Bob Legge

Ed, observing the log since long and building YA following your plans and books. Its a great pleasure to see the model coming up slowly. Currently I started with the main deck. All parts are prepared and assembling will start tomorrow. Your standard is very hard to meet.

Hello Pete,
of course, I'll let you know how to cut a brass sheet 0.25 mm thick with a small table saw.

I think that this pictures brings the best explanation.
It works even better with a few drops of cutting oil.
Of course, a saw blade for non-ferrous metals is required.

Thanks, gentlemen, for your kind comments and 'likes'
 
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There are numerous ideas for constructing ladders or stairs for shipmodels. Together with gratings, this seems to be something that pre-occupies the the mind of shipmodellers. Perhaps because spacing saw-cuts evenly is a challenge with hand-tools. Having machines with tool-slides, controlled by spindles with graduated dials, at one’s disposal takes away most of that challenge, at least in theory. It seems logic to transpose the common techniques for making ladders just to a smaller scale, say with thinner saw-blades to cut slots into the spacing device.
 
 

Preparing a spacing device for stairs
 
 
 
However, the sizes of the materials to be used in itself poses a challenge. Treads in (wooden) stairs are typically 25 to 30 mm thick, which translates to roughly 0.2 mm in the 1:160 scale. The stringers of stairs may be somewhere between 40 and 60 mm thick, which translates into 0.3 to 0.4 mm on the model. The treads are usually notched into the stringers, so that the outside of the sides are smooth. This is a technique that would be very difficult to reproduce at this small scale because milling notches 0.2 mm wide and 0.2 mm deep into material that may be as thin as 0.3 mm is practically quite difficult to do consistently. The other difficulty is to cut the treads to exactly the right lengths. This problem also appears, if one tried to simply butt the steps against the sides for glueing. The clean glueing, without fillets appearing, also was a challenge, at least for me.
 
 

Cutting notches for treads into stair-stringers of bakelite-paper
 
 
 
Initially, the material of choice was bakelite-paper, which is very stiff, but rather brittle at a thickness of 0.2 mm and has attracted all the issues mentioned above. I then tried polystyrene, which is much less brittle, but also much less stiff. It has the advantage that it can be glued, or rather welded, using dichloromethane, allowing nearly invisible joints between close-fitting parts. While all these properties are useful, the styrene proved to be too flexible to be sanded to size on the milling machine, compared to the bakelite-paper.
After various trials the most promosing method for stairs that emerged was the following:
 
 
1. cut strips somewhat wider than the stringers of the stairs from 0.2 mm bakelite paper.
2. arrange these strips in a pack on the micro-vise; count as many strips as needed for the stairs, plus a few spares, and a couple of sacrificial/protective ones at each side of the pack.
3. push the strips down into the vise and then sand them as a pack to equal width.
4. incline the vise to the angle of the stairs and cut slots at the required distances with a fine-toothed saw-blade of 0.2 mm thickness.
 
 

Cutting slots for steps into stair-stringers of polystyrene
 
 
 
5. cut strips slightly wider than the width of the treads from 0.2 mm bakelite-paper, clean them up and round one edge slightly.
6. cut the treads slightly longer than the final length from those strips.
7. take two stair-stringers and insert the treads, which should be a tight fit, with the rounded side first.
8. adjust one side so that it is straight and the steps are only protruding slightly – everything should be square, of course.
 
 

Glueing together the stair components
 
 
 
9. infiltrate thin cyanoacrylate cement into the slots and let set thoroughly.
10. adjust the opposite side to the right distance and repeat as above.
11. nip-off excess tread material on the outside.
12. file the outside of the stringers flush with a diamond nail-file and/or the disc sander
13. glue a second layer of 0.2 mm bakelite paper to the outside of the stair-stringers
 
 

Sanding to thickness the stairs
 
 
 
14. transfer to the vise on the milling machine, slots down, and sand down the stair-stringers to just above the steps.
15. turn the stairs over and sand them down to to the scale width of the stringers.
16. sand the stair-stringers to the required thickness.
17. clean-up all burrs etc.
18. the stairs are now ready to be trimmed to length.
 

Selection of stairs (not yet trimmed to length)
 
I have tried to follow the same procedure with brass-sheet and soldering, but using bakelite-paper gave crisper results. Perhaps one should have etched the components and then soldered them together, as I had envisaged at the very beginning. This would have allowed to hold close tolerances of the individual parts, requiring less clean-up. However, I found setting up the etching process to onerous and also wanted to see, whether I could fabricate the stairs usind classical workshop techniques.
The hand-rails and other fittings will be produced later, together with the railings, as they will be very delicate.
 
