Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length.

[nhp651]

Will that be scratchbuilt?

Dave

Out of ployester resin dave, lol

anyway, to today's little foray into modelling.
spent some of the afternoon sorting out some deck fittings that I cast earlier last year for the three boats.....some fairleads, cleats and some filler caps and bilge pump caps..........also made up three compass binacles and wheel sets, but the initial  coat of primer is drying at the moment.
here are the fittings which now need cleaning up,  and a little sanding and getting rid of resin globules formed by bubbles in the rubber.

[heritorasphodel]

May I ask what the rectangular frames are in the second photo?

Andrew

[nhp651]

Hi Andrew.
yes, they are the frames for the surrounds to the deck lights set into the decks.......under them will be some coloured plastic to represent the glass for the "lights"

they all look a little shabby at the moment, with all the flash on them, but all will look well, and clean when the masters go to Dave for casting.

neil.

[nhp651]

well, the paint dried and  they don't look too bad........need painting in final colours of light grey and brass but that'll come later.

9 seperate little mouldings and 6 short brass pins go to make up the ships compass binacle for the Mary Stanford and the H F bailey..the Field Marshal and Mrs Smuts has a seperate wheel standard and compass on gimballs similar to the Anne Letitia Russell.

[nhp651]

Was a bit of a mish mash day today.......I didn't really know which way I was going, and had already got out some of the deck fitting which needed painting and fixing.......and so went down that direction............i realised from the start that I hadn't, before fitting the deck, cut out the rectangles for the deck(dead)lights, so had to do this in situ using a craft knife and chisel..so that was the first task on two of the three boats H F Bailey, and the Field Marshal, as the Mary Stanford is not showing any on plans.

Secondly I painted the fairleads with Antique Bronze Humbrol metalcote ( which is a brushed finish once dry), and the deck filler caps with metalcote Polished Steel, again a brushed finish.

The inside of the recesses were first painted also with polished steel and allowed to dry before brush polishing and allowing a little darkened residue to overflow onto the surrounding deckwork to "weather" it a little.and the deck filler/bilge pump caps were finally set into place in the recesses already cut into the deck.

[furball]

To be strictly accurate, the pump deck plates and fuel fillers are bronze as well, although they tend to go green/black fairly quickly as you can't easily polish between the grooves in them (guess how I know this... ).




If you  can see it, this one's in the cabin of a 46'9" Watson, but the pump deck plates didn't change for decades

Lance

Note to self - I must get photos of all these fittings on t'interweb so you can all see what the real things look like.

[nhp651]

cheers lance.......much appreciated.
neil.

[nhp651]

Today was predominantly spent putting the stanchions and bracket plates together for the three boats..........over 80 in total plus some spares should I break any lol.
Firstly needed to pilot drill the plates with a 1.5mm bit and then enlarge this to 3mm.tricky as the casting is only 4mm in diameter, so no mistakes here...well one ot two went off course and had to be thrown away, but only half a dozen or so.......well I was getting pretty pee'd off with them after 160 holes drilled...each plate being held in snub nosed pliers whilst drilling in a pillar drill.
then I had to sand down the shank of each stanchion to fit into the 3mm diameter hole............

once this was done, I glued each stanchion into its mounting plate with cyano.

Then, because the holes in the balls of the stanchion leave the generic fitting from the Rother class boat from the Metcalf Mouldnings range a little weak I put pre cut plastic tube inserts into the holes and glued with cyano again.

Tomorrow when the cyano has set rock hard, I'll trim the surplus plastic tube from the balls of the stanchions, and then drill through the back of the plates with another 1.5mm drill bit to take a pin for holding the plates and stanchions to the kick boards.

Meanwhile, I took two plugs that I had made some years ago for the large and small ventilation cowls for the class of boats, and using my dremel dril with a dentist's drill burr I reamed out the inner part for the vent cowl in order to cast.

Lifeboats of the older classic type that carried these vent cowls splash guards  fitted into the bell mouth of the cowel, so that in heavy weather if the boat took a heavy sea, the cowl would not let water flood down the hole in the bell mouth to the lower boat,but down the side of the vent tube and into the outlets at the base of the cowl trunk. As these were rather intricate, to try to copy them in a fitting would be impossible so a near representation to the real thing is only possible and this I represent with a piece of tubing, and some Milliput epoxy putty to form the correct shape of the vent interior.....this will be sanded tomorrow also, and then put into a rubber mould for casting replicas for the models.

