User:Grieg2

Grieg2

My user name refers to Edvard Grieg, one of my favourite composers.

Interests

My contributions on Wikipedia are primarily about:

Dutch history and local history
Rivers and hydraulic engineering (canals, locks)
Ships

Dutch history and local history

I created several pages about regional historic sites. E.g. about castles, churches, and other buildings. I generally start by selecting g a Dutch Wikipedia page for which I can find some open source references. I then rewrite the content in English based on references. If I cannot find a reference for part of the Dutch content I generally omit it. This is based on my experience that content without references generally contains many mistakes.

Castles

For castles, I try hard to bring the content to a higher level by finding maps, floor plans and the like. Most of these were made by government agencies, and have been released to the public domain. To the right is an archaeological floor plan of Haamstede Castle.

So far I did much work on these Zeeland castle pages:

Baarland Castle created
Haamstede Castle extended the stub to full article
Hellenburg created
Moermond Castle created
Oostende Castle created
Sabbinge Castle created
Saeftinghe Castle created
Sint-Maartensdijk Castle created
Windenburg created
Zandenburg created

Rivers and hydraulic engineering (canals, locks)

I created several pages about small rivers and brooks. Also about canals and locks.

Ships

Ship building

I like the technique of many aspects of old ship building. Constructing in wood and the different kinds of wood used. Fascinating that Scandinavian Oak was so important for building a ship. It meant that a ship could last for dozens of years, or would have to be broken up decades earlier. It was also important to take enough time to build a ship, so it did not rot. But, how much time?

Machinery

The technique of early steam ships, 2 cylinders of 1.66 m across, with 7 feet long pistons. Of course automobile technique is also interesting, but the scale and the challenge of early engine construction are different.

Cannon and armor

The effects of armor and cannon. If the timber of a wooden ship was thick enough, a ship could hardly be sunk by fire of smooth bore muzzle loading (SBML) guns alone. It would only surrender to such fire if it was enfiladed from the stern. In effect timber was armor until the grenade gun was invented. However, an SBML firing a solid shot has more range, so what do you use to silence a grenade gun? You use a traditional SBML with high caliber and elevation.