Zuiderzee-Botter by wefalck - FINISHED - Artitec - RESIN

[amateur]

I already had the feeling that it was tiny.....

 

Jan

[wefalck]

And the show continues ...

 

 

The next thing to go on was the bolt-rope. The rope was made on the miniature rope-walk from 8/0 size tan fly-tying yarn (UNI-Thread). According to the authors cited above, it was left to the individual sailmaker whether the bolt-rope was sewn to the port or starboard side of the sail. I attached all doublings to the port side and decided on the starboard side for the bolt-rope. Again it was glued on using the wood-filler.

 

Applying the bolt rope

 

On the prototype the bolt-rope does not continue all-around the sails, but rather ends at the respective head in spliced eyes. The mainsail is attached to corresponding eyebolts in the gaff with hooks or shackles in these eyes. Owing to the springiness of the fly-tying yarn, I found it impossible to recreate real eyesplices. I took some artisanal license and bound the eyes, pretending they were served eyesplices. The eyes at the other corners of the sails were fashioned in a similar way. To increase the stability of the sail, the corners of the bolt-rope were 'sewn' to the tissue paper using 14/0 size fly-tying yarn (Sheer).

 

Fake eyesplice

 

wefalck

[wefalck]

Continuation in small and sometimes tedious steps.

 

The sails were further completed by adding cringles and eyelets. For the cringles the sail was punched with a needle to simulate the eyelets. A piece of 8/0 yarn was threaded through, twisted with itself and secured with a blob of lacquer. The free ends were threaded cross-wise through the second eyelet and secured with knots. The cringle was secured with a bit of lacquer. For eyelets in the sail itself blobs of acrylic gel were set on both sides and once dry punched with a needle. 

 

Sails ready to be painted

 

The foresail runs on small iron hoops along the forestay. These were reproduced by small rings of copper wire that were sewn to the cringles using 16/0 size yarn (Veevus, http://veevus.dk]http://veevus.dk).

 

Hoops of the foresails

 

There are various eyelets in the sail, e.g. for reefing points. These were immitated by a drop of acrylic gel medium glue on both sides of the sail that later was pierced with a needle.

 

The painted sails

 

The sails then were checked for any joints having come loose and more wood-filler was applied if needed. Now the sails were ready for painting. The original sails were tanned. Hence, a terracotta colour ('terre' by Prince August Air, http://www.prince-august.net) was chosen as the base colour that was applied with an airbrush. Once on the model some weathering and shading will add more plasticity. The eyelets etc. were ‚metallised’ by turning a soft lead pencil in them.

 

’Sailmaking’ tools

 

wefalck

[Salty Sea Dog]

Hi wefalck!

 

The sails look amazing. I have not seen sails made from tissue paper before and find them fascinating.

 

Your lathe machinery is beautiful! It must be a joy for you to use them.

 

Best wishes,

[cog]

Very lifelike sails and sail accessories. Amazing the way they turned out. I had not expected such beauties ...

[wefalck]

Thanks for the praise 

 

I am a bit apprehensive as to how they will stand up to being folded and crumpled when in a half-lowered state. As I said before, billowing or furled sails are not so much of challenge compared to limp ones, just hanging there to dry ...

 

wefalck

[mtaylor]

Beautiful work, Wefalck.   How stiff are the sails at this point?  Would water soften things abit to allow you to fold/crumple?

[wefalck]

Thanks for the kind comments. Actually the sails are rather stiff and water wouldn't do anything on them, as the tissue paper is now impragnated with varnish and covered in acrylic paint. On the other hand the original sails also would have been quite stiff, at least stiffer than untanned sails.

 

 

Now the building has progressed far enough to be able to apply a base-coat of paint. After some preliminary trials I decided on a light terracotta as a base-coat for the hull, while the spars were painted in ‚bois’ (i.e. wood, Prince August Air). On top os this oak-tinted varnish will be applied to give the ‚wood’, that in the original was painted with tar and harpeus (a mixture of wood-tar and lineseed oil), some depth. The different base-coat colours where chosen to differentiate between the different woods, i.e. oak for the hull and pine for the spars.

 

 

 

 

 

The matte base-coat makes visible the ‚rustique’ style of modelling by Artitec and also any imperfections in building. Photographic images even further enhance any imperfections that are not so obvious to the naked. There is a need to work over one or the other part.

 

wefalck 

[wefalck]

The work on the model is frequently being interrupted by travels and other activities, e.g. working up the pictures taken during my travels.

 

It continued with the painting. The actual painting is a rather complex procedure and I have not documented all intermediary steps. 

