Bob Cleek

I keep hearing this and don't doubt it. The costs for shipping and, I suppose, customs duties, apparently double the price. There's got to be a "work-around" for this somehow. Perhaps hire a "courier" to bring it in by plane like is done with other items sometimes. As I understand it, there are those who regularly must travel from the U.S. to Europe for work and are able to courier small packages on an individual basis for a small fee. I'd expect any of the Byrnes machines would qualify as "carry on" size luggage and if it had been "used" in the U.S. after purchase or purchased "used" in the U.S. to begin with, perhaps that would significantly reduce, or even eliminate the customs duties. I have no way of knowing and my international "import-export" business experience is limited to how many bottles of duty-free liquor I can bring home at one time, but it's just a thought. Perhaps somebody else can flesh it out.

Oh yeah! A well-known drawback was the "intermittent service" motor. As I recall, it was rated at something like 8 minutes. Beyond eight minutes of running, you had to stop it and let it cool down for a minimum of four minutes or it would burn out. Late in the production span, Emco came out with a "continuous duty" motor that solved the problem. I retrofitted one to my Unimat SL. There are now a number of aftermarket continuous duty motor work-arounds using converted DC motors from applications such as sewing machines, electric scooters, and exercise treadmills. All require some machining of the motor housing to permit mounting the motor to the drive pulley frame. I completely agree. "multi-machines" (e.g. the "ShopSmith" system) always perform a number of operations, none of which as well as a machine dedicated to performing a single one of those tasks alone. But, as you note, in its time, the Unimat had no competition in terms of cost and function. For me, its greatest shortcoming in terms of functions is the set-up time when changing from one process to another. Another serious drawback more now than even when it was in production, is that its tooling is generally proprietary, this being a result of its small size as much as anything else. There are lots of options for tooling that is sized to fit any number of small machines made today, but finding tooling that fits the Unimat means finding used Unimat tooling on the second-hand market because almost everything "Unimat" is some odd-ball threading size or style or otherwise "just doesn't fit." BTW, since we've drifted this far afield, if anybody is presently interested in a modeling lathe, aside from a Sherline or Taig, which, to be honest, are rather limited in what they can accommodate in terms of size and strength, one very good, and perhaps superior, alternative to any of the presently-manufactured small lathes today, are the "old 'arn" Craftsman 6" modelers' lathes, sometimes referred to by their Craftsman catalog model numbers as "109's." Mass equals accuracy in machine tools and old manual lathes in decent condition (or rebuildable) often offer the best value for the money by a large margin, particularly over the present-day products made by the "Chinese People's Patriotic Machine Tool Collective." Check the link below by a fellow who recently sold his to upgrade to an Atlas/Craftsman 12"X42" like mine. These are sometimes in need of a rebuild, but parts and tooling are far more available than for the Unimat lathes and much less expensive. A lot of the tooling for the old Craftsman metal lathes (which were standard models by leading lathe manufacturers that were labeled as "Craftsman" for sale by Sears and Roebuck) is "generic" and readily available from aftermarket suppliers. See: Craftsman 6" Lathe for Sale - Sold (shdesigns.org) and Scott's Atlas / Craftsman 12x36 (12x54) 101.07403 Lathe, Stone Mountain, GA (shdesigns.org) Full disclosure: I was given my Unimat SL for free by the son of the original owner who didn't know what to do with it when cleaning out his father's garage. Having read Gerald Wingrove's The Techniques of Ship Modeling, which showed all the things Wingrove did with his Unimat SL, I'd long lusted after one, but didn't want to buy one for the reasons stated above, deciding on a Taig or Sherline and those were too rich for my blood at the time. I took the Unimat with much gratitude and then realized that it required a rebuild. I set about doing that and to acquiring sufficient tooling to do general turning and milling operations on it, scavenging eBay for the parts needed. It was like getting hooked on drugs... I got going with "just a taste" and the next thing I knew, I had perhaps $1,200 or $1,500 into it. So now I have a very well-tuned and capable Unimat SL. That said, I always had and still have a fully-tooled 12"X42" Atlas (Craftsman) lathe than will do whatever turning, or even milling with its milling attachment, that the Unimat will and a whole lot more beyond the Unimat's capabilities. I also have a restored 1950 King Seely drill press that is factory-equipped with a collet holder that screws onto the quill (solving the side-loading issues involved with trying to mill with a Morse taper connection to the quill) and an XY table for that which can do all the milling operations the Unimat will, and then a lot more. So, in the final analysis, I should probably have put the money and effort into a decent used Sherline lathe and perhaps a mini-mill. That would have cost more in the aggregate and wouldn't have been the surprisingly appreciating asset that the Unimat SL is, but I would have had dedicated mini-tools rather than the collection of compromises that the Unimat is. Still and all, I don't know anybody who has been lucky enough to have acquired a Unimat in good shape who is unhappy with it, so? I never was enamored with turning spars on a lathe. They are of such a size and strength that you have to get into following back rests and for those you need to use a proper taper jig and by the time setup is done I end up realizing that it probably would have taken less time to just cut the taper into a square blank on my Byrnes saw and then plane the corners down and sand it round by hand with it mounted it in a spinning chuck in the drill press or on one of my lathes.

As was alluded to above, most rope was thinly tarred in its manufacturing. This is what gave the new rope its characteristic shiny honey color. It also served to stick the fibers together (and to preserve the rope from moisture degradation.) "Fuzzyness" depends upon both the material used and the quality of the workmanship of a given rope. Brand-new high-quality rope won't have much of anything sticking out of it, while low-quality rope will look like Don King's hair. I'm guessing that the rope you encountered in the theater "hemp houses" was of a significantly lower quality than what would have met Admiralty standards. "An occasional protruding fiber" of sufficient size and stiffness to require the wearing of work gloves would have been pretty low-quality rope, although probably suitable for indoor use hoisting relatively light theater "flats." As stated above, for modeling purposes, the "scale viewing distance" principle applied to any lines or ropes on a model precludes the visibility of any "fuzz" at all and, in any event as a practical matter, after a short amount of use, rope will quickly lose most, if not all, of its "wild hairs" and be smooth anyway. Comparing pictures of newly made rope and noting the fibers, yarns, and strands, the differences that the materials and construction make in the quality of a rope become more apparent: Average quality new hemp rope - shorter fibers used, yarns are less uniform and tightly twisted: High quality "seamless" hemp rope - long fibers, tightly twisted uniformly sized yarns: Average quality tarred Manila rope - thick, coarse fibers, less uniformly twisted yarns: Higher quality tarred Manila rope - honey-colored, less coarse, more uniformly sized fibers and more uniformly sized yarns: Higher quality untarred Manila rope - "whiter" color than tarred rope:+ * Note that the "tarred" reference here describes the application of a greatly diluted amount of tar applied to the fibers before the construction of the rope which gives it a light honey color and not to the "tarring" that was done to standing rigging when installed on the vessel, which refers to the repeated application of undiluted pine tar to the outside of wormed, parceled, and served standing rigging, causing it to acquire a brown color so dark it would appear black when viewed from any distance. And, pardon the thread drift, but an aside, at least... About about those work gloves... There must not have been any sailors on those stage crews! One of the first rules of seamanship I learned from my crusty old retired MCPO mentor was that wearing gloves when handling line is a huge no-no. Apparently, there is the risk that a glove can be caught by the line and thereby pull the glove-wearer's hand into a block or worse. The thinking is that it is better to tear flesh than to wear something that could cause greater injury. I never figured out exactly how that could happen, but he was so adamant about it that he wouldn't even allow a pair of work gloves anywhere near his boat. A corollary to this rule was that no finger rings could be worn aboard his boats. He'd demand that anybody who wore one around his boats remove it immediately. I thought that was a bit "overboard" until I saw a couple of "ring avulsion" injuries in the boatyard, which is when the ring gets hung up on something and the finger it's on keeps on going, peeling all the meat right off the finger, if not simply ripping the finger clear off. I also watched a guy's wedding ring short out a hot 12 VAC buss bar and in a flash the ring got so hot it just burned the flesh right down to the bone before the victim could get it off. Those made a believer out of me when it came to rings. It took an accident another guy had with a lathe to convince me that work gloves had no place around moving machinery of any kind.

