wefalck

If your power-drill does not have a speed-control, you can hook it up to a plug-type dimmer, which can be bought quite cheaply. Make sure that the dimmer is rated sufficiently. I think most dimmers are rated at 300W. Wall-type dimmers can be obtained at much higher rating, but you would need to construct a box for it. It seems to be all a lot of effort for a make-shift tool, when you can buy a small wood-lathe (such as the PROXXON DB250), which is much more precise and versatile, for around 200€ new and perhaps less used.

Unfortunately, milling operations with the dividing-head in the upright position leads to the accumulation of swarf between the spindle-head and the dust-sleeve made earlier. Swarf accumulation between spindel of dividing head and dust-sleeve It was also felt useful to have some kind of indication of the angular position of the spindle when using the indirect dividing gear, particularly for round-milling. In order to overcome both problems, a graduated dial was manufactured, that has a friction-fit to the spindle-head. It was made in the same way, as the dials described above and marked in 5° steps. With its round-knurled ring it can be zeroed. Because of its tight fit to the spindle and its shape, it sheds the swarf away from the spindle. Graduated sleeve on the spindle of the dividing head

Pat, the maritime heritage hasn't changed since the mid-1980s, but the way how it is being presented a lot, and not always for the better (re. the NMM). On the other hand new things opened, such as Chatham. There has been a major shift in the way all this financed, as since the last Thatcher-government public funding for museums has been cut back dramatically. This one reason, why a lot of places convert into theme-parks and tourist traps. Not sure that Bucklers Hard is now a real tourist trap. I believe there is not just the row houses of house to see, but they have now some workshops and the likes to visit. Also they have recreated a slip, I think, but haven't checked. You can take a train from London-St. Pancras to Chatham and from the station there runs a bus past the Dockyard. Otherwise it is about a 30 mins walk, but you may want to preserve your legs for the dockyard itself Make sure to get out at the second stop, in front of the large car-park, and not at the old Main Gate, because the ticket-office is there. Entrance fees are quite high, but allows you to come back any time over the next 12 months - a farce for overseas visitors. There is no photography in the 'Smithy', were the NMM models are now on display, but I gather in the age of smart-phones this is difficult to enforce. To water your mouth a bit: http://www.maritima-et-mechanika.org/maritime/chatham/chatham.html There are, of course, trains running down from London to Portsmouth, but the last two times I have been there, I had the car with me, so I don't remember, how one gets from the station to the Dock.

Good places to visit and a bit of diversion for senior officers around it as well Visited SS GREAT BRITAIN in the late 1980s, Bucklers Hard in 1994 or so, I think before it really became developed as a tourist attraction, and in more recent years (re-)visited Portsmouth and Chatham a couple of times. Both are easy to access from London, even if you don't have a car.

Beware that most of these figures may be actually in the so-called 54 mm scale, which is officially 1:32. The 1:35 scale started off, I believe, as a proprietary scale in the early 1970s(?) of the company Tamiya that specialised in military models originally. If you put a 1:35 and a 1:32 scale figure next to each other the difference is usually noticeable, but it depends on the manufacturer as well.

As the size of their feet would have been approximately the same as today, the physiological-technical challenge is the same. Any hole much bigger than about half the width(!) of a foot would not be safe to walk on (even considering that the ideas of safety where somewhat different in the 17th century). Then the battens have to be strong enough to support one or more men not just resting but perhaps jumping up and down on it. So, this frames to some extend the physical possibilities. It could also be a question of the location of the grating, i.e. whether if covers a space needed for working the sails or guns or ... or whether it is in a location with normally no traffic.

Looks like the right track, but holding the 'fixed steady' with a third hand seems to be a bit shaky option. Something more solid and unmoveable may be better ...

Not sure, what the second post means ... anyway, 1/3"=1' should be 1 divided by 3x12 or 1:36 scale. There are many military figurines in 1:35 scale that one may be able to modify for the purpose.

If the camber is worked into a false deck that rests on straight beams/bulkheads, one could plank it first and then insert it. Under certain circumstances this could have advantages, but in general it is better to fit bits and pieces in situ, results in a closer fit.

