Bob Cleek

My go-to pin vise is a very common one: This is the Otto Frei pin vise linked above. The neat thing about this pin vise, which it took me years to discover, is that if you unscrew the collet nut, the collet can be pulled out and end-for-ended where there's another sized collect at the other end. If you unscrew the barrel of the vise, there's yet anothr double-ended collect in the handle tube. The OP may want to check his pin vise that only holds larger bits. I'd bet it has a similar arrangement. There should be a zero hole collet and another three going progressively larger from there. The dedicated pin vise sized sets like the Starrett-style mentioned about and particularly handy for holding very small bits which can then be chucked into a drill press. The big bucks you would pay for the Starrett set reflects the machining tolerances that ensure very accurate concentricity of the bits. That level of accuracy is always nice to have, but it's not necessary for modeling wood working. The "hand vise" or "jeweler's vise" is an entirely different animal from the pin vise, even though they are both called vises. The pin vise is for holding drill bits and awl points and things like that and is used as a tool holder. The hand vise is not a tool holder, but rather a workpiece holder. Hand vises come in many shapes and sizes, some being quite specialized. There's nothing better for holding small parts when you need to work on them. The one linked above that has a hole in the handle so a long rod can be run through is designed primarily for pulling long lengths of wire and rod through a draw plate to siize or shape the work piece. The ability to run the rod or wire straight through the handle permits long lengths of material to be puled though the draw plate while maintaining a grip on it close to the face of the draw plate. For general modeling purposes, the engraver's hand vise, sometimes called a "universal work holder" is one of the most versatile of all hand vises: $13.00 from Rio Grande jewelry supply house: Universal Work Holder with Handle - RioGrande Work can be held between the open jaws shown above or work pieces of practically any shape that will fit between the pegs inserted on the face of the vise can be held by placing the pegs as necessary for the sides of the pegs in the holes to squeeze the sides of the irregularly shaped work piece. The wooden handle also screws off, leaving a square block that can be mounted in the jaws of a fixed bench vise to hold the "Universal Work Holder" securely for two-handed work.

I think a lot of it is just an optical illusion because he has such big hands. His hands make the pieces look smaller is all. Just kidding. Johann is my secret hero. His work is incomparable. I've studied a lot of models in a lot of museums around the world and I"ve never seen anything to approach the quality of his work. His build log photography too is some of the best ship modeling porn I've ever seen.

And all th is time I thought I was the only one who was frustrated by the original paperback volume one binding with the pages that fall out. When I got the second volume with the spiral binding that allows you to lay the book flat on your workbench when using it as a reference, I seriously entertained taking my volume one down to the local chain stationary store and having it spiral-bound, as well. One of those things on my list of "probably-never-will-get-around-tuits," though.

Thanks, Roger! That's always been my layman's understanding of it as well.

There's an excellent instructional piece on preparing your own grown wood for modeling use in the NRG's Ship Modeler's Shop Notes, Volume II, I believe, but if you don't have it, buy both volumes and it will be in one of them. A couple of invaluable modeling books and, in terms of bang for your buck, a very good investment. Get them from the NRG online store or used off eBay.

A lot of the Indian tools and tool parts are, or were, produced as piecework in home shops. You can find them in some number on eBay. That said, he Chinese can't hold a candle to the Indians when it comes to knock-offs. As with anything else, you get what you pay for. The Indians do seem to honestly state whether a piece is for decoration, not use, and that a copy of the real deal is just that and not what it's supposed to look like. While you are in the neighborhood, don't overlook Pakistan's large surgical instrument industry. The Pakistani tweezers, foreceps, hemostats and so on aren't the highest quality for medical purposes, most of it apparently destined for Third World clinics, but most all of it is of a quality more than suitable for modeler's purposes. Like the Indian stuff, a lot of it is on eBay.

