wefalck

Here is some literature on Douro boats: BEAUDOUIN, F. (1965): Les bateaux du Douro.- 74 p., Lisboa (Junta des Investigações do Ultramar).

The work on SMS WESPE has once more stalled a bit, because I got side-tracked by some engineering work. I wanted to first complete the model, but then realised that a filing-machine would come handy when making certain parts … The die-filer is a machine that has all but disappeared from modern workshops. I suppose there are several reasons for this. Many consumer goods and toys that once would have been made from (folded) sheet-metal parts are now made from injection-moulded parts. For more delicate sheet-metal parts also photo-etching is being used. I believe the watchmaking and jewelry industry still uses stamped parts. However, also the methods for making dies has changed. While the stamp can be worked on using milling- and grinding-machines, this is often not possible with the dies, particularly, when they have to have sharp internal corners. The die-filer with its reciprocal, rather than rotary, movement allowed to do this. An inclinable table was needed to work-in the relief that permitted the stamped parts to drop out of the die. Today, electrical discharge machining (EDM) and laser erosion has replaced the old technique. Hand-held filing machines are still in use for work on injection moulds and similar tasks on complex surfaces. In a small model-engineering workshop, the die-filer still has its uses, mainly to work on precision sheet-metal parts and when one has to ensure that the worked-on surface has a defined angle with respect to another. A die-filer can also be used as a scroll saw. For this reason, castings for constructing a simple die-filer are still being sold commercially and and some small specialised machine maufacturers still produce different machines, mainly for the jewelry manufacturers. However, the latter ones are rather heavy and costly. Filing-machine for the jewel-making industry (http://www.walther.ch/hwz/d-fm77.htm) Kit for a filing-machine (http://www.martinmodel.com/MMPtools-subfiles/MMPtools-sub.html) Some bench-lathe manufacturer also offered filing-attachments that were driven from the lathe headstock. As the filing-machine is useful for clock-making, e.g. for working on the spokes of clock-wheels, some people made their own attachments for WW-type lathes and they are highly priced, when they appear at auctions. Cataract filing-machine for their bench-lathes (see: http://www.lathes.co.uk/cataract/index.html) Filing-machine from a 1913 catalogue of an unknown German maker Drawings for a filing-machine from a 1913 catalogue of an unknown German maker Building a filing-machine has been on my agenda for quite some time. With this in mind, I was able to purchase a treasure lot of rare Vallorbe machine-files. The lot contained round, half-round, tri-angular, and square files starting from 1 mm diamater resp. 1 mm x 1 mm cross-section, going up to 4 mm x 4 mm, and of various cuts. Unlike most other types of files, machines files are prismatic across their whole length and have uncut shanks at both ends. Treasure-box with machine-files A selection of machine-files I first thought about converting my only moderately useful Proxxon DS 230/E scroll-saw into a filing machine. However, the table would not tilt and the holders for the saw blade were difficult to adapt. Then a broken jigsaw attachment for a power-drill came into my possession. Having no need for such attachment, the idea of converting it into a filing-machine emerged. The jigsaw was completely stuck nothing moved, and the sole plate was broken off. After having drilled out the screws that held the lid, the reason was obvious: it was completely filled with saw-dust, including the ball-bearing, presumably because it was upside down used under a saw-table. After dismantling and thorough cleaning it worked again. This meant, that I had the mechanism and the casting forming the basis for a filing-machine. The disassembled jigsaw According to the tables in the machine catalogue fo 1913, from which above illustrations were taken, the maximum stroke frequency would be around 400 per minute for hard materials, or less for softer materials. I sourced in China a geared electric DC motor that is rated to have 400 RPM at 12V. The output torque should be sufficient for the machine to be driven directly. Geared 12 V DC motor to drive the filing machine In order to minimise the slot for the files, allowing to work on small pieces, the rotational axis for the tilting machine table should be in its surface plane and also should not move out of the centre line. The foot of the jigsaw was arranged in a similar way and only needed to be adapted. The table will rest on a half-round barrel that can be clamped down onto a corresponding bearing surface. I had some 40 mm diameter alumium in my stock from which I turned the barrel. It will be sawn into half and screwed to the aluminium machine table. The bearing for the barrel was milled accordingly. Similarly, some of the future bearing surfaces on the casting were milled flat, which just went up to the capacity of my milling machines. Luckily the zinc die-cast material of the jigsaw housing is easy to mill. Set-up for milling the bearing of the tilting table Part-machined jigsaw casting To be continued, once I got over my flu ...

