MY NEW PROJECT...or two.

cheers guys, and thanks barrie.......I couldn't work out how to do that..........bit brain dead after all those rubber blocks in front of me, lol
off casting tomorrow, lol

I have had a session moulding this afternoon, and
am absolutely amazed as to how well the mouldings have popped out.

there
are only two that have given a slight problem and this is because of the way I
oriented the figures into the mould which has left air traps leading to bubbles
and air pockets in the mouldings.......not big ones but with a little bit of
tweaking should overcome them.

the pictures in order show the first two
mouldings to come out.
next was the first crew member to make surface,
followed by the whole lot of moulds with mouldings curing inside, and the two
box's full of arms.
finally emerged and born into a brave new world are two
full sets of both cork and Kapock wearing crew members.

There is some
slight flashing ( the creepage between the edges of the mould halves of the
resin) but this is easily trimmed, but I'll try to eliminate that on the next
lot of little fellows by tightening the elastic bands that hold the two mould
halves and their ply wood backings together.......

just really a little
bit of trial and error in the early stages.

Great outcome Neil. umm we need a thumbs up emoticon m8

cheers my friend.

neil.

Yes nice work and Damien's right about the thumbs up emoticon I'll see what can be done

try this I found it in my "!incredimail" emoticon library and cut and pasted it from there seems to work Damien

Erm, I see no thumbs up......That said, a big thumbs up from me too. Brilliant Neil...

you are all flatterers, ........but I like you all.

neil.

Footski wrote:

Erm, I see no thumbs up......That said, a big thumbs up from me too. Brilliant Neil...

Thats strange I can see it ok ! Can anyone else ??

WELL!!!!.........we're all ready...for a launch...what about our lifeboat???

Ain't it about time the builders got their fingers out and got it ready for us.

I agree with them Neil



Ps does that emoticon display properly ?

fantastic work your doing neil well done , lifeboat crews are pritty tough guys but these look pritty armless to me

tattooed wrote:

fantastic work your doing neil well done , lifeboat crews are pritty tough guys but these look pritty armless to me

OOH my Andy long time no chat mate trust your well oh and by the way your humour hasn't improved

i'm fine thanks phil and i hope you and your family are all ok , been doing long hours at work ,been building alot model trucks for oversea customers , i do enjoy seeing what everyone is up to but i must say that when i see what neil does it just blows my mind this guy is in a league of his own

Yep not to bad here in somerset mate though not so good for the family up in yorkshire. have a look in Here to bring you up to speed

Your right about Neils skills but hey I remember someone turning a tremendous beam trawler out not to far from here eh mate

Phil,

I suspect that only you can see the emoticon because it is stored locally on your PC, not in the Forum.

Barrie

barriew wrote:

Phil,

I suspect that only you can see the emoticon because it is stored locally on your PC, not in the Forum.

Barrie

After a little investigation it appears its a browser specific emoticon as I can see it fine using my incredimail browser but not using google chrome

hi Phill.....it just shows up as a little box on mine.............and thanks for the comments........I would get through the b****** door tonight, the heads swelled so much:lol!:

phil winks wrote:

try this I found it in my "!incredimail" emoticon library and cut and pasted it from there seems to work Damien

I saw nowt.

Damien wrote:

phil winks wrote:

try this I found it in my "!incredimail" emoticon library and cut and pasted it from there seems to work Damien

I saw nowt.

Are you using your incredimail browser mate cos on mine I can see it but not if I use my google chrome browser unless this works ??

Chrome m8 never heard of incredimail

Phil - saw that one - but it doesn't appear on the panel to the left.

Barrie

Its a slightly tedious process to post them Barrie but I will put a sticky up in the lakeside forum with instructions but basically I saved the emoticon to my photo host acc as a .GIF file and posted it as a photo



Now back to Neil as we're hogging his build blog lol

I had chance today, after running out of casting resin for my figures to do a
bit on the boat, and decided to start off with the part that has been giving me
some concerned thought.that of fitting a steering mechanism for the pulley and
rope method used on these boats linked to the steering wheel.
But first I had
to build the bulkhead for the stern end box and this needed a top and bottom
runner. then a template from card, which will be transfered to the timber
later.
My one concern is that once I have blocked off the servo it would need
a massive rebuild of the rear end to retreive a broken servo unless I make a
hatch in the top so this is of some concern....will have to have a
think.......but I won't be swayed from the pulley system.

