Jack12477

Brian, great details and very clean, crisp build.
Keep up the great job you are doing!

Grant, Richard, pose that question to Ken Foran (his build log is US Brig Niagara by xken - Model Shipways - Scale 1/64 ); he's written a great book on Modeling in Brass. Should be able to answer any soldering questions.

I take a piece of string loop one end around the mast and loop a deadeye around the other end at the approximate distance from the installed deadeyes, clamp the deadeye in the string, then swing it back and forth checking the alignment with those installed on the channel. If it looks good, I leave it; if not move them slightly. Use a pencil to put a tick mark on the channel.

I take a piece of string loop one end around the mast and loop a deadeye around the other end at the approximate distance from the installed deadeyes, clamp the deadeye in the string, then swing it back and forth checking the alignment with those installed on the channel. If it looks good, I leave it; if not move them slightly. Use a pencil to put a tick mark on the channel.

If you did that, it should be good or at least really close. 

It looks so easy until you try...
I built the winch, had to manufacture the prefab pieces similar to the windlass. Looks ok, need to add the cap and paint. will probably darken the wood as well will try tung oil on this wood and see what it looks like.
 
I started on the deadeyes. Boy this is not easy! I thought I'd get through this with a breeze but working with the wire has it's own challenges. Perhaps I'm not using the right tools, I'm getting by with a wire bender and needlenose pliers. Doing it all by  eye too, not sure how to get measurements on something like this. My goal is to get good enough so that when I tie the rope around the neck of the collar, it will hide most of the scarring left by my crude manipulations.
 
Also cut grooves into one of the channels, concerned that the deadeyes are too close. Do I need to re-do?
 

Thanks Greg.
 
.... continued.
 
Here's a pic of the progress. The base has been fitted to the munions :
 

 
The Stool was a challenge :
 

 

 
There are several rims between the pieces. I glued each piece to some 0.5mm thick stock and sanded the edges to shape when it dried. This was then rounded with a sanding stick :
 

 
The centre munions were fitted next. There is still some sanding to be done to get the verticals down to size in this pic. The "glass" (acrylic) has been fitted :
 

 
I filed the Crank from brass strip and soldered a mounting pin on :
 

 
Nearly finished. I'll sand the edges of the verticals down to size tomorrow when the glue is completly dry :
 

 
The Vent :
 

 
Detail of the base and stool :
 

 
With the crank fitted :
 

 
 
 Danny

Thank you all for the likes and comments.  Now that the pumps are done, I finally installed the companionway in it's permanent home.

 
And then I buckled down and did it.  All the guns are rigged.  Woo!

Gotta agree with Mark on that !!
Your stove, pots and turkey are brilliant.

Just incredible, Jay.   Great work, indeed.  That turkey made me smile. 

If you look very closely you might find the spoons and forks. Somehow I misplaced them and I cannot find them
 
The turkey is very sweet from Fresno California. The spit and turkey may be displayed somewhere, but I thought the pot and pan were better inside the oven. 

Anyway, enough of this tiny stuff. I need to get going on other parts of the section.
PS It is time to also remove some of the dandruff. But for now the oven is retiring to a safe place.

No, it's not the American 220VAC, George.  It has the, I believe it is, the European style plug with round posts.  I've run into these on cruise ships and some other places and it's what's on my cutter..  err.. LaserKnife. 
 

Mark, I am in total agreement with what George said.above.  If this man was indeed a "reputable businessman" he would have addressed you by name not some slur; he would have come right out and identified himself as the owner, President and CEO of Micromark and offered his rebuttal. Instead he stooped to the lowest denominator, pretending to be an "offended but satisfied customer", and launched into a personal attack.  I've given his company an awful lot of business ($$$) in the last year; not so sure I want to spend any more money on his products.
 
In my opinion your review of his product has been very professionally done and presented in a professional manner to the modeling public. I thank you.
 
Maybe he should be reminded of those immortal words of our late President Harry S Truman - "If you can't stand the heat, get the hell out of the kitchen" 

Mine too ! (The Killians that is).  Nice work on the bucket.

Missed the edit Jay! Thanks for the explanation, and is that the turkey Steve was going to send you?  

Hello all, got back from vacation last Sunday and haven't gotten the ship yard up and running yet.  I don't wish to bore you all  with vacation photos but for those of you who might like to see them here they are. I'll do an abridged version.
 
