wefalck

Thanks, yes they are straightforward MPGs. Windows Media Player or RealPlayer should work without a problem. I am actually working from a MAC.

Finally, with the machine completed, I managed to make a couple of short movies, showing it in action. However, it still needs to be tested in anger ... http://www.maritima-et-mechanika.org/tools/diefiler/DieFiler-video-1.mpg http://www.maritima-et-mechanika.org/tools/diefiler/DieFiler-video-2.mpg http://www.maritima-et-mechanika.org/tools/diefiler/DieFiler-video-3.mpg

Clare, I was not looking for anything in particular. I am interested in 'vernacular' or 'indigeneous' boatbuilding and noticed that not much seems to be available, at least in western languages. I have seen some scholarly studies on ancient Japanese craft, but not really anything on say the mid-19th (after the Japanese opening) to mid-20th (WW2) period. The link to Douglas Brooks is very interesting, thanks a lot ! I also noticed quite a few more models of Japanes boats in your 'recent builds' list. Are these somewhere on the Internet ?

I am not so much into kits and the scale is way to big for me. Does anyone know of plans sources for traditional Japanese craft ? I know that Pâris has couple, but was more looking for a modern treatment of the subject.

Advice always depends on what you want to do with the things and what level of precision you expect. Perhaps you can describe this in some more detail ?

If you have a lathe, you could turn yourself an end-mill holder that screws onto the thread on the spindle. The holder should be bored out to a tigh sliding fit for the mill shank, which would be held by three set-screws. However, the MF70 runs at speeds of 5000 to 20000 rpms, which might cause some serious balancing problems, so I would be rather not doing this.

I assume that the kit was designed after David McGregor's plans, so it may be worthwhile to get hold of a set. I vaguely remember that there was a model of SCOTTISH MAID in the museum in Aberdeen, but I think it is probably a modern one. Didn't take pictures in the dimly lit museum during my pre-digital age visit there.

I gather the problem is that wood is elastic, so the cutting edge has to be fast to cut, rather than to push the wood sideways and rip it. This why one needs (in theory) a sharp cutter and high rpms. Slower feed rates mean that shorter and thus less elastic fibres can be cut (my theory).

I would like to have a toolroom lathe too, could think of some high-class manufacturers, but it is a question of space, when you are living in an appartment, there are limitations Most milling machines run too slow for good-quality wood milling. However, I have seen excellent work done with them on hardwoods. There are tiny high-speed mills, such as the PROXXON MF70, that can be used to good effect on wood. They would be some sort of micro-morticing machine and for miling-on flats, dividing work, and similar.

In any case, I would look for a lathe that can take collets directly. This so much more handy, safer, and precise than a three-jaw chuck for many of the small pieces we are working on.

Good point about the Boley/Boley-Leinen 'Reform' lathes. Their bed looks similar to the WW-bed, but is actually smaller. While the spindle tooling is the same 8 mm tooling, anything that goes onto the bed will only work with one or the other. Another word on 'collecting' accessories. While they are compatible, headstocks and tailstocks may not be fully interchangeable. They were produced in batches and individual pairs of head- and tailstocks carefully matched to ensure concentricity. In most cases the production was so standardised using fixtures that there are no big problems, but they could be off by a tenth of milimetre. For WW- and Reform-lathes this can be fixed by scraping the foot of either head- or tailstock (if you master the art of scraping). For D-bed lathes the problem is almost impossible to remedy.

