wefalck

Blocks with internal iron strops are a pain ... so far I have not had a good idea how to make these, particularly in smaller scales/sizes. There is just not enough 'meat' at the top of the blocks to glue in the eyes or hooks. At the bottom end this is not an issue. I don't think blocks and mast/spars would be of the same colour. They would have be made of different kinds of woods. In the late 19th and 20th century blocks also were often painted, e.g. white or 'mast colour'. wefalck

Nothing is 'permanent' in life ... except stains on your favourite trousers Actually, sometimes(!) incompatible paints and varnishes can be used when applied by airbrush. The respective solvent evaporates before any dissolution and diffusion of the underlying paint can occur - provided one applies thin coats only. This is also a method to applly several layers of the same paint or varnish that would dissolve previous layers when applied by brush. In any case, I would try it out on a test piece. wefalck

Right - acrylics are not resistant against ethanol/methanol, which is the solvent in traditional shellac (... a lot of cabinet-makers in the old days were alocoholics ) ... For same reason one should be cautious with alcohol-based varnishes that are sold in spray-cans e.g. for water-colours or pastels. wefalck

Britannia metal probably is best primed, as the tin alloy has a slightly hydrophobic surface. This holds particularly when using acrylics. On the model of the Zuiderzee-Botter I spray-painted the homemade Plexiglas-blocks in a light tan and brushed on washes of burnt umber acrylics. They then were sprayed in a semi-gloss varnish. I would avoid simulating any wood grain, as for good reason tough fine-grained wood would habe been used for blocks. Another method of painting I used is to first spray-paint the blocks in a light tan and then to apply a solvent-based tinted wood varnish. wefalck

The old painter's rule is fat over lean, meaning never use water-based paints or varnishes on oil-based paints or enamels. In other words, you can use almost anything on acrylics. I don't know anything about the brand of the varnish you mentioned, but presume that it is acrylics-based. Acrylics may need a certain time, some days, to fully harden. They may de-swell, giving off excess water during this time. So it would be a good idea to postpone varnishing a few days or even weeks to avoid tensions between the layers. If, however, paint and varnish are similar products, it may be a good idea to apply the varnish layers quickly, as they would better key into the fresh paint. wefalck

Not much progress on the Botter-model since I came back from vacation. Once reason is also that in the meantime a little item ordered in China had arrived: Ever since I came across the LED ring-lights for cameras and microscopes, I thought something like this would also make a good illumination for the milling machine. However, all these lights were to big and too expensive for the purpose. With my limited electrotechnical and electronics knowledge I did not dare to put something together myself. Then I became aware of the so-called 'angle eye' cosmetic tuning parts for cars. Apparently, these are fitted around the bulbs in car headlights to give the headlight a aetherical appearance. They are produced, guess where, in China and sold via ebay at a price at which I cannot get the components, not considering the hazzle of soldering everything together. I ordered a couple (for obvious reasons they are always sold in pairs) and fabricated a lamp around these rings made from epoxy base-material. The components of the lamp As I wanted to protect the LEDs from oil splashes I chose a Plexiglas-offcut of suitable size and bored an annular groove into it. The groove has a shoulder on which the epoxy ring rests so that the LEDs do not touch the front cover of the lamp. Turning the lamp body The outside of the lamp was milled to shape by holding the body in a three-jaw chuck mounted on my upright collet-holder. Shape-milling the lamp body The backside is covered by a washer-like lid turned from a piece of bakelite sheet. Into the 'handle' of the lamp a neodynium magnet was embedded that holds the lamp to the spindle of the milling machine. Turning the lid The lamp was painted using a stainless steel acrylic paint. The finished i-Mac-style lamp As LEDs require a current-stabilised power-source, I ordered, again from China, a small electronic transformer or 'driver' for LEDs. The lamp in action More: http://www.maritima-et-mechanika.org/tools/attachments/attachments.html#Ring-light Now work on the model recommences ... wefalck

I have used artist's acrylics (by the German manufacturer Schmincke) for some 30 years for air-brush application (it comes in bottles with the right consistency to be applied directly). More recently the Spanish manufacturer of artist's paints Vallejo, came onto the market with a good range of modelling air-brush-ready paints. I use the same paints also for application by brush, but this needs priming on certain materials. I also use traditional artist's oil paints, e.g. for painting details on figures. wefalck

