What modeling wood looks like the real thing?

[Dave_E]

Hi All,

 

I’m asking because you all have the answers. What kind of trees were the ships in the late 1700s made of? Different lumber used in Britain versus the east coast of the US? Then… what species of modeling lumber that we can get best replicates the original builds? Wood that will be painted over, I guess in immaterial. I see may fine models of perfection that are built from perhaps wood that will behave and work better during the building process. Is getting a realistic representation of the wood species actually used done with “weathering” techniques?

[David Lester]

Hi Dave,

I can't answer your questions specifically, and personally, I don't worry about such things too much as I tend to paint my models. However, have you discovered Tom Lauria's series of youtube videos. They're all excellent, but he has one specifically on choosing and finishing wood so that it mimics the real thing, yet keeping the grain in scale for the model. He also feels that the finish is an important part of scale and that even a too thick coat of varnish can look over scale. One area where I have adapted his technique to a degree is on my decks. I like my decks to be gray, and as he shows, a good effect can be achieved by using watered down acrylic paint, rather than stain, to get the colour you want and then rubbing it with a paper towel. It gives a very nice look with a soft sheen. Even a lowly basswood deck can look ok with this technique. Here is my Niagara:

 

 

That's black, white, a little brown and a little yellow mixed into a very watery mixture, then rubbed with a paper towel. I think it gives a fairly natural representation of a real deck.

David

 

Here's the link to Tom's video:

 

 

[allanyed]

The real thing varied.  The 18th century British Navy materials were largely oak, elm, and Deal based on numerous contracts that call out specific species to be used.  These are not really preferred by most model builders as the grain shows so is way out of scale.   Walnut-like wood that we see used by some, not all, kit makers is, I believe, to save money as realistic appearance does not seem to be a consideration in those cases.  Many folks, me included, think the color is nice, but it is porous and these tiny holes can be seen and looks awful if scale is important.  

 

Contemporary models used a variety, principally boxwood as well as other species.  Castello and  Alaskan cedar are current favorites when considering tight grain and hardness.  Fruit woods such as pear were often used and are still a good choice today.  Basswood looks very good but is quite soft compared to the others.   Still, it looks far better than the walnut mentioned above.

 

The key is little to no grain and sufficient hardness to hold an edge for shaping, carving, &c.  

 

Some pics of various tight grained species and the open grained stuff found in many kits follows.

Alaskan Cedar

Castello

European box

Holly

Swiss pear

"Walnut" from a kit

 

 

Edited June 5, 2022 by allanyed

[Roger Pellett]

Generally speaking what looks most like the real thing is paint. With the exception of the deck, ships were protected from the weather with some kind of coating- white stuff, black stuff, copper sheathing, or anti fouling bottom paint below the waterline.  Topsides were tarred and in later years painted.  Decks were sanded regularly with holy stones or left to weather.

 

Unless done by one of the masters using the woods posted by Allan above, much of the natural wood school of modeling IMHO looks amateurish.  The “walnut” offered in kits is a marketing ploy to convince buyers that they are getting something deluxe.  

 

Roger

[Dave_E]

18 minutes ago, Roger Pellett said:

Generally speaking what looks most like the real thing is paint. With the exception of the deck, ships were protected from the weather with some kind of coating- white stuff, black stuff, copper sheathing, or anti fouling bottom paint below the waterline.  Topsides were tarred and in later years painted.  Decks were sanded regularly with holy stones or left to weather.

 

Unless done by one of the masters using the woods posted by Allan above, much of the natural wood school of modeling IMHO looks amateurish.  The “walnut” offered in kits is a marketing ploy to convince buyers that they are getting something deluxe.  

 

Roger

Sounds like words of wisdom to me. 👍😀

[druxey]

Again, real wood will change appearance with weathering, age and other wear and tear.  If you wish to imitate 'real world' wood, you need to study photographs and imitate the results with paint. There are some amazing examples on this site. For instance:

 

https://modelshipworld.com/topic/20162-new-england-stonington-dragger-by-friedclams-finished-148-pob/page/13/

 

[Richard Dunn]

In regards to  decking, if you can get Anigre which is an African Birch it is the closest timber to (worn) teak I have seen and has the qualities you need , fine grain, subtle variance in tone and sands/scrapes well.
I have used it over the last 40 years in models and in furniture so have used it in a range of ways.
It often has extensive figure which you want to avoid for models.
It is available but hard to find. I purchased 6 x 2m lengths in 200 x 50mm planks a few years back just because it was there at the time.
I suspect people reading this will go ,"I have never heard of this" but I can assure you all if you try it you will not go back, also its  much cheaper than fruit wood.
I am in Australia but pay $43.00per metre for 200 x 50mm quarter sawn.
I will be using this and Cherry for 1/35 built up POF model I plan to start soon of Le Gros Ventre.
I have to say that some of this timber also looks like Elm.

