HMCSS Victoria 1855 by BANYAN - 1:72

[BANYAN]

Hi Grant, as promised.  I have now done testing on two products and researched many more. 

 

The product I have currently settled on, but needs a little more testing is Technoflux.  Another I will try is Kool Jool.  Both of these are Jewellers soldering aids but I prefer Technoflux as it is water soluble (for cleaning afterwards).  I have not tried with a flame/torch but that is what it was designed for.  When using with a flame you need to put a fairly thick dab on apparently, so that would preclude its use in very small/fine work like I am currently doing.  However, as I use resistance soldering, I am finding a smaller dabs on both sides of the worked joint (to be protected) is working fine.  There is a fair bit of further testing to do using an electric iron etc, but I am deferring that for a while as I need to progress with the build, and the Technoflux, where needed, seems to do the job.  I am also waiting to see if there is any longer-term corrosion issues, but I very much doubt it as Jewellers would not use it if it did - and they have used it for quite a while now..

 

There are a lot of thermal cooling/protection products that come up on a quick search, but closer investigation shows these are a usually a grease used to isolate and/or to conduct electrical computer chips (such as the CPU) and totally not suited to our use.  A couple of other products that initially came up in the search lists were not water based and therefore harder to clean, and may have caused corrosion downstream.  There is one product I am trying to find (but for some reason can no longer find) is used by welders and has a name something like Blue Cool.  When I di find it some time ago it was only sold in very large volumes and needed to be applied quite liberally - so may not be suited.

 

For the time being the Technoflux seems to be doing the job, so I will continue to use that; but, I will also trial the Kool Jool at some point.  I got mine from Australian Jewellery Supplies (AJS).  here is a link to the product Technoflux Cool Paste - 150gram - by GEMWORLD online store  

 

cheers, hope this helps?

 

Pat

 

Edited September 2, 2023 by BANYAN

[Boccherini]

Pat,

thanks for taking the time to test and post your thoughts. I'll try Technoflux product with the oxy/acetylene torch and let you know how it goes.

 

Regards,

Grant.

[BANYAN]

Thanks Grant, that would be great.

 

cheers

 

Pat

[BANYAN]

Hi again all.  I have been slowly working on the booms since my last update as you can see in the attached photo.  I have still to add the parrel ropes and a couple of blocks for the guys, as well as leather the inside of the jaws.  The spiderbands and end band are made from thin wall brass with the eyes and ears soldered in, then blackened (as shown in an earlier post).  The Jaw bands are black paper card as I need them to conform with the ovoid shape of the jaws and indentations - the thin brass I intended using just would not hold shape properly and gluing them was getting messy. 

 

About 3 remakes later.... see the result (acceptable I think).   it took a few tries to find a wood that matched the wood I used for the spar proper.  The spar is Kaurie, and the furniture Ballarat Pear - the Kaurie kept splitting when trying to use it for the finer detail.   I am also still not that happy with the cleats but they are so fiddly to make, and I do not want to use small plastic ones as they will be difficult to paint (to match).  I have not put pulleys in the slots of the reefing combs yet; still thinking on how I will do that (to keep them looking realistic).   for some reason (camera perspective I think) the jaws look shorter and wider than they actually are.

I am now trying to figure out how to make the mast partner wedges/collar.  This will be done on the lathe and textured to look like canvas (the individual wedges do not need to be scribed as they will be covered).  The problem I am now trying to solve is how to keep the collar horizontal (to fit closely to the deck), with the mast holes at rakes of 5, 10 and 15 degrees for the fore, main and mizen masts respectively.  My current plan, which I hope will work, is use some oversize stock (in diameter), drill out the core to the mast diameter, then turn the outer dimension to size.  My plan is then to put this in a jig of some sort (still being thought on) to allow me to cut/slice it off at the mast rake angle.  Hopefully this will result in a collar that is close fitting at the deck, accepts the mast at the correct angle and will retain a uniform size all around the mast.  

 

cheers

 

Pat

Edited October 9, 2023 by BANYAN

[wefalck]

Good to see your progress. Making these bits and pieces 'bolted' to booms and gaffs from wood is always fiddly and requires real high-quality dense wood.

 

In the past I have used paper-thin styrene sheet for such bands on wooden booms and gaffs because with liquid cement you can kind of 'melt' them around. However, they turned out to be quite brittle when drilling for the ring-bolts etc. I think today, I would also make them from paper soaked in varnish.

 

However, in really small scales I now turn spars from steel rod and actually turn the bands on as far as possible. For the bands around the jaws this is obviously not possible ...

 

I wouldn't mind to see a picture of VICTORIA in her current whole state of beauty 😉

[Keith Black]

1 hour ago, wefalck said:

I wouldn't mind to see a picture of VICTORIA in her current whole state of beauty

 Hear, hear.

[BANYAN]

Okay, okay I get the hint  - I'll see what I can do.

