Bob Cleek

The biggest difference between building stringed instruments and ship models is that the luthier with any competence has a far better chance of selling what they build. My neighbor is an internationally known master violin and cello maker. It takes him as long to make one of his instruments as it does the master ship modelers to make one of their masterpieces. His instruments start at $25,000 and go up in price exponentially from there. He's quit taking commissions for new instruments because his repair and maintenance work is so much more lucrative. I have a friend fifteen miles up the road who is a master guitar maker whose work is in the collection of the Smithsonian and whose clients include a number of Rock and Roll Hall of Famers. You'd need a rock star's money to buy one of his guitars. He's not taking new commissions, either, and now passes new work over to the apprentices in his shop. I have most all of the tools both of these luthiers have, except for the very specialized musical instrument making tools, and I have a fair amount of skill working in wood and metal, but I'd never begin to attempt to build a musical instrument because I know nothing about playing them. So also it is with ship model building, which can be a lot more complicated than might be expected. One can buy a kit, or even plans and instructions for a model to be built from scratch, and produce something credible if it be a simple model and the instructions good ones, but beyond the rote following of instructions, a ship model builder won't get too terribly far unless they have an extensive knowledge of ships and boats, particularly in the period of the ship they are modeling, and a working familiarity with full-sized boat and ship building procedures, again specifically those of the period in which the ship they are modeling was built. As I'm sure you'd agree, if I were to buy a guitar-building kit and followed the instructions to the letter, no matter how much care I took in building it, I could never hope to match the quality of a Martin guitar, let alone a custom built instrument from one of the masters. That takes decades of apprenticeship, mentoring, and dedicated, full-time, journeyman's experience. I could probably build a violin if I had a good kit, but it would never sound like a good violin, that's for sure. The kits mentioned above are the best around for a competent woodworker to start with. It's "buyer beware" in the ship model kit world, for sure. There are a lot of very mediocre, if not flat out crappy, kits out there selling for hundreds of dollars. Just remember that in most every instance, the picture of the finished kit model in the advertisements and on the cover of the box is never possible to be built from the materials and instructions in the kit. The "finished" models in those pictures were usually built by professional master modelers who went far beyond the instructions and materials supplied to produce the model in the photographs. It's sort of like putting a photo of the real Mona Lisa on the cover of a paint-by-numbers kit box. Fortunately, the models mentioned above are among the few for which this warning doesn't apply. At the same time, you'd do well to read up on the craft of ship modeling and learn all you can. (Use the search engine in this forum to find lists of the best of them. Lots ship modeling books have been written, some good and a lot not.) Many find simply learning the nomenclature of ship construction a daunting task and, like all languages, it takes a lot of "immersion" to learn to speak it as if it were one's mother tongue. Ship modeling is a fascinating hobby, or profession, but the amount of learning that is involved, and indeed the amount of historical research, while most enjoyable to many of us, isn't always everybody's cup of tea. I encourage you to try it and see if you like it, but don't discourage yourself by biting off more than you can chew with a learning curve that's way too steep. If, on the other hand, you are seeking a source of retirement income that involves woodworking in miniature, you'll probably make a whole lot more money building collectors' dollhouse miniatures like miniature reproductions of Chippendale dining room sets at 1:12 scale, than you ever could building ship models! I offer these thoughts not in an effort to scare you off, but in the hope that you'll get off to the right start. Finding your way to this forum community is the right first step. You'll find all the help you'll ever need along the way from fellow forumities in MSW.

Yes, the scale will determine the level of detail. Drilling tiny holes in thousands of bits of crushed kitty litter may land you in the loony bin, but there's no limit to how far a dedicated modeler will go to achieve realism! Battle damage will be a function of the period of the model. In the Age of Sail, before the development of the torpedo and mines, and particularly, in the age of cannon balls, there wasn't much, if any, damage below the waterline. At most, it would just be at the waterline or a few feet below. Customarily, the object in those days would be to damage rigging and rudder sufficient to render the opposing ship incapable of maneuvering, at which point it would be so vulnerable that there was nothing else to do but strike its colors and surrender. The enemy ship would then be taken as a prize. Prize money was awarded to the ship that took the prize and divided among the officers and crew in proportion to their rank. If the enemy ship was sunk, it wasn't going to result in any prize money, so the object was rarely to sink the enemy, but only to disable and capture.

