wefalck

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.

So, how did you make the cowls ? Galvanoplastic ?

If I may chip in - I think there are three main limiting factors to working with small parts: Patience - this is up to you; I believe that in many cases when people claim that they cannot do this or that, what they really say is that they do not have the patience to do it (ok, eyesight and manual dexterity also play a role) Materials availability - sheet metal/foil is commercially available down to about 0.02 mm thickness, wires down to 0.01 mm, fibres for ropes down to about the same thickness; this puts physical limitis on the size of parts. Workability - the mechanical strength of a part decreases not linearly, but at the same rate as the volume; you cannot turn a copper wire of 0.1 mm diameter in the lathe; the precision of your tools also puts limits on the size of parts (remember that industry produces twist drills down to 0.1 mm diameter ... but their machines may be a thousand times more expensive than ours); 'touchless' machining techniques, such as etching, laser-cutting, galvano-plastic, or EDM offer(ed) there new possibilities. Working at a larger scale for me doesn't make it necessarily easier, as it means that you just can pack more details into the model - the absolute size of the parts to be worked on stays the same. Again, the level of detail is limited by the materials that are available and how it can be worked. For instance, at 1:350 I probably wouldn't represent door hinges, up to 1:96 scale I would represent it by length of wires, up to 1:48 I may shape the wire on the lathe and above, I may reproduce it in full. Or, at 1:350 I would not represent the rivets on rivetted parts, up to 1:96 I would represent them by surface etching and above, I may to go for individual rivets. We had the scale discussion somewhere else a while ago: I think the problem is that a typical (ship)model is viewed from different distances, unlike the situation, where a diorama (in the real meaning of the term) forces the viewer to preset viewing distance and angle (as for a theater stage). This means, that when you put your nose close to it, you expect to see all the little details, that you wouldn't be able to see say from a couple of metres away. So, for me the question is not the scale of the model, but rather what is the smallest part I have the physical ability and patience to reproduce ...

What can I say ... ?

France is entering an almost complete curfew tomorrow. We've done our shopping, but normal working life from home continues for me, with modelling in the evening. Good luck down under !

Good to hear ! Actually, I would be very much interested to see more about your locomotive pursuits !

There are two issues: not to spread the lead carbonate dust and to stop further corrosion. Just mop up the dust wet, not dry. Covering the lead parts in an impervious layer of paint may help, but there is no guarantee. A dry atmosphere helps. Avoid all acids.

I think we all would love to see photos of the processes, the stages of fabrication, and not only the brilliant products ...

There is at least one quite good book on her foe, which might give some transferrable details: BOWCOCK, A. (2002): CSS Alabama. Anatomy of a Confederate Raider.- 191 p., Rochester, Kent (Chatham Publishing). Rigging practices may have differed somewhat between the RN and USN, but the various books on HMS WARRIOR might also provide insights into warship fitting out and rigging details of the 1860s. Plus of course the huge amount of research Pat has done ...

Deleted

This looks like the dreaded lead-corrosion, which is why museums ban its use in new models. Be cautious when mopping it up, not to inhale the dust. It would also be better not to use the affected parts. If you have the possibility, make a mold and copy them in resin.