MY NEW PROJECT...or two.

yes damien.....in white powder form.

and barrie.........gawd yer right about that........bought a 3.9 kilo bottle that cost me more than the 13 kilo bottle I bought all those years ago.

WELL!!!!!.......that was a struggle...........got some gas easily enough this morning from Morrisons supermarket..........but boy oh boy did I have a struggle.

I've never had a struggle with getting enough heat on my brass bits before, but I think that the size and thickness of the brass on the two larger tabernacles was just that little too much for my set up...........so don't ask..............boiler makings out for me, lol........I was just getting too much heat disipation to the parts I didn't need them to go to, and no matter what blocks I tried the heat still wouldn't stay where I wanted it, so in the end, I got my trusty Proxxon torch to give that little boost, and at last I got the run from the silver solder that I needed...............but a job that would normally have taken about 30 minutes to jig up and solder with thinner guage.............took about 2 hours including failures.............good job I needed them or they'd have gone out the window on the end of a boot, lol.

anyway, they finally soldered up and very strong. They nweed cleaning up and de greasing before painting, and then they will be fixed to the decks, using 4 dummy nuts and bolts but with a central screw countersunk into the base below where the mast sits and screwed down into the previously strengthened under deck support.

The more I study these official plans from RNLI archives, the more I come to the conclusion that they were drawn as a "basis" for a build, and NOT a bible to be taken strickly and 100%.
There is so much detail left off plan, and so many items drawn but not named that for further purposes I'll make my own names up purely to idendify what I'm fabricating.

The first thing which shows only a side elevation and a plan view for measurement is the "Drop keel roller casing" which is nothing like the pics of cast iron ones I have seen........... on the plan it shows a totally different shape and made from timber..............so if any ex crew man from one of these boats can give me exact shape and dims and prove it with a photo, I'll change them within the next 72 hours..............otherwise, they going on as made.

I made them in 3mm ply and a brass roller I conjoured up on the laithe, plus 3mm copper screw objects that have a flat head and come from gawd knows where, with washers and 3mm nuts. they'll be fixed in place shortly.

Also whilst on the detailing I started on the fixing brackets for the thwartes to the bulkheads.............bou oh boy, did they take ages to make just a single one....................errrr, well NO! actually........I had some fine moulding timber from somewhere in the same teak ( Iroko ) that the thwartes are made from and it was a simple job of cutting slices of these off with my Vibro saw with extra fine blade..........made about 50 brakets in around 10 minutes........might not be an exact match for the miriad of different brackets that I have seen on different lifeboats..........but they look fine and will look the job when all are fitted.

I aldo found a similar one with a rebate cut into it which when sliced will do for the foot rests of the rowers.

And the final thing is, and this is a deviation from the plan on the Maud Pickup which i have had to do is to raise the height of the thwartes on the boat................they should have gone under the side bench slats, but because my crewmen have been cast and the distance between bum and bottom of the feet is fixed, the seets are/were too low for the crew men to sit properly on the thwartes, and so modellers licence has taken over and the seats raised...........if anyone complains about that at the lake side.....then my standard reply will be barked out, and it ends in f

I love your modelling licence bits.......but as for the language, well the use of the word fluff, really should be avoided!

Footski wrote:

I love your modelling licence bits.......but as for the language, well the use of the word fluff, really should be avoided!

haven't heard that word in a long time barrie.......

My mother , god rest her soul used to use that word instead of the more commonly used word when ever one of us broke wind........she was a bit of a snob, lol.........so it has infinite conertations for me

Anyway Neil, just to show you how busy I have been in my workroom......

blimey........think how much mayhem I could cause if there were three of me, lol...

is the three master ship o' the line the Agamemnon?...........looks beautiful.

