Jupiter, a Caledonian macBrayne Ferry

after sanding down to the first set of markings I had to remark again and sand down again. still a small gap on the front but bearable for the moment.

I began by cutting and fitting false floors to the bridge wings, to enable the upright pieces a little more to grab onto whilst gluing

Once that was set in place I started constructing the lower flying bridge wings to match the front angles of the wheelhouse. First were the front angled/curved pieces mating up to the wheelhouse, followed by rear split pieces allowing for a gate leading to the door access to the wheelhouse, and finally for tonight the rear wind shield to the for end of the boat deck.

I have left the ends off as they will house the recesses for the navigation lights.......and then a clear up of the epoxy splattering the place.........but as I always say better a little too much than too little and it all falling apart.

tomorrow the work will continue.

Spent 5 hours tonight, finishing off the bridge wings with the navigation light recesses and then onto the job I enjoy most above all else, when scratch building....the individual planking of a ships deck.

won't say much about what I did in words, just to say that there was a lot of measuring,cutting and sanding of 1.5mm ply, marking out a little planking in the wings and all the supports for the wing sides.

my arthritic fingers are very painful tonight, and so is my back and shoulders.

finally the planks were sorted into those I could use and those I couldn't because of length, the deck marked to take the "stepped" planking, and then the bridge wings were masked off and given their first coat of numerous sanding sealer, ready for spraying white on the outside, and I'll hand paint on the inside of the wings.

I like the planking Neil it looks superb  good progress too, keep up the good work

cheers troutrunner.......I hate planking a hull........need tons n tons of filler afterwards.......but deck planking on the flat surface I do enjoy.

about to go in the workshop now to begin the task.

SO!!, today started the long, but to me enjoyable job of planking the deck and caulking it as I go along.

For this I needed a small throw away pot, some aliphatic quick grab resin waterproof glue, a small amount of water and some black Quink permanent ink.

I placed a good amount of glue into the pot and poured some ink into it. Mixed well to find I needed a little more, but by the time I had reached the colour I needed to simulate the caulking I realised that the glue was runny enough to do the job without watering down.

I started with the shortest length just aft of the companionway to get my eye in [as I haven't planked a model since my last lifeboat 4 years ago] as there was no staggered planking for that short length and placed a plank either side of the centre line and worked outwards from the centre line.

It's  a messy job as glue gets everywhere, but believe me this can be cleaned off at the finish o leave a nicely weathered look.

To get the sets of planks [and there were three basic lengths as I cut them many years ago for another project out of 3 different lengths of scrap 1/64th birch faced ply] to the same length for each set, I clamped them together and sanded down on my disc sander, thus saving multiple single cuts with each plank laid down as the project continued.

You can see the staggered planks on the port side.

With a little organisation to begin with, the following set of planks will go down relatively quickly and easily, and after being allowed to set, the cleaning up is straight forward.

the planking is done, and just the cleaning up to do now with a little sanding to do, and then a light stain of mahogany....but it was a close shave.

I cut those planks for a trawler I built 15 years ago and the bundle shown earlier were the remnants of that build.

I thought I would have enough but didn't realise just how close it would be. the left overs and all that is left are on the wheelhouse roof.

Fluke or good eyes either way job well done Neil. 

Yep, I agree with Damien, a good job 

more good luck than management i'm afraid........and thankfully got it just right.

that was the remnants of a 4' x 1' sheet of 1/64th ply that I bought 15 or more years ago for £5.95p.

I priced a similar sheet for sale at the Lancaster model shop a few months ago before it closed and they wanted 60 quid for the same size sheet.............bit OTT  but haven't seen any available in years, so that could be the going rate these days.

A quick Google found me this 48inch X 12inch sheet at £33.99p  a bit expensive, more so than thicker sheets, but a longer search may well reveal a cheaper source

Found this at SLEC - £91 for 16 square feet (£5.68/sq.ft).They do sell smaller sheets, of course! http://www.slecuk.com/balsa-wood/0.4-x-1220-x-1220mm--1-64-48--x-48---PW106.html

Dave M

inertia wrote:

Found this at SLEC - £91 for 16 square feet (£5.68/sq.ft).They do sell smaller sheets, of course! http://www.slecuk.com/balsa-wood/0.4-x-1220-x-1220mm--1-64-48--x-48---PW106.html

Dave M

I thought it woud be cheaper from on line suppliers.......and that is I suppose why some small high street model shop  businesses have to close.....they just can't compete in price with online traders.

life hasn't stopped up't norf...............just had an awful cold the last few days and didn't feel like going into my workshop to continue.........be back on it tomorrow. Hopefully.

even lovely vimto drink hasn't worked lol.

neil.

