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[bluebird]

The first thing we do is the exterior joint where the bulwark meets the deck on the outside of the hull – we must fill in any gaps and unevenness with car body filler; which I did do – and I very carefully with wet ’n dry  sanded this flush with the exterior of the hull.   

The next stage is to complete the plating on the exterior and this is done, again with Plasticard, cut to the correct scale of the plates, but slightly higher so they overlap the top of the bulwarks.

You will see, on one of the photographs, where I am using a flat piece of plywood to push out any air bubbles in the superglue which is trapped between the plate and the hull.

Once we have completed this, we must also complete fitting the bow post which is done with two strips of Plasticard – glued and pinned as we did with the main keel; once we are happy and the glue has set on the plates, we can move on to fitting the exterior rubbing half rounds.   There is a piece which runs at the same level as the deck joint and you will see I made a jig up which was a piece of plywood with a piece of softwood glued at one edge to form a hook – which hooks on the top of the bulwark and there is a hole in the plywood at the correct distance for the level of the deck.  So, I place a pencil through the hole and place a hook in the bulwark and draw a perfect line all the way round the outside of the vessel on both sides.    This is where I glue my first strip of Evergreen Plastistrip half round – the size I used was 125 thou wide.   This was glued straight on the hull side using poly-cement.  Below this rubbing rib, there are two more rubbing ribs – to be positioned and glued on in the same way  - but they do not run all the way up to the bow and stern – like the deck rubbing straight – they stop short at the bow and stern.   

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The next thing we must do (doing this now also makes life easier) is putting the wash ports in /where the water runs out from the deck overboard / holes in the side  of the boat.   To do these; it is a simple operation of actually just drilling 3 holes; opening the holes up with a scalpel and then filing the hole even with the aid of a round and flat file.   Now, there are one or two problems here – on the plans; it shows a scupper or wash port – a drawing of one and also a drawing of where it is located but this is ‘end view’ and it doesn’t state the positions along the hull of these wash ports.   So, this is where we do require some more illustrative photographs for this type of vessel.   Although when we look at photographs, the position of these scuppers is not immediate.   What we have to look for are rust/water marks down the side of the hull to locate the position.   The photographs I have, which although are not many, I could only find the position of approximately 8 – even one of these scuppers was a bit ‘iffy’ – so, I knew there was rough position of 7 of the scuppers for definite – so I opted to make 7 holes per side.

The other thing to make life easier is, I made another plywood jig up (see photographs) which hooks up over the side of the bulwark and this gives me the position from the top of the bulwark - & where to drill the first hole.   Once I have the first hole – from this hole I can work out and mark off the location of the 2nd hole to be drilled.   This gives me the overall length of the scupper.  I then mark the centre between the 2 outer holes and this gives me the position to drill the 3rd hole between the 2.   As I have said - it is just a simple procedure to open the holes up and file them to shape.   

Now, what I did, to make life a bit easier, was fit the angled supports on the inside of the bulwarks which made from Evergreen angled strip 100 thou x 100 thou – cut to the correct length and then super glued so that they were hard up against the brass pins;  Once I had completed all sixty-odd of these  I did the next thing, which was to add the stay bars, which glue onto these angles and go down at an angle to the deck.   This was made from 100 thou x 40 thou flat strip Plasticard – there were another sixty-odd of these to make – and these were glued into place but the top of this angled piece comes flush with the top of the bulwark.    Once all of these have dried out, I then painted the inside of the bulwarks to make life a little easier  once I had had 2-3 coats of red paint on – which it says in the plans – I put the bulwark top capping piece on and these pieces were made from Plasticard as well 40 thou thick x 125 wide.  The reason I used Plasticard is it is easy to achieve the tight radius at the stern.

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Now this top capping is flush on the outside of the plating – because there is another half round section to go on the outside yet again; this half round section was glued on with liquid poly & goes from bow to stern.   Now, if you wish, like me, you can begin to do a little bit of painting – and – the techniques of painting & finishing are well covered elsewhere in this forum, but, what I have posted a picture of is the height gauge and how I use it for marking the water line.

