Jump to content

Bob Cleek

Members
  • Posts

    3,303
  • Joined

  • Last visited

Everything posted by Bob Cleek

  1. Funny coincidence. I happened to see this book listed in the WoodenBoat Store book section: Crash Boat published in 2021. It apparently recounts the exploits of the ASR's in the South Pacific. I thought it might be of interest to you if you haven't come across it in your research as yet. See: Crash Boat: Rescue and Peril in the Pacific During World War II: Jepson, George D.: 9781493059232: Amazon.com: Books (Shop around, it may be available for less elsewhere. Apparently available in both hardcover and paperback.)
  2. Excellent advice about powered modeling tools! To this in fourth place after the above mentioned three, I'd add a quality stationary disk sander and I'd say move heaven and earth to buy one of the new Byrnes 4" variable speed disk sanders. There are lots of cheaper alternatives on the market, but the mass of the disk and the variable speed set the Byrnes variable speed model light years ahead of the rest. If that's just too costly, you should at least get the regular Byrnes 5" fixed speed disk sanders. Nobody I know of makes a better fence and table system on a disk sander than Byrnes.
  3. Easier still is a method I've used with satisfaction: Laminate "Hahn style" frame shapes (and whatever else desired) with PVA glue using birch tongue depressors sold in quantity dirt cheap at craft supply stores. These can be neatly "chopped" at angles using a standard "classroom" paper cutter, which, BTW, is also a very handy ship modeling tool.
  4. Before anybody buys an airbrushing rig, I strongly suggest they read the thread linked below. Pay particular attention to Kurt Van Dahm's comments at post #7. Kurt is MSW's airbrushing expert, as far as I'm concerned. (And it appears the Badger airbrush company shares my opinion!) I expect if you send Kurt a PM, he will be able to recommend something that best meets your needs at your chosen price-point. Note also that I believe the MSW sponsor, USA AIRBRUSH SUPPLY, offers discounts to MSW members. Your 85' ASR build looks like it's coming along very well. I have a bit of first-hand familiarity with this family of "crash boat" vessels. There were several around San Francisco Bay "back when" and at least one of the 85 footers is still afloat and operational on the S.F. Bay and Delta waters. See: Testimonials (homesteadcloud.com) They were quite popular with the Sea Scouts, who apparently were at one time able to get them for nothing as government surplus. A friend of mine's father skippered the Air Force ASR stationed at Hamilton AFB in Novato, CA on S.F. Bay as recently as the late 'sixties or early 'seventies. The widespread misconception that the hulls of the PT's, ASR's, and similar small craft built in WWII were built of plywood deserves to be dispelled. Plywood was used in the construction of flat surfaces in these boats, such as decks and bulkheads, but not in their curved hull surfaces because their hull forms contained compound curves (where curves go in more than one direction at a time in the same piece of material.) Because the plies of plywood are laid in different directions, plywood can only be bent in one direction and is not suitable for developing compound curved shapes. The wooden hulls of the WWII production small craft in question were built with multiple layers of traditionally spiled planking fastened together with glue and mechanical fasteners, the compound curved shapes being developed in the lay-up of the planking layers. This is a much more involved construction process than simply nailing sheets of prefabricated plywood to a frame. All of the 85 foot ASR's were double-planked with a layer of canvas laid in waterproof adhesive between the planking layers. The inner cedar planking was hung at 45 degrees to the diagonal, 1/2" thick below the chine and 7/16" thick above the chine. The Honduras mahogany outer planking was hung horizontally and was 3/4" thick below the chine and 9/16" thick above the chine. The inner planking was fastened to the longitudinal timbers with bronze screws and to the frames with copper nails. The outer planking was fastened through the inner planking into the frames with bronze screws. The inner planking was then fastened to the outer planking with bronze screws from the inside. The decks were 3/4" fir plywood, fastened with Monel ring-necked nails to the deck beams and with bronze screws to the shelf and clamp. The decks were canvas laid over white lead paste. The 85 footers were decidedly not planked with plywood because their hull shapes included compound curves which are not possible to develop. The planking was finished "fair" (smooth) as might be expected, so planking and filling your model hull with a sanding filler and then painting will permit you to use wider planking stock as you have used on the bottom, but I would expect that the graceful curves of the bows will be more easily developed with narrower planks than you were able to use below the chine. If you haven't come across it already, you will find the "U.S. Crash Boats" website a goldmine of information on the entire "crash boat" and "Air-Sea Rescue" class with specific information on the 85' ASR's. This site provides more information than I've ever seen on this type of site. It has PDF's of all the applicable manuals, design and construction details, and even extensive crew lists for all of the crash boats. See: 85 ft. Army Air Force Rescue Boat (uscrashboats.org) See also for a large number of interior and exterior detail photos highly useful for scratch modeling: Boats: Crash Boat, Aviation | Flickr .
  5. Growing up, we lived in a house with hardwood floors that required regular waxing with one of those "iron holystones," too. When I got old enough, that job fell to me. I was greatly relieved when Bissell came out with an electric floor waxer for home use! I have no idea whatever happened to that old hand buffer that I had to swing back and forth. It'd be good for a "What is this tool?" contest these days.
  6. True that, but the great models we see from the 17th and 18th centuries were built with human powered tools. They certainly had lathes and perhaps even pedal-pedal powered scroll saws. The Egyptians were using human-powered wood turning lathes in 1,300 BCE and fret saw blades were in use from the early 1500's. My comments regarding the POW bone models were in response to an assertion that, "Prisoners used to make accurate models of square riggers from bone with no tools at all."
  7. I believe so. I pulled the photos off of Google images, but they look like the POW bone models I've examined in various museums and these were made of bone, bovine, I believe. That would include the cannon and whatever other material is colored white. The rigging is sometimes made of horse hair, or so I've read.