Believe it or not, I still on occasion find my collection of LEROY templates and lettering instruments useful. The ASCII-standard letters are utilitarian and boring, but some of the old odd-ball fonts produce some amazing work. While I'm often a laser printer font cut-and-paster, there's still nothing like an India inked old style font from the turn of the last century to give a drawing a real period feel.

In my experience, once a yellow metal develops a patina, i.e. oxidizes, the oxidation on the exterior, i.e. the patina, becomes a sealer itself and further oxidation apparently ceases or at least slows way down. In other words, the patina is the sealer. There's no need to seal the patina at all. Now, perhaps some of the chemists and metalurgists in this forum can explain this phenomenon, or expose it as pure bunk, but I've handled a lot of patinated copper and bronze over the years and if it's a patina you want, the best was to get one and keep it is to just leave the piece alone. Surely exposure to salt air, for example, can accelerate the oxidation and keeping it indoors will avoid the green verdigris affect, yielding a "brown penny" look instead, but it all oxidizes the same. Nobody's painted a clear sealer on the Statue of Liberty as far as I know and she's doing just fine. Brass horn players will probably disagree with me, but I wouldn't advise lacquering or otherwise coating polished yellow metal at all. For one thing, bare brass or bronze, lightly polished regularly, will take on a beautiful character owing to those few areas which aren't accessible to the polishing cloth. Hinges, screw slots, and deep corners all develop their own contrasting character to yield a "well used and well cared for" look. The "perfect" bright lacquered finishes that are often applied by manufacturers quickly degrade to a blotchy visual horror because of microscopic scratches and other porosity occurring in the coatings applied. I expect most mariners are familiar with a shiny brass clock or barometer case that after a few years looks like it has "the pox." Because of the coating, it is near impossible to polish these spots away. There's nothing for it but to strip off the coating entirely. This is also often an extremely difficult and time consuming process. Some lacquers wipe off easily with a liberal application of lacquer remover, but others cling to the surface like it was life itself. Every lamp, barometer, ship's clock and other brass or bronze item I own is, or eventually will be, stripped of their factory clear coatings and reduced to their natural bare state and then lovingly (but perhaps too infrequently) hand polished. The satisfaction of polishing a nice piece of brass to a mirror gloss is hard to beat. The moral of the story being that if you coat patina, that coating isn't likely to be accomplishing anything in the short term and probably will cause a whole lot of work for your or some subsequent owner in the years to come. If it's a weathered copper bottom you are seeking, you may also wish to consider applying scale-thickness paper "plates" and painting these with an airbrush and standard model weathering products rather than trying to achieve that look on a model hull with real copper plates. Most of the commercially available "real copper" plates produced for ship modeling are eggregiously out of scale in the first place. Patina itself has its own scale as well. Study your model's bottom and determine what a weathered coppered bottom of your model's scale actually looks like when viewed from scale model viewing distances. When it comes to depicting coppered bottoms, subtlety is the name of the game. See:

Damn! You're absolutely right. I'd forgotten about that for a while.

Let me add one more thing to the above "tome." "Flaming" the thread used for reefing lines to remove any "fuzz" before use is highly advised. Dark line "fuzz" contrasts strongly with the lighter sail material.

Especially when they permit basswood along with mahogany! Maybe they need to update their specifications. Maybe they have and we're just relying on some old data. Nothing ever dies on the internet!