Varnishes and adhesives can be usually removed with acetone or white spirit, then polish with very fine (0000) steel-wool. Certain adhesives can be 'poisoned' by heavy metal ions, such as copper. Cu can, for instance, inhibit the polymerisation of cyanoacrylate adhesives, they just don't harden or not sufficiently. A solvent-base contact cement is a better choice, provided the solvent can diffuse out through the hull. It is also a good idea to provide some 'key' on the copper glueing-surface by rubbing it with steel-wool, e.g. 00. Flame-treating of copper leads to the formation of various types of copper oxides. These oxides can become detached from the metal with time, particularly, when the oxidation progresses through humidity. Glueing an oxidised copper-sheet results sooner or later in a failure of the bond. Remove all oxidation by rubbing with steel-wool and degrease with acetone.

I have an early 20th century textbook on ship's joinery and according to this, the gratings are laid out on a 50 mm (2") pattern, meaning that the full battens are 50 mm x 50 mm cross-section at 50 mm intervalls - giving 50 mm x 50 mm holes. The half-battens are 25 mm x 50 mm and fit into appropriate notches of the full battens. Much bigger holes than this would be difficult to walk on, particularly with bare feet.

What scale is the model ? - I am not familiar with the kit. If the scale is 1/96 or smaller, I would not go for a planked deck perhaps, as it can look quite overscale. Remember that the planks would have to be less than 2 mm wide. Getting this cleanly done is a bit of a challenge. I would rather draw on the pattern with a pencil, give individual planks a slight wash with very dilute acrylic paint (burnt umber or black) to create a bit of variety, then seal the wood, rub it down lightly and finally draw the plank pattern with ink. Mahagony is definitely a no-go for deck-planking, unless you are building a yacht. Usually some sort of pine was used on the prototype. So a light, but hard wood would be good for this. Deck-openings, whether for hatches, or smaller items, such as bollards etc. are usually 'framed'. You don't want to run the end-grain of the deck-planks against hatch-coamings, because this would be difficult to get water-tight. On both, the prototype and the model, you would begin with laying-out these 'frames' that should have nicely mitred corners. You can then butt your planking nicely against to these. Available length of planks is also a consideration. It rarely exceeded 10 m and would be typically around 6 m to 8 m. So, if you have a space between openings of less than 10 m, you can have one continuous plank. Otherwise would would have to split it into two or more lengths. Think also about notching the planks into the waterways, particularly at the bow.

Professionals seem to prefer in general cutting tools with a defined single edge over multi-edge tools with poorly defined cutting edges (aka abrasives) - but their use requires manual skills, which is why many of us prefer abrasives. I gather it is important to accelerate/decelerate the spindle quickly through any resonance points of the turned item to prevent whipping actions getting out of hand. Also, too much friction from the steadies would tear the part apart during changes in speed.

This day wasn't lost ... learned something: I didn't know about these French 'tremblers' as a specific woodworking challenge. The 'string'-steadies to keep whipping movements under control are particularly interesting and something to remember ! Thanks for bringing this to our attention !

The key-point for working on long parts in a lathe (either 'proper' or makeshift with e.g. a power-drill) is to have a fixed steady. The fixed steadies on metal lathes aren't really suitable, as their bearing would cut into wood. You can use, however, a style of steady that has gone out of fashion these days. Take a piece of plywood or MDF, think about a way of clamping it upright to your lathe bed (or work-table, if you use a make-shift arrangement) and drill a hole into it a centre-height. The diameter of the hole should be larger than the diameter of the parts you wan to turn. No you make two pieces of MDF or even hard card-board with V-notches and two paralle notches in them. These V-notches have to be placed exactly at centreline. With two screws and washers you can fix these 'jaws' over each other at the upright steady so that they jam the piece being turned (without realling jamming it). Sorry, I don't have a picture to illustrate this.

Interesting, didn't see this kind of fuse before. The ones use over here in Europe during that period were hollow wooden cones that screwed into the shells. The cone was perforated at intervals and a fuse like you see today on fireworks was reefed through one of the holes and led to the outside. The lower the hole one used, the longer the fuse would burn. It was ignited by the charge of the gun/mortar.

