Bedford
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Everything posted by Bedford
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After your comment on my "Miss Caroline" build I thought I'd see what you're up to and wow, impressed! I've done a kit Bluenose II but it wasn't great quality, she's a beautiful ship isn't she? -
While I'm still not keen to try making shackles I have made thimbles of the modern variety. I had to buy some 1/16" copper tube with the idea of making a rudimentary pipe bender to form the teardrop shape and then carefully file away the outer half of the tube to reveal the thimble. I tried with un-annealed copper first because it would hold up to the filing better than the annealed tube but as I feared the tube wouldn't bend around a 1mm radius unless annealed. I ground a piece of HSS tool steel to give the 1mm radius then turned the bender in two halves so it could be separated to release the thimble. One side is female and sits in a milled hole in some MDF while the other has a 1.1mm pin to locate it properly. I only had to hold the top former down by hand while forming the curve. Next was clamping the material in the soft jaws and very gently filing away the outer half of the tube. The Dremel with wire wheel came in very handy for cleaning out the groove and finishing the thimble. Once finished it was cut off the stock and the ends dressed. The first pic shows the two parts held together in the lathe just to make sure they were right before finishing and parting off the second piece. The gap was perfect, the tube fitted very snugly.
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Don't let them drag you too far down that rabbit hole John, you've got a boat to build!
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You could get away with the base of a 22/250 bullet cartridge if you didn't mind it saying "Winchester" instead of Germania 🤣
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Yeah Michael, 1/32" isn't impossible but with my tooling it's not yet something I want to take on. I might get to them at some point though, never say never! Meanwhile I'll just watch your beautiful workmanship
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And here's me bailing on the idea of creating 1:8 scale shackles! Mind you the full size ones only have a 6mm pin
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Yes I've been learning that trick from Keith and used it extensively in the production of my turnbuckles
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Now you're expecting too much! The "V" block will have to suffice.
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Yeah I expected that from you. I didn't even try looking for 1mm tap and die let alone left hand! Yes the first pic was the stock cut to a hex and drilled for the "thread"
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I've put the collet blocks to use and made the turn buckles for the standing rigging
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Mark, the designer Iain Oughtred designs his boats to carry a good amount of sail so they sail well in light winds and even with my limited sailing experience Miss Caroline does do quite well in very slight breezes. In his book he goes to lengths to tell the builder to make damn sure they set up the reefing pennants and halyards and practice using them because you'll need them when the wind picks up. As for the jib, yes the leech is roughly parallel to the mast with about 150mm clearance
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And just to see how the rig will stand, for the first time I am really seeing just how much sail my little boat carries.
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Michael, you'd have no trouble convincing me that this pic was taken in the full size boat! Spectacular work from the keel up, inside and out.
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Yeah, decided to leave the rudder halyard as it is for a few reasons 1: The merest thought of making my own rope hasn't even begun to speculate about the slightest possibility of crossing my mind. 2: I like the way this stuff is lying 3: Without the closeup photo none of you over 45 would be able to see the twist anyway 4: It's pretty much the same colour as the rigging on the real boat
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9 degrees, cold. I laugh in your general direction! I lived in the lovely little city of Orange for 30 odd years and as long as the sun was out and it wasn't windy I would happily wear shorts and T shirt at 9 degrees, luxury!! Mind you anything over 26 and I'm ready to call it quits!
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Yes a 3MT collet chuck and collets are on the shopping list as are those kinds of drill bits and small mill bits. I haven't invested in really small mills yet because a drill chuck won't be good enough for them
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Never fear my friend, always appreciate input. Now that you mention it the strands do look a bit loose in the pic. My eyes aren't good enough to see it in the flesh. The upside of the loose twist is that the halyard is lying nicely, without the stiffness often displayed in scale rigging so I'll see how it goes. I'm going to upset you further by saying I've decided not to leather the boom and gaff yokes. I just can't see it working.
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Now onto the shrouds and stay. I've been able to find affordable 1mm stainless wire so I've decided that if I can get the turnbuckles made I'll go with authentic, if not I'll go old school with rigging cord and dead eyes. First parts to make were the bodies of the turnbuckles and while turning 2mm diameter items between centres isn't an issue, the tailstock chuck (2MT) won't hold a 1mm brill bit to drill the through holes in the bodies for the screw ends so I had to turn the three bodies and part them off then place the mill chuck (3MT) in the headstock to hold the fitting while just starting a 1.6mm centre drill into each end and then I had to hold each of the bodies in the tailstock chuck and drill them with the 1mm drill in the headstock chuck which will hold it. I'll put some thought into how I'm going to make the screw ends and now that I have the 6 sided collet block I can make some little fake lock nuts and then work out whether I'll solder them together or use CA
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Well there has been lots of destructive storms and heavy rain now and while the fires have reduced in number and ferocity some are still going! Onto the build I've finished the rudder/tiller now using blocks I had left over from the schooner project, they're wood instead of tufnol but if I could have used wooden blocks on the real thing I would have, the spending had to have some limits.
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Looking good there my friend, I'm probably going to do sails for my dinghy too but fortunately my sails don't have a bolt rope to worry about. I think the new position of the gaff span is much better, if you look at the pic of my full sized boat you can see where the span is and how it relates to the mast, gaff and halyard. I should have posted this earlier in the conversation.
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Michael, have you considered making up a scale bill of sale or papers showing the shipwright, you, and the completion date that you can stick in a cupboard or something in the interior that may be found in years to come. I met a modeller at ANMM years ago that had the pleasure of being part of a miniature camera probe deep into the bowels of some of the original admiralty models at a maritime museum in England and they found interesting things.
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