Bob Cleek

Beautiful!
 
 

Beautiful!
 
 

When you do get around to handling it, expect it to get a lot of use. It's one of those "there and nowhere else" sort of reference works.
 

That should be the initial assumption, but working forward from there, the question arises, "Okay, what possible reason or reasons might they have had?"

I'll admit in hindsight that this was perhaps not the best example because I do know it was not due to any shortcoming of the model designer, but because the kit was based exactly upon a contemporary model. I was unaware of the existence of a contemporary draught showing the same and would love to study a copy of that.  However, the draught doesn't lend any strength to an argument that the arrangement is correct. There's really no way a boat could be sailed the way it's rigged.
 
In fact, there are ways to rig a double-ended mainsheet with blocks at the quarters that serve the same purpose of leaving the tiller clear to helm without resort to a sheet horse at all, but the only purpose of a sheet horse is to allow the lower sheet block to clear the tiller without fouling it and the prototype can have no other purpose for that sheet horse.
 
All I can say is that there is no way the boat can be sailed the way that tiller is set up. The boom will cross amidships taking the lower sheet block with it sliding along the sheet horse every time the boat is tacked or jibed and every time that happens, the helmsman will be unable to control the tiller to complete the evolution because the sheet will foul the tiller. I know of no boat anywhere, save these two NMM models which have been cited, that has ever had such an arrangement. Chuck and I have discussed this and I don't dispute his position that the Model Shipways kit is a "model of a contemporary model." That's indeed one way to look at it. I don't know that he has any other explanation for it except that that's the way it is on the contemporary models. He certainly didn't make a mistake when designing the kit on that basis.
 
I'm not a "naysayer." I'm a "give me one good reason why" sayer!
 
I'd be interested in knowing what the curators at the NMM would have to say about it, or perhaps Ab Hoving, who knows as much about such things in that period as anybody.

Yes, that is a good observation. However, there are many MSW forumites who are greatly lacking in nautical nomenclature fluency. The world of ships and the sea has its own language and it's different for every commonly spoken language in the world. Even when the spoken language is the same, the nautical nomenclature may differ in different areas, just as the words "bonnet" and "hood" refer to the same part of an automobile in Britain and the US respectively, while a "bonnet" and a "hood" don't both refer to the same item of headgear in both Britain and the US.  And this confusion is compounded when one tries to translate "nauticalese" from  an entirely foreign language, often making the understanding of instructions for the building of model kits imported from places where a different language is spoken quite a challenge, even for the fluent "nautical" speaker in his own language, let alone one who is not.
 
As one who had the benefit of growing up with maritime nomenclature "as a first language," being involved as both an amateur and a professional with ships and the sea all my life, having a father who worked in the industry as well, it is often apparent to me when forum posters "do not speak the language." Unfortunately, there's no "google translate" for nautical nomenclature, nor language school that teaches it, as far as I know. It can only be learned by "immersion," an apt metaphor for "sink or swim." I can't imagine the difficulty a new ship model builder from Kansas or Oklahoma who's never seen the ocean must have trying to build a sailing ship model! (Parenthetically, I've seen some highly skilled modelers who are distinguished by their careful research nevertheless make glaring errors in a model, particularly in things like rigging, because they obviously have no experience sailing vessels similar to the one they are modeling.*) To do so with that handicap is quite an accomplishment! I will say that any ship modeler who is contemplating investing in books related to the hobby would do well to make one of their initial library acquisitions a very good maritime dictionary and keep it at hand at all times. (My top recommendation in that regard would be The Oxford Companion to Ships and the Sea.) The use of such a dictionary will go a long way in making their forum posts more understandable and, thus, encourage more helpful responses.
 
 
 
*Example:
 
This Model Shipways 18th Century Longboat kit is built in complete conformance with the kit's instructions and, I have it on good authority, is an exact "model of a contemporary model" in the National Maritime Museum at Greenwich, England.
 
Who can spot what's wrong with it first? 
 
(Hint: It's something that should be immediately obvious to any sailor.)
 
