FULMINANT by HAIIAPHNK - French stern castle

[druxey]

The strips are ivory key covers from an old piano. Another substitute is mammoth ivory. It is not as white as that from elephants and, as no animal was killed as is the case for elephants, it is a better choice.

[HAIIAPHNK]

51 minutes ago, druxey said:

The strips are ivory key covers from an old piano. Another substitute is mammoth ivory. It is not as white as that from elephants and, as no animal was killed as is the case for elephants, it is a better choice.

 

Yeah, that's right. Mammoth tusks are also on the list. I'd even say it's number one on the list. 
You could also list cow bone.

I've never dealt with that kind of material before. I wonder how you can prove you're using a legal type of bone. That you're not illegally sourcing the material? For example, for exhibitions. Do you need to provide receipts from purchases, where it will be written what kind of bone sold? Is the proof of the forum, where the stages of work are published and you can see what the original material represented and in the finished product is it? 
I've never been interested in such questions, but in case it comes in handy.
For example, after I took on this project, I had another idea. And it is related to the lion project. There is another type of bone that is used in ship modeling. It does not look as refined as items made of mammoth tusk or elephant tusk. Next to these materials, it even looks rustic. That's because it's cow bone. 
But cow bone has its own logic. It's more historical. French modeling of ships made of bone is closely connected with the captive sailors who, while imprisoned, built ship models out of this type of bone. As they were more readily available than even wood.
So I had the idea to make a French lion out of bone. And to use cow bone. To emphasize a certain parallel with the historical source. That's a separate conversation. There are completely different complexities here, and it's just an idea for now.

 

 

 

(museum installation with captive French sailors who occupy their lives by building crafts and ship models out of cow bones).

 

 

 

But if I decide to take on this idea, I need to think ahead of time, what would I have to have as evidence? In terms of structure, cow bone is very difficult to confuse with elephant, walrus or mammoth tusk. But there would still need to be evidence that would be accepted as valid at the exhibition. I'm not likely to be able to show a receipt from the meat department of a grocery store.

[HAIIAPHNK]

How did I begin to get acquainted with materials that were new to me? 
First of all, I needed to understand what are the limits of bone and tagua nuts, what are the limitations and disadvantages?

And I started with the question of what to glue the bone with? Naive thoughts that I could just pick up glue at the building store were dispelled very quickly. There was no glue anywhere that promised it would work on the bone. I could think as much as I wanted about how easy it was to sell everything in the 21st century. It didn't help the cause.
But that's impossible. There has to be a glue, and people have been working with bone for a long time. 
So I started asking the internet how to glue bone together. And in response, it started sending me to Hogwarts. The recipes were too unusual. Something like the following: take toad's feet, at midnight grind wormwood, grind dried rabbit ears in a mortar. On the night of May 32, start boiling the potion in a bronze cauldron, after the water boils, drop three even drops of unicorn sweat and stir gently with a silver spoon, 28 bars clockwise, then 14 in the opposite direction.
Now that sounded about right. Honestly! It even made me scared.

I scratched my chin and decided that I would still try gluing with those glues that would keep me safe from the Inquisition or from accidentally turning myself into Shrek. Several kinds of glue were bought at the store, ranging from the usual seconds of cyacrylate to some epoxy kind of glue.

 

 

And at the same time I decided that I should do experiments not only on the bone, but also on tagua nuts. I was also very interested in them. What kind of material is this?

So I took a couple of nuts. First, I tried picking them with knives. The texture of the nut was quite hard. It's like a dense plastic. The shape of the nuts is not exactly round. Rather, it even resembles a pyramidal shape with roundings. So it is enough just to grind the flat side on a grinding machine and get a flat plane at two nuts.

At the same time during this grinding I checked how the walnut reacts to mechanical heating. What happens to it from friction? Will it not become darker or change in some other way? After all, if I will use an electronic tool in the future, I should know where unacceptable actions begin, which can spoil the result? 

Therefore, I deliberately tried to keep the nut in contact with the disk of the grinding machine long enough. I was satisfied with the result, I didn't notice any negative marks. But I will come back to this point a little later.

[HAIIAPHNK]

 

 

(Didn't even know this photo survived. It was taken a long time ago, at that time it was not yet known about the existence of Beren's sketches of the main figure on the ship. At that time I tried to make my own version of what the sculpture on the breakwater could look like and what kind of character could be there).

 

 

 

Now for the gluing. The results for walnut and bone were radically different. Glued together on cyanoacrylate, I could not tear the nuts from each other. The bond was very strong. But the halves of the bone came off very easily after the first attempts to work with cutters. The polished surface of the bone prevented the glue from catching. Other glues didn't work either. 