  8. Ah, but which color "bronze?" Crescent Bronze, a leading powder-coating manufacturer, has a good bronze color chip card that is worth adding to one's collection of color chips: Crescent Bronze - Color Card Request The standard option for obtaining painted metallic effects is the "real deal," actual colored bronze metal pigment-ground powder sold for the purpose of producing a bronze, brass, copper, gold, or silver metallic finish for painting. (I'm don't know exactly why they use bronze for all these other metals, except that perhaps bronze is easiest to manipulate the color by adjusting the alloy formula.) Schmincke Pigments is the leading manufacturer of ground metallic pigments which are sold in most all artists' supplies stores. They come in a range of shades, colors, and finishes as raw pigment (sold as "oil bronze"), as well as premixed in an oil base and tubed like artist's oil paint. They can be used like any pigment, either mixed in a carrier, e.g., clear varnish, to make a paint, or dusted onto a tacky surface after a sizing is applied and lightly burnished with a cotton ball after the sizing dries, in the same method used for gold leafing. The base metallic color can be thereafter "weathered" to tone it down to a desired appearance in the usual fashion if necessary. See: Schmincke's website for detailed information on their "oil bronze" product line: Bronzes: Schmincke Künstlerfarben (They also sell lines of premixed colored bronze powders in an acrylic medium and powders for use with watercolors. I've never used either of these, so you're on your own there.) Of course, a lot depends upon what appearance you are seeking. In some instances, metallic colors wouldn't be required because standard colors would serve to produce the desired effect. This video below demonstrates an easy and very effective way to create a convincing faux bronze patina finish using metallic bronze powder which is rubbed on using carnauba wax as the "carrier." The tone of the finish can be adjusted by modifying the background color from black to a flat "penny brown." "Verdigris (green)" weathering powders can thereafter be applied to achieve a very convincing weathered bronze patina appearance. This method can also be used to create a very convincing representation of a copper sheathed hull over a base of scale thickness paper "copper plates."
  9. So the story goes and I suppose stranger things have happened, but the fact of the matter was that the Eighteenth-Century prisoner of war handicrafts, including ship models, were in many instances a rather finely organized production operation with all the contemporary tools suited to the task available to the prisoners building the models. It's been written that many, if not most, of the prisoner of war ship models, bone and otherwise, were built on a "piecework" and "assembly line" basis in much the same fashion as are today's commercially built ship models from Vietnam and Madagascar. (See: Model ship workshop „Le Village“ - MADAMAGAZINE and " Sail into the World of Handmade Model Ships" – OMHVN (vietnamshipmodels.com) ) It behooved the captors to supply the prisoners with the tools and to some extent the materials to fabricate items for sale to the general public because the proceeds of their endeavors provided the prisoners with an income with which they could to some extent support themselves, thereby reducing the cost of their keep which otherwise would have had to have been paid by their captors. This was and is a long-established prison industry business model still practiced today. (See e.g., : About » CALPIA Website ) Although some remarkably accurate POW bone models have survived from the Napoleonic period, in general, the term "accurate" as applied to them remains a relative concept. They presented quite a range in terms of visual and historical accuracy, although all are true folk art treasures today. Many were entirely fanciful... and then some!
  10. Thanks for the video! These certainly look like quality tools. They aren't inexpensive, but money spent on a good tool is money well spent. I doubt that there is anything better than these on the market today that isn't electrically powered, and the powered tools are often overkill for the needs of many modelers.
  11. Byrnes Model Machines recently came out with an adjustable speed 4" disk sander with variable speed settings between 200 and 2,000 RPM and it also features reversible disk rotation. Byrnes Model Machines - Variable Speed Disc Sander It is otherwise similar to the earlier Byrnes 5" disk sander. Getting rave reviews. It's not shipping at the moment due to Jim Byrnes' sad passing, but I expect they will be up and running in due course. The price isn't listed on this unit at the moment, but, as one might expect, it's not inexpensive. That said, all of the Model Machines products are monuments to the principle that "you get what you pay for." They are the finest of their kind to be had anywhere. I'm not comparing the Byrnes disk sander to the Ultimation sander, of course. The Ultimation products are less expensive, being hand-powered, but still have earned an excellent reputation for quality.
  12. There are lots of 45 degree dental engine handpieces in different styles, as well as other angles. Take a look at Paul Budzig's YouTube video above. He explains how an air turbine dental drill can be run off of a shop air compressor, which was news to me. The turbine drills are high speed / low torque, of course, so they are available at much lower price points than the heavy-duty bench engines used for making bridges and dentures, etc. There's also now a whole generation of "micro-motor" motorized handpiece technology on the market now. The older-style belt-driven "dental engines," which are still used for lab work, can really put out the torque at slower speeds which is best for micro-carving with shaky old hands. I scored my Buffalo Dental engine (picture below) on eBay for seventy-five bucks. Heavy Duty Bench Engines - Buffalo Dental Manufacturing Co. Inc. It was described as "not running," but it looked brand new and it came with a handpiece that I knew was worth about $250, so I took a chance that it was something I might be able to fix. I checked it out when it arrived and, BINGO!, The motor brushes were gone and it was otherwise brand new! A phone call to the manufacturer and a new set of brushes and a drive belt arrived in the mail and it was good to go. My guess was that it was in stock in a large production dental lab and somebody's engine needed brushes and none were in stock, so they just cannibalized this new machine in the supply room to get the brushes and forgot to order replacements for the ones they took. I got lucky on that one. Must be my clean living. I just checked eBay out of curiosity, and somebody's got one listed as "buy it now" for $138.00 + $25.00 shipping. BUFFALO DENTAL BENCH ENGINE NO 10 JEWELRY HOBBY POLISHER GRINDER ARTICULATED ARM | eBay Below is what my Model 16 looks like. It has a 1/5 HP motor. The one for sale on eBay is a Model 10 and has a 1/10 HP motor. The Model 16 which is currently in production retails for $800.00. The interchangeable handpieces are separately priced and retail for around $200.00 and up, but there's lots of them on the used market, as well. These are expensive, very high quality tools and because of changes in the dental lab technology these days (3D printing of custom dental prostheses) they are showing up on the second hand market with some regularity. If you can find a used one in decent shape, you can score a great modeling tool at really great savings.
