KeithAug
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A little more progress:- The foremast caught up with the main as far as fitting out was concerned. At the head of each mast is a pair of pulleys. The body measures .32" x .08" x .08", the pulley is .160" diameter by .04" thick. The body was milled to shape. I made the yards from mahogany but at a little over 1/8 inch diameter they were quite delicate and flexible. After scratching my head for a while as to how to make them robust I went back to web photos and realised that on Altair the yards are actually made from metal - painted white. The problem of flexibility was therefore resolved with the yards made form copper tube with brass end fittings. I'll decide later whether or not to paint them. I still need to make the lights, GPS receiver etc which attach to the yards. I then went back to more mast protection plates of various shapes. I had a bit of fun working out the best way to make the oval ones for the shroud strops. Thats all for now folks.
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Nils I do think the side view with the davits in place makes the ship come alive - love it.
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Dear Richard and Michael. I think you have hit on the right solution, however my wife is now pushing for the hand sewn leather. I calculate the mesh size at .030" with a strand thickness of .0015". I fear that while the body is willing the mind is weak.
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Richard, I was also thinking along the lines of a knurling tool as an option. I don't think you would get knurl wheels off the shelf but it is possible to make your own. The problem I'm not sure how to resolve is how to get the register right between the forward and rearward sloping cuts. It sort of needs the knurl wheels connected through a gear.
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Michael - I have had problems in the past bolting directly on to perspex. After a while I noticed small cracks starting to grow from the bolt holes. I cured it by using rubber grommets to line the holes (slightly wider than the perspex thickness). It may be that I had a bad experience and you will get away with it. Excellent work as always.
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Hello Richard Thank you. I had thought I could simulate the stiching like this:- The problem is the chore of doing the cutting - 72 cuts per hoop X 30 hoops + 2160 cuts. Quite a chore and I don't want to spend a few hundred quid acquiring a dividing head.
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Mike. I have used blue - Endeavour link below. But I think in future I will stick to white.
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Hello Mike, The folded ribbon and glue method can be a bit messy. I find ripstop sail repair tape is much easier. Its designed for the repair of sails, is very thin, very strong and pre glued - and comes in lots of colours.
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Michael - surprisingly I had passingly thought about it and got as far as thinking about a machining set up. I sort of wanted a tilting dividing head to make it easy but I don't have one. Anyway it seemed like a lot of work. I might have had a go if the number of components had been less but machining up 30 rings seemed to be a bit of a chore. I find the fun is in working out how to make something - not making loads of the same thing. By the way the Bristol Channel can be very choppy and I do think you need to damp that compass needle if you are intent on steering a true course.
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I decided the time was right to start attaching some of the bits to the main mast. The starting point was accurate drilling / milling of the mast to take the locating pins for the collars and other fittings. I took particular care with the precision of the slots for the ring rests. The rests themselves are quite small but recourse to the scroll saw quickly had them made (including spares). And here they are precisely fitted. I use the word "precisely" because I had used the wrong datum on the mill and had machined the slots in precisely the wrong position. A mast repair was necessary together with re-machining. Very annoying! I started assembly by nailing the rubbing plates to the back of the mast. I now know why you ships hull platers don't use individual nails! The nails are cut down drapers pins and the holes were predrilled undersize. The nails were coated in CA glue before insertion. I then moved on to the base of the mast and started attaching my accumulated bag of bits. If you look just above the winch you will see the repair to my "precisely" milled slot. I inlaid a piece of mahogany. Between the spiders is a rope binding with the rope bound over what appears to be canvas. In this case I used sail repair tape to simulate the canvas. Finally an overall view to show the areas where I have been working. It somehow all seems to get lost when the camera is turned off "micro" scale.
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Greg, Thank you. Michael / Mark, I have to be numerate - my wife is a maths graduate. If I don't take an interest she takes charge of the bank account. As for days off - I think a day in the workshop is a day off.
