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

[cog]

Hello Mike, good to see you back at the forum. Have had I good holiday?

[Roger Pellett]

The post by me about Admiralty draughts was posted to the wrong topic -my goof up.   I intended to post it to the build log for HMS Deadlight where this topic is being discussed.  I certainly had no desire to critique your beautiful model and I apologize.  I removed the post.

 

Roger

Edited August 6, 2017 by Roger Pellett

[Mike Y]

11 hours ago, cog said:

Hello Mike, good to see you back at the forum. Have had I good holiday?

Yep! It was a very intense summer, but it was great! Now there is an itch to make some sawdust again. Occasionally.

 

Roger, no worries! Removed my post as well.

Edited August 6, 2017 by Mike Y

[Mike Y]

Horray, modelling weekend! I had a classic modelling block - "oops, lots of potential mistakes ahead, and the wood is expensive - I better do smth else for a while". But forced myself to start cutting that wood!

 

Lovely morning. Lots of toys to play with! This update looks like a Veritas ad, for some reason I used most of the tools I had this time. Maybe I just missed them  

 

 

First I cut the glass grooves on the table saw, that was easy. And a groove for the LED strip:

 

 

Making bevels on the edges. Surprisingly, mini plane was better than a block plane with bevel guide (which was too aggressive and left some tearout).

Really happy with the new plane - it is more ergonomical than the smaller version of it. Using both depending on the task.

 

 

Time to cut the miters, the most scary part of the project. Proper markup is the key:

 

 

Miter sled was very handy, gives a good control with no slippage. But not all the angles are 90 degrees in this build  

 

 

Miters were undercut and finished on the disk sander. Sander is way more precise than the saw:

 

 

Next I milled the slots for the reinforcements, otherwise the endgrain-to-endgrain joint would be too weak.

Finished stock, no mistakes!

 

 

Oh well, I was too optimistic Apparently my mill vice was installed with a bit of an angle, so the offset of the slots was different on different sides of the vice. Some slots turned out to be misaligned:

 

 

Fixing them with a tiny chisels: 

 

That will effectively make some slots wider, but I will fill in the gaps with epoxy. It would be hidden anyway, and I hope that epoxy will provide enough support.

Edited August 13, 2017 by Mike Y

[Kurt Johnson]

Lucky guy, enjoy your day!!

[cog]

What else would you use those tools for ... Nice work!

[Mike Y]

Still learning the best ways of working with epoxy. First gap filling had too much spillovers (tried to use a masking tape to contain the epoxy), so the second attempt relied on gravity to keep epoxy in place:

 

Epoxy is a fantastic thing, but I need more practice to use it without making a mess. It sips under a masking tape as well.

 

A bit about the lumber I cut, made a photo of a stump. Colleagues say it might be Willow. Looks similar!

[cog]

The art is not t o over do it, but to use just enough, Mike ...

[Mike Y]

The case is dry assembled, and after some fine tunings and adjustments everything fits perfectly!

It has a bit more flex than I thought, 3mm plexiglas is not so strong. Who knew! I used some test pieces to pick up the glass thickness, but when you have a larger plane - it flexes differently. The photo is a bit distorted, it actually have just 1mm of sag in the front and no sag in the back  (there is a 20mm square pear stock there).

To prevent sagging, will add a reinforcement to the top part of it, which will lock the front glass frame with the front frame of the case.

 

Now I can finally sand, finish and assemble it. Will use silicone to mount the glass and epoxy for the joints. When the top part is done, will rebuild the base out of thinner plywood - the base is probably 5x heavier than the case itself  

 

Also not sure how to plank the "floor" of the case (flat surface where the model will be). Planking it with pear would be boring, but I am on the edge between a lighter colour (that willow I cut down might come in handy) or a darker one (walnut).

Aaargh, hate do to the colour choices!

