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| April Newsletter |
Volume 1 Issue 3 |
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donnie@shipsofscale.com |
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In this issue of the April Newsletter, I continue with my Scratch Building mini-series. You will probably notice that I am more or
less giving you the "information" and the "resources" to carry on yourself. I have never attempted scratching,
but it is almost getting to the point, that really, when you think about it, there comes a time when you need
to scratch a part.
On such a very small level, I had to do just that a few days ago. A top cap on my Main Mast just did not fit right. The
square opening (from the kit) just was too large. So, with the same material, I decided to make my own...hey not too bad.
A little more work involved than cutting a laser cut piece out. I have mixed feelings about if I enjoyed it or not.
It fell into the catagory of "you gotta do what you gotta do". For those that are not familiar with "gotta" that is a
southern USA contration of "got to" - actually, it is terrible English. It is really "have to". Like I "have to" sand this
part down some more. Instead us southerners will just say "I gotta sand this part down some more." Ok... so much
for dialect and colloquialisms.
Without furhter delay, here are a few topics covered for April.
Featured Scratch Building Materials: Hobby Mill
Featured Ships Pete Wells "Cutty Sark"
Featured Ships Al Acton "Bluenose II"
Featured Tool Tip by David Rosenblatt
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Scratch Building your first ship
If I remember correctly, in the first of the mini-series, I introduced you to some
reference material and a pretty long list of links to go find some plans. Well, now if you have decided on the ship of your
choice, you need some materials to get started. That is where Hobby Mill comes into the picture. Jeff Hayes is standing by
to help anyway he can to help you choose the fine woods they have to offer to get you going. I want to graciously thank Jeff Hayes
from Hobby Mill with this fantastic article.
Background:
HobbyMill was started about 6 years ago to supply wood for a kit manufacturer. The manufacturer, Lauck Street Shipyard,
required wood milled to close tolerances for their CNC plank on frame kits. Over time retail sales were developed to
support various Lauck Street practicums and supplemental wood for their kits. Today we still supply wholesale modeling
wood to a couple model producers, but our retail sales is a much larger part of our business with individual customers
in about 40 states and several foreign countries.
HobbyMill only has one employee, myself, and this is my retirement job. I mention this because it allows me the luxury
of maintaining high quality standards while not being constrained by financial issues. It is not uncommon that wood is
remilled because I am not satisfied with some aspect of the quality. Also our dimensional tolerances are the tightest
in the industry and several of our experienced scratch builders tell me that they just need to do some minor finish
sanding on our wood. I also try to respond to customer inquiries within 24 hours and maintain lead times of 1 week.
Customer Base & Focus:
Many people think that the business is oriented towards scratch builders, but most of our customers are purchasing
replacement wood for their kit builds. Customers who have a saw typically purchase sheet stock and others will purchase
stripwood in either fractional or metric sizes. I measure everything during the milling process in decimal, so it
doesn´t really matter if the end product is English or metric. I don´t really sell bulk wood because
top quality wood is increasingly difficult to obtain and I would rather make it available to our sheet and stripwood customers.
Wood Species:
The majority of my sales are limited to the traditional woods used for shipbuilding with castello boxwood, cherry, Swiss pear,
and holly representing about 90% of my sales. Holly is used mainly for deck and hull planking whereas the other woods
are great for everything on a build. Holly is very flexible, fine grained, and can be stained.
Swiss Pear is the finest grained wood that I offer and while it is flexible, it tends to be a little more brittle than the
other woods. It holds a sharp edge and is great for carving, framing, planking, and accent pieces. Will accept stain as a
substitute for ebony. The Europeans tend to steam all of their wood during kiln drying and the steaming adds a pink color to wood.
The grain in cherry is slightly coarser and it tends to have some brown streaks caused by the growth rings. Most people apply
the term grain to the brown streaks, but the proper term is "figure". In model ship building we typically want wood that has a
fine grain and very little figure. Cherry varies in color from very light in the sap wood (sap wood is the outside layer of
a log and with cherry it is considered a defect) to a medium red with most of the wood being a flesh color. It holds a sharp edge,
is flexible, and can be used for framing, planking, and deck furniture. Cherry is generally not used for carving. Nearly
all woods will change with exposure to sunlight; however, cherry is more light sensitive and will darken with exposure.
Alder is very similar in appearance to cherry and has the added benefits of having less figure and is not as sensitive to light.
The downside with alder is that it is nearly as soft as basswood. All of the above woods are kiln dried.
Castello boxwood on the other hand is air dried and typically needs additional drying once
it arrives from an importer.
Depending on how it was dried and the other contents of the container that it was shipped in, its moisture can vary quite a bit.
