wefalck

Never sailed on a ‚tall-ship‘ (which indeed is an inflationary expression today, also applied to small two-masted schooners and such). However, with my limited experience of belaying man-made fibre ropes on cleats, I found that things get rarely moving before only one figure of eight is left. cleats are different, because they wedge the rope more, but I doubt, that a third figure of eight makes any difference. The only reason I can see is that a locking hitch is avoided (which can be ver difficult to cast loose, when the ropes are frozen), because it keeps down due to its own weight. Having learned to sail before getting into serious model building, it was always logic to me to measure out the lengths of rope so that the tackles could be worked. I then sometimes cheat by cutting it in order to put it on as a separate coil, which makes things more manageable.

I picked up various antique/old foot-switches on flea-markets and replaced the switches with momentary ones (which seem to be difficult to find in electronics shops these days). Thinking of bare feet/feet in socks runs shivers down my spine - there is always swarf or splinters on the floor ... at least in my workshop space.

In fact, I fitted my foot-switches with the kind of switch, that are ON, when you put the foot down and go immediately OFF, when you lift it. Makes the operation also a lot safer.

I never used any of the Unimats, but control all my machines from a foot switch, while having a separate speed-control. These sewing-machine speed-controls are basically variable resistors and one loses a lot of torque and maintaining a constant speed for prolonged periods of time caused me cramps in the leg.

It seems that the 1/350 and 1/700 scale warship and the model aircraft fraternities use this kind of stuff frequently. But as mtayler said, I would have serious reservations against using anything elastic.

I think many of us remember those dark pre-Internet ages, when finding information and advice was quite laborious ... you had to get hold of some (old) books either in a library or through (secondhand) bookstores. So, I think many of us are happy to make life easier for the newcomers ... I for my part was lucky that my university (ETH Zürich) actually maintained at that time a hobby-workshop for both, metal- and woodworking (it was also used by students/doctorands for project work, of course). The metal workshop was equipped with high-class, but obsolete machines donated by industrial sponsors from the area. It was run by a retired mechanic of the type 'shipman' was referring to (rather grumpy first, but very helpful, when you showed real interest and willingness to learn). From him I learned the machining basics, but it another ten years or so before I was able to afford my first lathe (from my first bonus in my first job).

This is why I prefer to just click on 'like', rather than to add a meaningless eulogy. If you don't have to ask a question or otherwise add substantially to the discussion, than better don't say anything. It's a bit of a vicious circle: ploughing through a long building log in the hope to find somewhere the answer to a question is quite tedious for the reader too, if one has newly discovered a log; so I think it is fair to ask a question, even though it might have been asked before. Perhaps the builder then might consider a separate thread on FAQs or noting down the number of the post, where something has been described previously and to refer to that post. I can fully understand that at some stage one may want to cut down on the presence in fora, it just becomes too time consuming and distracts from the 'real' thing.

Tapers, where the length doesn't exceed about three to four times the diameter should work - just for any other unsupported turning. It also depends on how heavy the cuts are. I do such things regularly. I have a collection of old shop handbooks, dating from the 1880s or so to the 1940s and there you find all sorts of useful tips serious modern CNC-trained mechanics would frown upon - not forgetting the health&safety guys

Certainly quite true, though I never really touched an Unimat except playing around with the cranks in a shop. My main safety concern is the 3-jaw-chuck. When turning small parts, such as belaying pins, one invariably comes quite close with ones nose or other valuable body parts ... collets are a much safer option from this point of view. It happened to me that I hit the jaws of 3-jaw-chuck with a file or the jewellers saw, which propels these tools quite quickly towards your face ... Incidentally, I am using for work on small parts a loupe-lamp (one with a retangular loupe) over the lathe. This gives you good illumination and protects your eyes from flying parts. Over the last few years close-fitting safety glasses (similar to the glasses worn by e.g. cyclists) have come onto the market. They are as comfortable to wear as normal glasses. I now wear them all the time, while at the work-bench. Mine have also small loups inserted at the bottom, which is an additional help, though being myopic, I am immediately getting 4 diopters when taking off my normal glasses. There are also safety glasses with optical lenses of different diopters on the market, which I use when doing really fine machine work. It is important that these glasses fit quite closely to the face, as flying parts may not always have a straight trajectory, but bounce off somewhere, or you may be turning your head at the wrong moment, so that something can fly between normal glasses and your face.

I don't want to confuse and complicate matters, but ER collets are designed to hold tools or rods. They don't hold securely, being double-split, when the tool/work does not pass the full length through the collet. For workholding normally other types of collets are used. One needs to keep this in mind, when chucking up shorter parts. ER collets have the advantage of spanning the nominal diameter minus 0.5 mm, more than most other collets. This means one gets away with just a few of them. Some years ago I bought a set of ER11 collets from China and I think the full set of 13 (from 1 mm to 7 mm) cost me something in order of 30€ at the time, shipping included. I use them instead of a Jacobs-drill chuck in the tailstock of my watchmakers lathe and they turned out to be pretty good for the price I paid. A disadvantage from a modelling point of view is, that the smallest diameter you can chuck with them is 0.5 mm. My watchmakers collets go down to 0.2 mm and I frequently use the 0.3 and 0.4 mm ones for both, work- and drill-holding.