     

Let's call a spade a spade. The search engine feature of the MSW forum platform is inadequate to address the complexity of the forum's content as well as one would expect based on experience with much more sophisticated search engines like Google, etc. (The development of these "AI-heavy" search engines is driven by their great profitability as "data mining" platforms.) This is true of most every forum search engine I've ever used.
 
There is a "hack" for this problem, however. The trick is to search the MSW forum using a more powerful search engine than the MSW one.
 
The problem:
 
For example, "drifter steam capstan," using the quotations marks to indicate the full phrase, entered in the MSW search engine yields "There were no results for your search."  Entering drifter steam capstan as separate words in the MSW search engine gets you the same "no results" response. Entering "steam capstan" will get you a fair number of results for the use of the term in the forum. Entering steam capstan as separate words rather than a phrase yields three pages of results for steam, steamer, steamboat, and capstan.
 
The hack:
 
Go to a search engine like Google and enter a search for your terms occurring in the MSW forum in the following manner:
 
"drifter steam capstan" + Modelshipworld
 
Google will tell you that there's no result found for the phrase drifter steam capstan in MSW, but it will alternately provide you with "results for drifter steam capstan + Modelshiipworld" (no quotation marks.) You can review those results and, by reading their website sources, see a much more focused set of results than the MSW forum search engine provides. 
 
The first result is:
The next is:
From all indications, these two results are as close as one can get and quickly accessible without wading through useless results
 
 

Excellent point! It addresses a shortcoming of internet forums: Everybody has a soapbox, but some have a lot more to say than others do.  Forums are like good restaurants: Once they are discovered, they often tend to begin to decline in quality. The reason there are so many highly accomplished and experienced modelers on this forum, aside from its association with the Nautical Research Guild, is because they seek out each other and the rest of us are lucky to be able to look over their shoulders. They are here and make MSW what it is because this is where they can continue to learn from those who are playing the game at their level.  When a forum becomes inundated with "newbies," the "level of play" naturally drops and the "high achievers" find it increasingly less worth their while and drift off.
 
Learning is an exercise best done with the eyes open and the mouth closed, (although in my case clearly more so of the former than the latter.) The most useful learning tool of all it the search engine. Notwithstanding that most of the forum platform software packaged search engines are disappointing in the performance when compared with stand-alone search engines such as Google and Bing, they still remain the best way to look up something specific within a given forum. Given the size and age of MSW forum, there is a very high likelihood that most any question one might encounter in the course of building a ship model, excepting really esoteric historical minutia, will have been addressed, often at length, before. It's poor internet forum manners to ask others to answer a question before having exhausted your own efforts to find the answer on your own. Don't expect others to become your "information codependents." Everybody soon tires of a forum that requires hours of wasted time "separating the fly poop from the pepper" (like that other ship modeling forum we all know.) The very basic questions "newbies" ask over and over again have all been asked before. While I encourage and welcome beginners, I must confess that I rarely am moved to devote my time to answering a question they could have found themselves using the search engine.
 
To the original poster who bemoaned the lack of responses to his build log, and to the management of the forum which encourages "build logging" and "newbies" to the hobby (and we all should,) I express my sympathy. On the one hand, build logs are a valuable feature of the forum, if not its heart and soul, but on the other hand, the "build logger" has to understand that he is competing with all the other build logs for attention and it's a jungle out there. If you are new to the hobby and are posting the seventeenth active build log of a popular kit model, your build log isn't going to generate the same amount of interest as the scratch-built masterpiece of one of the published "Superstars of Ship Modeling." I'm not knocking kits by a long shot, but they are ship modeling's "gateway drug." There is an inevitable progression, at rates varying as to the individual, from building kits to "The Dark Side" of scratch-building. No two ways about it, there is far more to learn from following the scratch-build of a never-before- modeled prototype. Don't feel discouraged starting out. Learning to crawl is just as much an accomplishment as learning to walk. 

Sounds like it's time for Shop Notes 3 !
 
Excellent books! Among the very best for, well... for shop notes. There's more to learn from them than anything else I've ever seen in one place. The spiral binding was an excellent move. My copy of #1 was the original paperback binding and it's become a "loose leaf" collection over time. I suppose I should have it re-bound with a plastic comb binding, as pictured above. I used to work in an office where we had one of the machines for doing that, but that was long ago. Office Depot, Staples, and FedEx Office do it.

