Model Boat Mayhem
The Shipyard ( Dry Dock ): Builds & Questions => Lifeboats => Topic started by: Neil on July 24, 2024, 12:38:22 pm
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I recently bought what I can descripe as THE most complete Atlantic 21 I have ever bought or owned, and is the 10th of its kind that i have owned.
If it hadn't been for the fact that one half of the upper sponson hull had been cut out it would be classed as virginal or totally untouched, and i have never seen one as totally complete as it is, including motor, mechanical speed controller which itself is a museum piece and still in its wrapping. RNLI literature is in abandon and there is even a letter from the senior helmsman of Minehead's 21 with a plan he drew [nts] of the trailor for the boat added that he drew and posted to the original owner in 1980.
I am stunned by its completeness and just so lucky that i only paid £140 plus costs and postage for it.
So, with the one that i got as a wreck for more than i paid for this beauty, I am going to build them along side each other but with a difference between them both eventually.
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more pics of this gem
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Lovely stuff. :-))
I've got one just like that too, but minus the extra drawings etc. :-)
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Marvelous but where on earth did you find that for £140??
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i would never have seen it as it was in an on line auction but a friend saw it and sent me the details.
might call it gready on my part but the starting price was just £30 with no bids until i put a bid on to win, and eventually got it plus commissions and posting............just lucky that a friend saw it.
The one sat on the box partly built is one i bought a couple of months before my opp 15 months ago, and in a sorry state, and that cost me £225.
Had thae latest one made it ebay with all the other parts, i could have seen it going for £400 because of its completeness.
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A friend was desperately looking for an Atlantic 21 and had asked me if I would build the "new" kit for him,and finally I relented and said reluctantly that I would at Christmas time if he hadn't found another ready built one.
Just a couple of days ago I saw one for sale and pointed it to him, and that is now a done deal.
So, I decided tonight to just do a little on the one that I have been restoring and to change it a little now that I will be building the untouched 21 as a production boat, and called Spix's McCaw.
So the one I started to develope tonight I am going to build as the pre production B300 with the experimental seating pod where the 3 crew sat one behind the other, with no antena or self righting airbag on a quad mast arrangement.
Should be something different down the pond.
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this afternoon I cleaned up tyhe crew seating pod, and added sopme of the detailing to that specific boat.
I made a mould for one of the front seats some years ago and cast a few seats........tomorrow i'll try finding those or the mould and fit two more to the pod
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the small replacement platform for the hand throttles has now been fabricated and glued in possition with the throttle consol attached to it.
All going well.
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And the final addition to the 21 were a few more parts on the pod, the engine gontrol wires feed tubes on the starboart side of the pod, and the bow and stern tow ropeholders.
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well!!!, I've been verbally "bullied" this evening by my friend Martin in Rotterdam to do some more on my Atlantic 21 [ only joking, but just jee'd me up to do a bit more] which I should be doing now that the nights are getting colder and darker very quickly and so decided to make the paper template for the wooden deck for my rib B500,
The deck of the original prototype was wooden, and I will be putting a thin veneer of mahogony over the plasticard deck.....no planking as it was just a sheet timber covering on the original in workable pieces of ply timber laquered.
These will be done similarly.
pictures are of present boat, and as Blue Peter John Nokes would say..........here's two I made earlier, lol.
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AND SO!!....... it had to come, the Plus 1 as in the introduction has finally come out of the box, and as a full kit, if anyone is lucky enough to get hold of one in decent condition and not started and cocked up in the cutting out of the hull and sponson halves, then they can make with reasonable ease a very nice model that fits together well.
But sadly these days, those kits are few and far between and usually fetch a much inflated price.
I make no excuse, as they can be tricky in the initial stages to cut out from the plastic vac formed halves, but IF YOU USE a scalpal with new very sharp blades and start off cutting in short lengths continually scoring the same line with MULTIPLE scores 5, 6 even up to 8 draws of the scalpal and finally bending the plastic to break the cut before going on to the next section of the long cut, you will get a good line with a minimal of sanding the edge, as the fit between the parts of the hull has been well thought out and mastered.And that was what I did and cut tonight. I have to confess though that this brings me in to double figures how many I have built 10 and 2 more that I never got round to building before soneone offered me good money for the 2 together, so I have had quite a bit of practice building them and getting them right.
Tomorrow after my eye test for new glasses, i will go on to the next stage, after sanding the edges down
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Another way that may help Neil is to scribe the junction line of the vac form. Problem with using a knife is the sharp edge can do its own thing and deviate from the intended line. Again, with successive strokes, the waste can be easily be broken away.
Regards Ian.
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thanks for the tip Ian, not thought of that one.......have some scribes somewhere........will try on the other parts, but this morning i hadn't seen your input, and finished the trimming with a knife.........not ignoring that info though.
This morning I trimmed off the 1.2 millimetre of plastic rim left on the hull of the rib with a sharp scalpal blade in a craft knife, and then sanded the edge smooth with 60 grade abrasive paper.
