wefalck

Well, it's difficult to give here a crash-course in turning ... most of the time one would cut towards the chuck, as the main spindle-bearing is designed to take up the cutting forces. However, there are many situations, when one needs to cut away from the chuck, but one would do this for as little material as possible. For the smal pieces in modelling and working with easily turned materials, such as brass or aluminium, a life centre is not really needed, a hard fixed centre is the more precise option. Always lubricate well. When turning wood, the situation is different, as one cannot lubricate and the friction between wood and steel is considerable. So a life centre is needed for longer parts. You probably will find an aftermarket life centre with an arbor of the same diametre as you already have. To my knowledge, the Taig lathe is not bored for any Morse-taper tooling, neither in the spindle nor the tail-stock. Except for MT0 all the MTs would be too large for this small lathe. There are various degrees of freedom, when aligning a lathe: the height and angle (vertical and horizontal) of the spindle relative to the bed ways, the height and angle (vertical and horizontal) of the tailstock axis, the straightness of the bed etc. Most of them are set by the manufacturing tolerances of the lathe and it is not so easy to correct these. So having a test-bar may not be terribly useful, as any corrections (if needed at all) would involve an extensive scraping or shimming action. However, the Taig tailstocks can be 'set-over' for taper-turning, i.e. moved perpendicular to the axis of the lathe. This means that every time you have loosened the locking screw, you would need to re-align the tailstock. An old-time machinists' approach is to use two fixed centres, in the spindle and in the tailstock, and hold a razor-blade between them. If the centres are aligned correctly, the blade should be perfectly vertical and at 90° to the bed. Otherwise, I would not get worked up too much about such alignment issues, as they are likely to be well within the tolerances we are working in. On my watchmaker-lathes I can easily work to within a 1/20 or even 1/50 of a millimetre. That should be more than good enough for shipmodelling purposes, unless perhaps you are building a steam-engine. I would guess, that on the Taig you can also work to 1/20 of a millimetre (assuming that the handwheels are graduated at 1/10 or even 1/20.

The main body that houses the spindle as well as the table apear to be pupose-machined parts, the rest is probably off-the-shelf stuff that can be easily sourced on Amazon, ebay, etc. In fact, one could fabricate easily such a drill-press from parts sold for 3D-printers or CNC-mills. Rods and bearings can be found in all sorts of dimensions in the Internet. As to longer columns: the longer the column the more flex there is, which may be not so good for small fragile drill-bits. In fact, the melamin riser-blocks may be not such a bad idea at all.

I would be surprised, if the spindle used anything else than ball-bearings. Ideally there should be three: two radial ones and a third axial one to take up the force from drilling. The seats can be easily machined on a CNC mill. There would need to be a sleeve on the spindle to take up end-thrust. All in all the parts would cost only a few €/US$/£ … no point to mess around with brass bearings.

Are you sure it’s the spindle and not the guiding sleeves for the up and down movement?

I think a lever as such is not the problem when using sub-millimetre drills, but rather the position of the arm when using the lever. You have to be able to rest the arm on the table as much as possible, perhaps working only from the wrist in order to reduce the number of degrees of freedom you have to control. In the watchmaking etc. industries they have used such drill-presses for something like 150 years now: The preferred brand of Jacobs-chuck there is 'Albrecht', but they are ridicously expensive (we talk about several hundred €/US$/£ when new). The above machine used horological collets, but a less expensive option is to use ER7 or ER11 collets for which arbors are available to screw on in place of a drill-chuck. There HSS sub-millimeter drill-bits on the market that have 1 mm shafts. Their spiral is in order of 5x the diametre long, so they are relatively stiff and do not wander. I use a carbide scriber as centre punch to locate holes. I have not had a chance to closely inspect any of these small drill-presses that sparked off this thread, but think they could be a useful tool, perhaps with some upgrading to ensure no play in the mechanical parts.

No, it wouldn't, as soft solder is an alloy of tin with some other metals, mainly lead in the old days, to reduce and control the melting point. These metals/alloys do not form black sulfides under the chemical conditions of a simple 'liver of sulfur' solution.

6 mm holders for triangular inserts are readily available from model engineering shops. I know sources in the UK and continental Europe, but wouldn't know any in the USA. Beware that all those inserts have rounded corners, so are not really suitable for turning sharp shoulders. Grinding HSS-lathe tools for brass work is not a great magic, if you go about it systematically. I still found this the best option for really small pieces that need sharp inside corners. Once ground, I hone them from time to time on an Arkansas-stone. As there is no top-rake for brass, you can just rub the bit flat on the stone.

