wefalck

Thanks, gentlemen for your encouraging words ! Of course, acrylic glass was my go-to material. The first one came out ok, but then the second one snapped, and the third one jumped into some black workshop hole, when almost finished 🤬 ... I was too lazy to pull out the table saw and cut more acrylic glass strips, so I grabbed some suitable polystyrene strip and gave it a go. Acrylic glass machines and files/sands almost like metal, but small parts are rather brittle. When machining polystyrene, one has to be cautious to not overheat it, but it does not file very well and when sanding it leaves some 'fuzz' behind. Scraping with a scalpel takes care of that. However, being softer, it als more foregiving when handled. My concern is, that the softener in polystyrene will diffuse out over the decades and make it brittle. I also breaks down when exposed to UV-light, while acrylic glass largely remains unchanged over many decades. However, when painted, the risks are much lower.

Actually looks as if the dumb ferry is tied up to the sternwheeler? Over here in Europe there were various places with sidewheel-ferries, I seem to remember having seen one on the Fal River in Cornwall in around 1978 and very vaguely also on the Danube in the early 1970s.

I think they put this light groove between the locating holes, because the locking pin would otherwise mar the rails in an uneven way, looking unsightly.

Pay attention, some of the pumps shown above are actually pumps for flushing the seats of ease, rather than pumping out the bilge. What material was used for the pumps depends on the availability of materials, technology and last not least the economic circumstances. Another factor to consider is the repairability by the owner and crew. Cast-iron became more widespread only from the middle of the 19th century on. Therefore, I would assume that in the USA log pumps would have been very common way beyond the middle of that century. At least in Europe they were.

Cleats and Bollards In addition to belaying pins, also various types of cleats are distributed around the ship. Their type and location had to be reconstructed from various sources, such as models and early photographs. On paintings of such vessels, they are generally not visible. The first type concerns very large cleats that stretch across two bulwark stanchions. They are used for belaying heavy ropes, such as the main sheet. If they have a fairlead in middle, they also serve as mooring cleats. Mooring cleat (old photograph from unidentified book) The photograph was imported into my 2D CAD program (EazyDraw) and the outline traced and scaled to size. This served as the basis for the laser-cutting file. Material for two cleats was cut. The cleats are laminated from four layers of Canson-paper (if I had a more powerful laser, of course, they could have been cut from some 0.6 mm thick material in one go). The resulting part was finally filed to shape. The fairlead is a copper rivet. The completed mooring cleats I am not sure, whether the pipe of the fairlead is in some way supported in the space between the cleat and the bulwark planking. I have not been able to find any photographs that show this detail. However, for practical reason I inserted a square piece of polystyrene with an appropriate hole drilled through. This allows me to insert a shortened hollow rivet from each side and hide the seam conveniently. As the cleats will be represented in varnished wood, as can be seen on the above photograph and various models, it allows me to locate the cleats after all the painting is done. Fairleads from the outside Looking at the close-up photographs, I think the fairleads should have been turned a bit smaller on the outside diameter, but I am going to leave them like this. I also realised that my planking looks pretty awful and needs to be worked over … There are also several heavy cleats needed to belay for instance the backstays or the ropes used to secure the anchors. They are of a type that seems to have fallen out of modern use, namely half-cleats combined with a bollard Combination of bollard and half-cleat (old photograph from unidentified book) The shape was developed in the 2D CAD program and measurements for the machining derived from this. The rough shape was milled out of some 1 mm x 3 mm polystyrene profile. In fact the enveloppe is only 1 x 1.5 mm, but the additional material is needed initially to be able to hold the part in the vice. Milling the rough shape of the bollard/half-cleat combination Milling the rough shape of the bollard/half-cleat combination – close-up The final shape was given with the aid of various metal- and diamond-files and scraping to remove the fuzz from filing. I am using for this a ‘French’ type of pin-vise, on which I replaced the brass jaws with ones made from wood. One should note that, as they will attach to bulwark stanchions, their back has to be slightly curved. Filing a cleat to shape Roughed-out cleat (top) and finished cleat (bottom) To be continued …

Coming along nicely! In the past I used cored solder to represent such cringles. The bore was widened to a flare with a punch. The colour is close to zinc-plated hardware.

