December was a very busy month for me.  I completed and installed the hardware for the "treasure chest" engine cover for the pirate ship.  That necessitated a trip to the boatyard in Fajardo, Puerto Rico, and a half-day's time.   As I feared might happen, the dimensions I was given for the engine cover were not accurate.  Fortunately, they were wrong in a way that I could cope with, since I had taken over sufficient tools to make just such a modification.  I had to shorten a pair of the straps, but the joints could be concealed where they pass under the other straps, so no harm done other than wasting a bit of time.  Treasure chest completeI also had to do some fakery on the woodwork itself, as the box was made of plywood with the grain running the wrong way, and it looked like a plywood box.  I was prepared for this eventuality and used a hook scraper I'd made and carried along for the purpose, and carved some shadow lines in the plywood to simulate plank joints.  I darkened these with a bit of dark stain, used a rattle can of black paint to add some shadows and "age" to the thing, and it looked considerably better.

Upon completion of that little bit of entertainment, I spent the next three weeks or so in the shop making four 1/4-scale replica cannons for the deck of the same ship.  Deck cannons for pirate shipThese are non-functional, but had to look very realistic, so I obtained a set of naval architect's blueprints for a 32-pound deck cannon from the 18th century.  I scaled everything down to fit the desired finished size, which worked out to be 3:13, or about 1/4 scale.  Lots of time with a calculator for that chore!  The client wanted the barrels to be a bit more imposing, so I went out of scale on them by about 25% on the diameter.  Since they're non-functional, I turned them from wood and painted them to look like iron, complete with rusty areas.  The carriages were made from oak, with forged iron hardware.  The wheels are actually riveted together as per the original, and the trunnion caps are forged with the proper cross-section to create the rod-in-a-ring hinge function. 

All in all this was a great learning experience, and I now know more about 18th century cannons and their construction than I would have thought possible.  The client was truly Cannons on the Waterfrontoverwhelmed by them; she actually had tears in her eyes, she was so happy with the results.   I photographed them down at the waterfront and they look almost real.

After I delivered the cannons, it was time to do a few of my long list of shop improvement chores.  I re-organized a number of areas and made the necessary holders, hangers and storage places to do that.  Then I undertook to finally build the tumbler that I've been wanting for the past four or five years.  Over that time, I've scrounged various bits and pieces from the dumpster and other sources, so I figured I could build on e for very little, if any, cash outlay.

I used a salvaged 100# propane cylinder for the main drum, and powered it with a 1-1/2hp variable-speed DC motor salvaged from an exercise treadmill found at the dumpster.  Whenever I see one of those, I grab the working parts and put them in my stash of stuff for future projects.  They're great for powering things like belt grinders, lathes, planishing hammers, etc.  Tumbler from scrapI used a jackshaft arrangement between the motor and the drum to drop the speed down to where the final is variable between about 10rpm and 180 rpm.  Only the truly demented would try to run a tumbler full of a hundred or more pounds of iron at anything over about 30 rpm, but the only pulleys I had on hand wouldn't allow me to get the speed down any lower than I did.  Needless to say, I will never run it at anything like top speed!

The tumbler is lined inside with the tread material form the treadmill, and has three angle iron "kickers" welded longitudinally to keep the pieces inside bouncing around nicely.  The angle iron was from old bed frames, once again scrounged at the dumpster.  The perforated shelving support tubing was given to me after a friend had his office remodeled.  Did I mention that I'm really, really cheap?

I used the area where the tankbase is welded to the tank to act as the final drive sheave, saving the cost of a pulley I didn't have in the stash.  Unfortunately, I also didn't have a v-belt of the right length, so I had to drop $9 for that, blowing my goal of no cash outlay.  (grin) I'll probably spend some more money to buy a gallon of autobody undercoating to coat the outside of the tumbler to further reduce noise output.  At that, it may still wind up needing to be in a small house of its own to keep the neighbors from lynching me.

A tumbler is a great tool to remove mill and forging scale, rust and sharp corners and burrs.  It's one of those set-it-and-forget-it items that will toil away unattended while you do more fun things.  I have never enjoyed standing for long periods at the wire wheel, nor picking those little pieces of wire out of my belly button afterwards.

Today was back to the business of making money, working on a bronze "Judas" window for a  wine cellar door on St. Thomas.  All in all, December was a very busy month.

Happy New Year to all the ArtMetal crew, and thanks to Enrique for maintaining this great resource.