A Dutch 17th century pleasure vessel by Ab Hoving - CARD

[flying_dutchman2]

Ab, 

I've downloaded the elevation plan and the body plan from this thread. You mentioned that the length of the jacht is 27 cm at a scale of 1:44. 

I am going to play around with other scales and see what is most pleasing to the eye. 

Will attempt to build a plank on frame model. 

Marcus 

[Ab Hoving]

I know this thread is about a 42-feet long pleasure vessel. But in a number of pictures I showed here a war ship popped up, which was the result of a project I did with a historian, Wilma Gijsbers, who discovered a specification contract in the Amsterdam Archive of a group of men-of-war for the Spanish king built on private shipyards. In itself a remarkable fact, but the fun for us started when the commissioner and the shipbuilder developed a disagreement about the way the work was done. Some of the frame parts were not sufficiently squared and according to the sources the work should have been stopped until everything was corrected as the commissioner wanted. A few weeks later, at the next inspection, the shipbuilder appeared to have continued the build without correcting anything. So **** hit the fan. The case went to court and after exhausting discussions consensus was reached. The interesting part of all this for us was, that the ship had to be measured after completion with the result that we were able to compare the data in the specification contract with the real ship as delivered. This showed us the limits of the freedom for the shipbuilder to interpret the data in the contract.  The ship appeared to be 3 inches longer than the planned 143 feet, an inch deeper than the required 16 feet 2 inches and 6 inches wider than the ordered 28 feet. The keel was about 2 ½ feet shorter than planned and the transom was 1 ½ feet longer. This was normal business, the shipbuilder had to work with available wood and sometimes he had to deviate a little from the data given in the contract.

 

I decided to build the hull, just to compare the dimensions to an earlier war ship I did, the Alkmaar of 160 feet long. I was not really after another model, but one way or the other it appeared to be interesting enough to keep building. Also the fact that the promised drawings for the pleasure vessel were not finished yet helped to decide to make this detour.

It created the possibility to show some aspects of the build. In the beginning I simply forgot to take pictures, but the system can be seen as well explained on several occasions. The build is in a state now that it almost looks like a kit. All separate parts are ready, but not glued yet and the final finish is at hand. So far it took only about 6 weeks.

The upper deck is shown with the bulkhead for the captain's cabin.

Here the quarterdeck is added with the bulwarks for the officers quarters, and another bulkhead in front of the steering galley with free sight at the sails. This is where the helmsman stands at the whipstaff.

Finally the poop deck with the bulkheads for sub officers quarters. All in dry fit.

 

The method of painting can be shown here. I ‘plank’ my ships with strips of self-adhesive white plastic foil with a wood imprint. After applying a layer of primer the hull is painted with a yellow ochre oil paint above the waterline and a dirty white below. After half a week of drying the ochre is smeared with a dark brown oil paint called van Dijks brown. Once the paint is on, it is wiped off with a soft cloth, leaving enough dark color in the imprint to suggest wood. It also adds the right tone to the under layer. 

 Here the hull executed in card.

Here the hull is planked with plastic strips of self-adhesive foil.

Three stages in the final painting: left the yellow ochre, in the middle smeared with Van Dijk's brown, right after wiping it off.

 

Another point of interest for some of you might be the construction of the barrels for the guns. The carriages are simple enough, but for the barrels I tried to find something just as simple. Here you see the ingredients for 24 18-pounders in a scale of 1/44. 160 grams paper is used for the barrel, with a thin paper re-enforcement for the aft part. The muzzle is done with a narrow strip of the same paper as the barrel and the narrow strips for the decorative bands around the gun are from normal 80 grams printing paper. The backside with the pommelion is made from several sizes of card, done with a variety of punches. The axel has to have the same diameter as the hole in the barrel and the cheeks and bottom of the carriage, 1.5 mm in this case. Matt black paint finishes the job in this case, as these guns are cast iron ones. In case of bronze guns the diameters are different and there were dolphins mounted on top of the center part of the guns. But that might be material for another thread. 

 Maybe you find this information useful and if not, just forget it. It’s just paper.....

