wefalck

No problem from my IP address in France ...

When I see the acreage and the barn-sized shed and then read the word 'down-sizing', what should I say with a 2 m by 2 m workshop-corner in my study/office ... ? BTW, someone above suggested to put the flooring around cupboard to save flooring material. Not sure that is terribly wise, because you may want to have floor-insulation all the way through and perhaps the flexibility to move cupboard etc. around, if the original design turns out to be not so handy.

My knowledge of shipbuilding practice in the 17th Century is close to nil. However, looking at sketch B above, it appears to be that a simple triangular chock would be forced inwards on any bending movement of the futtocks. This would constitute an inherent contructional weakness. When the chocks have shoulder, the bending movement of the futtocks would compress the chocks on the shoulders. Similarly, that sort of scarph in sketch C would lock the two parts of the futtocks together, thus reducing somewhat the squeezing-out effect on the chock. Mechanically, the solution C seems to be even better than A, as the outsides of the futtocks are locked together.

I know, some people use this material, most notably 'Doris' and Ab Hoving, but one has to remember that soft plastics, such as vinyl, will become brittle with age due to the plasticisers gassing out.

There could be other practical reasons: stowed sails, when humid, will rot, or when trying to shake out frozen sails, they may break ...

I am still wondering what, objectively speaking, the purpose of the sealing is ? Unless it is an operational model, there is not really a need to toughen the surface.

They look good indeed - apart from the price: six hooks for USD5 plus shipping 😳 I wonder, how they achieve the rounded effect, etching and then sandblasting ?

Well, that's a difficult thing to say. I gather, I have always been drawn to intricate things, in museums to the small highly-detailed models. Of course, I admired the big (board-room) models with their metal-work etc., but knew that I would have never the space for such a project - I hate giving away models, so I need to find the space to keep them. My first ('semi-scratch') model was in a 1:60 scale and then I continued in the same scale with the following scratch-built project. Then I realised that this was an unusual scale - it would have been better to go for 1:72 or something like that. Large scales, of course, are much more impressive for the casual observers. At some stage, I decided to go for scales in which figurines from the railway-community would be available, here on the European continent these are 1:87 (HO-scale) and 1:160 (N-scale), HO-scale for small boats and N-scale for larger vessels. The kind of limiting criterion was, that the overall drawing should fit onto an A4-sized paper. The challenge at these scales is not so much the machining as such (large-scale models could have also very small and intricate parts), but the availability of suitable raw materials. There is a limit down to which you can get wires, sheet-metal or -plastic or paper, or threads for making ropes. Sometimes also it would be geometrically possible to machine the parts, but the material just becomes to flimsy at small dimensions. Of course, it would be nice to also have larger machines - particularly for making attachments for the smaller machines However, my 'carreer' involved moving every few years, so I decided to keep my workshop mobile in the sense that the machines can be easily dismantled and crated or packed. The smaller watchmakers lathes come in fitted boxes anyway and for the milling machines I made solid crates. The appartment we will be retiring to in a few years time hopefully will have dedicated (small) workshop cum display room, but somehow my wife still tries to convince me that I won't really need it, as we would be out in street-cafés anyway, as the locals do in southern Europe ...

Future and similar 'self-shining' floor products are essentially dispersions of acrylic resins. So they are safe to use on acrylic paints. The curing of acrylic paints is a mixed process of forming cross-links of the dispersed acrylic resins and dewatering. The dewatering is a relatively slow process based on diffusion. This is why acrylic paints dry up rather fast, but stay somewhat soft for a considerable amount of time. When you apply a relatively thick layer of varnish (e.g. 'Future') over a relatively thick layer of acrylic paint, the latter will be prevented from diffusing out the water. In other words, the varnish might cure faster than the paint, resulting in shrivelling and cracking of the paint underneath. The same can happen, when you apply layers of oil-paint too early onto acrylic paint. Spray-painting of several thin layers of acrylics with some time between coats, give the paint enough time to cure thoroughly.

