Bethia, collier, mid to late 1700's A.K.A. HMAV Bounty

I pulled my Anatomy of the Ship, Bounty, by John McKay.

From the drawings in there, you don't even have to remove the capstan.

Just plank up the gunports and add a deck locker abaft the capstan; replace gratings with plank hatch boards.

Rather nice, too, in that merchant rigging is leaner than military rigging.  I'd guess that some changes were made, like military tops and stun's'l rigging added for the military-use conversion.

I did a lot of digging into the history of this ship back in the late seventies, when I was working on my little model of the Bounty as she appeared (I think) at the time of the mutiny:  http://www.hmsvictoryscalemodels.be/JohnTilleyBounty/index.html .  That was a long time ago, and my memory is...well, to be charitable, let's say notoriously inconsistent.  But I do remember some points that may be of help.

To begin with, I've never seen any evidence that the Bethia was a collier.  She's generally described simply as a "ship-rigged merchantman."  I may well have missed something (I wasn't particularly interested in the ship's pre-Navy career, and quite a few of the reference books that are now common hadn't been published when I was working on that model).  I know Cook's Endeavor started life as a collier; maybe the Bethia was one too, but I've never seen a contemporary statement to that effect. 

Here's a link to a post on another website, in which I summarized some useful information about the ship:  http://forum.drydockmodels.com/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=1339 .  That thread started in 2005, but I don't think I've encountered any information since then that contradicts it.

In terms of plans, the bottom line is that there are two sets of contemporary "Admiralty Draughts."  The first apparently was drawn on the Navy Board's orders right after the Bethia was purchased.  (Genuine, contemporary plans of British eighteenth-century merchant vessels are as scarce as hen's teeth.  We're lucky we have this set - courtesty of the Royal Navy.)  I think what happened was that the draftsman drew a more-or-less complete set of plans of the Bethia, and then (as is noted in the documentation that accompanies them) added some "proposed contrivances" in red and green ink.  (Admiralty draughts quite frequently were drawn in more than one color.  Unfortunately the colors have long since faded almost beyond recognition - and, of course, they don't show up in black-and-white reproductions.)  I think (here's where my memory may well be playing me false) the "proposed contrivances" included the capstan, the gunports, and the swivel stocks.  (My thinking is that the capstan, in the presence of a relatively large Navy crew, would be regarded as a more efficient apparatus for handling the anchors, and other heavy jobs, than the original windlass up forward - though the latter was retained.)  There probably were some others; I don't remember.

Then, apparently just before the Bounty  sailed for the South Seas, another set of plans got drawn.  These are the nearest thing we have to an accurate impression of what she looked like when she entered the history books.  (There appear to be no contemporary sketches or paintings of her.  That's not surprising.  When she sailed for the Pacific, in December of 1787, she would have been regarded as a thoroughly unremarkable vessel - and she never came back.  The oft-reproduced engraving showing the mutineers throwing breadfruit plants at Bligh as he rows away in the launch obviously was made after the mutiny, when reference to the actual ship was impossible.)

The second Admiralty draught shows lots of interesting stuff.  The little deckhouse that originally stood aft of the capstan was removed.  A new enclosure was added next to the taffrail.  (Mr. McKay says it's a "flag locker."  I say it's a water closet for the captain, who'd been evicted from his cabin to make room for the racks holding the breadfruit pots.  In any case, a box covering the tiller head was incorporated into the front of it.)  A series of holes (for ventilation, muskets, or both) were bored through the hatch coamings.  A little stove was installed in the great cabin to keep the plants warm.  And, of course, a complex set of racks for the plant pots were installed in the great cabin.

A few more bits of information relevant to this question can be gleaned from contemporary correspondence.  She did indeed carry studding sails (though Bligh concluded that the lower ones were "too long, so I cut them and made a royal out of the canvas" - which is why my little model has a royal on its mainmast).  Whether the studding sails were present while she was in the merchant service I don't know; my guess is no.  He asked that she be fitted with "gratten tops instead of boarded."  (Presumably that means the "open tops" that were standard in the merchant service.)  And she was fitted with "a pretty figure representing a woman in a riding habit."  (What her figurehead was while she was in the merchant service - if she had one at all - I have no idea.)  And her bottom was coppered after the Navy bought her.

