Standard Lii-r Half-Model With Fasteners Removed and the Lifts Slightly Spread. A quarter deck 

 rail lifl is shown. This model, in the author's collection, is of a Connecticut schooner, name unknown, of the 

 pilot-boat type, built at VVestbrook, Connecticut, about 1825-30. {Smithsonian photo 4^6o8~t.). 



The identification of rigs^cd models has caused little 

 difficulty for the few in the collection that are in 

 question are usually the result of attempts to "recon- 

 struct" some vessel without plans or precise knowledge 

 of the ship whose name was assigned to the model. 



Builder's half-models in the collection represent, in 

 many cases, very useful evidence of the trend of design 

 and the hull-form in certain classes of vessels. Since 

 photographs of such models are of little value, scale 

 drawings have been prepared of the more important 

 of these; the lines have been taken off by a simple 

 pantograph device that gives great accuracy if the 

 half-model is well made, and plans have been pre- 

 pared in the traditional manner, as though to be used 

 in building. In some cases the existence of rigged 

 models of these vessels has allowed much reconstruc- 

 tion in the plans, in others, paintings or photos have 

 been used for this purpose. Occasionally the deck 

 arrangement is marked on a model. 



Half-models were the common means used to design 

 American sailing vessels and boats, and are, in fact, 

 still is u.se in many boatbuilding centers. There are 

 three basic types of half-model: The lift model, the 

 block model, and the hawk's nest, or crow's nest, 

 model. 



LIFT MODELS 



The most common model in the Watercraft Collec- 

 tion is the lift model, which was also the last form of 

 builder's model to be developed as a practical aid to 



boat and vessel design. This form of model is made 

 up of horizontal planks or layers, each known as a 

 ■"lift"; these are temporarily fastened together to form 

 a solid block. The model was shaped from the block 

 so formed. Two New England cities, Salem and New- 

 buryport, Massachusetts, are claimed as the birthplace 

 of the lift model, which came into use about 1790- 

 95. The Salem claim is based on the half-model made 

 by Enos Briggs, about 1795, for the ketch Eliza; that 

 of Newburyport is based on a half-model, supposed 

 to have been made liefore 1796 by its noted ship- 

 builder Orlando Merrill, now in the collection of the 

 New York Historical Society. How'ever, it is possible 

 that the lift model was employed much earlier than 

 1795-96 and it may have been the result of a 

 gradual e\oluiion from a solid block model sawn 

 into vertical sections. Isaac Webb is reputed to have 

 introduced the lift model at New York. In early mod- 

 els the lifts were held together with wooden toggles 

 passed through holes and secured under and on top of 

 the model by small wedges, or the lifts were pegged 

 together with tapered dowels. After about 1820-25 

 the lifts were secured by iron screws, each lift being 

 fastened in turn to the one below. As a result, to 

 take the lifts apart it is commonly necessary to begin 

 with the uppermost lift. 



Various refinements in the lift model were employed; 

 for example thin veneer was sometimes inserted be- 

 tween each pair of lifts and shaped with the block. 

 Another refinement was to use alternate lifts of white 



