gjdale

Barge instructions to date for those that are interested.
 
Click here

The Alaskan Yellow Cedar barge has been planked.  Still lots to do on this one.  I havent even faired the hull inboard yet.  But before the molding and red paint is added I thought this would give you guys a nice idea of how the yellow cedar looks.  I have just applied some wipe on poly.  You can see the cherry version behind it.   They are actually the exact same size but digital cameras do these funny things....
 

 
I would like to get the cedar version to the same point as the cherry version so I can progress with both simultaneously.
 
All the cedar is wood project source
 
 
Chuck
 

Thanks for dropping in Mobbsie and Popeye, and thanks to all who hit the "like" button.  On with the show....
 
Wheel Building
 
Once again, I’m following Kip’s process for this. The next stage was thinning and shaping the wheel and adding the crenallations (finger grips). It took me a while to get my head around the cross-section shape of the wheel, but essentially it is egg-shaped, with the thinner part of the egg towards the back of the wheel (actually the forward side), where the finger crenallations will be. A couple of emails back and forth with Kip, and finally I understood what I was doing.
 
To begin with, the soldered wheel was placed back on the wooden forming buck. Because of the removal of the saw kerf from the diameter of the wheel, it was now a very tight fit on the buck, and so it could be spun on the lathe while files were applied to create the shape. First of all, the thickness of the outer rim was reduced by 1/32” by using a flat file.
 

 
Then the outer part of the back face was given a slight angle, again with a file. The wheel was then removed from the buck and held in the lathe chuck so that the inner part of the back face could also be angled, giving a very slight “v” shape to the back part of the wheel.
 

 

 
Now we needed to create a jig to hold the wheel while the crenallations were milled. Once again, I followed Kip’s lead and turned a piece of 75mm diameter HDPE (a plastic of sorts) with a 2.37mm deep rabbet around the outside, such that the wheel would just go over it. I also centre-drilled the jig while it was there.
 

 
I had never used this material before, but after reading Kip’s method, I stumbled across a piece of exactly the right size in my local machinery supplies shop and they let me have it for free – just goes to show how much money I’ve spent there…….
 
Anyway, this material (which I believe also goes by the name of Delrin), is a joy to work with. It machines beautifully and can be tapped and threaded with ease. So, the next job was to drill and tap some 6-32 mounting holes for some hold-downs.
 

 

 
Hold-downs were made from 1/16” brass strip, 1 inch long by 3/16” wide, drilled for clearance for the 6-32 socket head screws. A strip of honeycombed rubber (off-cut from a non-slip drawer liner) was inserted under each strip. The wheel was then mounted on the jig, the jig on the lathe chuck, the lathe chuck on the rotary table for the mill, and the rotary table on the 90-degree angle table. As Kip says, that’s a lot of mounting!
 

 
Okay, time for some milling……almost…….
 
Kip noted that the original wheel had either 12 or 13 crenallations in each of three 120 sections. The sections are separated by the spoke holders, where there are no crenallations. He estimated that the spoke holders cover about 10 degrees each, leaving 110 degrees of arc to fit the crenallations into. Kip did the math on this and worked out that for 12 crenallations, the centres needed to be 9.17 degrees apart. Way too hard for me Kip – too much chance of going wrong. I decided I would use 11 crenallations, making them 10 degrees between centres, which just happens to be two complete turns of the hand wheel on the rotary table. Much less chance of stuffing it up, and who’s going to notice anyway? Kip also advised using a 3/16” end mill and cutting to a depth of 0.0255”. Seriously Kip? And you think we’re crazy with our metric system! So, that converts to 0.65mm (rounded to two decimal places). I was still a little nervous about how this was going turn out – I didn’t want to be making several “practice” wheels, so before going near the mill, I sat at the computer for a couple of hours and played with my CAD program to work out how these would take shape on the wheel. It was an interesting exercise – that merely proved that I should have just trusted Kip in the first place and saved myself two hours! So, off to the mill.
 

 
In the above picture, I’m about one third of the way through milling the crenallations. It all went smoothly, except that the hold downs were a very tight fit between mill passes. In fact, the mill shaved a little off them as we went.  The only issue I had was that the silver solder joint failed during the process. Fortunately, that didn’t affect the rest of the milling. Here is the completed part fresh off the mill and before clean-up.
 

I used a scrap piece of MDF and quickly drilled and tapped some 6-32 holes so that I could use my hold-downs again while I re-soldered the join.
 

