Bob Cleek

I checked Little Machine Shop  - the model that is in your zone seems to be a version if a Sieg SX1P or SX1LP
Not low cost or light weight, but it looks to be quality for a hobby machine.   It is probably a good idea to make sure that the decision points that you use be ones that matter.

1)   The real drivers for cutting corners on quality are a) lower manufacturing costs to increase profits, b) lower manufacturing costs to enable reduction of price to increase market competitiveness, and c) "offshoring"" manufacturing for lower labor costs and tax advantages.
 
2) Such lists are difficult to maintain because the product specifications "are subject to change without notice." They outsource parts and manufacturing to the lowest bidder and next year's model may be quite different if a cheaper type of bearing is substituted, or the like, and yet, the new model will look exactly the same as the old one. The brand names change ownership as often as we change our socks, as well, so they aren't much of an indication, either. For example, Lowe's now owns the Craftsman line of tools, but isn't necessarily selling the same Craftsman tools that Sears once did. They advertise a "Craftsman lifetime warranty" on hand tools, but there's a catch. Here's Lowe's official statement:
 
FULL STATEMENT FROM LOWE'S CORPORATE COMMUNICATIONS:
"We will honor all lifetime warranties no matter where the CRAFTSMAN hand tool was purchased. We ask that customers bring in the item, and we’ll replace it if we have the product. If we do not have the product, customers can call the Customer Care Hotline (883-331-4569)."
Maureen Wallace, Lowe's
 
The operative clause is "if we have the product." If you bought your Craftsman tool from Sears, it's quite possibly not "the product" Lower's is now selling, so unless the Lowe's store to which you return your Sears Craftsman tool that is broken actually has the same tool in stock, you're out of luck, but you can call the Lowe's Customer Care Hotline and, after waiting on hold listening to muzak for ten minutes, somebody will tell you how sorry you are, but they can't help you because they don't sell the same tool you are trying to return so they don't have a new one to swap for it. 

I prefer to simply apply a drop of clear shellac to knots with a paintbrush. The shellac dries very quickly. (Blowing on it causes the alcohol to evaporate faster.) This cements the knot nicely. The advantages of this over CA or even PVA adhesives is not only the quick drying time (almost as fast as CA and much faster than PVA,) but also, should the knot have to be untied for any reason, the shellac can be undone immediately by applying alcohol to it. The shellac is absorbed by the thread and, when dry, is invisible. It's also a lot less expensive than CA adhesive.

An unfortunate turn of events, but prudence is the better part of valor. This bug isn't giving up easily and the new mutated variants are of concern. We're fully vaccinated, but were advised by the docs to continue with the mitigation protocols nonetheless, except for socializing in small family gatherings with other fully vaccinated folks. 

An unfortunate turn of events, but prudence is the better part of valor. This bug isn't giving up easily and the new mutated variants are of concern. We're fully vaccinated, but were advised by the docs to continue with the mitigation protocols nonetheless, except for socializing in small family gatherings with other fully vaccinated folks. 

An unfortunate turn of events, but prudence is the better part of valor. This bug isn't giving up easily and the new mutated variants are of concern. We're fully vaccinated, but were advised by the docs to continue with the mitigation protocols nonetheless, except for socializing in small family gatherings with other fully vaccinated folks. 

1)   The real drivers for cutting corners on quality are a) lower manufacturing costs to increase profits, b) lower manufacturing costs to enable reduction of price to increase market competitiveness, and c) "offshoring"" manufacturing for lower labor costs and tax advantages.
 