 

Eberhard, I may end up having to do the really small spars such as studding sail booms, and maybe even the gaffs from metal as you have suggested, but painting them to match the wood will be a real challenge.

 

cheers

 

Pat

[Glen McGuire]

On 10/9/2023 at 12:52 AM, BANYAN said:

About 3 remakes later.... see the result (acceptable I think). 

Third time's the charm?  I would say those booms are way more than acceptable.  They look great and the uniformity of all three is superb.

[Jim Lad]

Well, I suppose those spars look fairly reasonable. 

 

Very nice work, mate.  It's great to see the 'Victoria' forging ahead.

 

John

[BANYAN]

Hi again folks.  Some small progress made; well, more experimentation and trials/tests than progress.

 

The Victoria was fitted with skeletal iron tops which when reduced to 1:72 make for some very small and thin parts.  My real concern (for the future) apart from blowing them apart when soldering, is that the arms of the cross-trees will bend.  I have yet to attach the iron (brass) rod futtock staves which will give them some support (I hope). I drew up the parts and had them photoetched from 0.2mm brass as you can see from the photo.

 

These tests are to see if I can actually solder them.  The parts were first folded along fold lines/creases I had etched which sort of worked OK - you have to look closely to see the slights waves/rolls in the parts.  I drilled the holes (0.6mm) where needed for the eyes which I will solder into place later.   I then had to solder on  the curved rim which I formed on the 'wrangler' which you can see in the tools photo - this part is only 1mm high by 0.2mm thick.  I put it on my soldering station and held in place with some brass pins and an eccentric cam (thanks Eberhard for the idea and guidance) and soldered with y resistance soldering unit on its lowest setting - and it worked  

 

In one photo the part looks very distorted  due to the aspect the photo is taken, but in others you can see it is reasonably formed.  Next will come the true test, see if the heat sink/paste will work as I solder in the eyes.  I'll show the results (hit or miss) in a future post.  A club member (Al - AlPays avatar) made the grating for me. They are formed from about 0.6mm combs and staves - how he managed to make it still amazes me.  I have yet to form the shape which has me a little bedeviled at the moment as I think shaping by any form of power tool will simply blow these apart.

 

The next task, to solder in the eyes and the other parts together, is to make a wood jig that will hold the elements the right distances apart.

 

cheers

 

Pat

PE Parts

Parts pre-formed

Soldering the rim in place

The soldered part (before cleaning up)

Tools used

The grating (the rim/part looks distorted but is not in reality)

Edited October 22, 2023 by BANYAN

[Keith_W]

How did you get the PE parts made?

[mtaylor]

Your brass parts look pretty darn good even with the magnification, Pat.

[BANYAN]

Thanks Mark, not too bad for a test run, but hopefully I can do better yet.

 

Keith,  I drew up the parts in CAD to scale (including a test legend) and a railroad modeller who lives in the eastern parts of Melbourne etched them for me.  I can pass on his details if you need them?

 

cheers

 

Pat

[Keith_W]

18 minutes ago, BANYAN said:

Keith,  I drew up the parts in CAD to scale (including a test legend) and a railroad modeller who lives in the eastern parts of Melbourne etched them for me.  I can pass on his details if you need them?

 

Yes please!!! 

[wefalck]

Yep, nice metal work!

[Keith Black]

 Very nice, Pat. I'm envious of your skills. 

[BANYAN]

11 hours ago, Keith Black said:

Very nice, Pat. I'm envious of your skills. 

Thanks Keith, with the 'shakes' getting slowly worse I am not sure I can keep doing this real small stuff.

 

cheers

 

Pat

[BANYAN]

14 hours ago, wefalck said:

Yep, nice metal work!

Thanks Eberhard.  Still a bit of improvement required though.  As you can see the 0.6mm holes nearly slice the metal strip so I need to find a better way to drill these AND keep them aligned.  One saving grace is that once the eyes are soldered in, they will be ground flat so the holes will sort of disappear, especially after blackening or painting (not sure which yet).  That is why I haven't filed/ground the hole edges yet - will be done later.

 

The issue I am grappling with is to find a way to work (bend) the metal to avoid all that crushing/marring you can see.  The folded part is only 1mm and the metal fairly soft which is why it marks so easily.  I have to use the flat long nose needle nose pliers to bed as rubber/nylon jaws will not grip properly or allow a bend under pressure.  The other way I have tried is using a jeweler's bending block, but that required partial folding at a time rather than bending the whole edge at a time -results in a wavy bend.  I'll keep experimenting to see if there is a better way to get a non-marring fold.  I am hoping to find a way  to use the jeweler's bending block but then use a form of some sort to bend the edge as a single effort.

 

cheers

 

Pat

[wefalck]

There are PE folding gadgets on the market (quite pricey actually). They basically consist of a slab of aluminium and a kind of straight-edge that can be clamped down on it. The straight-edge does not have vertical edges, but a slightly more acute angle that allows you to overbend to account for the springiness of the brass.

