Jaager

Apple - For me - I would have it cut into 1"- 1 1/2 " slabs. Seal any cut ends - including branch knots - Parafin works, but so does a couple of thick coats of left over latex paint. Stack it somewhere protected - unheated attic works. Sticker the slabs = separate the slabs with 1/4 x 1/4 to 1/2 x 1/2 inch sticks to allow good air circulation around the whole plank. Should be dry in 12-18 months. If I was in a hurry, I would put my home made kiln back together and it would probably be dry in 2-3 months. All it is- a box made from foil faced 1 inch house foam insulating sheathing - heat source 200-300 W of incandescent light bulbs - their output is mostly IR- heat - and a surplus computer cooling fan to suck the water vapor out - Amazon has low cost fans - the tricky part for me - matching up the proper DC power supply. Nothing industrial - I just wanted the environment to be hotter than Blue Mold would like - since I was drying green Holly. Apple can be subject to fungus attack. The difference is that Blue Mold just discolors the wood - it is still just as strong - might even work as a Sun bleached decking material - for a deck that had not been holystoned, while the fungus that goes after Apple rots the wood. Congrats on finding the wood. Make sure you get enough. I do not have a jointer or a planer. Way back when, I tried to make do with a table saw - it worked to a point - would not buy one now - I discovered that a big band saw is better, more efficient and safer. I have a thickness sander that I made myself - at the time - the only way to have one. Now I would get a Byrnes thickness sander. An edger would be nice, but I made my own drum sanding table and added a fence to use it as an edger - the main problem is that I use a 1/6 HP motor - it is not powerful enough to take off much wood at a pass - it is fine for sanding frames - but 1-1.5 inch thick billet 16 inches long is a lot of work.

Tom, if you use it a lot, with the Byrnes, you will make up the difference in sanding media cost in short order. WoodCraft has cloth backed media - wide variety of grits - sold by the yard - I have only paid attention to the 4" Klingspor, but they have Norton 3". Also, get the gum rubber shoe sole - sandpaper cleaning stick. Unclogs the grit.

Because this is your first adventure with POF, I second Grsjax. Hard Maple is fairly close to Boxwood in hardness and will serve quite well for framing timbers, beams, breast hooks, keelson, clamps, ..... It is at the lower end as far as cost - redoing mistakes will not break the bank and should be available from a local hardwood supplier -- Black Cherry will also work for most everything - where you want contrast - I just would not use it for deck planking as it is sorta at the wrong end as far as color. Also available from local hardwood - just checked - I take it that everything is close in RI- Dwyer Hardwoods, L.Sweet Lumber, and a jackpot- RI Sawmill - kiln dried Hard Maple ( I dislike Soft Maple ) Cherry, Poplar, Pear ( if you can believe it ), Mulberry ( I don't know what it is like, but I have some firewood pieces drying to try it out, and what to me is the king- Apple - can be a beautiful wood, works like a charm, bends, is strong.. As far as Mayflower- it is from the end of the 16th or early 17th C. I believe that the framing would have been similar to Admiralty/Dockyard - the actual Admiralty style - not what some here call Admiralty. The space is within the frame - not beside it - there is a solid band of solid timber running fore and aft where the floor overlaps the 1st futtock and 1st futtock overlaps the 2nd, etc. The models were very stylized versions of actual practice. It evolved from having the outside planking first and adding the timbers to hold and strengthen. By this stage, the floors would go first, then planked to the head (end). The 1st futtock then mounted between the floors and planked to its head. etc. In this case, the scarf would be the side-side mating - not end to end. In actual practice the scarfs may have had chocks in between rather than actually touching - the wood did not need to be precisely sided and it allowed for air circulation to reduce rot. The point being- the actual ships were probably much less attractively framed than what the models show.

