Schooner Germania (Nova) by KeithAug - FINISHED - Scale 1:36 - 1908 / 2011

[KeithAug]

17 hours ago, Mark Pearse said:

Hi Keith, do you have a detail photo? 

Mark,

 

The photos I have are only part views but the sketch below hopefully shows what I mean.

 

 

Eberhard, Keith, John, Druxey, Pat, Thank you all for your comments - you are too kind.

 

I am pleased to report the weather has turned milder - 15c (59f) in the workshop today - second jumper postponed.

[Lecrenb]

I am following this build with interest, not only for the excellent model work but because I am currently reading a tome called "The Arms of Krupp" about the family that commissioned and owned Germania. If anyone desires a 1:1 version of the racing yacht, Germania V is currently advertised for sale...

Regards,

Bruce

 

[Mark Pearse]

Hi Keith

 

The foremast one is curious. However, it does look like (from the initial photos) that the foremain might be loose footed & the main main laced. Moving the gooseneck pivot point aft would mean the sail foot automatically loosens when the boom is eased out (good), but wouldn't make a difference if the foot was laced. So that's a possibility. The only thing I know for sure is that a gaff main puts a huge load on the gooseneck fitting, having broken two 7/8" solid bronze gooseneck pins, with a comparatively small 24' hull, see results below...

[KeithAug]

21 hours ago, Lecrenb said:

1:1 version of the racing yacht, Germania V

Thank you Bruce - I looked with interest but unfortunately it is a bit to expensive for me.

14 hours ago, Mark Pearse said:

Moving the gooseneck pivot point aft would mean the sail foot automatically loosens when the boom is eased

Interesting thought Mark.

[Keith Black]

 Keith, how many hours including research (roughly) do you think you have into the Germania thus far? 2,000??

[Valeriy V]

Keith, I am still amazed at your desire for detail. 

It is with pleasure that I continue to observe the birth of a beautiful model.  

[KeithAug]

18 hours ago, Keith Black said:

Keith, how many hours including research

 

Keith

 

Much too many, fortunately i don't count because if i did would be depressed that I was wasting my golden years. Total elapsed build time is just coming up to 3 years. Preliminary research started about half a year before that. However I take comfort from knowing that many builds are much longer than mine -------- I may be mad but not as mad as some of you.

 

 

[KeithAug]

9 hours ago, Valeriy V said:

amazed at your desire for detail. 

 

Thank you Valeriy, sometimes however the detail is based on guesswork

[Keith Black]

2 hours ago, KeithAug said:

Much too many, fortunately i don't count because if i did would be depressed that I was wasting my golden years

 

Keith, the reason for the question........... as the real Germania is up for grabs for a little over five mil, I thought, what would your 36th scale be worth in comparison. 5,000,000 divided by the 36 scale = 138,888.00 which sounds like a ton of money for a model but considering the quality and detail accuracy, is it? 138,888.00 divided by say 3,000 hours is 46.29 per hour and divided by 4,000 hours = 34.72 per hour. 

 

 Is your work worth 34.00 to 46.00 per hour? I would think that's pretty close to going rate for a high end machinist in todays world and Mr Google agrees.  

 

 Could you get 138,888.00? Is it worth that much? More's been paid for a heck of a lot less, Jackson Pollock comes to mind. 

[KeithAug]

 

 

1 hour ago, Keith Black said:

= 34.72 per hour. 

Keith - unfortunately the cube root is a much better way of considering the relativity between the original and my creation. So that means i should charge 1/(36x36x36) or 1/46656 of the sale price = 107. For 4000 hours that means .026 per hour. I think I am undervalued.

[FriedClams]

12 hours ago, KeithAug said:

i don't count because if i did would be depressed that I was wasting my golden years.

It’s only wasting your golden years if you dislike the work or would rather be doing something else. I’m guessing that you, like most of us, enjoy the physical act of modeling and not the completion of it.

 

Gary

[Veszett Roka]

3 hours ago, FriedClams said:

 I’m guessing that you, like most of us, enjoy the physical act of modeling and not the completion of it.

 

 

I do certainly enjoy the creation. It is very satisfying to look at the finished model (and be pride), but it will be a 'thing' soon. Hence we need, we must build a next ship.

[ccoyle]

On 11/8/2021 at 1:22 PM, KeithAug said:

At the risk of boring everyone

 

Bored? Hardly! I am constantly amazed by what some of my fellow modelers can reproduce in miniature.