I have done a little more work on the deck fittings today.......used some of the
brackets I sliced up yesterday to make the toe rails for the rowers to rest
their feet against, rounded the edges of the drop keel pulley boxes to make them
look more like castings, and gave liberal coats of sanding sealer and fitted the
cover box for the steering mechanism, plus the odd bracket or two to some
storage boxes..........gawd, my finger and thumb are sore........too much
sanding of 120 brackets, lol

So much repetitive work, but so rewarding too. The square rigger is of HMS Victory as she appears at Portsmouth. The one in the middle is also a square rigger, HMS Blandford from 1719. A twenty gunner, I started in 1992!!!!

it was the Victory I meant but didn't look like her for some reason.
neil

Doing a little flitting around on the boats at the
moment and getting all the construction done before concentrating on the smaller
fittings................so!!, seeing as I have now fabricated the tabernacles,
thought I'd attempt to make the masts, and so set about cutting some lengths
from the piece of Douglas Fir I bought some weeks ago. Using a tool I haven't
used in years........but it's there when I need it.....a marking guage I scribed
the thickness of the piece I needed, and cut it on the band saw.

after
all pieces were cut for main and mizzen mast x 2 plus spars and booms also x 2,
I set about using another long since almost redundant tool, my old Try plane to
square up the blanks for the main and mizzen mast on one boat.

After
plaining these with a taper towards one end of each blank I then set about
plaining the corners off towards the taper, with a block plane and spokeshave,
to a (almost) nicely rounded mast...........finally finishing the mast on the
laithe.............two down, two more to go, and then just 4 spars and two
booms,

all masts spars and booms now planed and then sanded to ("almost" ) round section and ready for instalation later.

the work goes on slowly and relentlessly............all the mast rigging bands
for the four masts have been turned and cut on my laithe, and the first of the
upper mast rollers turned and grooved........I will be buying all those for the
rigging blocks from someone ( when I find a supplier on the net) but these four
needed are easy enough to turn in the mean time.

the masts and spars have
also been stained to colour with the first coat of red mahogany.

Today, been working on the masts and booms, and in particular inseting the pulley wheels into the mast heads and the yolks for the aft booms on both boats.
take these first, I laminated them in the same Douglas Fir timber as the masts....lamintated them so that they won't split if made from a single piece of timber.
Although the laminates are quite thick they still have more strength than a single block.

Tomorrow they'll be shaped and sanded and then glued and pinned to the booms.

Also cut the slots in the mast heads with a 3mm drill bit, and reamed out to take the pulley wheels that were turned on the laithe.

Pretty darned good Neil

Geoff

cheers Geoff.

finished the mizzen boom yolks today, both in shaping, sanding and staining the masts.
the final job to this part job to date was to put the retaining roller loop around the yolk jaws. I made this from small off cuts of my prized blind pull rope.........mustn't tell swimbo though she will be cross.

I also drilled the four tabernacles for the "dummy" fixing bolt holes and the central screw fix, (which will be hidden by the foot of the mast

have been doing a little detailing the last few days, but having a brain storm
as well..

The other day I counted up the number of screw eyes that I
needed to rig the masts and spars and after first making them from brass wire
and soldering them decided that for running such a heavy boat under sail they
wouldn't be strong enough and so ordered them from the link supplied by a member
on another forum.

http://www.modelshop.co.uk/brass-scr...-dia-595-p.asp

their
service was fantastic..........ordered one day and they were here the next
day..............only problem was..............I only ordered enough eyes for
one set of masts.......derrrhhhhhh.
so had to order again....and same
service.....superb. so finally got round to ringing the masts and spars
today.

I also started detailing little areas in order for me to glue the
pieces in place before the fore end boxes go on. such things as the boxes have
been fitted with their hasps/hinges etc using fine pins supplied with the hinges
( obtained from a shop selling Dolls house fittings)...the project goes on with
more detailing than I had at first imagined.

Stunning detail Neil.

cheers matey..............it's slowly coming together.
neil.

I had forgotten to make and possition the stern quarter Towing posts which
should have run through to the deck, but because I have made the stowage boxes
I'll have to fudge them and fit a little bracket as a masquerade......bit of
modelling licence.