 

 

 

 

So I was faced with the question of what to do next? If I were to use the bone, I'd have to glue it together. And that proved to be a problem.
The bone substitute, tagua nut, on the other hand, proved much easier to work with.
And if we remember the previous posts about odor, this material gets one more additional bonus. And that's no small argument either. Believe me, ignoring the odor issue is not something everyone can do. The minutes I tried picking bone with a power tool, I was reminded of covida and the fact that many people lost their sense of smell from this virus. And I even regretted that I couldn't temporarily stop smelling.
So it turns out that the tagua is the best choice and it has no downside?
Mmmmmm.... No. We live in a world where everything has a downside. Or nuances that will have to be considered. So what are the minuses of tagua nuts?

I received a whole bag of this nut from a customer. You can see from the photos that they are quite large pieces. However, there is a catch. The customer told me that he once ordered this nut specifically for this project. And this package is just a small portion of what he bought. In fact, he had to buy 8 kilograms of these nuts! But only a small fraction of them were good. And that's easily explained. If you order online, you are simply not able to see what exactly you are buying. And in what will arrive not all the nuts will be of good size. A lot more will be ones that will be small. If you plan on doing something very miniature, this fact may not be a problem. Or it might be. 
In addition, it is important to realize that the nut inside can have features that even an outwardly good nut can easily turn into a bad nut. The flesh of the nut may have cracks, and from the stem, on which the nut once hung, there is a hollow channel. And it too can fall into the area where it will cross your future sculpture.

 

 

 

  
Walnut has one more peculiarity. I can't call it an outright disadvantage, but it can be called a possible problem. Remember, I said that I tried to heat the walnut during sanding and see if it would affect its appearance? And I wrote that I didn't notice any change in appearance. I can't say for sure now whether I was right then or whether I was wrong and the walnut did darken from heating. You can't just notice that. 
However, after gluing, a clear border became visible at the joint. I even tried to dig deeper into the joint. Both with a power tool and knives. The clear line is still visible. And there are situations where such a feature would be a disadvantage. Ideally, I would like the joint to be less visible.

5 процарапанный стык

At this stage, I can't say for sure what exactly caused this dark line. Maybe, indeed, the aggressive sanding has darkened the walnut structure and it only became visible when gluing. Maybe this is how the material reacted to the cyacrine. Maybe if I change the glue or make sure that the walnut is not heated, the result will be different. Or maybe even under different working conditions the edge will remain visible. Only time and additional tests will tell.
This is the end of this part of the descriptions. The topic has not yet exhausted itself completely. Later I will describe further searches for bone glue. And what I got in this search.

[Hubac's Historian]

Speaking of smells, would not animal-based glues be a candidate for glueing bone?  This would have been the adhesive available to early builders of bone models.

Edited October 27, 2023 by Hubac's Historian

[HAIIAPHNK]

4 hours ago, Hubac's Historian said:

Speaking of smells, would not animal-based glues be a candidate for glueing bone?  This would have been the adhesive available to early builders of bone models.

 

When you talk to experienced people, their experience comes in handy when you need advice. And this is a huge plus! But it is absolutely impossible to tell about their discoveries, keeping intrigue and not revealing everything at once. After all, experienced readers always know the answer in advance 🙂. 
You are absolutely right 👍 about what glue should be for this task. I wanted to describe it in the next issue so that I could tell you how I arrived at the right way.
I have partially mentioned the right way now, because the internet gave me the answers when I was looking for a way. 

The problem is that a working glue has to be prepared. It is not available in a ready-made form. And modern man, to which I include myself, has become lazy. When everything can be bought ready-made, the news that you need to cook something is perceived already.... it's hard to find the right word... it is a mixture of fear, laziness and the certainty that somewhere there is a tube or a jar with a ready-made composition. And when I read about recipes for natural glues on websites, they were really perceived as something complicated, as if we are talking about witchcraft.

So soon I will describe how I solved this problem.

[HAIIAPHNK]

As has been rightly pointed out, since bone carving has been practiced for a long time, there must be a glue with which to glue this material. And again, as has already been said: the glue for bone must be of animal origin.
 
This is indeed the case. And even I, a person who had never been interested in this subject before and had no experience, understood this. You don't have to be too smart to understand this nuance. Simple logic is enough. If I know that earlier this kind of work was done by captive French sailors and they took bone as a material because it was available to them. Then it is logical to conclude that the glue must be one that can be prepared under the same difficult conditions. It is inconceivable that the captive craftsmen were supplied with some complicated means, which can be made only in the conditions of a good workshop. 
So the answer must be somewhere near. There must be a means that is simple enough. We just have to find that means.
And it has been found. With the help of a customer, I found out that there are ready-made jars on sale that are already prepared for cooking bone glue.
This is what the jars I bought look like.