 

 

The first step after the base-coat was to apply a coat of nitrocellulose-based wood varnish in oak. The idea was to simulate to some extend the surface treatment of the real wood, though with somewhat different materials, in order to create ‚depth’ of the wood surface. I used this method successfully in the past on small parts. Here, however, the problem arose that a second coat or touching up would dissolve the first coat. On the next model I will apply the varnish by airbrush or use an acrylic varnish.

 

 

The varnish was cautiously matted with steelwool and a glas-eraser pen. Then the wale and the registration board were painted in black acrylic. The registration number was painted freehand in white acrylic. The next step then was a juidicious weathering/washing in burnt umber acrylic to simulate the surface treatment with Stockholm tar. In order to simulate the coal-tarred underwater body burnt umber was applied in more covering layers.

 

 

Individual parts, such as the spars, the leeboards, the rudder etc. were treated in a similar way. In oder to achieve a uniform degree of matt-ness, everything was coated lightly with the airbrush in Winsor&Newton matte acrylic varnish.

 

 

White, beige and black pastels were applied with a brush and Q-tips to simulate grime and salt. The quarter deck and floorboards also attain in this way a nice greyish worn appearance.

 

 

The various ‚ironwork’ received a base-coat in black acrylic with the airbrush. Then a mixture of ‚metallic rust’ (Prince-August Air/Vallejo) and burnt umber was then applied with a brush. The parts thus receive a certain patina – in real life they were painted black, painted in lineseed-oil or left bright. On places were the ironwork would have been bright from use a soft pencil (6B) was rubbed, which results in a subtle metallic sheen.

 

 

 

 

wefalck

[Jim Lad]

Wefalck,

 

o'm just catching up with your work after not looking in for a while.

 

Your model is looking first class - a great job on bith the construction and painting.

 

John

[amateur]

That's very convincing. Looks like the real one!

 

Jan

Edited May 20, 2013 by amateur

[wefalck]

Thanks, gentlemen, for the encouraging comments.

 

As noted at the beginning, the model will be presented in scenic setting. The ‚story-board’ for this reads like this: a botter from Marken (around the late 1800s) got caught out by ice and made it only into the port of Volendam, where it is locked up now by a solid sheet of ice. It is Saturday afternoon. The crew keeps themselves occupied with some maintenance work, while some Volendammer folk enjoy the cold, but bright winter weather during a walk on the dyke or on the ice. This story was inspired by a winterly visit to the Zuiderzeemuseum in Enkhuizen followed by a drive along the dyke down to Volendam. The Ijsselmeer (then Zuiderzee) was covered in pack- and pancake-ice.

I don’t the traditional costume of the women of Marken aesthetically not so pleasing – they had their neck shaved, while long temple-locks dangled from underneath their coifs or caps. The costume of the Volendamm women- and men-folk on the other hand is what we consider ‚the’ traditional Dutch costume. Volendam actually is rather atypical, as it is a catholic ‚island’ in largely protestant surroundings. However, the pictoresque setting and people as well as increasingly easy accessebility resulted in many painters coming here, so that the Volendam images became icons of the Low Lands. Later, the Dutch tourist board and other marketing organisations perpetrated these images. The above story allows me to show the Marker botter (Volendam mainly used a slightly different variant of it, the kwak, and the Artitec prototype was a Marker botter) in a Volendam setting. The winter setting allows me also Breughel citations of winter pleasures, albeit in a more modern environment.

 

Marker master-fisherman (© www.geheugenvannederland.nl)

 

Marker mate (© www.geheugenvannederland.nl)

 

In between the work on the botter model, I turned my attention to the botter skipper and his mate. To this end I obtained second hand a set of Preiser-figurines (http://www-preiserfiguren.de) ‚Various Occupations’, from which I selected two suitable personages. These were carved and sculpted so represent Marker fishermen in their traditional work-a-day outfit. This outfit consist of woolen or linen culots, worn with long dark-blue stockings. The upper body is covered by dark, woolen shirt with a low upright collar or a turtle-neck sweater. Over this in the winter a short, spencer-type or a pea-jacket was worn in the winter seaason. The fishermen appear to have been a hardy species so that one doesn’t see jackets too often on winter-photographs. But they also had woolen underwear. The feet were protected by the iconic wooden clogs. The shape of the clogs varied from village to village. When working the net or doing other wet work, the lower leg were protected by gaiters that reached over the clogs. The characteristic male headgear in Marken was either a black, round (often rather battered) felt-hat or small black képi with a narrow shade.

