wefalck

Anything that is less 'noble' in galvanic terms than copper would be eaten away. This is way all fittings exposed to the seawater and in contact with the sheathing would need to be either copper or bronze. So pintles and gudegeons would need to be made from bronze, rather than iron.

Very nice. I envy you for this technology (or rather combination of them). I know, in Ukrainian there is no letter 'H', therefore, there are transcription problems: the correct name of the manufacturer/license-giver for the gun is Hotchkiss & Cie. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hotchkiss_Ordnance_Company). The new version of the gun looks good, but somehow I have the feeling that you now erred on the large side for the barrel. Maybe this is due to distortions in the photograph, but the gun looks somewhat unbalanced. In theory, it should be more or less balanced by the trunnions.

My father was a trained medical doctor (though he never practiced) and a few of his student-time 'tools' were in his tool-box, so that I have been aware of the various types of surgical instruments, such as forceps, needle-holders, pincettes, scalpels, bone-chisels, etc., early on. Now, I have fool complement in my tool-chest. Later in life I became aware of the instruments for micro-surgery (e.g. eye-surgery), such as sprung micro-scissors, and acquired a few. As my mother trained as biologist, I have also been aware of biological preparation instruments, such as cutting needles and micro-scalpels. At hobby- and model-fairs and -shows here in Europe there is often a stall with surplus surgical instruments, where you can actually look at them before buying. They are 'seconds', that did not meet the quality standards of the manufacturer, but can be good enough for our puposes. Various surgical instruments (particularly also disposable scalpel blades) are sold sealed and sterilised. The seal has a certain 'best-before-date', after which the instruments are not considered sterile anymore. Such 'expired' stock is often sold cheap, as it would be too expensive to repack and re-sterilise the items. They are of course new and only not sterile from a medical point of view. I would be cautious of buying pincettes and micro-scissors over the Internet, as the quality of their tips/shears is crucial for their functionality. Here I would rather spend a bit more and go to reputed manufacturers. And yes, for some instruments you better don't imagine what they are being used for (or what they have been used for in the case of the anatomical instruments of my father ...)

Thanks, Michael, for the drawing. What kind of motor are you using ?

Captainbob, with a hot-air stream, you don't need to touch the bits to be soldered and won't upset their positioning. There are electrical units and also gas ones. The gas ones usually come also with conventional soldering tips that are heated by the hot air. I like the electrical units, because one doesn't mess around with gas and they can be regulated from about 50°C to 400°C, making them also useful for other purposes than soldering.

I like the worm-drive to the quill. This gives very positive control with tiny drills. I have also been thinking of fitting dial-indicators to my micro-mill, but haven't figured out yet a convenient way to do it. The usual 50 mm (2") diameter bodies are rather bulky and haven't been able to source smaller ones (yet). Could you perhaps show more details of the x-y-table ?

Plywood with parallel grain layers ? Sounds like a contradiction in terms ... Plywood per se was invented not to be bent (or warp). Laminated structures are something different, of course. Diagonally plankend boats, where the layers are glued together with marine glue have existed for more than a hundred years now. I don't think the glue as such is very important in a static model application. It is important to get a good penetration, so that the glue locks the layers together. Soaking through veneers can be a problem, as it will occur unevenly, so that the following surface treatment will also penetrate unevenly. I am not a great fan of CA due to its messy application, but penetrating the wood with it would make indeed a strong composite material and is being used to strengthen small parts.

Yes, I fully agree. Pond yachts have their own charme ... even though this may be a modern imitation.

How did you do the cowl-vents ? By vacuum-forming ? I like the QF-gun, but would have constructed it from several pieces, given the technologies you have at your disposal. BTW, if you chemically tin the brass and polish it lightly, it quite looks like steel. Or are you going to plate it with e.g. nickel ? Are there still commercial brass-founders in Russia, or was this done in a 'back-yard' foundry ? Which may be the same actually ...

Depends on the material also: cotton (as used in the USA) would be more whitish, while flax and hemp (as mainly used in Europe in the pre-industrial age) would be more greyish-yellowish. The older the sail the more light-greyish it would be, presumably, due to the constant exposure the elements and light. Small fishing vessels frequently used 'tanned' sails (as in the above botter), the resulting colour being anything between a dark red, reddish brown and yellow ochre, depening on what was smeared on the canvas.

I gather the alum was used, like sodium silicate, rather as a flame-retardant on theatrical fabrics than to stiffen them ? I really wonder, whether this is a good use of epoxi-resin. Of course you end up with a sort of fabric-reinforced resin shell, but it seems a bit messy in comparison to using one or the other type of varnish.

