Wooden ship modeling is fun!

Thanks!

She is really starting to shape up really nice, love the detail.

Nice!

Cut a square in the deck with my Dremel and put in some forecastle grating.  

Cat head fever!  

ha....hahahahahaha

This reminds me of the Frenchman's axe. The head has been replaced three times and the handle twice but it's still the same axe.

Regarding conservation and preservation. I went on a tour of the Henry Ford Museum's restoration and conservation facilities several years ago. At one point of the tour I was in the area where conservation, restoration and preservation was performed on steam engines and other mechanical devices. The gentleman, while describing the work he performed there, used a small two cylinder operating steam engine as an example of the problems involved in keeping things in working order. He made a point, I never thought of, that when the number of replacement parts on the engine reached a certain point, I think he said fifty percent, it was no longer considered to be an original engine, but was more like a re-manufactured engine and not suitable for display. It would be auctioned off. The museum keeps similar artifacts in operating condition and run them as part of the museum displays.

If an antique or historical ship model with extensive damage was to be restored, could there be a point where the model  would not be considered to be original when the restoration process was completed? Would the work be attempted at all.

Jim

Thanks!

Shaping up really nice.  

http://i235.photobucket.com/albums/ee54/philo426/001_zpsad2272e2.jpg

Hung the rudder   

I'm reminded of the story of how the restoration experts at the Uder Hazy Center have encountered defective construction in German aircraft6 that was built by slave labor; either by accident or by design.

Informativeconversation- I've certainly learned a lot.

An interesting point; that whether the original modeler was good or lousy, the results are by nature the artifact.

Arnie60's last post raised some interesting, valid points.  The conservation profession thinks about the way he does.  Conservators talk about "degrees of intervention."  "Stabilization" means doing something or other that will keep the artifact from deteriorating any further than it already has.  "Restoration" means doing something to undo some sort of damage - caused by either the ravages of time or previous "intervention" by somebody else.  "Replication" means replacing the artifact (or part of it) with something newly constructed.  They're all generally lumped together under the label "conservation."  The "conservator" does all those things - and sometimes others.  But he/she always, as a golden rule, tries to "minimize the degree of intervention."

Arnie60 quite appropriately mentioned the "restoration" (which is what they officially called it) of the Sistine Chapel ceiling.  The basic problems there were that (1) the paint had cracked in thousands of places, (2) several hundred years' worth of candle soot had been deposited on the surface, and (3) several generations of earlier restorers had retouched various spots and applied some sort of varnish, which had darkened over time.  The restorers injected glue into the plaster at the (surprisingly few) points where it was fragile, took off the retouchings and old varnish with some exotic chemicals (making sure they wouldn't affect the paint underneath), and did their own retouching (using reversible watercolor and an interesting, obvious system of vertical brushstrokes, so subsequent generations would see where the conservators had been - but the naked eye looking up from the floor of the building wouldn't).  In one pretty big area the original paint had fallen off completely; the conservators made no attempt to replicate what Michelangelo had painted, but simply painted the spot with a neutral color.  

Regarding Moses - the conservator's (and curator's) position probably would be that we can't possibly find out whether Michelangelo would have wanted the horns chiseled off, so we won't do it.  Museum professionals don't get into the "what the artist really wanted..." game if they can possibly avoid it.  (If you do get into it, where do you stop?)  Furthermore, if Michelangelo had decided to omit the horn, he undoubtedly would have changed some other elements of the composition - and we can't know what changes he might have made.  I can't imagine that any professional conservator would advocate chiseling off those horns.

Art conservators, in particular, spend an enormous percentage of their time undoing the work of previous conservators.  Our North Carolina Museum of Art (in Raleigh) has one of the best paintings conservation staffs in the country.  (Most museums don't have conservation facilities at all; they farm their conservation work out to private contractors.)  Those folks spend countless hours stripping off old varnish (we're talking about paintings as old as the 1400s), re-adhering paint to canvas, and "inpainting" (with modern, reversible paint) spots where the paint has fallen off.  When they get done, their work is invisible.  Unless, of course, they make a mistake - in which case the wrath and contempt of the art world descend upon them and they may well get fired.

They once showed my students and me an interesting example of a Winslow Homer painting that they'd subjected to infra-red photography.  That process revealed that Homer had changed the composition considerably himself; the pictures showed where he'd painted complete people out of the picture and moved others from side to side.  This time the conservators did know what the artist's final intent was.  They made no attempt to undo Homer's own changes (but they have the photos on file in case anybody's interested).

