A long, long time ago I promised to make a study of the original Winter drawings of the Hohenzollern model and present the outcome here. So here it is. For now I want to restrict myself to the shape of the main frame of the model, frame 17. This is the only frame for which Winter gives the 'Anstieg', the inclination of the hull. What did I do? I scanned the Wagner drawing from the book and inserted the scan in my drawing program. I traced the waterlines and the shape of frame 17. Then I inserted points for the values Winter gives on the several waterlines. After that I inserted Winter's sketch into my drawing program and traced the 'Anstieg' and the shape of frame 17, up until waterline 8. Then I scaled Winter's sketch to make sure that the width on waterline KWL was the same as in Wagner's drawing. Then I placed Winter's scaled sketch over Wagner's drawing. I used the intersection of the frame with the keel as a reference point for that. The result can be seen in the sketch below.
In blue the shape according to Wagner. In magenta the points according to Winter's values. In green the 'Anstieg' or inclination of the frame. In red the tracing of Winter's sketch. The 'Anstieg' makes an angle of 9,25 degrees with the horizontal. When we insert an inclination line for the Wagner drawing, it makes an angle of 13 degrees with the horizontal.
My research has led me to believe that Frame 17 is missing from the Wagner plans in the book completely. What is labelled as 17 at the bow frames should actually be 21 and 17 at the stern Frames should be 13 (though it could also be missing 15 too). If you flip both halfs of 17 from the book on top of each other you will see they don't line up. My cad-programme tells me that the Anstieg at Frame 17 in the detailed cross section by Winter is 10°, on my model it's 11.
Thanks for sharing the results of your research here. If I understand correctly you used one of Wagner's frames 17 as frame 21 and the other as frame 13, and you used Winter's sketch for determining the shape of the new frame 17. I know you changed the shape of the transom according to the photo of the model, and by consequence had to change the shape of two frames. I believe that you used the Wagner drawing for the shape of the rest of the frames. Did you use the Winter offset values at all for your reconstruction, or did you just stick to the Wagner plans? I am asking because Werner Bruns tried to make a reconstruction of the model by using the Winter offset values, and he had to give up because of lacking information. If you want to know the details, have a look at his website: www.werner-ulrich-bruns.de. One more question. You decided to increase the elevation of the main frame from 10 to 11 degrees. Was this done to achieve better fairing with the adjacent frames, or was there another reason?
Thanks for your reply and the explanation why you chose the 11 degrees inclination for your model. It's a pity you can't remember which Wagner-frame went where. That might have been useful information for other model builders. Since the Wagner plans are unreliable, and the extra information the Winter data provides is insufficient, I think we have to conclude that we will never know what the hull of the original model exactly looked like. What a shame. So much time and energy invested in taking the lines of the model, and it has all gone to waste because of poor data registration. I guess it must be bitter for all the people that built a model according to the Wagner plans, that they were not successful at recreating the lines of the original model. I guess Werner took the 13 degrees from the Wagner plans for granted, and used that angle for his reconstruction. I pointed out to him that Winter gives a lesser value, but, for reasons of his own, he stuck to the 13 degrees.
I think we need to be grateful for what Heinrich Winter did. We have to take several factors into account: A: he was working alone and B: the model was taken away from him as the bombing of Berlin increased. I think that we can get pretty close to the original hull with the information we have, but we will never get it spot-on! Without Winter's legacy we would be miles away from that.
I think we have to be grateful for what Winter tried to do. He recognized the importance of the model, and tried to determine its lines. Very admirable. But, whatever the reasons, what he has left us, is simply not enough to come to a good reconstruction of the lines of the original model. I think we simply have to come to terms with this. And that's also the reason why I do not understand your conclusion that 'we can get pretty close to the original hull'. I do not want to get into a discussion about the definition of the description 'pretty close', but how can you tell you're copy is 'pretty close', when you don't know what the original actually looked like? Maybe an explanation for the difference in our point of views is that we're not talking about the same material that Winter has left us. Maybe you simply are in the posession of more material than I am. I surely hope so.
Maybe you simply are in the posession of more material than I am. I surely hope so.
How can you say :"...when you don't know what the original actually looked like?" I would say that about 80% of the hull has been measured fairly accurately, all I am planning to do is to build as good a model as I can with the material that Winter left us.