The problem of getting a sleek surface in contact with the 'former' (balloon etc.) only arises when you soak the fabric with the stiffening agent. There is really no need for this. Otherwise, you can also suspend the fabric on its four respectively three corners, e.g. by pushpins driven at an oblique angle into a board, and apply the stiffening agent then. I did make sails from single pieces of model-aircraft silk ('silk-span') in this way, by soaking it lightly in poster-paint (today I would use acrylics). This closes the open weave of the fabric, while still keeping it flexible and as the material is hanging through while wet, you get the slightly billowing effect. Such sails are not translucent, however.

I tend to put the pins into corks from Sherry- or Port-bottles, the ones with the plastic lid, that stand safely on the bench. You can pick them up and turn them around for spray-painting etc.

For depicting a ship/boat in a particular state, it is always useful to make up a (mental) story board. So I would ask myself questions, such as what would happen to the equipment when out at sea, what needs to be maintained/mended in between chases, what is 'personal' equipment and what belongs to the boat, how quickly would the boat need to be ready, is the ship pictured cruising the hunting grounds or on its way out/during return etc. So, during the outward and return-trips the boats would be probably empty and all equipment stored safely to avoid loss in heavy weather. If one believes Melville, harpoons were sort of 'personal' equipment and carefully maintained by its owner/user.

Probably to thick. Try to find stainless steel or bronze wire of 0.3 mm diameter. Brass or copper may work, but coudl be too soft.

Exactly ! Depending on how much you inflate it, you can adjust the roundness.

Some people use air-baloons as formers. One has to check first, whether the choosen varnish doesn't eat the baloon though. A completely different technique is to hide a stiff wire in the bolt-rope of the leeches and feet of the sails.

In principle yes. However, I would refreain from using such organic materials that are prone to microbial attack, commonly called mould. Other people seem to have used diluted PVA glue or, in my case, sanding filler. Matt acrylic varnish could be another option.

Which ones ? To the best of my knowledge the respective red and yellow pigments have been phased out a long time ago, at least in the EU. The paints may have retained 'Cadmium' in their name though. Nothing really to worry about - a day out in a city gives you more exposure to nasty things ...

Good point about water-based paints/sealers and steel wool. Some people use magnets to pick up the wire residues. There is also aluminium wool apparently, but I don't have come across a source for it yet. Apart from the steel wool, I also use razor-blades as scrapers after applying sanding sealers, which gives a nice smooth finish too. It only works on flat surfaces though.

No, shellac is a solution in alcohol: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shellac The solvent-based filler I was talking about earlier is usually in fact a 'filled' nitrocellulose varnish.

What kind of varnish are you talking about, acrylic-based ? Even water-based acrylics may give off fumes, as they often contain some alcoohol. I believe there are also water-based acrylic sanding fillers. You may have to experiment with the wood you are working with. Something I haven't tried on wood myself, but that may give reasonably good penetration are pure acrylic emulsions, without pigment and and fillers. You can buy these in art-materials shops as primers. It may be also possible to dilute them with alcohol to further enhance the wood penetration, but this requires some experimentation.

Acrylic paints are water-based and will raise the wood-grain. So one would need to sand it again afterwards. Assuming that you are talking about a fully covering, opaque layer of paint, I would prepare the wood with a good solvent-based sanding filler, sand/scrape it smooth, and then apply the paint. Solvent-based fillers are to be prefered over water-based (acrylic) fillers, because they penetrate the wood better.

This is my most recent attempt in 1/87 to show the reef points in a realistic as possible way:

As I have used this technique on virtually all my models made over the last couple of decades, I may be allowed a couple of comments : Not sure what scale you are working in, but 'bond' paper seems to be rather heavy even though it would be a good quality of paper. I would rather go for something as thin as possible. If I wanted to stich-on the bolt-rope (I never worked in scale, where this would be possible physically), I would use the thinnest fly-tying yarn I could get holds of (something like 18/0 and perhaps even split it). The reef-points are actually held in place by stiched-on crown-splices on both sides of the sail. These can be simulated by two figure-of-eight- or over-hand-knots that are pulled very close to the sail. Not sure, whether 'dafi' presented his technique (already) in this Forum, but for his 1:96 scale HMS VICTORY he developed a three-layer technique using self-adhesive tapes as used by book-restorers to (almost) invisibly patch up ripped pages. Strips of that paper-tape are pasted from both sides onto a backing of very fine silk weave ('silk-span') to create the effect of the sail-panels. This composite can be crumbled and creased to give a realistic cloth effect and when stitching-on the bolt-rope the silk-weave prevents the edges from ripping out. Interesting technique, but I have not yet used it myself.