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

[mcb]

Hello Again Wefalck,

Amazing work here.  I wouldn't think it possible to produce such small belaying pins. 

You really have simulating wood solved.  I will have to save this info for future projects.

 

Thanks for presenting this,

MCB 

[wefalck]

Thanks, gentlemen !

 

Keith, it sounds indeed logic to begin with the step-wise turning at the thinnest end, the shaft. This, however, would leave you with rounding the head of handle in a different set-up. While this is quite feasible for diameters above say 0.4 mm (and I have done it), it is very likely that the handle would just shear off when you try to do this with shaft of 0.2 mm diameter - and I do actually have one of the rare 0.2 mm collets.

 

So shaping the handle first was a much surer procedure and slipping with the files was inconsequential, while in the other case one may have just snapped off the handle.

 

Also, plunging into the material at 0.2 mm cutting width seems to have excerted less forces onto the part than taking side cuts towards the collet.

[druxey]

Silly question, Eberhard; you say the completed belaying pin usually shears off cleanly. How did you manage to retrieve it? I find small turned parts fly off forever more often then not - and they are bigger then your belaying pins!

[wefalck]

Caution, not too high spindle-speed, veery low infeed and ... a matchbox underneath to catch the part (visible on the last photograph). It is also important to wipe off all swarf before proceeding with the last cut, because the swarf can catch the part on the cutting tool or make it spin around with the stock. Also, one has to learn to live with losses, but in this case surprisingly, I did not loose any at this step.

 

Later on, I lost one finished pin when trying to insert them, that flew across the bench, but I heard it dropping and found it again - only to jump off the tweezers again into some unidentified black hole on the bench

 

[mbp521]

Amazing work as always Eberhard! As a curiosity, how many of those tiny belaying pins were lost to the floor gods? I would guess it is a good thing they were made from steel instead of brass so they could be rescued with a magnet. As for your mast, if you wouldn’t have told us they were painted, I would have put a weeks wages on them being stained wood. Simply beautiful.  
 

-Brian

[wefalck]

Brian, see above. Surprisingly, I only lost one of them, when installing them. Actually the steel is a bit of a pain, as I cannot get my tweezers properly demagnetised (I have a demagnetiser as used by watchmakers, but it doesn't seem to work too well ...) and this tiny parts hold on to them, sometimes without me noticing.

 

Actually, the wood effect is just brought about by applying the darker wash unevenly and in the direction of the supposed wood-grain. Also, one has to choose the right colours and work with glazings and varnishes to give the material 'depth', i.e. the impression of being varnished or oiled.

 

Imitation of wood by painting once was a popular technique in interior decoration - to turn cheap woods into something looking more expensive, when for structural strength reasons other materials had to be chosen, or when wood was too expensive, e.g. for panelling walls. There are antique and modern text books on the subject.

[druxey]

Thanks, Eberhard. So you do in fact have a black hole, albeit a small one, in your workshop! 

 

One excellent book on faux finishes is Professional Painted Finishes by Ina Brousseau Marx, Allen and Robert Marx, Watson Guptill, 1991.

[KeithAug]

12 hours ago, wefalck said:

This, however, would leave you with rounding the head of handle in a different set-up.

Yes I had assumed this but I bow to your superior knowledge of the ability of the .2mm shank to resist the cutting forces. However I have an idea that I might try in an idle moment -

 

1. Drill a .2 mm hole in a spare piece of larger stock - say 2mm.

2, Turn the .2mm shank to length and turn the handle to nominal diameter and length. Then part off or more probably cut off with a jewellers saw.

3. Either soft solder or glue the .2mm shank into hole bored in the larger stock.

4 Finish turn the handle and then heat to break the bond.

 

If I were doing many I think I would make all the blanks first, followed by shaping all the handles. Just for fun I might give it a go on my rather large lathe. But not soon as I don’t have .2mm drills.

 

 

[wefalck]

My experience with re-chucking such small pieces is, that it is rather difficult to get them right on centre again. For this reason I prefer a method in which all the turning can be done in one set-up.

 

Your idea of using a sort of micro-wax chuck, as the watchmakers would call it, could in principle work, but by removing it from the collet to release the finished piece, one would loose the concentricity. 

 

One problem with my 0.2 mm collet seems to be that it pinches the part too much at the front, so that too much of the shear forces are concentrated at the point between the shaft and the handle, leading to the handle shearing off. I have a set of brass insert collets (which watchmakers use for working on very delicate parts on which they don't want to mar the surface), but I think they also only go down to 0.3 mm. Once could make one, that clamps the shafts over their whole lenght, such distributing the forces. All this would be quite a bit of work.

