tkay11

Thanks a lot, Per and ZyXuz. It's great to have comments like yours as it helps me find other builds from which I can learn and (b)logs I can add to those I 'follow'. @Per: I wish I'd seen the details of the T37 build. I have grandchildren and when they're old enough I'm thinking of building some boat like that for them. Actually, I say 'for them' but I have a sneaky suspicion that I'd be the one hogging the time with it. @ZyXuz: I enjoyed the idea of a switch in a barrel! You certainly crack along at a good speed with your build. Very enjoyable. But I notice the blog only starts on day 15. I suppose that's something to do with the blog being limited to a certain size. I was wondering how you had made the bombard shot so I presume that was part of the earlier blog. Tony

Very interesting. That would also explain why it works much better on thinner sections. Tony

I'm still working out how best to use my Proxxon FET. I reckon the comment about it being underpowered is correct as I find it is very sensitive to the combination of thickness and density of wood. To get round it I slice the bigger blocks (25mm square)into blocks about 5 or 6mm square using the large cross-cut blade with the wide tungsten teeth -- this just seems to chew through anything without a problem. I then cut those blocks into smaller blocks using the 80 tooth 'super cut' blade which has a kerf of about 1mm, and it's only after that I use the slitting blades. I'm still learning, but so far this seems to work quite well for me with oak, apple and pear. The other thing I do is to wipe wax from my Liberon wax stick over the blade and make sure it's clean. That seems to help quite a bit as others have already said. The problem I still struggle with is working with the combination of locking the longitudinal stop and the guide with the scale markings. Once I lock the stop to the guide I find it a bit unpredictable when locking the stop to the table. This makes it fiddly to achieve an exact distance from the saw. Unfortunately the solution for another Proxxon saw using the Accuriser is not available for the FET. So if anyone can provide advice on this I'd be glad. Tony

Great to see another Lady Nelson build. There used to be more on MSW 1.0. It was my first choice as a first build, but it was out of stock at the time and I went with an almost identical Sherbourne that I'm in the throes of making. I'm looking forward to following your log. Tony

Thanks for looking in again, B.E., an for your kind comment. I'd been wondering whether you would do your pinnace from scratch. I see you're after Chuck's plans, so I look forward to see how you do it. These small boats are a real joy unto themselves -- it's a delight to hold such a small and light little shell in the hand. In fact it's been the most rewarding and delightful part of my build so far even if (or perhaps because) it took such a long time to plan and to build. I continue to enjoy your Pegasus build very much indeed. Lovely skills you have. It made me think of buying a mill as well, but I'm putting it off until I get my head around the basic stuff! Tony

That's really nice of you, Bob! I've often read your comments with interest -- they always have a good dash of humour mixed in with the wisdom. I loved your Dory, but your note to me made me aware of your Spray which is really beautiful. I have a strong feeling that my next project will be along the lines of your Spray. I have the book by Ewart Freeston on the Construction of Model Open Boats, which I bought when I was attempting my build of a ship's boat, and that made me think more of this type of boat. It's certainly a great way to get into scratch building and the models won't take up a lot of space. I'll now be following your Malabar closely. My thought about my log is exactly to help others like myself who come across the mysteries of how to approach an aspect of a build for the first time. For the more experienced it's all old hat and for many the techniques obvious, but when I come across a log that explains in detail how the problem was approached, what tools were used, how they were used, and how things go wrong I learn a huge amount. So I hope to give something back with each faltering step of my own! Tony Thanks again Tony

Very nice discussion! Good tips for me as I learn to use my own Proxxon FET! I hadn't thought about wood dust collecting in the cut. Many thanks to you all! Tony

The zero clearance insert for my Proxxon FET saw is 2.54mm thick, or 0.1". You might make a reasonable one by gluing together two sheets of plywood, one 0.8mm thick, the other 1.6mm. The remaining 0.1mm could be made up of a sheet of paper in between if you find the glue doesn't do that. At least that's what I am just about to try. If it doesn't work I'll let you know! Tony

