jud

Does anyone apply any product like Scotch Guard to their sails before attaching them to their model, to protect them from airborne dust.and also making them easier to clean. jud

It looks like the moisture in the glue is causing the cellulose in the two faces to expand when looking at the end grain, resulting in the curl. Leaving them clamped until dry may work. jud

When I use Elmer's Glue, white or yellow it has been for larger material such as 2 X 4's, 1/2" and up partial board or ply and use a bunch of clamps which remain in place until the glue dries. I want a little glue to squeeze out of the joints, that bit of glue comes off with a wet rag if the joint needs cleaning up before it sets. I have used a hammer to get the air out of a joint for smaller stuff and if successful the part remains in place long enough to clamp. When using contact cement or construction adhesives the hammer is always used to drive the air out of a joint. Also use the hammer on all leather joints with a contact cement called Barge Cement. Upon reflection on your problem and wanting to obtain the flatness of a glass surface, you might try sandwiching the lamination and the two pieces of glass between some 3/4" or bigger boards and clamp them all together until the glue sets. jud

After placing the second blank in position on a firm flat surface, use a hammer tap unneeded glue out to the edge, leaving good contact with no voids between the laminates, think laminates are ran between rollers when professionally made to do that. Try to work out from the keel, use a rubber hammer or a sacrificial block to protect your blanks. A little glue squeezing out is a good indicator of making a good joint, that waste glue will only be on waste wood, just protect your working surface with something like wax paper. jud

Dust masks are good to use if you have your nose down near your sanding or when you are generating large amounts of dust suspended in the air. Don't need to worry about a dust mask if you let your nose hair grow naturally, that hair is there to protect you from dust. The one I watch closely is the consumption of tomatoes. It is a proven fact that everyone who ate tomatoes, raw or cooked in 1859 are dead now, I'm not taking any chances. jud

Does your plans show such an arch? My guess, is no. jud

Forget the swivel top, walk around it instead. If you tilt the top, which may be handy, you will need a separate tool table on wheels so you can easily take it with you as you travel around the main table, might put some sort of a fold down seat on the tool table that allows sitting at the required height. If you have air, run a line in there with your overhead wiring, lights and vacuum, all offset from the table at one place, close but clear of the table. That should be enough to cause you to rub a bald spot in your hair. jud

Have one about 8" long that I bought years ago and occasionally use it when laying out cut lines on steel for uneven cut and fit lines when fabricating something, works good for that but the pins on the one I have may be a little stiff to use on a model. jud

I would expect that skylights came into use early, even before the use of glass to pass light became popular. Even a hinged solid cover could be opened for lighting and ventilation before the days of glass skylights. Prisms were often placed in decks to pass and disperse light below decks and I would expect that, that practice to have begane soon after the manufacturing and forming of glass became common. jud

Don't know about hairspray but I do know that the fixative I mentioned is impervious to water. If you spray both sides of your paper to the point of making it damp and let it dry, you should be able to then glue the paper to your wood using white glue or rubber cement without it bleeding through. jud

I use what is called ' Workable Fixatif', a Krylon product. primarily made for artists to keep pencil art from smudging. I have used it on mylar to fix ink to it when the ink is not an achievable ink that uses acid to etch itself into the mylar, have used it on blue line prints often and have sprayed Quadrangle maps and printouts with it, front and back, before taking them out in the field on a job that would expose them to dust, rain and dirty hands. I get it from office supply outlets, most carry it and if no. order it for you. After paper is treated you can still use ink or lead pencils on it, great stuff. jud

I have a 5" vice that I mounted on the end of a 1" X 12" X 3' pine board some time ago, very handy and other than weighing about 50# is easy to move around. If I need it solid, I use C Clamps to anchor the board. I would expect good results if you mount your new vice on a board, If you need it more solid, well there are always C Clamps. jud PS: If wondering why I mounted mine on the end of the board, it was so I could swing the jaws out and be clear of the board if I needed to clamps something vertically. I did not narrow the board on the vice end that would be an improvement for some things but leaving the board full width helps stabilize the thing when not clamped down.

Haven't made any sweeps myself but you have made me wonder if 36 sweeps could be shaped by using the technique some are use to make multiple sides for cannons. They use blocks of wood trimmed to the outside dimensions, then using a milling machine cut the needed steps and axle slots across the whole block., when it looks right they saw slices from that shaped block the width they need for their cannon carriages. Sweeps should be simpler to do that way, could use a saw, files and sand paper if you don't have the mill. They would be delicate after slicing them from the block and doing the final shaping but that would also be true if you fabricated each sweep individually. jud

Chafing gear was used all over the rigging, wear points of all rigging would be protected diligently and if chafing gear would not solve the problem, rerouting of the problem line would be done using fairleads, changing blocks or whatever was needed. Those old boys knew what they were doing and unlike modern man, jumped in and solved a problem without standing around waiting for a documented expert. jud, Came back to delete this post, have decided to leave it so the one following will not look so out of place.