 
Once the soldering was completed, it was simply a case of cleaning it all up with some files and sandpaper. And here is the finished wheel rim:
 

 
I’m pretty happy with the way it turned out. Thanks to Kip’s trail blazing, I managed to get this on the first go. The next task will be making the spoke attachments for the rim. Stay tuned…..

Thanks for dropping in Mobbsie and Popeye, and thanks to all who hit the "like" button.  On with the show....
 
Wheel Building
 
Once again, I’m following Kip’s process for this. The next stage was thinning and shaping the wheel and adding the crenallations (finger grips). It took me a while to get my head around the cross-section shape of the wheel, but essentially it is egg-shaped, with the thinner part of the egg towards the back of the wheel (actually the forward side), where the finger crenallations will be. A couple of emails back and forth with Kip, and finally I understood what I was doing.
 
To begin with, the soldered wheel was placed back on the wooden forming buck. Because of the removal of the saw kerf from the diameter of the wheel, it was now a very tight fit on the buck, and so it could be spun on the lathe while files were applied to create the shape. First of all, the thickness of the outer rim was reduced by 1/32” by using a flat file.
 

 
Then the outer part of the back face was given a slight angle, again with a file. The wheel was then removed from the buck and held in the lathe chuck so that the inner part of the back face could also be angled, giving a very slight “v” shape to the back part of the wheel.
 

 

 
Now we needed to create a jig to hold the wheel while the crenallations were milled. Once again, I followed Kip’s lead and turned a piece of 75mm diameter HDPE (a plastic of sorts) with a 2.37mm deep rabbet around the outside, such that the wheel would just go over it. I also centre-drilled the jig while it was there.
 

 
I had never used this material before, but after reading Kip’s method, I stumbled across a piece of exactly the right size in my local machinery supplies shop and they let me have it for free – just goes to show how much money I’ve spent there…….
 
Anyway, this material (which I believe also goes by the name of Delrin), is a joy to work with. It machines beautifully and can be tapped and threaded with ease. So, the next job was to drill and tap some 6-32 mounting holes for some hold-downs.
 

 

 
Hold-downs were made from 1/16” brass strip, 1 inch long by 3/16” wide, drilled for clearance for the 6-32 socket head screws. A strip of honeycombed rubber (off-cut from a non-slip drawer liner) was inserted under each strip. The wheel was then mounted on the jig, the jig on the lathe chuck, the lathe chuck on the rotary table for the mill, and the rotary table on the 90-degree angle table. As Kip says, that’s a lot of mounting!
 

 
Okay, time for some milling……almost…….
 
Kip noted that the original wheel had either 12 or 13 crenallations in each of three 120 sections. The sections are separated by the spoke holders, where there are no crenallations. He estimated that the spoke holders cover about 10 degrees each, leaving 110 degrees of arc to fit the crenallations into. Kip did the math on this and worked out that for 12 crenallations, the centres needed to be 9.17 degrees apart. Way too hard for me Kip – too much chance of going wrong. I decided I would use 11 crenallations, making them 10 degrees between centres, which just happens to be two complete turns of the hand wheel on the rotary table. Much less chance of stuffing it up, and who’s going to notice anyway? Kip also advised using a 3/16” end mill and cutting to a depth of 0.0255”. Seriously Kip? And you think we’re crazy with our metric system! So, that converts to 0.65mm (rounded to two decimal places). I was still a little nervous about how this was going turn out – I didn’t want to be making several “practice” wheels, so before going near the mill, I sat at the computer for a couple of hours and played with my CAD program to work out how these would take shape on the wheel. It was an interesting exercise – that merely proved that I should have just trusted Kip in the first place and saved myself two hours! So, off to the mill.
 

 
In the above picture, I’m about one third of the way through milling the crenallations. It all went smoothly, except that the hold downs were a very tight fit between mill passes. In fact, the mill shaved a little off them as we went.  The only issue I had was that the silver solder joint failed during the process. Fortunately, that didn’t affect the rest of the milling. Here is the completed part fresh off the mill and before clean-up.
 

I used a scrap piece of MDF and quickly drilled and tapped some 6-32 holes so that I could use my hold-downs again while I re-soldered the join.
 

 
Once the soldering was completed, it was simply a case of cleaning it all up with some files and sandpaper. And here is the finished wheel rim:
 

 
I’m pretty happy with the way it turned out. Thanks to Kip’s trail blazing, I managed to get this on the first go. The next task will be making the spoke attachments for the rim. Stay tuned…..

