Fish-hooker by Ab Hoving - FINISHED - CARD - after af Chapman - how to scratch-build from paper

[Ab Hoving]

F.H. af Chapman (1721-1808) was a brilliant 18th-century shipbuilder working as a manager for the Swedish Karlskrona navy shipyard. He ended his study in England under Thomas Simpson with a tour around English, French and Dutch shipyards. There he draughted many ships on the stocks and in 1768 he published his Architectura Navalis Mercatoria, in which he presented his drawings, all accompanied by his calculations of draught, stability, center of gravity and more sort like scientific data. 

 

On plate LIX we find (amongst others) the lines of a 64½ feet long fish-hooker, a type that has been in use in Holland for several ages. If you don’t have the book, you can find it on the digitalmuseum site of the Sjohistorical Museet, right here: Digital Museum. You can download the drawing, which is the penultimate one on the page. I will tell more about the ship type later, first I will say some things about building in paper and card.

 

 

For many years I have professionally build wooden ship models, as a method of research. Nowadays I have thrown off the burden of science and concentrate on models that look like real ships. I know we all have our own philosophy about what a model should look like and what it should stand for, but what I try to achieve is a certain degree of realism. Not by duplicating every nail or piece of rope that was there in the real thing, but by creating an impression of the vessel as it sailed in its days. It is more about atmosphere than accurateness. I won’t try to convince you that what I do is the only way to build here, on the contrary, I just tell you what I do for fun and who knows it may inspire you one day to give it a try. The fact that my son Emiel uses my models to create wonderful ‘photoshop-paintings’ has of course been a factor in the decisions I made.

Not only did I leave strictly realistic constructions on scale behind, I also chose for a rather unusual material that makes building a lot easier and faster for the model maker than wood does: Paper and card.

You might call what I do ‘model-building-light version’.

Don’t think I consider my builds examples of how things should look or be done. I have spotted many members on this forum who are a lot better builders than I am, but hey, this is all about fun and not much else. 

Easy building with easy results.

 

About paper

One of the many advantages of building in paper is that it is incredibly cheap. I am Dutch, so I will not dwell on that too much. If you have purchased paper kits you know they are usually not the most expensive way to spend your money compared to wooden kits, but scratch-built paper models don’t cost you anything, except for some paper, glue and paint. Even my largest models never cost me more than a few Euros. So if half underway you think you failed your mission and you decide to abandon ship, make a run for the dustbin and start anew. All you wasted is time and as a model builder you have plenty of that, don’t you? Otherwise you would have spent your precious time on more useful things…

 

Another advantage of paper is the speed you can work with. Some of my models were made within three weeks, although I must admit that the Lenox model took me 5 months. Still an incredible short time for such a complicated ship and in no relation to what it would have taken if executed in wood.

 

A last positive point I would like to emphasize is the mess you make, or actually you don’t make. After working on the model you can simply clear the table and your wife is as happy as before. No wood-dust, no shavings, just some paper snippets to be moved into the dustbin. Everybody happy….

 

Plans

Especially for people who are used to buying kits, it might be useful to explain how an original plan can be used. Looking at the Chapman drawing we see there are several ships on the sheet. We just need the upper part, where we see an elevation (or side view) of the hooker with a body plan and a section to the left. There is also a top view underneath which we will use later when some deck-details have to be filled in.

 

 

1. The first thing we have to establish is the scale. I work with a 1/77 scale because it fits me, but you can pick any scale you want. The length of the vessel is 65 ½ feet, which is 18.25 meters in Amsterdam feet (28.3 cm). On a 1/77 scale that is 23.7 cm for my model. Print the drawing, measure the length, calculate the percentage you need to get the size for your model and print again. 

 

2. Now we can cut out the shape of the side view and paste it to a 1 mm thick piece of card. Lets call this longitudinal part the ‘spine’. Use so-called eskaboard or gray-board, a solid sort of card, used for making sturdy boxes. You can use old boxes, but your art supplier sells it in different sizes and it is not expensive. (in fact I use 1.3 mm thick card, but it depends on what you can find) Use glue from a spray-can, to make sure the paper sticks to the card at all places. Don’t take the top of the bulwarks as the upper side of your spine, choose the line of the deck instead, it is visible on the drawing. Draw your topline one millimeter lower than what the plan says, because your deck will have some thickness and you don’t want to end up with a deck that comes too high. Don’t forget to make cuts for the masts.

