vossiewulf

Some important general considerations for people thinking about this -

 

There are two main classes of modeling programs, one is the CAD type the others are generically known as 3D modeling programs, and they are very different in their conception and functioning even though there is considerable overlap of visual appearance of the building process and some modeling tools.

 

CAD programs are used to create plans and drawings that will be used to make tangible, real-world objects. Therefore absolute precision is at the core of their design, and you generally end up doing lots of typing while modeling because all sizes must be set exactly to the intended/required values. Their main strength is this precision that's built into every aspect of these programs; if you're making something like a house plan or a replacement part for your minibike engine, CAD is the right way to go.

 

3D modeling programs are used to build digital models where that digital model is the final product. And these are the programs that take those digital objects and turn them into the amazingly-realistic looking objects and textures and surfaces that you see in games and movie CGI. And it's gotten pretty amazingly easy (speaking as someone who started working with 3D modeling programs back in the stone knives and bearskins era) these days to generate beautiful and realistic images. There's a new Pandora build log and everyone is oohing and ahhing at his renderings, and I'm sure the guy is giggling to himself because all he's done is apply a default aged wood material and is rendering with a dirt-simple GI (Global Illumination) test scene. Different rendering engines do GI in various ways but they're all getting pretty accurate where there is an accurate simulation of the light energy emitted by the various lights (sun and sky count as lights) and how that energy is distributed through the scene through a series of bounces or by using what are called radiosity calculations. Whatever way they do it, they're all getting real accurate and you can set up a scene like his in five minutes with a default clear blue sky and a noon sun.

 

Now in general since most people here using some modeling program is making something they want to be a real part you'd say they should use CAD, right? Not so simple. Reason I say this is I think that in general, 3D modeling programs like Blender and 3DS MAX are generally considerably more intuitive in their modeling flows, and the rendering systems are very powerful in helping you visualize what you've made- trust me it's very easy to get to a point of complexity where you're having a hard time understanding what you've made.

 

Also modeling programs can work at the same level of precision of CAD and output the same files, just by default you don't usually type specific sizes. And finally, for something like Ron just made, CAD precision just isn't necessary - I could make the same thing in MAX that would be +/- a couple thousandths of an inch of his when printed, and I think in general that I could do so considerably faster.

 

So if anyone wants to try printing objects, I recommend you try both Sketchup and Blender. Blender is a full-featured free 3D modeling program that's only somewhat less capable than MAX which costs $1000/year for a license.

 

One or the other is likely to be easier for you to understand depending on how your brain works.

"Let he/she who hath never assembleth a model pieceth wrongly casteth the first CA bomb." Book of Vossie 

 

You know what's worse than assembling a piece incorrectly? It's thinking your piece is incorrect, tearing it off, and then realizing that the piece was fine and it's your brain with the problem, and now the piece (that you have only one of and/or took four hours to make) is destroyed. A... friend told me about that happening to him. Yes, a friend who... lives far away and has no email address. Yep, that's it. Yes indeedy.

 

Speaking of the gear, are you going to do the bracing? There should be an X-brace crossing from forward gear/fuselage joint down to the lower forward gear struts.

 

Ditto, I'm surprised you got it looking that good, still at a loss to understand why they use the worst casting material possible for such important castings.

 

Anyway, that should look pretty good and I don't think anyone else is going to do better than that. I hope you have enough patience to order some of Uschi's metal powders, they really work well and you have three different metals at least there between the casing, the cylinders, and the exhausts that were copper.

 

It's an Oberursel UR.II which is a license-built copy of the Le Rhone 9J, so pics of either will do fine for detail reference. 

That is an Incra ruler, made by the same Incra company that started with miter gauges. I have a 6", a 12", a T-rule and protractor. So yes I like them too

 

On 5/7/2017 at 5:06 PM, ca.shipwright said:

Your build log will be a great reference for my future build. You are doing a great job. Thanks for sharing.

 

Regards

What he said. I know I already said it once but even if I'm not saying things here, I'm very happily watching Tom do a well-documented step by step guide to which I'm going to be closely adhering when I get there. It's good enough Tom that with some cleanup and organization it would make a really great addition to the MSW article database, titled "So You Want A Nice Connie" , god knows enough people have MS and other Constitutions hiding in their closets. Some build logs cross the line from here's some pics of where I am to really useful guides for others, this is one.

