Frank McNeill
6th May 2003, 12:43 PM
Hi Mark et al: (Lawyer talk, I'm not a lawyer so I don't know what "et al" means—might have something to with cannibalism—)
I'm a newbie trying to find folks that know something about glue, bamboo and the construction of ship models. This is the third forum I've joined looking for that illusive combination. Anyhow, one of the lists I visit is called PaddleDucks and inhabited by guys that build models of paddle wheel ships. One entry I remember mentioned the use a a very fine grade of glass cloth over planking to hold the planking together and provide a barrier to water. I seem to be rambling a bit, but the reason for suggesting this is that glass cloth could be used to prevent bamboo culms from cracking by providing reinforcement and a moisture barrier. Anybody as old as I am (75 going on 100) will remember the beautiful Chris Craft runabouts with strip planked hulls. The planks were made of Cedar, which is a soft wood, and some restorations have used fiberglass over the flush planking to preserve the hulls of those beautiful, but fragile boats. One more item for anybody who would like to manufacture bamboo furniture of the "knocked down" or "flat pack" type shown in IKEA catalogs. Some years back I worked out a design for an "Improved Lego Brick" (ILB) with a positive attachment feature and wrote a letter to give the Lego folks the good news that their bricks could be improved so kids could actually play with things that were assembled from them. I learned, of course, that they preferred their bricks the way they already were, and still are, and followed that fiasco up with several designs for similar mortise and tenon type fasteners that might be used to make it possible for people to assemble furniture without the need for threaded fasteners, special tools, or complicated instructions, since anybody who had trouble could call on some kid with experience in assembling Lego bricks. I'm not trying to sell anything to anybody, but would be glad to send sketches and descriptions of several flavors of fasteners to anybody who is interested. This would be done by converting a word processor document with sketches and text into a PDF file for e-mail attachment. I realize that I can't send this to the forum, but anybody who received this stuff could copy text, graphics or both for distribution or the picture gallery. I will probably cover this same ground in a new thread after I figure out how some of the forum's "bells and whistles" work. Best wishes, Frank McNeill
I'm a newbie trying to find folks that know something about glue, bamboo and the construction of ship models. This is the third forum I've joined looking for that illusive combination. Anyhow, one of the lists I visit is called PaddleDucks and inhabited by guys that build models of paddle wheel ships. One entry I remember mentioned the use a a very fine grade of glass cloth over planking to hold the planking together and provide a barrier to water. I seem to be rambling a bit, but the reason for suggesting this is that glass cloth could be used to prevent bamboo culms from cracking by providing reinforcement and a moisture barrier. Anybody as old as I am (75 going on 100) will remember the beautiful Chris Craft runabouts with strip planked hulls. The planks were made of Cedar, which is a soft wood, and some restorations have used fiberglass over the flush planking to preserve the hulls of those beautiful, but fragile boats. One more item for anybody who would like to manufacture bamboo furniture of the "knocked down" or "flat pack" type shown in IKEA catalogs. Some years back I worked out a design for an "Improved Lego Brick" (ILB) with a positive attachment feature and wrote a letter to give the Lego folks the good news that their bricks could be improved so kids could actually play with things that were assembled from them. I learned, of course, that they preferred their bricks the way they already were, and still are, and followed that fiasco up with several designs for similar mortise and tenon type fasteners that might be used to make it possible for people to assemble furniture without the need for threaded fasteners, special tools, or complicated instructions, since anybody who had trouble could call on some kid with experience in assembling Lego bricks. I'm not trying to sell anything to anybody, but would be glad to send sketches and descriptions of several flavors of fasteners to anybody who is interested. This would be done by converting a word processor document with sketches and text into a PDF file for e-mail attachment. I realize that I can't send this to the forum, but anybody who received this stuff could copy text, graphics or both for distribution or the picture gallery. I will probably cover this same ground in a new thread after I figure out how some of the forum's "bells and whistles" work. Best wishes, Frank McNeill