As you will see from the picture, it is 2 pieces of plywood glued at right angles to one another – and using a G clamp to clamp a soft tipped pencil to the vertical piece of plywood.   The trick is with water lines; is to mark from a known position, normally the bottom of your keel of the water line at the bow and at the stern.  If we turn the hull upside down and support it so that when we set the height at the bow with the pencil on our gauge, we can move our gauge to the stern and the pencil will line up with the mark on the stern – we achieve this by using packing pieces to either lift the bow up or the stern up which ever is the case.

I was lucky with this model, because a 6 volt battery - just forward of where the main hatch is produced the correct height and angle for me to mark the water line.

Once we have the two marks to correspond with the height of the gauge it is a simple matter of drawing a line all the way round.

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couple of pictures showing how the washports were cut in the side of the hull  ....

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The next stage:  Well, I think it is about time we gained access to the inside of the hull, so we can open up the area under the main super structure and we can open up the area of the fish hold.    This is easily done with a sharp scalpel and a razor saw.

If we cut with the scalpel around on the inside of the marginal planks, we can easily cut through the layer of ply.  Where we require the use of the razor saw is when we reach the tops of the ribs underneath the decking, we must carefully use the razor saw to cut through these.   Once this has all been done, this allows us to remove the centre sections – we then – need to clean the edges up, where we have sawn through with a medium piece of sandpaper.   Next stage – re-enforce underneath the deck; with suitable material.   I use Ό square Obechi.  This is glued between the frames – with one edge of the timber flush with the opening of the hatch; and the adjacent face pressed hard underneath the deck.    The next stage is to actually add the combing; these are the pieces which stick up from the deck and prevent water from flowing in the hatch/hole.   If you look, you will see that the combing I have fitted around the superstructure opening is in actual fact the same height as the bulwarks.   This is because I am going to try and seal this model virtually water-tight to enable me to sail her in some unforgiving weather  ;   The fish-hold combing what I actually have done there is build the inner combing up using 1/32 ply for the inside and around the outside flush with the deck I wrap the combing in 1/16 ply.   This is 1/8 inch taller than the inner combing.  This forms a rebate on the inside of the combing to allow the hatch to locate into.   The hatch lid is made up from plywood and Obechi strips.   The plywood was first cut, so that it sat neatly inside of the combing.   The underside of the hatch – there was a Ό square edging put underneath, and, this locates on the inner walls of the combing.

The top of the deck where we have to assimilate the hatch boards, this is divided down the centre and a spar glued into place.  This spar is where the edge of the hatch boards butt against.   I then divided the length of the hatch, into 6 equal portions, per side of the centre spar.    In between these portions, I glued 10mm Obechi strips; 2 at a time.    Every 2nd strip I glued 3 sheets of black paper between them, this represents a joint between the boards, very similar to when we did the decking.

When all the hatch boards have been fitted into place (all 12 of them) I sanded it down with medium sandpaper.   I then marked off the positions of the hand holds and with a small drill I drilled through the Obechi planking to the plywood.   All 24 positions  .

Then with a rounded milling bit I opened up the drilled holes to produce a cup shape into the Obechi.    Once I had finished all of the holes; producing a cup shape in all of them; I then gave the hatch top 4 coats of sand ‘n sealer.

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and these pictures show fitting combing around the openings on the deck....

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The next stage was to make the hand grabs – this is the rod which goes across the hole – enabling the little sailors to lift the hatch boards out  .

It was basically a piece of very thin copper wire, bent in a square U shape which fitted across the holes.  So 2 small holes were drilled either side of the large hole 3 o’clock and 9 o’clock positions.   The handle was inserted in and glued from underneath with Superglue.  This then takes care of the hatch, apart from the last thing, a rubber band, glued on the lip to form a water tight seal.

