wefalck
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Everything posted by wefalck
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I made brick paving like this by smearing a layer of plaster into a wooden frame and then carving and painting the bricks. Much easier, as the wood-grain doesn't bother you.- 599 replies
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- sidewheeler
- arabia
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I gather worming, parcelling and serving would be a bit over the top, even at 1:48 scale. Intuitively, I would serve with the lay, as against the lay has the tendency to open the rope. Not sure what the full-size practice is, but once wormed and parcelled, it would not matter to much anymore.
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What silk, that's the question. One has to be able to get the right one, spun in the right way and is has to be less than 10 den. And then - see the earlier discussion on silk - I am still a bit hesitant about silk, though that silk will be painted as per prototype. Talking about silk and deviating a bit from Johann's thread, I also experimented with silk covered copper wire, as used in the old-time electrics. It looks good, but making splices look prototype-like is difficult, because the rope would have been spliced first and then served all over, while the wire is already served.
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I am curious to see what would be the thinnest rope you can serve - for my purposes I would need to go below 0.5 mm diameter to be in scale. Then also finding a serving yarn will become a problem.
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Indeed, these deck prisms, though in common use since at least the middle of the 19th ccentury, are rarely seen on any models. One reason is probably that they are not marked on many plans of the time.
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That sound encouraging, as I have some really challenging parts in the pipe-line. What thickness of brass have you been using ? I have quite a bit of experience in experimenting with home etching and found that getting a sufficiently uniform blackening is the challenge. However, I have been working with brass sheets covered in photoresist and transparent masks. I can imagine that the heat-transfer of the toner lets the lines from the printer melt together better. Not sure what the European equivalent to your paper would be (doesn't the printing ink interfer ?), but could imagine that other papers that have a coating that prevents the toner from penetrating too deeply should work. I should experiment with double-sided toner transfer: if one includes register marks and carefully makes a sandwich with spacers, it should be possible to transfer the toner onto both sides of a brass-sheet for double-sided and surface etching. Would be worth a try - I almost gave up the home etching due to the blackening problem.
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Ferric chloride solution is not such a concentrated acid, so there is no risk of it attracting the first water drops, as would happen with concentrated hydrochloric or even sulfuric acid. However, one should cover a wooden workbench in plastic or work in a shallow tray, as any splashes leave nasty stains on wood. Similarly, all metal tools should be out of reach, as even the fumes can lead to slight corrosion. Beware also of corrosion of metal parts in your sink, when you clean your equipment. Always rinse with large quantities of water. Spent ferric chloride solution is basically inert, when neutralised with a base and could be discarded into the sink after considerable dilution. It is better, however, to collect it and take it to your local dangerous substances collection point, clearly labelling what it is.
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One needs to be aware that this method only gives very simple parts and works really only with thin brass. Due to overetching, the parts will not have a square cross-section, but become smaller towards the back. The method also does not fully exploit the possibilities of the technique, namely to produce surface-etched parts. If you just want to cut out simple, not too small parts, the method should be fine. One thing that puzzled me on the above images was that they are negative. Like this you would be etching holes. Shouldn’t the desired parts be printed in black, so that the toner protects the brass ?
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Thanks ! For those, who think they don't have Michael's machining capabilities: one can actually buy small insert-chucks or buy (e.g. from Chinese sources) a small brass drill-chuck with collets and fit it with a stem to go into a larger lathe-collet. P.S. On Underhill: one should remember that he focused on the last three decades or so of commercial sailing ships, so one has to be cautious to back-extrapolate his descriptions into the time say before the 1880s.
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Michael, not sure I grasped the purpose of the sub-chuck. Was it that you didn't have a small enough collet for your lathe ? I found small brass pins a better starting material for making screws and bolts than just brass wire. That is probably because the stamping process in making the pins hardens the material, which then turns better than plain drawn wire. The problem is that one has to do all the machining in one set-up, as the rough pins cannot be re-centred. Hence, one has to make the pins long enough for holding during secondary operations. The watchmakers use for slotting screws a square collet holder in a special small table with a V-groove that is typically inserted into the holder for the hand-turning T-rest. A small circular saw is mounted in the lathe for that purpose. For slotting by hand, there are also special extra-thin slotting files. Nevertheless, I like the idea of the saw-guide with a noth that is held against the screw 👍
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I think I have seen this before somewhere 👍 What would be smallest diameter of rope it would work on safely ? Personally I am thinking of ropes below 0.5 mm and would not be so sure that the respective serving thread could exert enough sideway force to move the device forward. Otherwise, the device I had in mind for my ropewalk would look quite similar to the above, except that it would register into a strengthing rod between the two frames of the machine to provide a guide.
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I have seen this arrangement before, but didn’t know that name. I can see very well spray being kept out, albeit at a reduced efficiency of the ventilator due to some air bleeding out of the drainage holes. However, a serious wave would flood the hole system anyway.
