Bob Cleek

There's just no getting used to the level of detail at that scale which you are accomplishing with this model! It's a fascinating piece.

I believe there are a few kit manufacturers that have done this and sell kits with laser-cut wood for assembly. (See the "sponsors" list on the right side of the forum home page. E.g., Syren Ship Models and Vanguard Ship Models.) Syren Ship Models has a special "installment purchase" group build project for the frigate HMS Winchelsea (1764) going on at the moment. It's a beautiful model and extremely high quality. See: HMS Winchelsea (1764) by Chuck Passaro|A plank on Bulkhead scratch ship model project|32 gun English frigate (syrenshipmodelcompany.com) Syren Ship Model Company|Boxwood ship model rigging blocks|Ship Model rigging rope |turned brass cannon| Chuck Passaro There are a number of forum members doing CAD modeling and publishing their progress in CAD "build logs" which you can review to get a sense of what's involved in what you are asking about. I must confess that I am a "board and tee-square" draftsman and my knowledge of the CAD technology is general and theoretical, but not practical. As do some others, I find that the manual drafting techniques which I learned long ago in school continue to serve me well for my purposes. There are many advantages to CAD drafting, particularly in terms of presentation to untrained eyes. The ability to produce a 3D rotating projection of a shape as complex as a ship's hull that is instantly understood by any viewer is an amazing feature, as is the easy replication of various modifications in the design process. For those of us who were taught to "read" draughts and thus acquired the ability to "see in three dimensions" the shapes depicted in traditional orthographic projection the advanced features of CAD are "overkill" for modeling purposes. In fact, if you are contemplating creating a 3D CAD file of a particular historic vessel, you will have to learn to read the original orthographic projections in order to translate them for loading into your database anyway. (And from what I've seen looking over the shoulders of the CAD wonks who are doing that in this forum, translating draughts into CAD can be quite a challenging task that I've decided is beyond my ability to master in the time I have left in this life! ) To get as good an idea of what you are considering getting into, I suggest you read and follow "CDR Ret's" fascinating "build log" of his digital recreation of SS Galilee, an 1891 merchant brigantine designed by Matthew Turner beginning at: As for laser-cutting wooden parts for a model, I expect Chuck Passaro of Syren Ship Models knows as much about applying that technology to creating parts for ship models as anybody and he has addressed it in his many posts on this forum. I would only say that the specifics of laser-cutting technology are way above my pay grade, but I do know that the primary advantage of laser-cutting is in its ability to repetitively produce large quantities of identically shaped parts. This makes it particularly useful in the manufacturing of multiple ship model kits. On the other hand, if you are scratch-building a "one-off" model, getting out your shaped parts is faster and probably a lot more enjoyable doing it the old-fashioned way than spending hours and hours programming a laser-cutter to then burn the parts according to your data, after which you will have to sand the char off all the edges! As for basswood, I expect as you research your options based on the data here in this forum, you will conclude that it is not a prudent choice of species for the purpose you intend. While it's frequently used in lower- and middle-quality range model kits, and as a soft wood it is easily worked, it is really only suitable for painted finishes and presents finishing challenges even then. It is not suitable for fine carving work which requires a fine-grained hard wood such as box or apple, nor for planking that will be finished "bright" (showing the wood's natural color.) Given the sort of model you are interested in building, I expect you will conclude upon further analysis that there are other wood species that are more easily worked, stronger, and, if you intend to finish any of it bright, far more attractive than basswood. Think of it this way: basswood is like the wood 2X4 dimensioned construction lumber is made of and what you are contemplating building is a Steinway piano. (Don't let the cost of expensive finish wood species scare you off. A ship model requires so little of it that building with cheap wood is a foolish economy in the end.) I'm not trying to scare you off at all. I just want to give you what I hope is some direction for finding out what you will probably need to know to get where you want to go. There is always a tendency for newer modelers to "bite off more than they can chew" and there are some significant learning curves to be conquered before anyone can accomplish the incredible level of workmanship that can be seen from what some of the masters of the craft post in this forum. Very few of us will ever achieve such levels of artistic accomplishment, but we all can certainly try. The trick is not to be too hard on ourselves as we journey towards becoming better and better at it nor to discourage ourselves by unreasonable comparisons with prodigies. The greatest enjoyment in modeling ships is simply in the doing of the thing.