 

Scan of the Preiser box

 

The Preiser country-gentleman or whatever the figure in long boots is mutated into the skipper with the aid of a scalpel and putty. By the same method, an apron-clad drayman with a peaked cap mutated into a fisherman’s mate. The culots were sculpted using putty, while other features, such as shirt collars fell victim to the scalpel. The clogs also were sculpted in putty.

 

Fisherman ready to painted

 

Fisherman after receiving a base-coat

 

I haven’t done any figure-modelling for years so my arsenal of materials was a bit limited: I just had a 40 year-old tube of Britfix ‚customising body putty’, which to my surprise still was useable. A 20 year-old pack of Milliput ‚grey’ was not quite so fit anymore. The base-coat in terracotta acrylic paint shows up all the places that need to be worked over again. However, remember this is 1/90 scale and the figures are just about 2 cm high and hence appear on the computer several times magnified.

 

Fisherman’s mate ready to painted

 

Fisherman’s mater after receiving a base-coat

 

To be continued with the actual paint-job.

 

wefalck

[wefalck]

The actual painting proceeded with Schminke-, Vallejo- und Prince August-Airbrush paints, but of course using very fine (10/0 and 5/0) brushes.

 

The painted skipper

 

But I had to fight with the brushes. The art materials department in the famous Bazaar de Hotel de Ville (BHV, www.bhv.fr) which has the best DIY department in Paris wasn’t the same anymore after a recent revamp. It turned out to be very difficult to find such fine brushes in Paris, but I needed to replace some worn out ones. Eventually I ordered some via ebay in Germany. Their rather fat three-sided handles looked as if they would be very comfortable, but their turned out to be really ‚rat-tails’. I gather you get what you pay for. Also: one should really try the point in the shop, which is obviously not possible when ordering through mail.

 

The back of the painted skipper

 

The painting technique was largely the same as for bigger figurines. However, at the 1/90 scale one needs to simplify, particularly when painting the faces. Thus, the eyes were indicated only by the shadows beneath the eyebrows. This I learned from Canaletto, who was able to render a very lifely population in his Venice pictures with just a few strokes of his brush. The effect is calculated form normal reading distance – on your computer screen the 18 mm high figures appear several times magnified. Painting the faces in acrylics was an experiment. The open time of these paints is just too short for painting soft transitions and I will return to artist’s oils for this.

 

The painted mate.

 

Photographs show you the coarseness of your work glaringly. Observed from normal reading distance, I believe, the figures look quite convincing.

 

The painted mate from the back.

 

The scenic setting will be eventually populated by a boy belonging to the botter, a Volendam couple enjoying a walk on the dike and another couple, where he is pushing her in a sledge on the ice.

 

wefalck

[dafi]

Woooonderful!

 

Love it, that is nicely inspired, can already small the fish,

 

Daniel

Edited June 1, 2013 by dafi

[mtaylor]

Very wonderful, indeed.  Not only are the carvings excellent, so is the painting.

[wefalck]

Thanks for the kind words !

 

@mtaylor: the carving isn’t actually mine. The figures are based on commercial products by Preiser (http://www.preiserfiguren.de) that were modified using putty etc.

 

The building has now reached a stage where I need to think seriously about protection against dust and mechanical damage, which is not so easy once the mast has been erected. Therefore, I started with the building of the scenic display, around which a display case will be fitted. The basis is a piece of blockboard

 

Harbour and dyke in Volendam (www.geheugenvannederland.nl)

 

The ‚story board’ for the scenic display assumes that the Marker botter is moored at a jetty in front of the dyke behind which Voldendam hides from the Zuiderzee. The botter is ice-locked in Voldendam. The dyke runs obliquely through the scene and was given a frame from pinewood cut-offs and filled with balsawood.

 

Baseboard and core of the dyke

 

The frozen Zuiderzee consists initially of a sheet of 2 mm Plexiglas. A screw piercing baseboard and Plexiglas will eventually fix the model in place.

 

Trying out the model in place

 

All wood parts were dyed in mahagony and varnished as will be the other wooden parts of the display case.

 

Baseboard dyed and varnished

 

Once the varnish is dry, this report will continue.

 

Wefalck

[Salty Sea Dog]

Your painting skills on both the figures and the boat are amazing. Beautiful work!

[wefalck]

The dyke section was covered in a thin layer of wall-repair putty from a tube that I had around by chance. Otherwise, I would have used plaster of Paris mixed with some wallpaper glue, which improves its sculpting behaviour. Once the putty was dry, it was sanded down smoothly and then single bricks engraved by rows with a needle held in a pinvise. The fact that corners broke out of the bricks was approvingly tolerated, as it will enhance the weathered appearance.