Lee Valley describes Bridge City's tools as "aspirational." I'd say that's quite accurate.  

Go to the the Delta Tool web site and look up your model number.  There should be a owners manual, parts list, etc. to see if your scroll saw had had one to start with.  I have not seen a brand name saw w/o one.
I sure wouldn't use one w/o the feature.

I can't recall seeing it on a ship model, but it was a common arrangement, I believe. Wrapping a heavy breeching line around a knob could foul the quoin. A cu*t splice worked into the breeching line was also commonly used.  (Proper splice name expurgated so as not to offend the sensibilities of those not fluent in nautical nomenclature.)
 
Thimble rig:
 

 
Carronades frequently had the thimble cast on the cascabel, as in this example on HMS Victory.
 

 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naval_artillery_in_the_Age_of_Sail
 
 

It's Portia Takakjian, "Tah-kok-gee-in." 
 
Her AOTS book was on Essex. HMS Fubbs may have been one of the three builds addressed in her Ship Modeling Techniques book. I fortunately found a great deal on a used copy that's coming in the mail. I've had my eye out for this title at a reasonable price for some time.
 
AOTS: The 32 Gun Frigate Essex   https://www.amazon.com/32-Gun-Frigate-Essex-Anatomy-Ship/dp/0851775411
     (Hardcover: 3 used from $154.84 - 1 new from 97.75)
     (Paperback: 3 used from $565.99 - 1 new from $919.00)
 
Ship Modeling Techniques   https://www.amazon.com/Modeling-Techniques-Portia-Takakjian-1990-04-06/dp/B01HCADDZ4
     (Paperback: "3 Used from $183.87 - 2 new from $768.57"
 
I really don't know what's with Amazon's book pricing. Perhaps they need to revise their algorithms. It seems like some sort of digital "monkey see - monkey do" issue is operative. Somebody sees a price on line and asks more for theirs, and that gets repeated over and over again and the prices just keep getting inflated automatically like Bitcoins. I can't imagine why anybody would pay $919.00 for a new paperback copy of an AOTS book when a lot of 27 new hardcover copies were just remaindered for $150.00 at an online auction. I can't imagine anybody's paying the kind of prices that some of the books on Amazon are listed for. it's certain that poor Portia, who died too young, never saw the kind of money her two books are bringing these days. She was working on an AOTS volume on the 32 gun frigate Raleigh at the time of her death. She was a fascinating maritime historian and ship modeler about whom not a lot seems to have been written.  A classically trained illustrator, her "day job" was as an academic scientific illustrator, her maritime interests were an avocation and she only modeled ships later in her life. Her papers were left to the G.W. Blunt White Library at Mystic Seaport.  What I found particularly fascinating was that while raising two boys as a single mom, she managed to build what her Mystic Seaport biography calls " one of the best, privately held, period shipbuilding and naval architecture book collections in the USA." Wouldn't we all give our eye teeth for something like that!
 
 
Here's her bio from the Mystic Seaport website: https://research.mysticseaport.org/coll/coll289/
 