Given the time when that standard was created, I have little doubt they were referring to "genuine" mahogany which is also known as "Honduran mahogany.". Honduran Mahogany | The Wood Database (Hardwood) (wood-database.com) Honduran or "genuine" mahogany refers collectively to the larger Swietenia macrophylla which grows in Central and South America and is also now plantation-farmed in parts of India, the smaller Swietenia humilis which grows from southern Mexico to northern Central America, and Swietania mahagoni which is native to Florida and there listed as "threatened" and the greater Caribbean where it is listed as "near threatened" but with some very limited commercial availability from transplanted plantation stands in Palau and Fiji. [Interesting trivia fact: Swietania mahagoni or "Cuban mahogany" was cut to near extinction in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries by Spanish shipbuilders. Many capital ships of the Spanish Armada were built exclusively of West Indies mahogany. This species was favored because it was believed to be impervious to decay and "buried" shot in battle, rather than splintering, which was the greatest cause of battle casualties. When these large ships were broken up, their timbers were recycled to produce the fine furniture of those periods. Just imagine how much of the finest mahogany ever known to man was cut to build Spain's ships!) The problem is that mahogany is graded not by number ("first grade") but by letters: ("Grade A" through "Grade F.") Guide to Mahogany Grades: Understanding the Differences in Quality - Hardwood Insider (hardwood-insider.com) Mahogany is also graded as a hardwood under the "firsts and seconds" (FAS) system which doesn't bear any relationship to a "first grade" at all. The mahogany grades are basically based on the visual quality of the wood. "Grade A" mahogany is the highest furniture grade. "Grade F" is the least visually attractive grade. So the question remains: What is "first grade" mahogany. It would appear to me that Grade F mahogany would be completely suitable for solid hull model construction of models that were to be painted. Nobody should care about the figuring of a piece of mahogany that is going to be painted. Who knows? The "Mil-spec" world is full of mysteries like thousand dollar hammers and toilet seats!

