Roger Pellett

I would assume that machining your Aluminim bar would also require turning of the drum  to get concentricity with the shaft and to remove the as delivered tolerance on the aluminum bar.  While you can probably order different grades you need tolerances in the thousands, not hundreds. You would want both ends of the cylinder faced off square to minimize vibrations of the rotating mass.  

Roger

Dean,  

Price points:  

Dewalt portable planer.  Mine is mounted atop a plywood box with castors. I move it outdoors for planing it’s very noisy and can quickly make a wheel barrow load of shavings.  Capacity about 1in.  Cost $500 +-.  Corrosion- Store In plastic snap on lid box w/ zrust.  Space- not much larger than what you have.

Byrnes sander-  Enough already said;  if Company resumes production. Cost $650?

Full sized drum sander: $1500 and large.

Improving what you have:  The speed issue should be easily solved by swapping out the pulley combination.  I would swap out the bearings with new ball or roller bearings.  These are not expensive.  So, it is certainly possible to upgrade what you have.  The question is cost.  I doubt if any custom machine s hop can machine the shaft and drum for anything close to the $500 spent on a small portable planer.

Roger

Yeah, and today the temporary crown popped off !

I spent an hour laying on my back at the dentist’s this PM so had plenty of time to examine the fluorescent fixtures in the suspended ceilings.  The glass in my light table is exactly the same as used to filter the light.  It must have been available from glass shops as I don’t remember canabalizing a fixture.

Roger 

Jon,

The extreme western end of Lake Superior is only about 10 miles wide North to South.  Duluth MN is on the North shore and Superior WI is on the South.  Referred to locally as the Twin Ports they actually form one huge harbor complex, by far the largest on the Great Lakes.  News media notwithstanding they still ship and receive enormous quantities of bulk cargos; iron ore pellets and coal outbound and limestone inbound.  Both the Superior and Duluth sides of the harbor connect to major rail lines forming an active transportation hub.

Roger

I looked at my light table yesterday and realized that contrary to my above post I did not use ordinary plate glass.  The top side of the glass is smooth but the under side is embossed with a diamond shaped pattern.  This acts to diffuse the light.

Roger

A number of years ago I bought shellac flakes to make my own shellac.  I still have most of  them.  Here in the US, ready mixed Shellac is widely available at paint, home improvement, and hardware stores.  It is not expensive.  It can be easily thinned with alcohol if necessary.  I, therefore, see no need to make my own stuff or to worry about the Cut.  For most applications the eyeball can be a good guide to thinning.

Roger

Jon,

You might want to take a peak at my Benjamin Noble build log.  Same scratch built 1900 and later subforum.  This is a steel hulled Great Lakes Steamship launched in 1909.  Like you I used paper for plating but I first saturated it with shellac.  It holds up much better than plain paper.

Roger

I never gave it much thought to diffusion.  It seems to work well enough for my needs.

The point on top of the Washington Monument is a block of Aluminum, considered to be a semi-precious Metal when it was built.  The process of electrolytic refining was discovered and developed by Charles Hall in the 1880’s. He was a resident of Oberlin, Ohio and a student at Oberlin, College. He set up a lab in his parent’s woodshed using homemade wet cell batteries as a source of electricity. At the exact same time, a scientist in Europe discovered the same process.

Hall’s process was industrialized by forming a corporation in Pittsburgh, and a large scale production facility in nearby Kitkanning, PA.   Electricity was generated by newly developed Westinghouse steam turbines.  The Corporation became Alcoa.  Oberlin college’s large endowment is from donated Alcoa stock from Hall’s estate.

There are,  or at least used to be, several Aluminum plants on the West Virginia shore of the Ohio River downstream  from Pittsburgh.  Built there to take advantage of cheap electricity from coal fired mine mouth power plants.  

Roger.

Valeriy,

Aluminum torpedo boxes:  An interesting use for what was then a relatively new refined metal.  I don’t know about Europe but the first large scale Aluminum  reduction plant was only built in the USA in 1891; seven years after Charles Hall developed the basic process.  Was topside weight actually that much of a concern?

Roger

My light table is approximately 48in x 30in.  It is made from 1in (nominal) lumberyard pine.  The top edge of the pine box is routed to form a 1/2in wide x 1/4in deep rabbet. It is lit by several 1tube fluorescent light fixtures.

