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

[wefalck]

Yes, milling with a carbide cutter, could have been an option, but on the sloping faces I needed many different lengths ... For a future project this could be an option, making a bundle using shellac and then holding it in a collet to mill to length. Still, cutting the wires in the first place is a pain - they are really tough, even the thinnest ones. I bought them for rails and such stuff, but they are very difficult to work with. 

 

[druxey]

Astonishing work. To cut such short lengths of fine wire to length, do you use cutters or roll the wire on a hard surface under a scalpel blade?

[wefalck]

As the ends are not visible, I was not concerned about the cut, so I just cut it with a square scalpel blade on a thick sheet of glass. The wire was first stretched to straighten and harden it a bit. To straighten bent pieces, I roll them between two smooth and flat pieces of hardwood.

[BANYAN]

The skylight came up nicely Eberhard.  I had to make similar sized but had mine fully etched in 0.1 mm  brass which turned out OK; I am assuming you tried that without success?

Wishing you all the best wishes for 2022

 

cheers

 

Pat

[druxey]

It's exactly the process that I use for cutting and straightening wire. 

[mbp521]

Impressive details at such a small scale. It makes my eyes hurt just thinking of working on something that small. Great work on the skylight!

 

-Brian

[wefalck]

On 12/27/2021 at 2:27 AM, BANYAN said:

The skylight came up nicely Eberhard.  I had to make similar sized but had mine fully etched in 0.1 mm  brass which turned out OK; I am assuming you tried that without success?

Wishing you all the best wishes for 2022

 

cheers

 

Pat

Pat, I didn't yet respond to your comment above - I have somewhat mixed feelings about photo-etched parts, not so much because of the technique as such, not at all, but often it is used to create lots of detail, but does not represent the details very well as they really look(ed) like. The protective bars were round brass rods, set into the wooden frame of the skylight, which is why I have represented with round wire ...

 

In the next post I will show another skylight, where the grille was place on top of the wooden skylight and this turned out to be too flimsy at this scale to fabricate from wire, so I resorted to etching from 0.1 mm nickel-silver (my supplier didn't offer 0.1 mm brass and nickel-silver is stiffer than brass). Unfortunately, that meant that I had to paint it to make look like brass.

[FriedClams]

Amazing sub-miniature detail - rifles in 1:160.  Your log is a pleasure to follow and to learn from.

 

Gary  

[wefalck]

Thanks !!!

 

*********

 

Door-Knobs

 

I felt like doing some lathe-work, so I tackled the knobs for the various doors in the deckhouse and the back of the fore-castle. That is, I assume there were knobs and not handles. However, it is likely that they used knobs, as handles pose a higher risk of getting caught with some clothing or lines getting caught.

 

I turned these from brass nails. I like to use these as the process of stamping seems to work-harden the brass a bit. Otherwise, it seems to be difficult to get hard brass wires.

 

The target-diameter of the knobs was 0.4 mm, equivalent to 64 mm in real life. It took a number of tries before I had developed a tool-setting and protocol for turning them that allowed me to produce a reasonably uniform set of eight plus a few spares – they do like to jump off the tweezers when you try to insert them into the pre-drilled holes.

 

Turning door-knobs: Step 1 – roughing-out the shape with a square tool

 

The turning proceeded in three steps, namely 1) roughing-out the shape with a square tool, 2) shaping the knob with the ball-turning tool, and 3) thinning out the shaft until it breaks off the stock by itself.

 

Turning door-knobs: Step 2 – shaping the knob with the ball-turning tool

 

Turning door-knobs: Step 2 – shaping the knob with the ball-turning tool (close-up)

 

The tool-bit in the micro-ball turning tool is a broken 0.4 mm drill, the end of which was ground to a cutting angle. It produces nice curling swarf.

 

While turning the knobs was easy, once the right settings had been found, inserting the knobs into the pre-drilled holes precipitated a lot of (mental) bad language …

 

 

Example of door-knob in place (Grrr … this close-up show every speck of dust and all imperfections)

 

 

To be continued ....

[druxey]

Turning? You should have written 'micro-turning'! Well done, as always.

[Keith Black]

 Eberhard, you never cease to amaze me with your ability to replicate the tiniest detail. The thoughts of a .02 inch doorknob leaves me shaking my head in disbelief. 

[G.L.]

