Small and open boat builders

[shipman]

Hello, I hope this is the correct area for my enquiry.

Surfing the net I came across an interesting German (?) company that trades in model ships, many of which are of exceptional quality. 'Fine modelships,de'. Generously they post comprehensive albums of photographs of models past and present in their inventory. Two modellmakers who feature prominently are:- Rainer Wedel who specialised in lovely 1:10 small open boats. The other, Jan van den Haivel, who specialised in open working boats and other vessels.

Both these chaps apparently made very high quality models for European museums.

I haven't come across either anywhere else. Does anyone know more about them? I'd also like to find other features by/of such subjects. I suspect 'Wefalck' may be well versed on the subject.

Thanks guy's.

[Bob Cleek]

They're offering what looks like a Model Shipways armed longboat for around $2,000. Good price if you can get it! https://www.modelships.de/Longboat_1750/Longboat_eng.htm

 

It looks like some sort of cooperative website where modelers sell their work. It would be interesting to know if they are really getting the prices that they are asking. I'm not saying the models aren't worth every penny of what's asked in most instances, considering the work that went into them, but we sure don't see a market that strong over here for built kit models.  

 

 

[shipman]

Bob, I agree, a good proportion of their models are kit builds. However, the ones I'm interested in are definitely scratch builds. I hadn't bothered to look up the prices.

You suggest an on-line co-operative......now there's a good idea?

[Roger Pellett]

Bob,  a picky quibble.  The longboat model on sale is the larger 1:24 scale model sold directly by Syren, not the 1 :48 scale model sold by Model Shipways.

 

Roger

[Bob Cleek]

On 10/19/2020 at 9:17 AM, Roger Pellett said:

Bob,  a picky quibble.  The longboat model on sale is the larger 1:24 scale model sold directly by Syren, not the 1 :48 scale model sold by Model Shipways.

 

Roger

 

My bad! I didn't look at it all that carefully. I suppose since it's twice as large as the Model Shipways version, $2,000 is a bargain! I've never been able to understand the prices of already built kit ship models. Not that they can't be things of beauty, but they're a bit like squeezed oranges. Most all of the fun in them has been used up in the building. Not that a good one isn't a lovely thing, but once it's built, it's all in the eye of the beholder, I guess.

 

 

Mona Lisa, $15 on eBay.

 

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Mona-Lisa-DIY-Paint-By-Numbers-Number-Canvas-Painting-Number-Hand-Painted/143602401404?hash=item216f5ec07c:g:eCkAAOSw4qxeuWwX

 

 

[Roger Pellett]

No, I don’t either.  I suppose that people who pay a lot of money for them want them for decorator pieces.  Serious collectors want one of a kind unique pieces.

 

Roger

[shipman]

Hi guy's, my reason for this topic was to try and find information about Rainer Wedel and Jan van den Haivel and any other scratch builders of small open boats. I'm not interested in the merits or otherwise of the marketing of models, whatever their merits. So from my point of view, things have rapidly drifted off topic.

'Finemodelships,de' is the only place that included the above mentioned scratch builders work, which is why I focussed on that site and on these two craftsmen specifically. The variable quality of some of the other stuff and prices have no interest to me.

 

[Roger Pellett]

For a number of years, I have been building a series of small open boats; specifically those carried by warships throughout history.  All are scratch built to a common scale of 1:32. So far, I have completed three models: A Mid Eighteenth Century Longboat, A US Navy  40ft Steam Cutter of 1890, and a    U S Navy 26ft Motor Whaleboat WWII era.  

 

I enjoy working to the 1:32 scale as it allows a high level of detail and using Imperial (US) measurements, 1/32in represents 1 scale inch.  I also like including a scale figure on the nameplate and 1:32 equates to a commercially available 54mm military miniature.  The figure is the only purchased part.  I build everything else.

 

Researching these models can be difficult, but there are some exceptions.  Complete design drawings for the entire series of 1900 Standardized USNavy Boats were recently published in a massive book that can be found on used book sites.  Usually, however, it requires collecting data from various sources.  So far, I can say that my models accurately represent the real thing.

