dvm27

French prisoner of war models are still on the market for the well healed amongst us. For example, recently sold for 48,000 pounds:
https://www.charlesmillerltd.com/auction/lot/261-a-large-finely-carved-and-well-presented-early-19th-century-napoleonic-french-prisoner-of-war-bone-ship-model-for-a-first-rate-ship-of-the-line-traditionally-identified-as-hms-caledonia/?lot=12815&au=46&sd=1#
A more modest 4000-6000 pound bid might get you this smaller model:
https://www.charlesmillerltd.com/auction/lot/73-a-napoleonic-french-prisoner-of-war-bone-model-for-the-74-gun-frigate-illustrious-circa-1810/?lot=13707&so=0&st=&sto=0&au=51&ef=&et=&ic=False&sd=0&pp=48&pn=2&g=1#

Good morning and thank you all.
More photos 
 

 

 

 

 

 
Un saluto.

Thank you Michael - Good to see you back.
 
I made a start on the wheel.

I could scale the overall size from the plans and this coupled with a decent photograph allowed me to create a reasonable sketch. The rim is 1.125" OD and .950" ID. As can be seen the faces of there rim are predominantly brass mounted on a mahogany core.
 
I am not sure why but I decided to make it in quite a complicated manner. I think strength was uppermost in my mind.
 
On the left is a cross section of the rim. The blue and red areas areas represent the brass work. 

I started by finding brass of the right diameter, in this case an old plumbing fitting from the scrap box.
I turned the Blue "T" shaped piece first and then parted off.

 
I then mounted a lump of mahogany in the lathe and turned a bore to take the outside diameter of the "T" section (1.095" on the drawing).
 
The brass was then glued in the bore with CA glue. The mahogany external diameter of the ring was then turned and rim was parted off.



A spigot was then turned on the mahogany to mach the inside diameter of the "T" section (1.075" on the drawing). The parted off rim was then glued onto this spigot.

The inside was then bored out to the required .950" diameter of the inside of the rim.

I then parted off the rim which now consisted of the brass "T" section with inner and outer mahogany hoops.

I then turned a hoop of brass for the opposite face and glued it on with CA.

I then mounted the hoop on yet another spigot and drilled the 10 radial holes to take the spokes of the wheel.


That took all day.
 
 
 

I'm currently building a model of a Sphynx class frigate. This is a 20 gun ship, so it's a small frigate, but a frigate nevertheless. As an aid, I'm referring to David Antscherl's book, 
Rigging A Sixth Rate Sloop of 1767-1780. (volume IV). In terms of size, armament, rigging these ships are very similar, so why is one called a frigate and the other a sloop?

Hi Roger thanks for your kind words and I have been wondering about the floor in the workshop and it occurred to me that wood blocks on end would be a practical floor, forgiving and yet easily replaceable. I seem to remember that some of the sets in the streets of London were wood as well especially around the tram tracks. The overhead crane is is not all that heavy duty and will have a loop of chain hanging down to the floor like this one. In Edward Talbot and Clive Taylor's Book "Crewe Works Narrow Gauge System" published by the London & North Western Railway Society.

And this one shows the flooring in fairly good detail and I had wondered if the sets were wood .
 

Currently I an sorting out the best way to tackle all the brickwork, which will likely be done by adding strips if 140lb watercolour paper and cutting out the vertical gaps as once the strips are glued onto the backing. like this.
 

At least I cannot ever claim to not having something to occupy my time. It's a good thing that I am not into model aeroplanes as well as boats and trains.
here is a shot of the little Crew loco running
 
 
That's all for now
Michael
 

OK so I confess I have been absent without leave for a while! I hope everyone is well and that the pandemic has abated for some, we seem to be loosening up some restrictions here in Alberta, although I am being very cautious when going to the grocery store or the hardware store.
 
Anyway enough of that this will give some Idea about what I have been doing for the last few months. It has all come about because I was looking at my collection of English model railway magazines and the old railway bylines magazine.
A complete rework of the garden railway because of track issues which happened because I did not make a solid foundation for the track and had it "floating " instead and pinned to a few posts buried in the dirt underneath the track. This led me into another world of my own dreaming.
Years ago I built a small layout called Macton Locomotive Works, which was eventually damaged badly by damp and mold during a poor storage situation when I lived at the lake.
I though I could make a new railway layout in the spare room in the basement so I cleaned it up and made three 2 foot by 4 foot baseboards bolted them together and planned a new iteration of Macton .
I set up the new space in the new "railway room" the problem was up and dow the stairs a lot and not very nice light, meaning very little daylight, just a tiny window at the ceiling at the south end of the room.
 

 

 
 
Then I was bringing various tools down to the basement all hand tools but no real bench and a semi shag rug.
 

 
All conspired to the point that I thought I should just move all this stuff up to the model shop. This entailed a big reorganization in the shop, and so it goes.
 

 


 
I am building to the ridiculous scale of 27/32nds to the foot, just shy of 7/8ths to the foot. You might be asking yourselves is this guy nuts or what..... probably!
The reason for this scale is that O gauge track can represent 18 inch gauge at this scale, so rounding up a few thou here and there we get .070" equals 1 inch.  which means that standard gauge is equal to 3.955 inches so I rounded that up to 4 inches. Still a lot smaller than the 1/8" equaling 1 inch which I have been building the cutter at.
 
A layout was prepared that would feature the inside of a locomotive works and a bit of the outside as well.

 
The workshop will give me the opportunity to build some larger model locomotives plus all the overhead cranes and assorted workbenches and other stuff that one finds in these sorts of environments.
I did build a small working loco of Pet, out of plastic to run on O gauge track.
 


