Jupiter, a Caledonian macBrayne Ferry

made the warping fairleads and the main warping captains yesterday but because of talktalk's lousy broadband service couldn't post till tonight......I do like a little turning in brass......gives me great satisfaction.
someone might notice that the third one has a different shaped bollard on it...a rounded top......this is intentional as it is/was a powered bollard,

the capstain will be cast in resin in two parts.

loving the brass work Neil 

cheers matey.......how are you................did you have a good Christmas  n new year.

there are more vents on this ship than in Sherlock Holme's Cromby...a lot of different varieties........three more including the main engine room extractor vent ( made in four parts, of which two were vent supports for my Watson lifeboats with modifications to fit the trunk of the main vent).....plus another Hose/filler connection

`cheers matey.

the main up / down companionways from the car deck to the upper deck have now been made....the thinner one which is the port and starboard companionway has been modified from an old one I made for the Clyde class lifeboat interior and I just added more treaders between the existing ones. the larger double one which is the main central companionway wan made of the same material and glued together with plastiweld. both these will be put into open moulds as easier to cast intricate parts with thin plastic walls ( no split halves) and moulded in polyurethane resin

because of the top hamper of the vehicles going on the car deck on this beastie, the rest of the fittings are to be made lightly.......the lockers made today are all hollow to keep weight down rather than make from blocks of obeche as I normally would........and more to come........just getting round to making them.






all detailing has now been added to the lifebelt , fire and other lockers along with oil header tank and W/T escape hatches except for the levers on some which can be added by small bore brass wire later.

the detailing was made by various sizes and shapes of Plastruct extrusions.

all will now be moulded where possible.

still working out whether I can mould all the larger lockers as they all have open bottom ends, and hollow, but have put all the bitts, capstan and other lockers and goosenecks into mould casting boxes.......will pour rubber into them tomorrow.........some are split moulds whilst others will be single moulds with the moulding poured in from the top.

are these for a future kit Neil?

hi Damien, possibly..........I am being supplied with all the materials to build her as I wanted to build for my daughter................and then just handing all the moulds and stuff over to Andrew in Scotland......I don't know whether he and his club members are going are going to semi kit it or not..................however Andrew is a very busy man, being senior camera man for BBC Scotland and is all over the world filming..off in Sweden at the moment so whether he'll ever get time to turn it into a kit, I don't know. neil.

Ever thought of doing a paddle boat Hull?

never thought of doing one Damien but have had thoughts of building a large scale WAVERLEY from a semi kit hull n wheels available for some years now, but the kit is over a grand to buy these days..........well out of my price bracket I'm afraid.

they're all in there somewhere, lol.....just letting the RTV rubber set and cure before I dismantle most of the boxes.

looking good Neil, that hull could be quite versatile, you will have to do a build of the Hallaig ,Sconser/Raasay ferry one of the new hybrid ones built at the yard that when bust last year before being bought by the Clyde Blowers owner, think it was Fergusons

yes, that's right, matey........have sailed on her sister ship Lochinvar........but I'll have to build in a mechanism to help the model to keep breaking down..

Damien...........the Lochinvar and Hallaig are two new hybrid ferries built in the last two years for Calmac...............sadly even though a superb concept and so quiet when you are sailing on them, they keep breaking down regularly and other ferries constantly have to shift around to sub for them........they are good looking ships and hopefully soon will get their woes sorted to give good service for years, but like anything new are having a wee bit o' bovver, lol

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MV_Hallaig

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MV_Lochinvar

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e9Wx0RDQbEI

well, back to the Jupiter, I have split the moulds for the fittings........we bit of a problem in that one of the mixings didn't set properly..........possibly too little catylist, so I cleaned that set up and then painted some catylist onto the moulds, that has impregnated the mould and set harder.....just leave them on the radiator for a couple of hours to cure properly. the last problem was that the companionway mould didn't reach right to the top of the side frames and would have left some of the frame work missing when cast, so I hahe skimmed a thin layer over it and then will cut back the rubber later.
finally the open moulds for some of the lockers came out well, and are ready for casting in. neil.

hi neil ,

superb detail into mould making  . I keep telling my self I must have a go, as you make it look so easy but no doubt it isn't easy. I am following with great interest. have you sorted the motors out now for this our are you still in test moad waiting to see how they develop and work .

david

David, it is as easy as it looks, honestly.....there is absolutely no hidden problem to it at all, so long as you have bit of lego to make the boxes , some plasticine  and your masters..................if you get stuck just give me a shout and we can sort it. .............as for the motors...........I have gone back to the original motors and belts and have cut the hole in the bottom of one of the vehicles to hide it coming through the deck.................it was in the end, the safest solution. neil.

all moulds now completed.................just have to cut the flow tracks into the split moulds after a night to cure, and will be ready for casting

the flow tracks have been cut into the rubber and the first casts have been made. I use fast cast polyurethane none shatter resin for all my resin mouldings these days....a little more costly but far better.

the split moulds can be seen sandwiched by some hard board outers.......just to keep the elastic bands from biting into squashing and distorting the rubber moulds.
the open cast moulds are just what they say........pour the resin into the mould and then when cured sand down to the line of the mould.

these castings will be ready and hard enough to take out of the moulds in around 30 minutes.

well the first castings have come out of the moulds and the open casts have come out perfectly. the companionways have come out.........but three slight hick ups on the split moulds where the flow tracks weren't cut deep enough and left a little hiatus and lack of flow.....but this has now been re cut and a second casting is going in shortly.........hope the three little fittings come out better next time.

