shiloh

Like you Mike, I have never had a problem drilling a straight hole freehand, especially after getting it started, no bubble needed, the bits seem to track themselves well. Have often had some problems getting them started in the proper place and at desired angles freehand. Drilled in plastic, iron, steel, copper, brass, wood, concrete and glass. I welcome any mechanical aids I can get to work for me, especially when drilling something like a 1” hole in a steel angle iron, free hand with a ¾” or I” drill and have it catch and wind my hand into knots before I could get away, because I didn’t hold the alignment properly freehand. Today I use a cutting torch for that kind of work, but prefer to put it on my drill press if I can get it in. Mechanical aids are developed for good reasons and anyone who is asking about what works for others is worthy of a thoughtful answer. A stand with some up and down motion along with an XY table can be a great aid, especially with an angle vise added to the setup.
jud

Like you Mike, I have never had a problem drilling a straight hole freehand, especially after getting it started, no bubble needed, the bits seem to track themselves well. Have often had some problems getting them started in the proper place and at desired angles freehand. Drilled in plastic, iron, steel, copper, brass, wood, concrete and glass. I welcome any mechanical aids I can get to work for me, especially when drilling something like a 1” hole in a steel angle iron, free hand with a ¾” or I” drill and have it catch and wind my hand into knots before I could get away, because I didn’t hold the alignment properly freehand. Today I use a cutting torch for that kind of work, but prefer to put it on my drill press if I can get it in. Mechanical aids are developed for good reasons and anyone who is asking about what works for others is worthy of a thoughtful answer. A stand with some up and down motion along with an XY table can be a great aid, especially with an angle vise added to the setup.
jud

Hello people,
 
I wanted to buy a router but the missis wouldnt let me spend the money so I searched the bits and peaces-bin for stuff to make on myzelf. I had an old Kinzo multitool wich I could use and the necessary parts were there too. I built a router-part which is adjustable in height, a part to make circles and a part to make straight lines. 
 
Here's the result.
 

 

 

 

 
It works very well and I am very happy with it.
 
Kind regards, Kees

My preference would to be to use plans in decimal feet or metric, I would probably convert inches and fractions directly to decimal feet from plans before I did anyththing with them.
Generally when you are dealing with machine tools, you are working in decimals of something, ' inches or metric', as long as you are using base 10, it should make little difference when you setup the machines. Having been a Surveyor I like to work in decimals, that is what the slide rule, calculator and computers use anyway. Fractions are converted to decimals by those machines in order to work with them, if asked some will convert them back.  I don't really care for imperial numbers, an awkward way of manipulating numbers if there are any calculations involved. Mills is a much better way of measuring and displaying angles than degrees, Minutes and Seconds, unless you convert to Decimal Degrees. Any machine you will have available to you, will be using decimals, make a choice or take pot luck, they all will do the job, mine uses decimal inches, it's the 12 inches equals a foot and fraction inches that is a problem and only then when manipulating them for a math problem.
jud

My preference would to be to use plans in decimal feet or metric, I would probably convert inches and fractions directly to decimal feet from plans before I did anyththing with them.
Generally when you are dealing with machine tools, you are working in decimals of something, ' inches or metric', as long as you are using base 10, it should make little difference when you setup the machines. Having been a Surveyor I like to work in decimals, that is what the slide rule, calculator and computers use anyway. Fractions are converted to decimals by those machines in order to work with them, if asked some will convert them back.  I don't really care for imperial numbers, an awkward way of manipulating numbers if there are any calculations involved. Mills is a much better way of measuring and displaying angles than degrees, Minutes and Seconds, unless you convert to Decimal Degrees. Any machine you will have available to you, will be using decimals, make a choice or take pot luck, they all will do the job, mine uses decimal inches, it's the 12 inches equals a foot and fraction inches that is a problem and only then when manipulating them for a math problem.
jud

Thanks, Shiloh. Nice answer.
 
Tony

My preference would to be to use plans in decimal feet or metric, I would probably convert inches and fractions directly to decimal feet from plans before I did anyththing with them.
Generally when you are dealing with machine tools, you are working in decimals of something, ' inches or metric', as long as you are using base 10, it should make little difference when you setup the machines. Having been a Surveyor I like to work in decimals, that is what the slide rule, calculator and computers use anyway. Fractions are converted to decimals by those machines in order to work with them, if asked some will convert them back.  I don't really care for imperial numbers, an awkward way of manipulating numbers if there are any calculations involved. Mills is a much better way of measuring and displaying angles than degrees, Minutes and Seconds, unless you convert to Decimal Degrees. Any machine you will have available to you, will be using decimals, make a choice or take pot luck, they all will do the job, mine uses decimal inches, it's the 12 inches equals a foot and fraction inches that is a problem and only then when manipulating them for a math problem.
jud

I started this build four or five years ago. We moved across country and haven't lived in a place I could set up shop until recently so am now outfitting a new shop while I restart this project. Many pieces on the bulkheads broke in the move so I basically started by glueing all those back together. I also just added the aft filler blocks and am roughing them in.

Interesting problem....  This is a first.     As for mounting the whole assembly, maybe glue and pin the trucks to the deck and the half breeching rope, harden it with CA or epoxy.  Or maybe run a wire in the middle of it?  It would need to be secured to the deck to help hold things in place.  A bit of cantilever construction methinks.