The top is a piece of double strength (approximately 1/4in) plate glass.  This is plenty strong, doesn’t deflect, doesn’t scratch, and doesn’t require internal bracing. It sits in the rabbit.  If I were building another one I would again use plate glass not acrylic.  

Roger

It looks like a nice piece of equipment sold at a reasonable price.  I had not heard of Axminster and was surprised to learn that they sell/ship to the USA.  With the sad and untimely passing of Jim Byrnes and hopefully temporary closing of his business this particular tool might be a good alternative.

I agree that disc sanders are a valuable addition to the modelers workshop.  I have two; a 4” Jarmac used by professional model makers back before 3D CAD when industrial installations were physically modeled to check for piping, equipment , and structural steel interferences.  By today’s standards it’s a poor piece of equipment- very high speed, flimsy, and noisy.  It conveniently sits on my workbench doing what it is supposed to do on light weight stock.  My second tool is a 12” homemade tool that runs on the same shaft as my thickness sander.  Operating at much slower speed it works on much thicker material.  Like you both are useful for precise shaping of sawn materials.

Roger

Very nice work Javelin.  Here in the US, one of the Marine grade Epoxies (West System) is “modular”.  The resin can be paired with either of two hardeners; fast cure and or slow cure.

Roger

An answer to Glen’s question.  

For every Epoxy brand/ formulation there is a unique density (weight divided by volume) for the resin and for the hardener.  The chemical reaction works by the weight of the hardener combining with that of the resin.  So weights cause the mix to harden. For many applications, however, volumes are easier to measure so manufactures using the densities of the two components provide ways to convert measurements to volumes.  West System, for example, sells calibrated pumps that measure by volume.  They also sell a scale for mixing by weight.  In a boatyard mixing by volume is probably easier.  Mixing tiny quantities of resins that require precise resin hardener ratios weight probably works better.  For tiny quantities used for gluing I personally find the hardware store tube resins to be more user friendly as eyeball measuring of drops squeezed from each tube is good enough.

Roger

Note after rereading Javelin’s post above:  He is absolutely correct that mass not weight causes the reaction.  For those of here in the USA, (thankfully) still using the Imperial System ratios based by weight (lbs) are the same as those based on mass (kg.)

A cautionary note about coating a surface with glass fiber cloth and resin (polyester/Epoxy):  You do not “glue down” the cloth with the resin.  In other words, you do not first spread the resin and then attempt to attach the cloth.  By doing so you trap air bubbles and wrinkles.  Instead, you first spread out the cloth and saturate it with the resin.  A plastic disposable squeegee is generally used to work the resin into the weave of the cloth.  While this may seem obvious, I only learned this after botching many projects.

Also, more hardener does not make Epoxy cure faster.  It just results in a sticky mess.

Roger

Actually, the most likely thing about your wife and your workshop is if left unattended for any length of time every horizontal surface will be piled with her stuff.  It’s what a female secretary in our office would have called GSB- Gender Specific Behavior!  😆

Roger

Wishing you a speedy recovery from your upcoming cataract surgery.

Roger

Looks good Keith!  I agree putting the right frame in the right slot is usually a good idea😆

Beautiful work as usual Valeriy!  

Great to see another post 1900 scratch build here.  Looking forward to upcoming research and construction of an interesting vessel.

Roger

I had some time this evening to do a little research about your anchor problem:

I.  Pattern:  Anchors with folding metal stocks were used in the early 1800’s especially for kedging.  The photo below reproduced in the book Anchors, An Illustrated History shows one such anchor recovered in Tahiti from one of Captain Cook’s ships that grounded there in 1773.  It weighs approximately 950#

II Weight:  Much harder to answer.  Harland gives a number of formula not all make much sense and results must be translated into dimensions.  He points out that logically that the length of the shank should not exceed the dimension waterline to Cathead.

Keep in mind, these are small vessels in reality large boats.  I would suggest a pattern like my photo with stock folded lashed securely to ring bolts in deck.

Roger

Very nice

Steven-  You’re doing a great job!  Your customer should be pleased.  In addition you should qualify for the MSW Time Traveler Award.  San Marco Ship- Titanic 800+- years apart.

Looks  like an interesting project!  You could duplicate the picture on the the box as 54 mm Civil War era figures (1:32 scale) are readily available.

Roger