A couple of warnings about the Revell kit.  The shape of its hull is generally quite good.   But somehow or other the kit designers really botched the profile of the head knee - which is pretty vital to the appearance of the ship.  It needs to be removed and replaced with one cut from styrene sheet.  (The job takes about half an hour.)  The windlass is shaped wrong; the two Admiraly draughts make it clear that it was a simple, octagonal spar with no taper (but with three pawls in the pawl post, so it could be rigged to turn in either direction).  And the transom probably is in error in showing a odd number of genuine, glazed windows.  (Bligh's log says that, in a storm off Cape Horn, a big wave "struck the stern and stove all to pieces between the cabin windows where the sham window is."  Implication:  the window in the middle was a fake.  Glass in that position would only serve to give outsiders a view of the rudder stock.)

Those are the big (or relatively big) points that I can remember at the moment.  That thread from Dockyard Models contains some more.  By the way - the presence of those two Admiralty draughts has confused lots of people over the years.  My opinion of the Anthony Hopkins/Mel Gibson movie, "The Bounty," is generally pretty high (though the scriptwriter didn't do his homework), but I get a laugh every time I watch the scene near the beginning where Anthony Hopkins is sitting in his cabin with a copy of the ship's plans behind him.  The print is entirely in black ink, and it's obviously a copy of the wrong set of Admiralty draughts - the one showing the Bethia before the modifications were made.

There have been three modern Bounties, all made for the movies.  The one in the 1932, Charles Laughton/Clark Gable version was converted from an old schooner; it looks about right from a distance, but that's about all.  For the Marlon Brando/Trevor Howard version MGM commissioned a firm in Nova Scotia to build a ship from the keel up.  It was more-or-less based on the first Admiralty draught, but was deliberately made about twenty feet longer than the original to accommodate the Cinemascope cameras and Mr. Brando's ego.  (It was also, for reasons I've never been able to figure out, painted bright blue.)  And most of the deck furniture on the 1959 replica is irrelevant to reality.  The one built for the Anthony Hopkins/Mel Gibson version probably is the most accurate of the three - but it doesn't have the little water closet or various other features that are shown in the second Admiralty draught.  (It does, however, have running rigging made of some almost pure white material that, to my eye, really damages the illusion.)  Bounty #2 has shown up in several more recent movies, including the Charlton Heston version of "Treasure Island" and at least one of the "Pirates of the Caribbean" flicks.  Bounty #3 appeared in the Turner Cable Network's mini-series on Captain Cook (would that it would come out on DVD), sometimes, through the magic of special effects, representing the Discovery and Resolution simultaneously.  I don't know what's become of it recently; the last I heard it was said to be on the verge of falling apart, due to shabby materials and construction.  But that may have been just a rumor.

Hope that helps a little.  Good luck.

http://www.tallshipbounty.org/the-ship/index.php   links to information about the current Bounty. She was at Tall Ships Chicago this past week, and I was able to go aboard. The folks at Boothbay Harbor, Me. did a nice job on her.

Thankyou Dr. Tilley for all your information It will genuinely help me build this kit as the Bethia.

Thankyou also CapnMac. When you stated  "Rather nice, too, in that merchant rigging is leaner than military rigging.  I'd guess that some changes were made, like military tops and stun's'l rigging added for the military-use conversion."  Leaner......as in lighter weight cordage, or perhaps less ? I think I have enough resources to make modifications to the tops, " back to merchant ", but I'm not quite sure what you meant by leaner.

Any recommendations for colors, as a merchant vessel ??

Prof. Tilley, Thank You for the link to Drydockmodels. I am familiar with the board structure, and find it very comfortable, and easily navigated. There also seem to be a lot of good shipmates there.