You asked the right person. I have read that for Green Sand molds, wheat flour is dusted into the mold as a release agent, turns to charcoal during the pore. jud

Long handles and a short fulcrum for mechanical advantage so you could control the cutting end better and not have the tool torn out of your hands or just chatter instead of cutting. jud

Had Ammo delivered by a vessel that looks like this on in RVN, " Uss Brule AKL 28", sometimes she delivered twice a week, it was a small WW 2 cargo ship and there were a lot of them used in the Pacific to move cargo around that did not justify an full blown AKA. The Brule while delivering ammo was hit with 7 recoil-less rifle rounds, 'some records say rockets, but the crew at the time said recoil less rifles', she had a hold full plus a deck load of ammo for us. A fire was started in the deck load of ammo but they got it out. Needed to inspect every round from that delivery and even then I had a 40 MM round just clear the bore and explode, the shrapnel in the water was a half moon shape away from the gun, split the case and broke the extractors, glad to shoot the last of that load. Believe the Pueblo was a converted vessel of the same type, was on the rivers in RVN when she was taken and we didn't know if it would effect the mess we were involved in. Probably some of those vessels were converted to Buoy tenders after the war, they might have been commissioned as such. jud.

People have been turning wood, brass and iron on primitive lathes using hand tools for a very long time. They did it that way because there was nothing better. they did good enough work to build better machines. You can do it if you keep your tool rest close to the work and use tools with long handles, the illustrations I have seen showed tools about 3 feet long and hand or foot power was used to turn the stock, all had fly wheels to smooth out the turning. So If you want to turn your cannons out of brass using hand chisels you can do it but I would recommend that you use hand power to turn the work or a powered device that is weak and easily stopped. jud

Started out using Generic Cad before Auto Desk bought it out and then stopped supporting it. Really turned me off of having any desire to support any Auto Desk product. I did purchase Auto Cad lite because I needed to upgrade from the old Dos based software, did not like the logic of the software. Did try Turbo Cad but when General Cad came along, it was based on the old Generic Cad using the same two letter commands, I jumped on that and never looked back. Use and have used for years Traverse PC as a COGO program, do my comps, line work and dimensioning in it and then send it to Cad to finish the drawings. Travers PC has progressed far enough now so you can get some very good drawings from it, most of the newer users never use anything else, I do use its drafting capability's for simple drawings but still send most to Cad for refinement, being 71, I just haven't had the urge to change. Between the two I can get some very good 2 D drawings, some 3 D is available but I haven't gotten into that other than for land surfaces.using contours and stock pile volumes. I have been supplying my own software for years and have gotten my moneys worth from the two programs I use and plan on using both to do some experimenting with ship plans, will be drawing in true size using decimal feet, my print outs will be at a usable scale. Having a plotter that will handle up to D size sheets will be an advantage I will enjoy because I already own it because of my work. jud

Noticed the question about contact cement, yes it would probably work well if the metal was roughed up and clean. Your metal part would remain just where you first placed it if you followed the instructions to the letter. I use contact cement a lot with leather, but don't quite always follow the directions, sometimes I make contact between the pieces a little early so I have the opportunity to move the piece around a bit if needed, If I can trim, then I let both pieces dry before making contact between the two and then whack it a few times with a wooden hammer, makes a good strong flexible joint that is often stitched and sometimes riveted. Like the pinning advice mentioned above. jud

In one of the photos it looks kind of like you started your short splice with a crown knot, was that just an optical illusion? Didn't see the part about throwing the thing on the deck and rolling the finished splice under you foot. That setup looks like it would be a great aid in making splices by freeing up your hands, long splices and short runs of seizing could be done using that rig, good invention. thanks for sharing. jud

I have an old Burch Bark canoe that came into the family about100 years ago, it sat at various places over the years just drying out and was very dry and brittle when I got it. Gave it a good bath in Linseed oil and it came back to life including the lacing which was also Burch Bark strips. Maybe you wooden sails would benefit from such a treatment, does not need to be Linseed Oil, I used it because there is always some around to oil handles and gun stocks. jud

Cutting such a groove using a router can be done several ways, both require a jig of sorts, one holds the stock and provides a surface for the router to be guided and moved along the desired cut and the other holds the router and used the bit or a fence. I used a 1" X 12" pine board with a round hole cut in the board that allowed the router to be held upside down, the hole I cut left a flange for the router to rest on with the face plate of the router flush with the board surface with the router clamped into the jig from the bottom. The whole thing was clamped to a riser that I had built. I used that setup with the router bits guiding the board for shaped edges and for groves use a fence type guide, just a board clamped on. My router went into that cobbled up thing several times over the years. Router tables used to be available that did the same thing, don't think they were very expensive. I would have bought one if they were available when I had the need and made my own. Many old windows just had a notch cut in the inside edge of the window framing and a small square or quarter round strip was tacked in to hold the glass, that allowed room for the wood to move with changing humidity without putting stress on the glass, when putty was used, tabs held the glass instead of wood strips. jud

I prefer to do bench work standing up using a bench I can walk around, a stout island on wheels with brakes is what I am thinking about. With a heavy mobile island and a regular work bench I could have the best of two worlds. I have two different work benches at different heights, so I usually stand up when working with leather. jud

Might wire in a dimmer switch, (old floor headlight dimmer), with a pedal on the floor. think I would want any speed control up on the mill where I could adjust it separately from the on-off switch. Nice machine and it looks like you have enough tooling to use the thing right away. Have an old brass hammer like yours ad just as rough out in the shop, think it was Granddads. happy milling jud Oh, before I forget, you ever get over to the dry side, bring a greasy old part with you and stop by, we can trade off with the parts brush. jud