RichardG

14 minutes ago, dvm27 said:

BTW Volume Two of our Speedwell book is now at the printers and should be released soon.

I got Volume 1 for my 63rd birthday. Now I know what I want for my 64th.

Richard

On 4/1/2020 at 7:52 PM, dvm27 said:

Capt. Hook - she's a lovely little model even without the carvings.

Thank goodness for that. Speedwell is my planned "final" build. The carving would be beyond me.

Richard.

1 hour ago, KeithAug said:

Keith - The playing surface is 8x4. It is quite a good table - solid one piece slate bed on a mahogany table. I really don't want to smash it up to dispose of it but no one wants them anymore. Probably incompatible with modern house room sizes.

It'd be a shame to have to smash it up but those things are heavy and you need a big room. If you can find someone to do it, the bed would make a whole bunch of really solid, heavy, and flat surfaces to build stuff on. I'd take one! The cutting and shipping costs might be a bit steep though.

I too totally failed to guess what the metalwork was for but it was nicely done (as is the ship). And as a bonus for me, has given me an idea for temporarily supporting my ship for the next stage of my build (although mine will be wood!).

Richard

"May you live in interesting times". I got excited finding a 1/2 can of Lysol behind all the laundry detergent over the weekend.

Your Swallow is looking good. Hopefully I'll get to see it for real when physical club meetings start up again.

Richard.

22 minutes ago, wefalck said:

There are some guys here into tool-making, but he beats us all. And, he must have somewhere a second life to spare, for all the time he spends on the tools

 

He must enjoy it and get great satisfaction from doing this. I enjoy making jigs and tools and I do my best to make them neat. However these are amazing and way beyond my skill level - even if I had the tools. Mine are wood with all the metal parts purchased from the local hardware or wood working store.

I do like to look at the pictures and admire his work though.

Richard

Looking good. I hope you've been continuing the build.

Richard

When I talk to people about how good some models can be, yours are always the ones I start with. 

All the best, 

Richard.

Once you've got the quote in your reply, you can also highlight and delete any parts you don't want.

Richard.

2 hours ago, Landlubber Mike said:

Ha, I recently badly cut my finger when a super sharp knife slipped cutting a watermelon.  Not sure I’ll ever buy a whole watermelon again!

My teenage daughter now refuses to eat watermelon after seeing all the blood from my cut 😕. For a time I was forbidden to cut a watermelon - it's my wife's favorite fruit, so the ban didn't last long.

4 hours ago, Bob Cleek said:

What I meant was that if you wanted to cut pieces of wood all exactly the same length, the sled does that very easily. If you want to cut perfect miter angles, the sled does that better than using the miter gauge on the table saw and poses less risk of your touching the moving blade.

I'd use my bench sander for that. Cut close to length using my razor saw then sand the miters. Much safer. Having said that, the Byrnes saw with sled is on my "saving up" for list. 

21 minutes ago, Bob Cleek said:

Naw, I'd award that prize to the chainsaw. Fact is, all tools are dangerous and forgetting that is the major cause of injuries.

 

The liability insurance bean counters will tell you that the tool that sends more people to the emergency room than any other is the ladder. No kidding. That's a fact.

As to general safety, I've only twice needed stitches; once from using a box cutter, the other in the kitchen cutting a water melon. I've also fallen off a ladder! 

My total paranoia about power saws has allowed me to keep all my fingers and my hatred of heights kept my fall to about 4 feet.

I been using mine for while now. It's been good to have a sander that works with small stuff. I like the stick-on sanding disks because there's no give to them.

I'm using the finest grit that came with the unit (240 I think). I don't expect to use anything coarser so I won't be changing often. I did buy a cleaning stick from Amazon last week which works really well.

Not surprisingly, the markings for the horizontal and vertical angles are poor. So I've used a square and made some jigs to get this right.

I've been making some elm pumps out of 1/16" x 1/8" boxwood.

These are each made from 6 pieces. I now need to see if I can get 8 strips for an octagonal version. Before I can do that I need to make a jig to narrow each piece to 1/16" x 3/32". I could of course make them from a single square piece and just sand the corners but where would the fun be in that 😀.

I'm sure the Brynes sander is better but I'm saving up for the table saw first.

Richard

K&J Magnetics, which is where I've purchased Neodymium magnets, gives the pull strength for each of their magnets. So for example an N52 1/8" dia, 3/8" long cylinder has a pull of just over 1lb. (3.2mm x 9.5mm, .45kg). They are amazing for their size. They even have a 4"x4"x1" block with a 580lb pull (and a price to match)! If you're in the US, I would recommend them. They have no minimum order and have a wide selection of sizes and shapes. They also have lots of fun and useful information about these magnets on the site.

