[REL] Kriegsmarine Wiz-Wheel templates released!

[Puster Bill]

Originally Posted by Heibges

Someone could start a business, making these and selling them to other kaleun's.

Hint hint.

Nudge Nudge.

A few people have mentioned or hinted at this.

I'm not going to do it for several reasons.

First, it's Hitman's artwork. I would no more sell his intellectual property for my profit than he would mine. If I were to manufacture them, part of the money would have to go to Hitman. He has graciously given us permission to use it for ourselves, but he didn't give us permission to make profit off of it.

Second, while it is not a difficult process to build one, it is tedious if you want to do it so that it will last (ie., if I were selling them, I would insist on quality). To do a full KM wheel with both sides, double thickness on cardstock and double laminated takes at least an hour. You could make a useable one yourself in less time.

Third, I would probably have to shift from self-stick lamination to thermal (which means I would have to buy a machine), and I'd also have to use a better way to connect them together, something like klh's bolt and nylock nut.

All these things add cost. I can't guess how much Hitman would think is fair for creating the thing, but the cost for manufacturing and shipping the thing for me is up to 20 or 30 bucks. Most of the material costs are pretty low (except for the ink!), but I'd have to either buy a thermal laminator or have them laminated at a local office supply store. That means I have to either spread the cost of the laminator among perhaps 10 or 20 wheels, or add in the cost of getting 7 pieces laminated at least once, perhaps twice. Then you have to add in my time, which generally is in short supply, and that supply is getting shorter as I get older.

So you are looking at $30 - $40 for something you can build yourself by going down to Wal*Mart and buying cardstock, inkjet transparencies, and some lamination. It would cost you all of about $15 for enough supplies to make up to 10 wheels.

One possibility might be to have a company manufacture a bunch of them. Concise in Japan still makes circular slide rules:
http://www.concise.co.jp/eng0731/slide.html
My guess, however, is that the number that would have to be purchased for them to manufacture a batch would have to be in the several hundred - several thousand range for them to consider it, at a unit cost of at least $30.

I can't see us as a community being able to support that. For instance, I probably wouldn't buy one: I already have two (well, four if you include the US SACF/IS-WAS, and even more if you include my linear and circular slide rules). If you are hardcore enough to want one, you already have one, and many if not most of the people who play SHIII don't bother with manual targeting. My brother occasionally plays, but he didn't want me to make him a KM wheel because he doesn't want to bother with manual targeting.

So, at least for me, the short answer is no, at least for now.

If you want to use one, make it for yourself. If it seems a daunting task, just make the one side (the one with the small wheel with the eagle, marked 'Zeit'). That is the actual calculation side that gives you the speed and AOB, depending on the method you use. I only use the other side occasionally to resolve AOB past 90 degrees (ie., solution gives 45 degree AOB but I'm to the stern of the ship, AOB is then 135 degrees). It's pretty simple: You print them out, cut 3 circles, and pin them together.

[don1reed]

Hi Gents,

There are other fastening tools on the market that will allow for a flatter, more compact application of putting both sides of the whiz-wheel together:



I picked these up at a local ACE hdwe store...a grand total of $0.62 ea.

they're 1/4" x 1/4" (~5mm x 5mm) Flathead screws, the heads are 1 cm dia. (brass)

-...-

When making my WW, I elected to have each pic covered in plastic @ kinkos for ~$2.50 per pic.; however, if I would have pre-cut the individual rings, I could have put more than one item in plastic at a time--reducing the cost by half.

...Next time I'll know better

-...-

Although I have many tools to do the job, I made my holes in the wheels by poking a stove heated ice-pick into the centers to form a pilot hole. I followed up by heating an old screwdriver (Phillips head) and finished sizing the holes to take the shaft of the screws. Very quick and easy.

Caveat: No, you don't need to heat the pick or screwdriver to red-hot, just hot enough to melt the plastic.

cheers,

[Puster Bill]

Nice don1reed. I tend to use pins because I have them here, but I'll go looking for those this weekend.

[don1reed]

Howdy Bill,

Yep, the pins are great to use too. Just reading that some folks thought it was too difficult to make these wonderful WWs. I've made many different types of sliderules over the years, both circular and straight and found that drilling the holes through the plastic caused small rips and snags, or the drill bits would run off target, unless pilot hole was started first, of course. I finally settled on the burn-through method as the quickest and most accurate; but, thats just me.

Cheers,

[Puster Bill]

Well Don, I think the ones who are afraid of making them because it seems too hard just haven't bothered trying.

It's EASY.

Just about the only "hard" part is putting the pin (or whatever) exactly on the crosshairs that Hitman put at the center of each wheel. If you can do that, you can make these things.