Biography of Portia Takakjian
Shortly after Portia Takakjian’s death on February 17, 1992, Scottie Dayton, friend and associate, commented in the May/June issue of Seaways as follows: “On 17 February noted ship modeler, researcher and author, Portia Takakjian lost her battle with emphysema. True to her nature, Portia was busy helping others right to the end. She was an extraordinary lady, as anyone who knew her will tell you. Her capacity for caring and giving was boundless.
She was born in Los Angles in 1930, but spent most of her time in the villages of Tarrytown and Piermont on the Hudson River just above New York City. After completing high school she worked as a fashion model for the Ford Agency while attending Pratt Institute in Brooklyn and later the Art Students League.
Portia’s art career originally focused on illustrating children’s books. Her reputation in this field earned a listing in Gale’s “Authors and Illustrators”, while some of her work became part of the Kerlan Collection at the University of Minnesota. Besides illustrating books, Takakjian rose to the level of senior illustrator and draftsperson at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Geological Observatory.
Her interest in ship modeling surfaced while raising sons Kyle and Erik. Takakjian understood how vital a quality reference library was and set about establishing one of the best, privately held, period shipbuilding and naval architecture book collections in the USA. As her knowledge and skills increased, her studio also evolved into a first-class model shop.
When the Hudson River Museum invited Portia to exhibit her models, the interest in how they were constructed led to teaching a weekly class in her workshop. She realized early on that there was little published material to help the beginner, so she began imparting what she’d learned by writing magazine articles.
Portia had much to be proud of, but the publication of the “32-Gun Frigate Essex” by Conway Maritime Press was a crowning achievement. “Essex” was the first title ever produced on an early American vessel for their esteemed Anatomy of the Ship series. Conway’s editors were so impressed with the quality of her plans and the accuracy of her modeling that they permitted her to choose the vessel and deadline for another title. Portia selected the 32-gun frigate Raleigh (1778). Her obsession to finish Raleigh “before it finishes me” drove her over each physical obstacle.
Portia left behind an impressive legacy in her models and writings, but more importantly, she touched and forever enriched the lives of those she met.”

Who's the lubber that brought that butt-ugly hank of yellow climbing rope aboard?  

I don't think that their CNC manufacturing equipment can tell the difference between China and any place else, which leads me to wonder why they would suffer the indignity of a "Made in China" label when they probably could have made them just about anywhere for probably close to the same cost.  They'd have looked a lot classier if they said, "Made in Switzerland." Bridge City Tools isn't competing in the same market as Harbor Freight, for Pete's sake!   
 
The Bridge City plane above is much more sophisticated in design than the wooden Lee Valley miniature planes. It has a 1" blade, or so. The Veritas metal miniature planes in Lee Valley's collection of "minature tools," while nicely made and very "cute," and they do work like the full-siize prototypes, they are, IMHO, of very limited value for useful work. They are more "collectible miniatures," as were once very popular, but, come on, how often does one have call for a shoulder plane with a quarter-inch blade?
 
***************************
Thread drift trivia: 
 
It's widely known that Walt Disney was an avid live steam railroad modeler, but not so widely known that he was also an avid hands-on modeler of all things himself and built one of the largest private collections of miniatures in the US, if not the world. Many of these were 1" or 1.5" to the foot tools, firearms, and the like. His idea for Disneyland, which he once called a "full-size miniature village," grew out of his hobby interest in miniatures. If anybody gets the chance, check out the Disney Family Museum at the Presidio in San Francisco, CA. A large selection of his miniature collection is on display there. The miniature tools are quite amazing.
 
https://www.waltdisney.org/blog/miniature-worlds-walt
 

Lee Valley describes Bridge City's tools as "aspirational." I'd say that's quite accurate.  

I don't think that their CNC manufacturing equipment can tell the difference between China and any place else, which leads me to wonder why they would suffer the indignity of a "Made in China" label when they probably could have made them just about anywhere for probably close to the same cost.  They'd have looked a lot classier if they said, "Made in Switzerland." Bridge City Tools isn't competing in the same market as Harbor Freight, for Pete's sake!   
 
The Bridge City plane above is much more sophisticated in design than the wooden Lee Valley miniature planes. It has a 1" blade, or so. The Veritas metal miniature planes in Lee Valley's collection of "minature tools," while nicely made and very "cute," and they do work like the full-siize prototypes, they are, IMHO, of very limited value for useful work. They are more "collectible miniatures," as were once very popular, but, come on, how often does one have call for a shoulder plane with a quarter-inch blade?
 
***************************
Thread drift trivia: 
 
It's widely known that Walt Disney was an avid live steam railroad modeler, but not so widely known that he was also an avid hands-on modeler of all things himself and built one of the largest private collections of miniatures in the US, if not the world. Many of these were 1" or 1.5" to the foot tools, firearms, and the like. His idea for Disneyland, which he once called a "full-size miniature village," grew out of his hobby interest in miniatures. If anybody gets the chance, check out the Disney Family Museum at the Presidio in San Francisco, CA. A large selection of his miniature collection is on display there. The miniature tools are quite amazing.
 
https://www.waltdisney.org/blog/miniature-worlds-walt
 

I thought that was cool, too, but I probably would get more use out of a spar-tapering kit than a pencil-making kit.  
 
