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I expect it could be fairly easily. The first thing to check is the speed, it is probably turning way too fast, aim for 500ish ft/min, change motor and/or drive sheave accordingly. Better guides are also probably in order. At that age you may also need to replace the tires.

A couple of links to info on Sixis and Aciera. I have both an Aciera F2 and F3. I got the F2 because it uses the same collets, W20, as the F3. Neither are made anymore, but do come available fairly regularly. Like all Swiss machines they are not inexpensive. http://www.lathes.co.uk/sixis/ http://www.lathes.co.uk/aciera/index.html

Aciera f1 or Sixis, why compromise.

And sometimes you find them in the oddest places, from the eponymous "Ship Rock" NW of Kharga Oasis, ~200Km from the Nile as the crow flies.

I don’t know. I have a range from ~4”x6” down to about a quarter of that. Some were bought as scrapers, others are just some high carbon steel, sheared to convenient size and heat treated.

I have both violin planes and scrapers. I think the scrapers are much better suited to working on spars. They are much more tolerant of twisty or uneven grain, much less likely to pull up a big chip. Also, you can easily work in either direction, something you can rarely do with a plane.

It is all a matter of engineering. The first consideration is unless the spar is really strong you don’t want much load at the partners. That represents a big stress concentration and will break it if the load goes up too much. Say if you are running and get hit with a big puff. Then it is supporting the rest of the rig to keep it in column. This assumes a wooden spar, I have rarely seen any of those pictured with prebend. I also think the load cases work much better if the spar is more or less in compression. Again, think about the case of getting hit with a big puff. Now that the spar is supported and in column, get everything that you need to out of the way so you can trim the sails. What works to weather may not on a reach, and you may need something completely different far off the breeze. The load paths continually change as the apparent wind angle changes.

Well they might have been able to let it a little farther forward. Forward is fast, at least until the rig comes down. The idea is the sail becomes an airfoil from top to bottom.

A Star going downwind. Note how the rig is allowed to go forward.

Prebend, not pretend.

The Star has no permanent backstay. You can see the runners coming down about halfway down the cockpit. Upwind it is used to control the shape of the mast and hence the shape of the sail. The mast has prebend so if you pull on the intermediate backstay it will add draft to the main and increase power. If you pull on the upper it will twist off the top of the main and depower the main. The main by itself will hold the rig up. Even on a fairly close reach the leeward backstay has to be released so the main can go out. Downwind it is an entirely different story. The backstays hold the rig up if there is any breeze. Jibing can be character building as you have to pull the leeward backstay in as the boom comes to the centerline on the boat and them the new leeward backstay has to be let off so the boom came go out. In twenty knots this happens quickly and if you make a mistake the rig goes over the front of the boat.

Don’t let the nozzle put you off, just make one. I did for all my big machines, sheet aluminum or thin plywood.

I was thinking of this one at $350 https://www.highlandwoodworking.com/festool-ct15e-hepa-dust-extractor.aspx To put it in perspective, a HEPA Meile vacuum cleaner, also nice a quiet, is $699.

I think Festool may make the quietest dust extractor, and HEPA filtration to boot. I have been thinking about getting one. There are a couple of dual speed models that advertise 62db low and 72 db normal. I think Fein may also have something in that ballpark. Of course a high end vacuum cleaner will do about the same. Just be advised none of those are inexpensive options.

Can't help you for Victorian, but the Star Class has used tracks for shrouds for a long time. Tee track mints on the boat and the shroud adjuster mounts to a car that slides on the track. Taking the rig down is easy, let it go forward, pull the pins and slide the cars off the tracks. The best thing is that when you put it back up again it is still tuned or very close to it. In the photo the from pin is covered with tape to prevent the jib sheet from catching.

If you want something serious, consider a granite square, something like this: https://www.penntoolco.com/precise-15-x-10-x-1-5-precision-granite-square-303-177/ good for 0.0001”/6”

I have the Hegner. I consider it without peer. It is dead quiet and very smooth. It takes either scroll saw or jewelers saw blades.

