wefalck

Well, I would go for the left version, with the lanyard a tad darker.

Yep. So you know how to do them 👍 Shaped wooden seats can be quite comfortable, but I appreciated the cushions on the plastic yachts I have been sailing in - the fibre-glass can be quite tough on your bottoms after several hours ...

Plus some deep-buttoned British racing-green leather cushions for fair-weather sailing ?

The resharpened bits in the link look interesting, as they seem to be shorter (of course) than new bits and, hence, less prone to break. On the other hand, used drill bits from the electronics etc. industry that have been exchanged due to pre-emptive maintenance before they become really dull seem to be a lot cheaper. So breaking one costs less than breaking a resharpened one. Somehow, I feel quieter with HSS-drills than with carbide ones below 0.5 mm when using them in hand-held devices. Unfortunaly, these have either nominal drill-size, 1.5 mm, or 1.0 mm shafts.

Don't know how difficult it is to pry the winches apart, but I think it would be worthwhile to replace at least the worm. It is these little details that bring a model to life and make the difference. From our PM exchange a few weeks ago, I conclude that you would have all the necessary tools anyway. P.S. it is quite frightening how Google/YouTube spy on you: although I had seen the above video already a long time ago, it popped up in the 'recommended viewing' side-bar of YouTube after I suggested the worm-gear hobbing in my first post on this ... without doing any search on Google or YouTube ...

Pat, I didn't want to say anything, but this is what I would have probably done, taking a small screw and turning down the ends to simulate the axle of the worm. As a matter of fact, I may have also taken off the tips of the thread to simulate the more square tooth-shape one would find on such heavy-duty worm-wheel-combinations. Incidentally, there is a method to make matching worm-wheels that does not require any fancy tools, but just the respective tap. It can be done on a lathe or a milling machine. The tap is used as a wheel-cutter or 'hobber'. One only needs to fashion a holder on which the wheel blank can spin freely, but without wobbling, bringing it to exactly the axis of the tap. The exact diameter of the wheel-blank is calculated from the pitch of the thread and the number of teeth you will get on the circumference. For non-working versions one cheat a bit. The tap is then slowly fed into the blank - then by and by the wheel teeth magically emerge. It may look messy first, but when the tap is finally fed-in to almost half its diameter, you will have a clean pattern. Below is an example, where I made a concave knurl by the same method (on the mill). Such knurls are geometrically similar to a worm-wheel (that is, if they are 'roped' and don't have straight teeth): I found this idea on Web-sites where people make large worm-wheels for telescope mounts. In this case, the wheels are 'gashed' first with a slitting saw and a dividing attachment to ensure the proper tooth spacing. For small, non-functional worm-wheels made from brass, gashing is not needed. Even the steel knurl above was not gashed first. Here is a little video showing the worm-wheel hobbing on a lathe:

Yes, they also caught my eye - and found something similar on ebay for less than €200. Just a word of caution: I believe most 'micro-motors' are designed for dental tools with a 2.34 mm shaft and do not have different sizes of collets to take drills etc.

Nice 'forgeries' 👍

I know several German colleagues, who have this micro-motor from China for which you don't have to ask a ten-year advance on your pocket-money: https://www.ebay.com/itm/Pro-Dental-Equipment-MARATHON-N3-Micro-Motor-35Krpm-Handpiece-Polishing-Machine/302849066764?epid=1665442752&hash=item468336070c:m:mADTGf5-18Ti5Vu-ku3mGjA:rk:8:pf:0. They seem to be very pleased with it. They may not last as long as the professional units, but then we are probably not using it that extensively. There seem to be brushed and brushless varieties on the market.

That's why I simulate them with a blob of tinted PVA glue or acrylic paint ... in 1/128 scale they would be just over 0.5 mm in diameter.

Excellent strategy. It's a pitty that it doesn't work for various other navies, where the 'eyebrow' was attached separately.

The distance of the grommets/hanks seems to depend on the type of cloth and the width of the panels. I believe European linen cloths were woven in narrower runs than US American cotton cloth. It seems that there are one to two grommets per panel in European sails. It also depends on the type of sail, larger and heavy-weather one requiring more grommets. I think at 1/128 scale hanks could be fashioned from springy bronze or molybdenum wire, which is available down to 0.03 mm diameter. The forged horseshoe-shaped hanks can be bent in a jig made from three pins (one larger diameter, the other two very thin) driven into a piece of hard wood. Wind the wire around and then clip off excess wire. Tie them to the (fake) grommets with 'small stuff' made from unravelling the smallest available (16/0) fly-tying yarn. As this can be very tiering to do on the model, I would perhaps do this before the sail goes up and set up the stay with the sail attached to - contrary to what is normally done.

