Jupiter, a Caledonian macBrayne Ferry

Well, I suppose that I had better start my new project now that the lifeboats have been finished and sailed ( well, one at least, as the other has found a new home and I don't want it to sink before the new owner has taken delivery of it, lol)
My choice of new project ( or my daughter's to be honest) is one of Caledonian MacBraynes ( Calmac for short) inter Island roll on roll off car/passenger ferries that plied their way between Wemyss Bay and Rothesay on the Isle of Bute for a good 30+ years before being taken out of service a few short years ago to go for scrap.
There were three vessels in the class whish were called "The Streakers", and they were called Jupiter, Juno and Saturn. Sadly the Jupiter and Juno went for scrap some time ago but the Saturn remains tied up at a marina in Roseneath on Gareloch off the Clyde, opposite Greenock.
Below are some photos of the three ships whilst still in service, and I think that they have a particularly nice "dashing" look about them with a good flair at the bow and a lovely sheer to the hull.
I have sailed on them numerous times over the years with my family and always thought that they would make a good project, especially with twin Voith Schnieder propulsion units powering them.
So here it is, a joint project between myself and a friend called Andrew Petre' who lives close to Glasgow.
My daughter chose, out of the three vessels, the  MV Jupiter for me to model for her in her last guise before being taken out of service, but below are some shots of all three boats, to give you a flavour of what they all looked like in their hayday, and happier times.

And so to the model.
The hard work has been done, and all by my friend Andrew Petre'.
Andrew is a senior Camera Operater with the BBC Scotland Television service, and saw my request for anyone with plans of the Jupiter to contact me. That was some time ago and we have become friends over the airwaves over the past 8 - 10 months, and finally met up in Glasgow at BBC Pacific Warf last Saturday, when Andrew gave us a guided tour of the BBC studios, which, to be honest, blew our minds..........I have never been to a more fascinating place in my life, and Andrew showed us things that we would never see again in a lifetime.....A BIG THANKYOU , Andrew.
and so back to the build.

Well, Andrew has done the hard job, and that is to produce the plug for a fibre glass mould, and it is made to a scale of around 1:45 so 1.48 scale fittings if available for anything will not feel out of place.
But the first job will be to ready the plug for taking a GRP mould in order to take a few mouldings from.

This will be a direct copy from the plug, as the rubbing strakes and beltings on all three boats were different........they will be added to the moulding of  boat choice once the relative owner chooses which boat he/she wants to model. The hull comes out at 59" or for the  euro price.......   1.5 mts length over all.
This first part is a little ad hock as I can't describe how Andrew made the plug excepting to say that it was built conventionally from centre keel, frames and plank on frame with polyester filler to give shape.............my normal choice of build method for the plug.

All fittings I shall be making and moulding before casting, in multiples, using methods I have  used before on my lifeboats but will for those who don't read lifeboat postings, re iterate when and where I go through a new process..............and, apart from the first pics of the plug that Andrew produced, and it is excellent, I'll now get down to it, and it may be a week or so before I post again and start the process of producing a split mould for the hull.

Just one more thing before I go away and get busy..........I will also be producing a set of moulds for the superstructure of the ship, and any other large part that will help the possible builder of future boats to a quicker easier build.

neil.

Very nice, judging from the keels I'm guessing on fore and aft props is this the case Neil?

two Voith Schnieder units from Graupner, Damien......cost me a fortune for those alone........then I need a new digital radio set, to set the pre determined throw of the servos......another small fortune..................but my daughter mollie has always been expensive to run, lol

today I started by making the small plinths which will be moulded into and as part of the hull, and these were made from 6mm ply in the first instance.

They are actually not a scale part of the hull of the real ship but when moulded in, will give a flat base on which to put the flange ring of the Graupner VSPU , which in turn takes the actual unit.

also by lowering the position of the VSPU by giving it the extra depth it may alleviate the need to make a dummy piece of load where the motor part of the Vspu could protrude through the deck.

But then again a modification from brushed to brushless motor purely for size might have to be thought of later, before the deck goes on............either that or a longer belt for belt drive.

