mtaylor

Use as few or as many as you want or have. My heaviest used power tools are the table saw and scroll saw, followed by the mill (doubles as a drill press) and lathe (minimal... guns, some round stock, etc.) Most important tool... a good shop vac for dust control and clean-up as my shop is in a spare bedroom.

Depends on the thickness of the wood. Have a look here... I know it's for the Byrnes saw, but the blade selection and tips are worth the read: http://www.hobbymillusa.com/byrnes-saw-operation.php If you know the diameter and the hole size, try Thurston: http://www.thurstonmfg.com/cut-off-saws.html

Anthony, I've got one it's not a bad tool. It won't do production work or take a large amount of material off on one pass but for what it does, it does it well. I've thicknessed ebony, boxwood, cherry, and am currently running swiss pear through it. Depending on the wood, one might need to swap out sanding drums for a different grit. Mine's NOT bolted down as I move it about from bench to storage to outside, etc. As long as the wood isn't forced through, I've no problem. It takes a bit of practice to find the feed rate. I'm currently re-thicknessing some 1/16" (about 2mm) strips down to 1/32" (about 1 mm) with minor issues such as if the piece slips out of my hand on the output side, it gets pulled back into the sander and destroyed pretty quickly. I have it set, run the strip through to take it down and flip the wood over and do it again to smooth out that side also. Bigger pieces of wood haven't been a problem. A few suggestions... you'll need a pair of snap ring pliers for changing drums and belts and order some extra belts. And by all means run a shop vac on the outlet port. These things do dump out a huge amount of sawdust. A good comparison is here: http://modelshipworld.com/index.php/topic/3393-thickness-sandersbyrnes-vs-micro-mart/

Charlie, ModelExpo used to but I'm not sure if they still do. You might also check Ages of Sail.

Thank you for the "likes" and comments even when I've done a bone-headed stunt like that. It keeps me honest and on my toes. Christian, The modified fence idea came from Grant and Danny and fences are just a bit of creative usage. So.. no... I stole all the ideas. Chuck, They go from the main wales up and there's one wide one for the garboard strake. Hopefully, I won't need a lot of sanding. I'll recheck the fairing after I'm done cutting as I've found one small area that needs a tweak in the fairing. I hope everyone has a great Holiday and in the meantime, I'll keep thicknessing and cutting for now.

A beautiful ship, Matija. You did her well. I love the details like painting/carving(?) on the tiller.

Looking super nice, Alan. Being on schedule is a big plus... Can't wait to see the final pictures.

You can try the fans. What someone (I think it's RustyJ's Winchelsea build) did was make a box with holes in it. The shop vac plugs into it and all sanding is done on top such that the sawdust is pulled into the box and then the vac. If your vac has an exit port that accepts a hose, run a hose out of the shop so the dust goes outside. Or, get a shop vac that uses a bag and a filter. I have one of those and work in the house. There's no dust going anywhere. I also set it up to suck up the dust if I'm doing massive sanding with frequent stops to vacuum up any that falls by the wayside the rest of the time.

George, I don't have a Jim Saw...those are from MicroMark as I have their saw. Hmm.. I'm wondering if it would save the cost of blades to run them backwards? :D

Adriaan, Are these online prices or have you checked any local home improvement stores? I got mine at a home improvement/hardware store for <$200 US. Hitachi with a 16" table and it takes both types of blades. I would hope you have something similar over there in Oz. BTW, no matter what saw you get, you'll need to make a zero-clearance plug to replace whatever the saw comes with. The holes in the plug from factory are always huge.

Oh crap... I just noticed I have the blade in backwards.....

Thanks for the "likes and" comments. Just a break from building here while dimensioning my Swiss Pear supply for this. For hull planking, I'm need 4 sizes of wood: 1/32" X 1/8", 3/32" X 3/16", 1/16" X 1/8" and 1/16" X 3/16". I have an ample supply of planking wood that is +1/16" X +1/8" and +3/32 X +3/16" that I'm converting down. I've been testing out my technique on this and sorting things out. For the first batch of 1/32" X 1/8", what I'll be doing is running it through the thicknesser to get it down to 1/32" (dead on exact) and then running it thought the table saw with a 230T blade to get the exact 1/8" I want.. For those on metric, 1/32" is equal to about 1mm. I give the raw dimensions as "+" because they're all a tad oversize and the oversize seems to be inconsistent. I'm attaching two pics of the saw with the wood being run through it. You can see that very little wood is being removed and also how I'm keeping my big paws away from the blade. I hope to have planking underway pretty soon. In fact, maybe tomorrow, I'll take a break from dimensioning and do the counter. Hmmm... I need some ebony for the stern above the lights so I'll have to do that also. Overall view: Close up of blade area:

Matti, I'm glad to hear the meds are working and I'm also loving the progress on Wasan.

Lovely planking, Mike. The anchor stocks look super neat.

Well done on the frame, Grant. It looks super sharp.

I'm always one clamp short, no matter how many I have.

What CaptainSteve said. I couldn't have said it better.

I quite agree with B.E. There's issues to be sure, but they are a great help when figuring things out.

thanks for all the comments and "likes". No need to buy more wood at this point. I have a nice stash. Fully planked, sir, but it won't come out of the jig until the exterior planking is finished and may leave it there while I do much of the internal work. It makes a nice way to hold it. Right now, it looks like these will be the woods... Ebony - wales (but not all main, only the top strake), rails, stern above the windows, the trim where the counter meets the hull. Quarter gallery trim. I'm also thinking the yards but that may change to something with an ebony stain. Swiss Pear - external planking. Boxwood - decking and carvings, trim strips on the stern above and below the windows and the window framing. Also, quarter galleries. Possibly the masts but that's subject to change. Also maybe gratings, not sure just yet. Pear - coamings, pin rails, bitts, head rails, capstans and possibly some on the galleries. Silver Maple - ceiling and inner bulwarks. Probably gratings, not sure. Holly - figurehead with hopefully ebony for hooves and eyes, as it is a unicorn. I'm undecided still on the gun carriages (maybe pear or swiss pear? I also have some nice walnut that might work.) Same goes for the Great Cabin... maybe boxwood or pear for the trim fittings. Need to think on what to put in there as furniture, if any and also things like buckets, gun handling items.... we'll see. Anyway back to figuring out what I need to mill and how much. And more importantly, how to do the milling.

I think these ribs would be a bit on the tough side. I'm feeling a 1000% better about this version. Thanks Harvey. Yep, I started the framing in mid-April. Moving right along, I am.

I believe that the Victory has the same type of cannon. There is documentary on Youtube for their firing a broadside and that was mentioned.

Thanks for the comments and the "likes"... Dan, I've noticed that with cherry about inconsistent and that's part of what is the conundrum and decision process. I'm not coppering so I'm just musing as I've discovered some planking challenges that need addressing. One of which is that at the wales, the planks are 1 foot (real or 3/16" scaled) and after 10 strakes they change to 9" (real or 1/8" scaled). The planking then goes back to the larger for the garboard strake. Should be an interesting trip down that road. Right now I'm checking my wood supply and figuring out if I have enough of either one. I'll order more no matter which way I go.

Lovely work, Rao. I hope you have a nice place picked out to display her.

Hit a big milestone... framing is complete and ready for planking. Well, one minor tweak to the transoms to get smooth run to the counter but that's not going to be a stopper. Right now, I'm having second thoughts about the bulk of the planking in Swiss Pear and am considering cherry. I'll ponder a bit more.....

They do replica guns to ease the strain on the old timbers in case you're wondering.