If I win the EuroMillion tonight or on Friday ...

Just a bit more shop talk: you can control the speed of almost any machine at little cost by putting an electronic dimmer before it. Make sure it is sufficiently rated in terms of Amps. There are dimmers that simply can be plugged into the wall-socket and then take the machine's plug. Doesn't work, if your machine already has an electronic speed control (in case you wanted to extend its range downward).

Yep, had the wooden hanks in front of my mental eyes, but forgot to mention them. One of the classical works on seamanship and/or rigging has a nice drawing that compares the different methods for attaching staysails. Checked Lees, Nares, Biddlecombe and Underhill, but couldn't find it 😐 Lees, almost contemporary to the BOUNTY, actually shows jibs and other staysails attached without any hanks. A continuous rope runs through the grommets and around the stay. I think the rope was fastened with an eye-splice to the top cringle. A variant of this, which I remember from the above drawing, is whereby the rope is attached to the grommets with small stuff, touching the outside of the bolt-rope. One would need to do further research as to whether this would be acceptable for BOUNTY, but otherwise this may be a simple method avoiding the fiddly work with hanks.

These ceramic soldering plates are quite useful. I made bin with excentric parts to wedge pieces for soldering. The pins are made from aluminium wire/rod, so that do not stick to the parts. Mind you, the plates are very brittle. They can be obtained cheaply from the notorious bay. Many years ago I made very small shackles (>1.5 mm long) by flattening brass wire at the necessary distance with a flat punch (now I would have a press with stop for such things), marked/centred the holes to be drilled and drilled with the appropriate diameter. As the two flats were made before bending, the sizes come out quite uniform. The two rings then were shaped with the grinding bits in the hand-held drill. For pins I used suitable copper nails that were shortened and once put in place the free end was slightly squashed to simulate the securing pin and prevent the pin from slipping out.

My PROXXON fret-saw does have a down-holder/saw-guide that one sets just above the material that is being sawn: The sawing-/filing-machines of old had a kind of articulated arm, that could be arranged so that the tip was near the saw-blade. That's ok for working on small pieces, but gets in your way, when working on large pieces of wood: This kind of thing could be retro-fitted to many fret-saws. In the above example, the holders just clamp to the table.

I imitated grommets (at BOUNTY's time they wouldn't have been metal one, but 'sewn' ones) with blobs of coloured PVA glue on both side of the sail. After drying, this was pierced through with a needle to form the eyelet. The rings (if that is correct for BOUNTY and her time) were not actually fiddled through the rings (or sort of U-shaped gliders), but the sail was sewn through the grommets to the rings/gliders. Not difficult to do with fly-tying yarn of the appropriate size and colour. Here is an example from about 200 years later and in 1:90 scale: If you insist on metal grommets, there are hollow copper rivets from the realm of electronics that may be suitable. They would have to be turned down on the outside diameter to have the right proportions and shortened too.

Nice piece of engineering ! I think, if you Fashion some hexagonal ‚bolts‘ from little brass nails, that should fix the winch sufficiently down on the deck. i am surprised to see brass-winches already at that time. I thought they were only introduced in the 1880s.

Don't forget the holes in the lower part for attaching the sail ... beautifully done - as always 👍 I mean this: From my Botter in 1:90 scale ... quite a bit smaller.

Canute/mtaylor, thanks for posting/pinning. It seems though that one needs to sign up to the Web-site in the first post ... Personally, I prefer to use those bottle of paints pre-thinned for use in the air-brush. Much less hassle, albeit there is a somewhat narrower range of colours. However, as I am building only 19th century models, this has not really bothered me - no one knows exactly what colours on a particular ship looked like and normally colours would have been mixed on site/on board anyway I use these pre-thinned paints also for washes applied with the brush.

Nils, are you a member ? You are welcome to join 😏

This vividly shows the complexity of the rigging - must have been a challenge even for the crew, particularly in dark nights and when repairs were needed under harsh weather conditions ...

Nice idea to shape the blades as a stack and then cutting them off with a slitting saw ! I contacted the German colleague by email re. the plans he used, but have not received a response yet ...

Stretching certainly does work well, but for short pieces the rolling method is easier and you don't loose the two ends that would be squashed by the pliers/vice.