wefalck

I take the table - if the room comes with it

Balkan hemp ? I gather it should be Baltic hemp, as much of it came from the western parts of Russia, I think. Not only in the UK the beautiful cast and wrough iron fences fell victim to war-time efforts, in Germany too, much of it disappeared sadly. I don't think there would be any doubt that as much of the standing rigging as possible and some of the running would be wire on a Thames barge at any time of the 20th century. It last much longer and therefore is cheaper then vegetal fibres.

Perhaps you should search for stunsail booms. These are the 8-shaped iron that hold them to the yard.

Excellent blacksmithing job !

Micro-joinery !

Hhmm ... not too far off then. But why did you attach the side supports so high up on the hull - ok more stability, but it looks a bit like those outside supports, when you have a broken leg ...

Soft pads ... a support for a model ?

Bathroom fittings ?

Read a lot of good things about them and took the opportunity to look at them at a stand during the model engineering exhibition in London in January. However, I found them far too coarse, at least for my purposes. For instance, the needle files could not be used on really small parts.

You must have a huge stock of metals ...

Yep, shellac or zapon are my solution. You can soften it with the solvent again, if you are not yet happy with the shape. This can be also done in sections.

Thanks, Jan, for your kind words ! The photographs were taken with a close-up lense and at an oblique angle, which probably resulted in some distortion of the image. The Euro-cent should look like an ellipse.

Thanks for the kind words ! **************************** Buffer beams In order to limit the recoil and the running out of the gun, buffer beams are installed at both ends of the frame of the lower carriage. Each beam carries four buffers against which the front cross-beam of the upper carriage runs. The buffers are designed as pistons with piston rods screwed to the back of the beam. It is not completely clear what the elastic elements were. The drawings seem to indicate rubber discs with metal separating discs. On some of the guns at Suomenlinna fortress there are remains of rubber discs, while the demonstration model of the Danish navy seems to have spiral springs. Buffer beams on the lower carriage The bodies of the buffers were turned from 1 mm soft steel wire. The spring element was simulated by winding around it several turns of 0.15 mm tinned copper wire. Whether this is meant to meant to represent rubber discs or springs I will decide, when it comes to the painting stage. One buffer dry-mounted The nuts that keep the buffers to the beam were also turned from 1 mm soft steel wire. First, the hexagon for a 0.6 mm spanner width was milled on in the dividing head of the micro-mill. On the lathe a 0.4 mm hole was drilled and 0.3 mm long nuts parted off. And no, I didn’t cut a 0.4 mm thread Buffers and fastening nuts The parts of the buffer beams were laser-cut from 0.15 mm thick Canson paper and soaked in wood-sealer. They were folded and assembled using zapon varnish. In order to make folding more precise, a row of tiny holes were ‘punched’ along the folding lines with the laser-cutter, which weakens the material there. The rivetting was simulated by tiny drops of acrylic gel that was applied with a syringe and a fine injection needle. The needle was ground flat at the end for this purpose. Buffers and fastening nuts – the buffer have a diameter of 1 mm More details were added to the lower carriage. A heavy forged claw at each end of the frame hooks under the rail on which the carriage trucks run to prevent the carriage from lifting off the pivot. The profile of the hooks was taken off the original drawings and cut in multiple copies from Canson paper. These were glued together as a stack and sanded smooth – not a 100% satisfying solution, but filing such tiny but wide claws from the solid I found too fiddly. The lugs that attach the claws to the frame were also cut from Canson paper. Safety claw, pivot plate and drive shaft The gun is trained with the aid of a curved rack, a crown-wheel segment in fact. In to this rack made from bronze, a steel pinion engages that is driven by a shaft from a sort differential, which is powered by man-power from the deck below the barbette. After some consideration I decided not to make the pinion, though I would have liked the challenge, because it will not be visible once the gun has been installed on board. The driving shaft, which also is barely visible was fashioned in a simplified was from a clothes pin, the head of which was turned to shape. To be continued ...

I don't know anything about these AmericanBeauty resistance soldering units, but they appear to me rather over-priced. Just looked at their Web-site and saw for instance an accessory that is called 'grounding vice' at 160 USD. Effectively it is one of those ubiquitous engravers vices that are sold at around 20 USD mounted to a heavy footplate. Likewise, to sell a foot-switch at 56 USD seems to be a rip-off ... resistance soldering is used, for instance, also in watchmaking and -repair, particular to solder feet to clock dials. There, people have build their own units and I have seen construction plans on the Web.

Elegant way of forming the cog-wheel and the pinion by knurling. I probably would have cut them the hard and traditional way, as watchmakers do. I don't understand, where the drive goes to and what the lever does. Is this a double bevel-gear drive that leads then down inside the ventilator ?

Beautifully overengineered !

Gloves and running machinery are a no-no. The glove can get caught in chucks etc. and cause serious injuries. What you do is your business, but please don’t give people ideas.

Manufacturers do stick to set scales, but different areas of modelling (for historic reasons) prefer different scales. 1/120 is the gauge TT railway scale and approximately that of the 15 mm wargaming scale 1/96 is half of 1/48 and close to the gauge HO railway scale (1/87); close to the coomon ship model scale of 1/100 in continental Europe 1/72 is a common scale for model soldiers in (soft) plastic, model aircraft, and close to the OO railway scale (1/76) 1/60 is the scale of the 30 mm flat model soldiers and also used for some ship models 1/48 is the classical gauge O railway scale, commonly used for military and aircraft models; ship model in continental Europe are 1/50 scale 1/32 is the classical model railway gauge 1 (or 7 mm) and model soldier scale and also used for military and aircraft models

That's a very good idea, to solder the spokes from the central boring in order to avoid messing them up with solder. Have to remember that !

Whow, 10+ hours per day in the workshop ! I usually do not muster enough energy for more than a hour or two after work ...

Why soldering ? Wouldn't a varnish do the job ?

Keith's fabricating sequence shows that sometimes one has to break down parts not into their 'logical' components, but rather into what can be machined and how. In reality the flange would be on the elbow, but turning the flange onto the straight part is the only way to go. This can be quite counterintuitive.

Many people probably don’t realise how much work has to go into even such unassuming parts in order to get them right. Well done again ! Lockdown or not, I would have spent a good deal of Saturday in the workshop anyway. But as parts get smaller, there is only a limited amount of time you can strain your eyes ...

That's engineering ! Could you you show the machine in a tilted configuration ?

I like that 'divide et impera'-method for the chain sprocket. When I was doing it for my current project, I messed around with a tiny spherical burr. Sometimes one just needs to think of a strategy at the right moment ... Sherline doesn't do a compound vice. They only do a tilting table, on which their vice can be mounted. As I don't have enough space under the head of my mill for a commercial compound vice, I made a simple tilting fixture for a 25 mm toolmaker's vice from some 25 mm x 25 mm aluminium bar. The crucial dimensions were milled in situ: The angle is set using angle-templates between the surface of the vice and the spindle nose. I have a set in 5° steps. For other angles, one will need to mess around with a protractor.