Having said that making them at that length was bad
enough with 7 different shapes and angles to get right on each post......and a
little cutting away of the bulwark belting as well.........they'll blend it when
finished with a little skuldugery.

and again it was back to the old
days........a coping saw is always handy to have around.

last shot shows
an alteration to the lids and hinges of the stern storage
boxes.................all good fun

had some more fun this afternoon making the centre bow posts.....they will be set into a base plate that was also used in the last three boats I built.

they along with the stern posts that were made yesterday have also been given several coats of sanding sealer to close the grain of the timber before painting.

Marvellous. Nuff said....

cheers barrie.............I'm on a roll now, lol


Set the posts into place today using polyester
filler ( car body filler)...this is a very good adhesive and also fills the
areas that would be done afterwards ......however by using the filler as a glue
and then trimming off as the filler goes "rubbery" rather than hard set, you can
save an enormous amount of sanding smooth later, and the joints fill well by
pressing down and squeezing the filler out of the cracks.

working towards putting the front end case tops on
I have been detailing the parts that go under the shelter deck which would be
hard to access once it is glued in place.
hinges, clamps and wing nuts
(castings) and the hinges have all been added, and the storage boxes of varying
ssizes and shapes have been added and glued in place.

Tomorrow it'll be
time to venture forth and glue the grp mouldings of the end box tops in place,

Now that the fore bulkhead has been fitted with the main parts that sit under the shelter of the end box top I decided to fit the top.
started with masking the area where the adhesive will sit and actually making a trough for the box edges and the resin glue to sit into.
next I drilled along the glueing edge of the grp moulding with a 2mm bit so that the holes would act as a surface for the resin and later the filler to use as an anchorage.
Mixed the 30 minute setting time 2 part epoxy resin adhesive and smeared it on all surfaces that by touch, glue to the boat.......I also put a good quantity into the masked off trough. I used a wodge of polyester filler to set the most forward part into at the bow, and taped it all down, using old batteries as a weight to help set the end boxes in.

I left that to set, and then using polyester filler I faired in the meeting point of the box top and the hull and left all to set till tomorrow.

Whilst this was setting I made some heavy duty screw eyes for the rigging bolts at deck/bulwark level from 3mm set screws, a washer as the foot for each, and a ring made from 0.8mm brass wire bent into a loop, and all silver soldered together.......24 of these should be enough for both boats ( haven't counted the rigging shrouds yet, but if I need any more, it was a simple and quick job..........and I have plenty of set screws, lol

half an hour sanding the rough stuff off, they can
now be re filled where needed and hand sanded down now..........method in my
madness, lol

and a couple of quick shots to show the slight differences
and the progress in them.

yesterday I started to make the rudder frames by making the pintle bars from
brass sheet and silver soldering to a bar, before bending into
shape........

BAD MOVE!

The frames wouldn't bend at the correct
places because the silver solder had (as expected and desired) run on the sheet.
they looked awful so, back to the drawing board, I sweated the frames off the
bar, made new frames and bent them first, before soldering them onto the bar in
finished shape.

This time they worked ok.

had a fidly sort of day today, doing a few little
jobs that needed doing before more progrression can be made..............and
some didn't go as I had wanted........others did.


First I drilled
holes in the edge of my brass drop keels to take loops for tying the ropes for
uphauling the keels and tying up.............didn't go well.............couldn't
get enough localised heat into the large thick brass keels without melting the
1.8mm brass wire...............so in the end gave up on that one and will try
something else tomorrow.


Next job was to make the blade end of my
oars which will be then moulded and cast in resin ready for taking dowelled
handles..............that went well......


Marked the rudders which
had been made in 4mm ply, for the individual planks of timber that they would
have been made from .......went ok.