The Sherline motor and controller units are good buys (at least were 10-15 years ago, when I bought mine). I am driving my watchmakers lathes and one milling machine with them. Boley WW-style lathes are compatible with all 8 mm watchmakers lathe equipment. There may an issue with the thread on collets and in draw-bars. However, in recent years taps and dies for these rather special threads have become available again from model engineering suppliers, so that can be solved. You can also buy again collets and chucks originating in China at a reasonable price. They may be at the limit for high-precision watchmaking, but certainly are good enough for model engineering needs. Be aware, that the Chinese have decided to put a metric 7 mm thread on the spindle tooling of their watchmakers lathes, rather than the standard 6.85 mm x 40 t.p.i. thread. Howver, the Chines also make spindle tooling with the 'normal' thread. If you are looking at a Boley D-bed lathe (the bed has 20 mm diameter with a flat on top) make sure to stay clear of the ones with 6.5 mm spindle bore. They have been rare at all times (never understood, why Boley and a few other manufacturers made them, considering that the same manufacturers also made 6 mm lathes, which became pretty much a standard together with the 8 mm lathes). Spindle tooling with 6.5 mm diameter is very difficult to find second-hand and virtually non-existent in the modern after-sales market.

Instinctively I would have voted mainly for oak bark due to it high contents of tannin, but it seems there are a lot of other suitable trees and bushes: https://braintan.com/barktan/2tannins.htm.

I actually find fabric, except perhaps for what is 'silkspan', unsuitable for model sails, except in very large scales. One can indeed hide some of the overscale coarseness by filling the fabric with paint, at the expense of loosing the transparency of real fabric. In the past I have used casein paints and since acrylics became available these. Acrylics have the advantage of staying flexible, so that the sails can be draped within limits. I am rather surprised that the 'tanning' process should result in a 'bright red' colour as mentioned above. From what I have seen in museums and other places, the bark solution is a dark brown, resulting in a reddish brown tint, once the sails have been boiled in it. In the traditional process the sail then would be smeared with a mixture of tallow and ochre. There are many different shades of ochre (which is an iron-oxyhydroxide), ranging from a rather bright yellow to a dark rust-brown. Heating the ochre will change its colour due to the loss of crystal water, for instance. I suspect, that some other dye has been added to achieve a bright red colour. Below is a tanned sail from botters in the Zuiderzeemuseum in Enkhuizen (NL) And my own interpretation of a botter sail in 1:90 scale, made from individual paper 'sail cloths' and painted in acrylics: The actual colours, of course, are not reproduced exactly as the eye may see it due to different colours of light etc.

On the images in the previous there are two parts visible that have not been discussed yet: a round cap that will close-off the electrical installations of the motor and a clamp to fix the machine at the workbench. The round cap actually is a bakelite cover for some electrical home installations and which had almost the right internal diameter. I just needed to enlarge it on the lathe by a few tenth of milimetres. It is held by two M1.6 cheese-head screws for which the casting was drilled and tapped. The clamp belonged to an obsolote electrical drill. The reciprocal movement of the filing machine will necessitate some form of fixation, or it is likely to jump around a bit. In addition, the high centre of gravity of the machine would make working with it like this rather unstable. Reduction sleeve for fixing the motor and 12V DC electrical installations It was now time to assemble the various parts. The ballbearing was thoroughly greased and pushed back into its seat. Next the drive shaft was pushed in and the crank and piston assembled. Holding the motor concentric in the casting initially caused a bit of headscratching, but then I chanced in the scrap-box upon a set of plastic reduction rings from a machine (they may have well belonged to the very jig-saw) and one of them had just the right internal diameter to fit the electric motor. The drive-shaft was secured with a set-screw to the gearbox output shaft. The scrap-box furnished also a rubberised cable complete with kink protector, for which the bakelite cap had been drilled out. When the assembly was complete, the machine was ready for a first test-run. Brass guiding plate During the test-run I noticed something previously overlooked: the piston did not have a firm guide to prevent it from rotating. It was thought that the crank would give enough guidance, but it still wiggled somewhat during each stroke, which is rather undesirable for precision work. Therefore, a brass guiding plate was added to the cross-head that slides along the crank-plate of the drive shaft and thus prevents the piston from rotating. One could have also made a new crosshead that touches the crank-plate, but I wanted to avoid a steel on steel contact and the guiding plate can be adjusted for wear. To be continued ...

