LOG-BOOK GLEANINGS

Evening Star, Issue 23325, 22 July 1939, Page 20

LOG-BOOK GLEANINGS

MARINE MODEL MAKING HIGHLY SKILLED TRADE H.Z. KAURI FOR DEGKIHG [By Finsx Mate.] In this present age, when quantity seems to be more with us than quality, mass production methods are ousting to a big extent those of the hand craftsman, writes a British expert on model building. When the first design is good there is this to say in its favour, that it enables many people to buy good articles rvell designed at a reasonable price, but, on the other hand, mass production also assists in the placing on the market of masses of rubbish. It is a consolation to know, therefore, that there are still a few arts and crafts left in England that have not suffered from this “ demon of manufactures,” and one of these is scale model making. Model making has always been a handcraft, practised even by prisoners of war, and goes away back into the Middle Ages. Even to-day there are very few more tools used than there were in olden days, A model maker uses the usual joiner’s or carver’s tools —chisels and gouges, and the very finest of drills, such as the watchmaker needs The model maker constructs his own special plane. Model making is a highly-skilled craft, and particularly so is the building of scale model ships, and a few notes on the building of the models of the Dominion Monarch may be of interest We made two quarter-inch to the foot models (that is, 1-48th actual size) and 4-Bin to the foot models (that is l-96th the size of the real ship).

All materials used in the making of these models have to be personally selected by an expert and only the best used, but this proportion of the model is only, say, 10 per cent, of the actual cost, which is mostly labour, anything from 4,000 to 7,000 hours being spent on the production of an exquisite model.

Approximately 40 cubic feet of wood is required to produce a perfect Jin scale ship model, with correct superstructure and hull free from knots and shakes. But the amount of wood left on the finished hull is only seven cubic feet. Practically all the huge surplus is worked away by hand. Now for the modelling. The first stage in the work is the selection of suitable wood for the hulls, for which African white mahogany or Obechi is eventually chosen. Long planks of this about 2in thick are sawn up to form the rough outline, moulded and glued together. The numerous joints are made with waterproof glue and securely screwed. A hull of the size of an eighth-scale Dominion Monarch will use approximately one thousand screws. The lines of the hull are obtained at a later stage from templates scaled down from the plans of the real vessel. The smaller wood parts, such as upperwork and deckhouses, are fashioned from hard wood and the decks themselves of thin New Zealand kauri pine, lined out finely by an artist to represent planking. At this juncture the hulls and wood parts are removed to the paint shop, so we will now pass on to the metal shop, where winches, funnels, anchors, .propellers. bollards, etc., are in production. In the foundries castings of some non-ferrous metal, such as gunmetal or brass, are made of the more solid fittings like winches. Nevertheless, these are all carefully finished by hand with all the tiny “ rivet-head ” details which make the model live.

Hollow parts or flat parts are wrought from sheet metal, and this type includes the funnels, portholes, and window frames. Parts like stanchions are turned from fine drawn rod, and all these small parts—hatchways, ladders, syrens, staging—are tried out in position on the hull before despatch to the paint shop or the plating shop for finishing in bronze, silver, or gold. Seven hundred stanchions and nearly 400 portholes were made for one of these models, and 200yds of. silverplated wire was used for the railings. Between 15 and 20 [processes are applied to the hull surface to bring the hare wood up to the glossy varnished finish in the true colours of the ship, and when thoroughly dry the painted hull and parts are taken into the assembling room, a dust-proofed shelter principally lined with glass to afford the workmen, the maximum amount of natural light on their job. Assembling is a fascinating but exacting task for the skilled assemblers. The decks must be built up one by one, and the hull drilled to take each tiny sidelight. All the deck parts must be positioned and fixed, stanchions fitted, handrails rove, companionways fastened from deck to deck, mast and funnels erected, deckhouses, ventilators, davits with .their lifeboats put in place and secured, and with the. artists’ few finishing touches the model is ready to show to the world the amenities of this new ship. « * * * DANGEROUS ENTERPRISE. In the Mull of Kintyre, the long peninsula in the south-west of Scotland that was once the ancient kingdom of Dalriada, is Carradale, a fishing village that, unlike many similar communities, is increasing in Importance. For that growing prestige (and for the palm trees and other tropical plants that are so unexpected a part of the Kintyre scene) the Gulf Stream is indirectly responsible. In recent years its warm waters, washing the shores of Carradale Bay, have earned there shoals of basking sharks.

Up to 30ft or 40ft in length and weighing a ton or more, the sharks eat the same food as herrings, despite the disparity in size. As a result Carradale’s herring fishing industry has been ruined. But now the Carradale fishermen, making a virtue of necessity, hunt the sharks, and so far has their new and spectacular enterprise developed that a plant for producing sharks’ liver oil has already been laid down.

The vessels from which the hunting is clone, however, are the small smacks of old. and so, for the Carradale men, fresh hazards have been added to the old dangers of their calling. Though not normally aggressive, basking sharks when wounded can lash a small herring boat to splinters in their fury and ruin a £1(X) fishing net in a few seconds. Sometimes boats are towed for hours by harpooned fish. Thev have, too. a habit of rising peacefully under the light smacks to scratch their backs acrainst the keel. Yet, so far, not one of Carradale’s daring seafarers has lost his life. * # ♦ • LAST BARQUE. Ninety-seven days outward bound from Port Lincoln, South Australia, to Falmouth for orders, the Finnish fourmasted barque Padua was on July 4 reported “ 600 miles south-west of Land’s

End.” These days the fact is significant only because the four-master is engaged in the “ grain derby,” and a day or so later was the sixth of this year’s 13 entrants to arrive in English waters.

One of these days, however, the Padua will be famous in history as the last commercial square-rigged sailing vessel to be built in the world.

A steel barque, of 3,064 tons, with an overall length of 344 ft 6in, including figure-head, she left the stocks in Hamburg in 1926 to the order of. R. F. Laeisz, a celebrated modern sailing ship owner. The Padua, now soldi to Erikson, was the final challenge by a modern sailing ship owner to compete with steam. * * * » CHEAP DOCKING KEEPS THEM AFLOAT. Battered and rust-stained, the tall and graceful four-masted barque Moshulu cleared Queenstown, Ireland), on June 28 for her home port, Mariehamn, in the Aland Islands, Baltic Sea. The Moshulu was first home in the grain derby, and will be the first of the Erikson fleet of squareriggers to reach the pine-fringed shores of Mariehamn. She will refit there before sailing again in ballast for Australia. Only the cheap docking at that port keeps 12 of the 14 remaining windjammers afloat.

Captain G. Erikson has every reason to be proud of his last purchase. He bought her in 1935 in Seattle, where she was laid up for nine years. He sent Captain C. Boman, her present master, to refit her, and the vessel is as good as new. Her passage from South Australia to Queenstown this year in 91 days must surely make her this year’s winner. This time has only been lowered five times in the last 18 years, and only by a day. * # * * PENANG FOR DOMINION. Advice that the Finnish barque Penang is to load guano at Seychelles early next year for Auckland and New Plymouth has been received by the local agents. On June 14 last year the Penang arrived at Dunedin with two broken masts, after encountering extremely heavy weather while taking a cargo of wheat from South \ustralia to England. She remained in port until the middle of last August before repairs were completed which enabled her to proceed on her Homeward voyage.