Hooker Ship 82 ft. by Rik Buter - scale 1 : 64 - 1757 design Pieter Pauluszoon van Zwijndregt - first wooden ship build

[TheDuckDetective]

Rik, I wholeheartedly agree with you about Mr. Hovings books. I have 5 of them and my interest in the Twikkelo was actually sparked by one of those. That book being "Message in a model", chapter 12 introduced me to P. Van Zwijndregts work.

I'm very interested in the period and P. Van Zwijndregt.

Thats why I was so pleasantly surprised to see your log and subject. You're making a very fine ship.

 

Ab, thank you for your response. I'm sorry to hear that the book has been sold out. I will defenitly have to look for a second hand copy then, because I like to read books as a physical medium. 

But I would also like to take you up on your offer!

I'd love to see the draughts and any other information you might have.

Your knowledge and expertise would be invaluable to me!

 

,Rutger

 

 

[Ronald-V]

'In Tekening Gebracht' is second hand available at Bol.com  

 

https://www.bol.com/nl/nl/p/in-tekening-gebracht/1001004001575077/?bltgh=gVrukEDdMMj9g0Yo23JMnw.3_10.14.ProductTitle

Edited July 18 by Ronald-V

[Rik Buter]

Hoi Ab,

 

Thanks, great that you take notice of the build log. That 's pretty cool. 

[Rik Buter]

Thanks Ronald-V, on behalf of the DuckDetective.

[Rik Buter]

                               

 

Some more planking. Along the sides of the hull I don't need to do any trimming. Merely some curving with the travel iron like I explained in post # 13. But after the side of the hull turns towards the stem- and sternposts, I trim the planks from 4 to 3 mm.

After I rounded the bilge, I started to plank from the keel upwards.

 

 

The two planks above the keel go over the sternpost and make that area plane or level (I hope that is proper English).

 

 

[TheDuckDetective]

Yes, thank you Ronald! It seems I had forgotten to respond after clicking your link.

 

Looking good Rik!

[Rik Buter]

One more plank to go on port side

 

 

Port side ready. I always like the fan-like course of the planks at the knee of the stem.

 

 

Then onto starboard side

 

 

 

[Paul Le Wol]

Hi Rik, superb planking, great build log and a beautiful ship!

[Keith Black]

 Very nice. 

[Rik Buter]

Thanks guys.

 

     

 

Before I started planking, I calculated there were going to be 19 strakes down from the wales to the keel, including the garboard strake. So I tried to make the distribution along the stem- and sternpost as even as possible. It turned out that was hard to accomplish. At such a small scale it is matter of tenths of millimetres per strake. As you can see the last few are out of proportion. It did work out though on the broadside of the ship.

 

              

 

Here you can see how even the empty strip for the last two strakes is and I hardly had to do any trimming for that, besides at the very last ends of the strakes at the bow and stern. I also didn't need to put in any steelers. There is some severe curving of the planks going on though. I mean in the length direction. That was quite hard to do and in those areas I was unable to put the planks in tight. In one area the planks needed to be curved, then bend and started to be trimmed. That is why I don't think the planking on a real hooker ship was carried out in this fashion. So although there were benefits, in hindsight I think I chose the wrong  planking-trajectory for that matter.

 

[Rik Buter]

 

I wanted to post a few pictures which show a planking method that is probably closer to the way it really was done. When I saw images like these for the first time, I thought that the way the strakes are running was more of an artists interpretation. If you look at the first strake underneath the wales, it tapers off into a point shape right around the corner of the hull. First of all that would be hard to make. Second it would be hard to fasten against the frames. If you put a nail or peg in it, it would split easily. And third it would always stay a vulnerable part of the hull. But apparently they did use this kind of solution. The other day I heard a short lecture of Kroum Batcharov in which he tells us there is evidence in excavated ship wrecks that shows us that.

 

See here a beautiful watercolour of a galliot by Gerrit Pompe made in 1688 (70 years earlier though) which shows the same run of the strakes.

 

 

It would never result in an even distribution of the strakes along the sternpost though, and it would definitely require the use of multiple steelers.

 

Here is one more example on a real contemporary model. 

 

 

greetings

 

 

 

 

[Rik Buter]

 

After the planking was finished, I painted the hull and applied the first wash. 

 

 

Then I went on to draw the waterline.

 

 

But then I remembered that on the drawings of the van de Veldes the wales always dip into the water for a while at the lowest point.

 

 

Like in this drawing of an English yacht of about the same dimensions as the hooker ship. So I decided to put on another waterline.

 

 

Then I painted it, but I made the mistake to use acrylic paint. 

