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

[mtaylor]

That's great news on your daughter, Ab.

 

History is bizarre and funny at times, indeed particularly with regard to ships.  

[Heinrich der Seefahrer]

Wow you do astonishing progress, Ab! All the best to you - and thanks for sharing.

 

As I try to infect friends with the Bacillus modelbuildus I am very happe about authentic plans for not too sophisticated models. My plans of HEEMSKRECK is too much for a simple start. So thank you very much.

[flying_dutchman2]

2 hours ago, Heinrich der Seefahrer said:

My plans of HEEMSKRECK is too much for a simple start. So thank you very much.

For your first scratch the Heemskerck would be difficult. Built 2 smaller vessels and then the Heemskerck is doable. 

Marcus 

[flying_dutchman2]

On 8/15/2019 at 3:45 PM, Ab Hoving said:

One of the Dutch-built French ships was captured, brought to Holland, repaired and... sold to France, even for a higher price than the first sale.

😁 I love it. 

Marcus 

[Heinrich der Seefahrer]

1 hour ago, flying_dutchman2 said:

😁 I love it. 

Marcus 

That were businessmen... 😇

[Ab Hoving]

Hello Heinrich,

I don't want to intervene in your plans for building models or infecting your friends with that horrible virus, but my suggestion would be to let them start with a relatively simple ship, like the hooker I described here:

If I see what you built so far, I guess you must have experienced that yourself. Looking at the plans you have, you must have a lot of time available. 🙂

Building a hull for a two or three decker isn't really complicated, it can be done in a few weeks time, but the rigging is a tedious job for the long term without any shortcuts and holds all the perils of getting fed up, resulting in premature 'abandoning ship', even for experienced builders. That would be a pity, because that means that they are cured from the carefully planned infection you aimed for.

 

And Marcus,

History is a never ending source of inspiration for the real ship loving model builder. At least in my experience...

 

[GrandpaPhil]

Ab,

  How did you support the multiple decks?

[Ab Hoving]

Hi Phil,

I suppose you are referring to the pictures of the man-of-war I showed in the background in one of my previous posts? 

Ooops! The build of that model went so fast that I forgot to take pictures. For the upper gun deck I glued a length of wood 2 x 3 mm to both sides of the hull to support the deck. I made the decks from 1 mm card, which I gave its right camber and I glued some deck-beams underneath to keep the shape. Once all the deck items underneath the decks are ready, I simply glue the deck to the wooden supports. For the upper decks I can only produce photos of the last stages. I used strips of 2 mm thick card. Up to the stage of making details the work progresses extremely fast. This hull took me a little over two weeks. It is nice doing 'the big parts' before getting stuck in details like gun carriages, capstans, gratings, stairs and all the rest of the small parts.

I can imagine many modelers will object against not detailing the inside of the ship, but I don't think it is very productive to make all kinds of details nobody will ever see, unless he will take the model apart. I am not against doing things that will be invisible in the end. On the contrary, I did that many times during my career. My 134 foot pinas which is in a museum even has all the deck-beam knees, I think they are over 40 and all the carlings and ledges underneath the decks. Nobody will ever see them. But for this sort of models, which only aim for a realistic outside look I take every shortcut I can think of. I know the construction of period ships, 'been there, done that'. It is all a matter of what you aim to get from your models. Nowadays I just want to make models that look real. Like on these recent pictures by my son:

 

But perhaps this is a subject for another thread...:-)

 

Edited August 21, 2019 by Ab Hoving

[GrandpaPhil]

Thank you very much for the information.

[RdK]

Hi Ab!

 

Nice pictures again from your son! I just changed the desktop background today at work to another one of your splendid masterpieces ("Pinas in de mist")! Van de Velde himself and his son would get jealous! ;)

 

The models look very real on the pictures. One word of constructive criticism if you allow me: Make the sails more dirty...maybe not as dirty as I exaggerated in my Mayflower model, but they seem (to me) too clean on the pictures...Maybe that can be done in photoshop as well? That way you keep the real models clean... :)

 

Great job on the Speel-jacht!

Seeing your projects piling up inspires me to continue with my own ones.Thanks!

 

Looking forward to seeing more!

