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[Thumb Dog]

 

CLOCKWORK BATTLESHIP

It’s one thing to scratchbuild a battleship…it’s another to decide which Model Boat Mayhem forum to use.

 





I chose the Warships Navy Military forum to write about my latest project, as I could not find a forum specifically devoted to radio controlled, clockwork powered, German influenced, turn-of-the-century, toy boat replicas representing fantasy, pre-dreadnought, Danish Costal Battleships.  I believe my building techniques and aesthetic goals will most appeal to the Naval modeler.



 


I’ve always wanted to own an armada of Marklin, Bing and Fleischmann toy boats.  These great toy makers, along with many others, produced their extraordinary ships, boats and submarines from before the beginning of the 20^th century right up to the post-war years of the 1950s.  To own just one of the finer examples of these splendid vessels will cost you many thousands of dollars.  If you wish to maintain a massive fleet of these tinplate treasures you had better be on an equal monetary footing with the late Malcolm Forbes, a noted collector.



 


I, of course, do not posses Malcolm Money, so if I want something along the lines of a two-foot long Marklin pre-dreadnought battleship, I’m going to have to build it myself.  To that end, I started looking for a hull.  I didn’t want to scratchbuild a hull, as it would be time consuming and I wanted to get right to the more interesting work of designing and building the clockwork motor and superstructure.  After casting about on the Internet, I discovered the world of 1/144 Scale Model Warship Combat.  A number of suppliers provide the hobbyist with a wide choice of fiberglass hulls that are usually the starting point of a model ship that actually shoots BB cannons with the ultimate aim of sinking your fellow armed combatants.  Check out the Internet and YouTube for more about this live-fire hobby.



 


Even though my interest was less hostile, I was still able to find a 1/144 fiberglass hull that would suit my needs.  Strikemodels.com offers a 26-inch hull of HMS Gorgon, a WWI era monitor with a start-and-stop history too involved to restate here.  Google her to learn more.  My interest in the hull focused on the dramatic tumblehome that was so reminiscent of the French and Russian pre-dreadnought battleships.  Secondarily, the 26-inch length of the hull was just right for my needs.  Keep in mind that a 1/144 hull of the Yamato will be nearly 72 inches long.  I was lucky to find this small hull of this rather obscure subject.
 
Just a note to admit I could have done a better job of documenting the early stages of this build, and some of the photographs show work not consistent with the descriptive text.  Please pardon my occasional oversight.



 


The hull arrived in the box shown, and was well laid-up and rigid.  The white gel coat was more or less smooth and only needed a touch of Bondo and a light sanding to fair the hull.  There was some damage to the bows when I received the boat, but a hard, finishing epoxy was all that was needed to fix the problem.



 


I always build a work-stand to support my boat projects as soon as possible, as it provides a secure, level cradle for the model.  I use my contour gauge to determine the shape of the two uprights.  Cut from 3/8” aspen, the horns of the uprights are designed to rise above the boat’s waterline, giving the stand a secure grip on the model.







  To provide some padding between the stand and model, I glue the soft, hairy half of Velcro to the uprights.  I use epoxy for this, as it cures fast and helps me to quickly attach the Velcro to the complex shapes.  This system works well, as the Velcro cushions the hull and prevents scratches.





     
 


Before I could drill the hole in the stern for the propeller shaft, I needed to dry-fit my clockwork motor to the inside of the hull so I could get my shaft angles right.  The clockwork came from, what else, a German clock.  I purchased the old clockwork from a clock repair shop for $20.  A few of the pivot holes needed filling and drilling, as they had egged-out over the years.  Now with everything more or less tight…remember this clockwork will be running a much faster speeds than it was designed for, it was time to trim the plates thereby eliminating the spring and wheels of the going train, while leaving the spring, wheels and the all-important fly from the striking train.  More about this later.  I then made a crown gear to transmit the vertical clockwork power through a horizontal shaft.  My ham-handed crown gear is not pretty, but it works.  A wedge-shaped poplar base was cut to fit under the clockwork, giving the power source the proper angle to connect with the propeller shaft.



