Bob Cleek

Those "mystery padeyes" continue to intrigue me, although the mystery may never be solved. At the risk of "flogging the poodle," I wonder if they might be for securing the sheets of a loose-footed storm trisail? Just one more option in the "multiple choice test" where the answer "none of the above" may be the only correct one. Beautiful work on the skylight bars! Thanks for sharing your fine workmanship.

Soft, "fuzzy" wood species can generally be sanded perfectly smooth if, prior to the final finish sanding, they are sealed with shellac (2 pound cut as sold commercially, e.g. Zinsser "Bullseye" brand.) The shellac soaks into the wood and hardens it so it can be sanded without raising the "fuzz."

Based on the picture alone, my wild guess would be spalted satin walnut. https://www.wood-database.com/sweetgum/ Satin walnut is not a walnut at all, but liquidambar, or "sweetgum" in the US. (No relation to Australian "gums.") The spalting (a fungus) causes the black figuring. It's used in fine custom furniture and is an excellent modeling wood, though spalted stock is usually reserved for its appearance. The liquidambar or sweetgum tree is widely distributed in the US and often planted as an ornamental, although it has a nasty habit of horizontal root growth that destroys sidewalks. It's not commercially milled much, so you usually have to cut your own and mill it. It's often found in municipal woodpiles and tree services will sometimes have logs available. https://www.wood-database.com/sweetgum/

This should answer your question:

I think you'll have to determine the type of king plank, if any, was used on the prototype. "Sprung" deck planking may be let into a stepped-sided king plank, or to each other, port and starboard, in a herringbone pattern, or, less commonly, butted to a straight-sided king plank as shown in the photo. this is not "best practice," however, because the planks come to a "feather edge" (points) which are difficult to caulk and tend to leak. That said, in modern construction where plywood decks are often covered with uncaulked teak sheathing to create the appearance of a true laid teak and stopping is merely placed in groves between the faux planks, flat-sided king planks are seen more often than in traditional construction. Stepped king plank: You will have to make a drawn template to determine the layout of your covering boards, deck planks, and king plank. Planking should be bent using heat (a steam iron or hair dryer) as per Chuck Passaro's instructional videos and posts here on this forum. https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=chuck+passaro

A square is a very handy tool to have. Micro-Mark has a "thin-beam square" that I've found very handy for marking thin stock. The beam is thin, so it can be used on thin stock without having to put something beneath the stock to raise it enough that the arm lays flat on the stock. I don't know anybody who has this square but Micro-Mark, which isn't always the highest quality or the lowest priced stuff, but I have been very happy with this item. It's twenty bucks, but it's one of those "loss leaders" they are always discounting if you sign up for their email advertisements. https://www.micromark.com/Thin-Beam-Square Micro-Mark's set of 3", 4", and 5" small standard beam squares is a handy thing to have as well. These are also often discounted quite deeply on a regular basis. https://www.micromark.com/Steel-Machinists-Squares-Set-of-3 The two pictures at the bottom below show the thin-beam square on the left and a standard beam square on the right. Planing a 90 degree edge is easily done if you lay the plane on its side on a flat surface. If need be, put something beneath the workpiece to raise it so the plane iron cuts the edge completely. Make sure your plane iron is set square to the plane's sole, of course. Use a square like those above for that as well.

I'd be happy to have Planking the Built Up Ship Model by Model Shipways. My zip is 94952. I'll send the address in a PM. Thanks for your generosity!

Not likely that you'd be able to source anything that would be satisfactory given your restrictions. (I feel your pain. At least we are still able to order stuff on line here!) You may consider that it's been reported by some very good modelers that liver of sulphur (the gel is best... it has more shelf-life) can be applied to clean parts after they have been installed on a model by simply painting it on. It does not discolor adjacent wood. They do this because the blackening will sometimes rub off a bit when handled. Blackening the part in place reduces that problem. So, you might be able to continue working and defer the blackening until you can source your liver of sulphur.

I am, too. There's nothing like "old 'arn." And the price is right!