Finally made the frame work for
the rudder tiller bars...............only problem was I only made one
set............didn't remember until later this evening, so had to go out to the
workshop and set up the soldering job again to make a second set for the no.2
boat............couldn't have left it till tomorrow..............would have
forgotten them, lol

cheers damien,

and now, the second set of oars..........these had a flat blade as used on the older boats too..........so now I have a choice.


compare the flat with the curved blade.

neil.

and for today...........I soaked the bulwark capping rail tops in warm water, and them cut them to length and pinned in place to allow to dry.

also made the masters for the oar locks out of plasticard......they will be cast later in white metal from rubber moulds

today was a case of making final fabrication to parts on the hull that need doing before getting down to painting.
First job was to take the pins from the bulwark capping rails and then gluing these down to the bulwarks.......using aliphatic resin and re pinning in the same holes ( which will be filled latter as the rails are to be painted , not varnished and stained).

This went without too much drama or trauma, lol...the odd split here and there because I used too much brute force removing the pins......but hey ho...that's part of the course for me.

Next job was to run a beading to the underside of the grp box top moulding for extra grab for the glueing of the fore box breakwater. this was made from 4 x 4mm square obeche, sawn halfway through to aid bending to shape.......it was glued to the grp moulding with 2 part epoxy.

whilst this was setting on both boats I started cutting card templates for the two halves to the breakwater.










as seen in the last shot the white metal fittings have to be fitted to the breakwaters and the cut outs for these was made with a sharp scalpel before fitting.

the break waters were then fitted to the box top and finally filled in around the joints with the capping rails with polyester filler.

was going to put a capping on the top of the breakwater today, and after cleaning up at least one of the boats and fixing the four fittings I decided to soak some capping rail I machined some years ago, but even a thorough soaking for a couple of hours, I still couldn't get it to take the two diferent curves of the breakwater. All three pieces that I had soaked for the two boats, snapped at the same place on one particular curve of the firat boat, so I gave up on that one and will make the capping in a different way tomorrow.........just left it today to do something else.
That was to fit the rudder post skeg...........using a white metal casting....and after pre drilling the hull and the rudder skeg ( to take the rudder post I glued them into the hull using two part epoxy and left to set.

a couple of jobs today, ( the above post was yesterday's fiasco which ended in frustration because it all didn't work as I'd wanted to) the cappings on the breakwater have been added and will be sanded to almost round section once dry and set, and the start of the bow roller fairleads.....made from plasticard, as there will be no physical strain on these when I go sailing.

I set the fairleads in polyester filler once I had drilled the bases and also drilled the seat where they were going to sit......the filler oozes through the holes in the base of the fairlead to give a good grip, and once cured, they will not be dislodged by man nor beast,

Today was spent cleaning up the bow fairleads, putting the bow pudding fender brackets on............one was a generic white metal fitting ( of which I had 2 but have lost one )and one in obeche as a replacement for the lost one.

Also made the twin rollers but two different diameters for the fairleads.

also cleaned up the stern post "feet" which I fitted yesterday

bit of a step backwards today ............been having a discussion re: the up hauling of the rudder when she is in the boat house or on a launch cradle, and the way I had made the brackets before for sailing, this wouldn't have happened.

Well, this is it.................Final incarnation, finito, finale'...the last time I am going to make these..........

after a good chat with Andrew re the Rudder and the uphaul of the rudder on Modelboatmayhem I have changed my rudder assembly to a more scale look than a working rig..........hopefully it will hold together under pressure, but I today sweated off the brackets from the rudder post and then soldered into the ends of the brackets some brass tubing which slips over the new rudder stocks.
I also made three short brackets to fit to the hull.......they will eventually be glued and pinned to the rudder and hull with short brass ridged rivets, care of my old mucker Trawlerman, .....

but sorry about the first few photos.........don't know what happened there.

well..........hope the next set of photos are better...........
What I do like about scratch building is/are the problems that you have to overcome.

I know the rudder assembly that I had made originally wasn't "scale" but these are to be sailing models and so would take a fair amount of abuse, as I have never "sailed" a model before.....i.e. under full rig, and so wanted something that was reasonably robust.

Having seen the original rudder assembly I found that soldering the brackets onto the round rudder stock had weakened the assembly considerably in that the brass was now very pliable after being subjetced to two measures of heat....