As mentioned above, the descendant of the Emco machine tool company, which made the Unimat line of mini- and small lathes and "combination tools," is still in business making high-end CNC machine tools. The ceased production of the Unimat DB/SL in 1977 and its replacement, the Unimat 3 and the made-in-Taiwan Unimat 4, in 1990. Basic Unimat lathes and used and new-old-stock parts remain available on eBay. Yes, Gerald Wingrove did have some connection with Emco and his book, Techniques of Ship Modeling provides a lot of information on the use of the Unimat DB/SL lathe and its attachments for ship modeling. I checked out what seems to be a lot of confusion about the Emco name and ascertained that the name of the Austrian company that manufactured the Unimat lathes called itself Emco and at certain times Emco-Unimat or Emco-Maier. Today, however, the presently surviving iteration of the Unimat manufacturer's name is written EMCO Gmbh with the "EMCO" written in capital letters. The Name of the British company that marketed and distributed Unimat DB/SLs under their label in Britain called itself at various times Elliott Machine Equipment Ltd., London or B. Elliott (Machinery) London which is still in business in England manufacturing and selling machine tools as they were when they were the British distributors of the Unimats. There is no indication that the Elliott company ever used only initials instead of the Elliott name to identify itself. However, in the single instance of a Unimat label-badge at some point on which Elliott used a logo consisting of an "M" in the center of four "E's" arrange in a cross shape together with their "Elliott Machine Equipment Ltd." name in full. See: Emco Unimat Name Plates (lathes.co.uk) Additionally, to add to the confusion, there is a large heavy machine tool line referring to itself as both "ENCO" and "Enco" which is a subsidiary of MSC Industrial Supply Company in the United States. And finally, there is a large and well-known plumbing and HVAC manufacturing and supply company in Ontario, Canada now named "EMCO Corporation." Founded in 1906, it was originally known as the "Empire Manufacturing Company, Ltd." To make things even more confusing, Lathes.co.uk , the machine tool identification "Bible," has this to say about the Unimat manufacturer's present status: By the early years of the 21st century the situation with regard to the makers of "Emco" machine tools was rather complicated; Profi Heimwerkermaschinen Gmbh was a management buyout of a part of Emco Maier Gmbh, involving 60+ employees and the Wolfseg manufacturing plant - one of the four Emco factories. Profi Heim took over the Unimat, the Compact Lathes and the Emco Woodworking machines - with Emco Maier making the Compact 5 lathe for marketing by Profi Heim. Unfortunately, as of July 2001, Profi Heim went out of business. Emco Maier continued to produce conventional machine tools - i.e the Maximat Super 11 lathe, Emcomat 17S, 17D, 20D and 20E Toolroom lathes, the FB3, FB4 and FB 5 Toolroom Universal Mills with some of these, together with a variety of CNC training lathes - this arrangement continuing until today (2015). In a nutshell, ProfiHeim took over the hobby machines and woodworkers while Emco Maier retained the more industrial machines as well as, of course, the CNC machines for use in industry and education. The "Home" Emco Web Site is www.emco.co.at Maier Gmbh and Profi-Heim. For CNC machines contact www.emco.co.uk In the USA the American Edalstaal Company originally handled the machines, but no longer have anything to do with them. The Unimat 4 and Compact 8E ("E" for East) were made in China.

For all you ever wanted to know about Unimat lathes by Emco Gmbh, which are still in the lathe and machine tool business in Salzburg, but not making or marketing Unimat lathes, See: http://www.lathes.co.uk/unimat/ for all the detailed information on DB2000 and SL1000 Unimat lathes anybody would ever want to know. I read somewhere there were quality control issues on the Taiwanese Unimat 4 lathes which were corrected, but shortly thereafter Emco discontinued the Unimat line entirely. (Somebody has recently licensed the "Unimat" trademark and is marketing a "Unimat 1" lathe, but it is basically a plastic toy and incapable of machining metal.) You are correct that the Taiwan-made Unimat 4's were essentially identical to the Unimat 3 lathes. I lusted after a Unimat lathe for years while they were still in production, but they were way too rich for my pocketbook back then. I think Emco, which now concentrates on making state-of-the-art CNC machine tools, found that the economics of production in those pre-CNC/robotic days didn't pencil out anymore. One factor, perhaps, was that the market for a modelers' and clock makers' lathe, which wasn't all that big in the first place, took a big hit when people started watching television in the evenings instead of spending time on hobbies, and what market there was for such a long-lasting specialty tool was likely somewhat saturated at that point. There was also the somewhat unique business start-up environment of the times. Emco was started in 1947 during the European Occupation era by former Austrian machine tool professionals when there was easier money to be made in "beating swords into plowshares, but the policies and programs that subsidized the reconstruction of Germany and Austria were long gone by the time Emco ceased Unimat production. (At that same time, I had a bicycle made by Steyr, an Austrian company. Steyer was one of Europe's largest arms manufacturers WWI. The treaty ending that war prohibited Steyr's making weapons, so it started building bicycles and cars in association with Daimler and Porsche. However, by 1938, Steyr-Daimler-Puch was back churning out rifles and pistols for the Nazi war machine using forced labor from the Mauthausen concentration camp. After WWII, Steyr was back making bicycles for a relatively short while and, today, is again a leading military arms manufacturer! I don't think Emco has the same skeletons in their closet! )

