Tag Archives: visual reference

Arch-Anatomy – Wood Bricks

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This is the first of a series of articles on the anatomy of architecture which focuses on construction details. Many of them are details that are now obsolete because of modern building methods or the evolution of designs due to changing tastes.

(An expanded explanation of an obscure but interesting entry in the Wrand Film Design Glossary.)

If you try to search for ‘wood bricks’ on the internet, you’ll probably come up with some strange answers. They were a standard feature of brick construction in the nineteeth century that went out of fashion for a number of reasons.

With masonry building construction there has always been the problem of attaching wood elements to stone or brick structures. This was often accomplished by inserting wood plugs into the wall surfaces as an attachment point for nails, or by driving nails into the mortar of joints.

A wood plug in a stone wall of a 17th century Paris hotel.
From a 19th century builders manual showing the use of wood plugs for attaching a door frame.
Wooden plugs in early 20th century brick.

The use of ‘wood bricks’ most likely evolved in England before spreading to America. Most building manuals of the period that mention their use suggest using well-seasoned hardwood billets set between the brick courses at intervals for a way of attaching the wood linings for doorways and window framing.

For narrower wall opening, this lining could consist of a single board like in the illustration below.

Use of a single plank as a door frame lining for a brick wall. Note that the wood bricks are also used to attach the grounds at the door frame for plasterwork. The architrave exhibits typical Neo-colonial profiles, while the bolection mould on the doors frame is a mould typical of Greek Revival houses, a quirked Greek ogee and bevel combined with a fillet and cove, topped with an astragal, fillet, and cove.

For larger openings in thicker walls, the wood bricks were made longer and the linings were made of several pieces of sawn and planed boards, assembled in what was called a skeleton framed jamb.

The skeleton frame is attached to the wood bricks as well as the wood lintel.

Early manuals show this framework to be mortised and tenoned similar to a frame for furniture, but some mid-ninteeth century examples in America have been observed to be simple vertical boards nailed to the wood bricks rather than a M&T frame. This method would have definitely cut down on the construction time.

The image on the left shows the wood bricks in place while the image on the right shows the vertical boards nailed to them to act as the arch frame lining. Notice the archway lining at the top with boards that have been kerfed at regular intervals to allow the wood to form to the brick archway without having to steam bend them.

Some turn-of-the-century buildings display a more haphazard approach to wood bricks where framing cut offs of softwood were used instead of hardwood, as in the photos below.

Softwood framing cut-offs used in place of hardwood.
From an early 20th century building in Southern California. Wood bricks are set at 4′ from the floor. Most likely for a wanescot and chair rail.
Long strips of wood inserted in the brick for attaching a paneled wall detail in a 1870’s rural school house.
Two more examples of what appears to be framing lumber used as wood bricks.
Pieces of what seems to be lath for plaster inserted into the mortar joints between bricks as an attachment point.
An unusual sight I found on a building in the Mid-west. The exterior brick wall has eroded to the point that the wood bricks of a door frame have been exposed to the outside.

Design Gifts For The 2024 Holidays

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Jeesh, it’s been ten years since my last gift guide and I’m getting it out a little late this year, but some of the same items are still here on the list, mainly the classic tools and books that never become obsolete, (like a lot of software programs do).

I don’t receive any money from these recommendations. These are books and tools that I own and use often.

My Must-Have Tools For Film Designers

FastCap Flat Back Tape – You can not only measure round or curved surfaces but it has a blank area to write on for use as a story pole. – $10.00

Keson Pocket Rod – These are so essential for site surveys that I have four of them. They come in Architect and Engineer models. – $20.00

6″ Digital Calipers – Like these, there are many manufactures. (Avoid any priced under $20.00.) – Must-have tool for doing photo scaling (see article) – about $24.00

Equal Space Dividers – great for not only photo scaling but for designing in general. They run the gamut in price from these to these. $220 to $24.00

True Angle – Multi-use tool for measuring and transferring angles. lightweight. – 12″ -$16.00

Angle Template Tool – Various manufacturers – around 18.00

ChromaLabel Adhesive Measuring Tape – Great for when you don’t have time to measure everything and have to rely on photos of surveys – $16.00

GraphGear 1000 – Mechanical pencils, my new favorite brand. These are great because the barrel sleeve retracts into the pencil to protect it. Comes in .3, .4, .5, .7, and .9mm leads. About $9.00

Compass – So many to choose from, (and a lot of crappy ones are in the mix). This one is a good all-around basic, practical compass that will last a while. $14.00

Design Books

Lost Art Press Books

Still my favorite design and furniture book publisher. Here are my recommendations:

By Hand & Eye – $51.00. Another gem from Lost Art Press, this is probably one of the best design books written in the last 100 years. It outlines the world of design without a rule and using only dividers and proportional methods. I covered this in a previous post and always recommend it. Buy this and a good pair of second hand dividers from Ebay and you will completely change the way you think about design.

By Hound & Eye – $31.00. A companion workbook to By Hand & Eye.