Personally and from an aesthetic perspective, I would also prefer a conservation that is almost invisible at least to the untrained eye. You are right in saying that different standards seem to be applied to different objects. Paintings may be different in the sense that the most important aspect is the 'image', which would be seriously distorted, if all the stabilisation and touching up was done in a visible way. Not sure, why this principle is not applied to other objects. In Italy and France it seems to be accepted practice to conservation of architectural structures to replace add materials in a way that is visible. On the other hand, say in gothic cathedrals damaged parts are usually replaced by the same stone from which the original parts were made. However, sometimes a different type of surface treatment is chosen to indicate replacement parts. I think documentation of what was done is a key aspect. There arises then, however, a problem and that is how to permanently link the object and the documentation so that the latter is not lost. Plus, how to preserve and keep readable the documentation for comparable periods of time - but this is a different subject altogether (with which I have been battling professionally for years).

I am coming from a hoarder family - it took my wife a long time to (partially) understand and (partially) accept it - the question 'what do you need this for' keeps being asked and the answer 'I don't know yet' still is being met with some shaking of the head

How on Earth can one forget to have two equipped lathes ... 😱

This discussion harks back to a paper that Howard Chapelle wrote decades ago and which is available on the NRG Web-site I think. The miniaturis Lloyd McCaffery also keeps repeating the importance of using durable materials and fasting techniques. There is actually a dilemma, particularly for those working on more modern subjects, that some of the traditional ship modelling materials and techniques do not work very well for modern ships made from iron and steel. Wood may not be suitable and working with e.g. brass and solder can be difficult with very small parts. There are two options either to not build such models, or to use (with caution) materials and techniques that might be frowned upon. I use steel, for instance, even though Chapelle spoke against it, simply, because it is well neigh impossible to turn certain small parts in brass, because brass usually is too soft - and feel guilty. What can I do ? On the subject of conservation vs. restoration: quite some years ago I worked in a small (environmental) consultancy company in Rome, which had another branch working on the conservation of archaeological artefacts. Having always been interested in the subject, I learned quite a bit about the strategies and objectives from chatting to them and when they showed me their work (which included inter alia conserving the frescos in what is perhaps the oldest surviving church at the Forum Romanum, which was then discovered quite recently). One principle was to not assimilate the new materials used, so as to blend in with the rest, but to make it stand out, so that one can clearly distinguish between the historic substance and that added for conservation reason. So this is clearly against the idea of 'restoration' that tries to achieve a unified and possibly aesthetically pleasing appearance. It certainly is a different concept from that applied by earlier generations, that tried to 'restore' the appearance of works of art or artefacts. These are different ethics, though I think from a scientific-technical point of view it would be possible to achieve a restoration with a level of intrusion similar to that of conservation. I would fully agree with the view that a full replacement of rigging is a no-no on models of historic value. With increasing knowledge and technical-scientific means, we can extract more and more information from the remains. Removing them, means that we destroy historic evidence that might be valuable to future generations. Today we may not be in the position to really judge and value that evidence, though we might think otherwise (as did previous generations often, as is evidenced by misguided 'restorations'). ... and my father always made a joke about a 300 year old table, where the legs and the plate had been replaced from time to time ...

The spindle-cartridges bored for WW-collets for the Unimats sell at 300-400 USD on ebay ... however, the Unimat is not really a watchmaking machine. It might work for clockmaking and is used as such by modellers, who do both. With a screw-on collet-holder and ball-cranks with fixed handles, the Unimats would become much more useful.

The Chinese have been flooding ebay et al. with these thingies in various configurations for some time now. A couple of observations on the 'designs' (not really designs, but put together from commercially available parts). - there is no separate bearing for the spindle; this can be ok, if the motor has ball-bearings (some Chines motors are available with such); however, motor bearings are for radial loads, not for axial loads, as occur during turning; one should have an axial bearing too. - the motor is uncovered and the collector might get covered quickly in dust ... - they use a drill-chuck on the spindle end, which is a no-no; drill-chucks are not designed for axial loads, as they occur during turning; one might think of replacing the chuck with an ES collet-holder; much safer and more precise. - There is no tool-rest for the gravers; one should configure a T-rest, as commonly used on wood- or watchmakers lathes. In summary, these thingies might be ok for back-room workshops in China, India or such places, but could be significantly improved with little expenditure. I think, for less than 100 EUR/USD/GBP one could configure a much better tool with parts easily available from ebay et al.

