wefalck
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Everything posted by wefalck
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Excuse my ignorance: what is a 'geostationary' ? I know about geostationary satellites ... Did you mean a haemostat forceps by chance ? As I am not a great fan of coca (cola), using it as glue, might be a more useful application (apart from using it as a rust converter) ... or did I get something wrong there as well ? wefalck -
I made a tumbler from one of those plastic film containers (remember films ? ) lined with sandpaper and mounted on a 2.35 mm arbor to be used with my hand-held drill. However, it did not work, as I only had a dozen or so blocks (1.5 mm long) to do. It needs quite a large amount of blocks to work. Perhaps I should have added some rice grains or something like this to make up the numbers - only thought about that possible solution just now . With too few too small blocks they don't really 'tumble', even at slow speed, and themselves don't have enough weight to excert sufficient abrasive forces. wefalck
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Thomas Ender made various coloured pencil drawings on board of SMS AUSTRIA during the passage to Brazil. The main purpose of the voyage was to take the austrian prinzess Leopoldine there to become the wife of the brazilian Emporer. Ender's artistic legacy is preserved in the Kupferstichkabinett of the Viennese Academy of Fine Arts. I have several books on Ender, but only one plate shows another deck view of SMS AUSTRIA. As to the accessibility of the shrouds, I seem to have seen that in some instances a sort of net with a mesh-width similar to the ratlines was installed on the inside of the bulwark reaching to the top deadeyes to facilitate climbing into the shrouds. wefalck
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MicroMark MicroMill - Review
wefalck replied to mtaylor's topic in Modeling tools and Workshop Equipment
Sherline et al. call their mills because they are mills. As I said, it has nothing to do with spindle speeds, only with the geometric arrangement of the machine tool - and the design of the spindle: a drilling machine is designed for axial forces, a milling machine for radial forces and axial forces on the spindle. The table of (co-odinate) drilling machines may also not be designed for being moved under load, i.e. for milling, though using it for light milling might be ok. wefalck -
MicroMark MicroMill - Review
wefalck replied to mtaylor's topic in Modeling tools and Workshop Equipment
The spindle speed has to be a function of cutter diameter and material to be worked. For a cutter of say of 50 mm diameter and working steel, you would go down to a few hundred RPM. Conversely, with a small router in wood you need probably 10k or 20k RPM to achieve a clean cut. wefalck -
There are litterarly thousands of 54 mm or 1:32 scale figurines in either white metal or plastic (hard or soft) on the market. One has to look a bit around other fora for this. They come in whole figures or also as separate arms, bodies, heads etc. Some imaginative surgery will be needed probably. The Tamiya plastic soldiers are 1:35 scale and visibly smaller and more delicate than the 1:32 scale figures and in comparison there is a much smaller range. The 54 mm scale market covers all ages and subjects. The G-gauge has a scale of 1:22.5 BTW. I have never heard of any 1:29 scale. wefalck
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What lathe do you have and are you talking about collets for the tailstock or collets for the headstock ? These days one can get cheap and quite good quality ER-type collets from the usual Chinese sources. However, ER-collets are toolholding collets. Due to their design the material has to be held must pass through the whole length of the collet. If one takes in short lengths of material, the collets will distort, when tightened. Therefore, one cannot use them in the headstock for holding (short) workpieces. wefalck
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How to harden scale rope
wefalck replied to Geoff Matson's topic in Rope Making/Ropewalks's Discussions about Rope Making
I seem to be overtwisting my yarns (it is very difficult to see on those fly-tying yarns I am using currently). If I simply cut loose the 'rope' from the ropewalk, it would curl up in a mess of kinks. So, I cut loose one end, secure it with a knot and then let it un-twist in a controlled fashion while keeping some tension on it. I believe that the man-made fibres from which these fly-tying yarns are made do not stretch a lot compared to natural fibres, such as cotton or linen. So there is little chance of 'hardening' it. wefalck -
How to harden scale rope
wefalck replied to Geoff Matson's topic in Rope Making/Ropewalks's Discussions about Rope Making
Not sure what is meant by 'hardening' ... I am using the 'topless' method as described by Frölich on my home-made ropewalk. This first twist the yarns that then are laid/lay themselve into the opposite direction. Whether the resulting rope has a pronounced tendency to unravel or not seem to depend on the type of starting material. When I use cotton or linen, the friction between the yarns seems to keep it together. The fibres of fly-tying yarns, on the other hand, seem to be rather smooth and springy so that unsecured ends spring open quickly. wefalck -
Lucky those, who build ships up to say the mid-19th century - before outside metal straps on blocks, double hooks (devil's claws), shackles and the like became dominant. The various rope strops are really easy to reproduce down to 1:100 scale in comparison. I made shackles down to 1.5 mm in length, but this is tedious and probably not viable for larger ships with elaborate rigging. For blocks seized to eye-bolts I used strops with two false splices in the past. The false splice can be reinforced by a seizing with a few rounds of fly-tying thread. In another method simulating served strops I use silk-covered copper wire. Once this wire was very rare and I recovered some from my father's (who was a radio amateur and early electronics buff) scrap box and from flea-markets. With a market now catering for radio-nostalgia, this copper wire seems to be available again from commercial suppliers. For the strop I form a loop around the block and another one through the ring of the eye-bolt; the ends overlap and are secured by seizings of fly-tying thread. NB. before using fly-tying threads I used a very fine two-ply yarn that once was sold for repairing ladies' stockings - as today they are considered consumables, these threads seem to have disappeared from the market. wefalck
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Scrapers and scraping.