2) Such lists are difficult to maintain because the product specifications "are subject to change without notice." They outsource parts and manufacturing to the lowest bidder and next year's model may be quite different if a cheaper type of bearing is substituted, or the like, and yet, the new model will look exactly the same as the old one. The brand names change ownership as often as we change our socks, as well, so they aren't much of an indication, either. For example, Lowe's now owns the Craftsman line of tools, but isn't necessarily selling the same Craftsman tools that Sears once did. They advertise a "Craftsman lifetime warranty" on hand tools, but there's a catch. Here's Lowe's official statement:
 
FULL STATEMENT FROM LOWE'S CORPORATE COMMUNICATIONS:
"We will honor all lifetime warranties no matter where the CRAFTSMAN hand tool was purchased. We ask that customers bring in the item, and we’ll replace it if we have the product. If we do not have the product, customers can call the Customer Care Hotline (883-331-4569)."
Maureen Wallace, Lowe's
 
The operative clause is "if we have the product." If you bought your Craftsman tool from Sears, it's quite possibly not "the product" Lower's is now selling, so unless the Lowe's store to which you return your Sears Craftsman tool that is broken actually has the same tool in stock, you're out of luck, but you can call the Lowe's Customer Care Hotline and, after waiting on hold listening to muzak for ten minutes, somebody will tell you how sorry you are, but they can't help you because they don't sell the same tool you are trying to return so they don't have a new one to swap for it. 

An unfortunate turn of events, but prudence is the better part of valor. This bug isn't giving up easily and the new mutated variants are of concern. We're fully vaccinated, but were advised by the docs to continue with the mitigation protocols nonetheless, except for socializing in small family gatherings with other fully vaccinated folks. 

An unfortunate turn of events, but prudence is the better part of valor. This bug isn't giving up easily and the new mutated variants are of concern. We're fully vaccinated, but were advised by the docs to continue with the mitigation protocols nonetheless, except for socializing in small family gatherings with other fully vaccinated folks. 

Zero to negative back rake on brass. Google is your friend. There's tons of tutorials on YouTube. Check out "Mr. Pete 222" or "Tubal Cain" on YouTube. He's a retired shop teacher who's got tons of videos on machining on YouTube. They're great!
 
You may want to print something like this out and keep it for reference: http://www.steves-workshop.co.uk/tips/toolgrinding/tool-grinding-poster.pdf
 
 

An unfortunate turn of events, but prudence is the better part of valor. This bug isn't giving up easily and the new mutated variants are of concern. We're fully vaccinated, but were advised by the docs to continue with the mitigation protocols nonetheless, except for socializing in small family gatherings with other fully vaccinated folks. 

Zero to negative back rake on brass. Google is your friend. There's tons of tutorials on YouTube. Check out "Mr. Pete 222" or "Tubal Cain" on YouTube. He's a retired shop teacher who's got tons of videos on machining on YouTube. They're great!
 
You may want to print something like this out and keep it for reference: http://www.steves-workshop.co.uk/tips/toolgrinding/tool-grinding-poster.pdf
 
 

Given the tedious repetitive nature of the work and the need for uniformity, without a pattern-tracing device or a custom cutter to turn an entire cannon at one go, I'd also cast my vote for casting any number of cannon that may be required. A low melting point white metal can be used, or casting resins. Another option is electroforming. Remember those copper-coated baby shoes that were popular in the 1940's and 50's? (Yeah, I realize you probably don't.) Basically, you can take anything, such as  a cast wax cannon, spray it with a conductive paint, like that zinc-heavy spray paint they sell to prevent rust or India ink and graphite, and then electroplate it with copper to a thickness you desire. The wax can then be melted by throwing the plated piece in a pot of boiling water and, voila!, you've got a highly detailed copper part. Or at least that's the way it's supposed to work. A plating set-up is easy to throw together with some plastic tubs and a car battery charger. It's a common jewelery-making technique. The chemicals can be bought  at any jewelers' supply house. Study the many YouTube videos to learn how it's done.
 