 


After the clockwork was temporarily set in place, I could now make an educated guess at the proper angle for the prop shaft.  Unless you are building a hull from scratch and working the angle of your shaft into the hull from the inside out, drilling a shaft hole into solid material is always a crap shoot.  I draw various pencil lines showing line and angle, and start by using a small drill bit and small files to get the hole going in the right direction.  After some careful work, and a little luck, I got the hole just big enough to accept the brass stuffing box and shaft.  After buying the right sized spring to make the universal, I turned the brass spring couplings and tapped them for the setscrews seen in the photograph.  The skeg and rudder were also crafted from brass and were temporarily fitted to the stern of the boat.  The shape of the rudder is a nod to the traditional shape used by the old German toy makers.  At this point I had to raise my model’s work stand by adding ¾” blocks to the four corners, as my skeg was running aground.




 
 


 It’s always tricky getting the angles and distances right for the components of the motor-shaft-propeller-rudder parts. 

Once connected, all the parts should move freely, but without slop.  It’s best if your propeller isn’t constantly crashing into your rudder as it spins.


To be continued...

[Thumb Dog]

 




With the power train ready for permanent installation, it’s time to pull it all out and set it aside, as more work on the hull is needed.  I used my surface gauge to mark the waterline and the two rows of portholes found on either side of the ship.







 Luckily, I was prepared to install the many portholes, as some years ago my friend Ron gave me this wonderful set of brass eyelets.







  After choosing the right size eyelets, I laid out their positions on the hull.  Using a lip and spur drill bit in my hand drill, I carefully drilled out the 46 holes.  Each eyelet used in the boat was set in my watchmakers lathe, polished with 0000 steel wool and sealed with Testors Glosscote.  Finally, each porthole that was to go into the hull was given a plug of black JB Weld to keep the water out.
 






 Even though the old makers would have used tinplate for the decks on their boats, I decided to go with wood on my 21^st century pre-dreadnought battleship.







  Made from 3/32” mahogany strips separated by black construction paper caulk, the carefully built but flimsy deck needed to be attached to a substrate.  I had some 1/16” model aircraft plywood on hand, and after cutting a deck-shaped piece, the mahogany deck was glued to the plywood while the two parts were in position atop the hull.  This ensured that the glued-up deck would take on the shear line of the hull.  Two coats of finish epoxy were applied to keep the weather off the wood.  The deck is attached to the hull with neodymium magnets.  I was concerned that these powerful magnets might interfere with the radio signal, but there have been no problems so far.







 
After the sawdust settled, I realized I was short a couple of holes in my hull.  These were the oval hawseholes that needed to be cut into the bow for the anchors.  An appropriate oval was chosen from one of my old drafting templates, and was penciled in on each side of the bow.  Using drills and needle files, I cut the two holes into the fiberglass.  After this, two sheet-brass doublers were cut and epoxied in place over the hawseholes.  The doublers were used to protect the hull from damage caused by the anchors.  I wish I had made the bottom lobes of the doublers a bit larger, as that is how they usually appeared on the old battleships.  The anchors were cut with a jewelers saw from some .064 brass stock I had on hand.  A couple of extra parts were formed from brass and soldered onto each anchor to give them some more interest.  A little gold paint from a Testors rattle can and they were ready to hold fast.





 
 


Now for some decoration.  The fancy gold scrollwork that appeared on the bows of German pre-dreadnought warships was known as a Bugzier.  I thought finding the right part for this application was going to be harder than it turned out to be.  The jewelry section of one of the big box hobby stores had the just thing I was looking for.  The photo shows the cast brass part before it was cut into four quarters.  For each side of the Bugzier, two of the quarters were rearranged, soldered together and formed to the shape of the hull.  Painted gold to match the anchors, the Bugzier goes a long way to remember the era of early steel battleships.







  As I wasn’t planning on adding a delicate sternwalk to this boat, I couldn’t resist going back to the store and buying another of the same part for the smaller but similar gold decoration at the stern.





               
 


To prep the hull for painting, I wiped down the pink fiberglass hull interior and white gel coat exterior with ammonia, as I wanted to remove the oily residue before painting.  This seemed to work, as I have good adhesion between the hull and the Rustoleum white primer.  After masking off the interior, I painted the hull above the waterline with three coats of Rustoleum Gloss Sage Green.  This color may seem like a strange choice, but Marklin often painted its larger, more expensive models with a similar shade of green.  Below the waterline is Rustoleum Charcoal Gray.  For historical reference, Austria is known to have painted its pre-dreadnoughts with this Sage Green, Charcoal Gray scheme.  A red waterline was made using automotive pinstripe tape.  I wish I could pinstripe like von Dutch, but I can’t.



 


 The next task was to permanently fit the running gear in place.  After careful alignment, I epoxied the stuffing box into the stern and glued the clockwork’s wooden base to the bottom of the hull.  This poplar base had been equipped with threaded t-nuts so I could remove the brass clockwork.