Is the surface of the actual disk a smooth metal surface? If so, after an adventure with Weldwood contact cement- it holds for sure - but it does so a bit too well - I used Naptha - a thinner/solvent to denature it - then had to scrape to get clean. A last resort choice. I find that Elmer's or Best Test paper cement holds well enough - just apply a liberal coat to both surfaces and mount the sandpaper when it has dried a bit. It will rub off the metal surface with your thumb - once you peel the paper away. Norton makes sheet sandpaper that holds up -- the 3X has plain paper backing and is excellent -- the 7X and 10X have a coating that is incompatible with both rubber cement and contact cement. The paper cement actually took the Norton film with it, so perhaps it can be removed with Mineral Spirits - or other paint thinners/solvents and then used OR the 10X tends to get sticky from friction heat - so I may try adhering a disc by laying it flat, putting the metal disk on top and heating up the disk with my heat gun. My disk is Al so it transfers heat quickly. WoodCraft has rolls of cloth backed sanding media - I use it on my sanding planer - 4" wide but I am pretty sure it comes wider - probably overkill for a 5" disc sander - but it will hold up.

Sounds like you are pretty well set as far as tools are concerned. As far as scratch -POF - the only real difference is the framing and any innards you add below the lowest gun deck. An easy way to get into scratch is to replace kit components with those you make yourself. If you get into heavy duty scratch and find that you want to harvest your own wood - an economical way would be to make friends with someone who has a big band saw and use their facilities to get logs, braches and firewood into Byrnes saw sized billets. All it will cost you is the band saw blades - they are not inexpensive and they break or get dull. The species of wood that we use is a lot tougher on saw blades than what the average wood worker will use. The greatest advantage in having the mill and lathe is that they are tools to make other tools. Another tool that I use is a small drill press. The Eurotool DRL 300 works well for me- especially with a generic momentary power foot switch. The mill will certainly double as a drill press and if you do not use that function all that often, the setup time saved by having a dedicated drill press will not be worth the expense. As far as hand drills - I like the Dremel Model 8050 Rotary Tool - especially since they fixed the explode and burn problem. I just wish it "remembered" the last speed setting.

Two variations to consider: Because of eye tricks due to scale effect, consider using paper that is at most 1/2 the thickness of the seam at scale. Use Walnut dye rather than black - a lot of pre petrol tar was not really black and going lighter than black can modify scale effect.

I do POF. I am developing a method of frame assembly that involves cutting out the individual timbers. I do not need to be precise in cutting to the line - in fact, some distance is necessary. My 9" band saw does the job as well as I could ask and with the Stabilizer, it tracks quite well. Since only the back edge is controlled by the apparatus - the blade can pivot as needed - it does not bind - there are no guides. The total cost is low enough to keep the 9' pretty much dedicated to scroll cutting. I think most 9" saws have a 1 1/4" vac connection, which I adapted to my 2 1/2" shop vac. Once I followed the advice here and placed a cyclone trap in line - I have avoided the problem of the vac filter clogging up and can cut and thickness sand as long as I wish. With POF - want to have control of my timber supply. I make do with an old Emco 3 wheel band saw with a Wood Slicer blade for resawing - it is under powered (3/4 HP). Were I younger and not space limited - condo - and if I has wired 220V outlet, I would replace it with a 2HP 14" band saw.. This big saw could be used for scroll cutting - an 1/8" blade fits fine, but changing band saw blades is not fun and it is worth it to me to have paid for the 9" not to have to. I have a 10" table saw, but it scares the hell out of me. I have found that except for cutting large plywood sheets, my band saw does everything better and is safer. Saw horses and a hand power saw that can cut 3/4" would work as well as the table saw for plywood. The full size table saw is a tool I would not buy were I starting over. My thickness sander is a tool I can not do without. When I started out, the only way to have the tool was to make it myself. Talk about saw dust! I made my own dust collector -- a bottomless box - 3 layers of Amazon box cardboard laminated using PVA wood glue - inside corners re-enforced with 1/4" x 1/4" Pine/Fir cut from a furring strip. Mounted a 2 1/2" hose connection on the top and the shop vac gets almost all the dust. A 5" disk sander is another tool I depend on. The MicroMark model that I use - pre-Byrnes - does not come with a method for dust collection - so I used my Amazon cardboard to enclose the underside of the table and cut a slot opening for a small crevice tool attachment and extra hose and use a Sears Magic Blue vac - it gets all the dust. If you can afford it, a Byrnes table saw is worth the cost. I prefer to have the tool fixed and manipulate the wood. A drum sander is a very useful tool. The spindle sanders I have seen use pre formed cylinders of sanding media - I want to use drums that can mount sheet sand paper so I made my own drum sanding table. Additional advantages are that I can also mount 1/4" fine carbide burr cutters to quickly eat away material before final sanding of my frames and I can mount a fence and use the table as an edger since a lot of my wood supply is raw planks straight from a country saw mill - not milled or planed. The way I control dust is to fix the crevice tool for my shop vac close to the drum. My background involved a chem lab so I use a cheap ring stand with a finger clamp to hold the crevice tool.