 

-Radek

[Ab Hoving]

Hello Radek,

You are absolutely right, the sails are far too neat. The main reason is that I never discovered a satisfying way to do it. Doing it in Photoshop is a trick I detest. On my English warship Lennox I omitted to paint the yards black because I simply didn't know the English painted their yards. Emiel had a ton of work coloring them in Photoshop. I always dye the cloth for my sails in tea before cutting them. After that coloring is difficult. It would be nice if new repairs and patches could be suggested showing up with a lighter colour than the rest, but you can only paint the cloth darker, not lighter, unless you apply a thick layer, which is not really effective, because the sails lose their transparency. I tried powder scraped from crayons (not very effective), grinded charcoal (very messy) and water paint. A problem with water paint is that my sails are sprayed with starch to make them bellow, and water paint ruins the shape if applied later. I am a bit out of tricks in this aspect.

If there is anybody with good results out there willing to share his techniques, speak up please. I will be very grateful for any good suggestion.

[druxey]

I use SilkSpan and dilute acrylic paint. Weathering should be relatively easy, and all painting done before shaping the sails. I've found, painting flags the same way, they can subsequently be wetted and shaped. No starch required!

[RdK]

Hi,

 

My method of sails is quite 'amateur' by stitching them, simply for the relaxing joy of stitching and I like the structure of the wrinkled cloth in the end.

But apart from that, tea for dyeing - the more tea the darker - and I use Lord Nelson's black tea... Then I shape them with the clear varnish as described here. Then I use diluted oil paint (diluted with turpentine) to alter - the less the better - and the thinner the better. I guess acrylic paint is good too and you can use some alcohol, if it does not dilute the starch as much as water..? I also noticed that just a bit of some dirty water does the trick also. After all, the sail cloth for our models is just like a piece of fabric so why not behave like little children again and get a little bit messy?

 

Druxey, I alter my sails after shaping...😊

 

On a bit more professional note: Patches do not necessarily have to be brighter than the rest of the sail. Look what detail I've found on a Willem van de Velde II painting (you know it probably already):

 

Maybe just paint/draw some different color patches on the sail? Maybe that can be accomplished with white paint, too?

 

Here's an example of my first try to imitate some patches on the foresail of my Mayflower model (I might try some other color next time) 😅:

 

 

Just some suggestions. Working on finishing my sails right now and hope to posting some progress on my own build soon.

 

Thanks Ab!

 

-Radek

Edited August 22, 2019 by RdK

[druxey]

Patches can look darker if light is coming through from behind them, Radek.

[Ab Hoving]

Thank you Radek and David, this is very interesting. New options for an old man!

 

David, I never worked with SilkSpan or any non-woven material, but I will surely give it a try. It sounds most promising and I will order it right away to do some tests. I'll keep you posted.

 

Radek, your observations on the Van de Velde painting are very important, as they prove new patches do not necessarily have to look brighter (I wonder how come...). I like your sail, even with the totally out of scale stitches. They add something authentic to it so there is nothing wrong with them. I don't think however I would choose to use that technique, especially because I am notoriously lazy.

 

All in all I will have to revise my method of sailmaking, by doing the coloring in an earlier stage. I am always interested in using new materials, so for now back to the work-bench for me.

 

Thanks again.

[Ab Hoving]

Can anyone help?

I tried to find SilkSpan on the European market, but get no clues. There are several sorts of materials to cover model aircraft wings, but the basic materials differ widely, from textile to paper and plastics. Anyone who knows a European company that sells this stuff?

Ab

[RdK]

Hi there,

 

Ab, If you are notoriously lazy, what am I? ...Considering it takes me 10 years to finish a small vessel like the Mayflower... 😄 

And the oversized stitches made me laugh heartily, because it is so true, Ab! I just imagined a sailmaker handling an oversized needle..!😂 But I am glad you like it, and I agree, they add something authentic to it. I also like the idea of drawing the seam stitches and will try that in my next model.

 

21 hours ago, druxey said:

Patches can look darker if light is coming through from behind them, Radek.

Thank you for the information druxey. I was not thinking about that.

 

But in the case of this painting, the patches are really darker than the sail cloth. The light seems to come rather from high up and almost straight above the ship from the left. And look at the main topsail patches:

Maybe, they were made from cloth during the voyage and it got dirty while it was stored? Or it was simply a slightly darker cloth...

 

As for the silk span in Europe, I've found only that brodak.com seller, which apparently sells his product also in some selected european hobby shops. Ab, I've sent you an email. But I am not sure if that is the same stuff.

 

-Radek

 

[0Seahorse]

Hi Ab,

it is something strange with "silkspan", as I was looking for it some time ago and didn't find it. It was used for RC models, but I found only paper called "Japanese paper", what seems to be the same. Very thin and very strong stuff, half-transparent so it should be painted before with acrilic paints.  There are some movies on YT how to make sails of silkspan, but look there.