I have also faired down the two skegs as shown on the plans for better water flow to the Vspu's, and thus aiding better water flow.

Oh boy this is going to be good.

   

Glued the boss's onto the hull today, using polyester filler, did a little filling of a few small uneven bits to the plug, and sanded all down................and then I couldn't resist it..

Why build only one Calmac ferry when you can build two.

I bought this little landing craft look alike ay a car boot earlier this year for a fiver, and although it's a little twisted it's nothing that can't be straightened out in the build, and it is the same scale as the Jupiter..........so am going to build it as a little inter island ferry called Eigg

Well, back to the build.......have finally got over Christmas and a new year and back to a little model making.........

the Jupiter has had blocks of timber glued to the cross frames to take the centre piece of timber to take the flange for the grp mould.............moukld making is soon to follow.yippeeee...............a legal high at last..........can just smell those vapours

the start of something BIG..............today I got down to it, ordered my grp resin, gelcoat and matting from Glasplies in Southport and will pick it up after our trip to the Passport pffice in Blackburn...........umph

today made the flange that will form the joint for the two part mould.
For anyone who followed my recent lifeboat builds turn off now, but for those who didn't.....

My Moulds............ when ever I make a mould I ALWAYS  use a mould that is in at least two parts........sometimes 3 or even 4 parts have been used in the past, and although this sort of mould shows mould lines, it makes for far easier extraction of the moulding if you can peel away the parts from the moulding rather than prising the moulding out of a one piece mould.....with resultant damage or deformity to the hull, and damage to the mould which you might use again, as this mould will be.

to facilitate this I use moulds with flanges on them that can be bolted together to hold the mould in one piece for actual moulding.

the flange was today made first in  card to make sure they fit where they touched, and then drawn onto MDF and ply( anything lying around) and then glued together from the three parts to make one complete flange.

the plug is now ready to mould.......I attached the flange to the backbone of the boat today, firstly fixing at both ends with screws. the large one going through to the center bar of timber was put in purely to hold the flange upright as the weight of it was tending to pull it over and away from the keel.....no mysterious point there at all.

the flange screws were then covered in moulder's plastecine to aid the removal of the flange from the first moulded half. and then the flange was backed up from behind with lumps of plastecine, and a few on the moulding side just to keep the flange in place initially...........

once the flange had been backed up, the gaps on the hull between keel and flange were filled with more plastecine to give a mould with no gaps.

tomorrow before moulding, the plug will be given a coating of PVA release agent, just to make sure everything separates later.

                            

cheers matey......it's good to be back modelling.............and the best legal high ya can get sniffing those fumes.....    

Gelcoat on the first half of the mould was on before 09.00 this morning...this gives a nice smooth surface for moulding up against , and it the only thing on the polyester resin moulding method that is relatively impervious to water.













Now for the grp layers.............normally with one of my lifeboats where there are gentle curves I would slap a full half of a mould on in one go............but here we have some very tight sharp edges around the keel and the plinths for the Voith Schnieder units, and so I have put one layer on to that area and around the flange joint and left to go off before adding more layers.
















Have just been asked by a member via pm,on another forum and I don't think this is breaking a confidence on such a message, and it was how I got my plug to the condition ready to take a mould......

I answered: getting a hull to that stage is just a lot of hard work, sanding, filling, more sanding, more filliing etc, and then once you think it's ready.....numerous (10 15 coats of) sanding sealer to harden the timber up, and then wire wool to bring it down again....finally a spray of grey primer to highlight any dents rises and other imperfections.........more filling and sanding, and then another grey primer.....if all well, a filler primer, and then rub it down with wet and dry to a (hopefully ) perfect finish, before waxing and polishing before gelcoating and laying up the mould.



the first half of the mould has now been finished, the flange trimmed up and another coat of wax given before adding the blue PVA release agent and ready for the second half moulding tomorrow.

Looking good Neil.            

