The model room

[Bill Perkins]

Have you seen the amazing video tour of Nathaniel Herreshoff's model room on the Herreshoff Museums website ? His tools are there as well as the models . This is just a shard :https://youtu.be/QDGC9d_mZzE . It shows an interesting holdfast he used for carving models .3 pairs of parallel faces allow for 3 different positions in the vice . This is a cross section of how I saw it ,which I'm filing away .

[Hugh MacD]

Hmmmm....I think I have a nice old scrap of walnut....

[willin woodworks]

love these little nuggets. Such a simple solution and another "Why didnt I think of that...."

[Boatbum]

I have been to the model room and drool over every aspect of it. As for the holdfast........ The carpenters at Mystic seaport use something like the object below. The base is secured with two wood screws through the holes into the back of the model. The actual shape is an octagon, but for the illustration it was quicker for me to draw a hexagon. It allows for many different ways to be placed into the vice. If you have a pattermakers vise like an Emmert, it is particularly easy to carve and sand a model.



Brace.jpg

[Paul Schweiss]

I made my pilgrimage to the Herreshoff Museum in 2007 or so, and the Model Room was fascinating, the machine to precisely take off the lines from the Model was really something to behold.
I had one huge disappointment though. The boat shop was gone! Evidently destroyed in a hurricane in 1939? Seeing the pictures of the shop in high production was always very intriguing, I have always been focused on shop, machine, and bench layout. I had rather hoped to see jigs and other solutions to common building needs.
Alas, my ignorance of the history there was the source of that disappointment. The Museum is very much worth the trip and time traveling to Bristol, RI.

[JamesCaird]

The so-called "hold fast" for holding halfhull models in a vice at various angles is something L.F. Herreshoff saw and admired in his father's shop. In several publications (Common Sense of Yacht Design, Some Hints on Model Making, maybe elsewhere) he described and illustrated a few different types. I think he also recommended a version of the pattern maker's vice to support these. Maybe someone can tell us how and when the half hull models and tools were removed from Love Rocks house. I am happy that someone (Maynard? Halsey?) had the foresight to save them all but also to document the arrangement in that room.
Cheers/ JC

[nedL]

I was expecting this to be about the model room at the New York Yacht club.

[rbgarr]

Maybe someone can tell us how and when the half hull models and tools were removed from Love Rocks house. I am happy that someone (Maynard? Halsey?) had the foresight to save them all but also to document the arrangement in that room.
Cheers/ JC

It was all done by Sidney Herreshoff (Nat's son) after the works closed. He had a special addition at his house next to Love Rocks where 95% of the models survived a hurricane that swept through New England. Sidney then started the current museum (in the early 70s?) and Halsey, his son, continued it's development largely to what it is today.

The hold-fast for half models is also shown as a drawing in LFH's book "The Compleat Cruiser" along with his fictional layout for a smallcraft boatbuilding shop.

[Bill Perkins]

James , thank you for pointing out L.F. Herreshoff 's "Some Hints on Model Making" . Those are a treasure I had not seen : including ,as you know , photos of the original work room . Off Center Harbor has them in their library.