vossiewulf

What the hell, didn't I reply to this a long time ago? For some reason not showing up in the topics I have replied to activity list I use to track things, I've been wondering why you weren't doing anything. Sigh.

For those who don't read the what you got today thread, here is progress on the planking.

Also I've finally found my black color, it's a warm and rich black with a very thin coat that doesn't hide the wood texture. Cell phone camera makes it look somewhat gray but trust me it's black and will be uber black with a satin clear coat.

And boy it's going to be easy.

Archival, acid-free artist's ink that should last just as long as any paint, if not longer.

Also, continuing to work on the new knives towards bringing them to full operational status. First step was to grind away all that cutting edge I didn't need for this purpose.

And here are the handles, they're made from an amboyna burl pen blank I had that I cut into four strips and then planed the inner surfaces to glue them to pieces of boxwood sheet that has a perfectly complementary color. It will also provide strength, burl of any species is very brittle and no matter which way it's cut it has short grain sections that will snap with very little pressure. It will also be reinforced by a good soaking in thin CA followed by medium for the outer finish, like my wenge knife or my cherry xacto replacement.

What was very odd about this amboyna was that it planed with zero tearout from any direction. I keep my plane irons pretty sharp of course but still it planed easily to a glass surface and I've never seen burl from any other species be that easy to work with. So if you want some fancy wood that is apparently pretty easy to to work with, try this. Every time I stop by Woodcraft I'll walk out with a few small wood pieces, I think this piece was < $5 and will make two nice knife handles. 

39 minutes ago, Torbogdan said:

Yesterday I got the book I ordered, Fokker Dr I the aces´aircraft, a great book! Lots of information and awesome pictures and drawings. I wish I had this book when I started building six months ago.

 

Lots of thanks to Vossiewulf who pointed me in the right direction where I could find the book

I think I may have made you aware of it and that it's THE book to have for building Dr.I models, but it was Ron Thibault who saw that they were in stock again and pointed that out. Thank him for continuing to check

On 6/1/2017 at 7:11 PM, druxey said:

It's interesting to note the variations in direction of keelson scarphs. On my present model the pieces were installed starting aft.

Probably the kind of thing that started barfights at ship builder conventions.

On 6/1/2017 at 9:28 AM, Maurys said:

Thinning and multiple coats is the secret to a beautiful finish. Read over Chuck Passaro's Cutter build.  I use Model Shipways hull and Spar Black, thinned 50%.  Works well for me with no streaks or brush marks.

Maury

Yes, called glaze coats (you're painting like Da Vinci when you do) and I do the same brush painting, as you say it leaves zero brush marks. If you decide to brush paint your model, this is really the way to go.

Thin the paint much more than usual, so the coats you put on are translucent and have enough thinner that it's more like pushing some liquid around with your brush.

The coats dry very quickly, you can paint coats this way every couple of minutes and once you're up to 4-5 coats you'll have an excellent painted surface.

On 5/30/2017 at 6:14 AM, Gaetan Bordeleau said:

1/12 is not a so bad idea for: a frigate like Pegasus: around 9 feet.

 The ship's longboat would be longer than my ship.

On 5/14/2017 at 3:29 AM, Richard Griffith said:

Good ideas above.

 

On one of my builds, I found it best to put the hand drill in reverse because the standard drill bits were too aggressive - the bit wanted to rip into the wood and tear it up.

 

Duff 

Are you using brad point drill bits for wood? They cut much cleaner holes than standard pilot points.

I understand Tor, I got halfway through an Alb. D.V before it got killed in a move and I decided not to re-try as they are just not that great kits and even someone just trying to build something reasonably good out of the box has problems, as you have had.

The up side (which is pretty big) is no one offers anything like it. But they've always looked like airplane models designed by ship modelers who don't know much about flying and they would do themselves a big favor by hiring an experienced RC aircraft designer to redo them for higher accuracy. Then there is the inexplicable obsession with white metal, it's inexplicable as you can see the masters were reasonably good, so if they'd just taken that master and cast the part in resin it would have looked nice and been easy to work with if you want to add detail. Instead they use white metal and it's pitted and bumps are everywhere and they take a ton of effort just to get in basically usable state.

But I doubt they have much impetus to do a redesign when no one else is competing, so there's room for someone to step in and do better.