Its good to see you back at work Neil    

Barrie

second half of the mould went swimmingly this morning...........no hassles, no problems and everything fit together perfectly........looks like the practice paid off with all those lifeboats, and I've now got the hang of it

After the grp had set I cleaned off the top of the mould where it meets the bulwark lines with a power file.

and then the heavens opened, and what the English cricket team had been praying for for weeks happened..........rain stopped play



























then it was down to sanding the flange and the mould to get rid of painful grp"Needles", and if you have ever suffered from those, you know what I mean

at this time I also marked and drilled holes in the flange to take the 6mm roofing bolts before I split the mould





















Finally I split the mould, using nylon wedges and a wooden mallet..............there was a satisfying "POP" when the mould broke away from the plug.

I never get over the thrill of this happening, knowing that by hearing this, the mould will probably be a good one.

I cleaned it up a little and then bolted it together temporarily to allow it to cure straight and true without warping.

will clean it up tomorrow and then start waxing up ready for the process of pulling a hull out of it,

I love it when a plan comes together

I must either build smaller models, or get a bigger bath tub................starting to clean the residue from the mould thast was picked off the plug when it separated.......nice warm soapy water and a brillo pad or two will do the trick, plus a lot of elbow grease.







Just amazing what a little warm water, a brillo pad and some elbow grease will do.........the mould is now ready for waxing up............next stop a hull or two...........great stuff.

Next stage is to wax up the mould,paint with the pva release agent, let it dry and bolt together using the 6mm roofing bolts before painting in a gelcoat ready for laying up a first hull tomorrow. ahh, it's good when a plan comes together, lol

I laid up the first moulding inside the mould early this morning with just two complete layers of 300gm glass fibre chopped strand matting. I wanted this to be a light weight hull as I don't know how the two Voith VSp units are going to perform with such a long model.
I waited for the resin to start going off and then trimmed it up around the bulwark edges with a Stanley knife.

I here people commenting regularly about mis-shapened hulls and what has the manufacturer done with the moulding for it to get this way........I have included the last two photos to show that a perfectly straight hull can give a perfectly straight mould, only for the mould to "contract" when a moulding is laid into it and contorts during the curing process...........It's natural for the grp and resin to do this, and no fault of the moulder. this deformity will be taken out when putting the deck beams into the boat hull............simples.

what a great morning I had yearterday........three wedges at the bow end and the mould popped off the moulding like a boil on a teenagers face, lol.........washed off it looked just dandy, and the second mould was waxed release agent added and gelcoat applied before tea time......hopefully a second hull out by tomorrow evening.

and you can now see why they were called the "steaker class" from the shape of their hulls.

Yesterday I dug out the bench saw to do some money saving..........cut some lengths of obeche into 12 x 12mm strips and 12 x 28mm strips for the deck supports..........the amount I cut probably saved me around 12 quid at the timber merchant........but must remember I am now getting older and my back takes the brunt.......had to spend the rest of the night in bead and half this morning because I pulled something in my back and now doped up on Co Codamol......was it worth it...........YES! I suppose.

I also marked out the position of the main car deck ready for the support beams.

Looking good Neil              

It's slowly taking shape Damien......

started on the main ladder frame for the car deck last night and cut to length the two main side supports and the cross members, and then ran out of time.
the essential point of this is to get the thing square so that all the bulkheads and cabins will line up eventually............so I used the age old cabinet makers method ( taught to me by my granddad who was a master cabinet maker and pattern maker) and that is if a simple method of diagonal cross sticks......measure from one corner to diagonal corner and make a mark on the sticks. put the sticks in the opposite diagonals and if they are the same, the interior is square.....if not, you adjust the positioning of one side (in this case the beam support) by half the length that it was out by.......... and then re measure........ and readjust if further needed until both diagonals are the same. then mark the spots where the timbers go and glue....I used 2 part epoxy for this.

more deck beams have been added and a plate fore and stern for support....the for'd deck will be higher than the position shown but the main deck will run straight through to the bow to give rigidity to the hull...I don't like flimsy models..need to be chunky for when this clumbsy old sod drops them, lol

Now the big question .........as toy can see, the Voiths have been put into position...the bow one will be fine when the thing is sunk into the hull, but the stern one is going to cause problems in that the motor in present position will come above deck line............does anyone know where you can buy much longer toothed belts for the Voiths so that I can re position and invert the motor to fit under the deck, please.

cheers, neil.