[KeithAug]

15 hours ago, FriedClams said:

I’m guessing that you, like most of us, enjoy the physical act of modeling

 

Yes Gary, but i can't help thinking that I should be doing something for society. However i will probably just do more modelling.

 

Tank you Chris and Veszett

[KeithAug]

More mast fittings but at least these are a bit more interesting.

 

On the main mast are two supports for mounting the main radar and what I glass is a satellite communications dome. On the fore mast is a further support on which is mounted what appears to be a small radar. Why two radars?

 

Starting with the bracket for the communications dome ( which also carries the fog horn and the main mast fore brace). 

 

 

 

The fog horn mount only features in one of the pictures but I like it so will go with that option.

 

I started with a very basic sketch, i didn't feel I needed to draw all the detail so I only committed the basic dimensions to paper.

 

 

I like soldering jigs because they make the work easier and more accurate. On this occasion the jig was machined from a scrap of wood The dowel locates the previously made mast hoop and the cross slots locate the flanges for mounting the dome and the horn. A brass pin at the end locates the tube for the mast brace.

 

 

The components were soft soldered together.

 

 

The bracket cleaned up well.

 

 

The horn was machined on the lathe with a bit of double handed turning to create to curve,

 

 

The motor for the horn is carried in a rectangular box at its rear end. This has a bit of profiling and was made on the mill.

 

 

 

 

The bracket for the main mast radar is less complicated but was made in a similar manner.

 

 

 

 

 

The fore mast radar bracket was similar - but shorter.

 

 

 

Thats all for today folks.

 

[mtaylor]

1 hour ago, KeithAug said:

 

Yes Gary, but i can't help thinking that I should be doing something for society. However i will probably just do more modelling.

 

Tank you Chris and Veszett

Ship modeling is doing something for society... maybe a limited society however.  

 

As for two radar systems... one for ships and one for weather?   Or perhaps one is for satellite communications.

[BANYAN]

Very nice 'smithing' yet again Keith; impressive!  One would be a radar platform, the other for a GPS or small satcom aerial (or even a TV aerial) I think.

 

cheers

 

Pat

Edited November 12, 2021 by BANYAN

[Innisfree]

First let me say the your craftsmanship and attention to detail set a standard to which we may all aspire.  Thank you for sharing your beautiful work.

At the risk of speaking out of turn, it would seem that the dome-like structure is an X-band weather radar.  As for the other two antennas, one is certain to be a surface radar (main mast).  The fore mast platform...beats me.

Edited November 14, 2021 by Innisfree

[KeithAug]

15 hours ago, Innisfree said:

it would seem that the dome-like structure is an X-band weather radar.

 

Innisfree  - Thank you for commenting on my build. Your suggestion re the radar prompted me to check web images and as you say the dome may well house a weather radar.

 

Mark / Pat - thanks to both of you for your thoughts. 

[KeithAug]

The next job is the crosstrees but these come with a few challenges. Firstly it isn't proving easy to get their correct span.  Photos taken from the deck suffer from parallax error and all the photos taken off-board Germania are either side or three-quarter shots. I decided the best approach is to make the spans equal to the beam at the fore mast and main mast positions. The second problem is that the photos of the cross trees are proving difficult to interpret and I can convince myself that they are constructed from metal or wood and are both rectangular and round in section. Here are the better photos:-

 

 

 

 

I think I am going to go with my interpretation of the third photo which is a rectangular wooden spar shaped around the front of the mast and secured with a  metal brace to the rear.

 

I did a sketch of my interpretation.

 

 

The top sketch is of the main crosstree. this has a span of 8.8". The lower sketch is of the fore crosstree and is only done to record the relevant dimensions. In this case the span is 6.5"

 

Having decided on a plan I made myself a jig to assist bending and assembly. The hole positions match the circles drawn on the sketch.

 

 

The jig allows both crosstrees to be made. The dowel up-stand is the diameter of the mast and is replaceable as i need 2 because of the different diameters of the main and fore masts. The holes towards the top edge take nylon pins, these will locate the bending points. Different holes will be used for the two crosstrees.

 

Hopefully this will make more sense when I do my next post (assuming that it works!!!).

[Keith Black]

 Keith, it all makes perfect sense and I think you're spot on regarding the materials. 

