The Journeyman's Workshop

I decided that it was time for a change… The old CIGN Workshop site has been around since 2007 with only a few minor updates. This time I decided that a complete new look was in order and set to making all the necessary changes to the site. The main change is re-writing the CSS, there are two of these, one for the main site and one for the WordPress pages. I also decided to change the name to something slightly more meaningful.

Welcome to the Journeyman’s Workshop, if you have visited before nothing has been deleted, in fact it’s all still in the same place. The main changes are bigger pages and different colours (or colors if you are into CSS or American). The menu is also bigger so that I can add some more pages without falling off the bottom of the screen. At the moment the Models tab is rather sparsley populated, alright it’s only got one item but more will follow. I am off to the workshop now to make some!

A journeyman is a term not used much these days but used to refer to a craftsman who had completed his apprenticeship and was then free to move around improving his skills in different workshops in his quest to become a master craftsman. Well I did an apprenticeship a loooong time ago. I have a lot of travelling yet to do to achieve a reasonable standard. A master craftsmen?… ah well!

I have added a new page with some simple projects for use on the lathe. Nothing revolutionary but may be of use to you. The most useful is probably the saddle stop which is an aid for turning up to a shoulder or setting repeatable lengths.

Go to Lathe Projects

I have added another project page that details the making and fitting of a modified saddle clamping arrangement for the lathe. I actually did this ages ago but have only just got around to writing it up. Based on an article in Engineering in Miniature but with a few additions of my own. Saddle Clamp

It was pointed out to me that some people are still using Internet Explorer 6 as a browser and that the menus on the website do not work. I must admit that I had deliberately ignored older browsers whilst writing the site but just in case I have added some additional navigation that doesn’t rely on CSS to work.

Why IE6 is still in use remains a mystery, it is after all over 10 years old and never was standard compliant. Even Microsoft are trying desperately to persuade users to upgrade. I have been using Firefox for ages but when writing the site tried it in several other browsers. It all seemed to work OK which begs the question what else could you use for menus other than CSS. OK, you could use Javascript but that can be switched off in the browser but come to that so can styling be switched off. Short of doing everything in PHP there seems to be no surefire way of doing things.

All that said I think I will just stick to the CSS and rely on the hope that most users don’t turn styling off and don’t turn Javascript off either. Hopefully the extra navigation will solve any problems for those tied to ancient technology.

Since my brief time as an engineer in the Merchant Navy, I have always had an interest ships and shipping. I have been building a model, Loyal Mediator, for many years and hope to sail it one day. I have often thought that Neuwerk, a German Coastguard vessel would make a great second model. I tried some time ago to locate plans for this without success (see Nautical Ramblings ).

A renewed search of the “Interweb” together with much use of Google Translate has at last come up trumps and I have sourced not one but two sets of drawings. One set I have already received from VTH (Vertag für Technik und Handwerk GmBH) in germany which is a 1:100 scale set of drawings for modelmakers. Another set of original drawings from the ships owners, WSA Cuxhaven, I still await.

All I need to do now is finish my current model to get some practice, then learn how to scratch build a model and finally set to and create a model of Neuwerk. Going at my speed about another ten years should see it OK!

I bought myself a new precision milling vice from Arc Euro Trade and quickly discovered that I needed to make a couple of clamps to hold it to the table. Quite a straightforward job you may think but even the simplest task can go awry if not carried out in the right order. Read how it should (or shouldn’t) be done! Milling Vice Hold Down Clamps