32 minutes ago, src said:

Nice work as always Dennis. I have to laugh, you "little bit of progress" is a weeks worth of work for me.

Sam

Two or three for me! When Dennis gets going you best stay out of arm's reach, there's just a blur of knives, saws, little sawdust tornadoes and paint brushes. 

And while we're at it, if there are people who don't yet know how to sharpen edges, DO something about it  I actually really enjoy sharpening, it can be a very meditative thing to do. And more importantly it's not hard to do, you just have to learn a few things and get the right sharpening tools. Use disposable blades for what they're for, jobs like cutting through glue and material you don't want to use your good knives on, and have super-sharp knives, much sharper than X-acto or even scalpels, waiting on your bench for where it does count. The difference between ok average sharp and really sharp is much more than people think in terms of the quality of the resulting work.

 

This is the only book you need: The Perfect Edge by Ron Hock. Very clear and straightforward and I am very much an adherent of his no-secondary bevel philosophy.

 

On 4/28/2017 at 2:45 PM, Kurtrjohnson said:

I received a set of the medium strips, I'd say they're like 600 grit maybe finer. I think the coarse might be more useful over all.

Kurt

I finally ended up estimating 325-400. But I think you're right, coarse is what we mostly need and I'm waiting on some coarse ones to be delivered.

On 5/9/2017 at 2:59 PM, Tigersteve said:

Very clean work as expected. Still hoping you don't paint this lovely plank work!

Steve

I can call that broken plank battle damage where a frog smuggler rammed it.

 

BTW, see my post in my tools topic for a recommendation for a not-expensive but very good knife, one that can easily handle what I'm talking about above with plank-trimming. The default bevel it comes with is good, just grind out any double bevel they have so the two main side bevels meet at the edge. You'll have a knife that will melt through wood like a hot knife through styrofoam. Assuming you know how to sharpen edges, of course. If you do, this is a knife where you can hold a full newspaper up in the air and take a swing at it and cut all the way through and then slice off ribbons, I know as I did it testing once.

 

I would have recommended it above but I couldn't find it and assumed Japan Woodworker no longer carried them. I was wrong, it was in the knife section not the carving tools section.

Anyone looking for a good reasonable-cost, general-purpose modeling knife, this is $25 from Japan Woodworker. I have two of them, one I reground pretty significantly into a curved edge, this basic knife can be ground into multiple useful knives if you're comfortable grinding heat-treated steel without burning the temper.

 

This is a typical Japanese knife where a central piece of high-carbon steel is cladded by soft low-carbon steel, doing so allows them to have edge hardness much higher than is typical in western knives where the material and tempering are consistent throughout - they can't go much above Rc61 without the whole thing being too brittle.

 

These edges are Rc63-64 and this knife can be sharpened well into holy **** that's sharp territory and that's a great tool to have. Only thing you want to avoid is twisting cuts, the edge may snap on an Rc63 knife if you do that and you have lots of grinding to get it back.

 

I also ground off the little projections at the end of the blade, not sure why they're there but I am sure they get in the way, so I turned them into metal filings.

The hot air station Nick pointed out doesn't ship to the US, here is one that is equivalent that is for sale in the US. As a tool type, they are called hot air rework stations and many come with soldering irons as well.

 

Nice to see very good progress being made on an important subject, Hubac I hope you find a way to include the final plans you have in the MSW article DB for others to work with and hopefully further improve on if more information is found.

Finally got a few minutes to catch up a bit. You're making great progress Dennis, wish I was moving that fast. She's going to look great, and I especially like the little creative solutions like the fancy toothpicks that make perfect railings.

26 minutes ago, Rick01 said:

Here's a thought for anyone thinking of going this way - 12" feeler gauge at .018".

I never did find a decent price on feeler gauges. You might want to get a few thicknesses somewhere around there. What I decided was that .012 was only good for delicate work and thinner than that was probably useless, and bigger than .20 or so and it might as well be a stick. But there's a fair amount of difference in bendiness between say .14 and .18, so if it's not too expensive get two or three thicknesses to make sure you find one you like. 

BTW should have been clearer that knife of course isn't required. I think the correct sharp knife is the fastest and most accurate way to get yourself down to the minimal sanding point but there are lots of ways to do that including files and another piece of spring steel with 120 on it. So really in the end all you absolutely need using this method is a couple of sanding sticks and some CA glue. Well and a pencil too for marking the lines you sand down to.

