Dan DSilva

I had bought some very tiny white metal anchors from eBay over a year ago... and lost them. And they've never seemed to be restocked, so I have to make new ones myself. Unfortunately this means giving up a certain amount of authenticity because forming them to look really correct is impossible with the methods at my disposal. This especially shows with the head and ring, and the bulkiness of the stocks and stock bands. The shank starts as a piece of 3/64" brass rod, hammered flat. It takes only a few seconds to taper the flat. And literally one second over a blowtorch is enough to anneal it so it can be curled to form the head. I forgot to take process pics of making the rings, but they're 1/32" rod wound around another thin rod and then snipped. Pretty oversized, but I'm not sure I'd have been able to work with anything smaller. The crown is more 3/64" rod, hammered and tapered to form the flukes. Then they're curved with jewelry pliers, and the inside of the curve is sanded a little to prepare for soldering. Soldering was a delicate business. I had to make sure the shank and crown didn't shift at all relative to each other despite being so light that the flame alone was enough to blow them away, and having no clamping setup, and use the tiniest snippet of solder, flattened and laid on top with tweezers. Luckily it worked out and I decided to leave the excess solder in place to keep the connection well-buttressed. A thorough polish was not possible at this size, but I removed most of the scale and roughened the surfaces gently with 320g sandpaper, then "painted" with a few mistings of matte black metal primer. The stocks are just about 10mm and extremely delicate in the middle where they're grooved for the shank. Unable to think of how to mechanically attach the stocks to the shanks, I first tried to use epoxy, but found that in the absence of tiny clamps, all I could do was pinch the pieces together, and it wasn't possible to hold my hands perfectly still for long enough for the epoxy to cure. So I've instead just used superglue because it sticks much faster. They still came out uneven. After tapering and evening off the ends a little, I painted them and wound the thinnest black thread I could find around them to form the stock bands, held in place with more superglue. There are fibers sticking out from the thread and glue, but they're so tiny that I can only see them in extreme closeup photos like this. I don't relish going through this again. Luckily most of my planned future builds are large enough to use 20mm anchors, which are commercially available. I really need to start rigging! I've only gotten the deadeyes so far and just started mapping out everything else. But it's not easy to find rigging charts for a sloop-rigged boat of this period.

Hi again, Thanks! Student teaching went tolerably well, but studying for the Praxis exam was a slog. I finally found an official prep course which I'm finishing up soon. I have not made a lot of progress on this. It took a lot of casting around and experimentation to decide how to mount the boom and gaff, and it's still not what I'd call ideal, although I guess it looks passable for such a small scale. I'll probably try to figure out a different method for future projects. What I did was shave off a little from the sides, glue on a strip of card stock and wrap the ends with thread, reinforce it from inside with another strip of cardstock, cut out the middle to create the yoke shape and seal off the cut ends with a dab of glue and paint the yokes. Then I set the yokes around a scrap piece of bamboo skewer for support so they wouldn't bend or break as I poked holes through the ends with a pin. Finally I ran a piece of thread through the holes and a few seed beads to be the parrel beads. Unfortunately, getting the pin through the yoke without bending the yoke out of shape was extremely difficult. One of the holes on the boom's yoke tore open on one side. I was still able to mount it, but for some reason it's now rotating instead of being fixed -- which I guess is more realistic but it's not what I was going for. The gaff went off acceptably. However, I'm not sure I want to try this again. I might instead try making solid yokes out of wood or plywood. No idea how to add the parrel beads if I do it that way. The thread is held in place on one side with a knot preventing it from sliding through the hole. I put the thread through both holes but with plenty of slack so it could fit around the crow's nest; then I pulled it tight and secured both the yoke and the non-knotted end of the thread with superglue. Actually most of the mounting relies on glue. It strikes me as a very weak setup in general. Plus my smallest seed beads went missing, so I used larger ones, but could only fit three on the thread. In the meanwhile, I acquired some copper enamel paint and painted the minion drakes. Bit rough-looking in extreme closeup, but they're little more than half an inch long and my eyes aren't the sharpest, so to me they look good enough in person.

