Material for small-scale oars

[Dan DSilva]

Hello again,

 

Does anyone know where to get really thin round rods and sheets of wood or rigid plastic that would be suitable for making small-scale oars (like in the range of well under a millimeter)?  I know there are types of plastic commonly used for scratchbuilding models, but I seem to be having trouble finding the right place to buy it.

[Keith Black]

 You might try using wire for the handle and card for the blade

[TBlack]

If you go the styrene way, check out Evergreen Scale Models. Their site shows rod at .75 mm.

 

[Dan DSilva]

17 minutes ago, TBlack said:

If you go the styrene way, check out Evergreen Scale Models. Their site shows rod at .75 mm.

 

 

I think this is what I was looking for.  Thanks!

[TBlack]

Dan,

Every once in a while I have a good idea. But that's it for this year!

Tom

[grsjax]

You could have them 3D printed.  Draw up what you want and send it to maker like Shapeways.  Should not cost much and will be much less hassle than trying to make them that small.

Edited May 23, 2023 by grsjax

[Roger Pellett]

As wooden parts get smaller, you start fighting the grain.  When that happens, I like to use brass, readily available in rod and sheet.  In both cases smaller diameter and thinner than any wood.  In your case, brass rod looms with sheet brass blades soldered on.  Paint the finished oar.

 

Roger

[Dan DSilva]

On 5/23/2023 at 12:17 AM, grsjax said:

You could have them 3D printed.  Draw up what you want and send it to maker like Shapeways.  Should not cost much and will be much less hassle than trying to make them that small.

 

Not a bad idea, however the sheer number of oars needed for all the ship's boats I have planned is likely to make the cost inordinate even if each oar is fairly cheap.  I will keep it in mind though.

[Dan DSilva]

16 hours ago, Roger Pellett said:

As wooden parts get smaller, you start fighting the grain.  When that happens, I like to use brass, readily available in rod and sheet.  In both cases smaller diameter and thinner than any wood.  In your case, brass rod looms with sheet brass blades soldered on.  Paint the finished oar.

 

Roger

 

How do you prevent the brass from annealing when you solder it?

[Gregory]

Do you have a drawing with dimensions?  I have an idea I want to explore?

[Roger Pellett]

Most common soft solders melt somewhere between 600-700F.  This isbelow the temperature required to anneal brass.

Edited May 24, 2023 by Roger Pellett

[Dan DSilva]

Hadn't thought of that.  I'm used to using high-temperature solder with a blowtorch.

 

Gregory, I don't have any drafts for the oars.  They're going to need to be a variety of different lengths, but I've settled on the shafts being about half a millimeter thick and the blades a quarter to an eighth of a millimeter thick and no more than 2mm wide.  Of course, real oars were much more complex in shape than what I can turn out at such a tiny scale -- I'm satisfied as long as I can make the blades taper nicely to the junction with the bodies and have some hint of a medial ridge.

[Gregory]

Have you considered card?  It glues and paints much like wood.

I was asking for dimensions so I could experiment with my laser.

A certain amount of lamination might be part of the process.

It wouldn't be a problem to mail you some results if you are interested..

Edited May 26, 2023 by Gregory

[wefalck]

I recently made a bunch of oars in 1:160 from three layers of laser-cut paper:

Unfortunately, I didn't take pictures of the process itself. However, they are laminated from three layers of 0.2 mm thick 'Canson' paper, trying to more or less reproduce the varying cross-sections and longitudinal profile. The layers were cemented together using varnish, which hardens the paper and makes it also amenable to (light) sanding. 

 

[wefalck]

As an add on, I have a cheapo small laser-cutter that works with bit-images, rather than vector-graphics. Below is the image that was used to cut the oars:

The oars are about 22 mm long.

 

[Gregory]

You should check out Lightburn..

 

If it is compatible with your controller, it has some very powerful features like a tracer that produces vector images.

It has a very robust  tabbing feature, so you don't have to worry about drawing tabs in your images.

Another powerful feature is resizing.  You can work with larger images then resize them to virtually any scale.

You can also duplicate.  For instance for your oars above, just put one set into LightBurn, then, after you tweak it to get it just the way you want, you can make duplicate

items and position them however you want in the work area.

You can also save your work, and bring it back later with all your changes and settings. 

 

If you are interested in a particular feature, let me know and I will try to answer, though I am still learning.

[wefalck]

Thanks for the hint. I have to check the compatibilities. While I do all the CAD-work on my recent Mac, the laser-cutter is run off an older MS Windows XP computer. The current driver for the laser-cutter is not available for MacOS. If I could run the laser-cutter directly off the Mac, that would make things simpler.

 

All the artwork is done on EazyDraw and then converted in JPGs and then adjusted to the correct size in Photoshop.

 

However, we digressing with this discussion from the original subject of the thread ... 

[No Idea]

On 5/26/2023 at 5:08 PM, wefalck said:

I recently made a bunch of oars in 1:160 from three layers of laser-cut paper:

Unfortunately, I didn't take pictures of the process itself. However, they are laminated from three layers of 0.2 mm thick 'Canson' paper, trying to more or less reproduce the varying cross-sections and longitudinal profile. The layers were cemented together using varnish, which hardens the paper and makes it also amenable to (light) sanding. 

 

Goodness me that boat is so tiny - fabulous work 

[Toolmaker]

On 5/23/2023 at 5:08 PM, Roger Pellett said:

When that happens, I like to use brass

I can endorse this method. I used it for various oars on a 1/72 scale WW2 era vessel. The pictures will show all but if further details are wanted, just ask.