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Now we move on to the superstructure; in the past I know that this has caused a lot of people some problems  defining shapes and so forth.   So, let us have a little think about superstructures – if we go back to the earlier days of steam powered ships, we will see that the superstructure basically consisted of a wooden square box and sometimes you would have platforms either side of the box for lookouts to stand on.    This was possibly paneled with various woods to decorate it – as we move forward in time we see the superstructures becoming larger and incorporating the exhaust funnels of the vessels – sometimes the superstructures would be in the middle of the ship or at the stern of the ship.   Also incorporated an area on top of the superstructure for steering wheel and compass – in the early days the steering positions were open to the environments – but, they were basically still the same, square boxes.   If we come to the late Victorian times, especially in the passenger liners – you will see elegance creeping in as far as the design of the ship /superstructure and curves coming in as far as the area of the bridge front is concerned.   Then, you will see also angles coming in – have a look at how the funnels are beginning to slope slightly towards the stern.

So, this trend normally carried on up until the early 1950s, apart from the war years – when then they were built to replace lost vessels – so there was a building time-element in it.   Designs seemed to go out of the window.

As we move on from the 1950s we see we are moving back to the squareness now, look at the modern liners, more like a square box on its side with large windows in the side.

Have a look closely at the superstructures and we see we can break them down – in our mind’s eye – into square boxes / boxes with rounded edges on /semi-circles or some form of cone shape for angles.

This is the principle we use – we look at the plan and see where the actual superstructure resembles either a square or an oblong box.   

If we look at our particular plan and look at the superstructure and the bridge area, we will see it is basically an oblong box – with a radius on the bridge front.

Now look at the wheelhouse top and this is 2 semi-circles, back-to-back – when looking at the bird’s eye view.    So, what we shall do – we will begin with the bridge front first – the most difficult part to construct -because of the radius and angle in that area.

From the plan we can take the front angle; from the side elevation drawing; from the deck level just underneath the wheelhouse area.   This height & angle is then transferred to a suitable piece of plywood.  Now we look at the deck plan; where we can trace off the radius of the front of the bridge.   Also, along with the radius, we can obtain the width of the superstructure – these two dimensions which have been traced, are now transferred to a suitable piece of plywood and we mark the bottom radius along with a section of the side length (which will give us the width of the superstructure). Then what we do is we draw the front angle of the superstructure on – this will of course give us the angle of the superstructure and also the height.   We then cut these out from our plywood; and then glue our vertical angled piece at the centre of our bottom radius piece of plywood and this gives us an inverted T shape and if we look down on it from above – you will see it gives us our radius from the front and if we look at it from the side view – it gives us our side angle.

We must now construct the top of our former which we are making; which comes from the bridge deck area plan.   You will see that the radius there is smaller than the radius on our main deck plan.    So, we trace this section off and this becomes a sub-floor for the bridge deck.   We have to then beef it up with square bits of wood; approximately either Ό or ⅛ square.   This is how we produce our former to manufacture the front of our superstructure.

Have a look at the photographs; and, you will see exactly how I did it.      

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The next piece I did was to construct a lid which would fit over the combing where the superstructure sits on, and, this in turn was glued to the back of the former which we had made.    Also, you will see how I strengthened the joint using gussets.    Once this had been glued and securely set, the next stage was to fabricate the superstructure sides.   When they were cut and shaped to the correct profile – they were then glued either side of the lid which I had built.   Again, these were supported by using Ό square softwood timber along with plywood gussets.   
The next stage was to apply the plywood which goes around the bridge front; first of all there was a cardboard template made (by bending cardboard around the former which we had made) and then drawing around to give us the approximate shape and this was then transferred to a piece of 1/64 plywood.    The plywood was then glued and clamped in place around the former and allowed to dry – when completely dried – it was sanded to shape and blended in with the sides of the superstructure.