 

Given the tedious repetitive nature of the work and the need for uniformity, without a pattern-tracing device or a custom cutter to turn an entire cannon at one go, I'd also cast my vote for casting any number of cannon that may be required. A low melting point white metal can be used, or casting resins. Another option is electroforming. Remember those copper-coated baby shoes that were popular in the 1940's and 50's? (Yeah, I realize you probably don't.) Basically, you can take anything, such as  a cast wax cannon, spray it with a conductive paint, like that zinc-heavy spray paint they sell to prevent rust or India ink and graphite, and then electroplate it with copper to a thickness you desire. The wax can then be melted by throwing the plated piece in a pot of boiling water and, voila!, you've got a highly detailed copper part. Or at least that's the way it's supposed to work. A plating set-up is easy to throw together with some plastic tubs and a car battery charger. It's a common jewelery-making technique. The chemicals can be bought  at any jewelers' supply house. Study the many YouTube videos to learn how it's done.
 
 

Bob; great find. Thank you for posting...Moab

John
 
Don't know what everyone else does but this is what I do.  If you're cutting planks say 3/16" wide x 1/16  thick what I do first is cut my stock from a billet on the band saw about 7/32 wide x 2" .  Then I run them through the thickness sander down to 3/16" so now I have a piece of stock 3/16 x 2"  + or -.001 on the 3/16 thickness.  Then to the saw with a 3"  .03 slitting blade and cut the planks 1/16 thick.  After you glue the planks on you're going to sand them so the 1/6 thickness really doesn't matter much
 
regards
Jim
 
 

Perhaps looking into a feather board mod might help?   I too have trouble occasionally making cuts and a lot of the time the answer comes down to how Im holding/supporting the wood, blade height choice and feed speed.  Many of the videos online about doing similar things on full size table saws have directly applicable tips that can be helpful to understand the mechanics of what you are asking your tool to do. 
 
 

Hi all –
 
Here is the finish of this restoration build log.  I begin with the cannon.  Two of the guns were detached when received, with one having a carriage made out of a completely different material than the others.  A third cannon was on a similar carriage of unknown material.  I removed it so I could work on it.
 

 
I cleaned up the old glue from all of the guns, then fashioned two new carriages from ivory.  The barrels were set on the new carriages and secured with cyano.
 

 
The new carriages were aged with coffee grounds.  Actually, they took up the color a bit too well, so the brown was sanded back a bit after the photo was taken.
 

 
When I was happy with the color they were installed on deck with PVA glue.  The originals were pinned through the rear of the carriages and into the deck, but there was no room for such reinforcement, so they will have to rely on the strength of the glue itself.  Judging from other models that I have worked on, I am confident that it will be at least 50+ years before anyone will have to worry about glue failure.
 

 
Finally, I mounted the two British flags.  The large ensign at the stern was set on an ivory staff, although it was shown detached in the client’s original photos.  He failed to bring it with him when he delivered the model, so he dropped it, and a few other detached pieces, into a plain envelope and mailed it to me.  When it came the delivery process in the Postal Service had broken the staff into four pieces.
 

 
I cut a 1/8” square piece of ivory about 2 ½” long and made it octagonal with sanding drums.  Further sanding rounded it to an approximate cylinder.  Finally one end was chucked into a Dremel with a bit of paper towel to protect the ivory from the jaws of the chuck.  On low speed the shaft was held against a large flat sanding block and turned to a cylinder.  The original halyard block and line were used to mount the flag to the new staff, which was slid into two metal fittings on the inside of the taffrail.  I also took a moment to hang the boat from the davits at the stern.
 

 
At the bow the small flag was remounted in its hole in the jib boom.
 

 
With a quick cleaning and oil rubbing of the base the repair was finished.    
 

 

 
To replace the heavy glass cover a new acrylic cover was ordered and set on the base.  Two small brass nails on the short sides were installed by drilling through the plastic and into the wood of the base.  These will prevent the cover from coming loose if anyone picks it up by the cover rather than from underneath.
 

 
The client mounted the model on a pair of heavy brackets in a prominent place in his home.
 

 
He has told me that he and his family are very happy with the restoration, as am I.  I hope you all have enjoyed the journey as well.  I can only hope that the model will last another 200 years and represent a glimpse into a long-gone world of naval history and art.
 

 
Let me know if you have any questions or thoughts.
 
I will be back again with some more of the models that I am building for the Merchant Marine Academy museum.  Until then . . .
 
