Simply brilliant Norm👍👍👍
What else can I say!😮

Chalk it up Gadies and Lentlemen, your blabbermouth Admiral is speechless🙊
😎

Hiya.
If you check out EBay under stud like chain there is plenty on there of various sizes and cost.
Hope that helps.
Regards Bill.

Thanks mate. At present no-one seems to have any stud link chain in stock. Have finalised the boats - 3 cutters, 3 whalers, 1 motor launch and a dinghy - see pic

Jeez! You do come up with 'em don't you Norm!?😮
Testing me again?😉
Best I can do is the attached two pics.
One showing Rainbow, the other HMCS Niobe of the same era. Both at anchor with detail of the bow.
Incidentally; Niobe preceded Rainbow as the first HMCS ship by just two weeks.
Both pics seem to show the chain links as being as near as dammit the same length as the inner diameter of the portholes.
So I reckon if you take that as your guideline you won't be far wrong.👍
Cheers, Doug 😎
https://www.cnrs-scrn.org/northern_mariner/vol16/tnm_16_3_33-51.pdf

Hi Doug,
Have a measurement problem. How long would anchor chain links have been in the early 1900s? I would assume about 18"?

I have given Rainbow two cutters and two whalers, and think will add one 30ft launch and a sixteen foot dinghy. Does this sound about what she would have carried?

Aha! Cleaned me glasses and enlarged the photo!🤓
Now I see it, gun barrel hidden under the deck.
And the 'bar' is the outboard deck support.
Very good Chief👍
😎

Look carefully and you will see the gun shield underneath the raised deck. I have them facing fore and aft, so no barrel protruding.

With regard to the workmanship Martin I agree with you.
But I know from helping with research for his previous models that Norm is a stickler for details, as far as humanly possible! 😉

Norm: that reminds me!
Have we seen any pics of your completed Dreadnought!?
Cheers, Doug 😎

Hi Gdaynorm,
Ref "but probably best I can do."
You have done an excellent job there is absolutely nothing wrong with it.
Well done.

Martin555.

Looks good Norm 👍
But where are the 6 (or 12) pounders?
Or is that the forward boat?
Under which there is no gun.
AH! No can't be. Must be the midships boat cos it's on the raised deck section.
But what's that bar arrangement under it which will get in the way of the gun?
Doug 😎
BTW: the decks are superb👍👍
How on earth did you do the swing around the catwalk??😮

I've done one boat and falls, with rudimentary winches, see pic. Obviously winches will be painted. Not really happy with it, but probably best I can do.

I agree Norm,
Electric motors must have been few and far between in 1890, and pretty rudimentary and feeble. Doubt they had the guts to lift much.
I reckon they used lots of bods on the ropes.
Or Royal's tip of a central or under-deck steam winch.
I can't see any machinery under or around the boats and they surely wouldn't want to hamper the secondary gun crews with deck clutter.
Don't forget that the davits can be swivelled to turn the boats outboard!
Clearly visible in some of the photos showing some in some out.
Not sure how that worked though!?🤕
Carry on CPO, good work so far👍
Cheers, FLEET// 😎

Thanks for all the thoughts! I rather doubt they would have been electrically driven then? I think I will simply give her a simple drum winch to be operated by hand. As they will be almost invisible on the model anyway, I'll have to let them go at that. Going to be tricky running the falls round them!

Coming along brilliantly Norm, as expected👍
Apropos boat winches:-
Enlarging all available photos, including of the museum ship, as far as possible without being left with a pile of pixels🤔, I can't see any machinery under or near the davits. So if there was a winch it must have been under deck. So unless you're fitting glass decks forget 'em!😁
What I CAN see are the 6 pounders under the boats, 2 each P&S.
So don't forget the gun slits (embrasures)for them. See note below re these guns!
In one photo in the links below they show up like arrow slits in an old castle!

The DDE/DDH Royal mentions are from a very different era. Rainbow is from an era where ships had very large crews compared with later generations. So muscle power was available in abundance.
The centrally located winch is a good tip though. Might have been one but impossible to tell from the photos.
Another case of "yer pays yer money and ...."
Cheers, Doug 😎
Note:
If you are building the RCN version as of 1912 Norm then consider this-
"Before departing Great Britain (in 1910), the ships required alterations to make them suitable for training. This required new heating systems, an up-to-date galley, the latest in Marconi wireless, the enlargement of the cadet gunroom and principal messes and the removal of the obsolete secondary armament." I.e. the 4.7s!!
Odd! Attached pics purports to be Rainbow in North Vancouver 1910, with the 4.7s still in evidence!!??🤔 Maybe they were replaced with a newer version? Unclear!
Also-
"In 1911, the cruiser had her 6-pounder guns removed and replaced with QF 12-pounder 12 cwt naval guns." See attached pic. This was a 3" (76.2mm. Sound familiar? Oto Melara?😁)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QF_12-pounder_12_cwt_naval_gun

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMCS_Rainbow_(1891)

Can't answer specifically and information hard to dig up. However, I have had some experience with electrically driven winches.

Just a thought or two. My educated guess would be a centrally located steam driven or hand operated winch. The various boat could recovered using a rope / pulley configuration to accommodate.

Onboard DDE/DDH (RCN) a electrically driven winch was used to recover the Ship's Boats. Winch was centrally located for use on both Port and Stbd sides of the ship. If the winch was unavailable, the muscle power of about 40 people would be used to raise the boat by rope and hand.

May not be what you are looking but should help in thinking though the problem.

By the way I am impressed with your choice of ship to build and will follow with interest.

Hi Doug,
She is coming along, albeit slowly - see pic. Do you know if in 1912 would they have used a winch with the boat davits? Have to probably make twelve, and they will hardly be visible!

"but am still surprised at wooden doors"
Well Norm, I guess this was around the period of transition from the Ironclads; black / white with yellow funnels (😮) and brass and wood all over the place!
Cheers, Doug 😎

What I thought, but am still surprised at wooden doors. Whatever, they look nicer, give a bit of colour to a warship.

Hi Norm,
If that's a true model, which museum models usually are, - at least 'as built or as taken over', - then it looks like all the doors were wooden. Also on the aft cabin.
Cheers Doug 😎
BTW: Don't forget the hinged gunnels for the 4.7s 😉

Yes it is. Will post a couple of pics.

Can't say Norm, not really my era, but here's a few more pics and a source you might find useful. You may be right about the doors, considering the dark colour shown in some of these images. Cheers, Doug 😎
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:HMS_Rainbow_(ship,_1893)

Thanks. Will give that a try. Do you think it likely she had wooden doors to the aft bridge structure?

G'day Norm,
Guess you might know this source - but just in case ...😉
https://www.nauticapedia.ca/Gallery/Rainbow.php
That 1/48 model must look pretty spectacular at 2m !!
Cheers, Doug 😎