The bridge top deck is the next thing – this is simple enough – the actual bridge itself is actually wider than the superstructure.   We then repeated the process in a similar way – by building a former – from plywood and square Obechi to produce the wheel house front.    When we apply the plywood to the front, we do not go all the way up to the actual wheel house roof, we go just below/or just to the level of the windows.   Where the windows are, there is another piece of plywood applied separately - to which we draw on and then cut out the window openings.   

When I came to the stage of cutting the window openings out, I actually made them 1/16 larger than the window itself; this is because when we come to apply the window frames, there is a framework which goes on the exterior holding the glazing in – the window aperture is then cut to the correct size on the exterior window frame.

The area aft of the wheelhouse (or the funnel casing area) is made in a similar manner to which we have produced the wheelhouse.    The funnel is yet again constructed from 2 ovals, but, instead of using plywood to cover the funnel – I blocked it in using balsa wood – and then sanded it to the correct shape.   
I did not at this stage; try to manufacture the top of the funnel, which is the angled piece.    To finish off the exterior of the funnel I wrapped it in 0.5 Plasticard, gluing the Plasticard onto the balsa wood with Superglue and then cutting and sanding that with wet ‘n dry.
We now come to making the cone which fits on the top of the funnel; I made this through trial and error making paper cones.    Once I had the correct cone shape in paper, I transferred this to 1/64 plywood.   I cut the shape out and tried it without gluing it, to ensure that it fitted.   Once I was happy with the fit, I placed this shaped piece of plywood into boiling water and then allowed it to boil for approx 10 minutes and then, I wrapped it around the top of the funnel and held it in place with various clamps and cellotape – I then allowed it to cool off and dry.    I then glued it into place once it had cooled/dried and then sanded it with a piece of very smooth sandpaper – to bring it to its correct shape or near enough correct shape.
When I had finished this stage, I went on to making the window frames, which I have already mentioned and also you will see I also had to produce bent timbers to form the windowsills and drip rails which go to top and bottom of the windows.   Three of these timbers were made from 1/16 square Obechi – I had to boil these in boiling water so I could bend them and you  will see in the photograph how I have clamped them to the top of the bridge (temporarily) to form the bends in them.   Once these were dry, 2 of them were laminated together, to form the broad windowsill for the bottom of the window frames and the single bent piece goes on the top of the window to form the drip rail.   Above this rail there is a 3rd rail which has a half round on it, this goes round the edge of the roof of the wheelhouse – this bit – I cheated and made it out of Plasticard. 

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When happy and we have finished sanding the superstructure; I gave it several coats of sand ‘n sealer.   BE CAREFUL HERE DON’T GET SAND AND SEALER ON YOUR WINDOWS.   The other thing I will mention is, I didn’t put any interiors (such as steering wheel, instruments, etc.,) inside the bridge – I feel this is the preference of the builder.   There is adequate information on the plan if someone wishes to do this.
After that, we give the superstructure a couple of coats of the appropriate paint.
That is the basic superstructure made.
Obviously there are sub-superstructures to make, which fit the main superstructure, such as engine room skylight, water tanks and so forth – and doors to be made which I have made for the bridge as well.  Whilst on this point, I would mention, on the photographs you can see I have drilled the positions for the portholes as well.   The portholes were purchase - the actual port lights themselves – which are going to be inserted into the holes, when I have finished painting the model – I intend to leave them as brass – but with a coating of clear varnish over the top of the brass.
We now have to make another small superstructure which is literally a small square box, and that is the aft deck house.     5 bits of plywood  …. The same goes for the forward hatch  ….

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These are some pictures of the construction of the wheelhouse .... 

