wefalck

I found that the only really critical step is making the masks, i.e. achieving a dense enough blackening. While this is not really a problem for people making circuit boards, it is a problem, when you want to push the technology to its physical limits, which is what we need to do in model building, at least for small-scale models. Neither laser-printed nor ink-jet-printed transparencies are really good enough. I also found that etching 0.1 mm brass or nickel-silver is not a problem, even up to 0.25 mm it works reasonably well, thicker sheets are difficult at least in trays. If you have cuvette with a percolator (air bubbling device), you may be able to push it a bit further. However, it is difficult to match the quality of professional foam- or spray-etched parts. One always battles with over- or under-etching in certain areas of the fret. However, I am talking here about exploring the technique in full, with surface-etching and having details as wide as the sheet-metal is thick.

Pat, I think the elevating screws were probably of bronze, as the thread is cut into the cast-iron barrel lug. Somehow I had been thinking of the other version, where the barrel rests on top of the screw and there is a separate nut. Thinking 3D-printing further: one could actually print some holding fixtures to exactly match gun barrels to hold them e.g. in the lathe for machining say the bore.

Sorry, I was on the wrong planet, somehow I did not read the first post carefully and was thinking of the fairleads for running rigging that are lashed to the shrouds ...

I would say, it depends on the scale. In most scales the lashing would be oversized anyway, so it is better to hide the ends, rather then using an oversize knot. On the real thing, I would suspect that it was finished with a couple of half-hitches around the shroud, but I actually don't know.

There is a lot of loose gear in a whaleboat and it may have to rowed for hours in a heavy sea. So it is a good idea to secure with lanyards those things that are vital to the purpose, namely the hunting gear. Securing the lances with a slip-knot to the boat might be useful.

I am very much impressed by those guns, Pat. They came out really nicely. It shows the potential of 3D-printing in all kinds of shipmodelling. You also did a good job in picking out in colour the details, such as the percussion lock. What also struck me immediately, was the 'real' elevating screw. Nice detail ! I gather it is 1 mm threaded brass rod or something like that ? Where they and the wing-nut made from bronze in reality ? Can you remind me, which 3D-printing technique you are using and what material ? Small-scale shipmodellers tend to make finished parts with with technique, while I am thinking of it more as a technique to reproduce parts that in the real world would have been cast in iron or bronze. The moulds would have been made from wood with complicated shapes that are not so easy to reproduce in small scale and even more difficult to reproduce, if you need several identical parts. Such parts then would still need finishing off on the lathe or mill, jut as for the prototype. However, the material used for filament-printing does not machine very well. One observation (if it is not too late): the axles seem to be rather long, the cotter pin should be very close to the truck, so close that it can spin freely, but does not move sideways on the axle. Not sure, I mentioned this before, but I tend to 'burnish' parts painted in metal paints with soft pencils. The graphite gives a metallic sheen to them. This could be good on the tyres of the trucks, but could also create even more plasticity on the lock.

Well, if the planks are too thin, this effect can occur as well, when they are bent across quickly changing radii. The best solution would be to fill the spaces between the bulkheads and then fair again the whole thing.

Run a soft pencil (B6-B8) between the teeth of the gear, it will make the silver paint look more like metal !

Looking at your bulkheads, it appears that the real problems is, that they have not been faired. I can see the discolouring from the laser-cutting across their whole width. Of course, the planks will make kinks and buckle then, when bent across the sharp edge of the bulkhead.

The loop around the wrist is for the lance, not the harpoon, of course ! The harpoon is let let go after placing it into the whale, the line runs out from the tub controlled by the post in the thwart in front of the harpooneer, who keeps it tight by holding it with a pair of 'nippers' to protect his hands, while it is running out. It is also cooled down by dowsing it with seawater. The line is then slowly heaved in by the crew, when the whale resurfaces to take a breath - a process that is repeated until the whale is so weakened that it can be approached to kill it with the lances.

Sounds a bit strange. Perhaps you want to post a couple of pictures ?

