Turns out there’s more to making miniatures than meets the eye!
A while ago I got a pack of 1095 shim stock to cut up into saw blades. It was an “assorted” pack, and apart from the thicknesses I really wanted (0.020 & 0.025”), it included a sheet each of 0.010 & 0.005 inch. I wasn’t much interested in the thin stuff & considered tossing it out, but then decided it might be of some use in making small-scale tools, something I’ve had an interest in for a long time, with an occasional dabble.
Then I stumbled on this & was inspired by to try making a 1/3rd scale saw. In my ignorance, I thought this scale would be an easy place to begin at & certainly a whole lot easier than 1/12 scale, which is something I have been considering.
I started out to make a “working” model of one of my dovetail saws (which is a loose copy of the smallest saw in the Benjamin Seaton chest).
The blade of this saw is 225mm long & 0.015” thick, & I thought I’d try using a piece of the 5 thou plate, which would have been just right in terms of scale, but it was far too flimsy & even my finest file caught on the edges & buckled a couple of teeth slightly. So I went up a notch – after all, who is going to notice 0.005” difference without a micrometer ? The 10 thou plate worked much better, but I had to compromise on tooth size. The sharpest file I have is a #4-cut needle file, the corners of which look knife-sharp to the naked eye, but are in fact radiused, just like any other file. At a squeeze, it could have cut usable teeth at 30tpi, but the first lot I tried went so badly I dropped back to 24tpi. This is way out of scale, the ‘real thing’ is 15tpi, so my model should have 45tpi to be in scale. My eyes water at the thought!
The handle (from a scrap of Macassar ebony) presented few problems other than being so ridiculously small that even my modeller’s rasps struggled to fit the curves so much whittling & sanding ensued. I made a rough mock-up then attempted the real thing, which ended in a mess. I began with 7.5mm thick wood, which was ‘in scale’, but I ended up splitting off a large chunk when cutting the slot for the spine. For handle #3 I upped the thickness to a shade over 10mm & all went well, this time. I don’t think the extra thickness is obvious on a casual appraisal.
The saw bolts are also out of scale. The shanks should be around 1.5mm diameter, and the heads 3-3.5mm, but the smallest taps I have are 3mm, so that determined the shank size. To get enough area on the head & nut, I made them 5mm. They look too big if you compare with the original, & even more 'wrong' from the back side, where you can see how fat the bolts are compared with the diameter of the nuts.
At least the back is (roughly) in scale, that was relatively easy to do, and if you look quickly at the whole thing, it’s tolerably convincing.
It does saw wood, but it’s not easy to hold the handle between a thumb & index finger, so I won't be making any miniatures with it…
As a lesser challenge, I made a 2/3rd scale model, which was a bit easier to keep at or close to scale.
The saw plate thickness is “correct” at 10 thou, the bolts are not as grossly oversized (but still a little over what they should be), and the handle was far easier to manage!
It’s only twice as big as the 1/3rd scale saw, but looks a lot larger, and I can actually hold the handle in a traditional 3-finger grip (I have medium-small hands for a male).
This saw is quite usable and cuts smoothly & fast with its 24tpi. I think it will come in handy for making small stuff like doll’s house furniture for my grand-daughters. The baby saw will remain a curiosity – unlike some of the other scaled-down tools I’ve made, which are all very usable & handy at times.
I learnt a few things from this exercise, in particular that accurate model-making (as opposed to rough facsimiles), has more challenges than I’d realised. I don’t have suitably small tools for some tasks & I would need a big re-think to tackle the 1/12 scale I’d eventually like to have a crack at. A working 1/12 scale infill plane would be way beyond my current skills & tooling. I can also see this is a rather deep & dangerous rabbit hole where a chap could lose himself forever.....
Cheers,
Ian
A while ago I got a pack of 1095 shim stock to cut up into saw blades. It was an “assorted” pack, and apart from the thicknesses I really wanted (0.020 & 0.025”), it included a sheet each of 0.010 & 0.005 inch. I wasn’t much interested in the thin stuff & considered tossing it out, but then decided it might be of some use in making small-scale tools, something I’ve had an interest in for a long time, with an occasional dabble.
Then I stumbled on this & was inspired by to try making a 1/3rd scale saw. In my ignorance, I thought this scale would be an easy place to begin at & certainly a whole lot easier than 1/12 scale, which is something I have been considering.
I started out to make a “working” model of one of my dovetail saws (which is a loose copy of the smallest saw in the Benjamin Seaton chest).
The blade of this saw is 225mm long & 0.015” thick, & I thought I’d try using a piece of the 5 thou plate, which would have been just right in terms of scale, but it was far too flimsy & even my finest file caught on the edges & buckled a couple of teeth slightly. So I went up a notch – after all, who is going to notice 0.005” difference without a micrometer ? The 10 thou plate worked much better, but I had to compromise on tooth size. The sharpest file I have is a #4-cut needle file, the corners of which look knife-sharp to the naked eye, but are in fact radiused, just like any other file. At a squeeze, it could have cut usable teeth at 30tpi, but the first lot I tried went so badly I dropped back to 24tpi. This is way out of scale, the ‘real thing’ is 15tpi, so my model should have 45tpi to be in scale. My eyes water at the thought!
The handle (from a scrap of Macassar ebony) presented few problems other than being so ridiculously small that even my modeller’s rasps struggled to fit the curves so much whittling & sanding ensued. I made a rough mock-up then attempted the real thing, which ended in a mess. I began with 7.5mm thick wood, which was ‘in scale’, but I ended up splitting off a large chunk when cutting the slot for the spine. For handle #3 I upped the thickness to a shade over 10mm & all went well, this time. I don’t think the extra thickness is obvious on a casual appraisal.
The saw bolts are also out of scale. The shanks should be around 1.5mm diameter, and the heads 3-3.5mm, but the smallest taps I have are 3mm, so that determined the shank size. To get enough area on the head & nut, I made them 5mm. They look too big if you compare with the original, & even more 'wrong' from the back side, where you can see how fat the bolts are compared with the diameter of the nuts.
At least the back is (roughly) in scale, that was relatively easy to do, and if you look quickly at the whole thing, it’s tolerably convincing.
It does saw wood, but it’s not easy to hold the handle between a thumb & index finger, so I won't be making any miniatures with it…
As a lesser challenge, I made a 2/3rd scale model, which was a bit easier to keep at or close to scale.
The saw plate thickness is “correct” at 10 thou, the bolts are not as grossly oversized (but still a little over what they should be), and the handle was far easier to manage!
It’s only twice as big as the 1/3rd scale saw, but looks a lot larger, and I can actually hold the handle in a traditional 3-finger grip (I have medium-small hands for a male).
This saw is quite usable and cuts smoothly & fast with its 24tpi. I think it will come in handy for making small stuff like doll’s house furniture for my grand-daughters. The baby saw will remain a curiosity – unlike some of the other scaled-down tools I’ve made, which are all very usable & handy at times.
I learnt a few things from this exercise, in particular that accurate model-making (as opposed to rough facsimiles), has more challenges than I’d realised. I don’t have suitably small tools for some tasks & I would need a big re-think to tackle the 1/12 scale I’d eventually like to have a crack at. A working 1/12 scale infill plane would be way beyond my current skills & tooling. I can also see this is a rather deep & dangerous rabbit hole where a chap could lose himself forever.....
Cheers,
Ian
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