gjdale

Congratulations Jim, you've done a wonderful job of her (or should that be him?) and you should be justifiably proud. What site will your stage coach be on?

Oh, and by the way, if those photos were taken at your house, I wanna come visit!

That's looking great Hec. Don't be afraid to be quite vigorous in rubbing back the copper if you want some of the green to show through. Alternatively, you can just go with a "fresh from the dockyard" look. Captain's choice as we say.

Did you manage to get a hold of a copy of Longridge?

Thanks everyone for your kind words and encouragement. It feels really good to be back in the shipyard and making sawdust.

Kevin - I wrote this Tumbler up in a word document, which wouldn't take much to tidy up. If you are interested I can post it here so you can download it for future reference.

Okay, as promised, here's the final instalment on the Block Tumbler.

Mod 2: I had an epiphany while thinking about the drive shaft problem and decided that the only way it was going to work was for the drive shaft to be a single piece running through the top end cap.  The limitation was that the “business” end needed to be no larger in diameter than 10mm in order to fit through the headstock spindle of the lathe.  So new drive shafts were manufactured with the “business” end turned down to a 10 mm diameter.

Here is the new setup running on the lathe.  The cutting tool is lightly held agains the canister body to prevent it from turning.  In this picture the lathe is actually running, with the drive shaft turning within the canister.

Functional Test No. 2

The functional test on the new design worked perfectly.  To further the testing, a selection of kit blocks was put through a short spin in each of the grades of sandpaper.  To begin with, this is how the blocks look “as provided” in the kit:

It’s pretty obvious from this picture why a block tumbler is needed.  Up until now, I have been individually hand sanding all blocks prior to use - a very tedious process!

Here’s a comparison of an untreated block (on the left) with one that has had a very short tumble.

I then proceeded to a larger test with a range of block sizes.  Time spent in the tumbler was very short for these tests - no more than 2 minutes in each grade of sandpaper.

After Tumbling in 120 grit:

The same blocks after then Tumbling in 400 grit:

And after then Tumbling in 600 grit:

 So just for comparison let’s look at a “before” and “after” shot side by side:

I think this proves the concept.  Even better results should be achievable with a longer duration in the Tumbler.  Finishing with 600 grit does seem to produce quite a nice end result that is ready to use.

Reflections / Observations

The Tumbler works well and is relatively simple to construct.  If I were doing it again, I would reduce the size of the canister considerably.  This canister I made is 100mm long with a diameter of about 85mm.  I think a canister length of 50 mm, with a diameter of 50 mm would probably be quite larger enough for the purpose.

The drive shaft is key.  It must be a single piece that runs through the top end-cap.  Boring a 6.5mm hole in the tail end allows it to be located on a 6mm dowell spigot through the tail end cap.  This both supports the end of the drive shaft and allows it to spin freely.  The outer end of the tail end cap spigot is held in the lathe tail-stock chuck.

The whole assembly could be modified for hand held use.  To do that, cut the tail stock spigot off flush with the outer end of the tail end cap.  Then make and attach a “winding handle” to the drive shaft.

Happy Tumbling.  May all your blocks be smooth!

Thanks Augie and Keith.

Keith, I have edited my original post on the Block Tumbler to include a link to Janos's thread. I feel that now gives due acknowledgement to Janos and allows other readers to go direct to the source.

Nice to see you back Rosemarie. I look forward to updates on your Vic soon (after your card model show).

Nice fix Kevin.

Just beautiful Bob. Thanks for sharing.

Hi Janos,

Your post just crossed mine in the ether. Thanks for those extra thoughts too, particularly the caution about not mixing large size difference blocks at the same time. In retrospect, I agree that the tube could have been much shorter. Perhaps 50mm would be a better length. I can always modify that aspect later on - its like cutting hair - you can take more off, but it's much harder to put it back on

Thanks Mobbsie,

I had an epiphany over dinner. Although you might call it a BGO (Blinding Glimpse of the Obvious)!!!!