  13. It's been my understanding that the 1/8" shaft "plastic collared" micro-bits are designed for drill presses and break very easily when used in a pin vise. I must confess that I have never used them, though. Brass comes in different hardnesses, and some alloys are easier to work than others. Have you tried annealing the brass you're working on? Sometimes that helps the bit "bite" into the metal better. Just thoughts, for what they are worth.
  14. Greater specificity would be helpful, but based on a guess as to what you want to accomplish with a "miniature angle drill / drill adapter," I'd say you won't find much of anything that will do the job other than an inexpensive dental drill. You can go with a relatively inexpensive air-turbine model or a more substantial and more costly (although not on the used market) belt-driven dental lab "dental engine" and handpieces. They come in many different angles and styles. The burrs (bitts) come in many configurations, as well. Dremel makes a right angle attachment, but it is generally too large for "getting in close" in modeling applications. Amazon.com : dremel right angle attachment These videos may help to answer your question.
  15. Fascinating post! I think you've really hit on an interesting thing here with the perception of lions in various cultures. I wonder why, as well. You've got the makings of a great "coffee table" picture book or a TV travel documentary. The similarities between various cultures are really surprising and yet they don't really look like lions at all. Just to drive you really, really, crazy if you haven't been there before, have you checked out Chinese lions? Particularly the "lion dancers" in the Chinese New Years parades. Some of the Chinese lions look a lot like your "wide" Russian lions. I wonder if the Russians got their stylized lions from the Chinese, or did the Chinese get theirs from the Russians or the Byzantines. The interesting thing is that there are no native lions in China. See: Lunar New Year: Lions aren’t native to China, so where did the traditional lion dance come from? | South China Morning Post (scmp.com) \ And the Chinese also use lions in their architecture. There is a Chinese custom, as it seems there is the world over, of placing "guardian lion" statues at the entrances of buildings. Here again, the Chinese "guardian lions" have the same sort of look as the Russian lions you've been studying. Perhaps it's some primal impression in the human DNA that goes back to when we all were lion food. A Jungian anthropologist would have a lot of fun musing about this subject. Somebody could probably write a doctoral dissertation on it.
  16. Zinsser's Bulls Eye prepared shellac is definitely what everybody seems to use here in the U.S. unless they are mixing their own shellac with flakes and alcohol. HOWEVER, what is shown above is amber shellac. Shellac comes in a range of colors on the "honey brown" or "amber" spectrum. Amber shellac is "amber colored." A single coat of Bulls Eye amber shellac will color the shellacked surface with a transparent film that has an "amber colored" or "light orange/brown" cast. Additional coats of amber shellac will add additional layers of this coloration to the point where a half-dozen or so coats will result in a very dark brown color. If this coloration is undesirable on your model (and I've never seen an application where I would have desired it on a model at all) Zinsser's Bulls Eye Clear Shellac should be used. The amber shellac is shellac's natural color. The clear shellac is bleached so that the shellac adds no coloration to the surface to which it's applied. For the purposes of sealing wood in modeling applications, I would strongly recommend that clear shellac be used. If a change in the appearance of the wood is desired, a thinned stain or dye should be used, followed by a coat of thinned shellac to seal the surface. Other than for finishing large flat areas without surface detail, such as bright finished hulls, model bases and cases, and the like, I would not recommend the use of any "wipe on" finish such as an oil commonly used to finish furniture. Such oils, unless greatly thinned, are thick and tend to collect in the nooks, crannies, and details of a model and are very difficult to apply in a sufficiently thin coating. Application of oils is also very difficult because they cannot be "rubbed" very effectively and rubbing always risks accidentally doing damage to small detail parts applied to the surface. Finally, most rubbed oils take time to fully polymerize and so tend to attract and collect dust and dirt that are very difficult, if not impossible, to remove. Finishing scale models well requires a "scale" finish coating. The thicker the coating, the more the thickness of the coating impairs the crispness of scale detail that is to be desired. This means that paints should be of high quality with a relatively high content of finely ground pigment. High quality commercially bottled "scale model paint" is made to meet this requirement, as are quality "tubed" artists' oils and acrylics which can be suitably thinned by the user for bristle brush or airbrush application. Thinned clear shellac ("2 pound cut" or less) provides an advantage in this respect as a clear finish or sealer over opaque paints, stains, and dyes in that it provides an extremely thin coating which soaks into the wood surface and is virtually invisible when the alcohol solvent quickly evaporates. (Shellac is also an excellent fixative for rigging knots and "starching" rigging line to shape catenary curves in the line. Thicker "cuts" of shellac, which can be obtained from pre-mixed shellac by simply allowing a sufficient amount of the alcohol solvent to evaporate, is also suitable for use as an adhesive which, where the occasion demands it and can be easily dissolved and removed with the application of alcohol. Where bare wood is to be portrayed on a model, such as is frequently the case with decks, and the wood species used fails to provide the required scale appearance of bare wood, which is often the case, I would recommend the use of a thinned stain or a dye. Achieving the effect desired from the application of a stain or dye can be tricky and testing and experimentation is essential before application to be sure the effect one wishes will be achieved. If one isn't familiar with working with mixing finishes, they should find that one of the bottled premixed stains offered by the model paint manufacturers will provide a more certain outcome than mixing their own. Finally, the necessity of testing all finishes and finish combinations on a model before application to the model cannot be stressed enough. Frequently, correction of a "disaster" in the finishing process is near impossible to accomplish. Due consideration must be given to the compatibility of finish materials is critical. While shellac somewhat uniquely can be considered a "universal" sealer that "plays well" with any subsequent coating applied to it, dissimilar coating products often are not compatible with each other and the application of one over the other can result in disastrous consequences. Particularly, oil-based finishes and water-based finishes (e.g., acrylics) should never be presumed to be compatible with each other without testing. Even similar types of coatings from different manufacturers must be tested for compatibility with each other. Notably, some acrylic paints are thinned with water, others with alcohol, and still others, according to their manufacturers, are thinned with proprietary thinners. As the saying goes, "For best results, follow the manufacturer's instructions!