To be continued ... soon ... first I have to go to Helsinki on business – and to have some Rudo-steak, now that Christmas is over 

It has been almost a year since the last post. I have been too busy business-wise and been side-tracked by various tool-making projects, which seem to be easier to do with the frequent interruptions by business-travels. There has been some small progress, however. Though this was not easy, as I have been struggling with the possibilities of the available materials and with my own skills. The 1/160 is pretty small, if you have set yourself the target to put as much detail into as one would do in say 1/96 or even 1/48 scale ... One of my struggles has been to produce acceptable ladders, on which I will report in the next post.
 
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The officers’ mess skylight produced previously did not turn out quite to my satisfaction. It was not as crisp as I had wished. It was build up from layers of bakelite sheet around a milled core of acrylic glass. The mouldings present on the original were simulated by 0.4 mm copper wire milled to half-rounds. This all entailed messing around with cyano-acrylate cement, which is not my favourite and at which I am not very skilled.
 

Officers’ mess skylight milled from a small block of acrylic glass
 
It then occurred to me that much of all this could be milled from a solid piece of acrylic glass. One has to start from a block that envelopes the maximum width and depth, including the mouldings, and then has has to plan strategically which layers to mill off until the desired shape appears (reminds me of the joke, where an old lady asked a sculptor during an exhibition whether it was difficult to sculpt a lion – the artist replied: not really, madam, one takes a big block of marble and knock off everything that doesn’t look like a lion ...). The mouldings were left standing as square protrusions. They were rounded off using a draw-plate fasioned from a piece of razor-blade and held in a pin-vise. The half-round notch was cut using a thin cut-off wheel mounted on an arbor in the milling machine.
 

Micro-drawplate for half-round moldings
 
It is, of course, not possible to simulate panelling by this method. However, some parts can be left standing and the other completed with thin styrene-strips. For reasons of material stability, I am not such a big fan of polystyrene, it becomes brittle with age, but it has the advantage that it can be ‘welded’ onto acrylic glass or onto itself using dichlormethane. This results in invisible bonds and you cannot smear any glue around.
 

Trial of milling out skylight window-frame
 
The next challenge were the protective grilles that were laid into the wooden frames above the actual skylight glass-panes. The bar of brass or bronze had a diameter of less than a centimetre, which translates to something like 0.05 mm on the model. However, the thinnest brass-coloured wire I could find had a diametre of 0.1 mm, so is slightly oversize. Recently I came across molybdenum wires that are readily available down to diametres of 0.02 mm ! It seems that they are used in the repair of mobile phones, to separate the front-glass from the LCD-display. I obtained a selection of sizes, but have not worked with the wires yet. The wires are supposed to be tough, so I do not know how easy it is to cut them to length.
 

 
Spool of gold-coloured molybdenum wire
 
I tried various methods to construct the window-frames with exactly spaced out bar. In the first instance I tried to mill-out the frame from a thin piece of acrylic glass. Evenly spaced notches for the ‘bars’ were milled with a pointed engraving bit. However, I did not manage to get the edges and corners as crisp and clean as desired.
 

Milling notches for window bars
 
 

Placing wires as window bars
 
I then wanted to construct the frame near-prototype fashion. To this end I drilled holes for the 0.01 mm wires into the edges of 0.5 mm by 1.0 mm strips of styrene. It proved difficult, however, to align the four parts of the frame well enough.
 

Drilling frame for protective bars
 
In the final version I welded 0.25 mm thick strips of styrene onto the milled acrylic glass body of the skylight. The block then was presented at the correct angle to an engraving cutter in the milling machine and the notches for the wires cut. In the next step the wires were glued into these notches, which was a major challenge – for the steadiness of my hand and my patience ...
 

Built-up frames
 
 

 In situ milling of notches for wire bars
 
The frame was completed by another layer of 0.25 mm styrene strips. As the total thickness should have been only 0.4 mm, the excess was sanded off on the milling machine. Finally, the edges were trimmed to size and rounded with the draw-plate described above.
 

Sanding frames to scale thickness
 
The officers' mess skylight will receive an outside protective grille on the basis of an etched part.
 

Completed skylights for the pantry (left) and the officers’ mess (right)
 
To be continued ....
 

Continuing with the barbette: the floor of the barhette is partially covered in planking, presumably to protect the armour-steel deck underneath from the damage that might occur, when the heavy shells are handled. The steel deck underneath and in front of the barbette armour-belt is slightly sloping to deflect incoming enemy-shells from the ammunition storage-rooms. Within the barbette this is filled with timber to make a level floor.
 

 

 

Three different contemporary drawings showing the barbette
 
The interpretation of the various items that can be seen in the contemporary drawings is not straightforward. However, one can see a hatch that gives access to the crew's quarters (where also the hand-cranks for turning the gun-carriage is located). Then there is a round hatch for hoisting up the charges from the powder-locker below and a square hatch for hoisting up the shells. From the drawings it appears that these hatches were covered in steel-gratings. There is a further hatch with a double-lid that, according to a hand-written notice on one drawing is a man-hole leading to the ante-room of the shell-locker. However, as it is not drawn in the cross-sections we do not know its height. There are also a couple of racks for shells and some other rack-like features, the purpose of which I do not know - perhaps for tools needed in handling the shells. Unfortunately, there are no photographic images that show the rear of the barbette.  Stairs leads down from the bridge into the barbette. In addition two ladders allow quick access from the deck.
 