In order for this to work, the drive shaft needs to be a single piece that passes THROUGH the top end cap. The only catch is that the diameter at the lathe headstock needs to be no more than 10mm in order to fit through the head stock spindle (which means there is plenty of "meat" for the lathe chuck to grab. Simple solution really.

I cut new drive shafts equal to the existing drive shaft length PLUS the extra for the external part (another 45mm). I then turned down on the lathe, the external part to a diameter of 10mm. Bored a 6.5mm hole in the tail stock end (to seat the end cap). Cut the slots for the "flappers". Drilled new holes in the top end cap to give a "slide" fit over the drive shaft. And it's done.

Functional Test 2 this evening and it worked a treat! Have done a short test run on some sample kit blocks, putting them through each tumbler in turn (120; 400; 600) and I'm quite pleased with the results. Have taken pics but won't be able to post until tomorrow as its quite late now and the Admiral has banned me from the computer for the evening.

All in all, a successful day. Thanks Janos for your original design and inspiring me to have a go.

Continued from previous post.....

Cutting the remaining sandpaper to size is just a matter of “eye-balling” it.  We need one piece to go around the inside of the central chamber, and four “flappers” which go into the slots on the central shaft.  The end cap and chamber sandpaper was fixed in place with spray-on adhesive.  The flappers are simply folded over and slid into the slots without glue (which makes them easily replaceable). 

Functional Test No. 1

It was time to test the design.  I assembled the tumbler and mounted it in the lathe as previously described.  My joy was short lived however, as the torque from the lathe sheered the drive pin (dowel).   

Mod 1: This is a first mod to the drive shaft, for which I’m not holding too much hope.  I have replaced the dowel and inserted it into a larger dowel “handle”.  The new handle will be mounted in the lathe headstock chuck.

I will test this tomorrow, but suspect that it will sheer again.  I think the solution will be to make the drive shaft longer and extending right through the end cap.

Any advice/opinions welcome.

More to follow.............

Hi all,

Well I promised an update on the Block Tumbler so here it is. I have some good news and some bad news .

To start with, here is a little treatise on how I made Block Tumbler 1.0

First up, I wish to acknowledge that the basic design of this tumbler is not my own. I was inspired by a post made by Janos and have simply modified the construction somewhat to suit my own needs.

Here is a link to Janos's thread, which is mainly about making blocks, but includes discussion of his tumbler design:

http://modelshipworld.com/index.php?/topic/1885-block-making/?hl=%2Bblock+%2Bmaking

Materials used include:

100mm long section of a used cardboard postal tube of about 85mm diameter (PVC tubing could be used in lieu)

19mm diameter dowell rod for the central shaft

6mm dowells

3mm MDF (end caps)

6mm MDF (end caps)

Sandpaper - grit of your choice. I’ve made up three tumblers with 120, 400, and 600 grit

Spray-on adhesive

PVA glue

Tools required:

In putting this together, I used:

Scroll saw

Drill Press

Milling machine

Lathe

However, the entire project could just as easily be completed with only hand tools.

Design intent:

The intent for this design is to attach it to my lathe, with one end held in the 3-jaw chuck and the other in the tailstock chuck. This actually determines the maximum diameter of the main body of the tumbler, as it needs to fit over the lathe bed. The tumbler could equally be driven by a drill press, a hand held drill, or even manually turned. Any of these drive options would free the size limitation.

It had been my intention to use some PVC tubing for the main body, but the tubing I bought (90mm) was just a tiny bit large to fit across the lathe bed. Rather than re-visit the hardware store, I happened to have the postal tube lying around and it seemed to be just right in terms of size.

End Caps:

Having cut the postal tube into 100mm long sections, the next task was to make the end caps. These were made up of an outer cap of 6mm MDF and an inner cap of 3mm MDF, joined together to make a snug seal over the end of the tube. The tube section was used to trace circles of the requisite sizes for both Outer and Inner caps onto the MDF sheets.