The notched covering boards are exquisite, especially at that scale! Bravo! Glad to hear you are doing well, also. We all worry about Ukraine.

They've been doing it for a long time here in the U.S., too. Thankfully, they haven't gone as far as "subscription heated seats," but my 2015 GMC Sierra pickup truck came with all the electronic "bells and whistles" including GM's automatic crash emergency reporting locater, GPS dash screen, Sirius internet radio, and so on. All I would have been interested in was the GPS, but it all came with the upgrade package, so I had to buy it to get the upgraded interior I wanted. The catch is that all those services are only included for the first year after you buy the vehicle. After that, they shut down and they start sending you solicitations to subscribe to keep them going. While the GPS still works, they want something like a hundred bucks a year to upgrade it to reflect map changes. I passed on that, and I'll take my chances. I can always use my smart phone GPS app if I end up "driving off the edge of the old map."

Looking at the three lines "hanging loose" at the bottom of the picture and identifying them by numbers one through three running from left to right, I believe the intended purchases will be realized if lines one and two are secured to a deck fastening, be that an eyebolt, cleat, or belaying pin (if such were in use in your period,) leaving line three as the fall or "heaving part," which would be run through the sheave in the knight's head post and lead away as convenient to permit a hauling gang to pull it horizontally in unison.

From your post, it's clear you are an experienced and quite competent painter, so I'm intrigued by your preference for natural bristle brushes, given your preference for water-based acrylic paints. I have always been under the impression that only synthetic brushes should be used for applying water-based coatings because water will soak into natural bristles and cause them to soften, thereby ruining the intended "snap" of the brush as well as it's shape when the water-soaked bristles swelled. This was a particularly hard and fast rule with high quality natural bristle brushes, which are quite expensive. Natural bristle brushes were only to be used with oil-based paints. My cousins were third generation commercial painters and they used to keep their high-quality Chinese boar bristle brushes under lock and key at the shop. Those were only issued to the union master painters who knew the difference and could be trusted not to use them for applying latex paint! How do your expensive sable hair brushes stand up to use in water compared to a similar grade of synthetic bristle brush? Do you notice any difference?

As said, the answer to "How do I paint my model?" is far too complicated to answer comprehensively in just a single forum post. We haven't even gotten past whether you've chosen wisely in wanting to use water-based acrylics rather than oil-based enamels. (Each has its own pluses and minuses.) Painting is one of the more demanding skills a ship modeler must acquire and in as much as it is one of those things that people think they know all they need to about, it's one which frequently brings one to unexpected grief if not done properly. Perhaps the first thing one must realize is that any paint job on a scale model must itself also be to the same scale as the model. In the scales we encounter in ship modeling, this means that the paint jobs have to be as near to perfect as possible. I would urge you to get a copy of the second volume of the Nautical Research Guild's book, Ship Modeler's Shop Notes, which has a chapter on how to paint ship models that is as good a treatment of the subject as I've ever seen. The rest of the book is full of similarly excellent trick of the trade. While you are at it, you might as well buy Volume I of the same publication. Once you see one of them, you'll want the other for sure. Used copies can sometimes be found on eBay, but a new copy can easily be obtained for a reasonable price from the NRG directly. See: Ship Modeler's Shop Notes, and Vol. 2 – Nautical Research Guild (thenrgstore.org) and Ship Modeler's Shop Notes, Vol. I – Nautical Research Guild (thenrgstore.org)

But then again, imagine wintering on the coast of Maine.