If your emphasis is on accuracy, a band saw isn't going to be a machine where you'll readily find it. On a band saw, "accuracy" is dependent more upon the operator's skill than anything else. If "tight curves" are anticipated, certainly at modeling scales, a good quality scroll saw is the tool for the job. The "tightness of curves" or "minimum radius of cut" of a given band saw blade can cut is dependent on the width of the blade. As indicated on the chart below, a 1/8" wide band saw blade will only cut minimum radius of 3/16" and, while I've never seen a 1/8" band saw blade, I expect it's a rare bird indeed. I expect it would require a band saw designed to do such fine work. On a standard 14" band saw, I expect a 1/8" blade would be quite prone to breaking. A scroll saw, on the other hand, is capable of cutting radii equal to half the width of the blade itself. Blade Width (Inches) Minimum Radius (Inches) 1/8 3/16 3/16 5/16 1/4 5/8 3/8 1-1/2 1/2 2-1/2 5/8 4 3/4 5-1/2 1 7 It's a matter of preference, price point, and space available, I suppose, but, in my opinion, small bench top band saws aren't really all that practical. A good scroll saw will serve much better for short radius cutting, although perhaps with slightly less throat depth, which generally isn't an issue with tight curves. A table saw will cut straight lines easier than any band saw, too. For larger work, however, a "standard" 14" or larger band saw is really required and is also capable of accurate re-sawing if properly set up. As to which one to buy, the price points are generally indicative of quality. As with many stationary power tools these days, the retail distributors all sell essentially the same models, all built at the Revolutionary People's Patriotic Machine Tool Collective somewhere in China, but there is a difference in fit and finish, depending upon the distributor's specifications. When it comes to things like band saws, the used market is also worth checking out. It's not unusual to see quality machines in decent condition selling used for a fraction of their original price. Neither is it unusual to find older machines which are of much higher quality than the models now selling new.

Or any one of the several Chinese rip-off clones of the Proxxon, MicroLux, and Byrnes saws, for that matter. They are all over Amazon, some for as little as fifty or sixty bucks. But, you get what you pay for and you only have to buy a good tool once, which makes good tools the cheapest in the end, even when they are the most expensive in the beginning. If semi-tractor trucks were marketed like mini-table saws, would you buy a Peterbilt with a Chevy 350 engine?

You can't keep building kits forever. The more you do it, the more you scratch-build. Before you know it, you'll wake up one morning and say, "Why am I building models that have been built a hundred or more times before when I can build anything I want?" Save your money and buy the saw. You know you want it. You know you deserve it. When was the last time you treated yourself to something really nice?

Bottom line, there isn't anything that even comes close to the Byrnes saw and you do get what you pay for. With the "also-rans," you pay a little bit less and get a lot less for your money in quality and accuracy, not to mention resale value, if you ever want to sell it. They do cost money, but if you are cutting your own strip wood, it won't take too long to pay for itself, particularly the way pre-cut stock is starting to cost these days, when you can find it. Just throw your pocket change in a Mason jar and watch it add up. Save a buck here or there as you go along. You'll have enough saved up in short order. Particularly now, when we're all "locked down" and aren't spending any pocket money, anyhow.

Beautiful!

MicroMark has a large selection of Perma-Grit tools in their latest catalog. A bit pricey, but certainly a savings over ordinary abrasives. One important thing to note is that the grit numbers of this British (I think) product are different from the grit numbers used in the US. According to the MicroMark catalog, they are offered in two grits, coarse and fine. For American minds, the coarse grit is equivalent to our 80 grit and the fine is equivalent to 120 grit. As said, they have their uses, but in modeling work, I expect most would be looking for our 220 grit as the coarsest they'd be wanting and 300 or 400 for "fine."

What Jaager said. Shellac works fine. You can add coats to develop the level of gloss required and if the gloss is too great, it can be toned down using a Scotch-brite pad or steel wool, or simply wiping with a fine cloth dampened with alcohol. Remember that gloss must be toned down on a model to properly depict brightwork to scale.

If you have Xfinity with the "talking" remote, just say "free to me" into the remote. That should bring up a menu. Go to "Bluprint" and then to "jewelry" and you'll find them. The woodworking tutorials are good, too.