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The same goes for the forward hatch  …. THESE are made from 1/16 ply – which have little angle strips on the inside to keep them square.   The forward hatch is made in an identical way to the way we make the main fish hatch, but, we do not cut through the main deck – we leave the main deck solid underneath.   Think about this – I made the mistake here of gluing the hatch boards in on top of the small hatch and in hindsight I wish I hadn’t – because this area here (underneath this little hatch) is a perfect place for concealing a switch for our main electrics.   Whilst we are on making the small hatch for the forward end; we can also manufacture the small forecastle companion way.   This is that ‘segment of cake shape’ stood on its end  .  The basic shape was made from 1/64 plywood first of all; then I covered it with mahogany strips – 4mm x 0.5mm this represents the planking; if you have a look on the plans, you will see this particular companion way doesn’t have doors on it – it has boards which locate into slots at the front.  When I had finished manufacturing this item; I gave it 3 coats of sand n sealer.  This in turn has brought it up to look as though it has been varnished; I then moved on to the rears of the main superstructure, where we make 2 access doors.   These are made from Plasticard; first piece of Plasticard is 0.5 thou thick and this makes the backing framework of the door and it is cut to the same shape as the door – only 1mm larger than the actual door.   The door is then manufactured from 1.5 mm  cut to the same shape as the framework, but, obviously 1mm smaller all the way round.
The door was then glued on top of the frame centrally – so that the 1mm gap was evenly spaced all the way round – the next thing is – make 2 small hinges/assimilated the hinges – these were made from 2 small pieces of brass rod 1mm thick x 5mm long; glued on the framework between the framework and the door at the correct height.   The hinge strap was made out of the 0.5mm Plasticard cut into a thin strip 2mm wide x 12mm long.   This was glued across the door in positions, opposite the brass rod we had glued on.  Finally, I drilled a small hole opposite side to the 2 hinges; which in turn takes a small brass pin which represents the door handle.   These 2 doors were then glued into the correct position at the rear of the main superstructure.

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and some more pictures to show fittings on the hull......and deck too.

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The next thing I made was the duck board which runs behind the main superstructure on the deck.  This basically was 2 pieces of Obechi 1.5 thick x 75mm long x 8mm wide; these 2 pieces of Obechi were set apart standing on their edge – and there were the laths which go across the duck board – they were all cut to 20 mm long and they were manufactured from 1.5 mm x 4mm Obechi.
This was all then assembled and glued together with white PVA glue and set aside to dry – it was all then sanded down very carefully – it had 3 coats of sand n sealer on it to protect it.   Once the sand n sealer had dried – the duck board was set in place – and glued at the rear of the main superstructure where the 2 rear doors are located.

The next thing I made was the steering chains and steering linkages; for this we need 6 small rollers of approx Ό inch diameter x approximately 1/8 inch thick.   Now I had these manufactured from brass; but, I have since found (in an old scrap box containing parts of a plastic kit) in actual fact its an old old Airfix Sherman or Churchill tank – and the track wheels just happen to be of the exact size for these rollers.     Also, along with these rollers we need a tiller arm, small housings to hold the deck rollers and also the housings to hold the guide rollers in place on the side of the superstructure.   Also, we require some very fine chain – plus some plastic tubing of about 2mm diameter.   So first off, I made the tiller arm; which is really just a long arm with 3 holes in it – supported in the centre by a fake rudder shaft.   This arm I glued to the deck and slightly bent it in an arc shape.   
The deck roller housings were the next thing I made, from Plasticard and they are just an ‘open ended box’ with a shelf on it where the roller sits in.   

I made the supports for the rollers which are located on the side of the superstructure next and these supports I made similar to a ‘U’ shape – I made them from brass but, you could as well make them easily from Plasticard.

I superglued the 4 rollers either side of the main superstructure; the 2 go at the aft of the superstructure (either side) the 2 forward ones go at the front end of the superstructure but they are in line with the steering wheel and the bridge inside the wheelhouse.   With the Plastic tubing I made the chain guards – these are the guards which go around the chain to protect the sailors from being caught up in amongst the chain!   2 lengths run between the two pulleys either side of the main superstructure and there are 2 shorter lengths run after the superstructure and terminate at the deck roller supports.

So the next stage basically is to add a bit of fine chain from the tiller arm – through your deck guide roller; into the end of the chain guide tube.   
The next bit of chain comes from the end of the long bit of guide tube which runs along the sides of the main superstructure.   It then goes around the end roller and goes up underneath the wheelhouse.
This is how I assimilated the chain steering for the model; there are two pieces of mesh to glue in place, which assimilate the checker plate covering.   This goes over the tubing at the aft of the vessel where the duck board is.

