wefalck

For engraving in metal there are two methods: - filling in with (black) paint; this should be a hard paint, so acrylics are not a good choice, as once the paint is dry, you would rub down the excess with fine(st) emery paper; this is a common process for instrument scales, door-signs, etc. - applying metal black (on suitable metals) and then same process as above. In principle the same technique can be applied to wood too. However, the wood needs to be sealed first with wood-sealer and then some gloss(!) varnish, so that excess paint can be wiped off quickly. Finally, the varnish can be rubbed down again or some matt varnish applied on top. Again this technique can also be applied to (laser-)engraved surface that have been painted. One would not rub down the varnish, however, but rather apply a thin coat of matt varnish. I have used all of the above techniques on a variety of materials.

Can't you make such boxes yourself? You could fashion them as open trays right away. I don't know in what sizes cardboard is sold in the USA, but if there are sufficient lengths, one can cut strips of the desired width and assemble them with old-fashioned packaging tape (the one that needs to be wetted, not the self-adhesive one, which looses its tackiness over the years) or perhaps duct-tape. I for myself made a wall-hanging rack with horizontal shelves, so that short pieces can be kept at the front. Not an ideal solution, but the wall above my machines was the only place I had and here in Europe all materials are sold in 1 m lengths.

I think we had discussions on drafting implements in another thread quite a while ago. There is also an intermediate option, but I am not sure of the correct technical term in English. The translation from German would be something like 'funnel pen', which is quite descriptive. It is essentially a thin tube (the outside diameter determines the line width) with a funnel-shaped reservoir on top. A thin wire in the tube allows to declog it, when needed. It's the low-tech predecessor of the 'modern' drafting pen. They are designed for use with inks, rather than paints. However, I know from my mother that they are also used with gold suspensions in porcelain decoration. A while ago we discussed druxey's technique of making sails and I understood that drawing those lines with a bowpen also aims to add volume to the line to simulate the doubling of the seams. How much volume do those road-lining pens add ?

Perhaps your knight is a 'dragon whisperer' ? Many years ago I built a model of a Knight Templar with the same kind of helmet. One thing I was never too happy with it the metallic appearance of the material. Somehow, the surface of these castings is always a bit uneven. I never tackled another model like this, but perhaps today I would look into smoothing the surface with a burnishing steel or agate, rather than just polishing it with a felt-wheel. Has anyone tried to burnish such metal parts ?

Indeed, finding the right sequence of placing things on the model can cause a bit of headscratching, demanding foresight exercises, and imagining of possible interferences ... I tend to make the parts separately first and then paint and assemble everything. Nice work so far, as others already said!

Have to take some pictures ... it is actually a small rolling mill from the jewellery trade to enlarge rings. It needs to be modified still to drive both rollers for the purpose of rolling wire.

Valeriy, that's actually a clever idea, that could be possibly adapated in the other direction as well, meaning to very small half-round profiles, say below 0.5 mm wire diametres. Perhaps the process could be aided by embedding the wire during winding into shellac. Once machined, the shellac can be easily dissolved in alcohol to free the profiles. I have used a similar process in the past by cementing with shellac short sections of wire to a small aluminium block and then grinding away half of the thin wire. The drum method obviously would result in longer and probably more uniform profiles. And yes, by repeating the process on four sides, one could probably produce miniature square and rectangular profiles from round wire - I recently purchased a small rolling mill for this, but these profiles would still have slightly rounded edges. 👍🏻

Looks like a very modern lion - on an electrical scooter 😁

I would suspect that these bars (old rails upside-down?) are distance-pieces to prevent the cobble-stones coming into direct contact with the rails. As you can see from Amateur's sketch the wheel-tire actually protrudes slightly beyond the head of the rail. If the cobble-stones were a tad too high, the tire could touch them. One doesn't seem to see this kind of arrangement on tram-rails laid into tarmac or concrete. And yes, tram-rails are better given a wide berth by cyclist - guess how I know that 😉

Fine-toothed HSS, the thinner the stock, the thinner the saw-blade should be to avoid 'hooking'. It sounds strange, but sometimes running the blade the wrong way around gives better results with thin stock (same for piercing saws). It can be also a good idea to stick sheet-metal to thin plywood or thick cardboard to reduce bending and hooking.

These aerials will be quite a challenge, even in 1:48 scale ...

In spite of your challenges, the planking looks good. As this is not an open boat, the inside look is not important and one can do a bit of tweaking. In clinker-planking it is important to remember that planks are not only tapered, but also curved (as seen in the plank diagram from the kit). That should take care of the up-sweep problem that you mentioned at some point.

Would the smoke-stack a single tube or would it have sleeve? If it was a single tube, there would be a lot radiation towards the 'cool box' ... Somewhere towards the rear of the boat would seem more logical from a thermal point of view.