I can't see any possible reason to use thread or "rope" to portray caulking in deck seams. If one wishes a wider seam to show, as with larger scales, the usual method is to glue a sheet of black card stock of suitable thickness to the flat side of the deck stock piece and then rip deck planks from the deck stock piece as would normally be done. The result will be deck planks with a black "stopped seam" on one edge which can be laid down to depict a laid deck with the black seams of the proper thickness between each plank. If the card stock is saturated with thin clear shellac before gluing to the plank stock, the laid deck may be sanded, together with the edges of the card stock, without concern that the card stock will "fuzz" when sanded.

Although it would be somewhat tedious, smaller diameter shop-made "plug cutters" might be fashioned by taking a length of brass tubing with a suitable inside diameter and filing pointed "teeth" on the end. The "toothed" tubing is then chucked in a drill press to bore into the workpiece. Admittedly, I've never done this in modelling sizes, but I've seen it done to make a long bit for boring straight propeller shafts through long shaft logs in full-sized boatbuilding. The shape of the teeth didn't seem to be particularly important as long as they were pointed, and, of course, the bit had to be withdrawn frequently to vacuum out the sawdust. I had my doubts, but was surprised to see how well it worked when I first saw it done.

No, I don't. Varnish would't add anything to the appearance or longevity of the finish paint coats. Sometimes, I do use shellac alone (or on top of a stain) as a finish coat to represent a varnished surface. By applying multiple coats of shellac, the finish becomes shiny as the number of coats increases, so the "scale gloss" level can be controlled. (At "scale viewing distances," finished surfaces which are glossy when viewed up close on the prototype will appear less than glossy.

Yes. The mechanics of it are basically the same as a commonly used jig for scarfing full-sized joints in full-scale boatbuilding. It that application, a three sided open ended trough with sides cut to the desired scarf angle permit a plane or a router to slide on the inclined edges of the jig and cut the scarf in the face of the pieces to be scarfed.

It's up to the modeler. It's my practice to pretty much shellac all the wood on a model as I go along these days. I also use thinned shellac on cordage that requires shaping. As the shellac dries, the cordage can be bent to shape and when fully dried, the rigging line will hold that shape. This is how I avoid coils of line on pin rails and elsewhere that look like stiff lariats that belong on a cowboy's saddle instead of anything ever found on a ship. Shellac also serves well as an adhesive for paper and cardstock bits and pieces and, if thickened, can be used in more demanding adhesive applications. I generally keep a jar of shellac and a paintbrush that lives in a small jar of alcohol with a top that has a hole drilled into it to hold the brush handle and a pair of long tweezers handy on my bench. (The hole in the brush jar cap allows the brush to remain in the alcohol while the cap minimizes the alcohol's evaporation. The alcohol in the brush jar will mix with the shellac off the brush over time and the shellac in my shellac jar will often start to thicken as the alcohol in it evaporates some. I just pour some of the alcohol from the brush jar into the shellac jar to thin it and I then add fresh alcohol to the brush jar as needed. This is an economical way to use the materials, although shellac and denatured alcohol bought in gallon cans from the hardware or paint store is dirt cheap compared to any modeling paint company's "sealer" and proprietary solvents. For small pieces, I simply hold them in the tweezers and dip them right into the shellac jar and pull them out and shake or tap off the excess shellac over the shellac jar. That avoids the difficulty of thoroughly coating a piece with a brush while it's being held. The tips of the tweezers clean right off with a dip in the brush jar and a wipe with a paper towel. Shellac is very easy stuff to work with and it dries very quickly without brush strokes, so it doesn't require any skill to apply it. (Unless, of course, one undertakes the challenge of French polishing, which was once a separate craft in and of itself and has little or no application to modeling, save for building bases and case frames if one were so inclined to replicate an Eighteenth Century model case and stand.) A single coat of thin (right out of the can) "white" (bleached clear) shellac soaks right into the wood and is practically invisible. It does four things I value: One, it permits fine sanding to a perfectly smooth surface, which is especially helpful when using softer woods that tend to "fuzz" and when thus sanded smooth, it is easy to dust and tack the piece to remove all dust from the surface before applying the finish coats. Two, it provides a sealer coat so that paint applied to the surface does not soak into the wood unevenly and it provides a surface for good, uniform adhesion of the paint. Sealing is also very important when using water-based finish coats which often have a tendency to "raise the grain" of softwoods. Three, it tends to retard the absorption of moisture and slows wood movement due to fluctuations in ambient humidity. In practice, this is often a negligible consideration, but, in theory, at least, very slight movements of the wood components will, over time, albeit sometimes great time, loosen joints and weaken the structure. Four, it is a completely safe and reversible archival material. Shellac is non-toxic. It is what is used to make M&M's and jelly beans candy shiny. It has been known in the written record going back at least 3,000 years and archaeologists have recovered shellac artifacts of that age that remained in good condition. It is perpetually reversible. Simply applying alcohol will soften and dissolve shellac even decades and centuries after it was first applied. Many have no concern about the archival quality of the materials they use in their models, which is certainly their prerogative. For myself, I like to think my models will survive me and may even be around a good long time, so using materials proven to be as long lasting as possible will help to ensure that outcome. I know that may be a much less than likely conceit, but the fantasy makes modeling a bit more fun for me on that account. I believe I wouldn't be far wrong in assuming that all of the period museum models, and certainly the Admiralty Board models, were sealed with thin shellac. Until the advent of synthetics (those ersatz abominations such as "wipe on poly" ,) sealing raw wood with shellac was the standard practice for fine painted finishes and "French polishing" with shellac was the standard "clear" finish applied to fine furniture.