 

 

In my case, there are two of them. Although it is possible to do with one. The first jar is the composition for the glue. These are pellets that are rabbit based. The second jar contains a very fine grind of chalk. It is needed only to give the glue a lighter shade. So that the yellowness of the glue is not so noticeable.

This type of adhesive simply cannot be made as a finished liquid. Since it is purely animal particles in diluted form such a solution has a shelf life and will soon go stale. Therefore, only the amount required for the prepared volume of bone should be diluted. Anything that will not be spent in the case can be stored in closed dishes and in the refrigerator and not longer than a week.

For those to whom the subject of bone is as new as it is to me I will mention that there are other kinds of material for glue. For example, I've seen videos on youtube where people used hardened pieces instead of pellets. Apparently this is dried glue that looks like plates. Then they were broken into pieces and glue was prepared.

After what I've read about multi-component formulations, a jar of pellets like this is a gift. No need to mix different components, look for them separately. Everything is much simpler. However, even in these conditions, I did not get the glue on the first try. For some reason, the first attempt looked quite strange. And that was understandable to a beginner like me. The granules floated on the bottom in the form of a cloudy sediment. Sort of like a dead jellyfish. I don't know what I did wrong. I was expecting something else. So I thought the pellets needed more time, they didn't dissolve enough. So I left them to infuse for another day. Then another day. Then it became clear that nothing was going to change, and the animal material would become very foul smelling as soon as I opened the jar. 

 

So I disposed of the first attempt as if it might mutate and turn into some kind of monster. I was careful, quick, and decisive.
The second attempt was also unsuccessful.
And I still don't know why? The only version of the failure of the first experience I could see was that I had diluted too few pellets in the water. And the second time I poured more pellets into the water. By the next morning, the jar looked completely different. Now it looked much more like a monster. There was no water in the jar at all. All the space was filled with a swollen mass that looked like jelly. Even the lid was dangerously swollen.

 

 

Next, the glue had to be heated in a water bath. The jelly-like mass had to melt and become the bone glue. I poured some chalk into the jar and began to heat the whole mixture. But then something happened that I didn't expect. I thought the glue was supposed to be thick and viscous. But the jelly turned into a very liquid solution. It didn't even stick to my fingers that much. There was a warning in the recipe that the solution should not be boiled. Which I understood myself. It's a protein and overheating would just curdle it. So I was hesitant whether to heat it further or risk boiling my glue. It was still just as liquid.

Since I don't know exactly what the ideal result should look like, I decided to give a second try and tried to glue my test pieces of elephant bone with it.
 

At one point, I even started to have hope. As the glue began to cool in the jar, it became noticeably more viscous, and by the evening it had become solid. Not as hard as glass, more like bisque, if you poke it with a stick, you can feel the elasticity. But who knows, maybe that's the way it's supposed to be. And it needs more time to fully harden. 

 

But alas.
After a couple days, I took my glued plates out of the vise and they came apart easily.

And I had one more try. I wondered, what had I done wrong? What was the reason for the failure? After all, the second time the appearance of the jar was so different from the first version. Maybe it was my addition of chalk that spoiled everything? Maybe it should not be added at all? Or maybe it should be added only to the finished glue? I didn't know the right answer. The only way was to completely eliminate this component from the next attempt. If it's the chalk, it should work. And if it's not the chalk, the glue won't work without the chalk.
I also thought that the reason was that I had added too many pellets the second time. The jar was bloated. Maybe the bloating caused air to get in? Maybe that's it?

 

 

 

 

 

The glued halves held together much better. Honestly, I didn't try to tear them off using a knife, vise or anything else. But the pressure of my hands was not enough to break the bond. Let's see how strong the glue proves to be in the next stages. I'll be doing some test carving on this piece. It will show whether it will remain as strong then. 

 

This is how two jars with two types of glue look like. The lighter colored one is with chalk. This is to give you an example of how much chalk changes the color of the glue. There are a lot of questions with this component as well. In the future I will try adding it to the mortar again and see the results. At this point I will stop experimenting with bone glue. I have some answers. Experienced what bad attempts look like for sure. Next I need to build up my experience. Definitely will need to think how to make the solution in smaller doses. I just don't have that much bone for that amount of glue to use up. And to waste pellets every time to throw away so much leftovers is just a crime. 
At this point I can say I've said all I can on the subject of glue. There is nothing more to add. Only if there will be knowledgeable answers about what I did wrong.

