KeithAug

A lot of effort for such small progress............... I made a few more fittings for the masts. I turned the 4 winches for the lower spiders, 2 winches per mast, fairly straightforward turning task. The winches started as 1/4 inch brass bar and are approximately 1/4 inch long. I then needed to make the 16 cleats that fit on to the 4 spiders - these are quite small and involve turning and drilling balls of a little less than .100 inch diameter on a stem of .040 diameter by .200 long. I made the form tool for the ball out of a broken centre drill. The balls / stem components stared as .125 brass bar. Cuts had to be small to prevent breakage - typically .005" (on radius) for initial cuts reducing to .002" for finishing. I drilled the hole through the balls on the mill - using a centre drill followed by a .030" twist drill. All balls were drilled on a single setting using a magnet on the vice jaws as an end stop. The balls were drilled while still attached to the bar and parted off with a slitting saw thereafter. The initial ball / stem took about 3/4 hour to make. At the end of the run for 16 I was making them in a little over 10 minutes. The cross member of the cleat was wire, cut glued and then filed to length. The aluminium plate in the photo has a small hole and this was slotted over each end of the wire as a filing guide. The thickness of the plate giving the required arm length of the cleat. The end result will look something like this.

Amazing craftsmanship.

Richard, Thank you. Yes - unfortunately no photos. Being at the top end of the mast its usually in the distance and masked by sails. Sometimes guesswork is the only way forward. At least I have the advantage that the subject still exists. Many modellers on this forum seem to do very well with old drawings of ships long since departed. Ian, Thank you for your very nice comments. Its sometimes good to get another perspective. The builders eye can tend to focus on all the mistakes and miss the bigger picture.

Hello Michael - good to see you back. I tend to get a good tongue lashing from my wife when I try to push recovery along too quickly. She is always right of course. Take it easy. Yes good point about copper plating. My scrap box accumulates unused copper and I occasionally get seduced into using it when I think the machining is less complicated. I then regret it and for a while the memory prevents repetition. What I really need is a metals exchange.

Im slowly working my way through the masts. I needed to turn down the dowels for the upper main and foremasts. I had to break out the travelling steady as the masts are .300" diameter by circa a foot long. Much too flexible to be turned without the steady. The steady sees the light of day about once every 5 years. I needed various collars - nothing too exciting here. I spent a long tome thinking about how I was going to make the rather complex collar that joined the upper and lower masts. Its complex because it has a number of appendages and also takes the mountings for the yards. The drawings don't make it easy to interpret. I started by turning the collar - the widest on the mast. I then scratched my head for a long time trying to work out how I was going to make the anchor points for the strops at the the upper ends of the shrouds. These were made more difficult because they wrap round the top of the yards. In the end I think I worked out the best way of doing this - although as yet it is only half complete. Here is the progress thus far. I should explain I need one for each mast - hence 2. The .056 wire through them will be cut and will insert into the yards.

Tecko Loved the approach to pulley making. Its wonderful how the lack of a lathe stimulates ingenuity.

In the past I have constructed many ad hoc fixtures to enable the accurate machining of masts, spars, yards, booms etc. I decided to have a go at making something more versatile that would work for items of different shapes and sizes. Having made it it seems to work well so I thought it would be worth sharing. I started out with a set of design aspirations. For ease I will refer to "masts" rather than go through the full range of parts each time. 1 Provide solid clamping along the length of the mast. 2 Locate / relocate on the milling table without the need for alignment / set up. 3 Positively locate and relocate the mast so that I can easily remove and replace it on the mill. 4 Clamping devices not to mark / damage the mast. 5 Clamp parallel and taper masts. 6 Clamps to be easy and quick to operate. I started with a clamping concept based upon eccentric circular cams and the build started by cutting a piece of 3/4" MDF to sit on the milling table. I used the mill to accurately drill a series of holes along the length of the MDF to take the cams. The cams themselves were turned (circular) from hardwood. An eccentric hole was drilled along the axis of the cams before they were separated. The cams are mounted on the MDF using a pin. The pin protrudes below the bottom surface of the MDF and the protruding part is cut to a diameter .001" smaller than the slot in the milling table. Once the pins are pushed into the MDF they give positive and repeatable location on the milling bed. The top of the pin locates the cam which is locked by a wing nut. The additional holes allow the cam positions to be varied to suit the mast being worked on. Holes at either end of the MDF take the "T" nut bolts which attach the MDF to the milling table. The MDF was then placed on the milling table (located by the pins) and a row of 4 holes were drilled parallel to the pin holes. Into these holes were placed accurately made dowels. These dowels provide the "fixed" support against which the cams clamp. I think this will become clearer in later photos. A simple piece of wood is then placed up against the dowels. This forms the face against which the mast is clamped. In the following picture a mast is clamped in place. Because the cams act as a finely tapered wedge hand rotation is enough to very rigidly hold the mast. The cams give a lot of flexibility on the diameter of mast that can be held - .200" to .700". But larger is possible by using a narrower wooden strip. At this stage I checked the alignment of the mast to the axis of the mill. The run out was .0015" over a 12" length. Much better than I expected. I did however need an end stop to control the position of the end of the mast. This was relatively easily achieved and for good measure I included an option for 3 positions. See Photos:- The solution to dealing with taper masts is straightforward but does require a bit of trigonometry. The taper is achieved by changing the diameter of one of the fixed dowels. This is done by making a collar to fit over it. This gives a triangle the base of which is the distance between the first and last dowels and the "opposite side" is the thickness of the collar wall = (outside diameter - inside diameter)/2. In the last picture I replaced the wood strip by a steel bar - but this proved to be un-necessary. I still have a few bits to develop but I think thats enough for now - except for the mystery of the missing wing nut!!!!!!