The plane runs on the "rails" upon which those side plates run. The rails are adjustable as to the degree of taper desired. The side plates are adjustable to set the height of the plane above the work piece. The side plates are shop made and they are apparently fastened to the sides of the plane body with bolts which are placed in drilled and tapped holes in the side of the plane body.

It looks like a current model Stanley No. 101 or a similar knock-off. These are must-have modeling tools in my book. Original Stanley 101 plane and squrrel tailed hand planes. (15/16" irons) Current Stanley Model 12-101 with folded sheet metal body. Ten bucks on Amazon. Some places have them for as little as eight bucks. The new ones are made of folded sheet metal, but entirely serviceable. https://www.amazon.com/Stanley-Tools-12-101-Small-Trimming/dp/B00DF3FP68/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_product_sims?ie=UTF8 Kunz (Germany) still makes heavy cast iron copies of the old Stanley 101s in plain and "squirrel tail" styles. The squirrel tail is my favorite. Original old cast iron Stanley 101's are collectors items these days. Kunz's cast iron regular copy runs $20.00 and the squirrel tailed one goes for $21.00 from Highland Woodworking. I prefer the hefty feel of my Kunz cast iron ones over my current Stanley sheet metal bodied one, although the current Stanley 101 is lighter in an apron pocket. https://www.highlandwoodworking.com/kunzpalmplanewithhandle.aspx For use in the jig set-up illustrated in this thread, I'd expect the sheet metal bodied current Stanley 101 would be more suitable as it would be easier to machine the body sides to accommodate the "sled runners" than would drilling and tapping a cast iron Kunz model.

Beautiful workmanship and a very practical design, HYW! Thanks for sharing your beautiful tools and jigs. While I'll probably never be capable of your metalworking skills, your devices are a great inspiration to me. I'm not sure what the function of the yellow "bumper" (?) on the metal rod might be, but from your creative design, I can see how I can build an similar adjustable "sled" to mount on my lathe cross-slide. This will permit me to chuck a mast blank into a chuck mounted on my headstock and use the integral dividing head to plane tapering polyhedra as required. In such an arrangement, I can also use the lathe to turn the mast blank and obtain perfectly round tapers as well. In other words, I've already got the powered chuck and dividing head, so all I need to do is build the "taper jig" for my late. My "spar lathe" is a Craftsman/Atlas 12"X42" and there is a tapering jig for the lathe, but they are somewhat rare and quite expensive when one can be located. Unlike the manufacturer's tapering jig, your adjustable "sled" does not require the use of traveling backrest, which is a plus in terms of ease of operation. Thanks again for sharing another great modeling tool. Keep them coming!