I too have not seen " any evidence that the Bethia was a collier", but it was stated in Bounty's information display ( she may be newly refurbished, and a replica, but none the less interesting a ship for it ).  I asked, but no one could further enlighten me on the subject.

"I wasn't particularly interested in the ship's pre-Navy career"..... Nor apparently, has anyone else been, which makes the subject that much more interesting to me. I will try to be as accurate in my build as I can, because of that.

This question now, Were "merchantmen" like Bethia, armed at all?

If not, then the stanchions for the swivel guns need to be removed, and any gun ports need to be closed in.

.

A merchantman model at NMM: 

http://www.nmm.ac.uk/collections/displayRepro.cfm?reproID=F2491#content

sumpter250

This question now, Were "merchantmen" like Bethia, armed at all?

If not, then the stanchions for the swivel guns need to be removed, and any gun ports need to be closed in.

.

Some eighteenth-century merchantmen certainly did carry guns - especially in wartime.  Whether the Bethia did I don't know.

It would be nice if somebody would reproduce those Admiralty draughts in color.  If we could see which lines are drawn in red and green we might learn something.  If the gunports are drawn it red or green, that's a strong hint that the Navy added them.  (On the other hand, the inks may have changed color so much in the past 200+ years that the colors can't be distinguished.) 

The source I found most useful for rigging details when I was working on my model of the Bounty was David Steel's book Elements of Mastmaking, Rigging, and Seamanship, from 1797.  (James Lees's modern work, The Masting and Rigging of English Ships of War, 1625-1865, hadn't been published yet.  I was very lucky in that the library at Ohio State had an original, leather-bound copy of Steel's book - in two volumes.  Reprints are available at pretty reasonable prices, though most of them leave out some sections of the original.)  Steel includes a section on the rigging of merchant vessels - and a detailed description of how the "open tops" were built.  There actually wasn't much difference between merchant and navy rigging, beyond the fact that such things as studding sails were less common in the merchant service.

We took up the subject of the Bounty's color scheme in that thread over on the Drydock Models site.  Here's what I had to say about it back in 2005 - and I haven't learned anything additional since:

"When I was working on my model (quite a long time ago; beware of memory [and beware of it even more now, five years later]) I did quite a bit of digging for reliable information about the ship. I concluded that the question of her color scheme has a simple answer: we know almost nothing about it. If I remember right, I found three vague references to colors in Bligh's log. There was one mention of "blackening a yard," one to "blackening the sides," and one to paint on the bottom of the launch. That's it. Oh - and we know the ship's bottom was copper-sheathed.

"'Blackening the sides' may imply that the hull was painted black, but not necessarily. A common practice in the late eighteenth century was to coat the wales with a concoction containing tar and oil, as a preservative, and the rest of the outboard planking with some sort of oil that made it a dark, rich brown. I've heard it suggested that some kind of oil mixture was used that darkened over time, so the ship would look light brown when freshly treated and almost black a few years later. I have my doubts about that one.

"Certainly the most common color for trim (moldings, carvings, etc.) was yellow ochre, and it seems likely that the inboard works were red. (Elsewhere in this Forum recently we chatted about whether that color really was intended to camouflage blood, or whether it was just a good, durable primer. I think both are probably true: it was a standard color for wood primer, and if it made bloodstains less conspicuous, so much the better.)

"For some reason or other the people responsible for making the second movie version of "Mutiny or the Bounty" (the one with Marlon Brando and Trevor Howard) painted the hull of their replica ship bright blue. The movie got wide circulation, and the ship did a lot of traveling - and turned up in several other movies (e.g., the Charlton Heston version of "Treasure Island"). I think that's why a number of pieces of artwork depicting the Bounty have given her a blue hull. (I've never seen a blue hull in any picture of her painted prior to 1959, when the movie was released.) This is the sort of thing that makes me recommend going to the primary sources before building a ship model. Blue paint certainly existed in the eighteenth century; it's certainly possible that the Bounty had a blue hull. But I know of no historical reason to think so.