These teethed belts and matching pulleys have a standardised tooth spacing and width. On ebay there seem to be various sources for them and some model shops have a small selection. Incidentally, the belt and the pulley on the above picture do not match, they should have the same width. While these belts certainly can transmit a higher torque than round or even V-belts, they do not act as a safety clutch as the other belts would. It is, therefore, easy to overload the motor, if something gets stuck in the machine.

When the strop is supposed to be served all the way around, one can also use a piece of silk-/cotton-covered copper wire and put the joint underneath the lashing, similar to what was shown in the above post. Such thread-covered wires are available from retro radio-stores and similar places, or sometimes on the flea-markets.

Only metal looks like metal … apart from this, the plastic modellers have tried to overcome this and there are a number of quite good metallic paints around now. It seems that Alclad is one of the best ones, but I haven't tried it yet myself.

Glue for 'paper' wall-paper is normally based on methyl cellulose (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methyl_cellulose). Commercial formulations have fungicides added to prevent degradation. If you are really concerned about longevity, you might also look into bookbinders-glue. A problem with wall-paper glue could be that it is somewhat hygroscopic and will swell at high humidity. However, as high-humidity may cause other problems with a model, the may be a minor concern.

I have a weak spot for these sometimes rather odd-looking and colourful Portuguese craft … need to get around to post my pictures from the museum in Belém on my Web-site. I'll be watching this log ...

… don't have a gun license **************************** The upper gun carriage Based on the profile drawings from (http://www.dreadnoughtproject.org) Part view of the drawings for the photo-etched upper carriage cheeks Surface etched cheeks for the upper carriage Filler and covering pieces laid out for soldering Assembled cheeks and ties laid out A core for the cheeks was sawn from 0.8 mm brass sheet and the etched covers soldered on. Then 'rivetted angle-irons', from etched parts were soldered on. These are connected by tie-plates. The frame of the upper carriage is also strengthend by horizontal ties. These are composites from several etched parts in order to show the rivetting. The horizontal ties were soldered to the side pieces, while the bulkhead-like ties were glued in because it would have been to difficult and risky to bring the heat for soldering at the right places. The covers for the trunnion-bearings were bent from an etched part and soldered together. Assembled upper gun carriage from the rear Assembled upper gun carriage from the front The upper carriage was further kitted-out with wheels. The front and rear rollers were turned from steel to give them a real 'steel' appearance. On the prototype the rear rollers sit in excentric bearings that allows them to be brought into to contact with the rails on the lower carriage: when being fired the upper carriage slides back on these rails, the rollers allow it to roll back into the firing position. Carriage with the barrel in place. Note the trunnion bearings cover (not yet trimmed to length) Added the rollers plus the sockets aft for the lever that is used to turn the excentric bearings of the rear rollers (Sorry, replaced the toothpick with a match - normal size not the large fire-place one ) To be continued ...

Lock for the 30,5 cm gun The next thing to be tackled was the lock piece or ‘wedge’. This 'wedge' has a rather complex shape with a flat front, but a round back and various recesses and cut-outs. I decided it would be best to undertake most of the machining operations while it is still attached to some (round) material that can be easily held in a collet. The round back was milled in an upright collet holder on my mill's rotary table after the various coaxial holes had been drilled and the flat sides milled, all in the same set-up. For machining the other recesses the piece had to transferred to the diving head on the mill. Round-milling the lock piece in an upright collet-holder on the rotary table Cutting off the finished lock piece The most time consuming part turned out to be the cover piece for the lock, which in the prototype was fastened by five hexagonal head bolts. It holds the moving and locking screws in their place. It took me four tries before I produced a half-way satisfactory piece. Soldering the microscopic bolts (0.4 mm head diameter) in place got me quite a few grey hairs. Finally a fake locking screw was turned up and the moving screw, which moves the lock in and out, was faked from a couple of drilled-together 0.1 mm copper wires, covered in a thin layer of solder to make them look like steel. Milling square and hexagonal bolts Facing the locking screw in special protective brass collet The large re-enforcement ring for the barrel was also turned up and two holes drilled into it for seating the rack quadrant that forms part of the elevating gear. In fact, I had cheated a bit, when drilling/milling the lock seat: the front of the hole should have been flat, which is difficult to machine; so I continued the elongated hole under the re-enforcement ring, which was made as a separate part and slipped over the barrel. The various parts of the lock were assembled using lacquer and cyanoacrylate glue. The (almost) finished gun barrel with its lock (toothpick for scale) To be continued ...

