Restoration of Bassett Lowke "Albertic" by michael mott - FINISHED - Scale 1:100

[EdT]

Micheal, a few thoughts on your rope making.  I suspect that you are making right-handed rope using what is probably right-handed thread.  You may know this, but if so, the thread needs to unravel first before starting to twist into the left-handed strands that will begin to wind into right-handed rope.  Hence the delay in the top starting to move - not a problem.  I assume the polyester thread you are using is right-handed.  Cotton thread is usually if not always, right-handed, linen left-handed.  You might consider using straight crocheting cotton for the small lines.  I am using different sizes of this as-is for a number of smaller line sizes and also for making larger rope.  Since it is already right-handed it looks good.  You could also use two strands in your small rope - not an unusual ship-modeling method.  My experience with cotton-polyester line on an earlier model is that it stretches more the long-staple cotton, but since it is plastic it is not much effected by humidity.  Mercerized cotton-polyester is more fuzzy than than linen or the long-staple cotton that I am using for rope (Fincrochet and DMC).  For lashings I am also using a lot of Guterman 100 cotton which has a very fuzz-free finish.  It also makes nice spun rope.  To remove fuzz, I pass the finished rope, after dyeing, through the flame of an alcohol lamp (quicky of course).  Got this idea from Longridge.  It works.  I am using natural walnut extract stain made from VanDyke crystals dissolved in water to get the hemp color, diluted India Ink for black tarred rope.  Natural vegetable dyes  are non-fading - example antique oriental carpets.  India ink is pigmented with some shellac and is also non-fading.  Druxey's suggestion of watercolor, being pigmented, would also be non-fading, as would dilute acrylic paints.

 

I love the pictures of your vertical machine.  I was aware of them, but had never seen one.  It should solve a lot of the friction problems in horizontal setups like the one I - and probably many others - use.  I guess length could be an issue.  I normally make 6 to 7 foot rope on an eight-foot walk, cut down from the 12' walk I used to use..

 

Good luck.  Its one of my favorite love-hate pastimes.

 

Ed

Edited December 14, 2017 by EdT

[Jim Lad]

Michael, that left hand fall looks just right from the photo!  You can "unfuzz" using beeswax (which can look sticky if you're not careful and can attract dust) or some people run their rope (very) quickly through a flame such as a cigarette lighter.

 

By the way, I trust the falls in the photo are simply for comparison as the fall (of course) needs to be spliced to the lower block. 

 

John

[druxey]

Keith: you have a good point there! Although the draw-back is that a good single malt is very expensive in Canada. 

 

Michael: If the line is stiff I find a little water on it where it reeves through the block softens it temporarily to mold and 'sit down' nicely where it enters and emerges. And water is a good deal cheaper than a 25 year old Macallan....

 

Jim: I'd use microcrystalline wax rather than beeswax. The latter is acidic, the former pH neutral.

Edited December 14, 2017 by druxey

[BANYAN]

With the second option proposed to you earlier, rather than passing the thread through a naked flame, I have had success running fuzzy thread over a very warm to hot incandescent bulb (I find an 80watt bulb works with the cotton I use)  - I simply draw the thread from one side to the other so that about 1 inch /25mm of thread is in contact with the bulb.  With poly-cotton you may need to draw more quickly and do NOT stop/pause otherwise the thread my melt

 

cheers

 

Pat

 

 

[Chasseur]

Your Man Cave looks good Michael! Nice looking floor, should be easy to clean up after a hard day of modelling.

A major downsizing for sure*

Merry Christmas to you and yours and Happy New Year!

 

Jeff

[michael mott]

Thank you Ed for your detailed and informative post.

Thanks Druxey for the tip about water, Pat for the light-bulb trick I shall have to give that a try. 

 

I have been doing a little practicing with some "Hastings 2X beading thread stained in some Liquitex translucent burnt umber ink diluted with Tamiya thinner.

 

the first picture shows the lines tied and ready for some glue

 

 

As soon as I looked at the picture the damage on the lifeboat became became apparent, I have been focusing on the blocks and lines and not seeing the smaller damage to the boats.

 

next picture shows the lines trimmed after gluing with some diluted Tightbond carpenters glue left in its natural colour.