Edited September 21, 2019 by Ab Hoving

[flying_dutchman2]

Ab, 

Interesting story about the warships that you and Wilma worked on. So besides finding the contract in the archives you also found the information of how the ship was built and what went wrong. Kind of like a diary. 

 

If Wilma found a spec. contract in the Amsterdam archives, I wonder what other contracts the archives have. 

 

Do you build your ships from reading specification contracts? All those archives with all the contracts, gives you lots of choices of what to build. 

 

You don't happen to have plans from that Warship that you are talking about? 

 

I like how you make your cannons from card. Something for me to try. Making the barrels from card would be easier than from either wood or brass. 

Marcus 

[Ab Hoving]

Hi Marcus,

The archives are treasure rooms for ship modelers. Thousands of specification contracts can be found. Not all of them useful, but many add a lot to what we (do not) know.

I have been building models on the basis of contracts for years. Nowadays, with the help of my super Belgian co-operator Rene Hendrickx, that usually produces lines plans that form the basis of my models. Here are the ones we made of this 1680 warship. Of course they are basic and a lot has to be decided while building, which causes adaptations which are not in the 3D plans. Compare for instance the length of the decks in the aft part of the ship.

Also details are not drawn in the plans. They have been made just to have a basic hull form to work on.

Cannons made out of card is a quick and simple way to do it, but you have to be sure that they fit with the model you are making them for. I can imagine that for a wooden model they don't stand the test of looking real, but perhaps that is not true. You have to decide that yourself. If I look at the quality of many posts here on this forum I think for many of the builders here the solution is too simple.

[Peter Cane]

Ab.

You are an inspiration to me.

Firstly in an earlier image on this thread there was a table full of unfinished boats.

This has made me feel a lot better as I have side tracked myself to making two other little models when I should be doing the big one which will take years.

Most of all...your card modelling and cannon builds using rolled and glued paper.

It's brilliant to see modelers being resourceful.

Who needs a lathe?

It is nice to have a jewellers lathe with all the trimmings and even nicer to have the money to get that lot....but a good outfit is horribly expensive.

Meanwhile you inspire me greatly using just basic things and a huge imagination.

There is a lot to be said for card.

I am a railway modeller also and have read articles and seen photos of exquisite modelling of steam locomotives made of........Yes......CARD!

These are also all working running models.

Even the chassis are of card.

Trouble is nowadays it is expensive to get the type of card they use.

Thanks for the education.

Pete

[Ab Hoving]

Thank you Pete, and you are welcome. It is quite an honor to be an inspiration for somebody. You almost make me blush.

 

Tools are necessary, but with some inventiveness you can come a long way. Before I had a lathe I made my guns with the aid of an electric drill in a vice. I cannot say they were really top, but for me at that moment they were satisfying. And that is the key. Why are we making models? What do we want to achieve? Finding out the answer to that question can save you a lot of money and head-aches.

All my life I used to build models mainly to get answers to my questions about construction, building methods and design. Now that most of these questions have been answered I can work on how realistic a model can look. It is my conviction that making models realistic does not require details up the micron. If you look at a model, you are actually looking a the full size ship, just smaller because of the distance. That means that a lot of details are simply not necessary, as long as the overall impression of the model is correct. Who can see a nail at a distance of 100 yards?

But that is just my opinion at the moment. In the past I did add parts that would never be visible unless the model was broken down. There are dozens of reasons to build ship models and they are all valid.

The choice of material is absolutely of no importance, as long as you like what you make.

In the end we do this for fun, don't we?

Edited September 21, 2019 by Ab Hoving

[flying_dutchman2]

Ab, 

Thanks for the lines of the 1680 Warship. 

All ships I built are from readily available wood. I get all my wood for free from the local woodworkers club I joined a couple of years ago. Predominantly walnut, cherry, poplar, linden and maple. 

 

I have been studying the plans of the pleasure jacht. Once you sent me the final plans of that ship I will attempt to build it shell first. When needing a break from building the Zeehaen, I will built the pleasure jacht. 