Richard / Tecko, thanks for the feedback. Dan, Thanks for the tip. We have an induction hob which does not like experimentation. Fortunately the oven has no such restrictions and has an inbuilt (very hot) cleaning cycle. I'll have a go when its next due a clean. Bedford - the trouble is I am getting to the age where I forget what I have learned. I hope your memory banks are better than mine. To continue:- Altair has various masts, spars, booms and yards. All of which require numerous drilling and machining tasks. In the past I have improvised various solutions for accurately positioning, clamping, and repositioning them on the mill table. Rather than improvise for each item I though i'd spend a couple of days making a jig to take a range of diameter, and also deal with tapers. I wanted the jig to be quick to set up, hold the item firmly and ensure accuracy of position / machining. Also I wanted to clamping to be kind to the item and leave no marks. The result is pictured below. Rather than explain the build here I thought I'd do a piece in Workshop equipment.

It's all looking very neat and professional Per. I'm looking forward to the wheel.

Tecko How long did all that lot take? Moving along very well and very fast.

Tecko, Im really enjoying this. I had a look at the bridge on google maps - it shows up quite well. The panel reminds me of the ones I used to see when I designed nuclear reprocessing plants many years ago.

Tecko This sounds like a great project. I look forward to following along.

I seem to be in an unexciting phase of the build but time passes quickly. Between the build and sorting out the garden I seem to have little spare time on my hands. I knocked out the rest of the mast hoops. The plans show the following detail with the hoops having a hook for attachment of the sail. I found a thick wall brass tube of the correct size and parted off the rings - 34 including 4 spares (not all shown in the photo). I started to drill the rings and solder on an eye. The mill was set up for a production run - the rare earth magnet on the vice jaws providing the end stop for positioning of successive rings. It was at about his stage I started to wonder why the eye was required so I started to surf the web and after some searching I came across the following (not so good) photo which seem to show the hoops lashed directly to the sail - no eye!!!!!! So the hoops were made with no eye. My fingers got very hot during polishing on the buffing wheel. I am reminded what a horrible metal copper is to machine. Its soft and pushes away from the cutter and then snatches at it. Fine drills are grabbed and break. A material best avoided unless needs must.

Hi Richard - I took over 20 years to complete one model. So you have 6 years left. I have been doing more work on the mast fittings. I am well on with the upper and lower spiders for both masts. I have been simulating flange details by soldering on webs. I still have to make the mast bracket part of the gooseneck. I didn't have the right size of milling cutter but I now have one on order. The plans continue to pose issues - the main mast gooseneck bracket is shown with the flanges horizontal and I can verify this from photos. The equivalent fore mast bracket is show vertical which seems illogical and unfortunately I can't find a photo of this detail. The fore sail boom crutch (above) is also nothing like the real thing and its things like this that causes me to lose confidence in the plans. I think I am going to ignore the plan and make both horizontal. (Any views welcome) The mast hoops on Altair (15 per mast) are made of wood - but covered in leather. At scale size the hoops are .750" diameter and about .075' wide. I had a look at coiled paper and coiled wood shaving methods of making the hoops but given the finish is leather going down these routes seemed a bit irrelevant. Looking at the photos it struck me that the finish was quite close to what you get from tarnished copper. About 3 years ago I made a steam engine for a paddle steamer that never made it to production. Some of the parts were made form copper and comparing the engine with the photos gave me confidence to go down the copper hoop route as to my eye the colour match was almost spot on. I will just have to wait 3 years to get the correct effect. The first of the photos in this post shows one hoop in place - I later threw this one away but I'll cover this in a later post.