 

Baseboard with sculpted dyke

 

Close-up of the engraved bricks

 

In order to reduce the porosity of the putty and the wood the whole surface was treated with cellulose-based woodfiller, before the dyke was airbrushed in English Red (Schmincke AeroColor), while the water area received a basecoat of burnt umber, partly mottled with black. In a next step individual bricks were picked out with blue and brown washes to enliven the dyke surface. Since the acrylic paints dry satin, the whole was lightly sprayed with Winsor & Newton acrylic matte varnish. A restrained weathering using artist’s pastels followed.

 

Painted baseboard

 

The brick surface of the dyke

 

The model of the botter in place

 

wefalck

[amateur]

I keep forgetting teh size of this all....

(wchich is probably the effect you are after in the first place )

 

Jan

[Jim Lad]

Beautiful work on the dyke, Wefalck - it's very realistic!

 

John

[amateur]

Only one small remark on the layout of Dutch dykes:

Baked stones were usually not used in the sloping part of the dyke: they were used for walls, and streets,

for the sloping parts in dykes usually basalt was used: they were just stacked on top of each other and help place by their form and weight.  

 

 

Jan

Edited June 4, 2013 by amateur

[wefalck]

Amateur, you are right (after all I am sort of also working/teaching in coastal protection). However, I couldn't find any photographs from Volendam that showed the face of dyke in front of the town. I was also wondering, whether in the last quarter of the 19th century hardrock was imported in sufficient quantity into Holland. I guess the basalt from the volcanic mountains near Bonn at the river Rhine would be the closest source. I know that e.g. Scandinavian ships brought granites as ballast.

 

wefalck

[amateur]

[wefalck]

You put me into a dilemma now ... yes, it seems to be hardrock on the slope and bricks only on the dyke's 'crown'. I am also aware that the slope in the model is far too steep (dykes' slopes have become shallower and shallower over the years). Considering the amount of time I spent on it, I am not going to break it up again.

 

wefalck

[druxey]

Nice going. I see that your lathe bed was only just long enough to turn the mast! I only 'discovered' watchmakers' lathes a few years ago. One can do really fine work on them. I now use both a Boley and a Levin. Both were acquired used but in excellent condition. It's interesting how useful other watchmakers' tools are for model-making, such as hand vises.

[amateur]

I never intended to put you in any kind of dilemma.

Your brickwork is far too good to destroy!

 

For those wanting to know why the mooring posts are that high: before the closure of the Zuiderzee (now IJsselmeer), even a far-in land harbour Volendam had a tidal range of half a meter, with the level of the tide differing aroudn the year (depending on the tidal waters and wind derection in the North see.

 

Jan

Edited June 4, 2013 by amateur

[druxey]

Question: is your wood-filler (CLOU Schnellschleifgrundierung) the same thing as sanding sealer?

[wefalck]

druxey - yes it is a cellulose-based sanding sealer

 

 

For those wanting to know why the mooring posts are that high: before the closure of the Zuiderzee (now IJsselmeer), even a far-in land harbour Volendam had a tidal range of half a meter, with the level of the tide differing aroudn the year (depending on the tidal waters and wind derection in the North Sea.

 

 

Thanks, amateur, for this bit of information. I have been trawling the Web, but couldn't find any data on the height of the (astronomical) tide in the Zuiderzee, but guessed that it would be probably in that range.

 

With the scenic setting I am taking a few artistic licences, mainly so as not to overwhelm the real subject, the botter, and to keep the size of the display reasonably small. So the jetties and related infrastructure are not as high as they probably should be, the slope of the dyke is too steep and the dyke is too low (if I remember right from a couple of visits, the crown is about 5 m above the present-day Ijsselmeer level), plus, as amateur noted, it should not be covered in brick. In spite of this, I think in the end the overall impression will be reasonably authentic, giving context to the model.

 

wefalck 

[amateur]

The present dykes (both height and slope) are not representative for the period you are displaying:

after the floods in 1916 and 1953 there were reforms in the design of the Dutch dykes, leading to higher dykes, and less steep slopes. (the so-called deltadijken) These changes affected both river- and sea-dykes.

Before the 1916-flood, some dykes were not higher than 3 meters above normal water levels (NAP).

 

Jan

Edited June 4, 2013 by amateur

[wefalck]

I was actually wondering about this, but it seems that the Volendam dyke hasn't changed much in profile. The buildings on the dyke front (e.g. the auction? house) are still there, the slope neither and on the back there wouldn't have been any space to make the slope less steep because of the house immediately behind it.

 

wefalck