SIR FITZROY CLAYTON Fleetwood,motor lifeboat

Christmas over, new year is just an excuse to get leathered and so I thought i'd get on with doing a bit on the two sailors.....tonight I glued the flotation boxes into their rightful slots on the motor sailor first, 

and then the end tops of the benches both fore and aft fitted temporarily. and finally although again not permanently fitted the grab rails for the fore and aft boxes were put in their approximate places to make sure they were a fit. 

This is beautiful classic wood wood styling here Neil, you know how I feel about wood work keep it up this is really starting to come together as another superb model.

Aron

auuhh, thanks for the comments Aron...…..coming from you that is praise indeed, as your standards of wood working and finish, I can only dream if these days.....at my age, the lack of patience is proportional to the amount of arthritis I have in my bones, and just love watching your builds as they really are beautiful.

you know my past profession and it is just wonderful to get back to using some nice wood to play with.

the smells, texture and look of it far outweighs the bland ness and characterless build of a grp model.

I think that was why I became so bored, peeeeed off and fed up with building the two Shannon lifeboats more than anything.

and I am enjoying the build as well, twice over, lol.

and the woodworking doesn't stop...….

this afternoon I cut some 6mm x 3mm and some 10mm x 3mm basswood from my supplies.

these are for the bulwark capping rails of the pulling and sailing and the motor sailor lifeboats respectively.

I fitted the motor sailor capping rails  with its overlap into the underside of the bow  end box first this afternoon, before moving on to the bench slats on the pulling sailing boat and fitting the bench slats.


the capping rails will be fitted tonight.

just a small job tonight but they all 4 took a good bit of fitting onto the bow end boxes of each boat as it was easier to cut, "carve" and fit each one separately.

then I added the strengtheners to the backs of each one.

these are the breakwaters for the bows of the two boats, which would shed the water from  the decks and crew as the lifeboat beat its way out to the casualty in tumultuous seas...…...

well that's the theory, and I hope with the powered boat it will do the trick on Windermere.

 WOW

oh!!!, I just love to get my torch lit......




but before that it was time to make a new rudder skeg from 2mm brass, and so I cut a strip[, rounded one end and drilled a hole to take a leather eyelet.

and then to silver soldering the eyelet into the hole.

once I had the piece, I cut a slit into the stern to slide the new skeg into place, using the half hole left in the old skeg as a correct placement for the fabrication.

I then held the piece in place with a small "G" cramp, and drilled from the centre of the remaining skeg through the brass and into the stern in order to add two stainless steel pins, held in with 2 part epoxy. I used a 5 minute setting epoxy, so that I could get it all filled with body filler before turning the lights out on the workshop for the night. 

I have tonight split the thwarts so to allow the centre fitments to be removed for maintenance,...………. 

but am having a hard pressed job to get even the first centre section level with the others...……..

so am going to pack them up leave them, and one day soon when in a better frame of mind...…….get back to them...…...plenty of other jobs to be getting on with. 

Absoloutly works of ART

thank you kind sir...………….didn't make the belaying pins though. 

lol...….far too difficult for my limited lathe skills, lol. bought them.

spent last night making all of the mast stay loops that will be silver soldered into the mast rings.

then spent this afternoon drilling the mast rings to take the stay loops.

I hope that the promised storm over the next few says AND  the minus temps don't come or it will be a miss in there to silver solder until it gets warmer. 

bought last sunday night at 21.00 hours 5 lengths [minimum order] of Ash dowel to match the Ash masts for my two lifeboats ……….Ash being much stronger, more flexible and of course same colour as the masts, arrived on Tuesday morning, brilliant service.

I have marked them up, and now going to put them in the lathe and taper them ready for taking brass end caps.

once these have been done I can cap them and solder the hoops on for rigging.....hope to post photos later today.

back from a nice evening in the pub with friends......

I capped the booms and gaffs with brass tubing, and will drill for the loops tomorrow when I have a more steady hand, lol...…...not too good on 4 pints of a nice strong beer, hahaha!

but here are photos of the turning and sanding of the dowels using a live centre on the lathe to keep the spars running truly.

once sanded smooth I added the brass tubing, with a tight fit, [you can see the shavings of one of the tubes as it cuts its way into the spar...…….then sanded smooth.


all brass ferrules were then glued in place using cyano acrylate. 

 

this afternoon I fabricated from brass the linkage between the aft booms and the mast  on each boat...…...

not quite scale and a bit on the chunky side, but you never know when Steve Williams, curator of the Lytham museum, might want to nick the boat from its case and go sailing it freestyle down on St Annes Fairhaven lake...………..

But they have been made durable to take the strain of the mizzen sail. 

sorry about the blared visions of some...…….was using a spare camera, sorry...…..but you get the idea. lol. 

masts, spar and boom all new fully fitted and just ready for the tabernacles to come from Mick in Canada.

I also received from a seller in the Isle of Man from ebay some rigging screws. I will make them for the museum boat, but those were limited in number or i'd have bought more.