This is an air-turbine. You need a good compressor for it ... wefalck

You may want to go through this Web-site: http://www.plasticsoldierreview.com/. It concerns figures that are nominally 1/72, but in reality there is quite a variability of the 'average' height chosen by the various manufacturers. You may find an 'oversize' set that is more towards 1/64. Otherwise, dive into virtual 3D-computer modelling and have the results printed in real 3D. I believe that 'anatomical' virtual 3D people are available as a starting point. Could be an interesting small business idea ... wefalck

Historex only works in the 1/32 or 54 mm scale. The problem is that 30 mm is the classical flat figure scale and rarely any fully round figures were produced. For a short period there were one or two UK manufacturers (one of them had been later sold to Sweden, I believe). They had an outlet in Shepherd St., Central London, but have long gone. wefalck

The purpose of an independent 4-jaw chuck is to very precisely center stuff, round or square, to the point you want to have it on. So this is not defect due to low price, but intentional. It is tedious to center stuff, e.g. with a feeler gauge, but the most precise way, sometimes more precise than with self-centering chucks. wefalck

These wargaming figurines in general look more like garden gnomes than normal humans, their proportions are not good at all. Some years the United States Post Office made a rather customer-unfriendly decision and stopped what was called 'surface mail'. Stuff did take 8 to 10 weeks to arrive in Europe, but with a bit of planning it didn't matter and it was a lot cheaper than 'airmail'. It is quite strange, as you can get stuff from China for almost nothing ... not a good move in a globalising economy. wefalck

You can gain height by rigging a tackle (or using the braces) at the opposite yard arm to tilt the yard. You loose some clearance off the ship's side though. As noted above this was a common arrangement to load/unload at the quay-side. wefalck

Sounds pretty dangerous in anything but a dead-calm sea. Harland describes/illustrates exactly the same procedure as popey2sea described. wefalck

Not specifically for the ENDEAVOUR, but this book give a detailed description of how it would be done: HARLAND, J. (1985): Seamanship in the Age of Sail.- 320 p., London (Conway Maritime Press). wefalck

My God, what are you going to do with such a huge lathe, turning soup dishes ? What modellers need (e.g. for masts) is a good centre distance. And remember: you can wood on a metal lathe, but not the other way around. If you only have money and space for one lathe, get a metal one, though they are a bit more expensive. wefalck

Actually, it is almost certainly not stainless steel. Stainless is not normally used for such things, too difficult to machine and usually cannot be hardened easily. If it is for 'one-hand operation', than it is a different animal from the plastic chuck for the Proxxon: it means that it is a centric 4-jaw chuck, all jaws move in and out together. Such chuck is really only useful for square stock. These days you can get quite cheap chucks of all kinds from Chinese sources. Check on ebay. The Sherline ones are quite good and come with different threads in the back, so you may find one to fit your lathe. wefalck

I didn’t like the sewn-on fore-stay in the end. So I went and fabricated a minute hook from copper wire. Once the hook is tinned and soldered together it is actually quite resistant against the forces on it during the rigging operation. The now correctly attached fore-stay Lucky me that I am not dafi working on his VICTORY and that I don’t need hundreds of them ... wefalck