Now this is where I deviate from the instructions in the kit. instead of cutting out the round bulkhead supports that go inside the two halves of the sponsons and then gluing the sponson halves together before gluing the assembly on to the hull, I have glued the bottom half of the sponson to the hull first......
WHY , Might you ask!?
Well, when I built my first kit of these models I did as the instructions stated.........after doing so, and ending up with a nice strong construction, I went to glue it the the hull, and in the curing process that I had not checked the night before, the two halves had twisted overnight by about 3 mm out of scue, which wasn't noticed until trying to glue to the hull, and the boat ended up twisted permanently.
And so on the next model that I built, and in fact when I designed 3 years ago a D Class vac formed rib that I sold to Mountfleet models in 2022, I did the same, gluing the bottom half of the sponson to the hull first.............never had a problem with twisting since.
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No need to dig deep (bad pun) Neil, when the edge has become blunt on the knife blade, break the tip off and use the back edge of the blade as the scribe. Another cost saving Yorkshire trait. {-)
Regards Ian.
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i'll remember that one Ian..............even at 73 I learn something new every day., cheers. :-))
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IT was amazing just how ridgid the structure had become after I had mated the two together.
This morning I cut out the main deck and the transom support plate that glued on to the inside of the transom and hull. Removinmg the inner deck access plate to the hull I glued these two items in place, making the boat super ridgid
Once they had set I cut out the removeable deck plate support plate for the access deck to sit on, and glued that also in place. At this point I also cut out the inner access for the servo for steering that is eventually covered by the crew seating pod and steering possition.
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Finally for this afternoon and leaving all to set hard, I glued in to the bottom half of the sponsons the round pieces of plastic supports for the top half of the sponsons.
There are 4 supplied in the kit for each side of the boat, but at an early age in my build experience of these boats I decided to add 3 more per side to give better support to the top half of the sponson. I cut the circles with a compass cutter.
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The top half of the sponson has now been glued and taped in place to the bottom half and taped with stromg parcel tape together, where it will be left now until tomorrow to make sure it has "welded" perfectly and strongly together!
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I MUST say that I have enjoyed my modelling today more than i have done for some months.
It has been a pure pleasure to start putting together another untouched and "virgin" Atlantic 21 rib, and once finished and running under power, it will be lovely to take to the pond two ribs that show the developement of a history made in the 1st and one of the last 21's to be made,..........my winter project has gotten off to a great start,
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After leaving the boat to set over night i removed the tape off the hull, filled any small pock marks caused byu glue seeping under the tape and then spent a couple of hoursd sanding it all smooth and filling any small marks with Dolphin Glaze filler before sanding again.
then it was a case of cutting out and fitting the transom, hanging brackets for the outboards and other small items needed. Later i shall sand those areas smooth as well.
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Over the past 18 hours, I have cut from the vac formed plastic a number of deck fittings for the boat whilst waiting for the filler to cure and be sanded down on the hull, and have also constructed the raised part of the aft transom plate to house the outboard motors.
These are the anchor rope bucket, anchor deck housing, helmsmans seat, and the aft crew seat
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Second job was to cut out the well between the helmsmans and the cross ways crew seat for the other two crew to sit on!???
Granted, that the crew given, and on the early boats manufactured by the original designer you could have a choice of 1, 2 or even 3 crew all thee wouldn't sit on the seats because 2 of them wouldn't fit on the transverse seat, there was a "well" in front of the seat between that and the healmsmans seat for the crew to put one leg in to, and the other leg going in to a strop on the outside of the seating pod!
However, although there is a cut line vac formed in to the plastic clearly made when moulding, very few builders ever cut this out and used the scrap to make a well as per real boat. But being a bit of a stickler, I always have, and this i made from scrap plasticard last night, whether the crew are too big or not!
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And finally for last night and this mornings work it was a case of fitting the "hidden" apperatus for turning under RC, the outboard motors from inside the boat.
Sadly over the past 25 or so years I have seen 3 model Atlantic 21's dive to the deap six and never recovered, and it must be heartbreaking to loose a model and not recover it. Not too bad if you can recover a boat, and know from experience myself after loosing 4 in my life, all at Fleetwood lake, one lost totally when I was 10year old, and 3 intervening, of which all were recovered after going in fully clothed to get them, including one being a Ron Perrott submarine [ironic really lol] so know how it would feel to loose one of these little gems.
The problem with these 21's is that the aft transom, although built to scale is low. Fine on the real lifeboat as it will wash out. BUT, and this is a BIG BUT we are not dealing in scale when it comes to real water.....it is heavy and takes no time at all to find gaps. And the biggest gap is where the fead tube for the radio control lines for the outboards feeds square on from the transome into the aft end of the seating pod.
These little boats tear around at breakneck speed, vastly over scale on a lake and usually stop on a sixpence and then shoved in to reverse.............and that is the problem. Real water DOESN'T STOP with the boat. The backwash just keeps on flowing, over the low transom and up through the tube for the outboard motor wires and gradually fills the hull without the owner knowing untill they take the dive.
