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wefalck

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  1. wefalck
    I have always been fascinated by Japanese carpentry and in my younger years was reading a lot about their art and culture. However, some 30 or so years ago there seems to have been little information in Western languages on their boats and I found them rather complex and different from ours. So I never attempted anything in this direction. Good to see that someone tries to understan them !
  2. wefalck
    Good job on this guy ! The 19th century was full of these 'patent' anchors. Will have to make three Inglefield-anchors soon, but only around 12 mm long Guess, I will have to take some short-cuts compared to yours ... As to the bulb at the end of the stock: I guess theses were forged in situ, after the stock has been fiddled through the hole. Must be the same procedure for the traditional Admiralty-pattern anchors and there should be a description somewhere in the literature.
  3. wefalck
    Didn't see this log before, but particularly like projects with a 'story' ...
  4. wefalck
    I gather it depends (partly) on one's dexterity and manual skills. Some people - as our ancestors, or course, achieve incredible results with just hand-tools. I personally seem to need powertools to arrive at well defined and repeatable shapes ... perhaps I am too slow in building so that I am loosing my skills acquired in process, before I can apply them again
  5. wefalck
    This kind of drill is still sold by jewelry makers supply houses ... the oldest kind of drill dating back perhaps to the Stone Age.
  6. wefalck
    Pat, I am aware of the trade-offs to be made between the possibility to easily model these cast-on features and the stepping issue. It is indeed quite impressive, what commercial printers can achieve already. One could probably reduce the stepping problem by printing the gun vertically, as it would have been cast in foundry. The stepping is most visible when the printed surface is only slightly inclined with respect to the axes of the printer. I myself still have to master the 3D CAD modelling, before I can think of having anything printed
  7. wefalck
    Without wanting to interfere with your manufacturing decisions: wouldn't you want to rather turn the gun in the lathe and have the parts of the carriage 3D-printed ? I found that round objects are still not as clean and crisp as one would wish at this scale due to unavoidable 'stepping'. Perhaps one could print the breech-loop and insert it into the turned barrel. I think the wooden elements of the carriage would make ideal objects for printing and would save you the trouble of fiddling around with very small components. Some of the iron-work could be even 'printed-on'.
  8. wefalck
    Looking forward to see the gun developing. There are lot of interesting details on these guns, such as the excentric lifting mechanism and the recoil brake - I gather these are already lamellae ?
  9. wefalck
    Vallejo is a good choice, as the company originally catered for artists, I believe, and then branched out into the modelling sector. There are other brands, e.g. the German Schmincke, that went down a similar route.
  10. wefalck
    Ratlines have to make a curve, a so-called catena, like any other line under its own weight. Ratlines are never straight.
  11. wefalck
    Depends on the scale you are working in. Ratlines have a diameter of around 1 cm on the real thing.
  12. wefalck
    Looking good, Pat. It definitely helps to have detail photographs.
  13. wefalck
    The mounting of the chuck is not the problem, its the jaws and the mechanism that tightens them - they are not designed for sideway loads, but only for axial loads. Below (left) is a cross-section through a key-operated drill-chuck. The serrated part exerts forces partially axially and partially radially that grip the drill, while the spiral in a 3-jaw-chuck only exerts radial forces. When you apply a radial force onto the serrated part, it has the tendency to splip axially, being a sort of wedge, thus potentially loosening the grip on the part, particularly, if it is not perfectly round. Also, common drill-chucks are not manufactured to the same tolerances (unless you have an Albrecht-Chuck), as 3-jaw-chuck or collets. Source: https://www.mscdirect.com/basicsof/drill-chucks It is better not to perpetrate bad practices, even though you may never experience any problems, say when working on wood or plastics. One day, by way of habit, you will chuck up a piece of metal, the cutting bit hooks and then the whole thing flies around. If you ever experienced how a work piece can be even ripped out of a strong 3-jaw-chuck (as I did once in 30 years working with lathes), when a cutting bit catches, you treat work-holding with great respect.