Preiser HO figures are the best on the market I think. As noted, they are nominally 1/87 scale, but the difference in height to 1/96 scale is wiith the variation of human height. Preiser also does various unpainted sets that are a good starting point for some 'surgery', i.e. conversions. Here is an example for what I did with some mid to late 20th century figures: http://www.maritima-et-mechanika.org/maritime/models/botter/botter.html#Creating_the_Staffage

Work on the ventilators continued. The ventilators for the officers' mess, which included also a Venturi-suction ventilator, where produced in the same way, but are a lot smaller with the head only 2.9 mm high and the shaft having a diameter of 1.3 mm. Milling one of the ventilators for the officers’ mess All ventilators would be taken down, when the 'battle ready' alarm would be given. To this end they are mounted on sockets that would be closed with a lid or plug. This socket was turned from Plexiglas and will be glued onto the deck. It will be painted black together with the deck, while the white ventilator with black interiors will be put into place at the final assembly of the model. Ventilators for the officers’ mess To be continued soon ...

Looks like a good, solid tool the clamp !

Impressive ...

The question was about fly-tying tools - otherwise I use a lot of surgical and dental instruments, tiny crochet hooks (they don't seem to make really small ones anymore - raid the sewing basket of an old aunt or so), etc. - I use fly-tying thread to make my own rope. Otherwise, I have not used any specific tools from this trade. The main reason is that they seem to be rather pricey, not to say overpriced for what they are. I can imagine that the the different types of 'third hand', or 'fly-tying vice' in their parlance, could come handy. But with price tags in the range of hundreds of USD or EUR, they are out of question.

Haven't seen this article or the model, but sewing sails at a 1/96 scale is likely to look grossly overscale: neither the fabric will be fine enough nor the sewing thread. Many decades ago, when I was a teenager, I wasn't happy with the kit-supplied vacuum-formed plastic sails. I had the idea of using them as mold to make my own. I failed then, not having access to suitable materials. I tried to use thin paper and paper-glue. With silk-span or thin paper and acrylic varnish one probably has a better chance - at least it works for flat sails.

Would love to have one, but they are extremely expensive these days. Not sure I have seen a geniune Holtzapffel in live action, but I think I have seen a Lienhard (in the watchmaking museum La-Chaux-de-Fond) and a Pittler (in the technical museum Berlin). Sadly, with CNC-machines ornamental turning has become a simple matter of coding, not cutting and selection of plates, playing with settings, etc.

Pat, some of these pins are excentric ... the holes in the ceramic soldering plate have a diameter of 1.3 mm and the pins have 2 mm diameter. I turned the 1.3 mm part onto the 2 mm pins using the above excentric chuck and sawed a screw-slot into them. I now can turn them with a screw-driver to jam the part. The pins are aluminium, so that the solder does not stick. I had the 2 mm aluminium wire to hand, but say a 3 mm diameter would give you a wider clamping range. You can do the excentric turning in an ordinary 3-jaw-chuck by putting a suitable shim under one of the jaws, btw.

And the show goes on ... The nascent ventilator was then transfered to the micro-mill for further machining. The mill had been set-up with the dividing head carefully aligned with the milling spindle using a round piece of cemented carbide. Aligning the milling spindles It was also fitted with the geared dividing attachment. The first machining step was to mill out the cowl, starting from the pre-drilled hole. Milling out the cowl In the next step the sides were milled flat. Finally, the vertical back of the cowl was milled round using the geared dividing attachment. Round milling the cowl back The top curve was ground on free-hand using a diamond wheel on the micro-sanding machine. The top cover was fashioned from a piece of thin copper foil soldered on. The excess was milled off in the same set-up as previously. Shaping the back of the cowl on the grinder Soldering on the top of the cowl The boiler-room ventilators are sitting on a base that is square and then tapers into the round of the shaft. This part was milled and turned from Plexiglas, so that it can be cemented to the boiler-room skylight. Finished ventilator and base This base will be painted white together with the boiler-room skylight, while the ventilator itself will be painted buff. This separation into two parts will give a clean separation between the colours. By then I will also have to try to find out, whether the inside of the ventilators was red or buff. Boiler-room ventlators on the boiler-room skylight The handles for turning the ventilators are still missing, but I will drill the respective holes on all ventilators in one go, so that I only need to set up the milling machine once for this. There is a dozen more ventilators to come, all of them significantly smaller than these two. To be continued soon ...