I am not a perfectionist or rivet counter, and as the wires in a tube shouldnt really be there i dont find it implausible to modify that arrangement and so have made a hood at the pod end to lesten this problem but also will use a nylon cord instead of wire to steer my outboards when i get to that point and just grease the nylon to avoid as much possibility of water ingress as possible.
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These models are minature kits within a kit, almost all from different thicknesses of plasticard easily glued and fixed with liquid polli or plastic weld from EMA. PLASTICS.
These 3 little objects are the 2 lamp holders and the radar deflecter ann made from printed parts and scrap pieces of different thicknesses of plasticard, glued together with mecpac liquid pollie or my favourite, EMA Plastiweld.
These took me about 90 minutes to cut, fabricate and sand ready for mounting on the mast later.it needs nimble fingers, or years of practice to work this small at my age, lol.
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Had a mass attack on fittings tor the boat last night, cutting out parts from the vack formed parts and gluing to the hull and other parts, and toog a good few hours cutting sanding and gluing in possition on the hull and other parts, but in no particular order.
ALL glued with plastweld from EMA Plastics.
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And a final few from last night from printed pieces and vac formed parts.
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This afternoon I took most of the injection moulded items off the sprues, assosiated myself with them all again and then put in to a small tuppaware box, ready for use and painting before adding to the boat hull.
It still to this day, astounds me that such a small model as this can incorporate so many different manufacturing procersses to produce a kit like this.
And I often wonder whether these processes and the cost of them all was in the end the kits demise and no longer available.
Perhaps one day it might be reintroduced using more modern techniques such as 3 D printing of most parts. Would be nice to see.
Tonight I am going to assemble the mast.
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Your model looks great. What do you prep the surface with before painting if anything?
I am starting a Sarik pilot 40 and would like to know.
Bri
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I use an etching primer first after giving the hull some final sanding with 240 and then 400 grade abrasive wet and dry, USED DRY only.
Once the etching primer has cured over a couple of days, it will get a coat of filler primer, and once cured, again over a couple of days the filler primer will be sanded down using 400 grade before the top coats.
the model in this photo which i bought ready painted has shed much of the paint as it was never primed, and much flaked off, and is why it is taking time to get ready for painting properly, but hopefully I have managed now to remove all that will come off of the old paint and this too will be sprayed at the same time as the new build, and not show any further decay, if the etching primer does as it says on the tin.
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Didn't realise, it was only 6 days ago that I started building this model, and it is going together so easily and well.
This afternoon i put the two outboasrds together.........not a great demanding task but each little bit adds to the end game and finish.
May even get both done by the time the Blackpool show comes round in 2 weekends time
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last bit for tonight is the main quad mast for the self righting air bag and the lights, radar deflecter and radio airial.
I am a little dubious about the structural integrity of this mast as it is from injection moulded plastic and not that which I have seen in previous kits that used Hipps type plastic which glued strongly as a structure.
However I have glued it together well and am going to leave it to set untill tomorrow night before touching it again............
If by then it falls apart my brazing torch will come out of hybernation and I shall silver solder a mast together.
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That injection moulded mast is a bit fragile, and I avoided gluing mine into the deck supports simply so I could remove it when transporting the boat to the lake.
I was a bit worried about snapping it off short if I had to make a crash stop en route, such are the drivers in these parts! :((
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its not now , kits, and here is how i strengthened it all. :-))
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Next was the lower to middle part where the lower cross members join the front and rear frames together. If I could think of a way of adding extra bracing to the two frames at that point, that would give extra strength to the whole frame work!
And so I googled photos of the 21 rib, and on numerous photos there at that specific point on at least 5 boats that I found was the boats name board, including the boat that I am building, Blackpools first boat "Spix's McCaw" strangely named after a parrot!? And so I made the name board and a backing board to span both down frames and gluing ti the cross member also..........and once set made a very rigid structure.
Finally for strength and integrity of it all I added the port/starboard light boxes also to span the legs and top cross members sealing the strength of it all..
Finally I fitted the brackets for the rear legs to the transom and drilled by hand small holes running vertically in to the foreward two main legs and added brass pins to keep the mast in place except for when transporting the model...
Finally I added the upper mast holding the main light and blue emergency lamp.
Only 1 thing to add now is the whip areal and possitioning of the radar deflecter.....That I shall do tonight.
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Impressive build Neil. The Atlantic 21 is a very tricky subject as, unlike most models, it is all inside and outside. No place to hide!
Colin
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Thanks Colin.
you are right Colin, in what you say about them.......possibly why so many are left half built.
I have never bothered with the insides though, as I always found the motor far too big and heavy, the prop shaft and tube far too long and intrusive with space being wasted and the last couple I built I changed the steering linkages from wire to light nylon thread which allows you to put the rudder servo practically anywhere in the boat using a mini servo as well.
They are a lovely little boat to build, and this being my 10th over the years has allowed me to expertiment to get them as easy to build as I can.......but there's always something to do if another unbuilt or damaged one ever comes on the market.........bit of a sucker for them, to be honest, lol.
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Last thing tonight, or so I thought was going to be putting the guards on to the top covers of the outboards.
