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Topic review - 1:160 S.M.S. WESPE Armoured Gunboat (1876)
Author Message
  Post subject:  Re: 1:160 S.M.S. WESPE Armoured Gunboat (1876)  Reply with quote
WOW, in the meantime this building log has received 100,000 clicks. 25,000 alone the last three weeks. I am impressed and pleased ... I wonder what it made suddently so popular and hope it is not just a robot ...

A big thank you for your interest :thumbs_up_1:
Post Posted: Mon Mar 25, 2024 12:22 pm
  Post subject:  Re: 1:160 S.M.S. WESPE Armoured Gunboat (1876)  Reply with quote
:big_grin:
Post Posted: Sun Mar 17, 2024 5:56 pm
  Post subject:  Re: 1:160 S.M.S. WESPE Armoured Gunboat (1876)  Reply with quote
Ahh, the male equivalent to a 'masseuse de parquet' :big_grin:
Post Posted: Sun Mar 17, 2024 4:33 pm
  Post subject:  Re: 1:160 S.M.S. WESPE Armoured Gunboat (1876)  Reply with quote
wefalck wrote:
In case you weren't aware, here are more: https://www.maritima-et-mechanika.org


I visited it a few monts ago, and I haven't finished yet.

There's a lot of information to read and some beautiful photos. The amount of work that went into putting it all together is impressive.

Your wipers are very realistic.
On merchant ships, the man in charge of cleaning the engine room is still known as the "Wiper" or "Nettoyeur" in French.
The appropriate term ashore is "surface technician". :big_grin:
Post Posted: Sun Mar 17, 2024 3:56 pm
  Post subject:  Re: 1:160 S.M.S. WESPE Armoured Gunboat (1876)  Reply with quote
Toolkit for the gun

The operation of the gun required quite a few different tools for handling the projectiles and the powder-bags, as well as for cleaning and maintenance.

There were two different wipers, one for cleaning with soap-water and the other one for greasing the bore after use. This still was the era of black powder, which means that the bore had to be cleaned frequently.

Loading required a rammer to push the projectile and the powder-bags into the chamber of the gun. The rammer also served to unload the gun by pushing it through the muzzle. It had a depression in the front so that one would not push onto the fuse.
The large-scale instruction model in the (former) Orlogmuseet in Copenhagen came with many of the necessary tools. Their look tallies with the description of a textbook on the Imperial German naval artillery (Galster, 1885). The length of the shaft was given as the length of the barrel plus some extra for one or two men to be able to hold onto it, while it was fully inserted. If there were not enough space for such long implements, there were also versions in two parts with a brass connecting sleeve.

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Wiper (top) and rammer (bottom)

The body of the implements was turned from some 2 mm steel rod, as I had this to hand. The shaft is a 0.8 mm piano wire. The latter appears to be quite hefty, but seems to tally with the photographs.

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Wipers and rammer before painting

As the gun will be shown undergoing a drill, the wipers are not needed and will be shown in their protective canvas covers, stored in the racks on deckhouse as per photograph below.

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Wipers in their protective canvas covers

The canvas covers were simulated with some Vallejo liquid putty. According to Galster (1885) the covers were supposed to be painted black, but the above photograph indicates that they were white, which is what I opted for.
The rammer body has two copper-bands to protect it, which were simulated with paint. The limited space in barbette seems to prevent the use of a full-length rammer, so I gave the end of the shaft a connecting sleeve simulated with paint.

Tampion
The photograph of the instruction model in Copenhagen also shows the expanding tampion that was constructed from two brass discs with some fibre material in between that was contained by a leather sleeve. An internal screw operated by a T-shaped handle squeezed the fibres between the disc and made them expand to lock into the muzzle.

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Expanding tampion for the 30,5 cm gun

The tampion is probably going to be the very last machined part on this model. It was turned from a length of brass rod. The handle was first turned as a thin disk and then the excess material was milled away to leave the T-shaped handle standing. The greased leather sleeve has been simulated by some brown paint.