That looks more like really, really big shipworms than it does barnacles. These are barnacles. Shelled sea creatures that are shaped like volcanoes. This is shipworm damage from the outside. (A type of clam, burrow into the wood beneath the surface, like termites.) This is a boat bottom in need of a cleaning and anti-fouling repainting with barnacles or mussels growing on it. The green seaweed and algae growth isn't too bad because it's been running at speed through the water regularly. And this is a boat bottom that has been sitting still in a berth for quite some time. You might consider looking at model railroading scenery catalogs like MicroMark to see what's available in terms of "greenery." Beyond that, it's just a matter of how creative you want to get. You might want to consider, though, that most bare mahogany is usually too coarse-grained to be suitable for modeling work (although some high-priced species are not so much so,) and no boat with a mahogany hull would ever go without paint or varnish, and particularly so below the waterline. The mahoganies don't weather well if left bare.

I love live steam ever since I restored an old contemporary model of a Victorian steam yacht. There's so much more available for live steam fans in the railroad stuff than in boat models. I envy the guys with the live steam locomotives. The full-size "Sipet" model loco is really neat. It's prototype was for hauling cane in cane fields and the like, I presume. It must be great fun to run the model around the garden. Thanks for the video!

I expect that Jim Byrnes will continue to offer blades on his website. I expect they wouldn't be expensive to send to England. They're flat and fit in an envelope, so I suppose they could be air-mailed without any problem.

Very nice, clean, crisp work! It looks great. May I suggest that you consider revisiting your lifting rings? I don't know what the kit-supplied rings look like, but, to my eye, at least, being familiar with full-sized boats of this type, the "big, clunky" rings that came with the kit are probably correct. (I'd be surprised if any detail was out of scale on this kit model, considering where it came from.) The lifting rings must carry the entire weight of the boat, plus her rig, all her gear, and most, if not all of her crew. These boats were not lightly built, either, as they needed to be able to survive a fair bit of banging about in use. The lifting ring eyebolts would have been set in substantial pads and probably through-bolted to the keel, rather than a simple screw-shanked eye. The rings would have been surprisingly large in order to carry the weight they needed to. What I see in the above pictures are rings that appear too small. It's your model, of course, and a very nice one, so do as you wish. I only mention it because if you were of a mind to rethink it, it's a very easy change to make. Below is a standard USN motor whaleboat. The lifting rings are in the square, three-sided wells at the bow and stern (between the cleats.) As you can see, the rings are petty husky, and keep in mind that these rings are made of modern materials. The original of the model would have had hand forged wrought iron rings that may have been heavier still.

If you aren't already aware, Jim Byrnes will sell you a custom-sized arbor adaptor for any size saw blade you have, so if you have problems sourcing Imperial-sized arbors in the metric UK, your problem will be easily solved.

Well, Chapelle's books are great resources (I have all of them,) but I wouldn't go so far as to say "you can't go wrong" with him. Some of Chapelle's published plans and a fair number of the HAMMS ("Historic American Merchant Marine Survey") drawings from the WPA era contain some pretty glaring errors. They were done as a "make work" project during the Depression and some of the work was sloppy and some of it was conjecture. This is particularly true when it comes to rigging. Often, they were taking the lines off of an old hulk that no longer had a rig in it and they'd just pick one and draw it in there. In other instances, they'd find but one surviving example of a type and then Chapelle would publish it in one of his books as representative of the type when, in fact, it was perhaps an odd ball outlier but just really all they had to go on, so they used what they had. Still, they managed to save a lot of what would have been lost forever. Take it with a grain of salt, though. If you do your own research as well, you'll spot and possibly be able to correct some of the errors. (This wasn't necessarily Chapelle's fault, but that of the many unemployed draftsmen and architects sent out to find "old boats" and take plans off of them.)

Sorry to say, I feel your pain. "Packaged tours" are to travelling what kits are to ship modeling. Next trip, try it as a 'scratch-traveler." Take your time, Explore. Enjoy. You'll be glad you did!

One thing you can do that won't hurt its value any is to lose the ribbons tied to the mastheads. They aren't original to the model and they aren't anything but somebody's idea of a decoration. BTW, the glass case is a big plus. Obviously, somebody (probably the maker) cared enough to protect it. It was important to them. That adds more credence to the possibility that it was built by someone who had sailed aboard her. Look carefully for a signature, on the keel, perhaps. You might get lucky.

