Germania Nova 1911 by KeithAug - FINISHED - Scale 1:36 - replica of schooner Germania 1908

[shipmodel]

Wonderful work, Keith.

I am always fascinated by your techniques and realism.

 

Dan

[KeithAug]

23 hours ago, wefalck said:

Would you mind showing your attachment to satisfy my curiosity ?

 

Eberhard - nothing special, home made. I made it so that it will cut balls as well as concave surfaces.

 

 

 

23 hours ago, wefalck said:

Will they stay in brass, or will you blacken them ?

 

Eberhard, Undecided - I'm tempted to leave them but think they will look better in black.

 

[KeithAug]

Eberhard, Keith, Geert, Dan, Thank you all for your generous comments.

 

 

 

Edited January 22, 2021 by KeithAug

[wefalck]

Keith, how is the attachment lock into the T-slot of cross-slide ? I don't seem to see any screw that pulls the fixed part down onto the table, against the T-nuts.

[druxey]

Impressive as ever, Keith! I have the same question as wefalck.

[KeithAug]

1 hour ago, wefalck said:

I don't seem to see any screw that pulls the fixed part down onto the table, against the T-nuts.

 

Eberhard / Druxey, I was limited by the size of the bar I had for the base. If you look at the top view you will see a hole near the handle. The cap head bolts which hold the "T" nuts are recessed into the fixed base and are accessed by this hole. The top is turned through 180 deg to access the second cap bolt.

 

Thank you for your kind remarks Druxey.

Edited January 22, 2021 by KeithAug

[KeithAug]

Moving on:- But not very far.

 

I have been putting off doing a small job on the rail to take the pair of tender handling davits.

 

 

The rail is shaped round the davits as can be seen in the photo. Only the starboard rail has this feature.

 

I started by making a card pattern to check how it would look.

 

 

Then I took a scrap of mahogany and did some basic profiling on the mill. The hole is 5/32". I also made a pair of filing buttons to assist shaping of the outer profile.

 

 

 

 

With the shaping complete I sliced off .065" strips - slightly thicker than the rail. They were then cut down to the required width. I made 4 - 2 spares for breakages. I broke 1.

 

 

I cut a template to guide cutting of the rail, this was temporarily held in place with double sided tape.

 

 

 

The cut out was made using a craft blade and then squared of with a sharp chisel. The rail pieces were then glued in place and sanded to blend in.

 

 

 

I drilled through the holes in the rail to mount the deck davit boss. My dill pedestal kept things square

 

 

The deck boss and the rail collar were turned and fitted.

 

 

These take a 1/8" davit.

 

I drew the 2 davits - identical apart from the shaft length.

 

 

I have started making the davits but will save progress for the next post.

 

 

Edited January 29, 2021 by KeithAug

[wefalck]

You are a dare-devil ! Cutting into the nice rail would have frightened me to bits ... However, it came out nicely.

 

One tends to see a lot of these davits bent just from a length of round wire, but in fact, both diameter and cross-section actually change according to the expected stresses ... just going through that exercise myself - eight times and starting with a 1 mm brass wire

[druxey]

Quite the rail surgery! I'm glad that the patient came out of it well.

[BANYAN]

 Very nice result Keith.  Love that hand drill set-up - is it a sensitive drill type also"  That would allow you plenty of control ofver some of thos drilling operations.

 

cheers

 

Pat

[KeithAug]

On 1/29/2021 at 7:06 PM, wefalck said:

Cutting into the nice rail would have frightened me to bits

 

Yes Eberhard - that's why I was putting it off.  Good luck with the 1mm wire I look forward to seeing the results.

 

23 hours ago, BANYAN said:

Love that hand drill set-up - is it a sensitive drill type also

 

Pat - just a standard brad point wood drill, hand cranked with very little pressure. The drill was new and quite sharp. I have a lot of drilling of the rail to do - to mount the stanchions.

 

On 1/29/2021 at 8:28 PM, druxey said:

I'm glad that the patient came out of it well.

 

Druexy - It railed against the operation but finally succumbed.

 

[TBlack]

I, too, am most impressed. Not only with the operation, but also your drawing of the davit is quite a work of art. The drill is hand operated, right?

Tom

[KeithAug]

12 hours ago, TBlack said:

The drill is hand operated, right?

Tom, it is hand operated for this purpose but I can attach the mini electric drill if I need power. Thank you for your encouraging comments.

[michael mott]

Hi Keith, catching up again, Stunning work on the anchors!  Always a pleasure to see the clever ways that you break down complex parts into smaller pieces for fabrication.

I noticed the lighting under the rails

 

Are you going to incorporate any.....I couldn't resist.

 

Again it is a joy to follow along with your work.

 

Michael

[allanyed]

 All the adjectives have long since been exhausted, so all I can say is that your posts are like Christmas is coming ever week or two rather than once a year!!! 

 

Allan

[KeithAug]

On 2/3/2021 at 3:32 PM, michael mott said:

Are you going to incorporate any.....I couldn't resist.

 

 Hello Michael, thanks for stopping by - I don't think I can get LED's small enough to fit under the rail without being able to see them. I did contemplate putting LED's behind the hull portholes but I figured I would never switch them on after the first couple of months.