Principles Of Design – $41.00

The Anarchist Design Book – $54.00

Other Books

Historic Millwork – Brent Hull

A Field Guide To American Houses – Virginia Savage McAlester

Stair Builders Handbook – T.W. Love

Backstage Handbook – Paul Carter

American Cinematographers Manual – ASC Press

The VES Handbook of Visual Effects – VES Society

Designer Drafting For The Entertainment World – Patricia Woodbridge

The Classical Orders Of Architecture – Robert Chitham

Illustrated Cabinet Making – Bill Hylton

Styles Of Ornament – Alexander Speltz

McKay’s Building Construction – W.B. McKay

Neufert – Architects’ Data – Granada Publishing

Geometry Of Design – Kimberly Elam

Really, Really Last Minute Gifts

When you realize you’ve really screwed up and forgotten someone and have no time to run to the store, much less order anything, you can always gift a good app.

Log onto the Apple or Android store and gift your so-important-you-forgot-about-them friend one of these apps and your reputation will be saved:

I own and can recommend all these apps.

BuildCalc – construction calculator – $24.99

Photo Measures – saving and sharing measurements – $6.99

MagiScan – Turns your phone into a 3D scanner (pay per use) ( I have used this a lot)

CamToPlan Pro – Uses AR to turn scans into measured drawings – $39.95

Theodolite – Just like a real theodolite but for your phone (fantastic) – $8.99*

Pocket Laser Level – Laser level for smart phones – free

Artemis Pro – professional director’s finder (Most used digital directors finder) – $29.99

Helios Pro – Sun and Moon calculator (fantastic) – $17.99

pCAM – camera info calculator – $29.99 *

Lens Lab – Depth of field app, shows you a visual representation – $1.99*

Sun Surveyor – sun and moon calculator – $9.99

I.D. Wood – samples and data for 200 kinds of wood – $9.99

LensKit – lens technical data – in-app purchases – subscription *

* iOS versions only

Online Design Classes

I have to get a plug in for our own classes at Wrand.

All the classes are 30% off until December 25.

My Night At The Haunted Mansion

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Location surveys can be a unique experience. You never know what you’re going to have to deal with when you survey an unfamiliar location. One of the perks of being in the Art Department of a film or television series is that you get to see places that aren’t normally open to the public.

It could be a historic building, or a ship, or a military aircraft, or, it could be a place you’re familiar with but never really thought to look at close-up.

The Disneyland Haunted Mansion at 1:00 AM

A lot of times there are parameters that you have to work around to get all the information that you need. Usually these are limitations having to do with access to the location, either physical constraints or time limitations. You’ll do a lot of location surveys during your career. Often they will be a simple survey to determine a placement of a set piece or a simple drawing for a director’s plan for shot planning.

A deserted New Orleans square at midnight at Disneyland.

Other times you’ll have to do a detailed survey that involves recording a lot of measurements and taking photographic reference for either matching a location at another place or adding onto the existing structures.

I got a call in June of 2022 to work on the recent Disney film The Haunted Mansion, and was told that my first assignment was to survey the exterior of the Haunted Mansion ride at the Disneyland park in Anaheim. We would be building a replica of it on a studio backlot in Georgia.

I asked if they had a set of the original plans for reference and was told “no”. For reasons I was never able to understand, it was important that the film set look very close to the original mansion at the amusement park, but, we weren’t allowed to have a copy of the original drawings from 1962. If you can figure out the logic of that decision, please let me know.

I mentally put together a list in my head of the equipment that we’d need to do an accurate survey of the building but that was immediately discarded when I was told about the limitations of the scale of the survey. It would have to be done at night, after the park was closed to the public. I would have a park employee to help who would also provide a ladder. One of the construction foremen on the film would meet me there to help with the measuring.

Despite not having any drawings to use as a starting point, the survey was only authorized for one night, between the hours of 11pm and 3am.

This wasn’t the first time I’d had to do a survey in a ridiculously small amount of time, but it would be the first exterior survey that I’d done at night. Taking theodolite readings to determine heights in the dark would be fun.

In the past, location surveys were usually scheduled several days to a week in advance and the persons involved were usually asked how much time they needed for the scout. This is rare now and it pays to have a fully-equipped bag of survey tools ready to go. You may have to survey a forest area for one scene and a complicated building interior for the next, so you need to have a wide range of tools in your kit.

This list ranges from simple measuring tapes to laser measuring tools, levels, transits and plumb bobs, simple compasses to digital theodolites and clinometers. a compact tripod is a plus. Profile gauges or moulding combs are a must-have.

Some of the items that are part of my survey tool kit.

The tools pictured above are just a sampling. My survey bag weighs in at over 20 pounds. You’ll notice some duplicated tools. This is intentional. When you have traveled a long distance to do a survey, sometimes across country, a tool that’s not working or dead batteries isn’t an acceptable excuse. Sometimes you have to improvise when you are confronted with a situation where the tools you usually use won’t fit the bill. I once had to find a rural hardware store open where I could buy the supplies to make a water level when the location that I was surveying made using a laser level impossible.