Sadly though, on the first cut of one of the U shaped guards, the piece snapped in half being so old and brittle.
So that was it as to construction. Luckily I had the right length and diameter brass wire and so cut the pieces and shaped them using the plastic ones as a template.
Tomorrow I will get the old soldering iron out and soft solder the parts together, before fitting them.
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So you're building this one just as a static model then, not as a runner?
If you didn't use the 540 motor that the kit's designed for, what was your alternative for the runners please?
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It's going to be a runner, but waite and see.............not going to commit myself yet on this one. :-))
In fact will be building them both as runners now that I have shortened the prop shaft on them to give more space in the hull!
There is always the scope for adaptation to an original design in a kit build, if one just thinks about things overall.
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excuse my ignorance but what is the lifeboat behind the 21,s
Stav
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hi matey,
its an Oakley I aquired off a friend the other day, fully equipped with radio gear eccept batteries and TX.
But on lifting it the other day found it might be a little too heavy for me to plonk in to the water as I think it has quite a bit of fixed ballast in the hull that I cannot see........but will be bringing it to Blackpool to show.
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I'm not used to soft soldering anymore, as most of my soldering these days is using silver solder and a gas brazing torch, but I had to use soft solder on the small guage wire for the Outboard motor snorkal and exhaust outlet guards for both boats.
Took me a little longer to solder them, but all went well and have now fitted the guards to the new boat using cyano and pilot drill bit to possition them.
For the other reclamation boat I have two outboards in the garage, but ran out of the thinner brass wire to make the guards and so made them out of the next guage copper wire and these I ill attach when I can finde the outboards.
As Oates said to Scott........" I MIGHT BE GONE SOME TIME"
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Well!!!, disaster struck this morning.
Needing 2 outboard motors for the second A 21 I went in search for my silicon moulds in the work shop only to spend 2 hours searching without results, and cannot understand where they have gone.......a nightmare as the only 2 I have got other than the two now on the new A21 that have the brass guards fitted and I dont want to start taking them apart, are two old ones that I glued together including gluing on the gearbox covers on the top of the motors.
Granted, the only option was to use these, but the problem is that the rod that goes through the "heart" of the motor body to attach the motor to the brackets on the transom is fet through the motor from the top where the geartbox cover covers them when fitted on once the motors are mounted. But I couldnt do this as the covers had been glued on long ago.
What to do!?..............I decided that I could use a slightly thinner diameter brass rod and drill the holes in the outboard on an angle first in two different directions and then use another drill bit and use my fingers to turn the bit until i cut through the inner plastic to the upper hollow.
Then I could drill the bottom half with my fingers to about 4mm depth in the botton hole. That would then allow me to fit the outboard to the bracket by feeding the rod in to the top hole enough to fit the motor in between the bracket jaws and then pull the fixing rod in to the bottom hole and just glue in at the bottom hole.
Actually to my amazment it worked quite well.
And so I fitted the guards in place and now sat pondering whether it would have been easier and quicker just to cut the top gear box cover off with a saw and fitted the rod in that way............might have a think about that one.
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Was FAR too exhausted last night when I got home from CHRISTIES hospital (for the pre requisit blood tests for my 1 year check up from the neck up,) lol......which went well, and my god they look after you at Christies, wonderful, compassionate people one and all.
But the drive down to Manchester in the lashing down rain, [thought we had got the tail end of the US hurricaine before they got it], and stuck in a traffic log jam for over two hours I got there, 3.5 hours after setting off from Fleetwood, had my tests and then another 2 hours drive back home, again with wipers on double speed all the way home. Didnt see much of the traffic either way was on auto pilot in lane 1.
So began what I would have done last night this late morning..
That was to make 28 hand grabs for the sponsons, fit the outboards properly on both boats including a little modification to the old refit boat and then the foot "straps" for the crew on both boats, plus the storage bracket for the emergency oars on the resto 21.
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And its all the little fidly bits that take the time that are missingfrom the resto and even the kit, and rather take 20 minutes ir so looking for them its easier to make them from plasticard.
Here are the handles for the speed controls of the engines for both boats, the flashy ones for the old resto and the more modern boat using the utilitarian handles.
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I spent most of the day adding small but important fittings that make up the whole of each of the two boats, so that hopefully by Monday i can at least get the etching primer on to the two models.
There are one or two that will be sprayed seperately and then probably hand paint them
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Well, after my daughters heart felt plees for me togo and buy her some beige spray paint and tart up a desk top she had been given for her bedroom, I managed also to buy some paint for the boats.
The desk top took 3 hours to prepair and then paint a few coats before she could take it to her bedroom.........
The boats and acoutrements, had already been prepaired and took 20 minutes to spray the hulls undersides and all of the other bits.
Workshop now closed until tomorrow, I will spray the hull inners tomorrow, and then the next coat on then......the filler primer to cover any small scratches left by the sanding.
And then took 15 minutes to make 2 anchor rope stowage cleats for the two boats.