So I reverted to the brackets shown in last post and a steel rudder stock which has come nowhere near heat, and so is still as prodced.

the new assembly has been put onto the boat, and after the glue has set on the brackets, I'll set them in place with the self tapping brass rivets that Rod has given me.........

finally some might say that there is too much of a gap between rudder stock and stern post..........I have no objetcion to this as my opinion is the same.............I might block it in with a strip down the stern post of obeche which will fit inside the brackets once they have been riveted..........then again I might not,

And now of course......the rudder will uphaul that inch or so...........luvvly jubbly.

this afternoon I made an extension to the rudder as it needed the top bulking out to take the top yolk for steering.......and this was also added late this afternoon........all ready now for when I want to link it all up to Radio contrlo linkage.
theres then just a dummy block to put onto that which "shows" the rudder protrutung through the yolk,.

and the motor sailor has got it's rudder tiller arm fitted now

finished the rudder assembly for the motor sailor today...........not much else done.........been rather fed up with other manifestations of beurocratic garbage for a few days, and am a little lethargic to doing anything..........all part of the SAD syndrome I suffer from at this time of year.
Made the steel yolk got steering from stainless steel rod, silver soldered together, and then drilled and glued in place with two part epoxy.

the more fidley bits I do, the nearer the model gets, and these little things made today have been worrying me as to whether they will work.......but now that I have done them I think they will!!.

these are the rollers that feed the rope from the rudder yolks to the boss on the steering rod which is attached to the servo set into the stern box.
I have just stained the roller supports and tomorrow will glue them in place using epoxy, and then set the rollers into the top of the supports and leave to set.

Today I spent a little time gluing the roller supports to the aft bulkhead and dry fitting the rollers......they seam to have taken the right angle for me to thread them to the rudder yolks from the steering boss for them to work ok...time will tell.

And then attention shifted to the engine "Dog Kennel" and it's lift up flaps for engine inspection and running.
I did make some, a while ago, but to be honest they were rubbish, and time took it's toll and they warped and twisted over the short period of time that I had left them, so made some more today from 2mm ply......turned out much better.

I also had to think about hinges/brackets and these came from my parts bin........generic hinges/brackets from the old Anne Letitia Russell kit......slightly modified to work.

I used the hinge ends and drilled with a 0.8mm bit to take some jewelry eye rings that I bought some time ago, and with a little judicial modification and bending fashioned some loops so that the hinge brackets, once also drilled with a 2mm hole ( for the hinge rods) could be attached.
here are a few shots of those processes.

And finally it came down to fitting the dog kennel flaps.

I glued the brackets to the flaps after scoring the flaps to indicate the things being made from 3 longitudinal boards, and used 2 part epoxy to set them in place.

Once set I marked and drilled each bracket with a 1mm bit to take some brass rivets I had for the job, and set these in place with cyano.

Once set I ground off the protruding points on the inside of the flaps with my sander.
Finally I threaded the long hinge pin through brackets and hinges . Tomorrow I'll lock the hinge pins in place to the outer brakets using cyano after staining the flaps, before adding further fittings to the kennel.

Very nice work Neil
Geoff

cheers geoff..........thought everyone had left the site...........no one been posting anywhere for weeks, lol.
neil.

did a little work on detailing today, after the weekend with the wife and kids in the Lakes.....nice weather and good fun......amazing for a british Bank Holiday.
used some generic fittings for the hinges on the (none) opening access holes to the petrol tanks for'd and the gearbox aft, and painted the hinges/brackets on the "dog kennel". Tomorrow I'll be adding the wing nuts,and fittings plus hinges for all the other little hatches on the ends of the petrol tank covers.
Detailing is never quick...hence all the dust around, lol











next to be made was the pedastal for the reversing wheel to the gearbox.

this was made from a turned down resin compass pedastal that i used on the Mary Stanford and H F Bailey last year...............turned nicely on the laithe and is just the job.


















finally today I made the engine exhaust and silencer from odds and sods lying around the workshop....bits of pipe milliput brass rod, etc and some string for the pipe lagging, with washers stuck on the end to simulate flanges....they all need painting.
neil

Well, !!!! after finally finding my chuck key which had gone walk about for a few hours I was able to change bits in my two drills and assemble the one hole stanchions with triangular brackets for the two boats.

these stanchions are cut down from the two hole ones used on my earlier boats, and were drilled for the chain and also for the steel pins to locate them onto the bulwarks.