Ha! I admire your thinking re the Shapeways cannon -- but they're still around 25mm (same size as the kit cannon) and look expensive if you have them done in brass. 3D printing is certainly a very interesting option, though. It all depends on your approach to the kit. I agree that if you're after something of beauty then it's hard to beat the brass cannon you can buy. I can't think, though, that trying to file off a mm or so from the kit's cannon would do any good. Where would you file from? From either end you'd be filing away essential pieces of the cannon. That and the fact that all the dimensions are slightly larger. I did spend some time filing the canon, but only to get rid of the irregularities from the moulding. I'm still sticking with mine. I had a look at changing the carriages, and as I'd have to add only 1.5mm to the carriages to match the size of the cannon I decided I'd leave them as they are. They don't look nearly as well as Dirk's, but then I'm focusing more on learning basic skills at the moment. If I bought cannon that are beautiful, they would not match the rest of the build which is clearly very basic. Your ability is better than mine in that regard. It might be worth your while to turn your own cannon in wood. One of the very best resources for people who don't have much in the way of machine tools (e.g. myself) is Hubert Sicard's (he uses the name 'Bosco' on this forum) site called 'Ship Modeling for Dummies'. This has excellent videos on making jigs for parts as well as your own tools from very simple material. One of these is a lathe made from a standard household electric drill. He shows how you can turn very nice cannon from wood using old blades which you grind out from a pattern. The site is both in English and French. You have to pay 45 Canadian dollars for a lifetime subscription, but it is possibly one of the best value spends I have made. Many on this forum agree. It has hundreds of great tips, many of them illustrated by silent videos which you can download and keep. I was revisiting his site yesterday to remind myself how he makes his own blocks. Even if you don't follow everything he suggests, his imagination is so wonderful you are bound to have great pleasure in seeing his ideas. In order to fashion your own cannon you need to trace a drawing. I have used both Photoshop and TurboCAD to resize drawings from PDF files. It really is very easy to do. I wasn't clear from your note whether you already are experienced in working in Photoshop or CAD, but if you don't have Photoshop, Adobe are now distributing all the CS2 suite (which includes Photoshop) totally free. You can find it at http://www.adobe.com/downloads/cs2_downloads/ where you will see the varieties available for PC and Mac. Once you have fashioned one cannon, you can then make a mould and make as many as you like. I noticed that several people on this site have done that. It's something recommended by quite a few books. What I did for the barrels was to put epoxy filler in the muzzles then drilled that out with a 1mm drill and painted them black. You'll already have seen that the kit cannon muzzles are not centred properly, so the epoxy also had a use in establishing the centre point to drill. I use a Proxxon mini-drill in a Proxxon drill stand, so I was able to place the barrels in the vice made for the drill stand and drill vertically quite accurately. I did the same for the trunnions, replacing them with bamboo dowel I had put through a cheap drawplate. I am very poor at gauging a vertical when trying to drill with a pin vise. If you want to try a CAD programme there are many trial versions available. Older versions of TurboCAD are pretty cheap on Amazon (round £50), but you can get a totally free CAD programme from DraftSight. There's also the free version of SketchUp which can be used (though I didn't find that so easy for tracing drawings). I taught myself CAD on TurboCAD, so that's what I'm sticking with at the moment. I had another look at my cannon trucks and I'm still dithering about whether to remove the black banding -- it does look rather nice, as you say! Once I've learned how to do blocks properly, it may well be I'll turn cannon: but that's some way off at the moment. All part of the slow trek towards the beautiful finishes achieved by many of the modellers on this forum. Tony

Yes, I remember David's guns as well. Actually, because the gun barrels are an intermediate size, I have been thinking of making the carriages the right size for the barrels rather than buying new barrels. This is because I keep trying to use as much of the kit as possible without buying new parts, or else trying to make the parts. However I have to admit buying photo-etched 0.3mm eyelets following Dirk's lead. The carriages I made are for a 3-pounder while keeping the 3.5-pounder barrel from the kit. I based the dimensions on the Anatomy of the Ship book on the Cutter Alert where it says a 4-pounder barrel should be 6ft long, and a 3-pounder 4'6", or 28.6mm and 21.4mm respectively at 1/64. I measured my kit ones at 24.7mm or 5'2" scaled up. So they'd have to be 3.3mm shorter than the kit ones if they were to be the 3-pounders suggested by the kit. I was swayed not to buy or fashion new cannon by George Bandurek's comment (after making his own barrels) that the difference in size was barely noticeable. I do agree that the trunnions were hopeless --which is why I drilled them out and fitted my own. The trouble with making the carriages a bit bigger than I have at present is that I am feared that they will be too high for the gunports. I might make one up just to see, as I remain unsatisfied with the way my carriages turned out. In addition, I have now found out that iron hoops were not added to the wheels during this period, so I'd have to remove the banding I put on the wheels (or at least paint over it). Thanks for the comment about the ship's boat. It has been quite exciting for me to find out I could do it, albeit in a rather rough fashion. It has certainly made me enthusiastic to do more. I'll be off travelling again tomorrow, so I'll be out of the loop for a week (unless I can find an internet connection). Tony

