Le Mercure ANCRE Plans

Hi Brian077, Yes - you are spot on. The original plan was to bring Dr Mike to Australia. He was very interested and agreed but arranging his VISA got tricky and as a consequence I decided to go to Russia instead. That was the period when we filmed the videos. I was with him for 6 or so weeks 9-6 every day. The videos cover most but not all of that experience.
My current build of Le Mercure (which, incidentally, is my first model) follows his techniques (and as Alex liked to call them "technologies") more or less identically. I remain in regular contact with Dr Mike and he is always very happy to answer questions. The other modeller I have contact with is Evgeniy Yepur. He built the Victory and very recently completed the Grand Duke Constantine. You can see his work on the Russian forum.
 
G'day Antonio, I'm glad you have started to post your build on SOS, and I can say it is an unique way to build a ship model, I know for a fact that you are very precise with all measurements and cutting, I look forward to seeing more of your build,

best regards John.
 
I have spent the last couple of days making nails (using a syringe tip and drill press) and I attach some photos including:
> The tools used to fashion the syringe tip (this is the trickiest part)
> The Drill press and jig setup
> The final result (this photo was zoomed in 5.5 times)
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Hi Anton
Do you drill partway through the block and then release the nails by cutting through the block on the tablesaw?Also how do you remove the burr that forms inside the needle when you shape the end?
I have never tried this technique before,I have used a Byrnes drawplate with Boxwood.However I wish to treenail Saint Philippe's deck(the few areas that I do plank) and Pear is not strong enough to run through a drawplate.

Regards

Nigel
 
@NMBROOK: Yes, I drill about 5mm through the Pear (the depth of the cut can be limited on the Proxxon drill press so it is exact every time). The thickness of the Pear is about 6mm meaning 1mm of nail remains uncut.

I use sticky tape on the side of the Pear that has the syringe drill holes (so the nails don't fly everywhere when I cut them) and then cut the other side through my band saw with a guide (the circular saw has too much power).

You must polish the syringe tip - inside and out otherwise you will run in to issues. Ideally it needs to be like a mirror with every burr removed. Spend some time doing this carefully. I use loupes and also a magnifying lamp. I remove the burr from the inside with a very fine Swiss file (number 8) and use rotary attachments on my jeweller's drill to polish the outside very carefully.

Every 500 nails I remove the syringe piece from the Drill Press and clean it by passing a very thin needle through it. Don't blow through it because it can leave moisture in the syringe which is not ideal and increases the friction of the syringe tip in the wood. (By the way with 20g syringes almost all needles will be too thick to pass through it so you may need to purchase very thin stainless steel wire from a jewellery supply store that achieves this perfectly).

It took me about 20 syringes to get this right but now they are actually very easy to make and one syringe tip can make thousands of nails. The only issue I find is if I am on a roll making nails the syringe heats up and can break as it is so fine.

One very important last thing - you need to set the speed of the Drill Press very carefully. If it is turning too fast the nails will burn and conversely if it is turning too slow they tend to rip and break. I have adjusted the belt on my Proxxon drill press to achieve 4700 rpm and this seems to work perfectly.

I attach a couple of photos that may be useful.

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G'day Antonio, thank you for a wonderful day yesterday, it was great catching up again and seeing how you made your trunnels and your choice of woods for construction, also the lovely toasted mustard, ham and cheese sandwich you made me, looking forward to next time,
Best regards John,
 
neptune said:
G'day Antonio, thank you for a wonderful day yesterday, it was great catching up again and seeing how you made your trunnels and your choice of woods for construction, also the lovely toasted mustard, ham and cheese sandwich you made me, looking forward to next time,
Best regards John,
Click to expand...
What???? And we have not been invited??? WOW! I am sure you guys have a wonderful time, and there so much to learn from Antony who has a chance to learn from both Masters (one-to-one)!! :)
 
@Neptune - very good to have you over and I am glad you enjoyed the cheese sandwich! Thank you for the Myrtle which I am very strongly considering as my wood of choice for planking the hull under the waterline. I will cut down some strips to assess the quality and make my decision based on that.

Please give me a bit of time and I'll post more photos as I start to insert the nails in my deck. I'll show you my process on this. I've had some busy days at work (that often requires some weekend work) so unfortunately haven't spent as much time as I'd like on the model in the past week.

However, I include a few photos of Neptune and I.
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Hi JohnA: No customisation needed - if you see the photo just above my head, the correct RPM can be achieved out of the box. In fact the side of the Proxxon drill press explains this belt adjustment.

As for the commercialisation of the DVD, that had absolutely nothing to do with me and was my friend's doing (Ivan - who held the camera who has no interest in ship modelling). He filmed everything, setup the website, edited the videos etc and came to Russia on the basis he could do this. I was only interested in a copy of the videos for my own learning purposes and to ensure I didn't forget anything I had learned with Dr Mike and Alex whilst I was there. The DVD was always a heavily edited version of the full videos. These full videos were leaked on to a Russian forum and then YouTube, which, to be honest, was very likely a breach of copyright. However, we didn't make a fuss of this and just let it go when it happened as I had no commercial interest in it and it would have been too difficult to follow up. So, strictly speaking, they shouldn't be publicly available but I can see they serve a broader benefit and I am happy with that.
 
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