There's nothing wrong with undoing some earlier, improper "intervention" - like taking off a sloppy paint job done by some inept restorer, or replacing rigging lines that were put there by somebody (other than the original modeler) who didn't know what the rigging was supposed to look like.  (I replaced a few rotten lines on the Crabtree models.  In that case the originals were still there; there was no doubt about where Crabtree had put them.  The originals are now in an acid-free envelope in the museum's files on the models.)  But the line gets crossed when a conservator/restorer says, "the original modeler put that line in the wrong place."  Or "the original modeler couldn't make that part to scale, but I can so I will."  That's not conservation, or restoration, or anything else the profession would approve.

Conservation is a complicated and frustrating profession.  As I once heard it put, "All the credit goes to the original artist.  But any mistakes are blamed ruthlessly, and loudly, on the conservator."  What a way to make a living.

Getting the railing together.   

Well I tend to follow the money in most cases ;) the inaccuracies of the model are such that it would be only right to at least restore it to the correct rig.  The materials were available but the "last" modeler did not choose to bother to affect the correct blocks and tackle. The deadeyes are the give-away. Then I have to deal with the over paint on the bottoms of the deadeye, which may mean that I’ll have to re-rig them anyway (past modeler slopped paint on the bottom of everyone).

At least it cheaper then therapy – and covered by insurance as well ;)

There seems to me to be a very fine line between restoration and conservation. Restoration, to me , means returning it to its original beauty as closely as possible, not unlike what they did with the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. Conservation, to me, means preserving the present condition from further deterioration. Often these go hand in hand, but certainly, making any alterations does not fit with either perspective. At that point I guess one could make a morality issue of it and the debate could go on forever. Well... is it any less an historical item because Grandpa made it and not Michelangelo? And what if we know the history in the model is inaccurate? Would Michelangelo have wanted the horns fixed? Would Grandpa want his work to be fixed? I can see where it could be argued that both would say yes. Then what?

I deeply respect your stance Mr. Tilley. I believe that I would want my own personal work to stand as is, with whatever mistakes I may have made, because that is what makes it uniquely my own, but if anyone wanted to give it a fresh coat of paint and some new lines for the rigging or repair a bulwark that has cracked over time.....hell yes! Go for it.

Hey Tilley !

You are so right .Now on one conservation job , the owner said his dad had repainted it about twenty years prior  and could I make her look like she did before that ! I told him what this might do and he said , and I quote ." I don't care , I want her to look the way Great-Grandpa built her ! " unquote ! This is when we both got a big surprise .After removing all the parts that were still there .(she fell off a shelf and landed upside down on her masts and rigging ) I started to clean the hull so I wouldn't have to paint it .The paint came off like it had been a wash and the name came up as just barely visible hand done lettering " AMISTAD " that;s when I called him and told him what I found.

   He told me to seal the hull surface at that point and finish the rigging repairs .Great Grandpa built a Heckuva ship  ! I was even able to salvage all the masts and spars ! She now sits restored as the " AMISTAD " in a case in his law office ! How about that for a surprise ! .

You Know Capn Mac:

  The Rapidograph pens you speak of can still be found , Oh and the Vellum and cloth drafting " Paper "

You Too ?

Hi :

I think you should build that and then go back and get their Chesapeake bay Skipjack . You would be surprised how much you'll learn over and above whet the skiff will teach you .

I thought long and hard before writing this post.  I'm highly aware that in many senses I'm stepping into something that's none of my business.  But I hope Jake and his client will reconsider cutting the doors in the bulwarks, removing the swivel tracks, or doing anything else to improve on the work of the guy who built that model of the Mississippi.

What we're talking about here is artifact conservation.  I'm not a credentialed conservator, but I used to be a maritime museum curator (big difference), and in my museum days I did a fair number of ship model conservation jobs - on the Mariners' Museum's models (including the notorious Crabtree collection) and in my spare time on a contract basis (to make ends meet).

My bosses quickly pounded into me the code of ethics of the conservation profession.  One of the primary rules therein is that the job of the conservator is to conserve the artifact - not improve it.

The first obvious example I always tell my students about is Michelangelo's statue of Moses ( here's a picture:  http://www.google.com/url?sa=i&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=images&cd=&cad=rja&docid=QseKRzsxd7KFAM&tbnid=Nj0bX6-tIB2j0M:&ved=0CAUQjRw&url=http%3A%2F%2Ftaylormarshall.com%2F2013%2F08%2Fthe-horns-of-moses-defending-michelangelos-horned-moses.html&ei=nXzTUsyuPMXj2AXNyoHwDA&bvm=bv.59026428,d.aWM&psig=AFQjCNHwC2qyUbrsqZT6lRKxNyG1xAVDXA&ust=1389678109381903 ).  Michelangelo was working from a defective translation of the Bible, which said that Moses had horns sticking out of his head.  (The correct translation was "rays of light.")  So the statue has horns.  Should a conservator take out a chisel and knock them off?  I hope everybody's gut answer is:  Of course not. 