I couldn't put it off any further.........was having withdrawal symptoms from the workshop and so thought sod it, cold or no cold.........so went in about an hour ago and sanded the deck smooth and then applied a coat of Colron timber stain in light mahogany.

I applied it using a soft rag with vigorous rubbing to lighten the stain and drive it deep into the grain.

finally I added a very small amount of stain to some sanding sealer and gave the deck a brush applied coat, working the sealer into the gaps between the planking. A pleasing finish. it will be rubbed down later with fine steel wool to give a nice satin finish.

finally for tonight I made the two wind shields from ply and mounted them to the rear wall of the wheelhouse and  strengthened the joint that was a straight forward butt joint ply to grp with some moulded extruded right angled plastic.

couldn't resist........had to mask up the wheelhouse ready for spraying white tomorrow.

  

all masked up and ready for spraying white.

only small amounts on the superstructure but far better than brush painting. Now off to Halfords for some rattle cans.

 

so much planning on this model.......grrrr.........

just been looking at picture 2 of the series on masking and have realised that if I spray the back "walls" of the flying bridge I risk overspray going on to the back sides of the blue acetate sheeting that I put to the reverse side of the front bulkhead wall windows...???

always good to check the photos before blundering ahead!!

I decided whilst I was painting the white undercoat on the superstructures I would give a coat or two of white primer to the main mast that carries the radar, horn and other equipment, but realised there was a fair bit of work to do on the mast before painting, and so started with putting the ladder rungs into the rear of the mast.

But before I did, I had to make an "executive" decision. which mast to use, the original master that I used for moulding, which is made from timber, card and plasticard, or one of the mouldings, made purely from polyurethane resin cast.

So I got my digital scales out and weighed them both.

Surprisingly the wooden one weighed in at 16 grams, and the resin one weighed in at....................well I'll let you guess.

Needless to say I am using the original master as my mast.

Painting done, and masking off, the old girl is beginning to look every bit a Caledonian Macbrayne ferry, and I'n now becoming a little more excited about getting this dame finished. yipeee.

Looking good Neil

 Coming on very nicely Neil.

Perhaps a wax insert in the mast mold would reduce the weight after it's melted out

cheers mate.............I'm just biding my time till all the painting is done such as the insides of the lower flying bridge and the mahogany capping's, before I put on the logos.

At the moment I'm making the capping's and painting the inner bulwarks.

This afternoon was the turn of the interior walls of the lower flying bridge, the fo'csle bulwark insides and the fore deck to receive some paint.

I masked the bulwarks from the outside to avoid any seepage onto the black of the hull

Plus I made the cappings for the flying bridge wings from 1.5mm mahogany faced ply, then stained with the same colour as the boat deck.

Lady Luck was on my side tonight.

I have a drawing board, Elephant + size which can take 5' drawings that I both use and have drawn for such projects as the design work for the Metcalf Mouldings Ann Letitia Russell, and it has been a permanent fixture in my workshop for years, 23 years in fact, with it's sliding level.

When not in use or I need to get to the back benches behind it where I store a lot of fittings I hook it up to the ceiling of my workshop with hefty chains onto hooks. It weighs quite heavily as is made from 1" chip board, and at 5' 6" by 4' you can tell it's a pretty solid piece of gear.

This evening I was sat at a bench painting a few small pieces when there was an almighty crash which actually shook the workshop, and after the shock, I turned to find that the eye ring that held it to the chain had just come clear of the bottom of the board, breaking my parallel slide, and missing the stern of my model by literally 1.5". had the model have been just 2" further back in its building cradle the board with its weight would have sheered off the stern of the model totally ruining the model...........someone was looking over me tonight.......and luckily the model suffered no damage, except for a small box containing an RDF areal which broke when it hit the floor.

this has been repaired whilst watching paint dry, lol.

After I had stopped shaking and said my prayers because it could have been a horrendous outcome, I fitted the capping rails to the lower flying bridge wings with mitre joints and a scarf joint to the rear piece., and varnished the fore deck.

Plus I made a plate for the forward motor access.

This morning I fabricated the bow capping rail from 1.5 mm mahogany faced ply and the ladder frame from pre bought extruded plastic with added brackets.

