Mike Y

Log #14: Practice Makes Perfect
It has been a while since I posted an update mostly because I don’t have much concrete to show.
 
On the research side I have been continuing my work on identifying contemporary paintings / drawings showing the details of pre-bloomfield guns. I have also been working hard at updating and correcting the document and I hope to release a second version with a number of new sections and transcribed primary sources in the coming months.
 
On the modelling side I received a scroll saw for Christmas and have been practicing with it on some cheap 1/4 in basswood I got at my local hardware store. Like anything it is much harder to use than it looks and I want to make sure that I really know what I am doing before I try cutting anything important. Getting the tension right seems to be one of the tricky parts. If anyone has any helpful tips on getting precise cuts I am all ears.


Speaking of wood Canada Post finally came through the other day and I received my wood order from @Joe V. This is only the wood for the keel / stem / sternpost / stern framing which will be made of pear. I haven't yet fully nailed down how much and what sizes I will need for the planking etc… I also got some yellow cedar strips as I am considering using it on certain parts of the model. I will need to do some tests to decide exactly how I am going to proceed. You can also see in this photo the beginnings of the build board with the top view of the model glued to it.

Finally, I have been doing a number of tests using scrap wood left over from my alert build on painting options. I have been experimenting with the effects I can get with relatively translucent inks. You can see some of my early test below.

A lot more tests will need to be done before I am willing to commit to a path, but I think at this point I have an idea of the aesthetic I want to go for. Part of the uncertainty relates to one of the current focuses of my research, did the coppering on Perseus come up to the wales or only the waterline. No clear answers yet, but if anyone has any contemporary sources which talk about the very early coppering that was done by the RN (1775-1780ish) I would love to hear about it.
 
Edit: I made a first attempt at the knee of the head and it doesn't look that great but practice makes perfect. I think next time I am going to try cutting further from the lines and sanding / filing / using my mini chisels to get a better fit.

Thank you guys and I wish you all the best in the new year.
 
Test fitting of the lantern on the model.
Compromise solution - I didn't drill the badge on the transom.
The square brass rod is just a support
The lantern is only hanged on two auxiliary rods.
Tomorrow I'll probably order an acrylic cover and just make the base and it's done 🙂

USPS is now shipping to Canada again.   So I have enabled Canada in my online store and have started accepting orders again.   I have no idea how long it will take to get there but at least you can place orders again if you live in Canada.
 
Chuck
 
Also.....FYI....The last day for any orders before my move is January 17th.   I will be closing the entire store down in order to pack up my shop for the move.   We are physically moving the first week of February 10th and it might take a week after that to set up the shop again.   So I expect to reopen the store as soon as I can after Feb. 10th.
 
Thank you for your patience!!!  I am so excited about enjoying the new view from my workshop. 

 
 

Hello everyone,
Thank you for your encouragement, the work is continuing with the interior work on the upper deck, where the paneling of the “Store Kajüt” (great cabin) described above is now in progress. This also involved some initial carving work. I have now decided to build more or less on the original 18th century interior of the Amphion in Stockholm.
I started with the carved garland below the deck beams:
I laser-cut the rather filigree part with supports and screwed it to the table, then the tools can be used freely with both hands.
 

 

Then the flat columns as a structuring element, here of course the capitals as the first major hurdle.

and here they are put together


 
You could also leave the result in wood, which might have been more discreet and more appropriate for a warship, but I went for a pot of gold paint...
 



Best regards,
Matthias
 

A little bit of a progress, two more frames to go...





Happy modelling..

Yes, just bending a cold plank around the former would not work (tried it a few times) - the contact area is very small, so the plank can't get hot enough.
So first I heat up the future bending area by using this aluminium former like a clothing iron, sliding it back and forth. Probably a clothing iron is even better, but I did not want to fiddle around with two hot tools at the same time.
Only once the plank is hot - it can be hooked to the former and bent.
 
Jorge, very nice solution! It is interesting that there are so many contraptions for the same job, and everybody have different preferences  

This was an interesting part of the build, though pretty repetitive. I am glad that I took internal planking first, it would be barely visible, and a good practice before doing an external planking. 
One more time thanks to Chuck for showing how to edge bend. Got the hang of it, no more broken planks, and I get quite close to desired shape from first or sometimes second attempt:

 
Got more Pfeil chisels, this time to simplify in-situ fairing. Works like a charm!

Closer to deck clamps it became harder to clamp, so some awkward arrangements were used:

The last streak was difficult. Even though I used tick marks, the last forward plank ended up a bit too narrow. Will be careful next time, does not worth re-doing this time.