13 hours ago, wefalck said:

 (Grrr … this close-up show every speck of dust and all imperfections)

 

 

 

Imperfections? ... I only see perfection.

 

Beautiful work!

[KeithAug]

Happy New Year Eberhard. You have been busy over Christmas. I loved the rifles and the sky lights are a masterpiece of miniaturisation.

 

 

[wefalck]

Thank you very much, gentlemen, for your kind wishes and the praise !

 

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

 

Completing the skylights 2

 

Work on the skylights continued with the one over the pantry. The basic structure had been completed quite a while ago, including the protective grilles. Now, the upper part was painted in Vallejo ‘wood’ and then with a couple of coats of Vallejo ‘transparent mahogany’. Several thin coats of Vallejo ‘satin varnish’ gave the ‘wood’ some depth. The lower part was just painted white.

A chimney was turned from a piece of 2 mm brass rod and slotted at the top to simulate the vents. It was chemically blackened to simulate the appearance of heated metal painted black.

 

The completed skylight – rear view

 

I only had side and plan views of the belfry and there is no photograph in which it is really visible. The bell of S.M.S. NATTER survived and is now in a museum-collection, so that we know what is looked like. I invented the shape of the belfry and drew it to be laser-cut. The parts were assembled in the usual manner using zapon-varnish. The bell was rough-turned on the watchmakers lathe and the actual ‘bell-shape’ finished with a hand-graver. I don’t really know, whether this is correct, but the belfry was painted white.

Finally some ‘hinges’ to the raising panels of the skylight were added in form of pieces of 0.1 mm wire. 

 

The completed skylight – front view

 

 

To be continued ....

Edited January 10, 2022 by wefalck

[Keith Black]

Eberhard, incredible work as always, beautifully detailed micro work. Is the bell 2 mm as well?

[BANYAN]

Beautifully executed Eberhard, your skills at this scale are remarkable.

 

cheers

 

Pat

[mtaylor]

As always, your details at the small scales you build at just blow me away.  Just incredible.

[mcb]

Hello Wefalck,

The wood effect turned out well, I like the hinges.

Well done as usual. 

 

MCB

[Gahm]

Looking at your pictures I always have a hard time to believe that all these details are possible at that scale! Wonderful work!

 

Thomas

[mbp521]

Amazing detail work in miniature!
 

.2mm door knobs, I would have had to make a dozen spares with maybe one or two left over. Sacrifices to the floor gods.

 

Beautiful work as always Eberhard. 
 

-Brian

[Ras Ambrioso]

Love your 0.1 mm hinges. Incredible we irk as usual. 

[KeithAug]

18 hours ago, wefalck said:

Work on the skylights continued

Is that a Port bottle cork? Suddenly working in miniature is becoming a lot more appealing.

[wefalck]

Thanks, gentlemen !  Keith, I need a glass of port afterwards to calm my nerves down, so I accumulated quite a few corks  🥴

 

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

 

Completing the skylights 3

 

The skylight above the officers’ mess in the rear of the ship is the only one for which a close-up photograph exists, so the details can be reproduced with reasonable confidence:

 

The skylight above the officers’ mess (Laverrenz)

 

The basic structure, again, had been built a long time ago and now it was painted as per prototype. 

The top of the skylight was removable and presumably could be replaced with a more solid hatch-cover in bad weather – the main deck is only a couple of feet above the CWL ! The tarpaulin to cover the hatch would be held down with battens for which clamps were provided on all sides. The battens and the clamps are laser-cut from 0.2 mm Canson-paper and were then soaked in zapon-varnish to harden them. The battens were built up from two layers. Battens and clamps were assembled and then the assemblies cemented to the skylight using satin acrylic varnish.

 

Painted skylight, battens and protective grille before assembly

 

As opposed to the others, this skylight has outside protective grilles, that are fastened with hinges. The frame had been etched from 0.1 mm thick nickel-silver (I couldn’t get brass sheet that thin at the time). Etched-in notches on the underside ensured that the bars would be equally spaced. The bars are made from 0.1 mm brass-coloured copper-wire glued in place with varnish. This assembly then was cemented to the skylight using acrylic varnish.

 

 

 

The officers’ mess skylight ready to be fitted to the model

 

To be continued ....

[KeithAug]

Eberhard, beautiful job - the spacing on the bars looks excellent. I tried to look up what vintage LRZ 602 was but failed.