As I said, I don't really use the side with the fancy doodads on it, just the simple slide rule on the other side.

It's certainly easier than making a linear rule. I've made those also, and they are much more finicky about construction.

[Pisces]

hi,

I finally made my own hardcopy with version 1.1 of this neat tool too. Indeed, it was alot easier than I thought. But I made sure I was well prepared. I used A4 sized sticker sheets to print on and stuck that onto old thin cardboard pizza boxes (about 1 mm thick). Cutting them out along the edges before covering them with sticky transparent (book) cover foil. It's not completely rigid, but good enough. I expected the foil to be statically charged so it would lift itself up in the air, to attach itself to the disks in the most annoying and 'unremovable' way possible. But it didn't. It stayed dormant on my working area. Unlike some previous attempts with this kind of foil on books.

The transparent pointers didn't come out very good. I printed them on inkjet transparencies that have one rough side for the ink to stick to. I also laminated them with that sticky foil but that led to unavoidable air bubbles, making them a bit blurry. I am not sure how this is going to work out when playing in 'rig for red' situations. As I like to keep it as dark as possible. Am I right in thinking that laserjet/copier transparencies are smooth on both sides? So this could be avoided with that?

Yesterday I asked in the KM Angriffscheibe manual thread about how to interpret the 2 ship symbols on the (scope)bearing pointer. Joegrundman said today the ship symbols were displaced outwards on the pointer in his version (to be used with the small fat red/green 60 degree pointer) compared to Hitman's original version. But this change does not seem to be included in the latest release (1.1) of Hitman's disk images. It appears joegrundman's mod (maybe OLC too), the final flash executable, and the version at the beginning of this thread all have slightly different pointers. Also, a centerline is missing making it difficult to align degrees on that 60 deg pointer. Further I noticed the center cross on the Lage wheel (same side) is a bit out of center. I drew lines between the degrees to check. And this causes the disk s to be sometimes 1 degree out of alignment. Not much (but very annoying once you know), and easily fixable in the image I think.

Some more cosmetic things (if I can persuade Hitman for an update of the files):

- There is a small white square on the yellow 'Strecke rad' disk between 6.0 and 6.5 knots.
- Between 3.1 and 3.3 on the knots and aswell as both km scales there are some irregular marks.
- The red line (the unity-mark) on the 'Zeit' (time) disk is not exactly above 1 minute 40 seconds. (which is 100 seconds and so they should be aligned)

And my final remark, the angle/distance/speed/time side could use a free pointer-tool. If you need to bridge time (i.e. on the seconds scale, the orange ring) or knots to an angle this is not possible without one. If you want to calculate angles smaller than 5.7 degrees on it this is even neccessary. See the in Angriffscheibe manual thread where I explained it. My solution:

[Pisces]

Originally Posted by Abd_von_Mumit

Hitman - could it be possible to get the source file containing the curves? It would let me scale it without fear of getting pixel-staircase on some lines (I keep getting them now; softening doesn't help a lot as it causes intolerable blur). I'd really appreciate that.

Also I have some size problems. The inside wheels seem to be a bit too little after printing - they don't fill the gaps in the bigger wheels, leaving like a 1-2 mm free space. I'm not a graphics magician, but I think I've did the scaling in a proper way (all the pics scaled down with the same factor, in both horizontal and vertical dimensions, proportionally).

Any tips?

I printed them out with Microsoft photoeditor (part of Office 200) as a first try, by setting magnification percentage. But somehow they ended up in missmatching sizes while I kept the printer settings (margins etc.) the same. Then I changed to setting the magnificaton in terms of size in centimeters. (letting Windows take care of margins vs. paper size) Since the templates all have the same pixel dimensions, they should also end up on paper with the same DotsPerInch resolution. And they did nicely.

[Puster Bill]

Originally Posted by Pisces

The transparent pointers didn't come out very good. I printed them on inkjet transparencies that have one rough side for the ink to stick to. I also laminated them with that sticky foil but that led to unavoidable air bubbles, making them a bit blurry. I am not sure how this is going to work out when playing in 'rig for red' situations. As I like to keep it as dark as possible. Am I right in thinking that laserjet/copier transparencies are smooth on both sides? So this could be avoided with that?

I haven't really had a problem with this, and I have built several.

Some of it has to do with technique, to be sure.

I use the inkjet transparencies, and also the self-stick lamination. When you apply the lamination to the transparency, or vice-versa, bend it into a "U" shape, and have the center touch first and work from the center out.