I still found time to begin with the rigging. Work will progress only slowly since the parts are rather delicate and the work is rather nerve-wrecking. At the prototype one would install, of course, the fore-stay first. The fore-sail would be attached with its iron hoops. In my case, however, the hoops have already been sewn onto the sail, a work that would be largely impossible to do in situ. Therefore, the fore-stay has to be installed with the fore-sail attached to it. Form a modelling point of view sailships of the late 19th / early 20th century are quite difficult to rig. In previous periods ropes were often either spliced directly into eye-bolts or sewn on, which both are quite easy to reproduce in a model even at small scales. In later times, to the contrary, shackles and hooks became ubiquitous. It made the rigging and repair easier, but making shackles or hooks of 0.5 mm or 1 mm is quite impossible (the smallest shakles I managed to make are about 2.5 mm long). Just the fore-stay of the botter is hooked into an eye-bolt of the mast. Wire with a scale diameter would bent open under the load. So I had to take a shortcut and to sew it on. Reeving of the fore-stay deadeye with the help of a tripod There were various methods of rigging the fore-stay of a botter in use up to the end of the 19th century. I chose the somewhat old-fashioned method with a dead-eye. The lanyard was made from a rope made on my own rope-walk: three strands of Veevus fly-tying thread 16/0 in golden brown. The colour was chosen because the lanyard would have been tarred. I wanted to put a real wall-knot onto the end, but the fly-tying thread works almost like wire and is well nigh impossible to splice. The fore-stay deadeye The first picture shows my rigging aid: a small tripod that came from deceased father’s estate and was used to suspend a pharmacist’s balance (not sure sure what he ‚above’ would say to this re-use ...). A wire loop suspends the dead-eye so that it keeps clear. To be continued after my vacation ... wefalck

You cannot compare the Unimats with the DB250, the first are metal-working lathes (meaning that they have cross-slide), while the second is a wood-working lathe that only has a hand-tool rest. wefalck

Thanks, gentlemen. The dilemma one finds oneself in is that the paint-job on the original may have been pretty rough, so it should look rough on the model as well. However, most of the time a rough paint-job on the model looks just like that and reflects badly on the modeller. The art is to make a neat paint-job looking rough ... not so easy wefalck

Not really, when needed I get them from the electronic bay ... wefalck

I am mainly using so-called 'disposable' short end-mills. They are a few Euro the piece. So if something goes wrong, one doesn't loose tens of Euros. I use the short ones, because our machines are not stiff enough to cope with long tool overhang. For wood, 'secondhand' carbide mills are good enough. they come in sizes up to 3.2 mm (1/8"). They are often rather cheaply to be had and, therefore, also disposable. Disposable mills make sense, because re-sharpening requires special equipment few people have. wefalck

In wood, it should in general run as fast as you can, giving you a better surface. The feed depends on the wood. In some woods you may need rather low feeds, or it will burn. Wood is a poor heat conductor and cutting generates a lot of heat. Some woods are very difficult to mill, more difficult than metal or plastics - but I am not really an expert on milling wood. When milling metal with carbide, it is usually better to do this dry. Carbide is very susceptible to heat stress and unless you have one of those flooding-type coolant systems, you will not be able to produce a constant coolant stream. Applying a bit of coolant here and there will shock the carbide and may lead to breakage of the delicate cutting edges. You can apply say WD40 before the cut, but don't blow it on during cutting. wefalck

I didn't read all the above answers in details, so apologies for any duplication. HSS is tougher than carbide, meaning that it is more forgiving with the light machines we use. Carbide keeps the edge longer, particularly when milling wood. I think for doing a lot of woodwork, I would use carbide. It has to be run at higher rpm than HSS. Depending on the price you are prepared to pay, you may not have much to chose between 3 or 4 flutes. Three flutes are usually cheaper. Three flutes also give more room to the swarf, so it is better with materials that make long bits. The more flutes the better the finish on steel usually. Ball nose mills tend to be rather expensive and are only needed when you want a round corner. They are also used in CNC copy-milling, when free-form surfaces are to be shaped. Otherwise zylindrical mills are used. If you want to do plunge milling, you need a bit that cuts over the middle, i.e. once cutting lip extends to the centre of the mill. Most cheaper bits are like this, but you have to sure. When milling a slot, plunge-milling a series of holes is only a moderately good idea, as you may end up with jagged slot, unless you use a smaller diameter bit first. Don't attempt to mill a full-depth slot (depening on the final depth), but take out layers. The tangential forces may to much otherwise wor the bit and it will brake. You may have to experiment with rpm versus feed to get it right. In general, with our hobby machines, it is better to reduce feed, though this may be at the expense of surface finish. Feel free to ask more specific questions when they arise. It is difficult to give recommendations, when you don't know the parameters of the machining job, e.g. material to be machined, diameter of slot to be milled/size of surface to be planed etc., type of machine available etc. wefalck