(Every so often, I visit Bridge City Tool's website, just for grins. It's hard to believe, but they've been in business for quite a while, so I guess people do buy their stuff. They don't seem to have much of a steady line of tools. Instead, they feature specific tools which seem to disappear after they stock is sold out, never to return. Maybe they are catering to the collector's market, or something.)
 

Bridge City Tools, the Tiffany's of tool companies, has a new tool that's perfect for spar-tapering, although it's actually designed for making chopsticks! 
 
https://bridgecitytools.com/products/csmv1-chopstick-master?variant=31915440046193
 
 
It's on sale right now, marked down from $339.00 $269.00! Such a deal!
They're serious. I don't think this is an April Fool's joke.
 
They do have a now-more-affordable modelmaker's plane with a clever and supposedly accurate thicknessing feature that's reduced from $169.00 to $98.00. I might be tempted to step up from my trusty old Stanley #100.
 
https://bridgecitytools.com/products/hp-8-mini-block-plane

Smith and Company's' Clear Penetrating Epoxy Sealer (called in the trades "CPES" is a special penetrating epoxy sealer (not an epoxy adhesive) originally formulated for the conservation and restoration of decayed "gingerbread" on Victorian wooden structures. It took the wooden boat marine industry by storm about fifty years ago when it was invented. It's secret forumula is something much more than thinned epoxy adhesive, which some substitute for it. It's penetrating ability (it's about the consistency of water) is derived by it's very "hot" solvents. ("Apply only in a well-ventilated area.") I've used many gallons of it over the years restoring wooden boats. It would soak into that rigging, I'm sure, and bind it together as well as anything, and it does not leave a glossy sheen on the first coat, which is all you should need. It's a two part coating, mixed 50/50.  You can telephone Steve Smith, the inventor, and he is happy to advise customers on its many properties for use in many applications. It's sold in most decent marine chandleries these days, as well as some hardware stores. Many have tried to duplicate it, but only "CPES"(tm) is the real deal. I bet it would work very well on that rigging. It does not dry hard and brittle, but retains flexibility and I expect if it were formed as it dried, it would yield very realistic catenaries. 
 
See: http://www.smithandcompany.org/CPES/
 
From what I've seen of your descriptions of the condition of that rigging, it's really not long for this world and any that's preserved will simply break in short order. It's the customer's call, of course, but it seems more a candidate for a total re-rigging than for the restoration of the existing fiber components. Some material that will penetrate the existing rigging and form a matrix material is the only thing that's going to work at all. Just my take on it, but it's a really old model and that rigging seems to have lost any strength it ever had at this point. I'm watching with interest to see if it can be saved.
 
As the saying goes, "You're a better man than I, Gunga Din!"
 

Smith and Company's' Clear Penetrating Epoxy Sealer (called in the trades "CPES" is a special penetrating epoxy sealer (not an epoxy adhesive) originally formulated for the conservation and restoration of decayed "gingerbread" on Victorian wooden structures. It took the wooden boat marine industry by storm about fifty years ago when it was invented. It's secret forumula is something much more than thinned epoxy adhesive, which some substitute for it. It's penetrating ability (it's about the consistency of water) is derived by it's very "hot" solvents. ("Apply only in a well-ventilated area.") I've used many gallons of it over the years restoring wooden boats. It would soak into that rigging, I'm sure, and bind it together as well as anything, and it does not leave a glossy sheen on the first coat, which is all you should need. It's a two part coating, mixed 50/50.  You can telephone Steve Smith, the inventor, and he is happy to advise customers on its many properties for use in many applications. It's sold in most decent marine chandleries these days, as well as some hardware stores. Many have tried to duplicate it, but only "CPES"(tm) is the real deal. I bet it would work very well on that rigging. It does not dry hard and brittle, but retains flexibility and I expect if it were formed as it dried, it would yield very realistic catenaries. 
 