 

I have posted pictures of my longboat model on the forum’s Gallery and pictures of the other two elsewhere on the forum from time to time.  I have also written two articles on the subject that were published in the Nautical Research Journal; one in 1990 about my steam cutter model, and one in 2013? about the US Navy 1900 standardized boats.

 

I intend to add to this series as time and health permit.  What are they worth? I have no idea.  It is my hope that a museum will someday accept them as unlike the frigates, line of battleships, and battlecruisers, these are the boats that were commanded by very junior officers or senior enlisted men.  I can also attest from limited personal experience that these boats contributed to the quality of life afloat.  They picked up mail, traded movies, ferried liberty parties ashore, and provided their crews an escape, however short from the close quarters and routine of life aboard ship.

 

I would be more than happy to share my knowledge of this subject with others.

 

Roger

[shipman]

Roger, thank you for your kind and generous reply. I looked up your 2 photo 'album' of your longboat, which looks rather splendid. That's the sort of model I admire; no ostentatious superfluous decoration there! I'm curious about a couple of details. What did you use to make the sails? They look so natural.

The capping rail appears quite wide; no doubt your research confirmed that. Did you base it on drawings from the NMM?

I noticed you are in the Duluth area, which reminds me of my only visit to the USA, over 25 years ago.

I was in Owatonna, for three weeks. I drove up to your neck of the woods to visit an aircraft museum, which impressed me.

Got to see a baseball match on Independence Day, the technicalities were lost on me, but I was impressed with the stadium.

I'm not sure what i was doing on a visit to the 'Mall of America'.

I was struck by how friendly most people were (as long as I didn't mention politics. It seems Americans are aggressively polarised).

Don't know why, but I was constantly being asked if I was Australian? On my return to the UK, I realised what a hole the UK can be.

By contrast, later that year I had my last holiday; in Goa (India). Now there's a place of contrasts. I didn't expect that part of India to be dense jungle. Though the average Goan lives in abject poverty, you wouldn't find such delightful and friendly folk anywhere. I cried when I left.

Anyway, less of my adventures. I'll be looking out for your posts. Stay well and safe.

[Roger Pellett]

Shipman, 

 

Thanks for your post.  The boat is based on an Admiralty drawing reproduced in the book “The Boats of Men of War” by W.E. May, page 90.  In addition to hull lines, this drawing includes rigging details not found elsewhere.  The rail is wider than the gunwale in Steele, but it needs to cover the planking edge and futtock heads which adds up to 3-3/4in plus 1-1/2 to 2in added for inboard and outboard overlap brings us to almost 6in which scales to 3/16in.

 

The sails are model aircraft silkspan, also called Modelspan, painted with acrylic paint.  Bolt ropes and reinforcements, and rope grommets were glued on.  Blocks were made from pear wood and deadeyes were turned from boxwood- the real stuff like that that grows in your gardens.

 

It sounds like your visit to Minnesota got you as far north as the Twin Cities. We live 160 miles north of there, a different world, sandwiched between Lake Superior, and the great North Woods.  As I write this we are getting our second snow fall of the year.

 

Four years ago we visited your part of the world as part of a small group garden tour of Yorkshire that ended up on Lake Windermere. It was wonderful, although the boat museum was closed giving me a reason to return in the future.  My wife and I have made four trips to the UK in successive years prior to Covid19.  On every trip we have met friendly, warm hearted people that made traveling a memorable experience.

 

Roger

[shipman]

G'day, Roger.

The aircraft museum was not far from Duluth, but I can't remember what it was called.

I did get vivid descriptions of ice storms and deep snow winters. The 'State Bird' stories made me laugh!

It's a shame the model rooms at the NMM and Science museum have closed. It would appear Chatham Historic Dockyard is the place to go now, though I haven't visited. Glasgow seems to have the biggest public model display now.