Pre-scout research is usually key to accomplishing a successful survey and I immediately looked for any reference that I could find online. I was sure that someone had to have uploaded some of the original drawings from the 1962 construction. It took some digging but I found the 1/8th inch scale elevations. Now I wouldn’t have to try to get overall heights but I still had a lot of details to record.

When I’m confronted with a tight time schedule I have a checklist:

1- Overall photographs with a collapsable surveyors rod in the shot so I can scale from the images later.

2- Detail photos using a small story stick so that those can also be used for photo-scaling. The photos are important as I know I will often run out of time and the photos are a visual record that can be referred to if I haven’t been able to get a hard measurement with a laser or tape.

3- Overall measurements; ceiling and soffit heights, other measurements that would be impossible to scale from photographs.

4- Details. Here I am as thorough with measurements as I can be as the time allows.

A photo of the front door of the haunted mansion with a surveyors rod in the picture for scale reference.
A few of the hundreds of scaled photos that I took at the mansion to recreate the details for the backlot reproduction of the mansion in Georgia.

We covered the ground floor of the facade while we waited for a technician to get us to the balcony area. This is accessed only through a small door to the south side where you are immediately confronted with an 14′ tall, narrow ships ladder. We struggled to climb that with the equipment and set to work getting the details there.

The balcony of the Disneyland Haunted Mansion at 1:30 am. The photo was taken with a Sony A7S camera whose lowlight sensor makes the image seem like it was taken in daylight. In reality it was very dark and the ceiling details were not visible to our eyes.

In case you wondered, everything on the balcony is bolted, nailed, and glued down. No need to worry about wind carrying anything off.

As we started to record the second story area at about 1:30 am, all the lights around the mansion went out. Luckily we had headlamps in our kits and I had a Sony A7S camera whose incredible sensor makes photos look like they were taken in daylight.

We waited for a tech to take us to the roof to measure the cupola. He never arrived. Maybe the thought of crawling around on the roof in pitch darkness was the scariest thing about the house he could imagine.

3:00 am came sooner than I wanted it to, but I felt pretty certain that we had gotten the most important information.

Was it a spooky experience? The only thing I was afraid of was that the next day I would realize I’d missed a critical dimension.

Next post I’ll talk about how we integrated all that data into the backlot build. Hint- sometimes proportion is not your friend.

The Digital Bookshelf – “Plastering Plain And Decorative”

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My preference for books is always a hard copy, but sometimes having easy access to the information is more important than having a physical book, especially when copies of the actual book are impossible to find or really expensive.

That’s the case with this book, Plastering Plain and Decorative. First published in 1890, the book has become known as “The Plasterer’s Bible”. Now out of print, except for the occasional third-party reprint, it went through four editions. It contains hundreds of black & white photographs and drawings which aren’t always of a very good quality with most of the modern reprints, usually because they are printed in a smaller size than the original quarto size and because the scan quality of the original images is bad.

On top of not being of a very good quality, they are also nearly as expensive as an original copy, which would be a better bet as those are stitched like a traditional book and not perfect-bound (glued edges) like all soft cover books are. I have seen so-so quality reprints go from anywhere from $100 to $300.

Fortunately there is an inexpensive (free) copy of the book online at the Internet Archive. This isn’t just a book of nice drawings and photos, this is a book written for crafts people. Besides the layout diagrams, there are drawings of the actual tools used to create complicated plaster elements and a huge list of plaster types as well as the ingredients and mixtures used to create them in various time periods, such as instructions on what type of animal hair to use in the staff pieces for strength. It is an early edition of the book and contains over 700 pages which is more than is included in later editions.

The book covers not just typical plasterwork but, sculpting, mold making, terra cotta work, scagliola, sgraffito, and composite decorations. Besides Western European techniques it examines designs and techniques from Japan, China, India, Persia and the Middle East.

There is also a section on concrete work such as staircases, sidewalks, road, roofs, fountains, and other decorative elements.

You can find the digital book here at The Internet Archive. There are a number of different digital files available for download with varying file sizes depending on the quality of the images you want to have available.

Now In Print – The Art Of The Hollywood Backdrop

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The Art Director’s Guild sponsored a book signing event at their gallery space in North Hollywood yesterday, with co-author Karen Maness on-hand to sign copies of the new book, The Art Of The Hollywood Backdrop.

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The book is a cooperative project between the authors, Karen Maness and Richard Isackes and the Art Director’s Guild. With a focus on hand-painted rather than photographic backings, the book traces not only the history and development of backdrops through Hollywood films but the artists who have developed the techniques used and who have passed along that knowledge to successive generations of scenic artists.

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The event was well attended by not only Guild members but by members of the Strang family and the Coakley family of J.C. Backings, the two families which have not only dominated the field in Hollywood but have been the biggest promoters and curators of the art form.

The Coakley family and fellow artists of J.C.Backings

The Coakley family and fellow artists of J.C.Backings

 

 

Co-author Karen Maness graciously signed books all afternoon.

Co-author Karen Maness graciously signed books all afternoon.

