tmj

31 minutes ago, ccoyle said:

Ha ha! You're doomed. 😮

Ha ha... I'm not going out alone. "I'm taking you with me!" ☺️

I think that this was ccoyle's fault. I was looking around and accidentally stumbled upon a 'cardstock' build in the forum. Looked kinda interesting so I thought "What the heck!" I went to the named manufacturer, in Poland, and started looking around. Today, an international package arrived containing Shipyard paper model kits for the Nina, the Pinta and the Santa Maria. Not sure when I'll actually start working on these, but 'by-golly' I've got them!     

You might have trouble finding 'true' Silkspan these days, unless you purchase an old model airplane kit, from the seventies, and rob the Silkspan from the kit. A better alternative might be Esaki, or Gampi Japanese tissue. This stuff will be considerably thinner than Silkspan if scale appearance on a small model is your goal. These thin tissues are used for tiny, indoor flying model airplanes today. Readily available!   

"Howdy Clive!"

The title says it all. If anyone has any of these machines, and wishes to part with them, please give me a shout!

Lacquer thinner is what you need. 

Howdy Tony!

I too will have two Billing's 'Roar Ege's! I have a huge stash of older, un-started kits and got to thinking that maybe I should look through my stash. "Guess what I found?" This was an ebay purchase from sometime a while back. The box looks different than yours, and I won't know what the box of my new one will look like until it arrives. Model-Expo doesn't show the box in their advertisement, only pictures of a built model. If anyone knows when this kit was actually being peddled, please let me know. I'm curious.       

12 minutes ago, Snug Harbor Johnny said:

You are right in that I often overthink things, and I often find my way down rabbit holes, blind alleys and red-herring chases.

Hmm... you sound a lot like 'ME'! 😶

5 minutes ago, druxey said:

Of course, in CAD you can magnify to a size that will drive you crazy! If you want to go the CAD route, might I suggest that the base drawing be redrawn from the 'fat line' plan first, then imported? There will always be some compromises, or you will lose your mind.

You are quite correct. The first couple of months, after starting my frame drafts for the Hancock, I was losing my mind on a regular basis. I'd get frustrated, delete my work then start over again, time and time again. I've lost count on how many times I started over with a clean slate. I finally came to the conclusion that I was being a bit too anal about being 100% accurate and started keeping my work and making adjustments as needed, be it truly accurate or not. Maybe my work will be off a few scale inches in length, breadth, and this/that and the other, here and there, but "What the Heck." It became time that I either had to stop trying to be completely accurate and start focusing on just getting things as close as I can, otherwise I'd never finish my design nor begin to actually start building a model. I'll blame this behavior on my 40-year background and career where .005" could mean the difference between "Go, or 'No Go'!" From now on I'll just try to stay as close as I reasonably can and simply focus on a nice-looking design. If something is off a bit, nobody will ever know but 'me'!

Okay, I've highjacked this thread for long enough. Time to return it to its original owner...       

8 hours ago, druxey said:

A good ol' fashioned scale rule works for me most of the time!

Hello David!

I have a question that might be beneficial to all parties involved within this topic. Scale rules, calipers, tape measures, CMM machines, lasers... whatever measuring devises one wishes to use. 

I personally struggle with line thicknesses when trying to take accurate measurements from printed drawings, blueprints, etc. 'especially' when the ink on those drawings varies in thickness, ever so slightly, from one area of the drawing to another. I'm not sure if I should shoot for taking dimensions from the 'perceived' middle of the lines, inside of the lines, or the outer most boundaries of those lines. I like to measure with calipers and then transfer those measured dimensions to CAD drawings, however. When doing this, those slight variations in line width often tend to cause problems with creating smooth geometry within my cad work. I discovered this back when I first started the design work for my 'Hancock' build (still at it, haven't given up, just a slow go). I've found a way to fix this, visually, but in such it always bugs me not knowing if I'm actually pulling the proper dimensions, or not, via my smooth looking visual modifications that correct the once awkward and slightly crooked looking CAD geometry. I know that I'm probably splitting a lot of hairs here, but in such I'm also curious as to just how one should best approach taking accurate dimensions from hand drafted drawings without encountering errors due to line width variations?         