Finally got around to take a picture of the little rolling mill. As I said, it design purpose is to enlarge wedding-bands and the likes. For this different shaped grooves are cut into the rollers and there are several rollers with different groove geometries. As in this application the rollers would run at different speeds, two cranks are foreseen, allowing the move the ring forward and backward. However, I plan to fit a couple of meshing gears, allowing the run the rollers synchronous from one crank as would be needed for rolling wire. This also frees one hand to feed the wire in.

It seems that the Staedtler MARS QuickBow set does not have the straight handle, there is no slot for it. I have various sets, from my father/mother and perhaps older ones, plus my own, which is from 1966 - they all have this straight handle.

Perhaps the real ones have a plastic sleeve over them - paint would wear off quickly. Personally, I think brass looks nicer, but that then would be a deviation from the original - unless you can find old colour photographs from a time when they devoted the effort to polish the brass perhaps ...

For engraving in metal there are two methods: - filling in with (black) paint; this should be a hard paint, so acrylics are not a good choice, as once the paint is dry, you would rub down the excess with fine(st) emery paper; this is a common process for instrument scales, door-signs, etc. - applying metal black (on suitable metals) and then same process as above. In principle the same technique can be applied to wood too. However, the wood needs to be sealed first with wood-sealer and then some gloss(!) varnish, so that excess paint can be wiped off quickly. Finally, the varnish can be rubbed down again or some matt varnish applied on top. Again this technique can also be applied to (laser-)engraved surface that have been painted. One would not rub down the varnish, however, but rather apply a thin coat of matt varnish. I have used all of the above techniques on a variety of materials.

Can't you make such boxes yourself? You could fashion them as open trays right away. I don't know in what sizes cardboard is sold in the USA, but if there are sufficient lengths, one can cut strips of the desired width and assemble them with old-fashioned packaging tape (the one that needs to be wetted, not the self-adhesive one, which looses its tackiness over the years) or perhaps duct-tape. I for myself made a wall-hanging rack with horizontal shelves, so that short pieces can be kept at the front. Not an ideal solution, but the wall above my machines was the only place I had and here in Europe all materials are sold in 1 m lengths.

I think we had discussions on drafting implements in another thread quite a while ago. There is also an intermediate option, but I am not sure of the correct technical term in English. The translation from German would be something like 'funnel pen', which is quite descriptive. It is essentially a thin tube (the outside diameter determines the line width) with a funnel-shaped reservoir on top. A thin wire in the tube allows to declog it, when needed. It's the low-tech predecessor of the 'modern' drafting pen. They are designed for use with inks, rather than paints. However, I know from my mother that they are also used with gold suspensions in porcelain decoration. A while ago we discussed druxey's technique of making sails and I understood that drawing those lines with a bowpen also aims to add volume to the line to simulate the doubling of the seams. How much volume do those road-lining pens add ?

Perhaps your knight is a 'dragon whisperer' ? Many years ago I built a model of a Knight Templar with the same kind of helmet. One thing I was never too happy with it the metallic appearance of the material. Somehow, the surface of these castings is always a bit uneven. I never tackled another model like this, but perhaps today I would look into smoothing the surface with a burnishing steel or agate, rather than just polishing it with a felt-wheel. Has anyone tried to burnish such metal parts ?

Indeed, finding the right sequence of placing things on the model can cause a bit of headscratching, demanding foresight exercises, and imagining of possible interferences ... I tend to make the parts separately first and then paint and assemble everything. Nice work so far, as others already said!

Have to take some pictures ... it is actually a small rolling mill from the jewellery trade to enlarge rings. It needs to be modified still to drive both rollers for the purpose of rolling wire.

Valeriy, that's actually a clever idea, that could be possibly adapated in the other direction as well, meaning to very small half-round profiles, say below 0.5 mm wire diametres. Perhaps the process could be aided by embedding the wire during winding into shellac. Once machined, the shellac can be easily dissolved in alcohol to free the profiles. I have used a similar process in the past by cementing with shellac short sections of wire to a small aluminium block and then grinding away half of the thin wire. The drum method obviously would result in longer and probably more uniform profiles. And yes, by repeating the process on four sides, one could probably produce miniature square and rectangular profiles from round wire - I recently purchased a small rolling mill for this, but these profiles would still have slightly rounded edges. 👍🏻