This is a big book, and I say that in every sense of the word. Larger than a quarto format at 11 x 14 inches, the hard-cover and cased edition is 352 pages long and weighs in at 13 pounds. Filled with crisp images of both black and white and full-color backings, the photos show the backings not only in a straight-on form but in the environment that they were meant for.  It’s filled with stills from the original films as well as set stills showing them in relationship to the sound stages and the companion scenery.

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dsc_0032This book will definitely appeal to film lovers who have very little understanding of film scenery and stagecraft as well as film professionals who have many films to their credit.

It is available for order through the publisher’s website and will soon make it’s way into bookstores. If you are still making that holiday gift list, this is definitely a book that will have huge appeal to anyone who loves movies. Read an excerpt here, and you can order the book here from Regan Arts.

 

The Measuring Tool At The End Of Your Arm

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I like photographing architectural details. But they’re only really useful if I have a scale in the photo. Measurements written down in a journal somewhere are bound to get separated or lost and the photo won’t do me much good if I want to replicate the detail. I rarely carry a tape measure with me all the time and usually carry a small paper ruler in my wallet, but that often gets lost of left behind.

When those times occur where I need a scale in the photo, i just use my hand. It’s handy because it’s always with me, I know how big it is and I can always refer to it later when I’m scaling the photo. It’s my built-in story-stick.hand photos_1

The hand has been a measuring device for thousands of years and is still used as a measure of the height of  horses in the U.S. and UK. The hand’s width was standardized at 4 inches by Henry VIII in the 16th century, the hand’s breadth, (just across the 4 fingers) at 3 inches, making the average finger width 3/4″.

hand measurements_1

The first joint or distal phalanx makes a handy scale for small details as well.

finger photos_2

And don’t forget your shoe makes a good scale object too.

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So what do you do with these? How do you translate these into working documents? Next time I’ll explain the basics of scaling from photos using dividers.

But in the mean time, this video by writer and woodworking instructor Jim Tolpin and animator Andrea Love gives a great intro into designing with hand and body proportions.

 

 

For more on proportional design, get Jim and George Walker‘s book, By Hand & Eye from Lost Art Press. George also writes a great blog on design you can find here.

And if you want some hands-on help, Jim will be teaching a class based on By Hand & Eye at the Port Townsend School Of Woodworking on March 21-22.

-Randall Wilkins

Historical Moulding Catalogues For Download

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1938 moulding

Chris Schwarz over at Lost Art Press posted a blog entry yesterday with links to three moulding catalogues you can download. The catalogues range from a 1938 catalogue using the old Universal system where the profile numbers were a fairly universal ( at least within the U.S.) numbering system called the 8000 system. The original numbering system begun in the mid 1800’s used a three digit number starting with 1. You can see how the inventory of stock moulds changed over the years as manufacturers offered fewer and fewer profiles. The mid 1800’s catalogues included over 600 different profiles which would dwindle to less than 50 in many catalogues in the early 1950’s.

Here’s three examples that show the slow loss of the variety of stock stop moulds, the first from the 1890’s catalogue, the second from a 1938 catalogue and the last from a booklet from the 1960’s.

 

stops from the 1890 Universal catalogue

stops from the 1890 Universal catalogue

Stop profiles from a 1938 catalogue

Stop profiles from a 1938 catalogue

stop profiles from a 1960's catalogue

stop profiles from a 1960’s catalogue

You can read the blog article and download the catalogues at this link. Special thanks to Chris, Eric Brown and Thor Mikesell for sharing the research material.

Designing Without A Ruler – “By Hand & Eye” Explores Designing With Dividers.

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By Hand and Eye

There are a lot of design books published every year and occasionally a few get written that are actually worth buying. By Hand & Eye is one of those. It’s a book that delivers where a lot of others have gone and failed. Written in an easy, nonsense-free style, the book sets out to explain the “art” of designing with proportions rather than numbers. I’ve found that a lot of books on design tend to read more like a doctoral thesis than something that will actually explain the material in easily understandable language. By Hand & Eye succeeds because  authors Walker and Tolpin are actually practitioners of their craft rather than just writers. It’s like taking a film course from someone who’s actually made a film rather than just talk about it.

Lost Art Press is a relatively new publisher who’s books are primarily aimed at the traditional woodworking crowd but you’ll be missing out on some gems if you assume their books are only useful to furniture makers. Their books are quality products both in their content and their construction. These are not the cheap perfect-bound high-acid tomes that are the product of most publishers and will end up disintegrating on you shelves. (With that in mind, If you do happen to be a furniture and book lover, and the name Andre Roubo means anything to you, you need to must check this page out immediately.)

Jim Tolpin was the most familiar to me as I own a number of his other books, but George Walker is relatively new to the publishing world. George writes a blog called Design Matters which is a record of his journey in the search for understanding what makes for good design. He and Tolpin met several years ago and found they were both on the same path but had approached it from different directions; Walker from a preference for traditional furniture and Tolpin from a more modern bent. Both were determined to discover the “magic formula” that meant the difference between a chair or building being handsome or ugly.

What they discovered is that numbers don’t matter. In fact much of the time they just get in the way. Most of the treasured icons of furniture and architecture were made before the measured rule was in use. It was the divider that ruled rather than the inch or foot. And this system of working when far beyond architecture and furniture.