I've found that using PVA glue is tedious because it takes the glue a while to dry and you have to hold the reef point in place until it does. That can be a problem when you have to hold the entire length of the reef line against the sail to get it to hold its proper shape while drying. I use white (clear) shellac instead of water-based PVA glue. I thread the reef point through the sail with needle and thread long enough to allow me some thread to work with (e.g. two or three times the length of the reef line.) I remove the needle and tie an overhand, figure-eight, or surgeon's knot tight up against each side of the sail to hold the reef point line in place on each side of the sail. Then I place a strip of masking tape on the sail face with its upper edge the same distance from the line of reef points as I want the length of my reef lines to be. (The reason for this is explained below.) Remember to determine the scale length of your reefing lines. There's no precise rule that I know of, except "not too long and not too short, but definitely not the same length from row to row." Reefing lines need to be long enough to encircle the reefed portion of the sail and be tied off with a reef knot, leaving a bitter end sufficient for holding and untying the reef knot. The length of the reefing lines must be sufficient for the amount of canvas that will have to be secured by the reefing lines at each line of reef points. This depends on the size of the sail and the placement of the lines of reef points. Each line of reef points must secure all the canvas below it so if a sail were divided into three equal areas by two lines of reef points, the upper line of reefing lines would have to be approximately twice the length of the reefing lines through the lower line of reef points. If the lines of reef points don't equally divide the sail into separate segments, the length of the reefing lines required to secure the resulting roll of canvas will have to be individually determined. If there are sail gaskets on the head of the sail or fastened to the yard, they would correspondingly have to be approximately three times the length of the reefing lines in the first row of reef points in this example, or, in other words, sufficiently long to encircule and secure the entire furled sail. I then take a paint brush loaded with white shellac and, holding the long end of the thread out away from the sail, and taking care not to flood the knot and send the shellac soaking into the sail material itself, I place a drop of shellac onto the knot and reef line on one side, spreading it down a bit farther than the intended length of the reef line. (i.e., the shellac should end on the masking tape itself when the reefing line is pulled down where it's supposed to end up.) The thin shellac will immediately wick into the knot but, if done carefully, should not wick into the sail itself. Hold the free excess end of the shellac-soaked reef line away from the sail and gently blow on it for a few seconds. (The dry free end of the excess reef line keeps the alcohol from getting all over your fingers which when they get sticky will make a mess of it all.) The alcohol in the shellac will quickly evaporate and the shellacked reef line will become increasingly tacky as the drying shellac thickens. Gently pulling the un-shellacked free end of the reef line downward and perpendicular to the head of the sail (or to whatever other angle you desire) and against the sail, use tweezers, a hemostat, or a similar tool to gently press and hold the sticky reef line against the sail into the final position that you want it to take. It's best to use some sort of pointed metal "positioning tool" to place and hold the sticky reef lines because such a tool will only contact the sticky shellacked reef line in a small area and can be easily be pulled free and rinsed off in a small container of alcohol and wiped clean as you go, preventing a sticky buildup of drying shellac on the tool tips. Try to resist the temptation to use a finger to push the sticky reefing line against the sail. You want the reefing line to stick to the sail, not your dirty finger and the small area of a metal tool point will pull free of the stuck reefing line leaving it attached to the sail much easier than the far greater area of adhesion that occurs when your whole finger tip has become glued to it as it dries. The "finger tip method" causes the reefing line to pull free of the sailcloth because more of it will be stuck to your finger than to the sail. The sticky shellac should cause the reefing line to stick well to the sail in short order. Blowing on the shellac speeds the evaporation of its alcohol solvent. If adhesion proves insufficient, apply a bit more shellac to the underside of the reef point line, blow on it for a few seconds until it gets tacky, and try sticking it again. Let the shellacked reef point dry, adhering firmly to the sail. When it is dry, cut the reef lines to the desired final length with a sharp pointed iris (medical) or embroidery scissors using the upper edge of the strip of masking tape you placed on the sail to mark the desired uniform scale length of your reefing lines across the face of the sail in a neat straight line. After all the reefing lines are cut to length, all the trimmed off-cuts, which will likely be shellacked to the masking tape, can easily and neatly be lifted off of the sail along with the masking tape without leaving any shellac on the sail below the ends of the trimmed reefing lines. This job can be done in any order you prefer. I've found the most efficient method for me is to tie in all the reef lines on one line of reef points on each side of the sail and then shellac, position, and cut to length all the points on one side of the sail and then turn the sail over and do the same on the other side. I install one row of reef points at a time. Keep in mind that there is a technique involved. The reef point stopper knots are most efficiently tied into the reef lines on both sides of the sail using an overhand or surgeon's "instrument knot" tied around a needle holder or hemostat. This permits the two knots on each side of the sail at each reef point to be tied tightly against the sail without any free space between them. Search for "tying surgeon's instrument knots" or "tying sutures with instruments" on YouTube to watch tutorials on tying knots with surgical instruments. (If you haven't learned these skills, they will change your life as a ship modeler. Their training in the use of medical instruments is one of several reasons why doctors and dentists are generally such good ship modelers.) Once the length of the reefing lines is determined and you've placed your masking tape strip across the sail to mark this length and you are ready to start shellacking, remember to keep your hands out of the shellac. Otherwise, you can fall victim to the "tar baby effect" and end up with fingers to which everything sticks but which are useless for getting anything done. To this end, take the long end of the reef line in your nondominant hand and do not let go until the shellacked reef line is stuck to the sail and masking tape right where you want it. Better yet, if you have a suitable instrument such as a needle holder or hemostat, grasp the end of the long reef line at a point just below where the reef line crosses the lower end of your masking tape length marker and use that instrument to control the line instead of your fingers. In that way, you can leave the line to be held by the instrument if you must let go of the instrument. Use your dominant hand to apply shellac from a small cup or jar and to manipulate the tool you will be using to put the sticky reefing line where you want it to be. Use your dominant hand to rinse your shellac brush and positioning tool in a small cup or jar of denatured alcohol as need be. You might want to imagine yourself a surgeon as you install your reefing lines. You want to "keep a sterile surgical field" within which to work and you want to use your instruments to do what your fingers are too large to do. Once you get in a rhythm installing reefing lines, you'll find that it's a task that can be performed rather quickly and precisely without a lot of practice. The shellac will seal the knot in the reef point, secure the reefing line in the proper position on the face of the sail, and prevent the free end of the reef point from unraveling. If you are careful to work neatly, there should not be any visual evidence of the shellac on the reef point lines or the sail when you are done. The advantage of using shellac for this purpose is that it dries very fast and, should the need arise, more shellac can be added if greater adhesion is required. Sticky shellac has excellent archival qualities. While the method may seem involved, it's really a lot easier to do than it is to describe. The shellac allows the reef points to be stuck flat against the sail for the entire length of the reef line, providing a proper scale appearance. Shellac is very forgiving to work with. It cleans up very easily with denatured alcohol, which instantly dissolves it.