I then started to fabricate the main engine exhaust fans which sit on top of the wheelhouse roof.............but sadly a can't find half the bits..........so decided at long last that it's time to tidy the workshop and throw a load of garbage out that I have collected over the years and never used...........if I haven't used it by now at the height of my model building, I'm certainly not going to use it as I wind down my modelling rate, lol.......I can even get into the door now without falling over loads of rubbish.

Hopefully I'll find my missing parts to the fan ducts

time flies by when you are enjoying yourself getting stuck up with superglue, lol..........or doing a jigsaw puzzle.

Tidied my workshop somewhat and found the fittings I had lost and spent the last 4 hours putting the engine room extractors together for the wheelhouse tops.

They need cleaning up and a little sanding off when they have set completely and then painting before applying to their positions.

fabricated the lifeboat davits tonight, but can't remember where and how the pulleys go for raising and lowering the boats. Going to have to do a little research on that one.

a break from the boat davits whilst I sort the pulley system out.......

The next job is to fabricate the sets of rails around the boat deck.

Many years ago I built a model and made a real mess of setting up a set of rails without any form of thought into the matter. The stanchions went every which way but vertical and looked abominable.

So from that moment on I decided to go about every set of rails in the same manner.

I start off by making a paper template of the decks to be railed. I cut the template out and tape it to a scrap board, and draw out from the plans, the set of rails in full size. Marking out the position of each stanchion a locating hole is drilled through the template into the board.

Once this has been done the rails can then be fabricated and bent into the shapes needed to fabricate the whole section as a separate unit.
I first constructed the rails from a gauge of wire that would fit through the holes in the rather flimsy stanchions, but the whole construction was far too weak and so I used a thicker gauge wire and drilled the stanchions to accommodate the wire.

I used the paper guide to fabricate the stanchion/rail rear guard to begin with. once it had been constructed on the board I transferred the jig to the boat deck and fixing in position I re drilled through the marks on the jig, into the deck. once this had been done I removed the paper jig, and the stanchions and rails fitted perfectly.

whilst waiting for the cyano to set hard on the stanchions I fitted the rollers for the boat hauls to the davits for the lifeboats

with much frustration I finished fabricating the smaller pieces of guard rail around the boat deck including the rail around the companionway.

Looking good Neil. 

The railings make a big difference to the look of her, a really nice effect, keep up the good work

the stanchions are so fragile it's a crap job........thinking of changing them for white metal ones I have....will see now that I have the pattern for them.

not really impressed myself but will see how these are when I have cleaned them up from the cyano whether they fall apart or not lol.

I was so disappointed with the rails/stanchions that I set to this morning replacing them with the white metal stanchions with standing brackets on them and new rails........I have finally run out of a tube of 1/32 brass wire and so substituted that for some stainless steel 1mm rod I was given many years ago and have never used.

It has given a more pleasing finish and nowhere near as flimsy. The first attempt is pictured in last shot for comparison. I feel that they will now pass muster.

They might be a little thicker than scale but at least they'll stand up to a few lakeside knocks, and as I'm not building to win any pots or plates that only collect dust under the bed the "off scale" thickness just doesn't bother me. I build for pleasure and the pleasure is mine, lol.

hi neil.

I couldn't have put it better myself , I build for my pleasure  and don't give a toss what people think. keep up the good work. and you will soon have her bottem wet   ready for july


david

Hi Neil,

What an amazing amount of progress in two weeks. I've just read through all the posts I missed whilst away.

Congratulations! Keep up the momentum. You are obviously really enjoying this build now.

Barrie

Thanks barrie, yes............got my mojo back, and am now enjoying the build........and its a full speed charge now to get the old girl ready for what could be our last holiday on the Clyde at Largs.......a place we have been visiting every year for the past 18 years.

It is the place that gave inspiration not only for this build but for my daughter wanting a career in the merchant navy......just include a couple of shots looking out on the vista from the flat we have rented for all these years.......a truly beautiful place in the world.

Always something to view and watch from the balcony window even if it is just a beautiful sunset with a beer or glass of red in my hand whils watching the world go by, 36 paces from the ferry terminal and 20 from the ground floor balcony to Nardini's...the best ice cream in Scotland.

anyway, back to the build..........I constructed all the main pulley blocks and feeds for the wires to lower the boats last night, and with the guard rails painted white, the ship is now beginning to come alive.

Before I do any more building or sticking down I am going to "clear the decks" and fit the battery tray under the car deck, and all other electronics so that I don't break anything off the decks with my usual clumsy aplomb.