The exercises they outline are especially helpful if you have only worked on a computer as you’ll be forced to think purely about the design process without the intrusion of a ‘digital helper’. By learning to think proportionally you’ll approach design from a much less restricted footing. A lot of times computers just get in the way of good design instead of enhancing it. Once you stop using numbers and just concentrating on ratios you’ll realize you can make things much easier for yourself.

The book are also a great introduction to traditional geometry and proportion if you haven’t really studied it before or a great refresher if it’s been a while since you exchanged a mouse for a compass. They are developing a website for online access to exercises in the book and you can download some sample animations of the exercises from this web page. You can also read more about the book and download a sample chapter on this page.

While the book does concentrate on furniture design the information translates to everything else in the design world as most of the principals are found in classic architecture.

column cannon ship

For example, traditional sailing ships and cannon have a lot in common with the classical orders in that they were all based on a proportional system. This not only insured that all the moulds would be in proportion to the length of a cannon barrel but that the trunions would be sturdy enough to carry the barrels weight and that the wall thickness of the tube would handle the explosions of the powder charges. The ship’s rigging was based on a similar system. If you knew the mast length you could figure the thickness of the mast stays and the diameter of every piece of rigging on the ship, all without a calculator.

Even an entire structure could and can be built with just a stick and a piece of cordage. Take a hewn log cabin. The picture below illustrates the only drawing you need for a house. It would be scratched out in the dirt with the cord and stick using the cabin width as the main unit of measure.

cabin plan

The length is easily determined in relationship to the width, resulting in a 1.6 plan ratio. The wall height is determined as 5/8s of the width. The same length determines the diagonal roof line which results in a 3/8 rise or a 9/12 pitch. The intersections would be marked with stakes and used as a full size pattern for cutting the timbers and joints without having to use a bevel gauge or fuss with estimating angles.

By doubling the cord the lengths are easily halved into eighths. The metric system is good if you’re working with numbers, multiples of 2 are better if you are laying out a pattern with simple tools.

At one time or another you have probably struggled with a badly proportioned room without realizing it. If you have ever had to design a paneled room and find that it’s impossible to get the panel sizes to work out correctly from one wall to the next, it’s most likely because the room was designed to a bad proportion. Get the proportion of width to length wrong and period details become a nightmare.

By Hand & Eye is now available through the Lost Art Press website. You can order the book here for $34. Also, if you have a peculiar aversion to quality paper products there’s a digital edition available for $16.

Three Types Of Dividers You Should Own

Thinking that you don’t need dividers if you work on a computer is a real mistake. If you have a set of compasses, a set of proportional dividers and a set of equal-space dividers you can accomplish a lot of things in less time than it takes for you to start your computer.

Here are the three types of dividers you should have and where to find them.

Compasses / Dividers

There are a large number of compass and divider styles available. You need to find the best type to fit your work methods

There are a large number of compass and divider styles available. You need to find the best type to fit your work methods.

Dividers and compasses are both the easiest and cheapest of all three types to find and have the greatest variety. If you are just doing the exercises from the book or doing small design drawings on vellum you only need a typical compass. You don’t need to settle for a cheap office store/elementary school type, there are plenty of quality compasses available on Ebay for as little as a few dollars. Usually they will come as part of complete drafting sets, which aren’t a bad thing to own, but often you can find them as one-offs. A compass around 6″ in length should be all you need. If you are feeling like drawing something larger, you’ll need a beam compass. I own one like this which is the best I have ever found. It’s called a Feranco Beam Compass and it was made by a small firm in Cincinnati. They’re out of business but you can find them second hand. Or, you can use a metal straight edge with a set of trammel points like these.

Proportional Dividers

proportional dividers come in a number of styles, most will work for design except for the type manufactured for nautical calculations.

proportional dividers come in a number of styles, most will work for design except for the type manufactured for nautical calculations.

These are definitely more expensive than a set of dividers but are a huge time saver if you are trying to scale a drawing to a different size or want to design to a giver proportion. The cost for a set of these will run anywhere from $30 to $300 depending on the vintage and make. The pair on the left are a 1810 pair made in London. The legs are of iron which are dove-tailed into the German silver body. The tolerances are very tight on these dividers and they stay put when you set them which is often a problem with cheaper dividers. The vintage sets have points which are triangular in shape and come to a very sharp point, which they need to be. Dull points require tuning with a very fine file or emery cloth. This should be avoided if possible because the accuracy depends on the lengths of the legs being a definitive ratio to each other. The modern sets have round pins which come to a point. The advantage of this being that if the dividers are dropped the pins can be replaced, something impossible with traditional sets.

The vintage sets came in two types: standard or second quality in which the indicators ‘Lines’ and ‘Circles’ are engraved on the front, and first quality in which besides these the indicators ‘Plans’ and ‘Solids’ are engraved on the reverse side. For 2D line work you only need the first two indicators. Also, when you are looking for a used set, be sure that one of the indicators does not say ‘Speed”. These are a pair made for nautical use and won’t be very useful for our purposes.