I needed to mark the centre of each of these circles, so here is some basic high school geometry that makes this task easy:

Step 1: Draw a chord of convenient length (in my case 60mm) across a section of the circle and mark its mid-point:

Step 2: Repeat this twice more, so that you have three chords drawn, all with centers marked. (It is only necessary to use two chords, but the third will reveal any errors in the construction). I chose to draw chords at an angle of about 120 degress to each other - the reason will become obvious shortly.

Step 3: Using a set square, draw a line perpendicular to each of the chords, passing through that chord’s mid-point previously marked.

Where these three lines intersect is the centre of the circle:

Step 4: Cut out each of the circles using a scroll saw (or hand held fret saw / jeweller’s saw). Then drill a 6mm hole through the centre of the circles.

Step 5: As I was making several tumblers at once, I temporarily spot glued the rough-cut circles together in gangs of the same size, over a central dowell. This then enabled me to mount the gangs in the lathe in order to turn them down to a consistent diameter with a smooth finish. You can avoid this step if you take more care than me with the cutting out.

Here is the result of the lathe turning process, once the discs had been separated from each other:

Step 6: Join together one each of a large and small disc, using a 6mm dowell for alignment and protruding a roughly equal distance either side.

Central Shafts:

Step 7: Prepare the central shafts by cutting them to length, drilling a 6mm hole in one end and a 6.5mm hole in the other. The idea here is that the 6mm end will be attached permanently to one end cap, while the 6.5mm end will provide a locator for the other end cap but with room for the shaft to turn around it. Complete the shafts by sawing slits along the length of the shaft. This is take the sandpaper “flappers” later on.

It was at about this point that I ran into some trouble with my Mill. My intent had been to cut these slots with a slitting saw in the Mill. However, during the cutting of the first one, the Mill’s motor died - whether as a result of this operation or some other reason I do not know. Regardless, this left me no choice but to complete this operation by hand. In fact, the slots are quite easily cut using a hacksaw - the kerf of the blade is just the right width to accommodate the sandpaper flappers.

So, here is how our overall construction looks so far:

Sandpaper:

Step 8: Now it’s time to fit the sandpaper to our machine. First up, I used a couple of spare smaller discs to trace the outline for the end caps, then sandwiched the sandpaper between them and drilled a hole through the centre. This now fits neatly over the end caps.

Continued in the next post ..............

Thanks for dropping by Gary.  If you need any info from the work I've been doing, just let me know - I'm quite happy to share.

Anja - we'll be visiting UK and Europe throughout September.  Although we are spending the majority of our time in the UK, we will also be spending some time in Paris, Florence and Venice.  If you happened to be visiting Paris around the time we're there, it would be nice to meet up.  Or you could come back to visit Mobbsie again too.........

Thanks Mark. Much as I'd like to take some extra time, I do actually need to get back to work. I have a great team who have done a splendid job in my absence, but any longer might start putting some unnecessary strain on them.

Okay, I'm off to finish off that tumbler and hopefully make some blocks too.

Good question Kevin, and one for the mods I guess. From my perspective, I think it's perfectly okay. In fact I think it's great that you do this of your own initiative. It's a great thread and seems to be very popular. It's allowed a lot of us to be introduced to builds that we otherwise might have missed. So, take this as a big THANKYOU from me.

Nice progress Mick. I think I've gotten the hang of your photo bucket now

Those sanders look interesting. I'd be interested to hear how they go in practice.

Thank you both very much Sjors and Anja, and also Mobbsie for the kind offer of photos during your forthcoming visit to Portsmouth. I don't think I need any particular shots at the moment (I do have quite a few already), although if the ship's boats are on display I would like some pics of them - as many as possible, showing paint schemes and internal details if possible (you know the sort of thing a modeller needs to know )

Sjors - looks like you'll have to find another way to earn some money for your Aggy. Perhaps if you take your clown suit with you, you can do some street theatre while Anja and Mobbsie go for a tour of the ship!

