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

[Moab]

Beautiful!...Moab

[noel_colledge]

Congratulations on what you have achieved so far Keith. Awesome build.

[Keith Black]

 I noticed the absence of the ship's wheel in the photos and I wondered why so I went back through your build log looking for when you made the wheel and..........you haven't gotten that far! I swear I'm losing it faster than a sailor loses money in one of "those" houses on shore leave. My old mind is jumping to conclusions. 

 When this project is completed, twelve selected photos would make for great calendar but I would hate to be the one with the task of narrowing it down to just twelve photos. 

 

[Bob Cleek]

On 6/9/2020 at 11:38 AM, KeithAug said:

George, Thank you for there compliment. The metal I use is brass - an alloy of copper and zinc, bronze is an alloy of copper and tin. Brass does tarnish over time (even indoors) losing its sheen and becoming quite dull, this takes several years. If you want it to remain bright you can paint it with lacquer. I quite like to see the brass age so I don't bother but I am in the minority in this respect. 

I think there may be a sound reason for the majority's practice in this case. Bronze will develop an even brownish or verdigris green patina over time in the marine environment, depending upon the particular alloy. Brass, on the other hand, is less predictable when left to its own devices. In the marine environment, it develops a green patina rapidly and often unevenly. As a general rule, brass, where used at all (e.g. bells, clock cases, lamps) is always kept polished on vessels, while bronze is not. On professionally maintained fancy yachts, however, it is customary to keep large bronze fittings polished bright, as is evident in the photos of this model's prototype. That's a huge amount of work. As you probably know, to reduce the amount of polishing maintenance, some of these "high maintenance" yachts had their yellow metal gold electroplated, hence the term describing them as "gold platers."

 

Since brass oxidizes unpredictably... even the touch of a finger can result in an ugly unevenness in the patina of a polished part ... the spectacular professionally-built "boardroom models" also often had all their brass parts gold plated. In that instance, as the models were of steamships, their unpainted gold plated fittings weren't an accurate depiction of the prototype, but, rather, something of a understandable stylistic affectation demonstrating the quality of the materials and the skills of the builders. 

 

Painting brass with lacquer is frequently done by manufacturers to prevent its oxidation, but the practice is a cure worse than the disease in the marine environment. While good lacquer finishes work fairly well in the dry confines of a building on land, in the marine environment it is very common for lacquered brass to develop black spotting beneath the lacquer and removing good, well-aged lacquer requires the mechanical abrasion of the lacquer on the entire piece down to bare brass so that it may be thereafter properly maintained by regular light polishing.

 

I'd like to think that a surgically clean polished brass piece in a proper case maintained within reasonable humidity levels would oxidize gracefully and that the resulting patina would be pleasing to the eye, but I'm not sure that bet can be considered a sure one in the long haul. Far be it from me to second-guess what is one of the most impressive demonstrations of modeling metal work I've ever seen, but considering the practice of polishing the yellow metal on the prototype, and the relative ease and low cost of thin gold electroplating and the wide range of finishes to any level of shine and color shade available, it seems to me that your masterful fabrications are eminently entitled to that treatment.

[Kris Avonts]

When looking at the deck pictures, I almost forget it's a model.

Fantastic detail and superb metal work.

 

[druxey]

That is one busy-looking deck! Beautifully done. Is the apparent lean of the boom support a trick of the lens (last photo, post #1161?

[KeithAug]

Ekis, Moab, Noel, Kris - Thank you all for your appreciative comments.

 

3 hours ago, wefalck said:

Did you experiment with image stacking now ? Or did you just use a telephoto-lense outdoors with a very small aperture to ge this depth of field ?

Eberhard. I used my better camera with a large zoom and small aperture and plenty of light (outside in the early afternoon with partial cloud). It was just quicker to do it that way but I do intend to try photo stacking.

I agree a lot of brass to keep clean - and I am fairly sure it is not gold plated.

 

Moab, Noel, - Thank you

 

2 hours ago, Keith Black said:

 I noticed the absence of the ship's wheel in the photos and I wondered why so I went back through your build log looking for when you made the wheel and..........you haven't gotten that far! 

Keith - you are right I have not made the wheel yet. It is however near the top of my list. I just have to remember where I put the list.

 

1 hour ago, Bob Cleek said:

I think there may be a sound reason for the majority's practice in this case.

Bob - thank you for such a detailed explanation - very informative and educational.

 

52 minutes ago, druxey said:

Is the apparent lean of the boom support a trick of the lens

Druxey. Its a bit of both. The crutch isn't glued in and the starboard leg isn't quite all the way home. That said the actual lean is almost imperceptible and most of it is down to camera angle and lens distortion.

 

[Retired guy]

Wow looking at it with all its glory you have one heck of a build Keith 

 

Regards

Richard

[druxey]

Whew! Thanks, Keith.

[Zbip57]

Your build quality is incredible, as we've come to expect from you.  But all of your photos are also outstanding!

[KeithAug]

Richard, Druxey, Zbip, Thank you.