You may have better luck at a firm that has printers designed for architectural and engineering drawings duplication. These are specialists and have copying equipment that can accurately copy to scale without any distortion, which is often present in ordinary copiers. The pixel level of the PDFs are important, as well. Enlarging the PDFs will enlarge the width of the lines on the page proportionately. Often, that leaves a line too wide for accurate measurements, or, at best, requires careful measurement from the very center of a wide line. While explaining it is way above my pay grade, there is another digital format, TIFF, which uses a compression format that permits far greater enlargements of files with little or no distortion or line enlargement. If you have that option, it's by far the better one to use for enlarging plans. The ship plans available from the National Park Service on their HAER database offer a TIFF option for those plans. You can also enlarge them on an 8.5 X 11 inch paper format and print them at home and then paste the pieces together, but you may encounter distortion, depending upon the quality of the original digital image.

The USS City of Brooklyn this model possibly depicts would have been the Brooklyn launched in 1858. She was sold out of the service in 1891. Her DANFS (Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships, the USN's official and definitive history source on all USN ships) can be found here: https://www.history.navy.mil/research/histories/ship-histories/danfs/b/brooklyn-i.html She also has a Wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Brooklyn_(1858) This, the first of three Brooklyns to bear that name and one of the earliest steam-auxiliary USN fighting ships, had a long career and particularly extensive and distinguished service in the Civil War. While the workmanship is crude and quite inaccurate, "impressionistic" one might say, the condition of the paint and absence of obviously modern materials indicates the model is old. The apparently printed ensign, having fewer stars in the field than at present, may provide some clue to dating the model. It is clearly neither a kit, nor is it a commercially manufactured decorators' piece. It's almost certainly a "one-off" model and quite likely contemporary (built while the ship existed) or built later by someone familiar with it. Of interest is the detail shown on the propeller and shaft and the smokestack compared to the detail of the rigging and deck furniture. This was one of the first screw-driven naval vessels in the Navy and the modeler seems to have considered those features of importance. As is, considering its apparent age, it is in good condition and likely requires little repair or conservation. (Which is another topic entirely. Just remember how many antiques have been featured on Antiques Roadshow were worth many time less than they would have been if the owner hadn't refinished them!) From the two photos you've provided, which are much less than would be required for any real appraisal, I'm going to go out on a limb here and hazard a guess that it is a "sailor made" model by a former crewmember, possibly by someone in the engineering department rather than a deck or gunnery department. It was not uncommon for sailors to make models of their favorite ships they'd served on for personal mementos or as gifts for loved ones back at home. Sailor-made models built from memory often emphasize the area of the sailor-builder's posting on the ship, with other areas less detailed. The value of any antique is always a function of what some collector will pay for it. This is a ship model and it may well be of some marketable value, but not as a ship model per se, but rather as a contemporary historical artifact. If, and that may be a big if, you can establish the model's provenance, that is, who built it, when, and why, it may be of significant value. If not, it remains an interesting curio, but isn't likely to be worth big bucks. If you can connect the model to a builder who served on the vessel, a relative perhaps, and even better if you can then research their military history and be able to place them aboard during some of the famous battles in which Brooklyn engaged, such as the Battle of Mobile Bay, you will have something quite likely marketable on the specialized auction market. There is a niche category for "trench art" and folk arts and crafts pieces made by soldiers and sailors in wartime among militaria collectors. I expect the model would bring a much higher price in an auction of Civil War memorabilia if its provenance can be established linking its builder and his service aboard the ship than simply as a "ship model." That's were I'd see it's value to be. Otherwise, I think it's a very cool old folk art model, but nothing you'll ever see a lot of money out of.

Just put a coat of shellac on it and then sand with very fine grit sandpaper until it's as smooth as a baby's bottom. If you sand through the shellac, which shouldn't happen with a 300 grit or less abrasive, reapply the shellac where it's sanded through and sand again until it's perfectly smooth. Shellac comes in different "cuts," and is marketed as, for example, "two pound cut." That would mean two pounds of shellac flakes dissolved in one gallon of alcohol. Shellac can be the consistency of molasses and used as an adhesive in some applications, or as thin as water (2 pound cut) for use as a sealer. If it thickens in the can, just add alcohol and stir well. Don't worry about how much you have to thin it. Just get it to "water" consistency and you're good to go.