Thanks for dropping in Mobbsie and Popeye, and thanks to all who hit the "like" button.  On with the show....
 
Wheel Building
 
Once again, I’m following Kip’s process for this. The next stage was thinning and shaping the wheel and adding the crenallations (finger grips). It took me a while to get my head around the cross-section shape of the wheel, but essentially it is egg-shaped, with the thinner part of the egg towards the back of the wheel (actually the forward side), where the finger crenallations will be. A couple of emails back and forth with Kip, and finally I understood what I was doing.
 
To begin with, the soldered wheel was placed back on the wooden forming buck. Because of the removal of the saw kerf from the diameter of the wheel, it was now a very tight fit on the buck, and so it could be spun on the lathe while files were applied to create the shape. First of all, the thickness of the outer rim was reduced by 1/32” by using a flat file.
 

 
Then the outer part of the back face was given a slight angle, again with a file. The wheel was then removed from the buck and held in the lathe chuck so that the inner part of the back face could also be angled, giving a very slight “v” shape to the back part of the wheel.
 

 

 
Now we needed to create a jig to hold the wheel while the crenallations were milled. Once again, I followed Kip’s lead and turned a piece of 75mm diameter HDPE (a plastic of sorts) with a 2.37mm deep rabbet around the outside, such that the wheel would just go over it. I also centre-drilled the jig while it was there.
 

 
I had never used this material before, but after reading Kip’s method, I stumbled across a piece of exactly the right size in my local machinery supplies shop and they let me have it for free – just goes to show how much money I’ve spent there…….
 
Anyway, this material (which I believe also goes by the name of Delrin), is a joy to work with. It machines beautifully and can be tapped and threaded with ease. So, the next job was to drill and tap some 6-32 mounting holes for some hold-downs.
 

 

 
Hold-downs were made from 1/16” brass strip, 1 inch long by 3/16” wide, drilled for clearance for the 6-32 socket head screws. A strip of honeycombed rubber (off-cut from a non-slip drawer liner) was inserted under each strip. The wheel was then mounted on the jig, the jig on the lathe chuck, the lathe chuck on the rotary table for the mill, and the rotary table on the 90-degree angle table. As Kip says, that’s a lot of mounting!
 

 
Okay, time for some milling……almost…….
 
Kip noted that the original wheel had either 12 or 13 crenallations in each of three 120 sections. The sections are separated by the spoke holders, where there are no crenallations. He estimated that the spoke holders cover about 10 degrees each, leaving 110 degrees of arc to fit the crenallations into. Kip did the math on this and worked out that for 12 crenallations, the centres needed to be 9.17 degrees apart. Way too hard for me Kip – too much chance of going wrong. I decided I would use 11 crenallations, making them 10 degrees between centres, which just happens to be two complete turns of the hand wheel on the rotary table. Much less chance of stuffing it up, and who’s going to notice anyway? Kip also advised using a 3/16” end mill and cutting to a depth of 0.0255”. Seriously Kip? And you think we’re crazy with our metric system! So, that converts to 0.65mm (rounded to two decimal places). I was still a little nervous about how this was going turn out – I didn’t want to be making several “practice” wheels, so before going near the mill, I sat at the computer for a couple of hours and played with my CAD program to work out how these would take shape on the wheel. It was an interesting exercise – that merely proved that I should have just trusted Kip in the first place and saved myself two hours! So, off to the mill.
 

 
In the above picture, I’m about one third of the way through milling the crenallations. It all went smoothly, except that the hold downs were a very tight fit between mill passes. In fact, the mill shaved a little off them as we went.  The only issue I had was that the silver solder joint failed during the process. Fortunately, that didn’t affect the rest of the milling. Here is the completed part fresh off the mill and before clean-up.
 

I used a scrap piece of MDF and quickly drilled and tapped some 6-32 holes so that I could use my hold-downs again while I re-soldered the join.
 

 
Once the soldering was completed, it was simply a case of cleaning it all up with some files and sandpaper. And here is the finished wheel rim:
 

 
I’m pretty happy with the way it turned out. Thanks to Kip’s trail blazing, I managed to get this on the first go. The next task will be making the spoke attachments for the rim. Stay tuned…..