The next part of the build; I purchased a commercially available item to do this with – it is the grating which covers the tiller arm at the stern of the vessel.   This grating can be purchased from a good model shop; it is easy to assembly – because one piece locks into the next to form a grate.  They look a lot like the ramparts of a castle.  As I say, I built up sufficient grating to cover the tiller arm.   See the main drawing.   
The trawling capstan was next on the agenda to be made.   One thing when building a model; is to try and equip yourself with as many photographs as possible of the vessel plus items on the vessel (such as fittings & etc., anything you can lay your hands on).    Some vessels you will find there are very few photographs, and, you may possibly get a distance photograph of that vessel.   As far as I have found, it is the same with this particular vessel – so, I had to do some Sherlock Holmes’ style detective work – i.e. looking in books etc., the web – you name it.   As it happens, I found one or two good photographs on the web & actually on Mayhem Model Boat forum; Grebuval (Mike) when he built his capstan for his fishing vessel – you tend to download a lot of photographs of different vessels with similar equipment and this is what I had to do for the capstan.

With the aid of photographs & plans  we are working from – we can begin to plan out how we are going to make this and what materials we are going to make it from.

I opted for Plasticard, balsa wood – some brass building pins – so, first of all, what I did was cut a circular base unit out from Plasticard – 1mm thick – then I made the stand for the support which fits on top of the base unit and forms part of the base unit – out of two smaller circles cut from 1mm Plasticard.   Also, a circle cut from 5mm thick balsa wood – of the same diameter.

I glued the 2 plastic circles (one each side) of the balsa wood and therefore sandwiching the balsa wood between them.  Then ‘trued’ the outside diameter up – using a bolt for a mandrel through the middle of the base and the whole assembly was then clamped in a Dremel drill and with a piece of course emery/sandpaper – the outside diameter was ‘trued’ up.  It was then removed from the Dremel and the mandrel was removed.

I then wrapped the outside diameter in 5mm Plasticard – then – what I did was glued the larger diameter circle on the bottom of the base; creating a top hat shape.  This is the base unit.

Next to construct is the actual capstan itself, which sits on top of the base.

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and here are some more pictures .....

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So, the construction of the Capstan.    We first have to construct the base unit; which is constructed from 3 circles of 1mm Plasticard and some 6mm balsa wood.   The larger of the circles forms the actual seating face and the 2 smaller circles sandwich the balsa wood.   We then true the circles up and wrap Plasticard around the edge of the balsa wood thus creating a 'top hat' affair.

We next have to construct the capstan itself (the part which actually revolves) and this is made from Plasticard as well - only we use tubing for the main body of it.   A circle on both bottom and top of the tube, thus forming a drum shape.

This was then all glued together liquid poly - the next stage is then to divide the circumference of the tube into 8 equal segments.    Then, we require 8 pieces of timber; which length is equal to the inside measurement of the drum from top to bottom.

We then glue the 8 pieces of timber evenly spaced around the inside tube - when the glue has dried (I used Superglue for this).  When the Superglue has dried, I then make up a mandrel from a nut and bolt and then fit this through the capstan drum I have made.   The whole assembly is then fitted into the chuck of the Dremel drill which I have, and, then with the aid of half round file and some sandpaper, I form the concave radius in the timber around the drum; carefully to avoid knocking off the bits of wood.   When I had finished this, I removed it from the mandrel and then searched through the odds and ends drawer for a Plastic cog which would fit around the base of the drum, to represent the locking ratchet.  This whole assembly ‘top hat and cog and capstan drum’ were given an undercoat of green paint.   Then, I constructed the drive mechanism which sits on the top of the drum; this again, was made from Plasticard and balsa wood – with balsa strips glued on the top to represent folds in casings.  Bits of old Airfix kits were used to represent pulleys and shafts which are located on the side of the casing; this then again was given a coat of paint and set to one side.  Sometime in the future, I will put a drawing on to help with the explanation of the making of this.