[nhp651]

yesterday i spent tarting up those cowl vents shown above and today I spent some time putting them into moulds.

so in quick succesion here's a photo record of laying them up through taking the plastecine off for the second half, to splitting the finished mould......the cylindrical objects in with the moulds of the cowl heads are the trunks for the cowl..It was easier to make these than go hunting at a later date for dowel of the correct diameter to mate up with the cowl head trunks.

[nhp651]

Yesterday I started putting the miriad of fittings together...they are minature kits themselves.

The first of them was the Cable cutter......a devise for quickly cutting a veering anchor cable should the boat need to break away from it's veer down onto a casualty in an emergency.

All the fittings that I am now putting together were made in masters moulded and cast anywhere between 2 and 15 years ago, and I am now only just getting to grips with them.

So the cable cutter. I can only find evidence of this on the Mary Stanford boat.

This was made from a plasticard set of masters and moulded in rtv30 rubber and cast in polyurethane resin.

[nhp651]

next two fittings on the agenda were the cable stopper and the mast tabernacle for the H F Bailey.
again, all parts made some time ago.

[Tug---Kenny]

Fascinating details Neil. What lovely workmanship.   


ken

[irishcarguy]

I am not sure what to say Neil, everyday a new surprise from you, just terrific workmanship all over. I am assuming you had to make the moulds for all the bits you are showing on here. It might be nice to see a little bit on how you do it & how much the whole thing costs to do & the time involved . Mick B.

[nhp651]

Thanks kenny and Mick....appreciate the comments...............I thought I'd gone through the process of making a mould earlier in the build log, Mick........if I hadn't I can do.
Do you want it in more detail.
neil.
anyway, as a little taster here is the next fitting that \i did......the main davit and base for the Mary Stanford "fisherman's pattern" anchor carried on her starboard side and used for veering down on a casualty.

The four triangular shaped supports should, as with real boat have cut outs, but I feel that this would , on a working model weaken them and as such I have made them solid from polyU castings.
also on the model, the davit is ( from memory) filmed on this occasion on the port and not the starboard side.......but it ain't fixed yet anyway, lol

[nhp651]

funnily............................

the actual white metal davit is cast from a davit I made in brass some years ago to replace the davits on a Mountfleet Models St Nectan steam trawler for a pattern that fitted my modified trawler.................exactly the same diameter, same length, just a little difference on the curve of the top part, and as I cast with a little more lead in my white metal than some ( well no child is going to come along and chew my davits now, are they, LOl),...........................
...................... I was able to bend the davit to the right curvature.....

made a lot more sense than making another in brass and then moulding it............... just for the Mary Stanford.

[irishcarguy]

It's O/K for now Neil, we can get to that another time. I am getting excited about my Tamar kit I hope all goes to plan, I am a long way away if things go wrong & may need your help mate if that happens, Mick B.

[nhp651]

No problems with that Mick.......in the "clique" as someone once said, lol......hope you enjoy the build.

Anyway............
Another fitting completed yesterday was the Mast Tabernacle for the Mary Stanford..........totally different to theone on the H F Bailey, and yet again tho that on the FM and Mrs S.....and that one I haven't made yet, never mind cast.

This one has been a mixture of white metal for the uprights, polyU for the back and side gussets and obeche' spacer for the bottom of the actual tabernacle

[irishcarguy]

Hi Neil ,you are up early & in your shop, me it is 1.45 pm, so off to bed I go. Mick B.

[nhp651]

yep, I am that Mick.........got to make a start on putting all these together, lol.....there's a lad in California building a Dumas 36' lifeboat,on the RC models web forum and I've promissed him some handrails for it, so was casting like a man possessed yesterday and might be able to get them off to him today............they are generic with the ones I'm fixing to the bow section of the Mary Stanford so he might as well have some whilst they come out the same mould as mine, lol....what's a little resin??

[nhp651]

 

[essex2visuvesi]

whay the sad face?

[nhp651]

coz gateway504 timed me out again, and when I got back into it......the post had been made in duplicate.......so I deleted all content and just left a sad face, matey.........rather than a blank post.

[essex2visuvesi]

Ah ok

Thought it had all gone horribly and irretrievably wrong!