The better quality sets had designations for solids and planes which are for volumetric calculations

The better quality sets had designations for solids and planes which are for volumetric calculations

When you set the dividers to a ratio, the difference in distance between the longer and shorter legs will mirror this. Set the ‘Line’ scale to 8 and then spread the long set of legs along a straight line. The distance between the short legs will be 1/8th the distance. The same method works with circles. Set the scale to , say 5, and them spread the long legs across the diameter of a circle. You ‘walk’ the legs around the circumference of the circle to divide it into 5 equal segments.

The '10' setting under circles gives you the ratio for the Golden Proportion.

The ’10’ setting under circles gives you the ratio for the Golden Proportion.

If you like designing to the Golden Proportion, you can set the Circle scale to ’10’ and you will have a proportion of 1.618 between the two sets of legs.

Equal Space Dividers

Equal space divider come in two sizes: 6" and 12"

Equal space divider come in two sizes: 6″ and 12″

This type of divider is the most expensive of the three, but for scaling or proportion work from drawings or photographs they are impossible to beat. These are the dividers I use the most of all I own and if I lost them I’d have to replace them immediately, despite the steep price. I bought my set decades ago for $130, new now they list for $350. Ouch. My 12″ set were handmade my Alteneder & Sons in Philadelphia and are collectors items. You may get lucky and find a pair on Ebay. New, a 12″ pair runs from $400 to $500. I’d recommend finding a second-hand pair but make sure the tips are not bent or the accuracy will be nil. These dividers are sometimes referred to as 10-space or 11-point dividers. Check the Ebay sites in Britain and Canada. I’ve seen them show up there as well.

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With these dividers you can very quickly divide a space into as many as 10 units. I used to use them mainly for laying out stairs or room paneling but now they are irreplaceable for scaling off a photograph or drawing while simultaneously drafting on the computer. Trying to scale the material from the computer screen while doing this would be much slower. For the times I do have an image in digital form and need to scale from the screen, I’ll flip a piece of acetate over the monitor to keep the sharp teeth from scratching the screen. It’s fun to watch people with expensive monitors see me do this and gasp in horror.

The HMS Bounty And The Blockbuster That Was Never Made

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The Bounty in 2010. photo by Ebyabe

On October 29, as Hurricane Sandy bore down on the U.S. east coast, a distress call went out to the Coast Guard from the crew of the HMS Bounty. The ship was four days into a bid to avoid the ship being destroyed in harbor by the storm. The captain had decided that the best way to save the ship was to go to sea and sail around the hurricane. Now being swamped by 30 foot waves, the crew was forced to abandon ship. The captain and one of the crew were lost at sea before the remainder of the crew were rescued by Coastguard helicopters. Hours later I saw a photo of the ravaged ship as it went down, its’ mast tops shredded and its’ yards torn away.

The HMS Bounty goes down off the coast of North Carolina. Photo by Petty Officer 2nd Class Tim Kuklewski/ /U.S. Coast Guard via Getty Images

I looked at it and remembered climbing the shroud lines up to the main mast top and looking out to sea almost exactly 18 years before while surveying the ship for a film. It was to be a remake of the classic Errol Flynn pirate film, Captain Blood, and it would have been the most expensive film made to date. But the films fortunes were as bad as those of the Bounty turned out to be.

The HMS Bounty’s Rebirth

The ship was commissioned by MGM in 1960 for the 1962 film Mutiny On The Bounty starring Marlon Brando. Built in Nova Scotia, it was the first large vessel built using original ship’s plans. To make allowances for shooting and to hold a larger crew, the ship’s deck length was increased from nearly 91 feet to 120 feet with the beam, masting and rigging increased in proportion to the new hull length. Once the film was completed, the studio had planned on burning the ship but Brando protested and the Bounty ended up in Florida. It went through several owners before Ted Turner bought the ship and in 1993 donated it to an educational foundation where it was sent to a new home port in Falls River, Massachusetts.

dock in 1994

Bounty in dry dock in 1994

When we went to survey her in 1994, she was on the rails in dry dock, a number of her futtocks were in need of replacement but we were assured the work would be completed in time for filming. Three of us crawled all over the ship the entire day, taking measurements, hundreds of photographs and video to document the existing structure for as-built drawings. Since the story of Captain Blood takes place in the 1680’s, over 100 years before the original Bounty, the ship was to be converted to an earlier vessel which meant applying a different stern, rigging and bow.

The ship still had most of it’s original fittings including the brick oven and the hand grained paneling below deck. Other than the repairs on the futtocks, she seemed still intact after over 30 years of sailing.

View from the main mast top. Photo- R.D. Wilkins

View from the main mast top. Photo- R.D. Wilkins

The Bounty's brick oven. photo - R.D. Wilkins

The Bounty’s brick oven. photo – R.D. Wilkins

The crew mess area. photo - R.D. Wilkins

The crew mess area. photo – R.D. Wilkins

hand-grained partitions below deck. photo-R.D. Wilkins

hand-grained partitions below deck. photo-R.D. Wilkins

Survey photo of the fore bits. photo - R.D. Wilkins

Survey photo of the fore bits. photo – R.D. Wilkins

The great wheel and binnacle. photo - R.D. Wilkins

The great wheel and binnacle. photo – R.D. Wilkins

View of the stern from the main top. photo - R.D. Wilkins

View of the stern from the mizzen top. photo – R.D. Wilkins

Drawing done from survey measurements in 1994. R.D. Wilkins

Drawing done from survey measurements in 1994. R.D. Wilkins

Period rigging details

Period rigging details for Bounty conversion.