  14. wefalck
    When you say 'machine' what kind of operation are you referring to ? Depending what your starting material is, there are several options. Assuming that you will be working with sheet material, how thick is the sheet ? One option is to use a circular cutter in the mill. This is a bit like a fly-cutter, but the cutting bit is mounted vertical and the cutting edge aligned so that you can cut pieces with a defined outside diameter. Not sure you find a commercial one for such small diameter, you may have to make one yourself. The second option is to use a 'hole-saw' or disc-cutter, essentially a tube with saw-teeth at the end. The inside diameter is the diameter of your finished disc. If you have a lathe, you can also cut the disc roughly using a fret-saw and turn them down to the right size. To this end you have to chuck two corks, one in the headstock and one in the tailstock and wedge the Plexiglas disc between them. This is the classical method by which watchmakers turned watch-glasses to size. If you have a lathe, you can also start from round stock, face it, polish the face and then cut of the disc.
  15. wefalck
    To be honest, I never use any cutting fluids for turning model parts on the lathe. As pointed out by others, sharp tools are essential to avoid work-hardening. If any material starts to build up on the cutting edge, stop and remove the material or you may ruin your surfaces. Otherwise, I would not be too concerned about working with copper. You may have to try to optimise work-parameters for your special case, so be prepared that the first part may not turn out as desired.
  16. wefalck
    Well, I am sorry to say, but this is bad advice - never use a Jacobs chuck or other drill chuck to hold workpieces in a lathe ! Drill chucks are designed to take axial forces only and the workpiece can work loose, when lateral forces are applied. For safety and precision reasons my personal preference are collets. For larger pieces, of course, one would use the three- or four-jaw-chuck, but try to avoid using hand-held tools (chisels, files, etc.) near such chucks, as they can get easily caught by the jaws.
  17. wefalck
    Thanks, I do have indeed these books. Photographs are rather rare and I wondered, what you might have been able to identify. At some stage I should check out potential French sources for drawings.
  18. wefalck
    Automatic chain-making machines, such as this one (you can see the machine in action from 2:30 forward): The limitation is the tensile strength of the wire,
  19. wefalck
    Just as a sideline: have you been able to collect any information on SMS AUGUSTA and SMS VICTORIA ?
  20. wefalck
    If only the learning curve wasn't so steep ...
  21. wefalck
    Well, sh... happens. I found that I use my ball-turning attachment quite a bit, as I like to have ball handles on my machines. It was originally built for model parts, but mostly got used for making machine parts.
  22. wefalck
    These 'clamps' are not meant to jam the rope (as the modern yacht implement does), but to redirect the pull. For space reasons it would be difficult to have more than two man working a rope that come straight down the mast. In case of yard-halliards it would also be extremely dangerous to work them without any mechanical brake, particularly on a moving ship. If you lead the rope through the notch you can have one or two men heaving down, while one ore more men pull horizontally on the free end; these men then break the rope with the aid of the clamp until the men in front of the clamp have moved their grip higher; and then the same sequence is repeated. If these thingies were brackets for storage, I would expect the notch to face up, not down. Unfortunately, I cannot put my hands on suitable pictures from other ships right now. I seem to remeber having seen such clamps particularly on ships/boats from northern Europe, i.e. Denmark, Sweden and Norway, that were operated with small crews.
  23. wefalck
    Why don't you show the pictures for everyone's benefit ?
  24. wefalck
    I believe that wooden battens were used on ship operating in polar waters mainly. A wet, frozen ratline could break easily. Sailors would not be barefoot under those conditions, but would be wearing seaboots, which would exert heavy wear on rope ratlines.
  25. wefalck
    No. 2 are some sort of fairleads indeed, or half-clamps. When hauling-down a line, it is not so easy to put it around the belaying pin, while there is pull on it; if you hook the line onto the fairlead, the friction reduces the pull and you can handle the end more easily. No. 3 looks like an 'eyebolt' in which a line is secured with a 'stopper knot' at the end; these were use on the inside of bulwarks in pairs to secure rope-ladders for getting on-board. No. 1 is too blurred, but if nos. 1 are the same on both images, than it would be the same as No. 2.

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