 

If I had a precision tool-grinder with a microscope mounted on it, I would grind a combination of rounding-off and parting tool ...

 

Another strategy I have been thinking of is to only turn down to shaft diameter the part that sticks out from underneath the pin-rail, while leaving the part what would be in the pin-rail/mast collar the same diameter as the lower end of the handle. This would have the advantage of being stronger and allow me to drill a larger diameter hole into the pin-rail, but the height of the pin would need to be set by eye.

[FriedClams]

More amazing work Wefalck.  It always an education catching up on your progress - and enjoyable as well.

 

Gary

 

[KeithAug]

42 minutes ago, wefalck said:

Your idea of using a sort of micro-wax chuck, as the watchmakers would call it, could in principle work, but by removing it from the collet to release the finished piece, one would loose the concentricity. 

Eberhard, yes I was aware of that problem, hence my remark about making all the blanks first.

 

The larger piece of stock would be mounted and drilled. The blanks would be inserted into the stock and removed without removing it from the chuck thus retaining concentricity. With your equipment i can see why you favour your method. I was just musing on how I would do it with my equipment.

 

Most of the fun is working out the possibilities - as demonstrated by your thoughts on other options.😊

[druxey]

I've made two-part pins as you suggest (but at a larger scale). The handle section simply has a short stub to insert in the rail. I did not have issues with collet 'pinch'. In your case, the lower part could simply be of wire - no turning required.

[Ras Ambrioso]

Wefalck, I admire your ability on the lathe. Those belaying pins are incredible.

[wefalck]

Thanks again for your kind consideration !

 

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

 

Interlude: Serving machine

 

On this model there is very limited rigging, four simple shrouds to the mast and the funnel stays. For the latter I have not come to the final conclusion, whether they may have been chain or wire. In any case there would be no serving on them, except perhaps the eyes, in case they were wire.

 

The mast shrouds almost certainly were wire in 1876 on a ship like this. Judging by the available photograph, they were put over the mast with eyes, which is why the mast was prepared as discussed in the previous post. Where wire shrouds go over the mast, they would be served to prevent chafing and cutting-in. As the mast does not carry any sail, the shrouds do not need to be very heavy, 16 mm diameter, i.e., 0.1 mm on the model would be sufficient, as they are also only around 16 m long. The plan is to fashion them from six strands of 0.007 mm silver wire (as apparently used to repair mobile phones and therefore readily available on ebay et al.). They would be made in pairs, looping over the mast from opposite sides and with a seizing to form the eye. The serving required would be about 10 mm long.

 

Medium-sized Märklin construction set of ca. 1960

 

Given this small amount of serving needed, plus perhaps a couple of block strops, I thought I would get away for the time being with a makeshift serving machine. I kept my childhood Märklin construction set (the German equivalent of Meccano) for such ‘emergencies’ and proceeded to knock up a serving machine with it.

 

Makeshift serving machine made from Märklin parts

 

Unfortunately, it turned out that I only two gears of the same size, while for a serving machine one needs two pairs with the same module and tooth count, so that they have the same distance of the shafts. I had to use two V-grooved wheels with a crossed rubber belt instead.

 

I first twisted the six strands of wire together to form the wire ‘rope’ by uncoupling the drive on the left and then started to wind a 0.05 mm wire around it. While the machine worked in principle, due to the improvised drive-train on the right and the absence of proper shaft bearings, it turned only in jerks and did not run smoothly.

 

While it was a prove of concept, that one can actually serve a 0.1 mm wire rope with say 0.007 mm wire (the thinnest I can get), it requires a precision machine to handle the very delicate material.

 

I had planned to postpone the construction of a proper serving machine until S.M.S. WESPE is finally completed, but will have to look into it now. The ideas are there, but I have to order the necessary materials first.

 

To be continued ....

 

Edited February 13, 2022 by wefalck

[KeithAug]

1 hour ago, wefalck said:

I kept my childhood Märklin construction set (the German equivalent of Meccano) for such ‘emergencies’ and proceeded to knock up a serving machine with it.

 

 

Eberhard

 

I see a lot of Meccano at our local auction house. It generally goes for a song as kids these days don't seem to have any enthusiasm for nuts and bolts. I think lego put an end to the Meccano era. I used to have a number 9 set (the second largest) but many  years ago my father took it away to play with it. He has been dead for 10 years and I'm not sure what happened to it However I like the idea of making a serving machine from Meccano. You might be able to source more bits for you Marklin set at your local auction.