 

[cog]

Very nice job on the case, Mike. I would take a contrasting colour to set the ship off. I think walnut will be to dark for the room where you will put it up. Your case might be very visible because of a dark colour. You have enough wood to put on top of the base and have a look at the influence a colour has both on the model and the surrounding area

 

Say hello to the missus and Daria. Hope they are doing well

 

Cheers

[Mike Y]

Thanks for the advice, Carl! Will do!

[AON]

would you consider taking orders to make cabinets for others? 

 

beautiful job.

[cog]

"would you consider taking orders to make cabinets for others? 

 

beautiful job."

 

Maybe as a kit, then he can ship it world wide

[ChrisLBren]

Beautiful cabinet Mike !  Id personally go dark - your ship is swiss pear - that color will "pop" against a dark base.  Then again I am biased - I'm using a black base with my Confederacy

[Mike Y]

Too early to say that it is good, not done yet! The design is basic, but will see how the door design will work out.

Chris, hope to see the pictures of your base and a display case soon

[Mike Y]

After few more dry fits and verifications, I made recesses and rabbets to hide the ends of "floor planking" and potential backing sheet on the back side of the case. So far I am planning to just have a bare wallpaper there, but if not - the recesses will allow to properly feet a sheet of some material (white acrylic or similar).

So now the best part - finish sanding / scraping. Mostly scraping - with rectangular objects it is a walk in the park, and yields a better surface without rounding:

Finish scraping with xacto blade, it is perfect for that:

 

Applying danish oil. Irregular grain pattern leads to slight "curls" when oiled, looks sweet. Picked danish oil instead of tung this time, tung oil sips too deep into the wood, is too dark for that case and takes forever to dry.

[kees de mol]

Beautifull job on the showcase. Wow 

 

[Mike Y]

All parts of the case are finished, so starting the glue-up, side panes first.

 

First thing to do is to find a flat surface to glue on, since the sides are too flexible (both wood and plexiglas) to be rigid. 

My workbench is not flat enough (beech wood it is made of swells a lot with humidity, leading to warpage), but luckily the case base is dead flat and stable, since it is a torsion box. Checked with the straight edge:

 

Then I need to mask every part with blue tape, to reduce the mess after epoxy. For that I did a number of trials with different types of masking tape available locally, to find the one that leaks the less (epoxy can leak under some tapes). Scalpel is used to cut it just enough to let epoxy get out and avoid trapping it in the joint:

 

The rest is a time race:

1) Apply a bit of epoxy to all future joints (8 surfaces). They are all endgrain-to-endgrain (well, diagonal grain), so needs to pre-absorb some epoxy, otherwise the glue joint would be weak when real epoxy would be sucked into the grain.

2) Plexiglas is attached to the wood with a silicone glue, so every groove need to get a continuous line of it. (4 grooves)

3) Carefully insert the glass without moving it too much to avoid messy silicone glue squeeze-out.

4) Connect joints together, applying thick epoxy to it as you go.

5) Align everything, check squareness

6) Clamp and re-check again.

 

 

It was not so easy to keep track of all that, especially with a 10-15min working time for both glues.

Epoxy gets out to the masking tape, but all the mess stays on it:

 

So the first side ended up so-so, with some joints having gaps. But this side would be less visible than the other, so should be ok.

 

Full view:

 

After a full assembly, I will scrape and sand all jonts to make sure they are nice and flush. 

Second side window was much smoother, all joints look tight with no gaps. I have big hopes for that second side

 

The moment of truth is coming - joining these sides together with a top glass and front frame. Really hope that I will not need to scrap the entire thing and start over...

Edited October 23, 2017 by Mike Y

[cog]

Looks promissing,. Mike. You don't need to scrap it, just send it over

[Mike Y]

This log was quiet for a while, but I have a number of excuses:

These are various Christmas gifts The "4-in-a-row" game took a lot of time to make (especially without a drill press):

 

This is a turned pen & pencil set (spalted olive and wenge), made for my father who loves writing. In a click-to-open box (two kinds of walnut, swiss pear inside, brass pins):

 

 

Magnetic key racks. They are made of a pretty interesting walnut plank following the grain pattern , one ended up looking like a fish. This was not the intention, but this fish was just hiding there  Milling the magnet slots was quite tricky, because the "wall" thickness should be around 0.5-0.8mm to make sure the magnet is close enough to key ring to hold it securely, and walnut is quite fragile on that thickness. One tiny measurement mistake - and the whole thing would be ruined. I ruined one, made a mistake when counting mill rotations:

Two other surived:

 

And some cheese boards are also cut following the grain, kinda fish-like as well:

[Mike Y]

Going back to the Oliver Cromwell's case - the last set of sticks is done. These are the top ones, that are a bit tricky.