wefalck replied to mikeaidanh's topic in Building, Framing, Planking and plating a ships hull and deck
I use to good effect those stronger razor-like blades with re-inforced back (I believe they are also sold as blades for 'balsa'-planes). As they are ground from both sides at the cutting edge, these 'scrapers' don't seem to need a burr for cutting. Steel wool gives a very nice satin finish on hard woods, but also leaves behind tiny fragments of steel that may be diffisult to remove from corners, between stanchions, etc. wefalck -
The 1:100 scale range is rather limited and largely restricted to pedestrians of various nationalities, as they target architectural model builders. I don't think there are many useful poses. At the above link you can download the full catalogue and judge for yourself. These surgeries or conversion are quite a bit of work. However, there may be certain repetions in pose required, e.g. for gun-crews, so that one may consider taking molds from conversions done and re-cast them in resin. Though this may result in the loss of very fine detail (e.g. individual fingers), the figures are probably still better than the metal casts offered by some suppliers. wefalck
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From an anatomical point of view the best available figures on the market are those by Preiser in Germany, though their nominal scale is 1/87 to suit the HO railway gauge. They have a few modern sailors, but nothing for the Napoleonic period. Converting suitably posed figures from one of their unpainted sets is not too difficult by carving and sculpting. They also have an unpainted 'anatomy' set, that can be dressed using sculpting putty. Within the next few days I will be showing some examples here of Dutch fishermen, that I have created out of figures from one of their sets. wefalck
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Using a metal lathe safely
wefalck replied to jpeghiny's topic in Modeling tools and Workshop Equipment
A self-centering 4-jaw chuck is only useful, if you work a lot with square bar stock. It does not replace an independent 4-jaw chuck. The point about the independent one is, that you can center round, square of rectangular material to any point with (near) zero run-out. With self-centering chucks you are at the merci of their production tolerances (which can be pretty large for stuff in the 100€/$/£ price range). wefalck -
Using a metal lathe safely
wefalck replied to jpeghiny's topic in Modeling tools and Workshop Equipment
In theory, a 4-jaw chuck can be centered perfectly. In the above case this would be an overkill. The pillars on which a model rests are not really pieces of precision machinery. The issue of centering perfectly is only really relevant, if you have to say turn a piece in the chuck to machine the end that was originally in the chuck, or if you have pre-cast holes or something like that. Otherwise, the procedure of centering is just like that: centering by eye, turning slowly (perhaps with a dial indicator touching the piece), losening one jaw, tightening the opposite, turning by hand, and so on. Very tedious. I very rarely use a 4-jaw chuck for turning round material. As I said, collets are really the best option for our purposes. Unless you really do high-precision machining, collets allow you to re-chuck material. There are also now jaws sticking out. The downside is that the maximum diameter is rather restricted, depending on the size of your lathe. wefalck -
Using a metal lathe safely
wefalck replied to jpeghiny's topic in Modeling tools and Workshop Equipment
I agree with what was said above, a jacobs chuck is fro drilling, which only involves axial forces, not for turning, which involves mainly tangential forces. Your second set up is the one that would normally be used in turning. A general rule is that a part should only protrude 3x the diameter, if unsupported by a tailstock. If the part is longer, one should center-drill it and use a life or dead center in the tailstock to support the outboard end. Personally, I am not so fond of 3- (or 4-)jaw chucks because of the risk you mentioned, namely to be caught by a jaw. Most turning work I do with collets. On the other hand, if you keep your hands well off the headstock, you should be ok. wefalck -
Jay, I am not familiar with US sources for watchmaking 'consumable' tools. The National Association of Watch and Clock Collectors (NAWCC), however, has a supplier directory and you may want to check out some of the links in the US: http://www.nawcc-index.net/ToolsParts.php. wefalck
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Modeler12, what part of the World are you based in ? wefalck
