wefalck

Have you ever sawn acrylic glass or styrene ?

The Hyuda, like the PROXXON, seems to use non-standard size blades. It needs blades with a 10 mm bore, while the standard would be 16 mm, if I am not mistaken. As always with machines, one needs to check the availability of the respective tools.

It is difficult to say here what the chicken and what the egg is, i.e. whether there are no shrouds to allow the flexibility of the lateen or whether the lateen is so flexible because there are no shrouds. However, functionally speaking, the presence of permanently set shrouds and backstays would impair the useability and flexibility of the lateen. The nautical terminology, particularly the English/Dutch/German one, we use to day was largely developed for northern European vessels. Thus categories such as sheets or braces are not very well adapted to the operation of lateen sails. From the pictures you posted above, one can see that there are various 'ropes' with with one can control the position of a lateen. In general the points at which these are belayed or fastened are not fixed, but can be moved around to suit the needs of the moment. The lateen can be used before the wind almost like a square sail, turning a sheet into a brace etc. If there were shrouds this would be difficult or would take a long time to arrange or dangerous.

We are talking here about two different maritime histories and tradtions that at some point began to merge, recognising each other's advantages and trying to take the most appropriate from both. Mediterranean (and Arab) vessels originally do not seem to have had permanently set shrouds and stays. Mast for the lateen or settee sails could be quite short, but had to be stout and were firmly set into mainly heavy hulls mainly built skeleton-first. Backstays or shrouds (in this case there is no clear distinction) were set 'flying', connected with toggles to the hull and tightened by sets of pulleys. Nordic vessels used square sails and in consequence required taller masts that had to be comparatively lighter and in consequence needed stays and shrouds. Nordic vessels tended to be built lighter and shell-first. At some stage in the North the value or need of sails set up permanently for use in longitudinal direction was recognised - as long as you had a single square sail you could set it up also longitudinally, particularly when there were also flying shrouds (as in the Viking ships for instance). When the rigs in the North became heavier and needed more support, this was not possible anymore. It would interesting to speculate why the lateen was adopted (from which the gaff-sails seems to have been derived) and not a standing lug. Anyway, this led to the problem of handling a sail, that was not conceived for being set on a permanently stayed mast - hence the question: inside or outside of the shrouds. Conversely, the polaccre rig was developed in the Mediterranean to have the advantages of square sails. The mast was made longer and now needed permanent stays and shrouds, leading to the same problem with the lateen sail. I gather many vessels in that region used flying shrouds and backtays for that reason. In some areas the sling that keeps the lateen at the mast is also use as flying backstay. When going about the sail is lowered and the sling is taken to the other side and then the sail is hoisted again, sometimes after taking it around to the other side too.

Sorry, didn’t read this carefully and had these decorative tapes used in the automotive industry etc. in mind. Cheap papers can be a long-term problem because of their acidity, but otherwise the tapes of gummed kraftpaper, old-time packaging tape, are useful too.

Keith, I am rather hesitant using any kind of 'tape' permanently on a model. Plastic tape contains a high amount of plasticisers and these plasticisers over the years will evaporate, rendering the remaining plastic brittle and making it shrink and crack.

Aren't these knives with a single bevel specifically used to make the incisions for inlays ? The bevel faces towards the wood to be lifted out, while the flat does not damage the adjacent wood that remains.

Thin paper strips, perhaps wrapped in several layers, and soaked in sanding filler is another option for those iron bands.

It is probably important to make distinction between a true 'lateen' rig and using a triangular sail on an inclined yard resembling a 'lateen' sail. In a true lateen rig, there are no shrouds and no stays. The halliard serves to raise the sail and as kind of backstay. The yard is held to the mast by a sling that is operated from deck-level. In fact most of the sail operation is done from deck level - the absence of shrouds and ratlines makes getting up the mast at sea quite an adventure. On Arab ships (which did not use lateen, but 'settee' sails that had four corners) seamen went up the yard like monkeys for reefing (there is a variety of photographic and literary evidence for this). Whether the sail was swung around the mast when tacking seems to have been a question of fashion and size or type of vessel. On some smaller and shallower craft this may have been a dangerous operation. Probably still the best source on handling lateen rigs is VENCE, J. (1897): Construction & manœuvre des bateaux & embarcations à voilure latine.- 139 p., Paris (Augustin Challamel Editeur, reprint Editios Omega, Nice). Not sure whether there is a digital copy on the Internet (I own a hardcopy). On the pictures below you can see the traditional arrangement of halliard and sling, albeit with modern materials, on small boats from the Albufera lagoon south of Valencia in Spain: Own images from https://www.maritima-et-mechanika.org/maritime/albufera/Boats-of-the-Albufera.html

