Well, the saga of the chain plate assembly continues. I have decided that the backing links looked a little bare and incomplete. So, I made the decision to add bolt heads.
Though I had decided to do this, at this scale, I was not sure how I could pull it off. The thought of trying to chop little bolt heads, making them uniform and square, positioning them for gluing, it all seemed like a pretty daunting task. Maybe with The Chopper it might have worked, but this was reaching the limits of my fumbling hands. Then, I had a epiphany. Why not drill holes clear through the hull, insert round stock, position them, and glue from behind. In theory, it should work.
Below: My one concern with this plan was if I can drill the holes somewhat straight and within the limits of the backing links. I know that drill bits tend to walk until they grab into the material being drilled. This was a concern. In fact, my first attempt did just that. I figured my best bet is to make starter holes. Since I can't use a drill to do this, or I could but what is the point, I decided to heat up a pin using a candle and then melt starter holes. The idea here was to make them deep enough for the drill bit to have something to grab into. This did work, and it helped. In the end though, I still have some off-center holes. Maybe if I used a dremel instead of drilling them by hand I might have held a tighter pattern. Not sure, but since I can barely see these things without some decent magnification, its good enough. This image shows the starter hole process.
Below: This shows the round stock process. All that I did was to keep pushing it into the hole until just a bit of it is sticking out. This worked out really well, and I was able to breeze through the process with all of them.
Below: Here is how they look.
Below: A reference of scale.
Below: A test run of adding a chain. A few things to note.
1. In the final run the deadeye strop will run down through the channel. When the time comes, it will be a real bear to install the chains. It was difficult for me to add this chain with not installing the deadeye via a strop. It will be much more difficult doing so. It will be a real test securing the lower strop to the chain underneath the channel. Its tight in there. I will have to come up with a process that will help.
2. I am not sure that I have the correct chains for this scale yet. I could only fit three links. On the replica they seem to have 5 links. I am still befuddled on if I can get one that will work. I have tried several and this is the closest I have come.