"Hulls shall be built up in lifts of clear, first-grade mahogany or basswood; doweled and glued together with water-resistant glue. The wood shall be completely free of knots, checks, and sap pockets and shall be thoroughly seasoned. Models over 12 inches beam must be hollowed for reduction of weight The hull shall be composed of the least number of parts necessary to achieve the proper shape. An excessive number of glue joints shall be avoided. On models less than 12 inches beam, hull lifts shall be cut to the full body shape: lifts shall not be cut in halves, thereby creating a glue seam along the vertical centerline of the model. The lifts shall conform accurately to lines of the vessel as shown by the plans. A stable, durable, flexible body putty may be used in moderation to fill gaps." Specifications for Construction of Exhibition Models of U.S. Naval Vessels, Curator of Models, U.S. Navy Nautical Research Guild - Article - Specifications for Construction of Exhibition Models of U.S. Naval Vessels (thenrg.org) Perhaps so, but I expect their primary concern is plank movement and the development of paint cracking along the plank seams.

I never had that experience. It musta been my clean livin' that done it for me.

Everybody's mileage differs, I suppose. Having built hulls using both methods, I've found shaping a "bread and butter" built hull, let alone a pre-shaped solid hull, is far easier than POF or POB. You are correct that "the natural curve of the planking" is helpful in "getting every inch of the hull shape right. So also does a suitably sized batten with sandpaper glued to it spring into a fair curve in exactly the same way planking strip wood does. Moreover, after one has done anything but a perfect planking job on frames or bulkheads, the hull must be slathered with some sort of plaster or filler putty and then sanded fair in exactly the same manner as a solid wood hull anyhow. As for scratchbuilding, one can take station or waterlines off a plan, cut them to shape, and stack them up to form the stepped shape of the hull which then requires only "knocking the steps off" to achieve a perfectly shaped hull identical to the drawn lines. Just sayin'. In point of fact, the old "pre-carved" solid hull models weren't all that "rough-cut." I can't remember ever seeing one that wasn't shaped to the point where all it really required was finish sanding to smooth without any serious shaping other than sometimes carving rails or stems, etc. thinner because they were left thick so as not to be damaged in shipping. Bottom line, finish sanding the old "pre-carved" hulls really wasn't any more work that sanding a planked hull covered with filler to hide a multitude of sins. Even where one is interested in "showing the planking," whether it be finished "bright" or painted, it is far easier to glue very thin "planks" made of wood shavings from a plane or pieces of paper or card stock to a solid hull than to attempt to shape the much thicker scale plank stock to form a hull "the way the real ship was built." Additionally, with the exception of fully-framed "Admiralty Board style" models and those intended to depict the subject vessel's interior, as with open boats, most all museums and major collections limit their acquisitions to solid hull ship models. I do believe Mr. BlueJacket's explanation that POB and POF kits have come to predominate on the kit market is simply because they are a lot cheaper to produce, particularly with modern laser-cutting technology. The tradeoff is that they are a lot more work to construct and that's passed on the to the consumer.

Brilliant technique! Thanks for sharing it.