Looks a bit like the knife that European leatherworkers and in particular shoemakers use.

Nice progress, indeed ! It seems that (pilot) boats of a similar hull form have been quite common around the Danish and Swedish waters of the Baltic. They are well-suited to the sometimes shallow waters with rocks or boulders sticking up and at the same time can carry a lot of sail (like modern sailing dinghies) due the broad beam - important for pilot boats. The museum in Helsingør has a big collection of plans, including pilot and toll boats.

Very nice indeed ! Are the rigging blocks a commercial product or home-made ! How big are they ?

Talking about sawing thin sheet-metal: many years ago I built a kind of POB model of a steam-tug by constructing the keel part and bulkheads from 0.5 mm and 0.25 mm brass sheet respectively. At that time it did not occur to me to laminate the brass onto some plywood (and I would have considered that wasteful, but was struggling even with the fine sawblades I had. I then discovered that putting the sawbladed upside down into the saw worked very well. I was joking about the copper pans in the pantry - I think one should not turn this kind of model into a floating dollhouse.

Is the joint tight and precise enough ?

Somehow it didn’t klick with me, that you started another log here. Daniels’ book seems to be widely used, indeed, in the trade. I don’t own a copy, but have a variety of other, mainly antiquarian books on watch- and intrument-making. I’ll have to watch this log then as well ...

OK, should wait then for the pinas. I was thinking of the many shell-first (or at least part-shell), were there isn't a hard chine. Think of all the Nordic boats from the middle ages on or the Arab dhows, where builders plank up the shell up to around the chine and then start putting the timbers in. All is done by eye, using only an inclinometer to measure the angle of each strake. I was thinking of the pure technical process of construction, not of the design process based on some formulae. I am curious to see then how this determines the shape from that perspective.

Now you have to do the copper pots for the pantry as well

What kind of stove ?

Technically speaking, not historically, there should not be a link between the building method as such and the presence or otherwise of a chine. In both, carveel and clinker planking, one can introduce an angle between two consecutive planks. What is technically possible, however, does not tell you what was done. You obviously could only rule out a feature, if it is technically not possible.

I couldn't agree more !

Me culpa, of course, you are right ! Sometimes my native German gets in the way. There cleat = Klampe.

