And so to the model.
The hard work has been done, and all by my friend Andrew Petre'.
Andrew is a senior Camera Operater with the BBC Scotland Television service, and saw my request for anyone with plans of the Jupiter to contact me. That was some time ago and we have become friends over the airwaves over the past 8 - 10 months, and finally met up in Glasgow at BBC Pacific Warf last Saturday, when Andrew gave us a guided tour of the BBC studios, which, to be honest, blew our minds..........I have never been to a more fascinating place in my life, and Andrew showed us things that we would never see again in a lifetime.....A BIG THANKYOU , Andrew.
and so back to the build.
Well, Andrew has done the hard job, and that is to produce the plug for a fibre glass mould, and it is made to a scale of around 1:45 so 1.48 scale fittings if available for anything will not feel out of place.
But the first job will be to ready the plug for taking a GRP mould in order to take a few mouldings from.
This will be a direct copy from the plug, as the rubbing strakes and beltings on all three boats were different........they will be added to the moulding of boat choice once the relative owner chooses which boat he/she wants to model. The hull comes out at 59" or for the euro price....... 1.5 mts length over all.
This first part is a little ad hock as I can't describe how Andrew made the plug excepting to say that it was built conventionally from centre keel, frames and plank on frame with polyester filler to give shape.............my normal choice of build method for the plug.
All fittings I shall be making and moulding before casting, in multiples, using methods I have used before on my lifeboats but will for those who don't read lifeboat postings, re iterate when and where I go through a new process..............and, apart from the first pics of the plug that Andrew produced, and it is excellent, I'll now get down to it, and it may be a week or so before I post again and start the process of producing a split mould for the hull.
Just one more thing before I go away and get busy..........I will also be producing a set of moulds for the superstructure of the ship, and any other large part that will help the possible builder of future boats to a quicker easier build.
neil.