 

[mtaylor]

I do believe we have a few here who had experience with bone glue but I'm not one of them.   I'd suggest opening a topic here and see what answers you might get:    https://modelshipworld.com/forum/18-modeling-tools-and-workshop-equipment/

 

I did a search on bone glue and found these two logs which might help.   

https://modelshipworld.com/topic/27614-prisoner-of-war-bone-model-c-1800-by-shipmodel-restoration-by-dan-pariser/#comment-794900

 

https://modelshipworld.com/topic/1749-hmy-royal-caroline-1749-by-tarjack-made-from-bone-m-1-50/

 

[HAIIAPHNK]

9 hours ago, mtaylor said:

I do believe we have a few here who had experience with bone glue but I'm not one of them.   I'd suggest opening a topic here and see what answers you might get:    https://modelshipworld.com/forum/18-modeling-tools-and-workshop-equipment/

 

I did a search on bone glue and found these two logs which might help.   

https://modelshipworld.com/topic/27614-prisoner-of-war-bone-model-c-1800-by-shipmodel-restoration-by-dan-pariser/#comment-794900

 

https://modelshipworld.com/topic/1749-hmy-royal-caroline-1749-by-tarjack-made-from-bone-m-1-50/

 

Mark, thanks so much for these tips. Will definitely look at all of them, I really need it.

[Hubac's Historian]

I am completely naïve on this subject myself, but I was always under the impression that Hide glue (ground up horse hooves, or so I believe), was a simple matter of adding the glue flakes to a melting pot and then they melt right in the pot.

 

You might want to research “furniture restoration/conservation techniques with animal glue,” as this is one arena where these glues are still in use.

Edited November 1, 2023 by Hubac's Historian

[druxey]

Some water is required when dissolving animal glue flakes. As Aleksandr found out, 'shelf' life of this type of glue is very limited! When warmed (using a water bath), its viscosity thins, but the glue thickens again as it cools. I've never used chalk in the mix, so don't know how it will change the properties of glue.

[HAIIAPHNK]

1 hour ago, Hubac's Historian said:

I am completely naïve on this subject myself, but I was always under the impression that Hide glue (ground up horse hooves, or so I believe), was a simple matter of adding the glue flakes to a melting pot and then they melt right in the pot.

 

You might want to research “furniture restoration/conservation techniques with animal glue,” as this is one arena where these glues are still in use.

 

43 minutes ago, druxey said:

Some water is required when dissolving animal glue flakes. As Aleksandr found out, 'shelf' life of this type of glue is very limited! When warmed (using a water bath), its viscosity thins, but the glue thickens again as it cools. I've never used chalk in the mix, so don't know how it will change the properties of glue.

 

Most likely the glue you mention is similar in composition to the one I bought. It's based on the same principle, just extracted from different animal species. In your case, horses, in my case, rabbits. Other than that, it should be very close. I don't know if there is a difference, for example, one applied in some conditions and the other in others. Maybe a specialist with experience has both of these glues, and a few others on top of that. And he could tell us what he uses in which cases. I have no experience either. 

When I first started searching, I came across recipes with the following content:

 

Glue for gluing ivory items together

Ivory is glued with a paste of slaked lime and raw egg white. A solution of albumin in water with quicklime can also be used. Glued parts are firmly squeezed and left to dry in a cool place for 24 hours.

Small items of ivory glued with an alloy of equal parts of wax, rosin and turpentine. This composition is not particularly strong, but it is very convenient to work.

 

I have met other variations. And compared to this recipe, simple dilution and heating is a great relief. But even with this one I managed to do something wrong. 
No matter what you say, experience is a necessary thing. 

Edited November 1, 2023 by HAIIAPHNK

[Javelin]

Great job you are doing there. 

There is also a material called Elforyn, a synthetic substitute for Elephant or Mammoth Ivory / tusk. Not sure how to glue it, but I'm pretty sure that company will help you with that. If it needs gluing of course. I suppose you can buy it in whatever size you need it, considering it's synthetic. 

https://www.elforyn.de/en/ 

[HAIIAPHNK]

14 hours ago, Javelin said:

Great job you are doing there. 

There is also a material called Elforyn, a synthetic substitute for Elephant or Mammoth Ivory / tusk. Not sure how to glue it, but I'm pretty sure that company will help you with that. If it needs gluing of course. I suppose you can buy it in whatever size you need it, considering it's synthetic. 

https://www.elforyn.de/en/ 

 

Yes, I know about this material. Never worked with it until now. I will try it for sure, but not in this project. I am sure that the customer will be against the use of artificial material.

[HAIIAPHNK]

After publishing how things went with the glue experiments, we need to move on. But what exactly should be shown and what should be omitted? The thing is that in addition to the work with the ship itself, a lot of time and effort is spent on what should be done next to it. And it's a long chain. To make a certain part you need the right tool. To get that tool, you have to make it. And then you have to find a place for it to stand. And so on. It's kind of like the story of the house that Jack built.
And what exactly is worth mentioning in these adventures is the question.