Captain Blood Sails Again

Back in Los Angeles, design work proceeded under the leadership of Production Designer William Creber, who had been nominated for Oscars three times before. The Set Decorator was Eddie Fowlie, David Lean’s right-hand man who had done props and sometimes effects as well for the classic films, Lawrence of Arabia, and fulfilled five different roles on Doctor Zhivago as well as other films. When asked by the studio which credit he wanted for Zhivago, he first replied he didn’t care but decided on a special effects credit since it had involved the most work. He later wished he had picked another title since the effects were so good they were virtually ignored. It appeared to all that the film was made in snow in winter when it was actually shot in Spain, with thousands of tons of cheap marble dust used as snow. The beautiful winter ice palace interior was actually carefully applied paraffin. He had come out of retirement to do the picture, leaving his home in Spain. We were all a bit in awe of both of them, particularly Eddie given his pedigree with Lean. The director had just had his last film explode at the box-office and was the hot ticket in town. The scripts scribes were equally hot commodities and had recent successes of their own.

The plan was to do a remake of the popular Errol Flynn film from 1935, even though the common thought at the time was that pirate movies didn’t make money, (Jerry Bruckheimer would prove this wrong a few years later.) Popular yes, profitable no, This was mainly because of the cost involved in making them. Besides being a period film, it would involve creating a huge 17th century battle, creating at least four different period sailing ships and recreating a large section of the town of Port Royal. The initial projected budget suggested that it would be possibly the most expensive film made to date. That being the case, there were only a few stars that the studio was willing to gamble their money on, and the first choice was Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Proposed artwork for a promotional poster for the film.

Proposed artwork for a promotional poster for the film.

I was eager to quiz Eddie about his time with David Lean but he seemed a bit aloof and obviously did not suffer fools gladly. So, I thought I would offer something he would find useful. I brought in a rare out-of-print set of books from my library of which part was an inventory of ships of the period. One section listed every piece of equipment you could find aboard with illustrations and measured drawings, a Set Decorators dream. He looked up at me over the top of his glasses when I entered his office. “Eddie, I thought these might be a good reference for you”, I said as I laid the books open in front of him.

His jaw dropped slightly as he silently thumbed through them for several minutes. Without looking up he said, “Where did you get these wonderful books?” Then he said it reminded him of how he had done the props for Lawrence Of Arabia. He had an illustrator do a drawing of each piece he needed. The he posted them on his wall and would bring the various local artisans to his office, point to the drawings and indicate how many he needed.

I realized why you could never make a film like Lawrence today the same way and why the Art Departments of the period were so small. Today something like a camel’s saddle would be drawn in multiple versions by several illustrators, modeled in Rhino or Modo by as many as three different set designers, rendered, redesigned, remodeled, re-rendered, finally approved by the director, and only then would a set of working drawings be made. Eddie just found a person who understood what it was he wanted, gave him a sketch and told him how many he needed. But this was a time when directors hired people they trusted and let them do their job. They understood that THEIR job was defining the story and script and concentrated on camera placement and performance and didn’t involve selecting drawer hardware.

After that Eddie would chat about he times with Lean in the afternoons at tea time, which didn’t involve tea for Eddie, who preferred beer. He’d found a local shop in Santa Monica that carried imported beer, so each day when we’d walk to lunch, ( those were the days when we actually stopped for a proper lunch and didn’t eat hunched over our desks ) we would buy him two cans of his favorite beer.

drawing for 18 pounder cannon tubes. At over 9 feet long, these were even shorter than the largest guns.

Drawing for 18 pounder cannon tubes. At over 9 feet long, these were even shorter than the largest guns to be made.

drawing of gun equipment

drawing of gun equipment

One day one of the producers was talking about the ship cannons and I showed him a mock-up of the cannon shot for the large 32 pounder cannon. He frowned as he took the 6 1/2 inch diameter ball and said it seemed puny. I walked him around the corner to where I had taped a full size silhouette of the gun that fired it, which was over 10 feet long and more than 4 feet high. He was shocked. It was then that I made the mistake of mentioning that the opening battle scene was based on a real battle, the Battle of Sedgemore in 1685. He looked surprised and said, “you’re kidding?” I said that not only was that based on history but the main character was also based on a real man named Henry Pitman. “That’s fantastic!” he said. I’m sure in his head he could see that sought-after card ‘based on a true story’ in the title sequence at the front of the film.

This revelation caused a lot of excitement and they asked me to do a little presentation for the director and producers about the real events behind the film. A few days later when I began the presentation, the enthusiasm quickly died. As I told them the real story it became readily apparent that serious liberties had been taken in Sabatini’s original book and worse, the events portrayed in the script didn’t match the real story either. The carefully crafted battle scene that took place at night in the swirling snow had actually happened in the middle of July where heatstroke would have been more a likelihood than frostbite.