  17. Right you are. Gyros is another Chinese pirate product. The "real deal" original is the U.S. made V.F. Rogers Drill Bit Set - #61 to #80. However, V.F.Rogers, the original manufacturer, doesn't seem to be in business anymore. MicroMark is selling the Rogers Drill Bit Set which they say they get from Excel hobby knives company. Excel's catalog says they are made in the U.S.A., but I don't know if Excel is now making them or just wholesaling them or what. They've been around for a long time. Another mystery thanks to the world of "offshoring" and Chinese import tool clones. $30 from MicroMark. The Rogers Drill Bit Set, #61 - #80 (Set Of 20), 20 drill bits from #61 to #80, Includes an indexed drill bit stand, Ultra-sharp high-speed drill bits (micromark.com) $30.00 USD from MicroMark. $53.51 USD from Excel Hobby Blade Corporation, which makes or wholesales them these days. 20 Piece Drill Dome Set – Excel Blades You can get individual wire gauge bits from McMaster-Carr, but they aren't cheap! drill bits | McMaster-Carr. MicroMark sometimes sells little plastic tubes with ten or a dozen wire gauge bits of the same size at dramatically reduced prices as "loss leaders" when they have their big annual sales. I bought the whole range of 20 bits for the Rogers' stand in tubes of ten from MicroMark some time ago. So far, they seem to work fine. Buying them singly to replace broken bits in the drill stand can get painful quickly. McMaster-Carr wants $5.54 USD apiece for an 80 ga. 3/4" long uncoated HSS bit and $1.39 USD for a 60 ga. 1 5/8" one. I don't doubt that the McMaster-Carr bits will cut better and be better all-around in terms of quality control, but I have no idea if they break any less than the cheaper (and probably Chinese made) bits from the hobby outlets. There's a break-even point there somewhere, but I have no idea whether paying top dollar for U.S. made commercial quality bits is worth the money for general modeling use. Original V.F. Rogers Drill Bit Set. Note "Drill Stand" embossed on top of base center, not "Gyros" letter "G." Original Rogers drill stand bottoms: Manufacturer's ID and patent number:
  18. You might want to check out Model Building with Brass by Ken Foran. Model Building with Brass book by Ken Foran (thriftbooks.com) This relatively new book contains a wealth of information on the subject. There are surely those with far more experience that I who will weigh in, so for what little it may be worth, if it is the "fork on a rod with a hole drilled in a thick spot just above the neck of the fork" in the diagram that you want to make, you might want to "do the math" first. While I can't tell from the drawing whether the hole is to be drilled through a "flattened" section of the rod or through a round sectioned "swelled" or "ball" section of the rod, either way, I don't think you can fabricate a 1.70 MM flat (or "ball") with a .50 MM (or slightly larger) hole on a length of 1.15 MM brass rod without adding material to the 1.15 MM rod stock. There doesn't seem to be enough "meat" there to work the available material do it. I don't know if you have a suitable lathe, which would make the task relatively easy, but even without a lathe, the task is possible, but will take more care and time. Simply put, the fork, neck, and "ball with a hole in it" is formed from square bar machinable brass and the 1.15 MM wire stock is silver-soldered into a hole in the end of the "ball with a hole in it. As the part looks like it's not the only one on the model, machining it as explained below makes the uniform fabrication of a number of the same part a lot easier "on an assembly line" basis. You can modify the following suggestion to suit the tools you have available if necessary. 1.) Cut a section of solid machinable square brass bar stock of the exact square section size as the forks and as long as the distance between the open end of the fork and the "ball with a hole in it, plus a suitable length to permit drilling a tailstock center and parting off at the end of the "ball with a hole in it." If the forks are not square in section, use square stock the same size as the widest dimension of the fork. If you can't find square bar stock exactly the size of the fork's (widest) outside dimension, use square bar stock of the least-oversized bar stock available. 2.) Using machinist's "Prussian blue" or alcohol soluble permanent marker ink, carefully layout the placement of the two holes necessary the shape of the fork ends, the "notch" in the solid square bar to be removed to form the two sides of the fork, the shape of the ends of the fork sides, the "neck" of the fork, and the diameter of the "ball" section. If you must use bar stock that is oversized and/or the fork is rectangular in section, layout the amount of waste to be removed to reduce the fork to the proper outside dimensions taking care that the amounts to be removed are equal on both sides of the stock retained in order to retain the concentricity of the forks, the "neck" and the "ball with a hole in it. Also mark the dead centers of each end of the section of bar stock. 3.) Preferably using a drill press or mill/drill (preferably with an x-y table) to ensure perpendicularity, drill two holes of the required diameter(s) entirely through the flat-sided solid bar stock in the appropriate locations, one to form the eyes of the fork and one to form the hole in the "rod." (These two holes are drilled parallel to each other through the centerline of the bar stock.) Carefully drill a suitably sized center hole in the "ball with a hole in it" end of the bar stock to accommodate the lathe tailstock center, which would preferably be a live center if one is available. 