Finally got the tree nails completed. This is one of my least favorite parts of the build. It's so tediously boring and time consuming it's like driving through Kansas. It isn't perfect by any means but I can live with it. I used tooth picks for the nails and they are a little darker than I wanted them to be. I put a coat of WOP and will let that dry for a couple of days before I paint the waterline.

One way to get these miniature tools on Santa's radar is to add his email address to the Lee Valley email updates. The mini-tools are one of the featured items on the main website!

He thanks for the interest .
 
allanyed , I don't understandYour question , google translator wrong translates 

I welcome 

3. Wood Selection
 
 I got down to the business of deciding the What, Where, and What Size of the cross section. I started by figuring that I was going to buy most of my lumber pre-milled, since I have yet to buy a thickness sander and I'm still learning the ropes with my table saw and scroll saw. Next on the agenda was trying to decide what types of wood I'd use. Two things I figured into the equation were 1) I haven't worked with many types of wood outside of the ones that come with kits, so I would like to try diversifying a little, and 2) money wasn't going to be a hinderance. I remember a post somewhere a long time ago that if you divide the price of the supplies over the amount of time it take to finish a project, that the cost tends to be very small- so I'd rather pay a little more for the wood I want since in the end it's probably only pennies difference. 
  So trying to decide what I wanted to use was going to be tough since my wood knowledge is pretty shallow, so I hit up the gallery and came across Raul Guzman Jr.'s Oliver Cromwell*. I have seen this model before and absolutely love it, so I PM'ed him and he was nice enough to provide me a "who's who" of the types of wood used. I pretty much ended up using the same wood list since I liked it so much, and added a couple other types.  Once I knew what types I was going to use, I set out breaking everything down into sizes and types using the plans and came up with this list**. The only part (I think) that I missed was the gun carriages, but I'm going to wait and see how things play out and see what I would like to use. I've ordered everything from the Lumberyard and qty's in parenthesis are for 12 inch+ lengths- which will give me enough to screw up with and yet probably finish.    BOXWOOD  (2) 3/16 x 3" x 24" frames, lodging knees, sills, beam arms (13) 1/8 x 1/8 ledges (6) 3/16 x 3/16 carlings (3) 1/4 x 1/4 gun deck beams (3) 5/16 x 1/4 lower deck beams (1) 5/32 x 2" x 24 hanging knees, lintels  APPLE  (1) 13/32 x 5/16 keel (1) 5/16 x 5/16 keelson (1) 13/32 x 1/16 garboard strake (20) 3/16 x 1/16 planking (3) 1/4 x 1/16 broad strake (6) 7/32 x 3/32 lower deck spirk./gundeck clamps (2) 1/16 x 5/32 skid beams  INDIAN LAUREL  (1) 1/4 x 1/16 gangway ladder (1) 3/16 x 1/16 FWD ladder (1) 1/16 x 3/8 sheer rail (1) 3/8 x 3/32 gangway trim (1) 5/32 x 5/32 gundeck stanchions (2) 1/8 x 5/16 false keel  CHERRY  (6) 1/8 x 5/16 thick stuff (4) 3/32 x 1/4 planking 1 (2) 1/16 x 1/4 planking 2 (2) 1/16 x 3/16 planking 3 (2) 5/32 x 5/32 hold pillars  WALNUT  (2) 1/4 x 5/32 hatches  EBONY  (4) 1/8 x 3/16 wales (2) 1/16 x 1/8 trim (1) 3/8 x 1/16 fenders (2) 3/16 x 3/32 steps  BLOODWOOD  (2) 1/4 x 3/32 gundeck spirketting (1) 3/32 x 3/16 gangway clamp (3) 1/16 x 3/16 bulwarks (1) 3/16 x 3/8 gallows (1) 1/8 x 5/32 cross piece (2) 1/4 x 1/4 bitts  MAPLE  (23) 1/16 x 3/16 deck planking (3) 1/16 x 1/4 waterways (10) 1/16 x 5/32 gangway  ... so now I wait...

Back before the "Great Crash" of MSW I had built the Triton cross section. I had a pretty robust build log to go along with it where I detailed just about every little step of my build. As it turns out, a friend of mine had actually saved about 95% of it and it has been sitting on my hard drive for quite some time. I haven't been on here much at all the last couple years but I saw my wood list made it's way on here and has hopefully helped a few people. It got me thinking that I would be good to get the build log out there to help others, also. I am going to try to start parsing it out in posts over time starting from the beginning going step by step, but I also have no problem giving out the .xps file to anyone currently building who doesn't want to wait (just be warned it is 180 pages long and includes a lot of fluff you would have to wade through!).