 

3. Next double your keel, stem and stern on both sides with the same type of card, so that you get a rabbet.

 

4. Now we need the body plan. What we see on the drawing is the shape of the ship seen from fore on the right side and from aft on the left side. Make three copies and cut one of them in halves over the centerline. Hold one half drawing upside down against a windowpane or lay it on a light box and take over the lines on the backside. Now paste the half body plan precisely next to its counterpart and you have the shape of the full frames. Check the width! Do the same for the other half. If you can manage a computer program to do the trick, even better, but in the end you will end up with this:

 

 

Go back to your printer and print 6 copies of the front part and 8 of the aft part of the ship. Paste them on eskaboard. Now you will have to mark the height of the deck on the frames. The best way is to cut the whole frame as it is on the body plan and draw the height of the deck later.

 

5. Now you will have to bring the spine of the ship and your frames together by cutting slots. Decide how deep your slots will be. Cut them in the spine from the top downwards and in the frames from the bottom upwards. Most of the time the waterline is your best option. If all goes well your frames will butt against the doubled keel and all will be in line. Mark the height of the spine on each of your frames and remove them from the spine. Now you can draw the exact height of the deck on the frame. You can make a mold with deck-camber and transfer it to the frames. Cut slots in the sides of the frames to half the distance to the centerline and perforate the remaining center part with light pressure of your knife, so that the whole part can easily be removed later on.

 

 

6. Take two strips of card of the ship’s half breadth and mark the position of the frames on them. Make slots in them halfway from the inside outwards.

Now carefully fit the strips into the frames, so that the two meet just on top of the spine. This will add strength to the construction. Take the shape from the outside of every frame and cut out the shape of the upper deck. Also cut the hole(s) for the mast(s).

The afterdeck is made separately, as the picture shows.

 

 

7. The last thing to do is to double the parts of the frames below deck level. This is to ensure that you have a good landing once the skin will be applied. The frames fore will be doubled on the front side, the frames aft on the aft side. At the extremities you will have to slightly correct the shape with a knife.

Finally we glue the whole thing together. PVA glue can be used, as well as any clear plastic glue, or whatever you prefer. Make sure not to apply glue to the part above deck, which will be removed in a later stage.

 

What you have now is about what kits offers you, but all done by yourself in an afternoon’s job and at practically no costs.

Next time we will apply the skin of the ship.

[0Seahorse]

Hi Ab,

very clear scratch-build manual and great promotion of card/paper modeling. Thank you!

 

Best

Tomek

[Richmond]

Ab

 

Very interesting and informative, thank you for sharing this with us. I am really looking forward to future posts.

 

Richmond

Edited November 16, 2018 by Richmond

[ccoyle]

Ah, a very interesting project. I look forward to seeing further installments.

[druxey]

Very informative and educational, as well as entertaining, Ab! Thank you.

[thibaultron]

I'm following! Great tutorial!

[amateur]

Do I know this tutorial  ?

I should have saved it last time, but this is even better

 

Jan

[michael mott]

I like the way you have slotted the deck pieces.

 

Michael

[Dan Vadas]

Nice work Ab . I'd like to see how you develop complex shapes like hull skins for card.

 

Danny

[Ab Hoving]

Thank you all very much for your encouraging remarks.

Amateur: Yes, I posted this tutorial on a small Belgium forum, which closed its doors a few weeks ago. Thought it was a pity to let it disappear, so I made the translation and tried again. Hope you like it anyway.

 

Part II

Planking a paper model can be a choice of several possible methods. You can plank with ‘real’ planks, following the run of the real planking of the vessel, you can plank in sections and you can use a combination of the two. Most of the time several layers of planks are used, but I will show the simplest method, with only one drawback, about which more later on.

