vossiewulf

1 hour ago, Julie Mo said:

I can understand where you're coming from.  For full size carving tools, I had to purchase several different types of water stones and diamond sharpeners.   How on earth do you sharpen these tiny tools?  What do you use?

First I found a watchmaker's screw driver sharpener that was just the right size for the straight chisels, so I can sharpen those easily. 

Otherwise I am using waterstone slips, although I'm thinking of using sanding film stuck to a brass backing. In the long run I'm making myself a brass jig with wheels that can handle all of them, including the gouges where you have to turn the tool as you move forward and back. I've designed it and drawn it out and have the brass and other bits I need, just haven't sat down to do it yet.

There should be special "Victory Builder" license plates for people who complete quality Victories, and this is definitely one of them. Congratulations!

And BTW, very active forum just for WWI aircraft modelers.

You guys should check this out, 1/32 meant to work with the Wingnut Wings kit(s)? WNW have most of the D.VII versions out already and at least in the fuselage there were definite differences, not sure what version(s) it's meant to work with.

11 hours ago, 8sillones said:

And you do not know his master, Baldomero. That one is really good .. He does not go online. I pay tribute to him from here. We kick the Amalio's shin usually here (although lately he does not do bad models)

Some thoughts on potential responses:

1. That's like being told that behind Darth Vader is the Emperor, so weep even further for your pitiable ship-building skills
2. It seems like I will need to kick Spain in the shin for being an entire country of better ship-builders than me
3. I don't want to see Baldomero's models, I'm afraid I would be driven mad, mad I tell you, by the endlessly repeating "HOW DID HE DO THAT?!?" question spinning through my mind

Danny is part of the goal to only use the kit materials? Because I've never built anything out of the box, I always replace things, usually many things. I ask as that if I was doing that particular kit I probably would have done the bows with a couple pieces of balsa with some 1/64" plywood over it, and then just paint the whole hull. Which wouldn't be a bad thing, I'm impressed with the engineering of the kit but not how they're printing the colors.

Not sure what you guys are talking about, sanding sealer is just a standard clear lacquer/varnish/poly with a high percentage of solids. As such, once applied, the strength of any glue bond you get is (depending on finish thickness) mostly or entirely limited to the strength of the finish's adherence to the wood, which is always going to be MUCH less than that of glue bonding with wood. In some cases with thin CA and a light coat of sealer you'll still get a semi-strong bond as the glue sinks into still-open grain and that creates a mechanical hold, but it's still not going to be as strong as it should be bonding with plain wood.

I almost never do that, I will remove any finish including sanding sealer from a surface before gluing.

Anyone who wants to really understand what all these finishes really are and the basic chemistry of how they work should read Understanding Wood Finishing: How to Select and Apply the Right Finish, it's about the most advanced finishing book I've found in terms of explaining all the source materials of finishes and how/why they work the way they do. You'll learn that much of what you think you know is wrong and that much of what manufacturers say about their finishes is complete nonsense, but other info on the can that you're not really paying attention to now is very important and will tell you exactly how that finish will behave.

It's from American Woodworker which I normally don't associate with highly technical woodworking (like Fine Woodworking) but this really is the best book I've found, and I probably have 15 or 20 books on different types of finishing.

Plastic small scale:

http://www.arcforums.com/forums/air/index.php?/forum/59-aircraft-modeling-forums/

http://cs.finescale.com/f/

RC aircraft:

https://www.rcgroups.com/forums/index.php

http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/rc-airplanes-226/

The only caveat about these tools if you need to know how to sharpen tools pretty well, they're not easy to sharpen while keeping the bevels flat, especially the very tiny spoon gouges. 

I sent adrian contact info BTW in case no one else did.

2 hours ago, Dziadeczek said:

Dan,

I am Polish and I may try to help you with the instructions.

My first wife was Polish, her parents are immigrants who settled in Torrington CT, when I visited there entire sections of the town were Polish. I liked that there was a bar on the corner of about every block, right in the middle of the housing neighborhoods, so no one has to drive  

Arriving at their house was a caricature with like 42 pounds of hot food ready to eat with her mother saying eat! Eat more! Try this! over and over, it's amazing how many pirogi you can eat when the Polish lady who made them is staring at you

Another thing I like is that although they haven't had exactly the best experiences in wars, they contribute hugely to the field of military history, completely out of scale of their population. I don't understand that but am extremely appreciative and there are many books by Polish authors and publishers around this house.

BTW the sponge eye makeup brushes worked extremely well for India ink. And in fact since they leave no brush marks at all, I'm going to try using them for non-precision hand-painting, looks to me like they will leave very flat coats in about any brushable liquid paint/dye.

3 hours ago, SpyGlass said:

I have some black strip coloured right through in my wood box - always wondered what it was -its not ebony.

 

https://modelshipworld.com/index.php?/topic/8650-hm-schooner-pickle-by-spyglass-caldercraft-164-scale/&do=findComment&comment=441220

 

I thought I had it from my Unicorn build many years ago.  Do they not include black strip any more - or have I got the kit I got it from wrong ?