 

 

My plan was to apply several thin coates and keep it somewhat transparent. Normally when you paint a painting, acrylic paint is well suited for making transparent layers or glazing. However here on the model it dried so quickly that I couldn't get an even coat without stains. Also sanding it slightly down didn't work out well because acrylic paint is just a plastic coat on top of the wood. It doesn't penetrate. I should have used an oil based paint.

So in order to get a nice and plain coloured bottom of the ship, I had to apply three layers which made the coat way too thick.

Also the second waterline turned out to be too high. I tried to find images from which I could determine the waterline better.

 

 

I found out that in most images the waterline is at least one or two planks lower than the lower wales. So I carefully scraped off the paint again, down to the first waterline I drew. It became a bit of a mess. 

 

 

By the way I added a thin 1mm. strip of wood underneath the railing. I kept that white.

 

 

A coat of Osmo decor wax - oak colour goes on top of everything.

 

 

Edited July 24 by Rik Buter

[Rik Buter]

the Rudder

 

Here is a close-up of the rudder on the construction drawing. At first I had no idea what the piece on top of the rudder was. I mean what it was supposed to represent. It turned out it was a 'roerklik'. 'Roer' is the Dutch word for rudder, but 'klik' I have no idea. I once had an aunt with the word 'klik' as a nickname. Also in her case the origin or meaning of the word is unbeknownst to me. Her first name was 'Ko' so it did sound rather catchy.

 

 

On a visit to the 'Fries Scheepvaart Museum' I found out about these 'roerklikken'. It is a decorative element on top of the rudder. The three cylindrical shapes are barrels in the colours red, white and blue of the Dutch flag. Together with the stalk-shape it forms a three-leaf clover. As I understand it, the three-leaf clover motif was used for fishing vessels. Hooker ships that were going to be used as merchants had the head of Mercurius on their rudder. In Roman mythology he was the god of trade and profit, so that makes sense. Normally he is portrayed wearing a winged helmet. On the Dutch rudders however, he also wears some sort af animal head. 

 

 

Here are some examples of 'rudderheads' at the Fries Scheepvaart Museum. Especially the one in front is very well sculpted, I think. I wonder why they wear those animalheads though and also what kind of animal they tried to sculpt. I know that Hercules is often portrayed wearing a Lion skin.

 

 

Here is a beautiful example of an engraving by Goltzius.

Now the names Mercurius and Hercules are not that incredibly different. Back then all the instructions to the executive personnel were given verbally. I can easily picture a situation in which the ever resourceful sculptor, upon a visit by the master shipwright to examine the progress of his work, having to turn manes into wings. That might explain the ambiguous  features of the animal cap. After that a tradition was born.  Speculation of course but there must be some kind of explanation for the creation of these decorations, the 'roerklikken' as well as the 'roerkoppen' because they are applied very consistently.

 

 

I'm wandering off. For the rudder of the hooker I started with the hinges because I didn't know what they exactly looked like and I didn't have much experience with soldering. I came upon a very helpful video of Kevin Kenny on this topic. Thanks Kevin Kenny! I started with the gudgeons.

 

 

 

 

Then the rudder itself.

 

 

Pintle.

 

 

The tiller and the clover decoration.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Best regards

 

 

 

 

Edited July 30 by Rik Buter

[yvesvidal]

Superb work. It is a pleasure to watch what you are building.

 

Yves

[Rik Buter]

Thanks Yves

[Rik Buter]

I build some kind of main mast bitt. Often you see there are belaying pins in there but I am not sure if they are always suppose to. There is not much information about deck furniture on the drawing. The bitt might be a little too wide.

 

 

 

View of the bow at this stage.

 

 

Preparing the upper wales for the channels of the main mast. As I mentioned before, they were placed backwards on these type of vessels so the crew had more space along the bulwark to do the fishing. Each individual fisher was reeling in a long line with hooks attached.

 

 

 

I decided the main hatch is going to have a grating. I am not sure if fishing boats actually did have that. It was a good exercise though.

  

 

With the ledges and the battens.

 

 

I did not add camber to it nor to the coaming.

 

 

 I placed the coaming right onto the beams and carlings according to a construction drawing I found here on MSW. Later on I found out that Dutch practise is different. They first do the deck planking, and than put the coaming on top of the deck. So this Dutch boat is going to have an American deck.

 

 

Here you see the beginning of the deck planking with the coamings put in first and also the mast partner of the main mast.

 

 

 

Best regards

Edited August 2 by Rik Buter

[Rik Buter]

 

A short update. In this photograph the planking of the deck is almost complete. After that I wanted to finish the bulkhead or the front piece of the cabin. Maybe bulkhead is too big of a word for that. Traditionally the Dutch ships used clinker built planks for that area, like in this drawing of van de Velde.