The barbette with various items of furnishing
 
The floor of the barbette, which apparently did not have any camber, was built up from two layers of Pertinax one representing the steel-plating and engraved accordingly, the second cut out and engraved to represent the wooden flooring.
 

 

Milling and jig-drilling operations on the new micro-mill
 
The construction of the various hatches gave the opportunity to test the just finished micro-milling machine. The man-hole cover was milled from a small block of Plexiglas. The machine was also used as a co-ordinate drilling machine for getting the holes in the rack in one line and evenly spaced.
 

Collection of hatches for the barbette (the grilles still have to be straightened)
 
To be continued ....

Mad-man had another go ...
 
... and turned his attention back to the hull and its superstructures. All surfaces that would have been iron plating, will be covered in thin sheets of Pertinax. The necessary holes for portholes and other opening will be drilled or cut out before the sheets are fixed. In this way the barbette was lined with sheets of Pertinax as was the deck-house.
 

Deck-house covered in a thin sheet of Pertinax
 
The decks on the prototype were iron plate and this plating was covered in oil-paint that was mixed with sand and cement in order to provide a certain corrosion resistance and above all a better grip in wet conditions. A modelling plan drawn by Wolfgang Bohlayer shows wood on some decks, but evidence that since has become available shows that this was not the case. Also, linoleum decking apparently was never used on these boats.
 

 

Engraving plate-lines and planking seams
 
As the model will show the boat in its original appearence, the plating was reproduced by engraving fine lines into thin sheets of Pertinax. All decks, including that of the barbette will covered in this way. The exception is the deck above the foc'sle that has a cover of planks, presumably to reduce wear, where the anchors were worked. This planking was laid-out in a radiant pattern, which seems to have been more resistant to the gun-blast than the more common parallel layout. The planks were also reproduced by lightly engraving the plank seams. In reality these seams would have been more or less flush with the deck, depending on the temperature and humidity, but a light engraving adds some life to the appearance.
 

Engraved rear-deck plating and planking for the foc’sl
 
to be continued ...

To get away abit (sort of) from all that intricate micro-machining and to see something grow, I turned my attention to the skylight above the officers' quarter in the back of the boat.
 

Skylight above the above officers’ mess (Laverrenz)
 
It was, as other skylights, constructed again around a little block of Plexiglas™ that was milled to shape.
 

 

Milling to shape a small Plexiglas block
 
The panelling was constructed from various layers of 0.4 mm thick Pertinax. For sanding the edges square the then newly constructed micro-grinding machine came handy.
 

Grinding square edges on the micro-grinding machine
 
On the prototype the upper part of the skylight could be lifted off and the coamings of the hatch had half-round trimmings around. For this something half-round of 0.4 mm diameter was required. Short length of half-round wire was produced from lengths of 0.4 mm diameter copper wire that were stuck onto a piece of aluminium that was milled flat in situ to ensure an even thickness of the half-rounds.
 

Milling half-round profiles from 0.4 mm copper-wire
 

Grinding 45° bevels onto half-round 0.4 mm copper-wire
 
I am not absolutely happy with the result, but one has to consider that the skylight has a footprint of only 7 mm by 8 mm. Perhaps I should have another try with shop-made photo-etched parts to be designed for the purpose.

The skylight before painting
 
To be continued ...

Thanks, Gentlemen, for the encouraging words .
 
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I am now catching up from the point, where the log had been interrupted, namely from post #51.
 
The gears were cut from brass stock in the milling machine with the help of direct dividing head and different division plates. The shape of the teeth is not exactly correct, because I used a disc-shaped burr as cutting tool. However, at this module (0.06), where the teeths are merely pitched 0.1 mm apart, this is hardly noticeable. The gear wheels are parted off from the stock on the lathe. The gear segment that will be attached to the barrel was produced in the same manner.
 

 

 

 

Cutting the gears for the gun elevating mechanism using different division plates
   
Cut-off wheels before further machining
 
to be continued ...

I hope everyone made it safely into 2017. Now that various toolmaking and machine-building projects have been completed I am returning to SMS WESPE after a long break.
First I had a look at the box with the parts already made to aid my memory a bit:
 

 
Also, the building-log proper is a great aid in recapitulating what has been done already. I hope to be able to report soon here on real progress ...