[druxey]

Lots of Meccano gears are on eBay as well!

[wefalck]

There seems to be a collector scene for almost everything, but these Märklin sets and parts have been so ubiquitous, that prices are quite low. When we had to clear out my parent's house four, five years ago, when my mother (97) moved to a retirement home, I checked on the value of a lot of stuff - whether it was worthwhile selling off separately or leave it to the house-clearance guys we had to use.

 

Märklin/Meccano and Lego are two different things and train different skills in children, but as Lego seems to have become more and more 'technical' (after my time - I still remember, when wheel units were introduced around 1962), it probably did kill the market for the others, which where much more expensive to produce. I remember seeing Lego as a kid as something to build houses and such stuff and Märklin/Meccano as something to construct machines and engineering structures, which is what they originally were meant for.

 

Anyway, the Märklin/Meccano route does not have any advantages apart from prototype, proof-of-concept construction. Originally toyed with the idea of making an all-Bakelite machine (sort of replicating 1920s/1930s style of engineering) and bought some thick material, but I don't have a big enough table saw, that can cope with 6 mm Bakelite. I probably go for an extruded aluminium profile backbone with T-slots, which has several advantages. I also considered making the gears myself, I do have a M 0.5 hob, but perhaps that's too much effort for such a tool and would delay completing WESPE even further ...

[KeithAug]

12 minutes ago, wefalck said:

I also considered making the gears myself, I do have a M 0.5 hob, but perhaps that's too much effort for such a tool and would delay completing WESPE even further ...

Eberhard

There seems to be a buoyant market in self build CNC router parts which include shafts, bearings, structural members, lead screws, gear and toothed belt drives etc, etc. they are all fairly cheap. You might be able to knock something together which would be both quick to build and functional.

[wefalck]

I like to build 'nice' machines  ... but these extruded profiles have become quite easily accessible in small quantities. I also bought some 4 mm shafts a while ago - the idea is to be able to use the hooks and cheap collet-holding chucks from my 'third hand'. I have to see what other suitable materials I have in stock.

 

Something I learned from playing around with the Märkline machine was that it is better to put the crank (I am not intending to motorise it for the time being) onto the connecting shaft, rather than onto to the short shaft with the hooks. If you do the latter, the driving force to the left side has to go through two connections, namely the gear wheels on the right and the left - in the former case you drive both sides symmetrically from the same connecting shaft. Seems to work better.

 

I don't understand, why the commercial serving machines are built so 'lofty'. OK, you may want to have some some clearance around the material to be served so that you can pass a reel with yarn around or have space for the traveller with yarn (see archjofo's building log), but the commercial ones appear to be excessively spidery. I will keep mine low and compact, as the very thin material I will be using may not support the weight of a traveller.  

 

[KeithAug]

3 hours ago, wefalck said:

Something I learned from playing around with the Märkline machine was that it is better to put the crank (I am not intending to motorise it for the time being) onto the connecting shaft, rather than onto to the short shaft

Yes that makes obvious sense from a mechanical engineering point of view.

[Ras Ambrioso]

Wefalck, you bring back memories. I was building all kind of structures in 1940 Cuba using my Erector set. I also remember those Marklin toys. And you are right, the newer generations doesn't appreciate these kind of toys. They are too used to get things already made.

[wefalck]

Funnel and Boiler-Room Ventilators

 

Not really much to write about, as the parts had been built quite a while ago. Just a bit of assembly work and painting. Unfortunately, I forgot to take a picture of the assembled parts before painting. Just before painting, also the turning handles for the ventilators were glued on using shellac. These are made from 0.1 mm wire flattened at the ends using a specially made die in my little jewelling press. They are extremely delicate.

 

The colour of the funnel and the boiler-ventilators may be debatable. Research on possible colours arrived at nothing. The 1874 ordinance states that funnels should be ‘yellow’ or ‘mast-colour’, but I could not establish what this yellow actually looked like. A colleague recently discovered an 1890 ordinance that specified that the ‘mast-colour’ should be mixed from 460 g dry white-lead and 260 g dry light ochre pigment with 300 g varnish, to be diluted for application with a further 310 g of varnish. The ratio between white-lead and light ochre suggests a rather light yellow hue, but we do not have a real clue to its actual hue. Circumstantial evidence, such as paintings, seems to suggest that in those early years of the Imperial Navy the yellow was indeed lighter than in later years. Preserved models from the later 1880s show a darker and murkier yellow than one might expect from the above recipe, while the strong yellow of the late tropical livery of the Imperial Navy had a decidedly orange tint. The buff/yellow of the RN seems to have undergone a similar development, while the French navy used a rather murky beige. 