Pin-rails post-script When trying to fit the pin-rail with the consoles attached, I realised that I had overlooked a point: the tumble-home of the bulwark. This means that the angle between the pin-rails and the bulwark-stanchions is not 90°, but is a slightly obtuse angle of about 100°. In consequence, I had to remake the consoles with this angle. As the process is essentially the same as described in the previous post, I am only showing a picture of the final result. Pin-rail on consoles affixed temporarily Another small tool-making digression Milling the above profile required that the stock is oriented perfectly parallel to the X-axis of the micro-milling machine. While orienting the little vice is quite easy with the help of squares, orienting the stock on the face-plate would normally require tramming it in with a lever-gauge. The problem is that the lever gauges are far too big for the little milling machine. So far, I have eye-balled it with a pointed cutter in the spindle and some light test-cut to verify. This has been somewhat time-consuming and unsatisfactory. Thinking about the problem, I remembered the so-called ‘wiggler’ (https://www.instructables.com/Wiggler-Center-Finder-for-the-Lathe/) and designed a tool based on the same principle. It is basically a stick that is pivoted at some point along its length, so that it can move freely at an angle. There is longer and a shorter end. The latter is brought into touch with the workpiece and any movement is amplified by the longer end. I miniaturised this to a total length of 33 mm so that it fits easily between the milling spindle and the cross-slide. It consists of a piece of 6 mm diameter aluminium rod, that is turned down at one end to 2.4 mm to fit into a collet of that size. The diameter was chosen, because it is the shank diameter of the common burrs that I often use as milling cutters. That saves changing the collet after tramming. Mini-lever-gauge and its ‘mechanism’ (right) The rod is bored out 3 mm along most of its length and a 4 mm recess of 1.5 mm depth is turned in. This recess takes up a disc that has been punched out of a section of some polyethylene tubing. The feeler lever is an ordinary clothes pin, the head of which has been turned concentric (the stamping process of the pin production does not lead to completely concentric heads). At the upper end of the bore, a section of the aluminium rod is milled down to half the diameter, allowing to observe the movement the pin in this window. The polyethylene disc is secured in the recess with a drop of general-purpose glue and the pin pushed through it concentrically until the pointed end arrives at the milled-out section. The flat has a few lines engraved to be able to better judge the movement of the point. With this the little tool is complete In use the pin-head is brought into contact with the workpiece and the slide moved a tad in until the point coincides with one of the lines. When running up and down the workpiece edge, one observes the movement of the point and adjusts the angle of the workpiece until the point remains steady. Tramming the mini-vice with the aid of the lever-gauge The tool is perhaps a bit crude and not as sensitive as a commercial lever gauge, but it serves the purpose. To be continued …

Could this mystery object be just a water tank to supply hand-wash basins and perhaps a toilet ?

That look like a glorified pen-holder with an ordinary drawing pen ... I have a whole collection of them, including the penholder from my school-days (when in art-class we did a bit of kalligraphy and pen-and-ink drawing). I have tried to use it with acrylic paints (Vallejo model air), but found that they dry rather fast, making it necessary to clean the pen frequently.

Looks really grotty ... as intended 👍🏻 I play around with gloss acrylic varnish and gloss acrylic gel to get the impression of something being wet, but I think I mentioned this already. NB, I wasn't aware that in the anglo-saxon world, culm means the gangue or tailings from coal-sorting or -washing. For me as a geologist Culm is a particular type of rock-formation (containing little coal actually) of the Carboniferous.

Great work, as usual! Did you show somewhere how you did the blocks for the boat-derrick?

Before I had a lathe, I turned parts exactly the same way …

Excellent ‘lathe’-work!

This boat has, indeed, rather full ends. I went back to the first page of the log and looked at the side elevation and one thing one notes that the planks rise at the ends - which is their natural tendency with full shape, particular for planks that are below the turn of the bilge. Could you perhaps mark on stem and stern the position where individul planks should land? A slight rise would actually take out some of the sharp bends - which is difficult to visualise and explain. I didn't go again through your research, are there any photographs of beached boats of this type (assuming that they have survived into the age of photography).

I think in some building processes, such cant-frames were actually fitted after the planking is on. Much like it is done in clinker building. This allows for a natural run of the planks, without forcing them around the cant-frames. However, doing it on the prototype, where the run of the planks is determined by tradition and the builder's experience is different from trying reproduce an actual run on a model.

If that is according to prototype ...

The tinier the pigment particles are, the closer you get to a 'metal' look. In the old days I used to stir gold bronze paint really well and then let it settle for a while, after which I only worked with the small particles still floating on the surface. I gather there is a similar effect with the marker pens, as in these the metallic pigment particles have to be really small in order to pass through the felt-tip.

See my response in your RANGER building log ...