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https://www.flickr.com/photos/derbibo/sets/72157626968713066/ (https://www.flickr.com/photos/derbibo/sets/72157626968713066/)[/size]I have taken the pictures by myself of the RNLI - B Serie - Atlantic 21 - B-531 - "Waveney Forester" roughly about 1985 in Gorleston / Great Yarmouth.At this time I have been a sailor and I have been visiting the RNLI Station.Best regards from Germany Bibo
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Thanks for the photos you posted.
Unfortunately i got mixed up during the build and ended up posting the final parts of the build on the thread named another Barnett 51' build, here. :-))
https://www.modelboatmayhem.co.uk/forum/index.php/topic,70297.msg764805.html#new
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but these where the finished models in the end but for setting up the outboards to the servo linceage and putting R/C into the two boats.
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I JUST COULDN'T resist it when I saw this come up for sale on Facebook for sale adds, and so I bought it mid December, and after all the Christmas rush and post it finally arrived this afternoon.
I have the first built, and one of the later ones that served at Blackpool, B - 1 prototype and B - 525 with the the full rear quad mast and self righting baloon, but I have never built B - 500 with the first rear truncated quad mast and NO self righting bag.
And so this will fill the gap and I will have a full set of 3 with subtle differences both in the stern fixings AND the crew seating arangements.
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And so back to the build, the access area was cut out from the fixed deck using one of the removeable decks of my other two lifeboasts, and a rim adderd to the underside of the remaining rims of the deck for the replacement lift off deck to fit on to.
And a new deck made to fit.
And the stern board for hanging the outbopards on to has been cut but needs shaping has been dry added.
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Now that the deck has been cut and finished the stern wash board has been completed, shaped and glued in place and then instead of using the supplied seating consol, i have made the tandom seating consol which B-1 and B-500 were built with containing subtle changes as the developement of the 21 continued.
Once the plastic weld has fully set it will be given a good sanding fown and then detailing will start to take place on the consol.
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Today I have sanded and cleaned up the seating consol for B-500, and made a wooden plug for the centre seat cousion, whilst also cleaning up and putting a back on to the front seat, as this is also to form a plug to mould two seats at a time. I have one somewhere but couldn't find it some months ago when I was building B-1.
Anyway, once cleaned up I pressed the seat into a block of warm plasticine twice and after each put the block of plasticine into the fridge to cool and harden.
I also did the same for the middle cousion.
Finally I cast the my pollyurethane resin into the indentations made by the plugs and cast to make the seating. the resin goes off and workable within about 15 minutes, but will leace them for an hour to cool down and then sand smooth .
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WELL!....... They turned out ok, quite happy with them.
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Thats a brilliant tip regarding the plastine, thankyou.....(following the build as well of course) :-))
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Thanks Phil..........saves a lot of expense in rubber that you'll probably only ever use on one boat
And finally for tonight, I think? I have measured, marked 3 times and measured 3 times, and then cut once the access hole in the removeable deck that the seating consol covers.
Using strips cut from the removed centre hole to make the uprights for holding the seating consol I have added the surrounds to hold it in place, and a good fit it is.
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A now that B- 500 is taking shape thats it for tonight, and i think its time for a nice beer.
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Hi Neil, like Philippe I'm very impressed with your nifty plasticine hack, certainly saves an awful lot of faffing - and especially for one offs !
I know nothing about Plasticine's properties (been 55 years since eating it as child) and wondering how its not sticking to your simple plug?
From the pics it looks like a raw balsa plug or did you coat it with something? - you don't appear to have done the usual high gloss and polishing for molding etc ??
the cooling's also news to me, thanks for the interesting tutorial sir!
Paul.
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Hi Paul, plasticine is basically an oil based putty so i am told, but have played with it sinse child hood, and still use it today recommended by my doctor for keeping my arthritic finfers and hands as subtle as i can by gently kneeding it in my hands when not modelling but watching tv............and it really works.
the idea of making one off moulds came a few years ago when i lost a rubber mould and needed one part for a lifeboat i was modelling doing and tried..........the plastyicine worked so use it now for one off moulds and is perfectly reuseable once the resin is removed.
As for the wooden part, it is in fact obeche' that i use as a much better grain for sanding than balsa, and needed no treatment at all to make the mould, no coating or release agent on any of the bits :-))
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I made these 2 parts last night whilst watching late night M.A.S.H. so that the glue would be set by today so that I could glue them in to the boat and deck.
I have seen a number of these boats hit the deep six when they are put in to full astern from full ahead and the backwash just flows over the stern board and down the hole in the aft of the seating consol where the two leads from the outboards for steering go in to the hull servo inm the hull.
That is why I set up a double "bulkhead" into the stern end of the seat, to eliminate most if not all of the water getting in, and it has worked so far.
So I make a tube attached to the seating consol and a flaired fitting to attach to the stern board for the leads from the outboards to run through........ NOT scale or actually on such a boat BUT it saves me loosing a boat to the pond saving much greif, and who sees that small modification when she's buzzing around on a lake 30 yards out at 110 knots lol.
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And looks just how I want it to look too.
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Thanks Neil - logged in the memory bank for future use.
