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wefalck

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  1. wefalck
    I would suggest that you get yourself a textbook on machining, for instance the one that was written by Joe Martin the deceased former owner of Sherline. This gives you ideas on workholding and machining techniques. There are countless ways of holding workpieces on a rotary table. It depends on the size and shape of a piece and on what machining operations you want to perform. Drill-chucks are for, well, drills and reamers. Do not use drill-chucks for work-holding, they are not designed for lateral forces. Most of them are also not precise enough. Whether you use a 3-jaw or a 4-jaw chuck, or a collet (chuck) for workholding depends on the size of the workpiece and on the desired precision. Collets are the best way to hold small round parts. 4-jaw chucks come in a self-centering and in a version with indipendent jaws. The former is mainly good for square stock and parts, while the latter can be used on all round, square or rectangular materials and parts, but is more time-consuming to center.
  2. wefalck
    These windmill-pumps have been recently the subject of a short article (in German, sorry) by the well-known maritime historian Herbert Karting: Karting, H. (2017): Die Windmühlenpumpe und die „Onker-Barken“.- Das Logbuch, 53(3): 124-127. According to this article the origin of these pumps is obscure, but seems to be related to the ice-trade from Canada and northern USA to the southernly states and Caribbean etc., where large quantities of melt-water had to be constantly removed from the bilges. When ice-machines and refrigeration were invented they fell out of use. However, when at the end of the 19th century and up to the end of the first quarter of the 20th century Finnish owner began to buy up old square-riggers to ship timber all over Europe, these pumps began to be used again to keep the leaking old ships dry in cheap way - margins were low in the timber-trade. It seems that these barques could be recognised from far by the klonk-klonk of their pumps. It is indeed unlikely that LEON would have been fitted with such a pump.
  3. wefalck
    I think it has to be Chinese dolls - at least today most passengers in the gondole seem to be groups of Chinese, at least this was the impression we had last weekend.
  4. wefalck
    Doing these investigations and finding out how things work(ed) is one of the most satisfying aspects in shipmodel building ... the second half of the 19th is particularly interesting in this respect with all the techonological revolutions and those 'patent' thingies.
  5. wefalck
    Actually, if you have real acrylic glass, not clear styrene rod or something similar, it turns and mills very well with sharp tools. Feed rates need to be kept reasonably low, or the material will melt to the cutting tool. I like to work with it, though the swarf can be a bit messy because of the electrostatic charges
  6. wefalck
    Thanks for the wishes ! ******************* Some small progress between travels. I began to tackle the funnel. The main part was turned from a piece of 10 mm acrylic rod. The bands were turned on. The top then was hollowed out cautiously with the part unsupported – a steady would have marred the relatively soft acrylic. The remaining wall thickness is about 0.3 mm. Outside turning of the funnel The top was hollowed out only down to 12 mm, as the yet to be installed smoke-stacks will fill most of the space and one will not be able to see down to the bottom. Hollowing out the funnel Funnel on the boiler-room casing To be continued soon ...
  7. wefalck
    Pat, it just came to my mind that there are also brass-pigmented high-quality felt-tip pens of different sizes on the market. Perhaps by disciplined application of 'dots' you can build up the various brass plates etc. on the wheel's rim. Might be easier then using a brush.
  8. wefalck
    Why do you prime ? For a single coloured line (boot-top ?) this is not normally needed, I would think. I suppose you would have applied some sanding sealer and varnish to the natural wood already ? Instead of masking and painting, you may also think of a decal, to be sealed with varnish or not, depending on the kind of model.
  9. wefalck
    Not sure I understand the problem correctly, but normally one would paint the lighter colour first, overlapping well the separation line to the darker colour - no masking at this stage. Then you mask off the area already painted and proceed with painting the darker colour. So there are no edges of under-paint exposed.
  10. wefalck
    Belaying points of flagg-lines may also vary, as in calm conditions one may want to give the line an inclination so that the flagg (somewhat) unfolds and thus becomes easier to recognise.
  11. wefalck
    However, sometimes the spelling can be important: in German, Danish and Swedish the term 'Jacht' denotes a small single-masted cargo-ship, similar to the British 'smack', while 'Yacht' denotes a pleasure boat. Some land-lubbers may actually confuse the terms, as the 'Jacht' as commercial ship has disappeared.
  12. wefalck
    A would go with Gaetan: I rarely, if ever, use any lubricant on my lathes - there are not set up for using coolants anyway. Yes, pieces and tools become warm sometimes, but if they get so hot that the workpiece or tool gets damaged, you are doing something wrong, i.e. perhaps the tool is blunt. In the model workshop one rarely takes off so much metal that heat generation is a problem. There are some materials, copper may be one of them, that tend to stick on the top-edge of the cutting tool. In this case a bit of lubricant might help. Or a steeper top-rake of the tool. When milling with a multi-tooth cutter, the situation is different. There you need a lubricant, at least for steel, and particularly when milling or sawing slots, as the mill or saw might get jammed otherwise in the slot. A blast with WD40 or similar also clears out chips. The same applies to drilling: oil for steel and sometimes aluminium, when holes are deep; nothing for brass; copper may need a drop of oil. I only have sewing-machine oil and WD40 (or similar) in my workshop. I don't mess around with the animal fats that old-time machinist used.