Looks like a very modern lion - on an electrical scooter 😁

I would suspect that these bars (old rails upside-down?) are distance-pieces to prevent the cobble-stones coming into direct contact with the rails. As you can see from Amateur's sketch the wheel-tire actually protrudes slightly beyond the head of the rail. If the cobble-stones were a tad too high, the tire could touch them. One doesn't seem to see this kind of arrangement on tram-rails laid into tarmac or concrete. And yes, tram-rails are better given a wide berth by cyclist - guess how I know that 😉

Fine-toothed HSS, the thinner the stock, the thinner the saw-blade should be to avoid 'hooking'. It sounds strange, but sometimes running the blade the wrong way around gives better results with thin stock (same for piercing saws). It can be also a good idea to stick sheet-metal to thin plywood or thick cardboard to reduce bending and hooking.

These aerials will be quite a challenge, even in 1:48 scale ...

In spite of your challenges, the planking looks good. As this is not an open boat, the inside look is not important and one can do a bit of tweaking. In clinker-planking it is important to remember that planks are not only tapered, but also curved (as seen in the plank diagram from the kit). That should take care of the up-sweep problem that you mentioned at some point.

Would the smoke-stack a single tube or would it have sleeve? If it was a single tube, there would be a lot radiation towards the 'cool box' ... Somewhere towards the rear of the boat would seem more logical from a thermal point of view.

Pin-rails post-script When trying to fit the pin-rail with the consoles attached, I realised that I had overlooked a point: the tumble-home of the bulwark. This means that the angle between the pin-rails and the bulwark-stanchions is not 90°, but is a slightly obtuse angle of about 100°. In consequence, I had to remake the consoles with this angle. As the process is essentially the same as described in the previous post, I am only showing a picture of the final result. Pin-rail on consoles affixed temporarily Another small tool-making digression Milling the above profile required that the stock is oriented perfectly parallel to the X-axis of the micro-milling machine. While orienting the little vice is quite easy with the help of squares, orienting the stock on the face-plate would normally require tramming it in with a lever-gauge. The problem is that the lever gauges are far too big for the little milling machine. So far, I have eye-balled it with a pointed cutter in the spindle and some light test-cut to verify. This has been somewhat time-consuming and unsatisfactory. Thinking about the problem, I remembered the so-called ‘wiggler’ (https://www.instructables.com/Wiggler-Center-Finder-for-the-Lathe/) and designed a tool based on the same principle. It is basically a stick that is pivoted at some point along its length, so that it can move freely at an angle. There is longer and a shorter end. The latter is brought into touch with the workpiece and any movement is amplified by the longer end. I miniaturised this to a total length of 33 mm so that it fits easily between the milling spindle and the cross-slide. It consists of a piece of 6 mm diameter aluminium rod, that is turned down at one end to 2.4 mm to fit into a collet of that size. The diameter was chosen, because it is the shank diameter of the common burrs that I often use as milling cutters. That saves changing the collet after tramming. Mini-lever-gauge and its ‘mechanism’ (right) The rod is bored out 3 mm along most of its length and a 4 mm recess of 1.5 mm depth is turned in. This recess takes up a disc that has been punched out of a section of some polyethylene tubing. The feeler lever is an ordinary clothes pin, the head of which has been turned concentric (the stamping process of the pin production does not lead to completely concentric heads). At the upper end of the bore, a section of the aluminium rod is milled down to half the diameter, allowing to observe the movement the pin in this window. The polyethylene disc is secured in the recess with a drop of general-purpose glue and the pin pushed through it concentrically until the pointed end arrives at the milled-out section. The flat has a few lines engraved to be able to better judge the movement of the point. With this the little tool is complete In use the pin-head is brought into contact with the workpiece and the slide moved a tad in until the point coincides with one of the lines. When running up and down the workpiece edge, one observes the movement of the point and adjusts the angle of the workpiece until the point remains steady. Tramming the mini-vice with the aid of the lever-gauge The tool is perhaps a bit crude and not as sensitive as a commercial lever gauge, but it serves the purpose. To be continued …

Could this mystery object be just a water tank to supply hand-wash basins and perhaps a toilet ?

That look like a glorified pen-holder with an ordinary drawing pen ... I have a whole collection of them, including the penholder from my school-days (when in art-class we did a bit of kalligraphy and pen-and-ink drawing). I have tried to use it with acrylic paints (Vallejo model air), but found that they dry rather fast, making it necessary to clean the pen frequently.