January 13th, 2019

This months meeting was held at Lee Valley Tools in Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada. 

 The theme of the meeting was "Blackening Metals" and the presentation was made by Ray.

Ray discussed a few different product, such as BLACKEN IT  and  JAX BLACK.  These two liquid products will blacken yellow metals (brass, bronze, and copper).  Ray usually dilutes them 50% in water.  He says using them at 100% concentration can result in a sooty chemical reaction that will wipe off.

First the item(s) must be clean, meaning no grease, grime or finger oil caused by handling.  He does this by dropping them in a container of Rubbing Alcohol and swishing them about to assure a good wash.  They are removed with tweezers and drop onto a clean paper towel and dried by folding the paper over top of them and patting down. 

DO NOT touch them with your fingers or they will be contaminated

The items are then dropped into a 50% concentration (cut with water) of blackening agent.  The container is swished about to assure the underside of the items float about and get completely surrounded by the mixture (if sitting stationary on the floor of the container the underside of the items will not blacken properly).  Once seen to be dark they are removed with tweezers and dropped into clean water to stop the chemical oxidation reaction.  They are then dropped in a second container of clean water and swished about for a final rinse.  They are picked out with tweezers and drop onto a clean paper towel and dried by folding the paper over top of them and patting down.

Ray explained that silver solder will blacken but regular soft solder will not.  If you've made a mistake and used the wrong solder it can be blackened with a permanent black coloured marker.  DO NOT try to blacken your brass or copper with a marker because it will be too shiny or glossy and will not look natural.

Ray also showed us a product called JAX GREEN PATINA to give the copper or brass that aged look.  Below are the results of blackening and the green patina.

---

The meeting was kicked off by Tijs giving away slats of Pecan wood from his fruit tree for members to use up on a project in their shops.  It is a very dense and hard wood but he says it steams up and bends very well!

Alan brought in his completed scratch build of a 9 Pound Naval Cannon.  The final barrel used was 3D printed by the Welland Library in two halves that were epoxied together.

Since then Alan has found a printer that has the capability to do the barrel in one piece and this item is shown in the picture outside of the case.  John explained to Alan how it might be painted to added more realism to it.

---

John brought in his scratch build 10 inch and 13 inch mortars to show his progress since our last meeting.  He brought in samples of tubing and explained again how he purchased the tubing of various sizes that slid inside each other snugly to create the basic shape. 

​The insignia on the 13 inch mortar was created with Weldbond Adhesive applied in droplets  with a tooth pick to build up the desired shape.  He had about 5 minutes working time before what he was working with started to harden.  You can see this image in the lower mortar in the photo below.  John recommends you play with it a bit to get a feel for the setup time and workability.   It works well on porous material (wood) but will also work on metal.  It goes on like white glue but dries transparent.

John will be giving a demonstration at our meeting on 14 April 2019

---

​Bob passed around a copy of the book "A Young Sea Officer's Sheet Anchor" that he picked up out east in Halifax.  It was chock full of rope work, rigging and ship handling diagrams.

​David explained that the book is printed/sold by Lee Valley Tools.
​

---

Ray showed members his progress on a Half Hull build of a C&C 35X for a client.

He made station profiles from the body plan, using styrene sheet for durability.  The hull is  built up from 3/16" thick basswood layers called "lifts".   Each lift is the thickness to the next waterline shape on the build drawing.

​The lifts are all marked on the centerline edge with stations and dead flat.  The lifts will be drilled and pinned with dowels in two locations to assure proper registration after shaping.  They will be hand carved and sanded to shape to match the station profiles.