MY NEW PROJECT...or two.

15.30 hours.

last layers go on to the first side of the mould...this will be left to cure in a heated garage overnight and then the flange will be split from the first half the mould.

This is the very nervous part......waiting!

it sure is Barrie............could be either simplicity itself..........or a disaster this time as I've made it without splitting along the belting.......just have to wait,

Looking good.
I've had a few foul ups from not mixing resin/hardener well enough frustrating init.

It's heart breaking Damien...........when youi think you pull a perfect moulding and then, only then do you realise a cock up, lol....the worst thing is having to clean the mould before you start the relentless task again.lol

Day two, 09.00 hours:

trimmed up the mould and sanded it all over to remove sharp shards and splinters of matting "needles" which hurt a great deal if you get them into your fingers.


Remove the MDF flange and remove any overspill dribbles of resin from the "virgin" half of the plug.


wax up another coat..........

day two, 16.00 hours..........after a day of waxing the plug, having given it 8 coats of release wax I gave the plug 2 coats of PVA release agent..........hoping that even though I have made the mould in only two halves rather than four pieces.........it will separate with ease.
well!!, that's the dream and hope.



17.30 hours

the second side of the plug was covered with white gellcoat......here's hoping.

18.00 hours:
The start of the final layer of the mould has begun. I split the layers of matting again to go around the belting, the keel and into the tunnel, and with well stippled resin into the matting it has covered well, hopefully without air bubbles.
The final layers will go on tomorrow morning.

Day three..
09.30 hours............the laying up if the second side of the mould has been completed........will now leave to harden before trimming with jigsaw.

Day 3:
11.15 hours.........
the finishing od the mould is in sight........I sanded both halves after trimming back to the top bulwark line and the existing flange line on the second half, and then with power file cut the edges of the two halves down to that a permenant gelcoat line could be seen all the way around both the flange and the bulwark tops....this then ensures that the mould is cut back to the proper edge , and no overhang would inhibit splitting the mould
I then marked and drilled the flange at intervals of around 4" to take the roofing bolt fasteners that will hold the mould together.
It was now time to split the mould...........the flange split easily enough and with a bit of huffing and puffing the "green" side of the mould which I finished this morning fell away relatively easy.........I had made to split the mould from the plug whilst it was still green to give me a chance....and it worked.
the second half was more troublesome as it had cured longer and was much stiffer, but with a lot of sweat, many wedges and a strain to the back from which it will take a couple of days to ease off, the second half fell away with a lot of pulling and tapping with a mallet..........if it had resisted the next step would have been to pour down the inside of the mould, a kettle full of hot water to activate the pva release agent.....but it worked.......I screwed the two halves together and will leave to cure now over the next day and then wash off tomorrow, ready for waxing up to take a moulding.

This really is superb. Loving all of it........but then I don't have to do it!

it's fantastic, even when you have done so many moulds, for the next one to come out cleanly.........it's always a great sense of achievment and I am always both aprehensive and greatfull that all the preparation of the plug pays off.

I must have done 30 - 40 moulds of different types of ships in my life now, and that sense of achievement never makes me blase' about the next one.........each is a challenge, and each gives me a buz to know that all the hard work was worth it........but I tell you what Barrie, my back gets worse and worse, and it is really aching very badly the last few days, as well as my arms and shoulders......it's really exaccerbated my spondylosis and arthritis.........I think it'll be kits from now on, once I have done these boats...........and the fact that I'm running out of different classes of lifeboats to mould and build. lol

Now that the mould has had time to cure in a heated workshop all night ( hate to think of the electricity bill) it's now time to prepare for getting some mouldings out of it..............
bath time......getting rid of the release agent.........but don't tell the misses

I keep offering her my release wax for her moustache........I just get a clout around the ear..........can't think why:?:

Neil,

Don't they call that stuff, Imac or Veet?

don't mention it Barrie......after a day's christmas shopping in Preston.......I'm in the dog house big time..............think I'll be sleeping in the garage for the next few nights......bad times, lol

got all my coats of wax on today, followed by two coats of PVA release agent, and then the Gelcoat outer water resistant layer, ready for moulding up the hull tomorrow........hopefully by "tiffin" will have my first lifeboat hull ready for ritting out.

Just come in from the workshop after starting the layup at 09.30hours.......... on the first hull mould.Two hours ain't bad I suppose.

With these lifeboat hulls, where there is such an indentation in the bulwark tops for the belting I tend to do one side at a time down to just past the halfway and encasing the keel which has the ballast weight moulded into it as a feature. Once the firsat side has gone off I trim it up to the bulwark level with a stanley knife (carpet knife) and then start the second side of the mould.....by doing this, I can lay the mould on it's side to stipple well into the belting mould without fear of the other side falling away from the mould and ending up with airbubbles all along the top edge, or worse still half way down the hull side.

the mould can then be left for a few minuted whilst the second side is going off before putting the mould on an even keel for it all to cure for the afternoon.........tonight I'll hopefully split the mould and extracate the hull moulding, before I start all over again tomorrow with waxing etc for the second hull...........it's all go.

