Expert projects

[MICHAEL WILLIAMSParticipant @michaelwilliams41215]

[MICHAEL WILLIAMSParticipant @michaelwilliams41215]

There have been many threads on this site wherein a beginner asks what would be a suitable home workshop project to get started on .

I am going to ask the opposite question :

On this site and out in the broader world of the hobby there are some people who are obviously extremely capable and who further have excellent workshops and other resources .

What would be a suitably challenging new project for such people ??

Michael Williams .

[Keith LongParticipant @keithlong89920]

One that they want to do!

Keith

[Paul BoscottParticipant @paulboscott25817]

Try mine http://www.boscott.co.uk I have just finished a 3D printer to make some of the small repeated plastic parts also from Ebay I have bought a PLC Controller to provide the logic interface>>

Paul Boscott>>

[Russell EberhardtParticipant @russelleberhardt48058]

That certainly looks challenging! Bon chance!

Russell.

[Sub MandrelParticipant @submandrel]

It has to be a prototype no-one else has modelled before. A challenge we can all take on, as anyone can always choose a subject that stretches their skills but is still realistic.

Neil

[Rob ManleyParticipant @robmanley79788]

A scale car or motorcycle. It would need / have every type of engineering discipline available associated to it. Castings/sheet metal work/ casting rubber/ electronics….

May I suggest a half scale motorcycle……not biassed or anything…

Rob.

[Jeff DaymanParticipant @jeffdayman43397]

In 2010 I built an EDM machine to the words and music in Ben Fleming book "How to build an EDM". A very capable and handy machine for many jobs, and off the beaten track of steam models I usually build. It was refreshing and rewarding to see it working after the build. One of its' handier functions is pre- cutting the end shapes of HSS lathe tool blanks. It saves many hr of tedious grinding. I use .015" or .020" sheet copper bent to shape and held in the electrode holder to slice the blanks to any shape needed. Naturally the machine makes removing the odd broken tap or drill a doddle, and I find myself putting square holes and hex shaped holes on things just because I can….

On the model front, my next planned major model (a multi year project) is a model B-2 Erie steam shovel. This machine has a vertical boiler and 3 separate twin cylinder steam engines, and caterpillar tracks, and 26 different gears in the transmission, several bevel gears and spur gears too. The winch system to raise the shovel includes a steam actuated clutch on the main drum. This machine will be a major challenge, and I am designing and drawing the model up myself. I have two prototype units nearby to measure up and ponder over.

In ME I have seen the odd steam breakdown crane and a few diesel and electric shovel models, but not many. If you are looking for a change to making a loco, maybe have a look at the world of steam cranes and shovels. It is fascinating in itself (and you don't need a railway track to operate them)

JD

[Sub MandrelParticipant @submandrel]

Hi Jeff,

Even without a steam engine, cranes are great subjects. I've done this one from Fradley and plan to model a very different one that is nearby in Fazeley.

Neil

[Jeff DaymanParticipant @jeffdayman43397]

That's a lovely crane model Neil, well done.

JD

[Richard ParsonsParticipant @richardparsons61721]

Michael may I suggest any project which introduces you to new skills and techniques you have never encountered before. My great challenge has been to make a self spanning wheel lock for a ‘muff gun’ from Mannerheim of about 1430. These were miniature pistols carried by members of the City Watch in their muffs. They are tricky little beastie which include springs, chains, wood carving, inlay work including gold touch marks (optional) and a good deal of experimental fitting. They were originally made by the local craftsmen to show off their skills and they are about the size of a box of Swan Vestas. They were also made in Nuremberg. You cannot get drawings (photos yes) and often all you can do is to look at them in a museum collection. I was once allowed to handle one in a private collection but that was long ago.

Remember the original craftsmen probably did not have drawings either

If you want more please PM me

Redgs

Dick

[MICHAEL WILLIAMSParticipant @michaelwilliams41215]

Hi Richard ,

I would certainly like to see a picture if possible .

Regards ,

Michael Williams .

[Richard ParsonsParticipant @richardparsons61721]

Michael Yes I have asked my daughter in the U.K. to take a pic of the thing. I am writing something on the subject which i will PM to you. I do not want publish anything on the open pages as the whole subject is almost taboo in the U.K.

The wheel lock is a fasinating mechanism which vithualy dissapeard by the mid 17 Ce (1640s).

It is a simple idea but is complicated to make when compared with the flint and steel locks of the period. The sparks in the wheel lock were generated from a lump of pyrites not from flints.

Rdgs

Dick

[Jeff DaymanParticipant @jeffdayman43397]

To Paul Boscott –

Just read your article in MEW 188 about the LED indicating surface finder. Very clever, well done! Won't be long until I make one myself now.

