The Ship Model Forum

Thanks PeeJay and its nice to hear from you my friend. I have a very small area I set up in our home office, but its no place to have any equipment like saws, drill press or bench top lathe. I have plenty off room in my unheated cellar, but with my bad back I can't do most of whats required to set a nice work area. I'm at the mercy of family to help me from time to time.

After Christmas I bought myself a nice floor model drill press from harbor Freight Tools. My nephew and wife took the parts out of the box and wrestled them into the basement and them my nephew helped me assemble it. I also got myself an X-Y table and a nice miniature (4 inch) milling machine type vise. I also got a couple inexpensive vernier scale digital readouts and mounted them on the X-Y table. I now have a poor mans milling/drilling machine that for the most part is only good for very light duty milling on plastic and wood.

Here's a couple photos of it set up in my basement. As always, feel free to tell me what you think.

The first photo it the new table and vise just out of their boxes. I was cleaning the grease off.

Here's the drill press all assembled wthe the X-Y table on it. The drill dress is top heavy with the extra weight of the X-y table. I'll be making some kind so safety bracket for it maybe attached to one of the floor joists above the machine.




Roger DD-555

Thanks ModelMonkey!!! I will start to work on it and finish it some time soon I hope.
Roger DD-555

Looks great. You will be doing some fine work in no time. (I mean even finer than the work already displayed here and on your other build, of course! ) The closest I have had to a drill press is a portalign, which attaches to a hand drill to keep it perpendicular to a surface.

I will be interested to know how you like that drill press. We had a Harbor Freight open here in town, which is where my tool cart and new workbench came from. Had a small setback with a set of storage shelves I got from the Home Depot. It was missing a bunch of retainers to fasten the shelves to the poles. The people at the service number said they would ship the missing parts. Then they called back and said they are on backorder. Today they told me they are not going to receive any more attachment clips so the backorder is canceled. They said that I will now have to take it up with the local store. Hopefully I can get my money back and get some shelves from somewhere else.

Pete

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So many ships to model and so little time . . . .

[/quote]

Looks great. You will be doing some fine work in no time. (I mean even finer than the work already displayed here and on your other build, of course! ) The closest I have had to a drill press is a portalign, which attaches to a hand drill to keep it perpendicular to a surface.

I will be interested to know how you like that drill press. We had a Harbor Freight open here in town, which is where my tool cart and new workbench came from. Had a small setback with a set of storage shelves I got from the Home Depot. It was missing a bunch of retainers to fasten the shelves to the poles. The people at the service number said they would ship the missing parts. Then they called back and said they are on backorder. Today they told me they are not going to receive any more attachment clips so the backorder is canceled. They said that I will now have to take it up with the local store. Hopefully I can get my money back and get some shelves from somewhere else.

PeeJay

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So many ships to model and so little time . . . .

Hi Everyone,
Well, I'm finally back to work on the DD-555. Some would say beautifying the sow but I want to finish my build so I can more onward. I know the kit isn't the best, but It's RC as most of you that have seen it before know. Anyway, here are a few images of HR Products twin 40mm guns. I added the railing using .020 dia brass wire and bits of the railing from Tom's PE set for the kit. The gun sights are way to big as they are scaled for the kit 40mm guns. I removed a section from the middle to narrow them a bit. Then a glued a short .030 square styrene block onto them to aid gluing them to the gun barrels.

The guns are small and I did my best taking photos of them. Anyone that's used these guns knows just how much cleaning up they require. I have an unknown amount of time into them and I'm very happy they're done except for paint.





DD-555

Hi Peejay,
The drill press is OK but its over loaded with the gear I have on it. The support that holds the table is usually made of cast iron. This POS has a steel support that isn't as strong as a cast iron version. The part that rides up and down the drill press column is cast iron, why not the table support. That's my only complaint with the machine. When ever you buy anything from Harbor Freight, make sure you are using one of their 20 or 25% off coupons. If not you're over paying more than if using the coupon.
Roger DD-555

Hi Everyone,
As you know, I'm back to work on the DD-555. I have decided to move the completion over to RC Groups Scale Boats page for a couple reasons. First, its a lot of work posting on two forums. Second, its much easier to upload photo at RC Groups due to bigger file sizes allowed.

I greatly appreciate everyone here for commenting on my work and through learning many new techniques from watching your amazing work here. The Calling All Ship Fans page here is a very valuable asset to this forum and I will be checking in from time to time to see what's going on here.

Here's the link to the continuation of this build at RC Groups: http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2364571
If anyone here happens to be a member at RC Groups, feel free to comment on the build there.

Cheers,
Roger DD-555/DD-473

Roger that!

I have to agree regarding the "Calling all Ship Fans page being a very valuable reference, as well as the contacts that I have made through that page, and the insights regarding the variations among Fletcher Class ships as well as building techniques learned for other builds in this Forum. Thank you Roger for your inspiration, and I am looking forward to seeing the Haggard in her element under full control.

PeeJay

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So many ships to model and so little time . . . .