"To my eye the color scheme of the replica ship in the third movie (the Anthony Hopkins/Mel Gibson version) looks about right: oiled natural wood with black and yellow-ochre details. I don't remember whether that version has red inboard works or not; I'd call that one a tossup.

"There's plenty of room here for individual personal taste. When I built my little model of the Bounty about 25 years ago I gave her a natural wood hull with black wales and bulwark planking, yellow ochre trim, black yards and tops, and red inboard works and deck furniture. I also painted a narrow blue stripe along the top edge of the wale. In retrospect, if I were doing it again (heaven forbid) I probably would leave off the blue stripe - but I don't have any historical evidence one way or another on that point."

One other tidbit that I forgot to mention in that post:  Bligh mentioned in either his published book or his log (I don't remember which) that the Tahitians were fascinated by the ship's figurehead - which was the only representation of a European woman they'd ever seen.  So he "ordered it painted in colors, and they sat gazing at it for hours."  That seems to imply that the figurehead may originally have been painted white.  Was the figurehead the same one she had in the merchant service?  My guess is probably yes - but I don't know for sure.

The figurehead in the Revell kit, by the way, is a masterpiece - a real tribute to the artisan who made the master, and to the amazing capacity of the company's pantograph.  But I think it's too small.  It just doesn't blend into the shape of the head knee the way a figurehead should.  (I wonder if there's a connection between that fact and the fact that the kit's head knee is misshapen.)

There's plenty of good stuff on the Drydock Models site.  I quit taking part in it some years ago, though, because the management specifically banned any discussion of plastic models from it (and actually started removing posts that mentioned plasic kits).  The gentleman who runs (and, as I understand it, personally finances) the site has the notion that there's something heretical about plastic models of "tall ships," and that plastic kits are somehow damaging the world of wood ship modeling.  (He made it pretty obvious, in an unpleasant exchange of e-mails, that he actually knew practically nothing about the matter.)  It is, quite literally, his site, and I don't question his right to define what it covers and doesn't cover.  But I'll take the FSM Forum any day of the week.

I've run into the "wood V plastic" scenario before, I always make it perfectly clear that I build in wood, plastic, and sometimes brass. I have built one or two resin kits. My intro was pics of my scratch built boat, "Sihaya". I'll have to wait and see if I get "banned" for the mention of plastic.

Thank you again for the information and help. I'll be picking up a copy of McKay's "Anatomy of a ship", and I have a copy of Steel's.

sumpter250

but I'm not quite sure what you meant by leaner.

Ah, as color was covered, let me address rigging.

Military rigging is influenced by several factors.  One is that you have a much larger crew.  Another is that the plan for the rigging is influenced by the tactical consideration of damage to the rigging.  Also, "economy" is less of a requirement for military rigging.

So, a simple thing like braces.  Naval practice places the block right at the yard arm served.  Merchant practice places that block on a whip long enough to nearly "two block" the brace when the yard is braced all the way  around.  This reduces the length of the working line used by the brace, too.

Rather than jeers, the lower yards would likely be in slings.  The tail of a halyard will be longer, too--not merely enough length to raise and lower the yard, but half-way to the deck, too.  Lift tackle will not be "double ended" either (in military use, you have enough extra crew to bend on an extra tackle to heave the bitter end as well as the lift end, a handy feature if sail needs to be increased rapidly for tactical reasons.

The amount of tackle in merchant service can be smaller, too.  Cheaper to have one set of gun or luff tackle handy, which then gets used the once then moved to a new line. 

Later on, merchant ships would replace things like sheets with chain, brace and lift whips with wire rope and the like.  Naval vessels would not do this, as chain can be complicated to splice after a battle.

Any of that help any?

Are there two Revell Bounties? I remember one rather diminutive model from many years ago. Did Revell sell one in a larger scale as well?

As to wood vs. plastic, i have no right to venture any opinion as an informed one, but I have an observation.

