If any of you read our blog on sea fishing in Dartmouth, SouthDevon (UK), you will realise that I share a boat with my younger (although he looks a lot lot older!) brother, Stephen. Well our bait and gutting board had decided to de-laminate itself again! As I seem to be catching all the fish recently, I thought it would be a good idea if the replacement board had a built in ruler. We need to measure the size (well at least I do!) of Bass in particular.
So having recently acquired some brass sheeting from my local scrap yard, I decided to mill some marks with imperial on one side and metric on the opposite. This is where digital readouts prove to be invaluable and I am glad I retro fitted my Axminster RF25 milling machine with a set from Hong Kong. This made the measuring simple. Indeed I suspect this is the most accurate ruler in the area!
I used a bull nosed 1/8th" mill to make the marks and then filled them with red paint. Once dry the surface was sanded back leaving the red marks untouched. Or that was the theory. It did work but whether the paint was old (15 years plus) or my cleaning wasn't good enough (I cleaned it off with thinners before painting) some marks held dirt form the sanding. In the end I removed all the old paint and then sprayed the whole ruler with Hammerite red metal paint. Again sanding back the surface and this worked much better.
The wood however was another matter. For those who have read some of my musings you will realise that whilst I love metal, wood is another matter! After cutting the shape out using a previous board as a template, I then used a router to mill a recess to allow the ruler to be inset, with the surface of the brass flush with the wood. So far so good, but I made an error when coming to the paint. Old stock again! It didn't want to dry well and after a very frustrating time, new paint was purchased.
Eventually the job was completed and we took the board down to the boat today. When I went to fit it into the molded recess into the engine cover it was just too big! I ddn't allow for the growthwith marking out. I can work to a thousandth of an inch in metal. As soon as wood (if thats what you can call MDF) rears its ugly head then it goes to pieces. Still it won't take much to trim it up. A 1/8"th all round is all thats needed.
Here are a few photo's to help understand what I have been describing.
The brass ruler with imperial one side and metric the other.
The bait board with the brass ruler inset into the board.
About Mike Freeman
Hello, my name is Mike Freeman and I am a retired Chief Fire Officer from the United Kingdom with a keen interest in model engineering, silver caddy spoons and sea fishing. I live in the pretty fishing port of Brixham, South Devon, in the United Kingdom.
I am a sufferer of degenerative osteoarthritis, which impacts on the amount of time I can spend in the workshop, and is the reason why you will see seats and a stool in some of the photo's. I have only recently added the above sentence after a discussion with one of my Doctor's from the excellent pain clinic, based in Torbay. This does affect concentration one of the reasons why I double then re-double my measurements and set ups.
Before completing nearly 30 years of public service I and my wife Sandy, owned and ran, a small restaurant in Okehampton Devon. Prior to marriage I worked for my father in his various businesses, in the early days these were garages, which he bought in a run down state, then built them up before moving on, to start again.
I took every opportunity in those early days, to work in his workshop's
learning 'on the job' rather than as an apprentice. This, I suspect, is the reason why my building various model's in the early days, turned into model engineering, when funds allowed the required equipment to be bought.
My workshop comprises one half of a detached double garage. It has a
stud wall separating the two halves and unusually perhaps, its own
shower/toilet/washbasin compartment! (the true reason for buying the
bungalow - don't tell the wife!!!)
It is fully insulated with a ceiling and fluorescent lighting supplementing the one window. Several double electrical sockets are dotted around in
relevant positions.
Equipment consists of 2 lathes (1 Myford ML 10 and 1 Chinese variable
speed motor with etched glass DRO's), 1 milling machine (RF25 far East) floor standing pillar drill, Proxxon bandsaw, Warco bandsaw, 6" wire brush and polishing mop motor, 6" coarse and fine grinder, Proxxon mini drill, various benches and an engineers vice. I have just acquired a third lathe, a Myford ML7 which I am at present evaluating so I can decide which of the Myford's I will keep.
I have only just bought the Chinese lathe and had it fitted with DRO's prior to delivery. And what a bonus they are! So good in fact that I decided to buy another set for the Milling machine. Whilst my engineering experience can only be described as limited, I find the use of DRO's has affected my accuracy levels which have improved tremendously (although that's not saying much!) and would recommend their fitting to any model engineer.
Prior to retirement I built for my son's 17th birthday a Locost car. This
was a tremendous project and a great feeling when it passed its test. The book it was based on suggests it can be built for £250. Ours was nothing special in the sense of all new parts but still cost about £900 to build!
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