So looking at
the plan one can see what is needed, where the servo will be mounted, and the
brass turned connecter to the servo that I will be making in the next few days
on the laithe x 2 (one for each boat). the pulleys/rollers I am going to buy
in.......seen some nice ones on the market.

I don't know what the very brave men of old in the service of the RNLI would have made of cutting a hole in the top of a water tight end box but I finally decided last night that this would be the only way of gaining access to a servo mounted under the cover, should it go wrong..............so with brave heart a drill here, and a saw cut there and voila' I now have access.
I'll think about the hatch when the top of the end box is finally set in situ.

brass rod silver soldered onto a turned plate, and the plate drilled to screw
onto a servo arm fitting.
the pulley has been turned that the rope from the
rudder coils around, and onto that a bush with grub screw silver soldered
onto.
then the assembly put together onto the servo.

Sadly my second daughter came down with the flu today ( s'ppose it'll be my turn in the next few days) and so I had to don my nurses cap on again today as Swmbo was out working, and look after her.
It's swmbo's birthday tomorrow so decided as I couldn't get into the workshop i'd turn my attention to other creative matters, and so decided to bake her a chocolate birthday cake.
My other daughter who loves making things in the kitchen decorated it for us, and here's the results of our joint efforts.

nom nom.............look forward to tomorrow.

neil.

Send us a slice then...and a very happy birthday to Mrs Neil.....

I shall pass on your regards barrie...think she might miss the day as she's coming down with what the kids are suffering from......me next I suppose............if I'm gone for a day or so............you'll know why, lol

went and took the plunge today and took a trip down to my local timber merchant where I buy my mahogany, and obeche.......boaught a nice piece of Douglas fir, 60" x 6" x1.5" lovely straight grain for the masts.............£12 45p...........not bad at all....get a few masts out o' that lump.

I finally decided today that on the sailing
lifeboat there were too many holes in the deck doing nothing.

It's taken
me a few weeks to decide that, but I have decided to fill the two in abreast of
the rear drop keel box.........and so today placed supports around, and topped
off with a piece of 1.8mm ply before filling in ready for sanding down to a
smooth finish.

I just love your work Neil...

thanks barrie.....I've made more bad design mistakes on these two than the whole fleet that I built last year, lol..........but they are taking shape now, lol

The pulling/sailing lifeboat now has only one opening in the deck to let water in when heeling over in a stiff breeze, and so I have made my 100% waterproof flush deck hatch to cover this hole.

I have used this on numerous trawlers over the years where the deck forward took considerable water in a stiff breeze, and so I concocted this method to elleviate the ingress of water.......and never had any seepage in the models that I built........and we sail on some pretty rough stuff down at fleetwood.

Next were the inner uprights for the hatch to set and rest into, finally once set and the hatch fitted, the whole thing can then be sanded flush with the existing deck.

grease can finally be added to give a totally waterproof resistance once the boat is all painted, varnished and finished.

Today was a day for cracking all four end box bulkheads and dry fitting the tops to see where the moulding fits and doesn't fit, and it's a more of a case of the latter.

I made the mould for the tops when the moulding was green and they have settled somewhat since pulling out the mould last year, and some filler will be needed.......probably by the bucket load...........but hey ho.........all adds to the fun of it..............I won't re make the mould for the tops, but will put some heat onto them just before gluing to pull them out a bit.

But first I started by putting little blocks into the stem and stern to support the ends of the top boxes. I set these in with polyester filler.

Next I possitioned the cross beams for the bulkheads to but upto.

Nest I made card templates for the bulkheads that fit into the tops and when they fit well I transfered those templates to 4mm ply, ( they will eventually be capped with 1.8mm mahogany faced ply that have been drawn with simulated planking, but that will come later when everything fits perfectly........I feel more filler coming on, lol

Finally I glued the bulkheads to the cross frames.

the final pictures show the tops of the end boxes fitted but not glued on.

Looking good

cheers mate........now that I have got the figures out the way it's been a relief to be able to get down to some model making again, and it's catch up time now..................I'd hopefully like to have these two ready for sailing in June at one of the first lifeboat rallies of the season.



neil

Today was a good day, unlike yesterday when I spent a whole day looking for the chuck key on my dremel drill to do a job, didn't find it and then badly cut my soriosis covered knee catching it on a sharp wooden box cover.......got sodall done and an injured knee into the bargain.