I've built models now for close to 50 years, both as a hobby and professionally, for buildings. Any decent modeler will make a model out of whatever comes to hand, to the point where for me that's an enhancement. But I've already used plastic, basswood, rope, rubber screen material, aluminum, brass and copper foil on my Heller Victory, and I'm barely above the waterline. I routinely replace the doors and such on airplane models where the edge is visible, with beer can material. I use solder, wire, paper, masking tape and natural materials at will.

My uninformed opinion:

I have never heard a convincing argument that a rigorous adherence to one material only in models is cause of a greater social good, or that the lack of same will contribute to juvenile delinquency, children as parents, war or people not paying their taxes.

If one chooses to have a hobby called "wood only ship modeling" fine. But I put it in the same category as black powder shooting. It can be complicated, require special skills, foster knowledge of really arcane facts, and give a lifetime of pleasure to those who indulge, but it's a niche interest.

The 1797 edition of Steel's Elements includes quite a bit of information about merchant service practice.  (At least the original does.  Most of the affordable reprints are abridged in one way or another; it's been a long time since I've worked with that book, but as I remember some of the stuff about merchant vessels doesn't appear in the affordable reprints.

It deserves to be remembered that, of course, rigging practices changed over time - and it's entirely possible that some of the stuff Steel described in 1797 wasn't applicable in 1789.  I can't, however, quite agree with all of CapnMac's generalizations.  The use of pendants on brace blocks in both naval and merchant practice, for instance, seems to have started a bit later than the Bethia/Bounty's time (though I certainly wouldn't pretend to know a precise date for the transition; most such transitions didn't have precise dates).  I don't think it's safe to make the simple assertion that, in 1787,  merchant ships had pendants on their brace blocks and warships didn't.

The same goes for slings (vs. jeers) on the lower yards.  I have a strong suspicion that, in the late eighteenth century, one would have seen both options in merchantmen and warships alike - depending on the particular vessel's function and, to some extent, individual preference.  (And it wouldn't have been unusual to see a warship with both slings and jeers set up simultaneously.)

I think bondoman may well be right:  there may have been a couple of different Bounty kits knocking around under the Revell label for a while - though not for long. 

The grand old original Revell kit, on about 1/110 scale, dates from 1956.  (My source, as usual is Dr. Thomas Graham's Remembering Revell Model Kits.)  It was, according to Dr. Graham, reissued in 1961, 1972, and 1978.  His coverage unfortunately stops in 1979.  I'm pretty sure Revell of the U.S. has issued it at least once since then - and it's in Revell Germany's catalog right now.  (I'm pretty sure Revell Germany issued it at least once before, and I think Revell of Great Britain probably boxed it at least once.  Dr. Graham's book - understandably - only covers the American issues.  Sometime in (I think) the mid- to late sixties, Lindberg released a small series of sailing ship kits that quite obviously were reduced-scale versions of Revell kits.  I can remember four of them:  the Santa Maria, the Flying Cloud, H.M.S. Victory, and H.M.S. Bounty; there may have been one or two others.  Just what sort of agreement (if any) may have existed between Revell and Lindberg I have no idea, but there was no room for doubt:  the Lindberg kits were "pantographed down" from their larger Revell counterparts.  (The little coils of rope lying around on the decks and deckhouse roofs of the Lindberg Flying Cloud were in exactly the same places, and exactly the same shapes, as in the Revell kit.) 

Such are the oddities of the plastic kit industry that (I'm pretty certain) at least a couple of those little Lindberg kits (which had been "pantographed down" from their bigger Revell brothers) turned up under the label of Revell Germany.  I know for sure that it happened in the case of H.M.S. Victory.  I don't think I've ever seen a Lindberg, "pantographed down" Bounty in a Revell Germany box - and I don't think Revell of the U.S. ever sold a Bounty kit other than the various permutations of the 1/110-scale one from 1956.  (There will be a quiz on all this at the end of the lesson.  I'll probably flunk it.)  But I have seen that old Lindberg kit.  The hull of it, as I remember, was about six or seven inches long - and it quite obviously was pantographed down (with a bit of simplification) from the Revell 1/110 kit.