 

Speaking of that, for thoroughness you can see I marked everything out on the port side. When I'm ready to glue on a plank I mark the correct widths on the plank with a digital caliper and usually rough-taper it. I then write down the widths it needs to be at various stations, because as you see I level it down after gluing and that would remove any marks. That's an intentional decision, you can mark a nice leveled plank more clearly and it means on the knife work you're cutting through a thinner piece, and that's easier.

 

So once it's glued on and leveled, I use a digital caliper to mark it and then draw the line as accurately as possible. You've seen the rest above. Then I just mirror whatever I did to the starboard side.

Ok so update on the relatively slow progress and going to take an opportunity to explain exactly what I'm doing on the second planking for the sake of anyone new reading. Although the progress has been slow, I'm pleased with the results so far and I have a pretty firm process now that requires just three tools (four if you count my fixit tool), none of which are expensive surgical, dental, or jewelry/watchmaking tools.

 

First thing is you need a good knife with which you can trim plank edges easily and with consistency. This is something I know from my chip-carving experience, where I learned to cut lines with great consistency - 

And the ONLY way to do that is to use a Rc60+ hardness knife with a very fine bevel that is absolutely flat. Basically the finer the bevel, the closer the blade axis is to the cutting axis, and the closer it is the easier it is to cut where you want to. If you have a secondary bevel with an increased cutting angle, the blade tends to dive into the wood. If the bevel is even slightly rounded, the blade tends to climb out of the cut - there's a reason properly-sharpened straight razors have severely-rounded bevels.

 

So to neither dive in nor climb out, the bevel has to be flat and it needs to be at a fine angle, and the fine angle also reduces cutting resistance. You can't do consistent lines straight or curved using anything but a light touch. 

 

Yes I made this knife myself but you can buy ones from Ron Hock or Northwood Bay or others for $25-$30 that are very good, the blade on my knife below is from Ron Hock. Some of the best cheap knives are from Japan woodworker, they have marking knives with central cutting steel that's Rc63-64. Here's one that's perfect and already ground with a very fine bevel, epoxy a handle on it if you like. Even better for this purpose would be single-bevel knives, blade and cutting axis exactly aligned. I have some single-bevel knives on order from Mikhail but I might get some from Japan woodworker also.

In case anyone wonders, Japanese white and blue steel has nothing to do with the color of the metal, it has to do with the color of the wrappings they traditionally come from the foundry in. White steels are simple, nearly iron and carbon only and have all the advantages and disadvantages of the pure alloy. Blue steels are alloys that are more like our A2 or O1 steels, and can range all the way to what we'd call high speed steels. So generally speaking white steels might provide the best edges, while blue steels offer more edge durability.

 

Back on track.

 

Second tool is super-sophisticated, being a piece of .018" blue-temper spring steel with PSA 220 on one side. The hardest part about getting pieces of spring steel is finding someone who wants to sell you less than 25 feet of the stuff. I found a tattoo supplier on EBay selling short segments of various thicknesses for $7. I have no idea what tattoo artists do with it.

Last is a small scraper that I've ground with convex and concave curves sorta French curvish that you'll see below. NO CLAMPS OR TAPE OR ANYTHING ELSE!

 

So overall look at the results so far.

 

All that said, this plank wasn't going so great  I think it was Dan who pointed out that real ships often had flared planks to handle the stealer issue, and I decided to do that, just merge the stealers into the plank they were fitting into. It turned out I do have a boxwood sheet, however it's 1/16" so making workable planks requires cutting them roughly out and then planing down to thickness. This was the first one I was doing, and I learned I need to go a bit farther in planing them down, this guy just wasn't flexible enough. Obviously this would be a do-over higher up, but all of this is getting painted white so I went ahead with it.

 

Also, the sharp-eyed might notice that I was able to minimize the up and down rollercoaster look of the first few planks with some judicious curve reduction, not sure how realistic this part is as the planks ended up varying in width slightly and subtly, something that might be trickier than a dockyard would want to do.

 

One of my fancy tools helped here, because of the break the plank was no longer and no longer fit. This is the 90 degree attachment for my high-torque handset and it's like having a handheld Byrnes disc sander, with a fresh disc it can chew through boxwood without slowing down. With care it can be a precision joinery tool too, for example the bow rabbet fit of every plank is being done with this guy.