Oh yes, now I remember having read about the 6° oddity. No idea for what rational might have been behind this added complication. If the angle pointed forward, I might have said that it would resulted in less chamfering and perhaps actually a stiffer hull - when the bow pounds into waves there would be less of a tendency that the hull is pushed in as the frames are pushed back. On the other hand, the reverse logic may also apply, meaning that frames inclined backward might make the hull a bit more flexible and therefore more resilient (a principle that has been dicovered by the Vikings actually).

Talking about parting-off: our small lathes are just not rigid and stiff enough for stress-free parting-off of anything say above 6 mm diameter, even when you use so-called parting knives. What I do is that I first cut a narrow groove and then complete the parting-off with a fret- or hacksaw while the machine is running at very slow speed. One has to do this very cautiously, particularly when the part is held in a jaw-chuck, and make sure to keep the head/face out of the line of cutting in case there is a snag or backlash. My most used cutting tool is an HSS-toolbit that is ground like a grooving bit with straight cutting face of 0.4 mm width at the front. This allows me to machine most small parts without changing the tool and therefore loosing measures. For brass the bit has zero top-rake, for steel, aluminium and acrylics around 3°. Grinding HSS-toolbits is quite easy and a bench-grinder is an important machine in the workshop. Another accessory I find most useful and would not be without is a quick-change toolpost (QCTP) with a good supply of inserts. This allows to pre-set toolheight without fuss and as name says to quickly change between different tools without having to reset the tools every time. Small enough QCTPs are not so easy to find, but they do pop up as aftermarket products on ebay etc. from time to time. In fact, there are designs for QCTPs that can be machined on the lathe itself.

Is this an optical illusion, or are the frames kind of inclined backward on the first image? I would have thought they would oriented just in the opposite direction, if anything, to be more perpendicular to the outside of the hull (more like cant-frames). This would also reduce the amount of bevel needed - bevel means more wood to cut away, which the shipbuilders would have avoide being wasteful in both, material and labour.

And then there are people without bandsaw, who have to make do with their lathe ...

Liver of sulfur (a mixture of different potassium (poly)sulfide) and the commercial blackening agents are two rather different animals chemically. Liver of sulfur forms metal sulfides with the exposed copper (or silver) atoms on the surface of the respective metal. So, it is not something that covers the surface, but a chemical compound intimately attached to the bulk of the metal. Being a sulfide, liver of sulfide solution quickly oxides to sulfate (eventually) and then obviously does not react anymore with the copper. Brass blackening solution typically contain a selenium compound that reacts with the two metals in brass (copper and zink) and forms a solid film on the surface that is chemically bound to it. However, if you let the part for too long in the solution, a rather bulky surface precipitate forms that then scales off quickly. Blackened surfaces must be protected by rubbing them with machine oil (for tools), a drying oil (such as lineseed oil) or varnish. Ziselated surfaces of silver cutlery and other silverware are often enhanced by treating the low parts with liver of sulfur (false 'niello') and these areas stay black in spite of daily washing up. However, modern dishwashing tabs seem to contain oxidising agents and the 'niello' disappears after a few rounds in the dishwasher.

This is how the restorers of HMS GANNET (1878) in Chatham thought it should be done: Their Portuguese colleagues restoring DON FERNANDO II E GLORIA (1843) in Lisbon seem to agree on top-down, but the course along the waterline seems to have been put on last: I don't have shots that show the keel, but there is the possibility, that the plates around the keel were put on before the plating from above arrived. On the other hand, putting on the plating around the keel last also makes sense, because these may be damaged when a ship touches ground and are theneasier to replace. Dito. for the course along the water-line that may be easily damaged by boats coming alongside.

Indeed, I have been following the TALLY-HO reconstruction. However, making templates and jigs in 1:1 a lot easier than for fiddly models. Watch- and gun-makers use single-lip or D-bit drills for deep straight holes. Old-time well-builders with tree-trunks also use hollow augers to drill straight holes along the trunks.

I am always amazed watching videos of full-time construction how they manage to come out at the right location, when they drill deep holes ... I think in the old days they used augers or 'canon-drills', rather than spiral drills. The former have less tendency to wander.

Most of my (miniature) model work is done with collets, but for larger and in particularly flat parts it is handy to have a three-jaw chuck with stepped (reversible) jaws. Are the jaws on the chuck above 'soft', i.e. can be machined? Otherwise, I would add to the toolkit as (perceived) needs arise, even though that may delay your work temporarily. In this way, you are sure that you have what you need. Roger mentioned a 'test-bar' above - beware they tend to be very expensive and I dare to say, not many people have one, me included ... I don't remember the spindle thread on the Taig, but Sherline offer their chucks (good quality!) with various threads. At some stage Taig offered their lathes with a spindle bored for horological WW-collets, which would have been my choice due to endless variety of spindle-tooling that is available for them. Makes holding of small parts simple and safe.