First of all a few words about the material I use. For the skin a sort of card is used, which in Holland is called ‘hout-bord’ (wood-board) in English probably called -white mechanical pulp board-. It is a yellowish slightly spongy sort of material, much like the coasters used in pubs to place your beer glass on. If you ever bought a Polish kit and purchased the laser-cut parts too, you will know exactly what I mean. It can be bought in different sizes, but I mainly use the 1 mm thick one. The reason to choose this material will become clear in a minute, but I should warn you. This material is inclined to break. Not into two pieces, but it cracks and the crack leaves an ugly angle in the material you surely don’t want. So you will have to carefully pre-bend it with a round stick of sufficient diameter, rolling it in your hand until the final shape is more or less reached and the strip can be glued without stress. 

Starting in the mid-ship area it is a simple process to cut a strip of the right width and glue it to the frames, using only one half of the doubled frames to glue to. Thus the next strip will have a decent landing too. Working to both ends of the hull things will get a little bit more complicated: due to the difference in shapes of the frames the strips more and more begin to show a twist. So they have to be cut wider to begin with. The procedure is simple. 

 

Place the bottom of the strip against the keel and the last planked section, allowing for no gaps. Carefully fold the bended strip over the frames, in a way that they touch them entirely on both sides. With a pencil or pen the overlapping side against the already planked area can be marked. Also the height of the bulwarks can be marked. Take sufficient length and width for the strip, because it can easily be trimmed, but hardly enlarged once it is glued on. Cut the excess and place the strip back on its location. 

Now there is only side that is left to be shaped. The more often you do this, the better it gets. It is wise for your first efforts to begin cutting a bit wider than necessary. You can always trim later. Make sure that the strip touches the frames everywhere. Any gap will mercilessly show up later.

So in the end we reach the extremities. Now the spongy character of the card will prove to be handy. Cut a piece of card and fit it over the area to be planked. Make sure that it is a few millimeters wider than the gap it will have to cover. Place it in the palm of your hand and use something round to press. I use an iron ball, but I guess a firm spoon will do the job as well. The material will take a roundish shape and with some kneading and pushing and pulling the part will fit and close the remaining opening.

 

 

The result so far is rather crude, but have faith, all will end up ship-shape.

As stated earlier the frames above deck-level will have to be removed. Because we slightly perforated them in an earlier stage, this is an easy process: just push them forwards and backwards. They will break and can be removed, flush on deck-level. Prepare a strip wide enough to cover the inside of the bulwarks and glue it on the inside, lining up all the strips of the planking above deck-level. Save the shape of this strip on a separate paper for later finishing.

 

 

Here we are with our paper hull completed and more or less in shape.

Not really. The drawback of this type of planking is that angles in the shape of the hull are visible and we don’t want them. It is called ‘the hungry-horse-effect’, looking like the ribs of a neglected horse. So here comes the dirty part of this method. Putty has to be applied all over the hull and sanding is the only way to produce an acceptable shape. Don’t do this in-doors where your wife rules over the tidiness of the house. Your marriage will definitely grind to a halt and that might not be your intention. But applying putty can be done outside the house, as can sanding. It looks like a lot of work, but I doubt if it will take more than an hour all together. 

 

 

 

 

The trick is to do this in shifts. Apply a first layer of quickly drying putty. Use a flexible piece of card or plastic to cover the flat areas between the seams and as little as possible on the seams themselves. Try to follow the curves of the hull. Wait at least overnight until it is thoroughly dry and sand. Use a flat piece of wood and a curved one to wrap the sandpaper in. A few minutes of sanding will be enough to get your first result. You will not like it as it is. So put on a second layer of putty for finishing, only where necessary. After drying, sand again and mark the spots that are still not satisfying in your opinion. A fourth shift, only applied to places where it is needed will probably finish the job.

Of course this is dirty and on top of that it will take some experience. So there are other, more subtle solutions to the problem of planking. You can for instance work with longitudinal strips and apply several layers of planks on top of each other, combined with some sanding that will finally reduce any unwanted angles to almost nothing. You can also try to shape every section of planking you apply with a variant of the iron ball method: make shallow cuts on the inside of every section where a curve is needed and carefully shape them so that the frames become almost invisible. After that you will still have to plank the ship longitudinally, taking care to narrow the planks towards the bow and use stealers aft. You will end up with a magnificent hull. But that will take experience too. The whole process is about experience, but the method I described is easier if you use the trick I will show you here.