Just leave them open, with the plugs out, can’t be to far off that way.
jud

If you forget the plugs, That’s why you have thumbs. I rode a DD, a DE, a Heavy Cruiser and 3 LST's, all WW 2 ships and all boats open to the sky with the plugs out.
If you want to cover your boats, should be OK as long as you show plenty of floats and life rafts for the crew and troops.
jud

Just leave them open, with the plugs out, can’t be to far off that way.
jud

If you forget the plugs, That’s why you have thumbs. I rode a DD, a DE, a Heavy Cruiser and 3 LST's, all WW 2 ships and all boats open to the sky with the plugs out.
If you want to cover your boats, should be OK as long as you show plenty of floats and life rafts for the crew and troops.
jud

On merchant ships (peacetime) it was normal to leave the plugs out whether the boats were covered or not.
 
John

Toolaholic's confession:  I bought a honing guide because I knew I needed it.  But it didn't work out like I had hoped.  Then I bought a better and, rather sophisticated, honing system.  It worked great for plane irons and chisels that needed a lot of work. But using it was somewhat time consuming and I waited until my tools showed dulling before I took them to the "honing table".
 
Somewhere along the way, I learned it is better, and easier, to keep your tools well honed.  All sharp tools dull with use.  Take a few minutes to hone the edge before and after use.  I rarely use guides anymore. 
 
Rob Cosman does a great job explaining the free hand sharpening process.  I don't use his angle tool.  What I do is rock the primary bevel until it sits flush on the stone, then lift a bit for the secondary bevel.
 

 

Mike, maybe this vid from Paul Sellers could help you with sharpening small and short blades:
 

I bought a set of these planes because they were on sale really cheap and because they looked cool being made from rosewood and brass.  Didn't expect much from them for the price but was pleasantly surprised.  The blades seem to be a good grade of steel and after sharpening (they were really dull right out of the package) and figuring out the best setting for blade depth (the thickness of a sheet of paper) they performed very well on both basswood and cherry.  For a cost of about $3 each delivered I can not complain.
 

Thanks Mark. I have done woodworking for about 30 years but most all of the projects were square with straight lines. Ship building on the other hand has very few straight lines. Ship building has truly renewed my interest in woodwork. I just hope I can live up to the talent on MSW.
 
 
GREG H.

On the images in the previous there are two parts visible that have not been discussed yet: a round cap that will close-off the electrical installations of the motor and a clamp to fix the machine at the workbench. The round cap actually is a bakelite cover for some electrical home installations and which had almost the right internal diameter. I just needed to enlarge it on the lathe by a few tenth of milimetres. It is held by two M1.6 cheese-head screws for which the casting was drilled and tapped. The clamp belonged to an obsolote electrical drill. The reciprocal movement of the filing machine will necessitate some form of fixation, or it is likely to jump around a bit. In addition, the high centre of gravity of the machine would make working with it like this rather unstable.
 

Reduction sleeve for fixing the motor and 12V DC electrical installations
 
It was now time to assemble the various parts. The ballbearing was thoroughly greased and pushed back into its seat. Next the drive shaft was pushed in and the crank and piston assembled. Holding the motor concentric in the casting initially caused a bit of headscratching, but then I chanced in the scrap-box upon a set of plastic reduction rings from a machine (they may have well belonged to the very jig-saw) and one of them had just the right internal diameter to fit the electric motor. The drive-shaft was secured with a set-screw to the gearbox output shaft. The scrap-box furnished also a rubberised cable complete with kink protector, for which the bakelite cap had been drilled out. When the assembly was complete, the machine was ready for a first test-run.
 

Brass guiding plate
During the test-run I noticed something previously overlooked: the piston did not have a firm guide to prevent it from rotating. It was thought that the crank would give enough guidance, but it still wiggled somewhat during each stroke, which is rather undesirable for precision work. Therefore, a brass guiding plate was added to the cross-head that slides along the crank-plate of the drive shaft and thus prevents the piston from rotating. One could have also made a new crosshead that touches the crank-plate, but I wanted to avoid a steel on steel contact and the guiding plate can be adjusted for wear.
 
To be continued ...

Looks like your knees are well thought out and you have a good plan to produce them. One thing you might consider is to move the radius points, inboard and down, of the circular curves you drilled. Would allow for transition curves between the tangents and those curves. From the photos, it looks like that is what the builders did, it really improves the appearance and often adds strength in these types of transitions. You are doing some amazing work on this cross section.
jud

Looks like your knees are well thought out and you have a good plan to produce them. One thing you might consider is to move the radius points, inboard and down, of the circular curves you drilled. Would allow for transition curves between the tangents and those curves. From the photos, it looks like that is what the builders did, it really improves the appearance and often adds strength in these types of transitions. You are doing some amazing work on this cross section.
jud

Here is the before and after filing and sanding.

The long legs still have to be cut to length and the short leg of the diagonal needs to be beveled.
But that will be done during final fitting and glue-up.

Looks like your knees are well thought out and you have a good plan to produce them. One thing you might consider is to move the radius points, inboard and down, of the circular curves you drilled. Would allow for transition curves between the tangents and those curves. From the photos, it looks like that is what the builders did, it really improves the appearance and often adds strength in these types of transitions. You are doing some amazing work on this cross section.
jud

Jud, I think I understand what you are referring to, however, keep in mind that the pieces I show are cut roughly to shape. A lot of filing and sanding will smooth out those transitions and make them look like the real thing (I hope).
 
I should add one more comment about the thickness of the knees.
A real closeup of the real ship indicates that the legs of all knees that are against the bulwarks are really against the frames and the inside planking was added afterwards. Structurally that makes a lot of sense but for my model an impossible task. Hence those legs will be filed thinner and glued against the planks. 

Looks like your knees are well thought out and you have a good plan to produce them. One thing you might consider is to move the radius points, inboard and down, of the circular curves you drilled. Would allow for transition curves between the tangents and those curves. From the photos, it looks like that is what the builders did, it really improves the appearance and often adds strength in these types of transitions. You are doing some amazing work on this cross section.
jud