Thanks, gentlemen, for the encouraging comments ********** Milling the trunnion seats and the lock For drilling holes for the trunnions and milling the seat of the lock the diving head was set up on the slide-rest. I could have done this operation on the milling machine, but on the lathe the dividing head (http://www.maritima-et-mechanika.org/tools/dividinghead/dividinghead.html) is centred automatically. The outer end of the barrel was supported by the arm with an appropriate centre fitted. The resulting shape from the milling operation looks like a keyhole, but something like a mushroom shape with sharp edges is required. This was achieved by hand filing. Set-up showing for milling the seat for the lock Close-up of the milling operation in the dividing head with support Working drawing and files used to finish the lock seat For the next operation the set-up had to be transferred to the mill anyway: milling the seats for the square trunnions. The trunnions merge in a concave curve with the barrel. The trunnions were turned up on the lathe as disk with two round stubs protruding from either end. In the dividing head on the mill the disk was milled square to the size of the seat (or rather the other way round). These parts then were soft-soldered to the barrel. Back on the mill the concave curves of the square part of the trunnion were milled using a miniature ball-head cutter, rotating the barrel in the dividing head. Milling the square part of the trunnions Milling the seat for the trunnions Trying the trunnion Milling the concave transition between trunnion and barrel Aiming a gun in these days was a rather primitive affair, using just simple sights. The sights (two of them on either side of the barrel) consisted essentially of a round bar with a sliding rod to give the elevation. The beads (mounted near the trunnions) were observed through a ring of inverted U-shape on top of the rod. The bar was screwed into a notch in the barrel. Now, drilling into a round at a tangent is nearly impossible without deflection and breaking the drill (0.3 mm!). Therefore, I ground flat a broken drill bit to make a make-shift micro-mill and sunk a start hole. This was finished with an ordinary drill. Milling the seat for the sights Drilling the seats for the sights To be continued ...

Don't know about kits, but like to work with it, because it is (largely) isotropic, i.e. it doesn't matter in which direction you are working. The material is designed to not warp. It sands and glues well, it is also easy to saw. It holds sharp corners. Hardness and compressive strength are slightly different vertical to the board and horizontal, which is due to the manufacturing and partily intentional. The idea is give a relatively hard surface, while keeping it workable. I seem to have heard some warnings against breathing-in the dust of MDF, but I don't actually know what the issue is. I not producing a lot of dust, so it wasn't something I was worried about. As it is is easy to get material in sheets from 1 mm thickness on in shops that cater for architects, I assume it is very popular with them. It can also be cut easily using lasers.

These appear to be artistic representations of a certain Aldo Cherini. He has been very busy, but unfortunately, he does not give any sources for his drawings, so that it is impossible to ascertain their correctness. Some people actually do model pacific boats: http://www.maritima-et-mechanika.org/maritime/models/ellice/ellicecanoe.html http://www.maritima-et-mechanika.org/maritime/models/gilbert/gilbertcanoe.html

And the show goes on ... ************** The gun barrel and lock Turning the barrel Because there will various visible areas of bare metal, the material of the original, that is steel, was chosen. A piece of round bar was faced, centred and rough drilled for the bore. This hole served as a protective counter bore for the tailstock centre during the following turning operations. In order to get a good finish the automatic longitudinal feed for the lathe was set up with the change gears. Unfortunately the minimum feed per revolution on the watchmaking lathe is still too high to get a 'mirror' finish. One day I have to construct some sort of reduction gear. The outer part of the barrel has a slight taper (1 degree included angle) and the top-slide was off-set accordingly for this operation. Facing and centring a piece of steel rod for the gun barrel Rough drilling of the gun barrel Turning the barrel using the automatic fine feed Taper-turning with slide rest off-set For rounding off the ends of the rings the lathe’s hand tool rest came to good use. The work was finished off with fine wet-and-dry paper (remember to cover ways!) and steel wool. The bore was bored to diameter using the slide-rest and a micro-boring tool. I had originally envisaged to also show the rifling, but a quick calculation told me that for a 1 mm bore and 72 rifled fields I would need a tool edge tha is just over 0.04 mm wide ... Rounding the 'rings' using a hand turning rest Boring the barrel using a micro boring tool To be continued ...

Are you trying to achieve a 'realistic' or an 'old museum model' look ? For a realistic look the deck is way too dark and too brown. Real decks are usually quite bright, more like newer wood, due to constant cleaning. They also attain a more greyish hue due to the weathering of the wood. Your deck currently looks more like what you see on old museum models, where the wood has darkened and accumulated some dirt.