 

But before I unveil the trick, some more preparations have to be made. First you will have to make the rudder. No problem at all. Glue some layers of card together and take the shape from Chapman’s plan. With a few pieces of wire it can be attached to the stern. No hinges? No, why would you take the trouble of making a working rudder if it will never work anyway? We are making a model that looks like ship, but it still is a model and it will only look like a ship. 

Once you reached this point, it is wise to make a stand. I use strips of a beautiful kind of card, used for framing artwork, called ‘ivory-card’. The pictures show what it looks like and your art-supplier can help you out.

 

With the help of a block of wood of the right height you can run a pencil around the hull to mark the waterline and from there you can draw the run of the wales. This should be done with the utmost of care, taking measurements from the plan. Slightly off-line and the beauty of the hull disappears and leaves you with an inelegant and awful result, so take care. The wales can be made both from card and from plastic styrene. The same goes for the top rail, defining the top of the bulwarks. Now the lines of the hull will become visible and you can judge if a week’s work does pay.

 

 

Now the final planking is done. There is a firm in Germany producing self-adhesive foils, called C-D-Fix. They sell all sorts of decorative films like flowers, marble, and a variety of sorts of wood: oak, fir, beech and so on. Some builders use these foils, but I don’t like them, looking too ‘plastic’ to me.I use ‘whitewood’, a white foil with a wood imprint. Here is the address: https://www.amazon.com/stores/page/B9ED20F0-36EF-461D-9741-8F093C72F76F?ingress=0&visitId=9aa24d54-da79-4f8c-ab51-d6af39183894

Simply cut strips of the right width and cover the hull with a natural run of the planking. The material sticks remarkably well to the hull, especially if you heat it a little with a hair-dryer. Where the planks should be bended some more heat does the job. The process of planking is so fast that I don’t even have pictures of it. Here is the result after little more than half an hours work.

 

 

 

 

Next time we will give the hull it’s color and we will work on the details.

Edited November 17, 2018 by Ab Hoving

[GrandpaPhil]

Very cool!  Very informative!  I might have to give a card scratchbuild a try!

[druxey]

Very impressive. Would dampening the houtbord help prevent it splitting while shaping it?

[barkeater]

Cool, I always wondered how card was done.

[the learner]

Interesting build! I have the book on F.H. af Chapman's drawings (newer version) and think it if fascinating read. look forward to the rest of your build! 

[Ab Hoving]

Thank you for your interest.

druxey: I don't think delaminating is the problem with hout-board. It breaks if you are not careful enough and I doubt if dampening will change that. But it is a suggestion I will certainly investigate.

 

Part III

As seen on previous pictures I copied the deck and the inside of the bulwark in an early stage, before they were glued. I use 180 gr paper, which is about twice as thick as what you use in a printer. The paint I use for the deck is a yellow ochre Humbrol 94. After it dried completely, a fine-liner helped out to draw the planks. I began with the middle section in which the hatches are situated and where we find the holes for the masts. As the deck has some camber and also some sheer it is not possible to paste the painted deck on in one piece, so to prevent wrinkling it was cut in three. I first glued the middle section between the binding strakes (the longitudinal parts on both sides of the hatches), after which the parts on both sides were added. They only needed very small corrections. 

 

The planking of the hull needs to be primed, to prevent the paint wearing off during handling. Tamya has a good white primer, but there are more good brands. Then the hull was painted. Below the waterline I use Humbrol 24, a dirty white or grey color, matching the color of the white stuff that was used in the old days. It consisted of a mixture of animal fat, sulfur and resin to prevent growth of shells and algae, which slows down the ship. Above the waterline I use Humbrol 64, another yellow ochre. The paint has to be applied in a very thin layer, because it should not fill the grooves in the plastic strips, imitating the wood structure. The reason for this will become apparent in a few minutes. Two layers of thin paint may be necessary. 

At the top of the bulwark a narrow strip of red paint it applied. A modest red is used: Humbrol 153. At bow and stern this can connect to a red-white-blue decoration, referring to the Dutch flag. 

After painting, the model should be stored for at least half a week, but of course that is impossible. There are too many things that have to be done. Care has to be taken however not to touch the paint with any other paint until it is completely dry.

