wefalck

Imitating expensive woods (or marble) has been very much en vogue until the 1920s or and still seems to enjoy a certain tradition in some countries. Some 30 years ago I picked up this instruction manual: Hemming, C. (1985): Paint Finishes.- 144 p., London (Macdonald & Co.). that describes in detail how to do 'wood-graining', 'marbelling' and other techniques and what tools and materials to use.

How many did you need to make to get ten right ?... I don't want to be nasty, but just have a bit of consolation that others are also struggling with small and flimsy parts

Nice job on the 'wood-graining' !

You are absolutely right, there is no modern book that summarises the developments from the middle of the 19th century to its end, particularly for naval vessels and those of mixed propulsion (Underhill and others cover most relevant aspects for the merchant navy sailing vessels). Some kind of continuation of Lee's book, but one needs to look at the various countries as well, as many innovations happend also e.g. in France. ... Perhaps a retirement project for me

That's a nice Renishaw tilting table that you have there ... their stuff is interesting, but rather pricey. Looked at it years ago and took some inspiration for home-made equipment. That's the beauty, when you have a lathe and a mill that take both the same spindle tooling, you can make a lot of tools for them yourself.

Well, ER are chucks are compressed from the conical surface, when the nut pushes it backwards into the cone. Due to the slotting from the front and the back, they have a rather wide clamping range, typically 0.5 mm per size. For this reason they are sold in 0.5 mm steps. ER collets below 1 mm nominal diameter are difficult to manufacture at an acceptable quality/price ratio. You can make yourself a sketch of the resulting forces and of what happens, when you insert a short workpiece into such a collet: there is a tendency to bend the collet tighter at the end, where it is not held open by the workpiece, as you push the collet in with the nut. This has a forward resulting component of the forces, that is the stronger, the shorter the workpiece is. Of course, if the tool goes through the full length of the collet, the bore of the collet will lay down equally onto the whole length of the tool. This is why ER are superior to the other collets, when it comes to tool-holding, because of the large contact surface. This distortion with short workpieces cannot happen in other types of collets that are only slotted from the front. The solid ring at the end prevents such distortion. They have a much narrower clamping range, usually 0.2 mm, and therefore are typically sold in 0.2 mm steps (at least for the size range of machines we use in our workshops). If you clamp a workpiece or tool the diameter of which is less than nominal diameter minus 0.2 mm, than it will indeed pinch only with the front edge, resulting in damage to both, collet and workpiece. Normally the bearing surface in such collets is between 0.5 and perhaps 2 or 3 mm long, so that even very short workpieces can be held securely. In my watchmakers lathe collets I can hold securily discs of 0.5 mm thickness and several mm in diameter. Such collets are manufactured normally from 0.2 mm nominal diameter upwards. One should also add, that into neither type of collets tools or workpieces larger than the nominal diameter should be forced. This will distort and eventually destroy the collet.

The problem is that the period in question has seen a dramatic evolution in rigging technology and practice. While things in principle became simpler, they have become more difficult to reproduce in (smaller) scale. For the standing rigging iron and then steel began to replace plant fibres as iron armatures began to replace good old rope stroppings on blocks and shackles replaced hooks or knots. Also in many places chains were used. This affected in particular also steam vessels, whose rigging and sail plans more and more deviated from the classical categories and layouts. In consequence, I don't think PETERSSON, L. (2000): Rigging Period Ship Models. A Step-By-Step Guide to the Intricacies of the Square-Rig.- 128 p., Washington (US Naval Institute Press). is going to be very helpful. I believe he focuses on the 18th and early 19th century. Better sources that show more modern practices would be: BIDDLECOMBE, G. (1848): The Art of Rigging.- 155 p., Salem, Ma. (Reprint 1990 by Dover Publication, New York). BRADY, W.W. (1852): The Kedge Anchor; or Young Sailor’s Assistant. Appertaining to the Practical Evolutions of Modern Seamanship, Rigging, Knotting, Splicing, Blocks, Purchases, Running-Rigging, and Other Miscellaneus Matters Applicable to Ships of War and Others.- 400 p., New York (Published by the Author). BUSHELL, C. (various edtions from 1856 to 1893): The Rigger's Guide and Seaman’s Assistant Containing Practical Instructions for Completely Rigging Ships of War – Second Edition, with sixteen addtional pages on wire rigging.- 214 p., London (H. Lewis). FINCHAM, J. (1854): A Treatise on Masting Ships & Mast Making.- 384 p., London. KIPPING, R. (various edtions between 1853 and 1903): Rudimentary Treatise on Masting, Mast-Making, and Rigging of Ships.- 150 p., London (John Weale). UNDERHILL, H.A. (1946): Masting & Rigging the Clipper Ship & Ocean Carrier.- 304 p., Glasgow (Brown, Son & Ferguson). If I was allowed only one book, I would go for Underhill. Biddlecombe and Brady give more practical details, while the later works are more concerned with the layout of riggings. I am not aware of an English-language book that specifically covers the period 1870/1880 and naval ships, while there is for instance a very good one in German for the austro-hungarian Navy. A good book with lots of very illustrative drawings relevant for the early part of the period is also BOWCOCK, A. (2002): CSS Alabama. Anatomy of a Confederate Raider.- 191 p., Rochester, Kent (Chatham Publishing).