Yes and no. Gesso would work, but the problem is that gesso is quite thick. When painting miniatures such as ship models, the goal is to apply a "scale" coat of paint, which is best defined as "the thinner the better." It is important to use as fine a grind of pigment as can be obtained, or perhaps as can be afforded, for the finer the pigment is ground, the more expensive the paint is. A thicker coating on a model will tend to obliterate fine detail. Corners become rounded on their outside and paint pools and creates "fillets" on the inside of corners.. The "crispness" one hopes to achieve is lost by applying a thick coat of paint. There is a difference with quality model paint, be it oil-based or water-based: the "good stuff" will have very finely ground pigments. Without getting into the really expensive top-end premixed "modeling paints," the pigments in high quality tubed artist's oil and acrylic paints are usually ground sufficiently fine for modeling purposes provided that the modeler "conditions" them properly, adding the required thinners and dryers. Pigment content and grind should be stated on the paint tubes, or in the manufacturer's product literature. Note that with artist's oils, particularly, they require dryer to be added (sometimes called "Japan dryer) because they are formulated with various vegetable oils, frequently raw linseed oil, which takes a long time to "dry" or, actually, cure by polymerization of the oil. This is a favorable quality in artist's oils because the slow drying oil paint permits the artist to work with the paint on the canvas and enable the painter to work on the painting for a number of days before it hardens and can't be worked on the canvas. It takes some experimentation to get a feel for how much dryer is required, but it isn't much. Most manufacturers will have proprietary driers in their product line for this purpose. If the modelers wishes to add a bit of "boiled" linseed oil when conditioning the paint, this may often be enough to increase the rate of polymerization of the oil to eliminate the inconvenience of slow drying paint on the model. "Boiled" linseed oil, a standard paint and hardware store item, as opposed to "raw" linseed oil, is simply raw linseed oil with some Japan dryer added to it. If using tubed artists' oils or acrylics and conditioning them for model painting or airbrushing is inconvenient, one very high-quality alternative, if one doesn't mind living with the color selection or mixing their own, is to use "One Shot" brand sign painters' paint. This is an oil-based paint which has a very high concentration of very high quality finely ground pigments. It is made this way for use by sign painters who, with the right sign painting and pin striping brushes, can freehand letter and stripe in "one shot" without having to go back over a sharp edge. It's sold in half-pint cans at some artists' supply houses and most automotive paint supply stores. See: https://www.1shot.com/One-Shot/colors/Lettering-Enamels.aspx In my experience, I've found the best sealer for modeling purposes (and for cementing rigging knots and for lots of other sorts of similar purposes) is canned pre-mixed clear (or "white") shellac (not the natural unbleached or "orange" shellac which is colored "orange" to "dark brown.") Zinsser's "Bullseye" is a common brand. This is, as I recall, a "two pound cut," which means it is two pounds of shellac dissolved in one gallon of alcohol. It is relatively inexpensive and is thinned with plain alcohol. (If need be, it is conveniently reversible, as in untying sealed rigging knots, by simply dissolving it with a drop or two of plain alcohol and blotting it up.) Don't use rubbing alcohol or isopropyl alcohol to thin shellac. Just use straight alcohol such as is used for fueling marine stoves. Do not, however, use the type of regular alcohol which is sometimes dyed to distinguish it from "drinking" alcohol, since you don't want the color on your model! Shellac will soak into wood nicely and a single coat won't build up on the surface appreciably. Shellac is compatible with just about every other coating and shellacked wood is very easy to sand to a very fine surface. (It is used, mixed with linseed oil in "French polishing" fine furniture." If it thickens in the can due to the alcohol evaporating when the can is left open, as it will do, just add a bit of alcohol to the can and you're good to go. See: https://www.amazon.com/Rust-Oleum-Zinsser-304H-1-Quart-Shellac/dp/B000BZTIZW/ref=sr_1_1?adgrpid=1335907378073045&hvadid=83494311348363&hvbmt=be&hvdev=c&hvlocphy=43893&hvnetw=o&hvqmt=e&hvtargid=kwd-83494685880282%3Aloc-190&hydadcr=10876_10730338&keywords=clear+shellac+zinsser&qid=1698215990&sr=8-1 Yes, your instincts were correct. To obtain razor sharp masked lines on any surface, including models, one should "bite the bullet" and use "fine line" masking tape as is available for the purpose from Tamiya, or, less expensively, from automotive paint supply stores. See: https://www.amazon.com/3M-TALC-218-Premium-Masking/dp/B0065GVEZ8/ref=sr_1_8?keywords=3m+fine+line+tape&qid=1698216542&sr=8-8 "Fine line" tape is a plastic material which will stretch a bit and permit curved edges to be formed. It comes in varying widths. I've never needed anything wider than the quarter-inch size. I use it to define the edge and put regular blue painter's masking tape over it if a wider area needs to be masked, as when I am airbrushing. Be careful what type you buy. There are several specialty tapes, for example, one called "striping tape" is cut into three sections on the roll so that it can be applied to a car body and then the middle strip of it can be removed, leaving a masked line of perfectly uniform width. That's a neat feature if you are striping car bodies, but not so much for ship models and the stuff is pretty expensive for masking tape, but nothing does the job like the stuff made to do the job. You will find that if you use it only where you need a perfect paint separation edge, you won't need a lot. I have a roll that I bought so long ago I don't even know when that was. Like all masking tape once opened, the roll should be kept in a zip-lock plastic sandwich bag to prevent drying out or becoming contaminated with dust and dirt. Masking tape rolls which are laid down on their sides on a bench or wherever will immediately pick up any dust or grit that the tacks sides of the tap on the roll touch and then, when the tape is laid down, this dirt will contaminate the adhesive contact at the tape edge and promote paint runs under the tape. As with all masking tape, particular care needs to be exercised to burnish the edges well with a finger tip so the adhesive is fully in contact with the surface. I'll mention, as well, that if you are ever in need of something more substantial than the quarter-inch fine line tape, there is a similar material in letter-size sheet form called "frisket." Frisket is an adhesive backed clear plastic material used for masking large areas of a picture or other surface for airbrushing. It can be applied to the surface and then the area to which one wants to apply paint can be cut out with an Xacto knife to any shape or level of detail required and removed from the surface, leaving the rest of the sheet in place to mask the adjacent surface. It's sold in art supply stores and anyplace airbrushing supplies are sold. Also as you note, it is extremely difficult, if not impossible, to mask a sharp paint line on a surface which is not smooth. Any scale model surface should be perfectly smooth. Nothing ruins the "compelling impression of reality in miniature" like a rough, out-of-scale paint or varnish job. I realize it may be easier said than done in the case of modelers new to the game who want a "bright" finished hull showing the wood grain, which, if any grain is showing, will also be grossly out-of-scale. (Some will say that's a matter of taste, and for them, I suppose it is. I'm just speaking of "best practices" in the trade, as it were.) One cannot expect masking tape to seal and edge that involves spanning open grain or plank seams that at life-size you could stick your fist into. By adding some "Japan dryer" (sometimes sold in art stores as "accelerator") to the paint, (or by using the manufacturer's equivalent for acrylics) you should be able to adjust the drying of oil paint (or acrylics, as the case may be) to your own satisfaction. I also will use acetone judiciously to thin artist's oil paints for airbrushing. The highly volatile acetone results in a "hot" solvent carrier that quickly evaporates, leaving the linseed oil binder to polymerize thereafter. This is a good full-size technique which I always used when I painted yachts. However, I've found it only works on miniature models when the paint is applied very thinly, often in multiple coats, because thicker paint creates a clearly noticeable raised edge or "lip" when the tape is removed and the dried paint remains. (This phenomenon, on the other hand, can be quite handy for subtly delineating scale iron plating edges and armor plate bands on ship hulls.) With thicker paint coats, as well, there is always the danger that the tape edge will lift the partially dried paint edge, with disastrous results. Now, when I need a razor sharp paint edge on a model, I always use the 3M Fine Line tape and an airbrush. I find the airbrush is far superior because it lays much less paint on the surface and by slowing building up the coat with successive airbrush passes, I can avoid any paint pooling up against the edge of the tape and thereby minimize the chances of a run-under on the edge.

I have a Unimat SL 1000 lathe (sold as the Unimat DB in Europe) which I use for turning and milling small jobs in metal, wood, and plastics. The Unimat SL/DB model has a post to which the motor and headstock are attached to turn it into a milling machine. There are several accessory attachments including a screw-cutting attachment, a table saw with about a 6" by 7" table, a wood planer, a wood router, a fret saw (scroll saw,) and a jig saw (sabre saw,) together with a full range of all the standard lathe and milling machine tooling. Emco in Austria made them beginning in the early 1950's until 1977. The SL/DB model was then replaced with the slightly larger Unimat 3 which ceased production in 1990, There are many Unimat lathes in circulation and they now enjoy something of a cult following in the model engineering field even though the machines, motors, attachments, and tooling can only be sourced on the second-hand market in most every instance and notwithstanding the fact that the Sherline and Taig lathes and milling machines and even the ubiquitous Chinese Sieg "7 by's" are readily available and offer some advantages over the older Unimats. The Unimats are finely finished machines capable of relatively fine tolerances as might be expected of post-war Austrian machine tools. Consequently, they were never inexpensive machines and today on the used market they continue to increase in cost, eBay being the main marketplace for all things Unimat. (Prices seem to be lower in Europe than in the US, apparently because there are more of them in circulation over there.) Today, the accessories and tooling are less commonly available than the basic machines, which seem to have been bought and used little more often than the accessories. As with any lathe or milling machine, one should budget at least as much again for the tooling as for the basic machine. At present on eBay, a basic "user" Unimat DB/SL lathe in decent shape starts at around $500 and can easily approach $2,000 for a "mint" example in the original fitted storage case. Worn out rusty abused examples can be had for a bit less, but the cost of parts to bring them up to snuff may well exceed the price of one in good condition at a higher price. The tooling, so much of which is unique to the Unimat, is exceptionally expensive. (A Unimat collet chuck and a set of collets sells for just over $1,000... when they can be found.) There are presently Unimat table saw attachments on eBay listed at between $225 and $275. (And some incomplete ones for less, but good luck trying to find the missing part or parts essential to making the thing work!) So, if you know somebody whose widow has a Unimat and a lot of attachments and tooling down in the basement that she wants to get rid of cheap, grab it, but if what you really want is a table saw, you will likely pay half again, if not twice, what a new Byrnes table saw would cost you to possess a working Unimat with the table saw attachment which can't hold a candle to the Byrnes table saw because the Unimat was designed to be a lathe, not a table saw and the Byrnes saw is a table saw and nothing else. See: http://www.lathes.co.uk/unimat/ for detailed information on DB2000 and SL1000 Unimat lathes. See: http://www.lathes.co.uk/unimat/page2.html for information on Unimat accessories

