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wefalck

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Everything posted by wefalck

  1. wefalck
    Do the ropes really become longer as humidity increases ? I thought the opposite: the fibres increase in diameter not length when swelling and, hence, the individual strands of a rope too; as both fibres and strands form helices, the helices should become steeper upon swelling and, hence, the rope shorter ...
  2. wefalck
    Nice piece of engineering 👍
  3. wefalck
    Without wanting to pre-empt Ed, I don't think the stays are spliced, but tied together and served over ? They could be set by attaching a tackle to the loose end (above the area that would be tied) and then tying the two shanks together, while the tackle was still on. The fairleads in 'action' were indeed also a detail I noticed !
  4. wefalck
    This thread is quite old and I don't recall having seen it before, neither did I recall ever having come across the term 'clump-block'. Intrigued I consulted my 1908 edition of Paasch's 'From Keel to Truck', which is the Five-Language-Edition. Paasch gives as Spanish translation for 'clump-block' the term 'vigota' and for 'dead-eye' the term 'vigota ordinaria'. When you 'google' for pictures of 'vigota', it actually shows you 'dead-eyes'. So there seems to be a bit of modern confusion between what the terms means. In all the other languages there is a clear difference - except for the Italian, where 'bigotta' can mean a 'dead-eye' and a 'clump-block'. As to 'sheet-blocks': these have to noses at the upper end that are meant to prevent the sheet become wedged between the shell and other ropes.
  5. wefalck
    Yes ? To me the drawings looked right.
  6. wefalck
    Don’t have that much experience on wood, used this scraper on Plexiglas. However, dense wood with little pronounced grain, such as box, pear, or cherry seems to work best. Ideally, the grain should run along the batten. If it is slightly oblique, never scrape against the raising grain, or the scraper will dig in. As the name says, you scrape, you don’t really cut - unlike with a plane. Repeated light touches are the ‚secret‘.
  7. wefalck
    But it has to be an incandescent bulb, not a LED-filament bulb ! The latter will emit very little heat in comparison.
  8. wefalck
    "Perhaps this is a just another case of: you get what you pay for, ..." - Unfortunately, even buying brands doesn't safe you from this. Perhaps this is not the case with long-established reputable tool-brands, but in many other business areas, particular consumer goods, poor quality control and pressure from shareholders to keep returns up leads to undermining trust in brands. This particularly affects the medium-price ranges: if you buy very cheap, you know that you well get poor quality, if you buy from high-level brands you probably can expect reasonable quality, but in the middle you never know. At least for machine-tools from cheap(ish) sources, I would consider them as 'materials sets in advanced state of manufacturing': the industrial-type processes have been carried out (which one cannot do at home), but the fitting and fine-tuning still needs to be done - and this is costly, because it is labour-intensive. This approach saves a lot of frustration.
  9. wefalck
    This statement seems to apply to many other 'modellers' supply houses around the world. They have discovered over the last few years tools from other trades, as mentioned above, and that manufacturers often dump 'seconds' that do not fulfill the quality standards of brands on the market. You can find these e.g. von ebay without the mark-up of the modelling houses. To be fair, such supply houses also market sometimes products that are made specifically for them and that you would not find anywhere else.
  10. wefalck
    "... those who can't tie knots tie lots." - that was a good one, have to remember it !
  11. wefalck
    Some loose ends - there most be hundreds As to the clove-hitch vs. lashed eyes: I used two half-turns for the ends of rat-lines so that they returns on themselves. Kind of simulates the eye without an end sticking out as for the clove-hitch. This arrangement can be adjusted easily also for length. Not sure you did this for the lower shrouds, but I am putting a piece of card-board behind the shrouds on which the shrouds and the rat-lines are drawn. This allows me to correct for any distortion and misalignment immediately.
  12. wefalck
    Yes, #2 and 4# represent what I meant by doubling. Adding more turns around the bar will not necessarily add more safety, but it depends really on the specific geometrical situation and the amount of pull on the rope. The seaman will do instinctively the right thing, e.g. if one turn slips, he would add one more, etc. It is difficult to decide this on a theoretical basis. In general, 'less is more', meaning that one would use the least amount of turns and knots possible. Any additional turns and knots makes it more difficult to cast loose a rope in an emergency. It is a sign of poor understanding of seamanship to add unnecessary amount of knots (as many landlubbers have a tendency to do)
  13. wefalck
    You don't need to go around three times before the clove hitch. The first turn of the clove hitch is enough as a break. When talking about doubling, this didn't mean going around twice, but taking the rope in double, i.e. you fold the rope back on itself for a certain length and then go around the bar and tie the knot.
  14. wefalck
    Perhaps to add to what Jud just said and my earlier comments: a sailor (not sure about cowboys for lack of first-hand knowledge) would never hold a rope under strain just like that, he would always take a turn around some convenient rail, bollard, clamp or whatever to use the friction of the rope to break its force (I think cowboys actually have the saddle-knob for that). By crossing the loose end over that turn you can also use the friction between the two parts of the rope, which is very effective - in fact, this would be the beginning of tying a clove hitch. By doing so you have very good control over the rope. Otherwise, a gust may jerk the rope from your hands, or if you fail to let loose, it may jerk you overboard.