  When building complex projects like this, I try to design the various parts so that as many as possible can be removed for servicing.  This process takes more effort to design and construct, but it’s worth it when a part needs replacement or repair.



To be continued...
 

[Thumb Dog]

 




Next in line was to build four small mahogany boxes for the two servos, battery and radio receiver.  These wooden boxes look better than the plastic ones supplied with the Futaba radio, and by using my technique of Velcro fasteners to keep the gizmos in place, this system allows for quick removal of the components for charging and servicing.  After the boxes were epoxied in place, the RX antenna was attached around the inside gunwale of the boat, and the steering rig was set up.





 
 


To control the on-off aspect of the clockwork motor, I used brass, leather and bristles from a plastic broom to create a drooping arm that attached to the top of a servo.  When the servo is activated, the bristles attached to the end of this arm swing toward the clockwork motor and interrupt the spinning action of the fly.  The fly is an air-resistance governor found in the striking train of clockworks that keeps the unwinding clock from running out of control.  Originally, I just used the tip of the leather to engage the fly, but this caused the fly to bang to a stop.  The pivots on the fly are small and easily broken.  The bristles at the end of the leather offer a smoother stop to the spinning fly.  The flat-out run-time of the clockwork comes in at about three and a half minutes.  By having the ability to start and stop the clockwork, much longer times can be spent at sea.



 


Now it’s time to start work on the metal superstructure.  From here on, I’ll be using some small metalworking tools you may not be familiar with.  I’ll try to give a brief description of the tools along with their uses and some photographs as well.  For more information about the tools in question, some time spent searching through YouTube will show the tools in use. These recorded images can give you far more useful information about their use than I can offer in this article.



 


I never really had a firm plan for the design of my battleship…there were no master drawings to refer to.  I developed many of my ideas by searching the images in my books, and those available on the Internet.








  Google, Yahoo and Bing offer hundreds of photographs of Marklin, Bing and other makes of toy naval vessels.  So rather than draw out a plan, I used my paper modeling skills to quickly put together a few three-dimensional sketches for the deckhouses and furniture.  You can see that the sketches do not represent the final superstructure, but they are useful in determining layout and size of the various parts.  Remember, this is a replica of an old toy boat, and the parts should be as exaggerated as they were by the great German makers.  This actually requires a change of perspective by someone who is used to building properly scaled models.  But in the end, I think I captured the feel of the old German toys.



 




The brass shim stock that I used to make many of the parts for the superstructure is .015” thick, and is heavy enough to hold its shape but thin enough to be easily worked.  Of course, the old German makers used tinplate for their boats…hulls and all.  This is one reason the toy boats are so valuable today.  The tinplated steel didn’t fair so well in the aqueous world, and many of the steel boats either sank to the bottom of the pond or rusted away because of improper care.  Sheet brass, while expensive, was my best choice for many of the boat’s parts.



 


To form the larger brass parts, I used simple tool and techniques.  First off, if the part I was making would to have portholes in it, the carefully measured holes would be drilled before the part was formed.  I didn’t use regular drills in my electric mini drill press for this, but rather my Irwin Step Drill.








  The cone-shaped step drill is the best tool for drilling through thin sheet stock, as it cuts cleanly and doesn’t bind at the end of the drilling process like a regular drill does.  Also, if you carefully raise the hole into the next size step, that next step acts as a countersink and cleans the hole of any burs left from drilling.  They are expensive tools, but worth the cost if clean, round holes are your goal.




 


For sharp bends in the brass, I used a Vise Grip hand brake, also known as an 8-inch locking sheet metal tool.  I lined the working edges of the hand brake with masking tape to prevent scratching the brass.







  I secured the part in the brake and used my smooth steel bench block as an anvil against which to bend the part.  I bend a little further than I think is necessary, as the part will naturally spring back.  Also, I carefully plan my bends ahead of time, as it’s easy to bend yourself into corner, ruining the part.







Rounded areas can be carefully hand-formed around an appropriate sized dowel held in a vise.  There is no substitute for practice when it comes to bending brass to your will.  My scrap box is full of parts for this project that just didn’t turn out the first or even the second time I tried to make them.


To be continued...

[TailUK]

I love this!  .  How long does the clockwork run?