It wasn't as bad as it looked, it's ok once cleaned up.

So the process is that there are only two things I do to the planks I'm about to glue on:

 

1) Rough taper to 1/64" or so of intended line.

2) Relieve the top inner edge very slightly to minimize interference with glue or anything else I didn't notice right on the surface.

 

No beveling, sanding, anything else. Of course this is also Crown Timber wood and that means it's surfaced very well with straight and square edges. If that wasn't the case I'd work the plank until that was the case.

 

So basically ALL of the beveling and final taper and otherwise preparing the joints comes once the plank has been glued on.

 

First step, as mentioned, is using knife to trim us down to very close. We're doing two parts here, one is trimming to the line, the other is trimming in the correct bevel. This is easy, just keep the knife exactly perpendicular to the surface as you go. What we're trying to produce is an edge that is always exactly perpendicular to the surface, and therefore the planks we're about to glue on with their perfect square 90 degree edge will fit perfectly top to bottom - no concern about it looking good now but having seams open as you sand down.

Good sharp knife, you can get quite close.

Then we have just a little bit of sanding to finalize those lines and make sure we have our good perpendicular edge everywhere. I purposely left my little sanding tool at this width even though it means 90% of it never gets touched for this purpose. Anyone guess why? Class? Bueller? BUELLER?

Because it makes it much easier to see what angle you're sanding at. With this tool, it's not really hard at all to sand the edges to exactly what you want. The reason for the spring steel is you have a nice gentle curve that allows you to hit specific areas or you can straighten it out while holding it to cover longer distances.

 

As noted, the resulting fit is very good. I'm holding this plank up to test with very little pressure, and nothing has been done to the plank at this point other than pulling it out of the bag.

And one last step, remember I relieved the top inner edge of the to-be-glued-on plank to avoid surface interference, I further reduce chances of that by taking the corner of my little scraper and cutting a very small groove in the prepared plank right down on the surface.

So that's the basic process, we can follow it with the fifth strake on the starboard side, that includes the first flared plank at the stern. Don't think you got it just yet, there are some things about how I am gluing and how I'm fixing issues that are important to note.

 

Because of the good fit, the pressure required to glue is very minimal, and as such we're using CA, and we're going to do it in short segments so we don't stress about fast-setting CA and also so we can make extra sure of the fit.

 

IMPORTANT POINT: we DON'T glue the plank edges AT ALL, except for plank edges and ends that fit into rabbets.

 

The first reason is that any glue in there will create a line even when there didn't need to be.

The second has to do with fixing issues, as you'll see below.

And lastly, if you insist, once we have the plank fully glue in and leveled you can run some thin super glue over the edges, enough will wick in to lock the planks in place.

 

This is the bow plank of the fifth strake, and we start by getting a very solid glue joint with the rabbet. I generally let this one sit for five minutes or so to make sure it's going nowhere.

 

I'll add a pic here a bit later, but I add glue with a photoetched glue thing that fits into an XActo knife. It's .007" thick, which is very much required for this glue method. What I do is pry the plank up from the previously-glued segment (WITHOUT pulling up anything glued) and I then carefully paint the inner surface of the plank segment about to be glued with my thin XActo applicator - pick up a big drop, and then kinda squeegee it down the inner surface of the plank.

 

IMPORTANT POINT: LESS IS MORE! We want NO squeezeout on either side. On the upper side, it gets into the edge joint and as previously discussed we don't want that. On the bottom it squeezes out where we're going to be fitting our next plank, which is unnecessary cleanup work to remove that we don't want to do.

As mentioned, little pressure or fuss required gluing. I'm "clamping" this segment with one hand. I don't know about you but I like one-handed, 30 second gluing of plank segments with a very good fit.

So far so good, but now we come to issue fixing, because just after this segment I got a little greedy and tried to glue the rest in one shot, when I really needed to do it in two segments and it didn't land quite right and grabbed so I couldn't adjust. It's hardly a nightmare, but it's definitely much more open around the butt joint in the planks just above, more so than the results we should have had here, so we want to fix it if we can. And we can.

This is the semi-fourth tool required for this planking method - our burnisher/fixer. Good for holding down parts of planks while we glue in this method in general, but it's also perfect for fixing little openings like this.

 

Now if we'd added glue to that edge, there would be nothing at all we could do about it since it would be filled with glue and the planks would be locked together. But because we didn't, we can take advantage of the fact that wood can be quite plastic if manipulated correctly.

