Beavers Prize 1777 by Mike Y - 1:48 - POF - Hahn style

[scrubbyj427]

Very nice joinery! The pear wood looks really good. I’m sold!

[jdbondy]

Lovely appearance! I love those Veritas chisels.

[Wintergreen]

I obviously missed some posts here due to my habit of sailing in the summer.

What a nice looking platform Mike!

And since it's new years eve I take the opportunity to wish you a prosperous 2025 with lots of hours at your workbench!

 

Keep it up!

[Mike Y]

Thanks Håkan, truly appreciated  

Yes, spending more time on the hobby is my new year resolution, even sneaked a couple of hours recently! 

Best wishes to you and a lot of joyful days in your workshop!

[md1400cs]

Mike,

Yikes --- just catching up - 🙂 your work is so good!

 

Cheers,

[Mike Y]

Time for some side projects  

 

Fist I was concerned about the side-to-side alignment inside the hull.

The height measurement gauge is asymmetrical, and flipping it around may introduce some measurement errors. So I wanted to make a pointy thing that can be moved side-by-side on the top gantry. 

There was a question in another log - "what is the mill for" - here is a classic example of a simple part that should be square with a precise and square-profiled recess. Mill is much more consistent and requires less skill than a "well tuned table saw", for example.

For the "pointy bit" I needed something very soft to avoid scratching the part. Basswood from the Model Shipways kit was ideal - I use it a lot as a soft lining for clamps and jigs. 

I wanted to practice milling it in a rotary table instead of using lathe or a rotary tool. Not the best idea, the finish was not smooth at all (though such a soft wood is not making the task easier)

The resulting gadget. When in action - only one clamp is holding the arm in the correct position, while the assembly slides side to side. Should work even with curved beams, by probing the ends of the beam.

In action:

[Mike Y]

Next up was the problem of wood stock preparation.

Majority of the interior construction is made out of relatively small lumber, 2-4mm in 1:48 scale.  I could never cut those perfectly on a table saw, they always need a lot of finessing later on, resulting in an uneven strip. The wood sheets I have are 1 or 2 or 3mm thick, so more sanding is needed if you need something in between. The strip preparation was taking too much efforts.

A thickness sander would be ideal, but the only one in a small scale is Byrnes, which is rather a collector item nowadays.

DYI options are not appealing either, and they are still noisy and dusty.

Another alternative is a thickness planing jig. Most of them are too complicated for my task - with knobs and adjustments leading to inaccuracies, so I decided to use spacers. The range of required thicknesses is rather narrow - on of the largest parts (gun deck beam) is just around 4mm thick. 

 

Decided to build the jig out of scrap piece of walnut. Did not want to risk using plywood, the grooves might end up on a wrong layer, resulting in an uneven surface. They are tiny, but need to be smooth. 

 

Cutting precise grooves on a table saw is not so easy, but slow and steady does the job

Router plane helps to clean up the bottom of the groove:

Resulting jig, custom made for the miniature Veritas bench plane:

Spacers are made out of styrene, very good material for that. Easy to get in a variety of thicknesses, affordable, does not warp with moisture, fairly hard (to avoid compressing too much when planing). I have cut a bunch of spacers with a smallest increment of 0.25mm, should be enough for the range of thicknesses I need.

Jig in action:

Quite happy with it! Simple jig, but very effective. And perfectly quiet  

The finish is incredibly smooth out of the box, so I can use the part right away with no further surface cleanup or sanding. If necessary - should not be hard to add a sanding block for the same jig. 

I could easily get down to 1mm thickness, anything lower - and it is better to hold the "tail" of the strip rather than push it into the stop, otherwise it might get wavy.

 

[No Idea]

Mike that is genius;  what a great way of achieving your needs - even better you are only producing wood shavings instead of dust 👍

[AON]

Do you stack the spacers to get the variety of thickness in 0.25mm increments?

[Mike Y]

Yes, I need to stack different thicknesses, of course trying to reduce the number of spacers (using one 2mm instead of two 1mm, etc). It's a bit similar to the dado stack on a table saw  

Since the depth of the groove is around 4.5mm - you do not need that many spacers to tune to the proper thickness

 

[Wintergreen]

Lovely, opposite ends of the spectrum. On one side, the mill with lathe setup and on the other a "simple" shooting board. Excellent!

 

Can't wait to see more progress 😉

 

Keep it up!

[gjdale]

Very clever design and use of jigs Mike - great work!

[jdbondy]

Very impressive! I may have to duplicate your jig.