 

Marcus 

[Kopape]

Hi Ab,
after the summer break I sat down again and read the MSW.
- I wish you and your family a lot of health - it's the most valuable. what we have.
- Thank you for your help with the construction of the Grosse Yacht 1678, as well as for all the other modellers. Information from you is invaluable.
- I keep my fingers crossed in the next building and watch carefully.
                                                                                      Peter

[Ab Hoving]

Hi Petr,

Thank you for your kind words.

If you need any help for your next project I will gladly assist, for as far as I am capabel. 🙂

[Ondras71]

Greetings Ab. I have read your documents carefully and I must say that you are doing a very good job. All forums discuss the quality of plans. Especially whether to build only according to them as the rules of competitions state or to modify the model according to the rules of history. I'm building a Dutch ship according to a book Risse von Schiffen des 16./17. Jahrhunderts  and I myself have found discrepancies in the plan and I'm trying to improve them. Unfortunately, the shape of the hull is elementary and can't be adjusted. Thank you very much for your messages and contributions, I'm looking forward to reading more.   Ondra

[Ab Hoving]

If I understand you well you can win a prize in a competition by doing something totally wrong. Nice qualification for the jury...

 

No offense to the organizers of competitions, but maybe one should not join a competition at all. It seems to me that the items the jury reviews have little to do with knowledge of ships and a lot with 'thumb-nail-polishing' and 'rivet-counting'. In Holland we have a word for it which absolutely will be banned from this forum when I write it down, but it has to do with an unnatural sexual relationship with ants 🙂.

Personally I prefer a rather sloppy, but true model with the right atmosphere over a perfectly build wrong one. It must be my personal handicap that I refuse to compare one ship model with another on the basis on how totally random details have been applied. How nails and wooden pins are used may be in a drawing looking great, but I have made enough plans to know that more than half of what we draw is pure guess work, of which we hope it may be somewhere in the direction of a perfect depiction. Plans are not sacred. In my 60 years career as a model builder I never used a plan without changing all kinds of things in them.

 

Just have fun building and let juries judge their own models....

[wefalck]

I couldn't agree more with your comments on competitions - it would be quite unlikely that a judge has the same level of knowledge that I would build up on a subject. They could only judge the artisanal execution and then the judges may not understand what I tried to achieve - there seem to be also certain 'styles' of building en vogue at any one time and, if I don't follow the fashion, I am out. So why bother ... we do this for fun (and also to develop knowledge and skills, of course).

[Ab Hoving]

Hear, hear.

Well spoken!

[Roger Pellett]

All models of ships built prior to the advent of iron and steel shipbuilding are to a degree approximations as wooden ships were not fully engineered.  By that I mean, they were not “built to print” to close tolerances.  They were either built using geometric rules, from carved half models, or from to scale lines drawings.  When built from models or drawings, the lines taken from measured offsets had to be redrawn full size (lofted) introducing intentional design changes,  interpretations, or changes necessary to produce a fair surface.  Once frames were erected they were  “dubbed” to produce a fair surface, introducing another change.

 

Even when we produce a model from mould loft offsets or from lines taken off from the real thing we introduce new interpretations when we make our drawings and make the adjustments necessary to produce fair surfaces.  I am not convinced that CADD eliminates these problems as the lines produced are no better than the algorithms used to produce curves and to make the fairing decisions.

 

For those interested in exhibiting their models in a competitive environment I believe that the model should accurately reproduce the distinctive characteristics of the vessel being replicated.  For example, Late Nineteenth Century American Vessels often featured a distinctive, elegant elliptical transom.  Does the model of a Gloucester fishing Schooner  being judged accurately reproduce this feature?

 

Roger

 

 

[Ab Hoving]

And apart from that: a ship can reach an age of over 50 years or more. During its existence it is adapted, changed, damaged, repaired, rebuild even, and still I get questions from people who urge me to declare  that the drawing they use are absolutely trustworthy and correct.

Come on, we build models for fun and hope to learn something from it. That's all. Some are better, some are worse. So what? Enjoy your hobby. It's the only thing of which you can decide everything upon in your life.... 🙂

[Kopape]

1 hour ago, Ab Hoving said:

 It's the only thing of which you can decide everything upon in your life.... 🙂

So this sentence really got me. That's a piece of truth!

