Bob Cleek

Yes! That's certainly true. Each field of technical drawing has it's own refinements and they can often get very complicated. With nautical drafting, developing rolling bevels or curved elliptical transoms, for example, can be quite involved, but at the end of the day, the "grammar" and "vocabulary" of the "language" of drafting is pretty much all the same. At the risk of being accused of setting this thread "adrift," I'll offer the observation that since US high schools quit teaching drafting (often called "mechanical drawing" or "technical drawing") a generation ago, we've become an increasingly "drafting illiterate" culture. I doubt many under the age of fifty know what orthographic projection is. I think the lack of knowledge of technical drawing basics is one of the biggest stumbling blocks for many modelers who otherwise would be able to seamlessly transition from kit-building to scratch-building, and with that, the reason we lack a greater diversity of subjects being modeled. So many feel limited only to kits, or at best, to subjects with available "model plans." Yet, our maritime museums and other archives are chock-full of incredibly interesting modeling subjects which are rarely, if ever, modeled because many are intimidated by the full-scale lines drawings and tables of offsets. The Historic American Engineering Record (HAER) has detailed drawings and photographs of tons of historic vessels, available in TIFF format, which can be enlarged without loss of definition, all for free on the internet. You have to do some searching on their search engine, but if you are looking for an existing museum ship in the US, you can probably find it by name. For example, HAER has dozens and dozens of photographs of all the details any modeler could possibly want, together with exquisitely detailed modern drawings of the sailing ship Balclutha on display at the San Francisco Maritime Historical Park. See: http://www.loc.gov/pictures/search/?q=Balclutha&sp=1&co=hh So many ships and so little time... Anybody who wants to expand their modeling horizons need only pick up a used "Mechanical Drawing" or "Technical Drawing" high school textbook and a copy of Alan Vaitses' book Lofting, still in print, do a little reading and have a go at it! From HAER: Balclutha's HAER historical documentation file contains sixty-nine pages of plans drawings and well over a hundred (I didn't count) photographs, some old and some current, covering every square inch of this vessel. All the research possible has been done, "our tax dollars at work" and in the public domain, ready to download. What isn't anybody modeling her? (If anybody wants to study the photos or plans up close, click on the "TIFF" pixel option on the individual image page after clicking on the thumbnail, and then use your PDF page "tools" icon to enlarge the image to whatever size you want.)

Thanks for the fascinating detailed information, Mark! It is most interesting. Of course, we are a rather small family of "wonks" who would have the slightest interest in such trivia when measured against the population as a whole, but I expect most of us have long ago gotten used to the fact that the level of historic detail and leaning we find so rewarding escapes most of the rest of the world. And thanks for the tip on the John Franklin book!

Who? Me? I certainly did not intend to convey the impression that large ships of the relevant era, naval or otherwise, were build with steam-bent frames on battens and molds! My point was that heat-bent frames on battens and molds could be used in a model of a large ship if one wanted to avoid extensive lofting to achieve an unplanked, frames showing, "Admiralty style" model. Close examination of Admiralty Board models seems to indicate that few have built-up sawn frames as some of today's master modelers have depicted in attempting to construct ever more accurate interpretations of the original vessels. (With the exception of Victory, which is extant, and those few which may have had lines and construction details recorded, a truly accurate portrayal of actual constructions details is impossible.) I would suspect the frames on many, if not most, Navy Board models may well have been heat-bent as I described. To get the curves required sawn out of a single piece of wood would result in grain run-out resulting in fatal structural weakness. None of those pictured below, collected from a casual internet search, appear to have sistered frames or separate futtocks, the frames all appearing to be single pieces of wood. Mordaunt, Royal Museums, Greenwich Below: Bonaventure (ff. 1683) National Maritime Museum Ship of 44 guns - unknown- Royal Museums Greenwich: Navy Board model, Boston Museum of Fine Arts

The Dietzgen set is their "second quality," their "Gem Union" line being their best. It is a very good professional set nonetheless. (As a Bentley is to a Rolls Royce!) The Reifler set is indeed older. The white handles (if they are white, and not just reflected light from the metal) are quite likely real ivory. The black ruling pen handles are almost certainly ebony. Riefler was a top end German manufacturer, still in business today. Most all quality drafting instruments sold by the US instrument companies were manufactured in Germany or Switzerland by a small number of companies and labeled by the US firms. Riefler was one of those manufacturers which also sold instruments under their own label. (Given the near-monopoly of instrument production by the Germans, there were extreme shortages of defense-essential drafting and navigational instruments during both World Wars. Keuffel and Esser brought out their own line during that time, called "Minusa," a contraction of "Made in USA." Dietzen had a similar US made line.) Reifler was particularly famous for the innovation of instruments with rounded edges and round "legs," which were preferred by some as being more ergonomic than the sharp-edged square-bodied style instruments, (See: http://www.mathsinstruments.me.uk/page47.html )Your two sets provide examples of both styles. While divider points alone are sometimes steel, these instruments are generally made of "German silver," sometimes called "nickel silver," an alloy that was not silver at all, but rather an alloy of copper, nickel and zinc. It is favored for its rigidity and resistance to tarnishing. There are specific protocols for cleaning it. The least complicated is washing in dishwashing liquid and water. From there, electrolytic processes are used, such as laying the piece on tinfoil in salty water. Google is your friend here. I'd be gentle with instruments. You don't want to ruin the fit and finish with rough abrasives.