Advice on what ? You are living the model engineer's heaven/Mekka - there so many books on basic lathe operation, including one specifically on Unimat lathes, if I remember well. Brass cutting tools have a zero top-rake for a start. You can fashion them from 1/4 or 1/8 tool blanks on a grinder and finish them off on a stone. There are tutorials for this on the Net. Speed is not really terribly important in our non-commercial context. You have get a feel for it, when working with the lathe. For brass belaying pins, I would roughen out the principal dimensions with cutting tools and finish off with files and wet-and-dry sandpaper and/or steel wool. Keith Aug recently showed a useful steady, for turning such slender parts. In my threads there are other, more elaborate versions of steadies for such work. I found it difficult to get brass hard enough for such turning jobs. Therefore, I either use brass nails as starting material, because the material is work-hardenend from the stamping process, or steel (which is frowned upon by some, due to its liability of rusting, but blackening will help against it). I hope you have some collets for your lathe(s). Working with such small parts, as belaying pins, in the three-jaw chuck can be quite dangerous, particularly when using files. If you don't have collets, try to find some.

BTW, there are also hollow burrs to round-off the ends of wire. They come in various sizes. Very handy.

I don't know what 'AeroGloss' is. A cellulose- and solvent-based sanding filler would normally do the job. Depending on the type of wood, one or maximum two coats will be required. Rub down in between with fine steel wool (but take care to remove all steel swarf!) and after the last coat. Acrylics don't like 'oily' (i.e. hydrophobic) surfaces, but are ok on almost everything else. I don't have any experience with Tamiya acrylics, but tend to use German (Schmincke) or Spanish (Vallejo) products coming out of houses that also supply artists. Personally, I don't like to apply acrylics with a brush. Perhaps I am too slow and not dexterous enough with a brush. Never glue anything on paint. Your joint will only be as good as the paint sticks to the surface. For the coppering it depends on how you apply the metal strips. Most cements would probably better key into the bare wood and some cements may be incompatible with the sanding filler used. This needs to be tried out, particularly for self-adhesive copper strips.

"It seems having the correct tools, knowing how and when to use them is key to producing a good result." - Indeed Actually 155USD for a set of a dozen Vallorbe-files is a good price !

I would use a plastic tea-sieve or make one from those modern plastic fabric tea-bags. I also use plastic tweezers when working with corrosive chemicals.

The thread veers off from the pen-topic, but just to add a couple of comments on acrylics and airbrushing: - there are different formulations of acrylics, using either plain water or water-alcohol mixes as solvent; using a different solvent may actually break down the kind of emulsion state in which they are, clogging the airbrush in the event; it doesn't need to be their brand of thinner, but it does have to be chemically the same. - I don't know too much of the model manufacturers' range of acrylic paints, as I don't really need these 'authentic' colours they specialise in; I am using artist's acrylics, either from the German manufacturer Schmincke or the Spanish Vallejo (which are first catering for the artist market and then for modellers); getting the dilution right for spraying always has been a pain and some 30 years ago I already went for the ready-diluted ones; some of my drip bottles are that old and still give good results. - the process of hardening of acrylics is a mixed one, cross-linking the acrylics molecules and diffusing out the solvent (water); both take time and therefore it takes longer than for paints based on organic solvents and hardening resins; spraying thin coats in 24h intervalls speeds up the process of hardening, as the water doesn't have to diffuse through a thick layer. - spray-painting with enamels and their likes in an apartment is a no-no, because it is difficult to install a proper extraction for fumes; with my acrylics I get away with just a cardboard box to catch the overspray; depends always, of course, how often you use the airbrush and how big the areas to be painted are; cleaning the airbrush from enamels is also an issue, due to the waste solvents, while acrylics can be easily cleaned under running water. I have a big collection of Humbrol tins, some of them probably historic by now (could be 50+ years old), but I have rarely touched them since I bought the airbrush in the early 1980s.

The rope colour depends on period and region - plus the treatment and grime as mentioned above. Hemp was the main raw material until cotton was introduced from the US. Hemp has a pale yellow to beige colour, while cotton is more whitish. Stockholm (pine) tar leads to a darkish brown colour, while coal tar makes the ropes black. With age and weathering, both tars become more greyish. If you work on an 'artisanal' style model, you may want to have only two colours, for tarred and for untarred rope. When you want depict a real life ship, you may want to use several slightly different colours to represent different makes and ages of the ropework.

It would have suffered from the same flaw as all revolvers, namely the poor sealing between the barrel and the revolving chambers for the charges/shot. The Gatling- and Hotchkiss-systems push the cartridge into a seat forming part of the barrel, so that the expanding cartridge seals against loss of pressure.

This gives you a feeling for how many trees went into the building of such ships and even the model consumes quite a bit - and well-shaped bits 👍