4.) Chuck the fork end of bar stock into the lathe headstock and mount the tailstock center into the other end of the bar. Turn the shapes of the fork shoulders, "neck" between the fork shoulders and the "ball with a hole in it," and the "ball" itself following the layout forming the "shoulders and neck" of the fork and the "ball" shape as per the layout and the detail of the part shape as you've laid it out. (The .50 MM hole will end up exactly in the middle of the "ball" section if your layout and drilling was accurate.) Turning the "ball" shape can be done using a file to shape it by eye (and template), by a custom half-round cutting tool, or a template and "duplicating" attachment on the lathe, or even a "ball turner" if one is available. However, the shape of the end of the ball where the hole will be drilled to insert the 1.15 MM wire must be decided first. If it is to have a "sharp" transition, the end of the ball can be perfectly round. If it is to appear to transition gradually to the diameter of the 1.15 MM wire, the curved transition will have to be formed when turning the ball. The completion of the forming of the end of the ball, however, is best done by parting off the surplus end of the bar and doing the shaping "in the open" free of the tailstock center. When the "ball with the hole in it has been parted, but the "bottom end" not completely turned, leaving the workpiece in the headstock chuck, place a tailstock chuck holding a 1.15 MM drill bit in the tailstock and, using the tailstock advance, drill through the center of the end of the ball end and through to hole in the ball. Then finish the turning of the ball end. If a curved shoulder transition between the ball and the 1.15 MM wire is desired, a short piece of the 1.15 MM wire can be inserted and the "shoulder" between the ball and the wire worked right up to the wire to turn a seamless transition. Note, however, that there isn't a lot of "meat" in the "ball" to hold the 1.15 MM wire. The larger you can make the "ball," the more space there will be for the 1.15 MM hole. By your measurements, there will only be .275 MM on either side of the 1.15 MM hole into the 1.70 MM ball. This won't matter once a good silver-soldered joint is making it all one piece, but the size of the hole will impact the appearance of the ball and you may have to do some drawing and planning of the shape of the ball so the appearance of a "swelled ball on a 1.15 MM shaft" is achieved. An experimental "dry run" on the wire to ball connection is probably indicated and it may be necessary to turn down the diameter of the 1.15 MM wire to provide a "peg" at the end to be soldered into a smaller hole in the "ball." + 5.) Remove the workpiece from the lathe. If the fork is smaller than the bar stock on two or four sides, carefully remove the excess material to yield the proper dimensions of the fork. This is a piece of cake if you have mill or even a drill press with an x-y table as it is light work. Otherwise, a flat belt or disk sander or file should do the trick. With the dimensions of the fork established, shape the ends of the fork (simultaneously) using whatever tools are available. (They appear to be half-rounded.) 6.) After forming the ends of the fork sides, using a mill if you have one, or a jeweler's saw and files if you don't, remove the waste center of the solid bar to form the space between the two fork sides. This is tricky If not using a mill. Using hand tools demands that care be taken to cut sufficiently "wide of the line" to permit accurate filing or using abrasive tape to ensure straight and perpendicular faces of the jaws on either side of the open space between them. The "slot" between the fork sides has to be accurately machined if the resulting fork is to look good. Accurate layout is essential. If the slot cannot be milled, a drill press (preferably with an accurate x-y table) can be used to drill a series of suitably sized holes through the square stock to remove most of the waste between the fork sides. Assuming the "waste removal" holes are accurately drilled, they can provide a valuable index for hand-shaping. The bulk of the waste can be roughly removed by sawing with a jeweler's saw to "connect the holes" and files can rough out the rest, taking care not to remove any material deeper than the edge of the drilled holes. Once "roughed out," machinist's "Prussian blue" or an alcohol-soluble permanent marker can be used to mark the faces of the exactly drilled "waste removal" holes. Thus marked, final shaping can be completed very accurately using the "bluing" to indicate the desired "flat" to be formed. 7.) Polish the part as required. Clean the part well as per standard silver-soldering procedure paying particular attention to the inside of the 1.15 MM hole in the end of the "ball with the hole in it. Insert a suitable length of 1.15 MM wire in the hole in the end of the ball to a depth which is not less than the inside edge of the drilled hole inside end of the 1.15 MM hole. This is essential to provide as much of a contact surface between the two parts as possible for the solder joint as discussed above. Silver-solder the two pieces together. Using a drill and/or a round jeweler's file, remove the end portion of the 1.15 MM wire inside the hole in the "ball with a hole in it" so that the inside of the hole is smooth all around. Remove any excess solder from the face of the piece. The silver-solder joint on the face of the "ball" and inside the hole in the ball, should be invisible if you are better at it than I usually am. As usual, it's easier done than said. Hope this helps.
  19. Excellent point for newer modelers contemplating modeling sails to consider! It's not enough to just pick a few sails to attach flying because you like how they look. To achieve the desired illusion of reality in miniature the sails must be set and drawing as they woud have been if the ship were on a particular point of sail in a particular weather condition. Square rigged ships rarely, if ever, flew all their sails at the same time. Consulting photographs (not necessarily paintings or drawings, which can contain errors due to "artistic license") of similarly rigged ships under sail is an excellent resource. Google Images is your friend!