I can't dispute your assertion about frame placement with respect to Admiralty Board Models offhand, as I don't know enough about them. However, certainly in full-size construction, in later times, at least, there was necessarily no exact correlation between station lines and frame placement. The practice when drawing lines (and/or taking up offsets) was to divide the length between the extreme perpendiculars (bow and stern) into ten or sometimes twelve equal parts and the station lines were drawn to show the shape at each station, without any relationship to the frame placement, other than that the center frame was generally placed on the middle station line. The "frame and space," also described as the dimension of each frame and the space "between centers," that being the midline of the frame width (eg. 4" on 17" centers) will also vary, depending on the design. Some vessels carry frames of greater scantling ("molded" and/or "sided" dimensions) in areas where greater strength was desired, such as at the "chains," where shrouds are attached. That may involve simply greater scantlings, or closer spacing, or both. Also the frames which are not set on the keel, at the ends, are often spaced differently from the midships frames set on top of the keel. At the bow, especially, cant frames (which are not perpendicular to the vessel's centerline, but fan out to form the curve of the bow) end up evenly spaced as to themselves, but don't follow the "frame and space" or "on centers" designations anywhere along their length except at the sheer, or thereabouts. It is not necessary, however, to build an unplanked "plank on frame" model, what we might call "the Admiralty Board Style" by laying up futtocks as in full-scale practice. Ed Tosti's current log on Young America is a tour 'd force of craftsmanship, depicting the actual construction techniques generally used on the wooden-framed American clipper ships, if not the prototype's actual construction itself, since I don't believe pre- or post-construction draughts were ever made of that vessel. (I believe Ed is relying on Crother's excellent book on the subject for his construction details, but I could be mistaken.) The same can be said for the Admiralty Board models, the actual vessels having been thereafter actually built at the master shipwright's discretion, at least as to "getting out" the timbers from the stock on hand in the yard at the time. The same "open frame" effect can be accomplished on models of full-sized ships by heat-bending the model frames, instead of getting out futtocks and making "built" frames. I'd agree that sawn frames are set up on "frame lines" with the forward side on the frame line aft of the center station line and the aft side of the frame on the frame line forward of the center station line, but only when the rolling frame bevels are not lofted and cut prior to the frame being erected. If the bevels are accurately lofted and cut, there is no need to set up the frames to leave wood to be removed in fairing the bevels after the frame's erection. If one wishes to build an "Admiralty Style" model showing frames and keel structure, all they need to define the shape of the hull is the keel, stem, and sternpost lines, the stern station lines, the middle station lines, and one or two station lines between the middle station line and the stern and between the middle station line and the stem. From these shapes, often readily available in plans as the station lines, molds or bulkheads can be cut and mounted on the keel. Battens are then sprung on the edges of these molds. Frames are then heated and bent and temporarily fastened inboard of the battens. Planking then proceeds, with battens removed as the planking progresses, and you got it done with little or no "lofting" at all. (Harold Underhill describes this technique in detail in his books on hull construction.)

Interesting point. And if you buy through Amazon Prime, you get free shipping. That pretty much prices out all the competition and everybody who doesn't sell through Amazon. I suppose it's time to start looking at Amazon a bit differently. Can you say, "anti-trust?"