 

 

 

That gives us the chance to make some details like hatches, pumps, windlass, knights and other small parts. In paper these are all very easy to make.

I use a lot of thin card, 0.5 mm, from boxes used to sell all sorts of food. Most of the time I paint stuff in advance to use, after which only the tiny white sides have to be touched up.

 

Hatches are made of 1 mm board for the top with 0.5 mm sides.

 

The pumps are made of a tube of paper with some parts to imitate the handle and the pivot. The rod is just a piece of wire.

 

The windlass is also a piece of paper rolled to a tube with another piece of paper, which is scored into 8 parallel strips, glued to it. Holes for the handlebars are drawn with ink. The cheeks on the sides are simply made of a 1mm top and the sides of 180 grams paper.

 

The windows in the stern are 0.5 mm yellow frames with a red piece of paper glued behind. Between the wales on the location of the window a piece of card is glued as a filler to give the window a good landing.

 

The hinges for the rudder are made of a strip of black paper cut in halves up to almost the middle. The two top strips are bend backwards to be glued to the rudder, the two lower ones are pasted to the stern. The connection between stern and rudder consists of two pins or pieces of brass wire, glued with CA glue in pre-drilled holes in both the rudder and the stern.

 

 

The helm is made of 1 mm grey-board. Applying a few drops of CA glue can enforce this part.

 

 

The knight with which the main yard is hoisted is made of separate layers of 0.5 mm thick card with openings for the jeer. 

 

The anchor is made of 1 mm thick card with hands from 180 gr. paper and a stock of two layers of 1 mm card.

 

There were not many flags on simple ships like this one, but they can be made of blotting paper, using diluted paint to keep the colors a bit flat.

 In making these small parts paper proves to be a quick, easy and versatile material. None of these parts took more than 15 minutes to make.

 

 

Before we go on painting, this might be the moment to explain something about the hooker as a ship type.

The vessel sailed in European waters from the late Middle Ages up to half the 19^thcentury and was usually equipped with a fish-box. This means that a section of the planking was perforated with thousands of holes. This allowed the water to run in and out to keep the fish fresh in a separated compartment of the hull. Hookers were used to catch haddock and cod with a trod line. This was a very long line (up to 4 miles) with short lines attached to them with a hook and bait. To be able to lay the line on the sea bottom in a straight line the ship had to be a steady sailer, for which the long keel was a great help. It also had to able to sail close hauled, because it had to sail the same way back, to take back in the long line. Therefore it was sharply shaped, at least compared to other Dutch vessels, which were mostly more or less box shaped.

Because of its fine lines and its sailing quality the hooker was also used as a freighter outside the fishing season and even the East India Company (VOC) used hookers for trading in Indian waters. As a privateer and a convoy-ship the vessel was lightly armed, mostly with swivel guns. In the 18^thcentury hookers were made larger and were rigged with three masts.

The hooker on Chapman’s drawing was a fish carrier, transporting the fish to the harbor caught by other ships, which could stay at sea longer to continue fishing.

 

Gerrit Groenewegen: a fish-hooker. From: 'Verzameling van vier en tachtig stuks Hollandsche Schepen. Rotterdam 1789.

Gerrit Groenewegen: a fish-hooker sailing out the trod-line. From: 'Verzameling van vier en tachtig stuks Hollandsche Schepen. Rotterdam 1789. Unknown origin.

Fishing with a trod-line. The distance between the floating barrels was 840-1000 fathom (1536 - 1828 meters).

 

And now the great moment has finally arrived. The paint has dried for at least three days and now we take a firm brush and cover the whole Humbrol 64 area with a dark brown paint called Van Dijks Brown oil paint (your art supplier can surely help you out). Brush the paint into every corner of the planked outside of the hull and then wipe it off with a soft cloth. The dark brown will give a wonderful accent to the ochre and also stays behind in the fine grooves in the plastic strips creating a perfect wood imitation. Judge for yourself.

 

 

 

 

Next time we will do the rigging.

[GrandpaPhil]

Two questions, firstly do you have to do anything special to step your masts?  Second, how do you secure channels so they they don’t rip out under the stress of installing the shrouds?