 

Best

Tomek 

 

[Tim Murphy]

Ab, Please check the You tube videos that Tom Laurie has done on Silk span sails.

He has 3 videos that are very helpful.

Also My wife a I were in Amsterdam two years ago. I loved the Rix and the ship gallery.

Thank You for what you have done for our Hobby.

Sincerely,

Tim Murphy

[Ab Hoving]

Praise the names of the creators of the internet and this forum. Way back in the 80s when I was struggling with the text written by a 17th century Amsterdam lord mayor to find out how he created an image of the 134 feet long pinas, there was no-one I could ask for help. Look how it is today. We are living in a blessed time!

Thank you Radek an Tomek for sharing your thoughts and knowledge and thank you Tim for the reference to the videos (you don't have to thank me for doing my privileged job, I was well payed, but thank you fore the compliment). Thank you David for showing your results with paper sails. They are impressive and very disciplined. I'm jealous.

I will soon find out if I can make paper bellow like these textile sails on returning busses:

Thanks to you all I have a new task: finding the right Japanese paper (Silkspan is not available in Europe for as far as I have been able to establish. American sites won't help out, Radek) and finding my ways with it. This is a whole new inspiration for me. In due time I will bother you with the results. For now: back to work.

[flying_dutchman2]

Ab, 

In the above post you have picture of a ship, would this be a Cat? 

 

I like how you add pictures of Ships to all your posts. They seem to be of the same genre as the pictures in the 17th century Dutch merchant ships. 

 

Marcus 

 

[Ab Hoving]

No Marcus, it's not a cat. It's a herring buss. A small three-masted vessel, built for herring fishing. There were thousands of them, fishing near the English coast, which is why they were often protected by war ships. You can find more information here: http://www.papermodelers.com/forum/ships-watercraft/36353-another-17th-century-dutch-workhorse-12.html

I'm not really following the types in my book, it's just an ongoing process. Soon I will be out of small ship types  and I will have to build the bigger ones. 🙂

 

I like to illustrate my posts because the founder of the Navy collection in the Rijksmuseum, Jochem Asmus, once stated that a model explains more than a thousand words. In my opinion a picture of a model explains at least more than a hundred words. Which keeps my postings short. 🙂

 

[amateur]

Hi Ab,

 

what are you going to do with all your plans? Making a book out of it?

 

Jan

[Ab Hoving]

Hi Jan,

 

No, I don't have any plans for new books. Literally. The plans I use for my models are from various sources and are not so elaborated that anyone could build a model from them. There is a lot of guessing involved and I make a lot of mistakes. My 'speeljacht' for instance suffers from a floor that is laid too deep. In the case of this vessel real plans (with corrected hight of floor) will be the outcome, thanks to the cooperation with my magical Belgium partner, Rene Hendrickx. They are almost finished, anyone who wants to give it a try can ask me for a copy, I will gladly send it over.

 

To write a book is not too much work. To fill it with plans, pictures, footnotes and tables of sources is killing. I don't know if I can or want to after the ten I did.

[3055max]

Ab

 

Teabag paper is similar, to my understanding, to Silkspan although I never have used Silkspan as I, like you, could not find this on-line. I therefore  cannot compare. The teabag paper worked for me and I used the same technique for making the sails as described by others who used Silkspan on this forum, by painting the paper with an acrylic paint. Quick and easy and cost effective. The Teabag paper is available on-line and I this bought here: https://www.vycombe-arts.co.uk/onlineshop/prod_3687465-Tea-Bag-Paper-26-x-200cms-UnPerforated.html

 

Max

[Ab Hoving]

Thank you Max, this is a good tip. Perhaps I can find an address in Holland as well. But making a link to teabag paper is most useful. I contacted my old colleagues in the Rijksmuseum for a supplier and I'm sure they will come up with something.

[Piet]

Hello Ab,

 

Sorry for the long delay in responding to your post of last July 7, stuff got in the way.

First off, glad to hear the good news about your daughter. Yup, cancer is always a scary issue, I had three of them 😫

Fortunately, I have been cancer free now for 10 years.

You commented about my name looking rather Dutch and asked about it.  Yes, I am Dutch, or least before I became an American citizen.  Hmmmm, still am I guess 😏.   I was born in Soerabaja, Nederlands Oost Indie in 1934.  My father served in the Koninklijke Marine and was killed during the battle in the Java Sea, 1942.  Repatriated to Holland in 1946 and left for the USA 1957.  Yeah, proud of my Dutch heritage, with a family line back to 1675.