It's always greatly satisfying when the first moulding pops out of the mould.

Albeit with a bit of a struggle today because I haven't split the mould around the belting, but the moulding did come out without any damage to either the mould or moulding.

the mould flashing along the keel and inside the propellor tunnel have been cleaned out and off with sanders and any splinters have been sanded off inside the hull

off to the test tank for washing down and then to set and cure in the workshop. tomorrow will be the second moulding.

if your boats get any bigger Neil you'll need a larger DTT (domestic test tank) looks real promising Mate

yep........was thinking about that phil when I filled the bath up...............think I'll shrink the size for the next one, lol.

neil.

Neil, That is magnificent. What a superb result for all your hard work.

As for the size, well it is as my Mrs says,,,,,,"You can't beat a big un!"

Footski wrote:

As for the size, well it is as my Mrs says,,,,,,"You can't beat a big un!"

Really Barry I swear your getting worse lol still keeps us all amused !! carry on as you were chaps

It's an age thing......well that's my excuse.....Now Neil, where were we??

well, how can I follow that but say...........appropriately..............
Ahhh, Twins............but not for long, lol.the 2nd one came out fine..easier than the 1st.
Whilst the 2nd hull was curing enough to remove from the mould I cut the card templates out which will enable me to cut and shape the plugs for the "end box" tops.
These will be cut and planed/sanded to shape so that the single tops 1 for each end of the boat, and as I will make them the overall size for the biggest covers (as on the motor sailor) they can then also be cut down for the smaller boat covers.
They will be fashioned from Obeche and I had to glue two widths of planking and have been clamped in my workmate with heavy batteries laid on them to keep them from bowing in the middle whilst gluing.
I borrowed a cramp from my good mate Trawlerman but couldn't get it to work so resorted to old means.
I also cut out a solid aft keel deadwood fillet for the pulling/sailing lifeboat, as I have to fill in the hollow for the propeller tunnel.
tomorrow work will start on these.........anyone want an old plug for a lifeboat.........free to pickup, lol

the blocks of obeche have been cut out and added thicknesses to the underside of the blocks have been added to get the correct curvature to the tops.

the tops of the end boxes were drawn from the templates and then cut out on the band saw.

I shaped the tops as per sections from the RNLI official drawings using my small Stanley block plane and then sanded smooth for a first shot and filled with polyester filler.

Once all set, i'll shape the tops to where they should sit into the boat bulwarks, before finally making simple master moulds of them for grp end box mouldings which will glue into the ends of the boats before filling to shape after the decks have been added.

The end box tops have now been fully shaped for use and have been given numerous coats of sanding sealer and rubbed down with wire wool to give a surface reasonable enough to take moulds off.......at this stage I am not to fanatical about getting a perfect finish on these two end boxes as they will be cut to shape to fit which ever boat they are going to fit on to and the bottom edges will be filled and faired into the hull anyway, so would say that 50% of each moulding will be discarded anyway, and finishing will be done on the model so why waste time getting a superb finish on something which will in the end be partially thrown away.

The plugs have been given 3 coats of release wax only as they are simple pop off moulds, and PVA release agent has been added.

Finally the gelcoat has now been added..........once this has gone off in 30 minutes or so the moulds will be made by laying up a few layers of 1oz matting.

Not all moulds go to plan, especially when you are rushing things, as i suppose I am now..........just eager to get building rather than preparation for a build ( which making moulds is, especially when you are only going to have the to builds from it, at the moment)......and small "mistakes" are inevitable..... Show me a moulder, evenm an experienced one who says he/she doesn't make mistakes and I'll swear that I saw Elvis down the chip ship!!!

anyway, I laid up the matting and when was about to go off I trimmed the ragged edges up from the "cutting edges"........only to find a couple of air bubbles between the gelcoat and the first layers of matting, and so I filled this with a "hot mix" of resin and mashed up surface tissue, and bound it with some masking tape. the hot mix is to set it in place at the same time as the rest of it sets, and then they will cure at the sme rate of time.......I put the two moulds out in the 4c temperature to "smoke" a little and the coolness of the air will help stop it all overheat.

after trimming off and sanding the moulds for "needles", the moulds separated from the plug like shelling peas the came off so easily.
I fixed a couple of blocks of timber to the outside face of each mould for holding and gripping the mould when moulding and will now leave them to cure before waxing up tomorrow and taking some mouldings off them over the weekend.

Brilliant Neil, and to think all I have been doing for the last hour is cooking sirloin steak, stuffed with Parmesan cheese, parsley and garlic with a red wine and tomato sauce.....Oh and a yellow pepper and tomato prawn cocktail for starters...........Had the odd glass of wine whilst working of course. Something I am sure you can't do whilst producing these masterpieces!

that sound yummy matey.....good enough to eat nom nom.

at the moment I'm watching AC DC live at the River Plate concert on TV........just brilliant raucous music that takes me back to my youth........oh yeh, and having a beer or two, lol

Today I laid up the two end box tops .......an easy little task and the blocks I'd glued onto the outer side helped inormously as I was able to clamp both moulds into the workmate solid and then had two hands free to lay up the mould without feer of getting things stuck up amd messy...a great help. I laid them up around 15.00 hours and have just split them immediately before writing this, and they fit nicely into the boat, and will fit much better on fitting and filling.
the final day of moulding tomorrow with two more end boxes for the second boat and then onto the build proper.