13 hours ago, Sailor1234567890 said:

Oh, I'm quite surprised.  I would have thought much bigger. 

Don't give him any ideas. Trust me he's been trying to figure out how much house modification would be required to fit a 1:12 Commerce de Marseille

What he said. India inks work great and will give you the blackest black that ever blacked a totally black thing. It builds a slight film, thinner than paint, is almost unnoticeable with one coat.

Alcohol-soluble aniline dyes can be bought at Woodcraft or any luthier supply place. I've been somewhat disappointed in the blacks as so far they have a purplish tint to me, but all other colors are great, they dry instantly, and they don't raise grain so you can wipe on your stain and then spray a clear finish one minute later. Best of all to me, since they're molecular color and NOT pigment, they in no way obscure the underlying grain. This is how guitar makers create bright green curly maple guitars:

Permanent black markers are usually a form of lacquer and work fine too. I haven't seen anything about how permanent those permanent colors are though.

BTW, when did the 2MB image limit go away? I just noticed I'm uploading 3.9MB images with no errors.

Couple of updates on the planking method.

First I was having a problem with plank ends particularly under significant bending, so I decided to make myself something to provide the required leverage. I had some handles sitting around (you can get them from jeweler supply for like $1.50/handle) so I made it out of a piece of 1/8" thick carbon fiber, but you could make a fully effective one out of wood, just reinforce the tip by soaking in some thin CA. 

It's designed to put pressure low down on the side of the plank to not mar the future gluing surface, and on the center top of the plank. It's working very well and is just as handy on the bow and stern plank ends.

Next is my Advanced Planking Symmetricizer. It's worked quite well in speeding up the mirroring of the starboard side to the port and ensuring we're staying aligned on both sides. Position and height are arbitrary but it is a requirement that it be exactly aligned vertically with the ship's center line as seen from either end.

Also the threads can't rotate, they should measure from a fixed point so I super glued in ones aligned with the rear and front centerline of the APS to check points aft and foreward of the APS respectively.

After I trim and sand and fully finalize the starboard side, I can quickly transfer that line to the port side with as many marks as I want.

As I mentioned I wanted to try single-bevel knives for trimming, so I got a L/R pair from Japan Woodworker. They aren't very expensive ($27 I think) and I knew the steel would be good but the inexpensiveness means they won't be terribly flat. So first step was flattening the back and bevels, you can see the back was less than flat. They're typical Japanese design with a thin very high carbon piece forge-welded to a lower carbon piece for flexibility.

Working bevel with 220 coarse stone.

Here they are after 4000, I worked through 8000 and the strop before they were done.

And oh yeah sharp. The basswood endgrain test, clean enough to be an identification sample.

After initial use though I realize the tips were too thick, too much cutting resistance. So I took them to the bench grinder to taper the blade.

Cleaned up.

Then blade protectors that aren't so much to protect the blades as to protect the rest of the world FROM the blades. I make these protectors for my knives, putting pressure down on the second piece of cork with the knife in place while gluing makes the perfect fit - they will NOT come off unless you pull them off. Shake them all you want, they stay in place and are perfect in that respect.

I'm not done though, they need handles. In Japan these are mostly marking knives and are therefore held lightly. For any carving/cutting purpose like I am putting them to, they MUST have thicker more rounded handle. The reason is flat pieces like this when squeezed vertically, just like you'd do trying to make a careful cut, have a very alarming tendency to twist suddenly in your hand, and blood and bad things can result.

Just google plank bender, there are many. Cornwall Hobbies (closer than US) has two electric benders and several crimpers. But if you buy a crimper you should feel bad as that's an awful thing to do to wood.

For future reference, Micro Krystal Clear is made to do glass for instruments (on larger scales) and windows (smaller scales), and works pretty well.

Remember to hook up spark plug wires! That's not hard to do. Plugs at top left of cylinder, wires were bare wire going down to a distributor at the rear center hub.

Pushrods are hard enough to see under a cowl to skip, but they're also not hard to add.

In general there are many build logs and also many people who get started but never go beyond that. Add the fact that yes there is a bias for military vessels, and you're not going to have lots of people visiting right at the beginning. But if you keep going, people like Michael and Nils will find you and other people will see you're sticking with it and decide it's worth following along. So I think you'll find it worth it to keep taking those photos and posting them. Also, look around for other similar builds and stop by and say hi. And have a link to your build log in your sig. Lots of people don't have time to do lots of build log searching but they'll notice something waved around in front of them.