Stay safe
 
Dan

Read the article you cited. If they mention a material, it's suitable. If they don't, research it online. "Archival" is a term used by the fine arts professionals to mean a material will last for at least a hundred years. Search and find out whether the material is considered "archival." Many modern materials, generally plastics, acrylics, polymers, and cyanoacrylate adhesives, are not archival. You want to avoid anything that deteriorates, which includes particularly materials containing acids.
 
For a more detailed set of specifications, see Howard I. Chappelle's General Preliminary Building Specifications, written for submissions to the Smithsonian Institution's ship model collections. http://www.shipmodel.com/2018SITE/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/ship-model-classification-guidelines-1980.pdf
 
Paints and varnishes are a particularly dangerous pitfall in modern times. Chapelle's Specifications were written in 1961, just as acrylic coatings were becoming available. His broad reference to paints addresses traditional oil-based paints, not the water-based paints now dominating the market. The water-based paints, not yet a hundred years old, are seen by conservatives as not proven to be archival, although others are very optimistic that they will prove so in time. As with any paint or varnish, the archival quality is in large measure a function of their manufacture. Cheap paint will never be archival, regardless of its type. Only the highest quality paints should be used, which will cost more, but not so one would notice it in the small amounts used in modeling. Such archival quality paints will generally say so on the tube or bottle.
 
Since Chapelle's Specifications were written, some then-common materials have become relatively unavailable, notably ivory, ebony wood, and linen thread. Modern substitutes have to be found, but great caution must be exercised in their use. For example, early Dacron thread deteriorated quickly when exposed to UV radiation, not what you'd want to use for rigging! Some respected museums are comfortable with modern synthetic thread and others are not. We  have to make do with what's available. This requires doing a fair amount of online research to identify suitable substitutes, a skill most modelers come to realize is essential. Sometimes, we just have to close our eyes, hold our noses, and jump in.
 
Leonardo Da Vinci's Last Supper began to exhibit marked deterioration less than 25 years after he painted it and has continued to deteriorate to this day, only five percent of it remaining as original, because he decided to experiment with a new oil painting technique instead of using the tried and true tempera paint fresco techniques of his time. The "Old Masters" enthusiastically used the then-newly-invented blue smalt pigment as an alternative to the very expensive ground azurite or lapis lazuli pigment which were previously available in their day without realizing that over decades smalt in oil becomes increasingly transparent and turns to brown, dramatically changing the appearance of colors. Consequently, Rembrandt's later works look overwhelming dark and brown and what we see today is not what they looked like when new. Vermeer, on the other hand, "bit the bullet" and used the very expensive ultramarine blue pigment, and so his Girl with a Pearl Earring's blue head scarf remains with us to this day, albeit with a fair amount of cracking.
 

 
Many modeler's will say, "Oh, posh!" I build models for my own enjoyment and I could care less how long they last. To them I say, "Very well. Go for it!" The task of those who pursue perfection is more challenging. Do we stay with the "tried and true," like Vermeer, or do we experiment with new techniques and materials, like Rembrandt and Da Vinci? I suppose the real question for our age is whether we good enough at what we do to risk a surprise, which Rembrandt and Da Vinci unquestionably were able to do. 

Have you considered turning just a master pattern and casting the guns that you need? That way they would all be identical. As Wefalck points out, your lathe set-up is far from ideal for repetitive miniature work.

These are known as raffee sails. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raffee_sail
 

 
Great Lakes schooner Denis Sullivan.
 
 

Oh yeah! And not just "looks like the same...," either. Some years back I bought a set of bathroom fawcets to replace the ones in a remodel we were doing. They were a name brand, Delta, I believe. I got them from Home Depot, I recall. When my buddy, a plumber, came by, he asked where I got the fawcets and when I told him, he shook his head and said, "If you want to pull these ones out and return them, I'll get you better ones. I pulled them out and he came by with what looked like the identical fawcet set, new in the box from the same manufacturer. I said, "These are the same." He smiled and opened one up and pulled the valve cartridge out of it. It was some sort of plastic. Then he opened up one of the replacements he'd brought from his shop and pulled the valve cartridge out of it. It was all metal. In short, the outside castings were the same, but the "guts" of the two models were very different. I was happy to pay him the lower (wholesale) price for the ones he brought me and I returned the cheapo ones. He explained that the big box stores often buy huge numbers of units and have the manufacturers cut quality to bring the price down. You think you are buying the very same name-brand product, but it isn't.