It was then that I realized two important truths about the film industry;

1. – Working on a film about a subject you know a lot about is usually a very frustrating and ultimately disappointing experience.

2. – If someone, other than the Production Designer, says they want to know what it really was or looked like, it doesn’t necessarily mean they’ll change what they already have in their mind.

Most people just want research that is going to confirm or validate what they already have in the script or the image they have in their head. Maybe that’s human nature but it’s the same reason composers hate the temp music used during editing. After months of hearing a tune connected to a picture the director will end up wanting something “just like that tune”. It’s almost routine for a director to question a designer’s design choice by demanding to see research. And then when the image which validates the design is produced, the director will insist, “well, I still want my version instead.” Research that doesn’t validate their own ideas is worse than useless to them because it just points out their own ideas are many times based more on Hollywood clichés than reality.

Everything was proceeding nicely when we be can to hear rumblings that Schwarzenegger was thinking about pulling out of the movie. It was rumored that he had an extended ski trip planned that conflicted with the schedule. Someone else suggested that he was worried he would look ridiculous in 17th century knee breeches. For whatever the reason, a week later it was confirmed that he had pulled out of the picture. The momentum slowed to a crawl. With a picture this large, particularly a picture partly shot at sea, the weather plays a large role. If the schedule was pushed we would be into hurricane season in the tropics and that was something the studio didn’t want to contemplate. Another actor would have to be found and fast.

Because of the estimated budget, the studio sent a list of just five other actors that they considered to be enough of a box office draw to make the film feasible. I leave it to you to guess who those five were. As the week went by, each actor on the list passed until there was just one who had yet to decide.

In my naiveté, I had regularly been collating and forwarding research from my library that I though would be useful but never got a response about it. As each script revision happened it became apparent that it was being tailored to Arnold’s action hero persona with ever greater feats of daring and super-human agility. That last Friday, I got a call from the director’s assistant. She asked if I could send her additional copies of the all the research I’d been sending over to the director saying that the originals had been ‘lost’. The director was scheduled to leave on a plane for Paris that evening and wanted to take the research with him. It turns out the actor who was the film’s last hope was interested, but only if it was going to be a historically motivated picture. I wasn’t sure how they were going to explain why the script was so different from the research.

I don’t think I need to tell you what the actor’s decision was.

Understanding Model Scales – A Comparison Study

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Comparative Scale Figure Diagram – You can download a pdf copy of this diagram below.

Even with the large number of computer 3D modeling programs available to designers, there is  (and I think always will be)  a place for physical scale models. Although the modeling programs continue to produce more and more realistic looking images, they are still only a 2D image that utilizes correct perspective. And even the programs or systems that are ‘true 3D’ are really only offset 2D images meant to trick the mind into thinking it’s seeing a dimensional physical shape.

Some of the advantages of a physical scale model are:

-The physical size of a set are much easier to grasp than from a digital model where you can zoom in endlessly.  I once built a model of an area of geography that the producers couldn’t seen to understand exactly how big an area it was until I put in the final piece, a model of the 260 foot ship they planned to use for a crew base. The huge ship measured only 3/16″ in the model scale. They got it instantly.

-A number of people are able to simultaneously view the model and discuss it. A lot of revelations often come from being able to look at a model from many different angles at once.

-The brain isn’t spending effort trying to do the mental tricks required to process fake 3D images. The model is somehow “more real”, because it is.

The Diagrams

I created the chart above as well as the list below from many years worth of notes and scribbles. The calculations are mine so any mistakes are solely mine as well. The visual chart will give you an easy way of determining the size of figures in the various scales that will be most common to concept models.

The list describes what I think are the most useful model sizes  from 1:700 to 1:6 with inch equivalents for each scale as well as the length of a linear foot and meter for each as well. The last column gives the common uses for the scale to help you determine what products exists for purchase. The Size Chart also lists the most common Imperial and metric drawing scales so you can find the model sizes that most closely match.

Determining The Size Of Your Model

Your first calculation will probably be how large the overall model needs to be. You’ll want the model to be as detailed as possible but probably won’t want it to take up and entire room. Using the Size Chart, multiply the overall actual size of the area you need to cover by the foot or meter equivalents and then determine which scale is best for the space you have available. Also note that 1/32 and 1:32 refer to the same scale.

Next, determine what model items exist in that scale. For the most variety in objects and vehicles, stick with the train gauge scales. If you need a lot of detailed plastic trucks or cars, 1/24th scale is going to probably be best, which is also the same as 1/2″ to the foot and is close to the German “G” train gauge.

Download The Files Here

Comparative Scale Figure Diagram

When you print this diagram, be sure that you print it at 100%. Check the inch and metric scales to be sure it is at full size for an accurate representation.

Other Articles

For more information, you can refer to the following articles:

List Of Scale Model Sizes

Combining Figures With Models

Converting Scale Ratios

Finding The Right Scale For Your Model