 

 

lastly a long shot of the trimmed line.

 

 

Michael

 

Edited December 16, 2017 by michael mott
grammar

[druxey]

Neatly done. Are you happy with the color match now?

[michael mott]

Hi Druxey I think the color is as close as I am going to get it, the big decision is how far to go, some of the lines that have obviously been repaired in the past are glued very sloppily with some dark glue as this picture shows.

 

 

Also some of the original lines are definitely stressed as in this picture, not to mention the rather enthusiast windings on the stays.

 

 

I am concluding from all of this that not all the lines are original, and that some of the stays are also not original.

 

michael

[BANYAN]

Very neat finish to your rigging on the davits Michael, the new davits look great finished.  Pity about the additional damage to the LBs.

 

I am sure the 'amateur' repairs will bug you; I just hope there is not too much of it?

 

cheers

 

Pat

[druxey]

I suppose you will need to balance 'conservation' with 'restoration' on those lines. I'd be inclined to replace the obvious bad repairs and line that are not original to the model. You will still have the photographic record of them anyway. Does your client have an opinion on this?

[michael mott]

3 hours ago, druxey said:

I suppose you will need to balance 'conservation' with 'restoration' on those lines. I'd be inclined to replace the obvious bad repairs and line that are not original to the model.

Druxey this is the direction I am leaning toward, The budget is fixed, which is Ok , this work is not about the money. From past conversations I have pretty much a free reign as long as I do not increase their costs.  overall the material costs are negligible, so it is really my choice.

A replaced line that is far enough away from an original is not very noticeable it is the close proximity stuff that is causing my concerns re matching. and it is more about the actual look of the lay of the rope in each diameter that is the most difficult to achieve.

I will practice the removal of fuzz which will then give me more options.

 

16 hours ago, BANYAN said:

Pity about the additional damage to the LBs.

Pat there are lots of little divots and dings on all the lifeboats that were on the port side, I have so far only addresses the major damage on a couple of them most of them are missing the seats.

 

One of the other items of tooling that I allowed myself (with the extra pocket money from the sale of our property) was a new small model airbrush compressor with the drier attached and a portable paint booth with the built in Fan, this will be a tremendous help with the repainting of the funnels. The big compressor is out in the garage and I do not miss the racket that it makes when it kicks in to recharge the tank.

 

Bob, keep dreaming it has taken me a lot of dreaming to acquire my tools, I have waited a long time for some of them. The interesting thing is I find that some of the smallest simplest tools are all one needs for many of the tasks. knives good cutters, good tweezers, good files, and the ever needed sanding sticks that one can make from a sheet of sanding paper some double sided tape and coffee stir sticks.

 

Michael

Edited December 17, 2017 by michael mott
added comment

[SJSoane]

Michael,

 

Very nice work on the lines. I can see the dilemma; leaving the cruder repairs just doesn't seem shipright!

 

Mark

[michael mott]

This evening I was able to sort out 2 more sets of lifeboat davits The second one was in quite a mess, the frame had suffered some twisting at the handle side and the handle was bent as well.

 

I decided to keep the top line which meant straightening out the frame while still connected to the top line, I used my machine vise ans after some initial work with some flat pliers managed to push it back into alignment.

 

 

 

 

Once that was done it was back to re-threading the sheaves, I have decided that to be consistent with all the original davits on the Starboard side that the bottom blocks would be tied the same way, here is one of them being tied using the third hand.

 

 

The opposite davit was OK but the line needed a bit of tidying up.

 

 

All that is left on this boat is to add in new thwarts

 

 

Michael

[KeithAug]

They are looking pretty smart Michael. Have you recalculated your hourly rate recently? It must be dropping like a stone.

[michael mott]

7 hours ago, KeithAug said:

Have you recalculated your hourly rate recently? It must be dropping like a stone.

Yep, I am paying them for the privilege now. Seriously though the knowledge and additions to my skill-set is worth it, I knew going in that I was basically working for pennies. Thnings ought to get a little faster now that I am past some of the testing and decision making regarding materials and how far to go.