[Thumb Dog]

 



Soldering the brass parts together is next in line.  Over the years, I have become quite comfortable with soldering, and I am usually pleased with my results.  For those of you who are new to soldering, a few tips are in order.  Cleanliness is everything.  Even the oil from your fingers can prevent a strong soldered joint.  400 and 600 grit wet and dry sandpaper are best for cleaning the parts to be soldered.  Wipe the sandpaper residue from the parts to ensure a clean, strong joint.  The right solder and flux are important.  I use a rosin core solder, a 63/37% tin to lead ratio high-tech solder and an appropriate paste flux.  In general, I stay away from acid core solders.  Never use acid core solders for electrical work.




 
 


A tight fit between the parts is important, too.  Solder is not a gap-filling material, and it won’t jump across chasms just to please you.  Often, the hardest part of soldering is forming the parts into the relaxed, yet tight fitting joints needed for a successful effort.



 


Finally, when I solder using my electric iron or propane torch, I don’t apply the solder direct from its coil, as that leaves far too much solder on the parts.  I use an old pair of scissors to nip tiny bits of solder from the coil.  These small bits are called pallions.







  These pallions are used in the jewelry trade to get the right amount of solder into the right place.  To help them stay in place, I coat the pallions in paste flux then carefully place them around the joint to be soldered.  This gives a much cleaner, neater result.  Much more could be written about soldering, and a quick scan through the Internet will bring you a wealth of knowledge.  Remember, practice makes perfect.








 As far as the brass work goes, I’m most proud of the two main gun turrets.  Each was made from just one piece of brass, bent and soldered to shape.  The brass gun barrels are K&S tubing, cut and soldered together.  The guns elevate and traverse in both the main turrets and the secondary armament as well.  The smaller cannon along the gallery and the machine guns around the boat are fixed, and do not move.





 

 
After designing, cutting, drilling and soldering all the brass deck components, it was time to move onto the copper domes that cover the six green secondary guns seen amidships.  I chose copper for these rounded parts, as it is easier to work than brass.  To form the domes, I used a tool called a dapping block and a set of tools called dapping punches.  As the photographs shows, the dapping block is filled with hemi-spherical depressions that roughly match the spheres found on the end of the dapping punches.  To cut a copper disc of the proper size to make a dome, you can either apply the knowledge you gained while earning your degree in math, or just take a flyer and guess.  I am of the second opinion. 










Using my bow compass and an old pair of Fiskars scissors, I just cut out a disc of the .021” copper in the hopes it would produce the size dome needed.  Start the dapping process by first annealing the copper disc with a propane torch.  Get the disc red hot, then quench in water to make the metal soft.  Place the disc in a dapping block hole larger than the diameter of the disc, and using a punch of a slightly smaller size than the hole, use a brass or copper hammer to pound the copper disc into the depression until it forms a shallow dome.  Remove the dome and anneal it again.  Copper quickly work-hardens and you have to anneal the dome between passes in the dapping block, otherwise the copper will split while being worked.  Take the cooled and soft dome and place it in the next smaller hole in the block.  Using a smaller dapping punch, bang on it until it forms a smaller dome.  Repeat the process until you have a dome of the proper size. For success, practice is necessary, as is the right size of disc.  When I finally worked my six domes to the correct size, I decided to flatten their tops for aesthetic reasons.  I did this by carefully hammering their tops with a flat, metal forming hammer.  By the way, the six domes that were needed for the ventilators were produced in the same manner, except they were made from aluminum.










To cut the gun slots in the domes, which were cut after the domes had been formed, I carefully drilled appropriate sized holes at each end of the proposed slot.  I then used my jewelers saw to cut the space between the holes.










 The photo shows my three jewelers saw frames with an assortment of blades that range in size from 33 to 89 Teeth Per Inch.  The rule of thumb is that three teeth of the saw’s blade should be cutting the work at all times.  You can see where a saw blade of 89 TPI would come in handy for cutting thin brass and copper sheet stock.  Small needle files are used to clean and dress the slots.  The slots for the main gun turrets, pilothouse and the citadel were cut in the same manner, but before the parts were formed.






 

When using a jewelers saw, another related tool called a bench pin comes in handy.  The bench pin sticks out from the workbench and supports the work while it is being sawn.  My pin is temporarily anchored to my bench by a removable steel holder equipped a small anvil on its top.   Usually, the bench pin is a simple, wedge-shaped piece of wood.  However, I invested in a more complex clamping type to take some stress off of my aging fingers.