[Ab Hoving]

Two excellent questions GrandpaPhil,

If you look at my first picture of all the prepared parts in the very beginning of this thread, you can see I made two cutaway parts between the slots for the frames. They ensure the correct rake of the masts. I did not talk about making masts yet, but a groove in the foot of the mast, fitting over the 'spine' ensures that it stands straight. 

As for the channels: I should have mentioned them. Indeed they must be mounted before painting. They are simply glued to the top of the upper wale. When doing the deadeyes and their fittings in my next posting I will demonstrate that quite a remarkable  tension on the channels is possible.

[RdK]

Hi Ab,

 

Nice to hear from you again. An excellent tutorial! You bring card ship modelling to the next level with it. I can already see a new publication... ;)

 

As regards the hull shaping: If, as you nicely describe, apply the "Iron ball method" on every hull strip, you will significantly minimize the amount of filler and sanding later on. In my model of the Mayflower I just needed to sand the card itself only a bit around where the frames are, without applying any filler. That way you save time, money (on the filler) and ensure the peace in the household in your wife's kingdom. After sanding gently the card it feels a bit "furry" so you can simply apply some white glue and smooth it a bit. This gives also a bit more strength to the card. It is also easier to work with other types of card for this parts, some that do not break that easily. I used some old pizza box card (0.5mm I think) which was slightly similar to the texture you describe here, yet it did not break. However, it was not the typical grey card, it was also some sort of creamy white.

 

Should you ever want to make nice round shapes with card, you can apply this method with thicker card sheets, also the grey card (several mm thick), and a smaller round object as desired. Card is a wonderful material that can be shaped round contrary to what many believe is possible... :)

 

GrandpaPhil, The channels can hold the tension pretty well in card models once glued in place. In my case they broke off mainly before I started the rigging. But that might have something to do with it that I use CA for my models and it was standing in a dry basement for five years before I was able to finally start setting up the rigging. I was thinking maybe to use also wire pins in larger builds in a scale 1:50 or so...

 

Ab, your color scheme is simply stunning. I really enjoy seeing your way of coloring the model. Thanks for mentioning which colors you exactly use for that. With all that little dirt altering in the corners and where the water flows, you really make the model truly alive!

Few questions regarding the color of the hull:

Would such "work horses" with time become more dark? Or did the bright color of the ocher prevail? How much is known about this from research? Was there any tar or other substance used on the hull that darkened the wood like in the early medieval ages? In contemporary paintings one can see mostly nice and clean vessels but that might be just 'bragging' of the own nations achievements?

 

Rgds,

Radek

[Ab Hoving]

Hello Radek,

 

Thank you for your great contribution to this topic. Of course I was referring to your work when I mentioned 'other methods'. I could also have referred to Tomek from Poland (Seahorse) with his method of glueing pre-shaped planks, using only glue on the frame locations, with which he gets wonderful results too. But these are 'academic level methods', while I am presenting some high-school tricks, trying to lure newbies into working with the wonderful versatile material paper is.

 

About you question: do older ships get darker? I'm not sure. Maybe someone on this forum can answer that. I do know that getting older the ships become more and more interesting. I have seen shipwrecks literally covered with repairs. Very tempting to try. I think we should abandon these shining, gold-covered, sterile, clean ship models and show ships like they were: messy, bruised, stinking tools that were worn out to make as much money with them as possible and more...

 

Back to the show. Here comes

Part IV

 

Rigging a ship model is mainly a matter of preparation. You have to make masts and spars, sails, deadeyes and blocks all in advance, so while the paint on the model needs drying anyway we have plenty of time to do the necessary things.

Chapman was kind enough to draw all the necessary masts and spars on his drawing (see the first picture of this thread) and on top of that he also presents a small picture of the hookers rigging on the last plate of his book. 

 

Now we discover that he undoubtedly was a great shipbuilder, but he was not a rigger. Two things strike while looking at his sketch. The royal topsail was a flying sail, which means that it was hoisted from the deck in cases the weather allowed. Flying sails have no braces, but Chapman draws them anyway. Of course I left them out on the model.