A blade is used as a wedge to press planks into each other in the areas of some gaps. More glue to soak into the gap. It is cheating, I know  

During the last few months I was sneaking to my modelling corner regularly (which is a challenge with a newborn), and managed to install all planks before the end of the year! Yay! I did not expect it to take this long though - with an average of 4-5 hours per streak and 14 streaks it sums up to 60-ish hours. 
 
So here is how it looks today, before treenailing / fairing / smoothing / trimming. 
When in display case, light coming from the bottom of the case goes through frames and makes an interesting pattern on the planks:

There is plenty of dust over the model, that I will need to carefully remove after sanding.
Hope to finish it in a near future and get to less repetitive parts (breast hooks, mast steps, deck structures, etc etc).  But before that I need to decide on a finish to use (or maybe no finish at all), will make some test pieces and try all the sanding sealers that I bought last year.
Also I got a surprising color deviation in planks, even though they are all cut from a few sheets of castello box, and sheets had no obvious discoloration. 
Maybe it is a side effect of heat bending, may go away after final sanding. Anyway it is not so bad, shows individual planks. A bit of deviation is good!   

Construction progress is not so fast, for a good reason - we got a second daughter a month ago (yay!). Everything goes well so far, we are a lucky parents and Daria (the youngest) helps us a lot. But, as expected, there is little time for anything... Though I still sneak a plank every now and then, so it is moving with a pace faster than zero, one streak per week on average! Each plank takes from 1hr (for a simple straight planks midship) to 2-3hrs (curved ones with difficult shapes). Sometimes a plank goes to waste, so overall it is not a fast process.
It is a nice to get a bit of your own time and work on a model, even late at night. Makes for a good photos  

 
Back to the build progress. Got quite comfortable with heat bending, pretty low error rate. But I still feel that the plank made this way is more brittle than the one shaped with steam. Luckily it is not a big issue.

Since I did a bad job in fairing, there are some low spots that are fixed by adding a filler underneath the plank:

Or chiseling away the high spots:

 



 
Slow but steady, I passed the equator - 7 streaks done (plus limber streak), 6 remaining!
Nothing is sanded yet, and considering bad fairing I expect to spend a lot of time scraping and sanding to make the planks look smooth and fair. There are a lot of glue traces, they would be cleaned up after treenailing.
I'm glad I started with internal planking - it is a good training exercise, that would be barely visible on a finished model, hidden under all decks and cabins. Hope to get enough skill to do a better job on external planking  Consider this a practice piece.

Pedantic note - there are different grades of acrylic glass, even the well known Plexiglas brand has a dozen different types: https://www.plexiglas-polymers.com/en/basic-grades
Some "museum grade" one even offers a decent UV protection.
In the quantities we need it's not so expensive and might be a good option.
Of course a cheap acrylic from the closest hardware shop might have a different formula and may darken over time. Lumping all "acrylic glass" into a single category is just a bit less broad than "plastics" or "metals"  
 
P.S.: I have used this type of Plexiglas (PLEXIGLAS® Optical Clear 0A570) when building my case almost 8 years ago, no sign of any aging problems over time. Though I do not have it under a direct and bright sunlight. https://www.plexiglas-shop.com/se/products/plexiglas-optical/pl0a570hcm-3-00.html

Tricky bow area, looks to be nicely done!
Wonder how it would look after fairing 😊
A few areas look suspicious, but hard to tell from the photos. Just hope you are verifying the ”flow” of frames as you go (with some wood strip) to avoid obvious dips and misalignments.
Rooting for you! 👍

Thanks Håkan, truly appreciated  
Yes, spending more time on the hobby is my new year resolution, even sneaked a couple of hours recently! 
Best wishes to you and a lot of joyful days in your workshop!

Looks nice and smooth, fairly well aligned now!  
Hope you are installing the frames in the jig / build board, not freehanding it (and it's just for a nicer photo)? Otherwise an accumulated error would creep and likely result in a twisted hull...

Pardon my ignorance, but what is the actual purpose of the drill press in our hobby? A lot of people are using it, but how? Feels like I’m missing out on something obvious 🥲
 
The majority of holes on the ship model are planking treenails, and those are easier to drill once the planks are glued in place to ensure a nice line-up of the holes.
The only other thing to imagine is a scratch production of rigging blocks and deadeyes, but how many people do that?
 
Not trolling, really would like to understand!

