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

[wefalck]

Thanks again to all for their encouragement !

 

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Some small progress in the true and literary sense of the word:

Bilge-pump

 

Although not drawn in the original drawings, the ship must have had at least one bilge-pump. Such pumps would be logically located at the lowest part of the hull, usually somewhere close to the mast. As its location is not marked on the drawings, this is a bit of guess-work.

While Downton-pumps or similar existed already, when the Rahschlup was designed, they were comparatively expensive items. As the ship was built in a rather economically marginal context, it is more likely that a traditional wooden pump was installed, that could also be built and maintained with local materials and by local craftsmen, such as a blacksmith. Nicely rendered drawings for such pumps can be found, for instance, in the Danish naval yard archive.

Example for a bilge-pump from the former Danish naval yard (extract from G-2357-09)

 

The trunk would have been fashioned from a single tree, typically elm, that was bored out with the aid of spoon- or canon-drills in a sort of primitive boring-lathe. Iron bands kept it together and served as attachment points for the lever. 

 

https://youtu.be/pj-XKqW29XE?si=9Q8RTsXOMxMuPPVN 

Example for drilling of wooden pipes.

 

I made a rough sketch to fix the dimensions and settled on a height of 4 mm and a diameter of 1 mm, which would be 64 cm and 16 cm on the original respectively. The body was turned from a short length of acrylic rod, leaving the future bands as proud rings.

The mechanism is composed of four lengths of 0.2 mm tinned copper wire. The wire was first bent to shape and flattened at the appropriate places with a special kind of flattening pliers. Initially, I intended to solder the parts together, but they were just too small and flimsy, so I settled on cementing them together with lacquer. The procedure is a bit difficult to document photographically while doing it, so there are only pictures of the finished product.

The completed bilge-pump

 

I am afraid the translucent pump does not show very well in the photograph, but I generally only paint everything at the very end to avoid damage during repeated handling.

 

To be continued …

[JacquesCousteau]

Very impressive work!

[Keith Black]

 Very nice micro work, Eberhard. 

[BANYAN]

That pump looks great Eberhard, although translucent there is enough detail visible to show the craftsmanship that went into making it.

 

cheers

 

Pat