 

 

Edited November 16, 2021 by Keith Black

[KeithAug]

Thank you Keith.

 

I have spent couple of day making the crosstrees.

 

I needed some .165"  wide brass  strips. I had bought a few brass door "finger" plates a few years ago when they were being sold off at a huge discount. From these I slit off a number of strips on the mill.

 

 

 

The cross section of the crosstrees is .2" high by .160" wide. To ease bending I decided to laminate them from 3 strips of .2" x .053" mahogany. I soaked the strips in boiling water for 5 minutes before clamping them in the bending jig and leaving overnight.

 

 

 

I then used the bending jig to clamp the laminations while glueing.

 

.

 

I then cut and bent the bracing straps and soldered them to the mast bands.

 

 

 

Various holes were drilled through the crosstrees to allow the shrouds to pass through and various instruments and fittings to be mounted. the holes for the shrouds were strengthened with brass tube. I checked the look by doing a temporary install on the mast.

 

 

The finished article:-

 

 

 

Edited November 19, 2021 by KeithAug

[Veszett Roka]

Hi Keith,

 

i don't know Germania in detail, hence asking. Didn't the crosstrees were riveted to the ring in the middle (red mark)? As crosstrees purpose to straighten the mast in close hauled courses, when the sails had lower force attack points than the stays have and leeward stays loosen a bit. Without the middle fixed point it will roll a bit in vertical, but will not give the spanning force to the mast. Just thinking, maybe the builders had other solutions?

 

[KeithAug]

11 hours ago, Veszett Roka said:

i don't know Germania in detail, hence asking.

 

I don't really have that sort of detail but my expectation is that the crosstrees would be rigidly attached to the mast. I will glue the band to the mast so on the model the crosstrees will be rigidly attached.

 

 

 

 

Edited November 22, 2021 by KeithAug

[FriedClams]

Sweet work Keith - great progress!

 

Gary

[FlyingFish]

These are a pleasure to look at - great work!

[KeithAug]

Thank you Gary and FF. and thanks to everyone who has viewed and left a thumbs up.

 

Before I permanently attach the cross tress i need to attach all the bands below the cross tree level. Also I need to make and install the mast hoops. I decided not to go down the steamed and bent wood approach. At model scale I think they are too bulky if sufficiently strong and too flimsy if correctly sized.

 

Various photographs of Germania show the hoops as almost back while others show them as a medium brown. The hoops are leather covered and I think the difference in colour is age / lighting related, anyway I prefer them darker.

 

 

The hoops need to be about 20% larger than the masts and as the masts differ in diameter this means two sizes of hoop. Circa .68" and .73" diameter respectively.

 

I decided to make the hoops out of copper wire (actually the secondary winding of a dead battery charger). This was about the right diameter,  I decided to use the standard lathe spring making method to wind the wire. In this method the wire is wound on to a mandrel with the lathe set up for screw cutting. The pitch is set to diameter of the wire. The wire is drawn on to the mandrel through a guide held in the tool post. This is close fitted to the wire and provides a fair degree of friction to ensure that the coils are wound tightly. Because the coils spring away from the mandrel at the and of the winding process the mandrel needs to undersized relative to desired hoop diameter. The mandrel size was deduced through trial and error.  Keeping clear of the wire during the winding operation is fairly important if you value your fingers.

 

 

 

 

The second attempt wasn't as good but adequate for my purposes.

 

 

I then cut along the axis to create individual hoops which were soldered at the joint and painted.

 

 

 

Edited November 26, 2021 by KeithAug

[Keith Black]

 Keith, a treat to see your work as always. Is it sail that's keeping the hoops evenly spaced in the first photo? Speaking of sails, if you mentioned your intent to adding sails I don't remember seeing it. 

[Bedford]

Did you know that it's dead easy to de-varnish the wire?

 

Just burn it off with a cigarette lighter then run it through some emery cloth or similar. I'm an old motor winder!

[KeithAug]

10 hours ago, Keith Black said:

Is it sail that's keeping the hoops evenly spaced in the first photo? Speaking of sails, if you mentioned your intent to adding sails I don't remember seeing it. 

 

Keith - yes and yes. although thankfully sail making will be some time in the new year.

 

8 hours ago, Bedford said:

Did you know that it's dead easy to de-varnish the wire?

 

Steve - Thank you "old motor winder"!  I will give it a try.