How close and precise do you need to cut? Are there a lot of inside cuts? If there are few inside cuts - that you can afford to do with a hand fret saw and sorta close - will finish with disk or drum sander is your situation: An alternative tool is a 9" or 10" bench band saw. A Rikon 10 can be had for $220 now. The generic 9" are less. This only gets you halfway - to be able to do sharp curves or turn 90 degrees or more at a spot - a Carter Stabilizer for scroll cutting is sort of necessary and that is another $80. What is available from Carter will limit your generic options. I have the 9" model that MicroMark sold for a while and fortunately I was able to adapt the Stabliizer using K&S telescoping brass tubing. You are pretty much limited to an 1/8" blade. The teeth have set so getting too close to the line will not work. The cuts are only in the down direction - so the work piece does not vibrate. It can go fast - depending on wood thickness and species. You might be able to do some resawing (as well as cross cutting) in addition to the scroll work but I figure 2" thick and significant sanding because the blades for this class of saw have set and leave there presence known on the cut face.

This is not a situation where "best" really means much. If everything is junk, then the best of it is still junk. Bench marks for various parts = excellent, good , poor . Then, you just pick which parts to evaluate. Plans Instructions Wood Acuracy Precision Fitings etc.

You are building POB? The first layer of planking is thin, moulds are far apart, there is no filler between the moulds to provide support, so there are hollows? Try Bondo. For gaps, wood flour mixed with PVA works well. For large surface areas, it is difficult to sand = the necessary properties that make it a good adhesive keep it from being brittle enough to sand easily. If it is you final layer of planking, and you are going to paint it, scab a layer of very thin veneer wood on the low areas and sand that down. If you use a veneer with a similar pore structure, it will look the same when painted.

The math is certainly easier. And also coming from a similar background, I can utilize either. Volume, I can "see" either. Weight, up to pound, I am more comfortable with metric, grains are absurd. Pounds and tons I "see" better than metric. Distance - kilometers I do not "see" - miles I do. 1/32" - 1/8" - 1/4" etc I "see" much better than mm or cm. For wood thickness, an electronic digital caliper beats any sort of calculation. For English and US vessels, English data is what we get. For other European, before Napoleon, it is an idiosyncratic national measure per country, but the only scantlings that I have seen are English. Since the physical properties of wood, iron and copper are universal, using the English data for any ship of comparable size should not take us too far astray.

There are some terms that have "evolved" from their origins. The original term is usually better at defining the function. One is ceiling - it was originally "sealing" - the inside layer of planking. Another is spilling --originally spoiling - as in spoiling the plank. It gives a better idea of the sentiments involved in cutting away as much if not more of the wood used as a plank. They obviously hated the waste involved. Wood will bend without too much complaint ( depending on species ) in and out of the plane of its narrowest dimension. It will resist being bent in the thicker dimension. Seeking the least resistance it will tend to twist. A ships hull is subject to constant forces in three dimensions. Having a plank that "wants" to spring back to its original shape being assisted by wind and wave = springing a leak. Usually, the planks were steamed or soaked -bent - dried in new shape to get the lignin and other wood fiber binders to reset to the new shape and hold it - like a steel plate. If you only use the narrow kit supplied wood stock - instead of cutting a "jigsaw" piece from wider stock - for hull planking, rails, and waterways- just understand that you are not simulating how the original vessel was built.