Fair enough, Sherline seems to have changed their specifications then - for the better ! The Web-site pictures, however, still look like black anodisation. I am wondering what they do to the iron/steel surfaces then.

Well, the bodies (beds, cross-slides, tables, et.c) of both, Sherline and Taig lathes are, to the best of my knowledge, made from extruded aluminium profiles. The bearing surfaces may well have steel parts screwed on, but my knowledge of these machines is not so intimate. I think though the Taig cross-feed is all aluminium. Both manufacturers seem to use brass gib-strips, so that you have a brass-aluminium or brass-steel friction. The surface hardness of aluminium is less than that of cast-iron and steel, though the Sherline machines use an anodisation process that probably make them more scratch resistant. Therefore, the machines may not be as durable as machines made from cast-iron or steel.

Nature is complex and difficult to predict. You never know exactly what you have in terms of these organic acids, unless you did a chormatographic separation followed by mass-spectroscopy. I spent a signifcant proportion of my early professional life trying to model such systems … So you better avoid natural organics and go for something synthetic you know . The colouring molecules in tea and coffee extract in reality come in various variants of different molecular weights. While the molecules themselves may be not so bad, they decompose, when you put energy, i.e. UV-light, into them and you never know what these decomposition product are like and do. Decomposing organic inks are a major problem in the preservation of old manuskripts. Synthetic dyes have been developed for over a hundred years know and we have a certain body of experience with them in real time and from accelerated tests.

Peewee, it all depends, what you want to do with the lathe, i.e. what size of parts, repeatability of mounting, and whether you need screw-cutting facility. My personal preference are watchmaking lathes for their precision and versatility of workholding (if you have the full range of spindle tooling). However, screw-cutting attachments are rare and expensive - I have one . The UK is not so much into ebay, compared to some other countries, so you may have to source one through model engineering or watchmaking Web-sites. There are also new ones available from China. I cannot say anything about their quality, but it is certainly lower than that of the antique ones. On the other hand, they come with an integrated power-unit. If you go for a Chinese one, I would go for the bare machine without collets and chucks, as their chucks have a metric 7 mm thread. The traditional thread is 6.82 mm x 40 tpi and you can get lots of second-hand spindle tooling. If you opt for an antique one, go for the larger so-called WW-type, as this is more rigid, unless you want to work on some really small parts, when a so-called D-bed lathe would be good enough. The D-bed type seems to be more frequent on the European market, while the WW-type is more frequent in the USA. Cowells makes excellent stuff (I only have a vertical slide by them), but it comes at a price, even when second-hand. The so-call ME lathe is particularly sought after. Taig and Sherline lathes are made from aluminium. I don't really know how durable their ways etc. are, but there is a lot of information on them on the Web. Sherline makes some good chucks and I have several of them, but I don't have any experience with their lathes as such. In both cases, Taig or Sherline, I would opt for the so-called WW-spindle or adaptors to take watchmakers chucks and collets due to the versatility of that spindle tooling. You can find quite a bit of information on watchmaking lathes on my own Web-site below.

What do you mean by 'tan bark' sails actually ? Do you mean canvas sails that have been 'tanned' in a broth of tree bark and the smeared with a mixture of tallow and ochre ? Or do you mean sails made from tree bark as used on some idigeneous Pacific boats of old ?

I don't recall Harland talking about single masted vessels. There certainly is a description of how it was done in ships with 2+ masts. For single masted vessel I could think of two variants and believe they have been used some time in history. Whether this would be correct for the period you are interested in, I cannot say: - either the boom or the gaff could be used as a crane; it was probably the boom, as you would need some firm pivotal point (though you could arrange this with the throat halliard and the downhaul for the gaff); the boom would be raised using the topping lift and controlled by the sheets; one would need to rig a tackle for the boat to hook onto; the boat would have a … (forgot the English term at the moment) rigged between an eyebolt in the stem and the stern into which the tackle would be hooked. - similar to above, but in addition one would use the fising tackle for the anchor; the fisihing tackle is hooked into a lanyard that has an eye that goes over the mast usually between the stay and the shrouds; the fishing tackle would be hooked into the fore ringbolt of the boat, while the boom tackle would be hooked into the stern eyebolt; however, I think this method would only work, if you can also rig a tackle or line from arm of a yard; otherwise, it would be difficult to swing the boat clear of the ship. The first method was used at least in the later decades of the 19th century on trading smacks, when they did not have yards anymore. They had a heavy pulley to be hooked onto the boom for loading and unloading purposes, which would be also used for the boat - however, due to the hard work involved in getting the boat out and in, it was usually towed.

