SJSoane

Thank you, Jorge, druxey and Doris for your kind comments. And Doris, again I am amazed what you can do with clay, now that I have tried and failed to create details like you have done for your projects.

Drawing the cyphers for photo-etching is proving to be challenging, given their size. Working in Adobe Illustrator, I discovered that they need to be  fattened up, or the fine lines just disappear when shrunk down to scale. I don't know yet how fine the Micro Mark photo-etch paper will resolve either, so a little experimentation in in order now.

Mark

Hi everyone,

Cannon masters finally done. Here are the four guns of the Bellona: 32# on the gundeck, 18# on the upper deck, 9# long on the forecastle, and 9# short on the quarterdeck.

Now on to the king's cypher. I have even additional appreciation for Doris's amazing work with clay. I was not able to get anywhere close to her skill trying to make the cyphers that way. So I will try my Micro Mark photo etching kit and see how well I can do with that. The chemicals were way out of date, so waiting for renewed stock in the mail.

Mark

Michael,

Your closeup photos look as much like a full scale vessel as any I have ever seen. Spectacular craftsmanship!

Mark

Hi Michael,

Just catching up. Everything is looking wonderful, and I am particularly impressed with your machining and metal working. It all seems impossibly difficult until you demonstrate it, which makes it even more magical!

Mark

Those shipworkers can sometimes get a little frisky!

Mark

Hi everyone,

Another day, another cannon. Here are the 32# and 18# together. Just the 9# long and 9# short still to go.

In the spirit of full disclosure, here are a few mistakes --I am sorry, experiments-- while figuring out how to turn these...

Mark

Hi Alan, I look forward to seeing what he has done, if possible.

Druxey and Michael, thanks for the additional advice on the pewter. 

The pewter I bought from a jewelry supply in Denver, and which led to disappointing casting the first time around, is labeled R98. Online I discover that it is 98% tin, 1.5% bismuth, and .5% copper. It melts at 466 degrees and pours at 590 degrees.

The better looking pewter from Micro Mark is Type 280, which is only listed as a mix of tin and bismuth without proportions. It melts at 280 degrees.

So the pewter that led to disappointing results for my model had copper and a much higher melting point. I wonder what advantages it brings to jewelry making?

Thanks, Greg and MIchael, for the comments on my window view. We moved to the countryside to get closer to nature and a slower pace of life; but I am still getting used to the idea of bears and mountain lions that sometimes roam around near us. I am beginning to think that I like nature best when looking at it out of a shop window!

Mark

Hi Alan, Hmm, sculpting in liquid metal. I'll give that some thought. Does he have any pictures of work so far?

My new pewter just arrived from Micro Mark. It looks significantly more refined that the stuff I got at a jeweler's supply place in Denver many years ago. Here is a photo of the pewter I got from Micro Mark on the right, and the old stuff on the left. The old stuff looks discolored and much rougher. Now it could have been the moulds they were cast into, but the Micro Mark material looks much cleaner and close-grained.  I am hopeful this might have been my problem with casting in the past. We will see!

Mark

Thanks, Greg and Mark, for your kind comments, and thanks to everyone for likes.

Greg, I don't think I am a threat to commercial cannon manufacturers, at my rate of speed...

I started thinking about making the King's cyphers, and assumed I would make these with Micro Mark's photo etch kit. I may still. But I realized that I only need to make 4 cyphers for the four master patterns, with perhaps some duplicates for mistakes. So then I thought that I might as well make other metal parts at the same time, to avoid wasting a sheet of photo etch on just four small parts.

But then I noticed that the metal in the kit is only .005" thick, which at 3/16" scale is 5/16" at full size. I looked through David Antscherl's and Greg's Fully Framed Models series for an inventory of metal parts needed, and the only other parts I could find that thin are door hinges in the various cabin partitions. So photo-etch looks pretty inefficient in the big scheme of things for my project.