… don't have a gun license 
 
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The upper gun carriage
 
Based on the profile drawings from (http://www.dreadnoughtproject.org)
 

Part view of the drawings for the photo-etched upper carriage cheeks
 

Surface etched cheeks for the upper carriage
 

Filler and covering pieces laid out for soldering
 

Assembled cheeks and ties laid out
 
A core for the cheeks was sawn from 0.8 mm brass sheet and the etched covers soldered on. Then 'rivetted angle-irons', from etched parts were soldered on. These are connected by tie-plates. The frame of the upper carriage is also strengthend by horizontal ties. These are composites from several etched parts in order to show the rivetting. The horizontal ties were soldered to the side pieces, while the bulkhead-like ties were glued in because it would have been to difficult and risky to bring the heat for soldering at the right places. The covers for the trunnion-bearings were bent from an etched part and soldered together.
 

Assembled upper gun carriage from the rear
 

Assembled upper gun carriage from the front
 
The upper carriage was further kitted-out with wheels. The front and rear rollers were turned from steel to give them a real 'steel' appearance. On the prototype the rear rollers sit in excentric bearings that allows them to be brought into to contact with the rails on the lower carriage: when being fired the upper carriage slides back on these rails, the rollers allow it to roll back into the firing position.
 

Carriage with the barrel in place. Note the trunnion bearings cover (not yet trimmed to length)
 

 

Added the rollers plus the sockets aft for the lever that is used to turn the excentric bearings of the rear rollers
 
(Sorry, replaced the toothpick with a match - normal size not the large fire-place one   )
 
To be continued ...

Lock for the 30,5 cm gun
 
The next thing to be tackled was the lock piece or ‘wedge’. This 'wedge' has a rather complex shape with a flat front, but a round back and various recesses and cut-outs. I decided it would be best to undertake most of the machining operations while it is still attached to some (round) material that can be easily held in a collet. The round back was milled in an upright collet holder on my mill's rotary table after the various coaxial holes had been drilled and the flat sides milled, all in the same set-up. For machining the other recesses the piece had to transferred to the diving head on the mill.
 

Round-milling  the lock piece in an upright collet-holder on the rotary table
 

Cutting off the finished lock piece
 
The most time consuming part turned out to be the cover piece for the lock, which in the prototype was fastened by five hexagonal head bolts. It holds the moving and locking screws in their place. It took me four tries before I produced a half-way satisfactory piece. Soldering the microscopic bolts (0.4 mm head diameter) in place got me quite a few grey hairs. Finally a fake locking screw was turned up and the moving screw, which moves the lock in and out, was faked from a couple of drilled-together 0.1 mm copper wires, covered in a thin layer of solder to make them look like steel.
 

Milling square and hexagonal bolts
 

Facing the locking screw in special protective brass collet
 
The large re-enforcement ring for the barrel was also turned up and two holes drilled into it for seating the rack quadrant that forms part of the elevating gear. In fact, I had cheated a bit, when drilling/milling the lock seat: the front of the hole should have been flat, which is difficult to machine; so I continued the elongated hole under the re-enforcement ring, which was made as a separate part and slipped over the barrel.
The various parts of the lock were assembled using lacquer and cyanoacrylate glue.
 

 

 

The (almost) finished gun barrel with its lock (toothpick for scale)
 
To be continued ...

Thanks, gentlemen, for the encouraging comments 
 
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Milling the trunnion seats and the lock
For drilling holes for the trunnions and milling the seat of the lock the diving head was set up on the slide-rest. I could have done this operation on the milling machine, but on the lathe the dividing head (http://www.maritima-et-mechanika.org/tools/dividinghead/dividinghead.html) is centred automatically. The outer end of the barrel was supported by the arm with an appropriate centre fitted. The resulting shape from the milling operation looks like a keyhole, but something like a mushroom shape with sharp edges is required. This was achieved by hand filing.
 

Set-up showing for milling the seat for the lock
 

Close-up of the milling operation in the dividing head with support
 

Working drawing and files used to finish the lock seat
 
For the next operation the set-up had to be transferred to the mill anyway: milling the seats for the square trunnions. The trunnions merge in a concave curve with the barrel. The trunnions were turned up on the lathe as disk with two round stubs protruding from either end. In the dividing head on the mill the disk was milled square to the size of the seat (or rather the other way round). These parts then were soft-soldered to the barrel. Back on the mill the concave curves of the square part of the trunnion were milled using a miniature ball-head cutter, rotating the barrel in the dividing head.
 

Milling the square part of the trunnions
 

Milling the seat for the trunnions
 

Trying the trunnion
 

Milling the concave transition between trunnion and barrel
 
Aiming a gun in these days was a rather primitive affair, using just simple sights. The sights (two of them on either side of the barrel) consisted essentially of a round bar with a sliding rod to give the elevation. The beads (mounted near the trunnions) were observed through a ring of inverted U-shape on top of the rod. The bar was screwed into a notch in the barrel. Now, drilling into a round at a tangent is nearly impossible without deflection and breaking the drill (0.3 mm!). Therefore, I ground flat a broken drill bit to make a make-shift micro-mill and sunk a start hole. This was finished with an ordinary drill.
 