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Turning the tampion

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Milling the tampion T-handle

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The finished wipers, rammer and tampion

Next on the list are the anchor-crane, the flagpole and flag and finally the gun-sights

To be continued ....
Post Posted: Sun Mar 17, 2024 3:32 pm
  Post subject:  Re: 1:160 S.M.S. WESPE Armoured Gunboat (1876)  Reply with quote
In case you weren't aware, here are more: https://www.maritima-et-mechanika.org
Post Posted: Sun Mar 10, 2024 6:01 am
  Post subject:  Re: 1:160 S.M.S. WESPE Armoured Gunboat (1876)  Reply with quote
Nice doc pictures! :thumbs_up_1:
Post Posted: Sun Mar 10, 2024 5:30 am
  Post subject:  Re: 1:160 S.M.S. WESPE Armoured Gunboat (1876)  Reply with quote
Actually, many navies (incl. merchant) used it:

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The Spanish NUMANTIA

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The Swedish GÖTA

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The Portuguese BENGO

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The French TRIDENT

These are all examples of the time between 1867 and 1879. Sometimes simple ropes were used, as per photographic evidence. I gather these boat-ties were used as long as boats were hung outboard on davits. When boats were put on skids, gripes are used, as in the old days.
Post Posted: Sat Mar 09, 2024 6:00 pm
  Post subject:  Re: 1:160 S.M.S. WESPE Armoured Gunboat (1876)  Reply with quote
Beautiful model! :cool_1:

Iceman 29 wrote:
..... I seem to have seen this strap system elsewhere, perhaps in the US Navy.



IJN also use this method:

https://www.britmodeller.com/forums/ind ... of-midway/

Image
Post Posted: Sat Mar 09, 2024 9:31 am
  Post subject:  Re: 1:160 S.M.S. WESPE Armoured Gunboat (1876)  Reply with quote
Thank you very much for your kind comments, much appreciated !

********************************************************************

Installing the ship’s boats 3

The installation was movd further to completion by tidying up the loose ends and producing the bunts for runners of the boat tackles. The runners are about five times the distance between the head of the davits and the waterline long, plus some extra for handling. However, as the rope is slightly overscale the runners were cut a bit on the short side in order to make the bunts not too bulky. The actual runners were cut above the cleats and the bunts were formed over two clothes pins driven into a piece of wood and have a loop pulled out with which they can be hung over their respective cleat.

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Note that the runners for the ‘ready’ boat are not arranged in bunts but in coils, ready to be thrown loose so as to allow the boat being lowered quickly e.g. in a case of man-over-board.

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Again, working from the inside out, the next items to go on were the stays for the davits. Luckily, the stays are drawn in the lithographs so that their points of fixation are known. I had to deviate a bit from those drawings, as they pertain to the longer, turning davits for the boats stored on rack, which belong to a slightly later period. The stays are supposed to keep the davits aligned, rather than helping to swing them around.

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It was a bit of a trial-and-error procedure, before I came up with a protocol for making miniature fake chains of exactly the right length and with loops at both ends. The chains would have been shackled into ring-bolts at the head of the davit. No way of making shackles in this scale, so I just tied the fake chains to ring-bolts with fly-tying thread.

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Some people may think now that’s it, but in fact there still is quite a long to-do list for little details:

- davit for the stern-anchor
- flag-poles and flags
- for the gun: tampon, wiper, rammer, and two gun-sights
- and the … crew!

Image


To be continued ....
Post Posted: Sat Mar 09, 2024 7:44 am
  Post subject:  Re: 1:160 S.M.S. WESPE Armoured Gunboat (1876)  Reply with quote
Wonderful work on those boats and davits... :thumbs_up_1:
Post Posted: Thu Feb 15, 2024 11:18 am
  Post subject:  Re: 1:160 S.M.S. WESPE Armoured Gunboat (1876)  Reply with quote
Very nice Wasp. What's next?
Post Posted: Thu Feb 15, 2024 6:12 am
  Post subject:  Re: 1:160 S.M.S. WESPE Armoured Gunboat (1876)  Reply with quote
Wonderful! Those boats add so much to the overall feel of the model. :thumbs_up_1: :thumbs_up_1: :thumbs_up_1:
Post Posted: Wed Feb 14, 2024 5:04 am
  Post subject:  Re: 1:160 S.M.S. WESPE Armoured Gunboat (1876)  Reply with quote
My congratulations, Eberhard! Finish in sight, as you described.