Before I could say, "Don't get me started...."  
 
Wen Tools used to be a mid-range US electric tool manufacturer of fair repute during the last half of the 20th Century . They were perhaps best known for their "second best" or "DIY quality" soldering gun, which competed with Weller's, and their "second best" rotary tool which competed with Dremel's . Wen has always targeted the occasional, non-professional user, rather than the professionals and its greatest selling point has been its lower price. Now the Wen brand has, from all indications, become just another casualty of the power-tool market.
 
Remember reputable brands like "Bell and Howell," (movie cameras,)  "Emerson," (radios and TV's), and just about every tool company you've ever heard of? Times have changed. Today, the brand names themselves have become commodities, monetized for their "customer loyalty" and established good reputation. The business model is 1) buy out a brand name with a good reputation, 2) "value re-engineer" the products by reducing the quality, plastic parts replacing metal where possible, etc., 3) close domestic manufacturing operations and move manufacturing to low-labor-cost Third World factories, 4) slap the reputable label on "generic" offshore products, 5) flood the market with advertising touting the brand name without disclosing the change in ownership and manufacturing origins, and 6) reap the profits for as long as possible until the consumers finally, if ever, figure it out. You still get what you pay for, to a large extent, because the higher priced units will generally have better quality control, warranties, and customer service, although, sometimes you get lucky and find a lower-priced brand of the same unit, built in the same factory in China by the People's Patriotic Power Tool Collective which just happened to be assembled "on a good day." 
 
If you think today's Milwaukee are any different, think again. Milwaukee is Chinese-owned and Chinese-made, one hundred percent. Unfortunately, these new offshore "name brand owners" are very internet savvy. If you go trying to find reviews and comparisons of their products, you'll find multiple websites posing as "neutral reviewers" which, using the identical language, wax eloquent about how great their products are. It's all a big con job. 
 
While Wen tools were once "Made in the USA," Wen is, by all indications, simply selling Wen-branded generic Chinese-made tools these days. Wen never was a top tier tool manufacturer, anyway. It's market niche, even in the 1950's, was the homeowner interested more in price point than quality. 
 
Find the Wen:
 

 
Read the links below to get some idea of how pointless it is for us to even begin to look to a label as any indication of the quality of a tool these days!  With all the internet purchasing, we can't even hold one in our hand before buying it. About the best we can do is to ask the guy who has one, and be careful of doing that if it's just an Amazon review!  
 
https://pressurewashr.com/tool-industry-behemoths/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tool_manufacturers
 
So, sorry for the thread drift, but I couldn't help but rant about the sorry state of tool quality these days. 

Zero to negative back rake on brass. Google is your friend. There's tons of tutorials on YouTube. Check out "Mr. Pete 222" or "Tubal Cain" on YouTube. He's a retired shop teacher who's got tons of videos on machining on YouTube. They're great!
 
You may want to print something like this out and keep it for reference: http://www.steves-workshop.co.uk/tips/toolgrinding/tool-grinding-poster.pdf
 
 

And travelling even farther afield in the discussion, mention should include the once-ubiquitous LEROY lettering system used by draftsmen (and comic book artists) in later times when hand-lettering as an art form was lost when the ISO standard font was dictated. the LEROY system used a pantographic planchet and templates. The  LEROY kits and standard ISO font templates are still quite commonly and inexpensively available on eBay, but the older, and much wider selection of fonts and templates more frequently used prior to the ISO font standards' implementation are now quite rare and highly collectible. Old-style lettering systems can be handy for modelers sometimes, although digital fonts generally supplant them.