 

I worked on the boat davits this week. Germania has davits on the starboard side for handling the tender. The inflatables on the port side don't have any handling aids. The davits started as .125" brass rod. I cut the rods over length before drilling 3 transverse holes (.025" diameter) to take the block, the sheave and the belaying pin. The next step was to turn down the block end to finished size, before turning a very shallow taper over the length of the ultimate curved section. I initially set the taper at too large an angle and then, working from the narrow end, I gradually reduced the angle until the taper covered the desired length. Both ends of the rod were supported for this operation for obvious reasons.

 

 

 

You can just about see the traverse holes in the next photos.

 

 

 

I needed a bending jig to get bend curvature accurate. I did a very sophisticated job on the jig.

 

 

I needed to get the transverse holes in the correct orientation and I also wanted the length around the curve accurate so I soldered on a piece of scrap copper to control both the orientation and length. The broach at the right hand end is maintaining the orientation.

 

 

The jig was then set up for bending and clamped in the vice to secure the davit in position.

 

 

 

The davits had previously been heated to soften them so pressing them round the former with the end of a piece of wood was straightforward.

 

 

The copper was then desoldered before a pair of rings were soldered on to create the stops that control how far the davits sit above the rail.

 

 

 

The sheaves and their brackets were made (and lost), and made again. The rings for the belaying pin were also turned and milled to shape. The bracket was formed from a piece of aluminium tube.

 

 

A  pair of belaying pins were made and the davits were assembled.

 

 

 

I now have 2 more davits to make - one that is shared by the anchors and one that handles the steps.

 

 

 

 

Edited February 5, 2021 by KeithAug

[Keith Black]

 Keith, those turned out great! 

[FriedClams]

Wonderful brass work Keith - practically perfect!

 

Gary

[michael mott]

Very nice work on the davits Keith.

 

Michael

[KeithAug]

Thank you Keith, Gary and Michael.

 

I spent the weekend making the davits for the embarkation steps and for the anchor. Basically smaller versions of those previously completed  but in this case neither pass through the rail.

 

But first a better picture of one of those already made.

 

 

 

The next two slot into up-stands which rise from the deck.

 

 

The steps davit:-

 

 

 

 

And the anchor davit:-

 

 

Next time something completely different!!!!!!!

 

[BANYAN]

I love seeing how you develop solutions to create your ironwork Keith; it is as great a pleasure to see that process (and the jigs) as it is to see the quality of the finished products.

 

cheers

 

Pat

[KeithAug]

 

Thank you Pat and thanks to everyone for all the likes and visits.

 

It has been pretty cold here for days.

 

 

By noon on Monday the workshop temperature had struggled its way up to 7.3c (45f)

 

 

After the morning in the workshop I had had enough. The draw of the lounge wood burner became overpowering.

 

 

I decided I needed an armchair job so my thoughts turned to the bowsprit netting.

 

 

 

I had previously looked at samples of window netting and fly screen netting but wasn't really satisfied with either. Making the netting seemed to be an option but I decided it would be quite a test to resurrect reluctant traditional skills.

 

I made a card template to get the rough shape and size of the net.

 

 

I used this to create a lace making template by drawing out the netting form.

 

 

The next step was to accurately pick out the 1000 plus holes at the intersections of the net diamonds. This took me the best part of a day.

 

 

I found a reel of mercerised black cotton which seemed appropriate for the job. This was wound on to 34 lace making bobbins. and creation of the net commenced. 

 

 

 

This job is going to go quite slowly in parallel with workshop activity. I will post an updated image of the netting as I describe parallel build progress in future posts.

 

 

In the next post I will try to explain a bit about how to make lace making simple.

 

 

 

Edited February 10, 2021 by KeithAug

[Bedford]

Is there nothing you can't build from scratch?

[G.L.]

Fantastic, Keith. You are a wizard. You keep coming with surprises.

[KeithAug]

Thank you Steve and Geert. I was being naughty. I did the prep work and then used my skills to convince the admiral to do the actual lacework.🤫

[wefalck]

I have seen lace-making at various places around Europe (Brugge, Le Puy, ...) and it is fascinating to see professionals at work (the German term for it is almost onomatopoeic: klöppeln, which kind of imitates the sound the bobbins make, when thrown over each other). Industrial and mechanised lace-making, particularly in Nottingham, killed much of this artisanal industry around Europe - and of course a change in fashion.

 

I noticed that the net on the boat was actually spliced and not knotted. Now I understand, why you (as a collective term ) went down the lace-making route. Looking forward to your further explanantions.

 

On naval ships they had netting along their open rails, e.g. on bridges, and I always wondered how one could replicate this at small scale. Here the nets are knotted like fishing nets actually and the meshes are typically elongated hexagons. Doing it by a process akin to lace-making might be a solution.

[G.L.]

50 minutes ago, KeithAug said:

Thank you Steve and Geert. I was being naughty. I did the prep work and then used my skills to convince the admiral to do the actual lacework.🤫

Besides modeling, you are apparently also a good diplomat and negotiator.😏

[shipmodel]

Keith - 

 

Wonderful work.  I am really looking forward to the lacemaking class, whoever teaches it.

I confess to learning how to cane a chair for one of my smaller models, but making lace was always beyond me.

I just buy wedding veil material or similar from a local fabric store that still has old patterns and weaves.

 

Stay safe

 

Dan

[michael mott]

Absolutely brilliant Keith... I was a little saddened by your confession though.

 

Michael

[KeithAug]

Thank you Geert, Eberhard, Michael, Dan. I passed your lacemaking comments on to Ann as an incentive to starting a class but she just referred me to a book and the internet. I pressed on, persuading her to show me. A bit complicated I thought "better to stick to my own knitting", so to speak.