I am geochemist with many years of experience at the lab-bench ... on my work-bench there are no potentially corrosive chemicals, only paints and organic solvents (denatured alcohol, acetone, white spirit). When pickling or like processes are to be done, then away from the work-bench and near somewhere, where the parts can be thoroughly rinsed. Never use any cleaning 'products' of unknown composition on a model itself. It will be very difficult to remove any residues and they may creep into joints etc., where they can create havoc over the years. On copper I only use fine steel-wool and acetone. Don't use 'kitchen recipes' for patination etc. They may give more or less the desired effect, but it is important to create a stable patina that does not continue to eat into your metal or react with other components of your model. There are handbooks on patination/browning/blackening for metal workers, sculptors and the likes. Follow their procedures and recommended materials.

In Germany we used the funnel-pens directly with the templates. The templates had sort of rails above and below, which lifted them a bit above the paper and also allowed them to be aligned precisely on the horizontal ruler of your drawing machine. There is an ISO/DIN norm for the lettering and this standard lettering was mandatory for technical drawings. I think this 'font' is still used in CAD programs. For free-hand lettering there were/are also a wide variety of pen shapes. One form had small plates at the end, so that you were able to write with a defined line-width, but unlike the Barch-Payzant lettering pens, they cannot be run along a straight-edge. In art-class in my first year of secondary school we learned a bit how to work with such pens and ink. The area around Nuremberg specialised in making drawing instruments and materials. The Black Forest area was another area of instrument makers and precision machine tool makers concentrated also there. Many, indeed, seem to have produced not only their own branded products, but unbranded ones for the US American market, where they were labelled by the importers. This ended particularly with the on-set of WW2. This is an interesting piece of trade and manufacturing history ... but we begin to veer away from the subject of painting stripes ...

However, I would be rather hesitant to use any such chemicals on plates that are already on the model. It is impossible to prevent the solutions from creeping between the plates and there they may create havoc with the cement ... otherwise yes, oxalic acid is a good complexant for divalent ions, such as Cu(II), and will bring bring any CuSO4 into solution. I gather you meant to use the descaler 'CLR' as an alternative to oxalic acid not alternating between the one and the other ?

I would always be very hesitant to mix two paint systems. You may be lucky, but it can also spell desaster, depending on what the products actually are made of. Why would you want to put varnish over a painted surface. I would carefully reflect on the reason. Perhaps, acrylic paint isn't the right paint for the job, if you think you need to further protect it. Perhaps you should use a different paint system - there are also many different acrylics-based paint systems. Depending on the type of model, I personally also like the different sheens of different paints for different parts. A real ship would not be all over glossy or matt or satin.

I knew most of the drawing instruments presented above and have several sets, one was given to me, when I started in secondary school and it is still in mint condition, the others I inherited. However, I never came across the Barch-Payzant lettering pens, they must be an US American speciality. In Germany we used for this what would be translated as 'funnel pens'. They are indeed tiny funnels that can be attached to a penholder in a way to keep the pipe of the funnel vertical on the paper. They were made in standard diameters to fit lettering templates. A thin wire ran through the pipe to keep it from clogging. They were essentially the forerunners of the technical drawing pens with an enclosed ink-reservoir or cartridges.

OK, it's sure choice, but I wouldn't want to have bright plating .... having said that, if your copper turns green, you have a serious corrossion problem somewhere. Green means copper sulfate or copper acetate, usually. You may have not done yourself (or rather the model) a good service by using vinegar (acetic acid) on the copper. If the green appeared before you applied the vinegar, you should investigate, where the sulfur/sulfate may be coming from before doing anything else. Or perhaps you cleaned the copper with vinegar before applying the plates and did not neutralise and rinse it properly ? Normally, copper in a household atmosphere just becomes a dull copper-brown. At the seaside or in heavily polluted industrial areas this may be different, but Colorado is neither, I believe.