 

I attach below the final sequence of photos and then I will get back to documenting the build. Sorry about the dust in some photos, I must remember to dust before shooting next time.

 

 

[Keith Black]

 That 11th photo down is a great shot.  

[wefalck]

Just beautiful ...

[Keith Black]

New lathe for you, Keith. 

[KeithAug]

19 minutes ago, Keith Black said:

New lathe for you, Keith. 

Keith - Amazing what can be done with simple hand tools. But I think I'll stick with my lathe thank you.

[druxey]

Sherline? Your argument is invalid! Terrific video.

[DBorgens]

Keith,

Wonderful work! Pardon my asking,but shouldn’t the vents face forward (see post 1147)? Perhaps my eyes are working backwards today.

 

Dave B

[KeithAug]

58 minutes ago, DBorgens said:

shouldn’t the vents face forward (see post 1147)? Perhaps my eyes are working backwards today.

Dave, thank you for your appreciation - the vents on the original can be rotated - they tend to be facing forward when at anchor (to capture the wind). When sailing they generally point aft (to avoid capturing the spray). I am going to build the model with the sails up - so I pointed then rearward.

 

At anchor:-

Sailing:-

[DBorgens]

Thanks, I wasn’t aware they pivoted.

 

Dave B

[Bedford]

2 hours ago, DBorgens said:

Thanks, I wasn’t aware they pivoted.

 

Dave B

Dave, by pointing the windward vents into the wind and the leeward vents away from the wind you can get a nice cross flow below decks. You can see the vents on Waratah (which I crew and was at the helm when that pic was taken) either side of the funnel. One facing forward and one aft. This helps create a cross flow of air in the stoke hold so the poor stokers don't cook.

 

Of course sailing vessels aim them differently than steamers for the reasons Kieth mentioned but in fair weather they'd have some facing to windward and the others away.

 

[Mark Pearse]

Bravo Keith, & it's nice to see the model photographed in daylight.

 

There must be an interesting system for the ventilation, & I would guess that some vents might not ever be rotated forwards - you'd probably always want the heads & bilges to be sucking air out.

[Roger Pellett]

Considering what this vessel must have cost, it is interesting that the designers relied on the tried and true cowl ventilators instead of some mechanical ventilation system.

 

Roger

[KeithAug]

58 minutes ago, Roger Pellett said:

it is interesting that the designers relied on the tried and true cowl ventilators instead of some mechanical ventilation system.

Roger - it has a full aircon system but it is built as a replica of the 1908 version, I think the cowls are more to do with historical accuracy than they are to do with function.

 

 

[Hubert Boillot]

Still have to recover my jaw from the floor ...

 

Hubert

[vaddoc]

Keith, I just finished catching up, it was such a pleasure, your work is fantastic. Indeed, a calendar with 12 selected photos would work very well! An incredibly tidy and clean model.

 

Regarding brass staying bright, I use Renaissance wax, I think museums also use it. I have brass pieces that are shiny 10 years down the line with no maintenance. I ve also used it in wood, completely invisible. 

[KeithAug]

32 minutes ago, vaddoc said:

Renaissance wax

Vaddoc - Thank you for your comments and the tip - i will have a look. 

 

Hubert - thank you.

 

 

[michael mott]

Hello Keith it has been a little while since looking in, My you have been doing outstanding work on this yacht.

 

Michael

[KeithAug]

Thank you Michael - Good to see you back.

 

I made a start on the wheel.

I could scale the overall size from the plans and this coupled with a decent photograph allowed me to create a reasonable sketch. The rim is 1.125" OD and .950" ID. As can be seen the faces of there rim are predominantly brass mounted on a mahogany core.

 

I am not sure why but I decided to make it in quite a complicated manner. I think strength was uppermost in my mind.

 

On the left is a cross section of the rim. The blue and red areas areas represent the brass work. 

I started by finding brass of the right diameter, in this case an old plumbing fitting from the scrap box.

I turned the Blue "T" shaped piece first and then parted off.

 

I then mounted a lump of mahogany in the lathe and turned a bore to take the outside diameter of the "T" section (1.095" on the drawing).

 

The brass was then glued in the bore with CA glue. The mahogany external diameter of the ring was then turned and rim was parted off.

A spigot was then turned on the mahogany to mach the inside diameter of the "T" section (1.075" on the drawing). The parted off rim was then glued onto this spigot.

The inside was then bored out to the required .950" diameter of the inside of the rim.

I then parted off the rim which now consisted of the brass "T" section with inner and outer mahogany hoops.

I then turned a hoop of brass for the opposite face and glued it on with CA.

I then mounted the hoop on yet another spigot and drilled the 10 radial holes to take the spokes of the wheel.

That took all day.

 

 

 

[Bedford]

Not at all surprised it took all day. Patience pays off though and I'm looking forward to the finished wheel.

[ccoyle]

These beautiful schooner yachts are eminently worthy of your amazing modeling skills, Keith. Or is that the other way 'round?