On a similar note I find I'm using BluTack more and more instead of clamping/pinning while glue sets etc -
works a treat once you get used to it and reusable like plasticine.
Paul.
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Last night I did a little detailing on the equipment lockers on the seating consol of the 21.
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And then finally for last night which took me until around 01.45 I made the brackets for attaching the outboard brackets to which face on to the transom stern plate.
Also I made and fitted last night the main outboatd brackets, the top and bottom brackets only, making sure that those 4 brackets glued in a horrizontal possition.
To make these, I copied on card the brackets from one of my completed Atlantic 21's and left them to all set until this morning.
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This afternoon i finished off the brackets for the outboard motors to hang on to using 1.8mm plasticard and EMA PLASWELD plastic poli glue, and copying other outboard motor hangers fitted to my other Atlantic 21's already built
I Will leave those until this evening before sanding them smooth and clean.
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So finally for tonight, and before I break in to a bottel of Lidils finest Australian red I have cut all the parts for the sponson safety grab handles for my first job tomorrow.
Judjment on the wine will be divulged tomorrow.
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The sponson grab handles for both crew and casualties have finally been put together, and 28 of them for the 21 was a tedious and time consuming job................but hey ho thats what modelling is all about.
Once the things and the polli glue has set and hardened i will sand them all clean.
However, I cant glue them to the boat yet as the hull itself needs to be sprayed and masked up a couple of times to get the orance flashes also painted on the boat.
Only once the hull has been painted, and the grab handles also painted in the colours where they will sit on the boat, can I glue them to the boat,
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The build goes on with small pieces of work at a time.
This time was the placing of the side grab lines,
And then it was gluing in the prop tube and shaft with 5 minute epoxy glue, areldite on this occasion.
Two more jobs done. After letting it all set, I'll sand it all down ready for putting some paint on tomorrow, and then put it in a bath of water to make sure it doesn't leak before going further.
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Using the method that I used the other day to make the seats, I requisitioned my childrens plasticine again to moult two equipment sacks that hang on the the rear insides of the sponsons port and starboard.
I did once on a 21 some time ago refer to them as the fuel sacks but was certainly in no way told they were equipment sacks.........but I don'tr know only that they fit to the rear of the sponsons.
They just need trimming and tidying up now and contouring to fit the curve of the sponsons before adding........but i'll do that in the workshop tomorrow as have something else to do in the room as well on another project.
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This afternoon I trimmed up the shape of the bags and then took them in to the workshop and offered the insided [reverse side to the detailing.
Once I had sanded a hollow holding each fitting to the motor wheels at the end of the sander I cut the curve in to the reverse side of each bag. By now the rim around the bag had disapered in most places and so sanded the remnants off
I used 0.8mm plasticard to replace the backing and glued to the mouldings with plastic polliweld glue.
Finaly sanded they were glued to the inner stern sponson tubes as per plans and the other two boats I have for inspiration.
Then I went out to Halfords for a rattle can of Volkswagen Brilliant Orange to do the Side "flashes" This is known as S5 - 050, the replacement and proper RAL number for Volkswagan Brilliant Orange,
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before I start looking for the last od the cast fittings to be added to the boat and sponsons these are two of the last fittings that i can make...... the port and starboard fore and aft tow rope holders. the other scratch part will be the truncated quad mast for the stern.
Rope hangers added.
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and those bags i keep refering to as equipment bags and some over the years have even said were fuel bags..........i have been informed by a gent in the know..........they are bags for carrying spair propellors for the two outboard motors, and looking at the shape of the bags, is now totally obvious.................i learn something new every day. :-))
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Since I posted last night I Hhave found most of the master fittings that I kept on wire stalks so that i could reproduce them should i need for another Atlantic 21 that might turn up in the future, as these models are becoming more rare as the years go on.
I then pressed the masters in to the plasticine blocks that I intended to mould in multiples, leaving impressions which i then poured resin in to. Once cured after about an hour I cleaned them all up ready for fitting to the model. The only one missing is the bow cleat, which if i cannot find, I'll just have to carve one from plasticard.
And the last photo od the 2 plastic tubes about 25mm long are going to be transformed tomorrow in to 2 fire extingwishers that will go under the hood on the read crew seat.
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work has now stopped as just gashed my right index finger on a very sharp craft knife when i got hold of the wrong end..........silly pratt. ass it is a deep cut and am now suffering from thinning blood after my big opp it'll take a few days to heal or ill end up with red juice everywhere, and probably feint at the site of me leaking lol..........give me a rest and time to watch TV.
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Apart from a few fittings that go on to the deck area, including the main Quad mast at the stern all of the fittings for the hull have been made and attached to the hull or put aside for when painting the orange flash to the sides of th boat.
I am leaving the mast till last as I need to aneel some brass rod to bend in to shape after threading and gluing some plasticard tube over the rod once it has cooled................
But a rather large model is on my bench that I do my silver soldering on..........so am going to have to find somewhere else to do the soldering.
