Heller Soleil Royal (WIP)

Haha!  Yeah, I think I'll leave my TV out of it!  :)

Dave, don't forget you can plug your soldering iron into it too. And you can change the size of the picture on your tv. Don't know if that works on flat screens, though; probably best not to try it.

I tend to favor the pin vise, if only because it's easier to get the tip placed right before starting the bore.

Those #11 handles make good drill handles.

You're right, John...the 395 is a 5-speed.  Makes sense that using a dimmer with a unit that already has a speed control would be a problem, didn't think of it before.

I can still use my cheapo single-speed tool for it, though, so I'm still glad I cobbled together the *speed control*...plus, I can set the mood lighting in the garage!  :)

As it turns out, using the pin vise didn't even take that long when I drilled out the hull holes...It was like two sessions of an hour each.  I'm sure the gunport holes wouldn't kill me if I did them by hand, too...I'll try it both ways and see what works best.

I'm also likely to airbrush the decks tomorrow, as well as the *light grey* colors of the lower hull, rudders, etc.

Steve, that mini chuck is a great little accessory!  I'm sure it would come in handy.  BTW, how's your Catalan coming along?

Dave

I've got one of those. It's useful for quite a few modeling jobs. Its big limitation is that it turns so SLOW. When it gets revved up you can still count the revs by eye - like on an electric screwdriver.

Dave,

To muddy the waters a bit more, have you checked this out from MicroMark?

Steve

www.micromark.com/mini-drill-chuck-for-cordless-screwdriver,7852.html

Dremel doesn't show the 395 on its website any more, but if I remember right it has a speed control built in. Stacking a dimmer switch on top of an integral speed control seems to be a no-no.

To my knowledge the only single-speed Dremel in the company's current range is the 100 (the cheapest in the line). That's the one I've got, and it seems to get along fine with my cobbled-up speed control. So does my beloved little single-speed We-cheer.

I have noticed that if I want them to turn REAL slow, and start with the knob at 0, the motor will stutter a bit before it starts - at a speed higher than I wanted. But I can then ramp the speed down till the tool's moving at a crawl.

The old Dremel tabletop speed control didn't act like that. You could start at zero and turn the knob slowly, and the bit would barely perceptibly but steadily start to turn. I sure wish Dremel would bring that thing back.

It does bear mentioning to follow proper wiring methods...I have enough experience that wiring up a dimmer to an outlet is no biggie.  And I've been zinged by 110 enough to know that it won't kill me!

What I meant was, is there any reason to worry about damaging the motor of a tool that is rated to pull more amps than we're allowing it?  Overheating?

BTW, it works fine for dimming a drop light, and it even works on my cheapo one-speed generic rotary tool...but my Dremel 395 won't spin with the dimmer hooked up to it...it just buzzes a little bit, acts like it's going to turn...but it won't.  ??

AKA have your wife hold you from behind by the belt, wearing tennis shoes, and yank you when she sees you ignite.

It's a pretty simple project.

I could get in trouble if I said this sort of thing is perfectly safe. If you do something stupid, like connecting the wires wrong, letting them touch each other when they shouldn't, or touching the wrong two terminals with your fingers when the thing's plugged in, you could pop a circuit breaker and/or zap yourself. But if you're careful, and have any experience with home wiring, you should be fine. (If you don't have any such experience, maybe you have a friend who does and would be willing to watch over your shoulder>)

Sometime back here in the forum somebody did an excellent thread, complete with step-by-step photos, that showed exactly how to hook up such a gadget. I've searched for that thread pretty thoroughly, but I can't find it. Can anybody else?

I'll offer one tip. Finish all the connections and screw on the cover plate before you plug the thing in for the first time. Set it on the table a couple of feet away from you, plug it in, and see if anything awful happens. If not, touch only the switch and the box (which are insulated), plug your Dremel tool into it, and see if it works as advertised.

One other piece of advice (which I saw in a USN electrical manual some years back): "Verily, verily I say unto thee, work not on electrical circuits alone. For electrical cooking is a slow process and thou might stew in thine own juice for hours before thy Maker sees fit to call thee into the fold."

And tell somebody in the house to call the paramedics if you zap yourself.

Good luck.

Spent some time in the garage this morning, primering a TON of parts, and separating more sprue sections into the final *piles* of mini-sprues, to be airbrushed.

