MODELLING MARINE MARVELS.

Oamaru Mail, Volume XXXIX, Issue 10959, 27 December 1911, Page 5

MODELLING MARINE MARVELS.

In the corridors of the State War and Navy Department at Washington js a collection of wonderful models of fighting ships. The reproductions of the battleships cost about £BOO apiece; so that a model fortune., of one kind at least. :s represented there. Others have been spent by the big steamship companies. The White Star Line and the Ciuuwl Line have invested more than £A>,UUU apiece in models of their transatlantic liners. , . , ... When the Olympic was built a» eigliteen.-foot model of her was constructed in England. It. cost £_ooo, and was the largest model that had been built at that time. Just the other day Emil L. Boas, of the Hamburg-Ameri-can. line, announced that a model of the Impentfor, now under construction, will soon be brought to New York. It will be twenty feet long, and will be the largest marine model hitherto bull-1. The growth of the marine model business is"most extraordinary. With the exception of the Government- shops athe Washington navy yard there is only one place on that side of the Atlantic where the business is carried on. The New York Yacht Club has a collection of models.of American fighting ships from the Bonhoro.me Richard, built in 1706,-down. to the cruiser Washington, built in 1905. These were made from plans furnished by the Government. .... The models of the transatlantic liners are the most expensive that have been built, the Imperator probably having cost more than £2500 put into the modd of the Olympic. The most expensive ship model that has been made in America was that ot the steam yacht lolanda, built a couple of years ago for Morton F. Plant, and later presented by .him to the New York Yacht. Club. This model cost a sum which would buy a pretty decent sort of real boat. But the cost doesn't seem excessive when tiie model is seen and examined. Not only is every detail of the exterior reproduced, but all the interior arrangements and fittings are shown. Almost all ship models are built on a scale of one quarter of an inch to the foot. So the little lolanda is between 6 and 7 feet low, while the real yacht has a length of 305 feet. The same scale is, of course, used in every smallest part. This makes the chairs about an inch in height, bathtubs about an inch long, faucets a 'sixteenth of an inch long, and vet these faucets turn on and oil' and •lie table and chairs are accurately reproduced in the very same woods of which the originals arc made. The hangings and upholstery and all the detai\s"of decoration are exactly rendered. The machinery made for these models is wonderful. On a model of the Vanadis, C. K. G. TJillings' yacht, the copv of the quadruple expansion engine is only sin. long and 4-in. high and took one man six weeks to build. A good deal of special machinery has been "designed and constructed to be used in making these models. For distance, the stanchions on the decks of an eight-foot model of a battleship are an inch to an inch and a-half long and a-sixteenth of an inch in diameter. Formerly they were made by hand and turned out'at the rate of fifteen a day. Now the New York plant has built a machine that can turn o*it a thousand a dnv if necessarv. A thousand stanchions might last quite a. while, but the number of small parts used in making these models is astonishing. Take the models of the transport Sherman which Mr Boucher made for the war department. There was seven months' work on that model, which showed the interior as well as the exterior of the vessel. It was divided longitudinally so that the internal arrangement could be studied' in detail. In the lougittidinal section there were more than 10.000 separate parts. There were the cabins, berths, galley, engine-room, boilers, furnaces, machine shop (with all manner of miniature tools), the cold storage rooms with meat and other supplies, the coal bunkers, full of part coal at least, for it was made by sprinkling coal dust on rough masses of glue. This model of the Sherman, which, was almost ten feet long, cost about £BOO. The paining of the hulls in these little masterpieces is almost a. work of art. From three, to eight coats are applied and satin, is rough compared with the . surface produced. More wonderful even than the tiny ■ pulley blocks are the turnbuckles. They ; are only half an inch long over all, vet • they have both a right and. left-hand tli read that works well and the screw is - onlv about the size of an ordinary pin. > The lifebuoys are little bone rings, but they are covered in the regulation way. The boats hanging from the davits can be raised, andi.lowered and even the little motors in the ship's launches, .are exactly reproduced. The blocks are either of boxwood or nietal and tlie.y have metal sheaves which work. Masts are made of white holly. So are the ribs of the small boats. Some I of these are only two or three inches long and their planking is only about ahuiidrdetli of an inch thick. Holding the boat up to the light one easily sees through it, yet it is so carefully mad© that it will last indefinitely if well kept in glass cases, but even then, the dust sinks in and atmospheric changes are felt. Wires occasionally snap even though the shroudis are of copper wire, silver.ed and oxidised to look like steel. They have an ingenious way of testing the shrouds to see whether they are of the same tenseness. The workman picks them with his finger, as one would pick a violin string. When they give the same note the adjustment is known to be even. On the finest models all metal work that on the real boat would be brass is gold-plated, and what would 1 e nickel is silver-plated.