I think you may be asking which of these two boat models (manufacturer's brands) is the best choice to buy. If so, I suggest you ask this question in a full-size boating forum. You should be able to find someone in one of those forums who can provide some good advice. Sea Ray is a respected American powerboat manufacturer that has been in business for about sixty years. They were the first company to build fiberglass powerboats and probably are one of the largest manufacturers of powerboats in the world.

Hervey Garret Smith's book provides a few elementary fancywork knots and is good for beginners. The Ashley Book of Knots is entertaining and "approachable." It's by far the best for one wanting to learn how any knot is tied without starting with the simple forms and building up from there or having any command of the nomenclature, while at the same time quite encyclopedic. Hensel and Graumont's Encyclopedia of Knots and Fancy Ropework is the definitive scholarly encyclopedia which technically describes every knot invented, at least until the time of its publication, but assumes, as the various categories of knots are covered, that one "knows the basics" and understands the nomenclature. Ashley will tell you the name of the know and give a drawing with step-by-step instructions on how to tie it with arrows and dotted direction lines. Hensel and Graumont will show you a photograph of the knot with it's name and describe it technically without the "step-by-steps" instructions, assuming that the reader has read the previous discussion of the simpler versions of that particular knot type and can build upon them to tie the more complex derivitives. The more academic Hensel and Graumont book may be of greater interest to the historic ship modeler, and particularly one who lays up their own scale rigging line, because it contains a detailed discussion of the history of cordage and its use and manufacture. Ashley's is apparently now in the public domain and is available for free on line at https://archive.org/details/TheAshleyBookOfKnots/page/n19

I won't claim wisdom, but I've been around the block a time or two and still have everything I was born with, minus a few brain cells, I expect. My present workshop is a dedicated 1500 square foot building with an overhead fan, a large floor fan, and two large moveable pedestal shop fans, I didn't invest money in these. I just picked them up here and there over the years. The shop has a "clean room" where I do my drafting, rigging, and such. The rest of the space has windows and a large sliding door about the size of a double-space garage door. All of my stationary power tools are on heavy roller bases so that they can be moved as needed. Anytime I'm working, the door is open to the outside, unless it's particularly cold or pouring rain. Anytime I do anything that creates dust, (e.g. table sawing, wood lathe turning, power jointing, thickness planing, sanding) the machine used is rolled at least to the open door, if not onto the concrete pad outside the door, and the fans positioned to create a good breeze exhausting air from the shop to the outdoors. Afterwards, I vacuum or blow off all the dust and shavings from the tool with compressed air and roll it back to its storage spot in the shop. This keeps most all of the dust out of the shop. It just blows away. I live on a farm and don't need to deal with neighbors worrying about where the shavings go. Similarly, spraying of any volatile materials is always done outdoors, or in front of the open large barn door, with fans to move the air from inside to outside. I do spray solvent-based coatings from full-size commercial-type Binks sprayguns, as well as HVLP spray equipment. I rarely spray any coating from a "rattle can," due to their expense and often poor quality results. (One can't condition paints or adjust the spray shape and volume with a rattle can.) I do use an artist's airbrush to spray solvent-containing paints in my shop at the bench. I generally run the overhead fan above my main bench, which keeps any fumes away from the area, although the amounts of material coming out of an airbrush are generally so small as to not be any major consideration. I