Milling the seat for the sights
 

Drilling the seats for the sights
 
To be continued ...

And the show goes on ...
 
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The gun barrel and lock
Turning the barrel
Because there will various visible areas of bare metal, the material of the original, that is steel, was chosen.  A piece of round bar was faced, centred and rough drilled for the bore. This hole served as a protective counter bore for the tailstock centre during the following turning operations. In order to get a good finish the automatic longitudinal feed for the lathe was set up with the change gears. Unfortunately the minimum feed per revolution on the watchmaking lathe is still too high to get a 'mirror' finish. One day I have to construct some sort of reduction gear. The outer part of the barrel has a slight taper (1 degree included angle) and the top-slide was off-set accordingly for this operation.
 

Facing and centring a piece of steel rod for the gun barrel
 

Rough drilling of the gun barrel
 

Turning the barrel using the automatic fine feed
 

Taper-turning with slide rest off-set
 
For rounding off the ends of the rings the lathe’s hand tool rest came to good use. The work was finished off with fine wet-and-dry paper (remember to cover ways!) and steel wool. The bore was bored to diameter using the slide-rest and a micro-boring tool. I had originally envisaged to also show the rifling, but a quick calculation told me that for a 1 mm bore and 72 rifled fields I would need a tool edge tha is just over 0.04 mm wide ...
 

Rounding the 'rings' using a hand turning rest
 

Boring the barrel using a micro boring tool
 
To be continued ...

@bear, I must say, you rather embarrass me with your praise   I gather, a professional mechanic would throw up his hands into the air seeing me doing things, being just a self-taught amateur. Actually, collecting old machine tools and their restoration developed into a hobby of its own: http://www.maritima-et-mechanika.org/tools/toolsmain.html
 
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Back to the subject ….
 
Rack-and-pinion drive for training the gun
 
The gun was trained by pinion acting on a circular rack. The pinion was driven from under deck by a sets of gears and a couple of cranks manned by a number of sailors. The chief gunner was able to connect and disconnect the drive with levers from his aiming-stand behind the gun.
I set up my hand-shaper (http://www.wefalck.eu/mm/tools/shaper/shapers.html) for cutting the rack teeth, but had to throw away the first two attempts because of the poor material and because - again against better knowledge - I did not lock the traverse slide when cutting. The table was removed from the shaper and the home-made dividing head bolted on instead. For lack of a proper tool grinder (another project now in hand) I hand-ground a cutter for the rack teeth (0.1 mm at the bottom) from a rod of high-speed steel. For holding this tool-bit in the shaper, an old lantern-style tool holder from the watch lathe came very handy. The unwanted parts of the ring were cut away on the shaper using ordinary left and right hand lathe tools. Finally the necessary sections were trimmed off with a fine saw blade on the lathe's sawing table.
 

Hand-shaper set-up for cutting the toothed rack
 

Cutting the toothed rack with a specially ground tool
 

Cutting away the unwanted part of the ring with an ordinary tool
 

Rails and rack provisionally in their place inside the barbette
 
 
To be continued ...

Hello
 
As a retired Tool and Diemaker I bow to your skills sir. You are truely a Master at machining and most impresively in minature machining. At the watch making levels.I have patience but your level is truly wounderful to see. I just hope that people around you can let you know just how good your work is.
 
 
 
So much for the CNC button pushers now machining parts. These are the real skills of a great trade,and have all but gone away now in the modern world.
 
Those who have never machined parts or designed progressive die's have no way of completly knowing just what you are doing here. Or just how hard it is to do. Only with God given tallents can you get to this level of work. No training can get you to this level of mastery.
 
It is sometimes hard to see this kind of work when you know just how much time and work it takes to acomplish.I have been in the amchining and toolamker world my whole life. I am second gereration toolmaker,who was trained by my Father and worked with him for over 25 years,and was working in the trade for 44 years.
 
You are the master my Friend.
Keith
 
Keith.

The 30.5 cm Rk/l22 gun
 
The main armament of the WESPE-Class was a massive 30.5 cm (12”) Krupp breech-loading rifled gun (Ringkanone, abrev. Rk). This caliber stayed the bigges in the German Imperial Navy for many decades and well into the Dreadnought-era. It is this gun that essentailly made the boats in floating batteries, rather than ‘real’ ships.
 
http://www.dreadnoughtproject.org)
 
A few years ago a detailed dtawing of gun-mount originating in the adminralty archives in Berlin surfaced on the site ‘dreadnought’. The arrangements for all the heavy Krupp guns of the time were similar, so that a visit to the Finnish fortress Suomenlinna (http://www.maritima-et-mechanika.org/maritime/models/wespe/suomenlinna/suomenlinna.html) off Helsinki was helpful; here a number of Russian clones of 28 cm coastal Krupp guns are still in place since the time, when Finnland was part of the Russian Empire.
 