I've already mentioned that now I have to start from scratch. Neither the accumulated fleet of machines is practically gone, nor the workshop. When I do carving, that work doesn't need a lot of input, just an edge on the table, a set of hand knives and chisels, and patience from family members who periodically see shavings on the dining room table.

With building a model ship, things are already different. So I've gone down to the basement where I can get more of both dust and noise. 
I won't go too far into the stories about the workshop. There's nothing new here, I have completely standard tasks. First, you have to figure out where to get furniture to set up a workspace. And then I have to find tools and machines to work with. It's a long process. I suspect it doesn't have an ending at all and every time something needs to be added or changed. So the writing about the workshop is endless.

 

The only thing I'll still mention is the mini loom I needed right now. Urgently. Without it, it would have been impossible to get to work. 
When working with wood, the first place is occupied by a circular saw. Without it is nowhere, because everything begins with sawing the material. And I already had such a machine. But it's not enough. As I did not try, I still have a saw leaves traces on the laths. And they need to be further processed. That's normal. And in any carpentry workshop, the second most important machine is a jointer. But I don't have one. And since I am not engaged in large serious works, I do not need it. Moreover, since in ship modeling the material is laths, the dimensions of which are measured in millimeters, it can be too dangerous to level the surface of such laths with the help of a jointer. Both for the laths and for your hands. You can, of course, find mini machines, such as Proxxon, but that too comes with additional issues. I won't bother explaining these nuances to you.

I decided that I needed a sanding raismus. Pondered and decided that it is easier to make it yourself. There is nothing complicated about it.
And it is. But it's not. Very soon I realized that I had taken on a task that was much more difficult than I had anticipated. And the problems were very different. One machine design wasn't as convenient as I wanted it to be. I had to redesign one part or the other. I've also been plagued by strange dimensional mismatches. For example, I ordered bearings. 

But when the package with them arrived, it turned out that the diameter was different from what was stated in the description. Instead of a diameter of 20 mm these wheels were 19.4. It's a very small difference. But it turned into a problem, because the drills come with a certain pitch. And in the 20mm hole the bearing was hanging out. I tried to put it on glue, measured to make sure that everything was aligned evenly, but in the end there was still run out. I had a similar situation when attaching a drill to the machine. The diameter of the place where the additional handle is attached to the drill was made 43 mm as if on purpose. Not 40, and not 45! Where can I find a drill bit with this size? Again I have to think of something.
And each new problem seemed to be solvable, but for this again it was necessary to go to the construction store and look for other options for solving problems. I have to go to a neighboring town, and drive me can my son, he has a lot of his own things to do.
So it took me a lot of effort, nerves and time for a homemade machine. The only thing that reassures me is that in the end everything works as I would like it to. The gap adjustment between the table and the sanding drum is the same, no misalignment. And I am even proud of the fact that I managed to solve this issue, because initially those options that were offered on the Internet in practice turned out to be very far from ideal.  I can change the dimensions within tenths of mm. Everything works, even if the machine looks unpretentious and simple.

 

Well, now we can move on to what I did with this mini grinding machine? What did I need it for?

 

The first thing I decided to do was the deck decking on the transom balcony. It's supposed to be made of slats from an elephant ivory piano. But there's one thing about them. The thing is, they're not flat. One edge of the bar is slightly thicker than the other. And that means that first of all you need to use sanding to equalize the thickness, to make it so that the slats were even. Otherwise, the differences will be noticeable. And with this task my new machine coped perfectly.
I was prepared that this procedure will be associated with odor, but to my surprise there was no bad odor. Well, that's great. I definitely won't be upset about it.

The work itself is clear, there is nothing to explain additionally, so I just show the pictures. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is an intermediate result. In the future it is still necessary to remove the ribs, which give the floor plane the desired geometry, and on the reverse side to make a planking of wood. But at this stage I put the balcony aside. Making the balcony was directly related to the bone glue. Before the cooked portion went bad, it was important for me to make something where it could be put to practical use. So decking the deck was also an experiment to show what this glue could do. Whether it would hold the thin plates securely. Whether it would shrink and bend the thin paper backing. 

I originally thought it would just be a practice version, after which I would remake this piece out of plywood. But over time I gave up on that. The paper soaked in glue became quite stiff yet flexible, so I decided there was no point in plywood, especially since I need to split it into layers to make the backing thin enough. And plywood that thick can change geometry too.

Further work on the balcony will continue later. I'll put it aside temporarily. At the same time, I will see what will happen to this part, whether it will not become deformed over time. 
In the meantime, I will deal with those parts of the transom, which are easier to do without a balcony. And first of all it concerns the very base, the background, on which the decor will be located.
And about it already in the next post.