Sunset on Siesta Key, FL. 

 
Left Florida and drove to Savannah, GA.  Very interesting old southern city. 

 
Left Savannah and headed for Wilmington, NC., bypassed Charleston for obvious reasons. Had to stop at 'South of the Border' and show my daughter what she had missed flying to Florida for the past 20 years.

 
In Wilmington we visited the U.S.S. North Carolina. First time I was on a battleship, very inspiring.   My wife and daughter, to my surprise, actually enjoyed walking through the ship also.
 

 
From NC we drove up to Delaware just to stay for the night and the next day visited Philadelphia to attend their Tall Ships Festival which featured the L'Hermione which is visiting from France.  There were quite a few other ships, the Eagle, the El Galeon, the Pride of Baltimore II, just to mention a few.  Attached link for entire list of ships    http://tallshipsphiladelphia.com/ships/.  The only downside was that I think the entire population of Philadelphia turned out to see the ships.  The waiting time to get on board the ships was close to an hour so we decided not to wait.
 
L'Hermione                                                                   very long line

 
Eagle                                                                        Pride of Baltimore (got to go on her)

 
El Galeon                                                                               Sagres

 
 

Larry, thanks for the link; I have visited your site several times looking at this sequence and you answered my question on the rope coils being made separate and then added. 
Right now I am experimenting with changing to 28 gauge brass wire and trapping the tackle rope with the wire on the block. This way I can set up tackle blocks while I wait for the rope order to be delivered. 

Tom,
 
Checked out the new manual.  Maybe I read it wrong... the new units have a 110V Power Supply.   Is this a 110V input as I think it is?   The setup and much of the rest of the manual tell the user to plug it into a 220V source which would not be a good thing.  I stopped reading at that point and thought I'd better ask.

Just a quick note from admin...
 
What Mr Frisoli did was grounds for being banned from this site.  You cant pretend to be someone else and play games like that on this forum.   So a quick warning to Tom....dont  get cute.   He knew what he was doing.   I personally think the laser cutter is well overpriced for what it is.  You can alter  it and work for days adding new parts like Mark did on any Chinese machine bought on Ebay for $750.   When you spend $2000 for one that performs the same way and needs just as much attention there is definitely an issue.  But I will give you the benefit of the doubt so you can try and help these good folks who read on your site that they just needed to "plug it in and start cutting".  
 
That is clearly not the case....and it still says this on your site.  I find that very misleading since you just admitted as much and so did old Mama bear 
 
"But, as with using any delicate instrument, and as Mr. Taylor pointed out, a bit of technical savvy goes a long way toward achieving early success.
 
Now . . . I'll kid you not. To develop use of the machine to its full potential, you're going to have to spend some time with it, and learn the various techniques and tips and tricks"
 
Tom, if you are serious about being fair and straight with your customers,  I would expect you state the same on your website and in your catalog.  But I am not holding my breath.  So please be respectful to our members unlike Mr Frisoli.  I own a much better machine which actually did work straight out of the box with no replacement parts and in one hour I was cutting parts.....and I will recommend to all folks that they should consider another machine.  It might cost you more but they are proven machines....also wait for more reviews of this MicroMark Laser knife machine and tales of success or hardship before you dive in.  The research is key here.
 
Chuck
MSW Papa bear

Hi Tom, I agree- no hard hat needed. They are a friendly and fair-minded group here with a lot of diverse experience in many fields. As a newbie to their forum they have made me feel quite welcome, even in a largely male-oriented hobby. (I have actually built a couple model ships with a bit of help from my husband, but I'm definitely a newbie!)
 
I am happy to see that you responded to the issues openly.  We experienced decent and timely communication with your techs and were pleasantly surprised they were willing to work with us even outside the initial return policy period.
 
We did go through some very frustrating times trying to get the machine to work properly, even on basswood and cardstock, so something obviously was not quite right. Even the initial "Sea Shanty" tutorial failed to cut properly on the 1/64th chipboard which was one of the materials you provided for testing. That was the first out of box test we tried after the initial setup. You can read elsewhere on this thread about some of what we went through.
 
We're confident that Micro-Mark will send us a replacement machine that works properly.  We just hope the carriers pay attention to the box markings for "Fragile" and "This side up". 
 