And Mobbsie - I hope you don't get bored with visiting Portsmouth and Greenwhich, because I'll be over there in September and will be expecting your services as my local Shipmodelling tour guide

I see that ME has the Camel on sale again today - 50% off..............

Augie, Mobbsie,

I'll reveal all on the block tumbler tomorrow (after a successful functionality test of course). The design is based on that posted by Janos a few days ago in his thread on making blocks. I've made some mods to the construction process, but it's basically his design.

Hmmmm...... Yep, could certainly do with another week off to recover from my recovery!

This is just lovely work Bob! Very inspirational.

Thanks Bob,

Your message dropped in while I was posting my last message.

Thanks David. I hear what you say about not rushing. It is very tempting to do so, especially as you near the end. Diverting into some little side projects like these jigs is a good way to force oneself to slow down a bit and avoid that temptation.

The other thing I did last night was to spend several hours poring over different reference texts and plans trying to make sense of the fitting of the various blocks for the Fore Lower Yard. My primary source was of course Longridge, but he wrote this section of the book in a way that is very difficult to follow. By cross referencing with Antscherl's TFFM Vol 4, I was able to decipher most of what Longridge wrote. While TFFM is written for a sixth rate, there was enough similarity for me to start to get the picture. I also cross refernced against my Warrior Practicum, which is based primarily on Steel. Again, while I suspect this text contains some errors, there was enough commonality/similarity to help sort the jigsaw puzzle. I also cross checked these against the kit diagrammatic plans and was pleasantly surprised to find them to be very close to correct (now there was an unexpected outcome!).

In studying all of this, I made up a spreadsheet with the names of all the blocks and their actual sizes. Antscherl provides the formula for the three dimensions of a block, and so I used this in the spreadsheet as well. The advantage of doing this is that I could simply enter the one principal block dimension and then let the computer do the work of calculating the remaining dimensions and converting all of the real world sizes (in inches) to my model scale of 1:90 in mm. Part of the reason for doing this was that I wanted to have a go at making some of my own blocks, and now I have all the dimensions I need to do so. Again, somewhat surprisingly, the kit instructions were generally close in the block sizes indicated. That is good news for anyone else doing this kit and not wanting to go to the same trouble that I just did.

Antscherl also gives a suggested order or sequence to fitting the various blocks, so I entered this into the spreadsheet as well, and re-sorted by sequence number to produce my very own personalised rigging guide.

I plan to have a crack at making blocks over the weekend (hence the need for the block tumbler). Will let you all know how that goes.........

Thanks Mobbsie. That little jig ended up taking most of the day to make, though having done it once, I could probably repeat it in about one hour.

Spent most of today making a block tumbler. Well, four of them actually. Decided to try making one each of three different grades of sandpaper, and one "spare". Once I had the design aspects worked out, I could see that it would be easiest to do them using a "production line" method. Again, it has taken a lot longer than I first anticipated and when play was halted this evening at the Admiral's orders, they were not yet complete. However, things have been working out according to plan/design and it won't take long to finish them tomorrow. I'll post full construction techniques and photos tomorrow.

Had to take time out this afternoon for a review by the ENT surgeon. The good news is that he's very happy with progress and has given me the all clear to resume all aspects of a normal life The bad news is that this includes returning to work on Monday

Glad to hear that Judy is doing well under your ministrations Gil, but sorry to hear you'll miss your boating extravaganza.

Nice to see masts rising Robbyn.

In all seriousness though, Adrieke is quite right about inventorying the kit contents (check out his experience with his Gorch Foch). At least that way by the time you get to start you'll be confident that everything that should be there is. I think ME are pretty good with their QC on kit contents, but you can never be too sure.