Also this afternoon, after finishing my rubber moulds with the new RTV rubber, which is excellent quality might I add, I split the moulds.......once totally cured in the next day or so, I'll cut them for the feed tracks to the fittings and then cast some fittings........so alls well in the old catacomb

I decided some time ago that I wasn't going to complicate these models by putting sail servos and winches in, and would make the rigging as simple,tough and servicable as possible even if it meant a little none scale ( but old yachting) gear from my ealy youth.

As such the fittings I have made, might not be scale and to the purists liking, but it will give me the meatiness I will need for a first set of sailing boats, and that's all I am bothered about.

That's not to say though that they won't look the part by the time I have finished, with a little modellers licence.

I have made the eye's to tie off the Halyards and shrouds from brass wire bent into a loop and silver soldered onto 3mm cheese head screws that self tapped into the timber of the bulwarks..........no glue used.

the frame ( haven't got a clue what to call them) for the main and mizzen sails so that they can swing for port or starboard tack on the use of the rudder were made from brass rod and will be fixed into plaxe using resin for the Maude pickup, and for the William and Laura, because it is affixed to a thwart will be threaded and a nut attached to each leg/

the aft ones for mizzen sail boom will be glued in place with resin....this will mean the the boats will have to be turned upside down once the resin has been poured into the area for it to set around the protruding legs......bit of a fiddle but it will work.

Superb, but I wish it would go to page 9. It takes an age to download all those images!

There has been a couple of items for the morot sailer that I have been putting off, but the time has come to construct these.
The reason I have been putting them off is because I have NEVER seen any evidence of them on the lifeboats of type that I am building.
In all the photos I have, have seen and have been sent by people and/or looked for on the internet, I have never had a glimpse of the items in question and those are the fore and aft mast crutches for main and mizzen masts.
Probably the reason is that once the masts were put up for sailing, the crutches were lowered and stowed.
So the only evidence is via the plans, and these are rather vague. However Quinton Nelson of nelson's Boats came to the rescue and described them to me as being as on the plan......a very simple affair of two poled on a pivot at the base and a Y shaped yolk with fasteners at the joint at top with eye brackets for fixing blocks and tackle to hoist ald lower the rig.
The aft crutch was made from tube with a hemi circle crutch on top and a joint on the starboard side top which hinges......the crutch legs themselves just fit into brackets attached to the side thwarts supports.
So I made the fore crutch from brass and dowel this afternoon.
And after making the thing exactly to size, it sure looks a tall structure just to keel the mast from the deck and the crewmen when not raised.
the aft crutch will follow tomorrow after a visit to the optician...........my eyes are getting worse with all this concentration...started getting brurred vission last night after a few hours concentration and went to the docs today, only to be told..........OPTICIANS Immediately................yes sir!!!!

I had my good friend Wodney round this morning.....he wanted some fittings casting in white metal, and so I decided to cast some for myself whilst I had the melting pot hot and the casting table (an old plank of English Oak0 fixed to the work mate.

we had our fittings cast witthin an hour, and then it was the long slog to clean all the flashing off them.

Whilst I was about it, I also cast the blades for the oars, and made one up.

I drilled the locating hole into the round shaft of the blade with a 5mm bit ( first using a 2mm pilot hole) and turned down the corresponding diameter end to the dowel that would represent the oar shaft.

I also turned down the handle grip for the oar, before dry fitting the shaft into the blade.

Will just have to look for some old Chamoix leather now for the shaft of the oar.

the first picture shows the first cast...........I knew then that this mould would be a good one, and there was not one single failure from it in all the 11 casts taken from it......a nice feeling.