Spent last week in Lisbon for business and over the weekend popped into the bookshop of the maritime museum in Bélém (which is not what it used to be ...). Anyway I picked up this book: Simões Dias, F. (2018): As Embarcações Avieiras e outras traditionais do Tejo – Las Embarcaciones Avieiras y otras tradicionales del Tajo.- 237 p., Lisboa (A.I.D.I.A.). A nice book with lots of drawings of different boat types along the Tejo/Tajo/Tagus, but mainly from the Portuguese part. What struck me was the PICARETO from the middle stretches of the Portuguese Tejo, which has a very similar profile with long drawn-out bow and similar plan view as your canoa.

I absolutely second that. I made a foray into into inserts and brazed carbide tools, but ruefully returned to my shop-ground HSS-tools, at least for brass work. There is one exception though: I love to use single-lip carbide end-mills as boring bars. These are as keen as HSS and much stiffer. When working with steel, I also like to use a very specific range of brazed carbide tools, those designed for so-called 'Swiss-lathes', these are automatic turning lathes for the mass production of small parts. They are difficult to find at a good price though. Sometimes they pop up on ebay et al. Their shaft measures only 5 mm x 5 mm and they are better ground than the brazed tools for the hobbyists. There is one notable micro-machinist and clockmaker who swears on brazed carbide tools: Jerry Kiefer (he seems to be also a promoter for Sherline ...). Perhaps he has the possibility to grind and hone them really well or access to better quality carbide.

Personally, I like to work with steel, but having to remove large amounts of steel on small machines can be tedious. It is not so easy to get good-quality aluminium and Al leaves traces on surfaces due to its oxide layer. If I had to replicate the above tool, I probably would fabricate it from a steel disc and some bar-stock roughened out seperately. The two parts could be made to screw into each other or silvered soldered. That would be followed by the final machining. Anyway, one has to use one's imagination and/or reading books and/or (today) watching YouTube videos to get ideas. When you discover a need, you will soon discover also a solution that you can adapt to the capabilities/capacities of your machine.

To answer the leading question: everything that is round in cross-section (and a few more things ...). Watchmakers have been using hand-gravers on metal for centuries very much like wood-turners use their chisels. This requires a certain dexterity and practice. Personally, I use it too little to have developed appropriate skills. However, the German lathe manufacturer Lorch, Schmidt & Co. (long defunct) offered a gizmo for less-skilled free-hand turners, which seems to have inspired the above modern tool: The two images are from Tony Griffith's Web-site lathe.co.uk. I gather I don't infringe any copyright here, as this is actually my own thumb on the picture 😁. A small after-market supplier, www.gg-tools.de, offered copies of this graver-holder, but I did not check, whether it is currently available. Otherwise, the beauty of a lathe (and other machine tools) is that you can use it to make more tools and gadgets. So you could make such a graver holder easily from some aluminium stock to fit the centre-height of your lathe. You would also need to attach a thick aluminium plate to the bed of the lathe. One could also add a follower nose to it and clamp a template to the base-plate. I have used this graver-holder to turn flared model parts, for instance, and made a lot of ball-handles for my machines.

That guide on the handle is not a bad idea - the pivot on the handle is always a weakness and wears on both, shop-made and industrial gadgets.

It might be easier to glue oversized roughend out parts to the boom and then shape them using the boom as a handle. Also leave the parts longer at the jaws end so that can drill a hole first where they open - in this way you can get the hole in line with the boom. Then trim to shape with files and sanding sticks, rather than a knife. Another strategy could be to take a single flat piece and cut a steep V-shaped notch to match the flattened sides of the boom. Glue in the boom and then continue as above.

I gather that is how 'shipbuilders' measure the length - between 'perpendiculars' ... Otherwise, one could contact the Lunenburg museum guys. I remember from my visit in 2007 that they were building dories in the workshop there.

Pretty neat fire-wood, I would say ...

Neat self-contained unit! Just a couple of observations based on 35+ years of experience using such small lathes: - I think I would have fixed the lathe closer to the front edge, as you want to get really close to the work (wearing safety glasses !), when working on small parts. - I run all my electrical equipment off momentary foot-switches; this allows me to interrupt the current just by lifting the foot - handy during normal operation and absolutely vital in an emergency.