-Chad 
 

 

 

 

 

Liver of Sulphur is great for blackening Copper, but it will not work on Brass.
 
Another option for blackening Brass is Jax Pewter Black, which despite the name, works very well on Brass.

Tim,
 
For what it's worth, I'd encourage you to go with the Sherline. As my Dad always says, quality is remembered long after price is forgotten! You will never regret the extra expense of the initial outlay for the Sherline. And then of course, you'll never be saying "I wish I'd held off a little longer and bought the Sherline instead"......

Hjx, that fully framed full-CNC model looks fantastic! Do you want to open a build log? Please please please!

He thanks for the nice welcome. The model is building the as many as 1 month. My English is weak ( translator). Nicely to get to know you

Start . Wood of the pear tree .

Young America - extreme clipper 1853
Part 189 – Lower Mizzen Fittings
 
The mizzen mast has some additional hardware not found on the forward masts. First, there is a belaying ring, or spider band around the mast instead of the fife rails of the forward masts.  The design of this is not documented, but from the work on the rigging list, at least 16 lines should be belayed here.  The ring for the model is a simple circular flange around the mast bored for 16 belaying pins.  The unblackened part is shown in the first picture.
 

 
This was made as a turning from a solid brass billet to fit over a brass tube mast ring that was silver-soldered in.  The pin holes were then drilled in the mill using the rotary table.  The ring will be a tight fit over the mast about 39" off the deck.  This is a pretty piece that will be completely hidden under a mass of rope.
 
In the next picture it has been blackened and installed on the mast.  Above it is a reinforcing hoop and above that will be a bracket that will support the spanker mast.
 

 
 
A start on the spanker mast bracket is shown in the drawing.  The mast band part of it has been shaped to fit the mast and will be soldered with other parts added progressively.  The finished bracket is shown in the next picture.
 

 
This piece is of thicker stock than the normal mast hoop, as were the bands for the lower yard trusses.  The small eye will support the goose neck of the spanker boom.  Both pieces are shown on the mast in the next picture. 
 

 
The spider ring was pre-blackened, but all the copper work will be blackened later as was done for the other masts.  The third piece to be made was the wood stool for the spanker mast.  While the bracket maintains the horizontal position, the stool will take the weight of the 9" diameter mast.  The next picture shows the stool parts.
 

 
For strength on the model, I set the stool itself into a mortise in the mast that will give it the appearance of a surrounding piece but the strength of the mortise joint.  Two triangular gussets that will reinforce the stool are shown.  The last picture shows the three items installed.
 

 
Shaping and polishing of the stool assembly has yet to be done.  The gussets were glued to flats filed on the mast.  The remaining hoops may now be installed on the mizzen mast.
 
Meanwhile, work has begun on the fore top.
 
 
Ed

really super finish Grant..........interested with how your making your wheel........looks like a cool process so far.

Many thanks as always for all the kind comments and the "likes". On with the show....
  Of Moulds and Wheels 
Before completing the finish on the hull, I decided to take a little diversion in two directions. Firstly, I decided that it would be a good time to make a mould of the bow so that I could work on the cutwater off the model (and hence protect that lovely surface). And secondly, I decided it was about time to start tackling the building of a new steering wheel.
 
To make a mould of the bow, I bought some plaster from the local art store. I could have gone all fancy and bought some very expensive mould making material, but as this is a one-off job, I decided to keep it simple and inexpensive. To create the mould, I mixed up some plaster and water and then suspended the boat above it by looping some brass wire through the rudder post, then attaching some rope hooked over the garage door tracks, and then lower the boat into the plaster. Of course, I had taken the precaution of wrapping the bow in cling wrap first!
 

 
Once the plaster had set, I removed the boat and coated the mould with some silicon grease to act as a release agent. Then I mixed up some more plaster and water and poured it into the mould. I also inserted two pieces of dowel to use as “handles” later on. In this picture, the cast has set and I have cut around the top edge prior to lifting out.
 

 
And here is the final product:
 

 
After this photo was taken, I cleaned up the cast with a light sanding and then painted it with a coat of finishing resin to (hopefully) prevent it from crumbling as I work with it. More on the cutwater to come at a later date.
 
