Gluing wood and metal?

[CPDDET]

I've just finished the skylight window frames and now need to add metal bars across them.

 

The frames are quite fragile (1/32 thick by 1/16 wide) and took several attempts to build. 

 

My plan is to cut straight pins to the proper length and glue them to the underside of the frames. The pins are 1/64 diamiter which is fairly close to scale.

 

I only have one shot at this as I don't want to rebuild the frames again. So I'm looking for advice as to which type of glue to use.

 

Dave

[Gregory]

Have you considered having some wood strips   that are not visible from the outside, holding the pins on the underside of the frames?

 

If what I say is not clear, maybe i can come up with an illustration..

 

A picture of what you are working on might help provide more info.

[David Lester]

Here's what I did for the skylight on my Charles W. Morgan. I'm not sure if you would like this idea or not, but it was easy to do and I think it worked pretty well. Instead of metal, I used rigging line pulled taut. I first glued all the lines to one side of the frame using ca glue. I then pulled each one across and held it while the glue set at that end. Another way would be to string all the lines between nails on a board and then glue the frame down on top and trim the lines after the glue set. 

 

My problem for the Morgan was not having anything else that was small enough. The rigging line actually matches the size indicated in the plan which is pretty small. (I don't recall off the top of my head what that size was.) I'm not sure if that's as much of a problem on the Bluenose or not. If the metal pins you have are the right scale then you might very well prefer to use them, but the rigging line sure is easy to attach.

David

[Bob Cleek]

Without a picture, I'm left guessing what you are describing, but if by "gluing the bars to the underside of the frames" you mean below the top of the skylight, that would be incorrect. The protective bars on skylights are always set above the glass on the outside, not below the glass inside. 

[David Lester]

Dumb idea, sorry for suggesting it!

[Jaager]

Scratch / scrape grooves for the bars on top of the frames and PVA glue a thin veneer layer over them?  A mechanical hold should be enough, but I know that PVA will grip stainless steel pins in a drilled hole with enough of a bond that your bars would not survive the force required to break it.

[CPDDET]

No dumb ideas here, Dave. It's always good to consider as many options as possible.

Thanks for your contribution

[David Lester]

Thank you Dave; I feel better.

Forgive me Bob, but on second thought, I think you came down a little too hard on me. Of course, the bars are above the glass, but there is no glass at all in my skylight, or on most models that I've seen for that matter. There has to be "frame" or wood of some kind on top of the bars, otherwise the ends of the bars are exposed, so that's why I glued the line to the underside.

 

 

 

I guess you could argue that the wood I used is too heavy, but the real point of my post was that at this scale, I think rigging line makes an acceptable substitute for a metal bar, and is very easy to glue in place.

 

David

[CPDDET]

I agree Dave. It's the scale that makes this a difficult task. My model is 1/64.

 

With a frame thickness of 1/32 inch it would be impossible, in my opinion, to have both bars and windows. But vellum may work at a larger scale.

 

Sure, I could have used larger dimension wood and drilled holes for the bars but it would have ended up far to bulky.

 

In any case, I'll try to post some pictures of my issue. The skylight is a very prominent fixture and I want it to be my best effort.

 

Dave

[David Lester]

I was just trying to solve the scale problem. I had some very fine wire, but I couldn't seem to get it to pull taut enough and even if I did, it was way too easy to touch it and bend it after it was in place. Most of the other Morgan builds I had seen had used brass rod that looked far too large to my eye and in most cases they had to reduce the number of bars to only three or four, which didn't look right to me. Even using this fine line (sorry, I don't recall what size I used) I still had to reduce the number of bars by a couple, but at least the scale and overall effect is more or less intact. I know my wood frame is a little on the heavy side, but I say "so sue me, it's the best I can do."

 

If you have small brass pins they might very well work for the Bluenose as the span is small and the pin will be long enough, that wasn't an option for the Morgan, as the spans are longer. Perhaps you could make a rough mock-up of the frame, glue the pins to the underside and see how they hold up. If it appears that they're going to stay in place, then go ahead and use the method on the actual skylight. You could also try a mock-up using rigging line and see how you like that look (I know it will stay in place with ca glue.) I'm working on the Bluenose too and haven't come to the skylight yet, but as I recall from the plans there are many bars running vertically, is that right?