@bear, I must say, you rather embarrass me with your praise I gather, a professional mechanic would throw up his hands into the air seeing me doing things, being just a self-taught amateur. Actually, collecting old machine tools and their restoration developed into a hobby of its own: http://www.maritima-et-mechanika.org/tools/toolsmain.html ******** Back to the subject …. Rack-and-pinion drive for training the gun The gun was trained by pinion acting on a circular rack. The pinion was driven from under deck by a sets of gears and a couple of cranks manned by a number of sailors. The chief gunner was able to connect and disconnect the drive with levers from his aiming-stand behind the gun. I set up my hand-shaper (http://www.wefalck.eu/mm/tools/shaper/shapers.html) for cutting the rack teeth, but had to throw away the first two attempts because of the poor material and because - again against better knowledge - I did not lock the traverse slide when cutting. The table was removed from the shaper and the home-made dividing head bolted on instead. For lack of a proper tool grinder (another project now in hand) I hand-ground a cutter for the rack teeth (0.1 mm at the bottom) from a rod of high-speed steel. For holding this tool-bit in the shaper, an old lantern-style tool holder from the watch lathe came very handy. The unwanted parts of the ring were cut away on the shaper using ordinary left and right hand lathe tools. Finally the necessary sections were trimmed off with a fine saw blade on the lathe's sawing table. Hand-shaper set-up for cutting the toothed rack Cutting the toothed rack with a specially ground tool Cutting away the unwanted part of the ring with an ordinary tool Rails and rack provisionally in their place inside the barbette To be continued ...

The 30.5 cm Rk/l22 gun The main armament of the WESPE-Class was a massive 30.5 cm (12”) Krupp breech-loading rifled gun (Ringkanone, abrev. Rk). This caliber stayed the bigges in the German Imperial Navy for many decades and well into the Dreadnought-era. It is this gun that essentailly made the boats in floating batteries, rather than ‘real’ ships. http://www.dreadnoughtproject.org) A few years ago a detailed dtawing of gun-mount originating in the adminralty archives in Berlin surfaced on the site ‘dreadnought’. The arrangements for all the heavy Krupp guns of the time were similar, so that a visit to the Finnish fortress Suomenlinna (http://www.maritima-et-mechanika.org/maritime/models/wespe/suomenlinna/suomenlinna.html) off Helsinki was helpful; here a number of Russian clones of 28 cm coastal Krupp guns are still in place since the time, when Finnland was part of the Russian Empire. 28 cm Krupp-clone coastal guns in the Suomenlinna-fortress off Helsinki Rails for the Lower Carriage The lower carriage of the gun is supported on four races that run on semicirucular cast-iron rails bolted to the deck inside the barbette. These rails need to go into their place in the barbette early during the construction. The same applies to the semi-circular toothed rack that is part of the gun-training machinery. I decided to make the rails from steel, even though ferrous metals in model construction are frowned upon by many. My justifications were that it is difficult to represent cast iron or steel by paint and that there hundreds of models in museums around the world that contain iron. I have used steel in models some twenty years ago and presumably due to the lacquering they shows no signs of rust. Roughing out the rails from a metal disc with the backing of a wooden disc Grooving the races with a specially ground bit Cutting thin disks from round stock of large diameter is a pain I wanted to avoid. Against my better knowledge I picked a suitably sized steel washer as starting material. Unfortunately, the steel used did not machine very well and lot effort was spent to avoid chatter marks while turning and to obtain a reasonably good finish. The various types of wheel collets and chucks available for the watchmaking lathe came into good use for working on inside and outside diameters of these discs. The rails were shaped using a specially ground forming tool. Cutting out the inside of the large ring for the tail-races of the lower carriage, while holding it in a so-called bezel-chuck Trimming the outside of the smaller forward ring holding the material in a so-called wheel-chuck The rails laid out in the barbette To be continued ...

The standard type of equipment was already mentioned. Concerning tooling: If you are planning to mill wood, plastics or aluminium, carbide end-mill with 3 mm or 1/8" shaft come handy. They can be bought at a reasonable price e.g. at electronic bay and come from e.g. the aerospace or circuitboard industry, where they are replaced before they get dull - it is cheaper to replace them before they get dull than to throw away ruined work-pieces. For our purposes they are still good enough. On a machine like the MF70 I would always use drills with thickened shaft, they run much more concentric. They come with 1 mm, 1.5 mm and 1/8" shaft, depending on the size. Again carbide drills down to very small sizes are available from the same source mentioned above, but beware they are very fragile. If you have also a lathe, you will probably begin to make useful accessories for the mill. I could think, for instance, of a fly-cutter that allows you to mill flat larger work-pieces. Another useful piece would be an indexing block for the PROXXON-collets that can be held in the vice - great for quickly milling-on flats/squares. Talking about vices: my favourite ones are the screwless ones that were originally designed for e.g. EDM-machining. They come in small sizes and the movable jaw is pulled towards the workpiece as well as down.