I had decided to replace the kit-supplied steering wheel after reading an excellent “how-to” by Kip Catanese over on the RC Groups forum. Kip made a replacement wheel for a fellow forum member and documented his process so well, that I decided to try and replicate it – at least as far as I am able.  What follows then, is an implementation of Kip’s methodology. I hope I can do it justice.
 
The starting point is a piece of 1/8” diameter brass rod. This needs to be bent around a form and then silver soldered to form our basic wheel. To create a form, Kip turned a “buck” on his lathe to the correct diameter to match the finished wheel’s Inside Diameter of 2” (50mm). This is slightly smaller than the kit supplied wheel as Kip reckoned it was a little too large for the scale. That’s good enough for me Kip!
 
So, following Kip’s lead, I laminated two pieces or 2 ¼” square x ¾” scrap timber together with epoxy, marked the desired diameter, mounted it in a four jaw self-centering chuck, and then turned the outer portion down to the correct diameter. Although Kip used hand tools on his lathe for this operation, I stuck with regular metal cutting tools and they worked just fine. Once the outer portion was turned down, I drilled a 1/8” diameter hole in the cylindrical section to anchor one end of the brass rod, and then drilled and tapped an M6 thread into the square section of the buck. The purpose of this will become clear shortly.
 

 
In order to bend the brass rod around the buck, it first needs to be annealed to make it soft enough to bend easily. I had not done much in the way of annealing before, so had a go with my little butane torch that I use for silver soldering. Well, all I can say is that this was an abject failure. I stopped and thought about it for a while and concluded that I simply wasn’t getting enough heat to the rod overall. A quick (and not inexpensive) trip to the hardware store solved my problems……
 

 
This little torch uses something called Ultra Gas, which apparently is the “next generation MAPP replacement”. I wouldn’t know about that, but what I do know is that it heated my brass rod to cherry red in no time at all, and after a quick dunk in a bucket of water, it bent like a piece of soft rubber around my buck.
 

 
In the picture above, you can see the purpose of the threaded hole (again a direct copy of Kip’s method). I have used an M6 socket head screw with a “mudguard” washer to hold down the very end of the brass rod and keep it nice and tight on the buck while it is being cut. After this picture was taken, I moved the threaded hold-down to the next face around (ie 90 degrees) as I found this to be more secure.
 
The whole assembly was then mounted in the milling vice and the ring cut using a slitting saw. This ensured that the two mating faces were perpendicular to each other.
 

 
Once the piece was cut free, it was placed back on the buck with a hose clamp to ensure that it remained as true to shape as possible. 
 

 
Then it was just a simple case of silver soldering the ring closed and doing a little clean up with a file.  Here is a picture of the finished ring, alongside the original kit-supplied wheel. You can see that it is slightly smaller – the outer diameter of the new wheel is about the same size as the inner diameter of the kit wheel.
 

 
Next up, thinning and shaping the exterior of the wheel, and then milling the finger crenallations. So far Kip’s treatise has been a dream to work with. I’m hoping that the remainder goes as well!
 

Thanks again for all the kind comments and all of the "likes".  
 
Another mini-update.......
 
After a further three coats of clear finish, with wet-sanding between coats using 1200 grit paper, I think we are done with the spray-gun at last. I’m quite pleased with the way that it has come up, although the camera can be a little unkind. It looks better to the naked eye! It still needs several hours’ worth of polishing before it’s really done, but here are a few glam shots by way of update.
 

 

 

 

 

 

 
 

Many thanks as always for all the kind comments and the "likes". On with the show....
  Of Moulds and Wheels 
Before completing the finish on the hull, I decided to take a little diversion in two directions. Firstly, I decided that it would be a good time to make a mould of the bow so that I could work on the cutwater off the model (and hence protect that lovely surface). And secondly, I decided it was about time to start tackling the building of a new steering wheel.
 
To make a mould of the bow, I bought some plaster from the local art store. I could have gone all fancy and bought some very expensive mould making material, but as this is a one-off job, I decided to keep it simple and inexpensive. To create the mould, I mixed up some plaster and water and then suspended the boat above it by looping some brass wire through the rudder post, then attaching some rope hooked over the garage door tracks, and then lower the boat into the plaster. Of course, I had taken the precaution of wrapping the bow in cling wrap first!
 

 
Once the plaster had set, I removed the boat and coated the mould with some silicon grease to act as a release agent. Then I mixed up some more plaster and water and poured it into the mould. I also inserted two pieces of dowel to use as “handles” later on. In this picture, the cast has set and I have cut around the top edge prior to lifting out.
 