Nice progress Neil now the fun begins eh ?

yep, Phil......and looking forward to it too...........these old boats weren't as detailed fittings wise as the more "modern" ones I have built in the past............in fact they were very crude and simple boats.................almost just simple rowing boats with engines..............and apart from the lovely wooden benches, lockers and such, there is little building to be done.........hopefully progress will be swift..........says he with hope, lol

Yes Neil but does this lack of, shall we call it fussiness, not mean that what detail there is needs to be so much more accurate and realistic ? Mind you I'm sure your more than up to the challenge

I'll be in my ellement Phill.......all that lovely mahogany and pine...be like teaching woodwork again, lol

Really looking forward to this....Now come on Neil, get on with them!!!!!!!

I'm paddling as fast as I can, barrie.

need less teeth in the gearbox speed you up a bit Niel

been thinking for nearly a full day as to a witty reply to that one Damien...............and I can't, you've got me stumped............but I'll set the wheels in motion for a reply soon,

I await your retort M8

Damien wrote:

I await your retort M8

Never mind the retort.....where's the boat???

I seem to be in neutral at the moment..............was asked the other night to build a lifeboat for someone and am waiting to chat with him, as it would seem a convertion of one I have already built would be favorite............so have been clearing the decks for the eventuality of building this.............as soon as I know yeh or nay, I'll be back on with the job...........but the last couple of days have been repairing little bits on the 3 boats I built earlier in the year and taking out all the electronics ready for winter storage..............so have foundered with these two a little...........will get back on the job as soon as I know what I'm doing next. but the wheels will not stop turning.

neil.

Aah the winter storage routine not something anyone enjoys lol my btys are all stored safely away from the frost and all propshafts cleaned and greased but the electronics tend to stay put but then the fleet is stored in a dry lock up.

I have had a slight deviation from the two lifeboats over the past couple of weeks......have decommissioned my 3 lifeboats for the winter by taking out all electronics and greasing the prop shafts and putting them away in blanckets for the winter.

also I have started a task that was asked of me some time ago.

A while ago I developed a set of Lifeboat figures at 1;12 scale for my own classic lifeboats. The time period of the costumes was from the late 1960's to thwe early 1980's.
Once I had moulded my figures and a few spares I sold the moulds on to a gentleman called Martin Pritchard ( no relation) who moulds them and supplies to Adrian Clutterbuck, who in turn sells them at all the RNLI enthusiast stands in aid of the RNLI.
A while ago Adrian asked me if I could convert the 8 figures that I have to the costume of the l900's to 1940's and from the 1940's to the 1960's thus giving a full run of lifeboat figures in 1:12 scale ONLY for modellers.

So as I am now building two models from that early period and my 3 lifeboats cover the 1930/60's period I have decided to crack on with the task of conversion and whilst the weather is warming I took the chance in the garage this morning to start the job by grinding and cutting off the old lifejackets...........unfortunately by the end of the secong little fellow.....blood stopped play.........so will get back to it at a later date.........so long as the weather stays above freezing.lol

I will be using an ex George Turner model to copy the costume off, and then they will all be for sale again on behalf of the RNLI.

Should we not have a separate topic for this Neil, it looks to be good....

nah matey........it'll only be a short one and will fit in with the lifeboat build in a short while..........just gells together and all part and parcel of the lifeboat build.

neil.

anyway, getting away from this frivolity I actually did some work on the boat and figures today........and then cut the same b****** thumb again but deaper..........so eventually called it a day after it began throbbing.
but to begin with...........I cut, trimmed and dry fitted the bow end box cover for the motor sailor. the pulling/sailor will have to be carfully scaled up from the small drawings that I have, as I haven't got a p[lan for this one, but as it's a "stand off scale" boat with slight discrepancies as noted in the introduction a long time ago...........I don't care, lol
the top was centre lined and then a template taken from the plans and drawn onto the top. it was finally cut on the band saw to shape, but will not be fitted until the inner deck has been fitted later.

Next job today was to fit the propellor and rudder skeg extension into the tunnel.
First was to make a prop tube and bearings on the lathe.
The tube is a simple brass tube with two turned bearingsa that go into the ends on a tight fit, drilled to the 4mm dia of the shaft that I cut from stainless rod and threaded with a 4mm thread for the propellor. the bearings are driven home with a wooden mallet. I cut the spacer out of the pre made skeg and then drilled the edge of the wooden skeg that mates up with the hull and glues stainless rod into it to locate and stop movement to the hull. Drilled the hull for both the rods and the propellor tube and then glued all in place using 2 part epoxy glue