No way to tell what it is with that small image.

But short version is if it has some lighter creamy streaks and feels like cutting sandstone with an edge tool, it's probably real ebony. If not, it's just one of many species that can be "ebonized" or dyed black, but I've never been certain what they use. But it goes all the way through solid black everywhere so I assume real dye and soaked in said dye for a long time.

19 hours ago, cog said:

Maybe you should go all the way to Spain

Your sarcasm detector seems to be malfunctioning, Carl.

Make sure you check out Uschi's metal powder offerings, those kits are perfect applications for them. They are actually quite easy to use and can produce metal finishes that are exceptionally realistic.

This one shows off some of his leather decals and wood paints/decals.

Note both of these show a Mercedes D.IIIa/au engine as used by the Albatrosen and early Fokker D.VIIs  

And here's a guy doing a terrible job of using them on your 80hp Le Rhone kit, rough sanded with no undercoat and it still looks pretty good.

The only downside is metal finishes like this are the least forgiving in existence, and in fact if you had a need to find every single scratch on a surface down to near atomic levels, rub some metal powder on and you can see them pretty easily.

It's not quite that bad of course but you get the point, best results will be to use the same undercoats he recommends on a surface that's been sanded/polished to the highest grit you can stand. Novus Plastic Polish works very well here, you sand to maybe 1200/1500 and the #2 fine scratch remover will take out all of those scratches and leave you with a glass finish and can be done by hand but felt points of various shapes for your rotary tool can help speed up things considerably.

This is a glider I made painted Tamiya flat black and rubbed over with one of the powders. Tragically, being made of balsa, it moved way too much and the finish got all wrinkled a few months later. So not recommended over wood.

Just make sure you have some of the thin sanding film that can be creased really sharply, best thing I've found for hitting both sides of the eleventy thousand cooling fin seams to make them as invisible as possible. The fit should be good but if you get lots of squeezeout or empty seams... think of an old salt squinting and shaking his pipe at you while saying "give up on perfection now boy, for that way lies death. Death... and MADNESS!"

Was thinking about asking because normally I can't post "purple monkey dishwasher" with it being liked by MTaylor 10 minutes later, but I've been only seeing sporadic activity. Hope the recovery continues quickly!

...and he's OFF! ALREADYHASTHEKEELBEINGASSEMBLEDBEFORETHEFIRSTTURN!! IT'S A BLAAAAZING PACE!

Everyone stay clear of the 2 meter unsafe zone!

I've been sitting looking at the capstan and trying to figure out how I'd make it, and all the paths require a lathe and milling machine and rotary table with tailstock and indexing head and possibly custom tapered mills. And at least several complex jigs, most of which would be single use, they'd be made specifically for that capstan. If you're able to do that with only simple tools I'm coming all the way to Spain just to kick you in the shin for being that good.

He estado sentado mirando el cabrestante y tratando de encontrar la manera que lo lograría, y todos los caminos requieren un torno y fresadora y una mesa giratoria con el contrapunto y la cabeza indexación y posiblemente molinos cónicos personalizado. Y al menos varias plantillas complejas, la mayor parte de lo que sería de un solo uso, estarían hechas específicamente para ese cabrestante. Si usted es capaz de hacer eso con sólo herramientas simples que estoy procedentes de todo el camino a España sólo para dar una patada en la espinilla por ser tan bueno.

On 6/10/2017 at 5:00 PM, Rick01 said:

Thanks for the links - I searched EBay pretty well from here and these guys didn't show up at all! I'll bookmark them for further investigation.

I got a reply from them BTW, they say they ship to Australia.

Ok after that capstan I'm back to thinking we need to check for alien DNA. That's really not easy to make and it's completely perfect. 

What, this isn't Model Knife World? Who knew?

 I used them briefly officially for first time a little while ago, they work exactly as expected. But I've been sick since Friday, very unusual for me to be sick more than a couple days, finally broke down and am going to doctor in morning just for being sick for the first time in about 25 years. But only because I have a cough that's bad enough to potentially be bacterial. Anyway haven't gotten much done since finishing the knives.

Nice job on the presentation Danny. I'm putting you in the same file with Popeye, if you're working I'm staying out of arms reach, there's whirling arms and saws and glue and paint in there.

Thanks CDW! Hopefully people see that nothing I did should be beyond a decently-equipped shipbuilder's workshop, at least to create a basic knife - the brass balance pieces I make for my knives are in no way required, so no need for a lathe for someone to make a knife for themselves. The wood part everyone here should be able to make easily, and the finish is just thin CA glue that we all have on our benches.

That was the purpose of documenting making making those, to show people that if you have a bench grinder and standard ship modeler tools and equipment, you can do it too and in most cases make something much better than you can buy for maybe $10-$20 in materials. I know I can make a pretty knife if I want to, I don't need a bunch of pics to remind me

Thanks Michael!