 

 

That was about a 100 years earlier than the hooker ship, however you see the use of clinker building often return in the cabins they put on galiots and 'kofschepen' and other types of vessels in the 18th century. Like on this beautiful model of a 'smak' built by Willem Vos.

 

 

So I tried it on the hooker as well. It is just a small element. I also finished the entrance of the cabin and fit the waterways and the mast partners of the mizzenmast.

 

 

greetings 

 

 

[Paul Le Wol]

Rik, the deck planking looks great. The clinker planking is a very nice detail.

[druxey]

Just found your build log. Very nice work, Rik.

[AJohnson]

37 minutes ago, druxey said:

Just found your build log. Very nice work, Rik.

Also just seen this and love the work you have done and the lovely lines of this vessel. 

[Rik Buter]

Thanks guys for checking out the building log, I'm glad you like it. And thanks for all the thumbs, I appreciate it. 

[Rik Buter]

 

The next thing I did, was making the chainplates for the dead eyes. I put them in an oxidizing liquid to darken the brass. However after I rinse the parts the black patina does not seem to stick everywhere to the same degree. On some spots it is easily brushed off. So I was wondering, does anyone know the cause of it? Maybe the parts need to be better cleaned or degreased before putting it into the liquid? 

 

I still fitted them onto the boat though.

 

 

I also made the wedges for the mast.

 

[barkeater]

Rik,

To get the best results, put the parts in acetone (nail polish remover), then into distilled water and finally into the blackener after drying. Don't touch with your hands. I coat them after drying with a matte finish (testors dulcoate) which I feel helps to lock in the coating. If I have not gotten sufficient blackening when I take them out of the blackening agent, I just leave them in longer. Also, the thicker the wire I'm using seems to take longer. I can't think of an explanation for this, it is just an observation. Finally, I've found that even though two pieces are supposed to be the same metal (brass, copper, silver) if they are from different sources they will blacken differently. Your model looks great.

Rich 

[Rik Buter]

Hi Rich, thanks for your explanation, very useful. I had a feeling I was skipping a few steps. And does the matte finish come from a spraycan?

 

 

[Rik Buter]

Here are two photos of the mast wedges in place, for the main mast and the mizzen.

 

 

[Rik Buter]

Then onto the windlass. In the case of this hooker ship, the windlass does not show on the plan but from pictures, like the ones in post # 41 above, I knew it had to be there. I had consultation with Ab Hoving about it and he assured me the ship would have had one and he advised me to take a look at his building log of a similar ship at this forum. In the pictures as well as in Ab's log I noticed the riding bitt was sort of integrated with the bulwark. That 's probably why it wasn't drawn in the van Zwijndregt plans (while on other occasions he does include the riding bitts). Ab told me that the curved shape of the bulwark at the bow was filled up with pieces of wood which are called cheeks. The next picture shows you a piece of the deck plan and where the winch is supposed to be located.

 

 

Based on this I could determine the length. For the specific shape there are a few great examples of windlasses at the Rijksmuseum. Here is one of them.

 

 

I read somewhere there are even differences between windlasses from place to place. Apparently the Dutch ones often had a slight curve, like the one in the next image. That is not surprising since everything on Dutch ships seems to be round and bulky. Like it is their style. 

 

 

If you look at the grain of the wood, it looks as if it is made out of one piece instead of being composed out of eight parts. So now that I had an idea of the size and the characteristics, I made a test version from a piece of oak.

 

 

Here you can see it with the ratchet wheel and square wholes for the bars. 

 

 

Then I installed the cheeks to the bulwark and did a test run.

 

 

I decided that the test version was actually  good enough and I made it the final version. Then I made the peg that stops the winch from rolling back (I couldn't find the proper term for it, please fill me in if you do know it) and its casing.

 

 

 

 

Here are the pieces that lock up the windlass. There is probably a name for them too (once again don't hesitate to fill me in).

 

 

And here is the whole assembly mounted on, including catheads.

 

 

best regards,

Rik Buter

Edited September 8 by Rik Buter

[AJohnson]

Nice detailing Rick. 

[Keith Black]

 This such a beautiful model. I enjoy every update, Rick. 

[Doreltomin]

Just came across this one! That's a very nice ship and also a very good model taking shape, congratulations, will follow with much interest! As for the name of the pieces which keep the windlass to roll back under traction, you may try "pawls"!

[JacquesCousteau]

This build really looks fantastic! Out of curiosity, what sort of wood did you use for the deck, and how did you get it that color?