I had sent a link to one of your techs for a company that sells those shipping handling indicators that will change color if a box is miss-handled in transit. I realize that adds a bit of cost to the product, but it's probably cheaper than replacing machines damaged in transit & fighting with the carriers for insurance claims.  It really gives the customer a little peace of mind that they can accept or reject a box knowing if it was handled properly. 
 
Thanks for addressing some of the issues and concerns.  We are looking forward to getting our replacement and having a much better experience. And of course we will be happy to post a positive result when that happens.  
 
I'm really surprised we have not run into more mention of the product online, given the huge number of hobby forums out there. We saw a lot of initial "buzz" about it, but nothing from anyone who had actually bought one, until we ran across Mark's post here.  I would think that some of the other initial 22 purchasers would have something to say about their experience one way or the other, as early adopters of the Micro-Mark version of the machine like Mark and we were. Perhaps we're just more "vocal"?
 
-- Debbie and Charles Jones

Mark,
 
 
Thanks for your input. We're aware of what you mentioned and have already these issues up with the factory. Hopefully, the batch that's on the water will be improved, but sometimes the language barrier is a bit strong to overcome right away. We take shots at them, but we need to remember that their English is usually a lot better than our Chinese.
 
The lens holder will cant if you lay thin stock directly on the honeycomb platen. The thumb screw runs off the top of the tube. You can indeed raise the tube a bit without affecting the cutting/engraving much, or put a sheetwood spacer under the workpiece to raise it up a bit if you're concerned with focus.
 
The manuals are in a constant state of update. You'll see enhanced mirror alignment instructions already present on our web site.
 
 
Tom

Hi Tom,
 
Thanks for the feedback.. and no hard-hat needed.   We're a pretty friendly bunch.  If you not familiar with this hobby, we do use a lot of exotic hardwoods and do some things maybe differently than say the RR hobby.  Part of what made me look into this was the woods and thicknesses listed that you tested.   If all it had said was "basswood" or "nothing more than 1/8" thick;", I wouldn't have bothered.  
 
Anyway.. 30 day trial period is a fair testing time.  And the customer service problem is understandable.  I just felt abandoned on my questions. 
 
I'm happy you're updating the manual.  I'd be happy to take a look at it if you'd like.  I spent the first 25 years of my working life as tech writer for various companies.  I hope there's a better explanation of how to align the mirrors.  That was a tough one....
 
At this point, the machine is doing what I ask of it... I've listed my parameters elsewhere about wood thickness and what woods work and don't work. My initial testing was truly a "let's wring this thing out and see what it will do"...  along with "what did I learn today?". 
 
Anyway, I do have a fairly complete list of the quality issues (I understand... first batch) and also a couple of improvements.
 
1)  The honeycomb bed wasn't level.  The spacers that hold it up, on two of them, the screws were stripped.  Also, they were not evenly countersunk so until I re-did the countersink, the bed wouldn't fit level.
 
2) The bed was a tighter fit at the one end than the other in the machine due to the pop rivets being different heights from the frame.  Relieving this also helped it sit level to the lens mechanism.
 
3) The lens issues.  The tube when extended out for thin cardstock or woods canted because of the play between the tube and holder.  My suggestion is either move the securing screw down about 1/4" or increase the height of the spacers between 1/4" and 1/2" inch.  This will improve the performance and repeatability of cuts if that play can be minimized.  I'll flip the lens back and re-test based on your input. 
 
The flipping might be a good point to put in the manual as the etching I think we would do, is mostly very fine, a light surface burn to highlight or in my case to mark the wood for carving. 
 
Right now, I'm still fiddling and testing various power levels and speeds on given thicknesses and wood types.   I'm also sorting out accounting for the kerf thickness on drawings I'm making.

Bill, I have to echo the remarks above. Your detailed furniture, sails, bin, barrels, etc are amazing. Great looking model.

Hi Tom: First, let me thank you personally for taking the time to respond to us directly. It does resolve some of the issues we had with even considering this machine as a future purchase. The one question that is on my mind, and probably some of the other guys here, is why Mr. Frisoli responded in the manner that he did. 
 
Cheers

Thanks Mark, for your feedback. It is appreciated that you put all this work into keeping us posted.
 
Vince P.