Painting models, one doesn't want to put down any more paint than necessary so the detail isn't obliterated by getting filled with paint. Good, even color coverage is all you need. Take the time to play with your airbrush. First, use it with water alone to get the feel of the controls and spray it on a piece of paper. This will get you familiar with spray characteristics and nozzle settings and why the patterns look like. This will also give you a feel for how fast the material is being sprayed onto the paper. Once you've got that down, do the same using some paint. You can experiment and see how the paint covers and how much you need. One hint is to keep the airbrush moving. Start your "stroke" and then start the fluid spraying. Let up on the spray and follow through with your stroke at the end. Move the airbrush parallel to the surface you want to paint. Don't spray in an arc such that the distance of the nozzle from the surface being sprayed varies. Move in straight lines across, never in an arc. Applying the fluid evenly is important to avoid unnecessary paint build up and possible runs. Practice makes perfect. Always test spray on a piece of scrap card or paper before spraying anything "for keeps." This ensures you know that your paint mix is the right thickness and your nozzle is adjusted correctly. You don't want to start spraying a perfectly prepped hull without testing the airbrush operation first, only to discover that your nozzle is spitting and sputtering little globs of paint all over your surface! Test every time you refill the airbrush cup! Always. YouTube is probably your friend here. I'm sure there are plenty of "how to airbrush" videos on there.

Clear nail polish works well, too, and the brush in the cap is handy. I've used it in the past, but switched to shellac because 1) shellac has less tendency to leave a glossy shine like nail polish, if the polish is applied too thickly. (Although, nail polish can be thinned with acetone, which solves that problem.) and 2) shellac is very easy to "un-do," if necessary, by applying alcohol. To remove nail polish, it takes acetone, which is a bit noxious, and a very aggressive solvent which can destroy painted surfaces, etc., if a drop falls on it.

I've read as well that shellac has a shelf life of around two years after being mixed and dries tacky when it gets old. Like the others commenting on this, I've never experienced any "aging" problems with shellac and I'm sure I've used some that was more than a couple of years old. I use it for lots of applications besides gluing knots, though.. Most of it that I use is used to seal bare wood before finishing. Maybe the "aging" thing has something to do with using it with French polishing, which can be a tricky business. Perhaps I'll try playing with some dry flakes one of these days and see if there's any difference. I would assume that if there were any way to extend the shelf life of mixed shellac, the manufacturers would do it. The MSDS for Zinsser's "Bullseye" brand mixed shellac indicates that it contains 70% alcohol and 5% propanol. Perhaps the propanol serves as some sort of a preservative. I'm no chemist, so I'm just guessing.

Well, that explains a lot! If not for that, I'd be in the same boat you are. Like I wish... !

i have two. One is a large one for small finishing nails which I occasionally use on picture frames to hold the backs on. There's a better tool for this task that's used by the pros, but I don't have occasion to frame enough pictures to justify buying one. The other is a tiny one for "lil pins" and dressmaker's pins. i very rarely use this one at all. While I often use pins and pegs for fastening in modeling, they are almost exclusively placed in pre-drilled holes and used as pegs to secure one part to another, concealing the peg, rather than driving a nail in with the head left exposed. They have their occasional uses, but I always drill a pilot hole first. One brad-nailing trick I learned from a professional picture framer is to cut the head off of a brad of the same size and type as they one you will be using and chuck it into an "egg beater" hand drill or any other drill chuck and use the headless brad as a bit to drill the pilot hole. Amazingly, it does work easily if the brad point is the usual "squared edge point" type. This technique will result in a pilot hole that fits perfectly and without risk that driving the brad will split the wood, which is a big danger when nailing narrow picture frame stock, especially at the corners..

I expect you'll soon be getting a call from that "Hoarders" reality-TV show. He who dies with the most kits wins? Good God, Man! You're worse with kits than my wife is with shoes!

Yep!

Quite true! Good advice from a guy who spent a working lifetime making old models look good again! We can do something about our models' looks, but we can't do anything about their age.

Ab and wefalck's experiences with shellac mirror my own. While the thread may have drifted (though not intentionally been hijacked, ) the relevance of shellac to the discussion of cyanoacrylate adhesive for use on rigging is that while CA is in some instances a preferable adhesive, shellac may be the better option for rigging applications for which some have been using CA. Ab said it best, "Shellac seems to be a product we forgot." And before this drifting thread's anchor sets, I'll mention that pumice and rottenstone, which wefalck and I mentioned in passing are also "seem to be products we forgot."