I have encountered the sort of issue pictured above with planking, but I've never ever seen any checking in major timbers like keels and deadwoods on a model. I have restored models of varying ages (all over 50 years old, at least) which did show cracking and splitting of larger thin solid sheets of wood such as were used as decks and cabin tops. In that instance, it appeared that the better course would have been to plank the surfaces individually, although the wood sheets in every instance I've encountered were solid wood and not thin laminated plywood. I would expect if a larger flat sheet of wood were required modernly, thin modeling plywood would be the preferred material. There seems to continue to be a lot of misunderstanding and consequent misinformation persisting in the modeling community about bending wood, probably because the process is so often referred to as "steam bending." This has been discussed in great detail in previous posts. It's a matter of well-settled scientific fact and not opinion. In an attempt to set the record straight, 1) Wood doesn't need to be wet to bend.. In fact, it is better that it is not wet. Wetting the wood, if anything, causes it to absorb moisture and swell. To the extent it does that, fitted joints will open when the wood shrinks upon recovering equilibrium with the ambient humidity. 2) The amount of movement dependent upon the wood's moisture content is a relative constant percentage depending upon the species of the wood and the direction of the grain. Wood swells more across the grain direction, and less, if at all, with the grain direction. Some species move more than others. 3) Given these movement properties and the small size of the wood pieces used in ship modeling, under just about any circumstance, the amount of movement is so small as to be unnoticeable. That said, the cracking of the large thin wood sheets I've encountered before was not a result of the flat sheet shrinking or swelling alone, as the structure should shrink and swell at the same rate, or close to it in cases where different species are adjacent to one another, but rather more likely due to the movement of the entire hull structure which could not be incrementally accommodated by the single fixed flat sheet that cracked under the strain. Again, this should not be encountered with plywood, a much stronger engineered material. 4. All that is needed to bend wood (understanding that the tolerance for bending varies from species to species,) is heat. Moisture enhances heat's ability to spread through the wood (which is why "green" higher-moisture-content wood is preferred for bending stock in full-size boatbuilding) but has nothing to do with making the wood more pliable for bending. In full-size boatbuilding, wood to be bent is steamed in a steam box not to make the wood wet, but simply because, given the available technology, the best way to transfer heat to a long plank is to stick into a box or pipe and fill the box or pipe with steam. For modeling purposes, any of the customary methods of applying heat to modeling wood without soaking it in water are just as effective, and a lot less messy, than steaming them. As noted in the previous post, wet wood does not glue as well. In fact, heat applied to dry wood glued with PVA glue with speed the drying and curing of the PVA such that spot-heated planks can actually be "tacked" in place with PVA. 5. There is no reason to treat ship modeling wood with polyethylene glycol to retain moisture as is done with archaeological artifacts recovered from long periods of immersion. This stabilizing agent is applicable to long-immersed wooden artifacts only. It wouldn't do anything for a ship model, unless, perhaps, the ship model was brought up from the bottom of the sea a few hundred years after it had been put there. 6. Within normal ranges of humidity fluctuations, there is no need to artificially humidify ship models. If the model is displayed where it was built, it should be just fine indefinitely, at least from a humidity fluctuation standpoint. If one were to move a model from an extremely dry climate to an extremely humid climate or vice versa, there may be some concern regarding wood movement, but once the wood have reached a moisture content normal relative to the new humidity environment, no problems should be encountered. Obviously, displaying a ship model in a bathroom where people regularly take long hot steamy showers isn't the greatest idea. Wood reaches its moisture equilibrium at a relatively standard rate. The rule of thumb for this is that wood should after being felled and milled be allowed to dry in a covered area for a minimum of one year per inch of the stock's thinnest dimension. You can do the math, but assuming the wood was dry when milled into planking strips or other modeling wood, it is going to be so thin that it should be able to adjust to humidity fluctuations very rapidly so there's no reason to be concerned about its needing to be "acclimated" to the building environment. (Alternately, for example, hardwood flooring should be stacked and left in the area where it will be installed for a few days to ensure it has reached a moisture equilibrium equal to the room in which it will be laid.) 7. No wood coating is entirely impermeable. The most effective moisture barrier is said to be shellac. In fact, it is better to allow a wooden structure to move evenly than to attempt to prevent if from moving in one place and not another. The uniform movement of a wooden structure is always less stressful because any resulting stresses are evenly distributed. I have never encountered a sprung plank or a cracked plank seam on a model which did not appear to be the result of either poor adhesive fastening, incomplete bending before installation, or both. I see many instances of "edge setting" (bending a plank across it's wide dimension) in modeling. This practice would never occur in full-size boat and ship planking, were it even physically possible, because it builds stresses into the structure in a manner contrary to sound engineering practices. (Similarly, I see no reason why properly fitted planks should ever require any glue in their seams, another apparently common modeler's practice that seems to add a rigidity to the planking structure which prevents uniform movement, concentrates stresses, and thereby promotes structural damage.) The ability to heat-bend small dimension strip wood across its widest dimension and the availability of strong adhesives seems to make edge setting possible in scale modeling, but perhaps not entirely advisable. While the stresses are proportional to the scale, the stresses created by wood movement are relatively great. I cannot say for certain, but when I look to assign blame for cracked plank seams and started plank ends on ship models, I look to a failure of the fastening system to overcome otherwise normally-expected loads, rather than any excess of ordinary ambient humidity fluctuations, and that is generally a result of an improperly shaped and fitted plank. With respect to shaping and bending planking, I would urge a close study of Chuck Passaro's planking tutorial materials. He makes it clear that a plank should be spiled and bent so that it fits perfectly in all dimensions when offered up to the frames, as is the case with full-size construction practices. He does bend planks across their wider dimension, but he does this with heat, resulting in a permanently bent curve without any spring-back. Planks should never be unduly forced into place because if they are, they will spend the rest of their days trying to find a way to return to the shape God gave them when they grew! Just say'in. Your mileage may vary.