Gary, chromatography 'columns' are always stainless steel. Albion Alloys in the UK sell brass tubes from 0.3 mm OD up with a wall thickness of 0.05 mm. In fact they sell tubes that are slide-fits into each other, so the next sizes up would be 0.4 mm OD with a wall thickness of 0.05 mm and so on. They are quite expensive though. Not sure what they are normally used for, as I don't think they are made just for modellers. Hypdodermic needles are also stainless steel tubes essentially. The thinnest ones are those used for insulin syringes. Not sure about the size, but they could be below 0.3 mm OD. The raw material for the syringe manufacturers presumably are coils of such drawn tubes, but I don't know, whether one can come by this material as normal mortal.

Thank you to you both for your kind words. Unfortunately, the path is not so straight. Which is, in addition to frequent interruptions due to business travels, a reason for the long intervals between postings ...

I had the same thought about grounding, but these tubes would be difficult to solder - they are used as chromatograpy ‚columns‘ and therefore must by of highly corrosion-resistant stainless steel. There are on the market also brass tubes of a similar diameter, I believe.

Knots are actually a bit of intuitive engineering, meaning that people over the millennia realised what knot with what material gave the best holding power, while still being able to be loosened (which is a key property in marine knots!) if and when required. Originally, these knots where developed for twisted/laid rope. There, the holding power derives from two properties: the locking of the strands of the rope and the friction between the different parts of the ropes. For this reason, some traditional knots do not hold very well with modern braided ropes. For the same reason, these knots may not hold very well with straight or only slightly twisted threads. The surgeons use catgut or similar, more modern materials, which is only slightly twisted and quite smooth. Hence the overhand knot does not hold very well and the surgeons added more twists to it. The modeller faces a similar problem, when simple threads instead of a properly laid model-rope is used. One day, you may move to making your own laid rope or buy some ready made and you will see that the mariner's knots will hold much better with this material.

Didn't follow this thread so far, as it is not really 'my' period. However, looks like an interesting approach with the shop laser-cut parts. Just got myself a little toy laser-cutter to play around with ...

Instinctively, I would have glued the brass sheet to the wood, say using some CA or even a glue stick, but taking them up together sounds like a good idea.

Most 'hobby'-shops tend to sell things in small quantities at elevated prices to innocent/ignorant modellers. Very few tools are specifically made for us, but rather are adapted from other trades, includings medicine, jewellers, horologists, dentists, etc. It pays to check out the tools of profession that work on small and delicate things. Whatever you may think about ebay, it has opened up the market for all sorts of things that would be otherwise difficult to come by or might get thrown into the (recycle) bin. I got a life-time supply of scalpel blades in all sorts of shapes at a very good price from an ebay-dealer, who sold sterilised scalpels in packs of 100 that where beyond the 'best before date', i.e. the date up to which the manufacturer guaranteed the sterile condition. Presumably a medical supplier or a hospital had thrown them out.

Scale ?

These are the same as the 'real' ones. I usually get away with the half-hitch, double-half-hitch, clove-hitch, reef-knot and perhaps the sheet-bend. There are lot of Internet-resources on how to tie these knots, including animations (if you a geometrically challenged). As to the shellac, which usually has a slightly orange tint, you have to try it out on the material you want to use. The more it is diluted the less the colour becomes visible, but also its sticking capability reduces. Like so many things in modelling, you just have to try and find out what works best for you and the materials you are using.

Personally, I am not very fond of brush-painting acrylics for a couple of reasons: - one has to work very fast, as acrylics dry very fast, in order to avoid brush-streaks - acrylics remain slightly rubbery for a very long time, days, if not weeks; until they are not thoroughly hardened, it is difficult to sand them - one would need to paint the surface in one go, as quickly as possible and without interruptions, i.e. wet in wet. I am not an expert in high-quality brush-painting, but one of the techniques/strategies is to rub run down the layers of paint and then to repolish the last one to the shine desired. This is very difficult to do with acrylics for the said reasons. The brush size really depends on the size of the surface you want to paint. So, today, as air-brush equipment will cost you probably less than a meal for two in a good restaurant (depends on where you are living, of course), there is hardly a reason not to use spray-painting. And for this, acrylics are ideal.