28 cm Krupp-clone coastal guns in the Suomenlinna-fortress off Helsinki
 
Rails for the Lower Carriage
The lower carriage of the gun is supported on four races that run on semicirucular cast-iron rails bolted to the deck inside the barbette.
These rails need to go into their place in the barbette early during the construction. The same applies to the semi-circular toothed rack that is part of the gun-training machinery. I decided to make the rails from steel, even though ferrous metals in model construction are frowned upon by many. My justifications were that it is difficult to represent cast iron or steel by paint and that there hundreds of models in museums around the world that contain iron. I have used steel in models some twenty years ago and presumably due to the lacquering they shows no signs of rust.
 

Roughing out the rails from a metal disc with the backing of a wooden disc
 

Grooving the races with a specially ground bit
 
Cutting thin disks from round stock of large diameter is a pain I wanted to avoid. Against my better knowledge I picked a suitably sized steel washer as starting material. Unfortunately, the steel used did not machine very well and lot effort was spent to avoid chatter marks while turning and to obtain a reasonably good finish. The various types of wheel collets and chucks available for the watchmaking lathe came into good use for working on inside and outside diameters of these discs. The rails were shaped using a specially ground forming tool.
 

Cutting out the inside of the large ring for the tail-races of the lower carriage, while holding it in a so-called bezel-chuck
 

Trimming the outside of the smaller forward ring holding the material in a so-called wheel-chuck
 

The rails laid out in the barbette
 
To be continued ...

Engine-room skylight
 
The frame of the engine room skylight consists of a an etched brass part, folded up and soldered together. On the inside, grooves have been etched that will serve to locate the protective bars to made from thin copper wire. The lower frame was constructed from Pertinax. The ‘wooden’ gratings on both sides of the lower frame are again etched parts.
 

Unglazed framework for the engine-room skylight
 
Once this structure was complete, a square block of the size of the footprint of the skylight was milled from a piece of Plexiglas.
 

Squaring up a Plexiglas block for the skylight
 
In the next step the roof-shaped faces were milled on. To this end, a small insert vice was set to the appropriate angle of 40° in a larger vice bolted to the mill table. The fixed jaw of the insert vice pointed upward and the side of the block to be milled rested against it. This ensured that all four inclined faces would have the same angle and would start from the same height with respect to the reference (bottom) face of the block.
 

Milling the sloping faces
 

Polishing the sloping faces  
 
A very smooth surface with little tool marks can be achieved on Plexiglas. The final polishing of the surfaces was done using CRATEX-type drum polishers followed by a felt drum loaded with polishing paste. All in the same vice setting to ensure a flat surface. I was lucky the Plexiglas 'house' fitted like a plug into the skylight frame.
 

Finished Plexiglas 'glazing' block
 

Glazed engine room skylight
 
To be continued ...

Thanks 
 
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Skylights, Companionways etc.   I have used two basic techniques for the construction of skylights, companioways etc., depending of the type and purpose. Skylights particularly were constructed around small blocks of Plexiglas milled to shape. Other types were constructed from strips of Pertinax. More intricate parts were etched from brass. For some of the skylights a combination of the techniques were used.   Etched parts for skylights   Boiler-room skylight The prototype construction of the boiler-room skylight is not completely clear from the drawings I had, so that I had to 'fudge' it a bit. First the central piece that supports the chimney was shaped from a piece of Plexiglas. The PROXXON drilling machine was abused as a milling machine to this end: a diamond-cut milling bit was taken up into a collet and the height of the machine set so that the bit reached just below the table. Now the Plexiglas part was passed free-hand along the mill. The form to be cut out was printed on a piece of paper that was stuck to the Plexiglas. It was tested against the shape of the etched grilles in order ensure a snug fit. The box around the skylight was constructed again from Pertinax.   Shaping a Plexiglas-core for the boiler-room skylight   The assembled boiler-room skylight   To be continued ...

Chain-stoppers
 
One pair of chain stoppers is located immediately behind the hawse pipes as usual. A second pair is placed above the chain locker, which is located immediately in from of the armoured barbette. The bodies of the stoppers are rather complex castings, calling for some complex machining operations in model reproduction. The same basic technique as for the bollards was used. Given the complex shape, however, machining is not possible in one set-up. For certain operations the axis of the spigot has to be perpendicular to the milling machine, while for others, such as drilling it has to be parallel. For the latter and for milling the various slots, I choose to transfer the dividing head to the lathe. This has the advantage that its centre line is at the centre of the lathe spindle.
 

Milling the profile of the fore chain stoppers
 

Milling operations using a dividing head in the lathe
 
The slots were milled using a micro-tool made from a broken carbide drill, the end of which was ground flat. This results in a non-ideal clearance of 0º, while the cutting angle and side rake are that of the original drill bit. However, not much metal is removed so that this doesn't really matter here.
 

