SMS WESPE 1876 by wefalck – 1/160 scale - Armored Gunboat of the Imperial German Navy - as first commissioned

[wefalck]

Thank you very much, Brian, for your kind words !

 

*******************************************

 

Steady work, but somehow slow progress ...

 

 

Anchor stowage and release gear

 

The Inglefield-anchors are stored on sort of recessed slides and released by a traditional form of gear. This gear consists of a rotatable iron bar with a couple of thumbs welded on over which the securing chains are hooked. The chains go around the anchor and the other end is shackled to the wall of the recess. The bar is prevented from rotating by lever that is also welded to it. The lever in turn is locked by a rotating claw at the end of a second lever. I suspected this mechanism from the available drawings, but wasn’t shure about it – a German colleague had better eyes than me an could confirm this indeed on the not very clear photographs.

The slide is protected by three T-rails on each from the weight of the heavy anchors.

 

Recessed slide and anchor release gear – close-up photographs are terribly sobering 😞

 

The release gear was fabricated from 0.3 mm diameter tinned copper wire and assembled using varnish. The rails in turn are fabricated from laser-cut strips of Canson-paper that was soaked in varnish. They also function as bearing for the bar of the release gear. I suspect the bearings were a bit more elaborate on the prototype, but I don’t have more detailed information. The locking claw is also a microscopic laser-cut piece. As usual, I had to experiment with different variants of the drawings and settings of the laser-cutter until I managed to produce reasonably clean parts.

 

 

Recessed slide with Inglefied-anchor put temporarily in place

 

Also visible on the photographs are the foundations of the anchor-cranes that will be discussed in the next installment.

 

View of the bow with the anchor stowage

 

 

To be continued ...

 

Edited January 6, 2021 by wefalck

[BANYAN]

Very nicely done Eberhard, they look good.  Interesting anchor stowages.

 

cheers

 

Pat

[KeithAug]

Eberhard - The anchor looks even better in situ. Photos do seem to magnify construction dust very well.

[wefalck]

Tell me about dust ... particularly, when you use the sharpening feature in Photoshop.

[wefalck]

Things never seem to be straightforward, there always seem to be a lot of set-backs caused by technology or materials limitations or, indeed my clumsiness. I seem to loose or destroy many parts during further production steps. Making the boat-davits in my mind seemed simple process, but became rather involved, so that I have to break the reporting on it into two installments. The process is not finished yet ...

 

 

Boat-Davits

 

Originally, the WESPE-Class was provided with four boats, later a small dinghy was added to the complemenent. The very first photograph shows the boats suspended outboard from the davits in the traditional way. A few years later ‘barrings’ or boat-racks were installed above the walk-ways along the deckhouse and the davits elongated accordingly. I gather the boats were prone to damage and prevented the boats from being alongside each other in a ‘parcel’ (as was common practice for flottillas of the same class of boats). For the same reasons at some stage sponsons were installed to protect the screws, which projected beyond the profile of the boats, from damage. However, as I will show SMS WESPE in her original configuration, I choose the shorter, fixed davits.

 

Micro-Ball-turning on D-bed lathe with ‘right-angle tailstock’ as steady

 

The davits presumably were hollow, but were not simply curved pipes, but changed their diameter and cross-section along the length. They apparently had a cross-section of a flattened oval in the curved part in order to resist the bending force of the suspended boat. This makes the construction of the davits a bit more involved. At the upper end there is a ball that holds four rings for the stays and the hook of the boat-tackle.

 

Set-up for ball-turning on D-bed lathe

 

They started out as 1 mm brass rod (steel would have been better, but is more difficult to drill and to solder ...). The machining steps required a bit of planning in order to keep unsupported areas to a minimum. First the ball was turned in my small 6 mm lathe, where I could use the so-called ‘right-angle tailstock’ as a steady, using my home-made ball-turning attachment. The turning bit was a broken 0.2 mm drill, the end of which was ground at a suitable angle.

 

Davits after the ball-turning operation

 

The pieces of brass-rod then were transferred to the dividing head in the micro-mill for 0.2 mm cross-drilling into the ball – four holes were needed in each. Aligning the drill and the ball is a bit tricky, as the drill might slip, bend and break.

 

Cross-drilling of ball-ends with 0.2 mm drill in the dividing head on the micro-milling machine (view through binocular microscope)

 

This task provided the incentive to finally commission the antique stereo microscope that I bought a while ago, but never got work properly. By close inspection I discovered that one of the two objectives was misaligned – some previous owner must have tinkered with the adjusting and setting screws. Playing around with the screws, I managed to get proper stereo vision which made the cross-drilling job rather easy and I managed to get the 24 holes without drill break.