These pieces are right on the viewing angle (or a bit above), so I tried to make them as thin as possible. A the same time, they should not sag.

To make them stiffer, I added a boxwood strip that joins them tightly, adds a bit of T-profile and ensures proper alignment:

 

LED strip is mounted on a 45 degree angle, facing the inner side of the case:

 

There would be two strips running in parallel, one on top of the case, one in the bottom. Testing both:

The strips are pretty high quality, so hope it would be ok!

 

Planning to finish the glue-up and assembly after the holidays

Edited December 16, 2017 by Mike Y

[druxey]

Looking forward to seeing the completed case, Mike! Happy holidays.

[michael mott]

Lots of interesting stuff going on. I really like the case with the pen and pencil.

 

Michael

[Gaetan Bordeleau]

Pencil case definitely has a nice curve!

Very nice gifts, you made, Mike.

[cog]

Lovely gifts Mike. I am certain your father will be thrilled to bits with such a pencil set.

 

Great work on the case. I do, as druxey, look forward to seeing your case in all it's splendour

[Kurt Johnson]

You really have mastered wood as a media. Everything is beautiful. Did you make use of the log you had found or is it seasoning. Speaking of season, God Jul!

 

Kurt

[Mike Y]

Thanks everybody! I hope the recipients of the gifts will appreciate them. And promising myself "no more side projects until the display case is finished, and then - work on the internal planking of the hull!"

 

Kurt, I sliced the first log into small planks, planning to plank the "floor" of the display case with them, in diagonal pattern. This wood is too soft and grainy to be used on a model (no surprise), but I hope the colour will look good. Haven't tried to apply finish to it yet, the thin planks are drying and waiting for their turn. 

 

 

[Kurt Johnson]

Wood is such a fantastic material to work with isn’t it? Especially when the finish turns out the way you envision it should be.

 

Kurt

[Kurt Johnson]

Just wondering, since all your work seems well thought out. How are you planning to mount the Cromwell? Pedestals, cradle, slipway? I’m guessing it will be very simple and elegant based on your projects. Just trying to figure how I want to do my own project and looking for ideas.

 

Kurt

[Mike Y]

Kurt, for the next few years it would be still in the building jig, at least until I plank it and install some deck framing. Too risky to remove until then, the hull will get skewed and frames will go out of alignment. When in the jig, the keel is hanging in the air, and the hull is fixed in place by gluing frame tops to the jig. For example, you can see it on this photo: https://modelshipworld.com/index.php?/topic/7297-oliver-cromwell-by-mike-y-148-1777-pof-hahn-style/&do=findComment&comment=436953

 

But if we just speculate and throw ideas around - I was thinking about a small building slip, like it was in real shipyards (wooden blocks and slippers under the keel). And a tiny supporting structure (not sure what is the name of it) on the planked side of the hull, that follows the shape of the hull underside. No supports on the bare-frames side. To make it work and avoid tipping over, planned to use magnets - one glued in between the frames, hidden under the planking, another is embedded into the supporting structure.

 

Here is an example from the maritime museum in Hamburg. With magnets, there should be enough support even without these tall vertical timbers that "hug" the entire hull.

 

This is just a plan so far, but since magnets will be totally invisible - I will glue them in strategic places just in case, maybe they will become useful later.

Magnet mount will also make it very easy to get the model out of the case, which necessary to show the model where two sides are very different (I will leave one side fully bare, and one side fully planked).

 

Edited December 18, 2017 by Mike Y