SIR FITZROY CLAYTON Fleetwood,motor lifeboat

today, I continued to ready the static boat for laying on the end boxes...…..

I sanded the wooded support beading and glued the stern box in place using 30 minute epoxy.

the bow section was readied in the same way, sanding a chamfer onto the wooden beading, but before the top was glued in place, I made the covers for the bulkhead, using 1.0 mm mahogany faced ply wood onto which I drew the "boarding" and two locker doors onto the timber to simulate the locker boxes set into the fo'csle for rope storage.

once this was done, I glued the top on and held with masking tape till set. 

the plank simulated facings have been added to all end boxes now, and the upper capping to the bulwarks have been added to the motor sailor...……..

the static boat will have her cappings added tomorrow.

Looking good Neil. 

the dummy keel boxes have been glued in place...………...they had to be shaped to fit the sheer of the deck. 








and then....king plank has been laid....…..

usually the king plank is a little wider than all the others...…...in this case 10mm as opposed to the 8mm wide deck planks....

let planking begin…...again.

planking now complete...

over the next couple of days I'll sand them clean and then stain them mahogany colour.

if anyone had never done it, but fancies a try...….the only tip I can give is to start from the king plank and work your way outwards to the bulkhead. 

 Looking good Neil 

Box made out of plasticard I would imagine


Dave

oh you are the bringer of joyous news Dave,   

only 22 of the things to make then, lol...…….i'll just make them for the static boat out of timber...………...they are the buoyancy cases that go under the bench seats on the deck,,,,,,may as well give the model a chance to float, lol.

tops to the buoyancy boxes now glued on and trimmed up ready for sanding. now put on and trimmed up ready for sanding and then spraying white. 

sanded all the boxes smooth this afternoon, and then sticking them to some card with masking tape I first sprayed them with filler spray, and then appliance white...…….both Halfords best rattle can sprays......

i'll leave them now to cure and harden over night.

its so much easier to make buoyancy boxes out of obeche….took minutes to do instead of 6 hours or so making them from plastic...….

and the motor sailor has had her boxes located but not permanently fixed yet. 

next on the list was the making of the outer bilge grab rails in such an event that the boat capsized, which on many occasions in RNLI History this happened.

people tend to fabricate this from small blocks of timber with a strip laying on the outside leading edge.

I make them from one piece, but as a pair normally. on this occasion though I had two boats with identical hulls to make, and so made all four together as identical pairs...and this is how I did it.

1] cut 4 strips of obeche. [6mm ply will do just as good].2] make a card template of the curve of the hull where the rail is to be mounted and cut the curve with scissors.

3] mount this card onto 1 strip of timber and mark out.

4] run a pencil finger gauge along the wooden strip to the height of the rail.

5] if you have use of a band saw, cut out the rail, if not use a coping or fret saw to cut out the rail.

6] mark out the rail for the recesses onto the cut rail.

7] using veneer pins [very thin gauge steel nails] attach the rail to the remaining 3 strips of timber using nails

8] cut out the other rails identical to the first. do not separate.

9] whilst still all attached, cut out the recesses, using just the blade's width to cut out in strips.

10] separate and sand smooth.

there endeth the first part.

now that daves Mersey has been strengthened to the point where it is barely liftable I have returned my two sailors to the workshop, but won't do anything until after boxing day at least but at least I have a relatively clear area to work on, thanks to my partial tidying.