Grain is close to American Cherry in nature and does not require pore filling as it's so fine

Here you can see the subtle tonal changes and very teak like  miniature grain.

 

I found some in  your neck of the woods.

https://www.sierrafp.com/seattle/products/lumber/anigre/
http://www.edensaw.com/MainSite/Store1/StoreProducts/ProductDetail/6948

the back bottom is almost newish teak and the middle greyish one is a more bleached look, photos don't do it justice though

 

Can also be pinkish

My personal stash

 

Edited June 5, 2022 by Richard Dunn

[Richard Dunn]

Dave_E I noticed you mention guitar making, I myself am a luthier to and use the figured boards for steel string and archtops, its very close to maple for carved backs.

This is a piece I made years ago from a Super Yacht master bedroom and it is Anigre as well (veneer stained), showing this so you can see how versatile it is.

 

Edited June 5, 2022 by Richard Dunn

[Dave_E]

NICE! 👍😀

[Richard Dunn]

I quickly did this to illustrate the point.

Teak at various stages except really old vs Anigre on right, you can see all the tones match up.
 

 

[allanyed]

Ahhhh, teak decks.   The old adage, would you rather spend your time on the boat working on the teak decks or would you rather be sailing?  Not enough time for both. 

Do boat yards use teak anymore?  Teak and mahogany are endangered wood species so with most of the remaining trees in Myanmar and their problems, is it even possible to get teak in any quantity?   

 

We have a carved 7 piece teak salad bowl set from 1969 (wedding gift).   The boss keeps a close eye on it in case I get any crazy ideas about using the wood for other than salads.  

 

Allan

Edited June 6, 2022 by allanyed

[Richard Dunn]

Ha, yeah I bet
The answer is yes but its grown for the purpose of marine fitouts, many of the super yachts still use it although it's a 5mm veneer not solid so it goes further.
Anyone can correct me if I am wrong but nowadays there are products to keep teak in  good order instead of washing and scrubbing, and those that have it can afford to pay someone to look after it.
The burmese teak is what they use nowadays still (Tectona Grandis).
There is an alternative wood that has been used in place of it for several decades now and that is Iroko, its horrible stuff, we used some on a boat 20 years ago and its terrible to work, it also has dust that causes your throat to close, its very course grained and splintery stuff, it shares the oily nature of teak though which is why they use it.
Mahogony depends what species, their are over 30 species of mahogany, but the one i think you are referring to is Brazilian mahogany or Swietenia Macrophylla its been the staple for guitar builders for centuries for necks and bodies.
thier is also sepelle and many others which are still grown for the purpose but solid has become harder to get as veneer is seen as a better usage and less wasteful way of extracting the wood.
In Australia we have a few identical looking timbers that are actually better, Queensland maple being the most common, its beautiful stuff and you cant tell the difference. here is a chair I made with it, as you can see it looks like Mahogony.
Anyway I don't want to hijack this post.

[Dr PR]

I have seen one reference where Douglas fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii) was used for decking on a fairly recent build. It still grows in the Pacific Northwest, although almost all of the original native forests have been clearcut. I don't think it would be a good material for decking. Even here in Oregon where it is harvested we don't use it for decks or fencing that is exposed to the (wet) weather. It is a fairly soft wood and rots quickly.

 

The blueprints for the Cleveland class cruisers of the late 1930s and 1940s say they had two inch laminated planking for the decks. The upper one inch was teak and the lower one inch was Douglas fir. I suspect this was common on all US Navy ships of the period. Douglas fir was cheaper and more readily available than teak. So the more durable teak was exposed to the elements and the Douglas fir was a filler.

 

I have a piece of the teak deck from the USS Oklahoma City CLG-5 that was removed before the ship was used as a target and sunk in 1999. So teak was still being used as late as 1979 when the ship was decommissioned. We replaced the decking in Japan in the early 1970s but I didn't pay any attention to the materials so I don't know if it was laminated.