[Tug---Kenny]

Sorry about your  504 error Neil

My advice is to never continue, but to close down the site and re-open it again.

All messages are getting through, so there will be duplicates if you continue.


Hope this helps.

ken

[nhp651]

cheers, kenny.......so when the gateway pops up......just close it and then re open......OK

Yes ...... it might be advisable to Copy first, Just in case.    ken

[nhp651]

Ah ok

Thought it had all gone horribly and irretrievably wrong!

No essex...........if that happens the bovine excretia will flow and I'll cover my tracks eminantly well,

[essex2visuvesi]

Have to call you Izal... as the S..t don't stick lol

[nhp651]

well.......I suppose it's not the worst thing I've ever been called,

anyway, back to the build.
Yesterday I'd started to cast in polyU resin the cowl vents and the trunks for them.
Today was a time to glue them together. I always finf that drilling by eye and finding the centre of a circle ( i.e. the centre of the trunks ) for pinning the two pieces together isn't easy.......so have found in the past that if you drill the holes oversize for the brass pin to be used, you can adjust the position of both parts to get them fitting properly.......I set them together using two part epoxy glue.

However, when sorting out the bases for both sizes of cowl vent trunks I found that there were none to the new size which is larger than those used on the Anne Letitia Russell..............so I set about turning two of each size needed on the laithe from brass bar.

First, on this process, I centre drilled the brass with a live centre tool, and then drilled the smaller hole with a HSS drill bit to the same size as the trunk.
However, the larger trunk needed a hole outside the size I carry, and so I used a cutting tool to cut a hole into the centre of the brass bar as per trunk diameter (after pre drilling a hole to the largest size of drill bit I have).
I then cut the bases out using a couple of tools with the laithe, and finally cleaned the fittings up, before parting off with a straight cut parting tool.
they are now set into a plastecine and lego mould box ready for casting a 1 piece mould for surface pouring and casting with polyU resin.

[nhp651]

and to turning the bases for the cowl vents.............
and the finished product ready for moulding and casting.

[nhp651]

gonna weigh me scrap swarf in and buy a tamar kit I think, 

[irishcarguy]

Your parting tool works a lot better than mine I can tell you. I don't know what you pay for brass over there but it is now like gold here. I must go & buy some tomorrow & am dreading the thought. Your ability to make bits & pieces never seizes to amaze me & the speed at which you get things done is frankly unreal. I feel like having a fire when I see what you can do, not much hope for us peon's. Mick B.

[nhp651]

I get mine from a mate in the biz.........he makes lighting fixtures for a living, and always has scrap pieces liying around..........so I'm lucky there.
neil.

[nhp651]

got up early this morning to mould the rubber and then make a casting.......turned out better that I thought,

this is the simplest of methods of casting......open casts, where you only need to cast one side of the master..........not done it in ages, but it has worked out well with the first casting coming out clean and crisp.
neil.

[irishcarguy]

Like I said before, Genius, pure Genius. Mick B.

[nhp651]

In an earlier post can be seen the cowl vents abreast of the funnel.

But where did I get the funnels from in the first place........I made the funnels at size I wanted  from blocks of  obeche timber and then cut them in to two halves, thus, the timber lost would allow for the thickness of the plastic.

Then I set them onto a board, drilled with a 3mm bit in a grid of 10mm square all around the funnel halves.
 
That was then presented to my very friendly school head of CDT dept where my daughters attend, and he vac formed the funnel halves for me.

It was just a matter then of cutting them to the right lines imprinted on the vac formings, bracing them on the inside with plasticard strips and gluing together.

I false top was plased inside the top rim of the funnel once the top of the moulding had been cut out and trimmed....a top rim of plasticard was cut to shape and added onto the funnel.

On the funnel for dry fitting is the white metal base flange................made some time ago.......I was going to replace that with polyU castings but can't find the mould, so cleaned up the white metal ones and fitted them to the funnels at the right height for the funnel in question...each being a different length depending on where they were stationed and depending on the headroom in the boat house.

Also on the Field Marshall and Mrs Smuts, the funnel has a capping, which I have made in milliput for casting, and this was cast today but I've forgotten to take a photo of the finished casting so will post that tomorrow,it looks a lot better than the teracota coloured capping shown in the picture.....but the workshop is now closed for the night, and I'm having a nice beer to relax.