gjdale

I’d be happy to help with emptying the whiskey bottle Glen! This sounds like a very interesting build and I love your idea for display. I’m taking a front row seat for this one. 😊

Great work on the paint job Mark. Even the “wall side” looks good to me.

Floyd, I bought my LoS online (can’t remember the supplier now, but a quick Google search should provide some options). The one bit of advice I’d offer here is to buy the LoS in gel form. Then you can put a very small blob on a paint palette, put a drop of water next to it, and then dip a paint brush where the two meet. I find this technique provides a good strength solution, without getting too scientific about ratios. I think it was Ed Tosti who first suggested that approach to me. Anyway, it works for me.

After a brief side project making some bandsawn Reindeer Christmas decorations, it was time to proceed with the Capstan Body. The Capstan Body is assembly P/N 300 and is comprised of the Barrel (P/N 301), the Whelps (P/N 029), the Chocks (P/N 030 and 031), and the retaining pin assembly (P/N 303). Barrel (P/N 301) The barrel, while made from a single piece of timber, has a varying cross section. At the top it is square, the mid-portion is ten-sided, and the lower part is circular, with a stepped section for the gasket. The retaining pin assembly is also cut from the same piece of stock. All of these cross-sections are achieved using a combination of the lathe and the mill. It all starts with a square blank. The length of the blank needs to be long enough for a little extra length for work holding, but short enough that it will fit in the mill mounting arrangement (seen later). Rather than mounting the (not-quite) square blank in a four-jaw chuck and leaving the extra length square-ish in section, I opted to mount it between centres and turn the entire length, which would subsequently allow me to mount it in a three-jaw chuck. Here is the start of the process. Once the entire length was turned down to the maximum diameter of the barrel, the narrower sections for the gasket and the part that will go through the Capstan Step were turned down. The part was then removed from the lathe and inserted in a three-jaw chuck, which was mounted on the mill rotary table, which was attached to a right-angle mount. The “tail” end was supported using an adjustable tailstock holder. Here is the overall set-up, which facilitated milling of the ten-sided section and the square top section. In this photo all of the milling has been completed. All of that sounds easy, and it is if you pay attention to correct set-up of your mill – which I failed to do on the first attempt. It had been quite a while since I had used the mill and I simply forgot some of the basics. After a failed first attempt, I started over and this time spent the necessary time to align the rotary table in both the Y and Z axes, and to align the tail-stock holder properly with the chuck. A little bit of fiddling to be sure, but really the only way to ensure that your final product will be what you intended, within the tolerances you intended. The part was left in the chuck and the chuck removed from the rotary table and returned to the lathe for the next operation. After using a 1/8” centre drill to start the hole, a regular 1/8” drill bit was used to drill through the excess material, through what would become the retaining pin assembly, and into the base of the capstan body. This departs slightly from Toni’s drawing and is a little bit of a “cheat”, but was the easiest way to ensure that the holes for the retaining pin aligned perfectly. The main body was then separated from the retaining pin assembly and cut roughly to length at the top (square) end. The main body was then reversed in the chuck and the square end cut down to final length by a series of facing cuts on the lathe. Similarly, the retaining piece was cut to rough length with a hand saw and then re-inserted in the chuck and trimmed to final length with another series of facing cuts. After test-fitting the assembly, I found that the retaining piece needed to be significantly shorter than shown in the drawings in order that it not extend below the deck beams. This was a simple fix – the piece was marked to a new final length directly from the deck beams and re-inserted in the lathe for another series of facing cuts. A piece of 1/8” diameter brass rod was cut to length for the retaining pin (P/N 028) and epoxied into the retaining piece (P/N 027). Here is a picture of all three pieces prior to gluing the retaining pin in place. The Whelps are next….

Coppering looks great Bug. As for protecting it, I think you only need to seal it to prevent it from oxidising, so a couple of coats of WOP as you suggest should do the trick.

The blue looks good Andy. I think your choice of colour scheme will make a nice point of difference to other Confederacy builds out there.

Very sorry to hear of the loss of your furry friend Andrew. At least you will still have the fond memories of her and Izzy will no doubt be a comfort. Don’t rush to get back to your model - it will be there when you are ready and you have put far too much hard work into her not to give her the full attention she deserves moving forward. We’ll keep a light on here for you in the meantime.

Best wishes for your upcoming Op, Mark. I agree with the others re the yellow ochre paint, but don’t rush it - just check under your signature again….the wood is patient…….

Hey guys, I think we might be drifting a bit here. Unless I've misunderstood, I think HOF was asking for advice on glues with a longer open time, not a quicker setting solution. Apologies if I've got the wrong end of the stick here.

Just as an afterthought HOF, you might consider using Hide glue. I know that Titebond make a ready to use version (no need for heating glue pots). It has a long open time and is easy to use without a lot of mess (no more than white glue anyway). On this side of the ditch its available through Carbatec and other woodworking supply stores.