Home-made milling bits made from broken carbide drills ground flat
 
One set of stoppers was milled from brass, while for the other one I used PMMA (PLEXIGLAS®, PERSPEX), the main reason being that I ran out of brass stock. However, genuine PLEXIGLAS®, is pleasant material to machine and easy on the tools. It holds sharp edges and it easier to see what you are doing than on the shiny brass. Acrylic paints seem to key-in well - basically it is the same molecule, of course. On the downside one may note that small and thin parts are rather brittle. Using diamond-cut carbide tools gives a nice smooth finish, but normal CV- or HSS-tools can also be used.
 

Milling in an upright collet-holder on the milling machine
 
While for the bollards and the front pair of stoppers the spigot could be on the geometric centre of the part, making it easy to measure while machining, for the after stoppers I had to place the spigot to the centre of the pipe down to the locker, so that the concentric rounded edges could be milled. The pictures show this operation.
 

Round-milling the body of the after chain-stopper using the rotary table of the milling machine
 
The stoppers have now completed with etched brass releasing levers, etc. The fore stoppers were also soldered to surface etched base plates.
 

The completed chain-stoppers (right column, the grid of the cutting mat is 10 mm x 10 mm)
 
To be continued ...

Working close to the collet improves precision due to less run-out and side-play, which are minimal on a watchmaker's lathe already ...
 
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Completing the capstan
Again the guiding rollers are a simple turning job. The shapes were produced with a free-turning graver and by rotary milling in the dividing head.
 

Using a worm-driven dividing head to round-mill the head of the chain-rollers
 

Using a worm-driven dividing head to round-mill the head of the chain-rollers
 
In the meantime various etched parts had been produced, including the base plate made up of two different superimposed parts and minuscule pawls. Also a chain separator from 0.3 mm copper wire rolled flat was produced. The various parts were soldered together.
 

The etched parts for the spills
 

The completed capstan (lower left corner, the grid of the cutting mat is 10 mm x 10 mm)
 
To be continued ...

Yes, the squares on the cutting mat are 10 x 10 mm ...
 
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Anchor capstan
One component that always has puzzled me somewhat as to their manufacture in a model has been the sprocket on capstans. While the geometry on horizontal windlasses is quite simple, with suitable depressions for the chain links around the circumference, the sprocket on a capstan is a complex affair. In any case the capstan head cannot be manufactured in one piece. So I broke it down into three pieces: the spill head, the sprocket and the base drum with the pawls. The whole capstan has more pieces including four guiding rollers and a finger to pull the chain off the sprocket. The cast base on the prototype will be reproduced as a surface-etched part.
 

Milling the sprocket, 1st step
 

Milling the sprocket, 2nd step
 
The sprocket started out as a 2.5 mm brass rod taken into the dividing head and five notches were milled to produce something like a five-pointed star (these sprockets typically have five or six arms). The notches for the horizontal links were cut on the lathe with a forming tool. The sprocket then was faced and drilled to fit onto the capstan stem. The next step is cutting it off. This produces some burrs that need to be taken off. Luckily I have collected over the years almost every type of work-holding device that was ever made for the watchmakers lathe. Here the insert jewel chucks came handy to hold the 2.2 mm by 0.6 mm sprocket for facing-off.
 

Cutting with a forming tool
 

Facing-off the sprocket in a jewel chuck
 
The capstan head is a simple turning job. The curved surfaces are pre-cut with appropriate lathe tools and then finished with very fine files. Incidentally, the implement shown on the appropriate picture is a rare miniature micrometer, also coming from the watchmakers toolbox and very handy for measuring narrow recesses and the likes. They came in sets of three, the other two are a depth-micrometer and one for measuring the width of notches respectively.
Finally, the three parts are soft-soldered together.
 

Assembled capstan head
 
To be continued ...

The base for the double bollards were intended to be a surface-etched parts, but I was not happy with the results I produced in my simple home-etching arrangement. So I decided to make them from solid brass. Solid brass was easier to handle for machining than brass sheet. Nevertheless the envisaged machining operations prompted me to make a couple of gadgets, fixtures, for the mill and the lathe.
 

Drilling of the bollard-bases in the work-holding block
 
Milling around the edges or on top of flat material always presents work-holding problems. Worse, if several identical parts have to be produced. Hence I divined a work-holding block with several clamps and stops running in a T-slot.
 

Milling a bevel to the bollard-bases
 
Similarly holding small parts for cutting off on the circular saw is tricky and best done on the lathe with a special saw table clamped to the top-slide. This saw table allows parts to be safely clamped down for cutting.
 

Cutting-off individual bollard-bases
 

The three parts for each bollard (apologies for the poor picture)
 
The three parts of each bollards were soft-soldered together.
 

Work-holding for soldering
 

The finished bollards on the top-left (the other parts will be discussed later)
 
To be continued ...