When castello boxwood arrives at HobbyMill, each board is numbered, moisture content logged, and then it is stickered
until it is the proper moisture. Castello boxwood, also known as lemonwood, comes from South America and is not a true
boxwood.
Its benefits are that it is available in board form, machines and mills better than any other wood, holds very sharp edges,
is very fine straight grained, and can be polished if desired. Most of the true English boxwood, which was the classic
modeling wood a couple hundred years ago, has been harvested and we are limited to small logs with very inconsistent quality.
It can suffer from improper drying, which causes a blue stain, and it tends to grow with a spiral figure.
Today´s primary sources are Turkey and some areas in Europe and it is very expensive. So as modelers we use Castello
Boxwood for framing, planking, and all other aspects of our build while reserving the most important carvings for true boxwood.
Castello Boxwood is suitable for carving and there are some examples in the customer gallery on my website.
True Boxwood is a brighter yellow color with brown figure and castello boxwood tends to have
some yellow but more brownish color.
Over time the castello picks up some additional yellow because many times the rough boards have more yellow on their surface
before they are milled. All of the boxwood shown on HobbyMill’s website is castello boxwood.
Most of the remaining woods in my offering are accent woods or used for planking.
Here is a quick list of woods suitable for planking:
- Alder−Substitute for cherry−soft
- Aspen−White, soft substitute for holly decking
- Beech−Simulates red oak.
- Mahogany−Tends to be too coarse, but popular in many European kits
- Pau Marfim−Color similar to castello boxwood, hard, holds edge well, fine grained
- Soft Maple−Used for deck planking. Heartwood is grayish; sapwood is off white with brown figure.
- Sycamore−Very flexible but has figure that looks like "snakeskin"
- Walnut−Darkest wood other than ebony. Popular with European kits and accent pieces. Coarser than fruit woods.
The remaining woods in the offering are mostly used for accent but some such as redheart and yellowheart can be used
for small accent planking. Bloodwood is as hard as ebony and loads sandpaper on a power sander. Be prepared to pull
out all of the tiny sharp splinters after using bloodwood. Not a favorite wood for me to mill.
Saws&Milling:
Eventually many builders invest in a miniature table saw. I have experience with both the Preac
and Jim Byrnes saws and while
both are great saws, they each have their advantages.
The Preac, in my opinion, is best suited for model making instead of wood milling. It works very well with thinner
stock and softer woods. It has a wide variety of blades available, but is not equipped with a hookup for dust
collection. Modeling in scales smaller than 1:48 and where a modeler is not milling their own wood is where a
Preac shines.
The Model Machines, Byrnes, saw is a top quality product and is excellent for milling wood. I use it to mill nearly
all of my stripwood and it is very durable. When I passed the 250,000 pieces milled on my Byrnes saw, I stopped
keeping track of how much
I have used mine. It is built like a miniature table saw with a dust collection hookup and an excellent fence.
I use slitting saw blades exclusively for stripwood milling and the blade selection is dependent upon the thickness
of the stock being milled. For sheet stock that is 3/32"−¼" thick I use a .030 x 3 x 90t blade
(Thurston I-292) http://www.thurstonmfg.com/index.html that is available on the Model Machines website. Above ¼", I use the same blade only
.040" thick (Thurston I-293) to avoid blade deflection and the additional kerf helps to minimize binding.
Below 3/32" it is best to go with a finer pitch blade so that at least one tooth is always in contact with the stock.
This will minimize chip out so look to a blade such as .032 x 3 x 170T (Thurston #99) or even finer .028 x 3 x 224T
(Thurston #100). I have experienced blade deflection using blades of thinner kerf than these
on my Byrnes saw.
A couple other thoughts on milling
- If you are experiencing burning, the back side of the blade is coming in contact with the wood because there
is no back taper on slitting blades. I adjust the fence to give some extra back taper. Woods such as pear,
apple, and holly tend to burn more than others. Same applies if the saw is binding…add back taper.
- I use a 2" thick block of wood that fits into my left palm instead of finger boards. This gives me a lot of
control of side pressure.
- Sometimes turning a sheet of wood end over end will impact how the saw cuts because on some hard woods the
grain is running at a slight angle rather than parallel to the fence.
- I´m normally cutting many pieces all the same size, so my finish dimension is the dimension between the
blade and fence. Once it is setup properly, then I can run through lots of pieces all the same size.
- Blade height should be about 1/16 above the wood sheet and should be set prior to setting your fence.
- Use Awesome Cleaner and a tooth brush to clean your blades.
- I don´t use my extended fence very much any more because I can better see how well the saw is setup without it.
- For thicker stock, above 3/8, I use other tools in the shop just because they are readily available. Therefore I rarely
use the carbide blades with my Byrnes saw.