I will try a few other ideas, like Doris's use of modeling clay, or David Antscherl's suggestion of piping glue through a hypodermic needle. I welcome any other ideas!   2 of these will be 3/16" long and the other 2 will be 5/32" long.

Best wishes,

Mark

Tiziano, exceptional craftsmanship, a pleasure to view.

Mark

Mark,

I can only admire from afar your skill in understanding and tweaking hardware. When my son was 21 he successfully built his own computer, with no previous experience or training; I still secretly believe aliens landed to help him, but what do I know?😊

Great to see what you are doing with it.

Best wishes,

Mark

Thank you, Doris, those are beautiful cannon. You have inspired me to try the modeling clay before getting into photo etch. 

Mark

Hi Doris,

Astonishing small detail. Beautiful!

I apologize if I missed this, but have you ever made the King's cypher or emblem for a cannon?

I was about to start on photo-etching these for my project, but your tiny guns made me think that there might be another way.

Best wishes,

Mark

hi Mark,

I must have missed it somewhere, I apologize; what laser cutter are you using?

Mark

Hi everyone,

I finally managed to turn a good 32# master. The button still needs a little cleaning up, but here it is.

Mark, you are right. Even with the drawings and turning recipes worked out, It took me all day to turn this one cannon. I am sure I would get a little faster for each if I tried to turn them all, but 74 would be a long time turning. I have nothing but the greatest respect for those of you who turned individual guns.

I was relieved to see that the ship's cat was guarding the ship while I was at the gun foundry...

Best wishes,

Mark

Hi Mark, I will talk to Sherline, see what they have to say. I may not be able to afford it, but at least I will know what is possible or not.

Paul, well spotted. My original drawing concerned only the lathe turning, so I located the trunnion on the center line of where the bore would be located so I could dimension the bore itself. But I have now decided initially to locate the trunnion from the finished muzzle face in the mill, when I first drill the hole. To help with this, I have relocated the trunnion to its proper location in the drawing below. 

The cannon I showed all had the trunnion drilled in correct position. One of the pictures I posted shows first drilling with a center drill, the only way I know to drill a hole off center on a cylinder that will prevent the drill from creeping. So far, it has worked very well.

I will be happy to post my experiments with casting. Recording the process will help keep me organized!

Happy new year!

Mark

This certainly looks logical and craftsman-like.  Thanks, Siggi, druxey and Mark for exploring this fascinating detail.

Mark

Thanks, druxey and Greg. Nothing like a few setbacks to build greater resolve!

Greg, I seriously thought about adding CNC to my Sherline lathe and mill; but when I looked into it on their website, I came away thinking it is not going to work well for me. I may be wrong, and would love to be corrected by someone, but it looks like Sherline has developed a system that works best with their own included computer and software. I did not see how Fusion 360 would talk to it, nor how I would be able to use my own Apple computer. Someone handy with computer hardware tweaks might figure this out, but that is definitely not one of my skills

Does anyone have experience with Sherline's CNC setup? In particular, with a Mac?

I'll bet the computer doesn't have to write down the X and Y coordinates on a slip of paper so it doesn't get confused....

Best wishes,

Mark

Hi everyone,

It has been a long journey figuring out how to make the cannon. The efforts at pattern turning failed miserably. I used an old Vanda-Lay pattern tool for the Sherline, but I could not keep it from deflecting, and the cuts were quite ragged. Probably operator error, but not worth pursuing I decided.

I temporarily lost heart, thinking about the long uphill climb making 74 guns, and I looked for ways that I could have them made for me. But 3-d printing was way, way too expensive, and I did not find a source that could provide the level of quality I hoped for. I also explored the idea of having them CNC lathed, but could not find a willing machinist.

All of these failures were just as well, because this focused my attention again on how to do these myself.

Here is a summary of where I am so far. I have determined to turn masters in brass, then cast in pewter. I think my previous casting problems were caused by a strange pewter that I had purchased from a jewelry supply store many years ago, which needed high heat and this destroyed my moulds too quickly. I have ordered low temp pewter from MicroMark, and I hope this will work better.