Next step is to take a bag of parts that will be "X" color, do a little more sanding and prep, then start laying down basecoats...there's a lot to paint, so I expect I'll break it into sessions of one or two colors in a day (with a simpler kit, I would be able to paint all the different colors in one marathon airbrushing session).  Give it a couple weeks, and I should have all the basecoats down, and I can start some detail-painting.  

Also, I just got back from Lowe's, where I picked up components to make a little J-Box/Dimmer/Outlet speed control for the Dremel...I'll maybe spend some time this weekend assembling it and trying it out.

Question:  Should there be much concern for danger, from using a homemade box like this?  John, I got pretty much the same stuff you listed, except they no longer sell the twisty style of dimmers, so I got one that looks like a regular light switch, but the *potentiometer* action is adjusted by how far up the switch is positioned....hopefully it works okay, and doesn't catch fire!  haha  I have a multispeed dremel now, but as previously mentioned, even the slow speed is still much too fast for drilling small holes in plastic.

Don the easiest way I've found to secure cannons is to drill small holes in two of the wheels and in the deck where its going to set, then insert small brass pins to secure it. Its really a simple technique.

BTW, your lady is looking fantastic.

Terry  

I just followed the kit instructions.  However, I made sure the paint was scraped away from every point of gluing, so I got a good bond. I use Loctite gel CA for a good, strong bond.  Of course, that limits the tension I can put on the shrouds, but I can live with that.

I have built a number of sailing warships through the years, and for plastic models the worst time I have had with bad glue joints is gun carriages to decks.  I now carefully drill through the paint on the deck where each carriage wheel will go, and run the carriages over a sheet of medium sandpaper to increase gluing area and insure no paint on bottom of wheel.  That seems to be doing the job lately.  On a multi-deck ship, you do NOT want a loose cannon on a lower deck!

She looks great, Don!  

What method did you use for fashioning chainplates and fastening them to the hull?  I rigged up a false jig of a hull/channel section to try some experiments...I'm thinking of stropping a deadeye with annealed wire for the lower deadeye, then twisting the wire at the bottom and leaving a small loop...then using dark line (similar to the method in the instructions) in a slipknot to use as a chainplate, looping from the deadeye strop to a brass eyebolt glued into the hull.

Again, your SR looks really nice!  

I think any pics or insight about the build would be welcome here...please share as much as you want!  How about some closeups?  

Thanks!

Someone asked for pics of my Soleil WIP, so here are a couple I took yesterday.  Sorry- hope I am not stealing thread :-(

I had to buy a mini chuck to put in the end but it was no hassle., I've had no troubles with it wobblng

I agree, GMorrison...a little time spent on making a jig can save a lot of time later, plus getting consistent results is a bonus!

Steve, I just took a look at that Tamiya drill kit....very interesting.  I may pick one up, at least to try it out (and it seems like it'd be fun to build!)...you have one, does it seem to hold the bits straight, or is there much wobble?  Will it hold the more commonly-needed sizes of bits?

dave have you looked ay the Tamiya electric drill for about $20 it's a kit ,runs on battery's, very low revs., I've got one, and find it pretty good

thank you jtilley for your patience and time to explain it to me.,I haven't read [ scanned ] your suggested sites yet . but I intend to study them well.

A tip Dave.

Jigs are always a good idea in big ship models

Spend an hour making a little jig into which you can drop the lids, then stick the drill down through a  pattern with the two holes.

Good stuff!

I'll have to rig up a *dimmer control box* of my own...bet it could be useful for a lot of stuff...

Meanwhile, I got a bunch more of the holes done with the pin vise this afternoon...doesn't take that long, after all...did about 90 in an hour or so.  All that's left now are the gunport lid holes (still another 120 holes or so!)...but after a quick experiment, I realize that it might be more of a pain to drill them out while they're still on the sprue...takes a certain amount of pressure to drill through them, and I don't want to risk disconnecting any of them yet.

I may just paint them first, and drill the tackle holes once they're safely disconnected.

Just about time to start cutting the sprues up and getting all the parts together into piles of mini-sprues!

http://www.amazon.com/AC-Plug-In-Dimmer-Switch-30-10194/dp/B004GIDW70/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1421109663&sr=8-4&keywords=dimmer+plug+in

Haven't tried this yet myself, but I have been told that you can do this to get the rpm's down.