Perhaps Mr. BluJacket can answer a question that's been niggling my mind for some time: What happened to the solid-hull ship model kits. Time was, all kits were solid hull, roughed out on carving duplicating machines. I know there some of these duplicating carving machines that ended up in post-war surplus sales. They'd been used to produce rifle stocks back in the day when the military issued quality hand-fettled machined firearms instead of stamped metal and plastic like today. I heard they were dandy for shaping ship model hulls. Like mank oldsters, I cut my teeth and then some on those solid hull models. Somewhere along the line, the solid hulls started to disappear and be replaced by plank on bulkhead and plank on frame models. The frist POF models I can recall were open framed models produced by Bluejacket, I believe. I remember a model of America designed by Portia Takakjian, I think, that yielded a model in the quasi-Admiralty Board style with open frames below the waterline which was beautiful. That was understandable, but I never got the point of planking a model hull that wasn't intended to show open frames. Today, it seems every kit is POB or POF with single or double planking, even the iron ships. I can't see any reason why anybody would ever want to plank up a hull that wasn't going to show partial construction details. I pity the poor novice modelers who struggle with planking when there's no reason for them to do so. Do you know why this affinity for POF and POB hull construction has crowded out the solid hull kits? Did the old duplicating carving machines wear out? Is a flat box much less expensive to stock and ship? Were the planked hulls more attractive to people who buy ship model kits (who aren't always nor perhaps not even often, people who know anything about ship modeling? Enquiring minds want to know.

Letraset was acquired by Windsor and Newton some time ago. I don't know that they still make letter and number transfer sheets. That technology was one which went the way of the dodo bird when desktop publishing fonts became available. I'm guessing they are no longer made by Letraset since I've seen them offered on eBay as "NOS" ("new old stock") for much more than I ever paid for a sheet back in the day. Perhaps somebody else is manufacturing them, but I haven't noticed them in the art supply stores in some time. "Hot" transfer sheets are easily made if you have, or have access to, an electrostatic (laser) copy machine. The trick is to mirror-reverse that lettering font you want and print that on the "dark" setting. This will give you a mirror image of the type you have chosen imprinted with a thick layer of black toner powder. You can then take that copy and lay it face down on wherever you want the lettering to be transferred and gently go over it with a medium-hot clothes iron. This will melt the toner again so it sticks to the surface of the item you want to attach it to. This takes a bit of experimentation, but works quite well once you perfect the technique. The other alternative is to purchase blank decal sheets which can be run through your home printer to create your own decal sheets.

That travel iron looks like a real antique. I note it was "Made in Japan" long before everything was made in China. It's gotta be sixty years old if it's a day.

Quite so! When you get to thinking about paint, perhaps some of us can convince you to take a pass on super expensive pre-mixed hobby shop paints and mix your own from artists' oils. You'll want an airbrush later on, too, but that's a story for another night. Keep your eyes peeled at those garage sales and flea markets. You just never know when you might trip over an old school jeweler's lathe with all its tooling for a price you can afford or even a Unimat SL or Myford 7 modeler's lathe with attachments and tooling.

