MY NEW PROJECT...or two.

WHAT NOT TO DO when drilling polyurethane resin.............hold by hand when you are an ol' git with arthritis in the fingers and wrists, lol...........luckily I learned after the first cockup and used a heavy vice to hold them in place..........went like clockwork once I'd used my brain,

Whilst waiting for answers one way or another I have over the last few days been putting together a few of the smaller items that need doing to the boat before it is painted.
With regards painting, after consultation, the Maude Pickup will be painted light blue upper hull, and white under, where as the William and Laura will be painted Oxford Blue above boot topping, and either black or dark green under anti fouling, as she was painted both colours in her lifetime............I think grean will be colour of choice.
And onto what I have done over the last few days.

First was the signalling/running light at the fore peak.........a simple construction of brass/copper tube, with a small 1.8mm ply plate with holding brackets of brass glued to it. the small hooks to hang the lamp onto are from fittings to the Anne Letitia Russell, and small brass rigging eyes. the upper fixing bracket is from the hand rails to the Rother class lifeboat, and the base socket is from a fitting I made for the Mary Stanford ( I think.???)

Why make new ones from scratch when similar ones will do??.........

I ain't a rivet counter so modellers licence comes to help here.

next job was to cut slots into the mizzen boom for sheet rollers.................sadly this went totally wrong on the first one, as I was using a none too sharp drill bit, and it bounced off a harder vain of the grain in the timber and ended up going out a bit squiffey................so had to make a wedge from some scrap douglas fir and drive it in to the hole I'd made.....glued with 24 hour epoxy it sanded off nicely..................will attempt it again tomorrow with a nice sharp bit..............

Next was to make the possitions for the oar locks.....small blocks of 1.8mm ply, drilled with a 3mm bit to take the rowlock and capped with brass washers.

and the last two little jobs ( and it's amazing how long all these little jobs take when getting a boat ready for painting before adding fittings) were to fit the anchoring eye bolts for mast rigging and make a blank for the bow pudding .

The anchorings were first drilled and then tapped with a3mm tap and the rigging eyes, made some time ago were screwed into the grp mouldings and glued with cyano.

The bow pudding blank which has been left to cure before sanding was made from a lump of milliput and held in place till set

Amazing! I look forward to reading the book that will undoubtedly follow the builds.....

Barrie.....I can't remember what I did yesterday without looking at past photos.........never mind write a book on it

you'll be waitin' a long time:lol!:

Footski wrote:

Amazing! I look forward to reading the book that will undoubtedly follow the builds.....

Ditto from me Neil.

cheers guys......

Cowardism has set in and I'm putting off the masking up of my boats until all other building and painting has been accomplished as I can see that it's going to be an horrendous job ..........so today finished the lamp standard and made a couple of boat hooks using generic fittings, and then gathered some of the smaller fittings and gave them a few colours.....maybe in the next few days, I'll take the plunge.

two boats now masked up and ready for sanding and preparation for painting. was easier than I thought it would be.

today been readying the hulls for spraying, and in fact gave one hull a light dusting with tetrosyl etching primer before the can ran out........will have to wait till payday for more cans.

fitted the ruffle hole surrounds after drilling the deadwood and also the outlets for the self bailing tubes ( didn't drill the holes in the hull though

amazing how quickly you can blow a hundred quid.............

and a brace of 43' Watsons given their first coat of etching primer..............next will be the spray filler, and then a good wet and dry job.

Looking really good it's amazing the difference when you put the first coat of primer on a model.

It is Damien......they change character most dramatically, and then you begin to see them as they are meant to be, rather than lumps of grp and wood/plastics.

Last night I Sprayed the tops , again with grey etching primer to give good adhesion for the later colours, and then sprayed both boats with filler primer......gave this 3 coats over the afternoon, and have now left it to dry and cure until tonight.

I used stopper putty to fill any deeper scratches, as most sanding scratches have now been filled with the primer filler
Will leave that a day until tomorrow and then commence wet and drying the boat all over before another grey primer for the darker colours and a white primer for the end box tops.

the slow process of painting now has started....wet and drying of the filler primer and then undercoats for the white paint, and then the top coats for the end boxes have been applied today......beginning to look like lifeboats.

lens cleaned of dust, boat given top spray and now out in the noon day sun and curing/baking in the lovely weather we're having today!!???

As for the other boat..............cocked up a little today.......was painting the green antifouling on the motor lifeboat, but it was like painting a chink in a stone wall.........I ended up overspraying the surrounding tunnel edge to such an extent that I left runs and bubbles all over it................so had to cut it back today with some 400 and 600 grade paper, before respraying............it seems to have gone ok the second time..........will let this cure now for a couple of days before doing the upper hull, as on the white hulled Maude Pickup.

