gjdale

Another interesting little project Tom. I’m pulling up a chair in the front row for this one.

Glad to see you back at this lovely build Bob. Funny, it was only yesterday that I stopped by to see if you'd made any progress - seems that mental telepathy does work after all. 😊

Donington 93, Sorry to hear of your woes with Model Expo customer service. Sadly, this seems to be a common experience. I have sent you a Private Message with the company owner’s direct email address (we don’t post email addresses in the public domain here). It was only when I made direct contact with him that I received any real assistance, and even then it took a second email to him to bring his parts department into line with his promise. He does stand by his promise - he is let down by some very poor attitudes in the parts department, along with what appears to be a lack of appropriate supervision there. I hope you resolve your issue soon.

Watched the video today Kurt - well done on an excellent presentation. Thank you.

Dave, Looking good - nice "cheat"! Before you go too much further, you should be aware that an error has been discovered in Toni's drawings (see Cathead's log for details). Toni is presently revising the drawings.

You are spelling his name incorrectly. Here is a link to a post he made just last Sunday, advising of an update to his online shop. I suggest you PM him with any specific questions about spare parts you are after. He is very good to deal with and will go out of his way to help.

This is a fun little project Dave. You’re off to a good start.

Not sure where you’ve been looking, but I just checked his website and they are still there: https://www.shipworkshop.com/product-page/sm4-series-serving-machines-wrapping-machines

Are the tools in fixed positions? If so, you could use some PVC pipe to set up a manifold with dedicated lines to each tool and one plug in point for the vac. You would probably want to incorporate some blast gates so that only the tool in use is getting the suction.

I’m guessing the driveway shots! I must try that photography trick one day - it’s really cool.

Eric, Glad to hear you’re feeling better. I think your proposed solution might cause you problems with fitting the grating/hatch coaming. Is the capstan step actually glued to the deck beams yet? If not, I would suggest remaking the capstan step. A small setback for now, but you will be glad later on. As my wife often reminds me - the model is a long time finished…….

Yes Glen, soon…..maybe another week or so while I finish up some other non-modelling projects.

Glen, I hit the “like” button not because you found some problems, but because you have a plan to fix them. I know you’ll do an excellent job on them too.

Glad to hear you solved the problem Rick. I think all of us (except Chuck) have had to cut several new planks for this model.

Glad to hear the surgery went well Rick - welcome back. Re your plank 9, you should be able to use the original AYC sheet it came from as a template for a new one.

This looks interesting Kevin. I’ll pull up a chair next to the bar and follow along too.

Great work Bug. One idea you might try for the “knob” is a drop/blob of PVA. You can relatively easily control/adjust the size this way too.

Sorry to hear you’ve not been well Eric. Hope you recover swiftly and get back to this project soon - it’s certainly worth persevering.

Thank you both B.E. And Mark. I continue to follow your own excellent work with great interest.

Bob - next up will be my Amati Hannah Ship-in-a-Bottle kit that I received for my Birthday a couple of months ago. But first I have some full size woodwork in the queue. I’m attending another one week hand tools master class next week, and I also have to make a document box that will be a wedding present for my son and his fiancé, who are getting married at the end of next month. I’m starting on that one today.

Thanks again Glen, Eric and Tom for the kind comments.

Thank you so much Bob, that’s very kind of you.

Metal work and Blackening I decided to “cheat” when it came to the bolts and have used two different sizes of brass nails left over from kits various to represent all of the bolt heads. Similarly, left over eye bolts were used for the bar retaining pins, and I found some chain sculling around in the spare parts box as well. The only thing I did make were the eyebolts that secure the bar pin chains to the centre of the drumhead. There have been many discussions on this forum regarding blackening and I have tried various of them over the years. For blackening brass, my go-to product has become Jax Pewter Black, which claims to work with pewter, lead, brass, bronze, copper, tin-lead alloys, and solders. The key to success with this product (for me) has been to NOT dip or soak the parts to be blackened in the solution. Rather, by using a small bristle paint brush, the solution is “rubbed” onto the surface of the part, and then rinsed in distilled water. By using this method, I have found that the blackening does not flake or rub off. Here are all of the metal parts blackened and ready for installation. For the nails/bolts, only the heads needed blackening as the rest won’t be seen. Final Assembly (P/N 1000) All of the wooden parts received two coats of Kunos Oil, wiped on and buffed off immediately. This has left a smooth to the touch finish without too much sheen (more coats = more sheen). With all the metal work blackened, final assembly was a pretty straight forward process. I opted to use 5-min epoxy to secure all of the bolts etc, rather than CA (which I really hate using). So here are some final shots of the completed project: This has been a fun little project that presents more than a few challenges for modellers of all capabilities. I’d like to thank Toni for all her work in making this project available. I'd also like to make a special thanks to Tom (Used to Sail), whose log was a great source of additional information, as well for the occasional PM conversation along the way. Thanks also to all who have stopped by, offered kind comments and/or hit the like button.

Randy, I have to agree with Ed - more sophisticated tools are more capable (and more expensive) buy aren’t the panacea to all your modelling problems. That said, I’m very biased towards the Sherline lathes and mills - they are a joy to use and do enable you to produce some excellent results - BUT - they also often require a good deal of thought about the process by which you achieve those results. For me, it is often the challenge of how to hold the workpiece for a particular operation that takes the most thinking. I often go searching through logs like Ed’s or Danny Vadas’ looking for ingenious solutions to these problems when they arise. I then try to replicate what they have done. Occasionally, I’ll come up with my own ideas too. Only you can decide whether to return/replace your current tools, Should you decide to do so, my recommendation would be to look at the Sherline range. Yes, they are expensive, but as my dear old Dad often said, “quality is remembered long after price is forgotten”.