Excellent advice from Roger, as usual. Allow me to elaborate a little bit. I live by the maxim, "He who dies with the most tools, wins!" I'm always on the lookout for a tool I need. That said, unless you know you will need it in the future, never buy a tool until you need it and then only buy the best tool you can afford. There are instances where you can get away with cheap tools (Harbor Freight is your friend,) but this is usually a false economy. The most expensive tools are the ones you end up buying more than once. Good tools, especially good hand tools, can last for generations. Stay away from "hobby" sources if you can possibly avoid them. Micro-Mark and Model Expo will often be offering bottom end quality tools at top end prices, and then some. Never overlook the used tool market, as well. There are many bargains to be had searching local "online garage sales" like Craigslist and even eBay, where new and used dental and surgical instruments and tools of varying quality are sold for reasonable prices. As a general rule, any tool that is marketed as being for use in model shipbuilding will be 1) of poor quality, 2) of questionable usefulness, and 3) a total waste of money. "Choose wisely, Grasshopper." Most of the more useful tools for working in miniature will come from the medical and dental professions and from commercial jewelers' supply houses like Rio Grande (Rio Grande | Wholesale Jewelry Making Supplies & Services - RioGrande) and Otto Frei (OttoFrei.com | Jewelry Tools & Findings Since 1930 — Otto Frei) BTW, Their quality will be higher and their prices often lower. BTW, Otto Frei is currently having an "up to" 20% off sale on Vallorbe Swiss files. The more you buy, the more you save. You will always need Swiss files. The cheap ones from the hobby stores are garbage, though a lot of modelers have never discovered the difference. Real jeweler's files like the quality Vallorbe brand are a different world altogether and, if cared for, last a very long time compared to the cheapo models. You might want to treat yourself to a few. If you're really frugal, you'd do well to get your fifty bucks back for that rotary tool and buy a couple or three Vallorbe Swiss files. I can't imagine a rotary tool worth spending fifty bucks on because at that price point you can be sure it is junk. (Granted, junk can sometimes last a surprisingly long time, but the odds of that happening are very slim.) Moreover, while there is occasionally a use for a high-speed, low torque rotary tool like the Dremel models, they are not well-suited for working on wood. A rotary tool and assorted burrs and grinding stones is always useful and I'd advise it as a first major purchase powered tool for any modeler. Some research will enable you to decide which rotary tool option is best for you. Besides the Dremel, which I wouldn't advise if you are only going to invest in a single rotary tool, there are the hanging flex-shaft machines exemplified by the higher torque Foredom line, and the "dental engines" of varying types, of which the most useful for modeling is the old high torque, low speed belt driven articulated arm models like your dentist used to drill your cavities. A new Foredom basic flex shaft set up and handpieces will set you back at least five hundred bucks. A new dental engine with a handpiece will easily run more than a grand. Not to worry though. There's always the used market. My Foredom flex shaft and two handpieces cost me $75 off Craigslist. It's an older model, but it runs great and is my primary workhorse rotary tool. My brand new Buffalo Dental Co. dental engine with a handpiece cost me $75 off eBay. There's a story that illustrates the value of keeping your eyes open all the time for tool bargains. The dental engine was listed on eBay as a "steampunk decorator piece" with the disclaimer that it would look cool on display but was "inoperable." It looked unused. I found the manufacturer's website, ascertained that the unit looked complete, save for two belt sheaves and the belt, and that parts were available for it. I PM'd the seller to ask about the item's provenance. He said it came from a dental lab that was closing and had a lot of old stuff to get rid of. He said he'd plugged it in, but it didn't run. I decided to buy it for $75 on the off chance that the engine could be repaired. If not, the handpiece was worth $250 used alone, so I could resell that and come out ahead. When I got the machine, I examined it and discovered both brushes had been removed from the motor. Apparently, this was a new unit in the stockroom that had been "cannibalized" for parts at some point. I ordered the two missing sheaves, a belt, and a set of brushes. I installed the parts and the machine ran like new. Score one new $1,250 dental engine and handpiece for $75! A thread about what tools somebody else out to buy could go on forever. There's nothing like spending other people's money. Without getting further into the weeds discussing specific tool purchases, I'd urge you to do two things. First, there are several Lady Nelson build logs here, some by quite accomplished modelers (Vossiewulf, for one.) Showing results for '"Lady Nelson"'. - Model Ship World™ Go over those build logs and see what tools those who have built your kit before have used and determine whether you need them for your build. If you haven't studied the build logs for your model, you should certainly do so before starting to build anything. Second, if you haven't already, and you expect to spend any time on this hobby, I suggest you start building your research library. That can become a hobby to last a lifetime in itself, but the longest journey begins with a single step. Get yourself a copy of Frank Mastini's book: Ship Modeling Simplified: Tips and Techniques for Model Construction from Kits: Frank Mastini: 9780071558679: Amazon.com: Books There are used copies of this book all over eBay for less than the twenty bucks it costs new. This is a primer for beginning ship modelers building models from kits. It is very good for what it is. There are other far more sophisticated books on ship modeling which attract the experienced modeler, but for starting out, this one will be quite helpful. Happy modeling!