  20. Yes. At 1/8" to the foot, things start getting rather small sometimes. For this reason, rigging details are sometimes "abbreviated," which is to say, omitted. If you are going to put sails on a model, though, assuming you are committed to accuracy, most all of the items you've listed should, in my opinion, be portrayed. All would require rather fine thread, but nothing that would be particularly difficult to obtain. You would probably want to forego spinning your own scale rope because it would have to be so small. Nautical nomenclature is indeed a foreign language for most. As far as foreign languages go, it's fairly easy to master because the words and pronunciations are in English. It's only when you run into one of the older foreign made kits that you start having to learn all the terms again in French, Spanish, or Italian. That can be really crazy-making. Some of us were fortunate enough to grow up on and about ships and boats and picked up the "lingo" as we went along. Even then, fluency is difficult to attain because the names change at different times and places. "Different ships, different long splices." as the saying goes. It's actually much easier if you have a conversational use for a language and can "learn by doing," rather than by trying to memorize words in a vacuum. That said, modelers who stay with the hobby any length of time inevitably build research and reference libraries that are essential to more advanced modeling. If you posted an inquiry in an appropriate section of the forum (don't ask me which one!) asking for suggestions on basic reference books one should require, I'm sure you'd get a lot of suggestions. Keep in mind that the subject spans several centuries, so one has to acquire reference works for each of the periods relevant to the models they are building. Le Soleil Royal was French and built in 1668 and launched in 1670. She was then placed in ordinary (laid up unused) until recommissioned twenty years or so later in 1690 and burned in battle by fireships in 1692. You should probably decide at which point you want to portray her. When she was just built and launched or during her short two-year "working life." That means you'll have to research what she looked like at that time. One would hope that a kit would have made that choice for you or at least given you options and relevant details, but in the case of this kit, I have no idea if the plans do. The years this ship was afloat are at the beginning of what might be considered the reliable recorded history of sailing ships when the drafting of plans came into practice, construction started becoming standardized (in warships, at least,) and designs started "getting scientific." So, in this case, you'd have to find reference works that cover early French ships of the line of the time you are modeling. I don't have any detailed experience with late Seventeenth Century French warships, but I'd expect reference books written in English may be somewhat hard to find. There are some very fine works on French warships which have been translated to English, but, as I recall, they address Eighteenth Century French warships. In contrast, English reference works are plentiful compared to the French and Spanish naval fleets of the period and the rigging details of the warships of different nations are quite similar, but a "knowledgeable eye" (which I don't have in this instance) will quickly notice the inconsistency of English rigging and construction details on models of foreign ships. As you probably know, and I just learned, there is a highly detailed near-1/4" to the foot model of Le Soleil Royal built in 1839 which is nearly contemporary to the vessel itself, or at least soon enough that there must have been those who knew her firsthand still living at the time. The Wikipedia entry for Le Soliel Royal has some pictures of this model in the French National Maritime Museum in Paris and this model is probably the best source of information available at this time. (Which is why the manufacturer of your kit picked this vessel as a subject and based the kit on this model.) You'd probably want to acquire any reference books that contain plans of the vessel or photographs of the model. There may be some available from the French National Maritime Museum. The list of various ship modeling reference works is huge, but off the top of my head, if you haven't already, I would suggest you obtain copies of the following classic reference books. Fortunately for you, they have all now been reprinted in trade paperback format and are quite inexpensive. Prior to that, there was a time when they were scarce and expensive hardcover out-of-print "unicorns." The Rigging of Ships: in the Days of the Spritsail Topmast, 1600-1720 by R.C. Anderson (Dover Maritime Press - paperback reprint.) This one does cover both English and French ships of the line. The Rigging of Ships: in the Days of the Spritsail Topmast, 1600-1720 (Dover Maritime): Anderson, R. C.: 9780486279602: Amazon.com: Books The Art of Rigging by George Biddlecombe (Dover Maritime Press - paperback reprint.) Originally written in 1848, this book contains an excellent glossary of all the English terms and phrases used in rigging sailing ships of the line and is profusely illustrated. It also contains what Biddlecombe called "the progressive method of rigging ships" which is a logical sequence of rigging complex sailing rigs. This method is helpful for preventing you from "stringing yourself into a corner," as it were, by installing the various rigging elements in a logical specific order. The Art of Rigging (Dover Maritime): Biddlecombe, George: 9780486263434: Amazon.com: Books Rigging Period Ship Models: A Step-by-Step Guide to the Intricacies of Square Rig by Lennarth Petersson (Seaforth Publishing) Hardcover and paperback. This book is basically a collection of clear drawings of rigging details with a brief explanation. It has met with slight criticism regarding a few errors, but it is written for ship modelers for use in "looking up" what a particular rigging detail looks like and it is generally very well received by modelers using it for this purpose. The author has also written a companion volume addressing the rigging details of fore-and-aft rigged vessels. I consider it a "Field Guide to British and North American Sailing Ship Rigging." The Oxford Companion to Ships and the Sea (The Oxford Reference Collection) 2nd Edition C.B. Dear and Peter Kemp, Editors. Published by that Oxford, the university, which famously publishes the Oxford Dictionary of the English Language ("The OED"), this is a very scholarly dictionary/encyclopedia of all nautical terms. First published in 1976, the second edition published in 2006 added a lot of content on oceanography, marine archaeology, and marine biology developments since the first edition's publishing. It's basically the nautical segment of the OED, the authoritative standard dictionary of the English language. It's got darn near everything you can think of in it. It is now available in both hardcover and paperback. If money is tight, a used copy of the first edition which I've been using since its first printing continues to prove entirely adequate for my modeling and nautical technical writing purposes. Amazon.com: The Oxford Companion to Ships and the Sea (The Oxford Reference Collection): 9780198800507: Dear, I. C. B, Kemp, Peter: Books Between these four books, you should be able to look up and find a written description of any rigging detail you might encounter in a period ship model along with a clear picture or diagram of it and the definition of any nautical term you might ever encounter. There are plenty of copies of all of these books on the used market, making them quite affordable. If you shop around by checking Amazon and eBay for used copies in good condition, you may be able to acquire all four for less than a Benjamin. The more you read, the more you'll learn! Like many of us, you may find doing the research as fascinating as building the models.