The easiest blanks to source are M2 which is considered to be an oil hardening steel, although for such a small section it will cool before it can make it from the flame to the oil. Daniels shows a pointed form for nonferrous and and rounded form for hardened steel. Drawing the temper will also be interesting. I plan on using my pillar drill as it is easy to get 300-500 rpm that he recommends for brass. It also has a very sensitive feed. It has a Albrecht chuck that holds down to zero.

That is what is referred to as “dubbing” a drill. Almost mandatory for larger drills in brass, especially if you like to avoid excitement. It is probably not feasible in 0.040” and below even if you’d have fine enough abrasives. This discussion has prompted me to pull out my copy of George Daniels book Watchmaking and review his comments on making small drills. I will have to pick up some small drill blanks the next time I order from McMaster and give them a try.

The carbide drills are much harder than HSS so they won’t have as much trouble with work hardened material. Carbide is also much more brittle than HSS so if your setup is not completely rigid the drills will snap as you observed. The work requires a rigid machine, a secure piece, and some sort of center pricked and aligned so the drill stays straight.

The answer is somewhat both, you need a quality drill, but then you also need the proper technique. Prolonged drilling is not a good thing, it means that you are rubbing, not drilling, and the tool is work hardening the material you are trying to drill. There is also a chip load, how much the drill cuts every revolution, but we will leave that for now. Every metal has a recommended cutting speed. For brass it is between 150 and 300 surface feet per minute (sfm). Take for example your #60 drill. It is 0.040” diameter or 0.125” circumference. To get 150 sfm you need to turn the drill at 14,400rpm. There are a few drill presses that can do this, Electomechano made some very nice ones, and others have as well. But very few people have them, so chances are the drill will be turning much slower than optimal. For this you need what is referred to as a sensitive drilling machine, one where it is easy to feel how the drill is feeding, because it is important it cuts all the time. If it rubs then the piece work hardens and it is all over. Brass is more difficult that steel in some ways, because the flutes of the drill try and dig in which can snap the drill. One larger drills it is typical to dub the flutes to reduce or eliminate the rake. It will stop the drill from digging in. That is easy to do on a larger drill, very difficult on a #80. You also need a pretty good drill press to do this. A quality chuck is essential to hold a small drill exactly on center and not wobble.

Stay Brite is 94% tin 6% silver, electronic SAC solder is 96.5% tin, 3% silver, and 0.5% copper. Stay Brite flows at about 280C, SAC at 240C, and lead/tin at about 210C depending on the alloy. I think the higher the flow temperature the worse the bridging characteristics. SAC also is considered to her more brittle than PbSn in most, but not all applications.

You actually could. A lot of people who build electronics do. Most surface mount devices are now soldered using a paste that contains both solder and flux. This is applies to each pad on the printed wire board and the component set onto it. Then it goes in the reflow oven and it is preheated and then the solder is melted. Since there is only a small amount it stays where it is put down. You can use a toaster over for the preheat and then a hot air rework gun to reflow the solder. It takes a little fiddling to sort out the parameters, but it should work for any small metal bits as well. This would be using SAC solder which is lead free. The reflow guns can be had fairly cheaply on the web.

Lard oil is pressed from lard. It has been the go to cutting fluid for copper for years beyond count. It sets up just below room temp so when the shop is cold in the winter it has to be warmed to liquify it. It will also get rancid, so keep cold when not in use. There are other fluids that work almost as well for copper, just don’t use anything with sulfur in it. It will turn everything black.

Why not use glass for the port lights, or at least try to? Get some microscope cover slips, glue one down to a piece of very smooth ply or wood with some shellac, CA, or whatever you find easy to dissolve away. Chuck up a piece of your brass tube in a slow speed drill press, and using some abrasive paste or Clover compound core your way through the glass. Once through, dissolve the adhesive away and there is your glass disk. I have never done this with a cover slip, but have done it successfully on slightly thicker pieces of glass. It will take a bit of fiddling to get the parameters straight, but it should work.