I gather the 'bible' at leas on US American whaleboats is ANSEL, W.D. (1983): The Whaleboat.- 147 p., Mystic, Co. (Mystic Seaport Museum Inc.). I quickly leafed through the illustrations in my copy to see, whether any enlightenment could be found. According to Ansel the notch for straigthening irons would be cut close to the bow on the port side (for the boat of a right-handed harpooneer). Ansel does not mention the 'tails' in the drawings. By their length and the fact that they are drawn in your plan in association with the forward thwart, I would think that these are lanyards with which the spare iron were secured to the boat. That is, if they are really 12" long. If it reads as 12', however, then these could be spare lanyards attached to the lances and the harpoons - they were attached to the iron, went along the wooden shaft with several half-hitches in between and ended in a spliced eye to fit around the wrist of the harpooneer.

Sorry, but the picture is sideways and too small to be really readable ...

Sorry, but it is not clear what you are referring to. Perhaps you could post a detail picture of the part in question ?

'Micro-balloons' (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glass_microsphere) are the standard filling material for epoxy and other resins. If the model is going to be a stationary one, not exposed to water, the stiffening effect could be probably achieved without having to mess around with epoxy by just liberally painting on PVA glue. However, the more common procedure would be to use filler blocks, normally inserted between the bulkheads before the planking is applied. If you use styrofoam or other hard foam, this could be done easily retrospectively, again using PVA rather than some messy two-component resin (which would not be compatible with styrofoam anyway).

Auf course, in most countries around the world, with a few sad exceptions, the trade in endangered species or products made from them is prohibited. I think you can bring into the country for personal use such items, when you can show that they are antiques and that you, say, inherited them - thinking, for instance of combs, boxes, frames for glasses, etc. The said degradation does not seem to affect too much coloured and 'filled' items of celluloid. We have in our family dolls and some household items made almost a hundred years ago and they are still in good order.

I focused on the constructive uses of nitrocellulose, not on the destructive ones The low flash point was one of the reasons, why celluloid was replaced by other, mineral oil-based plastics, although it has interesting mechanical properties. Celluloid can be milled or turned much better than the common plastics (except acrylic glass) we come across as modellers. The high flammability resulted in more than one cinema being burned down. Film-archives are battling with the problem and have to store the films under special conditions. Off-topic: my late father was a chemist and had a book on explosives, their manufacturing and testing. There is a lab-experiment described in it for making gun-cotton for demonstration purposes. When I was a teenager, I tried to replicate this, but I guess I was lucky that the cotton-wool I had was not real cotton, but some sythetic fibre. I shudder, when I think, how me and a friend did this without proper lab and protective equipment ... this was at time, when you could walk into a drug-store in Germany and buy all sorts of chemicals for which you would be arrested as suspect terrorist, if you tried. I also made black powder, but its quality turned out to be rather poor. Today this kind of 'technical' drug-store doesn't even exist anymore and you would get the chemicals only, if you can proof that you are a professional.

What else can one do, but hit the 'like' button ... Well, I still have a question: you seem to alternate between two different building rigs, why ?

I gather, it depends on their absolute size. I made nice, clean drawings and reduced them in size. If I remember right, my laser-printer does 1200 dpi across and 600 dpi in the transport direction. This was not sufficient for 2 mm diameter dials/compass cards in 1:160 scale ... in 1:72 scale such dials/cards would be roughly double the size and there it might work.

Thanks, gentlemen. I have been collecting special 'scrap' for 30+ years with the idea of turning it into something useful ...