Coming along nicely - what else ? .... I forgot what your plans were, will she be rigged ?

Daniel has become already pretty good with UV-curing resin printer and I have been bugging him to re. printed blocks, but the main problem is not the printing as such, but producing the digital sculptures (as someone last autumn already noted). It is a long way from turning your manually sculpted figures into printable files. Someone has to do that. As far as I know, Daniel is not really into 3D figure sculpting. Such things are always commercial questions, but it would be interesting to have a system similar to the abovementioned 'Hero Forge', where the basic animated figurines can be kitted out for different periods. There would be a range of basic poses that do not really change from century to century, but the attire will change more or less, say a group of sailors pulling at a halliard, going up the mast, furling sails, holystoning, etc. etc. If done in sufficient detail to cover say the 54 mm (=1/32) scale, they then could be printed in any smaller scale.

If you want to see the botters in action, here is a film made in 1930, shortly before all that disappeared because the Zuidersee was dammed-up:

Sure they got hot when worked hard 🙃 Fraxinus excelsior L. (ash) was probably the most used species of wood in Europe, perhaps also Ulmus spec. (elm). In Northern America probably also hickory (Carya spec.)

I am sure there are many different patterns of oars, depending on the environment they are used in and how many men row on one oar. Sea-oars in general are symmetric, meaning there is not front or back and they are straight, i.e. the blades are not dished. Per stroke they are less efficient than inland-water or racing oars, but they are safer to handle in a sea. For this reason they are also fashioned from a single piece of wood, rather than having separate blades, as is common in inland-water oars. As there are no heavy blades, there is also less need to counter-balance them apart from the gradual increase in diameter towards the inboard end. Inland-water oars often are much thicker on the inboard end to counterbalance the longer reach and the heavier blade. Just to mention, these rationales apply to European-type craft, while in other regions of the world heavily counterbalanced sea-oars are seen.

Just remembered that German colleague of mine wrote a three article series about the boat-oars used for the different types of boats used in the Imperial German navy. According to the contemporary sources the 8.5 m long cutter with 2.1 m beam and seven thwarts was equipped with the following oars: 12 oars in total of which 8 were type VI and 4 type VII. The dimension are then a per image: Type VI: A - 4250 mm, B - 2630 mm, C - 1400 mm, D - 220 mm, E - 140 mm, F - 16 mm, G - 8 mm, H - 43 mm, J - 65 mm, K - 40 mm, P - 815 mm and the leather cover 390 mm long. Type VII: A - 4000 mm, B - 2480 mm, C - 1400 mm, D - 220 mm, E - 140 mm, F - 16 mm, G - 8 mm, H - 43 mm, J - 65 mm, K - 40 mm, P - 815 mm and the leather cover 390 mm long. The longer oars are used towards the rear of the boat. So the oars have an overall length of around 13'11" and 13'2" respectively. The inboard end is about 41" and as there are two men on each oar they do not overlap in the middle, as they would for a single man on two oars.