 

The first photograph of S.M.S. WESPE of 1876 must have been taken either on a wet collodium or on a dry gelatine plate. Both of which have little red sensitiveness and, therefore, represent colours at the ‘warm’ end of the visible spectrum darker than one would expect from an panochromatic film. The funnel thus appears considerably darker than the white of superstructure. After some colour testing, I finally decided on Vallejo Model Air 71.107 ‘US interior yellow’.

 

Bow view of the assembly of funnel and boiler-room ventilators

 

The boiler-room ventilators show the same level of grey as the funnel and are decidedly darker than the other ventilators. This indicates that they were also painted yellow, while the 1874 ordinance prescribed white for ventilators. Given their closeness to the funnel it does make aesthetic sense to have them painted yellow.

 

Another issue is the interior colour of the ventilators. We seem to take it for granted that ventilators are red inside mostly, but it is not clear when and how this fashion came about. Perhaps they were painted red to resemble the copper that was frequently used in their manufacture in earlier years? On the early photograph the interiors appear very dark, but due to the limited red-sensitivity this is not conclusive evidence that they may have been painted black. Nevertheless, in the end I decided on black for the interior of all ventilators.

 

Stern view of the assembly of funnel and boiler-room ventilators

 

To be continued ....

Edited February 15, 2022 by wefalck

[BANYAN]

Very nice work Eberhard;  think your 'yellow' choice is very close - well with much of the material I have seen while researching.

 

cheers

 

Pat

[Richard Braithwaite]

On 2/13/2022 at 1:12 PM, KeithAug said:

 

Eberhard

 

I see a lot of Meccano at our local auction house. It generally goes for a song as kids these days don't seem to have any enthusiasm for nuts and bolts. I think lego put an end to the Meccano era. I used to have a number 9 set (the second largest) but many  years ago my father took it away to play with it. He has been dead for 10 years and I'm not sure what happened to it However I like the idea of making a serving machine from Meccano. You might be able to source more bits for you Marklin set at your local auction.

I have a load of Meccano that I inherited from a cousin years ago. Made various things with the kids over the years but hadn't thought of using it for rope making machines etc.

[druxey]

My ropewalk is constructed from vintage Meccano gears.

 

It's hard to believe that the funnnel/superstructure is as small as it actually is. Super work, Eberhard. 

[ccoyle]

On 2/14/2022 at 3:51 PM, wefalck said:

while the strong yellow of the late tropical livery of the Imperial Navy had a decidedly orange tint.

 

I wondered about that when I was building HMV's tropical version of SMS Emden. It was very orange indeed and quite different from what was shown on the computer-drafted cover version.

[wefalck]

Thanks, David, I always forget to put my Euro-Cent into the pictures for scale. The funnel has a diameter of 9 mm.

 

What is the shaft diameter for Meccano? Meccano seems to have been better in gears than Märklin. I remember that it has been always my chagrin that I didn't have enough gears in my Märklin set, even though at some stage my father got me some extra ones and worms. Looking at the prices of new gears, some old Meccano gears might actually be a cheaper option.

 

I am contemplating cutting my own gears. I do have the equipment (mill, dividing head, mod 0.5 gear hob), but it's quite a bit of work. Also getting a piece of brass of the right diameter is quite expensive - almost as much as getting some ready-made gears fro China. Unfortunately, the stuff in my stock was either too small or too short. I like the idea of brass gears, but POM would be easier to machine and sufficient for the load and number of applications. Have to ponder a bit.

 

Yes, Chris, sources and paintings from the time indicate that 'yellow' of the tropical livery was actually rather orange. I don't know the reason. Perhaps one would find something on the rationale behind in the files, if they survived. Unfortunately, the Admiralty archives were partially looted or burned in a bunker, where they were stored - after WWII ended, during the chaotic days in May 1945 in Berlin, when governance broke down.

Edited February 16, 2022 by wefalck

[Keith Black]

3 minutes ago, wefalck said:

The funnel has a diameter of 9 mm

 That just blows my tomato. 

[archjofo]

Fantastic detail work !

[druxey]

Meccano shaft diameter is 5/32" or about 15 thou.