The next thing to make is the winch unit for the nets.

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Just before we carry on – there are a few pictures of the capstan in its bare state and also a diagram showing how it was made.  The reason I don’t put sizes on, is, that folk may wish to make this to a different scale than I have and therefore if I put dimensions on they may be confusing.
   
Whilst we are off the topic, it may be good to broach on the electrics – as in a speed controller.  Like everything else in life, some people do have their favourite electrical stuff  & in today’s market there isn’t a great deal of difference in the majority of them; which are available for marine use.   I can hear people shouting AH BUT THERE IS!

When I say there isn’t a great difference – what I mean is – they all work on a similar principle of switching the main power off and on rapidly and therefore increasing/decreasing the speed.  To me, the big difference is, when it comes to the manufacturers – I have had and do use several speed controllers.  These come from the ‘land of the rising sun’ and other places around that area.   Yes, they are very ‘inexpensive’ and they do – do the job.   The only drawback is though, the human error, which is the largest problem in electronics.   Do you realise if it wasn’t for human input/tampering the majority of electronics components would last for years and years – doing their job quite merrily for what they were designed for.   It is only when we stick the ex-factor in that things do start to go wrong - the ex-factor being the human element.
 
If we have one of these sealed units from abroad/home company/i.e. well known Company who imports them – and they go wrong – there is very little which can be done.   Some times you may get them repaired at a price, but, very rarely – sometimes it is just as inexpensive to purchase a new one – but how many times do we do this?

This is the main reason I tend to lean towards the manufacturers who we can speak to  - either face to face or on the telephone – if we do make mistakes WHICH WE ALL DO right from the very experienced person…to the newcomer to the hobby.   It is so nice to speak to the person on the end of the phone – who actually made the speed controller and they normally will guide you through all the pitfalls – so then we make less mistakes wiring these things up.

The speed controller for this model, then, the one I purchased was an ACTion P80 Condor.  This comes either readily-made up or you may do a kit yourself which I enjoy doing.   It adds that little extra bit to your build.   Now this P80 Condor is rated at 20 amps which, is a lot of overkill and a big mistake on my behalf.   Not that it isn’t any good for the motor/model but it is just that it will put a large margin of safety in; meaning, if I fit a 15 amp fuse in on the positive side between the battery and the speed controller and the propeller becomes jammed with weeds /obstructed in some form whilst sailing….the stall current of the motor must reach 15 amps before the fuse will blow.    This is well within the capabilities of the speed controller, but, my poor little motor is going to get rather HOT – so I am still going to use this speed controller, but, only going to put a 10 amp fuse in.   Pictures of the speed controller installation will come at the end; because, at this stage, I have just finished making the kit up and then testing it.

If we actually wish to fit the speed controller into the model now, at this stage of build, it has more advantages; because we will not be prone to knocking bits of fittings (which we have fitted) off the build.

Now finished that bit waffle – and back on to making the winch. 

On the plan there are only 2 views of the winch, being the side view and the top view; so, yet again – we have to literally trawl through books and on the Web for pictures, not of fish, but of a winch which is similar to the one on this vessel.   The winch I came across on the web, comes from and this will sort us all out  - can you remember where Tony Blackburn did his first radio show from – remember Radio Caroline – well apparently the vessel is under restoration and I found a picture of the winch on the web.  Apart from being side tracked.and that is the picture I used to base my winch on.    The winch itself is all made from Plasticard and plastic tubing – with a couple of bits of brass wire and 2 bits of wood which have been turned to represent the end cable drums.
 
Instead of trying to explain how I made this winch, what I will do is put some photographs & a drawing here on this thread.

I would if it would be possible to keep the questions and answers to this build until the very end - and I will answer you all then     thank you one and all

[bluebird]

All finished

AUF WIEDERSEHEN PET


John