Pomeranian Rahschlup 1846 by wefalck – 1/160 scale – single-masted Baltic trading vessel

[BANYAN]

Nice result Eberhard.  I am enjoying following your foray into the unknown with these materials.

 

cheers

 

Pat

[wefalck]

Thanks to all for your continued encouragement ! Slow progress due to business travel-related absence from the workshop ...

 

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Planking the bulwarks

 

The planking of the bulwarks follows the same procedure as that for the hull, but had to be handled much more careful, as the inside will be visible and there will by no adjustments possible by sanding or scraping. The main reason for the latter is, that the planks are of scale thickness (0.25 mm) and profiled.

Section through a bulwark drawn by Friis-Pedersen (1980).

 

As can be seen from the two images above and below, it was not uncommon to give the edges of the planks a decorative profile by using an appropriate profile plane.

Bulwark of a Swedish jagt, photographed in November 2023 in Stockholm

 

I had been exploring various ideas for creating these profiles on tiny 1 mm x 0.25 mm styrene ‘planks’ uniformly and consistently close to the edges. In the end I decided on a simple and rather makeshift solution: a steel ruler was taped to a small cutting-mat to serve as guide for the very flexible strips. The chosen tool is an old-style ruling pen, of which I have several knocking about in my drawer of draughting utensils. This was set so that it creates a groove close to the opposite edge, when run along the edge of the strip. This works only for strips of uniform width.

  

It was important to prevent the styrene strips from softening too much during gluing, therefore only tiny drops of liquid styrene cement were applied to each stanchion. 

 

Somehow the alignment of the bulkheads was not as perfect as I was hoping for, resulting in some bulges. I hope I will be able to correct/hide this somehow.

 

Another problem is that the styrene strips of scale thickness are rather floppy, so that edge-alignment is rather difficult. I hope that I can also sort this out.

 

Once the planks were on, I installed the hawse-timbers between the stem and the cant-frames in the bow.

Next on will be the rails.

 

To be continued …  

[wefalck]

Thanks for the 'likes' !

 

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Fitting the rails

 

The rails are 0.75 mm x 1.50 mm styrene strips on top of the bulwark and a 0.75 mm x 2.00 mm strip over the stern. The edges of the strips are rounded.

 

To this end I cut a scraper from a piece of razor-blade which is held in a short pin-vice. The strip is held in a simple jig made from cardboard. Strips of cardboard were cut with clean and vertical edges and glued to a cardboard-base so that styrene strips of 0.25 mm, 0.50, and 0.75 mm thickness can be wedged into the resulting notch, holding it straight and vertical.

 

In this way a clean and uniform profile of the styrene strip can be achieved quickly.

 

The styrene strips then were pre-bend, holding them lightly in round-nosed pliers and by ‘massaging’ them around my thumb to make them conform to the sheer-line as closely as possible. They then were glued onto the stanchions and the top bulwark strake using styrene-cement.

 

As can be seen from the cross-section shown in the previous post, the profile of the rail may be even more sophisticated with some cornice planed in. I simulated this my lacquering a 0.1 mm copper wire into the outboard corner under the rail.

 

The next step will be puttying up any small gaps that have developed during the planking process.

 

As one can see on the pictures, I also started to work on the deck by making a paper template for it.

 

To be continued …  

[Keith Black]

For being that tiny those are some well executed cap rails, Eberhard.  🙇 

[Jim Lad]

Very well executed, mate!

 

John

[BANYAN]

At that scale everything so far is very well done; very crisp and a; lot of detail.

 

cheers

 

Pat