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Such drills can be purchased with either 1 mm or 1.5 mm shafts from jewellers and clockmakers supply houses, or with 2.35 mm shaft from some jewellers or from modellers supply houses. The smallest drills with 2.35 mm shaft though are 0.5 mm. The others go right down to 0.1 mm. These ground drills are pricey, but their concentricity is much better than the rolled ones where the shaft diameter = drill diameter. You may also want to look out for carbide drills with a 2.35 mm shaft on ebay, which often come cheaply from the aerospace or printed circuit board industries. They are used and replaced as part of preventive maintenance, but still good enough for our purposes. They run very well, but are rather fragile, so ou have to use them in a drill press. wefalck
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Most of my machines are (historic) watchmaking machinery: http://www.maritima-et-mechanika.org. Collecting and restoring (if needed) these machines is another hobby of mine. wefalck
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The leeboards are cast in resin, but due to the casting process in an open mold, their back is flat and without any sculpting. In reality, they are not just flat boards, but they have a cross-section almost like a propeller. In fact they are hollowed out over some part to create some hydrodynamic lift that counteracts the leeway and also pushes the leeboard against the boat. Using files and diamond rotary burrs the appropriate shape was given and also the separation of the individual boards of which the leeboards are composed were marked out. There are various belaying clamps distributed around the hull. The kit has photoetched parts for these, but somehow they appear rather flat. In addition some or all of them would have to be of the single-horned variety, rather than the more common double-horned one, as forseen in the kit. Replacements were milled raw from a strip of brass and sliced off on the lathe. They were finished using the hand-held power-drill using small grindstones and polishers. Again, the casting of the hull is nicely done, but Artitec were a bit overenthusiastic in depicting a rather worn state. If there were such big gaps in the hull, the boat would sink to the bottom of the Zuiderzee like a sieve. To counteract the rather rustic appearance, fly-tying silk was glued as 'caulking' into the gaps using varnish. wefalck
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Enamle vs Acrylic
wefalck replied to Timothy Wood's topic in Painting, finishing and weathering products and techniques
Acrylics for the airbrush and enamels for brushing. Acrylics tend to set too fast, particularly when you have to paint around 'obstacles' etc. Everything has to be fine after the first few brush-strokes, otherwise the acrylics start to set and you get streaks. wefalck -
It is always a good idea to have a foot control switch, preferably one that doesn't lock: just lift your foot and the machine stops. You have your hands free to operate the machine. wefalck
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Given the problems with the spill, it was cut completely from the moulded hull in order to be rebuilt as a separate item. Square holes and recessions cannot be easily machined from the solid. Therefore the spill was built up from a number of parts that would allow machining, The 0.5 mm x 0.5 mm holes for the handle bars were cut as slots into a section of 4 mm round brass bar. The ratchet wheel was cut on the milling machine with a dividing attachment: All parts had a 1 mm hole drilled through to take up a 1 mm brass rod. Brass was chosen in order to be able to soft-solder all parts together for the subsequent machining operations and to provide an axle. The cigar-shape of the spill was turned with the Lorch free-hand turning device: The piece was then transfered back to the dividing attachment (http://www.wefalck.eu/mm/tools/dividingapparatus/dividingapparatus.html) on the mill and the eight sides of the winding drum were milled on. Here the completed spill stem: And installed in the hull: to be continued ... Wefalck
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I have used slices of cored soldering tin in the past. The flux can be washed out with acetone and the soft material allows it to be 'forged' into the required shape. However, for my current project that will be mainly rigged with 0,2 mm home-made rope (in 1/90 this translates to 18 mm diameter, which is a diameter that can be handled well under all weather conditions) these thimbles would be still too big. I think, I will be filling in the eye-splices with lacquer and then drill a hole through. They will be coloured by turning a sharp pencil in them, which gives a sort of metallic finish, looking as if they have been zinc-coated. wefalck
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