At the risk of thread drift, I'll mention that I've found the cheap and readily available magnetic dishes used by auto mechanics to hold small parts are really very handy around the shop. I've got four of them here and there and I try to keep in the habit of using them to hold nuts, bolts, screws, and the like whenever I'm working on taking things apart and the like. They've saved me tons of time that otherwise would have been spent on my hands and knees searching for parts that went walkabout of their own accord. I can't bring myself to criticize a single thing about my Byrnes tools, but I'll "mention in passing" that using them often entails the removal of small grub screws and tiny flathead bolts which make having the factory "replacement parts set" on hand reassuring. Three bucks from Harbor Freight: 4" Magnetic Parts Tray (harborfreight.com)

That makes two of us. Apparently, they are indeed what we call "burrs." I wasn't able to find any reference to them as "stump cutters." All Google gave me were advertisements for tree stump removal and tree services.

Highly recommended! The two Shop Notes volumes should be on every modeler's shelf. Two of the most valuable books on the subject around. That said, it can't be all that difficult to match a gray. Use a clean small bottle of suitable size and with a tight cap to hold your paint. (You may add a few "B-B's" (round air rifle shot) to the jar which will serve as agitators when you shake the capped bottle to mix your paint.) Use large hypodermic syringes for measuring, one for each color and oil, thinner, or dryer you'll be using. These are for accurate measuring of the amounts you will be mixing. Write down the exact amounts you use to mix your paint as you add them! Start with white. Add a very slight smidgen of Prussian blue to that and mix well. (You should premix the individual colors before mixing, thinning each with an equal proportion of thinner, etc., so a small measure of one will equal the same proportion of paint, thinner, and dryer as an equal measure of the other.) Then progressively add black in small amounts, mixing well, (and a bit more blue if necessary) until you get close, but slightly lighter than what you want to match because paint tends to dry darker than it looks when wet. Paint a test paint "chip" on clear card stock and let it dry. Compare it to your prototype sample to test for the color match. If it's too light, add a bit of black (and/or blue,) and repeat the card test until you achieve the exact match you desire. Sneak up on it, though. Don't overdue adding color to the white. If you "go too far," and your gray is too dark, add more white paint gradually until you achieve your desired match. When you've got your match, add up all the measurements you've written down for each ingredient you've used in your mixing and write these totals for each ingredient on the reverse side of the index card you used for your successful color match. Be sure to also record the exact brand and stock name or number of each ingredient. (If you are really anal, you may want to do the same for each test "chip" index card you prepare as you "sneak up on your color match in case you might want a particular lighter (or darker) color in the color range you're working in.) Save these "paint recipe" index cards in an index card box. If you want to mix the same color again, you've got the recipe and if you want something lighter or darker, you can "sneak up" on that color a lot faster with a "head start" from your recipe cards. If you are really, really anal, you can identify your paint colors using the Munsell Color Standards System, which, if memory serves, is addressed at great length in Ship Modelers' Shop Notes, Volume II. See: Color Matching & Identification; Munsell Color | Munsell Color System; Color Matching from Munsell Color Company This identifying system is the industrial standard for identifying, describing, and mixing colors. Two warnings about mixing paint to match: Firstly, if you are mixing colors you should do so under "daylight" if at all possible. Artificial light other than "daylight" bulbs will affect the color you perceive when looking at it under such artificial light. Secondly, while the colors you mix may appear one way to you, it is quite possble they may appear differently to someone else because not everyone's eyes perceive color the same way. Only by matching colors can you be sure they are the same and if you are "color blind," even then you may be out ot luck!