8 hours ago, wefalck said:

Converting metric measures into fractions of an inch is not straightforward on normal calculators, while the opposite is easy.

I personally never use fractions, ever... only decimals even with the metric system. Fractions are sloppy, 4 place decimals are extremely accurate.  

You need to know the actual size of the real subject that you are modeling in scale. In your case, if I understand your question properly, 1:12 means that every part you make should be 1/12th the size of the real subject's part. For example, if you wanted to know how long a 100-foot-long item would be if modeled at 1:12 scale you would simply divide 100 by 12. The length would be 8.3333 feet in length.   

On 5/26/2024 at 11:18 AM, Keith Black said:

Micha, tear it back. Remove the planking if possible and see how that goes. If you can't remove the planking maybe we can come up with something that will help you save the build. 

Micha,

I'm a bit behind on your build but will be catching up. I hope that you were able to resolve the problem. 

For whatever it is worth, this sort of thing is where PVA glue sometimes shines. PVA can be softened with heat from an iron and parts can often be 'taken apart' if bad things happen.   

 Micha,

I've been eyeballing this model for quite some time. I think I'll build this model with you! I just ordered mine from Model Expo. It should be here Friday, maybe Saturday. 🙂 

Don't be afraid of that Grand Banks Dory! You should have no trouble, at all, building that model. It should prove to be a great transition from plastic to wood. You'll likely find out that a lot of your previous plastic models were probably more difficult to build than this Dory will be! 🙂 "Don't Fear the Wood!" 

 "Welcome aboard!"   

Plans have been obtained. 

I'm interested in purchasing the 16 sheets of plans from anyone who has a set of these plans and doesn't mind parting with them. 

Roger,

How do you 'diffuse' the light so that you do not have bright "HOT-SPOTS" where the lights are mounted? 

I tried making one of these for a gal at work and could never get the light the way we wanted it. If I mounted the lights around the perimeter of the box, with a wide border to hide the lights, the face of the box would be brightest around the outside of the 'window', getting darker as you moved towards the center. If I put the lights in the middle of the window It looked like a box full of light sabers through the diffusion material. Even tried LED strips for a more subtle effect, but still no go. No matter what I tried, I could always see where the lights were. I never achieved a smooth, uniform lighting effect.   

I finally got around to building a table and a crate for the Orlop deck. I'll probably make one more of each for the port side of the deck.

Thanks Mark. Unfortunately, the ship in question is the Continental Frigate 'Hancock' (captured) aka the 'Iris'. There doesn't seem to be much data out there, for this vessel, other than RMG's plans.   

If the 'Body Plan' offers the exterior geometry of the stations, how does one go about acquiring the 'interior' geometry for those stations? I know that this is a really basic thing for you experienced folks, but I'm stumped!  

3 hours ago, Gregory said:

I'll have to dig into it if it does..

Autodesk offers a free version for personal, noncommercial use.

2 hours ago, Gregory said:

Here's a nice demo with Vcarve

High Gregory!

I watched that video back when I was first shopping for my router. It's a good video, however. I'm going to stick with Fusion 360 for the CAM end of things. Fusion 360 will do everything the other CAD/CAM software packages can do. I might even transition over to doing all my 3D modeling in Fusion as well. I just need to go through the ol' learning curve as Fusion 360 does not work quite like AutoCAD.    

I'm still struggling to figure out just how Fusion 360 works. My knowledge of traditional AutoCad doesn't seem to apply... and watching Youtube videos isn't proving to be of much help either. I guess I'm just going to have to 'bite the bullet', turn in my "Man-Card" and actually resort to reluctantly reading the written instructions! *sigh*