A stain is essentially a paint. If you apply it before glue assembly - there is a chance that the glue joint will fail because the stain will keep the glue from penetrating the wood. Give some thought to using an aqueous or alcohol based wood dye. It penetrates the wood instead of being a surface coat. If it is water based, you first wet the wood with water or water with some PVA glue mixed in. This will raise the grain - the wood is sanded when dry and then dyed. It will not need to be sanded again so no removal of dye. The wood will glue as well as it will in a raw state. A clear satin or matt finish applied after assembly. A dye will leave the wood looking as though it was the original wood - instead of the "muddy" effect of a stain.

One of the components of wood is glue-like and binding = lignin. Its binding properties can be weakened and allow wood to be bent by liquid ammonia. This is not household ammonia. It is anhydrous ammonia - an industrial chemical that is dangerous, reactive and explosive. I vaguely remember an ice plant used liquid ammonia as a refrigerant exploded and became a fire in downtown Richmond when I was a kid . The part of household ammonia that aids in wood bending is water. Using water alone will do the same thing.

I came across this product on Amazon: http://modelshipworld.com/index.php/topic/8626-what-have-you-received-today/page-53#entry399523

Reference to a "local bayou" - if you are in the US Gulf Coast region - there are 2 local species that are excellent for carving - low weight, fine grain, closed pore, take well to aniline dyes and glue = Tupelo and Yellow Poplar. If you have a local saw mill that mills it, perhaps you can purchase end cuttings or raw planks at a low cost - if you have the tools to work it. Black Cherry also carves well and is usually a low end domestic as far as cost, The Red Mahogany and Cypress are better suited for building the display case for the model.

Framing of English warships was more complicated than what the French, Dutch and North Americans used. Davis was describing American methods and a simplified derivative at that. The Room = Space - if used at all - was probably limited to economy built merchantmen. Non-English tended to be all (mated) paired frames with space probably averaging 20-30% of the width of Room+Space. The use of single stack filler frames was mostly English. The English significantly reduced the width of each subsequent futtock as it approached the rail. Rather than have a lot of space in the top side, often it looks like a pattern of 2 paired frames then one filler frame was used. At the keel there was little space. French/North American : futtocks dd not lessen in width near as much- if at all. The pattern was frame pair- space - frame pair space. I have plans for a mid 19th C. USN ship where they wanted the ship to be longer than drawn, and the directions on the plans ordered that each space to be 1 inch wider than the plans stipulated.

The products that are labeled as "Sand and Sealer" strike me as being too thick for model use. It may save having to fill pores with dilute Plaster of Paris for a smooth surface in Oak, Walnut, Ash, Hickory, etc. but those species are out of scale for model use anyway. The soak in products bare a look: 50% pure Tung oil in Mineral Spirits or 5% Super Blonde/ 10% Orange shellac.

Matt, I am working with Hard Maple, but what I was trying to say is that stropping = more efficient wood removal - it sharpened the scraper. I am not using them to get a final finish - instead getting a smooth run for clamps, bilge strakes and ceiling. When I cut inside bevels, I tend to leave the inside too fat after drum sanding the shape. I am developing a different method of hull framing. Getting the inside of the frames with a finished look is the most time consuming step. The sections joint at the station lines so the glue plane in in the middle of a paired frame. Unlike standard methods an imperfect transition is obvious. I guess I could try to design a small convex working surface for a finish sander at the end of a stilt - so that it can get inside the hull. I recently bought a Wen Detailing Palm Sander. It is about 4x or more the size that I need and a flat sole is no help for inside curves but it has screws to mount the sole. I am thinking that it is a way to mount a smaller sanding surface at the end of a "stick". The machine was $25 so I am not out much if it does not work.