Well, as others have said already, there is no such thing as a free lunch (or very rarely so). However, in my 35+ years of experience as (natural) scientific writer, peer-reviewer, corporate editor for an UN organisation and proof-reading editor for the German equivalent of the NRJ, I observe a change in the scientific publishing world. In the old days, when everything was printed, the publishing houses financed themselves through the subscription fees for their journals. Depending on the type of journal, for the most part subscriptions were taken out by (university) libraries or scientific institutions (through their respective libraries). To some degree, private individuals also took out subscriptions in order to have their private copies. For instance I had for several years subscriptions to Nature and Geochimica Cosmochimica Acta. The latter is published by the American Geochemical Society and part of the membership fee goes to financing the journal. The same system applies to many journals that are published by associations, e.g. NRJ or our German LOGBUCH. Journals also offered extra copies of their articles to authors as separate bindings against a (sometimes quite hefty) fee. Over here in Europe, universities and research institutions are usually funded by tax payers' money, so it us all, who finance the publication of scientific journals. This means the cost are distributed over millions of people so that the scientific world has this tool of exchange of knowledge. It is is a kind of mutualisation, as eventually the whole society will profit in one way or the other from the knowledge generated. Over the past three decades or so there has been a game change in the scientific publishing world and it has become more like 'real' commercial publishing houses, with increasing pressure to increase returns on investment, while some of the university-run publishing houses may have run on cost-covering margins only. This of course led to an increase of subscription fees. One should think that the transition to e-publishing with no printing, binding and mailing costs the subscription fees should have gone down, but that does not seem to be the case. In fact many journals started to charge the authors fees for publishing their work, while in the past this was mostly free or you had to pay only for fancy extras (e.g. colour photographs). As the funding for public institutions in the wake of Reagonomics/Thatcherism and due to shifting societal priorities was gone down, many (university) libraries had to become very selective with respect ot journal subscriptions. This made access to some journals or for people at smaller institutions difficult. However, there was/is always the option for distance loans or reprints of articles that these libraries offered for only a nominal fee. To counteract this problem, the European Commission requires from all its participants in research projects funded by them, that the work is either published in free-access journals or that you budget-in the cost of publishing in some high-flying journals. Peer-review is the traditional quality assurance mechanism in science. It is done on a sort of tit-for-tat basis, assuming that the whole scientific community participates in it: you invest your time in reviewing a paper, while your colleagues invested their time to review your papers. While it is normally anonymously to help towards impartiality and avoid bad feelings between individuals, it is also a way to improve your standing in the scientific world. And it is a way of learning and gaining knowledge before everyone else. However, the system now becomes a bit undermined by obscure on-line publishing houses, who charge everyone, authors and readers, but expect the peer-review to be carried out for free - I frequently get such requests from Asia ... Finally to the access to 'old' information. Of course, anything on which there is no copyright anymore is in principle free to access and use. However, the instiutions that hold this information (books, photographs, drawings, works of art, etc.) have costs and it costs them money to give you access to it. So it is understandable, that they have to charge you a fee in order to cover these costs. Again here comes the problem of diminishing funding for public institutions. While in the past this was seen as a common good and service to the whole society that in consequence was paid out of taxes, since the 1980s the paradigm shifted towards the idea that the 'actual' users should pay - which resulted in exorbitant fees (compare the pre-1985 fees for copies form the NMM in Greewich with todays fees ...), making this information rather difficult access. And then there are also those black sheep who exploit the laziness or ignorance of people by garnering information for free and trying to sell it. There is nothing wrong with companies that do information collection for you against a fee, but often they then pretend that they hold the copyright ...

This looks re-assuring.

Just checked against my more or less contemporary sources - there is a textbook on German (naval) boats that was first published in 1878 and then subsequently re-edited about every four years until 1929 (I have all issues either as hardcopies or ebooks). The '22nd class cutter' is of comparable dimensions, i.e. 8.5 m long between the perpendiculars and 2.1 m beam. It has seven rowing thwarts and the complement is given as 35 rowers and other numbers, which seems to imply four rowers per thwart - indeed rather crowded.