Hmmmm perhaps I'll give this molding caper a try one day in near future

it's as easy as it looks Damien.....try it.

I think the lads who are building the other two boats I made the mouldings for are going to have the stanchions brass etched and hopefully will be sending me a set eventually.

in the mean time I have a few fittings to clean and sort out, lol

With that amount of flash I would ask for my money back mate!!!!

nah mate........you get more to the pound

usually my castings in poly resin go well..............alas those from the split moulds haven't gone too well..........

one reason I think is because the mould for the cruciform bollards was overloaded..............should have only put two masters into one mould to give a better chance of the resin flowing to just two moulds rather than four, and I will rectify this by making two separate moulds for the two sets of four........the second problem was with the moulds for the goose neck vents of differing sizes n shapes......the resin has sat in my cold workshop for some months and I believe it's shelf life is nearing an end.........it has tended to go off rather quicker than when new and as such doesn't give itself time to flow............but as this set of fittings is for my own model and not for the guys who are wanting the other sets, newer resin and separate moulds will cure the problems........as for now......a good wodge of good old milliput white putty will solve the problems of the blow holes,

Hi Neil, I have found the PU resin only has a shelf life of 8 to 10 weeks once opened... The clear brown coloured part is hydroscopic..

 Not that it lasts that long with me, I go through about 10 to 15kg a month!!

W..

cheers mark..now I know why.....those two tins are at least 3 months old, lol............better get casting some stuff, lol

the two funnels on the streakers were "handed"........the inner face of the funnel was vertical whilst the outer face had a slope inwards and as such I couldn't make a single funnel to mould, but the pair as shown.

I decided to make moulds for them as it would have been easier and quicker to carve them from obeche than it would have been to fabricate each from plasticard......and so, out came the craft knives and a whittling I did go............just love sitting there with a nice piece of timber a sharp knife and some abrasive paper, and wait for the finished item to appear.........a good sense of satisfaction.

they will next be given liberal coats of sanding sealer and a little detailing before moulding ready for casting.

sorry about the darkness of the first few shots but had my camera on the wrong setting.

there is a flange from the outer skin of the funnels on the back and top edge where the exhaust gasses from the engines come through and so knowing that I want this flange to come out in the moulding.

I decided to "dress" the outer skin of the funnels with card.

I built it up in two layers and then on the inner rim of each flange ran two further layers of card ( 120 gram) to build the thickness for moulding purposes.

all the card was glued to the timber with household PVA glue.

once it has all dried I will give it several coats of sanding sealer to harden it all up before putting more detailing on to it.

wondered what the b****y he** you were talking about for a minute mark, till I had another look, lol

Don't worry Neil, I wonder what the hell I am waffling on about most of the time, must be the resin fumes getting to me!!

Mark..

best legal high going, lol

whilst I had a little time on my hands today I decided to detail the funnels of the ferry......on the inner face of each are two opening flaps ( don't know what they are for unless access or cooling flaps but I made them from 3 different thicknesses of plasticard.

the other little bit of detailing is on the outer face of the funnel and is a raised Lion Rampant emblem which is the insignia of the Scottish flag and carried on all Caledonian MacBrayne ships.

this was made from 0.8mm plasticard, but before I could do this I had to copy and draw on paper to fit into the pre determined circle the lion emblem.

Once I had drawn this on paper I transferred it to card.....first one came out a breeze, no problems.............second one I had almost finished when I slipped with the knife and cut off one of the little fella's fore legs..........third time lucky, and once trimmed so both were exactly the same, they were glued onto the circle which had already been attached to the funnels..............job's a gud un.
I felt that this was easier to produce in resin than for someone to start carving from plasticard.

the funnels have now been given numerous coats of sanding sealer to seal the naked timber and also harden up the card covering that sheaths the timber, and rubbed down with fine grade wire wool to smooth it all off, and finally put into moulding boxes ready for the RTV rubber tomorrow.

The next instalment....the first half of the mould has cured and took some time...didn't put enough Catalyst in, lol......made sure this time..............the release agent has been spread on......just simple petroleum jelly ( vasciline)........works far better than any spray release agent I ever bought, and when Tiranti's stopped deliveries of it for HSE reasons the technical department told me to use pet jelly.......saved a fortune over the past few years and a lot of heartache when moulds wouldn't split.
just wait for this side to cure and then I'll cut the feeder channels and breather holes and see about casting one or two...........do you like the logo on the funnel circles, lol

the moulds turned out very nice................no air bubbles at all..........hopefully after I have cut the pouring tracks I'll be able to get a couple of funnels out later tonight.

putting it down to old past shelf life resin, but the first two funnels out the mould came out very nicely......just the flash line to titivate up and a few little areas where the resin didn't mix terribly well to sand, but the moulds have produced two nice replicas of the masters.

and please do excuse the photos...having to use an old camera as can't find my other one

 They look great how heavy are they Neil?

Hey Neil - did you realise you've got a nude sunbather on deck?

Barrie

Neil you should know this is a family forum nudity is not accepted 

she's not sunbaking lads.......just been run over by james bond in the db5, lol........as for weight............too heavy I think so am going to drill out the insides to get rid of some weight.

, I didn't want to waste these two mouldings as I am running out of resin and don't envisage using any for a while so will build up the stock of new fitting masters first before buying more so I get the best shelf life so drilled them out this evening and they are about half the weight that they were, so reasonably satisfied with that.