It is probably the wrong way, but my scrapers pull up more wood after I work the 3 planes on my leather strop charged with gold compd. The narrow edge - back and forth along its long dimension. If it does not work, the worst you can do is polish it.

Were it an actual full size Chris Craft that you would be working on and you had enough, you would be having great good fortune. It is likely to be open pore ( several species are sold as mahogany ) and this makes it look distorted when scaled down. Black Cherry ( depending on the actual tree ) can be very close in color. You can also dye a light species ( Maple, Yellow Poplar, Basswood ) to the match mahogany. This would avoid the open pore problem. A bench top band saw - the probability is that it is under powered to do serious resawing. I have a 3/4 hp Emco 3 wheel and it has a difficult time. If the wood is in plank form, the table saw may handle it. Mahogany is not a dense wood, so it would be less work, I had to flip and make 2 cuts to get 3 inch planks using a 10 inch table saw - it kept tripping the circuit breaker at 3 inch depth. My wish would be a 2 hp 14 inch band saw, but I did not have a 220 v outlet wired in my garage, so I would have to settle for a 1 3/4 hp 110 v, but given my age, it is not practical as well as no room without a major interior redo.

This is an individualistic class of tools. They are probably useful most often for shaping and hollowing hulls from the solid or from laminated components. There is a wide variety of sizes and shapes - depending on the sort of cut you are making. There are straight handle and palm handle. You can spend a lot of money if you are of a mind. A set may seem handy, but given the nature of what we do as opposed to sculpture carving, you may well have several blades that you will never use. I advise waiting until you get to the point where you need one, see what is available and order one or two blades - until you get comfortable with this class of tools. Good steel that will hold an edge is key. U.I. Ramelson and Flexcut both make a variety of chisels using good quality steel and an individual unit will not break the bank. You can see the variety available at MHCrafters and Wood Carvers Supply,Inc. Broken record here: you can keep a very sharp edge for a long time using a scrap piece of leather and Flexcut Gold or rouge stropping compd. The blade will last longer because you are removing a micro layer instead of measurable metal with a stone. As a rule, you usually do not need to reshape an edge unless you you nick it by cutting something that you shouldn't.

The difference between sanding and scraping = sanding fills the pores on the surface with saw dust. scraping - they are open. This is important for violins and guitars - not sure about ship models. I use single edge razor blades for deck scraping also. A 5 inch wall scraper blade has uses. I recently made a handle for mine from a 1x 5x 5/16 piece of hardwood. Cut a slit for the blade and drilled a hole to match the one in the blade. For heavier scraping, I have use a steel set sold by Lemuel Violins. It is 7 shapes and the size is right for 1:48 - 1:100 scale range. https://www.violins.ca/tools/tools_cutting.html

As an aside and not necessarily a recommendation for a beginner, I have found the new Dremel 8050 drill to be useful - not heavy and no wire to drag. I do not use it to mill cut, but as a drill, it is fine. It does not come with the needed range of collets and I wish it would "remember" the last RPM setting. Harbor Freight has a DC rotary drill for $10 - but unless you are drilling holes in a stick of room temp butter, I don't know what something with so little power would do. For cutting out planks from thin stock, a 6 inch metal cutting guide helps avoid cutting what you don't want cut. A box of 100 high quality #11 blades. If you ever get into POF scratch building - a true flat surface is needed for frame assembly. A piece of 1/4" bevel ground edge safety glass provides this. Mine is 18" x 12".

I read a few reviews on Amazon - the new product does not seem to be something you would want to use. A more course texture with ceramic inclusions does not sound good. Why not use wood flour mixed with PVA? You and mix a dye with the fine saw dust or use a wood species that is already the shade that you wish. Mix up as much as you need just at the time - no storage problems.