To make things more confusing, Pyro got into the act at one point - with a Bounty that was about the same size as the Lindberg one (i.e., roughly a foot long overall).  It was one of a rather large series of sailing ship kits of that size; they originally sold for about a dollar apiece.  Their sails were molded integrally with their yards, and in general they were...well, pretty basic in detail.  But lots of modelers - especially young modelers - cut their teeth on that series, which was pretty big and comprehensive.  And when Pyro went out of business, Lindberg apparently got hold of some of the Pyro molds - including those for the Bounty.  So the Lindberg line, at one time or another, included two Bounty kits of about the same size - one originating with Pyro and one with Lindberg.  Whether both were ever on the market simultaneously I don't know.  (The easy way to tell them apart:  the one that originated with Pyro had injection-molded sails cast integrally with the yards, whereas the one that originated with Lindberg had separate vac-formed sails.)  Whether Lindberg was ever selling both at the same time I don't know.

I wonder how many of the executives making the big decisions in plastic kit companies actually know enough about the subject to know the ancestry of all the kits that come out under their companies' banners.  I'd like to believe, for instance, that the people currently running Revell Germany genuinely don't know what a sham that firm's "H.M.S. Beagle" kit is.  (As we've established in this Forum several times, it's a modified reissue of the old Bounty kit.  The real Beagle and the real Bounty resembled each other only in that each had a hull, several decks, and three masts.)  I wonder, in fact, if the executives of model companies concern themselves with the ancestry of their kits as much as some members of this Forum, including yours truly, do.

I've wasted too much ink and cyberspace already on the "plastic vs. wood" controversy.  My own view, for what little it's worth, is that there's no such thing as a "legitimate" or "illegitimate" material for building models of ships or anything else.  (The only exceptions in which I personally believe are materials that are known to have seriously limited lifespans.  I'll never build a model with lead fittings, for example; I've seen too many models that have been wrecked by "lead disease."  The other material that's a No-No in my personal lexicon is balsa wood - unless I ever get back into the fascinating world of flying model aircraft, where balsa's one positive attribute, its light weight, is a crucial advantage.)  Some materials certainly are better suited to specific uses in modeling than others.  But I have no time for those who think that wood is the only "legitimate" material from which to build a ship model.  I get especially agitated at the so-called experts who spend their time building HECEPOB [Hideously Expensive Continental European Plank-On-Bulkhead] kits straight out of the box, and turn up their noses at plastic kits. 

My standard response when people ask me whether I'm a plastic modeler or a wood modeler is "neither.  I'm a ship modeler."  And I think I'd better drop the subject at that point.

Well, that is the most informative overview on plastic ship kits I've ever read, and thank you for that. Seriously.

What I was wondering was if there was ever a larger Bounty by Revell that the one kit I built, which seemed to me to be at about the same scale as the Morgan, but you know how that goes. With the seeming plethora, or disorganization if you will, of ship model scales, we tended to think when young modelers that all models were the same scale.

In fact the subject of ship model scale really puzzles me. My reference point is twofold. First, as a trained engineer, all things are reduced by decimals. Second, as a licensed architect, all scales are by inches and feet.

As a model railroader, scale is a subset of track gage. I could go on about that for a while, and I find it a fascinating subject because it refers to form vs. function.

I just soaked my anchor cables for the Victory in tea. English Breakfast, of course. Never can tell what is useful at hand.

I often wonder why Nordhoff and Hall's book did not get reprinted. I have the edition with the Wyeth illustrations, all three volumes, given to me by my father's mother when she sold her house on Nantucket.

Not a great modeling interest of mine, but a wonderful account. In particular the second volume Men Against The Sea, the story of the boat journey.

The discussion has become quite wide-ranging now, so I won't try and address all points in detail. I will add though that David McGregor's 'Merchant Sailing Ship 1775-1815, their design and construction' is a very good reference work for anyone contemplating a model. Indeed, I find it is worth having a copy just to navigate the development of the vocabularly used in the period to describe various hull types and rigs.