I strongly suspect that the British Admiralty dockyard models were shellacked, not varnished. Shellac will outlast varnish by orders of magnitude. "Orange" shellac (natural colored,) will darken, and its gloss increase, with each successive coat. It's easily thinned with denatured alcohol. It's also easily removed with denatured alcohol. The darkening and gloss rate of increase will depend on how thick it is. This is referred to as the "cut," expressed in pounds, e.g. "two pound cut," which would be two pounds of shellac flakes to a gallon of alcohol. Most prepared canned shellac ("Bullseye" is a good brand found nearly everywhere) is sold in "two pound cut." Thinning it 50-50 yields "one pound cut," and so on. Multiple thinned coats are the best approach. Applied to thickly will fill in detail, as might paint. It dries quickly, about as fast as the alcohol evaporates. Shellac on ship models has lasted for somewhere around 5,500 years, so far, if models found in the Egyptian tombs are any indication. Some top end woodworking catalogs sell shellac in "flake" form, which is the crushed excretions of the female lac bug. You have to add your own alcohol. Mixed shellac supposedly has a "shelf life," and hence the sale of the crushed flakes alone. I've never had any problem with the premixed canned shellac going bad on the shelf over a period of years, though. Other's mileage may vary, but I've never found the higher price, shipping cost, and hassle of ordering flakes by mail and mixing my own worth the trouble and I've used a lot of it over the years. It's a stock item in my paint locker. Varnish is more difficult to work with, primarily because of extended drying time and the need to resort to chemical strippers, heat guns, or scrapers and sandpaper to remove "goofs." Thinned shellac has the consistency of water and will penetrate bare wood easily. Not so much so varnish. If too much shellac is applied, it won't have brush strokes, runs, and sags ("curtains" in the trade). it tends to soak into the wood and dries quickly. Too much varnish and you end up with brush strokes, runs and sags, much like enamel paint. This is less of a problem with thinned varnish for "model scales," but varnish is finicky. Sometimes the gloss is dulled when it's thinned too much, especially if mineral spirits are mistakenly used instead of pure spirits of gum turpentine, and other times, it can refuse to dry and remains sticky. A capful of Flood's "Penetrol" in a quart of varnish will improve its ability to "lay down" and a teaspoon of Japan drier will improve drying ability. Like oil paint, varnish does require something of a "learning curve" to master the art of conditioning it as required to get a perfect "Steinway piano" finish. (Steinways are actually French polished, I believe... with shellac!) Most quality marine varnishes are adequate, Z-Spar brand "Captain's" varnish is a good one, as is the European and pricier Epiphanes brand (which requires the use of their proprietary thinner.)

Yes, it seems they ban carrying onto a plane anything a creative mind can possibly imagine could be used as a deadly weapon. For some strange reason, though, since those restrictions went into effect, I've never had any problem at all boarding a flight with my Dearly Beloved . If they only knew!

I certainly wouldn't advise "smuggling," or anything illegal, but I wonder if a passenger flying in brought a Byrnes saw over as his "carry-on" or passenger luggage on a trip they were taking anyway, could one get around the exorbitant shipping expenses? People are always shipping cars, too. You could get a lot of Byrnes Model Machines inside a car that was being shipped as container cargo. Somebody could develop a profitable little sideline importing them.

I recall somewhere somebody mentioning a Byrnes saw with an extended table. I'm not sure if the extended table was a one-off "Jim Special," he did for somebody, or not. NO extended table is available as an option at present., AFAIK.

You betcha! "Raising the load line," is simply "overloading the ship" and painting a new load line that hides the fact. There are no free lunches at sea. Overloading a ship places excess stress on the entire hull structure. Something's always got to give. :

Everybody picks their own poison. I prefer Interlux "surfacing compound," also called "glazing compound." Interlux is a brand of quality marine paint. This is a material with the consistency of thin, creamy peanut butter that is thinned with acetone. The acetone evaporates quickly, leaving a plaster-like hardened material which sands "like butter." It can also be worked, as with dried plaster. It is not highly porus, like drywall paste, so it can be painted without problem. Tools clean up with acetone easily. A pint can lasts forever when modeling. A tablespoon of acetone added to the can and left to sit overnight will return it to its consistence if it thickens some. (Do not leave the top off the can while working with it. That will cause surface drying in the can.) For large fairing jobs, I also find epoxy resin thinned with microballoons or fairing additive works very well, although curing takes longer than fairing compound. My go-to epoxy flavor is WEST Systems products. I'm not a fan of mixing sawdust into epoxy or PVA. Some are. I've found PVA is "rubbery" and sands poorly, gumming up abrasive sheets. Your mileage may differ.

Well, the blade can bite you once it passes through the cut in any event! I don't see any reason not to, other than the possibility of a minor difference ruining the cut. I've done it often on full-size table saws where the piece was too large to cut in one pass, or to reduce the resistance in thicker pieces. Keeping the blade just a bit higher than the piece is thick is proper and in that instance, there's very little of the blade exposed, during the cut, at least. Always, always use push sticks and, where necessary, featherboards. Never, ever, reach over the blade for any reason. Keep your hands behind where the blade is exposed. Always use a sled or miter gauge when making cross-cuts. Always use an outfeed table if the piece needs support to prevent it from dropping over the back edge of the saw table. Never stand in line with the blade. Sometimes that takes a bit of extra time to set up and can be a bit like patting your head and rubbing your stomach at the same time, but it's the easiest way to keep all your fingers.

