Day Eighteen

I have given up on the wire; it's too difficult to work with at this scale. I cannot deliver enough force or precision and with my best effort the hooks' sections are all bowed. It's a shame because the copper wire gives me the constant diameter I want.

So I fall back on old trusty. It's virtually impossible to stretch sprue so that its diameter is constant but I get little sections that are quite good enough to fool the naked eye. Each hook is only a few millimeters long straight, and over such a short distance one really cannot detect the minscule tapering.

Before I start bending, knowing that only about one in ten attempts will succeed, I have to make up a decent pile of stock. I stretch sprue for an hour or so, cut out the good sections, and grade them for thickness. The nearest pile is *about right*, then there is *too thin*, and *too thick* there at the back.

Getting there. Starting to feel optimistic. I need about twenty of these.

Good luck to me. As you can see, still only one of these hooks is any good.












I have discovered the best way to bend these by hand though. I put my steel ruler down on the cutting mat such that I can with forceps bend the little sections up against its edge. This works better as I am providing myself with reference surfaces such that the bends won't also be twists. Easier working in 2D than 3D, if that makes any sense.











Note that the finished hooks, in addition to being wildly inaccurate, are opening up; I have not used enough force to pass the material's yield point to the right degree. All the bends need to be just a little acute, something like 87 degrees, as the material will want to return to its original form - to straighten out - and we have to compensate for that.

If I want these twenty or so tiny hooks I am going to have to make a hundred or more. Practice makes perfect, yep. This blog is going to be very dull for the next few days - sorry!


So I've been at it all afternoon and my hook-making skills are improving. I'll put it down for today, and hopefully in the morning my hands will have learned something. It's like anything; if I want to get good at this I'm going to have to practise, practise, practise and there isn't any other way. I know I will, eventually, have twenty of these that are good enough. I intend to win this one; it's just going to take time.

Sticking them on should be comparatively easy. For the ones along the hull sides I plan to use a bit of masking tape with little marks measured on it as a guide. Cross that bridge when we come to it, I guess. I'm feeling quite positive all in all. Once I get these hooks on, and a few other little bits and pieces, I'm ready to start painting.