I'm not known for my patience when painting....... but having said that, I do take time masking up...........and I use low and normal tack "frog" tape...is expensive, but it does what it says on the label...........and doesn't allow any creep under the tape of paint.........it's well worth the extra dosh for a roll.

So now I have applied the upper hull colours.......first was the sailing boat, which came in a light blue colour when built in 1893 and so have tried to replicate that with Halfords "Ford Bermuda light Blue" which I personally think is a near match from contemporary paintings and washed coloured postcards/photos, and so will keep that colour.

The other boat, the motor sailor, which was cuilt in 1910 came in a darker blue, but lighter than the later Oxford Blue...........so I painted that in "Ford Isis Blue",

Once these colours have cured I'll hand paint the belting with the Humbrol gloss red that I use.

just to show the sort of line finish that I get ( and believe me I am one of the world's worst painters) this is what even I can achieve when using "Frog" masking tape.........and the rudders, with their groves for planking indications isn't the best face to mask..............

I reckon that is pretty good.

Been back in Blighty for a few days, so have been missing my daily dose of this magnificent thread.

I can now tell them apart Neil!

I'm glad you can Barrie..........I nearly painted the wrong colour on the wrong boat yesterday, lol...had to double check first, lol

the paint by numbers job is going well, and hopefully I'll be able to take off all the masking tomorrow to reveal some beautiful swans from the ugly ducklings they were before I pulled my finger out the other day..

even got round to paint the inside of the bulwarks whilst I had the gloss red out ......usually a job I can easily forget

And how NOT to paint a model boat......................

everything went pear shaped last night when I noticed two very small spots ( about 1.5 mm in diameter each) on the red belting that wouldn't cover...............so what did I do..............instead of leaving the paint to cure and harden (enamels) I tried to rectify it by splashing more red paint onto it.......................and again.........eventually the paint reacted in orange peeling.............I am so b******* impatient you'd think that on the eve of my 62nd birthday (hint hint) I would know better...........and this is the mess I am now habving to clear up and repaint, eventually once the first coats have cured enough to allow me to wet and dry smooth.....................ceste la vie.







this is the other boat which I didn't make a mess of ( too much that is??) looking resplendant in her victorian light blue white and red colours...........................she'll look alright from 30 paces on a lake, lol.

don't know why it wouldn't allow me to post the pics with the above post, so will try again with this one.
neil.


no.........failed again........will try later.
neil

Oh dear.....Paint and patience do not go together!

We all learn the hard way and never make that mistake again......well not until next time that is...

so where did those photos appear from......

Perhaps we need a CRYING emoticon ???????

Every thing hunky dory today Damien..............

they look a whole lot nicer with a little trimming tape and a touch up of colours, all masking tape removed and the dust hoovered up................now I can start to add the fittings that are waiting to go onto them!!!..........hooorraaaayyyyy

Superb job Neil..The painting is excellent. You can do one of my boats anytime.

Cheers

ken

Tug--Kenny wrote:

Superb job Neil..The painting is excellent. You can do one of my boats anytime.

Cheers

ken

It's not when you get uop close ken,

How's mayhem .......hope it's not terminal.......give Martin our best regards and hope he's up and running soon.

neil.

with the painting of the hulls finally done it is now time to concentrate on putting the boat together with all the fittings......and this is where I began this morning..........firstly by fabricating the brackets for the grab ropes to hang from.These were made from 0.8mm brass wire bent into a "U" shape.
they were positioned by placing masking tape on the belting to allow pencil marks to position and to stop the bit slipping on the paint..and then drilled and fixed with cyano.
........and then attaching the pulley housing blocks for the drop keels.........

and then fixing positions for the mast tabernackles. This required fixing the front bench thwarts on one of the boats.I used 2 part epoxy to glue these in place.

Once this was fixed, (although not permenantly) the cover board for the slit in the hull where the drop keel goes....thus making the deck watertight.

Wow!!!!

Wonderful. You really are dedicated to the cause Neil.

I'm beginning to realise just how much building work there was in these two boats and it is only now when I can see the end, that I have decided to give lifeboats a rest for now........and have lined up a nice ferry to build next, for my daughter

A couple of weeks ago I bought some white calico cotton sheet...probably about 3 metres square in total, from a car boot sale............for my lifeboat sails.......£1.50 in total.
I have also been collecting the threads for the rigging in different diameters for Bolt ropes, sheets, Halliards and Brail and today decided to pre shrink them all.
first the threads were placed in boiling water to shrink them, and then into salted cold water to shrink and set the colourd "ropes" for a final time.

the sheet of calico was placed into the washing machine and given a pre colouring wash before placing in the machine again on top of the Duylon Teracotta shade dye and a pound of salt, to both colour and shrink the sheet, on a 40 cotton wash..........they are all now out on the washing line to dry over night.......

hopefully when they are now stitched up with the threads added, there will be no further shrinkage to ruffle and crimp the sails.

well......detailing has now begun ..............firstly with the self draining valve covers and the bilge pump and filler tank covers, and then the support posts for the thwarts........anmd finally "masking" the flotation box tops ready for staining the side benches.
the self draining valve tops and filler covers were all made from modified generic fittings for other lifeboats I have collected.the inside of the valves were painted matt black to give the appearance of open holes inside the fitting.