 

Axial 0.2 mm drilling on 6 mm D-bed lathe

 

The remaining eight holes are axial and were drilled on the lathe.

The next two steps in shaping the davits were also carried out on the lathe. The section behind the bulwark is cylindrical. In order to safely turn down the the relatively soft 1 mm brass to 0.7 mm a so-called ‘Jacot-tool’ was used as a steady. This is essentially a an excentrically mounted hardened drum with groves of known diameter along the perifery. These grooves can be aligned with the centre-line of the lathe. Normally this tailstock-tool is used as a steady to burnish axles and similar watch parts. After each pass, the drum was turned to a smaller groove in order to provide good support while turning down the shaft of the davit.

 

Set-up for using a ‘Jacot-tool’ as steady for taper turning

 

In the following step, turning the tapering upper end of the davit, deliberately a groove one size too small, forcing the rod off-centre. This resulted in a slight taper as desired. The procedure was repeated with inreasingly smaller grooves until the upper end reached a diameter of 0.6 mm.

 

Using a ‘Jacot-tool’ as steady for taper turning

 

I didn’t take pictures of the next steps - lots of work with handtools. The davits now were taken into a collet in a square collet-holder. Under the stereo microscope the cross-drilled holes at the top were aligned with the sides of the collet-holder. This allowed bending the davit in the corret direction. Bending was effected with bending pliers against a scale-drawing of the davit. That these slighly marred the back of the davit did not matter, as the shape had to be filed anyway. With various very fine files the shape of the curved section of the davit was developed.

 

To be continued ...

Edited February 24, 2021 by wefalck

[Bob Cleek]

Clever trick the way you offset the davit stock to cut the taper!

 

[BANYAN]

Nice work Eberhard, and inspiring also.  I think I may revisit my davits and try something similar.

 

cheers

 

Pat

[druxey]

Ingenious use of a Jacot tool!

[michael mott]

Very nice use of lateral thinking to accomplish a delicate bit of machining, Eberhard.

 

Michael

[KeithAug]

Interesting design of tailstock mounted steady Eberhard - i may have a go at making something which achieves the same effect. Nice detailed work as usual.

[wefalck]

Thanks to all.

 

The tailstock-mounted steady, Keith, is a bit of a compromise, as it is difficult to put a travelling steady onto a watchmakers lathe. On them it's the top-slide that does the x-movement and a steady as whole would move with every movement in the y-axis.

 

For work in confined spaces I made myself another steady that fits into the same tailstock holder:

 

 

I am not entirely happy with the arrangement, as it is not so easy to precisely set the finger. One day I may make a micrometer feed mechanism.

Edited March 7, 2021 by wefalck

[wefalck]

Boat-davits – Part 2

 

The davits lock into the mounting plate on deck and are fixed to the rail of the bulwark with a bracket. This arrangement is entirely conjectural, as there is no suitable photographic evidence. The mounting plate is a simple piece of turned and drilled brass. The brackets started as thin discs with a slightly raised hub in the centre. From these discs three sides were milled off on the micro-mill to arrive at a rectangular plate with the raised hub at one end. Nothing spectacular either.

 

The boat tackle is belayed on a clamp that is fastened to the davit. The clamps were milled from a piece of 3 mm x 3 mm square brass rod (because I didn’t have 2 mm x 2 mm in stock ...). They are so tiny, that it would have been difficult to take pictures of the process. Again this was really only made possible now that I have the stereo-microscope in working order. First, the profile of the clamps was milled along the whole length of the brass, while it was clamped horizontally in my micro-vice. Next the piece was mounted upside down and a groove milled to fit onto the davit. The vice then was clamped vertically in the dividing head of the mill and the clamps sawn off.

 

The clamps and the bracket were soldered to the davit. For some reason I always struggle with soldering such parts whatever materials and tools I am using ... wanted to use soldering paste, but somehow mine didn’t work. In the end traditional solder did the job.

 

The eye-bolts were bent from tinned 0.15 mm copper wire. Tinned wire was used to make soldering it into the pre-drilled holes. First I formed the eyes around the shaft of a 0.25 mm drill, but then found that I can form them just with a pair of fine tweezers equally well. The wire ends were cut off flush with a pair of cutting tweezers, but a scalpel on a glass plate would have worked also.