"Drowning it in paint" isn't a solution. As Jaager explained, "use filler and then paint." There is a variety of fillers on the market. You want one that is "fine grained." Something less coarse than just dry-wall mud. I use epoxy resin and sanding additive ("micro-balloons") for filling heavy imperfections like you have at present. The epoxy is a strong adhesive that adds structural strength to the assembled parts, as well. The epoxy with the sanding additive works very well but takes an overnight to cure sufficiently to sand. At that point, it sands like butter. Follow the manufacturer's instructions and mix the additive to yield a texture like soft peanut butter. Apply sparingly to minimize the work of sanding fair. More can be added to the first coat to fill missed divots if need be. Sand carefully using a flexible batten with sandpaper attached to achieve the fairness of the hull shape. Start with 220 grit sandpaper and work it down to 320 grit. The hull must be perfectly fair and "smooth as a baby's bottom." Epoxy resin is an expensive material, although there is a range of prices which reflect the old adage that you get what you pay for. (I don't recommend using any polyester fairing compounds, such as Bondo. I realize many modelers do, but Bondo is intended for application on sheet metal, not wood, and Bondo is hygroscopic which may promote deterioration in the wood.) WEST System is the "industry standard" and probably the most expensive epoxy brand on the market, but like Jello-brand "jello," it's the original and still the best. I use WEST epoxy because I've used it for fifty years and I'm used to how it reacts. Epoxy resin is a very handy and adaptable modeling material, useful as both an adhesive and a casting resin, although its archival qualities are as yet not entirely proven. Notwithstanding the cost of a "kit" of resin and hardener, it has a very long shelf life and you may wish to add it to your stock of modeling materials. Buying a small "kit" of resin and hardener is, in any event, vastly more economical than buying small tubes of epoxy and hardener off the blister pack rack at the hardware store. WEST System has written the "Bible" on epoxy applications, and it is available in PDF format at: WS-User-Manual-2020.pdf (westsystem.com) (WEST's well-known book, The Gougeon Brothers on Boat Consturction is also available for free in PDF format at; Form (hsforms.com) Amazon.com: FILLER MICROLIGHT 2 OZ : Automotive If you want to avoid taking the leap to epoxy technology, you can also attempt to achieve the same result using other surfacing putty alternatives. If small imperfections remain you can also use a fine-grained surfacing putty. This putty uses acetone as its solvent and dries very quickly as long as it isn't applied to thickly. (Store can tightly closed and lid-side down. If it thickens in the can, add a tablespoon or two of acetone, close the can and turn over. After sitting overnight, the putty should have absorbed the acetone and thinned. Don't try to stir the acetone into the thickened putty as this will only create lumps in the putty. There's no substitute for leaving the acetone in the closed can overnight to reconstitute the consistency of the putty.) Surfacing putty can be "built up," but applications of more than around 1/16" thick should be allowed to dry well before adding more to avoid shrinkage and cracking of the material. This stuff also sands very easily, as it is intended to do. I use Interlux Surfacing Putty because I'm familiar with it from years of using it in full-size yacht restorations and it's a staple that's always at hand in my paint locker. Unfortunately, like any material "with a boat on the label," it's costly. I'm sure similar surfacing putties can be sourced in any well-stocked paint store. (Here again, I'd steer clear of the polyester resin based automotive body and fender repair putties intended for application to sheet metal.) Amazon.com: Interlux Y257/PT Surfacing Putty - White, Pint : Interlux/AkzoNobel: Tools & Home Improvement Once you've completely filled every surface imperfection on your hull, you can then clean it well, brushing off the sanding dust well and then using a tack cloth (from any paint store) to get all the dust specs off the surface. It is very important to achieve a dust-free surface as much as is possible before painting. You must apply a base coat over surfacing putty to yield a uniform colored surface that will not "print through" your finish coats. Enamel "sanding base coats" (sometimes called "sanding primer coats,") are available which permit a final fine sanding before finish coats are applied. When your base (primer) coat is done and sanded perfectly and all dust tacked off, then you can go ahead and apply your finish coats as per the manufacturer's instructions. An airbrush is the easiest method for obtaining a perfect result. It can be done with a brush, but that requires a bit of experience and skill. It won't hurt to try. If you mess up with a brush, you can always sand the surface fair and try again!