 

Step one to fixing an opening - with considerable pressure (at least on boxwood) we use the burnisher to press in a groove just short of joint. If you look closely you can see it here, particularly in the shadow of the burnisher.

Step two - that leaves a raised edge right at the joint, exactly what we need. We flip the burnisher over, and now when we bear down on it and work it toward the joint, this edge will be squishing down and will go toward the only open space available.

Step three - be pleased by the results. And as mentioned you can wick in thin superglue at this point to give you the traditional fully locked into place planking.

Here's that plank all cleaned up.

 

Same process for the stern plank, but we start by cutting out a piece matching the port side by using the same template as I used on the port side.

As with the bow, gluing starts with the rabbet joint and we get that right before working toward the middle. Based on my experience of the port side, I decided to leave this plank long and cut the midships butt joint just before gluing it down. Although I think I had it right on the port side before I decided to break that plank, that plank is long enough and bends enough to make it tricky to get it exactly right and the disadvantages of cutting a joint on a piece already glued in was outweighed by the advantage of being unlikely to get it wildly wrong.

Once we get to the other end, we cut it close with a good flush cutter. A good Lindstrom or Erem full-flush angled cutter like this is a very handy tool with lots of uses.

Then back to the rotary tool to finalize the joint, but with care you could do this with just as good results with the spring-steel sander.

And fit is good enough that I'll have to pry it back up to add glue.

I didn't show it, the the scraper is also useful for removing stock when working down plank edges as part of the fitting process. You can see the plank we just put on will require some knife trimming and sanding, you can add the scraper to the tool choice there as long as you keep one corner perfectly square. But below is its primary use, quickly leveling down the planks as we glue them on. 

And here's that stern plank done and that strake is finished.

 

 

 

 

You can't do dry heat the same way you do steam, if you do you'd reach the conclusion that it doesn't work. First it's not a good idea for severe bends, if you have a severe bend to do and you don't use steam you need to soak the planks in water first, and then you'll use the heat mostly to set the bend. With no-water you heat and bend in steps, clamping as you go along, and you have to bend it past the final curve you want as it will spring back a bit. Chuck's planking videos show it in action pretty clearly.

5 hours ago, Johnnymike said:

For me steam is by far the quickest, easiest method and allows the best complex bends.

There's a reason every large-scale wood bending operation since the beginning of time has involved steam. The Egyptians were steaming the wood required to make their highly sophisticated and engineered chariots 4000 years ago, for example. It really is the best way to do it. However, it's not always the most convenient way to do it and dry bending at our scales generally works fine. So the recommendation should be to use steam if you can, if that's hard to do for some reason, use Chuck's dry bending with a hair dryer method, it should get the job done also.

Blah the second one doesn't sound good, that would require careful timing in combat and that's not a good idea, besides the fact you'd have to fire a 6lb mass at about mach 34 to generate enough force to really bring the bow down.

 

Your first idea though, is much much better and I think that's the winner. We're forgetting these ships were so over-canvassed that they likely would be pushed significantly bow-down under full sail, there just wasn't enough bow length forward of the mast to stop that from happening. In fact more I think about it, I'm sure that's the reason for the bizarre at-rest waterline, and that would be a very important point of note for anyone wanting to do a waterline model under sail. 

 

Edit - here we go, it all makes sense now  Here's a guess at how she would trim under full sail, gunports now align reasonably well with the water. Well not all makes sense, as I still don't understand why the gunport heights follow the top of the rail and not the deck, but that's minor compared to the overall trim alignment.

 

15 hours ago, Rick01 said:

Check these plans http://collections.rmg.co.uk/collections.html#!csearch;authority=subject-90352;collectionReference=subject-90352;innerSearchTerm=armed_cutter I think you'll see that the bow actually does sit quite high ( as long as you can make out the very feint water line shown). I've just gone back and looked at your scheme and I feel that the waterline is pretty good, but do check these plans yourself.

Yep, looking at the Requien plans there, if anything her bow is higher. They must have done that with ballasting as the mid and rear hull are much fuller than the bows, so unballasted I'd think these boats would tend toward down at the nose. If that's the case, then the trim is probably pretty squirrelly in terms of getting it and keeping it right.