Today I found my chuck key ( well one of them) and then took a drive to the model shop at Lancaster...they had my epoxy glue in and some very nice 3/32" veneered ply so that I could start panelling my bulwarks and covering the hollow made by the protective belting......great day.
so when I got home I started cutting the panels...each one separately to fit to the correct deck sheer.

As the planking on these lifeboats (and all british wooden lifeboats for that matter) was diagonally planked, I needed the grain on my panels to run the same direction at approximately 45degrees, sloping backwards towards the stern from the top edge, and so I had to cut each panel from my sheet at 45degrees.

To get it to fit nicely to the sheer of the deck I used my trusty pencil stub to run along the deck at right angles to the panel ( which had been clamped to the side of the boat) which gave a parallel line on the panel to the deck........it was then sanded to that line on my belt linisher. the ends joining together along the bulwarks were left as a 45* scarf joint, and all lengths cut to fit.

Next step will be to draw the diagonal plank lines onto the timber with dark pencil line and then glue the panels to the boat using two part epoxy.

the tops will be trimmed level along with the correct height to the bulwarks once it has all been glued and set.

Had a nice day indoors today, marking out and scoring the planking on the inner gunwales of the two lifeboats.

they were marked out and drawn with pencil to give the diagonal inner layer of planking of the hull, and then scored with a scribe.

I don't think I'll varnish these, as I'm sure they would have been painted and bitumined ( or equivelant) to keep them from decaying and rotting away, and so the score lines will show up as the individual planks once painted with a matt or satin black........but then again I might have a change of mind.....modellers licence,

It was just then a case of gluing them onto the fibreglass hull using 2 part epoxy adhesive and spring clamps.

I have now made card templates for the bulkheads of the end boxes, transfered to 1.8mm mahogany faced ply withthe grain running vertically, and then marked out with pencil lined planks, finally being scored with a scriber to give the "depth" of the planking.

they were then glued to the existing bulkheads using aliphatic resin.

and to finish off this little session the inner bulwark capping/strengthening rails have been cut and glued in place.However before these were glued into place, the bulwarks had to be levelled off, and to do this, the prescribed measurement that I wanted to trim them down to was decided from the plans, and then my old faithfull guage was used.....a pre determined and sized block of wood and a stubby pencil.......works every time to get a parallel level pencil mark.

the rebated section at the bow allows the end box top to sit onto and be glued in place when the time comes.

And the rest of the afternoon was spent on making mounting blocks for the rudder servos which can be removed by unscrewing two easily accessible fasteners, remove the drum holding the rudder cordage and steering wheel which will be held onto the shaft with a small clevis ( split) pin and the whole assembly will be able to come out via the access hatch in the top of the end box top.

Neil, let me have your address and I will send you a new pencil!

I promise I'll sharpen it for the next time I use it:lol!:



the servos have been given a final fitting, and the rope drums for the steering linkage have been drilled through, so that I can thread the cord from the rudder through to make a secure fixing. the steering rods from the servo's were also cut off to length as determined in the plans.

And then it came to the rear end box tops.

They were first glued in place with using two part epoxy, and when set, they were drilled to give a key to the filler that was to be added......the filler will push through the holes to give good anchorage and fixing power to the filler.

once set tomorrow it will be sanded and faired into give a nice smooth rounded edge to the box.

Much work including filling, sanding, capping rail top and then fitting of the access hatch to the servo have been made on the rear end box top, plus upper capping to the fore bulkhead which close any gaps between the box tops and the bulkheads.......

Finally the exposed planked sides have been coloured with Colron wood dye of Red Mahogany............it actually is lighter than shown on the film........this will be varnished once the deck has been laid.

The deck is next to be laid in individual planks of 0.8mm thick obeche' planks.

I decided to start the long and laborious job of planking the decks with individual 10mm wide strips of obeche' planking......first job to put the edging caps around the hatches.
the first one on the motor sailer using aliphatic resin and mitred joints, held momenterally with pins

a little less obeche planking left....have just
completed the edging on the motor sailor........

had to make card
templates for the curved edging around the bulwarks, and scarfed the joints in
to finish them off.

Today I spent most of the afternoon planking the deck of the sailing
boat.

I have precut the planks, marked and set the centre king plank into
place and worked each side in pairs to make sure the lay was even.
To
simulate the black tar caulking in between planks I coloured the aliphatic resin
with a black aclylic based paint.........which actually works well and makes the
adhesive even stickier.

It might look a mess when laid out like in the
shots, but the planks are 0.8mm thick giving a decent sanding thickness and when
sanded and coloured and then varnished, gives a decent slightly weathered look.