grsjax

Being naturally a cheap guy I look for interesting kits, materials and tools used or on sale. I have picked up some amazing bargains from eBay and garage sales. All depends on what you want. If you have your heart set on a particular kit you are probably going to have to bite the bullet and pay the going price for a new one or wait a long time to find it for sale on eBay cheap. Same goes for tools. Over 40 years of looking for deals I have accumulated a pretty good workshop but I didn't spend a great deal of money on it. Same for my stash of models. I have some very expensive model kits that I picked up cheap. Cheapest way to go is to get plans and build scratch using found materials (salvaged wood, etc.) and building your own specialized tools. For me that is part of the fun and interest of the hobby but I don't expect it is for everyone.

It is, IMHO, worthless. Not enough power to be useful for much of anything. Look for a sale on the Dremel knock off of your choice or go on eBay and look for a good deal on a used one.

That is a nice one. I really like the 5.5" throat. Makes it a lot more usable.

Specs on this one say it has 8mm table slots (same as Sherline) and a top speed of 2800rpm. Maybe the Micro Mark model is an earlier model. I would guess that any accessory that works with a Sherline mill would work with the Sieg. The Sieg is a bit larger than the Sherline and might be able to use some of the mini mill accessories as well.

Ran across a reference to this mill and was wondering if anyone had any experience with one? It looks like a good compromise between the larger Sieg X2 mill and the smaller Sherline and Taig offerings. One thing that looked very good compared to the smaller mills was the all cast iron construction. Heavier the aluminum mills but much more rigid. It also has a larger motor (150w vs 90w for the Sherline) and uses ER16 collets rather than the 8mm collets for the Sherline.

Spoke shaves are good for working on spars and other long thin sections. Use them for doing the initial shaping before finishing with scraper and sandpaper.

They are all good choices. The banks dory may be a bit simple but it is a good place to start. The swampscott dory is a little more of a challenge. I would rank these from least complicated to most; Banks dory Swampscott dory Philadelphia 18th Century longboat All good places to start.

Depends on what you want to do with it. A lot of minor milling of wood can actually be done on a small drill press. If you plan on doing extensive milling or milling metals you will want something designed for that purpose. Once you have defined your needs you can start looking for the model that fits.

As Frankie says, green for bronze pins. Iron pins would be black and wooden pins natural, untreated wood.

Nice wood, fairly hard and has been used as a substitute for ebony. Not a commonly available wood. Usually used for turning and carving. Reported to be easy to work. Average Dried Weight: 53 lbs/ft3 (850 kg/m3) Specific Gravity (Basic, 12% MC): .69, .85 Janka Hardness: 2,020 lbf (8,990 N)* *Estimated hardness based on specific gravity

I have been reading up on these routers since this topic got started and was wondering if anyone has experience with one using an Anduino control board with the Anduino IDE and GRBL software. I have no experience with these machines or the software but from what I have read Anduino IDE/GRBL setup is easy to use and flexible.

davec No need to use a guide. I just give the edge a few light strokes along the 6000 grit periodically to keep the edge keen. I find that I don't need the guide except when I have irregularities in the edge to work out.

I use a piece of wood with a sheet of 6000 grit sandpaper glued to it for touch ups. Put a drop of oil on the sandpaper and use it like a stone.

1/4" or 3/8" MDF works great. Very smooth and hard. Paint it a light color to protect the surface from liquids and you are ready to go.

I am interested in finding information on American sailing barges. I already have a lot of info on the San Francisco barges as they are well documented and there are some still afloat. However barges from other parts of the country are harder to find data on. "American Small Sailing Craft" by Howard Chapelle has a little on gulf coast barges and I have found mention of barges in Maine and on the Chesapeake but little else. Sailing barges were a major contributor to water transportation in the U.S. before the wide spread introduction of steam and I would like to know more about them. History, plans, pictures or anything else anyone can direct me to would be appreciated.

Gravers used by jewelers are also a good tool for doing fine carving. They come in different shapes and can be found fairly inexpensively on ebay and Amazon. This is a cheap set from Amazon.

Cherry and holly. Oil or poly for a finish.

As said the price of chisels and planes has a relationship to the quality. However what is important is the quality of the steel used. I purchased a set of cheap chisels to use for rough work and found that although the finish was poor the steel was very good. After reworking the cutting edges and sharpening they turned out to be very good chisels. The set of 5 chisels cost me about $5 at HF on sale. Take away here is that if you are on a budget and willing to do some work on the chisels and plane irons you can get some decent tools at low cost.

lots of experience and patience were the major tools used.

All true. However there is a big difference between a Harbor Freight machine and LMS or MM machine. The difference is in the quality control. The Sieg factory will manufacture a lathe or mill to what ever level of precision a customer wants. HF buys run of the factory machines that may or may not have been assembled and checked adequately. MM and LMS buy machines manufactured to their specs and check the QC themselves resulting in a much better product. Not to say these machines can't be improved but out of the box they are pretty good. My MM lathe has hand scraped ways and came needing only minor adjustments to be up and running. Your observation that you always need a bigger machine for something is very true. That said it is a good idea to get a machine that will both do precision work and can handle larger pieces (with in reason). I don't think I could reliably do 1/10000" work on my lathe but with the proper setup I could handle 5/10000". But then how often do you need that kind of precision? 1/1000" difference is to small to see with the naked eye and would be more than adequate for model building. Another thing I like about the larger machines is that you can easily modify them to improve performance. Low cost mods like swapping the roller bearings in the head stock for tapered roller bearings is an example. Also the Seig 7x lathes can cut left handed threads and with a few extra change gears can cut threads from 4/in to 240/in. I haven't seen any of the small machines that can do either. An alternative to the Seig lathes are the older Atlas/Craftsman 6" lathes. They can be found for sale (at least here in the states) for reasonable prices.

Size but also power. A Sieg 2x mill, which is what both the MM and LMS machines start as, can handle cuts in hard materials that a small machine like the Sherline or Proxxon simply cannot do. If all you are ever going to do is take light cuts on soft brass, aluminum and wood one of the smaller machines will work fine. If you want to work in steel, cast iron or even some of the really hard woods like ebony you want a machine that can do the job faster and easier. For making small parts for a model I guess it really isn't important but when it comes to making jigs and special tools you will want the size and power of the larger machine. Same applies to the lathes.

Excellent mill. There lathe is also very good. Chinese lathes and mills can be pretty bad but if you get one from a reputable dealer like Micromark or Little Machine Shop you will be getting a good machine. In addition the Chinese machines will be far more capable than the sherline, taig or proxxon products.

Could just be decorative.

Billings makes good kits but from my experience they do not have instructions that will help out a beginner. You might want to check out Model Shipways as they generally have great plans and instructions with their kits. If you can find one, a Midwest apprentice series kit is a good warm up for a more complicated build. I would suggest the crabbing skiff or one of the other open boat kits they make (or used to make, I heard they recently went out of business but there still seems to be lots of them on ebay).

Generally copper was laid over a layer of felt saturated with tar. Could be what you see is the felt/tar layer before the copper plate is applied. Just a guess.