Richard.

6 minutes ago, yvesvidal said:

In this picture, you can see the difference between the plain molded white of the parts and the base coat in dark gray, oversprayed with white. It is worth the extra efforts, for sure. 

Wow, the difference is amazing. Definitely worth the effort.

Looking forward to seeing the finished model (although it'll need a really wide monitor to see it in it's full glory!)

All the best,

Richard.

Not a job I would want!

I would assume they'd have something to help carry them - maybe something like a leather/rope sling. Carrying a round 32lb ball would have required 2 hands, which would have made ladders a fun exercise.

Richard.

4 hours ago, Jim Rogers said:

Take a look at these guys:

https://www.casesforcollectibles.com/1981.html
 

very reasonable 

Thanks for the link. The prices look good.

Richard,

On 11/29/2019 at 6:59 PM, Jim Rogers said:

You gonna lose the period?

 

On 11/29/2019 at 7:03 PM, Chuck said:

Why would i do that?  They used them.  

I too thought the period looked a little odd. However I trust Chuck's knowledge. Then yesterday I was looking at some of the available RMG drawings and saw this:

So I still think it looks weird but it's correct.

Richard

Michael,

So now I get two benefits from reading your log. 

First and foremost, a visual treat just seeing your amazing work. Second, an excellent bench pin that I can actually make and use (I'm sure it'll work on wood). Unfortunately my lack of skills (and temperament probably), preclude me being able to reproduce the former.

Thank you so much for sharing,

Richard.

10 hours ago, Mark Lynch said:

From the top side of the deck to the top of the mast everything else is constructed entirely out of styrene. Probably not the best way to build a ship, but for my purposes, it seems to work out.

I think the results speak for themselves - excellent!

Welcome to MSW.

Richard

From

The Introduction and Use of Copper Sheathing - A History

Bulletin of the Australian Institute of Maritime Archaeology, 1985

Mark Staniforth

Richard

That kit provided ball is definitely way too big!

Unfortunately I don't have any specific information, especially for French frigates. I've seen racks attached to bulwarks and hatches. I also saw somewhere a rectangular box with a handle that would hold a few shot used for carrying from the shot locker. I wish I could find it again.

 I've always been a little suspicious of all these racks they don't seem very practical. Even in a moderate sea, I could see them falling out all the time. The rate of fire was not fast, so it's not like they needed a lot immediately next to the cannon. I would assume (probably a fatal mistake), that most of the time they were stored in a shot locker.

This is an interesting contraption:

From https://www.flickr.com/photos/quinet/36209251211

3 hours ago, Spike1947 said:

There are two problems with this as I see it. First, the cannons on the main deck are 6-pounders whereas the cannon on the gun deck are 12-pounders. The solid shot provided in the kit look to be about the correct size for the 12-pounders (about 1mm) but are clearly to large for the main deck guns. Logically, about a 0.5mm ball should be used. I had purchased some 0.5mm ball bearings to use for this purpose. 

The 6-pounder would not have been 1/2 the size of the 12-pounder. From http://arc.id.au/Cannonballs.html: 12lb is 4.4" and the 6lb is 3.59". 

Isn't math and π wonderful!

Another Richard.

I got mine from Menards (in the store!). 

https://www.menards.com/main/tools-hardware/hand-tools/clamps-vises/wolfcraft-reg-micro-needle-nose-clamp/3431404/p-1444439537678-c-9135.htm

I'm not sure of the scale in your case. This is how my 1/50th revenue cutter looks -https://modelshipworld.com/topic/6741-early-19th-century-us-revenue-cutter-by-richardg-artesania-latina-scale-150/page/3/?tab=comments#comment-602068.

I used 1/4" copper tape and jigs for the nail impressions. No special tools were used but making the jigs was a little tedious. I can document the process if you want.

Richard.

1 hour ago, No Idea said:

Sorry I clicked on the wrong quote - its an age thing

I've done the same thing. You can both edit a quote to remove stuff you don't want or delete the whole quote using the backspace key.

I got myself the same thing a couple of months ago. I even got the 11% rebate back (which bought me a couple of long-nose clamps and some #18 blades).

It is a nice unit and comes with a clamp for the bench and yes, I do like the variable speed.

Richard.