Kevin-the-lubber

Yes, the Phecda package I chose came with air assist, a roller attachment, a honeycomb and an enclosure. I kind of mis-described the multi-pass flaring issue. It's more that the thicker the material the more likely that you'll have to tolerate a bit of flaring. This is down to beam focus i.e. if you try to cut 10mm ply using several passes, by the time it's cutting beyond, say, 5mm or 6mm deep, the beam is well out of focus and diffused, so you get a wider kerf. Obviously you can mitigate to some extent by adjusting the height. Your 20w head must be better than mine. I can cut 5mm in 3 passes at 8mm/second at 100% power. In fact, if I was buying again I'd do my homework and watch eBay. There are a lot of very good professional machines that come up for sale and I'm sure I could get something much better than any hobbyist machines, for much the same cost. But I guess to do that you need to have first learned what you can and can't do for £2000.

Good shout, but it also illustrates the issue for me: here, that would set me back around £2000; the Phecda cost about £400.

I have an Elegoo Phecda 20watt diode laser. I bought it on impulse via a kickstarter deal as I just wanted to get stuck in and get learning. I too use Lightburn as the cutting software; it’s brilliant and quite well priced. A few lessons; - decent fume extraction is simply essential. I use the machine in my garage workshop and had to put in a 150mm inline extractor fan and ductwork to vent outside, fixed to the laser enclosure - the machine takes up a lot of space! The footprint is 600mm square and about 300mm high. But you also need space either side for long material. - It was my plan to make veneer decks etc to sell. The cutting area is 400 square but this is not big enough. I realised almost immediately that I needed a 600mm long cutting area. - a 20 watt diode will give a fairly good finish on 5mm plywood in three passes but the more passes, the more the cut flares out. - on my diode module, the beam is oblong rather than round. This is a real nuisance because everything I make uses very precise dimensions with tolerances of 0.15mm being typical. I can achieve that with the laser, but with difficulty. - laser cutting is a very easy thing to learn, there are loads of good videos on YouTube. Overall, my advice would be to see if there is any way at all to first use a machine in a maker space / school / college, if only to quickly understand what you are getting into. Then, figure out what you want to use it for and buy a machine accordingly. If I was doing this all over again I’d be looking at an xtool machine as these have extension kits, but I’d also be thinking seriously about a co2 machine in order to be able to cut and engrave a wider range of materials. Don’t get me wrong, the Phecda is good at what it does and a 400mm work area is more than big enough for cutting bulkheads and frames, but there are some unexpected limitations. ps. Almost forgot: my main process is resin printing and I use highly flammable isopropyl alcohol for print washing. Having this running in the same space as lasering would be plain dangerous and part of the reason my laser machine sits unused for 99% of the time is because I have to shut down printing and make the space safe for lasering. I mention this just in case you also need to consider that.

Marc, just in case you haven't already picked up on this, a knee walker is a game changer. What always used to drive me mad following an ankle break or surgery was the difficulty in even moving around with a cup of coffee: during the recovery period. Knee walkers solve that. I was able to even walk up to the shop, go round our park etc. There are loads of brands these days, I bought a Stride-On off ebay and sold it on a few months later for what I paid. I feel your pain at work on the SR slowing down. Just yesterday, after months of not having any time at all for the ship, I spent some happy hours on the Victory. One can forget how good this hobby can be for the soul. So I hope you're able to grab the odd hour here and there, between now and April.

You are a genius Daniel. That is a very, very clever bit of lateral thinking.

Ian, in that case I’d guess that whoever uploaded the model had to simplify because of file size limits. Is there any way of tracing back to the designer and getting the original?

Does the .STL look that simplified before it’s sliced? It seems strange that someone has gone to all the trouble of modelling the interior in such detail but then simplified the hull like that. I think Bambu uses an in-house version of orca-slicer. I use the generic version and, when I drop in a complex object comparable to a boat, it throws a little hissy fit and then asks if I want the software to simplify. I wonder if this is happening automatically in yours, and if you can switch that off in preferences. A clue might be how long it takes to slice. I never simplify and it can take 10 minutes for it to grind its way through one of my arty vases or whatever, compared to 20 seconds for simple stuff.

You’re getting incredibly good results from that Bambu, those boats are not far off resin levels. Mmmn, maybe I ought to invest in a 7th printer….. I try to follow along with all the electronics talk but it still goes completely over my head. So that’s what a servo looks like 🙃.

Good luck in the new job. I admire your spirit, many’s the person that would have simply retired at 60 rather than up sticks and start over. The build is looking good. Apologies if you’ve covered this earlier, but from where did you get those plans?

Well done David, the sails have a pleasing lightness to them, much better than the kit parts.

That’s a nice video. I visit the ship every now and then, mostly just strolling around without going in as I’ve done that enough for now, and she really is a beautiful sight.

As ever, excellent work, and the foot bars make sense. While the boats on display at Portsmouth may only be contemporary examples, the one that looks like the launch has a planked 'deck' at about 1/3rd height vertically, sitting on cross bars. I can see what looks like a duckboard underneath this in my photos, sat on the frames. I can also just about make out the slots for the capstan, though neither this nor the little stern gantry are present on the boat. Nor is there anything that would give clues about the rigging. I imagine this launch, like the Vic itself, has had a few improvements and adaptations made over the years, and the deck may have been added as a more comfortable solution once load carrying became less relevant. It's frustrating that it's so difficult to get good photos of the boats (and that they seem to be a repository for offcuts and wood scraps). Maybe next time I'll ask if I could go inside the enclosure - it turns out I have a free pass for the historic dockyard and V@P so can visit as often as I like.

Indeed he is and, even though I can almost hear the screams of terror through having all those guns run out when she's heeled over so far, I quite like his paintings. It's intriguing that the ochre seems to continue round the counter.

I echo that. From a technical view alone it's a superb piece of work, but the artistry is what really catches the eye. I certainly know what you mean about 15 iterations, sometimes even that isn't enough, is it.

As I'm still nowhere near ready to post an update on the model, I wanted to share a couple of photos in the meantime. I took these yesterday while visiting the Sir Max Aitken Museum in Cowes on the Isle of Wight. If you happen to be visiting the Victory in Portsmouth and have spare time and a few pounds for the ferry crossing, this is a nice little treasure trove of nautical artifacts. Its not very large but entry is free and the lovely Isle of Wight is always worth the visit anyway. The first is Trafalgar by Thomas Buttersworth. I found this to be an interesting depiction, with Victory (first british ship from the left) looking fairly different to the ship we see in Portsmouth. Discussion welcome! The second is an exquisite, bone and silver carved model of the Victory. I'd say the scale was around 1:150 or thereabouts. While it looks like the modelmaker needed to take licence with a few details, it's an impressive piece of work.