Read the forum section on tools and see the reviews and comments. Also check out the build logs of kits you are interested in and see what tools those builders have found they need to do a good job. The trick of buying tools is to only buy a tool when you need it and then only buy the best tool you can possibly afford. While compromises are always necessary in that respect, the most expensive tool is the one you have to buy more than once because you had to replace the first one. Modeling tool "kits" promising to provide a selection of "everything you need' are almost always a poor choice since they seek to impress the uninitiated buyer with a large selection of low-quality tools that will be found useless in many instances. Only buy what you need, not what some marketer needs to sell you! Yes on both counts as to your question about pro and con manufacturers recommendations, but the lists are long and international shipping costs often preclude foreign sources. Generally speaking, modeling tool retailers directing their marketing to hobbyists are, in my opinion, often not the best source of tools for ship modeling because the hobbyist customer is looking for a low price and usually doesn't know the difference between a high and a low quality tool, or care. The hobby catalogs tend to offer over-priced lower-quality tools, often Chinese knock-offs, when the same tools, almost always from an alternate non-hobbyist source, are of higher quality and lower price more often than not. Comparison-shop your local medical and dental, professional jewelers' and watchmakers', luthiers' and electronic assembly tool supply houses. Frequently, you will find used and even new acceptable quality medical and dental instruments for sale at huge savings on online auction sites like eBay, but beware of cheap knock-off items on eBay, as you are probably already aware. You will be able to find most of the tools you would ever need for ship modeling from sources other than ship modeling hobby catalogs. The prices for professional tools can sometimes be daunting, but even a mid-range quality professional tool is going to be better than what you can usually expect from a hobby outlet. As you are in Europe, you will find using alternate tool sources will also solve many international shipping issues. (I am sure you can find anything you need from EU marketers and the EU modelers in here can fill you in on them.) Any answer will have to be specific to the particular tool you are considering.. That said, a large number of the sort of tools marketed specifically for ship modeling such as those you mentioned are next to useless. The infamous "Loom-a-line" rigging jig is perhaps the most egregious example of this. Don't waste your money on that one. (And don't ask me how I know this, either! ) There are many "hull support contraptions" on the market. This is a "better mousetrap" situation and there is always somebody coming up with another "you must have this" version. Take your time before spending money on any of them. Some are better for one sort of hull than for another. Some are useless for any purpose. Some are pretty good. All can be replaced by something you build yourself to suit yourself. There are many reviews and plans on this forum for hull holding jigs. Most "store bought" ones are in my opinion grossly overpriced for what they are. I understand that there are economies of scale to be enjoyed by shipping larger orders, but don't end up spending more than you save on shipping by buying things you don't need. Read the "Articles Database" topics in the MSW drop-down menu at the top of the forum home page for excellent advice on tools and materials and similar topics. See: https://thenrg.org/resource/articles I can't, but somebody else probably can. You can access the instructions for many of the kit models online and learn quite a bit from those without having to buy the entire kit and then decide which kit best meets your needs. The Model Shipways Shipwright series you mention is an an excellent choice, but I don't know if they are marketed in Europe. I'd be surprised if they aren't. Read the "build logs" on this forum for any kit model you are considering. There is a forum database with reviews of just about every kit that has ever been sold. You can also then contact the forum members who have built those models before you using the forum messaging feature and ask them any questions you have. You will find that some kits are highly regarded and others are reviled by those who have bought and tried to build them. I think the most important feature of any kit is its instructions. If the instructions are poor, the kit is probably not worth spending any money on it. I wouldn't advise rationalizing away obvious shortcomings in any kit. "Denial ain't just a river in Egypt" and there are far too many excellent kits available to settle for one that you know is going to present you with problems before you even open the box! (Also, be sure to read the MSW forum section of "pirated" counterfeit kits before you buy any kit!) One final consideration that shouldn't be overlooked in selecting a model kit is to be sure the manufacturer will provide replacement parts if necessary. It is quite possible that parts may be missing from the kit (it does happen when there are a lot of parts in a kit) or that you will accidentally ruin a part or one disappears when it when it jumps from your benchtop into to the "black hole" below. Some kit companies are very good about this, some even providing a duplicate part at no charge, while others won't have parts in stock or even reply to your requests. The latter are best avoided entirely. See: Don't be intimidated by painting a model. It's not rocket science and "there's no free lunch." In fact, it is much more demanding to build a model finished "bright," (showing the wood grain.) In that case, your woodworking must be perfect because you will not be able to correct mistakes and imperfections in your woodworking with putty and fillers that you can cover with paint and you are still going to have to apply a clear finish to your unpainted model anyway. (And don't be impressed with kits that promise to include "everything you need to build" including paint. It's not unusual for a kit to sit on a shelf for so long before it sells that the "paint included" has dried up in the bottle by the time you open the box! You can easily buy fresh paint for a ship model when you need it from any local hobby, craft, or hardware store. That is a function of the modeler's skill (and eyesight!) Skilled "miniature" ship modelers can produce amazing detail at very small scales. On the other hand, beginning modelers often are challenged to satisfy themselves working in quite large scales. However, the level of detail acceptable, as opposed to possible, is fairly standard. At a scale of 1:48 (1/4"=1') any detail six inches or larger on the full-sized prototype should be included. The minimum size of depicted details changes in proportion to the scale. A "half-inch scale" model (1:24 1/2"=1') should depict all details larger than three inches on the full-size prototype. If you go below these minimum limits, the model starts to lose its ability to convey a "compelling impression of reality" and begins to look like a toy, as many describe it. More detail than that correspondingly improves a model's ability to convey a "compelling impression of reality." Beyond exactly replicating a detail and instead tricking the viewer's eyes to "see" details that aren't fully portrayed is the point at which modeling transcends craftsmanship and enters the realm of art, but that's a story for another night! The one caveat is that the level of detail, as described, must be consistent throughout the model. Many beginning modelers fail in this respect because they focus on some small details at the expense of others. For example, one will often see models which depict all the trunnels ("tree nail" peg fasteners) in a planked deck or topsides at a scale diameter of perhaps two inches when the actual diameter of the full-scale trunnel on the prototype is three-quarters of an inch. Another commonly seen error is when a kit manufacturer provides copper sheathing that meticulously depicts "rivet heads" on the plates which at prototype size would be two or three inches in diameter, when copper sheathing is actually applied with quarter inch flat-headed copper tacks which are invisible at "scale viewing distance." Such unfortunate missteps are also often compounded by simultaneously omitting other larger details from the model entirely! "Scale viewing distance" is an important concept for modelers to grasp early on. This refers to "what a viewer sees from whatever distance they are viewing it." For example, if you are viewing a quarter inch scale model (1:48) from a distance of two feet between the model and your eyes, the model should look exactly like what you would see looking at the real ship from a distance of ninety-six feet. (1x48x2ft=96ft) Correspondingly, if you are looking at a 1/8" model (1:96) from a distance of two feet, the model should look like what you would see looking at the real ship from a distance of one hundred and ninety-two feet. (1x96x2ft=192ft) Also, when picking a kit to buy, be aware that many kits will, to one degree or another, provide parts which are out-of-scale or historically inaccurate. You will frequently find blocks, deadeyes, and rigging line that are too large for the scale, or just too crudely made, and other cast fittings that are out-of-scale or not of a type used on such period vessels. Even quality model kits will often provide blocks, deadeyes and rigging line that are of such crude detail quality that you won't want to use them. Given that the model kit is otherwise a good one, you should expect to purchase after-market fittings as needed, such as blocks, deadeyes, and rigging line if you really want your completed model "to look like the picture of the one on the box." (For an examples of such aftermarket sources see: https://syrenshipmodelcompany.com/boxwood-rigging-blocks.php and https://ropesofscale.com/) The same goes for the wood provided in all but the top-end kits. (See post #49 of this thread above for photos of the high-quality modeling wood provided by Syren Ship Models in their top-end Medway Long Boat kit.) The best modeling wood is expensive. It should not show a lot of out-of-scale grain figuring to detract from the "compelling impression of reality." Many modelers decide to replace the kit-provided wood with higher quality wood where such will not be painted. Such wood, milled to sizes for ship modeling, can also be obtained from aftermarket suppliers. (See: https://hobbymill.eu/) This latter issue often causes more experienced modelers to buy the tools necessary to mill their own wood, which more often than not inevitably causes them to "go over to the dark side" of scratch-building and abandon kit-building entirely. The cost of a suitable micro- table saw to do this is considerable, but if one is a scratch-builder, the savings realized by scratch-building one or two models over buying one or two advanced level kits will easily pay for the tools required to mill their higher quality modeling wood themselves. (See: https://byrnesmodelmachines.com/tablesaw5.html) Similarly, many modelers eventually determine that significant savings can be realized by spinning their own scale rope. (See: https://syrenshipmodelcompany.com/ropewalk.php) (All the vendors linked above are MSW-vetted and endorsed sponsors and their links are found on the right-hand side of the forum home page.) There are many modelers who build great models on their kitchen table. You are only limited by the extent of your creativity. Some of us have garage or basement workshops, but many make do just as well with a surprisingly small space as a permanent workshop. (Some even convert a mere clothes closet into a workshop!) The permanent workshop is to be favored, of course, since you avoid the inconvenience of setting up and taking it all down each time you want to work on it, but it is entirely possible to work around space limitations if you have a shelf or other safe place to put your model between working sessions so it is out of the way and not inadvertently damaged. If you read a few books on ship modeling technique, you will find that most address the workspace issue in some detail and frequently will have plans and diagrams for building self-contained portable cases for storing tools and materials and providing a working surface. Offhand, one book that treats small workspaces in great detail is the late famous English master modeler, Gerald Wingrove's The Techniques of Ship Modeling, a very comprehensive work on the subject. Used copies are readily available on the online used book market for quite reasonable prices and it is also available on the Internet Archive (free sign-up, no cost for access) in PDF format at https://archive.org/details/techniquesofship0000wing/mode/2up I built my first wooden ship model kit, a tugboat, on my home desk, storing the model in progress and materials in the box the model kit came in and my tools in a small plastic utility toolbox. Some modelers get quite creative in designing rolling work chests that close up to become quite nice pieces of custom furniture that conceal their true function. Below is a very fancy fly tying "workshop" of that style. If you weren't of a mind to build a piece of fine furniture to store your boatbuilding gear, a suitably sized mechanic's tool chest would be more than adequate. These can be expensive, but the lower-priced ones will suffice for ship modeling tools because the expensive ones are designed to hold the considerable weight of the tools a professional mechanic requires, while all you would be needing it for are ship modeling tools and materials that are far less heavy and don't need a chest built like a main battle tank. https://www.pinterest.at/pin/750201250397570802/ A standard machinist's roller cabinet and top chest combination unit would provide room for modeling tools and materials and the enclosed bottom compartment would probably accommodate the average smaller sized kit model for storage.