[CiscoH]

i am hoping to make some of my ship’s furniture from either bone or possibly Elforyn so i am following closely.  thank you for posting

[HAIIAPHNK]

I hope you find my experience useful. I also want to try Elforin, but it will be in another project, with lions. And much later. 
Thank you for your comment and for following the process.

[HAIIAPHNK]

As I said in the last post the next step is a series of jobs that are easier to do before installing the balcony. And first and foremost are the planking boards on the transom of the ship. The old ones had to be removed as it was decided that the background should be wenge.
Next will be some photos from this stage of the work. It is simple and easy to understand. 

The only thing that had to be considered was what kind of wenge wood I had. If the ivory plates were extracted from an old piano or grand piano, it makes perfect sense that the same source was for the wenge. They were black keys. They were also provided by the customer. It's a good idea. If he has access to old instruments, it was a sin not to take advantage of it.
The only downside of these buttons is their size. It is not difficult to cut the key bar into thin slats, but they are obviously shorter than I would ideally like. 
The solution was simple. Just place the seam of these laths right in the middle of the transom. In the future, a decoration will appear on this background, which will cover the joint. That's all. 
In the future, the black color should be found in other places. And most likely sooner or later I will find myself in a situation where there will be nothing to cover the unwanted seam. But let this task remain for the future. Otherwise I will solve all the problems now, and tomorrow there will be nothing left. And it'll be boring.
And then there are the pictures. There are not many of them, as the process is simple.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[HAIIAPHNK]

The first layer of the background is complete.

We need to move on.

 

 

 

The next phase began with a mental tragedy. And it was my own fault. What happened?
I knew that there would be a lot of details in this project that would require a milling machine. And it is needed now, because the next layer has shaped edges. And they need to be made with shaped milling.  At some point I tried to replace this machine with a vertical drilling machine. But it turned out to be a bad solution, the drilling machine still had a backlash and the cutter cut not evenly. And the idea of doing without the existing equipment did not work. So I gradually saved up money to buy an MF-70. This is the most budget option, maybe you can find something from other manufacturers, but I have not met a suitable option. 
Buying a new machine is still too expensive for me. I don't know how often I will perform projects of this level in the future, so I don't really want to spend money on something that will just stand on the shelf. But I can't do without a machine either, because I need to do the work now. So the most logical option is to look for a used machine. Yes, there are also a lot of questions and problems. What condition it is in, suddenly it will be caught after a breakdown or with serious errors? From the photos you can not always understand it.
But one day I saw an ad that I really liked. The machine was sold as brand new and had not been used. 

The photos show that the machine is straight in the packaging, the mounting bolts and nuts are in separate bags, the work table is not attached to the machine bed. In short, everything is just like a brand new tool. And I immediately got in touch with the salesman and bought this machine...

I've always considered myself a balanced and calm person. I'm not prone to ventures and rash moves. But now I acted exactly like an unthinking baboon. A vague doubt arose as soon as the money was sent. Why didn't I think about it an hour ago? Why didn't I pay attention to the fact that the buyer asked me to transfer the money as a parcel to a friend, not as payment? You've already figured out what happened. An hour later, I decided to search the Internet photos of this ad and very soon saw them on a completely different site, and this product has long been sold. I got on the scammer, who simply put in their ads someone else's photos. So after an hour I realized that I would not receive any machine, and I would not get back the money I sent. Needless to say, my mood was disgusting.

So what do I do now? The task remains. And I have to do something about it. I couldn't spend more money looking for a second machine, the very thought was impossible.

 

There is only one option left. To work in the same way as shipbuilders did in previous centuries, when it was impossible to imagine any milling machine even in dreams. You have to make shaped planes by hand. I don't know if the translator's translation of this tool is correct. In my language, it's called a cyclay. In my case, I made a shaped chicle with the cut I wanted. That's what I used.

Now I needed to mill radiused areas, so I decided that it would be easier to make a mold on the very edge. The small radius was quick enough, but the larger radius took a bit of work.
I decided to make the parts in the form of segments, if to do, so to do as close as possible to the real manufacturing. But because of this, the edges of the segments interfered with the passage of the cutter. In these places it went jerkily and I did not like the result. 

The solution was simple. I am lucky that I am making a radius and not a wavy line. That means I just need to find the center of the radius and make it so that the cyclic moves strictly along the desired arc tied to the center. Like a circlet. 
And now the result is much better.

 

 

 

 

 

There is nothing to write about the rest of the work.

It was only necessary to measure and cut accurately.

And to join them.

 

 

 

[druxey]

I'm so sorry that you were scammed, Aleksandr.