It is always best to consult reference books on the period of the ship you are modelling. I believe the FAIR AMERICAN dates from the late 18th century, so there should be several of books on rigging ships of that period that you could consult. Some of them may be even available on-line. I believe Darcy Lever's early 19th century book is available for downloading somewhere. One has to distinguish between yards that would normaly stay put and those that would be hoisted up when setting sail. The method of keeping the yard near the mast would differ. As noted by the others before me, a rope, the 'parrel' would be slung around the mast and the yard in a particular fashion. In your period it may be in two parts which have been spliced around yard and has an eye-splice in each end; the two ends with eye-splices would be taken around the mast and lashed together. On the hoisting yards you may find also wooden cleats with a half-round hole; a rope- or iron parrel with hinges would secure such yard to the mast. Sometimes parrels could also be loosened or tightened from deck level; this may be necessary when bracing-up hard the yards. The best model solution is always the one closest to the prototype, irrespective of scale. Due to the limits of material dimensions (and your dexterity) you may have to simplify things. However, I would dare say that the parrel-arrangement as discussed above could be even reproduced in a 1:200 scale and believe there are examples for it on the Web (look for miniaturist, such as McCaffery). Your ambition is the limit ...

I have been using an undercoat of Prince-August (a French packaging of Vallejo it seems) 'bois' (='wood') acrylic underpaint and then a thin layer of acrylic 'wood stain' from a DIY. This then was 'weathered' using thin washes of acrylic 'burnt umber'. The colours in the photograph below are sligthly distorted due to the mixed-temperature lighting, but comes close to what teak might look like (though the intention was actually tarred, weathered oak, hence also the weathering with white pastel):

Yes, Plexiglas is a nice material to machine. I have been making small deck-houses etc. with this method since the late 1970s. My late father worked for a sister company to that manufactured Plexiglas (Röhm GmbH) and we had easy access to it in all sizes and shapes. Röhm GmbH also produced a comprehensive technical manual for working with Plexiglas, of which I have a copy - very useful.

One day I would like to build a model of a yacht like this as well … what scale did you say is it ?

Engine-room skylight The frame of the engine room skylight consists of a an etched brass part, folded up and soldered together. On the inside, grooves have been etched that will serve to locate the protective bars to made from thin copper wire. The lower frame was constructed from Pertinax. The ‘wooden’ gratings on both sides of the lower frame are again etched parts. Unglazed framework for the engine-room skylight Once this structure was complete, a square block of the size of the footprint of the skylight was milled from a piece of Plexiglas. Squaring up a Plexiglas block for the skylight In the next step the roof-shaped faces were milled on. To this end, a small insert vice was set to the appropriate angle of 40° in a larger vice bolted to the mill table. The fixed jaw of the insert vice pointed upward and the side of the block to be milled rested against it. This ensured that all four inclined faces would have the same angle and would start from the same height with respect to the reference (bottom) face of the block. Milling the sloping faces Polishing the sloping faces A very smooth surface with little tool marks can be achieved on Plexiglas. The final polishing of the surfaces was done using CRATEX-type drum polishers followed by a felt drum loaded with polishing paste. All in the same vice setting to ensure a flat surface. I was lucky the Plexiglas 'house' fitted like a plug into the skylight frame. Finished Plexiglas 'glazing' block Glazed engine room skylight To be continued ...

Drawplates for wire and drawplates for dowels are different animals. The one for wires do not cut, but reshape it, by forcing it through a conical opening. One can probably abuse the ones for wire to make dowels by drawing the wood the wrong way through. However, it is important that there is sharp cutting edge. When drawing wire, one needs to anneal the wire between each pass, as it may work-harden. Drawing is normally done on a sturdy drawing-bench that allows to pass the wire straight through the drawing plate or die and to apply a steady force. The wire is pulled with a special pair of pliers, the closing force of which is proportional to the pulling force.

You are certainly correct concerning the shape of the planks, they were irregular, economising the available wood. I think, however, the original question concerned the third dimension, that is the thickness. Reconstructing the original thickness is quite problematic, as the wood shrinks in different ways, depending on the species of wood and how it was cut from the tree. I am inclined to think that the surface was quite even, no steps between planks. Otherwise, it would have been rather difficult to caulk the hull and the deck. Steps would also be very exposed to erosion and weathering, increase the drag of the hull and constitute a tripping hazard. These were factors people even 400 years ago were aware off (to some degree). The absence of pointed pieces has good reason: it is almost impossible to caulk such parts permanently. The part would always bend and move.

Shouldn't be too difficult to turn them on a lathe or even a power-drill with some files and a template ...