Hi Turel! Welcome to MSW! I'm not going to try to answer all your questions because, while they definitely "show you are thinking," they require answers which could fill a book and, indeed, many books about how to model ships have been written over the years. Rather than listing some of these books, which I expect other forum members might address, I'll simply urge you to start reading the posts in this forum. If you try to read them all, you'll never get to starting to build a model, so just skim the subjects and use the forum search engine to focus on particular subjects. For openers, speaking of reading the forum posts, I suggest you contact one of the administrators and see if they think your post might better attract attention and responses as a stand-alone post, rather than being tagged onto this long "classic" thread, which is full of great information but getting "a bit long in the tooth." What follows are some quick answers to which I'm sure others can add further detail, or even other opinions!

And around the base of the toilet bowl. We kidded a buddy of mine no end back in those days. His wife had the whole bathroom covered in plush from the carpet to the matching plush toilet seat and tank covers and she made him and any friends he brought home sit down to use the john so not a drop would defile her precious "fuzzy" bathroom. He was the butt of a lot of "squatting to pee" jokes, for sure!

Good question. As I noted with respect to using the saw instead of some other cutting method, "This shape of the cut ends becomes less of an issue as the wire becomes thinner, of course, but still makes a difference even with very fine wire because it promotes a neater solder joint which will require less finish cleanup of the soldered joints, if not eliminate that task entirely." Diamond coated saw blades are available in four grits, but they have a relatively wide kerf. The narrowest is 1.2mm. They are used for cutting glass, ceramics, stone, and resin composites. Conventional jewelers' saw blades generally are readily available in sizes 8/0 which is 0.15mm (0.0063") thick by 0.33mm (0.0126") wide with 34 teeth per cm (84 TPI) through #8 which is 0.50mm (0.0197") thick by 1.14mm (0.0440") wide with 28 TPI. As with jig and coping saw blades, jeweler's saw blades come in a wide variety of teeth styles and blade hardness. You can buy blades with rounded back edges to facilitate making turning cuts and blades with skip-teeth and blades that are lubricated and blades that are unlubricated. (Blade lubrication is required.) There are even "mono-tooth" jeweler's saw blades which present a continuous spiraled cutting edge to the work rather than a toothed edge. While I have never done "research testing" on sawing very fine wire, it would seem to me to be little different than sawing thicker gauge wire with the same technique. Actually, the rule for jeweler's saw blades is three teeth spanning thickness of the material cut. As you noted, if the wire to be cut was smaller than the blade spacing, when you tried to saw it, the wire would fall between the teeth points and just roll back and forth as you tried to saw it, but in this application, the wire is wound round and round a drill bit shaft mandrel and each turn is laid up against the previous one so that a continuous "service" (or wrapping) of wire around the mandrel would be presented to the saw blade. In this case, I believe it would be the length of the wire service on the mandrel and not the thickness of each individual turn of the wire that would be critical. Of course, as I said before, the finer the wire gets, the less critical is the "cleanness" of the end cuts to the soldering results. An alternative to the jeweler's saw for cutting rings on a mandrel is a thin ceramic abrasive disk on a rotary tool. This method is used, I believe, when rings are cut from the wire-wound mandrels in production ring-making machines. It may take a hand steadier than mine, but it can be done. With respect to wrapping the wire around a drill bit shaft employed as a mandrel, there is a specific jeweler's tool designed for use in wrapping wire that is known as a "jump ring mandrel." (The small rings we encounter in ship modeling re properly called "jump rings" in jeweler's nomenclature.) These mandrels come in sets of various diameter and also in individual stepped-diameter versions. These mandrels have a handle and the mandrel shaft is usually cut with a notch along its length and sometimes a notch at its end, the latter to hold the end of the wire fixed while the wire is wrapped around the mandrel and the former to permit sawing the wire in the manner, I've described above without cutting into the mandrel shaft itself. (See: Search: 27 results found for "jump ring mandrels" — Otto Frei) For the truly tool-addicted modeler, there is even a pricey Foredom flex-shaft rotary tool powered machine for the automated production of jump rings. (See: Durston 1309 The Complete Jump Ringer | OttoFrei.com — Otto Frei) I'll add a bit of general information about using the jeweler's saw in case some forum readers are unfamiliar with the use of this saw which I consider a near-essential ship modeling tool. I've found it interesting that I've seen very little discussion of jeweler's saws (sometimes called "piercing saws") on this forum. Perhaps that's because they look very much like ordinary coping saws and folks who don't know the difference never notice them. Working with any sort of metal sheet in modeling sizes is going to require one of these saws and their productive use does demand something of a learning curve. They are a specific tool that is not duplicated by other tools. It may look like a coping saw, and one might correctly think it is a sort of scroll saw, but not realize a powered scroll saw cannot do what this hand saw can do (at least not without breaking a huge number of blades along the way!) A "jeweler's saw" is not the same as a "coping saw." The mechanism for holding the blade ends and for tensioning the blade are different, precluding the use of one type of saw for the other type of blade and vice versa. The jeweler's saw demands a very rigid frame which is designed to produce very fine controlled cuts. The coping saw is intended for cutting wood and no provision is made for its cutting metal. On the other hand, the jeweler's saw is primarily intended for cutting metal, but will also cut wood and plastics. Below are pictures of a traditional "old school" adjustable jeweler's saw frame, sometimes called a "German style frame," (top photo) and three more modern non-adjustable-frame style jeweler's saws (second and third photos.) A quality adjustable-frame saw will set you back about $25, but the other modern ones, made of "space age" metals, are priced beginning at around $100. (There are lots of really cheap adjustable-frame saws out there. Don't waste your money on these. The frame members must be inflexible... like a quarter of an inch square and of good steel.) The saw frames come in different sizes to accommodate different use requirements with deeper frames for making cuts deeper in the center of a large work piece. Whichever style frame one might buy is purely a matter of personal preference and wallet size, although. as always, buying the best you can afford is the cheapest purchase in the end. I prefer the old-school style of saw not only because I don't have any need to appreciate the advantages, if any, of the whiz-bang modern models, and am cheap, but also because the adjustable frame saw, in which the blade is tensioned by resting the top extension bar end on the bench top at the edge of the bench and pulling down on the handle and then tightening the bar adjusting set screw knob, will permit you to mount shorter broken lengths of saw blade in the saw frame which affords a considerable savings in blade expense. These extremely fine light blades break easily and often, particularly until the user acquires some finesse in using them. For those who might want to learn more about the use of this very handy and relatively inexpensive tool, this YouTube video is a good primer on sawing with a jeweler's saw: Grobet Swiss Made Jewelers Sawframes-Adjustable or Fixed Frame — Otto Frei Knew Concepts Jewelers Precision Aluminum Sawframes with Cam Tension & — Otto Frei Amazon.com: Pepe Tools Haymaker Jewelers Saw Frame by Lion Punch Forge, Made in USA (Green) : Tools & Home Improvement Ultimate Guide To The Jewelers Saw (And Jewelers Saw Blades) - Rock Seeker Jewelers-Saw-Blade-Sizes-Sheet1.pdf