So might be a little time before I post anything else whilst I  figure out where everything is going.

Baring in mind that I sail on salt water and had great difficulty getting any decent reception using 2.4 ghz on my lifeboats because the electronics were below waterline, all the electrickery on this rascal will be inside the foreword hatch under the removable wheelhouse, where there are some shelves to put the gear on.

This is about the only bit of organisation I will be attempting on the build............lets face it, sailing on salt water creates its own problem and as usual, all my wiring will be secured in place using good old blue tack..............well, you never know when you might want to get the electronics out, PDQ, lol.

before going to bed last night I decided to make the 4 quick release lifebelts that are situated on the rear faces of the two flying bridge overhangs.

made from plasticard, they were easy to fabricate with 0.75mm thickness and glued together with humbrol plastic weld.

just need to be painted on the outside now and then fixed to the bridge wings.

the lifebuoy boxes have been finished, painted and fixed to the flying bridge wings, as have the port, starboard and rear doors to the upper wheelhouse superstructure.

sad day though. I took the 3 batteries I was going to use for the propulsion and put them on charge this morning..........by 23.45 hours I unplugged them and tested with a motor...............not a flicker............looks like some new batteries are needed. c'est la vie.

When 's her bum wetting Neil?

Well i tested the 3 batteries that i was going to use and all three are kerknackered.......so am having to revert to the 2 that i use for my lifeboats......am going to get all the wiring and conections set up and then get the paddling pool set up in the back garden and go from there to get the voiths all set up.

I have today been either inspirational or at the other end of the spectrum, stupid and time and money wasting.

Getting ready for getting her on the water I dug out the 3 batteries that I was going to use as they were slim enough to fit under the restricted height of the deck head. however, they were dead, duff, kaput.....and even after a 16 hour charge they held none at all.

So I recovered the two batteries from my two lifeboats, which just, with millimetres to spare will fit under the deck. No other batteries of larger amp capacity would fit, and as the access hole through the forward hatch is so restricted, even a straight forward battery tray would not go into the hole and under the deck unless it was hinged in the middle which is s something I couldn't be bothered to contemplate.

AND SO!! I decided to make my battery "tray" from a thick walled silicon rubber mould, with walls thick enough to hold the batteries and not collapse, but pliable enough to bend into the hold, and strong enough to hold them in place. it will be anchored into the hull with silicon rubber sealant and have a base of 1.5 mm plywood so that the batteries aren't rubbing directly on the rough grp hull. the moulding box was as usual made from Lego bricks.

I would have taken a couple of final shots of the finished moulding.........but I didn't put enough catalyst in to the mix to set it off in quick time, and after a few hours it is still semi molten, so will have to do that tomorrow.........but you get the idea from the picks enclosed.

As for my inspiration yesterday.................yippee........it works........so cleaned off the mould flashing and cut two base plates from 1.5 mm ply and have glued the two together with bathroom silicon sealant. The reason for cutting the 2 baseplates is to "hinge" the mould to get it into the hold.

And now that that is sorted out, it is down to the bits that make the whole thing slide through the water like a graceful swan.........off to Halfords to get the bits n pieces....

thank the lord for INERTIA  for drawing me the wiring diagrams.

yer a star matey.

neil.

A question specifically for Dave Milbourn. ( Inertia)

Dave......

1)  I have the turnigy speed controller and a switch plus my inline fuse holder.    Which end to they mate up to....the end with the two wires coming out of and two little blue tabs which I have no idea of what they are, or the other end which has the two wires coming from and also the lead to the  receiver.

2) The switch that I am using, ( unless you recommend a heavier duty one) has two leads coming from one side and one lead coming from the other. I presume that the single lead would have been to a receiver, and the other two leads are + and - for the switch itself.

Could you please confirm this before I connect and find smoke coming from places I don't want when I eventually connect to the battery pack, lol


Many thanks mate for all your help. You are a diamond.

as you can all see, I am totally mystified by red and black wires and all the bits that go in between them so these things I take very slowly and methodically, and so will get on with the build in between times.

the upper flying bridge needed supports from the lower bridge wings.

this was done by putting a core piece of dowel in the correct place, and to the exact length so that the upper wings would sit on top.

these were glued in place and then lengths of square section extruded brass were cut to the same exact length - 1 millimetre. this discrepancy was to allow for the "support" plate to sit onto the top of the uprights. The support plates being made from 1mm plasticard with a hole drilled into the centre of the square.