Indeed, close-ups can be very damaging to our pride 😯 Nice job, Pat, on this 3D-printed EOT. I think we will continue to battle with the physical limitations of the digital 'machining' technologies, whether they are additive (3D printing) or subtractive (CNC milling, laser cutting). Small step-sizes and positioning precision are going to be expensive. So, for the time being, we will have to live with these 'steps' on cut or printed items. I found that files don't work very well on plastics and abrasive papers often don't have the 'bite' needed, but discovered so-called 'separation' strips in dental supplies. They are used to open up interdental spaces in vivo or between false teeth. There are two variants: either the diamond-powder is fused onto plastic strips or galvanically bound to very thin stainless steel strips. Obviously the latter are stiffer and in short lengths can be used like a micro-diamond file. They come in width from 2 mm to 6 mm and different grades. I bought them from this manufacturer: https://www.horico.de/en/praxis/separierstreifen/2-uncategorised/91-alle-streifen.html. There may be a similar product available Down-Under. I cut short lengths and hold them in a pin-vise. With this I can file plastic surfaces quite well. As you probably remember, I made a couple of EOTs of the same kind some months ago. While I discarded these ideas for the small size I needed, I had been contemplating making the brass part of the dial as an etched part. The glass pane underneath could have been made by printing the lettering on an overhead projection foil (with the limitations of the printer resolution), cut the disc out and then paint it white from the back. If one still has a camera for films, one could have also made a computer drawing and photographed this so that the image on the film has exactly the right size - the film has such a high resolution, that the lettering would have been almost readable - at least with a loupe. However, I think we can file this under lost technologies. Would have been good also for really sharp compass cards ... I really love those Victorian warships that look so 'ship-shape, Bristol-fashion' with mahagony fittings and brass/bronze trimmings. In spite your trials and tribulations in finding source material, you are quite lucky in comparison to what is available for our German navies of the same period ... I always would have like to build one of those sleek 1860s gunboats, but that would involve even more guess-work.

Belated thanks, Gentlemen, again Since the effective work surface on my workbench gradually had been reduced to around 20 cm x 20 cm, a decluttering action was urgently needed. On the now freed-up workbench I made two improvements to my workshop equipment that I had been planned for a long time: Tilting model stand Decades ago, together with some antique lathe parts, I had received a beautifully made cast-iron foot, the use of which had long been a mystery to me. At some point I found out that it was a table base for a small vice, that I unfortunately don't have. In my drawers there was lounging also one of these hand vices with a grid of holes to allow to clamp irregularly shaped parts with the help of short pins. I never had a proper use for it. But both parts together made a useful stand for models during construction. Unfortunately, this stand could not be tilted. In my treasure chest with 'scrap metal' was a clamp for tilting lamps in nicely cast brass. This piece offered itself to make the model stand tiltable. It was done with some modifications to the existing parts and a lathe-turned intermediate piece. Various M10 x 1 threads (standard lamp thread) were cut on the lathe for it. Fortunately, I also had such a tap. Magnifier holder for the micro milling machine It is handy to have a magnifying glass permanently installed on the milling machine. A suitable magnifying glass had come to me a long time ago as a promotional 'gift'. In the mentioned scrap treasure chest there was also the gooseneck of an old lamp and various lamp fittings. A connectiing piece to fit the magnifying glass with it M6 thread to gooseneck was turned on the lathe. The magnifying glass can now be rotated in the gooseneck. Once we can reliably order again in China, I will get another 'angel eye', a ring equipped with LEDs, as they are sold for installation in car headlights. This makes for very nice ring light, as I had fabricated for the 'large' milling machine. Only that here the ring will be integrated into the magnifying glass, because there is not enough space around the milling spindle. Work continued on the WESPE too, but of that later.

Before reshaping the bulkheads - check them carefully against the line plan, perhaps the slots in them or the keel piece are just to deep ?

This gantry drill that can cover the whole of the building slip is a very good idea. At some stage I should look into this ...

Ahh, I understand. Interesting question. There are various interesting man-made materials that have interesting properties and workabilities for model-building, but they are difficult to come by these days. We mainly use styrene, ABS and acrylic glass in model building, but builders of 'historic' ships seem to frown on them. They have become common, because they are cheap to produce. However, with a bit of searching you can find the more 'historic' materials as well. I am using bakelite paper (from around 0.2 mm to perhaps 10 mm thickness) a lot. It is brittle, but otherwise machines and sands well. Celluloid is more difficult to find. Because of its high flammability it has been replaced by other plastics. Indeed, various consumer goods, such as combs, boxes, knife and nail-file handles, fashion jewellery, buttons, frames for glasses, etc. etc., used to be made from coloured celluloid. It was also widely used to make toys, such as dolls. However, your question prompted me to search a bit on ebay, and I discovered that one can find actually a lot of celluloid, tortoise shell and other, among products for making guitars, for knife-handles, and still for jewellery-making too. One would need to verify that it is really celluloid and not some other plastic to make look-alike. Thanks to your question, I may discovered some interesting sources of material I tend to use a lot man-made materials for my miniature models, as the grain in wood tends to be too promient, even when using boxwood, or the anisotropy of wood is inconvenient.