  13. wefalck
    Witsens book is an important source and Hoving certainly knows what he is writing about. Boyer and Boeier are not the same, but related by descendence. The Boyer of the 17th century was a bigger ship with a different purpose, but seems to have slowly evolved into the smaller 19th century Boeier. The 19th century Boeier from about the late 1820s or so on became a kind of 'private' or 'company' car in the waterlogged area around and north of Amsterdam - being used for both, business and pleasure trips. It was a means of passenger transport between places, but was also used as a short-distance packet, in thoses waters that could be sailed (along the canals the 'trek-schuyt', horse-drawn boats, were the means of public transport). In the early 20th century, when tramways and then road-vehicles took on this transport role, Boeiers became exclusively pleasure boats.
  14. wefalck
    Their dreams may be more ephemeral and non-tangible ... they may talk one day with the same kind of sentiment about their first encounter with the first model of iPad or a piece of game-software ...
  15. wefalck
    This is a weird set-up actually ... at least me, I was talking about the right-angle attachment: This allows to mount the rotary table so that its rotation-axis is horizontal. I understand that this axis then lines up with the tailstock: Trying to line up something held in a vise with the tailstock is not something one normally does. So there would be no commercial solution for this.
  16. wefalck
    When in the vertical position, does the centre of a chuck mounted on the rotary/tilting table have the same centre-height as the tailstock ? Otherwise you still may need the right-angle attachment.
  17. wefalck
    Mmhhm ... 40 years ago it as all airplanes in Regent St. and the area around ... and the Science Museum models are all boxed up ... nothing anymore to make little boys dream - or they dream of other things.
  18. wefalck
    ... I see another challenge, the nice round Victorian skylight with its carpentry and brass protective bars Have you tackled that already ? If not, I tend to fashion such things from solid acrylic glass with applications in either etched brass or styrene. Styrene can be cemented (or rather welded) onto acrylic glass with methylene chloride without leaving traces.
  19. wefalck
    In Europe most length-measures were based on some average human body dimensions. It was only during the French Age of Enlightenment, that the idea of linking all length-measurements to some geographical/astronomical dimension came up - the result of a centralist governement that wanted to control everything
  20. wefalck
    The right-angle attachment for the rotary table is for setting up the same with a horizontal axis (other makes have this built into the design) and the tailstock supports longer items. With this arrangement you can mill-on polygons, e.g. squares, hexagons, octogons, etc. Binnacles, columns of various kinds (including flutes ones), spars, masts, etc. come to mind.
  21. wefalck
    Will there be a keelson ? The rabbet seems to be pretty close to the top of the keel, perhaps too close to take up any strain.
  22. wefalck
    It is easy to get them. Just check ebay. Brass or steel ones can be pricy, but if you don't mind plastics, you can get them quite cheaply. There are whole sets for experimentation on ebay. There are also specialised manufacturers and supply houses that would also serve private customers. For serving machines: the number of teeth is technically not relevant, but you need to identical sets. The two sets can be composed of the same size wheels or of different size wheel, this does not matter. The two sets only ensure that the hooks at both ends rotate at the same speed. Rather than using cog-wheels, one could also use toothed belts or chains together with the appropriate wheels.
  23. wefalck
    Personally, I find much more satisfying to make my own tools and machines. For me it is at least as important as making models. Just to let you know, Charter33, that I think that you did an excellent job on making these parts from acrylic glass. Good surface treatment ! And btw., Millhill supplies has been importing Sherline machines into the UK for at least 30 years. I have still one of their leaflets from the late 1980s knocking about. It is really a shame that the US Post Office discontinued the 'land' service a few years ago - you had to wait may be two or three months for your parcel, but it was quite reasonably priced. I did purchase Sherline bits and piece directly from the factory in these old days. The US Post Office should rethink their pricing - how is it possible that the Chinese can send you their stuff for next to nothing and still make a cut ? - ok there may be government subsidies, but these would be more effective in enlarging markets than blocking imports with tariffs ...
  24. wefalck
    That is actually a very good idea, druxey ! Never though of this. At some stage in the - hopefully - not too distant future I want to show on a 1:160 scale model some sails being dried and hanging limp over stays etc. The method of putting together sails from several panels, as I used before, makes the sail too stiff for this. So painting-on the seams like this may be the solution. A variant of this could also be to mask of the panels and spray against the mask, which should leave a sharp edge. One would need to do this from both sides.
  25. wefalck
    Zig-zag stiching appeared, I think, only when machine sewing was introduced. In the hey-day of sailing ships the seams were double-folded into each other and fixed with two rows of straight stiches.

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