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Little wood Flattie

Duke Maddog said:
I do think that an aged brass color would look the best. That's just my opinion, it's your model and you're doing a spectacular job on it!
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Hey Duke, what do you think about Tamiya X-33 bronze. I put some on to dry and it's a bit dark, reddish brown metallic. Vallejo bronze looks kinda brassish. Might try lightening the Tamiya and adding jut a bit of copper to get a more reddish look. Just thinkin.
Any suggestions?

The instructions call out flat black for all the brass cleats and eyes too, but I'm not sure about that either.

EJ
 
Vallejo makes various shades of metal colours like brass. Much better than the Tamiya ones in this case I think, although the Tamiya old iron is awesome.
James
 
jknaus said:
Vallejo makes various shades of metal colours like brass. Much better than the Tamiya ones in this case I think, although the Tamiya old iron is awesome.
James
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I've got the following model air colors, all metallic, 71.063 silver, .065 steel, .066 gold, .067 bright brass, .068 copper, .071 blue, .072 gungrey, .073 black. Also have the following Model Color colors, all metallic, 70.801 brass, .998 bronze, .999copper, .863 gunmetal grey.

I'm kinda think'n, an iron, maybe metallic for the rudder hinges, and a more tarnished brass color for all of the brasswork. This is supposed to be a working boat, so I gotta think maybe the brasswork wasn't Navy bright.

What do you think?

EJ
 
Ask me no questions about the navy. Went across Lake Ontario in a WWII Minesweeper when I was in cadets and that was enough to swear me off boats for ever.

But yeah a tarnished brass except where it gets shined by ropes and nonesuch.
James
 
While waiting for my 3mm blocks to arrive, I went shopping at Michal's and Hobby Lobby looking for wire. There is an amazing amount of wire in the beading department.

Sizing wire - well it makes my 73 year old head spin. I still think in inches. Wire and rod are designated in fractional inches, decimal inches (my machinist's thinking), wire gauge and millimeters depending on the product and the manufacturer. I made a spreadsheet for wire from 12 g (gauge) to 32 g so I can get a mental feel for the sizes.

I found some 28 g, (.37mm), 24g (.49mm), 20g (.80mm) and 18g (1.01mm) copper wire in the workshop, most of it I stripped from stranded type building wire scraps or electronic wiring. Also, some 26 g (.40mm) in black, copper and antique brass, and 24g ((.50mm) in antique brass that was in the model room junk that I picked up somewhere. Not sure what they are made of but seem soft enough. I also have some brass rods, 1.57mm, 1.2mm, .81mm, .51mm. The rod is more of a hard brass than soft.

You'd think that would do me right? Guess I must be fussy, cause I really decided on 22 g wire size for what I wanted and had none.

Well, I found some stuff called Parawire. A soft copper wire with a "permanently colored non-tarnish" coating. Comes in several gauges from 16g to 28g and different colors, so I got a roll of "Natural Brass", a kinda antiqued brass color. Wanted truly brass color too but they were out of that. Really nice stuff and works great for wrapping. I'll still use stiffer brass rod to make the rings and eyes from, as that holds it's shape better.

They had ready made rings, but only down to 4mm. 3mm rings were only in silver color so I passed on that.

Meantime, I'm practicing ring making from some .81mm brass rod.

Gosh, I'm thinking in mm now!

EJ
 
Got sidetracked from the build for a bit. Started mentoring middle school kids at my grandson's school for the science Olympiad competition. I would be coaching the bridge building competition. I has 5 teams of two students. In the beginning, our bridges were scoring in the 650 to 750 range, but we found out we needed to be in the 1800 or better range to be competitive.

Here are some of the bridges -















We built and tested about 50 bridges. The first local competition, we took 7 place out of 54 bridges with a ribbon.
The second competition, a regional, we placed 12 out of 42 bridges, with no ribbon, but overall, the school took a 3rd place medal.

We changed our design parameters, and have tested them to a score of over 2000, with some weight to go. The scores are based on the weight of the load to a max of 15 KG, divided by the weight of the bridge. Our entry will weigh in at 6.9 Grams and if it takes the full 15 KG without breaking will give us a score of 2174. It is the last picture. Quite an improvement.

The kids are at Michigan State University today at the state competition - I can't wait to see how they did. I'm very proud of their accomplishments and dedication.

I have finally cleaned up my bench and am getting back in the "Flattie build" mode, so more of that to follow.

EJ
 
Did the blackening on the rudder hinges and it came out fine.







Had problems doing the blocks for the rigging. Those things are hard to hang on to. My neighbor, a fisherman suggested a fly tying vise. His had jaws that worked kinda like a pin vice and wouldn't open up far enough. Went to the sport shop and found this one. They let me take it home to test and I love it. It opens up wider and with parallel jaws.















These were the first blocks I did. I didn't like the look and broke several blocks and cotter pin eyebolts.







These I did with the new vise. I used 26 guage black coated copper wire, .032 brass rod for the eyebolts. Stained the blocks first with maple stain.







This block and ring was fitted to the traveler.







Moving along now with installing the masts and spars and the rigging hardware.



EJ
 
Haven't posted much lately, haven't been feeling well for a few weeks.
Went out to dinner last Friday with some friends to celebrate our 50th wedding anniversary. After eating, I didn't feel right, so went home instead of visiting with them. Checked my blood pressure and the machine would only give me an error message, plus the feeling in my chest didn't change. Told wifey I needed to go to the hospital emergency. Since then, after several tests, they have added another heart med. I'm now on a heart monitor until Saturday, and have a couple more tests scheduled.
The upshot is, I'll wind up with a pacemaker - sooner than later. I don't know if the 50 year anniversary had anything to do with this, but who knows :hmmm .

I have been picking away at the flattie and am now in the rigging stage, so I'm getting close. Will post some pics when I feel better.
 
MM2CVS9 said:
Haven't posted much lately, haven't been feeling well for a few weeks.
Went out to dinner last Friday with some friends to celebrate our 50th wedding anniversary. After eating, I didn't feel right, so went home instead of visiting with them. Checked my blood pressure and the machine would only give me an error message, plus the feeling in my chest didn't change. Told wifey I needed to go to the hospital emergency. Since then, after several tests, they have added another heart med. I'm now on a heart monitor until Saturday, and have a couple more tests scheduled.
The upshot is, I'll wind up with a pacemaker - sooner than later. I don't know if the 50 year anniversary had anything to do with this, but who knows :hmmm .

I have been picking away at the flattie and am now in the rigging stage, so I'm getting close. Will post some pics when I feel better.
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CORNgrats on 50 yrs o Marriage EJ!! :woohoo: :drinks (y) (y)
HOpe you get to feelin' better my friend& catchup when you can, we'll leave the lights on fer ya :drunk
 
Sending you plenty of :zen EJ, I'm still healing up from my Triple Bypass 2 months ago, don't mess around with this stuff and do what the doctor tells ya, even better, do what the wifey tells ya because they they one's who'll be there. :love
 
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