The vertical axis on the MF70 mill is notoriously not so easy to rotate (there is a common upgrade - installing a small axial bearing, helps a lot!). So if you actually want to drill a hundred holes with it for some reason - it would not be a pleasant process.
 
However it is great as a mill, one of the most commonly used tools in my build at least. Not only for "milling" in a complicated way, but for a lot of precision work. Cutting joints in thick planks to make sure are square in all directions, making a surface flat or square or parallel, etc. Even "making sure this part it is exactly 12.8mm long" - doing that on a mill with the compound table is sometimes easier than sneaking in on a fit with a table saw or a disk sander, more controlled and a nice surface finish. If the part is not curved and has some straight daces - chances are I would shape it on a mill from a rough cut blank.
Buy the PM40 vise though, without it you are very limited in clamping options.
 
Example of the typical milling usecase, which is even hard to call "milling". Just a "cutting wood using the X-Y table instead of manual measurements, and no need to worry about keeping a straight edge".

 

Pedantic note - there are different grades of acrylic glass, even the well known Plexiglas brand has a dozen different types: https://www.plexiglas-polymers.com/en/basic-grades
Some "museum grade" one even offers a decent UV protection.
In the quantities we need it's not so expensive and might be a good option.
Of course a cheap acrylic from the closest hardware shop might have a different formula and may darken over time. Lumping all "acrylic glass" into a single category is just a bit less broad than "plastics" or "metals"  
 
P.S.: I have used this type of Plexiglas (PLEXIGLAS® Optical Clear 0A570) when building my case almost 8 years ago, no sign of any aging problems over time. Though I do not have it under a direct and bright sunlight. https://www.plexiglas-shop.com/se/products/plexiglas-optical/pl0a570hcm-3-00.html

Pardon my ignorance, but what is the actual purpose of the drill press in our hobby? A lot of people are using it, but how? Feels like I’m missing out on something obvious 🥲
 
The majority of holes on the ship model are planking treenails, and those are easier to drill once the planks are glued in place to ensure a nice line-up of the holes.
The only other thing to imagine is a scratch production of rigging blocks and deadeyes, but how many people do that?
 
Not trolling, really would like to understand!

Pardon my ignorance, but what is the actual purpose of the drill press in our hobby? A lot of people are using it, but how? Feels like I’m missing out on something obvious 🥲
 
The majority of holes on the ship model are planking treenails, and those are easier to drill once the planks are glued in place to ensure a nice line-up of the holes.
The only other thing to imagine is a scratch production of rigging blocks and deadeyes, but how many people do that?
 
Not trolling, really would like to understand!

Pardon my ignorance, but what is the actual purpose of the drill press in our hobby? A lot of people are using it, but how? Feels like I’m missing out on something obvious 🥲
 
The majority of holes on the ship model are planking treenails, and those are easier to drill once the planks are glued in place to ensure a nice line-up of the holes.
The only other thing to imagine is a scratch production of rigging blocks and deadeyes, but how many people do that?
 
Not trolling, really would like to understand!

I bought a refurbished Proxxon MF70 from Axminster at a great price and used it with aProxxon x-y table I had bought for a Proxxon MB140 drill stand. Although people have said that the mill is inefficient at drilling, I have found it so good at drilling that I now use it exclusively for drilling as well as milling. It is just a little slower, but that doesn't bother me. It is very accurate with the correct adjustments. My tungsten carbide drill bits have never broken with it when I use it as a drill.
 
I had to adjust the MB140 to mill accurately with a finer height adjustment (see here on MSW) but could only use it as a mill with great care, which led me to the MF70. It's a great tool, much loved by European and other ship modellers with wonderful results. It is also much modded to include CNC, change of motor etc. I won't go that far as it is entirely satisfactory for my use. In fact I am such a poor modeller compared to the masters who use it that I will never use it to its full capabilities. I will never blame my tools for shoddy workmanship!
 
It is certainly much less costly than the bigger mills and has lasted me several years so far.
 
Anyway, everyone has their own requirements and I just thought to slip in my experience. Enjoy and master whatever your choice!
 
Tony

The vertical axis on the MF70 mill is notoriously not so easy to rotate (there is a common upgrade - installing a small axial bearing, helps a lot!). So if you actually want to drill a hundred holes with it for some reason - it would not be a pleasant process.
 
However it is great as a mill, one of the most commonly used tools in my build at least. Not only for "milling" in a complicated way, but for a lot of precision work. Cutting joints in thick planks to make sure are square in all directions, making a surface flat or square or parallel, etc. Even "making sure this part it is exactly 12.8mm long" - doing that on a mill with the compound table is sometimes easier than sneaking in on a fit with a table saw or a disk sander, more controlled and a nice surface finish. If the part is not curved and has some straight daces - chances are I would shape it on a mill from a rough cut blank.
Buy the PM40 vise though, without it you are very limited in clamping options.
 