[Benjamin sullivan]

that is a beautiful chair

[michael mott]

On 6/6/2022 at 3:13 PM, Richard Dunn said:

Ha, yeah I bet
The answer is yes but its grown for the purpose of marine fitouts, many of the super yachts still use it although it's a 5mm veneer not solid so it goes further.
Anyone can correct me if I am wrong but nowadays there are products to keep teak in  good order instead of washing and scrubbing, and those that have it can afford to pay someone to look after it.
The burmese teak is what they use nowadays still (Tectona Grandis).
There is an alternative wood that has been used in place of it for several decades now and that is Iroko, its horrible stuff, we used some on a boat 20 years ago and its terrible to work, it also has dust that causes your throat to close, its very course grained and splintery stuff, it shares the oily nature of teak though which is why they use it.
Mahogony depends what species, their are over 30 species of mahogany, but the one i think you are referring to is Brazilian mahogany or Swietenia Macrophylla its been the staple for guitar builders for centuries for necks and bodies.
thier is also sepelle and many others which are still grown for the purpose but solid has become harder to get as veneer is seen as a better usage and less wasteful way of extracting the wood.
In Australia we have a few identical looking timbers that are actually better, Queensland maple being the most common, its beautiful stuff and you cant tell the difference. here is a chair I made with it, as you can see it looks like Mahogony.
Anyway I don't want to hijack this post.

Lovely work Richard also the cabinet in your earlier post. I am always on the lookout for salvageable wood for my model projects, it always breaks my heart to see an old house being crushed into matchsticks by huge machinery when much of the wood used could still be salvaged! The time is money myth will become apparent one day, but I digress. 
I am still using some of the eastern sugar maple that I acquired in 1973 as a six foot long green log after slabbing it up into quarters after taking a three inch plank from the centre for a coffee table and air drying the rest. It is what I am using for the interior of my Bristol pilot cutter.

The deck is close grained salvaged old growth clear Douglas Fir.

michael

[Roger Pellett]

It’s my understanding that Douglas Fir was used for the masts on the large American Schooners built in the early 1900’s.  It was shipped all the way from the Pacific NW to shipyards in Maine on special Railroad cars.  These masts were made from a “single stick,” not built up.

 

Chapelle writes that the RN refers to American “fir built frigates,” not a complimentary term.  On the other hand, it is well known that The US Navy used Live Oak shipped from Southern States to Northern shipyards for structural members, so I don’t know what the RN is referring to

 

It would seem to me that Teak would not have made an appearance until the Nineteenth Century when the British began to build vessels in Indian shipyards. I have a 2”x 4” piece of Teak that I bought many years ago during a business trip to Taiwan.  In it’s uncut state it a light brown.  I don’t know what it would look like if it were to be exposed to weather and wet sanded on a daily basis (holystoned).  It certainly is not a candidate for a ship modeling wood.  It has a coarse distinct grain and an oily texture.  It works great for glass cases as it is very easy to finish.

 

Roger

 

 

[Snug Harbor Johnny]

1 hour ago, Roger Pellett said:

It’s my understanding that Douglas Fir was used for the masts on the large American Schooners built in the early 1900’s.  It was shipped all the way from the Pacific NW to shipyards in Maine on special Railroad cars.  These masts were made from a “single stick,” not built up.

 

Chapelle writes that the RN refers to American “fir built frigates,” not a complimentary term.  On the other hand, it is well known that The US Navy used Live Oak shipped from Southern States to Northern shipyards for structural members, so I don’t know what the RN is referring to

 

It would seem to me that Teak would not have made an appearance until the Nineteenth Century when the British began to build vessels in Indian shipyards. I have a 2”x 4” piece of Teak that I bought many years ago during a business trip to Taiwan.  In it’s uncut state it a light brown.  I don’t know what it would look like if it were to be exposed to weather and wet sanded on a daily basis (holystoned).  It certainly is not a candidate for a ship modeling wood.  It has a coarse distinct grain and an oily texture.  It works great for glass cases as it is very easy to finish.

 

Roger

 

 

  Back in College, our history club converted a surplus U.S. Navy whaleboat (lifeboat) into a Viking Knarr, and the gunwales were of teak.  They were pre-weathered and of a light to medium brown (as I recall), but being an 'oily' wood there was no noticeable deterioration.  As an annual maintenance, either Teak or neatsfoot oil was rubbed on the gunwales - which turned them into a darker brown that lasted a good while.  There seemed to be excellent durability even though exposed to the weather Spring thru Fall.  It was taken out of the water and trailered to a storage yard for the winter, where a rainproof tarp was tied over the open hull.  We took turns prying out loose caulking (which was most of it) and otherwise driving fresh oakum into the seams before applying new caulk - and in Spring a fresh coat of anti fouling paint.

[Richard Dunn]

C Nepean Longridge used some of the Cutty Sarks actual teak on he deck of his 1/48 model in the Greenwich museum but he overcame the large pores with beeswax being trowelled into it and polished, having seen the model it worked but the grain itself is sill far to big and the colour too dark, it looks like a permanently wet deck.
I still stand by Anigre for raw teak but for polished teak I will be using American cherry stained and varnished, mainly because it has very fine grain lines which almost scale the wood, also I purchased a pack of BBQ smoking cherry chunks which have come from a much smaller tree and the grain in those is even better.