Another subject where he seems to miss the point is the jib. This is the sail attached to the top of the jib boom. Chapman draws quite a large sail. This sail should however be small because it is only meant to be a steering sail. Of course I missed the point until I put the too big sail on the model. A strong suspicion that this could not be true struck me while looking at the result. The construction of the jib boom simply did not allow for such a large sail. The function of the long jib boom is to help the ship to make sharp turns. Because of its long keel, tacking is a bit hard. So a small sail as far forward as possible helps out if necessary.

Groenewegen shows us how small the sail actually was and a contemporary hooker model in the Rijksmuseum delivered proof: the jib was just slightly bigger than a handkerchief. So I made a new jib, much smaller this time.

 

 

 

 

 

All that said, the rigging of this model is quite a straightforward process. 

 

The dimensions of masts and spars can be taken from the Chapman draught. Of course the masts of the model will be a little bit shorter as they are stepped in another way than the original mast. A slot in the foot of the mast ensures that it will stay upright.

I always make my masts from square pieces of wood, shaping them on four sides to the right dimensions with a small Stanley plane, then proceed by making them octagonal and finally filing and sanding them round. I use a soft wood, mostly fir, but if the structure is too evident abachi or lime are good replacements. I use matt picture varnish with a little bit brown oil paint in it to give them their final look.

I always prepare my masts up to a stage that everything necessary has been mounted, including crosstrees, tops, yards, sails, blocks and all the rope work.

 

The rope I use is Irish linen. It is hard to get. I have some leftovers from my time in the museum and with my miniature ropewalk I can make any size I want. But nowadays there are many sorts and qualities on the market and you will have to make your own choice. Rope that is a bit fluffy can be improved by pulling it over a wax candle. The wax flattens the fluff and makes to rope better to handle. It the rope needs coloring I use aniline dye on an acetone base. They sell it here as leather paint, it comes in brown and black and it can be diluted with acetone. It dries immediately. 

 

For my sails I mostly use unbleached cotton, which is very cheap and comes in different qualities. Of course you need the thinnest one you can find with the finest structure available. Linen is another option, but more expensive. Silk however is no good, because it has too little substance. It may be useful for flags, but the sails I tried to make from it did not turn out to be what I wanted. The color can be adjusted in a bowl of strong tea. Make sure the cloth is soaked before you dip it in the tea, otherwise you will end up with very irregularly stained sails. The more often you repeat the process, the darker the sails.

I take a piece of cloth and tape it to the table. I glue the bolt lines on with white PVA glue and cut off the excess cloth. The top boltline is glued on separately, which allows us to make the ‘ears’ on both ends. On the lower corners of the sail nooses are made to attach sheets and blocks. With a soft pencil I draw the lines of the cloths and if necessary reefs are made. I don’t have pictures of making the sails of this specific model, but the process is the same for other models. With everything prepared the sail is marled to the yard. All necessary blocks must be attached now. I like my sails bellowing, so I usually spray them with starch used for ironing laundry. It is sold in spray cans and by blowing them dry with a hair-dryer you will get nicely bellowing sails. In the case of this model however I omitted that stage as I had other plans, as you will see later.

 

 

 

 

 

Deadeyes can very well be made of paper. I use two kinds: the solid picture-frame sort and the 0.5 mm box sort. I use a nice punch set I bought from a Belgium firm, which can be reached at: hvbuynder@skynet.be

The 1 mm one is slightly smaller than the other two. With some PVA glue I roll them between my fingers to get the middle disk in place, while squeezing them together with a pair of tweezers. Once dry they are soaked in diluted varnish and with a sharp pin I press shallow holes where the drill will do its work. Preferably I use a drill-stand, to make sure the locations of the holes are identical on both sides.

A thin wire around, twisted with a small pair of pliers make the chain plates. If large shackles are wanted a simple mold will do the job. The twisted part will be invisible because that’s where the deadeyes are located in the channel and the end can be pressed in a drilled hole in the wale below, secured with a drop of CA glue. This method never failed on me even with the tightest shrouds.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

For blocks I use an old ruler. This is a close-grained sort of wood of which I saw strips between 2 and 3 millimeter square, cut grooves on all four sides, drill the holes and cut and file them into shape, keeping them on the stick as long as possible. A few drops of teak-oil finish the job.