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After putting all of the fittings on to the hull that I could do before painting it tomorrow i decided to go into the workshop to find the rubber moulds for the outboard motors and picked up a couple of moulds............no, not them, and then I saw a box on the shelf that I hadn't opened in a while.
To my absolute amazement I found a load of fittings that will come in useful for fitting out the deck and seating consol, PLUS two ready made and painted outboard motors that must have been for a wreck of an A21 that I bought some time ago, and probably forgot about the box of treasure and made new parts for, including motors.
Think it was for the last one I built and sold.
I then made a small plasticene mould for one triangular lifting bracket that I had so have pressed for 12 more to be cast in resin.
And finally I have found some polyester putty from a model shop that opend about 3 miles away last summer.
So use them as much as can.
This putty I mixed and moulded to the fore end of the seeting unit and formed the rounded face to the controll consol.
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And the last bit for tonight before i poor a beer for my troubles, i took out a set of mouldings for a delta anchor, cleanrd them up and glued them together using odourless ciano glue..............normal stuff plays havock on my synusses
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WELL!. If i say so myself................they came out better than I had hoped........just need to clean the flash off now and sand them under a finger to a flat even base.
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The final constuction job after all the little fiddly bits had been fabricated was the making of the quad legged rear mast formation and all the detailing on it.
And detail photographs of it and any part of the model are to be honest very hard to get, as its a hell of a long way to go down to Chatham, as in the past I have found the help getting photos of lifeboats from the museum virtually impossible to get hold of and sent, sadly.
Anyway I HAVE fabricated the mast from plastic tubing with a centre core of aneeled brass rod bent to shape as in the photos.............good enough for me and me needs and happiness.
So all things that can go on the model prior to paintinfg the bare hull are shown where they should go but will be taken off and painted individually once the hull has been given the treatment of Halfords rattle cans.
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Neil Its all looking very good, what scale is this one ?
Bryan.
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1;12 scale Bryan. only build my lifeboats in that scale. :-))
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Baring in mind that the hull of the rib had already been painted in black before I bought it, I reasoned that it had been painted in an automotive type rattle can from the surface finish!!!
WRONG!!!!, and it was my fault for not checking on a small area first, for after leaving the coat of paint for nearly 2.0 hours to set early this morning, I went back to give it a coat if filler primer only to find that the first coat of that I had aplied over the original black had crazed in quite significant amounts! >>:-(
So for the last hour or more i have been rubbing down with wet and dry, going from 400, 800 and finally 2000 grade to get a smooth area on the crazed area ans 2000 on the area not crazed, before giving the bottom of the hull a full coat of filler primer.
Problem is I'll probably have to do the same with the top half of the hull as well after the bottom half has cured, before carrying on any firther......
a bit of a bummer to be honest.
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Well, after all of my hard work!!!.......a disaster!!
Any ideas guys before I get out the paint stripper, ie. the cellulose thinners and start wiping it all down to clear plastic, or is there a none tixic FOR plasticard than smothering it all with paint stripper that wont knacker my hull.
WHY OH WHY can people model and paint and know that the majority of modellers use rattle cans put on a primer paint such as the black that is not compattible with normal car based rattle effin cans................
TO SAY I am pee'd off is an under statement.
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solution now being worked on.
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Super sympathy, been there but with worse language >>:-(
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i let my wrath out at the bottom of the garden Phil, but there was an advantage to the cockup.
The black paint had hidden a multiple of building mistakes by someone, lord knows who, that had put the hull together, and the parts fitted where they touched only and so many holes in it so last night before going to bed I dowsed it in polli glue, and once set, I filled in all the gaps with Dolfin Glase filler this morning/lunch time.........
There was, in fact a mm wide gap at the point where the two halves of the sponson halves met at the bow...........probably the worst place to have a hole lol.
Anyway it isn't as creeky or unstable or fragile now, and once the patch that I applied to the bow, I'll sand that smooth, and then start taking the scratches out with finer wet and dry paper.
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I feel somewhat better this evening knowing that the grey that I have in very sparce and light layers sprayed on today in between looking everywhere including retracing my journey yesterday to find my wallet without success has lightened my mood.
Not a bad covering of the rib, and at last inspection about 10 minutes ago, touch wood with crossed fingers on both hands it looks as though I have cracked it with the grey undercoat, and will inspect in an hour or so after MASH has finished hopefully to put my mind at ease for tonight.
Tomorrow its a trip to the Halfords store to buy some top coat grey, and a gloss white to colour the quad legged mast.
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Now to answer from another forum, Hermans message about painting the whole boat orange, sorry this was not the intention when i painted the sponson sides orange, but it will be painted in the usual lifeboat colours of the class and age.
I have learned over the many years of building, that my painting skills leave much to be desired and complex lines such as a straight one are beyond my skillset unless it is totally masked up properly.
And so after a couple of boats I had a long think of how to get the orange flashes right on the boats!
I decided to paint the orange on to the top outer sides of port and starboard of the sponsons after they had been painted in primer.
Then it was a matter of getting the right width of masking tape with low grab fixing glue. Job done as I came across FROGTAPE Lowtack, and this worked perfectly on the first and sucessive boats after.