A very interesting ship, and a more than interesting build: research, plan and execution. I learned a lot from you in the meantime. Thanks!
Post Posted: Sun Feb 11, 2024 2:43 pm
  Post subject:  Re: 1:160 S.M.S. WESPE Armoured Gunboat (1876)  Reply with quote
Installing the ship’s boats 2

It is done! All four boats are suspended from their davits and the work was achieved without major damage to other parts.

Good thing that there is not (yet) any brain recorder … because of the mental language that accompanied the process at certain stages.

Still there is a lot to be done, such as tidying up the loose ends, making and installing the coils of rope from the runners of the boat-tackles and the longitudinal chain-stays for the davits.

Image

Image

Image

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To be continued ....
Post Posted: Sun Feb 11, 2024 2:14 pm
  Post subject:  Re: 1:160 S.M.S. WESPE Armoured Gunboat (1876)  Reply with quote
Ship's boats on warship were not exactly life-boats, but rather work-boats. For security reasons (preventing illicit traffic from and to the ship) warships typically were moored to buoys or anchored in harbours and roadsteads. The boat ensured the transport of personnell and supplies, but also were used for landing and reconnaisance operations and such. Usually only one boat was kept ready for emergencies, which is why I built the smallest boat uncovered.

Lowering boats from davits in anything but calm weather and a stationary ship was a dangerous operation. The hooks from the boat-tackles had to be released simultaneously. Imagine what will happend if the hook in the stern is released a second too late, when there is a sea passing under the ship. The boat's bow will undercut the wave and overturn the boat, while the stern is still suspended from the davit ... This is why slip-hooks were invented and patent-applications and publications abound with suggestions for quick-release gears that allow to release both hooks simultaneously. While slip-hooks were used in the Imperial German Navy, the quick-release gear never seems to have caught on (pun intended ...).

I know of numerous photographs and contemporary models from all over the world, where these boat-ties are shown, when boats are kept suspended from davits. This applies to both, naval and merchant navy ships. The ties could be strips of canvas, plaits, or simple ropes. When boats rested in chocks under the davits, so-called gripes were used to tie them down.

The problem I had, was that the tackles turned out too long. The reason was partly that the fake splices for the runners became a bit too long and would not run over the 'sheave' in the block, and partly that the took turned out too long as well. Maybe also the ring in the boats should have been lower. Just a fraction of millimetre error in each element adds up. There are so many degrees of freedom or variables in the system that are difficult to determine a priori. It's not like machining a piece to dimensions ...
Post Posted: Wed Feb 07, 2024 3:50 am
  Post subject:  Re: 1:160 S.M.S. WESPE Armoured Gunboat (1876)  Reply with quote
Wonderful! Fantastic details! :thumbs_up_1: :thumbs_up_1: :thumbs_up_1:


To get the height exactly to your liking on the next one, it may help not to attach it like the real thing, but in (more or less) reverse order:
- glue the boat to the spar, at exactly the height/position you want it to be;
- attach the tackles in between boat and davits;
- attach the straps.
Post Posted: Wed Feb 07, 2024 2:46 am
  Post subject:  Re: 1:160 S.M.S. WESPE Armoured Gunboat (1876)  Reply with quote
It's always tricky to change things after they've been done!

But you come out of it well, this detail is worth it. :thumbs_up_1: I seem to have seen this strap system elsewhere, perhaps in the US Navy.

Davits are still a problem even today on ships. They're dangerous, both for the lifeboat and for the sailors. I've used and maintained a lot of them in my career, and they require a lot of maintenance, not to mention design faults...

It's been reported that davits have killed more sailors than they've saved. We had one fatality in my company, a young man, a ball bearing broke during a test. Since then, boats are only lowered and raised with the davit without a sailor on board.

The free-fall system is much safer.. and efficient, from experience.

https://www.nautinst.org/uploads/assets ... 57fe49.pdf
Post Posted: Tue Feb 06, 2024 4:40 pm
  Post subject:  Re: 1:160 S.M.S. WESPE Armoured Gunboat (1876)  Reply with quote
Well, some traveling and struggles with tiny and flimsy parts caused again a long delay until this update …

Installing the ship’s boats

This detail was the most dreaded of all, due to the flimsy character of the parts. The davits had been produced a long time ago, as were the blocks for the hoisting tackle, and, of course the four boats.