Nothing screams "1960's" like a polyester resin-covered hatch cover coffee table on an avocado green shag carpet. Today's kids just wouldn't get it.

Thanks for the tip about UMM-USA, Kurt! I checked their website and was impressed by the wide range of tools they offered. I noted that the PE'd razor saw pictured above has a range of differently sized blades which UMM-USA offers, as well as a lot of other PE'd micro-saw blades, like micro-keyhole saws and the like. A quick scan of UMM-USA's tools section gives me the impression that their prices are very reasonable. It was also apparent that they emphasize plastic modeling, but their tool offerings are applicable to wooden ship modeling as well. I'm surprised UMM-USA is a MSW advertiser!

Well, your being unmarried is likely a tremendous advantage in your pursuit of the ship modeling hobby! You should read this thread, which is full of good advice about choosing first-effort novice level wooden boat kits. Fortunately, you have wisely already realized that it is better to "start small" than to attempt to build an expensive "four-decker" Eighteenth Century square-rigged "ship of the line." There is a much better option for attacking the sometimes steep wooden ship modeling hobby "learning curve." The Model Shipways company has a very highly regarded three-model series of progressively more challenging models for novice builders which are specifically designed for the purpose. As I think most experienced modelers would advise, anyone who is not familiar with model ship kit building would do well to start by building these three Model Shipways Shipwright Three Kit Combo Series. See: https://modelexpo-online.com/Model-Shipways-Shipwright-3-Kit-Combo-Series_p_5465.html (These kits can also be purchased separately, should one not wish to commit to building all three.) Building these three relatively inexpensive boat models in order will provide, through excellent instruction manuals written by a leading world-class modeler, a solid foundation in the skills and techniques required to move on to more challenging kits. I don't want to scare you off, but building plastic model kits is nothing like building wooden ship model kits. They each require quite distinct skill sets. You are wise to begin at the beginning. There are several "build logs" of these entry-level kits posted on this forum. These will give you a detailed presentation of the actual building tasks involved in assembling the kits. Here are the manufacturer's YouTube video presentations of these three kits: Good Luck! And remember, you can always rely on somebody answering any questions you have along the way by simply posting your question on this forum.

I feel your pain! It's unfortunate that you're not modeling a Liberty ship. The hatch covers they used didn't require eye bolts and rings and would have been a much less tedious job of fabricating! If I may be so presumptuous, I'd like to suggest a slightly different "production line" approach to fabricating a large number of identical eye bolts and rings. I recognize that I am presumptuously offering these suggestions to a couple of guys who have probably already each made more eye bolts and rings than I ever will in a lifetime of modeling and that my experience in this endeavor exceeds theirs only in the number of my failures rather than my successes! 1) The rings and the eye bolt "eyes" are formed on suitably-sized drill bit shaft "mandrels." Coil up as many as you require, or in the largest increments that are convenient given the length of your mandrel. All wire should be previously untouched ("fresh off the spool") and handled while wearing nitrile gloves to prevent contamination with bodily oils which would contaminate solder joints and require acid cleaning before "blackening" if that is desired. Treat the working area like a sterile surgical field. 2) Don't unbend the "spring" on the mandrel and clip the rings with diagonal cutting pliers or even a sharp scalpel blade because these cutting methods will generally result in a "mashed" or "crimped" end on the severed ends which will likely require deburring and/or filing square after being cut in order to achieve the required contact between the ends when soldered. (This shape of the cut ends becomes less of an issue as the wire becomes thinner, of course, but still makes a difference even with very fine wire because it promotes a neater solder joint which will require less finish cleanup of the soldered joints, if not eliminate that task entirely.) Instead, use a jeweler's saw to saw through all the rings on the mandrel in a single saw cut with the blade running parallel to the mandrel shaft. This should produce "squared" sawn edges on the rings produced which should, when pressed together in the case of rings, or soldered to the sides of a separate wire "eye bolt shaft" in the case of eye bolt eyes, permit maximum contact of the faying surfaces essential for a neat, strong solder joint. The saw blade used for cutting the rings should be the narrowest possible so that the cut edges may be pushed together without unduly affecting the circular shape of the ring. The saw blade used for cutting the eye bolt eye rings should equal the diameter of the eye bolt shaft so that achieving contact of the ends of the eye and the bolt shaft (describe hereafter) can be accomplished without affecting the circular shape of the eye. 3) Make a soldering jig consisting of an aluminum peg set in a soldering block with an outside diameter matching the inside diameter of the eyebolt eyes. (Solder does not adhere to aluminum.) Place an eyebolt eye over the pin. Place a straight "pigtail" of the same diameter wire as the eye (or perhaps slightly larger) between the two cut ends of the eye and butting up against the aluminum centering pin. If you have sawn the eye ends on the forming mandrel with a saw blade whose kerf matches the diameter of the wire used, the wire should just perfectly fit tightly between the eye ends with all touching each other as required for a good joint and the shaft of the eye bolt eye should fetch up against the aluminum peg so that its end is flush with the inside diameter of the eye bolt eye, making set up and holding in place while soldering easy without additional holding devices. Solder the junction of the eye bolt eye and its shaft in the usual manner. The size of the wire and the degree of actual contact of the ends with each other permitting, a dab of silver solder paste alone may suffice to join the ends. (And in the case of silver solder, which is not gap-filling, if there is no actual contact between the faces to be joined, there won't be any joint at all!) Alternately, if some gap-filling by the solder is required, rosin-cored thin-diameter electrical wire solder can be used. The less solder, of course, the less cleanup of the piece will be required and the less gap-filling that is required, the stronger the joint will be and the amount of handwork to clean excess solder from the piece will be correspondingly reduced. Clean up the joints on the eye bolts. 4) Place an eye bolt ring end through an eye bolt eye and bend the ends so that they touch and are alighned. Solder the ends of the rings together. It may be found convenient to slide the unsoldered rings and eye bolts onto an aluminum peg of suitable size to hold the ring and eye without slipping and in such manner keep the eye bolt eye away from the ring's solder joint while soldering the ring ends together. Clean solder joint as necessary. 5) Blacken the assembled ring and eye bolts as may be desired. I do believe that twisting the wire "pigtails" of an eye bent around a suitably sized drill bit shaft provides a stronger and better holding eye bolt when glued into a drilled hole in wood and may be less labor-intensive than soldering the eye bolts at all, but as these hatch cover eye bolts and rings will not be under any tension after installation, the holding strength of the shaft is not a consideration and soldering the eye bolts is likely less labor-intensive than twisting the shanks of so many eye bolts. Where, as here, a large number of identically-sized eye bolts and rings must be produced, the soldering of the eye bolt eyes to their bolt shafts, if the jigs described are used, should entail less work than twisting the number of eye bolts required. Moreover, I expect that the additional complication of a ring worked into the eye bolt's eye and the better appearance of the ring's fitting precisely through a round eye, rather than the "crotch" of a twisted wire bolt eye, promises the better appearing result. Where an eye bolt will be placed at the base of a mast or inboard of a deck rail adjacent to a lot of coiled rigging lines, etc., the detail of the eye bolt is less noticeable. However, here, where the eye bolts and rings will be much more apparently visible and less camouflaged by adjacent detail, and, particularly, repetitively lined up as the primary detail in a wide expanse of deck, the viewer's eye will be drawn to them to a much greater degree than otherwise. Given the human eye's particular ability to discern patterns which are "out of alignment," or distinct from a group of other identical pieces, these hatch cover rings are a detail that is worth spending special time on. Anyway, just some thoughts on the application of "mass production" techniques to an interesting and all too common challenge...

