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wefalck

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Everything posted by wefalck

  1. wefalck
    Yarn is a generic term, referring to any kind of thread that is not, or not as tightly, twisted as a rope.
  2. wefalck
    It is all a question of building scale. However, the finest yarn you can put your hands is probably the best for serving in the popular building scales - in reality, it might still be oversized. I am using fly-tying thread myself. However, I would shy away from monofilament, even though it is the thinnest material you can get, because it has more 'wirey' properties and might come loose, when handling the served rope. When serving, the yarn has to be really tight around the rope. It also important to stretch the rope before, as rope, of course, becomes thinner, when stretched and, hence, the serving will come loose. It might be a good idea to treat served rope with lacquer or paint as soon as possible to keep everything together. A rope-walk and a serving machine would be useful, if not even necessary. With a rope-walk you can split commercial yarn (including the fly-tying one) and recombine it to a suitable one, if needed. A serving machine allows you to serve the rope tight, while it is stretched out between two hooks.
  3. wefalck
    I agree, that it is better to have single-purpose machines, that is, if you have the space for them. The time of setting up combination-machines for special tasks is often a nuisance. Also, sometimes you don't want to disturb a set-up in order to be able to go back to it after a different machining step on another machine.
  4. wefalck
    I am not sure, I would want to pay 50€/65$US for some pieces of MDF that perhaps can be used only once ... It would be difficult to clean any glue etc. spilled from the MDF.
  5. wefalck
    Although the layout of each ship was different, I gather, there has been some sort of general convention, where what was belayed in order to cope with changing crew compositions.
  6. wefalck
    Jaeger et al.: the funny thing about these machines is, that one begins to make attachments and tools to make more tools - eventually one might make parts for shipmodels too I find that it depends a bit on the period of the prototype you are modelling. The more modern the ship is the more likely it is that machines were used in its construction. In consequence, to reproduce the relevant parts in adequate quality you would also use machines. Machine work will also allow you to reproduce identical parts more quickly and consistently. In some case, perhaps, one would only produce the basic shape on the machine and would have to hand-finish the part to reproduce complex shaped curves.
  7. wefalck
    I don't think there are too many people on this forum with an interest in the subject and the skills and experience to go with it. (Steam) model engine builders are mostly found on fora such as the one that is run by the traditional magazine 'The Model Engineer': http://www.model-engineer.co.uk/forums/ There are also many good tutorial and reference books on the market. An on-line booksellers that I used in the past and that has virtually everything that is on the market is: https://www.camdenmin.co.uk/
  8. wefalck
    Yes, such a larger footprint baseboard adds to the stability of the machine, particularly, when the x-y-table is moved out far. Beware, however, that you probably will find soon that the two drawers will not accomodate all the addtional parts for the machine you will accumulate over time It may be an illumination artefact, but it appears to me somehow that the column is mounted on the wrong side of the base !? Looking from the front, one should see the full lenght of the x-y-table ... or what is the dark rectangle underneath the head ?
  9. wefalck
    To me the difference of a thimble/heart and a bullseye is that the thimble/heart is meant to keep the eye in a rope/wire at a safe radius, when attached with a shackle or hook; it also protects the rope/wire from chafing, when there is a movement between the eye and the shackle/hook. To the contrary, a bullseye either serves as one part in a purchase or an arrangement to redirect the run of a rope, when there is no movement of the rope under normal circumstances. It appears that bullseyes were favoured over deadeyes when used in stays from the late 18th century on, though 'traditional' Dutch (merchant) vessels seem to have used deadeyes right to the end of the 19th century. The explanation above concerning the advantage of a bulleyes over a block is certainly true for rope-rigging, while from the later part of the 19th a block with a metal casing seems to have been used in conjunction with wire-rigging.
  10. wefalck
    Did the laser work with polystyrene ? I gather one would need a ventilation hood because of the fumes.
  11. wefalck
    Fly-tying thread may be a bit stiff, but I am making my own rope from it and rope is less stiff than the thread itself. A bit of matt varnish (or black paint for the rat-lines) keeps things in shape.
  12. wefalck
    Which one was it, I have seen several of such machines on ebay and crowdfunding sites. The laser-cutting capacity seems to be limited for technical reasons, as more serious lasers would require more serious cooling arrangements.
  13. wefalck