By the way I pulled Indian teak of the deck of SS Te Anau in the 80,s  for use on a boat I was building and it was still good....smelly but good, 10mm of all sides and good as new.
you can see some of it here where we cut it from the bow.
This vessel was sunk on this breakwater in 1922 so that is a testament to the wood.

 

Edited June 18, 2023 by Richard Dunn

[Bob Cleek]

Farmed Douglas fir is far less suitable for boat and ship building than naturally-grown vertical-grained Doug fir with ring counts of twelve to eighteen rings per inch. Just about every wooden boat and ship built on the West Coast of the US up until recent times was built primarily, or exclusively, of vertical-grain Doug fir. This includes all the lumber schooners and the once-vast fleets of small fishing boats, including the Montereys, many of which are still going strong eight to a hundred years and more from their original launching. Vertical-grain Doug fir was long a favored species for laid plank  vessel deckis. (Plain-sawn Doug fir is not nearly as good for home deck building because it does require painting to avoid weathering. Plain-sawn redwood was far better for home decking until it became cost-prohibitive.) In the Nineteenth Century, Doug fir (and larch in Europe) were favored for warship construction over teak, which became available to the Admiralty after Britain colonized India and Burma, because, although, bare teak stood up to the elements better than unpainted Doug Fir, teak was highly prone to splintering when hit by cannon shot and teak splinter wounds were highly likely to fester, unlike Doug fir splinters. Teak is also much more difficult to work than just about any of the usual ship-building woods, because its high silica content dulls tools very quickly.

 

There was a time when prime old-growth teak was so available in Asia that teak cargo pallets and cargo hatch covers were made of it, but those days are long gone. The totalitarian governments in the teak growing nations clear cut the teak forests to provide export product to support their revolutionary governments and the elephants trained to extract teak logs from the forest without damaging them are no longer available, so large teak timbers necessary for vessel construction aren't available today in the quantities necessary.  Having owned for over forty years a teak-planked yacht built to Lloyd's 100A1+ standards in 1963 by Cheoy Lee Shipyard, Kowloon, Hong Kong I can attest that the teak wood used to plank that boat is virtually unobtainable today.

 

Having worked for a yacht brokerage specializing in classic wooden yachts in the 1970's and being intimately familiar with a broad range of wooden boat building quality, I experienced firsthand the phenomenon of teak's becoming the favored species for brightwork. Before the advent of fiberglass boats, a "gold plater's" brightwork would almost always be made of mahogany, preferably real Honduras mahogany, and well-varnished. Teak was favored only for decks because of its easy maintenance: saltwater rinse daily, or bleach and rinse as needed. (Originally, holystoning was a primarily a practice on naval vessels maintained "Bristol fashion" when abrasion of the deck surface was necessary because the tar used on the rigging above the deck dripped in hot tropical weather and was tracked by sailors' feet all over the teak decks. It became "traditional" in naval practice thereafter and is a very wasteful and "abusive" maintenance practice that wears down the decks and accelerates the need to replace decks.) As fiberglass boats were built in quantity on speculation and had to sit at the brokers' docks, sometimes for considerable time, until they were sold, varnished mahogany trim required regular maintenance of drying with a chamois and sanding and re-varnishing on a regular basis.  The fiberglass boat manufacturers then began using bare teak for outboard trim on their vessels and marketed it as "highest quality." That's really how things like teak cap rails and grab rails became universal on fiberglass boats from the 'seventies on.

 

 

[Jaager]

4 hours ago, Roger Pellett said:

Chapelle writes that the RN refers to American “fir built frigates,” not a complimentary term.

The Atlantic Ocean is an interference for my direct knowledge of this, but I think that the English call several species of Pine: "fir".   I think their "fir built" brigs were actually built using Baltic obtained Pine species.

 

Here in North America,  there is a wide variety of properties from our many Pine species.  Eastern White Pine is very light colored, clear, soft, and a joy to work,  but I would not think it suitable for a full size vessel.

There once was a yellow Pine that could be hard enough to turn nails.  I think it was used for decking in the 19th century - and much else because it was loved to death. 

 

One possible scenario: In a war emergency,  when durability is not a goal, various species of Pine were probably readily available in large size, easy to mill, and maybe the sap could be anti fungal enough to make up for the lack of seasoning.  It would be a warship version of Kleenex with the additional advantage of being useless to the English if they captured one.