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Michael. Re first tools. I remember those days well. All nuts came with acres of space around them and no obstructions in sight. Perfect for accommodating the pride and joy of our schoolboy and apprentice exploits. My first product was a pipe wrench, hack sawn, hand filed, drilled, turned, reamed, riveted, case hardened and lovingly polished. Alas it is no more, its teeth gradually fell off and it was consigned to that great scrap yard in the sky. I bet these days kids make them on 3D printers and wonder what all the fuss is about.
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Giampieroricci. A mistake on the chain!!!!!! Wow, you must be human after all. Easy to fix - If you stretch the photograph the links will become oval and all will be well.
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Rob, Richard, John. Thank you. Hello Julie - welcome back. I assume its getting a bit too hot to be outside in sunny Florida? Today I had a go at a bit of precision wire bending but first I wrote myself a list of the mast fittings I still had to complete. I broke the first rule of lists. According to my wife all list should start with stuff already completed. This is so the first activity can be to cross them off. If you include enough "already done" stuff you can congratulate yourself and take the rest of the day off. Anyway on with the wire bending. I needed to complete the components to fabricate the assembly where the yards attach to the mast - as per the attached sketch. I wanted to bend the "core" brass wire very accurately as this would set the 7 degree up angle for the yards. I calculated the bending set up that I was going to use on the mill. The datum was set up as the corner of the milling vice and the mill spindle was offset in both "x" and "y" directions to setup the angle. I "borrowed" the vice end stop and mounted it to support the wire and thus prevent bending in the z plane. The spindle was then moved to the calculated x and y positions. The wire was then bent at the corner of the vice using a metal bar and hammer (to achieve a tight bend). Light tapping on the bar continued until the wire touched the spindle - and at this point the bend was the required 7 degrees. I also used the vice set up with slightly different settings for assembling and gluing the brass inset, ferrule and wire. This may look a bit complicated but the set up was quite quick and the results were consistent and accurate.
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I got a bit of time today to finish the goosenecks. Machining followed a similar process to that used for the mast bracket. The rounding of edges was done by hand filing. I then made the pivot pin - turned on the lathe out of .090" bar and drilled with a .040" hole on the mill. I then did a bit of polishing. I am accumulating a lot of mast fittings - but it will be soon time to get on with assembling the masts.
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Dan I was impressed by the result given the process you had to go through. It looks great.
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Thank you all for you feedback and likes. I'm still on mast related features. Altair has wear / pressure plates attached to the mast where the gaffs intersect the masts. These are in the form of 1/2 cylinders. On the main mast there is an additional plate about 1/3 of the way between the gaff and the deck. This is not on the plans but is very evident on photos. I am guessing its function relates to a reefed main setup. There are also a number of other smaller plates where blocks come into contact with the mast. Fortunately I did not have to bend up flat plate as I had some thin walled tube of marginally smaller diameter than the mast. I reasoned that once cut it could be pressed on to the mast to form a good fit. I wanted the tube to be neatly cut so I started by wedging it on to a dowel of correct dimeter. This was then put on the lathe and the lengths required were cut using a very sharp angled "V" tool (just about visible on the following photo). The tube (still on the dowel) was then moved on to the rotary table on the mill and lateral holes were drilled to take the mast attachment nails. Having drilled the holes the tube/dowel was moved back to the lathe and the sharp "V" tool was turned horizontal to be used as a plane to score the lateral parting line. The scoring action was repeated with .001" advancement of the tool on each planing stroke, alternating sides, until the tube parted. I then started work on the goosenecks - this is only partial complete. I started by taking the basic dimensions from the plan and then doing a better job of detailing the design. I started with the mast bracket - cut from .250" square brass bar. The bracket was machined on the mill using end mills of various diameters. The photos tell the story.
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Richard, I measured the bar (.250 x.250) and then used an edge finder to locate the edge. Having fixed the edge I indexed the mill over to compensate for the edge finder diameter. This set the mill spindle directly over the edge. I then moved it over a further .125 to set the mill directly above the centre of the bar. This video does a passable job of depicting the process https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5_qiPE5z7SE.
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Drill press adapter for small bits
KeithAug replied to Foultide's topic in Modeling tools and Workshop Equipment
Hi Dave Link http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/122382958417 I am aware Little machine Shop do something very similar but it seems much more expensive.
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