Looking tidy Neil.... One thing though, shouldn't the Voith drives be on the outside?       


Sorry Mate, couldn't resist!!     

Windy.....

I was wondering how they were going to work.......thanks matey       

been working feverishly today reinforcing the main car deck, and the upper deck, strategically putting cross members at the points where the superstructures will go. I have decided on my model to have a flush hatch at the stern for the read Voith access, plus possibly another near to the side ramps for the batteries, and the top wheel superstructure will lift to give access to the bow Voith. I am doing this so that the lower part of the superstructure can be fixed in place and the join between the side of this and the bulwarks will be permanent.
although all supports were but jointed, the first two pics show the joint made for the first cross beam to fit into the side supports, and all other support members were held with thin 1.0mm pieces of ply, glued underneath to gith support to the butt joints.........it looks heath robinson but is quite strong when all decks are glued on. the final part of this ladder frame work will be to lay a gusset of polyester filler under the side beams to give both support and a watertight seal between deck and bulwarks.........I'll do that tomorrow.

Moving along rather swiftly Neil looking good.            

hi neil,

nice to see this build of yours neil I like the way you have done the mould, and those voiths drive motors wow I like them, should be great when working.

david

cheers   guys......bit more progress today.

I have just about finished the support beams for the two decks, and have been putting in beams to support the combing for the top wheelhouse and bridge today. I also constructed the wheel house out of 6mm mdf and obeche front. then tilting the table on my band saw I cut the rounded shape of the front of the wheelhouse. eventually it will be clad with cartridge paper to highlight the positions of the window and door recesses, and then moulded in GRP.

it is positioned in the photos just about where it is on the model

I have been procrastinating for too long now on getting the VSPu's set into the hull, and so decided to do so today, starting with the stern unit........also it will give me a better idea of what I have to do motor wise for the unit.

started by marking out the circle to be cut from the grp mould, and drilled the perimeter of the hole with a 2mm bit...........and then using the side of the drill bit as a router I joined the holes and made a bigger hole.

Once this was done I fit the locating ring for the unit, and it fit where it touched.........so out came the dentists reamers and I cut the grp back for the ring to fit in properly.
They will be set in with polyester filler tomorrow.






































same was done to the bow unit, and then it was time to get out the motors.........the nearest I can find in my stock of motors is a little torpedo 300 12volt which under no load turns around 3000 rpm at 12v........just wondering if it will be beefy enough to turn the Voith, or whether it might be down the road of a brushless which is a lot squatter.........the units don't need a great deal of revs and don't work on a speed controller....they run at a constant speed, it's the pitch of the blades that gives the speed and direction in the end, so both motors working on micro on/of switches will be order of the day. the torpedo's are pictured with the 540 that came with the unit

Looking good Neil.          

Today have been making card templates for the decks and have transferred them onto 1.5mm ply for the car deck and foc'sle deck and 2mm for the flying bridge upper deck.

Coming together Neil.            

Cutting out the hull for the drives must have been uncomfortable?
Looking forward to the progress on that part of the hull, Voith drives have always fascinated me.

tricky and time consuming were words I'd use , lol

Now, it's beginning to look like a ship though.......all three decks have been added and are in the relative correct positions so I can get a "feel" for the model and how to progress...........next job will be to cut out the access holes for the interior gear and workings......watch this space, lol

Well, I am known for telling my builds warts and all, and here's a great big wart..........a real cockup on a major scale...........but am not changing it now as have gone too far.

but first, the progress......put my fillet of polyester filler under the side support beams to give water tight integrity and support for the decks on a colossal scale......they won't budge without help from a nuke..........and here goes the problem..........I knew that there is quite a camber on the deck cross sectional wise, but in my haste to press on for my daughter who wants to take it, at least partially finished up to Scotland on our holidays this august, I have made the big mistake of not reading the plans properly, and have put the position of the side longitudinal supports at the height of the top of the camber.....6mm too high........it will make a little difference to the general look of the model, but to take it all out would mean a total rebuild and am not going to do that...............so am going to leave the main car deck without a camber, and trust to hope that fellow modellers can live with it, as I and my daughter can.......but I haven't told her anyway. to put a camber beam on top of the existing beams would change the whole aesthetic look of the model with spaces between the car deck boat deck and bridge top all totally wrong.......