You already have people here very much worth having available to answer questions, look at some of their builds if you want an instant fit of jealousy  Or you just wait for Keith to post a pic of insanely nice little lathe. I'll be growing up next to Michael on the watchmaker life path next time around.

And yeah, post those notes, I'm sure there are a few dozen people like me who would like to vicariously own that piece of equipment with you through a diary of its ups and downs

You should PM member wefalck. He's an expert on watchmakers' lathes.

It's like sanding a big chest of drawers that started out really rough, it's going to create enough sawdust to require several floor sweepings at least. I like the positive-pressure face mask Gaetan, I might look into that. Looks much more comfortable than a cartridge mask.

No, it's too fast-drying in general to be a good brush finish, I've sprayed it whenever I use it. If the temp gets much above 70 degrees F you start to need an extender to give it time to flow out and level before the surface starts hardening.

But if it's in a spray can you're not going to be adding anything to it anyway, so no worries.

It sands very well (cellulose after all) wet if you give it time to dry. Guitar makers would say min 24 hours for that and I agree, it will be gummy if you try to sand too early.

9 hours ago, Dan Vad said:

I found Nitro Matt Finish in Australia HERE. Vossiewulf, you were right - it's from a luthier supplies site.

 

A bit pricey, but at least Shipping is free . I've bought their last can .

 

  Danny

Only thing is to make sure you follow the directions to get correct flow-out and leveling, and you should see if they have an extender to slow drying time if you're applying it in warm weather. It dries plenty fast even with an extender/leveling agent. You're going to want to use around three coats, sanding between with 1500 or so wet. More coats if you want a perfectly level finish.

Any luthier supply site will have many nitrocellulose lacquer options, it's still a popular finish for musical instruments.

Yeah Michael, the problem is the flimsy construction. When I make a drill press, I plan to machine a 12" x 12" solid brass bar for the quill and the post will be 14" diameter hardened steel, made from the boring bar used to cut the 16"/L50 guns of the Iowa class. It will fit into a 6 ton piece of grey iron, 4' x 4' x 5' tall and will sustain a runout of < .001" during an earthquake up to 7.7 on the Richter scale.

If I didn't have a good mini-mill I'd be asking you how much I'd have to pay you to make one for me  How has it been working for you now that you've had it operational for a while?

10 hours ago, Sailor1234567890 said:

Simply amazing. How are Spanish 74s different from French or English ones? I can't seem to find much information about them anywhere. I think I read somewhere that they are often of a better quality but in what ways? Your work is stunning, looking forward to seeing more of it.

Short answer:

English 74s were the smallest of the three but most strongly built, intended to last many years in service and they did for the most part. They were also the slowest-sailing of the three.

French 74s were generally the largest of the three, and the best sailers, but lightly built and did not last long in service.

Spanish 74s were arguably the best, being larger than the usually too-small British 74s, almost as good sailers as the French, and were built reasonably strongly out of the best woods- teak and mahogany that were very resistant to rot and imparted great strength without the need for the heavy scantlings of British 74s.

4 hours ago, usedtosail said:

Sigh, I bought the Glardon-Vallorbe fiffler set a few months ago. I'll just have to augment with other files as you describe as I need them.

Well, it's not like those are really bad choices, I just think a few other shapes are better. Hopefully you've gotten good use out of them?

BTW, again for new people, this is the circumstance that I've run into most often that causes gaps in planking. The below drawing is very exaggerated for demonstration purposes, the reality is usually more subtle and sometimes extremely so.

The biggest problem is noticing them, especially the very subtle ones. The most obvious way to see them is by testing with the plank you intend to glue on, keep bending it to follow all the segments, you'll see most of them here.

The very subtle ones are on lines that are almost straight - basically the less curve there is overall, the harder it is to see the flat. These I found I could detect with my spring steel sander thing, I move it down a plank edge with a little bit of pressure at a steady and fairly slow pace. Periodically the sander will feel like it slips. That's your flat. You keep fixing and testing with the sander, eventually you'll do that test and you'll feel consistent resistance the whole way. Bravo! You have perfect continuous curves at that point that shouldn't have any gaps.

I think there's nothing special about the spring steel there and any little sanding block with a gentle curve (like my steel sander has) will do.