I missed this thread the first time around, as well. I'm glad to hear of your successful surgical adventure. I thought of you the other day when Stad Amsterdam came into San Francisco. She'll be here in port for two or three weeks. I haven't gotten down to the dock to check her out. Maybe this week. Your latest model is wonderful and so's the photoshopped photography. What you accomplish working with cardstock is amazing.

The inherent ability of any artistic artifact to simply last is a question any artist or craftsperson who values their time eventually spends some time researching. No doubt there are those who can attest to their possessing plastic models that have lasted "over fifty years," but it would appear from the professional preservationists' literature that those items are flukes. Styrene plastics as we know them today have only been in routine production since the post-WWII period when the war-surplus polystyrene manufacturing plants were converted from their prior wartime production purposes. It was a short time thereafter than the term "plastic" became synonymous with "inferior" and "short-lived." Very roughly speaking, polystyrene plastic as an engineering material has a "shelf-life" of around twenty-five years. I don't know how old you are, but a lot of us "of a certain age" can attest with 20-20 hindsight that twenty-five years is a surprisingly short period of time! Regardless of how well "climate controlled" your acrylic case may be, you might want to reconsider an "acrylic case." If you want a maximum lifespan, you won't be using plain old "Plexiglass." Archival acrylic vitrine sheet display cases are custom fabricated (often using proprietary UV-curing adhesives) and are as much as four or five times the cost of a "clear acrylic" and for that you get a lifespan of ten to twenty-five years. Glass, while heavier and susceptible to impact breakage, is a lot less expensive and lasts virtually forever. This "cheat sheet" used by professional curators sets forth comparative archival strengths and weaknesses of various materials used in conservation and display of historic and artistic artifacts: Selecting Materials for Storage and Display | Conservation Center for Art & Historic Artifacts (ccaha.org) Most any paint is pretty tough stuff. As long as the pigments are high quality and not prone to fading, most all of the binders in use today, once they cure or polymerize, aren't going anywhere. The archival problems arise with the substrates upon which the paint is applied. They've made a lot of improvements in styrene plastics over the last half century or more since I was building plastic models in the late fifties and early sixties, but no matter how you cut it, plastic is polymerizing material that has a "half-life" as it were. Modern "polymerization inhibitors" can slow the process down, but they haven't found a way to stop it, as far as I know. The literature" suggests that if conserved under optimum conditions (which is a rather tricky thing to do) polystyrene plastic material can be expected to last as long as fifty or even sixty years, but this assumes proper conservation practices. There is a fair amount of information on the subject online. Under "average conditions," they say it's good for around ten years, although improper storage can accelerate deterioration to a "surprisingly short length of time." Paints and other coatings applied to plastic can negatively affect the longevity of the plastic through chemical interactions and this danger has to be assessed on a case-by-case basis. The general rule of thumb for plastics is that "If you can smell it, it will deteriorate." (Or, more accurately, "If you can smell it, it is deteriorating.") Many plastics and adhesive materials will release acidic gasses as they age, and these can wreak havoc with the lifespan of a model. Heat and UV light will usually accelerate a plastic's degradation. Unlike metal and wooden ship models, nobody expects a plastic ship model kit to last much longer than about fifty years at best. While everybody's own mileage will probably differ, I never could see the point of putting in the time to do a good job of rigging a complicated plastic square-rigger model that I knew was certain not to last any longer than that. These MSW articles lay out the basic considerations for maximizing the archival quality of a ship model: Nautical Research Guild - Article - Ephemeral Materials in Ship Models (thenrg.org) Nautical Research Guild - Article - Specifications for Construction of Exhibition Models of U.S. Naval Vessels (thenrg.org)

Modeler Tom Lauria has an excellent series of YouTube videos on modeling techniques. I highly recommend all of his videos to beginning modelers. He covers the basics in great detail. Here is his two-part video series on rigging blocks. These should answer your questions. "Part Two" below addressed how to make the older style rope-stropped blocks.