 


While the brass gun barrels for the main and secondary armament were made with telescoping K&S tubing, the barrels for the eight cannon along the gallery were turned on my watchmakers lathe.  I don’t have a compound for my old lathe, so I turn everything by hand.  Brass rod of the correct size was secured in the lathe by collet and the muzzle of each gun was drilled out with a drill set in the tailstock.  The rest of the barrel was turned by hand using small turning and forming tools.  The balls seen on the breeches of the cannon were turned using a HSS forming tool with a small semi-circle cut into the cutting end.  The eight small machine guns were soldered together using square and round brass tubing and rod.








To be continued...
 

[Thumb Dog]

WTXVEP




Once I was this far into construction, the other ancillary parts such as the capstans, range finders and searchlights were an easy build.  However, the brass bell atop the pilothouse is the third one I turned, as the first was too big, and the second too small.  The funnels are 7/8” aluminum tubing with brass compression fittings cut to fit the tops and bottoms.  The removable pole masts were made from the modeler’s friend, K&S brass tubing.  I made the rigging by stripping out silver-tinned speaker wire from my wire box.  Using three strands per one-foot length, I twisted the strands together with 40 turns of my hand drill.  The Orlogsflag, the Danish Naval Flag and its associated Jack were made from paper, their brass flagpoles set into turned brass fittings.





 
That leaves the railings.  Made from 1/8” brass, the 60 stanchions were turned by hand and eye on my watchmakers lathe.  Using HSS turning tools as well as custom forming tools for the stanchion’s balls, I actually made closer to 120 stanchions to get the 60 I needed.  Turning the brass was not all that hard, but drilling .052” parallel holes into tiny little spheres, while keeping all the holes the same distance apart to accept the .048” brass railing rod…that was the real challenge.  That’s why I have an extra 60 of these in a drawer somewhere that will never again see the light of day.



 


Now that all the necessary parts have been built, they must be painted.  Firstly, everything was given a coat of white primer.  Many of the old makers didn’t bother with primer, and paint loss is a common problem among the antique boats.  The Marklin naval vessels were often more colorful than the Bing boats, which were usually painted a simple light gray.  Good for camouflage in the North Sea, but maybe not so good for toy sales.  In keeping with the more handsome Marklin battleships, I chose to paint my ship using a number of different colors.  The application of Sage Green and Charcoal Gray has already been described.  Pewter Gray was applied to the superstructure, funnels and pole masts.  Smoke Gray was used for accents around the boat.  Burnt Orange was the choice for the brass deck areas.  I think my color scheme makes for a striking model, and is reminiscent of the old maker’s efforts.



 


After the paint had dried hard, I applied some additional red automotive pinstripe tape to selected parts of the superstructure.  To be honest, some of the tape was used to cover mistakes that presented themselves after the masking tape had been removed.  I believe I am not the first model maker who has tried to cover his mistakes.  By the way, most of the original German toys were painted by women, and their steady hands laid down miles of painted pinstripes.  Unfortunately, I do not possess their talents.



 


Attaching the deckhouses to each other was done with epoxy.  Square wooden strips were first attached around the inside bottoms of the sheet brass parts, making for larger surface areas to accept the epoxy. After the houses were glued one atop the other, I wound up with two separate structures.  You can see the gap between them just behind the fore funnel.  Rather then epoxy these structures to each other and then directly to the deck, I used three machine screws that were driven through the solid bases of the funnels and secured underneath the deck by small nylon lock nuts.  The eight rotating guns were attached to the deck in the same manner.  Hence, the superstructure and big guns are all removable.







  All the smaller parts were epoxied in place.  The old makers soldered absolutely everything in place and then turned the boats over to the ladies to be painted by hand. They quickly painted around the small, attached parts, making for a somewhat rough appearance even on the most expensive boats.   I wanted to apply spray paint to give my multi-media battleship a smooth, modern look, and soldering pre-painted parts would make for an awful mess.  Of course, epoxy joints are not as strong as soldered joints, but if my battleship is kept out of the hands of careless, mischievous boys, it should survive for some time.



 


Speaking of mischievous, this brings me to the last addition to my boat.  Many of the pictures in this article do not show a name on the boat’s stern.  I have always had a name in mind, but waited till the very end of the build to christen it.  As you can see, I went with the name Lokke, the Danish spelling of the Norse god Loki.







  Not only was Lokke the god of mischief and trickery, but he was a shape-shifter as well.  That is appropriate for a model ship’s hull that was originally made to represent the HMS Gorgon, but in turn became something quite different…the one and only clockwork powered, radio controlled, German influenced, turn-of-the-century, toy boat replica representing a fantasy, pre-dreadnought Danish Costal Battleship.  Maybe now, Model Boat Mayhem will create a new forum.