To make the masters, I first drew the cannon in Fusion 360 (a great program, I am discovering, and free for hobbyists). I was able to create a number of instruction sheets, one for each stage of cutting, so I could dial in the dimensions with great accuracy for the fine mouldings. I used the Sherline compound angle slide for the taper cuts, which does not work with my digital displays. So I had to calculate how many turns of the dial for each manual move. 

I found that my attention wandered when dialing in all of these X and Y dimensions, leading to ruining parts well into the process. So I wrote down the next X and Y moves on a card taped to my digital readout. This saved me from a lot of silly errors once I got used to it.

I also messed up overall dimensions at one point, placing the trunnion hole too close to the muzzle (the cannon below with the turned cascable shows this error). I then figured out how to measure from a temporary trunnion in its drilled hole to the hind side of the base ring, which became a fixed measuring point for subsequent operations.

The cascable was cut while still using the tailstock for stability. I used the cut-off tool for cuts straight into the metal, and then files to shape the ogee and the button neck. A little scary, thinning down so much while still between centers, and also holding needle files so close to the spinning chuck. But no accidents yet.

On to the other three cannon masters....

Happy new year to all!

Mark

Thanks, Bob, you offer an insightful overview of how our world of modeling has been shaped by large societal and technological changes in the last 70 years. It is interesting to reflect on how the these changes could both kill an earlier industry (Roemer), and help a more recent one, (Byrnes, et al).

Mark

Beautiful model!

Mark

Thanks, Siggi and everyone else, this was a very interesting discussion!

David Antscherl's books on the Fully Framed model show an additional port liner added to the sides of the frames, to create the rabbet. Mark P's descriptions seem to suggest that the rabbets were cut into the face of the frames themselves, as Siggi's drawing show. Whichever it is, would the size of the port called for in the contracts and drawings be measured between the inner face of the linings, or between the ends of the outer planks? My own model made a decision for the latter many years ago, so I am already committed. But would be interesting to know.

Mark

Hi everyone,

If you read Nepean Longridge's classic book, The Anatomy of Nelson's Ships, you would have been intrigued by his description on page 49 of his beloved Midget Universal Woodworking Machine. He bemoaned the fact that it had stopped production before the war, and had reached out to the manufacturer. W.C. Roemer, to inquire if it might resume production. Roemer replied that he hoped to, if labor and material became available. But Longridge then noted that currency restrictions in Great Britain after the war would prevent purchasing this American made equipment anyway. I had never read of it anywhere else, so I assume Roemer was never able to start production again.

Longridge stated that if ever his machine were destroyed, the very first thing he would do would be to make another one.

I was always intrigued by Longridge's detailed description of this machine. I just discovered a photo of it, on a vintage machinery website. So if you were ever similarly intrigued, here it is:

http://vintagemachinery.org/photoindex/detail.aspx?id=7623

I am very happy with my Byrnes Model Machine tools, which probably work better in many regards than this all-in-one tool. But it is fun to see this earlier effort at tools for model makers.

Mark

Hi Doris,

I am just catching up with your postings. The craftsmanship is as usual the best ever. I particularly enjoy this time your lighting, and the scene from your living room that looks like a ship is on fire somewhere in the distance. Very evocative!

Mark

Hi Siggi,

Sorry to hear about your health issues. Let's hope for the best for the new year.

I have been assuming that the port lids are as druxey explained, and as are seen in the Bellona model. I take the Bellona model as contemporary first hand source, since it is unlikely the model got rebuilt in this area after it was finished in the 18th century. 

But it is interesting that the Victory shows gunport lids with no rabbet; they appear to be the thickness of the exterior planking only. I wonder what they were looking at when they rebuilt this? The sides also appear to be perpendicular to the fronts, not tapered. The lower edge tapers because of the great angle of the tumblehome sides, it looks to me.

Mark