Wow! An animated online "knot board." Very cool!

YouTube has a lot of videos on the subject, some better than others: (62) knot tying for ship models - YouTube Also check out YouTube under "surgical instrument tying" and "surgical knot tying with instruments." There are relatively few knots that are requred. Once you've mastered a simple reef or square knot, a half hitch, and a clove hitch, and how to secure a line to a horned cleat you should pretty much have all you need. None are complex knots. You can find all of them demonstrated on YouTube.

I have three drawplates, one being the Byrnes Model machines one. All of them (except possibly the Byrnes... I'm not looking at it right now) have a chamfer on one side of the plate with a hole on the other side that is the indicated diameter. I believe that the "funnel" shape of the hole is for wire, with the wire going in the larger end. The wire is pulled through the "funnel" hole and is compressed as it goes through the "funnel" hole, gradually resulting in a narrower "extruded" length of wire. The "funnel" shape of the hole is for the purpose of "squeezing" the wire as it goes through, without regard for the wire being marred or cut. On the other hand, putting a piece of wood or bamboo through in the opposite direction, which causes the sharp edge of the narrow end of a hole to scrape the wood off, creating a narrower diameter as the process progresses through smaller and smaller holes, surely does easily cause the piece to break by any sharp flexion at the narrow end of the hole.

I have long been aware of the difference between metal-working drawplates and wood-working drawplates, but I've never seen the two distinguished in a catalog offering them for sale. I have always worked the "narrow side" of the holes on my drawplate by rubbing the "narrow side" on a sharpening stone. I've always drawn wire from the "wide side" of the plate holes so that the wire will be compressed and extruded as it is pulled through from the "wide side" to the "narrow side" of the holes. With wood, I pull the wood through from the "narrow side" of the holes (after pointing the end of the workpiece by rolling it on a piece of sandpaper) to the "wide side" so that the narrow side edge of the holes scrapes the wood off as it goes through. It works well enough. I'm wondering if you or anybody else knows if there's really a purpose-made draw plate for wood, particularly since there's such a wide range of jewelers' drawplate cross-section shapes once you get deep enough into the jewelry supply house catalogs. E.g., see: Drawplates & Drawbenches — Otto Frei The professional quality ones are scary-expensive, though.

Beautiful work!

These clamps look nice enough, but at five bucks apiece? Talk about inflation!

Exceptional! Thanks for sharing it with us.

I just noticed this thread, so I'm late to the party, but I saw your comment and thought it might be helpful to mention that the Byrnes saw's fence is intentionally not "straightedged." The back end angles off from the center at the point of the blade's cut to the end where it is, if memory serves, .005" off the centerline of the front end of the fence. The purpose of this feature is to prevent the workpiece from binding past the cut. (After the cutting point, there is no need for the workpiece to lay against the fence.) This has been previously discussed in other posts on this forum. For example, posts #41 and #42 at:

No apologies needed. There was a lag between my posting and it being "reviewed by a moderator," before appearing. Your assesment is correct. I'm happy to have been able to offer the option that may work for you. I do want to clarify that the marking gauge will work on curved surfaces, but only to the degree that the user can control the tool so that the center of the flat, right angled "fence" remains in contact with the curved workpiece its referencing and the outer ends of the "fence" remain equidistant from the curved face of the workpiece. This tedious requirement is easily eliminated by fashioning a "shoe" for the fence that will do the job automatically. Such as shoe should be accurately rectangular in general shape and exactly as long as the greatest width of the fence. This rectangular "shoe" should have its face which will bear on the curved edge of the workpiece cut away to clear the closest edge of the curved workpiece edge so that the extreme ends of the shoe remain to present two "points" at the shoe's end which will bear on the curved surface of the workpiece. By preventing the fence from bearing only on the closest point on the curve, these points will keep the extended bar of the marking gauge at a right angle to the center of the curved piece without the fence "wobbling." The "shoe" can be temporarily secured to the face of the gauge with a dab of hot melt glue gun glue or a piece of tape... whatever works to suit the situation.