Edit:

link didn't work. Trying again.

http://www.amazon.com/AC-Plug-In-Dimmer-Switch-30-10194/dp/B004GIDW70/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1421109663&sr=8-4&keywords=dimmer+plug+in

I noticed the same problem when trying to use a Dremel on plastic models. Then, I bought a miniature rechargeable battery version. also made by Dremel, that works fine on plastic. I also bought a pen sander from Proxxon with a very slow variable speed setting making it perfect for plastic.

Bill

For over 30yrs, I've been using a sewing machine foot pedal. You can go from zero to the highest speed with the control of your foot pressure.

I imagine there is some loss of torque at slow speeds, but for the things I do with the tool I've never noticed a problem. Yeah, I used an ordinary, twisty dimmer switch. In my earlier list of ingredients I left out one: a plastic cover plate to protect the innards. I found all the components in one trip to Lowe's, and putting the whole thing together took less than an hour. I screwed it to one leg of my workbench, where it's always handy.

Also, did you use a standard twisty-knob style of Dimmer Light Switch Control?

A homemade speed control is a great idea!  May have to give that project a try one of these days...

John, do you notice a significant loss of torque when using such a tool at very low speeds?

I totally agree with you. Last year I briefly attempted to use my Dremel to drill out the portholes on my Titanic hull but only tried one and gave up. I didn't do any damage but that was pure luck only. It needs to go much slower.

I've been ranting for years about my big beef with Dremel Moto-Tools: the danged things turn too fast. Even the lowest speed on the variable-speed versions is faster than it ought to be for most modeling jobs.

I did a post on Dremel's web forum about this several years ago. Apparently I'm in a minority; nobody replied to my post.

Dremel used to make two stand-alone speed controls, one foot-operated, the other a little benchtop box with a knob on the front. I had the latter. It was great. I could, for instance, set a non-spinning drill bit exactly where I wanted it, then turn the knob till the bit was turning as fast as I wanted. And the control was  useful for all sorts of other things. I plugged my Unimat lathe into it (no more belt changes to change speeds), and used it to control the heat of my soldering iron. The thing could also be used to change the size of a picture on a black-and-white tv set. Don't ask how I found that out.

Nowadays I use a much smaller rotary tool, made by a German company called We-Cheer and formerly available through Woodcraft. It's slightly fatter than a fiber-tipped marker, and uses Dremel collets. I cobbled up a speed control for it out of a three-prong Duplex outlet, a dimmer switch, a plastic electrical box, and some wire. (Total cost at Lowe's: less than 10 bucks.) Works fine. Unfortunately, of course We-Cheer has discontinued the tool and replaced it with one that has a built-in speed control, which, of course, turns too fast on its slowest speed.

I do have a Dremel 100 single-speed Moto-Tool. It works fine with my primitive speed control.

Thanks, guys!

I'll be careful to secure the carriages to the decks.  I 'm actually thinking of leaving some (or even all) of the gunports closed...if I go that way, I won't even be building many of the guns...seems like the gunports would be closed if a ship were showing furled sails or bare poles, am I right?  On the other hand, it looks more dramatic to have all the ports open and the guns run out...I'm still on the fence about it.  Also, as far as rigging the guns on the upper deck...all the photos I've seen of rigged guns for a Soleil Royal model look really wonky, out of scale, and cluttered...giant blocks, tons of line everywhere...they just seem too busy.  If I can find a way to get it looking right, I'll rig them to a certain degree, but I may also just rig breeching lines or some other, less clumsy, amount of rigging for the guns.

I basically decided on two different heights for the gunport tackle:  all the ports forward of the "entry ladder" (or whatever it's called!) will be above the wale, and the ports aft of the ladder will be below that wale, OR 5mm above the port, depending on how low the ports go below the wale (at the furthest aft, they get as low as 3/8" below it.  So there's that.

With all the holes to drill (about 250, including 2 for each port lid, and 2 for each area above the lids) I was hoping to be able to use a Dremel-type tool and a tiny bit...but my rotary tool is single-speed, and it goes so fast that it melts the plastic a bit, which causes the shavings to stick to the bit...so I would have to clean the bit after every hole...instead, I just decided to go the ol' fashioned way...pin vise, by hand.  I've made a few little jigs that are the same width as each different size of port lid, with notches to indicate the spacing of the tackle holes...lay the jig on the porthole, make a couple marks with a sharpened punch, then drill them out with the pin vise.  After about 28 holes, got a little bit of finger cramps!  But I'm almost 1/8th of the way done, so I guess I can break it down into short sessions and have them all done by next week or so.  Won't be too long before I'm spraying basecoats.

Dave