[wefalck]

Can't help you with the Port, could also have been a Sherry though - accumulated many of these corks for painting such small items and figures over the years.

[Bedford]

Eberhard, the coal bunker on S.T. Waratah has the same method of clamping down the canvas cover. I think you'd find there were wooden planks with bar handles set into rebates for ease of handling. Canvas over the top and wedges driven in between the clamping battens and their brackets.

 

You've recreated it very nicely.

[BANYAN]

Very nicely executed Eberhard; that is quite some detail at that scale.   Mate, if you need more cork's I am happy to deplete your supplies of 'Port'  

 

cheers

 

Pat

[wefalck]

@Bedford, you are absolutely right, the battens were tightend by shallow wedges driven in from opposite sides under the clamps. Apologies for not having modelled them, but I believe they are stored below deck, when not in use

 

@Pat, thanks for your kind offer, however, it seems that we are able to generate a fairly steady supply to my toolbox 🍷

 

[wefalck]

The Mast

 

These boats initially had a very simple one-piece mast for signalling purposes. At a later stage, a more complex version with a topgallant mast and cross-tree was installed to allow for a better spread of signal flags and the cones that indicated the rudder direction to facilitate flotilla manoeuvres. However, the model will be fitted with the simple mast only.

 

The mast itself was turned from a 1.5 mm steel-rod with a shoulder to accommodate the four shrouds and hangers for the signal halliard blocks. The information is rather scarce with only the earliest picture of S.M.S. WESPE showing the whole mast and the lithographs showing the lower part. The height had to be estimated from the photograph, while the lower diameter could be taken from the lithograph. The belaying pins for the signal halliards are set into a wooden shelf, rather than into the spider band. This wooden shelf was fashioned from a tiny piece of bakelite paper into which the appropriate holes were drilled before.

Belaying pins of 2 mm length and 0.2 diameter are a modelling challenge. A first attempt using lengths of wire and drops of white glue to represent the handles did not produce consistent and satisfactory result. Therefore, I decided to attempt to make them the ‘proper’ way, i.e. to turn them.

 

After a couple of failures (though the first two attempts went well), I arrived at a procedure that produced consistent results with a low failure rate. The key is to do the turning in small steps to minise cutting forces, having a sharp tool, set to just a tad below centre-height. The material used was 1 mm mild steel-rod because the brass I have available would have been far too soft for such tiny pieces. Although the belaying pins are a bit oversized for flag-halliards, making the pins was a bit of a proof of concept with my follow-on project in mind, where I will need quite a number of such small ones.

 

In a first step, the 1 mm diameter was reduced to 0.4 mm over a distance of 0.8 mm.

 

1^st step in turning micro-belaying pins: roughing out the handle

 

The handle then was shaped using a 1 mm mouse-tail and a tiny flat file:

 

2^nd step in turning micro-belaying pins: shaping the handle with files

 

Then the diameter below the handle was cautiously reduced to 0.2 mm. The first cut here is quite critical, as the square cutting tool cuts over its whole width of 0.4 mm.

 

3^rd step in turning micro-belaying pins: reducing the diameter of the shaft to 0.2 mm

 

In several 0.2 mm steps one then works towards the target length of 2 mm.

 

Final step in turning micro-belaying pins: reducing the rest of the shaft to a diameter of 0.2 mm

 

When trying to reduce the diameter below 0.2 mm, the finished belaying pin usually shears of cleanly from the stock. The pins then were chemically blackened.

 

The mast was given a base-coat of Vallejo 71.033 Yellow Ochre, a wash of Schmincke 28610 Ochre, and a very light glazing of Vallejo 70.956 Clear Orange. Once the blackened belaying-pins had been inserted the whole assembly was given a light coat of a mixture of Vallejo satin and gloss varnish to make the mast resemble oiled wood. The shoulder, were the shrouds rest probably had been protected by a copper sheathing and this was imitated by paint.

 

The finished mast

 

The shrouds were probably made from galvanized steel rope and need to be served in the area where they attach to the mast. I still have to work out a good way to imitate this in 1:160 scale and probably need to build the serving machine first that I had planned to make for a long time.

 

To be continued ....

[KeithAug]

Eberhard,

 

Very tricky turning. Did you consider making the pins the other way round with the handle end towards the chuck. If you didi why did you decided on the method you used?