I thought the Rockler digital model was cute, too, so I threw it in for grins and giggles, but the Luddite in me thinks its overkill. Some of the "analog" gauges have a scale on the shaft for setting measurements, but the Fine Woodworking article on marking gauges panned the scaled shaft marking gauges. Setting the center of a strip narrow enough to accommodate the length of the gauge's shaft makes eyeballing the centerline as I described a piece of cake. If the piece to be marked is too wide to permit that technique and the gauge must be set by measurement from a single side of the workpiece, it's easily set by a rule, a dimension bar, or a "fit piece" of the proper width. Alternately, if one has a caliper, the calipers can be set to indicate a "inside" diameter equivalent to the desired width of the marking gauge's mark and then the marking gauge can be set by physically comparing the outside jaw faces of the calipers to the fence and marking point (or "wheel") of the analog marking gauge. If one already has a digital caliper, the result will be every bit as accurate as the digital marking gauge at a lower price and without the issues attendant to the batteries and electronics of the digital model. An analog marking gauge promises to be a tool that will endure rough use for several lifetimes. The digital stuff... not so much. Everybody's mileage differs, of course. Yes, I agree that the larger marking gauges will be more cumbersome in use on small stuff. The smaller marking gauges I listed were chosen with that in mind. Without manually setting to the desired placement of the marked line using a rule or comparison "fit stick," none of the marking gauges I've ever seen will automatically center the resulting marked line. The "EZ Center Finder" you linked is a plastic version of the age-old method of finding a center boatbuilders make with a stick with a hole in it and a couple of nails driven equidistant from the center of the hole. They work fine on larger pieces of stock, but the results are dependent upon the user's ability to simultaneously hold the pencil in the hole, keep both guide posts firmly against the sides of the plank, and slide it down the workpiece, which is akin to patting your head, rubbing your stomach, and chewing gum at the same time. Both sides of the workpiece must be straight and equidistant from each other at any point on the line or the line won't be straight. They're great for working with round stock like full-size spars when boatbuilding because the "guide posts" can be extended down to run on the widest part of the rounded spar and even if the spar is tapered, as they often are, you will still get a straight midline mark, which is when the gadget really comes into its own. If one were to try to turn quarter-inch wide strip wood into eighth-inch wide strip wood, these widgets work a lot better in theory than in practice! Been there, done that, got the tee shirt. A set of proportional dividers would be great for determining the center point as well. That said, if the reason Stuntflyer wants "to draw center lines down half-inch to quarter-inch strip wood," is to cut strips in half, I think I'd avoid the trouble of marking the workpiece at all and just use the micrometer to set the fence on my Byrnes saw and just "let'er rip!"