With all the preparations done we can finally start rigging. Square-rigged ships are always a lot more work than sprit and gaff rigged types, due to all the blocks and lines needed to manage these sails. The building of the hull cost me less than a week, rigging took twice as long.

Usually the standing rigging is done first, but with my method op preparing the masts with everything complete, it is a different story. What has to be done anyway are the shrouds and their ratlines. The shrouds were mounted together with the sails, so all we need to do is strop their deadeyes. Both for the lanyards and the ratlines I use white line. It is better for my eyes, but they have to be stained afterwards. Some people keep their lanyards white because they are part of the running rigging, but I don’t think that is correct. I studied paintings and original models and never saw any white lanyards. So I paint them after they are done with acetone based aniline.

The ratlines should be done with the appropriate knots, after which every knot is secured with a drop of CA glue. It is a good idea also to secure every block with glue as soon the right setting is reached. This prevents endless trimming afterwards and it hardly shows. For the right and even distances between them I use a piece of card on which the lines are drawn.

This vessel was given some additional swivel guns and placing personnel on board is a matter of taste.

 

 

 

 

 

 

So here is the result. As you can see, there are no bellowing sails this time. My inspiration came from an etching by Gerrit Groenewegen, showing a hooker, drying its sails. Emiel translated this piece of art in a photographic impression that speaks for itself. The model was built, to be used as a prop for this plate. It was a lot of fun.

 

 

This was my story about the light version of modelbuilding. I am sure many members of this forum can do a lot better than I did, so why not give it a try?

 

 

[druxey]

Nicely done and illustrated, Ab.

 

A note for folk who prefer to use water-based paint such as acrylic on card models. If you do so, the card or paper will buckle. To avoid this, simply spray the model or parts with universal grey primer first to seal the surface.  I learned this trick years ago when building card/paper maquettes for stage designs.

[michael mott]

Very Nicely done Ab the final results are really lovely the photograph has a great mood to it reminds me of the Dutch painters who loved all the detail in their oil paintings

 

Michael

[Kopape]

Hello Abe, very nice. I did not know that you are modeling the book as well.

[Ab Hoving]

Thanks for the compliments, gents.

Druxey: thanks for your valuable contribution. I’m sure many people can benefit.

Kopape: I’m not really modelling the book. I just build what I think is interesting at the moment. My last built was an English man-of-war. Not really a subject from one of my books :-)).

Ab 

[Kopape]

Hi Ab, I have your book and I want to build pinas. I really like a Dutch ship of the 17th century - but there are not many good treasures. Can I contact you for problems?
Now I'm dealing with the nail problem at Grosse yacht 1678 - where were the hull itself?

https://www.modelforum.cz/viewtopic.php?f=177&t=107202&start=90

                                                                                                                                                      Thank you Petr

[Ab Hoving]

Hi Petr,

Of course you can send me a pm if you have questions about the pinas. Unless you want to publish your build here, in which case I (and many others) can advise you publicly.

 

I have seen the pictures of your yacht, but please understand I don't speak Czech (which is of course a shortcoming in my education), so maybe you can explain your problem with nails in English?

Ab

[GrandpaPhil]

What’s the best way to do copper cladding on a card model?  I've copper cladded a wood model before with copper tape.  But, I'm not sure if that would be the best way for a card model.

 

I am thinking about building the Prince de Neufchatel in card, from Chapelle plans (I've been systematically buying all of his books).

Edited December 8, 2018 by GrandpaPhil

[Ab Hoving]

Hi GrandpaPhil,

I see absolutely no problems in using any sort of glue, as long as it is applied in thin layers. Water based glue will cause a risk of wrinkles if much water is used, plastic glue never gave me any problems. But perhaps the best way to do it is to buy self-adhesive foil in copper color. If applied neatly and modestly heated with a hairdryer it will stick forever.

Good luck,

Ab

[DORIS]

Beautiful work and very realistic look. I like it a lot.

 

Best regards,

Doris

[GrandpaPhil]

Ab,

Thank you very much.

Phil

Edited December 8, 2018 by GrandpaPhil

[Ab Hoving]

Thank you Doris, I’m honored.

Ab