Bob Cleek

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?     

Our local Ace has a K&S display and  a good wire selection.  My only gripe is that the overdo the “Helpful Hardware” business.  Whenever I go into the store, someone sticks to me like a leech.  If they’d just leave me alone they might be surprised what I might buy.

Exactly.

There's a lot of incorrect speculation about the canvased cabin tops in the above posts. The cabin tops, as well as booby hatch overheads, would almost certainly have been canvased. This practice involved laying down Irish felt (similar to modern "tar paper") over tongue and groove or edge butted planking, and then canvas tacked at the edges over the felt. The canvas was then doused with boiling water to shrink it tight and painted with thinned paint. This produced a water-tight surface that was certainly strong enough to walk on, although less resistant to puncture and abrasion that a laid caulked wooden deck. It's a common practice for decks on small craft and cabin tops on all sizes of vessels and was only replaced by similar arrangements with fiberglass cloth, canvas, and modern synthetics, such as Dynel, soaked in fiberglass resin, and now preferably epoxy resin. Traditional wooden boatbuilders still often opt for the earlier practice of painted canvas over Irish felt, as it is easier to repair when the time comes.
 
At model scales, a canvased deck or cabin top would appear as a perfectly smooth surface.

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

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

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

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

I spoke on the phone with Cathy, one of the Seawatch husband and wife team, a couple of days ago after encountering a problem with their ordering software when ordering a book from them. She got back to me by phone quickly. She's got a wonderful sense of humor and we had a nice chat. To keep the forumites up to date, the problem with their ordering software is "being worked on," but as it turns out, their son did the coding on the website for them and he, who conincidentally lives in my neck of the woods, was one of the many who lost his home and all of its contents in one of the firestorms that we've been having on, it seems, an annual basis, here in Northern CA. All of his data on maintaining the Seawatch website was lost in the fire and this has seriously hampered their website maintenance, so they are limping along at the moment. 
 
Bob, her husband, is presently not ambulatory due to a non-life-threatening health issue which should resolve in time, but that has left Cathy to "hold the fort" and pretty much handle the Seawatch business on her own. Seawatch is a small family operation. Jeff Bezos has spoiled a lot of us who now expect everything ordered on line to arrive in a day or two. Amazon they ain't. Yet, they are a valuable resource to our hobby. So, let's cut them a bit of slack. The shipping of their books is outsourced and shipping is indiscriminately impacted by the pandemic these days. They have no more control over how fast things come through the mail as we do.

True enough in a sense, if you are talking about electrically powered tools, but let's not get too romantically nostalgic about it. The master modelers who turned out the wonderful Admiralty Board models and the like certainly did have sophisticated tools. Eighteenth Century instrument makers and miniaturists in most instances had machines equivalent to, and in some instances better, than our selection of modeling tools today.
 
This lathe is a very rare treadle powered 1854 ornamental turning lathe.
 

https://www.ebay.com/itm/392694015715?chn=ps&norover=1&mkevt=1&mkrid=711-117182-37290-0&mkcid=2&itemid=392694015715&targetid=1262749490302&device=c&mktype=pla&googleloc=9032112&poi=&campaignid=11612431626&mkgroupid=121090480206&rlsatarget=pla-1262749490302&abcId=9300456&merchantid=113615460&gclid=CjwKCAjwlYCHBhAQEiwA4K21m5tmu2GPv40iTAylAgSca21eIDvBUuiiXSNJWab0_Q6zys0_i2rhVRoCgkUQAvD_BwE
 
 
They had powered scroll saws, too!
 

https://www.etsy.com/listing/745428861/antique-1800s-treadle-jig-saw-36x14x29?gpla=1&gao=1&&utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=shopping_us_ps-a-craft_supplies_and_tools-tools_and_equipment-tools-other&utm_custom1=_k_CjwKCAjwlYCHBhAQEiwA4K21myP675yEwWCgTQAQfy_o6Wot148Le0jyKTtecLdxM1UuuTYkidE9IxoCeHMQAvD_BwE_k_&utm_content=go_12565278184_123210950767_507187537626_pla-295604191622_c__745428861_111184285&utm_custom2=12565278184&gclid=CjwKCAjwlYCHBhAQEiwA4K21myP675yEwWCgTQAQfy_o6Wot148Le0jyKTtecLdxM1UuuTYkidE9IxoCeHMQAvD_BwE
 
A ship modeler could certainly find a use for this 1800's hand cranked watchmaker's lathe.
 

https://www.carters.com.au/index.cfm/index/3930-watchmakers-equipmment/
 
"He who dies with the most tools, wins!" but, when buying tools, choose wisely, Grasshopper.
 
 
 
 
 

I received the book via Amazon in 2 days! It is a superb volume!
Joe

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.

California's redwoods have a similar characteristic,even small splinters will cause inflammation within 24 hours.

My models get built in the shower,  while I am drifting off to sleep and while sitting in a comfortable chair waiting for my wife to decide whether the 18th pair of black pants she is trying on really fits.  Talbots has the most comfortable chairs.
 
Seriously, this is when I figure out a new approach to remaking the part that I ruined the hour or day before.  The worst thing that you can do when you mess up is to keep working to Force a Solution.  Much better to stop working, clean up your bench, and start fresh another day after having time to think things through.
 
Roger

This is the "whole truth and nothing but the truth!"
 
 
I've learned this lesson slowly while completing my first two models and I'm currently progressing at a snail's pace on the third. 
 

Actually.....as some folks progress through kits I think they end up just running through new projects with less care than their first.   The worst thing any new modeler can do is fixate on making things quicker.  Its not a race.  I wish more beginner builders would make it a priority to get comfortable slowing down even further and learning to really up their game on craftsmanship and historical accuracy.  I was just looking through a build log on a very expensive Vanguard Sphynx kit for example and the builder hasnt even bothered to sand away any laser char from the parts or carefully align those parts when gluing them on the model.   Slow....steady....and deliberate is the the only way to achieve a quality result.  So good on you for taking the time needed.
 
This model in question has caused me much "wincing" on each update.   This is a hobby that pays more dividends the slower and more care you put into it.  You dont get any prize for finishing first.
 
 
 
 

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.

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.

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.

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.

So it has. From the Latin root verb, specere, "to look" and the suffix, -ulum, "a tool for..." Speculum is the Latin word for "mirror." Supposedly, in the late 1500's and early 1600's they called a similarly functioning instrument of torture a "choke pear." 
 

 

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. 

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.

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.