Fine Woodworking magazine's review and ratings of best marking gauges: Tool Test: Marking Gauges - FineWoodworking Marking gauges are one of those elusive "better mousetrap" sort of tools. They are very simple in concept, but there's a huge range of prices and styles and the fancy polished bronze ones often don't work any better than the hardware store rack specials. One of these should do the trick for you. You can search for "marking gauges" in your browser "images" setting and pick from a wide variety of marking gauges. If by "to draw a center line" you meant "drawing" with some sort of writing instrument like a pencil, I don't believe that there are marking gauges which are designed to hold common pencils as there compasses which are designed to do that. I once saw a manufactured marking gauge that had a hole and a set-screw to hold a common pencil, but I couldn't find one online now. That would not be a good design because the average pencil lead would not stand up well to being run down the length of a ten foot plank, for example. Most traditional wood marking tools are forms of scribers or knives which actually cut a fine line in the wood, rather than a pencil mark. If you wish, however, you can mount a compass lead (or section of 2mm drafting "lead clutch" mechanical pencil lead) in the scribing point hole of any marking gauge that features a collet-style clutch for holding a similarly sized scribing point, such as, I expect, the "3-in-1" Veritas model below does. For your purposes, none of these marking gauges will automatically find the exact center of anything for you, although it is a very easy matter to adjust a marking gauge to the dead center of a piece by trial and error, starting by eye and making a small mark, then turning the gauge to set against the opposite side of the workpiece and making another small mark adjacent to the first one. The halfway point between the two small marks is your centerline. It is then easy enough to "creep up on it" in the same fashion until, by progressively "eyeballing" the center between the marks made progressively, you reach a point where there's nothing left to divide, and you know you've reached the center setting on your gauge. When marking (or cutting) thin wood strips with any marking gauge I can think of off hand, you will have to use a straight edged "riser block" of wood, or the edge of the workbench, to provide clearance for the bottom of the gauge's fence (or "wheel") when scoring your mark. That's a bit of an inconvenience, perhaps, but it goes with the territory. The Lee Valley miniature marking gauges are advertised to work like the full-size tools they represent (besides being "collectables" or "toy's," depending how one feels about such high-priced things,) but I don't see any particular advantage to them in modeling, and certainly not where their tiny size makes setting and use possibly more tedious and likely to slip than a full-sized model. Perhaps a formumite who has a set of the Veritas miniatures can elaborate on this point. I thought this first "3-in-1" model below from Lee Valley was the best for modeling purposes because it will also hold a cutting blade! How cool is that for cutting strip wood to width? I've seen cutters alone that work on the same principle, but never a wheeled-style marking gauge with interchangeable marking scribers and a knife. If you aren't familiar with the wheeled-style marking gauges, they usually have a round shaped cutter with a sloped cutting edge which when in use naturally pulls the tool fence close against the face of the wood piece being marked. I like them a lot better than the old fashioned "block of wood with a stick through it" models. From Lee Valley. Marking gauge with two different interchangeable scribers and a cutting blade. $35.50 3-in-1 Brass Marking Gauge - Lee Valley Tools From Lee Valley: Pocket marking gauge. $29.50 Pocket Marking Gauge - Lee Valley Tools Veritas miniature marking gauges. (Set of two: single line and double line for tenon marking.) Lee Valley catalogue. $42.50. Veritas Miniature Marking Gauges - Lee Valley Tools Rockler digital wheel marking gauge. $39.99 Digital Wheel Marking Gauge - Rockler Woodworking Tools OTHER WHEEL GAUGES: Rockler wheel marking gauge. $19.99. Rockler Wheel Marking Gauge | Rockler Woodworking and Hardware Temu wheel marking gauge plus dovetail marker. $11.51 1/2pcs Wheel Marking Gauge Dovetail Jig Guide Marker Aluminium Alloy Scribing Tool - Wood Marking For Woodworking 1:5 1:8 , Bearing Wheel Cutter For Soft Wood ,inch & Mm Scale Ruler,temu

Exactly so, and especially for the relatively limited amount of this sort of work that we see modeling ships. I use the Artesania Latina scrapers and they work fine. I clamp them in a jeweler's hand vise as close to the edge as possible to make them rigid. Amazon.com: Artesania Latina #27300 Micro Shapers, Set A, 3 Plates : Arts, Crafts & Sewing

Now that does look handy. It's like a miniature router table. It took me a while to find on line: Wolf Tools - WolfTools About $130.00, plus, you have to but a separate Foredom attachment to mount it to your workbench or other solid holding surface so you can use it with both hands free to handle the workpiece. Have you seen the similar rig from Vanda-Lay Industries? ROUTER TABLE (vanda-layindustries.com) It's all CNC'd aluminum and has a much larger table for about three quarters the price. The Vanda-Lay router table doesn't appear to permit swinging the bit, but if one wanted a beveled edge, all they'd have to do is use a cone-shaped burr. These two sort of compare in the same way Proxxon compares to Byrnes! It's advertised with a Dremel as the power source, but I spoke with them some time ago and they said they could supply a 1" Foredom handpiece holder instead of the Dremel holder on special order.