A further thought – Anyone with a mill using table travel stops and a centre lug could rig up a similar device on the sides of the centre lug to indicate ' end of travel reached' with more accuracy than just clouting the stop into the lug. I used to get fooled often doing that, as my stops would move a tiny bit with each clout and I couldn't feel it in the mill's screws. With a similar item to your surface finder, the light would come on with much less force applied when the travel stop reached the lug. I use a DRO now on the mill, but if I was using stops I would try this idea.

Thanks again, JD

[Sub MandrelParticipant @submandrel]

Dick,

In about 1992 ME ran a short series on a medal winning 'Muff Pistol' which was a small folding gun claimed to be 'conjectural'. It wasn't clear whether or not the whole idea of a Muff Pisdtol was made up, or just the design (which wasn't capable of firing, it really was just a fancy folding mechanism, but nicely done).

So I'd appreciate sight of the 'Muff Gun' too.

Neil

(how did I type all that keeping a straight face?)

[Richard ParsonsParticipant @richardparsons61721]

The muff gun written up in ME dated to the middle 1850s. The ones I am on about dates back to the 1490s. This was a time when the armours of Germany and Italy were at their peak. Every great lord would have several ‘tin suits’ –‘plate armour’- which was finely ‘glacis’ and hardened to give protection against the dreaded English and their long bows.

These would range from the suits of Jousting Armour which had very heavy protection in certain parts through lighter armour for use in battle which came in two forms horseback armour and armour for fighting on foot to the fabulous parade armour in exotic designs.. As a side note they were based in the area of south and eastern Bavaria which are exactly the same areas that became the centres of car manufacture in the 20^th centenary ie. Companies like ’MAN’ (Maschinenfabrik Augsburg-Nürnberg). And in Italy in the districts of Milan and Brescia (Alfa-Romeo and Fiat etc).

At sometime in the 1400s ‘guns’ were found to be of great use especially by the Hussites of Bohemia. These folk used hand held guns, in infantry with wagons in formations called Wagonburg. A simple Hussite (like his English opposite number –a Long Bowman) could take out several heavily armoured knights whose armour cost many thousands of times more gold than the Hussite would ever see in his whole life. These guns were fired by slow matches. The serpentine lock was developed to make life easier for hand gunners.

Walking around with a length of lighted slow match (even on your hat) was not too good an idea (especially if you were rich and had an expensive hat). A smoking hat was not something to make you welcome in a beer hall! So sometime between the 1490s and the 1510 the ‘wheel lock’ appeared. It is this mechanism with all its subtleties which I find appealing. It seems to have been developed from two ideas, the ‘Monks Gun’ and a fairly common idea of using a hand wound wheel and the soft iron pyrites for making sparks to light fires. In Bavaria native flint is rare.

The Gunsmiths of Augsburg, Nuremberg and later Mannerheim and Brescia (in Italy) demonstrated their skills by making small Muff Guns for the town watchmen to carry in their muffs. These were sometimes called ‘Puffers’ and were about the size of a box of Swan-Vesta matches. By their design they could be carried about fully loaded with reasonably safely. It is their ‘lock work' which is complicated and is an artificers dream (or nightmare).

I do not want to talk about details of them any more on this (or any other public forum) as some folk may get the wrong idea. Mind you if you have worked for several hundred hours making just the lock, figuring out the solutions to all the problems the old ones solved and re learning their skills of fitting things as closely as they had. Then getting the confounded thing to spin and then to make sparks you will have achieved something.

I am quite prepared to e-mail a few remarks on the lock’s construction to act as a ‘sickener’ to those who want it and later if that does not put you off to I will go on with the correspondence.

Rdgs

Dick

[MICHAEL WILLIAMSParticipant @michaelwilliams41215]

Richard ,

Thanks again for Emails etc.

The postings by you above are enough to show others how much detail there is to unravel in even these , at first glance , quite simple devices . The same is true of many other components and devices .

General ,

Two things have occurred to me several times over the years :

(1) Model Engineers ought to be well placed to pursue inventive ideas . Reading of many articles however and talking to many people suggest that Model Engineers rarely follow this line of interest .

(2) Whilst it is possible to formally study and to obtain both craft and academic qualifications in many subjects loosely akin to Model Engineering and which can be pursued as both hobby and work – like Silversmithing , Jewellry making , Clockmaking , Ceramic work , Cabinet making and no doubt many more – there is no equivalent possibility in Model Engineering .

Any thoughts on either ???

Michael Williams

Edited By MICHAEL WILLIAMS on 08/05/2012 11:26:59

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