 

Hope that is useful.

Cheers

Paul

Edited May 27, 2023 by Toolmaker

[Dan DSilva]

These all look like good ideas.  I've already ordered the styrene several days ago, so I'll give that a try first.  If it doesn't work out, I'll look into brass.

[Dan DSilva]

The styrene arrived.  It's much, much more flexible than I expected.  I could almost imagine tying the half-millimeter rod into a knot.  Of course, it'll be a little stiffer over very small dimensions, but right now I'm having a hard time imagining how to work with it -- especially the sheets -- so I'm starting to lean more toward using the brass.

[wefalck]

Yes, styrene sheets and profiles tend to be quite soft in most cases, which is why modellers like to use them. Unfortunately, the harder variety as used for injection-molded kits is not available as raw material, such as rods.

 

There are, however, people who manage to fabricate such thin long details as oars from styrene, including here on the forum ...

[Old N Salty]

I know this my br a late add on to the topic and I know that the scale of the oars being discussed is a bit smaller than what I am making, but I used the wood from popsicle sticks to build the oars for the small boats on Brig Niagra that I am building as the Basswood was just too fragile. Most wood in popsicle sticks is made from Birchwood which is much stronger.  Any smaller and I would agree with Toolmaker that brass would be the best material to go with.

[Dan DSilva]

Had another idea recently:  Prior to starting this thread I had been making oar shafts out of disposable 1/8-inch bamboo grilling skewers by splitting them with an X-Acto and shaping with sandpaper.  Aside from being tedious, it's tricky to get the resulting rod a consistent thickness and keep the cross section round when I'm bringing them down to half a millimeter, which is why I was asking about premade products, but bamboo is really an excellent material for oar shafts this small once it's prepared.

 

Would a draw plate made for wood be able to reduce the thickness faster and produce better consistency?  It sounds good in theory and there are a couple of these on the market, but I don't know whether they work with bamboo.

[Jaager]

It is the same as drawing Bamboo trunnels.

For years I have used General steel drill gauges

1-60

61-80

They work -I rub the reverse on a sharpening stone from time to time.

 

 

Then there was one that works really well

The Jim drawplate  which I think is still available    from http://www.byrnesmodelmachines.com/drawplate5.html

 

 

The Bamboo skewers on the end caps are hit or miss as to which variety is in the bag.  Some are soft and play nice but then to crush at the gripper and some are hard and brittle and fight you all the way.

 

I have never seen drawplates for wood and I wonder if there is the necessary range of holes?   I have jewelers drawplates, but they are more difficult to use - Thick with a cone on the reverse - it is a lot of work  to get enough Bamboo thru the hole to have enough to grip and pushing does not work ar all

Edited March 9 by Jaager

[wefalck]

Jewellers' draw-plates technically are a different animal from those draw-plates for wood: they don't cut the wire, but flow-form it - that's why you have problems with materials that don't 'flow', such as wood, you just squash it.

 

I am wondering how long the draw-plates for wood will last, when using them on bamboo. I gather it depends on which part of the bamboo-stalk they are used, because one reason why bamboo is so hard and stiff is, that the cells contain silicium dioxide (meaning quartz or glass), a mineral harder than many steels. Depending on the hardness of the plate, it may wear considerably.  

[Bob Cleek]

6 hours ago, wefalck said:

Jewellers' draw-plates technically are a different animal from those draw-plates for wood: they don't cut the wire, but flow-form it - that's why you have problems with materials that don't 'flow', such as wood, you just squash it.

I have long been aware of the difference between metal-working drawplates and wood-working drawplates, but I've never seen the two distinguished in a catalog offering them for sale. I have always worked the "narrow side" of the holes on my drawplate by rubbing the "narrow side" on a sharpening stone. I've always drawn wire from the "wide side" of the plate holes so that the wire will be compressed and extruded as it is pulled through from the "wide side" to the "narrow side" of the holes. With wood, I pull the wood through from the "narrow side" of the holes (after pointing the end of the workpiece by rolling it on a piece of sandpaper) to the "wide side" so that the narrow side edge of the holes scrapes the wood off as it goes through. It works well enough. I'm wondering if you or anybody else knows if there's really a purpose-made draw plate for wood, particularly since there's such a wide range of jewelers' drawplate cross-section shapes once you get deep enough into the jewelry supply house catalogs. E.g., see: Drawplates & Drawbenches — Otto Frei The professional quality ones are scary-expensive, though. 

 

 

[paul ron]

maybe im late to the party but i found bamboo tooth picks at an asain market that are very thin.... maybe 1/16" or less. a pack of 500 was $1.50.

 

also a bit heavier are bamboo skewers about 1/8"... very straight and very strong.

 

using my utility knife to scrape them, i can make them even thinner for my shear poles. most impressive, they are very strong and very straight.

 

 

Edited March 11 by paul ron

[Roger Pellett]

Bob,  I don’t have one, so can’t comment on its performance but the late Jim Byrnes used to offer a draw plate specifically for wood.  Hopefully his company will get back on its feet

 

Roger

[wefalck]

BTW, I think the drawplates for wires have a slight chamfer at the small side to prevent the wire becoming marred or cut, when not drawn 100% perpendicular through the plate.

 

The drawplates for dowels obviously don't have such chamfers, as it is the sharp edge of the hole that cuts.