2022 MODEL SHIPS CALENDAR

[kurtvd19]

The 2022 MODEL SHIPS CALENDAR featuring models made by NRG and MSW members is now available from the NRG Store.  A new model each month for 13 months (Jan 2023 included).  The supply is limited so don't delay.

 

We also have several new products available in the store.

 

The Seaman's Speculum or Compleat School-Master by John Davis is now available again.  This is a reprint of the 1711 treatise on late 17th and early18th century rigging of British naval and merchant ships that the NRG first printed in 1985.  This is a PDF download. 

 

     Presented as a "how we did it" book, Modeling the Ironclads by Steven Lund and William Hathaway documents the authors' construction of a   variety of radio-controlled Civil War monitors.  This is a PDF download. 

 

        Capstan Practicum.  The subject of this practicum is a single British capstan circa 1777. It is installed on its step, and it actually turns. The practicum will also teach you how to construct hatch coamings and gratings.  This practicum is provided in two versions.  The Intermediate version is aimed at the model builder whose only power tools are a hobby-sized circular saw and a Dremel-style rotary tool.  Drawings show actual dimensions so it can be built in any scale.  This is a PDF download. 

 

     Nautical Research Guild gift cards are an easy way to give the perfect gift. The recipient of your gift can use their gift card anytime on NRG store to purchase plans, books, Journal back issues and more.  Available in amounts of $25, $50, $75 an $100.   Please note use limitations before ordering cards

Order early to avoid delays with mail as we approach the holidays.

 

 

[Bob Cleek]

1 hour ago, kurtvd19 said:

The Seaman's Speculum or Compleat School-Master by John Davis is now available again.  This is a reprint of the 1711 treatise on late 17th and early18th century rigging of British naval and merchant ships that the NRG first printed in 1985.  This is a PDF download. 

 

I just love how I learn something new from nearly every one of your posts, Kurt! (And, reading back issues of Ships in Scale, the same goes for your fine articles in that publication.) In this instance, I must confess that despite my life-long wide-ranging pursuit of nautical trivia, I've never until now encountered a seaman's speculum which, of course, sent me scurrying to Google. While never having had any first-hand encounters with a speculum, seaman's or otherwise, I'd previously understood it to be a medical instrument commonly employed by gynecologists and proctologists.

 

It's not unusual that we find medical and dental instruments useful in ship modeling, but I'm at a loss to see what use a modeler might find for a speculum in the model shipyard, except, perhaps, to gently spread rigging in order to access inaccessible inboard areas. My "Googling" reveals that disposable speculums are now made in plastic. Might these be particularly useful to plastic model builders? "Enquiring minds want to know" what use modelers, or seamen, for that matter, might have for a speculum?    

 

 

 

      

Edited September 29, 2021 by Bob Cleek

[druxey]

The meaning of 'speculum' has morphed over time. Bob.  It also used to mean a mirror, reflector or lens. In other words, it meant an observational aid. Certainly the meaning of a medical instrument was (also an observational aid!)  also used at the same time period (the late 1500's).

 

Information is from the reliable Oxford English DIctionary.

[Bob Cleek]

4 hours ago, druxey said:

Certainly the meaning of a medical instrument was (also an observational aid!)  also used at the same time period (the late 1500's).

 

So it has. From the Latin root verb, specere, "to look" and the suffix, -ulum, "a tool for..." Speculum is the Latin word for "mirror." Supposedly, in the late 1500's and early 1600's they called a similarly functioning instrument of torture a "choke pear." 

 

 

[tlevine]

And then there are aural and nasal speculae...