As an academic historian, McGregor dealt mainly in preserved manuscript records relating to merchant vessels, and analyses these against one another and contempory publications. Written in 1980, it is still perfectly valid in my opinion, because little more in the way of original records has been discovered since then; and big UK institutions such as NMM have produced next-to-nothing on the subject in an accessible format for the general reader.

You will find some info in this book on most (if not all) of the questions raised by this thread.

 One final point. If you can find them- Edward Gwyn did a series of watercolours including UK merchant vessels in the 1780s. They are preserved at the NMM. http://nmm.ac.uk/collections/prints/listPrints.cfm?term=&field=&filter=makers&node=3731&images=0 No thumbnails unfortunately, but they are quite widely known and you may find them in print somewhere. They are quote monochrome, but 'from life' sketches of 18th century British merchant ships are pretty darn rare! http://www.portcities.org.uk/london/server/show/conMediaFile.7237/A-Dutch-Man-by-Edward-Gwyn.html

Will

CapnMac, Thank You,I now understand what you meant by " leaner ", and it was more or less what I had expected it to mean. That bit of information will definitely help.

Bondoman, I have one model that "stretches the imagination" concerning different materials, being built from: Competition dart boxes, ping pong balls, plastic wall tiles, pill bottles, Tic Tac boxes, flash cubes, and a whole lot more. Model Railroading scales; "O", was originally 7mm=1 ft ( American O is 1:48 ). HO is 3.5mm=1ft and is H_alf "O" 1:87.1. S, is 1:64. N, is 1:160, Z, is 1:220. Then there is "G"....Originally Lehman Grosse Bahn...1:32 and representing meter gauge track, now representing several different gauges, all using the same "track". Go to   http://www.the-gauge.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=1773    to see my "trains" project that include several ship / boat models ( a lot of plastic kits " modified " with wood )

Jtilley, Yes Drydock is primarily a HECEPOB board...which is why I intro'd with a scratchbuilt POF. If they decide they don't want me around, I'll leave.  My Revell kit is a 1:110 scale.

Billyboy, The linked site is....( my opinion ) Not the friendliest, or most easily navigated place I've been to. I'll go back there, but I'll have to take a large dose of  "patience pills ", before I do.

Thank You all. The discussion here is definitely opening doors, and uncovering information, and I couldn't ask for anything better than that.

bondoman

"What I was wondering was if there was ever a larger Bounty by Revell that the one kit I built, which seemed to me to be at about the same scale as the Morgan, but you know how that goes. With the seeming plethora, or disorganization if you will, of ship model scales, we tended to think when young modelers that all models were the same scale."

Well, to my knowledge - which is hardly definitive - the only plastic Bounty that's bigger than the Revell version is the one from Airfix.  It's on about 1/72, and dates from the late seventies.  It's not a bad kit by any means, but in my opinion the Revell one is a little better.  Airfix did score on two points:  a simple, ingenious method of incorporating camber into the deck, and a decent representation of the copper sheathing (which Revell missed).

"In fact the subject of ship model scale really puzzles me. My reference point is twofold. First, as a trained engineer, all things are reduced by decimals. Second, as a licensed architect, all scales are by inches and feet...."

I think what we're looking at here is the old "box scale" problem - the tendency of plastic kit manufacturers, until relatively recently, to design their kits in such a way that they fit in standard-sized boxes.  The very first Revell sailing ship kit (apart from a batch of tiny "ships in bottles" whose molds the company had bought from another firm in the early fifties) was the Constitution, whose designer put it on the sensible scale of 1/16"=1' (or 1/192).  I have the impression that the box that fit that kit set the standard for all the Revell sailing ship kits (other than the big "three-footers," which were on 1/8"=1', or 1/96) for the next twenty years or so.  You're right:  the Bounty and the Morgan turned out to be on just about the same scale - but I think it was the size of the boxes that determined it.