Reason I was leaning toward starting with round rod or dowel is that it's easier to get fast and consistent results than carving each oar individually when I have to turn them out by the dozens. I spent the afternoon thinking about how to expedite making more accurate ones, and right now the idea I have is starting with 1mm square dowel, reducing the shaft and handle with the draw plate, cleaning up with sandpaper, shaving the end of the shaft flat with a knife, and gluing it to a card stock blade. Quick proof of concept made from a toothpick and not to any particular measurements. Problems: The blade has a rib only on one face, and joins the shaft asymmetrically when viewed on edge. I tried cutting slots in the card stock with a Dremel cutoff wheel, but even with a thin wheel, the slots were too large. I suspect a wheel thin enough to make the size of slots I need would crack if I touched it, so right now I'm about ready to stop looking further and accept the drawbacks.

Looks good! Unfortunately I'm working in 1:128 scale.

Thanks Allan. I realize oars of the 18th and 19th century weren't simple cylinders, the trouble is I just don't see how it would be feasible to carve them in the correct shape at such a minuscule scale, and fancier equipment like a laser cutter is beyond my budget.

I got the Byrne draw plate, but somehow when I split bamboo skewers and draw them, they keep coming out crooked or curved. Maybe it's my technique, I dunno. What has worked is starting with WoodenModelShipKit 1mm ramin dowel. It's still tedious, and it'll cost more in the long run than skewers, but the results are more consistent than sanding by hand and drawing a yard at once makes it faster. I think on balance this is the most optimal way of doing it.

Never knew that! I wonder if that's why my eyes itch so much after I sand a lot of bamboo. Thanks everyone for the advice! I'll let you know how it goes.

Wow, this kicked off more discussion than I expected. When I mentioned "a draw plate made for wood" I was thinking specifically of this one from Micro-Mark, which says it "is designed specifically for shaving wood." It's more expensive than I'm used to paying for tools, but if I get much use out of it, it may be worthwhile. The projects I have planned will require well over a hundred oars, totaling about five meters worth of shafts. I wrote to Micro-Mark and they just got back to me yesterday. They were skeptical about whether bamboo would work with a draw plate, but given that other people have done so, I'll probably give it a try once I've saved up a bit. The Byrnes plate sounds good and is less than half the price of the Micro-Mark, but its holes start at a much smaller size. Using it with 1/8-inch skewers would require reducing them in diameter first. It could probably work with toothpicks, but since skewers are about five times as long as toothpicks, it would be more efficient to use skewers with a plate that's large enough for them, unless their length makes them prone to breaking when they start getting very thin.

Had another idea recently: Prior to starting this thread I had been making oar shafts out of disposable 1/8-inch bamboo grilling skewers by splitting them with an X-Acto and shaping with sandpaper. Aside from being tedious, it's tricky to get the resulting rod a consistent thickness and keep the cross section round when I'm bringing them down to half a millimeter, which is why I was asking about premade products, but bamboo is really an excellent material for oar shafts this small once it's prepared. Would a draw plate made for wood be able to reduce the thickness faster and produce better consistency? It sounds good in theory and there are a couple of these on the market, but I don't know whether they work with bamboo.

I'm starting full-time student teaching in a few days, so this'll probably be the last update for some months -- possibly the last of the year. The cheeks are a single layer of basswood. I briefly considered cardstock, but they need to be thick enough to support the trestle trees. Cheeks after cutting with the Dremel wheel and fine-tuning with sandpaper and files. Using the ratio barkeater provided for me here, I traced the top onto plywood. The trestle trees are basswood and the cross trees are very thin bamboo that I originally prepared for oars. Having filed slots for the shrouds to go through, it was now necessary to hold the masts in place while the glue dried -- luckily they're so close together that a single piece of cardstock was enough to do the trick. Marking the trestle trees for the cross tree notches. At this point I had the miserable realization that since I hadn't cut tenons on the masts for the cheeks to sit in, they would stand out far enough to block the slots for the shrouds. So I had to use a tiny needle file and riffler to widen the slots. Took a long time but I think this'll be sufficient. Not wanting to be bothered with a vise, I set the Dremel between some heavy books to hold it in place. Sloped sides on the top produced by rotating it in gentle contact with the sanding barrel. To get the right curvature for the rail, I rolled a small piece of cardstock around the top and traced it. This initial piece became the guide for tracing the final piece. I "broke" the rail by wrapping it around a pencil. Finding the right length to trim it to. I glued the rail down a little at a time so that it wouldn't spring away, similar to adding the deck rails. When I was done I found I'd somehow cut it too short, so an additional piece of card needed to be trimmed precisely to shape with my sharpest scissors to cover the gap. The ribs are a thin strip cut from a card with a desktop paper trimmer. Mast, fully assembled. With a solid hull you can mark the deck level on the mast by putting it in its hole and rotating it against a pencil point. Then it's time to paint. Current state of completion. The deck fittings still aren't glued down, that's why the grating, windlass and pawl are kind of jumbled.