also use exhaust fans to vent the entire area when working with acetone for cleaning jobs and such. I wouldn't necessarily advise these techniques for those who work at their dining room tables, however. The famous yacht designer, L. Francis Herreshoff, had his metal lathe set up in his dining room, but he was a life-long bachelor, and that may explain why. I should disclose that over a lifetime, I've acquired professional experience working in a furniture factory, a machine shop, on commercial painting jobs, and several commercial boatyards. I've seen a couple of guys lose fingers in table saws, another send himself to the ER in an ambulance sanding antifouling paint off of a boat bottom without wearing a particulate mask, and I once carelessly put a heavy-duty grinder into my own kneecap, a result of fatigue and a moment's inattention while grinding rust off an iron keel. On balance, I've seen a lot more Darwin Award entries in commercial settings by professionals than ever by do-it-yourself-ers, but that's probably because there's a lot more opportunities to do stupid stuff when one is on the job working all day every day. I am pretty well familiar with OSHA regulations and I consider myself a very careful worker in any hazardous activity. That said, I am aware every time I turn on a power tool that I am risking serious injury, which is probably why I've still got all my fingers. Also, I don't do that for a living, so my odds are better on that basis alone. I'd never discourage anyone from using what they believe to be the safest way to do anything and I sure won't accept any liability for anybody else getting hurt doing it the way I do, but I will say that I've never found the need for exhausting spray boxes or booths at all when using ordinary paints and varnishes. That would, I'm sure, not be the case if I were shooting car finishes on a production basis or lacquer finishes in a furniture factory paint shop, and there's no way I'd ever spray any LPU coating, even outdoors. without a good mask and separate breathing air source. Neither would I want to spend a working lifetime in a furniture factory with clouds of fine dust hanging in the air without wearing a good particle mask. With a small DIY shop and relatively occasional exposure, minimized by blowing it all out the door, I've never felt the need to invest in ambient air dust filters. When airbrushing models and I am concerned about overspray making a mess, I will take a cardboard box and use it as a "backstop," just as the exhausting spray boxes are used, and simply throw out the cardboard box when I'm through with it. (Some care occasionally does have to be taken to avoid "back spray" from sprayed material swirling around in the box, though.) Although I've seen workable homemade spray boxes that use standard furnace filters to separate particulate and ordinary shop vacuums for exhausting the vapors out the back, I've always preferred good ambient ventilation over vacuums... blowing rather than sucking... because my major concern has always been combustion risks much more than inhalation risks. I prefer to have good air blowing the bad stuff away from me and into the great outdoors. Both dust and volatile fumes can fairly easily "go boom" once you suck them into a hose. In all of these things, one must exercise good judgment in balancing all the risk factors, realizing that there is a big difference between occasional exposure and frequent, long-term, exposure to toxic materials of various types as addressed by OSHA regulations. It's always a good idea to study the Materials Safety Data Sheet ("MSDS") on any new product used in the shop and follow all safety instructions. If you want to spend hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars on dedicated plumbed shop dust collection systems and vacuum spray boxes and booths in a hobby workshop, knock yourself out. You might do well, however, to remember that a lot of the stuff probably sitting under the sink in your kitchen right now which, if you don't use it safely, will kill you quicker than most anything you'll ever encounter building ship models. The best safety device of all is an properly engaged human brain.