 
And here is the final product:
 

 
After this photo was taken, I cleaned up the cast with a light sanding and then painted it with a coat of finishing resin to (hopefully) prevent it from crumbling as I work with it. More on the cutwater to come at a later date.
 
I had decided to replace the kit-supplied steering wheel after reading an excellent “how-to” by Kip Catanese over on the RC Groups forum. Kip made a replacement wheel for a fellow forum member and documented his process so well, that I decided to try and replicate it – at least as far as I am able.  What follows then, is an implementation of Kip’s methodology. I hope I can do it justice.
 
The starting point is a piece of 1/8” diameter brass rod. This needs to be bent around a form and then silver soldered to form our basic wheel. To create a form, Kip turned a “buck” on his lathe to the correct diameter to match the finished wheel’s Inside Diameter of 2” (50mm). This is slightly smaller than the kit supplied wheel as Kip reckoned it was a little too large for the scale. That’s good enough for me Kip!
 
So, following Kip’s lead, I laminated two pieces or 2 ¼” square x ¾” scrap timber together with epoxy, marked the desired diameter, mounted it in a four jaw self-centering chuck, and then turned the outer portion down to the correct diameter. Although Kip used hand tools on his lathe for this operation, I stuck with regular metal cutting tools and they worked just fine. Once the outer portion was turned down, I drilled a 1/8” diameter hole in the cylindrical section to anchor one end of the brass rod, and then drilled and tapped an M6 thread into the square section of the buck. The purpose of this will become clear shortly.
 

 
In order to bend the brass rod around the buck, it first needs to be annealed to make it soft enough to bend easily. I had not done much in the way of annealing before, so had a go with my little butane torch that I use for silver soldering. Well, all I can say is that this was an abject failure. I stopped and thought about it for a while and concluded that I simply wasn’t getting enough heat to the rod overall. A quick (and not inexpensive) trip to the hardware store solved my problems……
 

 
This little torch uses something called Ultra Gas, which apparently is the “next generation MAPP replacement”. I wouldn’t know about that, but what I do know is that it heated my brass rod to cherry red in no time at all, and after a quick dunk in a bucket of water, it bent like a piece of soft rubber around my buck.
 

 
In the picture above, you can see the purpose of the threaded hole (again a direct copy of Kip’s method). I have used an M6 socket head screw with a “mudguard” washer to hold down the very end of the brass rod and keep it nice and tight on the buck while it is being cut. After this picture was taken, I moved the threaded hold-down to the next face around (ie 90 degrees) as I found this to be more secure.
 
The whole assembly was then mounted in the milling vice and the ring cut using a slitting saw. This ensured that the two mating faces were perpendicular to each other.
 

 
Once the piece was cut free, it was placed back on the buck with a hose clamp to ensure that it remained as true to shape as possible. 
 

 
Then it was just a simple case of silver soldering the ring closed and doing a little clean up with a file.  Here is a picture of the finished ring, alongside the original kit-supplied wheel. You can see that it is slightly smaller – the outer diameter of the new wheel is about the same size as the inner diameter of the kit wheel.
 

 
Next up, thinning and shaping the exterior of the wheel, and then milling the finger crenallations. So far Kip’s treatise has been a dream to work with. I’m hoping that the remainder goes as well!
 

Thanks again for all the kind comments and all of the "likes".  
 
Another mini-update.......
 
After a further three coats of clear finish, with wet-sanding between coats using 1200 grit paper, I think we are done with the spray-gun at last. I’m quite pleased with the way that it has come up, although the camera can be a little unkind. It looks better to the naked eye! It still needs several hours’ worth of polishing before it’s really done, but here are a few glam shots by way of update.
 

 

 

 

 

 

 
 

With all due respect, LOS will blacken brass, assuming the surface is properly cleaned.

Tim,
 
For what it's worth, I'd encourage you to go with the Sherline. As my Dad always says, quality is remembered long after price is forgotten! You will never regret the extra expense of the initial outlay for the Sherline. And then of course, you'll never be saying "I wish I'd held off a little longer and bought the Sherline instead"......

Tim,
 
For what it's worth, I'd encourage you to go with the Sherline. As my Dad always says, quality is remembered long after price is forgotten! You will never regret the extra expense of the initial outlay for the Sherline. And then of course, you'll never be saying "I wish I'd held off a little longer and bought the Sherline instead"......