  21. Yes, as shown in the second picture. This is the way the sails are hung in order to dry them before furling when they won't be used for a period of time, whether they will then be "sent down" and stowed, or furled on the yard. The pictures show the way sails are dealt with when the ship is not sailing and the sails are not drawing. It was necessary to dry them before such storage in order to prevent mold and rot deterioration to the sails. If you intend to display the model with sails "set and drawing" as if the vessel were sailing, you have a much more involved task, since the sails will have to be formed to be "full" and all rigging set up to correctly portray the angles of the yards given whatever point of sail you want to show that the vessel is on (i.e. the direction from which the wind is blowing) and the model should be mounted at the proper angle of heel, if not sailing directly downwind. That portrayal is generally considered to require a few figures on board attending to the tasks required to sail the vessel to provide realistic detail. Such "sailing" presentations are usually seen on "waterline" models mounted on a molded "sea" base with appropriate bow waves and such.
  22. A plumb bob would be a huge PIA to try to use for this purpose. It will get in the way and you'll probably knock it around trying to measure the angle off of vertical while it's hanging there. John is 100% right that, for several good reasons, you don't want to glue your mast rigidly in place. It is best to use your rigging to adjust the angle of the masts as is done in real life. How this is done depends upon the construction of your model. If your hull is a solid block, you're going to have to drill a hole, a bit larger than the heel of your mast and (hopefully) at the angle necessary. If your hull is hollow, you'll have to deal with however that hull is designed to hold the mast. For your purposes, you want a loose fit. To set up your mast, you must have your hull positioned dead level on its waterline in all directions. Note that some lines are drawn with the bottom of the keel parallel to the baseline and others not. You need to measure the rake of the mast on the plan using a level waterline as your point of reference. With your hull perfectly level on its waterline, build yourself a card stock jig against which you can compare your mast's positioning. Think "carpenter's or machinist's square with a fixed angle matching your mast rake, or a fancy "double ended" one with one side of the "arm" at a right angle and the other side cut to the angle of your mast rake. (Get out your Martha Stewart hot melt glue gun for this job. ) Select a convenient flat physical reference point on your hull. Usually, there will be a space from rail to rail where a flat base for such a jig can be laid. If you are using a building board and can mount your hull on an even keel with its waterline parallel to the building board, you can also build a reference jig which stands on the level building board, possibly straddling your hull. In this fashion, you can compare your angles "from the top down rather than the bottom up.") To build a cardstock jig, just erect from a flat reference base a perfectly perpendicular "fin" running fore and aft relative to your hull to form a "T" section. Use bracing triangles at the joints if you have to make it rigid, but you want this "fin" to stand perfectly plumb on your perfectly flat base that is perfectly parallel to the hull's waterline. The forward edge of this "fin" should be cut to the same angle as the mast as shown on the plans. The aft edge of this "fin" should be perfectly perpendicular to the base. The perpendicular edge will serve as your reference right angle for the mast's fore and aft perpendicularity and its angled edge will serve as your reference for your mast's rake. When you duplicate the mast rake angle from the plans, be sure to measure it from the center of the mast! Because the mast will usually be tapered, if you measure your rake angle from the outside edge of the mast section drawing, it will be wrong because of the error created by the additional taper angle of the mast. When you use this jig to set the angle of your mast, again take notice of matching the angle of your jig to the center of your mast. I suppose you could just measure the rake angle on the plans from the edge of the section drawing of the mast and then just compare that angle of the side of the tapered mast to your tapered mast and get the same result, except that the opportunity for error seems greater in the latter approach. There are a few ways to adjust your mast using your jig. The most obvious is to adjust your mast by using your standing rigging as it is done in real life. One uses the stays to adjust for rake and the shrouds to adjust for perpendicularity port and starboard. This is primarily done by taking up on the deadeyes and headstay and backstay lashings. This process will be necessary in any event if your rigging is to be properly taut and not hanging slack, but it's often difficult to accomplish in practice without the mast being fairly rigidly oriented as you would wish to begin with. For that reason, I advise leaving your rigging slack and using one of the following methods to orient the mast somewhat rigidly first, and then take up the slack in your rigging. One way to secure your mast independent of the rigging is to adjust the angle of the mast at the mast step and mast partners at the deck by using the mast step as the fulcrum and placing wedges or shims between the partners (or hole in your deck or solid hull... whatever)) to adjust the orientation of the mast. Another less tedious way to do this is to use a malleable material such as soft wax or modeling clay packed between the side of the mast and the mast partners. This will allow you to position your mast by moving it, with the malleable material repositioning itself to accommodate the mast's movement, while still holding it in position after it's moved. I would not advise using a "malleable material" which will harden over time if it is going to make it difficult to remove the mast if that is ever necessary for servicing or repairs. I suggest that the non-hardening "malleable material" be supplemented or replaced by wedges or shims to ensure greater rigidity once the mast is properly oriented. After the mast is properly oriented, the slack in the standing rigging can be taken up. Be careful not to overdo the tightening, though. You don't want to pull the mast out of its proper position. Don't forget as well that sometimes the mast rake isn't the same in each of a vessel's masts. Check the rake of each mast independently to be sure. It may be off only slightly, but it may make a significant difference in the appearance of the model. Also remember that the longer the mast, the greater the distance of movement at the far end when adjusting it. Keep in mind that it only takes a very small bit of movement at the partners of a mainmast to move its topmast truck a noticeable amount. If you are only setting up a "baldheaded" mainmast, it can look fine, but be noticeably out of whack later after you've rigged all the tophamper! You can come very close but understand that you'll probably never get it perfect. Few, if any full-scale ships can say their masts are perfectly oriented and sailing ships are meant to pitch and heel in a sea, anyway, so who's going to know the difference? The inexact positioning of a mast is but one of the factors which virtually guarantees that every sailing vessel will always be faster to windward on one tack than on the other. .