Thanks, gentlemen, once more for the praise ************************************* With all the machining completed, the various castings were cleaned up for their cosmetic appearance and lightly sanded to provide a better key for the new paint. The areas not be painted were masked with tape and and any openings stuffed with toilet paper. Parts masked for painting The castings were given a light coat with a filling primer, while the fabricated parts were just given a coat in an ordinary primer. Parts primed for painting After some light sanding and thorough de-dusting the parts were spray-painted in my favourite colour for machines, in RAL 6007 'Bottle Green'. I find the combination of bright steel, polished brass details, and the dark green aesthetically very pleasing. Painted parts after demasking On the images above there are two parts visible that have not been discussed yet: a round cap that will close-off the electrical installations of the motor and a clamp to fix the machine at the workbench. The round cap actually is a bakelite cover for some electrical home installations and which had almost the right internal diameter. I just needed to enlarge it on the lathe by a few tenth of milimetres. The clamp belonged to an obsolote electrical drill. The reciprocal movement of the filing machine will necessitate some form of fixation, or it is likely to jump around a bit. In addition, the high centre of gravity of the machine would make working with it like this rather unstable. To be continued ...

Just to enlarge the subject a bit: gloves and power-tools are No-No. Never wear gloves when working with either hand-held power-tools or stationary machinery. The gloves can easily get caught in tools or chucks and the torque even small machines can exert is devastating. They can rip off fingers. Personally, I rarely wear gloves for any work, as I just don't have the 'feel' with them. Being short-sighted, of course, I always wore glasses and feel naked without them. Past 45, when eye accomodation became a problem, I started to wear protective glasses, either plain or magnifying ones. Unfortunately, I don't have children (and consequently grandchildren) of my own, so I have no practical experience in teaching them. I remember, however, that my father forbid me to use his wood chisels. At that time, I rather thought in order not to damage them, rather than not to damage myself - as I always was building something, I 'lent' them from his unlocked tool-cupboard until I was given my own tools at about age 8. P.S. after having come across another 'thread': yes, I do wear leather gloves when cutting glass ...

Thanks ! Yes, I found it rather strange that the commercial die-filers only have one big hole. ************************************ The final piece of machining is finishing off the table blank produced earlier. A recess for the inserts had to be made. Normally, this would be a job for the lathe faceplate, but even with the rising blocks the centre height of my WW Lorch-lathe would have not been sufficient. Round-milling the recess for the table inserts Therefore, I screwed the table blank with spacers onto rotary table of the milling machine, which had been carefully centered before. The marked-out blank was in turn centered on the table. This set-up allowed to round-mill the recess to a depth, where the inserts are flush with the surface of the table. Table insert in place In the same set-up the clerance slot for the files was milled out to allow the inclination of the table to 45° in both directions. Using an insert as template, the mounting holes for them were drilled in the same set-up. This allowed to screw-down the inserts in their place and to mill the clearance-slots in them in situ, thus avoiding alignment errors. Table inserts slotted in situ Again, in the same set-up the holes for the table-bearing barrel were countersunk, which had not been done before, because the table surface was kept protected by its plastic film. Countersinking table mounting holes To be continued ...

Before retirement, Ivan was a real shipbuilder, working at the yard that maintains the Lake Constance fleet. He occassionally still works on restoration projects.