There are no pictures, except the very first photograph of SMS WESPE that indicate the arrangements for the boats hanging outboard on the davits. While it seems to have been a quite common arrangement on smaller warships of the time, it was already noted in reports by captains of Prussian gunboats ten years earlier, boats in such a position are prone to be carried away by seas of even moderate height. So, quite early on barrings and boat skids had been installed on the WESPE-class boat and the davits lengthened to lift up the boats. For this final arrangement, various images are available.

Somehow, the boats must have been prevented from swinging in their hoisting gear. A typical arrangement would have been a spar lashed across the davits and the boats pulled against them with cross-wise boat ties. In the absence of other pictorial evidence, this is what I opted for. There were, however, still some detail questions open: were those ties strips of heavy canvas or braided rope-work and did the spars have bolsters around them to prevent damage to the boats? For the latter questions there are examples of both option on photographs and (contemporary) models.

I recently visited again the Maritime Museum in Stockholm, which reminded me of a possible solution on a model of the same period. The boat-ties seem to have been heavy canvas and had triangular rings at their ends. They are attached to an eye at the top of the davit, run around the boat, then around the opposite davit, and are hauled taught with a tackle of blocks hooked in between them. No bolsters on the spars.

I decided to leave out the tackle and just use a lashing between the rings to tighten the ties. The lashing will be difficult enough to access behind the boats.

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Boat ties arrange on a package of book-repair tape

The triangular rings were fashioned from 0.15 mm tinned copper-wire wound around the tang of a triangular file with 1 mm sides. The windings were cut open with a scalpel. The ties themselves are narrow strips of a special kind of material: a kind of very fine silk-paper tape with a backing of a thermos-setting acrylic glue. This material is used in book repair for instance. Brand and other details can be seen on the photograph. The 1 mm strips were cut with a new no. 11 scalpel blade and folded in two. The material is slightly tacky which is helpful when aligning the halves and inserting the rings. The glue was set with the help of my hot-air soldering gun set to 110°C as per instructions. The halves were pushed together using a tool as used in the old days to rub down transfer lettering. The ties were painted in Vallejo ‘hemp’.

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Boat ties in detail.

It took some tries to work out a workable sequence for installing the davits, spar, boat-ties and boat-tackles, considering also the difficulty of access. Eventually the ties were fastened to the davits and the tackles hooked into the latter with the loose end already belayed to the clamp on the back of the davits.

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Davits fitted out and ready for installation on board.

The davits then were inserted into their sockets and fixed with a drop of white glue. Next the spar is lashed to the davits. Then the ties were arranged in preparation of the boats and the lashing is reeved.

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Davits ready to receive the boat.

The davits are now ready to receive the boat, which is slipped in and the tackles hooked into the respective rings on the boat. The ties are now pulled tight, so that boat rests against the spar.

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Boat stowed in the davits.

Overall, the installation of the first boat went reasonably well. However, it is hanging a few millimetres too low. The boat’s keel should have been level with the bulwark handrail. Somehow, I didn’t manage to make the close-hauled tackled as short as it should have been. Also, the hooks on the blocks are a tad too long. Not 100% satisfactory, but I am not going back two steps to remake the blocks and tackles and all. Let’s assume the crew hasn’t done such a good job in stowing the boats and the officers haven’t noticed it yet …

To be continued ....
Post Posted: Mon Feb 05, 2024 3:49 pm
  Post subject:  Re: 1:160 S.M.S. WESPE Armoured Gunboat (1876)  Reply with quote
Yeh. Those dumb hillbillies are picking rocks off the ground and selling them for exorbitant prices. And to top it off, much of that hill I mentioned is in a National Park!

It is an interesting area geologically. One of the largest deposits of bauxite (aluminum) in North America, gold, silver, quartz, one of the highest concentrations of zirconium on Earth, diamonds, and the hot springs. And there is a huge lodestone (magnetite) that causes magnetic compasses to point the wrong way. It was an interesting place to grow up in.

Phil
Post Posted: Mon Jan 08, 2024 11:32 pm

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