 

Michael

[michael mott]

During the ongoing research for material I came across this site the organization of the information about threads and types is the best I have come across so far

which has a most useful section on thread education Obviously it is not geared to the model shipbuilder but clarified a number of questions for me.

 

Michael

[EdT]

Checked out the thread site, Micheal.  DNC Cordonnet is one of the brands I am using on Young America - using some as isfor small lines, some made into rope.  Also using Fincrochet - a similar thread.

 

Ed

[michael mott]

Thanks Ed for your confirmation of types.

 

Michael

[GAW]

I have only just found this Log Michael, You are a lucky man,  you have a pandoras box of lost arts, and the making of a very good book - ‘The Lost Arts of Bassett Lowke’ - these models were made at a profit so will be full of efficient and repeatable techniques with out the use of CNC and 3D printing. 

I have not had chance to check out your full Log YET, but If you are still looking for wire rope. Check out: <http://www.tecni-cable.co.uk> for the real stuff down to the finest - I have wires from them down to .002” - and sold by the yard. Note that the multiple strands 7X7 & 7X19 can be separated and run through a flame to darken and straighten them.  I note that some one mentioned early on about  making wire rope on a Rope-Walk.  This cannot - successfully - be done, as the numbers do not add up - 3 & 4 (strands) for hemp, but 7 (strands) for wire. What a fantastic job.  Gerald

[michael mott]

Hello Gerald, thanks for the link and your thoughts about Bassett Lowke. Yes it certainly is a pandoras box. regarding the wire stays, I have been able to replicate the stays that the staff of Bassett Lowke came up with. I did use my rope walk for this with some careful hand work in place of the customary trolley or weight. The way that they made the wire stays was the same way that one would make cable laid rope. 4 sets of three wires then wound together. it took a while to replicate their wire but I eventually got there. 

 

There will no doubt be more challenges as i complete this project.

 

Michael

[BANYAN]

Very nice work on the wire Michael.  I have to make similar wire rope (not brass though) so this will be helpful.

 

cheers

 

Pat

[michael mott]

First I would like to thank all of the likes and encouraging comments.

 

Worked on the lifeboat that had received the most damage this evening.

 

This one

 

some time back I had inserted some new wood carved and painted the hull. this nex picture shows the early stages in filling the damaged area with new paint.

 

 

today I redid the painted lifelines a tad shaky but passable except in close photographs.

 

 

 

Because I had used the blocks on one of the other lifeboats I realized that I was three blocks short, they must have been swept up with all the broken glass. The original were made of an off-white plastic ( most likely discolored by time and UV) I made some new ones from some white styrene.  I will paint them to match. the next picture shows the holes being drilled in some plastic strip on the mini mill

 

 

Then the rest was some hand work to emulate the originals using a razor saw and a chisel

 

 

My block on the left

 

 

next an overall shot with the decks reinstalled the new davit that I made is the one on the right.

 

Michael

[Mirabell61]

Nice, neat work Michael,

 

you have a calm steady hand for hand painting the lifelines, well done...

 

Nils

 

[BANYAN]

Nice repair on the LB Michael,  your colour matching is excellent.

 

cheers

 

Pat

[druxey]

That's impressive freehand work on the lifelines. I'd have used a curved template as a steady!

[Jim Lad]

Beautiful work on the lifelines, Michael.  Did you have any guidelines to help you?

 

John

[michael mott]

Druxey, John, By leaving as much of the original finish as possible I was able to complete the loops freehand, I just took a deep breath and went for it. I reasoned that if I had not been happy with the result, I would have redone it with a template.

 

Not a lot of progress this evening just a little more very thick humbrol to fill divots in the collapsed lifeboats that sit under the aft four boats. 

 

 

and I painted and hung up the new blocks to dry.

 

 

I am a bit under the weather, woke up yesterday with no voice, its back a bit today but very faint.

 

Michael

[cog]

Take care of your health, moving can be a strain on anybody's health. Lovely progress on the boats, davits, and blocks

[michael mott]

Thanks Carl I had a couple of good long naps today.

 

Michael

[SJSoane]

Michael,

The more I see your clamping device in action, the more I really appreciate it. The time taken to design and construct a good jig or tool repays itself for the rest of one's life!

Mark