End
 

[rmaddock]

Wonderful!

[davidjt]

hi , thumb dog

that is a magnificent bit of engineering, well done 

david

[tobyker]

Utterly beautiful. I sometimes wonder why I bother.

[raflaunches]

Well done Thumb dog!

This is an absolutely fantastic build log of what I think is one of the most interesting models I have seen in a long time. It ticks every box for me, it looks every part the Russian/French/German pre dreadnought with the 'steampunk' fantasy mixed in perfectly. I have often wondered what those GRP hulls were like and I can see at least one of them will be put to good use in your build instead of being destroyed by BBs!
I'll be showing this thread to my Dad who has fond memories of clockwork boats in his bath tub, and the sea!
Keep up the excellent work

Nick B

[Stavros]

Simply superb can we have some more from you PLEASE
 
Dave

[Neil]

beautiful beautiful work and  so different from the norm that we see on this and any forum I have seen.......I love it.
neil

[jimmy2310]

Beautiful workmanship, stunning models,
Well done that man.


Jimmy

[vnkiwi]

Breathtakingly beautiful.
An amazing feat of workmanship.
Absolutly spot on.
congratulations
vnkiwi

[Richtea]

Absolutely brilliant Thumb Dog,
this build is craftsmanship of the highest order.
Hope that you share more builds with us mere mortals in the future.
Regards
Richard 

[Martin (Admin)]

Bellissimo!

[Neil]

When using a jewelers saw, another related tool called a bench pin comes in handy.  The bench pin sticks out from the workbench and supports the work while it is being sawn.  My pin is temporarily anchored to my bench by a removable steel holder equipped a small anvil on its top.   Usually, the bench pin is a simple, wedge-shaped piece of wood.  However, I invested in a more complex clamping type to take some stress off of my aging fingers.

It's nice to see another modeller using one of my favourite hand tools, I have had the smaller piercing saw shown in your shot for over 30 years now, and must say it is one of my fav's when cutting metal by hand..........not enough is made of these simple tools, and it's amazing what fine work can be done with them.........and it shows on this stunningly beautiful model.

Neil.

[TailUK]

It's beautiful work, it does you proud.
I'd still love to know how long the clockwork runs on the water?  Clock mainsprings are pretty chunky and run about 30 hours in a clock.  On the water it would have to have a duration of at least 15 minutes to be any kind of fun. 

[Davenotdone]

Stunning!!  It sums up all sort of interesting comparisons, it reminds me of my Mammod model steam traction engine, chunky ( in a nice way ) but practical, it also reminded me of both the car and the submarine from the Sean Connery film " The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen " .  It looks like a child's toy,  ( again, in a nice way ) but obviously isn't and it does seem a shame that all that superb metal work had to be painted!!.  Once again, 

[Thumb Dog]

Just a note to thank my fellow forum members for their kind words concerning my Clockwork Battleship.  I have seen some excellent work in these pages, and it's rewarding to be acknowledged by such fine modelers.

To TailUK:  The in-water runtime of my converted clockwork motor is only about three and a half minutes.  That's not much by the standards of the German makers, but with radio control, I can maintain control on the water for much longer periods of time.

Also, it may have been noticed that there were no photographs of my model at sea.  Currently, every one of the 10,000 lakes in my beautiful state are frozen solid.  It will be a few months before we can get out to our favorite pond.

Thanks again,

Thumb Dog

[spooksgone]

That is one of the most remarkable builds I think I have ever seen, more like a work of art, fantastic! It all so takes me back a bit, well quiet a bit actually. Lovely.
Phil

[roycv]

Hi Thumb dog, like the other comments I admire the workmanship and the choice of subject.  I have a soft spot for toy boats.
Also I have now learnt what a dapping block is.  I have seen them for sale but their use escaped me.

Also pallions, I have just been soldering stanchions and rails and cutting up small pieces of solder would have made it all much easier.

On the cheating side I wonder if a very small electric motor with a big gear  box could be used to wind the spring to give a much longer run time.
OK pretend I never said that.

Lovely work much admired.
Thanks for sharing Roy

[Jack D]

That is an excellent piece of workmanship! Also many thanks for taking the time to explain how you did the metalworking- I've learned a fair bit from that (admittedly not having a lot of experience with metal to begin with) and I'm sure I'm not the only one.

[mogogear]

Just when you think you have seen it all, you haven't     

Magnificently masterful you are