Hey, those were the days, weren't they. You need to read on to understand how they managed to get away with spraying lacquer and venting the fumes with a vacuum cleaner, or turning on a lathe wearing a tie and long sleeves. (It seems everybody wore a tie and long sleeves, even factory workers, in those old photos... it was a sign of social standing, actually. If you didn't wear a white shirt and tie to work in the early 1900's, you couldn't afford to be buying Popular Mechnics, dontchaknow?) About five pages down, you'll see the answer, "Smoking Camels Calms Your Nerves!" I guess it was not smoking that turned Americans into a bunch of pansies afraid of getting hurt doing anything. Darwin Award contestants who spray volatile solvents indoors and operate lathes and other stationary power tools wearing jewelry, ties, long sleeves and hair and the likedeserve the prizes they win. It's just a natural part of the evolutionary process. It's God's way of culling the really dumb ones.

"Scratch built" can broadly mean "not assembled from a kit." However, the designation takes on a more specific meaning and importance when models are entered in judged competitions or classified and cataloged by museum curators, appraisers, and auction houses. Such classifications and categories vary, depending upon whoever is doing the classification, but one generally recognized classification system in the United States is the one developed by the The Mariner's Museum Model Ship Craftsman Competition and by Mystic Seaport Museum (Mystic, CT, USA) as prepared by R. Michael Wall in 1980. This category system is used to classify quality models for sale in galleries and auction houses and in museum catalogs, as well as in judged competitions: CATEGORIES OF SHIP MODELS CLASS A: SCRATCH-BUILT MODEL: Model built entirely from scratch materials by the builder with no commercially fabricated parts except cordage, chain and belaying pins. CLASS B: MODIFIED SCRATCH-BUILT MODEL: Model built from scratch, but supplemented by the use of some commercially fabricated accessories. CLASS C: MODIFIED KIT MODEL: Model built from materials provided in commercial kit, supplemented by other commercially fabricated parts or by scratch-built parts. CLASS D: KIT MODEL: Model built entirely from materials provided in commercial kits. SPECIAL CLASS: SUB CATEGORIES: Model built and/or displayed in any of the following methods: Antique Waterline Cross Section Cut-away Exposed Interior Sailing Half Hull Power Rare Materials Diorama Mechanized Builder’s Extreme Miniature Ship in a Bottle Shadowbox Americana Folk Art Decorative Production Pond Model Other These categories and standards of building techniques and materials requirements can be found in Ship Model Classification Guidelines published by Mystic Seaport and which can be found at http://www.shipmodel.com/pdfs/ship-model-classification-guidelines-1980.pdf In terms of hobby modeling, by which I mean building models for pleasure and satisfaction, no rules at all need apply. "If it feels good, do it!" On the other hand, if you are interested in producing models that will be equal to those seen in international competition and major maritime museums, an accomplishment that takes decades to achieve, these are the classifications and quality standards that one must meet. That said, one of the biggest challenges in the scratch building modeling game today is sourcing some of the old materials which are no longer in production like they once were, such as linen thread, solvent based paints, and some of the exotic stuff like now-endangered wood species (e.g. real ebony, boxwood, and rosewood) and ivory. New materials are available, often they are synthetics, and we don't know how long some of these will last, especially the new plastics, resins, and adhesives. How far one wants to go to ensure "archival quality" is, I suppose, a matter of how long they hope their model will last to be appreciated by future generations. I would urge anyone who is interested in scratch building, and particularly anyone who wants to by-pass kit assembling at the beginning and start straightaway with scratch building, to start building a research library on the subject and study the recognized "Bibles," most of which, fortunately, are still in print. Some good ones are the books by Charles Davis, Harold Underhill, Gerald Wingrove, and C. Nepean Longridge. These are now perhaps somewhat dated, but they cover the basics well. Just as a musician must first master his instrument before embarking on jazz improvisation, so also the ship modeler has to develop the foundational skills of the craft. Many of us, and certainly the best modelers, began long before the internet provided us with an explosion of information and research opportunities. I envy those entering the ship modeling hobby today who have resources like this forum which should accelerate their learning curves exponentially. Read, watch, ask, and learn! We're happy to have you!

I would have been one of her targets, no doubt. I've used a lot of it over the years, but somewhere along the line I started using white vinegar to wash my hands after getting epoxy all over them instead of using the acetone I had customarily used before. It wasn't a safety issue. The white vinegar was cheaper than the acetone was all. I survived without any ill effects, or so it seems. All things in moderation, though. Lots of ventilation. No solvent-, oil-, or linseed oil-soaked rags left in the shop. Ever.

Welfalk, thanks for the information! That's good to know.

Wait a minute while the stagehands get me back in this harness thing here... Well, this is a guess, really, but the answer would depend upon the period, I'd expect. Back then, the sheet copper would be used for larger stovepipe heat sinks like the one shown on the large vessel above (which is of a type I've never seen before) because copper would have been far easier to work into shape with the corners sealed with lead solder. Welding wasn't really common until WWII with iron plate being welded before then. Until the Bessemer process came along in the second half of the 19th Century, iron and steel were relatively expensive to manufacture. Copper was much less expensive in those times than it is now, relatively speaking. Iron would have been much heavier than copper and prone to rust. More than anything else, the prices of these metals are subject to the laws of supply and demand. While Bessemer's steel-making process dramatically lowered the cost of manufacturing steel from iron, a metal that is easily mined in many places, the cost of copper, a metal more rare than iron, increased far more than iron and steel when electricity came into common use and created a vastly increased new demand for copper, one that has not let up even to the present time.

The use of a "water iron" or "deck iron" has been standard wherever a stovepipe passes through a deck, most likely for as long as stovepipes have been passing through decks. The one pictured above is large and the basin around the flues would have likely been made of copper. On smaller stovepipes, the water iron is simply a cast iron ring fit around the pipe and set in the deck which has a depression around it to hold water. The mass of the iron ring and the water it holds serve to dissipate the heat from the pipe. They do often have to be tended to refresh the water to provide sufficient cooling and are somewhat impractical if the vessel is sailing at any appreciable degree of heel which causes the water to slosh out. They are a standard fitting on wooden vessels with stoves burning solid fuels and still manufactured today.