Thanks, that looks like what I'm looking for! Topmast is a bit less than 53mm, at that ratio the top would be a bit less than 15mm. At 1:128 that makes it about 6 feet across. Bit cramped with the mast right in the middle of it, but I guess it would be wide enough to stand on.

Hello again, The Grogblossom's been stalled a long time largely because I had a bunch of other things to do over the summer, but I've got a free week and I'd like to at least get the mast ready for assembly. Is there a way to work out the width of the top platform? If it makes any difference, the boat will have only one mast, which (if it were real) would be about 45-50 feet tall, with a topmast and topsail, and right now I'm planning on the top being a round 17th-century style with a rail, but I have no problem changing it if evidence suggests that a boat of this kind should have a different style of top or none at all.

Before doing any further assembling, I thought it was time to paint the hull. Marking the waterline. After painting the bottom, I realized there should be a black middle stripe. On the upper half, I began painting the sides, then realized I was more likely to slop paint down from the raised details onto the sides than the other way around. I believe this photo bears that out. It took a lot of adjustment, especially along the waterline and among the crevices of the beakhead, to get it looking passable. Not perfect, but just... not extremely uneven. The Craft Smart outdoor acrylic is a bit thick and gets blobby when layers accumulate, further contributing to the model's crude appearance. However, I think thinning it down would just require that I paint even more layers to cover up underlying paint while making adjustments. I would use scotch tape along the waterline, but it tends to rip up the paint when removed if it's pressed down tightly enough to prevent paint from getting under it. Also, the Craft Smart is too glossy IMO. I'm kind of locked into it for the Spanish Succession fleet if I want the ships to match, but for everything else I'm going to look into a different product. Wondering if the stem should be black between the waterline and beak? I began working on the tiller earlier. It's 0.8mm solid round brass rod. One end is sharpened to fit into a tapered hole at the top of the rudder. After lightly sanding it to remove any factory coating, I shaped it with round pliers. The only primer the local store had that they said would allow me to paint acrylic on metal was spray-on, so I embedded the sharp tip of the tiller in an old block of floral foam so it wouldn't have to lie on its side and wind up swimming in primer. This seems to work. If I'm successful at fabricating brass oars, I'll use this method with them too. Dry-fitting the tiller. I left the point unpainted and unprimed on the theory that the fewer layers there are between one thing and another when they're glued together, the fewer layers there are that might delaminate, the less chance the bond will fail. I didn't manage to paint down to the line where the tiller will be embedded, but it can be painted after glueing, which will also mean any exposed superglue (which is super-glossy and looks terrible) will be painted over. Next up I really need to get around to locating and drilling the holes for the bilge pump and anchor cables, and start assembling the mast. I've got the cap, lower and top masts shaped, but for some reason the top and trees are intimidating me.

Stand's finished. I'd have liked to make an authentically-detailed thing that goes clink (seriously what is the word for that?) but I just can't construct a box that's only two millimeters wide. Un-blanking the rudder blank. The hinges are card stock and the hinge pins are tiny bits of sanded-down bamboo. Trimmed. And glued. Glueing and trimming down the bowsprit supports. The trimming was largely carried out with a Dremel cutoff wheel and then finished with 320-grit paper. Notch added to the bow rails, and the bowsprit and deck fittings dry-fitted. The forecastle (is it a forecastle if the deck isn't raised?) is gonna be cramped. Hopefully they won't be forced to fire cannon and weigh anchor at the same time... Cutting the grating that's going to go under the windlass demonstrated that this commercial grating is very delicate. Luckily I only need to cut a few pieces, and since it's raw wood, broken bits can be glued back together. That's all for now.

Thanks, I'll take a look!