Richard Thank you. I quite like yachts - the lines are elegant and the planking has less severe curves than many vessels, hence its easier to produce a reasonable result. I am a little surprised the more builders don't build yachts before moving on to something more challenging. I did a years machine training when I stared my apprenticeship and then did no more for 44 years. Many retirees seem to start using machine tools when they retire and quickly become proficient - helped by many good you tube videos. As you have used lathe I don't think you would find learning milling would be a problem. Today I started on the mast fittings. I think this will be a topic for some time. Altair has a waterproof boot between the bottom of the mast and the deck. This covers the reinforcing ring at deck level. The shape of the reinforcing ring gives some definition to the canvas of the boot. I thought It would be worth making a reasonable job of the reinforcing ring because the shape was interesting enough to provide a different machining challenge. I turned the basic profile of the 2 reinforcing rings on the lathe before cutting 8 slots on the mill (with a .160" end mill) to represent webs. (The turned profiles are one behind the other on the brass bar in the photo below.) Drilling out the bore was the final operation before parting off. The bar is .750" diameter and the bore is .500'. The height is .375". In the photo below I am milling the slots in the second ring - the bar is held in a chuck mounted on a rotary table. I have included a few shots of the first ring in position on the fore mast. Here is the second ring on the main mast.I made a start on the fore mast lower spider - when complete it will have a couple of winches attached plus some other detail.

Coming along well Bob. I must try plating some time - your first attempt seem to have gone pretty well.

Herask, Dan, Greg, Richard. Thank you for visiting and leaving such supportive comment. Thank you to everyone else who has "liked" my work. Michael. Its rural West Sussex in spring, the sun is shining, its a balmy 17 degrees and everything is turning green. I assume you are still in the depths of winter? Very soon the village green will be pressed into cricket duties and the two pubs will be serving refreshments to the supporters on their deck chairs. It is quite idilic. Bedford. You flatter me. I spend my time looking at other build logs and feeling I have a long way to go to match some of the expertise on display. I console myself with "the harder I try the better I get".

Today I spent a frustrating few hours trying to remember the form of the mast location feature I had cut into keel. For the life of me I couldn't remember. I resorted to peering down the 1/2 inch mast holes cut in the deck, this approach was destined to fail. I then tried to use a skewer to feel the shape, another stupid idea that didn't work. I gave up, had a cup of tea and switched on the computer. Coincidentally it opened on page 1 of my build log and there staring me in the face was the answer. I felt like a complete idiot!!!!! With this vital piece of information I set about milling U shaped slots in the end of two sapele dowels I had purchase for the main and fore masts. Altair's masts are circular and parallel except for the top 1/5. so very little shaping is required. I used the mill because I wanted the slot to be accurately centred so that the masts would be vertical about the centre line and have the correct rake fore and aft. Some time later the masts had been stepped. I use the spirit level to make sure the hull was level and then used precision eyeballing to align the masts with the edge of a window frame. I installed the widow frame some years ago so I knew it was plumb. The rake was checked against a different window frame - spot on at 3/4 inch rake top to bottom. I couldn't resist getting a feel for what she would look like so I temporarily put the deckhouses etc in place. I now have a lot of metal work to do to kit out the masts.

Hamilton I frequently used to stay in a seafront hotel on the west coast of the English Lake District. About 20 miles out to sea was a large island called the Isle of Man. One of the hotel owners favourite sayings was "If you can see the Isle of Man it's going to rain and if you can't see it it is raining".

Hello Hamilton. I loved your description of your trials and tribulations with your plans. It reminded me of the issues I have encountered. In my case I had to deal with significant discontinuities / errors between adjacent bulkheads. Like you I had cut the plywood before discovering the problem. I have learned not to trust "professional" plans. Good luck.

Bill The plans refer to it as a spring horse, which is technically a better description. I don't have a very good photo of it - the one below is the best I could get (obscured by the crews foot ware). It does however show up well in a Vimeo video. It seems these devices were not that uncommon on yachts of this vintage. Here is a better image from a yacht built in 1936, in this case the springs are replaced by what appear to be rubber bushes. In neither case does the device allow much movement save for that allowed by the compression of the springs or bushes. I referred to it as a shock absorber to give an explanation as to what I thought its function was. The only real function seems to be to limit the shock load when jibing.

Rob / Per, Thank you for your supportive comments. Per, I struggled for many years without a mill or lathe. Many NRG builders seem to do wonderful work without either. I am however pleased that I made the investment.

Per I agree a single plank would look better.

Thank you John. I had been looking forward to a change from doing cleats so I had a go at a bit of detail that I had been looking forward to. The main sheet has 3 attachments to the deck, a single pulley port and starboard and a central double pulley attached to the deck via quite an elaborate shock absorber. Its this latter feature that I decided to attempt next. The sketch shows the detail. The shock absorber has 2 compression springs which close when load is transmitted from the central main sheet block via the floating collars. I thought it would be kind of nice to make a working version. The whole thing is a little over and inch wide and .250 high. The 2 deck fixings were turned from bar and drilled on the mill. I ground a couple of profile lathe tools to assist the task. The floating collars were also turned on the lathe and drilled on the mill. I used the same profile tool that I had used for the balls on the deck fixings. The shaft is .060 wire. The spring was the most difficult bit. I spent ages ferreting through my rainy day boxes until I found something that I could butcher. The floating collars are attached to the block shackle by 2 large U shaped connecting brackets. The brackets pivot on pins protruding from either side of each collar. Nuts on each end of the shaft complete the assembly. Once again the plans are not great and show the shock absorber mounted in the wrong position. The internet saved the day.

Thank you for the info Michael - Ill do a bit of reading up.