I also cut out the areas which are going to be made into flush hatches for access to the boat's internals and started adding the parts needed to make those flush decks water tight.

I am well acquainted with such frustrations as I would think all modellers will at some time in their modelling I seem to stuff up something in every model I tell myself it helps the pocket by prolonging the build.

Damien.

what a superb answer to a classic cock up Damien................as only an Australian could state...........Oh how I miss living over there...............everything was just a walk in the park on a sunny day...............nothing bothered me...................Oh how I wish I was back over there, at times, lol

best wishes to you .neil.

Thanks mate glad I could give a chuckle.    

it did Damien, lol..........

been wondering how to do the main cabin area for a while, and so took the plunge to fabricate it in wood in rough form so that I could play around with it for ideas..........have decided I an going to mould it in GRP which will hopefully be the easiest way of constructing the superstructure. I fabricated it from obeche and ply.

I also added more to the hatch structure

Been dabbling tonight with the main superstructure.............I constructed the sides and front plus pinned and glued the deck in place so that the sides of the superstructure faced up to the existing sides of the hull. I then layered masking tape to all the areas where filler would touch up to and filled in.........now the superstructure needs sanding down to take shape to a finished line.

It's looking a little better now that it has been trimmed down, sanded and final small amounts of filler have been added...........soon I'll be able to clad it with card to add detail of windows etc ready for moulding in grp.......it now also fits to the existing bulwarks which will make it easier to join to the hull without much of a problem.

it's also nice to get out some good old fashioned tools like a chisel and mallet to trim some timber down to level.

the main superstructure has now been filled and sanded to my satisfaction and have started building up the upper wheelhouse ready for moulding. the top part of it which has been added since the other photos were taken is purely the wind break on the top of the wheel house, but I thought it easier to make this as one with the grp mould and then just add a top deck of ply, than to get a thin plastic( or Ply) wind break made to contour to all the curves and shapes.

this will all be sanded, filled, sanded again and then clad in card to pick out the windows and door ways before moulding.






















marked out the positions for the windows and doors for the superstructure..the relief positions of these will now be glued on in card before sanding sealer is added and then waxed up and moulded in grp. neil.
















the cabins have been marked with card to highlight the positions of the windows and doors for the ship now and tomorrow will be sealed with cellulose sanding sealer and then polished up ready for moulding in grp.

















did a bit of actual modelling last night rather than just slogging away preparing plugs....made the wondows for the superstructure ready for moulding........once the mouldings come out of the rubber moulds, the centres which are at present blanked off will be cut out to leave the frames nicely reliefed....all made from plasticard

































and today  Yippeee..my replacement belts for re positioning the Voith Schnieder motors came........plenty long enough to put the motor virtually anywhere in the hull. lol....just the job.......perseverance paid off in the end.
thanks all for your comments on that one. neil.

pictured is the replacement along with the original.

                        

cheers matey...........a very far cry from classic old lifeboats but was getting a bit fed up of them as was getting bored doing the same sort of thing over again...this is a challenge and enjoying it............the actual ships were beautiful ships to sail on...did so many times in Scotland.......and am looking forward to sailing this with my daughter.
neil.

eureka......have found a small motor with bags of torque.........so have soldered a tube onto the output shaft to take the larger inner diameter of the sprocket for the belt............and will then organise a mounting block to fix the motor too. I have aklso soldered new leads onto the motor and covered them with epoxy to set in place, so that the wires wont fall off.......epoxy is a good insulator for such things.

also have made the flanges for the superstructures, fitted those to the superstructures, filled with plastecine and they are now ready for making moulds ..........ahhh, back to the fibreglassing......things are getting nearer.

please note that these were posted some while ago on other sites, but have had real difficulty posting photos on here for ages until this attempt, and threads are no good without photos, lol.

needed a break from all the hassle of the rear motor.......and still not solved but had a little bit of a spurt today and so have just laid up the gelcoat on the first side of the two superstructures..........get the matting laid up tomorrow, or maybe a first layer even tonight, see how it goes...neil










got the first side of each superstructure laid up this morning and also the rubber moulds for the window frames..........so things moving on slowly.





