As I was on the boat-davits I also tackled the anchor-cranes in a similar way. ********************************* Anchor-cranes As noted above, the bow anchors are handled with two pairs of cranes that are positioned on either side of the anchor pocket. These cranes will be painted white in compliance will the prescribed livery. Hence, it does not matter what material is underneath and I first attempted to laminate them up from laser-cut Canson-paper parts. There are actually two sets of different cranes, one with three sheaves and one with two sheaves. They were made up from four and three layers of Canson-paper respectively and cemented together with lacquer in the usual way. The sheaves at the end are held by brackets that were lacquered on. Sheaves were turned and lacquered in. However, in the end the result was not as crisp as I had wished for. Set-up for milling the flats onto the davits The milling seen through the stereo-microscope So I turned back to brass, starting with pieces of 1.2 mm diameter wire. A spigot to fit into the sockets already installed on the boat were turned on and the other end received a male centre. The piece then was transferred to the dividing-head on the mill, supported by the tailstock. The four long flat sides were milled on with a small-diametre burr. The flat section is 0.8 mm high and 0.6 mm wide. The sides of the future brackets were milled flat. After re-chucking, a starter slot for the sheaves was cut with a circular saw. In the meantime, the sheaves of 0.9 mm diameter were turned from the same brass rod and the grooves, which are 0.3 mm apart were marked with a pointed turning-tool. The main craine has three sheaves, while the auxilliary one has two sheaves only. They were all turned in one piece and I did not bother to drill the sheaves for axles. The brackets on the cranes were bent to accomodate the sheaves, which were soldered in place. The shape of the cranes then were finished with files and abrasive discs in the handheld drill. The only photograph (blow-up) on which one can discern the belaying point for the anchor-tackle The tackles are belayed on clamps or belaying pins – the photographic evidence is not clear and on the drawings these were omitted. I decided in favour of clamps as these were easier to make. Set-up for the first step in making clamps A piece of 2 mm brass rod was chucked up in the dividing-head set vertically and a flat of 0.3 mm width and 0.9 mm height was milled on. This piece then was transferred to the lathe, where the T-shape and the 0.3 mm diametre spigot were turned. After parting off, the clamp was finished in a pin-vice using small files and an abrasive disc in the handheld drill. Turning the rough shape of the clamps and their spigot The clamps filed to shape As the clamps are fitted to the sides of the davits, 0.3 mm holes had to be drilled for their spigots. I did not want to do this before bending the davits, as it would have weakend them and the hole might become distorted in the process. However, it turned out the davits could be clamped conveniently in the mini-vice in the dividing attachment on the mill. Set-up for drilling the anchor-cranes Drilling the anchor-cranes as seen through the stereo-microscope The clamps were soldered into the holes. This completed the construction of the davits. The four anchor-cranes in place (they are about 10 mm high) To be continued ...

I once (a long time ago) bought a small pocket calculator, unpacked it and started to type on it wildly - until I ran into a problem. Only then I reluctantly unpacked the manual and on the first page I read this: "Do you also belong to those, who unpack, start typing wildly, resign and then look for the manual ... ?" So, you are not alone ...

Not sure from memory, but I think the PROXXON tools have a fine M8x1 thread (not the standard M8x1.25). Both, the tightening nut for collets and the chucks have the same thread. The PROXXON collets indeed are hard (not quite as my watchmaking lathe collets), but rather durable - I had their pillar drill for 35 years now without issues concerning the collets. PROXXON supplies a 3.2 mm collet for imperial measure tools, not sure, whether Dremel supplies collets for metric tools. I would normally use collets and not a 3-jaw-chuck - much more secure, better concentricity and less bulky. For some years I had a PROXXON power supply, but at some stage I seem to have killed it - probably one of the capacitors is gone, but I don't have the knowledge and instruments to check and replace it. I then pulled out an old model railway transformer, got a variable speed-control off ebay and set up a power-supply station integrated into my work-bench. It was different types of sockets for different tools and purposes. I then cut off the PROXXON proprietary plugs from my 12 V tools and replaced them with standard low-voltage plugs, for which I had installed a socket in the power-supply. The proprietary plugs are there to forces the innocent into buying the PROXXON transformers (they use the same marketing trick on their small table-saw for instance). Apart from this marketing trick I never had any issue with their tools and the only time I burnt out their bench-grinder motor, I got very quickly and at a reasonable price a replacement motor (was my fault, as I used it for too long continuous periods). I could have sent the transformer for repair, but doing this from France would have been too expensive. BTW, I don't have a hand-held drill from neither of the two companies, as the very early and primitive model of this kind of drills I bought some 45 years ago still works fine. It is essentially a motor in an aluminium housing with a switch at the end. A brass-tube is screwed onto the motor shaft that is threaded for a collet-nut. A set of metric and imperial collets in steel came with it. The hexagonal steel nut doesn't show wear, but I rarely need the spanner for tightening - it seems that the Dremel-cone is rather steep, so needs a lot of force to close the collet securely, while collets for my drill and the PROXXON ones are more shallow. Surprisingly the motor and its bearings have survived continuous intensive use for almost half a century now.

Watched the whole presentation on Wednesday evening. Very good and eloquent. Good to see another geologist at work here and putting the technological development into its socio-economic, cultural, resource geology and ecological context. Really appreciated it.