Once the tape had been stuck to the sponsons you will note it doesnt go around bends and double curves to easily and so one has to work the little crimps in the tape with ones thumb nails to get it as smooth as possible.
Once this has been done, I made a little tool from plasticard to draw around to get the same rounded shape as all on each end of the flashes. Once drawn on the ends of the masking tape just a slight cut around the lines with a sharp craft knife and the flat ends become rounded ones after removing the waste.
And the final part of the proces is to overspray the masking tape to stop any creapage of the gray through those little crimps in the tape. The boat will now be given a light spray of orange to seal the edges befor spraying the hull with its finish gray colour.
Once all dry and hardenned the tape can be removed to show the orange flashes.
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The masking tape which was saving the orange sponson flashes have now cole off as the last of the gray was added a couple of hours ago, and I must say after all the troubles with cracking paint and exploding cans, lol, things finally went smoothly.
I am quite pleased with the end result, and with the deck and seeting consol plus the rear mast added, I am very happy.
Now I can paint the mirriad of fittings still to be fitted and then attach them all before giving her identity by numbering her on the orance flashes.
It is begining to grow on me as it fills a gap in my collection and is rather sweet in its own way.
Now I can stip buying them and hording away.
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Finished all but one fitting for the boat and that was the wireless communicator plus the cradle for it to be held in......the wireing was made from looping a 0.5 mm brass wire around a 1.0mm wire to achieve the expandable coil and then they were glued to the mouth piece and link up to the radio set fitted into the sheering consol, and glued with cyano!
All other fittings hopefully will be attached to the model tonight and tomorrow, when finally the boat will be given her classified boat number.
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bit of a disapointment tonight as I could have finished it by later tonight, as i only have the grab lines along the side of the sponsonms and the radio coms' had been fitted but when i came to get my viny lettering out i had whoefully low reserves of black 15mm Black stick on lettersl.
Have ordered some off ebay but wont be here until thursday at the earliest, so am not going to rush the last little bits only to wait for the final finishing bit............but I quite like the finish.
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MY GRAND DAD, after my ordeal with the sea and surviving a drowning thanks to the Fleetood RNLI Mechanic in 1959, taught me the basics in woodwork, on how to hold and use all sorts of saws, chissels, planes, and other fine tools of his collection, as he was a pattern maker and City and Guilds Master Cabinety maker and I never lost those skills, but two things he said to me taught me a great deal and helped me move on in both my carear as a high school Woodwork and tech drawing teacher and a model maker......the first was............"if you can do better son, go away and show us".........meaning, dont denegrate other peoples work, what ever you may think, and hopefully that has always stuck with me, as your skills cal always be bettered by others...........or simly humbleness is always better.
And the second was, if you dont experiment, , you'll never get any better in your hobby............he was very forward thinking and he was right.
Today I took that chance! Some days ago I showed a little piece where you dont need to buy a pack of moulding rubber for 20 quid when you only need to make something that you can just press into a lump of plastisine your fitting that you need a one off.........
Well today, I remembered my grand dads message and words, as though he was next to me and almost willing me on to try and gave me the impetus to try, as i had never tried it befor,e and that was to try a split mould from plasticine.
I needed a simple small propellor for the outboards on my RIB, as I could only find one.
And so I made two round patties [like mcdonalds beaf burgers], but about an inch thick each and once done, I pressed the main bult including the blades into the bottom half, and then as a release agent I used some Savlon cream [cuts and grases as I suffer plenty of those in my old age] as i couldnt find any vasciline, and then put the top patty onto the mould and stuck it all in to the fridge for about 3 hours to go hard.
Once very cold and hard I cut some locating grouves into the sides of the full mould whilst still together to make sure everything lined up. I took the two halves abart and poured some casting resin in to each half after seperating the halves and removing the original propeller.
This is a quick acting resin and poured into each half of the mould enough to fill and slightly overflow making sure there was enough resin to fill and within about 3 minutes the resin left in the mixing jug was going rubbery, and so, making sure the guide cuts on the side lined up I joined both top and bottom moulds, and left for about an hour to cure.
To my absolute amazement,out popped a perfectly formed 2nd propellor.............GRAND DAD BOB, I solute you!
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After cleaning and sanding up I'm happy how well the second prop has turned out.
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And now fitted...........just waiting for lettering to arrive and then I can finish the model
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Looking Good Neil!
Are those the outboards that come in the kit?
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Yes they are Martin, but this one wasn't a kit,
it was just a hull i bought off someone.
all the fittings including the outboards were from old kits or bits i moulded over the number of years that i have been making multiple ones of these.
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Just waiting for the numbers now to finish the boat
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So WHAT do you call a collection of Atlantic 21 lifeboats........ I DON'T KNOW...........
but I'm not making any more...........3 are enough as I only have 2 hands, lol
BUT I reckon an "Ocean of Lifeboats" ..............will just about sum it up
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It's a quick tidy up and make some space and then its on to repair small bits on this one for a friend of mine.
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and the boat B-500 is now officially finished