Example of the typical milling usecase, which is even hard to call "milling". Just a "cutting wood using the X-Y table instead of manual measurements, and no need to worry about keeping a straight edge".

 

The vertical axis on the MF70 mill is notoriously not so easy to rotate (there is a common upgrade - installing a small axial bearing, helps a lot!). So if you actually want to drill a hundred holes with it for some reason - it would not be a pleasant process.
 
However it is great as a mill, one of the most commonly used tools in my build at least. Not only for "milling" in a complicated way, but for a lot of precision work. Cutting joints in thick planks to make sure are square in all directions, making a surface flat or square or parallel, etc. Even "making sure this part it is exactly 12.8mm long" - doing that on a mill with the compound table is sometimes easier than sneaking in on a fit with a table saw or a disk sander, more controlled and a nice surface finish. If the part is not curved and has some straight daces - chances are I would shape it on a mill from a rough cut blank.
Buy the PM40 vise though, without it you are very limited in clamping options.
 
Example of the typical milling usecase, which is even hard to call "milling". Just a "cutting wood using the X-Y table instead of manual measurements, and no need to worry about keeping a straight edge".

 

The vertical axis on the MF70 mill is notoriously not so easy to rotate (there is a common upgrade - installing a small axial bearing, helps a lot!). So if you actually want to drill a hundred holes with it for some reason - it would not be a pleasant process.
 
However it is great as a mill, one of the most commonly used tools in my build at least. Not only for "milling" in a complicated way, but for a lot of precision work. Cutting joints in thick planks to make sure are square in all directions, making a surface flat or square or parallel, etc. Even "making sure this part it is exactly 12.8mm long" - doing that on a mill with the compound table is sometimes easier than sneaking in on a fit with a table saw or a disk sander, more controlled and a nice surface finish. If the part is not curved and has some straight daces - chances are I would shape it on a mill from a rough cut blank.
Buy the PM40 vise though, without it you are very limited in clamping options.
 
Example of the typical milling usecase, which is even hard to call "milling". Just a "cutting wood using the X-Y table instead of manual measurements, and no need to worry about keeping a straight edge".

 

The vertical axis on the MF70 mill is notoriously not so easy to rotate (there is a common upgrade - installing a small axial bearing, helps a lot!). So if you actually want to drill a hundred holes with it for some reason - it would not be a pleasant process.
 
However it is great as a mill, one of the most commonly used tools in my build at least. Not only for "milling" in a complicated way, but for a lot of precision work. Cutting joints in thick planks to make sure are square in all directions, making a surface flat or square or parallel, etc. Even "making sure this part it is exactly 12.8mm long" - doing that on a mill with the compound table is sometimes easier than sneaking in on a fit with a table saw or a disk sander, more controlled and a nice surface finish. If the part is not curved and has some straight daces - chances are I would shape it on a mill from a rough cut blank.
Buy the PM40 vise though, without it you are very limited in clamping options.
 
Example of the typical milling usecase, which is even hard to call "milling". Just a "cutting wood using the X-Y table instead of manual measurements, and no need to worry about keeping a straight edge".

 

If you're going to get a mill, get the Sieg X2D mini mill. It's a real machine that is very capable in small and medium-scale work. I don't think you'd be happy with the Sherline in the long run.

Last post for today.
 
Originally, I planned to show the model with split and closed gun ports. Research (and Marcus) have told me that the gun deck probably didn't have gun port lids when she was first launched. Or rather had fully removable lids instead of the split lids provided in the kit. This means that if I wish to show her guns (open lids) then I need to do a gun deck of sorts inside. I will probably do a fairly basic deck that only shows the details that will be visible when the model is complete, but we shall see. Regardless, this means that I need to now install a gun deck at this very awkward stage. My solution for this was to glue 5x5mm alignment blocks on the bulkhead deck beams with a small spot of glue so that if I cut the deck beams they could be used as reference points for reinstalling the beams later.
 
 


Once these were glued in, I cut the beams with a Stanley knife blade and cut the vertical support with a dremel.
 
This opened the space for gun deck installation. Unfortunately, when I put my bracing blocks between the bulkheads I hadn't planned to do a gun deck and the work was a bit sloppy, so I butchered out the blocks where they protruded above deck level. Not a pretty result, but they will be hidden under the deck

TBE