If you do get an air bubble, don't despair. Take a small sewing needle and put a small hole in the center of the bubble through the lamination, but not the transparency. Then carefully using your fingers, smooth the air out of that hole working from the edge of the bubble inward. You should be able to completely get rid of the bubble, and be left with just a very unobtrusive tiny hole in the lamination.

One other trick is to let the ink dry for a bit before laminating the transparency. Then carefully laminate the side with the ink on it (to protect the ink). Then you can build up multiple layers of lamination to give those pieces stiffness.

Don't get discouraged. At least now if you want to just re-do the parts, you don't have to start from scratch.

Oh, and one other thing: Even if it looks like crap (like some of mine have in the past), as long as you get everything centered correctly, it will work fine.

[Pisces]

Originally Posted by Puster Bill

I haven't really had a problem with this, and I have built several.

Some of it has to do with technique, to be sure.

I use the inkjet transparencies, and also the self-stick lamination. When you apply the lamination to the transparency, or vice-versa, bend it into a "U" shape, and have the center touch first and work from the center out.

If you do get an air bubble, don't despair. Take a small sewing needle and put a small hole in the center of the bubble through the lamination, but not the transparency. Then carefully using your fingers, smooth the air out of that hole working from the edge of the bubble inward. You should be able to completely get rid of the bubble, and be left with just a very unobtrusive tiny hole in the lamination.

One other trick is to let the ink dry for a bit before laminating the transparency. Then carefully laminate the side with the ink on it (to protect the ink). Then you can build up multiple layers of lamination to give those pieces stiffness.

Don't get discouraged. At least now if you want to just re-do the parts, you don't have to start from scratch.

Oh, and one other thing: Even if it looks like crap (like some of mine have in the past), as long as you get everything centered correctly, it will work fine.

I am pretty proud of it actually. The bubbles on the transparencies I mentioned are not really bubbles in that sense. More like an thin air-filled layer across the whole area. But I suppose when letting the air out I can use my nails to rub it out. The disks themselves are almost bubble-less. Besides, I paid good attention the feedback you gave from your attempts.

[joegrundman]

For anybody who wants them, the images I used for building the metric sliderule in the U-jagd tools 1.3 mod can be obtained in bmp format with centre crosses for alignment here:

http://www.mediafire.com/?4mc1mwaohck

For pix: see the U-jagd tools thread in the SH3 mod forum

joe

[Hitman]

I wish I had the time to do a full update of the wheels, but right now I lack it, to the point I have stopped playing SH3 and SH4. There are many things I have learned on the way, and so many more I learned from you guys who follow passionately these kind of handtools, and I would really really like to be able to put together a new, updated version with a KM style manual.

I have copies of some of the sheets of the original Kriegsmarine manual for that instrument and some additional pictures of the wiz-wheel (See below), and now I also know that only has one side, the main one :hmm: and the other mathematical calculations were done with other slide rulers.

All that knowledge was collected after I did my templates, thus some of the imperfections in the wheel come from that (Others are entirely my own fault).

However, I will try to upload one little fix I had ready before I got too busy with real life, which will allow having the ship silhouettes on the pointer be aligned correctly.

Glad you are all enjoying the wheel anyway.

[Hitman]

Oh, and concerning building and selling them, I checked the prices of the machinery need to produce in great numbers the plates, and it would be about 2000 € for the special shaped cut mouldings. Add to that the cost of printing the images on the plates before being cut, the plastic plates, and assembling them later. I did this research to see if it could be a good thing for subsim.com to sell them, but I concluded that it means a too great initial investment.

Hand building would be out of question for me in this case, as you can't afford the necessary quality, durability and specially, number of units.

Sorry

[Puster Bill]

You are the man, Hitman. I certain understand about having other obligations. Your research into this has expanded our knowledge greatly, and I think I can speak for just about every one in saying

THANK YOU!

You are a gentleman and a scholar .

[neu seewolf]

For really rigid wheels I tried cutting up an accordion file and gluing the templates to it with a glue stick. I just made the rear of the device. I mounted each wheel template on a piece of accordion file cut to the same size. For fastening I used a push pin and a pencil eraser. It works great! Thanks to hitman for the templates, KLH for his amazing manual and to Puster Bill for showing the way. Great work gents!

[don1reed]

Excellent find, Hitman.

I take it then, looking at the instructions you provided, the 60red/60 green (pie wedge) cursor has a longer stem that the user places over the Relative Bearing of the target ship, then rotates 180red/180green AOBcursor to the Rel Br line. Once there, AOB red or green angle is placed on the pie wedge centerline, then the target course is read. ( It's harder to explain, but the diagram on the instruction sheet says it all.)

Cheers,