[mtaylor]

7 hours ago, Ab Hoving said:

It's the only thing of which you can decide everything upon in your life.... 🙂

Pure wisdom, Ab.   And I laughed out loud at your "unnatural relationship" comment as that was a new one I hadn't heard.

[amateur]

Hello Ab,

 

in anorher thread you explained you building method: grey card for the framing, soft cardboard for the outer hull.

I tried to find that softer board. My local supplier (arts and crafts) doesn’t sell it. What is more, they don’t recognize my description. They come up with atiff passepartout-board, or foamboard, or even bristol-board.

on the internet I can find so-called finnpappe (can only find it in German sites), but they charge ridiculous prices for transport to this side of the border.

 

So here is my question: where do you buy yours?

 

Jan

 

 

[Ab Hoving]

Hello Jan,

(funny how two Dutchmen have to communicate in a foreign language through an American forumsite :-))

 

In Dutch it is called 'houtboard' and I buy it in Amsterdam at an art-suppliers called Van Beek on the Weteringschans 201. It comes in various thicknesses. I know that local art suppliers don't sell it because it's an 'old-fashioned product', replaced by many more sophisticated materials, which are of course all useless for our purpose. Another problem is that it is so cheap that sellers are not very interested in holding stocks of it.

 

Maybe you are planning a trip to our capital anyway to visit the Rijkmuseum, located at 400 meters from Van Beek....

 

Edited October 24, 2019 by Ab Hoving

[wefalck]

Just catching up with things after emerging safely from having organised the annual conference, an excursion and the AGM for our German association last weekend in the Baltic city of Stralsund.

 

'Houtboard' seems to imply that it is a cardboard made from, inter alia, wood shavings. Is this correct ? Why do you prefer this kind of cardboard ?

 

I have been attracted by cardboard, because it is easy to work, less messy than wood, and glues well, but in the end found it not effective, as it is neigh impossible to sand cleanly, even when soaked in sanding filler. I never got clean edges and smooth surfaces. Perhaps it is my way of building that requires adaptation and shaping. So I moved away from its use again.

 

P.S. Sometimes we Germans also confer here among ourselves in (some sort of) English

 

[Ab Hoving]

Hello Eberhart,

 

I only recently found out that you are chairman of the Arbeitskreis Historische Schiffsbau in Germany. As you know I sometimes contribute to its magazine Das Logbuch, invited to do so by the editor Robert Volk. You seem to lead an extremely active life. 🙂

 

Houtboard: I am not an expert on the fabrication of it, but I suppose even wood-dust is used. It causes the material to become more or less 'flexible'. You can make concave shapes by pressing it with round surfaces, like a spoon or an iron ball. It can also be filled and sanded, but I only use it for covering up the skeleton of a planned ship model. You are right that the result is not exactly crispy and clean, but I don't care, as I cover it with self-adhesive plastic strips, which improves the result. In cases where sharp contours are needed, like the wales of a ship (the most important part as it goes for catching the right sheer) I use 2 mm thick polystyrene.

Nobody ever told me that you have to stick to paper once you started building in paper....

 

Compared to what I see accomplished here on this forum, I am not exactly what I call a good model builder, because in fact I have no interest in finished models to put them on the mantel shelf. Sometimes I give or throw them away, sometimes I sell one, I even considered burning some, as they take a lot of space and only gather dust. I only build because I want to learn something. For me model building is a technique I use, a way of scientific research, building itself is never my purpose. The end result is always something different from a ship-model, like knowledge, which is the reason why I am often reviewed by historians and replica builders.

 I have worked in wood all my life, but getting older, I am running out of time, so I switched to an easier material, being able to work faster. Having explored in model scale the way 17th century ships were constructed, I now turned to the outside looks of the vessels, trying to make them look as real as possible, so a Photoshop painting can be made in a convincing way. This leads to the conviction that too small details are totally nonsense (for me) to apply to a model, as a model can be compared to a real ship seen at considerable distance. From a hundred meters I cannot see what sort of head the nails of a ship have, so why should I bother to model them? I don't make real ships, they are only models, probably the most useless objects in the world...