 

I've tried milling such moldings and still prefer the control of using a scraper that has been shaped from a scrap piece of hacksaw blade. Using a mill sometimes 'eats' the work as one feeds it through! Perhaps this was a lucky accident for you after all.

[HAIIAPHNK]

56 minutes ago, druxey said:

I've tried milling such moldings and still prefer the control of using a scraper that has been shaped from a scrap piece of hacksaw blade. Using a mill sometimes 'eats' the work as one feeds it through! Perhaps this was a lucky accident for you after all.

 

Yes, I absolutely agree with you. 
It would probably be easier for me to do some jobs on the machine in the future. For example, I have window frames ahead of me. Or other parts of the structure. I haven't thought about them yet and how exactly I'm going to make them. But in this task, hand tools are enough. 
And the future will show which way I will go. Maybe I will buy this machine after all. Or maybe in the future there will be alternative solutions. 

 

Thank you for your support 🙂.

[empathry]

Alexandr, you have really solved as a master this thorny problem concerning the difference of thickness of the ivory keys !  It's a real pleasure to follow here your adventures whilst your sanding/planer is (alltogether) simple and ingenious !    

[Hubac's Historian]

I’ll second that, and say also that your execution of the moulding work is off to a sterling start.  This is going to be one of the more fascinating projects on the site as something familiar - the hull for L’Ambiteaux - transforms into something less understood: Le Fulminant.

 

Whomever made the hull really did an excellent job.  On a personal level, I would not be enthusiastic about investing all of the time, research and carving work on a project like this, if the underlying woodwork were in any way sloppy.  This hull, most assuredly, is not that.

 

It all looks to be a very harmonious collaboration of highly skilled makers.

[HAIIAPHNK]

1 hour ago, empathry said:

Alexandr, you have really solved as a master this thorny problem concerning the difference of thickness of the ivory keys !  It's a real pleasure to follow here your adventures whilst your sanding/planer is (alltogether) simple and ingenious !    

 

1 hour ago, Hubac's Historian said:

I’ll second that, and say also that your execution of the moulding work is off to a sterling start.  This is going to be one of the more fascinating projects on the site as something familiar - the hull for L’Ambiteaux - transforms into something less understood: Le Fulminant.

 

Thank you for your words of encouragement. I try to do my best to make the result worthwhile.

 

 

 

 

1 hour ago, Hubac's Historian said:

Whomever made the hull really did an excellent job.  On a personal level, I would not be enthusiastic about investing all of the time, research and carving work on a project like this, if the underlying woodwork were in any way sloppy.  This hull, most assuredly, is not that.

 

It all looks to be a very harmonious collaboration of highly skilled makers.

 

You are right, I have done a lot of work. I can imagine how much effort it took. And I am very sorry that the work was not up to its final form. Originally it was supposed to be a classic Admiralty. And a series of lower decks built with all the interior spaces mentioned. But they are not finished to their final form. The upper decks are still missing. It takes a lot of patience and persistence to get this ship "off the slipway". My role as a decorator is a drop in the bucket compared to the huge amount of other work that has yet to be done.

[HAIIAPHNK]

 

 

I have a small amount of news accumulated for the new issue.

 

There is nothing to describe here. The vertical side frames have just appeared.

 

 

 

And now it's time for not so simple details. I mean the shaped ledge at the very top, on the bow, which crowns the stern transom.
Adding another layer with the wenge background.
 

 

And these photos show a failed first attempt at making a cornice. What happened? I decided to make the cornice profile from a straight lath. The manufacturing technology was the same - with the help of a homemade figure scraper. And this part of the work turned out without problems. Then the resulting cornice should be bent to the required radius. The technology of this stage is also not new. I boiled the lath in water, and then began to fix it in the necessary position, using a template. And here was the problem. The lath was not everywhere the same thickness, and even after the bath it bent reluctantly. It didn't help that I made long kerfs on the underside of the lath to make it easier to bend. In addition, the cornice was difficult to press against the template, as you had to rest the spacer wedges on the face of the cornice, and any careless movement crumpled the shaped profile pattern. This is a glance at what I got. Or it is more correct to say "it didn't work out".

 

 

 

 

 

The profile is all crumpled, the curves are not smooth. Added to all this was the fact that after cooking the lath swelled and the profile pattern became bloated, and the wood texture itself became rough. In a word, it is impossible to use such a product. And the method is absolutely wrong. It should have been done differently.  

In particular, the way I did when I made the radial edge of the background layer. It worked out very well then. So, you just have to repeat the same technique. 

First, I made the cornice itself the desired shape. And then, using a fixed centering cyclic, I gave the workpiece a shaped profile.