You may need to look further than a local hardware store HOF - specialist woodworking stores, or boat building supplies stores (or either on line) will likely be more successful for your search. Look for something that advertises “long open time” or words to that effect.

Sorry to hear that Mark - sounds like something I would do! The paint solution sounds like a good plan.

Do you need to be “fiddling” with all five or six sections at once, or can you focus on one section at a time? I’d be leaning towards the white PVA myself but you can get this in different set times. If you go for one of the slower setting ones, you should be okay.

Love it Bug - my sentiments exactly! I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve referenced back to Danny’s logs to re-read how he did something. That said, I’ve referenced your work on more than one occasion, so don’t sell yourself short. 😊

Nice to see you back with a build log Andy. Looks great so far - had a chuckle over the doggy incident!

I assume you are talking 6:00am Brisbane time Richard, so 7:00 am for the rest of the east coast…. Works for me. 😊

The white is looking good Mark - well done.

At the end of the day, they are just numbers so it doesn’t really matter which you use. Where it does make a difference is in tooling - for example a mill or lathe, which will have their lead screws calibrated in either one system or the other (your choice on purchase). In that case, you may need to convert from one measurement system to the other, but then again, if you have a digital readout it again just becomes a matter of dialling in the the right number.

Thanks Bob, It’s more difficult to describe than to do. Once you can visualise the completed joint and keep that straight in your head, marking the joint extremities on the second half of the joint is just a matter of being slow and methodical, and triple checking everything before cutting. If the marking out is correct, the joint will be a pretty good fit straight off the cut/pare. If the marking out isn’t accurate, you can end up chasing your tail for quite some time trying to get a good fit. In another log, Druxey suggested practising this joint on some scrap wood first. Good advice - my scrap wood just happened to be additional actual stock…….😉

It seems that time has gotten away from me again! Thanks Bob and Tom for your kind comments and for all of the "likes". On with the show! Hatch (P/N 102) This is the trickiest part of the build to date. It is made so by the joinery for the hatch, with the Coamings and Head Ledges being joined by “tailed half-lap joints”. This means that the joints are angled in two planes. It took some time to get my head around these joints, and after a few failed attempts I had to walk away for a few days before trying again. Then I got distracted with other tasks around the house and suddenly it was a few weeks before I got back to it. The key to success here is accurate marking out. To make the first half of the joint, measurements were taken from the drawings. I found my set of set-up blocks most useful for this task, along with a marking knife. The pencil was only used to go over the knife lines to improve their visibility. The second half of the joint must be marked directly from the first half, and this is the most difficult part. The method I finally succeeded with was to mark a pin prick with the marking knife to correspond with all four extremities of the first half of the joint. Then it was a case of using a ruler and the knife to “join the dots”. Cutting the joints was achieved with a razor saw and a full size, very sharp chisel. By keeping away from the marked lines initially, I was then able to pare to the line with the chisel and make any minor adjustments for a good fit. I got so engrossed in this process that I forgot to take any progress shots. Here is an example though of the joints cut, showing the angles in two planes. This picture is actaully of some “rejects”. Once I had satisfactory joints in all four corners, they were glued up and the rabbet pieces cut to size and fitted. The sides of the hatch are vertical for the bottom half, and then taper inwards by one-half inch (actual size). Rather than using a sanding block to achieve this, I used a marking gauge to define the extremities of the taper and then used a block plane to remove the excess material. I used my home-made mini Moxxon vise to hold the piece while I planed the sides, coming in from both ends to avoid breakout on the cross-grain joint. Here is the finished Hatch, ready for installation of the grating. The grating was then carefully adjusted for a snug fit. I found I needed to sand just the slightest amount off each side of the grating. It was then glued in place and the top surface sanded level with the hatch sides. I was contemplating how to mark out the positions for the fasteners, when it hit me that the answer was staring me in the face. I simply cut out the scale drawing of the grating and taped it over my grating. I then used my home-made needle point scribing tool to mark the positions. Once the pattern was removed, a pencil lead was twirled in the holes and the surface sanded lightly. And finally, here is an overview of progress to date: That completes all the “easy” part of this build. Next up we commence some lathe work with building of the Capstan body.

I think you’ll find a HUGE interest in a POF kit Chuck. An offering of the quality you have produced with everything you have done so far will be head and shoulders above anything else available on the market today. Add to that your approach to building and documenting as you go (as in Winnie), and I think you will have a real winner on your hands.

Pat, Doesn’t solve your issue with email, but I’ve had good success buying my Sherline bits and pieces through Mike’s Tools in the US. Prices are good and service is prompt.

Well I’m certainly interested Richard - and for a change, I’m in the same time Zone as you (almost). 😊

Looks good Floyd. I look forward to seeing the results after tumbling.

Hard to believe those parts were created by the same machine! Well done Alan - your perseverance has certainly paid off.