gjdale

Welcome home Anja. Thank you to both of you for taking so many pictures for me.

Shame about the mast Andy. On the other hand, it's been a most entertaining discussion on the English language!!!

Nice work Danny. The panels look great.

Nice gratings Rusty, and thanks also for the "how to" explanation - takes the mystery and "fear factor" out it.

Hi Danny, Here's a link to Mike's Tools. http://www.mikestools.com/

Looking VERY nice there David!

And as my dear mother used to remind me, the difference between friends and family is that we get to choose our friends! (Still havent worked out if she was giving me a hint....). Hope your family are also friends Augie. Have a great time and we'll look forward to more updates on your return.

John, You're standing into danger again. Much closer and we'll have to introduce him to that other popular book "Let Stalk Strine". That's right up there with the Drop Bears! Oh, nice masts Andy!

Thanks Brian, Augie, Andy, Keith, Ben and Mark for your encouragement. Mark - I had previously read Chucks post on this but had forgotten about it. Thanks for reminding me - that looks like a method that might work for me, so Ive saved it this time. Just need to get the mill bits now - oh dear, more toys to buy!

Hi all, It seems to have been a while since I posted an update, and I'm afraid I don't have much to show for what seems to have been a fair amount of effort over the last couple of weekends. I decided to take a little break from the rigging process as I wanted to experiment with making blocks, and I also wanted to have another go at making more ship's boats from scratch. First up though, because my mill motor died when I was making the block tumbler, I had to wait for a new motor to arrive from the US (I highly recommend Mike's Tools by the way, as a source for Sherline Lathes, Mills, accessories and components. Good prices, excellent customer service, and relatively speedy delivery - no association, just a very satisfied repeat customer). Anyway, the new motor arrived on Friday so spent Friday evening installing that - not too difficult, even for a neophyte like me! The mill is now fully operational again. I've been umhing and ahhing over making blocks, and a recent post by Janos inspired me to have a go. When it came to methods though, there are so many out there that it gets confusing. In the end I settled on trying the method described by EdT in his Victory log (part 15 for anyone looking for the reference). My first issue was making an appropriate scraper to form the grooves for the sheave holes and the straps. I haven't done much in the way of making scrapers before, and I'm sure I'm doing something wrong as I'm not very satisfied with the results. I have two issues here, and I'd be grateful if any of you can offer some further advice. The first issue is marking out the scraper blade (I'm just using an old Exacto blade for stock) - how do you mark it out accurately for cutting? The second issue is the cutting itself. I can manage the rough shape, but none of my files seem to be small enough to finesse the final shapes. Any advice? Anyway, this was all about testing the process and not achieving final results. For this purpose, I was just using some left over kit-supplied walnut stock, and was trying to make some 4mm single sheave blocks - about as small as I think I'll be able to manage (eventually). So, having made some rough grooves on all four sides, I followed Ed's advice and drilled holes to designate the top and bottom of each block in the strip. To do this I wanted to use the mill so that I could take advantage of the calibrated hand wheels to position the holes accurately. Before I could do that, I needed to make a jig to hold the stock and provide a sacrificial surface to drill into. After some head scratching, I came up with the idea of making a "tooling plate" from some scrap MDF. I used the Sherline aluminium tooling plate as a template to drill some holes to take some retaining screws. I gave the plate some trim on two sides to provide something to wedge the stock against, and then used the Sherline tooling plate with some clamps to hold it in place. Sounds complicated, but a picture tells a thousand words as they say. Here's the set-up, which worked quite well for the purpose: Once these holes were drilled, the next step was to rotate the stock 90 degrees and drill the sheave holes. This is where it all came unstuck. I must have either miscalculated the distances, or simply didn't allow for some distance between blocks, but I failed spectacularly to achieve the aim, which was that the sheave holes would all lie in pairs between the top/bottom holes. Oh well, back to the drawing board on that one! I mentioned that I've also been playing with another ship's boat. Actually, I'm re-making the 34ft launch. I decided to have a crack at this using some methods from my Warrior practicum (Vol 5). Why? Because this provides a complete set of drawings for everything I need to do this, plus an explanation and photo-essay for guidance. The drawings are provided in both 3/16" (1:64) scale and 1/8" (1:96) scale. I figured all I need do was re-scale the drawings from the 1:96 set and use the appropriate timber dimensions. I had prepared for this over a year ago when I bought some timber from Jeff at Hobby Mill (lovely timber too!). So, all set. What could possibly go wrong? The first step was to make a building board and a hull plug, using the patterns for the waterline lifts. Here's the build board, with pattern attached ready for cutting out: Here's the four lifts cut out and ready to be glued up: Here's the plug with all lifts glued up - the dowel is simply to aid in aligning the lifts: And finally, here's the plug sanded to shape (primarily using the Dremel with sanding drum), along with the completed build board: To tell the truth, I had to have two goes at the plug - I was a bit too enthusiastic sanding the first one So next steps - keel for the Launch, and re-think the block making. Not altogether sure whether I will persist with the block making. The Block Tumbler I made a couple of weeks back did such a good job, that the kit-supplied blocks may well do the job yet . Still, it's good to experiment.

Outstanding, as always Karl.

Nice to see more progress on your lovely Atlanta Toni, even if it did involve some re-work (which, I might add, is actually re-assuring for we lesser mortals ). The side-by-side photo is a terrific one for giving a feel for the sizes.

Nicely done Andy. Of course, with such a great resource as TFFM, you will no doubt find that the more you "pick", the more you will "choose"!

Looks like you've got plenty to keep you occupied Meredith

Welcome back Meredith. Sorry to hear of your medical problems, but glad that everything seems to be okay now. Congrats too on the new job - hope it works out well for you. Nice to see your Syren started, and I'm guessing we'll be seeing one or two others started shortly too! Re your staining issue, I suspect that the high humidity you've had has been a major factor. Good plan to leave it all to dry out and cure for a few days. I don't know of any remedies for the humidity, but someone with far greater knowledge than I might chime in.

Just wonderful Bob. Thanks for re-posting this log. It has given me (and I'm sure many others) a great deal of pleasure to read through.

It's Saturday morning. I sit enjoying a leisurely cup of tea, with the radio playing quietly in the background, and re-reading this wonderful log. Aaahhhhh - life doesn't get much better than this! Thanks Ed.

Nice work Colin, Taking a break while you thought it through has payed off for you. It's all looking terrific!

Lovely job Toni

Lovely to see your wonderful log back Len. She really is a credit to you!

Johann, Your attention to detail is superb, and your execution stunning!

Thanks Anja - and you would NEVER be considered an intruder on my log!!! I hadn't seen that post, so thank you for the links - very interesting.

Andy, Just to throw in my 2c, it seems a shame to have a resource like TFFM and not follow that advice - it is more likely to be accurate IMHO.

I'm with you there Augie, though its only 30 odd years for me (not that odd really ). Mine often comes in the form of, "when did you say you were going away again?"

Robbyn, For your build board, why not use a few pieces of 'L' shaped steel or aluminium drilled to take screws through to the board? You can fix one side in place, then use your keel to determine the separation needed for the other side. Of course, this will happen AFTER you finish the SF, won't it