"I just soaked my anchor cables for the Victory in tea. English Breakfast, of course. Never can tell what is useful at hand."

YEEOW!!  I should have mentioned in that earlier post, when I was pontificating about materials that are "no-no's," that there are two other substances on my personal list:  tea and coffee.  They both contain acids that, in a relatively short time, literally eat most forms of thread. 

I once did a restoration job on a big old model of an East Indiaman whose sails obviously had been "dyed" with tea.  They were falling apart.  In search of advice on what to do about that problem I got in touch with a friend of mine who, at that time, was in charge of artifact conservation at Colonial Williamsburg.  He explained that what I was looking at was a phenomenon he called "fabric breaking," due to the tea.  There was no good cure for it; his recommendation, which I eventually followed, was to apply a synthetic material called "interface" to the back of each sail, using a warm iron.  I wasn't happy with the results, but the guy who owned the model was satisfied.  The lesson I learned from the experience:  never use tea for any modeling purpose other than liquid refreshment.

Better ways to color rigging line:  fabric dye and wood stain.  Best of all (though often easier said than done):  buy line that's already the right color.

"I often wonder why Nordhoff and Hall's book did not get reprinted. I have the edition with the Wyeth illustrations, all three volumes, given to me by my father's mother when she sold her house on Nantucket."

That one's got me a little bewildered.  Mutiny on the Bounty, Men Against the Sea, and Pitcairn's Island have been reprinted many times; all three are currently available.  Here are paperback versions of all three - and a three-in-one edition, all with the Wyeth illustrations:  http://productsearch.barnesandnoble.com/search/results.aspx?store=BOOK&WRD=charles+nordhoff+mutiny+on+the+bounty&box=charles%20nordhoff%20mutiny%20on%20the%20bounty&pos=-1 . 

I think I read Mutiny on the Bounty for the first time when I was in junior high school.  (That's what middle school used to be called.)  And I remember the trouble my father had when he tried to explain why the Brando/Howard movie didn't follow the book. 

Great stuff.

 

 

 

 

sumpter250

CapnMac, Thank You,I now understand what you meant by " leaner ", and it was more or less what I had expected it to mean. That bit of information will definitely help.

Well, as Prof Tilley correctly points out, I was generalizing with a very broad brush (and failed to so state in mu maundering).

As with a number of things "we" all "know" it is helpful to to be from Missouri.

No tea? ACK!!

Well, it'll be an easy fix if it happens. Cut 'em off at the hawse, poke the ends in, glue in new ones. We shall see.

One of the few no no's I encountered was using thousands of carraway seeds to represent sugar beets at 1/160 scale for one of those mile long open gondola trains that used to groan through town on the way to Spreckles or Holly Sugar. Set out my train which was a scale 1/4 mile long. Next day the cars were all over the floor and the seeds were all gone, replaced by copious amounts of mice ***.

sumpter250

Billyboy, The linked site is....( my opinion ) Not the friendliest, or most easily navigated place I've been to. I'll go back there, but I'll have to take a large dose of  "patience pills ", before I do.

Don't even get me started! Britain is supposedly a maritime nation, late 'ruler of the waves', and what should be a flagship national institution seems to obstinantly obstruct access to Britain's maritime heritage, displaying an almost wilful elitism. I don't blame you if you never bother going to the NMM website. Aside from the photos of Admiralty models, there is little of value on there!

To illustrate the point (perhaps further than I need to... sorry about the rant) can you imagine a collection of 18th century prints of naval and merchant vessels in the US remaining more or less completely unaccesible to anyone who isn't capable of personally visiting a reading room in the capital and (after much negotiation about your research credentials) looking at the originals?

sorry to go off topic!

Billyboy - that is a short sighted on their part. I know this will not help the ship modellers, but at the Bovington Tank Museum you can order up copies of any plan vehcle they have. I did it through the internet and a phone call for two vehicles and was very happy with the service and those who provided it.

Mike T.