KeithAug

Thoughts on frames!!!! Firstly thank you to those who have viewed / replied already. The frames were laser cut and popped out of the plywood sheet quite easily. The edges were sharp with a good finish. The notches which join the frames to the longitudinal beams were too tight to assemble and nearly all of them had to be eased with a file. Once eased the skeleton slotted together well and created a stable structure even without glue. An interesting / unusual (at least to me) feature of the kit is that the keel isn't continuous. This and the fact that I didn't follow the build instructions gave me a problem which I needed to correct later in the build (more detail in later post). I glued the skeleton together at this stage but decided I wasn't happy with Amati's solution for bridging the 6 frames (5 spaces) where the keel wasn't continuous. I particularly disliked Amati's solution for mounting the drop keel as it seemed very fragile. The following photograph shows two of the Amati keel pieces held in place with masking tape. I replaced the Amati inserts with something a little more substantial as illustrated in this picture. The 2 mahogany plywood bridging pieces in the next photograph (middle of the 5) are supposed to take the 1mm (.040 inch) pin which acts as the pivot for the plywood drop keel. In my kit all 3 pieces were warped and no amount of soaking in hot water and applying corrective pressure seemed to cure this. This for me is a weak area of the kit and not really satisfactory. I suspect kits built with the Amati drop keel solution will quickly loose this feature. The next image shows the more substantial section which takes the keel pivot (prior to installation). I have access to a milling machine with a slotting saw so making slots of this type is for me relatively easy. For those without this facility fabricating the piece out of 3 laminations is a good alternative. The drop keel and pivot assembly to my mind had to be substantially improved and I will cover this in the next post.

Having spent a number of years scratch building HMS Cornwall (Type 22 Frigate) at 1:96 scale I felt I wanted to tackle something a bit quicker and easier. I also wanted a model that provided the opportunity for enhancing the kit to create something a bit different from the norm. After a week or two trawling through the range of kits on offer I decided to build Amati's Endeavour at 1.35 scale. Although the kit features Endeavour in her 1934 guise I decided to model her as restored in 1989. To do this I have relied heavily on the web based photographic resources. The kit was a Christmas present from my kids and when finished my Daughter has claimed the model for her bay window. The building of Endeavour has been covered in detail in a number of build logs and I don't intend going over the ground they have covered so well. What I intend doing is covering some of the things I have done differently and what I learned in the process. I will start where I am now - in the middle of the build and then go back to the start, working through a series of updates over the next couple of months. Hopefully with summer out of the way I will get back to building in September and complete in time to add another kit to my wish list for next Christmas. Here are a few photographs to start the process.

like a number of you I have been considering options for installing featherboards on my saw. In particular I wanted something to provide horizontal pressure to hold the timber against the fence. I also wanted something which had a degree of self adjustment (to avoid resetting every cut). The attached photos show my solution. The arm is spring loaded (elastic bands) and this allows me to rip over a range of 1/2 inch without resetting. To reset I move the arm to the next hole, this takes about 30 seconds. The mechanical advantage on the arm means that the force holding the timber agains the fence is about 50% greater than the force applied by the elastic band. While the elastic band may appear to be a bit crude it actually works very well and of course has the advantage that the force can be varied by simply adding or removing elastic bands.

Thank you for the advice - contact successfully established through the PM route. Keith.

Hi Guys - I need some help! I have been attempting to buy a Byrnes table saw using the Byrnes web site and have also tried to contact Model Machines using their web site email page. When I try to use the web site check out I get "Safari can't verify the identity of the website "host2interwebinc.com" and if I try to proceed further I get a 404 error web site not found. Also I have sent 2 emails via the web page but have had no reply. I know Jim uses the NRG site and that lots of you have had contacts with Jim in the past. Can anyone suggest an alternative method of contacting Jim or Model Machines. Regards Keith