Keith Black

Or you could strop your blocks with wire. Here's how I do it, page 12, post #352.

Absolutely lovely work, Paul.

Nice anchor, Siggi.

There is a certain amount of insanity involved and at times when making these I thought I was lead singer in the band. Eric, I know your work, your skills and determination are inspirational. The key to making something this small is dogged determination and patience. Before I started CAing the bodies to the worktableI I chased bodies and eye pins in circles till I couldn't see straight. These block are far from perfect and I had no illusion they would be, they are a mere suggestion being a bit better than nothing at all.

Thank you, Glen.

Thank you to everyone for the comments and for the likes. The following is how I make the 0.10 inch blocks. The block on the left is completed, the three pieces on the right are the components necessary to make the blocks. This effort is 3.0, the body is cut from thin aluminum. The 2.0 body was made from 1/64 plywood and discarded due to edge breakage. The 1.0 body was made from card and discarded because the edges were too fuzzy. All bodies require the photo etched eye pins as shown. Once the body is cut from a one tenth inch square in a diamond shape, I apply a tiny drop of CA on the back of the body and glue it to my worktable. This makes attaching the eye pins much easier as I'm not trying to align two tiny pieces with a mind of their own. The first eye pin is centered in the body and glued in place with CA. The next step is gluing with CA the second eye pin's shank tip halfway between the upper edge of the body and the eye of the first eye pin. This piece is for capturing the thread. After working on these I found it easier by getting the eye pin shank in position, CA gluing eye to the table and THEN CA gluing the second eye pin on top of the first eye pin. Doing it in this manner allows alignment adjustment. Note, the block on the left was not done this way and the alignment isn't sport on. The one on the right was done with this method and the alignment is much better. Blocks were cleaned up by scraping away as much CA residue as possible with a #11 Exacto blade and then tested for thread clearance. Two very important tools in making these blocks are tiny Q-Tips for cleaning away excess CA and my homemade needle CA applicator for pinpoint CA delivery. The blocks were painted and weathered once installed. I drilled all the way through the wood, inserted the eye pin shank, and then applied a small amount of CA on the topside. This allows adjustment of block position by twisting the eye pin shank, this keeps from handling the block itself. Once the position of the block was acceptable the shank was CA glued in its forever home, trimmed, and the end filed flat. And that's how this tiny sausage is made. Thank you to each of you for your support and for being part of the journey. Keith Edit. I forgot to mention that after the second eye pin is added I release the block body from the worktable by lifting the body edge with an exacto chisel blade and giving it a gentle bump.

Phil, thank you for the suggestion. I quickly tried after your post and got nowhere. Not sure what I was doing wrong but I plan on going back and trying agin. Thank you to everyone for the kind comments and the likes. The boiler is roughed in and I'm close to being finished with the coal crib. A piece on the starboard side wire rope block came off when I was running the lines. I'll see if I can fix while it's hanging, if not I'll have to make a new block. The blocks are a diamond shape made from a 0.10 inch square piece of 1/64 plywood and my fav tiny photo etched eye pins. The lines that hold the coal feeder conveyor belt tail at the correct height are temporally crossed and glued to aft bottom board. Once the coal feeder is in place the lines will be cut and attached to the belt tail. The coal crib is 8W x 6L x 5H feet and it doesn't look like it would hold much coal. Allowing for the conveyor belt and for making ease of operation, a space of 4 x 4 x 3 feet would hold two and a quarter tons. From past research a boiler under moderate use would consume 100 lbs an hour. Even 150 lbs per hour and for 12 hours would = 1,800 lbs. I think this all works out dandy. Thank you to everyone you support and for being part of the journey. Keith

Terry, welcome to MSW. Glad to have you aboard.

Eric, IMO that's the better choice for now, once you have the town and foliage in place then decide.

Congratulations, Jacques. All those hours of research paid off in a well executed and handsomely built model of a little known work a day vessel. 👍

Cheap price and probably a quality block as built in obsolescence hadn't been invented yet.

It's good to see the Astrolabe back on the menu, Bob. 👍

Mine fly off into the abyss never to be seen again. I guess it's food for the modeling gods?

Thank you to all for the kind comments and the likes. A bit of play and a bit of progress. Nothing is glued to the deck as I'm still trying to determine the exact hull length. I'm close and I'm thinking 67 feet is going to be the magic number. I need to get a rough boiler in place and start trying to get some idea of the coal auto feeder shapes and dimensions. If anyone has photos or drawings of large scale auto feeders for vertical boilers I'd be forever grateful, please post anything that might be helpful. I think it was either belt or bucket fed because the wire rope blocks hanging above the coal crib as seen in both the bow and stern original photos. I did some preliminary work on the deckhand, sill more to do but he looking the part. The chain winches need to lowered a tad. The stairs are glued to the roof of the engine room, much more work on the stairs is required. The coal crib and support for (this is where the wire rope blocks hang from) the auto feeder's tail. I don't know of it was belt or bucket that took the coal to the crown table. Did the crown table shake and then coal went onto the slide or did gravity alone get the coal onto the slide? The top right group single is what I see hanging from the support. Thank you for your support and for being part of the journey. Keith

That second photo looks like prairie hula dancers. Both are great compositions.