  15. wefalck
    I would stack the four of them onto a thin piece of plywood for working on. When starting the 'crossing-out', as the watchmakers call the process of making the spokes, I would drill appropriately sized holes in the respective corners. This gives you the directions for sawing out the rest using a jeweller's piercing saw. As material I would use hard brass, not soft copper. Alternatively, styrene would allow you to easily add the reenforcement ribs by glueing, rather than soldering.
  16. wefalck
    What is 'wicking' - 'soaking' ?
  17. wefalck
    If I can avoid it, I don't buy new tools. Either they are ridiculously expensive or not the same quality as pre-1960s ones. This applies to both, hand- and machine-tools. Just bought a couple of pin-vices, they were relatively cheap and the best ones I have seen on the Internet, but their finish still isn't as good as that of the ones I fished out of junk-boxes on flea-markets (unfortunately, I don't get to flea-markets very often anymore and flea-markets aren't what they used to be). And: as I don't have the time to hone my skills with hand-tools, I have to hone my machine-tools A confirmed tool-junkie.
  18. wefalck
    For very fine profiles I use a piece of razor-blade held in a pin-vice: The radius of the above profile is 0.2 mm, giving a 0.4 mm half-round profile. When using scrapers for this purpose, it is important that the stock is as close to the finished dimensions as possible. You really only want to take the edges of the material. It may be necessary to use a couple of differently shaped scrapers in sequence to arrive at the final profile. The scraper will have to be held almost vertical to the intended profile. Any angle will distort the profile, it will become shallower and semi-circles will become oval. This is one of the reasons why only minute amounts of materials can be taken off at each pass. It may be obvious, but one needs to pay attention to the wood-grain. If it runs at a slight angle to your stock, you can only scrape with the grain and not against it. If you try the latter, the surface will be ragged, as the scraper digs in.
  19. wefalck
    I am not an expert on 17th century and earlier ships, but belaying running rigging on bare bars etc. was common practice, I believe. We have to be very cautious to apply in retrospect ideas of good seamanship that were developed in the 19th and 20th century. Having said that, my preferred knot under such circumstance would be the clove hitch, if the free end is not too long. It also possible to make the clove hitch with a bight of rope taken double in order to avoid fiddling a long end all the way through. In any case, the rope should go at least twice around the bar etc. so that the friction can take up a lot of the strain and does not pull any knot too tight for loosening. In this case one can also loosen any knot while the friction keeps the rope safely under tension.
  20. wefalck
    My paper- or silkspan-sailmaking technique is presented here: https://modelshipworld.com/index.php?/topic/68-zuiderzee-botter-by-wefalck-finished-artitec-resin/&tab=comments#comment-47886 Note: When using silkspan for larger scales, say 1:60 and above, I first stabilised the silkspan with light coat of acrylic varnish. This allows me to cut the individual panels. With paper this first step is not needed.
  21. wefalck
    Yep, they seem to be nice guys. As I have been just elected chairman of the German association (https://www.arbeitskreis-historischer-schiffbau.de/profil2/), I am in the process of establishing links with THE ROPE.
  22. wefalck
    Met some Japanese modellers of the association THE ROPE (www.theropetokyo.org) a couple of weeks ago in Rochefort (France). They also brought some Japanese boats (models) with them. These guys may be a good contact, say for pictures of museum models etc. Such incidents, as you described above, make me always weary of taking models out of the house ...
  23. wefalck
    Good idea, but you need a space at least 1 m deep, considering the common lenght of stock. In the next incarnation of my workshop I may place something like this behind cupboards next to the door, to be accessed from the narrow side. Or, store the stuff in a wide, but narrow cupboard with such drawers ...
  24. wefalck
    If you don't have the space for horizontal storage, you can also tie the thin strips together with a piece of string or a rubber band - together they will not bend. I made myself a narrow open rack with shallow shelves and some vertical battens along the length to keep the stuff in. That allows me to store the stuff according to material, while being able to retrieve shorter pieces that have been pushed in by accident. Another option would be to make the tubes, as in Mark's picture, detachable so that you can shake them in order to get small pieces out. For some years I kept narrow (ca. 5 cm diameter) paper tubes loose in a box upright - the narrow tubes prevented the bending and I could take them out to rattle them for retrieving short pieces. Apart from lack of floor-space it was difficult to handle those tubes, in which I kept my steel and brass stock, hence the other solution.
  25. wefalck
    I don't know what ship the SAN FRANCISCO was, neither what era. Assuming that it is a 19th cargo sailing ship, I think normally cargo in the hold would not be tied down, but rather 'wedged in'. This means that smaller items of cargo and lumber would be put in such way between the larger items that nothing can move. Apart from preventing items from moving this also maximises the cargo volume use. In the old days ships sometimes had to wait for considerable time to complete their loads. This not only for economical reasons, but to increase safety - a half-loaded ship with the risk of a shifting load can be in great danger in bad weather. It was the art of the loading masters in the harbours and of the first mate to stow the cargo in a safe way.

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