Picture source: https://thesmallshop.com/collections/photo-etch-bending-tools/products/sms002-the-bug-hold-fold

 

I made one myself, but as it was mainly meant for folding my laser-cut paper parts, I made the straight-edge from Plexiglas, so that I can better see where I place the tiny parts. Unfortunately, I don't have a picture at hand.

 

Concerning the holes: can't you just drill at 0.5 mm or even 0.4 mm ? It is too late now, but I would have foreseen at least a dimple half-etched through or a pilot hole that could be reamed to size (using one of those five-sided reamers the watchmakers use to ream out holes in their tiny watch-hands).

Edited October 23, 2023 by wefalck

[Keith Black]

11 hours ago, BANYAN said:

with the 'shakes' getting slowly worse I am not sure I can keep doing this real small stuff

 I wish I could be there to help and learn. 

[Keith Black]

3 hours ago, wefalck said:

There are PE folding gadgets on the market (quite pricey actually).

It seems pretty affordable to me, Eberhard. Thank you for posting the link. Making one one with Plexiglas edges is a smart idea, do you think a Plexiglas edge is strong enough for brass? 

[wefalck]

I found the price for two pieces of CNC-milled aluminium and a thumbscrew quite steep, to which one has to add postage.

 

Plexiglas in thin sections is quite brittle, so the edges may break out, when abused. It also depends on how often you use the tool. If I was a kit-builder and working on one kit after another with lots of PE, I might have opted for aluminium or steel. It also depends on the thickness of the sheet-metal you want to work with.

 

The folding edges on PE are usually half-etched through lines, which are quite easy to place into these gadgets. I am working with the laser-cut paper parts, where I may score the folding line or not. Being able to see through the holding-down clamp helps in positioning the part.

 

Another consideration for opting for a shop-made solution was, that I turned the base of my miniature edge-sander into a multi-functional tool. OK, I have now various loose pieces to take care of, but only one little box to store it.

[BANYAN]

Thanks for the kind comments Keith.

 

Hi Eberhard, actually the piece is dimpled (etched) but I think the guy who etched it left the item in too long and the holes do not serve as a guide as they are a little too large.  The drill bit then wonders to one side or other of the dimple recess - that's why they are not aligned on the test piece.  I mentioned it to him asking for a redo, but he said that at this size a part and with the thickness of brass stock, to etch completely through the required parts, he cannot control the dimple size.  He said he deliberately made the unmasked hole in the template as small as possible but it still resulted in the larger than needed dimples.   I do not do enough of this stuff to warrant learning how to, nor warrant buying the etchant chemicals, which would probably lose their shelf life before I used them again - so I will just have to adjust my technique.  

 

I have one of those PE folding devices but the fingers are all too small for the longer edge of the rim to be effective.  I wish I had one that could be flipped around (long straight edge one side and a series of small fingers on the other).

 

Thanks for the suggestions, you have pointed me to one other possibility. 

 

cheers

 

Pat

[KeithAug]

Good progress Pat. The brass work looks very good. I enjoyed catching up, thank you. The bending jig for PE looks like quite an easy workshop project.

Edited November 16, 2023 by KeithAug

[BANYAN]

Thanks for looking in and kind comments Keith.  You are right, with a little hindsight I agree that there are a couple of solutions for the bending jig.  The biggest issue is being able to bend the full length of the lip in one effort.

 

cheers

 

Pat

[rwiederrich]

On 11/16/2023 at 3:12 PM, BANYAN said:

Thanks for looking in and kind comments Keith.  You are right, with a little hindsight I agree that there are a couple of solutions for the bending jig.  The biggest issue is being able to bend the full length of the lip in one effort.

 

cheers

 

Pat

Acid etched stuff is cool...but less like hand crafted....when you are stiving to hand craft details.

Reminds me of the printing folks who can design and print what items they need for their models on their 3D printers.  I'm impressed with your application of AE...and as usual....you will create stunning realistic structures.

More power to ya......Pat.  She looks great.

 

Rob

[BANYAN]

Thanks Rob, much appreciated.  Updates are slow as just as I was getting back into it I came down with Covid (first time) and now trying to catch up on all the spring chores before Christmas.  I hope to be up to speed and back into the workshop after Christmas.

 

cheers

 

Pat

[Keith Black]

Sorry to hear you came down with Covid, Pat. Wishing you a speedy recovery back to full strength. 

[KeithAug]

8 hours ago, BANYAN said:

I came down with Covid

Oh dear Pat - I hope it wasn't too bad and recovery was rapid. I guess we will all get it at some time. Over here we seem to have settled into annual autumn vaccinations. Flue one arm covid the other.

[Jim Lad]

Sorry to hear about the Covid, Pat. Hope it was a light dose!

 

John