And now I can have some fun building some 4 inch gauge locos out of card and plastic as props in the loco works. when I am not working on Cutters or launches
 

 

A working overhead crane will run on a track between the brick arch wall at the back and the columns in the front. The height of the wall at the back and the columns is 21 inches and the overall length of the layout is 12 feet.
.
 
The cutter waits patiently knowing I will work on some more when I run out of the other steam.
 
Michael
 
 
 

Thank you very much, Mark!!
 
The light:
 

work in the hold:

Hi, Carl,
thanks for your positive feedback and the others for all those LIKES.

Before I can attach the futtock shrouds, I have to attach several guide blocks to the maintop.
 

 

Love the appearance of your furled sails, Rob!

Good morning, everybody, some progress.
 

 

 

 

 

 
Un Saluto.
 

Thank you Richard
 
Are these complicated curves, I do not know. I think that what is complicated is that you need to constantly refer to what is on the construction site. I also think that plans for this section are almost impossible to follow at exactly 100% because for every part that a slight variation it does affect many other parts.
 
For now, it is enough with this part, I think I will come back on decks.

Little Machine Shop makes a quick-change tool post for the Sherline. https://littlemachineshop.com/products/product_view.php?ProductID=4039&category=
I have one very similar to it from a company that has since gone out of business but I have been able to buy additional tool holders from Little Machine Shop. I highly recommend a QCTP. They are expensive but worth every penny to me because I find myself changing tools frequently. I have bought several extra tool holders over the years. I have carbide tools, HSS tools, and even a knurling tool, each in its own holder.
 
One other thing that has not been mentioned so far is the weight of the larger lathes. I don't have room in my shop to keep the lathe set up all the time. I have to store it under a workbench. Bringing out the Sherline is no big deal, but one of the larger lathes can weigh upwards of 1oo pounds! I sure as heck wouldn't be moving that thing around. Also, as others have said, if you buy the Sherline, absolutely buy the long bed. I made the mistake of buying the short bed and quickly came to regret it. It's possible to upgrade later, but it's 3 times more expensive than buying it up front.
 
Definitely check the prices at https://www.discountcampus.com/
They are an authorized Sherline distributor and, in fact, anything you buy gets shipped directly from Sherline anyway and carries their full warranty.
 
Cheers -
John

Richard, Druxey, Zbip, Thank you.
 
I attach below the final sequence of photos and then I will get back to documenting the build. Sorry about the dust in some photos, I must remember to dust before shooting next time.

 
 

Hi 🙂

I started working inside the belly ....
In order not to make the model too heavy, I decided not to place the planking of the hold
 

After several months collecting parts and tools and finishing other projects, I’ve started my Winchelsea. There are some truly stunning build logs here that I’ve been following closely, and I must admit that I’m a bit intimidated. Between these logs, Chucks tutorials, and members help and suggestions I’m pretty excited to get underway and give it a go. Anyway, off to the races............
 
Don

Eberhard, Chris, Druxey, Richard - thank you all for your comments. Also thanks to everyone for all the likes
 
I made the plinths for the vents and then mounted the vents by inserting spigots into the bores of the stems.
 

I took a lot of photos. I will post these a few at a time over the next few days.



 

I haven't sorted out the rope ears on the life ring yet.

The yellow card is a temporary dust shield - I am getting fed up with cleaning out below decks.

Sherline for sure. The quality is fantastic and their service department, should you ever need it, is first rate. I use the mill far more than the lathe but when you need a lathe...you need a lathe. I'm self taught but there are now excellent videos on just about every aspect of machining on the Sherline site and internet. One terrific series is by Blondihacks - https://www.youtube.com/blondihacks. She has numbered progressive series on the use of the lathe and mill for smaller machining.

Testing jib-boom. Seems to be ok.
And full future lenth of Her Majesty can be seen for the first time

I have a Sherline lathe (longer bed) and a Sherline mill - for decades already and they are still going strong, like new.
Recently I had to replace a toggle switch on my lathe, because the old one got contaminated with some fine dust, either wood or brass and stopped working. I also installed a rubber seal cap around the new switch - to prevent it from clogging again.
Otherwise I have no problems and no regrets owning them. Good machines. Good selection of parts and accessories, too.

If you need some help to understand "how to" and "what you need" for a lathe or a mill, I recommend these two sites.
 
http://www.mini-lathe.com/Default.htm  has a lot of good general info on hobby type machine tools.
 
and for this next one, there's two URLs.  One for the Learning Center: https://littlemachineshop.com/info/menu_page.php?parent=itm11  and one for the info center:  https://littlemachineshop.com/info/menu_page.php?parent=itm12.   
 
Disclaimer:
I have no financial interest in either site but I have learned a lot from them. And when I went "up scale" from my MicroMark mill, I bought the Little Machine Shop one. I'm just run of the mill user, so to speak.

Sherline for sure. The quality is fantastic and their service department, should you ever need it, is first rate. I use the mill far more than the lathe but when you need a lathe...you need a lathe. I'm self taught but there are now excellent videos on just about every aspect of machining on the Sherline site and internet. One terrific series is by Blondihacks - https://www.youtube.com/blondihacks. She has numbered progressive series on the use of the lathe and mill for smaller machining.

Sherline for sure. The quality is fantastic and their service department, should you ever need it, is first rate. I use the mill far more than the lathe but when you need a lathe...you need a lathe. I'm self taught but there are now excellent videos on just about every aspect of machining on the Sherline site and internet. One terrific series is by Blondihacks - https://www.youtube.com/blondihacks. She has numbered progressive series on the use of the lathe and mill for smaller machining.