The thwarts support posts have been made from turned spindles .........some made by my good friend Terry Donn of Southport, and the others for the motor sailor were modified dolls house balustrades.

I asked some time ago about the pattern of these as I have never been able to find exactly what shape they were, and have never found them on either plans or photos circa the year, from the guys who restored the "William Riley of Birmingham and Leaminton" when she was at Fleetwood Lifeboat day, and he told me that the ones for the restored boat were "to be honest from the imagination of what we thought they would look like"...............so if they can do that to a fully restored lifeboat, then I can take modellers license and use modified dolls house balustrades.
the tops of the flotation boxes were masked off by slipping strips of paper under the benches.

say's it all.

cheers Damien.........here's a bit more.
Today added more detailing.........first the thwarts and their brackets..........plus the thwart supports.

next was the gluing and setting of the Tabernackles.these were centre screwed down and pinned with panel pins, after gluing in place with 30minute two part epoxy.

I glued in place the bow centre samson post and it's retaining bracket and then moved onto the cleats. These are white metal fittings with a pin for locating them in place. However because they will take some weight from the sheets and halyards a secind steel pin was used to locate them in place and all glued with 2 part epoxy and left to set.

the same treatment has been given now to the sailing lifeboat.
both boats have been cleaned up now that the  rudder travel has been sorted, and today I fitted the thwarts and their brackets to the sailing lifeboat.
The thwarts above the access hatch had to be cut so that the hatch could be lifted out, and I am planning to fit my crew men over the joint on this to hide it.
Tomorrow will be a time of fitting the foot boards for the rowing crew and a few other jobs to both boats......working inexorably towards the rigging of them.also photographed are the pulley wheels that I bought and which will be attached to the rudder for the rig to the servo.

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site not working well tonight ATall............got a mind of it's own.lol

All seems well this morning Neil.

It was just very odd when posting photos last night amigo.

kept repeating some and omitting others......gave up in the end.
will try some now..


A job that has needed to be done but I either kept forgetting or kept putting off has been done today..........even bought some allen headed stanless steel bolts at 3mm dia, long enough to do the job in Lancaster the other day so have no more excuses left........and that was to fit the brass drop keels to both boats.

An easy task.........just drilled through the keel, attached the draw rope to the top of the keel and the job was done..........the hardest job was feeding a brass wire through the keel box from the top of the boat to attach the draw rope to.........and that took only seconds in itself. I was truly relieved to see just how quickly the job went.

the end of the draw rope which attached to the keel was protected by some heat shrink to stop chaffing.

sorry matey.......it's doing it again.....will only alow one print onto the post and then repeats all the others with the first picture............so it ends up a post of repeated pics.

will see if it sorts itself out in a day or two.
neil......until then if anyone wants to watch the build it'll be on mayhem,.

ON MAYHEM,     Wash yer mouth out me hearty..

wot you mean matey.........you were on there this morning, lol

Footski wrote:

ON MAYHEM,     Wash yer mouth out me hearty..

Looking Great Neil, sorry not been about last few weeks, busy in the work shop.. not doing the right things apparently 

o.o issue with the photos uploading? hmm let me look into it for you.. I've just noticed they have upgraded the forums thread system, this might be a glitch in the new system...

Can you let me know if your using the Forums photo host , or your own personal one (flickr, Photobucket etc..) this will help me narrow down the issue.

RR

cheers matey...............and how are you.........what you making in the workshop.........is it childrens toys related by any chance.............I loved those years.

My daughter is now into eddie stobart truckl spotting these days and I bought her a model truck the other week.........came crying to me today.......upset...she'd broken off the wing mirror to the tracter unit.....took me an hour to make one from plasticard and brass for a replacement......the mirrort was 4 x 9mm in size.............lucky I'm a model maker, lol

Ah well its supposed to be a boat.... but its a total hash fail..... i recently got a new electric fret saw, and i swear the material i'm using is of sub standard quality, either that or i need more practise using the tool...either way i'll work it out..

can you let me know your exact issue your having with the photo uploads and if your using the forums own host or a personal one. this will help me narrow down the issue to get a fix done.

RR

I have the same problem when quoting a message to reply to. Not tried pictures for some time, so can't comment on that.