  23. To put a bit finer point on it, the purpose of reef tackles is not to "pull the sail up when the wind is blowing." The reef tackles are attached to the garnets on the leeches of a square sail at the reef bands for the purpose of pulling the garnets of the "new" head of the reefed sail, i.e. the ends of the reef band, tautly out to the ends of the yard from which the sail is hung. This is done prior to tying the reef lines, which serve to gather up the surplus canvas created by the reef. The reef points also serve to secure the new "head" of the sail created by the reef tackles stretching the reef band to the ends of the yard to the yard itself. While the reef tackles do haul the reef band upward and outward on the yard, gathering the reefed sail up isn't their primary purpose. When reefing, first the buntlines are used to haul up the body of the sail to the yard, while the sheets are tailed from the deck to keep the clews under control, so the sailors aloft on the yard can attach the reef tackles to the garnets on the sail's leeches, haul the reef band tight along the yard, and then tie off the reef points. Without the buntlines hauling the body of the sail up to the yard, the sailors would in most instances never be able to reach the garnets at the reef bands on the sail in order to attach the reef tackles! The reef tackles attach to the garnets on the leeches at each reef band. There is just one reef tackle for each leech, port and starboard, and it is moved to the appropriate reef band when a reef is taken in. To take a second reef, the sheets would be cast off and tailed by deck crew to better control the sail during the reefing evolution, the buntlines would be used to haul up the foot of the sail so that the reef tackles could be removed from the first reef band and attached to the second reef band and the new "head" of the sail at the second reef band stretched tightly between the ends of the spar. The reef points on the first reef are left in place where they continue to secure the surplus canvas created by the first reef to the yard. The reef points on the second reef band would then be tied off around both the previously tied-in reef with its reef points left tied, and the surplus canvas created by the latest reef to secure at the same time both the first and the second reef to the yard. The buntlines would then be slackened, and the clews of the sail sheeted to set the sail. To "shake out" a reef, the process was simply the opposite: The reef tackles were cast off the leeches and generally secured beneath the yard, perhaps attached to the head cringles on each side, although the head would be secured to the yard or jackstay separately and remain so unless the sail were to be removed from the yard. The reef points would be untied, and the sail let fall, or the reef be "shaken out," and the sheets hauled to set the filled sail. Note, however, that if only the most recent of multiple reefs taken was to be shaken out, the reef tackles would be moved to the reef tied in immediately previous to the one being shaken out the clew garnets of the previous reef hauled tightly outboard, rather than securing the reef tackles beneath the yard. In this fashion, when the reef points of the most recently taken reef were cast off and the buntlines slacked, the sail was set, reefed, and ready to be trimmed without any further attention to the preceding reef. There was no problem identifying the reef points of each reef because the latter reef's points are obviously the ones tied over the former reef's points. (Depending upon the size of the sail, the length of a square sail's reef points may vary, with the reef points on the second, and third, if there is one, reef band(s)' points being longer than its predecessors to accommodate the greater volume of gathered canvas it must secure. This detail is very rarely seen in modern models and perhaps is dependent upon the period. I can't say for sure.) If the sails were to be dried (often in port), they were frequently loosely gathered up by the buntlines and their clews triced up to the center of the yard to keep the clews from flailing about (or the sails filling if the wind kicked up and the ship sailing off on its own!) This practice is seen in many period photographs. Cutty Sark with crew aloft in the process of setting sails to dry in port. Note the fore and mizzen courses with their buntlines brailing up the leeches. Note the crew at the ends of the foretopsail yard apparently in the process of securing the clews to the center of the yard. What that looks like when completed is seen in the second photo below. When the job is finished, it will look something like this if done "shipshape and Bristol-fashion:" When a sail is stowed furled on a yard, whether with a reef or more already tied in, or without any reefs tied in, the sail is secured with gaskets which work much like reef points, but are not permanently connected to the sail. Rather gaskets live attached to the yard or jackstay and when in use they are tied all around the yard and gather the sail at points as required along the length of the spar in the same manner as reef points. However, as gaskets must circle the entire sail and spar (unless tied through a jackstay,) often with more than a single turn taken (unlike reef points,) they must be considerably longer than reef points and when not in use are coiled and left hanging from the yard (or jackstay.) I am not certain whether this practice is applicable to all periods, though. In earlier periods, the gaskets may have been sent aloft with the topmen when needed. One would have to do further research on that one, but if you are shooting for building a "hundred pointer." details like properly coiled and hung gaskets are not to me overlooked! This video better illustrates the use of the sail gaskets and provides a good idea of how a life-size square yard looks and works:
  24. Great progress, Keith! Congratulations on the great outcome on your surgery. Just a thought in passing: These days (in the US, at least) many of the surgical instruments used are "disposable." It's not worth the cost in time and labor to autoclave and sterile package them after each use as was done in the good old days. Regrettably, I expect some of these discards are piled up for sale in large lots to resellers on eBay or to be resold in Third World countries and a lot of it is now sent to the landfill as "bio-hazard waste." You might mention to your surgeon that you'd appreciate it if s/he would save the disposable instruments for you. There's probably a nice Castroviejo iris scissors in your surgical tray, along with maybe some nice tweezers. The eye and micro-surgeons have the best medical instruments to repurpose for modeling use. Unfortunately, I lost my "connection" for "dull," (a relative term) dental burrs some time ago when my friend, and institutional dentist working for the state, told me they were now under an order to "bio-hazard bag" all their discards without exception. I suppose that's a prudent protocol, but I hate to think that for every kid that makes a trip to the emergency room, there's a nice needle holder that goes into the trash bin.
×
×
  • Create New...