Good question! I wondered the same myself. I've never seen that before. It appears to be attached between the stock and outboard fluke of the aftermost anchor. The only guess I could come up with, and it's purely a guess, would be that it prevented the sounding lead line from fouling on the outboard anchor arm and provided a place for the leadsman to stand when casting and recovering it. Soundings were customarily taken from the forward chains and required the leadsman to be positioned as directly above the lead on the bottom as possible when the sounding was taken. The lead line would be cast well forward as the ship was moving forward. Depending upon the speed of the ship (which should have been slow if in water so thin that soundings were necessary) and the depth of the water, throwing a heavy lead far enough forward would require a pretty good swing to ensure the lead hit bottom before the leadsman came directly above the lead. Thus, with the lead on the bottom directly below the leadsman, an accurate sounding would be possible with the line running perpendicular to the bottom. (If the leadline were at an angle when the sounding was taken, the sounding would necessarily be "long," which would decidedly not be a good thing in water shallow enough to require soundings to be taken!) The lead would then be hauled back up for the next cast, but the ship would be moving continuously, such that the leadline tends to trail aft as it's recovered. With the aftermost anchor's arm sticking out, the fluke arm would prevent the leadsman's swinging the lead enough to throw it far enough forward and when recovering the lead, the line would trail aft and foul in the crotch of the fluke arm. That netting would permit the leadsman to position himself far enough outboard to clear the anchor fluke for swinging and recovering the lead and permit the leadsman access to a perpendicular drop for reading the line. That's just a complete guess, though, based on my experience taking soundings with a leadline. What a ship of the line would be doing taking soundings at battle stations with all of her guns run out is another question entirely!

What you are describing is the inability of the short plank to form a fair curve with the plank forward or aft of it. In small boat construction, planks are not "butted" to one another at the frames, but rather a "butt block" is used. This is a piece of wood as thick as the plank and fastened to the inboard side of the two butted planks and the plank above and below the butt. In this fashion, the run of planking bends as one plank and the resulting curve is fair. It's pretty much impossible to pull the butt end of a plank to form a fair curve by simply fastening it to a frame in small boat or model construction. Another solution now made possible by modern adhesive technology is to scarf planks at the butts, thereby eliminating the need for often-troublesome caulking at the butts in full-sized practice. A plane scarf is made joining the two lengths of plank stock and the whole plank then got out of the stock as if it were one longer piece of stock. Epoxy adhesive is used to join the scarf ends, but wood glue would be fine for modeling. The scarf ratio is usually eight to twelve to one (the length of the scarf cut to the thickness of the plank.) The stock can be scarfed at an angle if need be to accommodate a long bend, or simply straight to produce a longer straight piece of stock. While experienced boatbuilders can simply stack two pieces of planking stock one on top of the other with their overlapping ends separated by the length of the scarf desired and cut the scarfs "freehand" with a plane or slick, a jig is easily made to do the job accurately for those of us with less skill. A scarfed plank should bend fair no differently than an unscarfed one. If one wishes to depict the plank butt on a scarfed plank model, that is easily done by scribing a "faux butt" wherever one wants it,.

I can't speak with specific authority to period French standing rigging, but I expect it would have had to be tarred. Otherwise, it wouldn't have lasted when exposed to the elements nor had the strength properties desired. "Stockholm tar" (pine tar) was a valued essential naval store for all nations during the age of sail, France included. Pine tar is naturally blackish brown in color. Newly tarred cordage will appear lighter, the shade depending upon the color of the tar and the color of the cordage, but with exposure and additional maintenance coats will darken considerably. From a "scale viewing distance," it will appear black or very, very dark brown. Additionally, "lamp black" (carbon) was often added to the pine tar to inhibit UV degradation and, thinned with turpentine, to make black paint, as seen on many period hulls. For these reasons, standing rigging appears blackish brown or black from a distance, while running rigging was lighter, depending upon the fiber used to make it. Hemp was a frequent cordage material. It is medium to darker brown. Below are some a contemporary models in the Musee National de la Marine in Paris. It appears that they depict a range of colors from medium browns through black colored rigging. The standing rigging appears predominantly darker blackish brown or black, as would be expected for tarred cordage, while the more flexible cordage, the running rigging and anchor cable, are more brown. (The colors can be "off" due to variables in the lighting and photography, of course.) You wouldn't go wrong with either very dark brown or black for standing rigging, I don't think.