Deck Fittings
The hull taking shape, at least in its rough outline, I turned my attention to some pieces of deck fittings. I know, many modellers more or less complete the hulls etc. including the paintwork first, but as many pieces may require repeated handling and fitting on the hull, I leave these finishing touches to the end.
 
Bollards
The ships were fitted with four pairs of bollards of square cross section; two at the rear and two on the raised quarterdeck. Luckily a good, rather close-up photograph of the real specimen is available.
 

Rear deck with emergency steering stand and other pieces of deck fittings
 
The bollards are milled from round brass stock. Round stock was chosen as a starting point rather than e.g. flat stock, because it can be held easily in the lathe for turning on a spigot, by which the part can be held for further machining. Otherwise it would be difficult to mount such a small part on the miller for machining on five sides. The spigot is a convenient reference for machining and for fastening the part on the model eventually.
 

Indexing head on the milling machine
 

Before the milling operations
 
From the lathe the raw part is transferred to an indexing head mounted on the milling machine. After each pass with the cutting tool, the part is turned by 90º or 180º depending on requirements. Thus a square and symmetric part is produced.
 

Milling nearly completed
 
For a final machining step, the part is transferred back to the lathe and the dome shaped head formed using a very fine file on a roller-filing rest.
 

The nearly finished bollard with the roller-filing rest in the foreground
 
The job is completed by rounding off the corners using a not-too-hard rubber-bonded abrasive wheel (CRATEX) in the mini-drill. Remaining machining burrs are removed by offering the part to wire brush wheel.
 

The bollards on part of the working drawing
 
To be continued with the bases for the bollards ...

The Barbette for the 30.5 cm Gun
The barbette mainly consists of a semi-circular breastwork armour, backed by hardwood and by an open space covered with thin plate. The latter presumably to retain splintering wood in case of an impact. Since no tube of suitable dimensions for the breastwork was to hand, I made a short, laminated one from Bristol board layers glued together with white glue. The edges were soaked in thinned white glue before being trimmed down on the lathe. The tube then was varnished with wood-filler before the edges were sanded. Finally the tube was cut into half on the fret-saw. More wood-filler was applied before final sanding. The other inside wall of the barbette were lined with Pertinax to provide a smooth surface.
 

Trimming the laminated tube on the lathe
 
The fore-deck has been covered in a sheet of thin Bristol board and the camber of the wooden decking built up with an additional piece of board and putty (I am using fast drying bodywork putty from car repair suppliers). The anchor pockets have also been lined with thin Bristol board, but Pertinax would have been better for this.
 

Tube for the barbette armour made from laminated Bristol board
 
All surfaces that would have been iron plating, will be covered in thin sheets of Pertinax. The necessary holes for portholes and other opening will be drilled or cut before the sheets are fixed.
In between, I had also improvised a disc-sander from a PROXXON router. In think in the meantime this manufacturer offers a small disc-sander.
 

Smoothing the hull on the newly constructed disc sander
 
To be continued ...

@Tadheus, thank you very much for your efforts ! However, could you please check on my Web-site first, before posting a link, whether the picture you found has not been already published there. These pictures are all well-known to me and I may want to use them later to illustrate specific points.
 
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And off we go with the actual model construction ...
 
Materials
 
I had been contemplating a variety of materials for the hull; for instance Plexiglas® layers with bulwarks made from brass foil. In the end, I choose MDF (medium-density fibre) board, which is available in thicknesses down to 1 mm from architectural model supply houses. Other parts will be constructed from or covered with Bristol board, which is also available in various thicknesses (or rather weights per square metre). The bulwarks etc.. will be made from Pertinax® (phenolic resin impregnated paper, FR-2), which is available in thicknesses down to 0.1 mm. Bristol board and Pertinax® are easily cut with a scalpel, a razor blade or scissors and will not crease or dent as metal foil might. I currently have no facilities for photo-etching large parts, but if I had, perhaps I would have made the bulwarks from brass still. The other advantage is that Bristol board can be readily and permanently glued using white glue. Bonds between large areas of metal foil and Plexiglas® might become detached. Pertinax® can be glued using cyano-acrylate or epoxy-resins.
While I have been shying away from thermoplastics, such as polystyrene, on account of it being suspicious to be not ‘permanent’, practical experience shows that my plastic models built over 40 years ago are still intact. So I may reconsider my position in this respect. Polystyrene, of course, has several advantageous properties. One has to be sure, however, that it is properly painted to exclude the deteriorating UV-radiation.
 
The hull and superstructures
 
The basic bread-and-butter construction of the hull is shown in the pictures below.
 

Cutting out layers for the hull
 

Using the drill press as a makeshift disc sander (I have since constructed one)
 

Using the drill press as an improvised miniature drum sander
 

The layers of the hull with the barbette and the anchor-pockets cut out
 

Milling a recess into which later the rubbing strake will be inserted
 
To be continued ...