 

Hey, no problems with my hands and eye sight.  I did a diorama of a shipyard with two ships on the stocks in a scale of 1:2,000 in 60 watt lamp bulb.

 

Sorry for the long-winded response and love your log, it's fun and informative.

 

Cheers,

 

[wefalck]

Haven't looked into the market for 'silkspan' for years, as I got a life's supply in the late 1970s ... in Germany it was sold by Graupner as 'Japanseide' in various densities. It is a real woven silk fabric and, hence, different from 'Japan Paper', also sold to cover model aircraft.

 

An alternative may be screen-printing silk fabrics. These are readily available (think of the electronic bay) in various mesh-sizes. I have, however, no personal experience with these fabrics.

 

'dafi' on this forum experimented with silk fabric as used by document restorers and obtained good results.

 

Given that 'Japanseide' is not very densly woven (the idea was to create a sort of composite material by soaking it in lacquer, whereby the lacquer provided the impermeability against air and the fabric the tensile strength) I originally soaked it in casein paint (Pelikan PLAKA was the German produkt I used), but since acrylics became available, I used these. While the aspect is quite canvas-like, the sails are not transparent. I have built up sails from individual panels cut from material impregnated with varnish, glued them together with varnish, and then painted them. This method has been discussed in one or the other thread here on the forum and is described also in my thread on the 'Botter'-model (where I actually used silk paper, rather than fabric, due to the smaller scale).

 

Repairs were not necessarily done with new cloth, but presumably with anything that was at hand. It is conceivable that ripped sails were kept as material for repairs. Hence it should not be surprising to find darker materials being used for patching up sails. Also heavier cloth might have been used, if no matching cloth was available.

[Ab Hoving]

Piet, I hope the storm doesn't hit you too much over there. I envy your sharp eyes and steady hands that enable you to make such tiny models.

 

Wefalck, Thank you very much for your elaborate reaction to my plea for help and information.

As it seems there is a wealth of possible materials to make sails from. The point is what you aim to achieve. Through a former colleague at the museum I am in contact with a person who has an enormous collection of kinds of paper, all for restoration purposes. He gave me several sheets to practice. What seems most promising is a material that is called Japanese paper. It comes in several thicknesses and it is hand made. I will do some tests, but before I received the material I already had some sails ready from thin cotton and treated them in the usual way with starch and a hair dryer. The result is not too bad, but the whole discussion started because these sails are too neat. Staining them in an 'accidental' way is not what I am looking for. I will get deeper into this later, but for now I used the cotton, maybe to be replaced later by a better material. The best stuff in that aspect I ever obtained was a very fine linen, that was removed from the back of old maps. The paper was washed off and I never saw a finer cloth. It also beautifully bellowed when treated with hot air, as you can see on the pictures of the busses going home a few posts back. But my collection of it has come to an end, so another challenge awaits me. My main demand is that the sail should bellow in a natural way and I doubt it that can be done with paper. Your Japan silk might come more in the right direction of what I am looking for. For folded sails however I am sure paper is the right material.

 

Your explanation for darker material for repairs of sails makes much sense. I can live with that.

 

And in the end, the main purpose of modelbuilding is to have fun. If it all gets too complicated I'd better take a tour with my wife on our electric bikes :-).

Here some pictures of the speeljacht. Not finished yet, but some things were in the way: a 143 feet long man-of-war, which suddenly crossed my path and had to be made for some reason (don't ask me why, I have very little with war ships. All dry fit on the shots, first a lot of gun carriages have to be made.), the hot weather lately (which has fortunately finished now) and the fact that I want to present the end result of the pleasure vessel together with the 3D drawings my friend Rene makes and which are almost, but not yet completely, finished.  I also spent too much time on the crew, on which a lot of work still has to be done.

 

Edited September 5, 2019 by Ab Hoving

[wefalck]

The linen you referred to may have been 'tracing linen' as used in the old days to copy technical drawings. I am not sure, whether it is exactly the same linen as was used to mount maps, but I have some old ones that are certainly mounted onto very fine cloth. I don't think 'tracing linen' is available commercially anymore. Your contact to restorers and museum workshops may be very valuable in this context.

 

I now what you mean by things 'getting too complicated' - I am constantly bogged down in my projects by technological challenges due to working in a rather small scale ...

Edited September 5, 2019 by wefalck