Portsmouth has the Victory, Warrior and Mary Rose. If You're ever in London, the Cutty Sark is a must, though my last visit was before the fire and restoration. Lucky to have most of the woodwork removed before the conflagration, so that aspect is authentic.

I have several copies of the book “The Boats of Men of War”; it's a shame most of the illustrations are so small/indifferent, but it's a tome worth having.

I'm always amused The Republic of USA, remains the last place to insist on the 'Imperial'  measurement system.

Us older Brits are able to work comfortably with Imperial and Metric.

Take care on those slippery surfaces.

[wefalck]

https://www.finemodelships.com/ is indeed a kind of co-operative marketing site, as I understand. I do know its operator Dr. Michael Czytko (he is a member of our German shipbuilding history association), but as I am not interested in buying or selling, I don't know anything about the modus operandi of the site. Some links also point to www.modelships.de.

 

When you do a search for Rainer Wedel on the Internet, a few links pop up. He seems to be a former pilot and to work also for the German Maritime Museum in Bremerhaven as a shipmodel builder. Most of his subjects seem to have been taken from

NIELSEN, C. (1973): Danske Bådtyper.- 152 p., København (Høst and Søns Forlag).

NIELSEN, C. (2006😞 Danske Bådtyper.- CD-ROM, Helsingør (Handels- og Søfartsmuseet).

 

The CD-ROM can be ordered from the museum Web-site.

 

I don't know anything about the oher guy, a Dutchman, Jan van den Heuvel. However, there are abundant resources on Dutch vernacular craft, if it is that what you are interested in.

[shipman]

Always a n educational pleasure to read your posts and comments, Eberard.

'modelships.de.' was and is the only source I found models by the guy's mentioned.

I'm not interested in the buying and selling thing either, but often sites such as these can surprise with often well photographed subjects.

I'll be looking into details of the Bremerhaven museum.

Thanks again.

[Roger Pellett]

Shipman, Thanks for your post.  The longboat in question is featured on a full page of May’s book making it somewhat larger than other illustrations.  I expanded it on a copy machine and then took off body plan offsets.  I used an Excel spreadsheet to convert offsets to compensate for planking thickness.  I used the offsets to draw a 1:16 lines drawing, reduced on a precision engineering copier to the final 1:32.

 

With my Naval Architecture background, my interest is producing models that demonstrate characteristic hull shapes and the way that these evolved over time.  I have written several times on this forum about the difficulty if not the impossibility of reproducing exact hull shapes of old vessels due to minor changes introduced by the lofting/fairing process each time plans are or were redrawn.  Despite concerns about copier distortion, etc., I believe that the model that I have produced accurately represents an early/mid Eighteenth Century Royal Navy longboat.

 

My career involved significant international travel that allowed me to visit many maritime museums.  As a member of a group visiting a “trash to cash” power plant in Hamburg, I extended my stay and visited the Museum at Bremerhaven.  My interest was the Bremen Cog, unfortunately when I visited still in its tank of PEG.  All in all, 33 years ago, it was an excellent museum, well worth a return visit especially now that the 4 masted Bark Peking will be in Hamburg Nearby.  Hopefully the museum directors have resisted the temptation to turn it into a theme park.

 

Metric/Imperial is like understanding a foreign language. I think Imperial. If I see a metric dimension, I need to mentally convert it to feet or inches to give me a sense of size.

 

Two late October snowstorms have turned Northern Minnesota into a winter wonderland so it looks like we’ll have slippery surfaces for the next six months.

 

Roger

 

[wefalck]

The DSM in Bremerhaven is undergoing a refurbishment, restructuring and re-orientation at the moment. It seems that they are replacing the 'S' in their name, that once stood for their mission, with an O, that stands for Ocean and makes them drift into the environmental, sustainability and social sphere. Important subjects in their own, but it is sad to see that another 'technical' or 'historical' museum forgets its original mission. We already have a couple of museum with this 'O' in their mission, so the question is, what is gained.

 

I recently found that their library/archive is still responsive and helpful, which is a positive sign.