help with deck gratings

[Guest]

anyone got any tips for making gratings i.e. cross-halving,drill and square file,cut and glue small squares to form the square holes, or any easier way [hopefully] the model is a scratch build 17th cent. British frigate

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[Guest]

Hi Peter, I just wanted to say thats a beaut of a ship your building.

She look great already.

[Guest]

Hi Gaz

Thanks for the compliment - i've just discovered how upload photo's [mine were to large] so i've put some more of Unicorn in my gallery + my only other model Sea Witch thanks again

Peter22

[Guest]

you can buy sheets of phot etched grills/gratings. try googling it or search on a modelling site such as netmerchants.

what scale is that? it looks great!

the p/e stuff might not be what your after but if you can post a picture of what your looking for i might be able to help further. there are lots of different styles of p/e meshes/gratings so you might find what your looking for.

here are a few examples:

Netmerchants > Plastic Scale Model Shop Home > Your Search Results

Richard

[Guest]

I think Peter wants to model this kind of thing, used around ships wheels etc as a non slip flooring:



Caillebotis de bateau 98 / 69 cm - antiquites de marine, casque de scaphandrier, meuble de marine, décoration de marine.

A lot of model boats are let down by using plastic moulded gratings.

I'd be tempted to try to fix a lot of small strips of wood edge to edge to a jig and then use a dremel router or some such to cut the halving joints. If you made a lot of these I'm sure you'd end up with sufficient quantities to get atleast one grating!

You could try to make a jig similar to that used when cutting finger joints on a table saw, with a pin which fits into the space cutout by the previous cut, and then move the parts across a notch at a time.

Obviously you'd need a very close grained wood and depending on the size of the strips you might have a varying degree of success.

It'd be a little like an inverted form of this setup:

Song of the Great Lakes - Box Joint Jigs

Edit: Forgot to say - the ship is looking great by the way!

[Guest]

Thanks Alan

A jig was something I had thought of I have a band saw and was thinking along those lines for the cross-halving

peter

[Guest]

you could make a router cross slide carriage for a dremel, along these kinds of lines:

http://www.idealtools.com.au/images/page3812.jpg

Some routers have holes bored through the base too for the side fence. If you could pick up some silver steel rod it'd make a nice smooth running slide. Alternatively you could make a new base plate for a router base and simply drill all the holes at once so as to ensure alignment.

[Guest]

It might be just as easy to drill a grid of holes and file them out with a square file. You can get white metal ones but for your model I would expect you to want to make them from wood.

I think probably the most realistic though would be, as you say half cut through matches at appropriate intervals. I'm sure if you laid them together and cut across carefully with a blade it wouldn't be too much of a chore.

[Guest]

help with decg gratings

Just realised I should have included a picture - DOH.

thanks for all suggestions

perer22

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[Guest]

Hi Peter,

That is certainly a very impressive looking model you are doing there, I can imagine the rigging stage is going to be a lot fun to do too, nonetheless she will certainly be an impressive model.

What sort of depth do the grates need to be..?, I have a very nice idea in mind which is quick and easy...I just need to know the sort of depth to know if my idea would work.

Regards.......Mark.

[Guest]

Hi Mark

thanks for your interest - the outside framework/center stiffener is 2mm in plan * 3mm deep. The holes are1.5mm square, formed by 1mm * ???deep [i would guess 2mm, but not critical as long as less than 3mm.

thank you again

peter22

[Guest]

Hi Peter,

The idea I had is made from a simple series of straight long spars with a small notch at the required intervals in the top edge and to about 1/2 depth of the spar.

The cross spars are simply made the same but with the notches on the bottom edge where they would locate onto the notches on the long spars.

Ok you would have to make a few of them, but with some balsa strip & a fine square file...or a mini drill to speed things up a bit, you can do these easily.

Simply glue them together and you should have a strong grate...Obviously the outer edges of the whole assembly would be thicker as per your drawings.

Hope you get the idea.

Regards.....Mark

[Guest]

Hi Mark

Yes thats how I think they would be made for the original ships [cross-halving] the only mod to that idea that I was thinking of trying is to clamp, perhaps 10 spars together and try to notch them on my bandsaw, I think it's going to be a "case of suck it and see!!"

thanks

peter22

[Guest]

Good luck and I hope it works out well for you. You should be able to do it that way as it is very similar to the sandwich rib method for model aircraft wings.

Regards....Mark.

[Guest]

Can you cheat a bit and go for slightly thicker spars and less of them? In scale modelling sometimes it's better to give the impression of the real subject without having to model exactly to scale. That'd be a real fiddle trying to cut them all to the same depth on the bandsaw, unless your bandsaw runs absolutely true. I bet it'd be great until you make a mistake on the last cut and ruin a pile of them.