ACT IN HASTE, REPENT AT LEASURE.......

always wondered what my mother used to mean by that until I started model making at a very young age...........and today it came back to haunt me......

I Didn't spend enough time stippling the matting and resin together into the gelcoat on the superstructure moulds........to tell the truth, I made an 'bottom' of them, but rather than remake I cut out the air blisters that had formed between gel coat and matting and have filled those areas with some more liquid gelcoat resin............However before I picked out the blisters to reveal the hollows, and using a metal scribe to do this, I gave a coat of wax all over the mould......this is to stop the new gel coat from sticking to the old stuff and needing a good sanding off, instead of now being able to use my pencil sander just to cut down the new gel to the level of the walls of the existing mould....... all seems ok at the moment, as the gel is going off.......will sand down later today when it has cured........put in a little more catylist than normally used for the process to give it a "kick".

sadly there were some small, and some not so small blisters....................

Hate it when a plan doesn't come together. lol

finally got round to laying up the two cabins today.........just laid up 1 layer of 1oz chopped strand matting around all the window areas and the tops, to give lightness to the top hamper of the boat and two layers around the bottom rims for a little strength around the combings.......sadly one layer bubbled after I had left it to go off, and so have cut the bubble, and put some resin/gelgoat mix in to fill it up before sanding off when cured..however..........did a stupid thing and tried top hasten the "going off" time by using a hot air gun.......took my eye off the process for a moment, and the thing caught fire, lol....quickly put it out but will have to wait to split it to see if I have damaged the mould...........hope not.............

lesson is.............DON'T TRY TO RUSH GLASS FIBRE WORK!!!!!!..........it'll go off in it's own sweet time, naturally........lesson learned.

and the other part came out too..........will clean them up when I have made the three sets needed. .second set in the moulds at the moment, and will get the 3rd set done tomorrow, and then get down to building the boat........hopefully.

the final decision has been made and I am now not going back on my decision...............am reverting back to the original layout and fittings for the stern Voith Schneider unit.....the motor will protrude through the deck and I will be disguising it with something or other........up for debate and thoughts though......either a lorry, coach or a large packing crate on a bogey ( no not that type of bogey)..one with wheels, lol..........but before I started any alterations I fitted the retaining rings for the Voith Schneider units into the hull, using polyester filler to seat them and glue them in, making sure that they were level and that the Voiths, as per the real ship had a slight incline of each unit to either for or aft depending on which one it was.

But first I even had to make alterations to both fore and aft deck supports.......but the frame work was built like the proverbial s*** house anyway so the loss of a little won't be noticed.....used a saw and at the aft end my invaluable power file to shape around the motor unit.......and will eventually work out a hatch to waterproof this area and ability to put in a flush deck.(all good fun designing and trouble shooting as you go along........haven't a clue at times what to do........and good for the old brain matter to have to think on the run............

but the big question to all you Voith PU experts is.........the aft motor and Voith need me to put the servos and arms to the "joystick" at an angle of around 45 degrees to the right angle.as shown in the very last photo( the bow Voith is fine)..............will this angle of "attack" for the servo's make any difference to the way the transmitter unit operates the correct direction of the vpu.........or do I have to have the joy stick attached to the Vpu at the proper right angle setting.......makes it a whole lot easier if I can have it as shown in the last photo of this set.
neil.


































am going to redesign the hatch so that I can fit the servos in as per the bow Voith on a 030 configuration...that'll be far easier than panicking around when the model doesn't go the way I want it to, lol......meanwhile have made the little servo retaining boxwes from plasticard (3.mm thickness to give some beef to them ajnd they will be sat on blobs of filler to anchor them to the hull.