 

Using a Novotex-clamp to hold the davits for re-drilling

 

Soldering the eye-bolt didn’t quite work out first for the same reasons. I then tried to cement them in using shellac, but the joint wasn’t strong enough (I don’t have CA around and don’t like it anyway). It took a while until I developed the right strategy. Also, I didn’t dare to drill 0.2 mm right through the spheres, but with control under the binocular it can be safely done. It turned out that I had to re-drill various holes, because they became filled with solder. Holding the davits for re-drilling caused some head-scratching at first, but then I remembered that I had made clamps from fibre-reinforced bakelite (Novotex) for the third hand and took one into a 4 mm collet in the dividing head. This proved to be stiff holding arrangement and watching the drilling under the binocular, allowed the check for any dangerous deflection of the drill.

 

The finished boat-davits

 

So on the bottom line, the following strategy would have been best (and was put into practice for some of the davits):

- drill the axial hole first on the lathe, bend the davit and the solder the eye into it;

- then cross-drill horizontally;

- insert an eye-bolt with a long leg and form the other eye with a pair of tweezers, so that both eyes are pulled tightly against the davit;

- solder the pair of eyes;

- cross-drill the vertical hole for the eye-bolt into which the boat-tackle will hook.

- insert an eye-bolt with a long leg and squeeze the leg flat, so that it cannot slip out.

- solder this last eye.

When the soldering is done fast and the other eye are not touched by accident in the process they will stay put.

 

Boat-davits temporarily installed

 

To be continued ...

 

Edited March 7, 2021 by wefalck

[BANYAN]

Looking good Eberhard, particularly noting the scale you are working at.

 

cheers

 

Pat

[druxey]

I'm amazed at the davit detail that you've achieved at that scale, Eberhard. Well done indeed!

[Gahm]

Your level of detail at this scale and your precision of execution is really amazing and inspiring! 

 

Thomas

[ERS Rich]

Greetings from Boston USA,

 

Stereo microscope!  Wow!  

 

Thank you for showing how it’s done.

 

Would you happen to know where one could purchase a Jewelers Lathe?

 

Cheers

Edited March 9, 2021 by ERS Rich

[wefalck]

Thanks for the friendly comments.

 

As to sources for watchmakers lathes, there are several answers to that.

 

Second hand ones:

- by word of mouth and 'connections'

- the usual auction sites

- certain used tool traders

 

There are very few makers these days and most would be out of reach for hobbyists:

- Schaublin S.A. and Bergeon S.A. in Switzerland

- Levin in the USA (but for these you really have to take a loan on your house)

- there is one Chinese manufacturer, who makes lathes similar to the old ones

[KeithAug]

On 3/9/2021 at 2:33 PM, wefalck said:

the usual auction sites

 But beware, many are partially or substantially incomplete, a decent one is likely to cost several thousand dollars.

[Keith Black]

 Ever since Eberhard gave me the bug to buy a jewelers lathe I've scoured high and low, the ones partially or substantially incomplete as Keith said, are expensive. A complete vintage jewelers lathe (the ones I've found anyway) cost more than sin! 

Edited March 11, 2021 by Keith Black

[wefalck]

Well, that is true up to a point. I have noticed that prices have gone up dramatically over the past 15 years or so in particular and would not be able to get anymore, what I bought 20 or 30 years ago. If my memory is correct (I am too lazy to pull out my records), I paid for my first quite complete set (a 6 mm Wolf, Jahn & Co. so-called D-bed or Geneva-style lathe) in 1988 around 1300 £ (I burnt a performance prime in my first job for that, at lot of money considering that my annual salary as a civil servant was 12k£ ). While initally this was a somewhat blue-eyed and innocent acquisition (I didn't know anything really about such lathes) with a practical purpose, it has become since a side-hobby in itself.

 

Under today's circumstances one may need to think more carefully about the tasks one wants such a lathe for. For me the bigger (8 mm) lathe is my only 'real' lathe, but one could think of some model engineering lathe for the bigger work and use a watchmakers lathe with a limited kit only for the real small and delicate work.

 

One of the main advantages of a well-kitted out watchmakers lathe is the flexibility and variety of work-holding.

 

I am sorry, that I put the bug in the head of some of you and it may be unfair ...

[druxey]

Another make to consider is Boley. Again, it should be complete not missing a tailstock or other part. Avoid any with signs of rust! I've found that a lathe with a collet-holding tailstock (such as the Levin) is much more useful than one that only will take a dead center. A good cross-slide will cost as much or more than the basic lathe. Beware of ones on the second-hand market that lack the shoe under to square it with the lathe bed. Also, a set of collets is  quite an investment.

[wefalck]

Boley (or Boley-Leinen) are considered prime makers, as are Levin. For some reason Boley prices are highter than the other (German) makes. Boley is one of the few makers, who are still in business, together with Bergeon (who are more of a distributor) and Levin. The Paulson lathes in the USA were actually made by Boley at a time when labour was cheaper in Germany than in the USA.