See: http://www.smithandcompany.org/CPES/
 
From what I've seen of your descriptions of the condition of that rigging, it's really not long for this world and any that's preserved will simply break in short order. It's the customer's call, of course, but it seems more a candidate for a total re-rigging than for the restoration of the existing fiber components. Some material that will penetrate the existing rigging and form a matrix material is the only thing that's going to work at all. Just my take on it, but it's a really old model and that rigging seems to have lost any strength it ever had at this point. I'm watching with interest to see if it can be saved.
 
As the saying goes, "You're a better man than I, Gunga Din!"
 

Lee Valley describes Bridge City's tools as "aspirational." I'd say that's quite accurate.  

Smith and Company's' Clear Penetrating Epoxy Sealer (called in the trades "CPES" is a special penetrating epoxy sealer (not an epoxy adhesive) originally formulated for the conservation and restoration of decayed "gingerbread" on Victorian wooden structures. It took the wooden boat marine industry by storm about fifty years ago when it was invented. It's secret forumula is something much more than thinned epoxy adhesive, which some substitute for it. It's penetrating ability (it's about the consistency of water) is derived by it's very "hot" solvents. ("Apply only in a well-ventilated area.") I've used many gallons of it over the years restoring wooden boats. It would soak into that rigging, I'm sure, and bind it together as well as anything, and it does not leave a glossy sheen on the first coat, which is all you should need. It's a two part coating, mixed 50/50.  You can telephone Steve Smith, the inventor, and he is happy to advise customers on its many properties for use in many applications. It's sold in most decent marine chandleries these days, as well as some hardware stores. Many have tried to duplicate it, but only "CPES"(tm) is the real deal. I bet it would work very well on that rigging. It does not dry hard and brittle, but retains flexibility and I expect if it were formed as it dried, it would yield very realistic catenaries. 
 
See: http://www.smithandcompany.org/CPES/
 
From what I've seen of your descriptions of the condition of that rigging, it's really not long for this world and any that's preserved will simply break in short order. It's the customer's call, of course, but it seems more a candidate for a total re-rigging than for the restoration of the existing fiber components. Some material that will penetrate the existing rigging and form a matrix material is the only thing that's going to work at all. Just my take on it, but it's a really old model and that rigging seems to have lost any strength it ever had at this point. I'm watching with interest to see if it can be saved.
 
As the saying goes, "You're a better man than I, Gunga Din!"
 

Smith and Company's' Clear Penetrating Epoxy Sealer (called in the trades "CPES" is a special penetrating epoxy sealer (not an epoxy adhesive) originally formulated for the conservation and restoration of decayed "gingerbread" on Victorian wooden structures. It took the wooden boat marine industry by storm about fifty years ago when it was invented. It's secret forumula is something much more than thinned epoxy adhesive, which some substitute for it. It's penetrating ability (it's about the consistency of water) is derived by it's very "hot" solvents. ("Apply only in a well-ventilated area.") I've used many gallons of it over the years restoring wooden boats. It would soak into that rigging, I'm sure, and bind it together as well as anything, and it does not leave a glossy sheen on the first coat, which is all you should need. It's a two part coating, mixed 50/50.  You can telephone Steve Smith, the inventor, and he is happy to advise customers on its many properties for use in many applications. It's sold in most decent marine chandleries these days, as well as some hardware stores. Many have tried to duplicate it, but only "CPES"(tm) is the real deal. I bet it would work very well on that rigging. It does not dry hard and brittle, but retains flexibility and I expect if it were formed as it dried, it would yield very realistic catenaries. 
 
See: http://www.smithandcompany.org/CPES/
 
From what I've seen of your descriptions of the condition of that rigging, it's really not long for this world and any that's preserved will simply break in short order. It's the customer's call, of course, but it seems more a candidate for a total re-rigging than for the restoration of the existing fiber components. Some material that will penetrate the existing rigging and form a matrix material is the only thing that's going to work at all. Just my take on it, but it's a really old model and that rigging seems to have lost any strength it ever had at this point. I'm watching with interest to see if it can be saved.
 
As the saying goes, "You're a better man than I, Gunga Din!"
 

Lee Valley describes Bridge City's tools as "aspirational." I'd say that's quite accurate.