The price/quality relationship of the Sherline 3- and 4-jaw chucks is very good and I have acquired all their sizes for heavier work on my larger watchmakers lathe over the years. What is an advantage on smaller lathes is that their body is thinner and not so much overhung compared to other makes of chucks - of course they are less deep then, but it is an advantage, when machining shorter larger-diameter stuff. I also have/had a couple of their motor units, which at that time I bought them some 20 years ago gave a lot of power and good control. Unfortunately one unit ate its carbon brushes too fast and unnoticed so that I managed to destroy the commutator. Like me, many people use these units on other machines. However, with the rise of the electro-scooter, powerful motors and control units have become available now from other sources.

The Sherline certainly can handle steel. My concern would be steel swarf on extruded aluminium parts from which the machines are made. One has to be me more meticulous in cleaning, than for a machine made from cast iron or steel. If one also has the lathe, one can make a lot of spindle tooling oneself. I do this all the time on my watchmakers lathes and milling machines that all take the same collets. I think Sherline sells blanks to fit into their spindle taper, as well as various threaded arbors. There may be also blanks that screw onto the nose thread.

BTW, from a Japanese manufacturer you can get very small studded chain, that is printed in 3D ...

Unfortunately, Sherline choose to go for a proprietary taper in their spindles. Not unusual for manufacturers to ensure that you buy equipment from them. ER collets is a kind of standard for workholding: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collet#ER_collets. Now, that the Sherline has a different taper, you need an adapter, i.e. a collet chuck. They come in two different configurations: either they screw onto the spindle, like say a 3-jaw-chuck, or they have a tapered shank that is drawn in by a draw-bar. The problem is, that any 'interface' degrades the precision and with a collet-chuck you have two more than with a directly drawn-in collet. ER collets these days come in wide price range, from a couple of quid per collet from China to may be for 150€ for an original Regofix one. As you intend to mainly work on wood, run-out of all these configurations are probably good enough. It is important to remember that ER collets are designed for tool-holding. They are slotted from both ends, which means that they distort and have the tendency to 'squeeze out' anything that does not pass through the full length of the collet. If I had to choose between a drill-chuck in a mill or a lathe tailstock and an ER-collet chuck, I would go for the latter (and have done so), as it shorter and has less run out. Got a cheapo Chinese one and it is good enough for my purposes. Check all spindle tooling for the maximum rpms it is rated for. For instance normal drill-chucks are not rated for more than 5000 rpm or so and not for use with milling cutters, as they don't like side-pressure.

Why would you get an (ER) collet-chuck for the mill for which you can get proprietary collets. Didn't check the available sizes, but they certaily cover the typical end-mill shank sizes. In fact, I thought such collets would be the standard kit for the mill, how else do you hold the cutters ? The Sherline mill is mainly made for work with non-ferrous metals, I suppose. What is 'essential' in terms of accessories depends really on the type of work. I don't have a Sherline, but on any mill different sizes of vices for me are really 'essential' and I would not necessarily vote for the Sherline vice. Toolmakers insert vices are a more precise option and come in many different dimensions to suit the work.

I think this is a rather unfair comment ! If there is a straight anwer, you will probably get it. But it is a matter of asking also the 'right' question - a waffly question will result by necessity in a waffly answer. One has to specify the country and the period at least, as most answer will strongly depend on these two variables. What people today also tend to forget, that the shipbuilders of the day couldn't just walk into a DIY shop and get the material they wanted (and even today you may not find the right stuff for a job), but had to do with what was available. In general, naval yards had (more) control over their supply chain and could impose stricter rules, while in commercial shipping it was more a question of what the customer was willing to pay and what they were able to lay their hands on. So please be fair to those, who volunteer to make comments with the best of their knowledge on a subject, where a lot of detail knowledge has been forgotten over the centuries.

On German boats they use bronze inserts. Less wear and need for greasing, I suppose.

"The length of the model is 1728 mm, it is not a very large model. This size is convenient to work with in my small workshop. " ... Ouch, this is longer than my workshop, not talking about the width ...

Yes, indeed. I did a little search, but 'tissu de Laon' did not turn up anything useful. Here it probably goes by the name 'batiste' or 'cambray', used for handkerchieves and the likes.