 

If you want to know more on what was/is on the market Tony Griffiths in the UK has compiled a very comprehensive Web-site on small lathes: www.lathes.co.uk.

 

If you want to learn more about these lathes, I would recommend to get hold of a copy of this book: CARLÉ, D. DE (1985, 4th edition): The Watchmakers and Model Engineer‘s Lathe – A User‘s Manual.- 193 p., London (Robert Hale). Makes you drool, but unfortunately virtually all of the suppliers have ceased to exist.

 

And yes, 'druxey' is right, you should look for one with a cross-slide. Crosslides alone are somewhere around 250 to 500 €/£/US$ depending on the make, but I have people asking ridiculous prices on ebay these days. For a single collet I would pay between 10 and maximum 20 €, depending on the size and state. In a set they my come cheaper. Sherline sells acceptable 8 mm collets, but I still would rather go for antiques. However, their chucks are good value and I have several of them for 'rough' work.

 

'druxey' is also right about the collet-holding lever-tailstock, one should have one. The simple tailstocks are ok for supporting the work in a dead-centre, but whatever adapters people offer as after-market attachments, they are not so useful for drilling. It would be not too difficult to convert a simple tailstock into a lever-stock with a runner that has a socket for ER11-collets. If the tailstock is bored for 8 mm runners (and not for 7 mm as many are) than you will be able to find 8 mm diameter ER11-arbors on ebay. ER11-collets clamp down to 0.5 mm and hold drills much more securely than WW-collets.

Edited March 11, 2021 by wefalck

[Keith Black]

1 hour ago, wefalck said:

I am sorry, that I put the bug in the head of some of you and it may be unfair

 Eberhard, please don't apologize. I enjoy getting "bugs", in the end I may not be able to act on them but I do manage to learn something new in the process. And thank you for the lathes.co.uk link.

[wefalck]

As I was on the boat-davits I also tackled the anchor-cranes in a similar way.

 

*********************************

 

Anchor-cranes

 

As noted above, the bow anchors are handled with two pairs of cranes that are positioned on either side of the anchor pocket. These cranes will be painted white in compliance will the prescribed livery. Hence, it does not matter what material is underneath and I first attempted to laminate them up from laser-cut Canson-paper parts. There are actually two sets of different cranes, one with three sheaves and one with two sheaves. They were made up from four and three layers of Canson-paper respectively and cemented together with lacquer in the usual way. The sheaves at the end are held by brackets that were lacquered on. Sheaves were turned and lacquered in. However, in the end the result was not as crisp as I had wished for.

 

Set-up for milling the flats onto the davits

 

The milling seen through the stereo-microscope

 

So I turned back to brass, starting with pieces of 1.2 mm diameter wire. A spigot to fit into the sockets already installed on the boat were turned on and the other end received a male centre. The piece then was transferred to the dividing-head on the mill, supported by the tailstock. The four long flat sides were milled on with a small-diametre burr. The flat section is 0.8 mm high and 0.6 mm wide. The sides of the future brackets were milled flat. After re-chucking, a starter slot for the sheaves was cut with a circular saw.

In the meantime, the sheaves of 0.9 mm diameter were turned from the same brass rod and the grooves, which are 0.3 mm apart were marked with a pointed turning-tool. The main craine has three sheaves, while the auxilliary one has two sheaves only. They were all turned in one piece and I did not bother to drill the sheaves for axles.

The brackets on the cranes were bent to accomodate the sheaves, which were soldered in place. The shape of the cranes then were finished with files and abrasive discs in the handheld drill.

 

The only photograph (blow-up) on which one can discern the belaying point for the anchor-tackle

 

The tackles are belayed on clamps or belaying pins – the photographic evidence is not clear and on the drawings these were omitted. I decided in favour of clamps as these were easier to make.

 

Set-up for the first step in making clamps

 

A piece of 2 mm brass rod was chucked up in the dividing-head set vertically and a flat of 0.3 mm width and 0.9 mm height was milled on. This piece then was transferred to the lathe, where the T-shape and the 0.3 mm diametre spigot were turned. After parting off, the clamp was finished in a pin-vice using small files and an abrasive disc in the handheld drill.

 

Turning the rough shape of the clamps and their spigot

 

The clamps filed to shape

 

As the clamps are fitted to the sides of the davits, 0.3 mm holes had to be drilled for their spigots. I did not want to do this before bending the davits, as it would have weakend them and the hole might become distorted in the process. However, it turned out the davits could be clamped conveniently in the mini-vice in the dividing attachment on the mill.

