hi modellers:
Some of the most beautiful engineering is curved and assymetric in some parts while linear with undercuts and thousands of an inch in other dimensions, hence hard to polish other than paper and elbow grease. Attached are some images of a built up soldered "shovel'. This was the implement on the end of an Ordnance QF 18 pounder breech loading cannon carriage that dug in when fired and stopped the gun carriage rolling too far back in recoil. This 1:8 scale one was built up from sheet brass soldered together. I am a bad solderer so there was a lot of inadvertent plating going on when all these pieces came together . I ground off the plating and then was stuck with a whole lot of filing and sanding to try to restore surfaces. Dremel soft tips with compound were not making it happen. I remembered my CRATEX polishing compound rods. These are half inch soft polymer rods with an embedded grinding compound that I had used in gunsmith work to create nice polished marks on rifle bolts. I chucked one in a regular cordless drill and went to work on the hard to reach surfaces that had defied draw filing etc and looked to be many hours to finish by hand with going throgh the grits and sanding methods. Looking good after about 15 minutes with various cratex grits.
all the best
Chris
Some of the most beautiful engineering is curved and assymetric in some parts while linear with undercuts and thousands of an inch in other dimensions, hence hard to polish other than paper and elbow grease. Attached are some images of a built up soldered "shovel'. This was the implement on the end of an Ordnance QF 18 pounder breech loading cannon carriage that dug in when fired and stopped the gun carriage rolling too far back in recoil. This 1:8 scale one was built up from sheet brass soldered together. I am a bad solderer so there was a lot of inadvertent plating going on when all these pieces came together . I ground off the plating and then was stuck with a whole lot of filing and sanding to try to restore surfaces. Dremel soft tips with compound were not making it happen. I remembered my CRATEX polishing compound rods. These are half inch soft polymer rods with an embedded grinding compound that I had used in gunsmith work to create nice polished marks on rifle bolts. I chucked one in a regular cordless drill and went to work on the hard to reach surfaces that had defied draw filing etc and looked to be many hours to finish by hand with going throgh the grits and sanding methods. Looking good after about 15 minutes with various cratex grits.
all the best
Chris