That and the fact that you'll want to kill any person who spills an alcoholic drink on it!

Pumice and rottenstone powder is readily available in paint and hardware stores in the US, at least. (Or used to be. We never know when a tried and true traditional product will be outlawed for some environmental safety reason!) It's not expensive. It really does produce a wonderful finish. It's best applied with some sort of vibrating pad, if one's available. Doing it by hand, while very effective, is a lot of work on a less than perfectly coated surface, as it removes material very slowly because it is so fine.

It' helps! Thanks for taking the time to explain it. It was as I thought. They probably used what they had whenever a block was replaced.

Thanks for the reference! Open boats are always such a challenge in smaller scales. They are a detail that often first catches the viewer's eye and so require a lot of care and attention.

Have you got a URL for their website?

Do you know whether the internally stropped blocks were original to the Morgan or were added later in her long career. I've got an old Marin Models Morgan kit that I've been thinking of building one of these days. It's plans are from the 1930's and show her as she was launched carrying a ship rig. I suspect that her 1840 rigging was renewed over time with newer blocks, but I'm not sure when internally stropped and externally iron-stropped blocks came into common usage. I suppose there may be some information somewhere on her original rigging, but I thought I'd ask since you've been doing such a great job on her.

I missed those two boats in the davits port and starboard until now. Beautiful details! Did you cover building them in this log?

Interesting exercise! However, you will probably find that your topmasts and topsails, as well as additional headsails, are going to overpower the sailing model and, with the additional weight aloft, cause her to be very "tender." In other words, a gust of wind would cause her to turn turtle. It's a matter of balance. In light air, it's not so much of a problem, but the "weight" of the air doesn't scale down proportionately. (This is why you have that long fin ballast keel on her.) You will require greater ballast, most likely. Keep in mind that you are adding a lot of sail area up high and that is going to significantly increase the overall center of effort of the entire sail plan. The higher the center of effort, the greater the leverage of the masts and the more the vessel is going to heel in the wind. It's really a lot more complicated exercise than just adding some topmasts to an existing rig. Everything has to be balanced. If you change one thing, there's usually three others that have to be changed to keep it all in balance. As for tacking the topsails, in a simple rig, there are two topsail sheets. They pass over the gaff boom and whatever other top hamper is necessary, with the leeward sheet run down to belay at the foot of the mast, while the windward sheet is loose running over the top hamper. When tacking, the leeward sheet is cast free and the windward sheet is hauled down, pulling the tack of the topsail over the top hamper. The top hamper, primarily the gaff boom topping lift rigging, has to be simplified to accommodate this. If there are triatic stays between the mast tops, then a similar arrangement of lines have to be rigged so that the topsail clew can be brailed during the tack and hauled out again to the leeward side of the top mast stays. It's complicated! That's why you don't see a lot of RC sailboat models with complicated rigs.

Thanks! I edited my post to include the URL you provided. I spent way too much time trying to find the non-Facebook URL, with no success. For those not on Facebook... don't bother! It's a huge waste of time, unless you want to be kept apprised of what some kid you went to grammar school with cooked for dinner last night. (It's also somewhat useful for occasionally looking up old girlfriends and feeling a whole lot better about "the one that got away" that you ever imagined! )

That's an understatement. I've seen more than one full-sized boat's plywood skin and internal parts blown apart by somebody trying to fill an enclosed bow or stern flotation chamber with that stuff. It's like one of those 1950's science fiction "B" movies: The Killer Foam From Hell. It just keeps spreading and spreading until it's done and there's very little way to predict when it's going to stop. It produces a lot of force if it's contained in any way.

I came across this interesting video today. It shows the many knots useful in tying fishing rigs. Many were familiar to me and I expect would be to others, but it occurred to me that many of them are also useful for tying model rigging as well. The knots are designed for using slippery plastic fishing line, but can be tied with any sort of thread or line. Many of the knots yield a "served" appearance with the fall wraped around the standing part. Particularly in smaller scales, some of these knots will appear as a respectable representation of a served eye splice. I thought they might be of interest to some. https://www.animatedknots.com/

Whew! That was welcome news and not at all surprising. I'm only theoretically conversant with CAD. I know how it works and what it's limitations are, but I don't use it for a variety of reasons, not least of which are exactly the reasons Chuck mentions. I do my drafting "on the board" and I hang plank "on the boat" as in full-size practice. For my purposes, (okay, at my age...) I find that faster (and less expensive) than buying the really good software necessary and taking the classes to learn how to use it. (As chance has it, Autodesk's world headquarters are just down the road from my office.)