 

Set-up for drilling the anchor-cranes

 

Drilling the anchor-cranes as seen through the stereo-microscope

 

The clamps were soldered into the holes. This completed the construction of the davits.

 

The four anchor-cranes in place (they are about 10 mm high)

 

To be continued ...

 

Edited March 13, 2021 by wefalck

[druxey]

Wow! Some amazing miniature machining again. I think you mean 'cleats' rathe then 'clamps'?

[wefalck]

Me culpa, of course, you are right ! Sometimes my native German gets in the way. There cleat = Klampe.

[KeithAug]

On 3/13/2021 at 11:58 AM, wefalck said:

The four anchor-cranes in place (they are about 10 mm high)

 

Eberhard - today I forced myself to use the Optivisor and remembered why I hated it so much. I admire your dedication and skill but I think I will stick to larger scales. great work and usual.

[wefalck]

Thanks again gentlemen !

 

Being myopic, there was a time, when I could just take off my glasses and didn't need to bother with any magnifying devices. Long gone. I am slowly moving on to stronger equipment. I have 2x magnifying safety glasses (which gives me together with my own 4.5 myopy a good magnification). Occassionally, I am using optivisors, but do not like them too much due to the short working distance. Some years ago I bought a set of magnifying telesopes as used by surgeons, but never really used them, because here the working distance is to large - they are meant to work standing over a patient, not for sitting at a work-bench. And then I got the stereo-microscope, which now that I adjusted it properly really like for working with the milling machine. It took the fear off of drilling 0.2 mm holes and you can properly watch what happens when milling tiny parts.

Edited March 26, 2021 by wefalck

[KeithAug]

22 hours ago, wefalck said:

due to the short working distance

Eberhard - yes that is what I find. I am constantly out of focus because my hands naturally drift out to my normal working distance. 

[wefalck]

Stairs and ladders 2

 

 

While struggling with something else I will be reporting on shortly, as a diversion at looked at the stairs and ladders again.

I had fashioned the stairs from bakelite paper some three years ago (time is flying), but somehow I was not 100% happy with the result. The bakelite paper has a smooth surface and edge can be filed smooth too, but the glueing with CA was not quite so neat as I had wished. In principle it can be cleaned up well with a sharp chisel and fine steel-wool, but the inside edges of the steps are difficult to get to. Below is the result from that time:

 

Selection of stairs (not yet trimmed to length)

 

Having now the laser-cutter at my disposal, I decided to try my luck with it. The photo-etching templates I had drawn quite a while ago where modified for use on the laser-cutter. The idea was to build up the stringers from three layers of 0.15 mm thick Canson-paper. The innermost layer has slots for the steps. The steps themselves are build up from two layers of paper.

 

 

Laser-cut pieces for stairs waiting to be assembled

 

First the stringers were laminated together using lacquer and the edges sanded smooth, dito the steps. One stringer was then leaned against a little steel block with exactly square side on a glass plate. In this ‘jig’ the topmost and the bottom step were glued to the stringer with lacquer. Next the second stringer was glued on, while held exactly vertical with another little steel block. It was also checked that the step were at a right angle to the stringers. This assembly was let dry thoroughly. Still between the two steel blocks as ‘jib’ the remaining steps were slotted in and fixed with a drop of lacquer.

Using the laser-cutting process ensured that the upper ends of the ladder had a uniformly rounded shape and the bottom was cut off at the correct angle to the deck.

 

Collection of stairs and ladders (the stairs are 4 to 5 mm wide)

 

The stairs were held in place (I assume) by shoes made from bronze. I cut out these shoes with the laser-cutter and attached them to the bottom end of the stringers. Eventually, they will be painted in bronze colour and glued to the deck.

The colour of the Canson-paper soaked in lacquer comes close to that of teak, from which they were made presumably on the prototype. However, the actual colour depends on the number of layers of shellac I happend to apply and varied at places. So I will have to spray-paint them eventually to also get an uniform sheen on the surface.

 

Assembly of ladders for the barbette

 

The barbette is provided with two ladders, that allow the crew to scramble in and out of it, while for more leisurely access there is a narrow stair leading down from the bridge area. The stringers of the ladders, presumably steel on the prototype, were also cut from Canson-paper with holes for the rungs marked by the laser, which were opened up with a cutting reamer to exactly the right size for the wire to be used as rungs. 

 

Trimming flush the rungs of the ladders using a pair of cutting-tweezers

 

After the trimming a second layer without perforations was laminated on.

The ladders eventually will be painted white as the inside of the barbette will be.

 

 

To be continued ....

Edited April 2, 2021 by wefalck