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My machine is still in the planning phase (I actually don't need one at the moment, but it is an interesting project), though I have accumulated most of the materials needed. The base will be 6 mm brown bakelite, which should look nice together with the steel and brass of the mechanism. I may stay manual only, as I won't have to do that long ropes. I also thought about driving the serving thread spool along with a leadscrew, but then came to the conclusion that one would need a hell of a gear ratio to make this useful, plus change-wheel for different thread thicknesses. Probably not worth the effort. One point that concerned me was the pull needed to really wind the thread tightly around the rope. This would seriously deflect the rope. So, I will shape a kind of follower or travelling steady in which the rope runs in a channel. In the front a notch will be cut out of the channel in order to be able to feed in the serving thread. It will run over a flat surface so that one can control with the index finger the resistance.
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Don't know what collets the Dremel uses, but the PROXXON collets are very good and durable. This would be one of my key criteria - for a hand-held tool you don't want to mess around with drill-chuck that obstructs your view etc. The collets accomodate up to 3.2 mm, which is 1/8", so one can use both metric and imperial inserts and drills.
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I have been able to locate the arcticle I referred to earlier: https://www.proto48.org/p48_art_06.htm This is the idea for equal spacing from the above article that shows some excellent railway models: Below is a watchmakers staking tool by Boley. Not mine, which is virtually identical, but more complete, but a picture gleaned from the Internet. They come with a wide variety of punches, pointed, flat, hollow, concave, etc. and anvils. And this is my watchmakers jewelling press: It has a micrometer stop, so you can set the exact depth for punching or the thickness for say squashing wires flat. Some staking sets also come with such lever and depth-stop, btw. I make punching inserts and anvils for the job in hand. Don't have pictures yet, but I just made an anvil and die to shape miniature ventilator-handles for my SMS WESPE-project.
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What kind of dimensions/scale are you looking for ?
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Nice work as usual 👍 BTW, the leeboards (zwaards) will also need a hole for attaching the hoisting rope that is belayed on one of the cleats inbord. I gather, the boier also had a hoisting tackle for the leeboards.
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Just an idea for making the dimples more uniform: add a depth-stop in form of an adjustable collar to the ballpoint-pen. Somewhere on a railway modeling site I saw someone putting a second hole into the anvil at a distance required between two rivets. This acts as a register for making the distances between rivets equal. Thin copper, brass, or aluminum sheet can be used as well, but then I would make the anvil from brass or steel, with holes drilled of the rivet diameter. I myself actually purchased a watchmakers ‘staking’ or riveting tool for such work. It comes with various punches and anvils. Another option is a so-called jewelling tool that has an integrated depth-stop and is lever-operated, but one has to make one’s own punches and anvils.
- 599 replies
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- 4
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- sidewheeler
- arabia
- (and 4 more)
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The fundamental question is always, whether you go for an 'artisanal' look, or a 'realistic' one. In the former case you would have all artisanal freedom you like and can choose what pleases you aesthetically. In the latter case, you would need to try to confirm through research what might have been used on the prototype. I am inclined to think that white-wash was quite prevalent on lower decks, because it makes the cramped space look more airy and reflects the little available light better (as already mentioned above). In addition, it has some bactericide and fungicide effects due to its high pH-value (which was not know scientifically, of course, at the time, but practical experience showed that less nasty, smelly things were growing in nooks and corners).
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Standard twist-drills are independent from machinery manufacturers. Standard twist-drills have a shaft diameter, which is the same as nominal drill diameter (for the British number drills this a bit more complicated). There are also twist-drills with thicker shaft, commonly 2.45 mm, 1.5 mm and 1.0 mm. The latter two one normally finds only in watchmakers' supply houses. All the other drills are found in many hobby stores or, indeed, on ebay in varying qualities. Shy away from carbide-drills, they are much less forgiving in a hand-drill than HSS ones.
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I don’t quite understand the point of the question. One is likely to need all sizes of drills at some point. From a practical perspective I would think that one can drill holes in a range from 0.5 mm to about 3 mm (or 1/8” for you imperial guys). Drills commonly go down to 0.3 mm, but I would use them only in a stationary machine or with a pin-vise. There are even smaller drills, but these are really delicate (and expensive).
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Another option would be to first spray-paint the respective area in yellow and then spray-paint a strip of plain water slide-transfers in green, cut this into triangles and apply these over the yellow area. Depending on how the respective board fits in constructionally, it may be a good idea to do the painting, by whatever method, before the board goes on - easier to mask off and, if something goes wrong, it is easier to repair off the model.
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Not immediately on this Dremel machine, but on batteries from an environmental scientist: Ni-Cd are being gradually phased out due to environmental concerns over low collection and recycling rates. The cadmium is being dispersed in our environment, or worse in the environment of Third World countries, where many electric and electronic devices end their life in order to be 'recycled', when not fed into the proper recycling routes, but just binned. There, inter alia children burn the electrics and electronics waste in order to recover copper, gold and silver, but releasing nasty metals such as Cd and Hg into the environment and exposing themselves to these. Li-ion batteries are a step away from this problem, but certainly not the last answer. Research and industry are working on other solutions. As a rule, electric devices should not left to be charged unattended. Full stop. Physical chemistry tells you that during the charging process heat will be generated, which must be dissipated. If that is not possible for one or another reason, the device may heat up to ignition temperature. This applies to any kind of batteries. Li-ion batteries have a high charge per volume density and often are built into devices with poor heat dissipation capacity - which is the root cause of the problem. So there is no problem as such with Li-ion batteries, as long as you keep an eye on your device.
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