    Wouldn't be another method for stowing the sheets to pick them into the same shackle as the downhauls ? I also seem to have them seen forming a sort of triangular spidernet between the stays. In this way they are not liying around on the forecastle.
  14. wefalck
    I actually do have Parallels Desktop on my Mac, but would have preferred a 'native' solution. It is quite strange that you can get drivers for any odd printer, but not for those CNC ord 3D-printing machines. Perhaps the number of Mac-users is too small - so a lot of the graphics people seem to use Macs.
  15. wefalck
    Without meaning to be offensive, but somehow I don't get the fuzz about this . These are calculations one learns in primary school ... ok, if you are Imperial you have to handle different units (feet, inches, 'thou', ...), but this is just one more division/multiplication.
  16. wefalck
    Just to add to this: beds were also often raised higher above the floor than it is usual today, because obviously the higher you are in a room the warmer it is. I suspect that in Britain they still do this today, as British houses traditional are not very well heated. For the same reason four-poster- and alkove-beds, both with curtains, were used.
  17. wefalck
    Doors were low to keep the heat in the house and beds short, because people slept in the fetal position, also to loose less heat compared to sleeping with stretched out limbs.
  18. wefalck
    Indeed, there are considerable regional differences today and were presumably in the past. I recall the sensation (hightened by the fact that it was a time of civil unrest) of walking through the streets of La Paz (Bolivia), a gringo towering above everyone, while only being just 180 cm tall - quite a difference to walking the streets of say Amsterdam, where I felt rather diminutive However, like in real life, not only the absolute height would be important for the scale impression, but also the proportions. While certainly there is a distribution of proportions across a given population, some peoples tend to have longer limbs and shorter bodies, while in others it is the inverse. The latter would appear smaller than the first group. Head length to body length ratios are also important, a big head making a person appear to be smaller. In this context it also interesting to compare artists' rendering with real life. There have been periods (e.g. during the 'gothic'), when people, particularly gentle-folks, were portrayed with a 1:12 ore more head:body ratio, while in real life it is more between 1:8 and 1:10. This reflected aesthetic concepts, as well as class distinctions. So the story turns around, as better fed gentle-folks in any population would grow taller than more deprived classes subject also to hard labour.
  19. wefalck
    Good work as usual ! For the seizings I tend to use a clove hitch with half-hitches added as needed. To me this gives a more prototype appearance.
  20. wefalck
    Is anyone aware of such a small CNC-mill/router that can be controlled from a Mac ? The guys that make the Shapeoko 3 also make a thingy called Nomad that seems to work with Macs, but I found it too big and pricey. Most small, cheapo machines only seem to made to work with Windows ...
  21. wefalck
    In the days of pocket calculators (now almost gone) and smart phones scale conversions shouldn't be an issue. Simply take your calculator and divide the prototype measure (ideally in the same units as you will be using in model construction, e.g. millimetres or inches) and divide this by the scale you are working in, say 1/60. In this case divide everything by 60. If you are on inches and feet, unfortunately, the story is not so simple, unless you use 'thou(sands of an inch)' - converting into 1/16ths, 1/32nds, etc. needs one more calculation step. I agree, for those, who are not metric, a ruler might be simpler
  22. wefalck
    There are various UK-based small manufacturers who offer white-metal figurines in O-scale suitable for the 'Victorian' period. Have a look at this trader's Web-site for a start: http://www.scalelink.co.uk/
  23. wefalck
    Making served eye-splices is a challenge that has bugged me for years, particularly in smaller scales. Looking at your method, I was wondering, whether one could not serve first a short length, then form a 'false' splice by stiching the loose end two times through the standing part, set the splice with lacquer or glue, and then continue to serve the standing part. This would result in a less bulky splice, as it would be served over only once.
  24. wefalck
    Nail varnish is a solution of cellulose nitrate. The same stuff, zapon, is used to protect metals, such as silver and brass, from tarnishing and can be bought in DiY stores cheaply. I have used it for decades to fix rigging, because it can be dissolved again with a drop of acetone and corrections made. Beware, today there are also nail varnishes based on acrylics. These cannot be dissolved again very easily.
  25. wefalck
    Indeed, dafi made a lot of experiments with fly-tying thread for small scales ... Personally, I found the Veevus-brand from Denmark the best: http://veevus.com/. They have various useful colours, such as greys, tans, and of course black. Also they go down to 16/0, which is useful for making really small-scale ropes. Usual disclaimer: I do not have any business-relationship with the company other than as a customer. I got the stuff from various ebay-sources btw.

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