Wonderful to see another Sherbourne started! You've done superbly so far. Beautiful planking and finish to the wood, and your cannon make me slightly regret giving up on the carriages supplied with the kit. I'm sure you've seen Dirk's (Dubz on this forum) build. He and Daniel (Siegfried) as well as David (written by his partner Amanda as Bangle) set a very high standard for Sherbournes -- although when MSW 1.0 went down we lost a lot of their logs. I do agree about George Bandurek's book being useful, he gives great heart to the novice builder in trying things out. I hadn't thought of looking at the Badger instructions, so I'm going to give that a look. For my own build I'm practising making blocks at the moment, with the cannon in mind. Also continuing to work on the ship's boat (working on the rudder gudgeons and pintles) but work keeps getting in the way. I hope to have more time after the middle of June. I'm very much looking forward to the rest of your build. Tony

Nice thought, Walt! How about some photos? Tony

It's well worth reading the biography of Patrick O'Brian/ Patrick Russ by his stepson Nikolai Tolstoy. It's called Patrick O'Brian: The Making of the Novelist, and you can pick up used copies on Amazon very cheaply. It puts a lot of his writing into perspective, as well as explaining how he derived his characters. Very interesting, really, as he hardly ever put to sea in his life -- and when he did he was thoroughly frightened. None of that takes away from the brilliance of character, plot, historical detail, language and writing. It just makes you realise that he was projecting his imagination of himself onto his two main characters. Tony

This is really interesting. The amount of work that goes into this is astounding. Thanks again for keeping the flow of info. I think I could do with a an extra few gig in my own head to help me -- and that's just with figuring out the wooden ship! Tony

Thanks, Randy. I guess I could have predicted that, but needed to be clear! Tony

Just out of curiosity, what does a drill press add that is not done with a drill and drill stand? Is it the precision? Tony

Very useful info, Grant. Thanks for posting. Tony

I like the idea of adding rice grains -- would make it easier to distinguish the blocks. Has anyone tried doing it this way, with the small film canister? I'm still at the stage of trying to sand small blocks and am having quite a large number disintegrating instead, so the idea of a tumbler is appealing to me and I have been looking at a few examples on this site -- including Janos' and the subsequent modification that was posted. Tony

There are some excellent resources on deck planking you can download from the 'Article Downloads' section on this site. Very simple to follow. Tony

A very nice build, Skippy. Well worth following. Tony

I'll make sure you're in the loop, Mark, should ever I find another source. I seem to remember from MSW 1.0 that Jim Byrne's slitting blades are better than the MicroMark ones (longer lasting). So should I ever figure out the adapter I'll probably buy the blades from Jim. Tony

That's all sound advice, Joe. I'll do some digging and delving here in the UK. Otherwise I have a brother-in-law who lives in Palo Alto who sometimes comes over here, so he might be able to order and bring the stuff. I might even have a go at slicing a 1/2" dowel and drilling through with a 10mm drill bit using one of the techniques described in Drilling jigs for dowel and metal rodding on this forum. Tony

Yes, Joe, I know that they are the same machines -- although the MicroMark one is not FET but FS/E -- which makes some of the nice attachments that MicroMark offer unusable on my machine. It was that understanding that made me have a look at MicroMark in the first place as I thought they might have an adapter. If you by any chance have used some of their fine kerf blades with the adapter for the MicroMark saw I'd be glad to hear of your experience. Or have you stuck with the blades that have the 10mm spindle hole? Tony

Ebay's a good idea, Martin, and I'll certainly look there. It's the adapter I need, though, to fit blades from other manufacturers, since I have the Proxxon blades. Proxxon seem to have their own unique 10mm spindle which is not the norm for other manufacturers. Tony

Hmm, Wacko (I like the sound of that more than Joe, and hope no offence taken). Might just be a good excuse to buy a lathe. Costs a bit more than the shipping, but maybe if I put long term costs to the Admiral for budget approval.... Thanks, though, for the suggestions. It was the shipping and import costs that put the Byrnes machine out of reach for me. But I really do like the Proxxon, and I have gradually become more adept at using it. I'm now down to doing 1.6mm strips of 0.5mm walnut without a problem, and probably will manage smaller. It's what made me think of doing gratings as I am a bit dissatisfied with the main grating on my ship at the moment. Tony