 

But I'm still confused a bit. So ok, bow higher is probably a good idea in a small boat toodling around the North Sea. But even so, you'd think they could have done a better job of aligning with gunports with, well, anything. On my boat the gunports will not follow either the deck or the waterline, but they will follow the top line of the gunwales, which is by far the least important of the three.

11 hours ago, tkay11 said:

There are plenty of references to rudder coats and how to make them on several of the builds, including the Sherbourne. It's true they're not seen on some contemporary models, but they are there on others, and referred to in the books. Dan Vadas made a lovely one on his frigate, as did Dirk on his Sherbourne, and I explained how I made my own lesser contribution in my Sherbourne log here.

 

Tony

Thanks Tony! Man modeling in the intertubes age is a tad easier than it used to be. We ask, a few hours later I not only have an explanation but step by step photo instructions

42 minutes ago, Rick01 said:

I just kept imagining a wave coming up hard and fast from astern and the fountain as it blew up through the hole for the rudder ( bit like a good blow hole).

Ok now that has me imagining a fleet of cutters in a following sea, little blowhole fountains scattered across the horizon, occasionally including a steersman flying head over heels. But I see what you mean, hard to see how that wouldn't happen with waves of the right height. I'm going to go look at Tony's photos again.

 

Another thing is that although my drawing upthread of the color scheme is using the waterline that I see marked, it looks a bit off to me now, with the bow too high. Are we sure I have the right line?

It's the inverse question that every builder has faced from admirals at some point - theirs being does this X make my transom too big?

 

I actually built mine back up a bit at one point, it was something I worried about when sanding the hull but I ended up with a smaller transom than I wanted. You can do the same, it's just a pain to do, but I'd go with what Tony recommends.

 

I'm getting closer to starting my treenailing, and I'm still not sure what woods I'm going to use. What you have looks pretty much perfect in terms of darkness differential, I think I'm going to use it as a starting point for my experimentation.

 

I was thinking about using dowels in the ballpark and taper them, but now that seems like asking for inconsistent sizes. I have the Byrnes drawplate so starting point is 22 and .5mm. And I'm going to work from your frame spacing. Basically I'm going to steal everything you're doing

 

What Rick says is absolutely right - none of these super special tools are required, they just make certain things easier and instead of jack of all trade tools you have ones more specialized for certain situations. I made do just fine for a very long time with just a couple knives and razor saws and sandpaper.

 

And downside of fancy tools is that if you don't get good results, you look like a complete doofus

 

EDIT - wow, wrote this six hours ago and then navigated away without actually, you know, submitting. One time I'm very glad about that autosave feature.

 

I had wondered about that too, since all the kits I've seen have a big open hole there, and iirc I think I saw one of period models that Tony took pics of had an open hole also. At that point I decided that despite appearances not much water must have been shipped that way.

 

And I am still making slow progress, managing about one strake on one side an evening as time is still somewhat limited. And it would be nice if I stopped buying new tools every five minutes as it seems like every evening I have something new to unpack and find a place for. The new acquisitions finally overwhelmed my tool holders completely and I had to get new ones and that led to two evenings of reorganization.

 

All the workbench area tools laid out for reorganization. It's just slightly possible that I have a teensy tool-collecting problem.

 

One of the holders is connected clear tubes and considering the expense of many of these tools I took the time to use contact cement to glue pieces of rubber padding and green felt together to go in the bottom of said tubes to protect the tips of everything.

 

Just a little bit better now. The one on the right has sawed-off wine corks (unused :)) and I used my rotary tool to cut custom holder grooves/holes for each tool. Very important as this is where all those super fine forceps are and those tips need to be very protected.

 

Speaking of which, after a couple months of shopping on EBay for good deals this is the set I ended up with. I'm extremely happy with these, they work so much better than other tweezers I've owned that I want to do a 1/600 ship just to give me an opportunity to use them to their potential. The ones on the bottom are .5mm both side and top view down at the tips, and just last night I used them to easily pick up and hold a piece of brass that was 1/8" x 1" x 3". You really don't have to worry about dropping stuff with these.

However if the folks reading were going to buy only one surgical tool, it would be these - a Storz Barraquer needle holder. Just for god's sake don't try to save money buy buying a no-name $10 version, these are hardened duralumin and are beautifully made. Since I got them they haven't left my bench top and they've become my go-to tool for grabbing stuff, and you best be ready to take me on with fully sharpened carving knives in each hand if you want to take it away  New these are probably $100, I got mine for $50.