 

You're right about this skylight being front and centre and it does need to look quite decent as it will draw the eye. The skylight on the Morgan is very well hidden on the finished model, so it's quite forgiving.

 

I'm keen to see how you end up solving the question!

David

[Gregory]

50 minutes ago, CPDDET said:

I'll try to post some pictures of my issue.

It would really help to see   what you are working on.

[David Lester]

Do you have these pictures, Dave?

This discussion and the fact that I'll be tackling this job myself in the near future have set me searching and I found these pictures of the Bluenose. (I think they're actually the same picture, one is just a detail of the other.) It actually differs a little from the plans. It shows the window deeply recessed. Doing something like this would offer quite a bit of scope for improvisation. You could make the window itself as a separate unit; it could be as thick as you wanted and you could easily glue strips on the underside to secure the bars as only the top surface of the window frame would be visible. Once the window unit was built, it could then be set deep within the box. Anyway, I was interested and surprised to find these.

 

David

 

 

[CPDDET]

Here is a photo of the skylight on Bluenose II. Different materials but very similar.

I have to confess I'm mixing the build details of the two to my liking.

 

Thanks for passing along the images.

 

Here is a pic from another build log of, I think, America. Not sure of the scale but the workmanship is esqusit. Notice the lap joint on the frames.

 

[Gregory]

The upper image looks like slats were used, rather than rods. They ( slats ) might be a little easier to model.

[David Lester]

 

 

Could be. The plans don't indicate, they just show a series of vertical lines which could mean either slats or bars. One thing I'm learning here though is that it's a tricky piece to model as the overall length is only 5/8"

[jwvolz]

In a similar vein to David's suggestion of fine rigging line, you might want to also consider black monofilament line. I think it might work really well, and should give you a good scale effect. 

[Bob Cleek]

8 hours ago, David Lester said:

Thank you Dave; I feel better.

Forgive me Bob, but on second thought, I think you came down a little too hard on me. Of course, the bars are above the glass, but there is no glass at all in my skylight, or on most models that I've seen for that matter. There has to be "frame" or wood of some kind on top of the bars, otherwise the ends of the bars are exposed, so that's why I glued the line to the underside.

 

 

 

I guess you could argue that the wood I used is too heavy, but the real point of my post was that at this scale, I think rigging line makes an acceptable substitute for a metal bar, and is very easy to glue in place.

 

David

No, David, you misunderstood me. Your solution to the issue of the Morgan's skylight bars at that scale is excellent. What I was saying is that the bars go "above the window glass, not below the window glass" in response to the original poster's proposal to put them "below the frame." As clearly shown on the picture of the real Morgan skylight, the bars run through the frame stiles and muntins above the window glass. The bars wouldn't protect the glass from breakage if they didn't ! Whether there is "glass" on the model part or the "glass" is omitted, which is appropriate for the small scale of your model skylight, was irrelevant to my comment. I was simply addressing the original poster's musing that he might just glue metal bars to the underside of the frame, which I thought would be placing them too deep in the frame. I see now that you also glued your threads to the underside of the frame and to very good effect. (Good enough to fool me into thinking you'd drilled through the stiles and muntins and threaded them through the first time around!) It had been my erroneous impression when previously reading your build log that you had sandwiched them between two pieces to get the effect that they'd been run through the stiles and muntins above the window glass. A careful re-reading corrected that error.

 

No criticism whatsoever was intended. I thought your solution worked well the first time I saw it in your build log. I have an old, but complete, Marine Models  Co. Morgan kit in my stash and a scratch-built Morgan model depicting her ship-rigged and as she was originally launched has been in my modeling "on deck circle" for a long time now. I've got considerable research filed away and I've studied that skylight detail a lot. It's one of those elements that draws the viewer's attention and is a real challenge at scale, so it has to be done well. It's a really small part at that scale and its detail can't really be ignored or faked if it's to look right.  You accomplished that on your model, to be sure. You did a good job on it.

[CPDDET]

Looks like we have wandered far from the "Gluing wood and metal" and into the actual building of skylights.

 

So I'm going to move this over to my log. Will post images of my disaster and a possible solution tomorrow before noon.

 

https://modelshipworld.com/topic/19195-bluenose-by-cpddet-model-shipways-scale-164-first-ship-build/page/7/