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Custom Photoetch Set Part VI

October 24, 2012 / efoeth

Another etch? Well, the design I showed in part V was fine, except that I’d used very dark gray instead of black in Illustrator. A nice dotted pattern was visible over almost all the parts. The railing were fine though and only a few parts were repeated.

With only a few parts and an A5 area to fill, I could place a ‘spare’ set on the other side. The UP launcher parts and some gratings for the bridge floor were drawn in three versions as I experimented with different line thicknesses for the mesh from 0.05 to 0.075 mm, the smallest working just fine (not entirely etched through everywhere, but that’s not visible to the naked eye when the model is done). The hawser reels can now be redone (sigh) but at least I can now solder them. The rest are spare parts and I added the stairs so I now have brass versions. The etch was again made by Hauler; there was less than one week between submitting my order and delivery of the etch!

Cabinet

October 21, 2012 / efoeth

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Now, that speaker building project I was talking about earlier was a good exercise for building a presentation cabinet. Damage to models is rare on shows but I get incredibly nervous when people are shaking hands above my model; even a minor hit can mean irreparable damage. Our local IPMS SIG Warships leader builds his own glass cases and blackmailed me to come to a few shows in exchange for a glass cabinet built at cost. Today I made a wooden base for the model using some left-over planks from my bookcase. It should protect the model against shows, transportation, and dust.

The plank was milled to size and I cut a small ledge for the glass case. The glass is 3.0mm thick and has a bit of room to manoeuver (also in case the wood works). Although my cats aren’t an enemy of my hobby—they haven’t caused any damage to my model—today I just couldn’t get the tiny bastard out of the frame; he’d bounce back immediately after being thrown a great distance across the living room.

The model is bolted to the plank by three nuts and bolts. Recall that I started with the WEM resin hull that I fitted with fixing bolts before adding new decks. The glass case is 80 cm wide so that it fits in most book cases (I refuse to admit it is made to fit an Ikea Ivar bookcase) and is 25 cm wide and high. That’s a bit wider than strictly required, but this size will fit my next project too. A seascape will be added once I’ve thoroughly exercised making seascapes.

Yes, I assure you, cat, we are quite safe from your friends here.

Orion; introduction

September 16, 2012 / efoeth

Next to my love to reproduce tiny ship parts in excruciating detail I also have a serious audio addiction. I spend nearly all my free hours listening to music, either in the background or sitting between my 5 large speakers, enjoying a great performance. I am (was?) very happy with these speakers but I also made the mistake of listening to a pair large KEF reference-series speakers outperforming my then-current speakers by a very wide margin. Of course, I couldn’t afford 5 of those speakers at all, so do-it-yourself project would ‘have to do’.

I read (part of) Dickason’s book, studied plans and building descriptions of many models, and read reviews of kit speakers. The most important thing I learned is that building a really good speaker of your own design will take many years of trial and error, studying, changing and tinkering and continuous revising. I already have a time-consuming hobby, so what I needed was a very good off-the-shelf design. Which one to use?

Getting good advice was difficult at first. Most audio magazines seem to have no understanding of electronics, acoustics and psychoacoustics. They’ll give good review to speaker cables and products that have no influence of the sound whatsoever. One of the more interesting and polemic websites running in the opposite direction is The Audio Critic, by Peter Aczel, who has written a few very interesting columns among which the seminal paper “The ten biggest lies in audio” which should be required reading for and adulated by every audio journalist. His wonderful review of the Orions carried a bit more weight and once intrigued I started noticing they are appreciated very well by people who design and build their own speakers and amplifiers (i.e., people who know what they are doing). Of course, I did pass the Orion website a few times, but was always taken aback a bit by the looks of the speaker; it’s not particularly becoming of speakers of expensive pedigree—not what I was aiming for —but let’s summarize it by saying they are not particularly easy on the eye. After reading up a bit I decided to buy the Orion plan set anyway, directly from the designer, Siegfried Linkwitz.

Introduction
The plan
Design changes
Signal processing
The listening room
Production
Listening

Custom Photoetch Set Part V

July 1, 2012 / efoeth

I’ve recently bought a new airbrush and started to experiment with painting. I thought I had the proper wash/rinse/primer order figured out but the primer didn’t hold well and the UP launchers and cordage reels are now ruined. I blame the Vallejo primer that doesn’t adhere to the Alpaka (neusilber) nor to the resin I used. Vallejo primer doesn’t spray as well as basic Humbrol enamels that give better adherence and scratch resistance; why even use a primer? Back to the etch.

I copied the ruined parts to a new fret and made some modifications.

This time I was prepared for the correct Autocad-to-Illustrator sequence, working more with lines with a given thickness to create meshes, no filling in Autocad but only in Illustrator; this new set was only a few hours of work. The UP-launcher design was one of the oldest and was redesigned. As I’m now more comfortable with soldering, I decided to add new funnel grills and I wanted to solder the cordage reels anyway because the glue bond isn’t that good. Other parts are some wooden gratings for the bridge, an oar rack, some spare pompom sights (I’m quickly running out as they damage easily) and new railing; why not have railing in brass?