Now, the builder of that old model obviously was no Michelangelo, but the difference between them is none of the conservator's business.

Another example from the joint where I worked.  We had two big, beautiful "builders' models" of Japanese merchantmen - two of the few that survived WWII.  ( I believe the donor is listed in the museum files as Douglas MacArthur.)  They're about six feet long.  Everybody in the Forum probably knows that from about the 1890s to about the 1940s, such models featured beautifully machined metal fittings - from rail stanchions to winches.  Modern paints hadn't been developed yet, and the paint available would have glommed up all the detail on the fittings.  So, to cover up solder joints and any discoloration of the metal, the modelers routinely plated the fittings.  The usual plating material was nickel, but those two Japanese freighters' fittings were plated with gold.  They must have looked magnificent.  One of them still does.  The other one fell into the clutches of a "conservator" in the 1960s, who (according to eyewitness accounts) said "you don't see ships steaming around with gold railings and winches."  So he took all the fittings off and spray painted them black.  He thereby, as far as my generation of museum staff was concerned, practically wrecked the model.  (He didn't even take a picture of it before he attacked it.)

Another example from another museum.  The Science Museum in London has a magnificent "Admiralty model"  ("Boardroom model" is a better term) of H.M.S. Prince ( http://www.google.com/url?sa=i&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=images&cd=&cad=rja&docid=0NyPB_p6W2X_xM&tbnid=ffldoN0aBMf4hM:&ved=0CAUQjRw&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ssplprints.com%2Fimage%2F84598%2Fhms-prince-1670&ei=43rTUqarO6fR2wWl64DoCQ&bvm=bv.59026428,d.b2I&psig=AFQjCNH3aMikJBPN1D9rpMFhjmLSd5wi6A&ust=1389677630903123  ).  It's generally regarded as one of the most important models in the world.  The windows in its stern consist of black-painted wood, with gold dots at the points where the muntins would intersect.  Jake or I or plenty of other folks in the Forum could easily make more realistic windows out of clear styrene, complete with scale frames.  But I certainly hope nobody ever does that.

Oh - and the hull below the wales isn't planked.  If a real ship were built like that it would sink.  So should a conservator plank it?  I hope the obvious answer is no.

For that matter, consider the "Hull model" of the Constitution.  In terms of workmanship it's downright primitive in many respects.  But any conservator who suggested replacing the guns, or the deck planks, or painting over the lettering on the side of the hull would - rightly - be run out of his profession.

The model Jake's taken on obviously was built by an amateur, with a sharply limited range of materials and tools at his disposal.  It's quite possible that his saw wouldn't cut a narrow enough kerf to indicate the edges of the doors realistically, and the hinges would have defeated him completely.  He apparently didn't have much in the way of metalworking tools or materials; maybe that explains the absence of the guns.  Those swivel tracks look like they may be made out of wood. 

He did the best he could - and by the standards of modern scale modeling that wasn't very good.  In terms of scale accuracy, all sorts of other things are wrong with that model.  The deck planks are far too wide.  The "blocks" in the rigging are primitive.  The yards are held to the masts by twisted pieces of wire rather than authentic parrals.  The boats are crude.  So are the chain plates.  There's no copper sheathing.  Etc., etc.  If one starts "fixing" the "mistakes" on this model, where on earth does one stop?

But the model has enormous character and historical interest.  I wonder if the builder may have been a sailor on board the ship.  At any rate, its crudity is one of the things that make it an historically important artifact.  It certainly looks like it dates from the time of the ship.  If so, it is, in historian-speak, a primary source - and a rare one.   I don't think more than a handful of contemporary American warship models from this period exist - and I've never heard of a warship model from that period that was built by a sailor.  The Mississippi was an important ship; we may well be looking here at something almost as valuable as the Hull model of the Constitution.

When I was in the model conservation game I always told the prospective client, "my job is to conserve your model.  If you want an accurate scale model of a ship, hire somebody to build you one from scratch.  But I will not do anything to your model that attempts to improve on what the original builder did.  To put it another way, if it looked like a piece of st when it was new, it'll look like a piece of st when I get through with it.  If I do my job right, no observer (unless he reads the big fat report I'm going to write) will know I ever touched the model."  A few potential clients had doubts about that approach - but I can't recall anybody actually taking a job away from me because of that - once the code of ethics had been explained to him/her.

End of sermon.  I don't think any competently-run museum would sanction "improving" an artifact like this.  But, like I said in the beginning, it's really none of my business.  I won't bring the subject up again in this thread, but if somebody else wants to, I'll be glad to answer, either here in the Forum or via e-mail                    (tilleyj@ecu.edu). 

Thanks for reading.