 

All this beside of the fact that I am notoriously lazy...:-)

 

[wefalck]

Museum conservators and restorers snuff on a mix of materials because it may cause problems for them. I can understand that position, but some parts are easier or better to make in one material than in another. The end justifies the means. As long as you work in relatively small dimensions issues such as different thermal expansion coefficients or different swelling due to different humidity uptake are not so big issues. It is also important to use glues that work with the chosen material. So, in general I don't have a problem with mixing materials and also use styrene, even though there may be issues with its long-evity.

 

It really depends on the purpose of the model what kind of materials you use. If it is model to show a working hypothesis or to serve as a prop in some film or static visual imaging process, one does not need to be too concerned about the stability of the materials. Also, the level of detail has to be appropriate to the purpose. For static display models the situation is different. Hence, I think your choice of material and level of detail is absolutely appropriate.

 

 

[Ab Hoving]

Thank you.

Let me emphasize that every modelbuilder has his own motivation for building and every motivation and hence every technique and every material  is appropriate.

[amateur]

Hi Ab,

 

Thanks for the answer. Funny though: Van Beek doesn't list this stuff in its webshop. I'll have to go to Amsterdam and visit the Rijks.

(Actually, I don't like Amsterdam very much these days, it is so completely overcrowded)

 

Jan

[Ab Hoving]

You are welcome.

Why do you think I traded Amsterdam for Alkmaar?

 

[flying_dutchman2]

Another question. 

Who in the Netherlands invented to build a ship "shell first"?

Year?

Once this method was invented, were all Dutch ships built "shell first" ?

 

Marcus 

[amateur]

I think the answers of the first two questions are hidden in the mists of history.....

The answer to the third question is (as far as I know) yes. Some small inland craft are still build kind of shell first: 

Although it is hardly a shell: those are mainly working boats, build on a heavy floor, and with sides made out of one or two heavy oak boards. The frames are put in after the sides are in place.

check this one: https://www.dezeilpunter.nl/de-bouw-van-een-punter (don't forget the video that is embedded)

 

It looks like shell first is just the upskaled version of this building technique. (but I don't know whether or not there is any evidence for that....)

 

Jan

 

 

 

Edited November 11, 2019 by amateur

[Ab Hoving]

Jan is 100% right.

Traditional shipbuilding is not an invention. It is an endles developing process that goes back to the bronze age (3000-800 b.C.), consisting of small steps forwards (and sometimes backwards). It took ages before it got to what is described for the first time in Dutch literature in 1671.

There were no alternatives though. Because the method of designing ships hulls on paper was not invented yet (here you really have an invention) there was no possibility to do it frame-first. Traditional rules-of-thumb were all our ancestors had.

Now is that impressive or not?

[wefalck]

Following Basil Greenhill ('Archaeology of the Boat'), the shell-first method may have originated in extended dug-outs: the dug-out was heightened by adding planks; dug-outs were also widened by heating them and spreading out their sides. Eventually, a dug-out was a too small a base for a boat. Also very large trees became increasingly scarce, so that the back-bone was reduced to a keel or floor-plank. Some native craft around the world (including actually Europe) were built until quite recently on the basis of extended dug-outs.

 

On the other hand, the shell-first method, commonly associated with the wood-rich northern countries, seems to have also been used around the Mediterranean and other places of th World. Edge-fastened (with tenons and mortices) planks were assembled into shells with internal structural timbers being added later in the process.

 

Edge-fastened planks, whether overlapping (clinker) or butting against each other is the key feature of the shell-first method.

 

The other way to conceive a boat is to cover a structural framework with a skin, be it hide, cloth or wooden planks. Here any edge fastening (e.g. by sewing) does not give structural strength nor shape, but only serves to make the skin water-tight. In frame-first building the wooden planks are never edge-fastened, but only attached to the frame.

[flying_dutchman2]

Jan, Ab and wefalck, thank you for that detailed explanation. 

The building of a punter is interesting especially where they use a fire and water to bend the wood. 

Marcus