- If a piece has internal stresses, the strip will be curved or bent. All you can do is continue to mill through that spot
on the sheet and hope that it will go away. Sometimes just going to a different piece of sheet stock is the only answer.
I see it a lot where within a 3" wide piece of sheet stock the edges come out perfectly and there is a spot buried
within the strip and a few pieces come out looking like corkscrews only to return to nice straight pieces.
- A miniature table saw works the same as a full size one. If you haven’t read through a basic book on table saw safety and
operation recently, I would suggest checking one out of your local library and browsing through it.
I hope that some of the above has been helpful. If you have a question regarding milling with your Byrnes saw
or help with wood, please feel free to shoot me an e-mail.
Jeff Hayes
www.hobbymillusa.com
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Featured Ship:
Pete Wells - (Father-in-Law)
Name: Cutty Sark
I being a former US Navy sailor have a certain fondness for ships especially the ones that came before
my time. The ships of yesteryear were works of art in comparison to what we have today and perhaps my several
times great grandson will look back at the ships of today in the same light. I never thought in a million years
that I could make these ships. My Father-in-law has made a large number of ships and now his age is catching
up on him. He can still make the hulls and some of the jigs but the rigging is beyond him. He has decided
to pass this trade down to me. When I saw the price of a good model I chose a few cheaper ones to learn from
and I am very glad that I did. I am sending you some shots of one of his ships that he made. Not only did he
make the ship but he also made the airtight case it is in. Hope you enjoy the look.
Pete, thank you for showing us yoru Father-in-Laws Cutty Sark - Well Done !
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Featured Ship:
Al Acton
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Name: Bluenose II
I bought the Artesania Latina kit on e-bay a few summers ago just after the REAL Bluenose II made a visit to the city of
Montreal. Before starting the build I did some research on the net and found out that the model was not quite up to scratch.
There is a very good article on The Model Boatyard website written by John H. Earl. I used his modifications to help in the
build. I also purchased L.B.Jensens book "Bluenose II" from the Bluenose Trust in Lunenburg Nova Scotia which was a great help
when fitting out deck details. One should note that the model(s) of Bluenose available from Model Shipways is of the original
Bluenose, and as such the deck layout is quite different.
The Hull construction was straightforward with some minor modifications to the stern and transom. Planking was not a problem
and when laying the second planks I used super glue as suggested in John Earls article. Now the discrepancies with the Latinas
instructions and the ships plans became more pronounced. Referring to the John Earls instructions and L.B.Jensen drawings the
stanchions and scuttles were added. I read in Donnie's thread of the Trinidad that he had a fear of cutting scuttles. However they
were not too hard to do using a small drill bit and file.
When fitting out the deck, the first thing that I did was throw away all the metal fittings supplied with the kit as the metal(?)
that they were made of was impossible to work with. I replaced them with parts from my scrap box or purchased from Bluejacket.
The ships boats provided with the kit were also tossed. They were replaced by stacked dories cut from a piece of pine.
Masts were cut, tapered and fitted as per John Earls instructions, as was the rigging. His instructions for seizing ropes
is useful although I do not like using sewing thread and as such I always keep an ample supply of .008" line that I purchase
from Jotika on hand.
Painting was straight forward also using Humbrol Enamel paints and an airbrush. The inner bulwarks were painted by brush as
were the capping rails. I do not like scale ship sails as they appear to be out of scale in relation to their thickness but
I wanted to use something to show furled sails and found that Silkspan which Model Plane makers use to cover wings and
fusilages was just the answer.
At present the model is on display at our local hobby shop, but when I get it back there are a couple of items that have to
be added. At the moment the propellors and shafts are not fitted as well as the jumbo jib boom.
Last but not the least, I purchased a flag from BEEC in the Uk and fashioned a jack and attached it to the stern.
You and your readers who may want to build this model may also be interested in a video of the Bluenose II which is also
available from the Bluenose Trust.
Al, thank you for showing us your Bluenose II! A lot of work and nice details.
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Featured Tools, Tips etc:
Tools for Applying Glue by David Rosenblatt
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Featured Books:
Historic Ship Models [Paperback] by Wolfram zu Mondfeld (Author)
Per Amazon editoria: "More than 2,500 photographs, detailed diagrams, intricate
drawings, and easy-to-follow plans fill every page of this invaluable sourcebook for making model ships. It's simply breathtaking, rich in historical
facts about real ships that sailed the seas from 3000 B.C. to the 19th century, and generously informative. Charts and checklists abound, and the
essential advice covers every conceivable point, from deciding on a project to choosing the best plans, from making the most of a limited budget
to selecting the handiest materials. Every model maker will find eye-opening ideas.
Now, what I have to say about it. Personaly, I keep this book on my workbench all the time as I see that it is a good all around reference that
covers a broad range of concepts.
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