Sorry. I broke my own rule of always posting a link when citing an online source! My bad! Here you go. Amazon sells the blades and handles separately for some unknown reason. DISCLAIMER: I cannot tell from the Amazon listing whether this saw and blades are the same as those mentioned in Kurt's earlier posts in this thread. Amazon identifies the seller as MicroMark, but I notice that the blades in the photo Kurt posted have some labeling on them and the blades Amazon has pictured don't. It's certainly not difficult to knock off this item, so buyer beware. There be pirates in these waters. Wood Handle For Ultra Fine Saw Blades - Amazon.com Amazon.com: Ultra Fine Saw Blade (Pack of 5) : Tools & Home Improvement Extra Long Micro Miter Box - Amazon.com Note that I also posted the link to the suitable micro-sized miter box. These narrow-kerfed blades tend to wander in a wider miter box slot, thereby failing to cut at an accurate angle. Of course, all of this is academic for those who have already saved up and bought their Byrnes table saw.

Agreed! I have found that the ordinary "contractor's jobsite compressors," which can be had starting at around $100, are not excessively noisy because when used for airbrushing they only turn on intermittently once their tank is charged. There are apparently some modelers who for various reasons wish to have a quieter compressor and/or one which is smaller in size. Their needs seem to be met by the dedicated "airbrush compressors" sold by the various airbrush manufacturers and others. Those modelers who want the smaller size and quieter operation of the dedicated airbrush compressors may pay a bit of a premium to do so and they will, for the same approximate cost, have a compressor which will lack the power and capacity to operate the wide range of available air-driven tools or to inflate their car tires and so on.

I came across a "rechargeable cordless mini airbrush" offered on Amazon which has a hose running off the "compressor" unit instead of an integral airbrush. Priced at seventy bucks. Amazon.com: imyyds Airbrush Kit with Compressor, 32PSI High Pressure Cordless Airbrush Gun, Portable Dual Action Handheld Mini Rechargeable Air Brushes for Painting, Model, Nail, Makeup : Arts, Crafts & Sewing That said, and notwithstanding the supposedly "positive" reviews of these things, I still can't imagine that they are comparable in quality or performance to the conventional airbrushing rigs. Your comment that you don't have space for a compressor and have concerns about a compressor's noise should be resolved by a bit of "shopping" for the newer "compact" airbrush compressors, most of which are far less noisy than the conventional portable shop compressors. Some of these aren't much larger than a shoebox or two and claim to make no more noise that two people having a conversation. This is second-hand information from me, though, since I have larger "contractors" compressors which are noisy, although they have larger tanks and only kick on intermittently once the tank fills up after turning them on. I must say, however, that from what I've seen of his posts in this forum, Kurt Van Dahm is "da man" when it comes to airbrushing as his status as a consultant for Badger airbrush attests. While he hasn't "authorized" me to do so, I would strongly urge you to read his many posts on airbrushing (use the MSW search engine feature) and send Kurt a message through this forum's messaging feature and ask his advice regarding a quality U.S made airbrush and compressor combination in your price range which best meets your specific needs. (kurtvd19 - Model Ship World™) The smaller airbrush compressors range in price from around fifty bucks (probably for Chinese junk) to around three-hundred and fifty (for U.S top-of-the-line units) and a good entry-level airbrush for ship modeling can probably be had for between fifty and a hundred bucks. Here's a very instructive recent thread on airbrush selection which should be helpful to anyone who is interested in getting into airbrushing and is considering opting for a pirated Chinese knock-off of a quality U.S. made model. (Yes, reports that they crap out after a few uses abound!) See:

Amazon has the handles and blades. MicroMark is retailing them through Amazon. It's worth checking out Amazon's price comparison feature. They are selling for considerably less on Zoro, if Amazon's price comparison is accurate. If you are an Amazon Prime member, you can probably get free shipping on it through Amazon.

Yes, making our own is probably the wisest approach and the most economical. It also offers the advantage of being able to make exactly what one needs,. I feel inspired by the dentist's cabinet and the other wooden cabinet. The real Gerstner chests are lovely, but almost too costly to put tools in. (I know one fellow who bought one for his wife for use as a jewelry chest!.) There are Chinese copies, of course, but they are poorly done and "pirated" so they leave a bad taste in my mouth. Metal mechanics' chests are certainly serviceable and come in a wide range of sizes and styles, but they lack the warmth of fine furniture. Your pictured drawer holding all of your rotary tool bits and mandrels, etc., is just what I need. For years, I've used dedicated small tool boxes for things like rotary tool bits and mandrels and my Unimat lathe tooling and attachments, but my collection of such tools has come to outgrow the small tool boxes I am using and being able to spread things out as you have pictured above in shallow compartmented drawers makes finding what I'm looking for a much faster task. Thanks for sharing your photos!

Oh yea! I've priced them. The tool chest would be worth more than the tools I have to put in it! I do have a Kennedy machinist's tool chest and rolling base which is quite nice. It was a Costco special long ago. I also have a very nice five foot tall stainless steel tool chest with tons of storage which was also a Costco item long ago. Add to that a couple of Harbor Freight tool carts and recycled kitchen cabinets and a I'm in pretty good shape. It's just that those old wooden chests of drawers are so cool.

What a beautiful chest of drawers! It would be just the thing for storing small hand tools where they could be readily seen and retrieved. French fitted drawers would be particularly "tasty." Is it purchased or home-made? Time was that chests similar to this one were made for medical and dental professionals, but they are very hard to come across these days, at least at an affordable price.

I'd agree with you in many instances. However, I must disagree when it comes to airbrushes. Airbrushes are one of those things that will definitely limit the quality of anyone's work to the quality of the airbrush used regardless of the user's talent. This is because an airbrush is a precision instrument and precision costs money to produce no matter how you cut it. A high-quality airbrush for merely spraying paint can be had for less money than a quality airbrush with a wider spectrum of control features, assuming the user is willing to accept the fact that the only variable he has any control over is the qualities of the material he's spraying. That said, it's hard to believe that at the price they are selling them these Chinese-made "hoseless" units can be all that well built. Looking at the picture posted above, I'm not so sure holding the cannister and pushing the "trigger" button at the same time would be all that easy or comfortable to do, particularly with a hand limited by peripheral neuropathy.

And it's probably likely it could have lasted indefinitely if there had been a way to dry out the condensation inside the tank, as there often isn't. I'll bet the compressor was just fine. Unfortunately, likely due to products liability insurance issues, the compressor tanks are often more costly than the compressors themselves. Consequently, when the tank goes, you might as well throw the whole unit out and buy a new one. Running a hose to a separate portable tank such as are sold for filling auto tires is sometimes a work-around for a tired old tank, though. I thoroughly agree with your point: buying the best tool you can possibly afford is always the lease expensive course.