 

 

 

 

 

 

To the last picture I will leave a small description. Let it be a clue for me, just in case I ever forget this little detail and this picture will be remembered. In Russian there is a simple expression: everything ingenious is simple! This lath with a cut out window turned out to be very simple, but a very nice addition that makes the work a lot easier. When you hold a hacksaw in your hands (from which I make shaped scrapers), your hands get tired very quickly. Holding a more solid bar with the scraper inside is much more comfortable. It is comfortable to hold in your hands. When the scraper is hidden inside the magazine of this rail, it can't be angled, which means the shaped profile will always be perfectly level. There are a couple other advantages, but I won't detail them. A small addition, which greatly contributes to the work and makes it better.

 

But this is not the biggest problem with the cornice. The main difficulties awaited ahead. The thing is that this cornice should "run" in different planes simultaneously, and to the sides, and down, and with a slope. Plus after a few millimeters there should be a new joint and new directions. So each new section was tiny and difficult to hold and handle. But that's why we love ships. Here, every new task is a challenge. It seems like you've only made a couple of small parts, but there's a sense of satisfaction and pride in the fact that they've turned out. Just now you are happy, and already you need to go further, where again new challenges await. How to correctly calculate the joints, how to make, how to hold these little things....

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Which means you can't do without boiling the blanks. So I have to boil them first and then glue them together. Otherwise the glue will be destroyed by welding. 
And there's another problem. I need to glue thin laths with their ends facing each other. And such a joint will be very brittle. Any movement will break the joint. So what do I do? I had to think about it. The first attempt was a failure. No matter how hard I tried, the parts tore, the thin end was too small to hold the parts together. And the bent profile had too much tension to avoid the pressure in the thin seam. A different solution was needed.
Finally, on my second attempt, I decided to make quarter kerfs on the laths. This gave the gluing points a much larger area. Maybe this will be enough for a strong seam? And practice has shown that this solution turned out to be correct. The rest was quite simple. It remains to give the glued in a single board laths the necessary geometry and put them in their place.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is how the next stage was completed. It seems that not much has been done. As my wife once said: you spend so much time that it should be enough to build a real ship. I don't know, maybe that's true. But I don't have a better option yet. At least at this rate, the work is moving forward. 

 

Edited December 12, 2023 by HAIIAPHNK

[HAIIAPHNK]

The work is moving, albeit slowly. The details are small, it seems like I've been doing something all day. But in the end, the changes are almost invisible. Well, we've all experienced it. Model building is not a fast process. You have to make a blank before you can make a tiny segment out of it. Then you have to wait for the glue to dry so you can take measurements for the next segment, which is even shorter than the first one. And then you see the mistake, and you redo the whole thing.... So gradually the hours add up to days, and before you know it, the week has already flown by.

So to show the changes in the photos are quite insignificant.
First of all, I had to redo the previous stage. Last time I showed the work with a shaped profile at the very top of the ship's transom and how I made a curved planking. And where were my eyes? I didn't see that I had made a mistake. The shaped profile on the two columns at the edges were not made with the correct angle of inclination. 
Here on the photo of the last issue this mistake is clearly visible. 

 

See how big the gap is? How come I didn't see it before? I started thinking, what to do now? Should I put plugs there? No. That's not the answer. They'd look exactly like plugs. Trying to hide the mistake. That's no good. So we had to go back and redo that ledge.
After that, I began a new task. Making the profile above the windows themselves. There's not much to tell. The whole technology is the same as before. I didn't try to take a lot of pictures. Here are just a few.

 

 

 

 

[druxey]

Ah, those compound curves and angles! There are always hidden traps to fall into on a ship's stern. Nice work on the moldings; they look excellent.

[HAIIAPHNK]

14 minutes ago, druxey said:

Ah, those compound curves and angles! There are always hidden traps to fall into on a ship's stern. Nice work on the moldings; they look excellent.

 

Thank you for the high praise. And for your continued attention. It's very inspiring.

[empathry]

Your curved profiles are really smart Haiiaphnk, they remember me the basics of geometry ! 

I am presently inquiring upon a thesis which name is " French king's vessels sculpted and painted ornaments, from 1660 to 1792 " and it appears that a paper sample is stored at the Sorbonne library in Paris. 

I'm not anymore a student and will need to find for a pass to go there and examine it ! 

Edited January 8 by empathry

[Hubac's Historian]

35 minutes ago, empathry said:

Your curved profiles are really smart Haiiaphnk, they remember me the basics of geometry ! 

I am presently inquiring upon a thesis which name is " French king's vessels sculpted and painted ornaments, from 1660 to 1792 " and it appears that a paper sample is stored at the Sorbonne library in Paris. 

I'm not anymore a student and will need to find for a pass to go there and examine it ! 

Can I ask you, Empathry, who the author of this thesis is?